MMMMMM, pudding.

I do believe it's time for an update. Kell Dawg updated her site since my last update. That's right, finally. Long ago on a weekend far away, I dropped my last update. In between I was actually seen at a movie, got my car towed, and I'm making preps for Turkeyfest 2002.

So the week after the last update was a blur. I don't recall much, if any of it. Oh yeah, on Thursday my car got towed. From a lot at work. Rather than issue me the standard ticket and move on, I got the ticket and the tow. From a lot that never fills. All because I parked "out of zone". Hopefully some change will come as a result of my complaints in the way the entire procedure was handled. Thankfully my car was not damaged by the grease monkeys towing. Oh yeah. I flicked off the guy that issued me the ticket. Seeing as I did not get out of the ticket I'm glad to have given the universal salutation to announce my displeasure.

Once I got the car outta hock, I made my way to the Bellcourt Theat(re/er). The purpose was to screen the documentary on Wilco, "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart". It exceeded my expectations but gave no insight as to why I'm supposed to like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It had it's moments and could be considered a real life Spinal Tap in many ways. I'm not sure why the director insisted upon giving David Fricke from Rolling Stone so much screen time, but such is life. Then again, these are the same people that say crappy pop artists rock because they wear a Scorpions shirt. It's clear that Rolling Stone has become another mouthpiece of the system. Here's a better link but don't even begin to think that I get my news from conservative sources. As fair and as balanced as they claim to be, they cannot even get the writer of that diatribe right. You've been warned.

It brings me to something that I've been thinking about and researching (mainly falling asleep to VH1 and flipping by MTV long enough to know that my evidence is strengthening). Basically, I've come to the conclusion that MTV, VH1, and Rolling Stone have become overrun by the frats and sororities. That's right. The Greek System is firmly entrenched in the entertainment channels of our (and my) youth. Let's look at the facts here. Rolling Stone at some point used to be a respectible mag. Anne Leibovitz used to be the photographer and ensured that there was a graphically interesting artistic spin to the literary prose inside. The likes of Led Zeppelin would grace the cover. Yes, it was a big deal to be on the cover of "The Rolling Stone". At some point RS became hip. It became hip to the point that it became the place to work. And it became the goal of every greekster to get in there. One did. And that spelled the end.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a guy. But the cover of a formerly respected music magazine should not be graced with half naked people with even less talent than their pre-20 photoshopped bodies exhibit. Spin off a magazine for all I care, just don't put it in a magazine that has had the like of Led Zeppelin, Jim Morrison, and U2 on the cover. It's clear, Rolling Stone diluted their product to the point where no one wants to read it. The harsh critique of a Brittney Spears album (hah, that'll happen) will meet the onslaught of teen fans that don't understand why someone like Mick Jagger could still be put on the cover. And every self-respecting rock fan will go at lengths to hide those no talent arse clown covers from any other head banging friend. The pages may be sticky, but it certainly won't be on the table. Unless you're Naked Dave. In which case you put it there simply for the entertainment value. Really, how far away are we from having Michael Bolton or Yanni on the cover? I predict that day will happen sooner than you think. And guess what: "Michael Bolton Rocks Out" will be the caption. Mark my word. It's already happened to Metallica.

MTV. I can just hear the meeting now. So like, let's uh do this show where it's like "The Real World" but it's a road trip! Everyone loves a road trip! And we'll call it Road Rules. I thought of that one myself! he he he he! Like, I would have never made it thru college if it had not been for my horse (with apologies to Lewis Black). Think I'm wrong? What happened to Headbangers Ball? No, with Ricky (sans the crappy videos he had to play). 120 minutes? For that matter: Yo, MTV Raps. Instead we're force fed the horrors of joining a sorority! Like, I got this idea. Instead of the latest Poison, GNR, Scorpions, or Twisted Sister video, let's do a show on being in a sorority! The problem is, that crap would not have flied during the heyday of those bands, and it does not fly today. Someone got their foot in the door because despite being a life long Winger fan they were also hip to Smashing Pumpkins cause Billy Corgin RULZ and thus opened the floodgates to the greeksters. And thus despite a reprise with Beavis and Butthead, the downfall of MTV began.

VH1. MTV for the yuppies. What a freaking joke. They had something with the Behind the Music's, but quickly lost it when it started being used as a tool to promote albums. It was definately a turn off for me and I suspect others thought the same. They got lucky at the start, Tony Orlando and Leif Garrett got their foot in the doors before the greeksters with market degrees started pulling in favors from their Delta Iota Chi Kappa brothers and sisters. The only good thing about VH1 is that they play videos late at night, but the schedule is so predictable I could do a Karnac. Creed, Shania, Shania, Creed. I swear, someone had VH1 put together a show just to say Sheryl Crow's unbelieveably bad effort at an album was number one. Whoops, it got knocked off from number one. Nope, it's back up again. And then the show was gone. Just like every Sheryl Crow fan that had come to expect quality work as given for the self titled and Globe Sessions.

So now that I've given my thoughts on the state of crapular music, let's get back to the Wilco movie. Like I said it was good. And Wilco made it a point to drive home the fact that they sold Warner Bros an album Warner had already paid for. It goes to show the amount of stupidity and mediocrity rapant in the industry. Unfortunately the print we saw was out of sync at times. I was fairly sure it was not the projection system as other parts of the movie would be in sync. Word on the street was that the audio was out of sync in Michigan, but a RIMBoy.com agent in Iowa reported no problems with the print used for screening there. It's clear that there was a problem and I stand by my reports that the director should have had some timecode happenin. I will state that I appreciate the fact that the film was shot truly in black and white film, unlike the Roy Orbison Black and White Night. Black and White Night was clearly digitally recorded in black and white and is disturbing to watch for it's lack of grain. If anything, the Wilco movie reaffirmed my decision not to work in the music industry. The chain smoking, session fights, and egos are enough to drive anyone insane. No thanks, I'll keep my sanity.

On Thursday the 21st my alma mater threw a party for all of us recording industry majors. Encouraged by a faculty member to attend, I was glad to see and hear that I was not the only person who took a career path away from the industry upon graduation. I was surprised to find a sizeable portion of people I went to school with were in attendance. It is quite possible that those in attendance were some of the best to come thru the program. No, strike that. Some of the people that went thru the program when I went thru are the best to have gone thru the program. Many are working in the industry. However, the fact that they all came and I knew them made me realize that I probably hit the program at the right time. I saw a couple of people I had not seen in years and in some cases people I thought would be nowhere near Nashville. I went in with a few expectations, expectations I gained during my schooling and from watching Music Row business take place within walking distance of my current employer. One of those expectations was to not expect much conversation from those people that I knew passingly. Networking is all about meeting people to further your position. I was clearly not a person that could further some of these peoples positions. As such, we'd recognize each other, greet, catch up on what we're doing and then invariably the person working in the industry (which would not be me) would find a way to cut the converstation short and move on to someone else. Thankfully, most of the people I went to school with, nevermind partied with, were not like that. I respect their decision to stick with it, they respect my realization that I did not have what it takes to cut it on Music Row. A bunch of us ended up at the Saucer afterwards and told stories about the horrible 465, 467, and current sessions we / they worked. I felt lucky to go thru school with these people.

We are damn close to having a Litestream release. Rick put the smak down on the biggest remaining bug. As a result we really have no reason not to release now. Be looking for the Freshmeat.net entry soon.

RIMBoy's Roundeye Duct Tape Jukebox Song of the day: More Than a Feeling by Boston

Made up Band Name of the Day: Artic Summer

Like always, as in the past, RIMBoy.com has commentary on the passing of an artist. In this case it's JMJ from Run DMC.

I've managed to be in on two great happenings in music. New Wave and Rap. At the time I did not realize New Wave was happening per se, I was young enough to enjoy the music but not fully comprehend that the rules were being re-written as I listened. Yamaha went and dropped the FM synth bomb and bands quickly realized they no longer had to tour with the bulky and finiky ARP's and Moogs. Yamaha's were the hook line for many a band.

It would be a family trip out East though that would drop the rap bomb on me. My parents cheaped on the family Cavalier and purchased it sans cassette. As a result, many hours of the trip were spent searching for stations to listen to. We came across that wonderful remake of Walk This Way. I had no idea who Aerosmith was and had no idea that this new group was doing a remake. I'm not sure my parents were aware of it's background either, as my father's collection is void of Aerosmith. But darn if it did not sound... GOOD.

The first time we hit it for whatever reason the parents left it on the station. I loved what I was hearing. I did not know half of what they were saying. Music for me has always been instrument driven, not lyric driven. It's usually not until later that I'll get into the lyrics. And man, those hooks were awesome (thanks Aerosmith!). The second time we caught it on the air (and you did not have to go far to find another station spinning it) my parents were definately annoyed at what was coming out of their speakers and the rest of the trip I spent only catching snippits of the song. All along the East Coast, Run DMC was in the process of blowing up. But my parents did not care.

That's not to say my parents were restrictive in what I listed to. They just did not want to hear it. And frankly, there's a lot of things I'm glad they either did not know I had, nor I guess they did not care what I had. As long as I was careful with it then not getting in trouble over it was easy. Thank goodness. Especially after I started listening to The Cure. =)

It would be a neighbor (well, for living in the country) who would get ahold of the Raising Hell album (yeah, we still listened to them back then) and I'd get my full taste of rap. I taped a copy and played it over and over. It's easy to look back and now know that the foundations for many rap groups were being laid, all from this one album. I was blown away with Proud to Be Black, which JMJ's scratching is up front and in your face, much like the subject matter. And looking back, you know that Public Enemy would that song and build their group around it. Walk This Way set off several groups, nevermind the Fat Boys take on Wipe Out (and Louie Louie), but collabs like Anthrax and Public Enemy, Onyx and Biohazard, etc. Beastie Boys use of Zeppelin anyone? But while those songs were good, you still had the house shaking grooves of My Addidas and Peter Piper. Dumb Girl had that classic 808 which was the kick to drop and make your track P-H-A-T. You Be Illin (where today's quote comes from) put some comedic relief on the album. And Son of Byford showed rap as acapella. In short, Raising Hell is still as important today as it was back in 86. Rubin and Run DMC layed out what's possible. It's just a matter of making it what you want.

Things are getting a little flaky since we've got a storm a chuggin cross the state. Crazy wind and several radar indicated tornado's has the making for a long night.

RIMBoy's Roundeye Duct Tape Jukebox Song of the day: Jimmy by Tool

Made up Band Name of the Day: Intuitive Beat Commune

I've not had the time to update. Between hacking and partying, it's been next to impossible for me to keep up with myself.

Last check, We were punishing Rick with a track from Badmotorfinger since ABBA crossed the line in several states. That Friday Rick, Bandix and I would throw together an impromptu hacking party. We set out to futher hack Rick's jukebox and put the finishing touches on some remaining Litestream issues. A battle quickly ensued as I decided to queue up some crappy tracks. Brandon and I finally hit the road at 5am. Saturday was time again for another Naked Dave Halloween Hootnany Barmitzva throwdown in the Dave Cave. This was to be the year that I actually did not spend a majority of the time behind the wheels of 1's and 0's. Instead I gave the party goers their ultimate fantasy... a chance to be a DJ. Outside of a few problems the RDTJ overall seemed to go over well.

I would leave Dave's party at 5am (taking into account the time change is unknown at this point). However, Dave would call way too early and request my presense at a Thai food throwdown. I spent Sunday recovering from one of the longer weekends of my life... and I knew it was only going to get crazier from then on out. You see, Halloween had not even happened.

Fast forward to Halloween. Randal Schwartz announced he'd be coming to Nashvegas on Halloween. I offered to pick him up from the airport and take him were we went last year, the Halloween pub crawl. The costume of the night for me was the person dressed as Winona Rider... tags hanging off the clothes and all.

The reason why Randal was in town was because Phreaknic 6 took place this past weekend. For the past week I'd been amassing Mac Classic II's for a game of Mac Tac Toe... a 3x3 grid of Mac Classic II's. I would discover that:
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The one browser that did, MacLynx supported it as it's cousin Lynx did, which was to tell you there was a refresh, but leave it up to the viewer to take care of it.

I was bummed that my hack of the con was not going to happen. At some point on Friday, Randal said we might be able to do it in Squeak. WTF I thought, he's one to know and I hauled out the Macs. I departed but arrived back to find that fire alarm had gone off several times, in part because of various fog machines. And this was Friday. I had a presentation to give on Saturday. So rather than prep for the presentation, I decided to find out what was going on in the DJ room. There were some good beats thrown about, better than what I had heard earlier so I hung out for awhile. Another DJ took the stand. At one point Dagmar and I both grabbed our heads at the beat mixing party foul that the DJ dropped... literally. Between breaks that just broke the mood and the split second tempo shift, I went and found something else to do.

I went to bed sometime around 6am. Randal had no clue the sun was out when he said he wanted the open window shades open. Ok, different strokes for different folks I thought. I was going to crash, so light was not an issue. Randal later admitted no knowledge that the earth had rotated enough to force the sun up function. When I awoke Saturday, Randal said he wanted to eat lunch at Hooters. They opened at 11am and he lives in one of 2 states that don't have a Hooters. Crap, works for me. We walked over to 2nd Ave to find several groups of people (not related to PN) already there. OK, so we're not crazy. And then the families started walking in... with kids. Like 8 years old. I saw similar things at the 'boro Hooters back in the day. But 2nd Ave on a Saturday? 11am? With kids? From the looks of it, one 8 year old kid knew what was going on. That kid is going to be screwed up for life. The highlight of lunch was Randal asking what beers they had, sans his "list". The waitress proceeded to list off every beer Randal did not want to hear about. Obviously, Darwin works in strange ways. Or was rolling over in his grave. Either way, it was Hooters.

I left a slide or two out of my presentation... but I had time since things were running behind. I proceeded to give the fastest (and lamest) presentation on APRS. If anything, it attempted to put the schedule back on track. At the Internet Radio presentation I announced that Litestream would be available again (which it is not... yet). It was a good panel and we're in deep stuff if everything the panel mentions happens (which would surprise me if it did not). I also sat in on the cluster presentation and fielded questions on OpenMosix.

The panel that was supposed to be the highlight of the night, to a point was. Entitled "Why You Suck" it was a great idea that went wrong. Hosted by Timball and his roommmate, it started very late. Partially because Timball and the other guy did not have their stuff together. A host of technical difficulties made showed that full time sucking was taking place front and center. A disorganized trapse thru the file system attempting to find pictures of suckertude, well, sucked. Even with the picture of me sucking (I use Pico), I just could not figure out if this was going to get to a point or drivel into a shoutfest. A shoutfest ensued. I tried to invoke Godwin's law with a Jump the Shark reference. It met with blank stares. I think the poster (who, not Roundeye!) said it best... This scene wears a uniform. Obviously oblivious to the reference, the panel sucked until people began leaving. It was a great idea with bad execution. It's all the benefits of a good idea without the organization to make it happen. For a hacker con, the presentation was not what one would call a good hack.

I decided to peruse some of the various beverages available. Several fire alarms later (and one blown up laser later) Randal and I realized our hack was not going to happen. I headed over to where the DJ's were spinning... a full on breakdance-a-thon was going down. Some crazy moves were busted to crazy beats... I grabbed Tilghman's Tux and had him bust some moves on the dance floor. Yes, the Tux can breakdance.

Aside from trying to keep a fight from happenin (some people try to hard) I had a good time. I saw the guy with the fried laser with a bottle of Jaegermeister in hand. Things were not going to be pretty. About an hour later Randal shoots me this "Get him away" look. I tried to improve the situation, but not being completely familiar with the guy and given his bottle of Jaeger, I was not about to get into trouble. A little while later he passed out. A half hour later upon realizing he was really passed out, the stacking game started. For those that did not know (I found out on Saturday), he who passes out in a public place gets stacked. Stacked with whatever one can find. Bottles, boxes, you name it, stacked. On top of that, it's tradition of the con that those people get "owned"... sharpie marker on the face of the contestant. This guy got "owned" written on the back of his neck, "lamer" written on his forehead. He ended up getting stacked 5+ times with an audience of at least 50 people. Needless to say, a picture speaks a thousand words. Jaeger is bad.

I packed up on Sunday, ran Randal and two others over to the airport, and then came home and crashed. And that is in a nutshell, the past 2 weeks of my life.

RIMBoy's Roundeye Duct Tape Jukebox Song of the day: My Generation by The Who

Made up Band Name of the Day: No Covercharge