So, John Beers mailed me the master tapes (multitrack and mix-down) of the Baby Opaque stuff the other day. Was really neat…first, I don’ have anything from back then, except my body, mind and spirit, and stuff that people who had a more responsible 90s than me, like John have saved. Thanks John!

Second, I haven’t seen multi-track tape in over ten years. Wow. Blast from the past. I felt like an archaeologist excavating my past, and the past…the analogue past.

Third, John also included a cassette I’d lent him. He included a short note apologizing for taking so long to return it, but I want to thank him for taking so long, because I’m finally stable enough not to lose things like that. Thanks John!

The tape was two songs of me and East Bay Ray jamming, around the time Dead Kennedys were breaking up. They had a few gigs booked that they were playing (including a series of shows in Brazil, and they didn’t want to pass that up, because they’d never been there), but they were kaput. Ray was looking to start a new band, as he put it, “A pop band to get on MTV.” He answered my “bassist seeks band” flier and we played music around that time, twice (we later played once more, when he played on my solo record.)

First time was at my friend Beau’s house, where I was couch surfing. That jam included was this first song “I’m Not Restless” (>>GET MP3.) It’s a Baby Opaque song that Bomb later recorded also (the only song both bands did, though Baby Opaque did not record it). The song is good, but this recording isn’t that great…I taught it to him, we played it once, then recorded it and moved on to the next song. (If any drummers wanna play to it and send me the track, I’ll remix and add it on here.)
Since I also sang, and not just played bass, he also gave me a tape that day of a song he’d written and recorded in his home studio. He played guitar, bass and drum machine on it. He asked me to write lyrics and melody to it and come to his house in Oakland the following week, and we did. I recorded the song, which I called “Drivin’ Fast” (>>GET MP3). Ray told me I peed too much, he gave me a rough mix, and I left. He called me the next day and said he was going a “different direction”.

He finally assembled a band, and I went to see them at the Firehouse (a.k.a the 16th note) club on 16th street. He was great, the band was horrible. Skinny pouser female vocalist, like Pat Benatar but not as good, adequit but boring drummer, bass player and keyboard (!) player, and Ray. Ray was fucking great (I love his playing and loved his muted stage presence and his cool look…like Ric Ocasek crossed with Roy Orbison). But the band made me sad.

So….there you have it, the story and the songs. The songs are not me or Ray’s finest work, by FAR, but “Drivin’ Fast” does have it’s moments. And it’s about the world killing itself at an exponential future-shock rate, with traffic and dependence on oil as the metaphor….Something that seems very relavant to me now. It’s also about finding your way in life. Hearing it is sort of like getting a postcard as a middle-aged man from myself as a young man. Neat! Especially since I haven’t heard it in 20 years.

I love the last line “is life the classroom, the waiting room, or the party itself?”

MEW

because MySpace sucks. ’nuff said.

It had gotten to the point where I spent more time on there deleteing spam, blocking whores and dodging phishing links than talking to anyone.

No one noticed or contacted me after I deleted it, none of my 400+ “friends”. See how important it is to have a MySpace account?

Some little indie press sent me galleys of an upcoming book called “HOW TO FUCK A WOMAN’S BRAINS OUT”, and asked me for a blurb.

Wow. I don’t know what to make of this one, but I like it. Here’s my blurb, guys: “This book is ostensibly sex advice, and has a lot of that, and it’s good. But it also goes off on some interesting rants.”

Here’s a rant I particularly like:

The Pope blames pornography for the disintegration of the family unit. I blame the Roman Catholic Church for the disintegration of the family unit.

Since the Church opposes all forms of artificial birth control, the Church is directly responsible for overpopulation, which is the root of all major maladies the world over, as well as being responsible for the coming total collapse of the infrastructure of the world (some time around 2040, I’ll venture). And since the Church is to blame for unchecked multiple births by people not ready to have kids, this leads to boys being raised without fathers, or without competent fathers, which is the main cause for the generation of remorseless super criminals who will try to make your life hell in the coming technological apocalypse. These doods come in all colors, but you can easily spot them by their backwards baseball caps, cheap showy bling and very loud voices. They demand to be heard, even though they have nothing to say. (Except, “LOOK AT ME, FUCKERS!”) They have low I.Q.s, fueled with steroids, crack and malt liquor. They drop out of school at 15, the only education they receive is from “Grand Theft Auto” and Maxim. (Picture Mike from Marketing with a Glock instead of an MBA.)

These fuckers will rape your women for a laugh and slit your throat for a cigarette on Saturday night, and be absolved by a kiddie-touching priest on Sunday morning.

Defend yourself. Don’t spend your next paycheck on bling. Don’t spend it on the latest fashion. Don’t spend it on spinners. Go to WalMart, buy a shotgun, and buy a ton (literally) of ammo, now, while you still can.

Michael W. Dean and Joseph Matheny chat on the phone and there’s no way these two talkers could interview one or the other. So they rap together, in a concentric hypertextual parenthetical way, TCP over IP, about how to make money by releasing things for free, the coming apocalypse, a secret underground lair, and much more.

Indie media mavericks Michael W. Dean and Joseph Matheny interview each other. (Part two of two. from alterati.com)

Get the podcast here.

I’ve actually been looking for something like this for a long time.

A good program for word count of all files in a folder (not just of a single file like most programs) is Total Assistant. It’s $24.95 for the basic version, with a 14-day working free trial, here: http://www.surefiresoftware.com/totalassistant/

 In this episode, Joseph Matheny concludes his conversation with Michael Dean (part 1 here), and discuss how to make money by releasing things for free, the coming apocalypse, a secret underground lair, and much more.

Joseph adds: “We’re hoping to make the G-spot better with your input, we’d dig it if you’d fill out the Standard Audience Survey to help us do that. As always, if you have questions, comments, rants or suggestions, call (213) 784-1035″

The G-Spot 31: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

You all know how much I hate TV, but it redemed itself for a minute the other day.

White Gold and the Calcium Twins

(milk ad…but pretty much the best thing that’s ever been on the shit box called Television):

White gold is pretty much Spinal Tap meets Lenny Kravitz, T-Rex, Tarzan, Jimi Hendrix, Ted Nugent, Isaac Hayes, the obsessed, Parliament Funkadelic, with a good measure of Love American Style, The Incredible Hulk, Josie and the Pussy Cats, and more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVXHRC0DG70 (the story of how White Gold came to be)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj1-ZZRajDU (this is the best one, his song “One-Gallon Ax”….it even has a llama AND a Viking helmet!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwIgAFwzXLA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM5_r786kUQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gaHLA_O274

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2PZuPRghIk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iRutdX4XV8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkdSh6acZJo

The guy is the singer in a real band in LA called The Ringers.

They’re great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF_k-YYCpno

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIrnz7qGZDQ

Clone The Homeless - get episode 0066
Indie media mavericks Michael W. Dean and Joseph Matheny interview each other. (Part one of two. Part two will be up on Greylodge in two weeks.) Fri, 11 April 2008

22 min. from CloneTheHomeless.com

RSS feed

Michael W. Dean and Joseph Matheny chat on the phone and there’s no way these two talkers could interview one or the other. So they rap together, in a concentric hypertextual parenthetical way, TCP over IP, about how to make money by giving away art, where the Internet is headed, changing views on changing protection of intellectual “property”, Joseph Campbell, suing Disney for intellectual property violation, how to self-publish your brilliant books, Tom Jennings, why control of your art is more important than lots of money, how to assemble your own vigilant army of the damned, The Pirate Bay, cease-and-desist letters, the Church of the Subgenius, BoingBoing, the WELL, Creative Commons, sex, cats, art and an incredible amount of more nifty stuff.

Part two will cover the coming collapse of the infrastructure of the world, why Catholics are killing the world with overpopulation, and why both of these guys just wanna do the judo master thing and step out of the world’s way, while still running it all from their rural bunkers.

dig it.

Becky Haycox

UCSB

Becky is a designer writer actor crafter monologist and maker. She resides in Southern California.

• Web site

Sessions

1:30pm - 2:20pm Thursday, 04/24/2008

Web 2.0: Fabulously Useful and Confusing

Design and User Experience 2003

Leanne Waldal (OTIVO, INC), Megan Koroshetz, Victor Tom, Becky Haycox (UCSB), Susan Harris, JP Singson (E-Loan, Inc)

What happens when average consumers use Web 2.0 sites to share and find and communicate? This will be a presentation of Web 2.0 user research and live consumer interviews demonstrating good, bad, and ugly. Read more.

I do NOT recommend AT&T U-verse any more. Had tech problems (not out of line for new technology…that’s the price of being a first adopter.) But….after TWO HOURS of having me on hold yesterday, they decided it was their problem and said they were sending a guy out this morning.

I set the alarm, got up earlier than I wanted to, and THE GUY NEVER SHOWED. I called AT&T and they said “WE HAD A U-VERSE OUTAGE IN YOUR AREA THIS MORNING, SO WE CANCELED THE APPOINTMENT.” But….THEY NEVER CALLED ME.

Totally unacceptable.

DO NOT GO WITH AT&T. GO ANYWHERE ELSE. That’s my recommendation.

Click to download the Beef People song “Lots”

Click to download the Beef People song “Industrial Jelly”

Of all things, a UK record label (Damaged Records) is releasing VINYL of the Beef People EP, combined with the unreleased tracks, which are great.

The owner, a cool chap named Welly, asked us to do a short interview. His questions and my answers are here:

Beef People interview for Damaged Records – Michael W. Dean’s answers

1. Where and when band formed, and how it came about? Founding members? Reasons for the name?

Formed in 1984 the Blue Ridge School in Dyke, Virginia.

(I think it was 1984, I wasn’t there at the start. Jack? Is this correct?)

Founding members: Brian Childers – throat Willy MacLean – bass Rob Cunningham – guitar Jack Massey – drums

I joined the band replacing Rob Cunningham on guitar, so I’m not the guy to ask about the very inception. But the line up was always the same as above, except I took over on guitar shortly before the EP came out. I was in the band less than nine months, then they broke up. It was one of those hardcore bands that were great, short lived, did an EP and dissolved….As it probably should be, based on a lot of reunions I’ve witnessed lately with sad old men who used to be my heroes more than 20 years ago.

The band name “The Beef People” came from “We’re the Beef People” the motto of a now-defunct supermarket chain in the American south called Winn Dixie. Our EP “Music for Men” was named after a choral sheet music series that the guys had in their music class at their boarding school.

Rob left the band when he got kicked out of school for sneaking a girl into his room. I had been kicked out of my own boarding school for calling the headmaster a “fat, bald, overtly Christian old fart”, so I immediately felt an affinity to the guy I was replacing.

2. Details on early gigs and early demo recordings?

The band played less than a dozen gigs as I remember (not counting a few gigs they played at their boarding school before I joined). Most were under attended, maybe between 15 and 50 people. Remember, this was Virginia in the early 80s.

I remember one gig for about 30 people in a place that held 800. Everyone was in the back of the room, and it felt like we were playing to the Grand Canyon. After a couple songs, I said over the mic, “I’m not playing another note until everyone in this room joins us on stage.” They all did. The stage suddenly became the whole concert, people were only a few feet away, and it got really intimate and fun. Brian had some electric hair trimmers and gave 25 cent haircuts (“money back guarantee!”) to about a third of the audience between songs. He also shaved my head, while I was doing a guitar solo. I was getting a slight electric shock in my scalp as he did it. It felt really exciting, and I didn’t need to sleep much for a few weeks after.

Our biggest gig was for about 100 people, when we opened for Battalion of Saints.

3. First record release, with any interesting stories or nuggets of information connected to it?

The only release was the EP, “Music for Men”, recorded in 1986. We recorded and mixed the EP, and the additional songs that Welly is now putting out along with the songs from the EP, in one session, in about 8 hours total (including a few overdubs), at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, Virginia, in Don Zientara’s basement. Don engineered the record. John Beers put the EP out on his label, “Catch Trout Records”.

4. Tours, with details of where and who with, with anything that you may remember from them? The Beef People never toured. They were seniors at the Blue Ridge School in Dyke, Virginia, and broke up when they graduated. I was three years older, and drove from Charlottesville, Virginia (about an hour away) to rehearse.

All of our gigs were in Charlottesville.

The singer, Brian Childers, later played bass some and sang some on one tour in my band Bomb (from San Francisco), in 1989.

5. Record labels you dealt with, how the deals came about, and how they treated you?

We only did that one record on Catch Trout, and John Beers treated us really well. He paid for the record, gave us lots of copies, pressed 1000 copies, sent out a lot of promo copies, got it into stores nationwide, and probably lost money doing so. John loves music, and that’s why he had a label. He was never in it for the money.

Someone else put one of the songs out on a compilation, I forget what it was called, don’t think they had permission, and it doesn’t bother me at all.

6. Subsequent record releases, with dates and details or any story of interest?

None, none and none. Until now. Thank you, Welly!

7. Dynamics of relationships of band members. Any personality clashes or great friendships? Good or bad situations?

We all got along great in the Beef People, as far as every time I was with them. Brian and I clashed in Bomb a few times because I was a junkie by then. That’s why he quit Bomb. I’m sober now, many years.

8. Reasons for band break-up with dates and details? Band graduated from school. Not much details past that.

9. Proudest moment or achievement connected to the band? What are your thoughts on it looking back?

It was all a blast. I’m really proud of the guys, my time in the band, and love how well the music has held up after 23 years.

10. Any kind of reformation happened or due to happen? If so, details please.

Nope. Singer died. I’d sooner dig up my dead grandfather, prop him up on the couch and watch a baseball game with him than play a Beef People gig without Brian.

(Brian’s obituary that I wrote is attached. It’s from the March 2008 issue of Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll magazine. Feel free to reprint. I own it, and anyway, they reprint a lot of stuff without permission, say it’s “fair use under copyright law”, and they’re probably right.)

11. Any other bands or projects the members have worked on then or since?

I’m married, live in the suburbs, have lots of cats, make films and write books. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. My current CV is here: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3220

– Michael W. Dean, Los Angeles

Watch my good friend Alan’s “50 things I’ve done in my life” video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjfL5WL4ZBQ

Then watch my response video with my own “50 things”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbZdcEoXeGQ

It’s a neat video of me “confessing my sins”. And remember, microphones and cameras are cheaper than therapists.

(Nice subtlety: there’s a photo of Brian Childers on the wall behind me, between the microphone and my head.)

Had an interesting conversation via e-mail with a chap named Ken Restivo. Ken wrote me out of the blue and asked me

Subject: Were you in a band that played in the 1990s and did this song?

By any chance, were you in a band that played at the Edinburgh Castle bar on Geary in San Francisco some time in the late 1990’s, that had a song with the lyrics:

“I don’t wanna die! I just wanna fuck her one more time!”??
-ken

It took me a while to place it (I do so much fucking art I can’t remember it all), but it was a song I wrote about suicide called “Golden Gate Bridge” (MP3 here.)

The band he saw was a short-lived project called “Strychnine Blotter Party ^* .” Only played seven gigs, and only once at the club he mentioned. And the line is “I don’t wanna die! I just wanna fuck you one more time!” But I must say I am DAMN impressed that he remembered the show/band/song/me from that one show. We only played that club once. Don’t know how he found me from that, either. (Please chime in with a comment if you’re reading this, Ken.)

So Ken and I hit it off and I told him a bit about my rock history in San Fran, and we got into a discussion of drugs. Specifically, why musicians gravitate toward heroin:

Ken Wrote:

….I am fascinated by how many musicians are so fucking high so much of the time, and how susceptible we-all are to addiction. MUCH higher than the general population– it seems to be a disease that targets musicians.
Michael W. Dean wrote:

Well, musicians have low self-esteem and huge egos, and heroin compliments that. lol…..

Ken Wrote:

It’s gotta be more than that. Politicians and CEO’s also have HUMONGOUS egos, and low self-esteem (which is really the same thing), and they don’t tend to get addicted to anything except money and power (and kinky sex).

Michael W. Dean wrote:
CEOs and politicians are wired differently and prefer cocaine. And when they like kink, it’s usually paying someone to dominate them, whereas musicians tend to like to dominate their lovers, and get it free. A lot.

Also…..what you say is totally true, but captains of industry have some real confidence, believe everything they do is right, whereas musicians are stunted adolescents, their bravado is that of a scared little boy whistling in the dark. All musicians…from Stooges-wannabe doods in leather jackets to crotch-grabbing gangsta rappers….musicians are riddled with self-doubt. CEOs are absolutely positive they’re doing the right thing with every step.

And remember, with anyone, the number of tattoos is inversely proportionate to the amount of self-esteem.

Heroin makes you feel warm and makes you dream. Musicians are dreamers. Coke makes you feel like you could kick God’s ass, which appeals to CEOs.

——–

(This is by no means me giving myself the “final word” on this….anyone who wants to chime in, please do so).

===========

* Fun little Strychnine Blotter Party side note. Sean Keefe, our fucking great drummer, went home to visit his parents back east, and we had a rehearsal scheduled the day he got back. He called me from the airport and said “Hey…can you pick me up a burrito please? I’m broke and hungry.” I said “Sure” (he was playing free as a sideman in my band where it was all my songs, so of course I fed him if he asked).

He said “I spent my last money getting a shoe shine at the airport. You know…if you don’t look good, you can’t play good.”

—-

And if you wanna see some of the most painful web design ever, here’s the Strychnine Blotter Party web page I made in 1997. I quickly realized “this is hard on the eye, but it was fun to make” and moved on to easy-to-read as my main rule for web design. Unfortunately, most people on MySpace have never realized this.

—–

And here’s the lyrics to “Golden Gate Bridge”:

(by the way, the song is not the usual ABABABC song structure. It’s ABCABC. Few songs are.)

Lyrics:
Standing on the Golden Gate bridge.
looking for the girl who did not like to live
look for the girl with the atropine eyes,
as she flies!

I’ve got cabin-fever
I’ve been in my head for far too long
my brains are blowing out from pressure-jealousy
my strings are melting and I’m sure that I can fly-
maybe I’ll try!

(pre-chorus):
It’s another fucking sunset and
I’m checking out tonight.
Slipping into sleep, your memory slaps me awake.
I don’t want to die.
I want to fuck you one more time.

(Chorus):
I don’t want to die!
I can hurt you more alive
if that keeps me here for one more day
it’s all I need to say
stumbling through this world with all my lies
failing comically at all I try
I feel I’d like to die
but it hurts even to try
why should I try?

nausea, sweet nausea
anticipate my bane
sanctify and vilify to keep us both alive
I’ll just go to sleep
tomorrow means another chance at being sane

(pre-chorus, chorus) out…

Pix of the new dedicated computer that the wife and I bought to serve BitTorrent stuff of our art and friends’ art, 24/7/365.

The ‘pooter was getting HOT, like the components inside burned our fingers to touch them, so we opened up the case and bought a fan (from Bed, Bath and Beyond…I’m becoming such a yuppie!) to keep the li’l torrents cool and happy. Cobbled the cover out of a storage bin (also from Bed, Bath and Beyond). Now the inside of the computer, and all the components, are always room temp or below. Will blow any dust out with canned air every few days, but shouldn’t be an issue, hard drive is only moving part, and it’s well sealed.

We’re keeping the door on this spare bedroom (now known as “the Torrentarium”) closed for now, but are gonna go get chicken wire or a screen and jerry-rig it over the front of the computer stand to keep the kitties out so we can keep the door open and all the pets can lounge in there. They like it.

This is the first tiny acorn of our baby server farm. It will one day turn into a mighty 40-acre T4 industrial complex out in the country. We’ll have curvy women in slips fanning the computer racks with palm fronds, and more gals in camo slips on the roof with sniper rifles.

—

P.S.
OH…Julie asked me:
what is a baby server farm?

I wrote:
Server farm is computer server room. Racks of dedicated servers for web and media hosting. Usually in a climate-controlled air-conditioned room.

This is our LITTLE server farm. A baby one. A starter server farm.
(It’s NOT a farm for serving babies! Though we look at our media and little torrents as “our babies.”)

Here’s pix of server farms we like:

(above) our next step up.

(above) Our next step after that. (Not pictured- cats asleep on top and around it.)

(above) Our fourth server farm.

(above) After that - a server farm in a former church.

(above) Then we buy Google’s server farm (above, a tiny tiny few of Google’s servers.)

(above) Going too far…the IRS’ chrome-plated servers.

Hate Fed Love video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAUw2znLK-E

Bomb live in Houston in 1992, at Emo’s.

Bomb at the peak of their rockatude, and me really skinny and cute. And drinking beer.

More vids from this show:
http://youtube.com/dwarfbilly
all vids from this show:
http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=dwarfbilly&p=r

Shot on analog video by dwarfbilly (Glen Fader). Thank you Glen, so much, for shooting the many vids, for not losing the tapes like so many have done, and for putting on the ‘tube.

–

Note: unlike most Bomb shows, I remember this one well. And also remember that between sound check and the show, I got some paper and a pen from the bartender, sat outside, watched the sun set in the summer night, and decided, “I’m going to be a writer”, and began writing my first novel.

DEFINING MOMENTS IN MY LIFE:
–Read an entire book myself - age 5
–Heard the Partridge Family, fell in love with music - age 7
–Interest in science - age 8
–Molested by teenage boy - age 8
–Parents’ divorce - age 8
–Got into studying electronics - age 9
–Got into ham radio, realized there was a world out there - age 10
–Loved the local library - entire childhood
–Discovered sister’s Rolling Stones records - age 9
–Discovered sister’s boyfriend’s Frank Zappa records, realized the world wasn’t the way adults told me it was - age 10
–Stole a look at teacher’s grade book when she was out and learned that my IQ is 143 - age 10
–Smoked pot - age 11
–Read “Steal This Book” - age 12
–Got caught shoplifting, first and last time I did (stealing shotgun shells to make bombs, never made any) - age 12
–Had sex, started to play guitar, and took LSD - age 14
–Read “The Book of the Subgenius” (while tripping). Decided I wanted to start my own fake cult one day - age 16
–Had GREAT sex - age 17
–Kicked out of boarding school - age 17
–Discovered Dr. Gene Scott (while tripping) Reinforced my desire to start my own fake cult one day - age 18
–Became a father - age 19
–Discovered punk rock (from Skip Lunch), while on LSD, formulated “The Hum of the Universe” theory on the spot - age 19
–Left home, moved to DC , saw Dischord punk bands live, met them, hung out with them - age 20
–Put out first record - age 21
–Moved to San Francisco - age 22
–Started Bomb - age 22
–Discovered heroin - age 23
–Toured the US with Bomb - age 23-age 29
–Toured Europe with Bomb - age 27
–Bomb signed to major label- age 28
–Bomb broke up because of my drug use - age 29
–Got first computer (8086, couldn’t get online with it, but could write and edit) - age 29
–Learned to type (in one night, while shooting coke) age 29
–Got sober - age 30
–Went back to college - age 32-33
-Got on the Internet (on hand-me-down 386 from my other sister) - age 32
–got DSL internet connection - age 33
–Put on a suit, joined the corporate work force (but wrote my novel on their time) - age 33-37
–Self-published first book - age 35
–Relapsed on drugs, nearly died - age 35
–Got sober again - two weeks later
–Started making films - age 36
–Made my first feature film: age 37
–Moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco (it’s not uncool to be ambitious in LA Like it is in San Fran) - age 37
–Started to make a living as a writer and filmmaker - age 38
–Discovered D/s - age 41
–Met the woman of my dreams - age 41
–Daughter died from leukemia - age 42
–Got married, moved out to the country/burbs - age 42
–Discovered podcasting - age 42
–Started using BitTorrent to share massive amounts of MY media with the world - age 43
–got 10 Mbps fiber optic internet connection - age 43

===

Pretty fun stuff.

So, my friends, post your list as a reply.

Get laid, or triple your money back!

I ran across this really funny three-minute fake radio spot for Eau de Daddy cologne….

(MUST BE OF LEGAL AGE to listen).

(Peer Guardian 2 running, with I.P. addresses blocked out to mask my own I.P.)

Amazing program. I’m running it and it’s blocking about 10 attempts a minute to get into my network, from everyone from the office of the president of Lithuania, to cops in China to the Sony corporation in Los Angeles. It blocks unwanted traffic, both incoming and outgoing.

Download PeerGuardian 2 free, here.

By the way, China is posing massive attacks on US servers this week…no one’s sure if it’s the gov or hackers there. Pentagon has shut off some of their own computers, though. So it must be a serious deal.

Though judging from the number of Chinese Government sites showing up in my logs (images above), I really must assume some of it is Chinese Government computers turned into zombies by hackers to attack many other computers anonymously. I really can’t imagine that so many people in the Chinese gov would really be that concerned with what I’m doing on StinkFight, etc….

My router has a built-in firewall, and I’m running Norton firewall too.  The traffic being stopped by Peer Guardian is getting past BOTH of those firewalls.

EVERYONE should have this program.

(Note, occasionally it will block a site you want to see. You can simply right click on the name/i.p. in the protection log window, and allow it for fifteen minutes, or for an hour, or permanently.)

MWD

107 MICHAEL W. DEAN SONGS

TORRENT HERE. MUST BE OF LEGAL AGE.

“Whoever dies with their art on the most hard drives, wins.”
–Michael W. Dean
Complete BitTorrent zip of all Michael W. Dean music, 1984-2008

110 MP3s (107 songs and three interviews), plus many images and text files of all bands. 856 megs.

Michael W. Dean is the director of “D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist” and the author of “$30 Film School”, among other things.

Archive contains all BOMB records, both Baby Opaque records (with Ian MacKaye on backup vocals on one song - a cover of “Long Black Veil”), all Rolling Scabs, all Deal Machine, all Mother and the Fuckers, plus several Michael Dean solo songs, and loop WAVs for song production, looped from Bomb songs by Michael Dean.

From Wikipedia: “Bomb was a San Francisco-based rock band started in 1986 by singer/bassist Michael W. Dean, guitarist Jay Crawford, and drummer Tony Fag (Anthony Paul Short, A.K.A. Blind Tony Fag). Their first show was July 4, 1986, opening for Flipper. Bomb’s sound was deep, hard rock with melodic guitars, relentless tribal drumming (reviews referred to Fag as “The Human Drum Machine”), strong pop singing, and sometimes-cryptic lyrics. Common subjects of the songs were death, sex, drugs, girls, boys, love, loss, Satan, God, cross-dressing, girls, suicide, hope and girls.”

Bomb put out one EP and four LPs from 1986-1999, on Boner Records and on Warner/Reprise. The Warner Bros. record was produced by Bill Laswell. The band was a fans’ favorite, but crashed and burned from narcotic abuse and infighting.

“D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist”

Free high-quality iPhone/iPod rips, from the director. Torrent and media served from a 24/7 fat pipe.

Torrent here.

(Or here on Pirate Bay).

DVD, and all extras of “D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist”. Director Michael W. Dean is giving away the entire film, encoded in high quality (30 fps, 800 kbps mp4 file, 640×480 size, with 128-bit audio, and no DRM). It looks great on an iPod, iPhone, Zune, etc., and damn good full screen on a computer.

Seven extras from the DVD (including interviews with Ian MacKaye, Steve Albini, and Lydia Lunch) are included.

FILM DESCRIPTION:

This film is a celebration of the artistic underdog! FEATURING interviews and performances from: Lydia Lunch, Ian MacKaye (Fugazi), J Mascis (Dinosaur jr.), Jim Rose (Jim Rose Sideshow), J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus), Mike Watt (Minutemen), Richard Kern (Filmmaker), Ron Asheton (Stooges), Madigan Shive (Bonfire Madigan), Dave Brockie (Gwar) and more.

Dean says, “People keep asking me, ‘Why are you posting the whole film when it’s still selling well on DVD? Are you CRAZY?’” Dean’s reply (in part): “It’s my gift to the world. People write me every day and tell me the film got them off their ass. I made the film to spread a message, not make money. And somehow, it still made money. That’s how I do things - it’s how I pay my rent on planet earth.”

The film on IMDB

Film site: http://www.diyordie.org

(You should be of legal age to view this):

Animated GIF of a ferret attacking a rubber schlong in a bathtub.  (If you’re a guy, this may make you a little queasy. Personally, it just makes me giggle.)
Was created years ago by my friend Li’l Mike. The pet has long since passed on to the great ferret field in the sky, but the GIF lives on.

Went to look for a FireWire cable today, had to fight through a huge box of tangled junk. Had too many of everything, all my cable crap from the past 15 years…stuff not being used, but taking up space (and taking up sanity when I go to find something.) I had cables representing technology from 1920 to now.

I ended up throwing out:

11 USB cables

3 FireWire cables

1 S-video cable

2 Coax cable TV cables

3 CAT-5 networking cables

2 telephone cables

7 assorted audio micro- and mini-cables

3 guitar cables

6 RCA audio cables

2 DSL modems

1 Wireless router

1 two-prong ungrounded extension cord

3 new printer cartridges from a printer that died and got replaced by a better printer

2 computer monitor power cables

5 “wall wart” power adapters for gear that died a long time ago

…….and a partridge in a pear tree.

I thought about putting them on Freecycle.org, but I really hate having people come to my house. Also thought about putting it all up on a MySpace bulletin and mailing the box out to someone, but MySpace recently blocked one of my sites and called it “head lice”, so I don’t like going there any more.

The “obsolete/excess technology” idea of having all these cables and boxes I don’t use made me think about one of the only performance art things I’ve ever seen that I loved. It was Attaboy and a friend standing on a couple tons of last year’s computers in 1999 at the San Francisco dump, doing an impassioned spoken word thing about the tentative nature of evolving technology, in front of a crowd of about 60 really happy people. I loved it.

UPDATE: I sold the monitor. For a quarter. Here’s pix of my satisfied customer:

(Original post): My friend gave me a flat screen monitor, so I’m getting rid of my clunky old CTR. But you can’t throw those out, they need to be taken to special centers.

To save me the trip, I just posted this on CraigsList:

====================

Working computer monitor - 25 cents.

(not 25 dollars, 25 CENTS!)

16-inch CRT ViewSonic A70 monitor.

I bought it last year on CraigsList for ten bucks. I just upgraded, so I’m willing to pass the savings on to you at ONE-FORTIETH THE ORIGINAL PRICE!!!

Must give me a one-hour window of what time you’ll be here.

Photos of me at age 3 and age 17:

Me at age 12 (stoned on pot):

Me at 16, in drag:

Me at 21 (on left. Brian Childers is on the right):

Me at 27 (in slip, with Bomb):

Me at 33:

Me at 39: (left of me is Ryan Brown, who edited Selby movie, on right is Robert Downey, Jr, who narrated):

Photo of me taken yesterday (age 43):

Great pix of our gay switchy littermate boy cats, Fuzzbucket McFluffernutter and Peanut McFluffernutter.

link>:

I wrote an obituary for Brian that came out in this month’s Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll magazine (March 2008 issue).

(Thank you Barbara Vaughan for the wonderful photo, and thank you Pat Libby for helping make this happen!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAsI7mmM4eQ

By my friend Alan “Fallofautumndistro” Lastufka (Alan and I have a big very cool project together coming up soon. Will spill beans on it next week.) Debra Jean Dean did the voiceover, I engineered DJ’s voiceover.

It’s a takeoff on those stupid “Go to university online” commercials they play on TV every afternoon to attract unemployed losers and take their money.

I just got a new book deal with O’Reilly (will blog details next week.)

Update: I do NOT recommend U-verse!!!!

To celebrate, I just ordered an AT&T U-verse fat pipe….a a 10 Mbps fiber optic line.
Yay! With cable TV. From the phone company. 100 bucks a month, no setup fee, no contract commitment, (and it also comes with 100 TV channels). Ten times faster than a DSL line, at three times the price. And it doesn’t slow down when your neighbors go on like with cable modems.

Also ordered a third computer, which I’m gonna use dedicated to nothing but BitTorrenting huge archive zips of our podcast episodes:
LENOVO ThinkCentre A61E 641712U computer,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883108133

also got two 1-gig sticks of server RAM and got heat-sinks for them.

AT&T U-verse is not available in most of the country yet. Should be in a year or three. It’s available here:

* California: Corona, Los Angeles/Orange County, Riverside, Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto, San Diego, San Francisco/Oakland, and San Jose/Santa Clara
* Connecticut: Hartford, New Haven, New London, Stamford
* Illinois: Chicago
* Indiana: Anderson, Bloomington, Indianapolis, Kokomo, Muncie
* Kansas:Kansas City
* Michigan: Detroit
* Mississippi: Jackson
* Missouri: Kansas City, St. Louis
* Ohio: Akron, Cleveland, Columbus
* Oklahoma: Oklahoma City
* Texas: Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Round Rock, San Antonio
* Wisconsin: Milwaukee, Racine, West Bend

I had DSL in early 1997. I lived in downtown San Fran, and within 1200 feet of the phone company building. Mine was one of the first city blocks in the country that had it.

When I crawled off of dial-up onto DSL I felt like, as my friend Stephen Elliot put it, “It extended my lifespan.” I think Fiber Optic is going to feel like “Beam me up, Scotty” compared to DSL.

I’ll probably get rug burns from it.

I’m literally having trouble sleeping anticipating my 10 MBPS fiber optic line.
I get it Wednesday. Should have my new pooter (the dedicated BitTorrent one) by then too. Until then I have to suffer with this damn DSL. How very last century.

MWD

p/s

I remember a forwarded e-mail in San Fran in 1998 called “You might be a geek if…..”.
One of the things was “You might be a geek if…..Your apartment has more bandwidth than some universities.” With the fiber line, I’m finally there. They use the same size pipe for 200 computers on some university libraries.

…..Another one on that list was “You might be a geek if…..while hanging out at an industrial/heavy metal fetish club, you get in a fist fight with another guy about which flavor of Linux is best.”

Funny, but that was never me. I have always been a Windows guy, and always will be. I don’t like all that wrenching. XP just fucking WORKS. I’m running XP on both laptops and the new server computer has XP. (I actually had to pay a little more to not have Vista. How fucked is that????)

My friend Julie Peasley just got back from Japan. Check out her photos:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=9ff40a6o.7sqsqmkg&x=0&y=-bf0vh9

(click the yellow “view slideshow” button)

We especially love the snow monkeys. Also love the little fold out card she made of her cats to look at on the Bullet Train!

p.s. Doesn’t “Julie and the Snow Monkeys” sound like the title of a children’s adventure book?

I Love You Already Part I :

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=7320724

I Love You Already Part II:

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=7320941

Kinda blew my mind. Check ‘em out.

OH MY GOD! I went to check my mail today and there was a package from my buddy Jem Cohen.

It was Jem’s shooting script from the movie Last Exit To Brooklyn. Jem was a prop guy on the shoot, and this is his slightly tattered script. (It’s in amazing shape for something that was handled daily for months in 1988 and then stored.)

Jem is interviewed in our film Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow. On the set of Last Exit, Jem hung out with Hubert Selby, who wrote the book the movie was based on, and was impressed with how humble and sweet Selby was, in contrast with what one might expect from a writer on a large Hollywood set.

When I opened the package from Jem, I was literally trembling a little as soon as I saw what it was. I am not one to fetishize objects, and I am not easily star struck, but I kinda felt like, well, maybe not a Christian handling the Holy Grail, but at least like an archaeologist being handed an amazing specimen that ties together all the work of three years.

The script, written by Desmond Nakano (who is also interviewed in our film) has wonderfully poetic descriptions in the setting and action. They were faithfully rendered by director Uli Edel (also in our film), but it’s amazing to read the actual words on the page.

Jem also sent his crew T-shirt from the set, along with a postcard that said “Dig it Dean, official ancient crew T-shirt too. Don’t be freaked out by the stains. It’s just movie blood!”

Thank you Jem! This is all like Christmas in March for me. Even better.

=======

(funny self-indulgent side note: The wife and I recently had an essay contest on our podcast to give away our script for the Plump Buffet podiobook with our hand-written notes on it. The woman wrote us and told us she was trembling when she got our e-mail saying she’d won.

(Not to compare our little podiobook story in any way to Last Exit…..I thought it was quaint that the lady was so excited, because I looked at our script as something that had been useful and was no longer useful once we were done, and was a little amazed that she was so happy about it. I was listening to that exact part of our podcast on headphones as I stood in line at the post office. When I opened Jem’s parcel, I knew exactly how she felt.)

My dad sent me an encyclopedia from 1900. It’s in great shape. I was just reading it, and really dig it. The book even has color illustrations, and a lot of science - atomic weight tables, physics of light, and astronomy (though it defines “Black hole” as “a prison cell or dungeon”.)

It made me wonder if any computer media I own now will be readable in 108 years. I kind of doubt it.

(Photo of my friend Sheri’s iPhone, loaded with many many many of my podcasts and songs.)

Amazing stuff. By my friend from back in the day,  Jeremy Kirsch. I’m in awe of his work. Here’s his links:

http://freekmagnet.com
http://gogallery.org
http://gogallery.org/blog

Jeremy played bass in my friend Beau’s band, “Capture the Flag”,…..met him when I first moved to California (Berkeley) from Virginia in 1986.

GET THE MP3.

Hilsinger wrote: On 9/4/94, Roger Water’s 50th birthday , we played a 9-song madley of Pink Floyd songs. The show was at Komotion Int’l, SF (r.i.p.), and included a custom lightshow of Mr Dean blowing cigarette smoke and waving a flashlight around in it. cool. We opened for GIFTHORSE and SUBLIME.

featuring members of BOMB, GIFTHORSE, HELIOS CREED, and M-FAKTER,
the band was:
Doug Hilsinger (lead gtr, bg vox)
Michael Dean (lead vox, rythm gtr)
Bean (bass, bg vox)
Chris McKay (keys)
Paul Delle Pelle (drums)
Jeff Mann engineered the recording live to DAT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAnYj-iNrPQ
Little thing I made that shows examples of good and bad background music for use with talking. Is useful info for both video production and podcast production.

Goes with this O’Reilly article I wrote,
“Put Your Photos on TV, Part 1″:
http://tinyurl.com/2xxnvf

Chris Caggiano from Iconicide sent me a CD of Brian’s band from 1985-1987, School Of Violence. Good stuff, and nice between-song-talking from Brian.

Here’s an MP3 of some of it….recorded off the sound board at a live show at CBGBs in 1986. The two songs are “Nightmare in Paradise” and “Do You Want To Die?”

Friday was DJ’s shoulder surgery. She had a bone spur and torn rotator cuff. Two hours arthroscopic surgery…the doctor shaved down the bone spur and sewed the torn cuff. Should relieve the pain she’s been having for some time now.

She’s in a sling and will be off work 3 or 4 weeks. I’m taking care of her, lovingly waiting on her hand and foot. It’s fun. We’re actually enjoying the extra time together, even though it could be under different circumstances.

She’s also got a “cold therapy unit”, it attaches to her shoulder with three tubes and pumps water at 47 degrees, cools her down and helps with pain. Kinda looks like something out of Terminator 2.

I call it her “series of tubes”.

She also had a Novocaine pump, that pumped through a tube into the site…that was only for the first two days, today I had to carefully pull that out. Was interesting. Like pulling a wire out of a hole in your wife’s body. Was a little bloody, went in about five inches.

All in all, it’s going well.

Michael W. Dean
Media Consultant

So, after decades of doling out free advice to anyone who asks, I’m hanging up a shingle and starting to charge. I have to do this, I don’t have time to answer all the “help me with my project!” e-mails AND have a life AND make a living.

My rates are reasonable, and negotiable. Sliding scale. Info here:

http://www.michaelwdean.com

MP3 of Supergoose by my old band Slish.

MP3 of The Web by my old band Slish.

MP3 of My God Is A Woman, by my old band, Slish

E-mail that I wrote to my buddy, Chuck:

You know, I’ve actually recorded at the Record Plant. Song is attached. (taken from cassette. The master sounded like God.)

Was my band “Slish”.
Michael Urbano (Smashmouth/Cracker/Cheryl Crow/John Haytt/Third (That guy is, by far, the best drummer I’ve ever played with. And try NOT to tap your feet to this! Dude is a hit maker)
Guitarists were me and David Immergluck (Counting Sheep, I mean Counting Crows.) I played slide.
Bass was my friend Bean, I sang, he sang backup, and we wrote the song together.

It’s about getting off drugs.
This band could have been huge. Except Bean and I were fresh off drugs, insane, and fought so much we drove everyone around us away.

was 1995.
God I love this song. Called “Supergoose”. Could have been a number-one hit. Commercial and great enough, but still fucking weird as hell.

–

We recorded these three songs in one day at the Record Plant, the day before Metallica locked it out for a year. Then did ovedubs elsewhere, some anon studio I forget the name of.

Was mixed at Hyde Street (By Michael Rosen, the guy who engineers Rancid’s records).
Was mastered at some other little home studio. That was the first time I ever saw a computer used to edit an audio file. We cut four bars out of the middle eight to make it more radio friendly.
Now that’s all I do, all day long, every day.
MWD
p/s regarding “…That was the first time I ever saw a computer used to edit an audio file.”

The edit we did? We cut four bars out of the middle eight to make it more radio friendly.

THE PLUMP BUFFET - a romantic kinky curvy cat cult comedy. (I really like this one.)

Subscribe FREE at Podiobooks.com

WEB:
http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-plump-buffet/
RSS:
http://www.podiobooks.com/title/the-plump-buffet/feed/

(to subscribe in iTunes, go to “advanced / subscribe to podcast) and paste that URL into the little window.)

VALENTINE’S DAY RELEASE!
A Submission and Coffee production.

“The Plump Buffet” is a cast-production radio play about a sex cult in the desert, and they’re all cats.

WARNING: “The Plump Buffet” is comedic literature with sexual motifs. If you are not of legal age, you should not listen. You are also not to listen if you are easily offended by such material. But compared to network TV, it’s a wholesome story, no one dies.

TAGLINES:
–THE PLUMP BUFFET: it’s not a love triangle, it’s a love polygon.

–THE PLUMP BUFFET is “Fritz the Cat” meets “Showdown at Waco.”

–50 women aren’t 50 times the fun, they’re 50 times the hassle. And one of them always feels like killing you.

PROMOS:
2-meg MP3 promo: http://www.askdollie.com/temp/PB-PlumpBuffet-Promo.mp3
14-meg WAV promo: http://www.askdollie.com/temp/PB-PlumpBuffet-Promo.wav