StinkFight.com

(E-mail interview I did today with a guy named Pete Crigler.)

Hello Michael,

My name is Pete Crigler and I am working on an essay on the history of Virginia rock music. I have just a few questions I’d like to ask you about Baby Opaque:

What was it like when you first got started and what, if anything, did it do for the particular scene you were a part of?

We started in Todd’s bedroom. We were a great band yet completely ignored. Our first show was at a frat, and they hated us. It didn’t get much better after that.

The inattention received by my groundbreaking band is part of the reason I packed up and moved to California. Things got better for me there. People cared about music that wasn’t 12-bar blues or covers of the top ten. I never wanted to be a live jukebox. I’d rather work at McDonalds.

What was success like and what was it like to break out of the regional area?

The only “success” we had was making great music. We played to an average of 20 people at all 20 or so gigs we did, total. And most of the people at those shows were the friends and girlfriends of the band.

We played a few out-of-town gigs: DC, Richmond and Norfolk, but always playing with hardcore bands. The audiences were bigger, but still scratching their heads. Hardcore punkers, for all their posturing of being alternative, can often be as closed minded as frat boys who want to boogie and drink to roadhouse blues. They’re actually often the same people, with different haircuts.

Was there a lot of unity or rivalry amongst other bands when you started, and is that still around?

No rivalry at all. We were great friends with the Landlords, The Happy Flowers, 98 Colors, Rude Buddha, LCD, and all the other Ch’Ville bands that didn’t pander to the frat crowd. And I played guitar in the hardcore band, The Beef People, after their guitarist got kicked out of their all-boys boarding school for having a girl in his room.

All these bands were very different in style, but united in a “we’re all outcasts” kinda way. We shared equipment, booking contacts, rehearsal space, and more.

Baby Opaque put out one LP and one EP, and pressed a thousand of each. We probably sold less than half that. John Beers still has a big box of the LPs in his basement. You can buy both records online, when you can find them, for either 50 cents or 50 dollars. I’ve seen them go for both on different sites.

This year, when I put all the Baby Opaque stuff online for free at www.babyopaque.com , we got three times as many downloads in the first week as Baby Opaque has sold records in 21 years. And the music continues to get a lot of downloads.

When did you first become interested in music

I loved music since before I could talk. I wanted to be a rock star starting at age five, from seeing The Partridge Family on TV.

Was there much of a scene to support you when you got started?

The alternative scene in Ch’Ville was tiny, and we were all friends.

There was a zine called “Live Squid”. It was pretty nifty. I don’t remember a lot more. I was drunk. You might want to ask John Beers. He didn’t drink, and was a lot more of a fan than me. I had trouble paying attention to things that didn’t involve furthering my personal plans for world domination. Still do.

How did Bomb get started and were you guys comfortable with all the notoriety you were getting.

I was fed up with the lack of support for my music in Baby Opaque, and was also drinking a lot. I tried to kill myself and ended up in Blue Ridge Mental Hospital.

Right after I got out, I got a postcard from Jello Biafra asking me for a copy Baby Opaque’s EP. I’d never written him before, he wrote ME, and I was blown away. I moved to San Francisco as soon as I could sell all my possessions. (I found out later that as a compulsive-obsessive completist record collector, Jello wrote that same postcard to most of the bands that were ever reviewed in Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll magazine.)

Also, I went to see Flipper in DC. We snuck backstage and asked them a lot of glowing questions. One of them finally said “You should get the hell out of here. But your girlfriend can stay.” I was impressed. I wanted to live in California and act like that.

I took a Greyhound bus to Frisko. I’d never been west of the Mississippi river. I took LSD three days in a row on the bus to “prepare” myself. Big mistake. I was a mess by the time I arrived.

I crashed on my one friend’s couch in Berkeley, commuted into the city daily on the subway to work as a bike messenger. I met Jay from Bomb in a bar when I was trying to sell him a Baby Opaque record to get beer money. We started talking, and jammed shortly after. It was magic.

We had something special, and it caught on quickly. Again, we weren’t hardcore but ended up playing a lot of hardcore shows, all over America and Europe, but we were so fucking good and the music was so aggressive that even though it wasn’t punk, punkers got it.

Bomb’s music is up at http://www.hitsofacid.com

What was your experience like with a major label with Bomb, and did it leave you bitter or disappointed?

Lol…the phrasing of the question makes me think you’ve heard me talk about this before. Or maybe you just know a lot of people who’ve been on major labels.

Warner Brothers signed about ten “alternative” bands around the same time they signed us (1990). They singed L7, Babes in Toyland, Flaming Lips, and some others that I, and history, can’t remember. It was typical corporate thinking that has been repeated since Thomas Edison first scratched a wax cylinder in 1877: “We don’t understand it, but the kids like to shimmy to it, so let’s throw it all against the wall and see what sticks.”

Apparently only the Flaming Lips stuck, because they’re the only band of those ten that still has a deal with Bugs Bunny.

Warner Brothers gave us a shitty deal. Our lawyer said it “looked like a 1965 Motown contract”.

We signed it anyway. When we started in 1986, there was no way in the world a band like us could have gotten signed. We didn’t change (other than getting better, putting out three albums - one ourselves, one on Boner Records, and one on Rough Trade – and touring incessantly), the industry changed. Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction went mega-platinum.

A manager from LA named Charley Brown contacted us. He had gotten Jane’s signed, so he had moxie in the biz. We figured “why not?” and signed with him, then with Warner Brothers.

WB put the record out, then promptly ignored us. They didn’t give us ANY tour support, didn’t help book a tour, wouldn’t give us a paltry five grand to make a video (Even when Kevin Kerslake, who’s done some of the biggest selling videos ever, lowered his price to that, because he was a fan). Warner Brothers didn’t even send out promo materials on time when WE booked our own damn tour. The promo packs often showed up the day we got there to play, far too late for the club to do anything with them. We still starved, and surprise surprise, the record tanked. WB dropped us, but didn’t bother to tell us we were dropped. We found out from our lawyer, who read it in a trade paper.

A lot of indie musicians rant endlessly about the problems of major labels without having any experience with them. I have experience. When I rant, you should believe what I say, because I’ve seen all sides of that rusty coin.

What are you up to now, is it the same as it was before?

I’ve kinda reinvented myself as a filmmaker, writer and podcaster. I still love to reach the world, but I like to get paid for it. But I still do a lot of stuff free, like this interview, because I enjoy it, and I’m honored that people ask my thoughts on things.

When I was in Bomb, I was really cocky, and it turned me into my own worst enemy. I can’t put all the blame on circumstance that we didn’t become as well known as the music deserved. I was a selfish shit, and people don’t like to work with those.

I’m still full of myself, but now I realize there’s other people in the world.

That said, a lot of what I do now is ignore the world. I’d say I’m about halfway to my lifetime goal of being famous while being left alone. I dig it.

I now treat people with respect, unless they fuck with me, then I show teeth, and use said teeth if needed. But  for the most part I avoid  daily contact with the world, and I’m very happy with that.

I’m married, very happily, and have made a “nest” for myself and my wife. We live in the sticks, an hour outside Los Angeles. Our house is comfy, quiet, secluded, and filled with cats, joy, and all the toys I need to get my thoughts out into the world, on a daily basis, forever.

I still play music, but only in my home. Usually as background or mood music for my films and other people’s films. I don’t tour, but when I do sit down to make some music, it’s often heard by more people than all my lifelong album sales combined.

I work at home, and the wife still has a day job. I have a five-year plan to get her to be able to retire and work at home, so we can just make love constantly, make art, laugh and pet the cats full time. She and I do voiceover, in our home studio. We love it, and have gotten some paid work doing that. She’s great at it. Our voiceover sites are here: http://www.michaeldeanvoice.com and http://www.debrajeandean.com

Six years ago I quit drinking, and drugging. That shit was getting in my way. It worked for a few decades, but I couldn’t sustain it, and it was getting worse.

My dear friend Brian Childers died of liver failure last month. I was in The Beef People and Bomb with him. We had similar drinking habits for a long time. I miss that guy, really hard.

Do you still keep in touch with your bandmates from Baby Opaque and Bomb and what are they up to?

I don’t talk to the drummer from Bomb. Last time we talked, a few years ago, he was a shit to me for no reason. I don’t need to take calls from drunks in the middle of the night who insult me just because they’re unhappy with the life they’ve created for themselves.

Jay and Doug from Bomb are menschs. I love those guys. They’re in Frisko, I’m in LA, but we chat on the phone and by e-mail often.

I had a lot of issues back in the day with Bomb’s manager, Charley Brown, but we’ve resolved them and chat on the phone often. I like him a lot. I even named one of my cats “Charley” after him.

I recently got in touch with Todd from Baby Opaque. Haven’t spoken in a while. He did come see “D.I.Y. OR DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist” http://www.diyordie.org when I showed it in a bar in Minneapolis when I toured with the film. Todd seemed happy and healthy. We’ve exchanged a few e-mails lately, but he’s a busy family guy.

Michael Bérubé from Baby Opaque has done quite well for himself, he’s a tenured English professor at Penn State. I love that guy and dig his mind. About once a month, we exchange about ten long, funny, smart e-mails each back and forth in the space of a day. He’s a genius.

I still talk to John Beers from the Landlords and Happy Flowers, He always sends me a Christmas card too. Sweet.

I’m really good friends with Charlie Kramer from the Landlords and Happy Flowers. We e-mail constantly and talk on the phone when we can. He’s now a government economist.

Rock on Pete. Thanks for asking, and I’m honored to answer.

Michael W. Dean

http://www.stinkfight.com

My friend Symon pointed out to me that I invented the idea of using the word “Rockstar” with a trademark symbol after it in my 2000 book, Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women.

Everytime the word  “Rockstar” appeared in the book (it appeared often), I put a trademark symbol after it. Like in this page scan from the book (red arrow added by me today):

My book came out one year before the company Rockstar drinks started doing the same thing.

Anyone dare me to send them a cease-and-desist letter?

There’s a post on BoingBong about Scott Beale from LaughingSquid (cool guy and cool site), getting a cease-and-desist letter from the lawyers at Best Buy for merely blogging about someone making parody Best Buy shirts. After BoingBoing blogged about it, Best Buy sent a apology to Scott. Boing Boing blogged that, and linked the letter.

(Read the above paragraph out loud, and you really get a good feel for the “he said/she said” nature of the blogosphere. And we’re not done here today…Not by a long shot….):

So….the comments on BoingBoing contain some of the usual to-be-expected “This is an outrage! Best Buy is worse than Hitler!!!” reactions….mostly people complaining that that the lawyer-penned apology didn’t have Best Buy on its knees groveling and licking Scott’s butthole. Best Buy simply sent a typical lawyer apology.

I replied:

Looks fine to me.

Corporations carefully watch for making any “admissions of guilt” in writing, and I’d say this is the best anyone could hope to get for something like this.

Again, there was more whining from the peanut gallery, including a rather sane comment of someone saying

Ah. OK. I’m just always interested in alternatives to the megacorps, and electronics is one area where they (alternatives, that is) seem to be few and far between.

I posted this response, a reply to all the posters:

A lot of people these days say that they’re “interested in alternatives to the megacorps”, and it’s a decent proposal.

But really, no matter where you buy it, the stuff you’re buying is made by megacorps. You can order your flat-screen TV or iPhone or Vista Laptop or any device with a microprocessor from a mom-and-pop store online, but they’re getting it from the manufacture, who is always a megacorp….a megacorp that most likely utilizes near-slave labor in China to put the stuff together.

I like to “shop locally” and “support the little guy”, but a lot of these conversations devolve quickly into “more indie than thou”. Even if you’re running Linux, you’re running it on a chip made by a megacorp. It is impossible to make a chip as fast as a Duo-core in your basement.

I go where the price is best, where the selection is good, and where they let me walk around and poke stuff for hours without bugging me. I’m not going to stop shopping somewhere because they sent someone a lawyer letter (even if that someone, Scott Beale, is someone I know and consider a very decent guy.)

Megacorps send lawyer letters. It’s what they do. When someone owns intellectual property in the old-world model, if they don’t over-police their property, they’re underpolicing it, which is problematic when someone commits a truly huge infraction, like widescale actual bootlegging. It looks bad in court if they haven’t been “defending their claim.”

It is fine and good to blog about it when it’s out of line, like with this instance, but it’s not going to keep me out of the store.

That said, I don’t shop much at Best Buy, because they don’t sell stuff I do buy. (They do, incidentally, carry media that I created.)

Michael W. Dean
http://www.stinkfight.com

MediaGeek 2007-11-07: Anarchy, Integrity and the Digital Marketplace - Interview with Michael W. Dean. From the very cool MediaGeek podcast (which is also re-broadcast on a lot of radio stations.)

http://radio.mediageek.net/?p=300

Direct MP3: http://mediageek.net/sound/2007/mg20071207.mp3

Interview with me starts at 11 minutes 40 seconds. (Though there’s some great stuff before that.)

Was done as a “double-ender” podcast, that is, we each recorded our own end of the conversation only, then I FTPed my file to him and he sewed it together. Makes it sound great, like we’re both in the same room, even though we were thousands of miles away.

We spoke on Skype, but I didn’t record with my computer. We could have been talking on the telephone and still have had great sound, because we were recording our own ends only, not the conversation over the wires.

I used the Zoom H2 to record, and just set it on the table and I sat on the floor. (To get away from the sound of the fan on my computer.)

here: http://punktv.ca/?c=105&a=2932

Me interviewed recently, on a day that I was in fine form. On PunkTV.ca (great site.)

excerpt:

PunkTV.ca: How did you create natural and essential elements of story telling in your process?

MWD: I didn’t consciously know anything about storytelling, but I was always the kid when I smoked pot when I was twelve and all of the older kids would get me high so I could tell them stories. I was always someone people listened to because I could but a paragraph together on the spot. But I had never heard of three-act format, I’d never heard of it and since I’ve heard of it I’ve come to like it but at the same time I have lots of problems with it. We had a cut of two hours and 70 minutes, and they both just dragged on, so we felt that 55 minutes was where the film wanted to be, but I think that really the format of it is less of film making and more of an essay – basically this movie is a mission statement while the people in it kind of float by, and then there are six chapters, and they kind of start with the problem being stated and then people give their take on the problem. I guess it is kind of three-act format, but I feel that is follows more of a twelfth grader’s essay.

At 01:36 AM 12/7/2007, Chris <gedgec@gmail.com> wrote:

My name is Chris and I help with the running of www.godfrey-diy.co.uk

I was looking for sites containing anything DIY related and I found your site diynow.org in Google. I was wondering if you would exchange links with us as……

No. Our sites are not about related topics. At all.

www.diynow.org is the site for my book on do-it-yourself music creation and promotion. It has nothing to do with home improvement. You’re confused because of the difference between the UK and US meanings of “DIY”.

Good luck,
MWD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xu0oKUpsBE

“All My References Are Dead” - Last show we ever did (and ever will do.) At the SF Eagle, a tough gay biker bar South of Market.

“Bomb performing live at The Eagle, San Francisco, 9/15/1999. Special Eddy Edition. The sound is awful. It was Bomb’s last performance, so far, at the Eagle’s 2nd Anniversary. What a place. What a time…..”

Shot by Woody for an un-aired episode of RealityCheck TV.

…via e-mail today. Felt too good not to post, there’s so much history here.

Skip is my longest-running friend. Met him in college in 1982. He turned me onto punk rock. He lives in China now.

————————-

At 02:59 PM 12/5/2007, Skip wrote:

…..yeah i figgered as such. we can say tho that yer first punk band was with greg?

MWD wrote:

I’d rather not.

Anyway, I think my first punk band was the Armless Children lineup before Greg and his brother, the lineup with Doug on bass and Tony Yanik on drums and me on guitar and singing.

Skip wrote:

he was actually a goupie for the earlier Salamanca crew, Punk London. [worst name ever???" ] so.. Bob-o-matic was Cattaragus’s only true punk musician. ,,

MWD wrote:
My first band that played a gig was called “London/US Air.” Did I ever tell you that? Cover band in Westfield, on vacation from church farm school, when I was 15.
Keyboard player is now the Dean of Sweetbriar college (private all-girls college in Virginia. Damn, I’m glad no one ever gave me that job….)

All my long-term friends, except you, Jay and Doug, have PhDs or are lawyers.

Skip wrote:

ANYWAY. I didn’t think that you played “punk guitar ” that good, cause you were “too good and musical”.

MWD wrote:
At that time I was too good to play punk, but not good enough to play the prog rock I wanted to play. I didn’t really come onto my own until I was 18, switched to bass, and wrote punk rock bass lines for prog rock songs we wrote in Baby Opaque. (Drummer of that band is a tenured English proff with a PhD, as you know.)

Skip wrote:

I saw your band The Armless Children, not yet punk really, and never greg boltz n the nutz. that was prolly strange ..at MARSHALL DILLONS disco?

MWD wrote:

Yup. At a country and western battle of the bands.  Our friend Rowdy Remmington talked a redneck out of shooting us while we were on stage.

Skip wrote:

But what really impressed me was when you send me the baby opaque.
not even the music so much as that when i heard that you took a CONSTRUCTION job for the summer to pay for it!

I imagine skinny li’l you shirtless up on  a girder, sweating.

MWD wrote:
I’m glad anyone still pictures me skinny. But nope. No traipsing on girders. I mostly swept up after the guys with actual skills. But I did sweat. It was in Virginia in the Summer. And made four bucks an hour.

Skip wrote:

Talk about selling your soul for rock n roll…….that takes big balls and dedication. sacrifice baby.
placard:

“Will work construction jobs for Punk”

MWD wrote:
I did paid medical research to help pay for the recording of my DC band, “The Day I Lost My Virginity.” I was a guinea pig.
And I did that again in San Fran to pay for the pressing of “to Elvis in hell.”

In DC it was something called “anti-steroids.” I’ve never heard of them since, so I don’t think they passed the tests.
In San Fran it was a study where they paid me to be shot up with cocaine, then made me play video games and measured my response times. I almost got kicked out of the study for asking “Can I PLEASE just go in the bathroom and masturbate?????” I even offered to let them follow me in with their clipboards and watch. All in the interest of science, of course.

First film I ever made (made with help from Li’l Mike and Charles Cohen.)

“In 1992 BOMB tricked Warner Bros into giving them an advance without having the band sign a record contract. BOMB hired Bill Laswell to produce their album “Hate Fed Love”. The album was released but… Warner Bros didn’t have a clue what to do with the band. Hence, BOMB produced this video to orient the corporation to their unusual world. The band was promptly dropped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQaWY4C2pA

(posted by Bomb’s ex manager, Charlie Brown. Is slightly better encode than one posted previously by Li’l Mike.)

As I often say, “Most of the Internet sucks. It needs more of me on it.”

Here’s two things folks sent me tonight:

Bomb at the reunion show September 11, 1999, at the Cocodrie in San Francisco. doing “All My References Are Dead ”

Two-camera shoot from my friend of nearly two decades, Michael Woody.  “Shot by Woody and Huge for an un-aired episode of RealityCheck TV.”

Also:

Great instructional video on filmmaking on YouTube, by Glen Parkinson. At the end, he fixes himself a nice cup of coffee, and relaxes with a copy of $30 Film School.

I asked my father-in-law (a self-described “curmudgeon”) what his politics are and he said “It depends on the issue. If it’s abortion, I’m left of Nancy Pelosi. If it’s social welfare, I’m right of Genghis Khan.” (Keep in mind this is a guy who votes Republican but has long been a registered Democrat so he can vote against the more capable democratic candidate in the primaries.)

(And I really like the guy. He’s kind, funny, and far more intelligent and interesting to talk to than a lot of people I know.)

While I don’t agree with his extremes, it really got me thinking….I’m kind of the same way. I oppose unbridled spending on social welfare, and I am pro-choice.

But the thing me and my father-in-law have in common politically in a larger way is “It depends on the issue.”

Republicans with fiscal policies that I consider sound probably want to put me in jail for saying “fuck” on the Internet (or in my back yard). They’re usually not pro-choice, and are often convinced that the Rapture is coming soon anyway, so “Why NOT let industry dump battery acid into a river, why not kill little brown people on the other side of the globe because their shacks are built on top of the oil that God meant for us, and why not secretly read Michael Dean’s e-mail because he likes to say ‘fuck’ on the Internet? I mean, hell, Michael Dean was once involved in some sort of underground organization called BOMB!”

Conversely, the liberals with views that match mine on the importance of civil liberties, and of having a defensive rather than offensive military, keeping abortions legal, having well-funded schools (even if they teach evolution), having freely available medical marijuana, being able to say “fuck” on the Internet, and a lot of other issues, are often the same people who want to, at best, tax me to death, control every aspect of my life, regulate everything in America to an absurd degree, dissolve even a defensive military, grant the rights of citizens to non-citizens….etc. And some of them recently passed a law in Calabasas, California (one town over from me) that makes it illegal to smoke a cigarette in the backyard of a home you own. And if you rent, you can’t smoke IN YOUR APARTMENT in that town.

In a word, I feel like liberals want to protect me from my own ignorance. I feel this is counterintuitive to the relatively sound ground plans of the founding fathers.

But I have an idea to write a sensible, compassionate book about this subject….the subject that “In a two-party system, there’s no one on either side who really represents me. At all. Why can’t I do it take-out menu style, picking one guy to represent one issue from column A, another from column B, etc.?”

I’m tossing around the idea for this book now. I think a need and a market exists for it. True, there are a few books that touch on the subject, but most are written by loons like Pat Robertson, Ann Coulter and Glen Beck.

I’ll keep on the book idea. Stay tuned for further developments.

–MWD

 
Article I wrote on the O’Reilly Digital Media site:

http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/11/29/anarchy-vs-digital-copyright.html

I’m now using a really cool Flash-based MP3 player on my voiceover site. I love it. Check it out and try it here.

The player is free from http://www.premiumbeat.com (who also have royalty-free music). You can also pay a little bit more and not have their logo and link on it. I have it like that on my page.

Prices vary from $19.95 for the mini Player to $29.95 for the Multiple Player with menu. The regular single track player and the Multiple Player without the menu are at $24.95.

A cool, well meaning dude wrote me an e-mail critiquing my new voiceover resume site, www.michaeldeanvoice.com.

I won’t reprint his e-mail here, because I didn’t ask his permission, and he took a lot of time with it, and I don’t want to look like I’m slamming him (I’m not). But here’s the reply I sent him:

—-

Hey sir,
I appreciate you doing this offlist, and for taking all the time to critique it. Some good comments here.

First, please look at the site again, I believe I already changed it before you wrote your letter…My podcast link is gone, the font colors are changed, and there are Flash players so you don’t have to leave the page.

As for the “1997 design”, well, I learned HTML in 1996, perfected my style with it in 1997, and actually haven’t changed a bit since then. But I like it. I think it looks good in this day and age, and not like most other sites. You think StinkFight looks better, but it’s a Word Press template, and looks like all the other Word Press sites. People often tell me to update my Web sites’ look, but they invariably suggest I homogenize it into the latest flavor. That’s not for me.

Yes, having a YouTube video seems “below the fold”, but that video has gone viral, it’s had 127,000 hits in about ten days. I’d like to think my voice contributed in some small way to that.

I’ll look into the site you suggested, Voice123.com, I did briefly a few months ago, but it seemed like a lot of wannabes to me. I’ll look at it more closely though, and consider buying space to put a reel on there. But I’m generally offended by sites that “talk to me” when I load them, and the voices that load at me as soon as I go to that site, the ones put there by the site’s owner, sound horribly generic to me.

I sound like a stoned surfer with a slight lisp. I’m not going to get work doing dog food or hemroid cream or Chevy truck commercials. Nor would I want to, even if it paid a lot. But a lot of people really love my voice, and keep asking me to do free work, so I think there’s a demand for me to get more paid work. I just don’t want to do it the “normal” way. I never do anything “the normal way.”

Basically I make a living making media, and I mostly do it my own way.

Check out the CV link I’ve added to the page. None of it is “below the fold”. I do a lot of different things: writing books, making films, producing and creating music, writing for different media sites, and I’ve done paid voice work.

Usually when I’m starting out with new things, people tell me to “do it the way everyone else is doing it”, I don’t, and end up making a name for myself doing it my way anyway.

Most of the work I get from any of the many different things I do for pay is from referrals from people I know anyway, so I’m not that concerned with looking like the latest flavor.

Respectfully,
MWD

My new voiceover resume website, www.michaeldeanvoice.com

Michael W. Dean: high-quality work at reasonable rates, years of experience, full-service in-house recording facility, and a smile.

Today, as part of our honeymoon, Debra Jean and I drove on a whim to the Grand Canyon. It took almost four hours each way from where we’re staying near Phoenix, and was TOTALLY worth it.

The Canyon is awesome, and I’ve never seen it before. DJ has been there, but not as an adult.

We loved every minute of the day.

There’s a few pix here on StinkFight, but the rest of them are at

http://www.debrajeandean.com/GrandCanyonWeb/grand.htm

I know it sounds like a cop-out, but I don’t really have any words to describe the awesomeness of the day. I’m speechless. And the pix speak for themselves.

Me representin’ for my homies, The Echo Park Film Center.

Me representin’ for my homies, The O’Reilly Digital Media site

So, tomorrow is Black Friday, the most insanely busy shopping day of the year. It’s also the day, historically, that the festivity-industrial complex rolls out the cheezy xmas decorations and music to get you in the mood to celebrate the birth of Our Savior by selling you lead-tainted plastic crap and amazingly realistic first-person shooter video games.

My sanctified offering is this song “GOD REST YE MERRY BONZO”. It’s sort of perverted xmas music…. me doing the classic xmas tune “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman” over a loop of a drum beat by John “Bonzo” Bonham, from Led Zeppelin.

I sang, played bass, sleigh bells and piano. My friend George Earth played guitar (he recorded it for me over the Internet.)

Dig it, share it, use it, love it. And pass it on.

Acknowledge-Me

Saturday Dec 1st. 8PM-2AM. Scoot Inn (1308 E. 4th Street) www.acknowledge-me.com
Join Raji World and iLoveMikeLitt for a celebration of all things indie in the ATX. (Austin, Texas).

Festivities include:

• a d.i.y. Crafts Market
• Zine Fair
• free Vegan Fare
• Documentary Screenings: D.I.Y. or Die: How To Survive as an Independent Artist, and Handcraft Nation
• Local Music: the Mysterious H, Canopy, Screamin Baby Heads, Billy Harvey, Brazos, Toko-Ri Get High, Omega Monster Patrol

$5 cover benefits Habitat on Wheels, a local non-profit project that helps homeless people in Austin get on payment plans for RVs.

Interview for Verbicide Magazine I did with Alan FallOfAutumn (guy who made the YouTube emo commercial).

My interview was printed in small excerpt in the magazine, along with bits from three other indie filmmakers. But the link above is my full interview.

Covers a lot of where I’m at in my life right now. Sort of a mission statement. It begins:

I always wanted to reach the world from my bedroom. When I was a kid growing up in a small, boring town in Upstate New York, I sent lots of letters to magazines, had pen pals, and worked on science projects that I thought would plug me into an endless historic brotherhood of thinkers. And I practically lived at the local library, because I loved information.

DOWNLOAD AS FREE EBOOK HERE.

This is my first novel, “Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women“. Published as a paperback book in 2000. (Out of print, but available used on Amazon here.)

“Like On the Road as written by Dean Moriarty.”

–Author, and Penn State English professor, Michael Bérubé, Ph.D

“It reads a bit like a Henry Miller novel without all the meandering bullshit. I’m glad the book is selling well. It deserves to.”

–Ben “Weasel” Foster

“This book is about perspective. Cash Newmann is a fictional character who carries more truth than even the self-absorbed author would know.”

–Your Flesh magazine

Excerpt from the book: “I pulled the half-smoked ciggy butt out of my pocket and lit it. I took a deep drag and thought about the politically correct lesbian who had taken me home and seduced me. I met her at the VD clinic. She smiled at me and she was alone. I said “Hi, come here often?”

Some of this book translated into Lithuanian.

Download “Clone The Homeless” episode 0058

Mon, 18 Nov 2007

Interview with A-list podcasters Tee Morris and Matthew Wayne Selznick, recorded in the Deans’ hotel room at the 2007 pod expo.
Matt and Tee talk about Podiobooks, “Brave Men Run“, “Podcasting for Dummies“, iTunes, Creative Commons, and the future of new media.

Entire episode recorded on location with the Zoom H2 portable handy recorder.

(From the “Clone The Homeless” podcast, Michael W. Dean’s educational podcast that remembers when sex was safe and music was dangerous.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RDw9yx7gEM

“Now That’s What I Call Emo : YouTube Edition”

Fake commercial my friend Alan ( fallofautumndistro) made. Pretty damn funny.
I did the voiceover (and Debra Jean did the “apathetic diary girl” voice).

–MWD

Whenever you’re dealing with the “biz” or a “mogul”, and they say something like “I really like your demo, I think we could do business”….Ask them, “Which song do you like best, and what do you like about it?”

(Or if you’re a writer, ask them which character they like, or if you’re a filmmaker, which scene they like.)

The reason is this: Businesspeople often sign bands they don’t understand. This isn’t always a bad thing…Sometimes the person who gives you a good deal but looks at your art simply as “units shipped” can do a better job marketing it then then well-intended person who loves art but doesn’t understand business. But it’s good to be able to tell if the person you’re dealing with really “gets” you. It will help you make better decisions.

When Bomb was getting courted by the majors, a guy from Atlantic records told us he really liked our music. When we asked, “Which song do you like?”, He said “You know, the one about….um…..girls.”

MWD

(Post on Web forum board of Cavern Club, a very cool bar in the city of Exeter, UK where I showed DIY or DIE. Post is some punker’s response to the club owner posting my “DIY or DIE on Zune” press release. Below the punker’s response is my response to him.)

———————

edx wrote: Am I missing something here?
I presume the films makers at the very least empathise with the subject they are documenting? Actively choosing to hand this over to a multi national like Microsoft hardly seems inline with what I imagine the subject of this film to be.
The film itself might be available for free but it’s not being hosted by Microsoft for any reason other than to help shift some corporate product.
Hey! Maybe this is some sort of ironic comment on the relationship between DIY and corporate ideals circa 2007?!?

——-

Michael W. Dean replied: This is a ridiculous statement. And these sentiments are usually posted by someone who lives with their parents, or eats out of a dumpster. And the poster was usually six years old when I started putting out my own records booking my own tours.

I’ve been defending this film for five years.

I made this film to share art and to reach people, not to make money. And no money was exchanged in either direction with Microsoft (they got content, I got hits.)

And for what it’s worth, Microsoft came to me, I did not go to them.

I made money at the film over the past five years, but put it most of it back into promoting the film. (Not that there’s anything wrong with making money, but personally, after food and shelter, I basically spend all my money on art supplies, and on getting my art out to the world.)

(I toured US and Europe with the film, among other things, to bring it to the people. Showed it at Cavern Club too, had a blast. Thanks guys!)

I’ve replied to this “punker than thou” accusation at length, by the way.

Here:
http://www.stinkfight.com/2007/11/13/punker-than-thou/ (post “Punker than thou”)
and here:
http://tinyurl.com/39u6ur

Here is a list of the artists in my film who are selling their songs on the Zune Marketplace: Mike Watt, Fugazi, Lydia Lunch, Dave Brockie (in Gwar), J Mascis, Madigan Shive (in Bonfire Madigan), Steve Albini (in Big Black), Lynn Breedlove (in Tribe 8 ), J.G. Thirlwell (as Foetus) and Eric McFadden.

They are all selling their songs on Apple’s iTunes store too, except Steve Albini (though the record he engineered for Nirvana is certainly on there.)

I had nothing to do with getting these artists on either site, but none of these folks are fools. (Which is why I chose to interview them.)

All these artists’ songs, on both sites, are encoded with DRM (Digital Rights Management) restrictions. And are for sale.

Not that I feel there’s anything wrong with selling music, I do it myself with my own songs.

But note: I am GIVING away “DIY or DIE” for FREE, in NEAR DVD QUALITY, with NO DRM.
————————

All of “DIY or DIE” is also free on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDE5vvs1WxY

–Michael W. Dean
Director, “DIY or DIE: How To Survive as an Independent Artist”

 I am working on several writing projects for several companies right now. I recently sent a letter to one of my editors. The letter is below. (By the way, the editor dug it, and knows I’m printing it here.)

—————–

Howdy,

Doing the “how-to, with software screenshots” stuff like in the new article is something I’m quite capable of doing, but it hurts my brain. I’m much better at writing about myself and my experience in the world of media production, like in the other article I sent in yesterday.

I’ll write whatever you need, but if you want to keep me doing the most kick-ass stuff, please keep that in mind, and maybe point me to write stuff that’s more “paragraphs explaining processes and life lessons in art” rather than “Step 1, do this (screenshot here), step 2, do this (another screenshot)…..etc.

I think doing articles that contain more of the “experience” and less of the “for dummies”-type tech writing will really bring more of my A-game to the playing table.

There are thousands of people people who can write tutorials better than me, but no one does the other stuff quite the way I do.

(For proof of this, there are 150 customer reviews for “$30 Film School”,
95% of them mention nothing about the tutorials, but rave about the life-changing aspects of my “punk rock cheerleading” http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598631896/ and
http://www.amazon.com/30-Film-School-distribute-no-budget/dp/1592000673/
)

Just a thought,
MWD

I am working on a book about dealing with loss, inspired by, among other things, dealing with the death of my daughter.

One problem I see with such a book is that if it’s successful, people will read it and send me long e-mails about their grief.

I get long e-mails from the readers of “$30 Film School” from people telling me about their projects. I love getting these e-mails. But I don’t know if I could deal with many many e-mails from people about their grief, when I’m still in my own mourning process.

In a similar way, popularizing “DIY or DIE” by mass-releasing it free on Zune Marketplace, I knew I’d be opening myself up to the same “You’re not punk enough/you did something wrong with your art/I’m jealous of your tiny success” etc. etc. that I’ve faced my whole life, and especially, since that film came out in 2002.

Below is an interaction I had on the Yahoo Podcasting board today. You probably don’t need (or want) to read the whole thread, but if you want to, it starts here.

Basically, someone spammed the board (a place I call home) with an ad for “Hollywood sound effects”. I felt they were misrepresenting themselves (the people involved are NOT “Hollywood”) and the sound effects are in a compromised audio format, MP3, which is NOT of the level of quality used in real Hollywood films and television.

Ostensibly, I think the guy (”MissPeter”, and yeah, it’s a dood…It’s always a dood posting crap like this…girls just dig art and don’t get as chest thumpy about the semantics as doods) who responded to my response to the spammer, was taking me to task for putting something called “DIY” on something from Microsoft.

I see no problem doing this…anyone making new media is using tools - at least hardware - made by major corporations. Digital cameras and microphones are made by corporations. Guitars are made by Gibson and Fender. And when was the last time you saw some punker running Linux on a laptop with integrated circuits burned in his own sterile laboratory? Can’t be done.

And besides, my line in the intro of the film about “…this DIY ethic drives everything from garage bands to the largest software companies in the world” is a direct reference to Microsoft and Apple, which were started in a dorm room, and a garage, respectively.

(And in response to anyone who complains at someone taking advantage of useful opportunities, I usually say, “Would you turn it down if it were offered to you?” I wouldn’t put a beer ad in the middle of my film, but I’ll let a huge new player in new media showcase it. No money was exchanged either. Microsoft Zune got content, I got mass downloads and press. )

(I’m tired of 25 years of defending my art. And I’ve written more than one 500-page book that covers the subject well. Buy ‘em, or download ‘em free on Bittorrent.)

So…..I made a handshake bet with my wife that someone would try to take me down a peg on the Yahoo Podboard for the Zune feature within 24 hours.

It only took 12.

Below my DIY bar code is the guy’s stab at me, and my response (I corrected a few of my typos, and tightened up my wording - I wrote the original Yahoo post in a haste - but I left the tone and exact meaning for the reprint here):

— In podcasters@yahoogroups MissPeter <peter@…> wrote:

> Why does any of that matter? Are you saying that it’s not REAL unless
> it’s the same one that everyone else is using? or it’s not REAL if it
> isn’t by a big name? Not very DIY of you…
> p
======

Peter-

First of all, “not very DIY of you” is very grade school of you.

And I’ve handled “punker than thou” assaults on my integrity in person from tough German anarchists when it’s just me and them in *their* squat, and taken the same from drunken skinheads in British pubs, so I can take it from you on the Internet.

Anyway, it’s an absurd allegation. People determine their own definition of DIY. If you have integrity, you will make choices that work. I do that. DIY is not a banner or buzzword for me. It’s my life. I often turn down work that pays a lot and do something else that I feel like doing instead, and frequently end up giving it away or selling it really cheap.

Second, I wasn’t saying using certain tools isn’t cool. I love tools, and avail myself of any I can grab.

I used the Hollywood Edge collection on my last film. The guy who did the sound mix owns the whole collection (about the price of a nice car). He owns it to use in his constant employment mixing sound on number-one Hollywood films.

On the other hand,, I also regularly record my cats, and sounds out on the street, to use in my podcasts.

What I was saying (I guess not very clearly) is that I don’t like people using “Hollywood” as a selling point when they’re not really involved in Hollywood. It strikes me as B.S. If you lived in Los Angeles, you’d probably have a much lower tolerance for it. It hits you CONSTANTLY. It seems like everyone everywhere in LA is trying to claim credits and associations that they don’t really have.

I am also not saying *I* am “Hollywood.” I am very much not, though I have had some genuine dealings with it on some serious levels.

I have no desire to be “Hollywood”.

–MWD

P.S.

Sometimes I question the usefulness of poking at, and pointing out, this kind of “Hollywood hustle” stuff in the world. But I feel that it’s so prevalent that if I completely ignore the weenies they just might take over.

Mission Accomplished.

I got an e-mail from the company today casually asking out of the blue if I could compile all of my updates for the next printing by, oh, say….Friday.

It’s not a new edition, just little touch ups of the second edition, but there’s always a lot of them. People move, people die, Web addresses change, software gets updated, etc.

I’m busier this week than a long-tailed cat in a room fulla rocking chairs.

But that’s what they call “a quality problem”……..I’m damn happy. It sure beats having nothing to do, and I’ve done that before.

…..And I’m damn happy. It stands to get hundreds of thousands of downloads.

Here are two screenshots:

It’s in the top-four video podcast picks on Zune Marketplace, alongside “Ask A Ninja”, Diggnation, and Peter Tong’s (from the BBC) cast.

(Download the free Zune software here. No Zune needed.)

Yay!

(director Michael W. Dean with a copy of DIY or DIE: Burn This DVD)

SO….I sent out press releases last night for the upcoming DIY or DIE download giveaway on Zune Marketplace.

Eight people e-mailed me already today and told me I “should put the film out under Creative Commons”.

Here’s my reply:

I am very dedicated to sticking with the choices I made on this film, and I stand by them.

I love Creative Commons, and think it makes the world a better place. I did put a out book Digital Music – DIY Now! under CC, and even gave away the Quark files and high-rez images so people could translate or “remix” it.

But I’m very weary of people suggesting (and sometimes telling me) what to do with my art. Nothing against you, and you’ll have to excuse me while I climb up on my soapbox….See, you have to understand you’re probably the 300th person to tell me “You should put the film out under Creative Commons” in the past four years, and it wears me out.

In calling this article “How I invented Creative Commons”, I am certainly not implying that Lawrence Lessig copied my idea (he didn’t), but rather I’m saying that he was working on Creative Commons while I was simultaneously and independently coming up with a similar distribution model for DIY or DIE…with no knowlege of what Lessig was up to.

I released DIY or DIE commercially through Music Video Distributors on VHS on 10/29/2002 (PDF sales sheet), six weeks before Creative Commons published their first licenses. I released it on DVD as DIY or DIE: Burn This DVD (the name kinda says it all) on 1/28/2003 (see same sales sheet.) But the DVD was authored and already named by October of 2002.

From Wikipedia: “The initial set of Creative Commons licenses was published on December 16, 2002.”

Basically, I feel I invented something very much like Creative Commons myself, before I ever heard of CC, before CC went public, with the way I released DIY or DIE (copyrighted, but giving people permission in the license of the VHS and DVD to make 10 copies for friends, and allowed each of those ten people to make 10 copies. I am also selling the DVD cheap, 8 bucks.)

Many people don’t realize that CC is not always an alternative to copyright, but sometimes a set of parameters within copyright. CC material is often copyrighted, and the various CC licenses simply give the end user more options, within the scope of the existing copyright.

I did the same thing with my DVD. It was copyrighted, and I made exceptions for non-commercial use.

The DIY or DIE DVD is, as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong), the first instance of a commercial media product being released under copyright but giving users express permission to make non-commercial copies. Also, the DVD was released with no copy protection, and no region encoding.

–MWD

p.s.

The reason I didn’t include anything in the DVD license about downloads is that in 2002 the bandwidth didn’t really exist to cheaply give away massive numbers of copies of a movie online.

DIY or DIE was the first independent film (and probably the first film) ever released on DVD with subtitles in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

When I toured with DIY or DIE (fun photos here), I was probably the second or third person to tour Europe with a self-booked tour of a digital film, in 2003. (Scott Beibin did it before me, with the Lost Film Fest.)

Next week’s high-quality DIY or DIE giveaway on Zune Marketplace (and eventually as a direct download from the Libsyn blog where I’m hosting it) is NOT the first instance of a commercial DVD being given away free as a high-quality download. It’s probably the second. (I thought it was the first, and embarrassingly, sent out press releases to that effect, then sent out an updated “Please us this instead” press release an hour later when I was corrected).

I thought it was the first, but someone pointed out that Jason Scott allowed friends to put his BBS Documentary (great film, by the way) on BitTorrent in 2005, and he linked the Torrent on his site.

Even though Jason didn’t host the media files himself, due to the nature of how Bittorrent works, I feel that a director linking someone else’s torrent really *does* constitute giving the film away himself.

DIRECTOR’S GIVEAWAY OF AN ENTIRE COMMERCIAL FILM,
ENCODED IN HIGH QUALITY, WITH NO DRM

“D.I.Y. OR DIE: How to Survive as an Independent Artist”
Free on Zune Marketplace and Zune.net

Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace launches Tuesday, November 13, 2007, and Zune.net launches the week after. Both are giving a high-placement feature to the documentary film “D.I.Y. OR DIE: How to Survive as an Independent Artist“. Film info: http://www.diyordie.org

(Download the free Zune software on Tuesday. No Zune needed.)

Director Michael W. Dean is giving away the entire film as eight episodic chapters over eight weeks’ time, one per week as free video downloads, in the “podcasts” section of Zune Marketplace and Zune.net.

These free downloads are encoded in high quality (30 fps, 900 kbps MP4 files, 640 x 480 size, with 128-bit audio, and no digital rights management or copy protection). It looks great on a Zune or other portable media devices, and damn good full screen on a computer. The entire film will stay online until at least April 2008.

Seven extras from the DVD (including interviews with Ian MacKaye, Steve Albini, and Lydia Lunch) will also be available for free download, one per week, after the final chapter of the film posts.

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), Craig Newmark (founder Craig’s List) and more.

Directed by: Michael W. Dean.
Edited by: Miles Montalbano.
DVD architect: Blaine Graboyes

Director Michael W. Dean says, “People keep asking me, ‘Why are you posting the whole film when it’s still selling 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.”

“Many people have also asked me (often in an accusatory manner), ‘DUDE, how come there’s a copyright notice at the end of your film? Why isn’t it Creative Commons?’”

Dean replies: “Well, first of all, Creative Commons had just launched when I finished the film, and I hadn’t heard of it yet. But mainly I copyrighted the film to protect against uses I wouldn’t dig….someone putting a beer ad in the middle of it, or large-scale commercial bootlegging. But I’m pretty free and easy with people sharing it. Hell, the DVD is called DIY or DIE: Burn This DVD, and I’ve always encouraged people to make free copies to give to friends.”

Michael W. Dean’s full explanation of his reasoning for this giveaway: http://tinyurl.com/39u6ur

(Also see related article “How I Invented Creative Commons“.)

—–

Hi-res press photo of DVD cover: http://files.dvdnote.com/images/300dpi/dr-4347.jpg
Web-res press photo of DVD cover: http://www.kittyfeet.com/DIYDVDCoversmall.jpg
Print- and Web-res stills from film: http://www.kittyfeet.com/DiyPromo.htm

Download episode 0057 of Clone The Homeless

THE FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE BECKY CHAT TETRALOGY!

Fri, 9 Nov 2007

Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean have a chat with our special little friend, Becky Haycox. (Part 4 of 4)

Why Becky enjoys the lusty pleasures of life, why gelato is almost as good as sex, if you live alone and die and have cats - they will eat you, why we like saying “Yessssssssss”, “Jill had touched the chick”, why women like gay porn, Judith Krantz, why everything should be digital, all about the “Urban Food Log group”.

Photos of the day here.

Entire episode recorded on location on the street in Ventura, California on the Zoom H2 portable handy recorder.

Smoke is not only bad for humans, it’s bad for condenser mics. Coats the element with tar, makes them sound bad over time. And unlike humans, mics don’t regenerate when they sleep.

We were putting the mics away all after each use, but it’s a lot of work (we will sometimes record three or four short sessions, and one longer one, in a given day.) And it’s more wear and tear on the mics.

Our solution is so simple, yet it works. We now leave the mics on stands, but drape a towel over them when we’re not using them. Keeps the smoke out, but far easier to get ready to record than taking them them out of the box in the closet and putting them on the stands and hooking up the cable. All you have to do is pull the towels off the mics.

It really works! No smoke smell on the microphones, and the mics stay happy. Also keeps dust out. Great if you smoke, also great if you run a studio and find that you get more clients if you allow smoking (some studios do).

I would recommend tossing the towels in the wash once a month, but make sure they’re totally absolutely dry before putting back on the mics.

….You only have to be a little bit smarter than your target audience. And a lot more clever and driven.

Download episode 0056 of Clone The Homeless

Fri, 2 Nov 2007

Michael W. Dean and Debra Jean Dean have a chat with podcasting OGs (”original geeks”) Stephen Eley and Evo Terra.

These two cats were two of the first ever people podcasting, and they are (young) elder statesman of the craft. Stephen Eley runs extremely popular sci-fi audiobook podcast, Escape Pod. Evo Terra co-wrote Podcasting For Dummies, and runs the extremely popular audio book podcast Podiobooks.com.

Both guys expound at length on the past, present and future of portable media.

Entire episode recorded on location at the 2007 New Media Expo in Ontario, California, on the Zoom H2 portable handy recorder.

(Small excerpts of these were used in the O’Reilly podcast report I did, but these are the whole, brilliant, uncut chats.)

The other interviews I did that week will be going up soon.

This is unreal……

Check out the bass cabinet behind the trumpet player in this photo of this very cool new trance-garage-psychedelic band in San Francisco called “Wooden Shjips” (Chronicle photo by Liz Hafalia above, article here.)

I bought this SVT cab and head in 1986 to play in my band Bomb. It was already old then. I bought it from a place called “Black Market Music” for $1000 (including tax) for the combo, which also included a red Anvil road case case for the amp head. I stenciled the band logo on the sides of the cab, the backplate of the head, and the road case as soon as I bought it.

This thing was more than gear to me, it was my heartbeat, to myself and the world, for seven years.

I toured America six times playing through this Ampeg SVT combo….and up and down the West Coast a lot and in San Francisco constantly…over 500 gigs. I played it on all the Bomb records except the Laswell one (I used his SVT) and the “Personal Jesus” single (was in Germany, used the SVT of the band we were touring with.)

This song, “Bigger Than Fun”, is the amp turned up to about 8.

I lost it to a pawn shop on sixth street in 1993, soon after Bomb broke up. Some guy bought it from them.

I got clean in 1994, bought it back from the guy in 1995. My friend Bean used the amp for two years in our band Slish. Then Slish broke up and I used it for another year with my friends Cliff and Squid. I sold the combo to my good buddy Newt in 1998. He later sold it to our friend Warner.

I moved to LA in 2001, Warner passed away, I forgot about the amp.

Friggin’ unbelievable.

–

Anyway, hey Wooden Shjips: Your music sounds great, amp still sounds great, glad it kept rockin’ longer than I did.

———————

(Thanks, Tania Skevos!)

People keep asking me “Why did you post the WHOLE film on YouTube and Zune Marketplace and Zune.net? Are you Crazy” (on YouTube and Zune Marketplace now, coming to Zune.net the week of November 19th).

Here ya go:
(in no special order)

1. It’s my gift to the world.

2. I’ve gotten what I need to from this film, and then some:

–I MADE it. That was a triumph to actually finish a first film against all odds. And it turned out GOOD.

–The film has inspired many people They write me almost every day and tell me it got them off their ass.

–I’ve traveled the US and Europe with it, and had a blast. Free paid vacation for five months.

–I was able to write “$30 Film School as a result of making it