Video Shortened - Not Uploaded

The video I was going to upload has been shortened and I resent intensely being required to make any change whatsoever to any creation and particularly for some gumshoe clerk who doesn't give a rat's ass about it in the first place.

Yevette did offer to let me use her cell number and she wasn't the only one.  Other suggestions were also made but none of these will work.

Shortening the video leaves a bad taste as I'm not sure if that's rolling over.  It also leaves a good deal of anger as it will take another eight hours to render it with the fans on this damn tiny little laptop blowing their guts out the whole time.

I have a very low opinion of performing.  Right now the Dim-Witted Three-Titted Woman gets more interest on Facebook than the way the U.S. bombed the shit out of Iraq last night.  So, perform to what audience.

The video will be ready sometime today.  I do want to finish the book as I'm damned if it can end with some horrid happy face like it's all Walt Disney or something.

Use of Alternate Video Sites or Other Circumventions Are Not Acceptable

Thank you to people who have generously offered phone numbers or alternative video upload sites but the principle is more important than anything I'm doing or will ever do.

The only reason Facebook hasn't done exactly the same thing is they know you will quit if they try it. Facebook is too easy to replace.

There are ten years of my videos on YouTube and others I've made have come and gone over the years there.  To use alternative sites means either to move those ones or start scattering myself around the place in some higgledy-piggledy (i.e. modern Internet) fashion.  I'm on ReverbNation...no, wait...I'm on SoundCloud...no, hold it...I'm on ... I don't care.

The principle is the extortion and why should I not believe the same thing will not spread to all video hosting sites so long as YouTube continues this.

It's heartbreaking.  America is so obsessed with this extortion of information that one old guy can't fuck around with his little videos for a circle of friends.  Maybe we make bombs, right.

The extortion continues so long as people roll over.

"Abandoning Paradise" - Book Has Been Murdered by YouTube

The video demonstrating all the instruments was fully-uploaded to YouTube and then they put up a message that it exceeds size limits and they need to verify my account with either an automated call or a text message.  This is not practical as I do not have a cellphone and it is not possible as I do not submit to extortion.

• A longer version of this video was already online.  I deleted it prior to uploading this one as I considered it senseless to waste space on two.
• The newest version of the video took who knows how many hours for my edits plus about six and a half hours to render it.
• Neither one is online now.

The video is integral to the final stage of the book so YouTube has not only destroyed the simple viewing aspect but also the compositional in terms of how the videos augment the story I have been telling.

It's a cold-blooded murder for an arbitrary reason and it wasn't even based on a previous standard as they lowered it just to kill this one or the previous version would never have been accepted.

This kills that video, the book, and this does it for me and online.  I will not perform again.  It would not have been possible this Thursday anyway due to the medical stuff starting back up again so this appears to be the time.

Thanks, YouTube, for going just one too many grasps over the line.  The endless invasions from busybodies who have no business in my life are over as the only reason to do it is to profit themselves and there's one thing for sure:  I will never see a dime of it.

There are only four words left:

Fuck it.  I quit.

"Abandoning Paradise" is Not Over

The latest story is "The Galaxy Shines Again" ... but this isn't the dance off into the sunset.

Since none of this has been written, I'm outlining and then back-filling as I go along.  The story is such and so but the way to tell it is this and that.  If your such and so is cool then your this and that drops in right where it needs to go.

I'm telling you it needs to go to "The Paradise Song" or it isn't finished and it ain't there yet.  I don't even know what it sounds like yet.

There's an existential cop to it as why should I believe "The Paradise Song" is achievable, not just by me but by anyone.  It's not my thinking that I can do it when no-one else can as everybody has a different one so that kind of consideration is irrelevant.  It's a valid but lame way to end it with the epiphany that Paradise is the Ideal to be sought but never obtained.  I'm not going to do that as I don't fookin' believe it.  The whole point of the book is that Paradise is all over the fookin' place, you just have to look.  So that song has to come.

The telling of The Netherlands dream sequence is a fantasy for detail as the regulars know I wasn't staying in some exotic abbey.  I don't see the detail of it as having relevance to the story.  The Dutch flat in which I stayed with hexx and jsmn was unpretentious, very efficiently designed, and comfortable.  That's fine if you want to study middle class Dutch sociology ... but I don't.  The story is true to the concept of what happened and sure there was going around looking at stuff but that wasn't the reason for going.  Everything in the dream sequence version is the reason for going.

The reference to stalkers is appropriate at the attention level it was given (i.e. not much).  When some guy will come barging through the door with no warning and launch immediately into a rant, that's not just stalker but full-out lunatic.  That happened multiple times.  Then there's the detail of what happened in Utrecht but that is not important.  That stalkers are and have been a pain in the ass is a valid point as they are exceptionally-dangerous people.

That's the latest as the book has pushed well into the Fort Worth Rock House bit.  The problem isn't altering facts but compressing time which can implicitly alter facts.

Naga Flow and Robert69 Little - Virtual World Love Connection (video)

Robert69 Little has shot hundreds of videos in Second Life and that's not an exaggeration, hundreds of them.  There is one salient feature to all of them:  he does not appear in a single frame, every one of those videos is to feature a musician / performer in the virtual world.

Several days ago I wrote an article, Naga Flow Gets Raw at Cat's Art MusikCircus.  So those were my words, here's what Robert69 Little does:

Robert69 Little has been doing this for almost as long as I've been in Second Life which is one damn long time.  To my knowledge in all that time he never received nor asked for a dime for doing it.  Everything has been from his love of music and the performers who make it.  He's been on a Seven-Year Mission from God to document every Second Life performer and he has done one incredible job of it.

When performers write about themselves, there's no point in reading it as every one of them will tell you they can fart rainbows.  I see that any time I go to Facebook and I haven't seen a rainbow yet.  It's the ones who don't say it who can really do it and that's where Robert69 Little comes into it with the video to say it better than some poofy promo ever could.

There is one little problem, tho, as Robert69 is crazy as a loon ... but all the most interesting people are.  If crazy means giving freely of yourself while asking nothing in return then the world could use a whole lot more of Robert69 Little's craziness.

I've seen many many things Robert69 Little has given.  I've never seen anything from the people who criticize him.  I look at that as Darwinian protection so thanks for being crazy, Robert ... it saves me from wasting time on second-raters.

Some people do it for money and others do it for love.  You see why Robert69 Little does it.  He's my bro and has been for years.

Hamilton on the Top of the Podium

Formula One takes an interesting twist in which two weeks ago it seemed Rosberg owned it with the blessing of Mercedes.  Today his car didn't even start and Hamilton has moved into first place in the points.  The win came after a heads-up battle with Vettel and Ricciardo so Mercedes has pulled some magic Red Bull does not get and Hamilton is driving away with it.

Bad luck for Rosberg but two in a row is a jinx so he is probably ultra-bummed just now.  I'm guessing there's one battle royal coming up for the title when he gets fired up again.

It's very cool how Ricciardo was nowhere but from this season forward he is a Contender.

On the Heroin Experiment - Updated w/Link

This was omitted from the book but I'm looking at doing that as having been a whitewash.  It was appropriate to remove editorial comparisons between Scotland, America, etc as anyone wanting to compare them should go over there.  Editorials aren't the purpose of the book but telling what happened is.

The story is germane but I don't want it to be a simple lesson.  Don't do this, kids, or it will really hurt.  Obviously I don't want that so it shouldn't need to be stated.  In my view, it envelopes an almost ubiquitous search for Paradise in rampant abuse of pain meds by millions, etc.  That continuum is the same but there is more as my own search is that I did not understand why Miles Davis was a junkie, I believe, all his life.  Why is it musicians are attracted to heroin, particularly the ones most sensitive to the art.  Amy Winehouse lived an insane life but, damn, that girl could sing.

There is no blaming as that's pointless to the story.  I will invent The Source and, ok, that's a lie but nothing else of it will be.  It's a challenge to write without it turning suckfilled so must give it a go.


Update:

"Meeting Simon" has been added to the story just before the Guitar Soliloquy.  (There is no real Simon.  He only represents.)

"Abandoning Paradise" has Landed at Schiphol

The stories in The Netherlands begin with "Landing in Amsterdam" and the "Abandoning Paradise" Contents page has changed substantially as it goes all the way through to landing in Fort Worth.

I'm generally satisfied with the telling of the time in Scotland and with The Netherlands.  I may yet add more for fullness but not just for the sake of adding pictures.  The presentation of The Netherlands is fiction but the story is not as it's a wrapper around real events.  I needed some time travel to make that part work but, what the hell, you don't mind a little time travel, yes?


There is one gaping hole as it's obvious the point becomes Paradise is where you find it so why did I not find it in Scotland, presumably the place with all the magnetic genetics, the blood spirits, and every possible thing pointed toward it.  Blaming it on flying monkeys is pointless as they don't have the power or they wouldn't be flying monkeys in the first place.  It's not a blaming thing but rather a review.  The trouble with that is it gets hugely-introspective and as boring as comparing recipes for preparing clams.

For the moment I'm satisfied to leave it as it stands.  I hit the rocks in Scotland.  No-one's going to find Paradise splattered on the rocks.  But I did find some cool stuff.  Overall, the balance is generally satisfying and the gaping hole of the absence of any discovery is maybe best left just as it is.

Maybe it's stretching to include the jam with the Pagans and Aurora in the same quest but it feels comfortable with me the way it flows.

Still it comes down to "The Paradise Song" but I'm not going to gloss over getting sick.  I can't or none of this makes sense.  If not for that aspect, I should never have left Greece.  As we've seen it was necessary but that isn't in the book and it needs to be.  At what level it needs to be there is the balance of it.

Voodoo Shilton is Not His Real Name

Now there's an earthshaking revelation, huh.  Mother did not name her little boy Voodoo.  It would have been pretty cool if she did but that isn't what happened.

Voodoo Shilton got busted in the Facebook Wave of Gratuitous Conformity and now he is forced to use his real-life name and Facebook is the only place I know where he uses it.  From that evidence, the 'integrity' of using your real-life name is only a concern locally within Facebook or, more specifically, within Mark Zuckerberg's tiny little mind.

So I talked to Voodoo and he said his real name is Siegfried Jablonski and he makes sausages in the Bronx.  I said,  "Siegfried's Sausages doesn't sound sexy.  I see why you changed."

He said, "You want sexy or you want sausages.  Or just take a sausage.  Don't tell me what you do with it."

(The only part of the above that's true is that Facebook made Voodoo change his name)


Integrity is such an extraordinary thing to discover in Facebook, the only other organization to come anywhere close to Google in the speed it sold out Americans to the state.

(Ed:  I removed something highly-incendiary as I did not think it appropriate associating it with Voodoo's name.  The statement was accurate, it just belongs somewhere else.)

Mark Zuckerberg Sets New Low Standard for Online Hypocrisy

"Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity" - Mark Zuckerberg  (MichaelZimmer:  Information Ethics)

He actually said the above four years ago in 2010 but it's back ... again.  The current effort, in addition to destroying stage names for musicians, is to wipe out alternative names used by drag queens, presumably they have a life in show business as well.  If there is any greater enemy of theatre,  the arts, or any kind of free self-expression than Mark Zuckerberg, that person would be damn tough to find.

The background is that Facebook is destroying individuality anywhere it can.  If you have a stage name or any alternative name then Facebook has already said it will find it and destroy it.  Thus far, as with everything else, it has not been very effective as even people who use Facebook hate it and won't tell it anything.

We were going to ask Marilyn Monroe if she has any integrity as that wasn't her real name.  It didn't work out as Zuckerberg only said he could see her boobies and wouldn't go near her.

Then we wanted Zuckerberg to talk with Bob Dylan but Zuckerberg said he couldn't understand what Dylan was saying.  No shit he doesn't understand him.  Nothing could be more patently obvious.

If you ever need someone to run a concentration camp, Zuckerberg would be a perfect pick.  He will do every single thing the state tells him to do ... and act like he thought of it himself.  That's quite an accomplishment for a Jewish boy.

The only entity that needs a verified real-world name is the state.

Alternative names are used for stage names as who wouldn't want a name like Scatman Crothers if you could have it.

They are used by women who try to throw stalkers off their trails.

They are used for all manner of legitimate reasons.

Now then, what legitimate reasons does Zuckerberg have for requiring real names ... other than the fact that he sells them, I mean.

Final Request for Zombie Avoidance

My request has been simple and clear for a long time.  Burn me up and throw what's left into a dumpster at Wal-Mart.  If someone gives some value to that then there's something substantially wrong with your sick ass.

The more I think of it, the more it makes me laugh.  Maybe I write this somewhere as an official final request.  Whomever does it thinks, damn, you were one sick motherfucker.

It just makes tears in my eyes laughing!

This could be such classic crap.  Maybe you get busted for illegally dumping ass ash into a dumpster.  Maybe that's illegal for who knows what insane reason.  You can't put those ashes here, this is a dumpster.  I will have to cite you to court and, of course, I will have to search your car for drugs and Mexicans.

People would be so pissed but, wtf, I'm dead.  They would laugh later, right?


Recall the senior thesis title, "Death as Considered in the Carefully Modulated Limelight of Indifference."

I couldn't get any more pretentious than that if I had gone to some Big East college with all the richies.

So that title says it but this scenario lives it ... well ... except for me.

Maybe Wal-Mart steps in to prevent it and then sues to prevent ashes from being dumped in their dumpsters.  No ashes here, by God.

The Paradise Tour Lands in Schiphol

"Abandoning Paradise" has landed and that starts Chapter Seven but that doesn't mean I'm giving a final pass to Chapter Six and calling the telling of the time in Scotland complete.  I believe I will also add a Landing at the Fort Worth Rock House as that's Chapter Eight kicking off.  The purpose in doing this is defining the framework.  I know what goes in it but precisely where needs balance.

One incident of stealing food was mentioned in Six but even that one would have been thrown out if it had been the only one I saw.  Therefore, I felt the reasonable presentation is to tell that story without any dramatization and tell only that one.

Chapters Seven and Eight are short but important to the overall story as the Netherlands were part of a previous search for Paradise and that will be covered.  I see that as following logically from the landing in Schiphol as of course I would think of the last time here.

Chapter Eight awaits "The Paradise Song" and I'm thinking now my earlier idea for it is insane but I do think it might be possible and I'm curious enough to try it to find out.


They will CAT scan me again on the 25th.  The result from that will be returned on Oct 9.  From that I expect to discover, yes, your lungs are still fucked.  No, there is still nothing to be done about it.  If you are still breathing in six months come back for another picture.  This is not fatalism as you know it as well as I.  Probably it won't spin my head around as much as the last time but it has the potential for it.  Therefore I work on the book relentlessly as I want it completed before then and definitely unbiased by anything that comes from that result.