Caption the photo: I get a lot of spam. Most of it is about how to order prescription drugs or how to increase the size of various parts of anatomy, some of which I don't even have. Much of it is in different languages. Occassionally one of them is well targeted to me, like the thing about Radiohead that I got today. Most of the time it's something pretty random. And every now and then it's something like this.

How come every time something cool happens in San Francisco, I hear about it so far after the fact? (via metafilter)

Rock and Roll Suicide Part 2: An update on the post from a couple of days ago about the metal band that was going to let a fan euthanize himself on stage. An emergency law has been passed to make sure that it's illegal now, and I still don't know what to think of all of this. So here are some Bowie lyrics: You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it And the clocks waits so patiently on your song You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

I just got back from the Alameny swap meet with some great vinyl! I spent about $20 and got a double live Elvis album, King Crimson - In the Wake of Poseidon, Steely Dan - Aja, Beatles - Revolver, REM - Document, Aerosmith - Toys in the Attic, Supertramp - Breakfast in America, Pink Floyd - Animals (almost got Dark Side of the Moon and Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but they were all scratched up - same with Miles Davis In a Silent Way which really disappointed me), Hendrix - Band of Gypsies (the jacket was all rotted away, but the record is playable and one of his best), Stevie Wonder - Fulfillingness' First Finale, and All in The Family (I haven't played it yet, but it looks like it's a bunch of clips from the show and should have some excellent sampling material. Overall a very productive score. Anne got some jewelry supplies, a few strands of beads and other stuff, but she wasn't too happy with the selection. Then we spent an hour stuck in traffic trying to get around the Folsom Street Fair which was in full leather-chapped swing today. We sort of wanted to check it out, but parking would have been tough. Now we're off to go see Lost in Translation which I've been hearing very good things about. Edited to add: Lost in Translation was really really really good and I highly recommend it. Too bad Sofia Copolla can't do a single interview without being asked about her awful role in Godfather 3 since she has more than proven herself as a brilliant director twice now. Anybody in the entertainment business has some early work that they're embarassed of, but it seems like Sofia Copolla is the only one who is reminded of that in every interview she ever gives.

North Korea states the obvious today: "North Korea described Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a dictatorial psychopath and a politically illiterate old man..."

So I finally got to see those film festival programs today and I'm not really happy with them at all. The resolution looks OK, but I hate that my entire front and back page spread is now the cover. It's a jumbled mess and it doesn't flow. And the inside is almost OK except for the fact that things don't really line up the way I'd like them to. It's not indicative of the quality of my work and I'm really pissed about that. A little bit of communication is really all that was needed not to have completely wasted my time with this.

I've heard of death metal, but this is nuts! A band is going to let a terminally ill fan commit suicide on stage at their show. While I'm all for euthanasia, I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, this reeks of a tasteless publicity stunt for the band. On the other hand, this guy is ending his pain and suffering on stage with a band he likes and bringing attention to an important issue. Hhhhhmmmmmm.

Here's another email action that you can take: email Bill O'Reilly and demand his apology. For what, you ask? Here's what Bill said on his March 18, 2003 show: "And I said on my program, if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clear he had nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again." Well, there are still no WMDs. We're waiting for you to apologize and publicly state your newfound distrust for the Bush administration. That would be both fair and balanced, Billy.

Radiohead last night at Shoreline: INCREDIBLE! They played for close to two hours, most from the last three albums, a few from OK Computer, a couple from The Bends and even one from Pablo Honey (it wasn't Creep). It was so incredibly good. They are ridiculously tight, the sound was very clear, our seats were decent, and they had cool video effects. There were a few songs I would have really liked to have heard that they didn't play (Subteranean Homesick Alien, Knives Out, Exit Music) but I can't complain about their set. I can complain about the asshats behind us who sang along loudly (and badly) to a bunch of songs and kept calling somebody on their cellphone and yelling in "CAN YOU HEAR THAT? IT'S IDIOTEQUE! I SAID IT'S IDIOTHEQUE! THIS IS THE BEST SHOW!" etc. His buddy told him that it was obnoxious and stupid, but he went and did it again a few times. "OH MY GOD, THEY'RE PLAYING WOLF AT THE DOOR! THAT'S LIKE MY FAVORITE SONG!!!" and on and on like that. And their beer kept splashing on Anne and I whenever they moved around (which was a lot). This is why they should have two sections at concerts: one for people who really want to pay attention and enjoy the concert, and another for the idiots who want to talk loudly, sing along and jump around like butt monkeys. Afterwards we went to Sparky's Diner on upper Market. Anne used to always go there after shows when she lived here before. Diners here aren't like diners in the northeast. They're either 50's theme chains or little holes in the wall and I don't think any of them are owned by Greeks out here. This one was a small hipster place with decent but overpriced diner food. I liked it better than "The Diner" in Adams Morgan, DC.

So tonight Bush is going to go crawling back to the UN after telling them that he didn't need their approval for his war, sending his lackey to read bogus "evidence" to them, and making arrogant comments about them becoming irrelevant if they didn't do as he said without question. Turns out there were no immanent threats or weapons of mass destruction after all, but there's a quagmire of a guerilla war that he now wants the international community to bail his AWOL ass out of. As Americans who value being good and upstanding members of the international community, we are obligated to apologize for the actions of our country and let the UN know that these actions do not reflect the attitudes or agenda of regular peace-loving citizens, but those of a dangerous fringe who has seized power. We need to ask them to help us change a much more dangerous regime than a neutered and powerless Saddam Hussein. I've made an easy form for you to do that.

Poor dead Mr. Carlson from WKRP.

Cool blog alert: Pollworker.com is everything you need to know about California's recall election from the perspective of somebody working at the polls here in San Francisco.

Brian, my new sound guy, is awesome! While there were some things which we just couldn't do anything about like wind on the mic on rooftop scenes, some softly spoken dialog, fluorescent lights humming and birds chirping throughout a corporate newscast (the result of doing greenscreen shooting outdoors), the film sounds 100 times better! Dialogue matches better between different shots and takes. There's a bunch of actual foley now (wait until you hear the fight scene!). When people are on the phone, you can hear the person on the other end, songs have been edited to flow better with what is on screen. Levels are a lot better all around. Some of the music has been switched around. It's not perfect, but I couldn't expect perfection with what I had to offer. But it's as perfect as this thing could possibly sound without having to go back in and re-record every bit of dialogue. So after he makes the final changes, I'll be making some final video changes (I'm not crazy about how the newscasts have been looking, so I'm going to dump them to tape, put them on my crappy TV, and shoot it from the TV screen. I also might try to use a filter to make it all look more like film), and then finally getting this sucker mastered, only close to a full year after the first official premiere! The DVD probably won't have any extras, at least not the self-released version. The guy who is helping me get the DVD made doesn't have software that will do alternate audio tracks, so I won't be able to do a commentary track, though if I can sell enough copies to warrant it, I may record one and have it available to download as mp3 or something. I'm also feeling a bit better than I was yesterday. I got an email for some possible freelance. I've worked on some other small freelance projects. I heard from festival lady and she says the proof of the programs looked pretty good (though I'm reserving judgement on that until I see them myself).

So I'm actually a bit excited today. In a little while I'm going across the bay to pick up the final sound mix for Washington Interns Gone Bad from my new sound designer! That is one of the last few steps needed to get this thing released. Now there's just a bit of legal paperwork and getting the video mastered. I'm also getting myself involved with another upstart film festival, but this time I made sure that my involvement is directly tied into my film being shown. It occurred to me today that both reasons for my involvement in the other festival have fallen through and now I'm just grudgingly finishing my obligation to them. I'm not one to put in a large amount of work for very little money unless it's either something that I really believe in, or if I am going to get something out of it. The only reasons I agreed to do any work for this festival was to get my film shown and to have some nice print portfolio work. My film was rejected and the centerpiece of the print work, the program, has been changed by others in a direction which I do not really approve of and through unprofessional means which will make it lose much of the resolution (and basically waste the hours and hours I spent laying it out the right way). Miscommunication has been a constant issue. And I don't even really want to bother going to this festival now. How can I network with other filmmakers when I couldn't make the cut? There's only one film there that I even have any interest in seeing. While the rest of the films are probably great, I will not be able to see them without the perspective that somebody considered them to be better festival fare than Washington Interns Gone Bad. I realize that sounds incredibly egotistical, especially considering that it's a no budget film done by a bunch of first timers and it's at times quite rough around the edges. But when I think of the sort of film festival I would want to attend, I'd much rather see a program that takes risks rather than going for such standard festival fare. What's the point of trying to be just like every other film festival showing the same kinds of films? San Francisco already has festivals like that. Having different kinds of films than typical filmfest stuff is what made Barebones so cool. That's what will make the new festival that I'll be working on cool. And I suppose the silver lining in this cloud is that I'll be able to bring this experience to the next festival knowing what NOT to do.

My buddy Alan made the papers in story about Hurricane Isabelle and tree crews. Back in high school, we all thought he just liked to play with chainsaws.

Well, the anti-recall work turned out to be quite short lived for me. The San Francisco hills kicked my ass! I was OK after one full day, but then my next day my turf was quite a bit hillier and I got to the point where my feet and legs hurt so badly that I could only take little baby steps up the hills. I was given the turf that my ride from the day before had flaked on, so she had gotten all of the people who were home in the afternoons, so after a couple of hours of trudging up and down and not talking to anybody, I just couldn't do it anymore. I felt really bad about myself over this, but then I realized that 9 hours of walking up and down these hills is tough for people in much better shape than myself, so the fact that I made it as long as I did is something (though I don't know what exactly). I've gotten to the point where I just hate it here. I hate the lack of jobs. I hate how expensive everything is. I hate all these hills. I hate living near a beach where you can't really swim. I hate not having a circle of supportive friends close by. I hate feeling so isolated out here. I hate it all.

Shiver me timbers! Today be international talk like a pirate day! I thinks I'll be drinkin' some grog an' talkin' like this to all the landlubbers today, and if they don't like it, I'll keelhaul them to Davey Jones' Locker. Yarr!

So, my first day on the job doing the grunt work against the recall was interesting. I was quite looking forward to it since right before leaving I got the most annoying phone call ever from the woman who runs that film festival which has been exploiting my talents and pissing me off more and more (and I'm pretty sure does not read this blog). I had spent the last couple of days designing the program (3mb pdf file) for it, some of my best work ever. I had gone through with her the specifics of what this was going to look like and paper sizes and whatnot. I got a couple of confused sounding emails from her about what was the back and what was the front. I had to explain to her (again) that it folds in half and she was looking at page spreads. She wigged. She liked the page spread as a full page rather than folded as a recognizable front and back. So of course, she starts in on talking about changing it and cramming all of the stuff from the back onto the front to make the front look like the full spread (and turn the whole thing into a crowded, jumbled mess). My head was about to explode since as of the day before, I was done with the program and it was sent to the printer and my hands were washed of it (not to mention that I had just accepted this anti-recall work which would be too time consuming to be at the constant beck and call of a picky-just-for-the-sake-of-being-picky-and-annoying client who is giving me intern pay for professional work - and on top of that has rejected my film) I still don't know what the verdict will be on this and now that I'm doing this anti-recall canvass, I don't have the time to deal with it. So hopefully she'll recognize that the error was on her end and that she has a kickass program the way it is and she shouldn't mess with it. Otherwise, I'm in for a bunch of annoying phone calls and more bad feelings. So this was my mindest as I left to start the new job, kicking things in my apartment and yelling expletives. Listening to Ween on headphones on the bus helped chill me out. I got off the bus, asked somebody (who must not have had a freakin' clue) which direction the street I was looking for was, and wound up taking a nice long out of the way stroll through the Tenderloin in the wrong direction and wound up taking a cab to get there on time. We started with a quick briefing on what the job would entail. We're given a list of all the union members and their registered voter family members in a precinct, and we go knock on their door and ask them if they're willing to commit to voting against the recall. Then we ask if they'd also take the safety vote of yes on Bustamante, and if they'd also vote no on proposition 54. If they're planning on voting against the recall, we ask them to sign up for an absentee ballot since San Francisco is notorious for having major election problems and that mailing it in is the best way to make sure that their votes get counted. Plus, absentee ballots have a 90% turnout compared to embarrassingly low polling place voter turnout. So I catch a ride to my precinct with this older lawyer woman who commuted in all the way from Richmond and was really psyched about doing anything she could to stop the recall. She was so gung ho. We were going to meet back up at 8 to ride back to the office. I'll get back to that. So after a quick lunch, I hit my precinct and started knocking on doors. Of course, barely anyone is home before 5 and we're getting out there around 1. So the first few hours are a lot of walking around were not very productive, but they sure were hot and sweaty. As more people got home, it got a bit easier, though a few people completely blew me off, others had already sent in their ballots, and a few are really into going in to their polling places. So after 7 hours of walking up and down San Francisco hills, knocking on doors and talking to people, I went to the Calafoods parking lot to catch my ride back. After 20 minutes of waiting (where I got to see some amazing mullets and a minivan full of mariachis), I called the office. Turned out my enthusiastic partner couldn't hack it after a few hours and bailed and I got ditched on turf for the first time ever in the 3 plus years that I've done this sort of work. I wound up taking the bus. Ack. And I get to do it all again tomorrow (minus the getting lost and ditched parts, let's hope).

Thinking about my new job doing anti-recall work made me think of the hilarious potential for something like this. I would like to strongly urge people NOT to download that Arnold Sound Board and use it to prank call the California Republican Party Headquarters in Sacramento at 916-448-9496. That would be bad, m'kay. It would also be extremely wrong of you to call their Burbank headquarters at 818-841-5210 or the Republican National Committee at 202.863.8500. It would be twice as wrong to record that call. Even more wrong than that would be making an mp3 of a recorded prank call and posting it somewhere. So just don't do it, OK?

So I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I've accepted a job going door to door against the California recall. It's through the AFL-CIO and the local central labor council. I've sworn before that I'd never do door to door work again, but this time I won't be soliciting any money and I'll only be knocking on the doors of union members who will be expecting me, so it sounds like it'll be a far cry better than the old foot canvassing that I used to do. My participation in the Union Summer internship program back in '96 (the very first year that they did Union Summer) got me an offer right off the bat. It should be an interesting experience and a good networking opportunity.

Finally, we have a true superhero for the 21st century! And like any modern day superhero should, he has his own website.

I don't know where these instant messages came from, but they are ridiculously funny. (via metafilter)

It's always fun finding out about interesting cultural institutions here in my new city. Out of all the symphony orchestras in the Bay Area, this one is definitely the coolest.

Ashcroft met by 1200 protestors in Boston, corporate media completely ignores it. The crowd booed him to the tune of the Star Wars Imperial Death March! (via Joseph Finn)

Wasn't the Patriot Act passed on the pretense that it would never be used in ways other than preventing actual terrorism?

Dick Cheney has a new plan for taking care of his enemies.

Either a sign that blogging has jumped the shark, or that the Democratic party is finally getting a clue, the Democratic National Committee just launched their official blog. It should be interesting to see if they get it right, or if it will just be another typical example of DNC control freak-ism. Having wasted spent a year of my life working for the DNC, I know all about how anal they are about what message they send out. My personal website was even censored by them on occasion because they were so freaked out by what might happen if somebody found out that an employee of theirs was calling Bush names or mixing some of his more embarrassing sound bytes into a song (not to mention how "off message" my views on corporate globalization are). They never had online chats or message boards because of the possibility that somebody might say something "off message." Once they did set up an online community and one of the members posted some jokes at the expense of the republicans that wound up in the news, and there was a major freakout. So now they're going to just allow their staffers to make blog entries and have random people leave comments? Well, more than likely the posts will be coming straight out of the communications department and vetted by the research department, and people need to register if they want to leave comments (and I would bet money that comments won't get posted without somebody saying yes or no). While this will create well researched postings, it sort of goes against the grassroots nature of blogging. It should be interesting to see how this plays out. Regardless of how the DNC uses or misuses blogging, Eric Folley deserves some major props for using his own custom coded blogging application for this.

We just got back from seeing the White Stripes at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. It was a great show at a rather uncomfortable venue. The opening band was IMA Robot who were pretty good. Going to bed now. Details maybe tomorrow.

The film festival that I've been doing web and print stuff for has officially announced their program. There are a few things that I'm interested in checking out, mainly The Mindscape of Alan Moore. It was interesting to see that they've included a short that pokes fun at corporate media and the current government while rejecting Washington Interns Gone Bad. But I'm not bitter. Really. Oh fuck it, yeah I'm bitter.

Another parody of the Apple Switch ads (via Eric)

I've only been awake for about a half hour when I see a double does of depressing news. Johnny Cash and John Ritter both just died. Johnny Cash was no surprise. He hasn't been doing so well and he just lost his wife. He had a very long and celebrated career right up to his death and there's a box set of his recent work with Rick Rubin either just released or on the way soon. John Ritter was a total surprise. He collapsed on the set of his sitcom from some weird heart defect. He was only 54.

This is the best news I've heard in a very long time... Pixies To Reunite For Tour In April 2004; New Album Possible!!!!!!

Best Bush Portrait Ever! (Not Safe for Work - via metafilter)

The RIAA settles their first lawsuit against file sharers... with a 12 year old girl. It's a good thing the RIAA got to her before Lars Ulrich did.

Fark has photoshop contest for a picture of some right wing fluffer Ann Coulter shooting a gun. Hilarity ensues.

Uh oh. Who's going to make Bush's campaign videos now that Leni Riefenstahl has died? Fox News ought to hold a party in her honor since her work in the 30's was such a huge influence on them.

Radiohead's Thom Yorke writes this op-ed piece in the Guardian on globalization and the state of the world today. It reads well while listening to Hail to the Thief.

Salon reviews a "mind-numbingly boring" propaganda film. "It is understandable that so little time is actually devoted to the president's true actions on the morning of 9/11. Because to show the entire 23 minutes from 9:03 to 9:25 a.m., when President Bush, in reality, remained seated and listening to 'second grade story-hour' while people like my husband were burning alive inside the World Trade Center towers, would run counter to Karl Rove's art direction and grand vision. "

Sad news on a Monday morning: