Category Archives: Upcoming Events

Looking Forward To My Panel At Digimart 2006

I’ll be on a panel October 17th at the Digimart Conference going on in Montreal October 16-18.
The panel I’m on is called
Your Space On My Tube – How to Engage with the Online World and Make Money, hosted by Scott Kirsner of the Cinematech Blog.
Scott’s really bringing together a neat group of people, including the Eepybird guys, who did the Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments.
I’m really looking forward to it.
It will be great to be in Montreal again. I used to go to Montreal every year for the small, uber-geeky XML conference that used to go on there every year. I haven’t gone to that conference since 2000 or so, and I had really missed Montreal.
Getting ready for the conference also forced me to write up an updated bio.
A couple of you have bugged me about this over the years, and I just didn’t have time to think about it until recently. Sorry!
I’m finally going to go back and bring it all up to date. There’s a lot going on, and I want you to know about it, so you can help me do better at everything. (Like always 🙂

Stealing America: How Systematic Disenfranchisement Took Place In the 2004 Election


Photo by Mike Kash

 Dorothy Fadiman has produced a new documentary, called Stealing America, that is based largely on a lot of the information that I put together in the Electon 2004 Aftermath category category of my blog.

I’ll send you a copy of the DVD if you like, just send me an email with your mailing address.
Update and clarification 10/20/06 – I’m not dubbing copies of Dorothy’s movie and giving them away. I earned 100 copies as payment for some archiving I did for the film. Part of our agreement was that I could have 100 copies. I’m choosing to send you one of these 100 copies if you “act now” 🙂
I’ll also be breaking it up into smaller clips and making it available online later this week.
If anyone can help me make it available in other formats, when I make it available soon, please let me know. It would be very much appreciated.
There’s a showing at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, CA this Wednesday, October 4th, featuring Marc Crispin Miller, at 7pm.
There are a couple of other screenings scheduled in Northern California in October, but you can get a copy of the DVD and have a screening or throw a screening party in your town.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the upcoming election and how it seems like the repubs could just use the electronic voting machines and other tactics, like not putting enough machines in democratic precincts, to take over the election again.
To my knowledge, all of the systems that were in place in 2004 remain in place now.
Perhaps if films like Stealing America are seen by voters before this year’s election, they will know to report it to the proper authorities if they notice any funny business going on this time.

Re-Analyze 911 with RU Sirius — Live!

WHAT: 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Debate
WHO: The RU Sirius Show
WHERE: Off-Market Theater, 965 Mission Street (at 5th), San Francisco
WHEN: Sunday, September 10, 2PM
COST: FREE

http://laughingsquid.com/2006/09/05/ru-sirius-show-live/

Over the last year, RU Sirius and Jeff Diehl have been hosting the amazing RU Sirius Show, a weekly podcast that launched in June 2005 as part of The MondoGlobo Network. It

Cool Community Wireless Panel With Lessig and others Tonight in SF

I know this is short notice, but it looks like there’s a cool panel tonight on community wireless with Lawrence Lessig and other goodies.

http://www.media-alliance.org/calendar_event.php?eid=20050929140103620
Monday, October 10 2005 @ 07:00 PM PDT – 10:00PM
Where: 111 Minna Gallery
111 Minna Street
between 2nd and New Montgomery
San Francisco
Description:
Join Media Alliance for this dynamic panel discussion on
creating universal, affordable Internet access through municipal
broadband utilities. Featuring a presentation by Professor Lawrence
Lessig and a panel of local community Internet experts, the evening
will include Q&A with the audience.
After years of avdocacy by MA and other groups, Mayor Newsom announced
earlier this year his goal of free wireless Internet access for all San
Franciscans. Cities across the country are implementing municipal
projects, though with varying degrees of commitment to bridging the
digital divide.
This evening will explore the significant opportunities for city-run
projects to expand Internet access and usage by under-served
communities, and improve cost, service and consumer choice for
everyone.
The talk will be followed at 9pm by music from DJ’s Kid Kameleon and
Ripley.
Cost: $5, Free for Media Alliance and EFF members
7-9 pm Discussion: Lessig, Panel, Q&A
9-10pm DJ’s Kid Kameleon and Ripley

Come To The Last SCOUT June 29

Remember to come as my guest — and bring friends.
It’ll be quite a show. More info here.

Opening at 9:30pm Each the Beat Boxer performing with DJ Quest
Then from 10-12:30:
Variable Unit w/Special Guest Hosts:
Zealous and Prophet

Felonius: One Love Hip Hop
(Soulati, Infinite, A kid named Keith and D. Wolf)
Ho Flow and Mic Blake and their whole vocal crew from Bop City Pacific
(Caitlin Cornwell, Dawn “Dee Dee” Hilgesen, Christi “KiKi” Hilgesen)
Mark Stretch
(Foreign Legion)
El-Rock
Phame
Joe Con

Won Way
V.E.R.A. Clique
(Anderson Ray & Macsen Apollo)
Marquand (beatboxer)
From the Delinquent Monestary Crew:
Complexity, Lush One, and Ajaxx
Audio Tracks –
Video Tracks

Davu (Poetry Slam Champion)

Shania D.
Nameliss
Hilary Star
Plus More Guests TBA

Great June 15 Show – Only Two SCOUTS Left

So it was another fantastic show — albeit another poorly attended one — at SCOUT wednesday night.
We’re beginning to think of these more as live recording sessions:)
It would be nice to have a larger than 75 person audience there, because I think it helps the performers out, but this isn’t a “live” album, where we need to hear the crowd and such.
We’ve been very pleased with the music that’s been coming out of these. We’re not at all sure yet how all the tracks are even going to be used. (There are more than 25 hours of shows recorded already.)
Anyway, this last show rocked with a really neat group of people. I’m getting the pictures and video together now, and I will get at least some of it up today, along with some more general information about this great family of artists that Variable Unit had the pleasure of collaborating with Wednesday night.
It was really neat having like 8 different mcs and singers each perform leads and switch to back ups for each others performances all night. They were all obviously good friends that had known each other forever. Gennessee hooked me up by arranging for all of them to come by for SCOUT. I was interviewing one of the other performers out front when they each descended and assembled promptly at 9:30 in front of the Red Devil Lounge.
They all looked happy and ready for action. (They already had the right vibe, and they hadn’t even entered the club yet.)
Here are the performers of which I speak: Gennessee, Cait Le Dee, Genevieve, L*Roneous, Dogwood Speaks, Bazooka Joe Gotti, Prozack Turner and Marc Stretch…hope I’m not leaving anyone out.
There were other great performers that night, such as JBo and his friend Chris Lee (who was just in from Norway visiting this week), Kero One, and Jesse Seaver the Beatboxer. Plus Each the Beatboxer guest hosted.
Anyway, it was a good time.
Hey – if the $7 entry fee is what’s stopping you from coming by, tell the door man you’re there as my guest. And don’t be afraid to bring friends. The more the merrier. (Do buy drinks if you can 🙂
Okay…back in a minute…I’m trying to get as much up as I can today…

Prozack Turner Performing At Tomorrow Night’s SCOUT

Here’s an interesting article about one of tomorrow night’s headliners:

Prozack Turner’s Sound Click page.
There are some samples too from his record there.
According to this article, Foreign Legion has parted ways. I didn’t know that — I know both Prozack Turner and Marc Stretch are performing at
tomorrow night’s SCOUT!

Taxation Without Representation: When DreamWorks’ music division was cannibalized, Prozack Turner had a record but no label. So he released it himself…
THE DOMINANT image on the cover of Prozack Turner’s solo debut, Death, Taxes & Prozack, is a baseball cap emblazoned with a San Jose logo. Flip the CD over and scan the production credits: Pete Rock, Alchemist, Supa Dave West, Organized Noize, Jake One, Madlib, DJ Design, Jay Dilla. In the corner, a tiny, out-of-focus insignia that resembles the DreamWorks logo teases the eye.
From the packaging, one can infer that Prozack Turner is a San Jose emcee who recorded an album with DreamWorks and hooked up with hotshot producers. That’s half the story. The reality? Zack “Prozack” Turner is from San Jose. He was in the local hip-hop group Foreign Legion (with DJ Design and Marc Stretch) that released the excellent Kidnapper Van and Play Tight full-lengths. Prozack was courted by Virgin and Grand Royal but signed to DreamWorks for a four-record deal.
In 2003, he assembled his dream production unit and recorded Death, Taxes & Prozack, with a $450,000 budget. In October of 2003, UMG bought out DreamWorks’ music division. Turner’s record, due to drop five months ago, was shelved. He got out of his contract, bootlegged Death, Taxes & Prozack and is selling it independently. If you look closer at the DreamWorks logo on the CD, it’s jacked up to say, “Out of Work.”
“It’s totally illegal the way I’m putting it out,” Turner admits. “They’re like, ‘We own this album.’ But I created this! It came out of my brain. Technically, on paper, they own the rights, but I held up my end of the bargain. I recorded the record thinking they were going to put it out.”

Continue reading →

Check Out Felonius, Stateless, and Bright River In Hamburg, Germany

I know I have a lot of readers in Germany, so I wanted to let you guys know about this rare chance to get a slice of the city by the bay.
As I might have mentioned earlier, Felonius is going to play SCOUT again on the last show June 29th. (Here’s video and an mp3 of a track from its May 11 appearance, to give you a taste of these guys.)
In the meantime, Felonius is in Hamburg, Germany, this week, playing a show and performing “Stateless,” a hip hop play starring Felonius’ Dan Klein. Battle flutist Tim Barsky is with them. His Bright River hip hop play is also performing in Hamburg this week. (Soulati and Infinite from Felonius are also in Bright River.)
I haven’t seen “Stateless” yet, but I’ve seen Felonius and Bright River in action, and I’m sure it’s great.
Any of these shows will give you a chance to hear some of the best San Francisco Bay Area beatboxing, mc-ing, and hip hop theatr-ing going on right now.
Sidenote: Bright River is simply a great play, by any theatre-lover’s standards. (Like a “go to Jekyll and Hyde with grandma one night, go to Bright River with grandma the next night” great play. Like, “there’s no way this thing isn’t making it to Broadway” kind of great.)
Here are the details:
Felonius is playing Friday June 10th at the Fabrik
show starts early at 7pm
Stateless (w/Dan Klein) is playing Saturday June 11th at 8pm
and Sunday June 12th at 10pm at the
Monsun Theater (www.monsuntheater.de)
Bright River (Tim Barsky and Carlos and Tommy) plays Saturday June 11th at 10pm at the same place (The Monsun Theater.