2Wire Error Message Seems To Filter Content (UPDATE)

UPDATE 8/08: After many variations of workarounds, a user over at IMLocation found what would seem to be a definitive solution:

First, go into the Management Console of your 2Wire at the address: 

http://gateway.2wire.net/management

Now, in the Advanced tab, click Configure Services. Once you are there, de-check the boxes for all “notifications” about connections or the like.

Thanks to SeanStreiff for the update and majestico for the solution.

Useless 2Wire error message.

I'm working from St. Louis on holiday, using my parents' ISP, SBC Global. Parsing their service is a 2Wire modem/router that fancies itself an intelligent component, sending error messages and blocking traffic where it should be acting as an open gateway. Ironically, all these messages come from the local url gateway.2wire.net, even as it stops your communications.

As Vincent Gable explored here, there are so many problems with this error, it's hard to know where to begin.

First, it's an error message that leads with a "Success" headline, telling the user, "The error has been successfully resolved." If that's the case, why can't I reach the page I navigated to?

Second, the message urges you to quit in order to continue: "Please close down your browser and restart it to continue browsing online." So apparently the error hasn't been successfully resolved, because I have to restart. That would indicate there's still a problem.

Third, the "masthead.gif" at the top contains confusing directions and grammatical errors. It tells the user, "Internet Explorer may display a security message that is prevents [sic] the file download needed to proceed with AT&T Yahoo! Registration." What? a) This gif shows up in both Firefox and Safari; b) "that is presents..." may as well read "all your bases are belong to us..."; c) "file download" is redundant; and d) I didn't navigate towards anything resembling AT&T or Yahoo! registration. Oh, and the arrow icon points to the current tab, as if an error message will be popping up there for some reason.

Fourth, beneath that line, another message tells you, "If you see the message, click the message bar [file icon] and select 'Download file...' to continue." Hmmm. a) no message ever appears; and b) why would I want to download a file to complete a registration I didn't navigate to?

Fifth and finally, this success/error message pops up at random and seems to act more like a content filter than anything like to a technical resolution. It seems to happen on certain pages, while others load normally. The only bug is the page itself, declaring it has resolved a bug. It also eats your url, so you can't click "Back" to return to your page. Most infuriatingly, why is my modem sending me messages? It should be a portal, not an autonomous component arbitrating the data passing through it. This makes me especially uneasy because it's AT&T, who is complicit with delivering personal information to the NSA.

Consequently, I haven't been able to reach my business webmail and other sites I need to. Thanks for your defective design, 2Wire and AT&T. Your "Success" message has kept me from working all day.

The TSA Is Curiously Akin To DRM

For the holidays, I booked three one-way tickets on three airlines that required negotiating five different airports. And everywhere I go, I see the operations of the TSA as a grand, tired farce on the American public. An op-ed in the Times sums it up pretty well (via BoingBoing):

The truth is, regardless of how many pointy tools and shampoo bottles we confiscate, there shall remain an unlimited number of ways to smuggle dangerous items onto a plane. The precise shape, form and substance of those items is irrelevant. We are not fighting materials, we are fighting the imagination and cleverness of the would-be saboteur.

And thus the TSA's most visual security efforts amount to little more than production value. Theater. Disrobing down to my socks into Rubbermaid bins before a flight is useless and dehumanizing, and makes me feel no more safe than before the almighty 9/11. As the article points out, the agency is a reactive beast, perpetually one step behind the latest plot, taking away pointy things and liquids and scanning shoes years after terrorist plots sought to exploit these means.

In this, there is a curious similarity between the TSA and the purveyors of DRM. The countless man-hours invested in both can be undone in moments, resulting in either a) a fiendish terrorist tragedy, or b) a duplicated DVD. In the case of the TSA, their porous security safeguarding can be broken through the unanticipated breach, rendering all reactive counter-measures for shoes and liquids useless. In the case of DRM, their millions of dollars in development can be defeated by one hacker in a few hours on a home computer.

The Transportation Security Administration and Digital Rights Management both seek to beat insurmountable odds by locking up impossibly porous systems. The trouble is, they can never solve the system for the 0.01% who actually want to break it, and instead present inherently flawed experiences for the other 99.9%. The antics of the TSA don't anticipate the dedicated terrorist, but do inconvenience millions who just want to travel from point a to point b. The efforts of DRM purveyors don't stop the avid hacker, but do inconvenience millions who just want to move their media from device a to device b.

The fundamental difference, of course, is that terrorists want to use public property for nefarious ends, while hackers want to use their private property (or licenses) for private entertainment. The TSA seeks to protect the public, while DRM seeks to restrict the public. Both achieve terrible results.

Solutions diverge as well. In principle, the TSA is a much-needed protective agency. It should, however, be the last line of defense before terrorists reach our transportation systems. Intelligence and immigration should police suspected parties instead of dragnetting the masses moments before boarding. DRM, meanwhile, is a principle of restricting fair use of copyrighted material. The notion is that profits can be maximized by restricting access to content. On the contrary, the free use of such material acts as promotion and creative fuel, encouraging properties far more monetizable than expensive locking mechanisms.

Only the overhaul of the underlying principles will effect any change in these flawed systems. In both cases, the systems are inhibiting the growth of the industries they seek to protect: because of them, I fly as little as possible and buy no media infected with DRM. In other words, the TSA is killing the airline industry. And DRM is killing music.

Radiohead made more on InRainbows than all other albums combined

Here's a mindblower from Thom Yorke in the most recent Wired, where he talks with David Byrne about music:

In terms of digital income, we've made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that's nuts. It's partly due to the fact that EMI wasn't giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff.

So InRainbows, released as a cost-optional download, made more for the band in three months than Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail To The Thief combined.

The qualifier is "in terms of digital income" of course — and Radiohead isn't on iTunes, the top-selling digital marketplace. It looks like they're on Amazon's, and I'd check Napster and eMusic, but you can't search their titles unless you're a subscriber (a design flaw for their services).

But still, wow. Three months trumping a storied 15-year catalog is pretty amazing. EMI is either doing something wrong or keeping all the money for themselves. I'd guess both.

Vis à vis, the bean pie.

Here's a short doc by a classmate in my masters program. It's about bean pies. Vote for it if you like.

I had a bean pie once, thinking it was pumpkin pie. It was good. I didn't know it was an American Muslim cultural innovation. But now I feel diversificationally validated.

Now I'll say, "Pass the bean pie — my brother. As-salaam alaikum."

Reality TV's most hackneyed phrase...

... is, without a doubt, "thrown under the bus." As in, "She threw me under the bus!" or, "If I don't have immunity, they'll throw me under the bus!" This is the betrayal, the heartbreaking of reality rejects who make poor alliances because they can't read character or can't compel an alternative. People get thrown under the bus by the minute on reality tv.

Contestants spout off this phrase compulsively whenever a voting-off-the-island is about to happen, but if I really dislike the show, I'll imagine I hear it four to five times per episode. Tonight I heard it on the Biggest Loser finale on NBC. On the finale. How can anyone get thrown under the bus on a weigh-in finale? The only thing you hear more than "thrown under the bus" on Biggest Loser is the pernicious Subway plugs. I wouldn't be surprised to find they sold the phrase "thrown under the bus" to Greyhound, who pays them every time it's said. Lord knows some of the participants live for reading product placements on camera. 

This may be the worst possible time for a writer's strike from an entertainment point of view. NBC already announced that they're weaning off drama and serials for more game shows and reality tv. The problem is, both of these genres painted themselves into a corner years ago. Reality tv is dead. The format holds no drama: group of 20 is whittled down to one by voting or judging, and challenges win them prizes or immunity along the way. This holds true for everyone from aspiring supermodels to the morbidly obese, exploited pioneer kids, seamstresses, chefs, and those odd few hoping to sway an ambiguously bi-sexual MySpace web-lebrity. (That is, ANTM, Biggest Loser, Kid Nation, Project Runway, Top Chef, Shot At Love with Tila Tequila. Kind of an apocalyptic gathering.)

That said, I'll always tear up at watching fat people lose weight. It's life-changing.

Game shows, meanwhile, have become fixated on giving away the most money for the most banal tasks. The bar is set low to make everyone feel like a challenger ("I coulda been someone!"), and the contestants are inundated with spotlights and pounding drums and minor chords, and then the guys says, "We'll find out... when we come back!" And the audience groans like what we only ever wanted in our hearts, in our heart of hearts, was to find out if that case had $1 or $1,000,000 in it, when the guy could've just walked away with $37,500 for no compelling reason. The tide was turned with Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and the tradition continues with Deal or No Deal and 1 versus 100. I feel bad for accomplished comedians who have to pay the bills by hosting game shows. They did something real to get there, they got out there and worked their material and carved out a niche in the toughest job in show business, and then they took their accomplishment and cashed it in for a career in white bread. It's like cutting your teeth on punk rock to make a lateral move to Musak. (Though it's a step up from Funniest Home Videos for Bob Saget.)

Drama, as it were, or theater — theatre, if you will, is dead. Dare I say, kicked the bucket. And since I've already declared reality TV dead and what the hell, game shows, let's make some more DOA proclamations: cop dramas — dead. Poorly repackaged Sex And The City knock-offs — dead. Comedies with overdrawn wha?? titles (e.g., "The New Adventures Of Old Christine")— dead. Dead, dead, dead.

Television, theater, drama, writing, the creative urge itself is in dire need of a renaissance or revolution or reconciling or reorientation or retardation or something "re". Given, most of these things beget the mediocrity they seek to overhaul. But I'd love to see a play written by Beck followed by an abstract animated short by Woody Allen with a cubist sketch show improvised live by Dave Eggers and a 12-piece band played all by Zach Galifianakis with a short film chaser by Shiina Ringo.

I think what I'm saying is, TV needs to be challenging to watch sometimes. Nothing much is as of late. I'm signing off with that.

One Night In Atlanta: Vincent Gallo, Cock Rock & Maritime Tunes.

I was in the ATL on a rare business excursion this week, and I thought I must seek out some local sounds. At a dusty-crates record store on Peachtree, I quizzed the clerk on the clubs, and he wrote some ideas on a notepad. I was off to Little Five Points, the adopted spot for Atlanta hipsters.

The first stop of the night was the Star Bar, where some meaty cock-rock bands were gearing up for a go at awesomedom. A fellow named Johnny La Rocha worked the bar, striking a fine Vietnam vet or Jesus, depending on one’s perspective. He told me the real show was over at Eyedrum, where some of his friends were seeing Vincent Gallo’s new music-art project. He said it was only 10 minutes down the road and that I could probably make it.

Abstaining not from serendipity, I drove over and dropped $15 at the door of a rugged concrete-and-I-beam structure, which featured installations and exhibitions by local artists. Eyedrum is the kind of place I’ll own when I’m independently wealthy. Beyond the gallery, a hushed crowd stared intently at a quartet making loose jangles of sonic atmosphere. Gallo sat hunched over a mirror-plated guitar, sporting a thick blonde wig bound with a headband, A thin brunette in a blue jumpsuit touched a keyboard. A long, red nightshirt hung from a tall blonde dude playing guitar with his back to the audience. The fourth wore only tiny gym shorts and tapped cautiously on a drumset bearing their name, RRIICCEE.

Signs reading “There should be no photographs taken during the performance” plastered the walls, so I did a quick study of the show on my hand with a V7. Two small fluorescents lit the stage. The sight dripped with pretension, much like that of Gallo’s controversial movie, “The Brown Bunny.” I liked that film, awash with self-indulgence, and I liked RRIICCEE.

The overt communication of the group was limited to a slight nod from Gallo to the drummer as they felt their way through a tuneless landscape. After about 15 minutes, Gallo mumbled something and they left the stage to uncertain applause. A girl behind me asked if she had missed that much by coming late. People began to filter out quietly, some griping. Someone said the idea was that they never rehearsed. A dreadlocked white guy complained that the drummer never even touched the hi-hat.

I headed back to the Star Bar, where a thick foursome belabored some power chords. I talked with John some more, having traded CDs and listened to some of his band, Ocha La Rocha, in the car. He writes songs with a fiery weave of acoustic/electric distortion, to pleasing effect reminiscent of The Black Crowes and others I couldn’t put my finger on. He told me he was really into the psychadelia sound and gave me names of LA acts to check out.

John asked, “You wanna go to the real party?” The final act was sound-checking angry pentatonics. Amidst the Goths and punks, someone asked me if I was reviewing the show. “Yeah… you don’t wanna be here tonight,” John said. He told me the real spot was an unlabeled club over on Ponce De Leon, behind the Chipotle, called MJQ. MJQ was celebrating its tenth anniversary with some local bands and DJs. I listened to the final band’s first song and decided to head to my third club in as many hours.

Behind the Chipotle, a gray clapboard shack drew down to a crazy space beneath the parking lot. Blue-tinged and strung about with shiny streamers and stuffed fish, the theme was the proverbial “Fish Under The Sea” dance (if Back To The Future is a proverb). The crowd was thick and smoky around the bar, but fairly sparse on the dance floor, where a five-piece called Tongo Hiti played “maritime songs” on ukelele, theramin, guitar, drums, and rubber chicken. They had a convincing sound for their chosen niche.

I caught only two songs before they wrapped up their set. House music came on and people flooded the dance floor, breakdancing and shaking about. I discovered a back stairway up to the parking lot. The doorway at the top fumed like the chimney of a greasy barbeque, venting all the cigarette and club sweat manufactured below into the crisp night air. It’s been awhile since I’ve had the pleasure of smelling like ass after a night of music. As most of the cities I’ve lived in have banned smoking in clubs, I’ve become spoiled with the smoke-free experience. But it’s a fair price to pay for a nice little triangulation around Atlanta’s indie scene. If that’s a typical Wednesday, a proper weekend is highly anticipated.

Stealth Burger Reviews: McDonald’s 1/3 Pound Angus Burger

Stealth Burger Reviews provides a snapshot of the manifold configurations and in the crowded SoCal hamburger market.

Stealth Burger Reviews: McDonald’s 1/3 Pound Angus Burger
Pacific Coast Highway, El Segundo, 3:50 pm

Am I seriously reviewing McDonald’s? This is like reviewing the mass-manufactured teddy bears you win at the carnival, the ones that look amazing above the ski-ball but are filled with Styrofoam when you actually win one.

Actually, that’s fitting, because I feel like McDonald’s does manufacture toys — colorful, edible toys in the shape of fast food. Under-flavored and over-preserved.

When I founded Stealth Burger Reviews, lo, these many days ago, I didn’t envision writing about national burger chains. But I’ve noticed that all the chains are doing a variant on The Six Dollar Burger, boasting Angus or Sirloin or whatever it takes to set their sandwich above the dollar menu and beyond their competitors. And under the gun recently, I got some Mickey D’s. So I picked their contender, the 1/3 Pound Angus Burger.

The 1/3 Pound Angus Burger is clearly intended to go head-to-head with the other confabulations on the market. Same approach of building your backyard barbeque burger: real hamburger with thick pickles, tomatoes and leafy lettuce, sesame seed bun. There are only two real differences from Carl’s Jr.’s Six Dollar Burger: purple onion and lots of mayo. The purple onion is a nice touch, honestly, because you rarely get such an organic color in fast food. And the mayo, the gushing mayo, well, it would be a little much for a choosier palate. But perhaps that assumption is a prerequisite for this discussion.

I must say, the 1/3 Pound Burger is the first thing I’ve had at McDonald’s in a long while that is reminiscent of food. But it still had that lingering flavor of homogeny that plagues everything made at McDonald’s — that bland sameness that ensures you have a uniform experience worldwide. It’s a better burger than they’ve made in awhile. But it’s still McDonald’s, and it doesn’t measure up anywhere close to In ‘N Out, Five Guys in DC, or Dick’s in Seattle. Burgers made by hand daily have the one ingredient that an assembly-line meat product can’t: love.

Then again, I love Slim Jims…

DC City Paper on Analog Jetpack: "We The Geeks"

The DC City Paper has published a good review by Ben Westhoff on Analog Jetpack's new album, And How They Flew. I have mad respect for Ben, as he's published music reviews and insightful music features in weeklies nationwide. When we met, he was writing a story for St. Louis' Riverfront Times on my brother Jonathan Toth from Hoth and Tucker Booth and their epic hip-hop escapades with The Frozen Food Section. Described me in the story as a "squeaky clean, 28-year old folksinger." Since then, Ben has sat down with 50 Cent, caused a messageboard uproar by calling Jay-Z "hova-rated", waxed big booties for the Village Voice, and served updates on  Trent Reznor, Val Kilmer's music career, and the brains behind blackpeopleloveus.com.

In this good company, I don't mind being called out too:

Rob Getzschman, a former D.C. resident now living in Los Angeles, has toiled in relative obscurity for years, releasing mostly anti-folk solo albums that wear left-field politics (Songs for the Anti-De-Counterrevolution), sense of irony (Heirs of Pretension), and high self-regard (Hypocrisy in the Genius Room) on their jacket sleeves...

...even at its poppiest the band isn’t exactly mainstream—on “ICBM,” the group sounds more like They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies than anything now on the radio. On the album’s opener, “We Are the Freaks,” Getzschman addresses his intended target market: “We are the freaks/A loose union of disillusion/Cold distinguished by the company we keep.” That seems a little off—they’re the geeks, of course, disinclined to do anything more radical than fashion fun hooks and embrace their inner nerds.

Funny that this should come through so powerfully.  The Six Points Music Festival summary by On Tap reduced Analog Jetpack to "Clever and nerdly pop-rock blendings." As if comics and obsolete technology aren't cool or something? Surely the geek niche is looking for a rock band laureate...

Read the full review here.

Stealth Burger Reviews: Carls' Jr. Six Dollar Burger

As the author has a hunger inside him, growing every day, he begins here a chronicle of his pursuit of that mid-century modern delicacy of LA: the hamburger. Stealth Burger Reviews will provide a snapshot of the manifold configurations of this meat-and-bread confection, and the crowded market of options in Southern California.

Carl's Jr.'s "The Six Dollar Burger®" 

La Cienega and Hwy 10 / 12:03 am

Any burger predicated with an italicized "The" and suffixed with an ® means business, and Carl's Jr.'s The Six Dollar Burger is no exception. Specifically, The Six Dollar Burger means $3.99 worth of business, an irony surely savored by the marketing team that dreamed it up. They definitely patted themselves on the back for that. Somebody said, "Let's call it the six dollar burger... but only charge four dollars." And the other guy waggled his finger at the first guy and said, "That's gold."

That said, they could've called it The Six Dollar Burger® and charged $12. Now that would've been a Jedi mind trick. These aren't the dollar bills you're looking for...

The first impression is good: when you only order a burger, and the bag feels like you could send it through a plate glass window, you know you will not sleep easy after the midnight drive-thru. Inside the bag, a box. Inside the box, a burger in the half-wrap that defines SoCal and makes one-handed consumption possible. The box is half process black, underscoring Carl's Jr.'s charbroiled fare, and offers two boasts: "Made with 100% Angus Beef," and a quote from the Albuquerque Journal that says, "I have since tried one of the chain's Six-Dollar Burgers and must report that I have become addicted to them." It's nice to see your burger heralded in the press, but Albequerque is where Bugs Bunny made a wrong turn. I don't know if nationwide people are going, "Whoa, the Albequerque Journal said they're good?"

But down to the nitty gritty: the first bite had some gristle, which, hey, it's hamburger. You gotta be real. Sesame seed bun, charbroiled patty, fresh cold lettuce, pickles twice as thick as a dollar menu burger. Plenty of mustard. Until the mustard, I sense the high notes and robust body of a Whopper, but the mustard put me in a whole new place. Tomatoes were a little mealy, which turned me off some. About three-quarters in, I got a bone chip, which somehow reinforced the 100% Angus claim to me. Perhaps irrationally.

All in all, I'd give it three out of five stars. But more importantly, in response to McDonald's campaign, "Are you a Dollar Menunaire?" I can honestly say, not as long as I can pay four bucks for a six-dollar burger.

Analog Jetpack offical debut today

Today marks an important musical date for me, as my first album beyond solo work is being released on The Frozen Food Section label. It feels good to see it being getting out there, as the production of it was a long process, stretching from January to June this year for recording, and right up until last month with manufacturing. Before that, the band involved a long process of writing new material and polishing older stuff. The album features three songs we wrote on as a band, including one which we never managed to play live called "Robot Garden".

The album was produced by Jerome Maffeo, drummer of Jimmie's Chicken Shack, at his Right On Recording studio in Baltimore. We're fortunate to have the hot licks of his lead guitar player in JCS, Matt Jones. And with more solos and lead guitar is Spencer Chakedis of Deep Sound Diver and The Drive-By Proposals. He's also the antifolk producer of my second and third albums. These hands lend much soul to the project.

Friends, the album is good. I think you'll like it if you manage to purloin a copy. Help us crack the 500 record sales barrier in the first week. Buy one for your momma, you daddy and you tippy-toed granny. Hook up your neighbor. Make jubilant Christmas presents for all your co-workers. Myrrh is très gauche this season, because it has consecutive rr's followed by an h. Forget that.

Buy from any of the links below. If you purchase from the Paypal link at the bottom, I personally will drop a disk in the mail for you the same day, and you will have a hot orange envelope in your hot hot hands in a matter of hours. Together, we can make dreams come true.

iTunes :: CD Baby :: Amazon

Cornhusker prose for Big Red pink slip

Husker Stadium  uploaded by bsmith4815

Yesterday my beloved Cornhuskers finished their worst season since 1961.

I grew up in Nebraska, where love of football is not a mandate, it's DNA. The political discourse of Washington, DC has nothing on the tone and gravitas of football talk in the Beef State. There, football stories are not written in the inverted pyramid style of journalism, but rather, in tender passages of purple prose. Consider this jewel from today's State Paper:

We're on some cold, often unruly stretch of earth that was broken, beaten and beautified by sweat and muscle. And so it must be with our football. Not the design so much as the mindset. This program was built to plow, punish and destroy. It cannot be sweet. It must be starch. Try to flip it and prepare for the reaping.

The Brazilians play soccer with a ferocity and abandon that matches the mysterious, exotic rain forest that surrounds them and the fatalistic poverty from which they rise. The Japanese play baseball with caution and precision. Americans play basketball with flash, pride, freedom, glory and hubris. So goes our nation.

Nebraska must go its own way.

"Plow, punish and destroy." This is more Beowulf than Sports Illustrated. Methinks no one writes like that about the Florida Marlins or the Toronto Raptors.

It's tough to coach for the Big Red. In 1962, Bob Devaney turned around a 3-6-1 program to go 9-2, culminating in back-to-back national titles in 1970-71. He handed the dynasty off to Tom Osborne, who won no fewer than nine games in each of his 25 seasons and took home three titles between 1994-1997. Frank Solich had a respectable 58-19 record in the next six seasons. But current head coach Bill Callahan has only managed 22 wins in four seasons, showing feebly against ranked teams and conference foes. Countless "worst" records were bested this season. To the Husker, this is unimaginable, much less unacceptable.

Today the revered Osborne fired the fumbling Callahan, and there is great jubilation in Nebraska.

If firebillcallahan.blogspot.com is any indicator, it's been a long time coming: "Now is the time for Husker Nation to get squarely behind the next coach... All along, all I knew is that Bill Callahan wasn't the right fit."

Link.

Antifolk Is Dead (deconstructed).

To kick off the new blog at www.robgetzschman.com, I'll send out the old Hypocrisy In The Genius Room by summing up the closest thing it had to a single. "Antifolk Is Dead" is one of the more popular songs from the album, probably because it addresses an enthusiastic niche of indie music. It seems to sell lots in the UK, which has a taste for the old a/f. Antifolk, as most do not know, is a niche of solo-ish songwritery acoustic-punk artists on the Lower East Side of New York City.

After I left NYC in 2001, I wrote this some of this song in a journal in 2002. I never got around to finishing it until 2004, when I finally went to record Hypocrisy, which was intended to be an magnum antifolk opus. Here are the lyrics, footnoted et al. with complete explanation for those that have been down since day one (c. 2000, which, yes, is not day one).

To listen to the song and album, visit iTunes or CDBaby.

On the ace of avenues I played my cards where the sidewalk meets the street

1) The antifolk scene resides largely on Avenue A, where 2) the mainstay venue is the Sidewalk Café, Avenue A & 6th.

The eastern side as the raven flies where you can surf unreality

3) This is all on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where 4) another popular open mic was Wednesdays at The Raven, Avenue A & 12th, and 5) more elaborate antifolk functions took place at Surf Reality, a rented space above Stanton and Allen.

Where every visionary is a latch-key kid and everybody's got a re-run dream

6) Everybody gets their start on the antifolk scene by playing the Sidewalk, which is booked by Lach. 7) Lach recounts his own history as a replay of Bob Dylan's experience in Greenwich Village, in which...

Of being thrown out the door by the folk-hardcore for sounding like a hillbilly

8) Bob Dylan was barred from his first gig by folk purists, who said, "You sound like a hillbilly. We want folksingers here," as told in the song, "Talking New York" on Bob Dylan's debut. In Lach's retelling, the folk purists rejected him for being too punk.

Where there ain't no strangers to the system whether it's heroin or heartbreak

9) Antifolk artist and writer Jim Flynn interviewed dozens of the homeless in Tomkins Square Park for his book, "Stranger To The System". 10) Mike iLL's antifolk opera, "The Seduction of Sarah Sahonie", featured the song, "Crack, Heroin and Heartbreak".

Or workin' 'til close in 50 shows in 50 nights in 50 states

11) Philly antifolkist Adam Brodsky set a Guiness World Record by playing shows in all 50 states in 50 consecutive nights.

And antifolk music is dead

I stood by the foot of the bed and I watched it go

No, no, no, I said antifolk music is dead

And as soon as it was cutting edge I should've known

When there's trouble in the country and the soil rains down like you're one foot in the grave

12) Paleface's debut album on Polydor features his signature song, "Trouble In The Country", which he later renamed "Say What You Want" and included on his Multibean Bootleg album. 13) Brer Brian's self-released, Man With The Artichoke Heart, includes the song "Soil Rains Down". 14) Beck's album One Foot In The Grave is an antifolk classic, as is his harmonica stomp, "One Foot In The Grave", from the album Stereopathetic Soulmanure.

And four score lightnings hit the sky, you're bound to drive out of range

15) Diane Cluck sings "Four score lightnings hit the sky / and that's 80 if you multiply" on her keyboard-centric debut. 16) The title track of Ani DiFranco's sixth album, "Out Of Range", is a classic expression of solo antifolk.

When the bad faces come and your lucky number nine is going east with the wind

17) Grey Revell's song "The Bad Faces" includes the lyrics, "Oh, I feel the bad faces coming". 18) The Moldy Peaches' debut includes the song "Lucky Number Nine". 19) Jeffrey Lewis' song "East River" includes the lyrics, "Three, two, first avenue / Going east with the wind / Across the FDR to the east river / Fall right in."

And you don't even wanna be a rock star anymore, grab these words:

20) Major Matt Mason's song "Rockstar" features the lyrics, "I don't wanna be a rock star anymore", while 21) Prewar Yardsale's song "Weird" includes the line, "Grab these words".

(chorus)

So let's all be beautiful and let's all be bulletproof

22) A Lach piano ballad pleads, "Let's be beautiful," and 23) a Joie Dead Blonde Girlfriend acoustic-punk song boasts, "I'm bulletproof, yeah yeah, bulletproof..."

And when I finally get back to that smoke-filled room I'll see the setting sun with you

24) My song "Finally Get Back / Na Na Na" from Brooklyn Demos is about walking back to Brooklyn from the Sidewalk's interminable open mic. 25) Turner Cody sings on his album This Springtime, And Others, "I see the setting sun / I see the setting sun..."

'Cause antifolk music is dead -- it floated up to balloon heaven and I watched it go

26) Antifolk producer Spencer Chakedis recorded dozens of antifolk projects at his Brooklyn (and formerly Jersey City) studio.

(chorus)

There it is for the record. For posterity. And you know how I feel about posterity.

All-Ages Acoustic Madness with Tucker Booth

...at the Starfish Learning Center. It's my impression that this is the kind of venue that Ian MacKaye requires for a live show with his act, The Evens. Indeed, the show Tucker's pulled me aboard for is an all-ages show at an alternative learning center. And while it's not a kids' show, I had to design the flyer as such. 'Cause if there are kids there, dancing will be compulsory, if not, indeed, irresistible. Hope to see you in Hermosa Beach on December 1st!

iLike me, if you will.

For our listeners far and wide who span the depth and breadths of social networking, iLike me here:

Yes, "iLike" me, as in the verb, "add me to your iLike list". Like "MySpace" me, "Facebook" me, "friend" me or "comment" me. All websites are verbs now! So Google yourselves, YouTube your friends, and I'll Flickr you my pics so you can Twitter us about anything and everything. So totally, I'll MillionDollarHomepage you later and we can eBay the wreckage when the big ship goes down. Let's get it on!

Analog Jetpack floppy disk debut!!

Analog Jetpack's debut And How They Flew will be released officially on November 27th in a limited-edition floppy disk packaging. Produced by Jerome Maffeo of Right On Recording in Baltimore, the album features Rob Getzschman, Dan Ryan and Robby Sahm of Le Loup, Matt Jones of Jimmie's Chicken Shack and Spencer Chakedis of Deep Sound Diver, trading licks on lead guitars.

Buy copies of the album at iTunes | CD Baby | Amazon !!

Skip work, call in, download free music for DC voting rights!!

As DC Vote notes, "[Tomorrow] marks the first time in nearly 30 years that a DC voting rights bill has made it to the Senate Floor for vote. It's crucial that we show Senators that we demand the vote for DC!"

As Senator Reid has committed to bringing the bill to the floor tomorrow, DC Vote is sponsoring two huge activities today which are essential to passing the legislation, and Indie Roots is offering a free music download to help spread the word.

In DC? Get out of work and join DC Vote:
Press Conference and rally
Monday, September 17, 11 am - 12:30 pm EDT
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Constitution Avenue NE and 1st Street NE

Not in DC? Call your Senator toll-free and demand DC voting rights:
National Call-In Day
Monday, September 17, 9 am - 5 pm EDT
Call 1-866-346-3008

For Indie Roots' part, we are releasing a free song download featuring three DC bands called "Three Red Stars (Over Two Red Bars)" about DC Voting Rights. Download it free and share it with your friends to spread the word nationwide about the call-in today!

For friends both in and out of DC
Indie Roots free DC voting rights download
"Three Red Stars (Over Two Red Bars)"
by Analog Jetpack with Gist, The Dance Party, Max Glass, and Eleanor Holmes Norton
www.indieroots.org
Download and forward to your friends!

Help solve a problem left over by the Founding Fathers and make your own contribution to American History! Get busy today and stay tuned for more activities. Today and tomorrow are historical moments to be a part of!

Best headline ever

"Love Triangle Kidnap Pampernaut Preps Wingnut Defence"

Someone should surely get an award for this headline and its subheader, "Nowak team cites neck-up checkup". Forget "bacn" as the hot coin o' the Internets, I want to see 10,000 hits on "pampernaut" by Friday morning. I'm hoping to be the first to get it on YouTube.

Keepon keepin’ on

I haven't listened to Spoon much, but I know the good shit when I see it. Watch the whole video. There's a payoff.

Keepon til the break of dawn, that's what I always say. Since Keepon was invented.

Today is the official DVD release date of 10 MPH, the documentary of a cross-country trip on a Segway by my friends Josh and Hunter. These two are some of my most driven and determined friends, having not only completed the cross-country journey but successfully cut it into a movie, which took home best picture at more than one film festival. They are currently working on a new film, 10 Yards, about the national phenomenon of fantasy football.

I'm honored to be performing Friday night at the DVD release party, as my song "A Century Late" (check it on iTunes) is featured in 10 MPH, and they've invited me to perform at the DVD release. All the e-hype can be found on their site, from buying the DVD, downloading it from iTunes, putting it in your Netflix queue or bumping their IMDB star rating!

Congratulations to the whole 10 MPH team. I'm looking forward to finally seeing the film, and I encourage you all to order a copy, download or Netflix it today to support their release!

Do you know where that cookie's been? - UPDATE

UPDATE: This video got BoingBoing'ed after I forwarded it to Xeni Jardin, who posted some excellent animated AIDS PSAs from France. BoingBoing is the widest-read blog and easily the most addictive, and it was cool to hear the reverberations of the post as friends saw it in the Midwest and West Coast. The video has settled down now to about 12,000 views.
--

I'm happy to share a PSA I produced last month for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC. Serendipitously meeting with a friend last fall gave me the chance to pitch them my services, and that landed my first documentary job out of grad school, a fundraising doc that aired to about 1,000 people at the Washington Hilton. Working with them made me marvel that "Planned Parenthood" is a dirty word in conservative circles. They do nothing but help people and provide affordable medical services.

This project came from a grant to produce a PSA regarding HIV awareness, and the grant deadline was April. The project was wide open, so I took a page from the sex ed and made a graphic illustration of it. The music is Leadbelly's "Keep Your Hands Off Her", which I think fits quite nicely.

A buddy of mine says he's never eating a frosted sugar cookie again.





To see more of the kids I worked with on both projects, check out this interactive story from the Washington Post, and click on the "Fatherless" story in the table of contents. Read more about Planned Parenthood at www.ppmw.org.

F Posterity, issue 52: "F Posterity"

The final installment of F Posterity is the title track. This song is a poetic explanation of the concept, attempting to clarify what exactly "f posterity" means. I somehow doubt it does that, but it's helped me feel closure on the project. If I feel anything after this undertaking, it's that you've got to do what you do or you're not really doing it. Thanks for listening while I do.

f Posterity

visions fraught with forecasts cast latter days in purple hazes,
saying aught but that the end is near, but what they meant:
eternity is already here, hearing weighted judgments on cosmic scales,
scaling science in if-thens beyond ulterior propositions, in-theories,
since relativity passed no buck to the subjective tuckpointing of
cracks inharmonious.

but lest whate'er may be
get the be'er of me
i say, f posterity

timelines caught in mythologic fantasy beget not eventides tied to morning stars,
starting only thus: to finish just, and rust in static immortality.
informalities of truth, soothsaying exhaustive routines
of maintenance and preservation of a mortal state,
stating postulates of greatness pending beholders thus to gaze and validate
the tracks of möbius.

but lest whate'er may be
get the be'er of me
i say, f posterity

but lest whatever may be
get the better of me
i say, f posterity

Download mp3s below by right-clicking on the links.

F Posterity, 2006
52. F Posterity (Getzschman) - May 16, 2007
51. Crazy (Burton/Callaway/Reverberi/Reverberi) - May 9, 2007
50. Persistence of Regret (Getzschman/Ryan/Sahm) - May 2, 2007
49. Breakin' Plates (Getzschman/Ruthsatz) - April 26, 2007
48. Trio for Vocal, Metronome, Wurlitzer (Getzschman) - April 18, 2007
47. She Hates It When I'm Right (Getzschman) - April 11, 2007
46. Beat It (Jackson) - April 4, 2007
45. Mass Ave Strut (Getzschman) - March 28, 2007
44. Let's Fall Asleep Like This (Getzschman) - March 21, 2007
43. 2010 Ain't What They Said It Would Be (Getzschman) - March 14, 2007
42. Three Red Stars (Getzschman) - March 7, 2007
41. Birdhouse In Your Soul (Flansburgh/Linnell) - February 28, 2007
40. Everybody Thinks They're Self-Aware (Getzschman) - February 21, 2007
39. Hysterical Woman (Getzschman) - February 14, 2007
38. Hollaback Savior (Getzschman) - February 7, 2007
37. White Collar (old Philly dollar) (Getzschman) - January 31, 2007
36. Bottle of Blues (B. Hansen) - January 24, 2007
35. Ask Somebody (Getzschman) - January 17, 2007
34. All Time High Score (Getzschman) - January 10, 2007
33. Bury Me In My Jetpack (Getzschman) - January 3, 2007
32. Eggnogg Is The Liquor Of This Household (Getzschman) - December 27, 2006
31. Like Spinning Plates (T.Yorke/J.Greenwood) - December 20, 2006
30. Jack or Jesus (Getzschman/Peterson) - December 13, 2006
29. Runes (Getzschman) - December 6, 2006
28. We Leave Just Like We Come (Getzschman) - November 29, 2006
27. Shampoo! (Getzschman) - November 22, 2006
26. Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Dylan) - November 15, 2006
25. Was That Seriously Your Plan? (Getzschman) - November 8, 2006
24. Understated Explosions (Getzschman) - November 1, 2006
23. Everything Sounds Better On Vinyl (Getzschman) - October 25, 2006
22. Take Heart (Getzschman) - October 18, 2006
21. Pigs (L. Freese, S. Reyes, L. Muggerud) - October 11, 2006
20. Upstart Casualties (Getzschman) - October 4, 2006
19. Troubling (Getzschman) - Sept 27, 2006
18. Tales of Woe (Getzschman/Getzschman/Booth) - Sept 20, 2006
17. Manual Labor Pains (Getzschman) - Sept 13, 2006
16. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Gibbard/Tamborello) - September 6, 2006
15. Postmodern Burlesque Review (Getzschman) - August 30, 2006
14. Neverending Love Affair (Getzschman) - August 23, 2006
13. Living On Credit (Getzschman) - August 16, 2006
12. Broke As A Muhfuh (Getzschman) - August 9, 20006
11. Josie (Becker/Fagan) - August 2, 2006
10. Cold Day at the Races (Getzschman) - July 26, 2006
9. Calaveras (Getzschman) - July 19, 2006
8. Narcissist Blues (Getzschman) - July 12, 2006
7. Advice to a Young Jedi (Getzschman) - July 5, 2006
6. God Only Knows (Wilson/Asher) - June 28, 2006
5. Miracle Hubcap (Getzschman) - June 21, 2006
4. A Paycheck Is All I Ask (Getzschman) - June 14, 2006
3. Halfway (Getzschman) - June 7, 2006
2. Summer Crazy (Getzschman) - May 31, 2006
1. Sunday Street (Van Ronk) - May 26, 2006

The final F Posterity is coming...

... but I've been in Baltimore today recording the first session of a completely new album, demographically targeted to senior citizens. Nine new songs for old folks. Raffi, eat your heart out. Start up the buzz machine on that one!

And I'll have the final chapter of F Posterity soon.

F Posterity, issue 51: Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy"

For the last cover of the F Posterity project, I wanted to explore what is easily the best pop song of the new millennium. Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" better communicates a complex emotion in a way the mass audience can hear than any other hit since 2000. Maybe longer. The production is perfect, the performance is soulful, the lyrics are real, and the song is a classic 3-minute banger.

Hearing the last verse makes me think of Apple's "here's to the crazy ones" ad. Cee Lo sings "my heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb / and all I remember is thinking, 'I wanna be like them'", and that commercial addresses the same sentiment on another level.

Last weekend in Seattle I heard Ray Lamontagne doing a pretty cover of it on KEXP. I imagined it more as a track-laying song, the kind of rhythmic chant hard laborers used to keep time on the railroad. With sledges and pickaxes breaking rocks between the words. The lyric is too sporadic to lend itself well to that though, and I ran into the same problem trying to adapt it to a country-picked blues too. Finally, I found it worked best with something Dave Van Ronk taught me, the variable time signature. I'm not sure what the exact term is for it, but basically, the song drives the meter without a consistent number of beats per measure. He used this approach on his re-adapatation of the House of the Rising Sun, and I love the way this approach takes it out of a predictable place. You're expecting it to conform to 4/4, and it demands you wait until the lyric drives the change.


Download mp3s below by right-clicking on the links.

F Posterity, 2006
52. F Posterity (Getzschman) - May 16, 2007
51. Crazy (Burton/Callaway/Reverberi/Reverberi) - May 9, 2007
50. Persistence of Regret (Getzschman/Ryan/Sahm) - May 2, 2007
49. Breakin' Plates (Getzschman/Ruthsatz) - April 26, 2007
48. Trio for Vocal, Metronome, Wurlitzer (Getzschman) - April 18, 2007
47. She Hates It When I'm Right (Getzschman) - April 11, 2007
46. Beat It (Jackson) - April 4, 2007
45. Mass Ave Strut (Getzschman) - March 28, 2007
44. Let's Fall Asleep Like This (Getzschman) - March 21, 2007
43. 2010 Ain't What They Said It Would Be (Getzschman) - March 14, 2007
42. Three Red Stars (Getzschman) - March 7, 2007
41. Birdhouse In Your Soul (Flansburgh/Linnell) - February 28, 2007
40. Everybody Thinks They're Self-Aware (Getzschman) - February 21, 2007
39. Hysterical Woman (Getzschman) - February 14, 2007
38. Hollaback Savior (Getzschman) - February 7, 2007
37. White Collar (old Philly dollar) (Getzschman) - January 31, 2007
36. Bottle of Blues (B. Hansen) - January 24, 2007
35. Ask Somebody (Getzschman) - January 17, 2007
34. All Time High Score (Getzschman) - January 10, 2007
33. Bury Me In My Jetpack (Getzschman) - January 3, 2007
32. Eggnogg Is The Liquor Of This Household (Getzschman) - December 27, 2006
31. Like Spinning Plates (T.Yorke/J.Greenwood) - December 20, 2006
30. Jack or Jesus (Getzschman/Peterson) - December 13, 2006
29. Runes (Getzschman) - December 6, 2006
28. We Leave Just Like We Come (Getzschman) - November 29, 2006
27. Shampoo! (Getzschman) - November 22, 2006
26. Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Dylan) - November 15, 2006
25. Was That Seriously Your Plan? (Getzschman) - November 8, 2006
24. Understated Explosions (Getzschman) - November 1, 2006
23. Everything Sounds Better On Vinyl (Getzschman) - October 25, 2006
22. Take Heart (Getzschman) - October 18, 2006
21. Pigs (L. Freese, S. Reyes, L. Muggerud) - October 11, 2006
20. Upstart Casualties (Getzschman) - October 4, 2006
19. Troubling (Getzschman) - Sept 27, 2006
18. Tales of Woe (Getzschman/Getzschman/Booth) - Sept 20, 2006
17. Manual Labor Pains (Getzschman) - Sept 13, 2006
16. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Gibbard/Tamborello) - September 6, 2006
15. Postmodern Burlesque Review (Getzschman) - August 30, 2006
14. Neverending Love Affair (Getzschman) - August 23, 2006
13. Living On Credit (Getzschman) - August 16, 2006
12. Broke As A Muhfuh (Getzschman) - August 9, 20006
11. Josie (Becker/Fagan) - August 2, 2006
10. Cold Day at the Races (Getzschman) - July 26, 2006
9. Calaveras (Getzschman) - July 19, 2006
8. Narcissist Blues (Getzschman) - July 12, 2006
7. Advice to a Young Jedi (Getzschman) - July 5, 2006
6. God Only Knows (Wilson/Asher) - June 28, 2006
5. Miracle Hubcap (Getzschman) - June 21, 2006
4. A Paycheck Is All I Ask (Getzschman) - June 14, 2006
3. Halfway (Getzschman) - June 7, 2006
2. Summer Crazy (Getzschman) - May 31, 2006
1. Sunday Street (Van Ronk) - May 26, 2006

F Posterity, issue 50: "Persistence of Regret"

Since I'm on the collabo-tip with the last track, I'm throwing up a song that's been about a year in the writing and is really an Analog Jetpack song. At band practice in early June last year, we put together three entirely new songs, which included We The Freaks, Tenuous Confessions, and this one. Robby had written the music a while before that, and had it waiting around to do something with, so he taught it to us that night.

I like recording things on cassette tape, as it give you that warm analog sound, and we recorded the rehearsal for future reference on the new songs. The tape deck is the same one I recorded my third album with, and you can see a Photoshopped version of it at analogjetpack.com. I don't think I've changed the batteries in about two years.

So one thing that sounds really bad is when you have an old source tape off of a crude demo and you try to record some pristine, hot-mic overdub on it. You just can't reconcile the two fidelities well, unless you're really going for an arty sound that's inaccessible to the mass public. Which, incidentally, is probably something I'd be more into. As I just finished the lyrics this week, I needed to match the sound of the instrumental we taped last June, so I recorded my vocal overdub into the same tape deck yesterday and synced them both up in ProTools. Finally, I laid the guitar solo in.

The base instrumental you hear is the first time we'd ever played the song through, and it's one of my favorite recordings. There's something super authentic about the first time you capture a song on tape that'll never quite be matched by a studio recording. It's something more real and alive then the fine-tuned pin-drop sound of a commercial record. Since I don't know when we'll get around to giving this song that treatment, I wanted to share it here.

Persistence of Regret

It was a gray day, persistent in regret
When I drove away with the image in my head
Her twisted face, mirrored back at mine
With this atavistic rage stuck in space and time

What a failure I fight not to feel
For all the time I gave her, now I shrink and steal away
But distance isn't distance isn't distance to the pain
Put a thousand miles between and it's still right where it came

To be alone with no one but no one and nobody else
To be alone with no one and no one to see for myself

So time will pass but it doesn't disappear
Rage cools into ashes and still the pain is here
So if that's what comes back, persistence in regret
Just need to learn again what it is to forget

To be alone with no one but no one and nobody else
To be alone with no one and no one to see for myself

Download mp3s below by right-clicking on the links.

F Posterity, 2006
52. F Posterity (Getzschman) - May 16, 2007
51. Crazy (Burton/Callaway/Reverberi/Reverberi) - May 9, 2007
50. Persistence of Regret (Getzschman/Ryan/Sahm) - May 2, 2007
49. Breakin' Plates (Getzschman/Ruthsatz) - April 26, 2007
48. Trio for Vocal, Metronome, Wurlitzer (Getzschman) - April 18, 2007
47. She Hates It When I'm Right (Getzschman) - April 11, 2007
46. Beat It (Jackson) - April 4, 2007
45. Mass Ave Strut (Getzschman) - March 28, 2007
44. Let's Fall Asleep Like This (Getzschman) - March 21, 2007
43. 2010 Ain't What They Said It Would Be (Getzschman) - March 14, 2007
42. Three Red Stars (Getzschman) - March 7, 2007
41. Birdhouse In Your Soul (Flansburgh/Linnell) - February 28, 2007
40. Everybody Thinks They're Self-Aware (Getzschman) - February 21, 2007
39. Hysterical Woman (Getzschman) - February 14, 2007
38. Hollaback Savior (Getzschman) - February 7, 2007
37. White Collar (old Philly dollar) (Getzschman) - January 31, 2007
36. Bottle of Blues (B. Hansen) - January 24, 2007
35. Ask Somebody (Getzschman) - January 17, 2007
34. All Time High Score (Getzschman) - January 10, 2007
33. Bury Me In My Jetpack (Getzschman) - January 3, 2007
32. Eggnogg Is The Liquor Of This Household (Getzschman) - December 27, 2006
31. Like Spinning Plates (T.Yorke/J.Greenwood) - December 20, 2006
30. Jack or Jesus (Getzschman/Peterson) - December 13, 2006
29. Runes (Getzschman) - December 6, 2006
28. We Leave Just Like We Come (Getzschman) - November 29, 2006
27. Shampoo! (Getzschman) - November 22, 2006
26. Tomorrow Is A Long Time (Dylan) - November 15, 2006
25. Was That Seriously Your Plan? (Getzschman) - November 8, 2006
24. Understated Explosions (Getzschman) - November 1, 2006
23. Everything Sounds Better On Vinyl (Getzschman) - October 25, 2006
22. Take Heart (Getzschman) - October 18, 2006
21. Pigs (L. Freese, S. Reyes, L. Muggerud) - October 11, 2006
20. Upstart Casualties (Getzschman) - October 4, 2006
19. Troubling (Getzschman) - Sept 27, 2006
18. Tales of Woe (Getzschman/Getzschman/Booth) - Sept 20, 2006
17. Manual Labor Pains (Getzschman) - Sept 13, 2006
16. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight (Gibbard/Tamborello) - September 6, 2006
15. Postmodern Burlesque Review (Getzschman) - August 30, 2006
14. Neverending Love Affair (Getzschman) - August 23, 2006
13. Living On Credit (Getzschman) - August 16, 2006
12. Broke As A Muhfuh (Getzschman) - August 9, 20006
11. Josie (Becker/Fagan) - August 2, 2006
10. Cold Day at the Races (Getzschman) - July 26, 2006
9. Calaveras (Getzschman) - July 19, 2006
8. Narcissist Blues (Getzschman) - July 12, 2006
7. Advice to a Young Jedi (Getzschman) - July 5, 2006
6. God Only Knows (Wilson/Asher) - June 28, 2006
5. Miracle Hubcap (Getzschman) - June 21, 2006
4. A Paycheck Is All I Ask (Getzschman) - June 14, 2006
3. Halfway (Getzschman) - June 7, 2006
2. Summer Crazy (Getzschman) - May 31, 2006
1. Sunday Street (Van Ronk) - May 26, 2006