Music Makes you feel pain

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bcmeikle@shaw.ca

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      I mean maybe if I got my chops up it wouldnt hurt so much to play but
I've found it very painful making music this year. I mean I'm old. I have a few
strands of dignity...I am a self taught engineer, I got 60,000 hits and dozens of
fan letters on the 360 camera I built in 2004, last week. Why do I insist on
embarrassing myself in music?  

       I think because I make multimedia tools, and for VRHotwires 3.0 the name is
changing to QTHotwires. .. and like my rap says 'conversation
constipation' is going on. I mean during the web's booming days the idea that web
media would become as slick and professional(and commercial)  as TV was everywhere. There was
a definition of QUALITY and it had to do with certain very shallow criterea.
The amount of polish most importantly.

        But really that vision failed.
        In actuality movies of the tsunami have probably been web video's greatest moment.
Wobbly uncut and poorly composed these shots really show what web video might be.
Expression of average people.


       We are only now starting to see the 'web as tv' taking
any hold and that's because of its status as an archival system. Its not where the good
shows play, its where the old shows play.

        My thinking is that there has also been a bit of what I hoped for. Creative empowerment.
There is a 'culture' on the web. As mutant as it may be, and full of porno and scum,
its a culture. If I was going to list 4 sites and argue that they constitue a web 'culture'
they might be

Jonathan Coulton (his christamas movie was exactly what I'm talking about when I suggest a 'conversation')
Zeefrank
SongsToWearPantsTo
TikiBarTV .

I mean they are pretty random but they are: people making media for the web. Not trailers
for theaters but Web-Native Media.They are all people who have a really
suprisingly high quality too.

What I think needs to happen is more conversation.

We're not building a tv, we're building a telephone. 


So I guess this is all just to justify my quality in the music. I have been throwing a lot away,
but its all out-takes. Its just a question of choosing the best out-take.

Think of it like a phone conversation...I'm just trying to talk  because over the years
I've noticed that making bad movies has often inspired users to make movies with the same
technique but well.

or what? Ok Margaret Mead and anthropolical theories of culture. For me, in-jokes
are key to culture. If we look at Greek Theatre we see one of our earlies cultural
forms (that we have documented) and it was just FULL of in-jokes. Politicians,
other plays, people of note, all found their ways into the form. So injokes are key.

When I write something like this about a web creator I am trying to build up critical
thinking about these artists. In a way a form isnt serious until scholars have thought
critically about it. So criticism is another point.


Anyways just rambling away here...something about how this essay and
these songs and movies should all just be statements in a conversation...
not the LAST WORD ON TRUTH AND MEANING. i think that's what I'm on
about...