wedding weekend wrapup

i suppose i should get around to blogging about last weekend, since it's now almost wednesday.

we had a private wedding ceremony and reception early friday evening at the propylaeum, a beautiful victorian house on the old northside. we kept the ceremony short and sweet—almost too short—so we could move on to the fun stuff: the reception, and later the doormouse show.

the catered dinner was delicious—better than your typical catering, and surprisingly inexpensive considering we had prime rib. (though it wasn't perfect; we asked for a mushroom risotto that was to be the main entrée for our vegetarian guests, and we got a basic pilaf with some mushrooms in it.) the servings of prime rib were massive; mine almost completely filled my plate, covering most of my side dishes until i could eat some of it out of the way.

entertainment at the reception was provided by my old friends in il troubadore, and after a while i lost track of how many people told me they thought the music was great. they really rocked the house, playing some traditional numbers as well as odd covers like "sunglasses at night" and even a rendition of daler menhdi's "tunak tunak tun":


2008-10-17: Il Troubadore playing "Tunak Tunak Tun" from dj empirical on Vimeo.

eventually it was time for the reception to end and head over to therapy for the show. dj empirical went first, spinning a nice mix of electro, dubstep, and other interesting electronic stuff. it was a good start to the event.

i played next. my set went pretty well, with few mistakes. i had busted my ass for weeks preparing new material, so i would have some new stuff for people who were already familiar with the mash smarter not harder material. the crowd, which was smaller than i would've liked but still bigger than average for such shows in indianapolis, seemed pretty into it.

after my set came dr. butcher m.d., who rocked the house as usual. booking him was a no-brainer, since he's indy's best (perhaps only?) breakcore artist and makes some damn fine tracks. so i was glad to expose him to some of the doormouse audience... and it looks like he may get another gig based on his performance.

next came the headliner—doormouse, a midweset legend in the scene. he began his set by hiding under a sheet, then casting it off to reveal that he was wearing a new kids on the block ringer t-shirt. (ironic and self-deprecating humor are hallmarks of the midwestern style pioneered by doormouse and his two labels, addict and distort.)

doormouse's set was massive. he played tons of old material, classic hard-as-nails doormouse stuff—the stuff we used to have to drive 5–6 hours to hear him play in a barn in rural wisconsin back in the day. all the while, he interspersed his songs with wisecracks and other zany antics like plucking out his armpit hair (or pretending to) and eating it. we lost a bunch of money putting on this show (not to mention the actual wedding and reception), but it was all worth it for the doormouse set alone.

last up was sir.vixx. he had the most difficult slot of the night: 2 a.m., after the headliner. that would be a lot of pressure no matter who the headliner was, let alone playing after one of your biggest inspirations. but sir.vixx pulled it off, playing a high-energy set that even brought him out into the audience to do jumping jacks.

with that, the show was over. we said our goodbyes, packed up our cars, and headed back to our room at the mariott courtyard, which we had rented to give ourselves a couple days of mini-vacation. the room was quite nice, with a large tv and a whirlpool tub in the room. (the whirlpool tub option was a major factor in why we selected the courtyard. when we used it, we learned a valuable lesson: adding bubble bath to a whirlpool tub causes a veritable eruption of bubbles, similar to a baking soda volcano.)

saturday we mostly relaxed, eating a satisfactory-but-not-great breakfast at the hotel, getting some ribs from dick's for dinner, and watching tv in the room. (luckily for us, napoleon dynamite was on comedy central.)

sunday morning, we decided to try breakfast at a different (nicer) hotel, and walked over to one south in the hyatt regency. this was the best breakfast i'd eaten in some time. the buffet wasn't particularly large by midwest buffet standards, but everything on it was high quality—the waffles were the best i've had in years, if not ever. that afternoon, we drove up to springfield, illinois, to spend some time with the in-laws, where we watched part of the colts game but were spared from having to watch the whole thing. on the drive back, i narrowly avoided running over a deer on i-74 in rural illinois, which surely would have been a foul way to end our wedding weekend.

all in all, it was a fantastic time. thanks to everyone who came out to the reception and/or the show, who sent gifts, or who sent their congratulations and well wishes. we'll probably upload some photos of the reception soon. dj empirical has some photos of the show here. turningmostly has some video of the show here. and there's a short video of dr. butcher m.d.'s set here. if anyone else has photos or video of either event, send them my way! ¶

goin' to the chapel

so i haven't been blogging for the past couple weeks, but longtime readers surely know why: i'm getting married today! and then tonight is my wedding show starring doormouse—a.k.a. doormouse's last show.

so all my spare time (and money) recently has gone to wedding preparations, promoting the show, and preparing new material for my set tonight: i will have two brand-new songs that nobody other than my lovely fiancé has heard.

yes, i'm nervous. but i'm also excited. and also, i'm ready for all this stuff to be over with so i can stop stressing about it!

so if you're in the midwest and you like breakcore or other hard electronic music, come on out to the show tonight. we've got a great lineup, and our headliner doormouse will be playing his last show for the foreseeable future. plus you'll get to see the newlywed couple! ¶

fort wayne pre-party before doormouse's last show

if you're traveling to indy for the doormouse show, why not hit the fort wayne pre-party the previous night? it's free!

Selector Catalogue (Reject Records)
Ann Arbor, MI (LIVE Breakcore)

Split Horizon (Void Tactical Media)
Detroit, MI (LIVE Broken Beats/Dark Electro)

Traits (Snake Pillage)
Ann Arbor, MI (LIVE Raggacore/Breakcore)

Sedition (FWPC)
Fort Wayne, IN (Breakcore/Dub Terror/80's Pop)

Nomad
Fort Wayne, IN (Drum & Bass)

21+.
O'Sullivan's
1808 W. Main St.
Fort Wayne, IN 46808

as a reminder: doormouse's last show for the foreseeable future (a.k.a. my wedding show) is next friday, october 17, at therapy nightclub & lounge, 605. e. market st in downtown indianapolis.

$10 advance tickets will remain on sale until thursday, october 16. but if you want a paper ticket, you must order by 11:59pm EDT today to give us time to mail them to you. if you order after this time, you'll get an e-ticket that will get you into the event, but no paper ticket to show off to your grandkids. ¶

desperately seeking validation

so the city of indianapolis website—indygov.org—has a new design! the most striking part of the design is the honkin' big photo of mayor ballard in the center. this week's behind closed doors in the star has more:

That didn't sit well with Democratic City-County Council member Angela Mansfield, but it was just one of many complaints she had about the site. The site was experiencing numerous technical problems, including links that did not work and words piled on top of each other.

Mansfield said the city should have tested it for bugs before the public launch.

"This has been a complete waste of money, as well as an embarrassing presentation of our city," Mansfield said. "It's a mess, and it looks like kids designed it."

the huge portrait does seem a bit vain and needy (ironic from a mayor who so detests going in front of cameras or talking to the media), but the technical issues, dead links, and overlapping text are more embarrassing. indygov.org is a major website that gets a lot of traffic. a site like that seriously needs to go through some major testing before it's rolled out, or else... well, your bad rollout ends up as a story in the newspaper.

on a whim, i thought i'd run the site through a validation tool, and surprise surprise, the code doesn't validate. now granted, my site probably doesn't validate either, but i'm just an amateur putting this site together on my spare time in between work and other artistic endeavors. there's no excuse for a site like indygov.org not to validate. the fact that it doesn't shows just how crummy this redesign is.

elsewhere in today's star is a story about the city's spending priorities. the article centers around the idea that if you want nice stuff, you have to be willing to pay for it, and explains that this is why indy's public transit system is a joke (likely to grow worse still) and why other cities have better parks, libraries, etc. the article then naturally concludes with a quote from melyssa, who would prefer the city spend nothing and have no nice stuff whatsoever.

indygov.org's new redesign was no doubt done on the cheap, like everything this administration does, and it shows. i was no fan of the old design, but at least it didn't have dead links and overlapping words on the front page. by all means, redesign the site, but if you're going to do it, spend the money to do it right: have professional developers write industry-standard, validated code, and then test it thoroughly before rollout. ¶

advance tickets: doormouse's last show

$10 advance tickets will be sold online for Doormouse's last show until thursday, october 16.

if you want a paper ticket, you must order by 11:59pm EDT, friday, october 13, to give us time to mail them to you. if you order after this time, you'll get an e-ticket that will get you into the event, but no paper ticket to show off to your grandkids.

don't miss this opportunity to see Doormouse's last show for the foreseeable future.

Doormouse -- Addict Records founder and midwest legend
Dr. Butcher M.D. -- Indy's breakcore mad scientist
stAllio! -- post-mashup madness
DJ Empirical -- Cincinnati Serato flavor
Sir.Vixx -- Chicago breakcore insanity

9pm-3am, Friday, Oct 17, 2008. 21+ with ID.
Therapy Nightclub & Lounge
605 E. Market St., Downtown Indianapolis, 46202
myspace.com/therapynightclub ¶

pence wants to fix child seduction law

from the indy star:

The Democratic candidate for attorney general said today that she would lobby to change Indiana's child seduction statute so it covers anyone with responsibility over a teenager.

Without the change, Linda Pence said, people who volunteer at schools and camps or work at places that give them authority over children might not be covered by the law. She called it a loophole.

"Unfortunately for our children, there are many adult care givers who have responsibility and control over our children who are excluded by this restrictive language," Pence said during a news conference this morning on the west side of the Indiana Capitol.

so if a teacher has sex with a 16-year-old student, that's a crime under the current law, but if a volunteer coach or teaching assistant has sex with the same student, there's no penalty. sounds like a massive loophole to me.

She cited two cases. In one, the Indiana Supreme Court last year ruled that a Switzerland County school bus driver employed by a private contractor wasn't covered by the child seduction statute since he didn't work directly for the school district. In the other case, Pence said she recently represented teenage girls seduced by an Indianapolis-area coach who was a volunteer and didn't face criminal charges. The girls' families sued the coach, and the lawsuit was resolved through a settlement, Pence said. She declined to name the parties.

if that second case sounds familiar, it's because gary welsh tried to turn it into an attack on pence last month. apparently the seducer in the case was an old friend of gary's who took advantage of his role as a volunteer coach to seduce not one but two of the 16-year-old girls in his care. one of the girls' parents hired pence, who eventually filed a lawsuit against gary's buddy.

for some puzzling reason, gary thought this story made linda pence look like the bad guy and blogged about how mean she was to his old pal. at the time, i noted that the story sounded like a textbook case of child seduction and was confused as to why pence was unable to get the guy convicted of that crime, considering that he readily admitted to having sex with two underage students. now i know why: because he took advantage of this "volunteer" loophole.

one other thing: note how pence declined to name the seducer. she may not like the guy—in fact i suspect she finds him repulsive—but she's not going to publicly drag his name through the mud. in contrast, gary welsh's post not only named his buddy the child seducer, but he also named one of the victims.

update: you know gary hates to be made a fool of, so naturally he had to post again, defending himself and his good buddy:

What Pence failed to explain to the media today was that criminal charges were not brought against the person in question because the sex she alleged occurred took place after he had moved to Chicago and was no longer working as a volunteer coach for the school.

ah, so he seduced them while working at the school, but waited until after he quit to actually sex them up? hmm... i don't think that makes the situation much better. (in fact, it sounds like child grooming to me.)

furthermore, where does gary get off talking about alleged sex? in his previous post, he reported that his friend admitted to having sex with two underage former rowing students (two—not just the one gary claims is "in love" with his friend). there's nothing alleged about that sex. everyone agrees that it happened. ¶

is a spade a spade? obviously not!

shorter gary welsh: the new york times expects you to believe that being a founding partner in a lobbying firm that works for a client counts as having "lobbying ties" to that client. they must think you're stupid. ¶

desperate politics

just last week, as the world found out about the latest round of bank failures, mccain insisted that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." now, he claims that things are so bad that the economy "the country could slide into a Depression by Monday" if he doesn't back out of friday's debate and rush to washington to fix things.

what has changed between now and then? if you answered that "mccain has been slipping in the polls", pat yourself on the back. ¶

shorter josh gillespie

shorter josh gillespie: so what if my esteemed co-blogger wrote a bunch of disgusting racist garbage that we had to delete? liberals have said mean things about sarah palin, and that's even worse! anyway, at least we're not like gary welsh... that guy is crazy. ¶

shorter mike "sir hailstone" jezierski

everyone else has already written about this, but if i'm going to call out ipopa for racist stereotypes then i can hardly ignore this nonsense...

shorter mike "sir hailstone" jezierski: barack obama doesn't just want to raise your taxes, he wants to shank you, steal your money, and make it rain all over the white house lawn. (that's how black people act, right?) he probably wants to "superman" your girlfriend, too, whatever that means. ¶

shorter ipopa

i hesitate to turn the devastating power of shorter on my fellow lefties, but i must do what i must do...

shorter ipopa: i don't hate all latinos—just the ones who, you know, act like latinos. ¶

the definitive shorter gary welsh

shorter gary welsh: when they said that reagan had meddled with foreign affairs in order to get elected, i knew it had to be a dirty lie. but when they said that obama had meddled with foreign affairs to get elected, i knew it had to be true! ¶

economic fundamentals

major economic news this weekend. lehman brothers is tanking. merrill lynch, once ironclad, is now up for sale. how bad is it? is it time to panic? is it time to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?

it's hard to know whose advice to trust in times like this. should i believe john mccain, when he puts out an ad saying the economy is in crisis? or should i instead believe john mccain, when he says "the fundamentals of our economy are strong", as he said this morning?

i'm so confused! ¶

mayor ballard shuts up

mayor ballard seems to have finally realized that every time he opens up his mouth when a reporter is around, something stupid comes out. so the solution is typically ballard-simple: stop talking to reporters! matt tully explains:

During the week, a few local Republicans attending the convention had told me Ballard was upset about coverage of his administration and had thus decided to back away from the media. So midway through our flight, I walked to the rear of the plane, where the mayor was sitting, and suggested a column that would essentially allow him to talk about his first months in office -- in his own words.

That was my mistake.

It seems the mayor is afraid of his own words. After all, they sometimes come back to haunt him. Like when he said parks were a "drain" on the city budget. Or when he picked a fight with the arts community, not realizing how tough arts folks can be. Or when he said it'd be easy to find millions of dollars of fluff in the city budget. Or when he mused about creating a Chinatown from scratch.

Now, it doesn't matter to me whether the mayor talks to me or not. This column is pretty manageable with or without his words. And regardless, the City-County Building is full of people who are eager to talk about what the mayor is doing.

But it's sad to see Citizen Mayor take the advice of those who want to turn him into Talking-Point Greg.

is this the end of the gaffe-o-matic mayor, to be replaced by the missing mayor? he's already been nearly invisible, letting marcus barlow and scott newman take most of the heat for his unpopular initiatives, and only occasionally appearing before a camera to say something embarrassing.

if the mayor's going to retreat completely into his shell, that's not surprising, but it is disappointing... writing about the mayor is generally such a joyless activity, and his many gaffes bring brief moments of much-needed humor. the next three years of the ballard administration will be grim enough; at least give us something to chuckle about! ¶

how dare you get upset when i take your money away?

so last night's city council meeting was filled to the brims with arts supporters, who were there to protest the mayor's plans to slash arts funding. gary and abdul are both upset at these mean artists for daring to not want their money taken away, and they're singing the same tune. gary says

[T]he City's share of funding for the arts is such a small drop in the bucket for the local arts community that it's hard for its supporters to argue that the elimination or reduction in funding will have an appreciable impact on the arts community.

abdul takes it a step further and lists how much city money is received by various organizations, before concluding:

On average the city funds about 4.6% of the operating budgets of these organizations. If they are going to go out of business over what amounts to basically an average 1.5% budget cut then maybe they should spend a little less time on art and more on math.

is this really the argument republicans want to make here? if so then they haven't properly thought it through. because not only does the argument cut both ways, but it's a stronger argument going the other way!

to wit: the city's entire arts budget is a microscopic $1.5 million. that's out of an annual budget of about $1.1 billion. so the city's arts funding is only 0.136% of the budget—that's fourteen hundredths of a percent! to paraphrase abdul, if the city is going out of business over 0.136% of its budget then the mayor needs to fire his staff and hire someone who's taken an algebra class. surely we don't truly need to cut something that is already such a puny sliver of the budget, right?

moreover, the numbers in abdul's post don't really say what he claims they do. to be sure, the indianapolis museum of art probably wouldn't suffer too much if its 85 grand of city funding were taken away. but encore vocal arts gets 11.34% of its budget from the city. storytelling arts of indiana gets 11.71% of its budget from city funding. primary colours gets 10.50%. interaction theater gets 15.81%. the indianapolis symphonic band gets 19.21%. and freetown village gets a whopping 26.22% of its budget from city funding. i'm sure abdul wouldn't mind if his bosses decided to cut his paycheck by 26.22% (or one third of that—8.74%—a year); it would probably be only a small dent in his martini budget. but for a nonprofit organization, 26% of your budget is a lot of money. that $40,500 means everything to freetown; it means nothing to the city of indianapolis. ¶

how much shorter is too much shorter?

it feels like i'm doing too many shorter gary welshes, but he's putting out such a prolific stream of nonsense that it's hard to stop. someone help me out here! there's too much insanity for one blog to mock...

shorter gary welsh: i'm disgusted that the media is paying so much attention to sarah palin's family! they should be going after joe biden's family instead... especially the dead ones. ¶

doormouse's last show?

i just got off the phone a while ago with sir.vixx. while discussing arrangements for my wedding show, he mentioned something interesting that he'd noticed on doormouse's myspace page:

(click for larger, uncropped image)
on doormouse's myspace calendar, he has my wedding show listed as his last US show. ("purdy lounge dj sets" is a weekly recurring event that may very well end before october 17.) furthermore, his myspace "headline"—which is more of a profile quote or signature than a headline—now reads "And I'm Out".

all of this suggests that doormouse is retiring from music (or at least live performance). if true, it means that the october 17 doormouse show in indianapolis could be his final live show ever!

of course, it's my wedding night—we're getting married earlier in the day—so this show was always going to be special for me. but if it's going to be doormouse's last show ever... wow.

here's the flier:

here are myspace links for the performers: Doormouse, Dr. Butcher M.D., Sir.Vixx, DJ Empirical. if you want a taste of what my set will sound like, download my mash smarter not harder EP.

update: doormouse has confirmed in an email that this is his "last show for the foreseeable future" and he is "taking a break."¶

plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose

shorter gary welsh, monday: obama got no convention bounce! ha ha! that totally proves this theory i have about how the media is in the tank for obama.

shorter gary welsh, today: the fact that obama got such a massive convention bounce totally proves this theory i have about how the local media is in the tank for obama. ¶

dear access hollywood

journalism: ur doin it wrong:

Oprah went on to say that she would relish the opportunity to sit down with the first female vice presidential nominee in history.

sarah palin is not the first female vice presidential nominee in history. geraline ferraro shattered that glass ceiling 24 years ago.

that is all. ¶

ballard keeps COIT money but won't hire more cops

if you've been clinging to the hope that mayor ballard and council republicans would repeal last year's county income tax increase—you know, the one they campaigned against—perhaps it's finally time to abandon that fantasy:

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department will not try to hire 100 sworn officers that were promised last year when the City-County Council raised the county income tax.

Instead, city officials said Wednesday, the department this year spent the amount of money it would have cost to hire those officers on immediate needs not covered in the 2008 budget: retirement benefits, overtime, fuel and contractual raises.

Next year, Public Safety Director Scott Newman said, the department plans to hire 40 civilian public assistance officers. The new, lower-paid positions would handle less-difficult duties such as vandalism and accident reports, allowing sworn officers more time for bigger challenges.

far from being the unaffordable tax hike that ballard and friends portrayed it as, the COIT increase turns out to have been too small, such that it doesn't bring in enough money to cover the expenses it was planned to... and that's not even counting the police pensions it was also supposed to cover. (ipopa thinks he knows why the public safety budget is a mess: expensive micromanagement.)

of course, some of us have known all along that the increase would never be repealed, because despite what ballard said on the campaign trail, the city desperately needed the money. but if there was ever any doubt, this story should squash it. this announcement officially kills two pillars of the ballard campaign: that the COIT increase was bad, and that he would hire more cops. (hiring rent-a-cops and calling them cops doesn't count.) ¶

mayoral pronouncements from minneapolis

shorter greg ballard: just because sarah palin has no experience doesn't mean she's unqualified to be vice president. i mean, look at me! i had no experience, and yet i'm a great mayor, right? in fact, palin's a better candidate than obama, because... oh, hold on, i dropped my talking points. ¶

it was bound to happen

if the past couple months taught us anything, it's that gary welsh has high regard for the national enquirer. for weeks, he trumpeted the enquirer story about john edwards, writing, among other things:

As I've said before, you can knock the National Enquirer and other tabloids all you want, but when it comes to political scandals, they're usually dead on.

a couple weeks later, he wrote:

When the tabloids take away time from the Hollywood celebrities to take on politicians, it's usually because the mainstream media is covering up for the politician.

another thing we've learned recently is that gary thinks sarah palin is the bestest VP candidate ever. so what happens when an unstoppable force meets and immovable object? what happens when the enquirer takes on sarah palin?

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin attempted to quietly have her daughter Bristol get married before news of her pregnancy leaked out, the NATIONAL ENQUIRER is reporting exclusively in its new issue.

Palin planned for the wedding to take place right after the Republican National Convention and then she was going to announce the pregnancy.

But Bristol, 17, refused to go along with the plan and that sparked a mother-daughter showdown over the failed coverup.

The ultra-conservative governor's announcement about her daughter's pregnancy came hours after The ENQUIRER informed her representatives and family members of Levi Johnston, the father of Bristol's child, that we were aware of the pregnancy and were going to break the news.

personally, i don't trust the enquirer's reporting any further than i could throw it. i start out with the assumption that this junk is false. but apparently, gary really believes in this stuff. he starts out with the assumption that it's true. he thinks of the national enquirer as a respectable journalistic institution that follows the tough stories that other outlets are too timid to touch.

so how will he react? my metaphorical money is on him not mentioning it at all. this will be interesting to watch.

update: this is bigger than i thought:

John McCain's presidential campaign is threatening a lawsuit against the National Enquirer over a print edition story the tabloid ran today alleging that Gov. Sarah Palin has had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner.

The allegation would normally be dismissed by political observers as the random musings of a supermarket tabloid -- indeed, the McCain campaign said as much in its statements on Wednesday -- except that the paper has built up a reservoir of legitimacy following its earlier reporting on the John Edwards affair.

considering that gary wrote three posts accusing the mainstream media of cowardice for not running with the john edwards affair story, it will be hard for him to avoid addressing this enquirer story now. but what can he possibly say that won't sound foolish? ¶

what did i miss?

i'm back, with new backgrounds inspired by (read: promoting) the upcoming wedding show.

schizophrenia 3 was excellent; the abelcain set alone was worth the price of admission.

rib america was not so great. the food was delicious but vastly overpriced, and it was crazy hot outside. plus, there was an hourlong break in between bands, and we realized we had nothing to do during that time. (i guess we could've bought more expensive food or gotten some free samples of chewing tobacco, but that was about it.) so we went home before blue oyster cult even played.

i heard about mccain's odd choice of vp before i left, but didn't hear about her various scandals until i got back. i did hear plenty about hurricane gustav, as we watched a lot of tv in the hotel room.

the hotel's wifi didn't reach our room, which meant no blogosphere (and no last.fm). so i didn't have time to write shorters, but if i had, i could've taken my pick from any of gary welsh's past 6 or 8 posts, all of which were eminently mockworthy. (for the briefest of moments, i fantasized that his post titled "anatomy of an obama smear from one who would know" might be a confessional, wherein he apologizes for his role in promoting repulsive smears about barack obama and other democrats, but of course, it's just another post from indiana's filthiest pot criticizing the kettle for its blackness.)

all in all, a good weekend, but between the fast food we ate on the road and today's barbecue fare, i've eaten almost my whole ration of fat and calories for the week. it'll be lots of ground turkey and lowfat chicken from now on. ¶

busy weekend

i won't have much time for blogging this labor day weekend; i'll be too busy rocking out. here's the rough schedule:

friday: drive up to madison, WI with drbmd & cycle. attend friday night breakcore preparty at club inferno.

saturday: party all night at schizophrenia 3.

sunday: make our way back to indiana.

monday: head to rib america with virago to eat bbq and see the reverend peyton's big damn band and blue oyster cult.

we'll have a bit of downtime saturday afternoon, so i'm not sure what we'll be doing, but i'm pretty sure i won't be hanging out on the blogs writing shorters. i believe our motel is supposed to have wifi, though, so i might not be completely unreachable. ¶

sample clearance and collage music

the future of music coalition discusses the issue of sample clearance as it pertains to collage music, using the example of girl talk's latest record:

Assuming Girl Talk could a) figure out who owns the copyrights, and b) get all the permissions necessary, there's another set of hurdles: the cost of licensing these samples. Each negotiation – and there would need to be at least 600 in his case – takes time, and prices can escalate very quickly, especially for samples of well-known artists or songs. (And these are exactly the types of tunes Girl Talk sampled on Feed the Animals.)

The sample license clearance process is primarily a set of private negotiations. Even though the process can be clumsy and inefficient, it ensures that the copyright owner and publisher can both set the price for the sample, and receive money for the license. It also means the original creator can share in the success of the new recordings that contains his/her original work. Indeed, in some cases, sample licenses have created an additional revenue stream for original recording artists, some of whose careers peaked decades ago.

In addition, if using a pre-recorded sample is cheaper than hiring flesh-and-bone musicians to play on the new recording, it could negatively impact the hiring and development of professional musicians.

But for the person who wants to clear a sample, the cost of licensing is extremely unpredictable and time consuming. The price can be based on such intangibles as an artist’s street credibility (on both sides of the transaction), existing negotiating history between publishers and managers and whether a sample will reinvigorate the back catalog of the sampled artist. In some cases the cost is simply untenable, with the copyright owner of the sample asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars per sample, or for percentages of sales royalties.

Given the cumulative effect of multiple expensive samples, one can see why the sample-laden albums like the Beastie Boy's Paul's Boutique or Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions couldn't be made today. It's likely that even if Girl Talk had tried to clear the hundreds of samples he used, the time necessary and licensing fees would have sunk the project.

as a sample-based musician, this is something i know all too well. my mash smarter not harder EP samples 58 different songs, which would make clearing all the samples similarly impossible—and that's just an EP. i don't even know where most of the samples on wack cylinders came from, so even tracking down the copyright owners for that one would be impossible. ¶

you thought that was sexist? i'll show you sexist...

shorter abdul hakim shabazz: hillary clinton supporters who think she was treated in a sexist manner are just being whiny bitches. those bitches need to shut their crybaby mouths and act like men. ¶

and you thought larry sinclair was an untrustworthy source...

shorter gary welsh: my buddy chris, a former rowing coach, was put through hell by mean old lawyer linda pence, just because he had sex with a couple of his 16-year-old students. for shame, linda pence! ¶

roselyn bakery, back in the day

i finally found some decent old-school photos of roselyn bakery signs (in their original form, before they were morphed into other things). here's one by simonerose:

user chilcott also has a few decent ones of that same downtown location. (the location in these photos is now a dunkin' donuts.)¶

more former bakeries

we had to drive out to the east side for some wedding-related errands, and since i don't get out there often, i made sure to bring the camera along for some photos of former roselyn bakeries:

when i close my eyes, do the obama campaign offices disappear?

the obama campaign now has 29 offices in indiana. that's a lot for a state that's traditionally been considered "red", so instead of trying to compete, the state's republicans continue to pretend that the obama offices don't exist:

[S]tate GOP chairman Murray Clark issued a statement calling Obama's Indiana campaign "the most cynical, artificial presidential campaign in Indiana's history."

Clark described Obama's relatively many local headquarters as "bogus storefront offices."

calling the obama campaign "cynical" is rich, considering the core of the mccain campaign so far has been to try to portray obama as paris hilton with a penis. but i'm glad the state GOP has officially picked up on this ridiculous idea—pushed by right-wing blogs and already proven false—that the obama offices are fake. because while republicans continue to plug their ears and cover their eyes, obama's volunteers are out there working hard to paint the state blue. and even if they aren't successful enough to give indiana's electoral votes to obama, all those new obama voters will go to the polls and vote for other democrats.

of course, this republican denial is really a form of projection, because it's actually the mccain campaign that's non-existent in indiana. it's easy to find news stories about obama offices bustling with volunteers, many of whom say "This is the first time I'm voting Democrat". good luck finding similar stories about hoosier mccain volunteers. mccain's indiana "headquarters" can't even be bothered to return their phone calls:

A call to McCain's Indiana headquarters, also listed as the Indiana Republican Party on www.johnmccain.com, was not returned Saturday.

at least gary welsh seems to have given up on the if-i-can't-see-it-it's-not-there routine. always on the lookout for new reasons to hate obama and ignore mccain, gary has now latched on to a report that obama has pulled ads in indiana during the convention. most of us might recognize that the operative words here are "during the convention"—obama will be getting plenty of tv time this week without buying ads—but gary takes this as evidence that "Obama's 50-state strategy has been scrapped for a traditional battleground state approach". does gary think obama will suddenly shutter all those indiana campaign offices? or is he still clinging to the fantasy that they aren't real? ¶

IBJ on the parks sell-off

IBJ has a must-read article on the mayor's plan to sell off city property, including but not limited to parks. ("Even the City-County Building is on the table.")

while neighborhood activists are upset that their cherished local parks might go on the chopping block, the most controversial part of the plan is the no-bid contract awarded to venture real estate services, wherein venture gets more money the more parks are sold, and doesn't get paid at all if none are sold. under this deal, it's in venture's best interest to do everything it can to sell off as much property as possible. perhaps they'll sell off the city-county building after all.

Julia Vaughn, policy director for the watchdog group Common Cause Indiana, called it a "sweetheart deal" that screams conflict of interest and raises questions about who is looking out for the public’s interest.

"This administration has talked a lot about increasing ethics and the need for transparency and to ensure citizens decisions are being made on their merit, but they really have been glaringly inconsistent in walking the walk," Vaughn said. "This is one of those cases. From start to finish, it doesn’t pass the smell test."

Venture's president is [John] Bales, a Republican donor known to play up his ties to Gov. Mitch Daniels and other political heavyweights. His attorney is Bob Grand, managing partner at law firm Barnes & Thornburg. Grand is president of the Capital Improvement Board and the mayor's right-hand man.

do you think venture was chosen because it was the best firm, or because of the personal ties to bob grand?

Other observers say the selection of Venture could shut out other brokers and may result in good deals for Bales, not the city.

"If you call on a piece of property, will he return your call, will he tell you what the status is and for what price? That's the test," said one top developer who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I will tell you, any broker will tell you, that's not the way it happens. What happens is, he goes out and finds somebody to buy it that he wants to do business with."

Bales has a reputation for landing deals that benefit him as much as his clients, in some cases buying properties his clients are considering leasing. And he's equally known for political connections; he represented his friend Carl Brizzi, the Marion County prosecutor, a few years ago in the lease of 72,000 square feet at 251 E. Ohio St.

the article also quotes gary welsh. i criticize gary a lot, but on this issue—and generally in his (post-election) analysis of the ballard administration—he's dead-on.

Welsh said the mayor's advisers are weaving a tangled web of conflicts of interest. He points to a $30 million real estate investment fund launched recently by Venture that has Bales, Barnes & Thornburg partner Ben Pecar and Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi on its board of directors. The stated mission of the fund: Capitalize on real estate opportunities in Florida and value opportunities in Indiana.

"I don't think Ballard realizes how much they're manipulating him on this stuff," Welsh said.¶

counting the uncountable

a lot of people are picking on john mccain today because when he was recently asked how many houses he owns, he was unable to answer the question. but i don't think that's fair, because when you own as many houses as john mccain does, keeping track of them all can be quite difficult. if i owned half as many properties as mccain, i probably couldn't give you an exact number either.

as josh marshall explains, it all depends on how you count. for example, his primary residence is a $4.7M condo in phoenix. but when mccain bought the place, he bought two adjacent condos and then merged them together like voltron into one megacondo. so does that count as one house or two? or, on the other hand, is a condo a "house" at all? similarly, he owns a large piece of property at hidden valley ranch. on that property there are six houses. so does that count as one home with five guest houses, or do you count it as six houses?

so obama released an ad attacking mccain for not knowing how houses he owns. the ad claims that mccain owns seven houses. but looking at the list, i don't even know how they came up with that number. this page says there are 10 homes. that's counting the hidden valley ranch property as three houses (why three, and not four or six, i don't know). but the list also includes five condos and two lofts... neither of which are "houses" according to a strict literal definition. so if the question is explicitly how many houses he owns, the answer is three. (or six?) but if you're talking about homes, including condos and lofts, the number could be as high as 13. furthermore, the mccain campaign is quick to point out that mccain doesn't actually live in all 13 of those places. if you own a house but don't live there, do you really own it?

i can understand why obama would be fascinated by this—after all, obama grew up poor and had to work hard to earn enough money for one home in chicago and one in washington. (indeed, by john mccain's standard, obama doesn't even make enough money to qualify as "rich".) mccain, the son of an admiral who married a wealthy beer heiress, probably doesn't have time to concern himself with trivialities like counting his houses. that's the kind of thing you hire other people to do.

i just hope this doesn't backfire on obama. can't you see the response ad? barack obama claims john mccain owns seven houses. but in fact, a detailed analysis confirms that mccains only owns six houses, along with five condos and two lofts. can america afford a president who doesn't know how to count to six? i'm john mccain and i approved this message.

update: i forgot that in 2004, republicans relentlessly mocked john kerry because the kerrys own a meager five houses, which isn't even in the same league as mccain's thirteen. ¶

google shared items

i finally gave in—about a year after everyone else—and started using google reader. the main reason was so i could add one of those nifty "shared items" boxes to my sidebar like everyone else has. often i will find interesting articles that i want to recommend, but don't have the time or inclination to write a whole blog post about them. for months i've been coveting those shared item boxes, so today when i had a few minutes to spare, i finally set one up.

my sidebar was already pretty cluttered, so to make way for the new box, i got rid of the "greatest hits" box (nobody cares about those stories anymore anyway) and replaced it with a much-smaller "databending" box for links to my databending primer. at some point, i might also turn the "archives" and "background" boxes into drop-down lists to further cut down on space, because it's still pretty cluttered over there.

naturally, none of the default styles for the google reader clip match my design, but using the info on this page i was able to totally reformat it all to match my blog design. if you don't know javascript, though (and i admit my javascript is rusty), that page won't make much sense to you. ¶

white pages and green spaces

here's a little experiment. if you look up "gregory ballard" in the white pages, you'll only find one indianapolis address. in the interest of privacy, i won't reprint that address here, though it's easy enough to find.

here's the google satellite view of that address. the mayor lives right across the street from a golf course:


if someone paved over that golf course, or chopped down all those trees behind his large back yard, do you suppose he'd notice?

perhaps this is the problem: the mayor's house is so completely surrounded by green spaces that he doesn't understand that some of us live in apartments or houses without yards and therefore depend on neighborhood parks. ¶

ballard doesn't make the connection

the latest travesty from the mayor's office is that he wants to sell off our small neighborhood parks. ballard told the star ed board, "I don't make the connection between a property the size of this room and green space." apparently we could pave the whole city and mayor ballard wouldn't notice.

the value of these small parks is immeasurable, particularly for those who don't live in houses with nice yards (as i imagine ballard does, in which case... hello! is your back yard not a green space?). i still remember walking to the small park around the corner from the house where i lived when i was four years old. but rather than seeing these as vital community spaces, mayor ballard thinks they're just a "drain".

the mayor has hired venture real estate services to do an inventory of the city's neighborhood parks and recommend which ones to sell off. the administration points out that venture is not getting paid for the analysis, only for the selling off, and states that the company is taking a "big risk" doing it this way—apparently not realizing that this is precisely what will motivate venture to do everything in its power to ensure that lots of our little parks end up for sale. the conflict of interest is glaring.

i've said it before, i can't tell whether the mayor even has a vision for this city, but if he does, it doesn't sound like the kind of place i'd want to live.

with his parks plan, the mayor seems to have finally lost matt tully, who no longer considers ballard's bumbling to be charming:

Mayor Greg Ballard has a way of saying things and later regretting and backtracking from his words.

It was endearing at first, in a Mr.-Smith-Goes-to-Washington sort of way. It's not anymore.

You might recall Ballard bashing public funding for the arts on the campaign trail, only to come into office begging the arts community for forgiveness. And who could forget his criticism of former Mayor Bart Peterson's Super Bowl bid, criticism that came before he realized what an economic boon a Super Bowl could be.

These days, many people are hoping Ballard's talk about pocket parks being a pesky "drain" on the city's budget is just another example of foot-in-mouth disease. They're hoping he realizes city parks are not about dollars and cents, but about green space and quality of life. They're hoping he backtracks from the silly idea of selling off the small parks.

this was tully's second column in the past week and a half that was critical of the mayor (i'm not counting the one from wednesday, which was pretty mild), and that previous column mightily pissed off ballard's office:

And speaking of calling the mayor, his cronies were very upset at me for publishing his office number in a recent column and suggesting readers dial it if they couldn't get through to the understaffed Mayor's Action Center hot line.

Mayoral press secretary Marcus Barlow said my decision to publish the mayor's office number was "counterproductive."

I'm not sure what he meant by that. Personally, I don't see anything counterproductive about taxpayers calling the mayor's office to voice their displeasure about poor service at the MAC, or to complain about the shortsighted idea of selling off park land.

he ends his column by repeating the phone number: (317) 327-3601. ¶

from bakery to chinese food to donut shop

here's part 2 of my quest to photograph all the old roselyn bakery signs that have been rebranded by their new tenants.

this one, in the heart of downtown indianapolis, was a panda express for several years and only recently became dunkin' donuts. the book indianapolis: then and now has a photo of the place back when it was a panda express. we have a copy in the living room; someday i may scan it. but for now, you can use amazon's "search inside" feature to see it. just follow this link to the amazon page and search inside for "panda express".

shorter abdul hakim shabazz

shorter abdul hakim shabazz: democrat ed treacy doesn't want to come on my radio show. therefore, he is a poopoo-head, a poopoo-face, and a caca-poopoo. [pounds fist on crib, drops pacifier] ¶

mayoral health problems

i give mayor ballard a lot of flak, but here's hoping he remains in good health:

Mayor Greg Ballard is wearing a heart monitor today after being admitted to a hospital on Monday while suffering chest pains.

Ballard, 53, was admitted to Community East Hospital with chest pains and shortness of breath, his office announced this morning.
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"Doctors ran an EKG and the mayor underwent a stress test, the results of both tests were normal," a statement from press secretary Marcus J. Barlow said.

just last week, the mayor had knee surgery to fix an injury he obtained in july while bowling. ¶

ballard backtracks on arts funding?

last night mayor ballard introduced his budget before the council:

One surprise in the speech came when Ballard said the city "cannot eliminate funding for the arts," which he had proposed earlier this month. Aides said that while the budget would trim $500,000 from arts budgets next year, the mayor's budget included setting aside at least $1 million per year unless other funding sources can be found.

you may recall that his original plan was to cut $500K a year until there was nothing left to cut. this seems to say he has changed his mind and will leave that last million in place. perhaps the save indy arts petition did some good? or does the "unless other funding is found" bit mean that this is just wordplay, that he will eliminate the funding, but only once a few more donors chip in so he can pretend the cuts won't hurt?

beyond that bit of possible good news, though, there isn't much to be happy about in the new budget. the mayor still wants to cut $3 million from parks funding. the budget apparently assumes a consolidation referendum will pass and doesn't include alternative numbers in case the referendum fails. $11 million in sewer improvements were moved off the budget so that ballard can pretend it's balanced when it's actually not.

and of course, the mayor who promised that public safety would be number one wants to slash the sheriff's budget:

[Sheriff] Anderson, a Democrat, said Monday that cutting the county jail's budget would reverse many years of work to get out from under a federal lawsuit over crowded jail conditions. The proposed 6 percent cut to his department would come after years of budget increases to improve and expand the jail system.

"In the midst of a war on crime, the citizens of Marion County cannot afford a cut in public safety," the sheriff said.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker last summer lifted a consent decree after 35 years of federal oversight prompted by what the courts deemed to be unconstitutional conditions in the jail. Barker's decision followed a period that saw a jail expansion, court-ordered inmate releases, annexes to hold a growing number of inmates and the inception of a night court to more quickly process criminal suspects.

Anderson said Barker specifically warned against any reductions in spending that could lead the county back to crowding and court-ordered early releases.

"The mayor said he would not cut public safety," Anderson said. "We're a part of public safety. My concern is that we don't get back to where we were with crowding and early releases."

Anderson said he would work with the mayor's office to resolve the issue. The dispute seems to center on different cost estimates for the county-run, maximum-security jail.

Reynolds said the jail costs $107 per prisoner per day, while a privately run, minimum-security second jail in Marion County costs $42 per prisoner per day. Reynolds said the administration understands that it costs more to deal with heavier security issues in the county-run jail, but he said a cost of $62 per prisoner per day at a state-run, maximum-security prison showed that savings can be found.

Anderson said the administration somehow got hold of incorrect information about costs. He said the cost is $58 per prisoner per day, not the $107 cited by Reynolds. The county-run jail houses all of the most violent cases, as well as all the costly medical needs cases. Its budget also includes the cost of transportation to and from the courts.

"We had experts in to do a comparison of the jails, and after you account for the differences, it's almost a wash," Anderson said.

i remember all the republican hand-wringing about jail overcrowding and early release... it was still going on in 2006! and now that the problems have finally been solved, they immediately want to slash the budget and risk backsliding. why would the mayor want to do something so counterintuitive? the only reason that even makes sense is that this is simply an attack on a political enemy: the mayor hates the sheriff, so first he seized control of the police and now is trying to force the sheriff into privatizing the jail as well. ¶

i thought we were promised no cuts in public safety?

you may recall that mayor ballard promised to balance the city's budget and slash $70 million of fluff, all without any funding cuts for public safety. so i'm a bit puzzled now that he's announced his 2009 budget:

Ballard's budget proposal would cut about $18 million in current spending, including parks and the arts. But the budget Ballard will announce tonight proposes the majority of the cuts come from the sheriff's department, Marion Superior Courts and an uncertain consolidation of assessors.

Reynolds explained the proposal to cut $5.5 million from the department of Sheriff Frank Anderson, a Democrat, by noting that the city's contract with a private jail operator costs less than half as much as the county-operated jail. He said he understands the difference between the privately run minimum-security facility and county-operated maximum-security jail but thinks substantial savings could be found.

Joanne Sanders, the Democratic minority leader, said it didn't make sense to reduce jail spending after years of efforts to stop jail crowding that forced the early release of prisoners.

She questioned Ballard's proposal to cut $2.4 million from the court system. She said spending $12.6 million more on the police doesn't make sense if the courts won't be able to process the extra criminals caught, leaving them sitting in jail for long periods.

"It comes back to jail crowding, and we've seen the end result before," Sanders said. "It appears we're going backwards."

so ballard wants more money for cops, but less money for the courts and jails? and he calls that protecting our public safety? anyone who's seen an episode of law & order knows that catching a crimial is only act one—the criminal then needs to be incarcerated pending trial and convicted. it doesn't matter how many cops are on the street if the courts and jails are so crowded and underfunded that criminals go free.

and then there's the pathetic excuse for why he's cutting the sheriff's budget: the city's minimum-security jail is cheaper, therefore the maximum-security county jail should be equally cheap. that's like going to the supermarket and complaining that apples cost more than oranges. they cost different amounts because they're totally different!

another thing: remember what i was saying yesterday about mayor ballard failing to learn from governor daniels's mistakes? i only have three words to add here: new castle riots.

the mayor claims his new budget is balanced, which i guess is true if you redefine what "balanced budget" actually means:

Budget documents outlined in a media briefing Sunday showed the proposal would spend less in operations than it receives in revenue next year, but it also removes from the bottom line $10.8 million in sewer improvement capital expenses so the mayor can call the budget balanced. The five-year projection still showed a negative fund balance in 2012, which Reynolds called an ongoing challenge.

i never thought of balancing the budget by simply not accounting for all your expenses! pretty sneaky. and then there's stuff like this:

Ballard's budget assumes a ballot referendum consolidating township assessors will succeed, and it no longer pays for an extra reassessment like in 2008.

now, taking off the extra reassessment is probably fair, because how many times is the governor going to order reassessments? (he surely won't in 2009, as he'll no longer be up for reelection.) but wouldn't it be safer to assume your consolidation plan won't go through and budget for those expenses, rather than assume you'll get lucky again?

and of course, in addition to all these cuts, there is even more additional spending to offset those cuts, so the result is a larger budget than last year's. this is the point in the post where i would normally make another "fluff" joke, but frankly i just don't have it in me today. ¶

shorter frugal hoosiers

shorter frugal hoosiers: the fact that our post about obama's indiana field offices was completely false is actually central to our point. ¶

if it ain't working, sell it off!

it turns out tully's column from the other day was prescient: mayor ballard now wants to privatize the mayor's action center, the hotline residents call to complain about potholes, stray dogs, and the like.

the MAC uses an old system that's "so outdated that online requests are printed out, taken to another computer and typed into a program that sends the request to the appropriate city department". but when the center had 15 operators, things still went fairly smoothly and call waits ranged from 90 seconds to 2 minutes. but now, there are only 10 operators, so (surprise!) things aren't going so well. rather than fill those empty positions—the article states that three positions have been intentionally left vacant—the mayor would rather privatize the whole shebang. this is perhaps the most telling sentence in the article:

[Sarah Taylor, director of constituent services,] said Ballard asked her to look at long-range options before throwing more resources at the problem.

in other words, fix this, but do it without spending any money. unfortunately, it doesn't work like that in the real world. you can't just take an understaffed department working with obsolete gear and magically make it work better without hiring more people or upgrading any equipment.

so the mayor turned to page one of the republican playbook, and there was his solution: privatize! you could say he's just following in the footsteps of governor mitch daniels, but if so, he hasn't been paying enough attention to learn from the governor's mistakes... like the privatization of FSSA.

here's the most obvious flaw with the concept of privatizing the MAC: how is a private operator supposed to make money on the deal? the logistics of the toll road deal are obvious: 75 years times ever-increasing tolls times many drivers equals billions of dollars of revenue for macquarie. but where is the money in listening to naptown residents complain about potholes?

i understand that privatization can reduce overhead costs. but the MAC currently only has 10 employees, working for the notoriously low pay of government employees. what private operator is really going to be able to deliver the same or better quality of service at such a low cost? the underpants gnome jokes write themselves.

in the article, jackie nytes ponders "how call center operators outside the City-County Building could be as familiar with government services as the people who live and work here". this is a good point, but i wonder if it goes far enough. obviously, wherever they are, the non-government operators won't be as familiar with government services. but where would this call center be? can we even be sure it would be in indianapolis? in indiana? if you pick up the phone next year to call the MAC, will someone in st louis or denver answer? MAC operators don't just need to be intimately familiar with city government, they need to be familiar with city geography as well. they need to know the difference between broad ripple and rocky ripple, between greenwood and ravenswood.

right-wingers like to talk about running government "like a business", seemingly failing to understand that government is not a business and therefore shouldn't be run like one. the primary responsibility of our city government is to us, the city's residents. in contrast, a private company's main responsibility is to the bottom line. government is there to serve people. business is there to generate profit. these motivations are fundamentally incompatible.

i'm starting to sound like a broken record here, but where is the "fluff" that ballard told us was in the budget? so far, his idea of cutting fluff has been eliminating arts funding, slashing parks funding, and privatizing the very means by which citizens communicate with city government. these are all things democrats predicted would happen if ballard got elected, and we were dismissed as being paranoid.

of course, there is no fluff in the budget and there never was. and now that ballard is in office, he surely understands this as well as anyone. but it's too late: he promised to cut $70 million from the budget, and in addition begged the legislature to enact a plan that he knew would significantly decrease city revenues.

it's going to be long four years. ¶

shorter gary welsh

shorter gary welsh: that national enquirer story about john edwards's love child turned out to be half right (only the part about the love child was wrong). therefore, i demand an apology from democrats who mocked me for believing everything i read in the tabloids. ¶

is the mayor's honeymoon over?

something significant happened in today's indy star: matt tully wrote a column critical of mayor ballard. that's right: matt tully, who's told us more than once that he thinks the mayor's plan to "build a chinatown" on the south side is a good idea, has stopped writing love sonnets to the mayor and begun looking critically at his performance.

the column is about ballard's neglect of the mayor's action center, the main hotline by which citizens report things like potholes, poor trash pickup, and nonfunctioning crossing-walk signals (one of tully's pet peeves). under mayor ballard, callers to the hotline now have to wait 10-15 minutes or more, which tully finds unacceptable, considering the line is only open until 5:30pm monday through friday:

Not to be Mr. Obvious, but here's one way to improve service to your customers: ANSWER THEIR PHONE CALLS!

Taylor said the MAC has 10 workers who answer phones and do other clerical work. She said 15 would be ideal.

But instead of adding staff, the mayor hit the center with a 5 percent budget cut this year. And, Taylor said, he won't include funding for new operators in his 2009 budget.

It should be noted that these jobs pay about $22,000 a year. This isn't where a city with a $1.1 billion budget should skimp.

By not funding the MAC as well as it should, the mayor's office is making it hard for citizens to report the kind of basic problems that trash up a city.

Such as trash.

Of course, you can file a report at www.indygov.org/Mayor. But when you do, the report is printed off of one computer system and given to a MAC operator, who then must enter it into another system -- instead of answering phone calls.

This is nonsense.

The mayor needs to take his so-called action center seriously. He's the one who vowed to do a better job than his predecessor of listening to the people. It's awfully hard to listen to the people when you're not answering their phone calls.

apparently to mayor ballard, the MAC is just another example of "fluff" for him to purge from the budget. answering phone calls? what a waste of money!

here's hoping that tully continues to watch mayor ballard with a critical eye. someone needs to. ¶

databending and glitch art primer, part 1: the wordpad effect

welcome to my databending and glitch art primer! in part 1, we're going to talk about one of my favorite glitch art effects—the wordpad effect. i'm starting off with this effect because it's so easy that any windows user should be able to do it (note: i haven't tried it in vista), but it's complex enough under-the-hood that it allows me to discuss several important principles of glitch art. but first, let's define a few terms.

databending is, in essence, the artistic misuse of digital information. the term is inspired by the similar art of circuit bending; you could say that databending is like circuit bending with no circuits. the term is used most frequently in the context of electronic music (primarily glitch music).

the most common types of databending are:

• reinterpretation—converting a file from one medium to another (say, converting an executable file into an image file) or from one file format to a dissimilar format)
• sonification—the reinterpretation of non-audio data into audio data—probably the most common form of databending
• forced errors—forcing an application or piece of hardware to fail in the hopes that it will behave unexpectedly or the data will corrupt
• incorrect editing—editing a file using software/hardware intended for a different form of data; say, editing non-text files in a text editor

glitch art is visual art that involves or is caused by digital glitches or errors. (there's some debate over this, but for our discussions, we won't include art that simply "looks glitchy"; it has to involve real glitches.) not all glitch art is databent; sometimes it occurs naturally. hardware and software fail all the time, occasionally creating glitch art. but that depends on chance. let's talk about creating glitches on purpose—using databending techniques to create glitch art.

the wordpad effect:

the wordpad effect is a simple glitch effect i discovered a couple years back, with the help of my readers. here's how it works: you take a digital photo like this:

[note: all images in this primer are hosted on flickr. click the images to go to flickr, and to see larger versions.]

all you do is trick microsoft wordpad into opening the file (it's really easy). then, after the file is open, you click save. that's it! the file is now glitched:

pretty dramatic results, eh? is it really that simple? well, almost. if you're thinking there has to be a catch, you're right, but it's not a big one.

the catch is this: the wordpad effect generally only works on certain types of image files. specifically, it only tends to work on uncompressed bitmap files—the formats i use are BMP, TIF, and my favorite, photoshop RAW. if you try to use the wordpad effect on a compressed image file, such as a JPG or PNG file, the file will most likely break. this is because the wordpad effect is highly destructive—it often adds lots of glitches—and file compression tends to make files fragile—difficult to glitch without breaking. in compressed files, each bit is important, so even a tiny glitch in the wrong place can have a major effect. we'll use that to our advantage in part 3 when we glitch JPGs, but for now, let's avoid compressed files.

how to do it, step by step:

first, find an image file you want to glitch. make sure you know exactly how large it is, in pixels. my fiancée's camera takes pictures that are 2272x1704 pixels by default, so that's the size i'll be working with. your image is probably a different size. write down this info if you think you might forget it. i'm going to use this image:

make a copy of your image file. important: never, ever glitch your original images! always, always make a copy of the file and make sure you're glitching the copy and not the original. if you glitch your original and break it, your photo will be gone forever! so don't glitch your originals! ever! i cannot stress this enough.

make sure your image file is in one of these file formats: BMP, TIF, or photoshop RAW. if it's not, you can change the format using the "save as" command in pretty much any image editor:

open up microsoft wordpad. you can find it in the start menu under "applications". wordpad is a mini text editor that comes free with microsoft windows. its main function is to provide rich text formatting and to allow users who don't have microsoft word to open word files. if you have word, wordpad is pretty much useless... except for databending.

in wordpad, go to the file menu and click "open". at the bottom of the "open" dialog box is an option called "files of type". select "all documents (*.*)" for the file type. you may now choose your image file and open it.

(a common misconception of first-time databenders is thinking that they need to manually change the file extension of their files in order to open them in an "incorrect" application. generally, the way to do it [in windows] is to save the file normally, and then change the "files of type" setting in the target app to either "all documents" or "raw".)

wait for a moment while wordpad loads and formats the file. you have successfully convinced wordpad that your image file is a text file, and it will diligently try to reformat your file to fit the screen, changing straight quotes into "smart" or curly quotes, adding line breaks, and stuff like that. this formatting is what actually causes the glitches in your image, and the process may take a few seconds if the file is large. if the file is really big, it might even appear to hang, but just leave it alone and it should eventually finish (or on rare occasions, wordpad will crash and close, in which case you should try a different file).

after the file has fully loaded, go to the file menu and click "save".

go into the image editor of your choice and try to open your databent file. you may be prompted to enter the height and width for the image (which is why i told you to write it down earlier). my image looks like this:

you might get an error message—or several. click OK. eventually, you may find that your file won't open. it's possible that wordpad has broken the file—as i said, the wordpad effect is highly destructive, and sometimes it even breaks bitmaps. if so, try again using a different file format or a different image. on the other hand, it's also possible that your image editor is too sensitive about opening files with errors; try opening the file in microsoft paint, instead. if it won't open in paint, the file is probably fried.

the image above is a TIF file. let's try again with a BMP:

at this point, you may be looking at these two images (or your own, if following along at home) and thinking that they fall short compared to the example i showed earlier. that earlier example was full of bright, vibrant colors, while these are far more grey. what gives? the difference between that first example and these two is that the latter files are interleaved and the first example was not.

interleave vs non-interleave:

interleaving is a method of storing data in a non-contiguous manner. in this context it refers to the way that the file stores color information. your bitmap file most likely uses RGB color mode. this means that color values are stored as a combination of red, green, and blue. because the file is uncompressed, the file lists the color value for every pixel in the image. the interleaving refers to what order these pixel values are stored in.

if an image file is interleaved, the color values are stored in RGB order, one pixel at a time, like this: RGBRGBRGB... the bitmap data in the file (which comes after the header) will be basically just one long block of RGB values—for TIFs, they're stored from top-left down, and for BMPs, they're stored from bottom-right up. (BMPs are also stored in BGR order rather than RGB.) so, if you were to, say, insert two bytes of data near the beginning of the bitmap data, right before the R value, it would then "push" the other pixels over, and the R would become G, and so on. this way, you can easily create RGB color shifts in bitmaps, where reds become greens, greens become blues, and blues become reds. you may see a lot of these in your databent interleaved images.

on the other hand, if the file is not interleaved, the color information is saved as three color channels, one each for red, green, and blue. each channel is basically a grayscale image, and the bitmap data in the file stores the entire red channel, then the entire green channel, and finally the entire blue channel. when you run the wordpad effect on a non-interleaved file, each channel gets its own unique glitches, and the channels come out of alignment with each other, which can lead to some stunningly colorful bends.

so how do you create non-interleaved bitmaps? the BMP file format doesn't allow it; BMPs are always interleaved. in the TIF file format, interleave is optional, so you can choose whether your TIFs use interleaving (default is yes)... if your software supports it. a lot of image software doesn't support non-interleaved TIF files; i don't think any of the applications that come with windows do, nor does the popular (and free) GIMP editing suite. adobe photoshop does support non-interleaved TIFs:

so here is my image, as a non-interleaved TIF, run through wordpad:

then again, if you have adobe photoshop, you might be better off with the photoshop RAW format, which is possibly my favorite format for bending.

photoshop RAW format:

photoshop RAW format is a proprietary raw image format available in adobe photoshop. as far as i know, no other application can open these files, which have an .RAW file extension. so if you don't have photoshop, you can't use this format (though your image editor may have its own similar format; you never know).

what makes this format so great is its flexibility. not only can you choose whether or not to use interleaving, but setting the number of color channels is as easy as typing in a number. this allows you to work with grayscale files and CMYK color (though my experiments with CMYK have been underwhelming). and perhaps best of all, this format allows you to create files with zero headers that are impossible to break!

pretty much every file on your computer has a file header containing various data, such as what type of file it is, how large it is, and so on. most of the time, you need to carefully avoid bending the file header, because corrupting the header is the easiest way to break the file (with rare exceptions). photoshop RAW format allows us to avoid dealing with headers at all, simply by typing 0 into the header box. if you have a RAW file with no header, you can do just about anything you want to it—bend it in any way you can imagine—and it will still open.

i've now resaved my source image as a non-interleaved raw file with no headers. let's see what happens when i run it through wordpad and then try to reopen it in photoshop:

since we saved the file with no headers, photoshop has no way of knowing anything about this image. sometimes it is able to guess the size settings based on how large the file is, but most likely it will guess wrong. so when using this format, it's essential that you make a note of your image's exact pixel dimensions before bending it. in this case, as i said earlier, the image is 2272x1704 pixels, the file is not interleaved, and the number of color channels is 3 (for RGB). here's what the image looks like after running it through wordpad:

looks a lot like the non-interleaved TIF, doesn't it? the two formats are pretty similar, so aesthetically you won't notice a whole lot of difference between bent RAW files and bent TIF files that use the same settings. the biggest difference is that you can break TIF files by corrupting the header.

so that's the wordpad effect. you might note that the images in the tutorial are far more heavily glitched than the example at the top of the post. how heavy the glitching gets depends on your source image. sometimes, you'll even get images that don't bend at all! the pattern behind this is a mystery... let me know if you crack it.

note also that after you've run an image file through wordpad once, running it through a second time has no effect. that's because wordpad has already reformatted the file to its liking. if you want to use the effect on the same image multiple times, you'll need to alter the data somehow in between passes, for example by saving the image to a new file. another interesting variant is to flip the databent image horizontally, and then run the flipped image through wordpad—i call this reverse wordpad.

that's it for part 1 of this primer. if you're on windows, you should now know enough to apply the wordpad effect to all your images. if you're not on windows, the information should still come in handy for glitching bitmap files. and even if you're already a databender, hopefully you've learned something.

in part 2, i'll discuss sonification and making music out of the files on your hard drive. then in part 3, i'll come back to glitch art and talk about bending JPG files. ¶

save indy arts, a blog/petition

the star has a story about the mayor's plan to eradicate arts funding, but it doesn't have much new info, mainly because the mayor isn't sharing many details of his new budget, other than his plans to do away with all of the city's arts funding and slash $2.3 million from our parks.

but the arts community isn't going to sit there quietly while the mayor eliminates what little funding it gets—funding which doesn't go to individual artists, but to arts programs for the commuity and particularly for much-needed children's programs. i just heard about a new blog-slash-petition dedicated to saving the city's arts funding: saveindyarts.wordpress.com. from the initial post:

City funding for the arts is largely symbolic; $1.5 million out of a $1.2 BILLION-dollar budget in 2008 (yep, that equals 1% for the arts). But it still is an important symbol of all that is important, or should be, to Indianapolis. The arts represent diversity. Education. Thoughfulness. Creativity. Enrichment. Dialogue and debate. The arts make us think. The arts make us laugh, cry and shout out in protest. Some, like the Arts Council of Indianapolis, can point to studies that link the arts with increased graduation rates and decreased crime.

Whatever your relationship is with the arts, now is the time to support it. Do you agree that the city should maintain arts funding at its current level as a demonstration to corporate and other civic leaders that the arts are not only an important part of Indianapolis' public personality but also contribute to educating and enriching the lives of our citizens, even the most vunerable ones?

This Web site is dedicated to collecting 1,000 supporting votes for maintaining public arts funding. Yep, that's roughly 1% of the Greater Indianapolis population - the same percentage as what the city provides to the arts. If 1% of Indy residents can speak up for the arts, perhaps the city leaders can allocate 1% of its funding for a different kind of public safety - the proactively safe, alternative to hanging out, educational arts and culture.

If you vote, I promise to send the responses to our City County Councilors and to Mayor Ballard. This site will be up until the August 11 budget hearings. Let's see how far we get.

to sign the petition, go here and leave a blog comment, using your full name. ¶

shorter gary welsh

shorter gary welsh: while i normally despise anonymous cowards who refuse to identify themselves online, i will make an exception for this "techdude" person, because he's saying what i want to hear: that obama is a secret muslim who wasn't born in this country!

bonus shorter gary: not only is obama's birth certificate a hoax, but so is HIV! the true cause of AIDS is in fact AIDS medication! spread the word! ¶