I’d Better Say summin’

I work 4 art jobs, which is the biggest reason why I have no time for anything else. Ever. And on my rare free day, my husband drags me off to boring (and I mean boring) fighter practices for the SCA where I get to sit and listen to the same old conversations that happen in order every meeting.

  • 1. Wear your cup.
  • 2. Childbirth.
  • 4. The school system and what idiots teachers are.
  • 5. What a genius the kids are. (And swing back to childbirth from here….)

No one talks about history, craft making, music, or anything of the kind even though they’re at a SCA meeting. Or the President. Syria…. ANYTHING. The fighters will talk about technique a little, but invariably their conversations *always* boil down to:

  • 1. Wear your cup.
  • 2. Oh what a lovely piece of armor you’re wearing
  • 3. Did you see how badass I was out there in the grass with my stick?

Wait! There’s a song in this somewhere….

So yes. Four art jobs: ebook covers, ebook formatting, comic flatting, child book illustrations… and my own comics. The last (and most important to me) gets ignored sometimes for weeks at a time because of the Big Four… and our crazy need to buy gas so my husband won’t have to go AWOL. And food of course.  Not eating is a sure way to get fat, and I’m fat enough as it is.

Anyway, I should make another musical update. I accidentally found a few places where I can procure cover rights. I’ve added them to the links list in case someone ever stumbles across this site and actually reads it. This made me happy. I’m more inclined to write my own stuff (Metronome for example) and handle public domain old stuff,  but knowing that rare inspiration to do a cover can be legally handled without the drama is pretty nice. I am still held back by lack of music or people to play with (Seriously, I suppose the pine trees could play the flute…) but if certain apps would stop being exclusive to Apple and become computer programs that would be solved and the literal symphonies I hear in my head could be slightly translated.

I’d like to know how I can place rights on my own written stuff – being as there appears to be a problem right now of companies copyrighting material that is in the public domain. I’m given to understand that’s illegal but at the end of the day the entertainment courts seem to side more with those who have the most money. So yes there are things out there that were public domain until they got scooped up: historical stuff, things the people deserve back in their hands even if they never knew they had them. As one person trying to push a fight against this said, these people are the real pirates. I couldn’t agree more.

I also stumbled across a legal forum where you could ask questions for free. So I asked about the parody situation with I Want You Gone. The first person to answer assumed I wanted to make a video and told me to find a lawyer. Guess who I *wouldn’t* call if I had to find a lawyer. The second and third persons to answer tried their best despite the fact that “my narrative was hard to follow”. (Sure wish I knew why people have a hard time following my narratives. I try to be linear and concise, dammit. Although in this case I asked a confused question first, then I followed with a linear explanation.) Those two I’d call if I had money for a lawyer. =^-^= Although they both also told me to find a lawyer.

Hell if I had money to find a lawyer, I would have called one when this parody mess first began.

All I want is to make a parody according to the parody provisions and the fair use act. The lyrics were written with the five requirements in mind. I could use the karaoke arrangement War found, but don’t want to due to legal issues. In the end the entire situation would be arranged and performed by myself.

Sure I’d like to make a music video to it someday but the short term plans are to make this mp3 for War, who deploys in just two months, and let her have it. I also want to post it here. Yes, I do mention how buying me a soda would help support the rare music here. So far donations have amounted to $0 and 0.. hey wow I just realized computer keyboards don’t have cent signs. -_- I automatically went to type it like I would have on a typewriter and the offending thing wasn’t there!! Nuuuuuuu

A Thought from the Past

Once upon a time there was a neighbor who lived up the street from a single mother. Now this single mother didn’t have a working car, never got child support (and no before you ask child support enforcement would not enforce it. She tried. Lots of times.), had a baby and a kindergarten age child, and worked at McDonald’s so she’d been told she made too much money to get help and consequently couldn’t afford a phone. They lived several miles outside of their small town.

This neighbor decided it was her Christianly duty to do something about this menace that lived in the woods up the lane. So she would rifle through the single mother’s mail, sometimes outright stealing it (and glared as if she had the right when caught) and said – as was her Christianly duty – that the single mother could come to her for help when needed.

One very cold winter morning at about 5, the single mother and her toddlers knocked on the woman’s front door to use the phone. The mother had to get to work and couldn’t find a ride and wanted to call a cab. She normally walked the ten miles or so with her kids on her hips but that morning was too cold and her children were crying from the chill.

The woman was angry at being woke up so early and yelled at her. So the single mother went away and disturbed another neighbor for a phone. The other neighbor let the single mother warm her children in the heat while they waited for the cab. Meanwhile the first neighbor followed the single mother there and proceeded to berate the single mother loudly about how she dared to come to her door with crying children so early in the morning.

I can’t remember what all that woman said, really, as she yelled at me for the inconvenience of me taking her up on her offer. I just remember sitting on the floor with my children – I was not offered a seat by the second neighbor – hugging my kids. I gave that bitch the back while I listened. Then I said, “You people just don’t understand.”

In the middle night I think of that woman and her false offer. I never ever ever offer help unless I mean it. And when a mother comes knocking on my door with a child crying from the cold and I hear her, I open my damn door. Not because I’m a so-called Christian, but because I like to think I’m better than that.

And I always was.