I won! I won! Oh, shit.

A couple of weeks back I was looking for a site to host the MP3 files I planned to make available for readers to listen to and/or download. I found a great file storage site, called FileDen and also a free MP3 player widget from MyFlashFetish. All free.

However, to get to the free stuff, you had to wade through several pages of ads for any number of “fantastic offers”. I read most of them briefly, then clicked on the “No Thanks” button. Except for one; an amateur poetry contest offering a $10,000.00 first prize. Their material claims they are the world’s largest poet’s society and they have had poems submitted by such notables as Bill Clinton and Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash? My hero! So I wrote a poem and sent it right off to them. Just for fun. It was not a good poem.

It's two weeks later and a few days ago I received an e-mail telling me I was awarded an “Editor’s Choice” award for my submission. Wow. Kinda makes your chest puff out and your head swell. Here’s what they had to say:

Dear Matt,
“Not long ago, our Editors reviewed the thousands of submissions entered in our International Open Amateur Poetry Contest, and they awarded your poem the prestigious Editor's Choice Award. This is an honor awarded to only 12% of the submissions we receive. Now that the first round of the judging process is complete, your poem will enter the next level of judging, becoming eligible for the $10,000 Annual Grand Prize that will be awarded in January 2008. We wish you the best of luck with this next phase of the contest.”

That’s enough praise to send a vain old man riding off on cloud nine . . . until he remembers that riding clouds can be a very dangerous (and expensive) business. Read on:

“Since we announced the names of the winners, many recipients have contacted me and requested a way to display their achievement; therefore, I put our artists and designers to work. We were able to create our most exquisite and distinguished wall plaque ever. This year, we are offering this limited edition wall plaque commemorating your achievement as an Editor's Choice Award recipient. Each certificate is numbered, signed, and mounted on a solid maple plaque. This beautiful display piece truly honors your accomplishment!”

“As an Editor's Choice Award winner, we're sure you'll want to improve your craft and further your involvement in poetry. There's no better way to do that than by joining the International Society of Poets (ISP), the largest poetry organization in the world. As a member of the ISP, you'll receive a quarterly magazine filled with articles, contests, and lots of poetry. In addition, you will be part of an organization that promotes PEACE—Poetry, Education, Accomplishment, Charity, and Equality. Please join the thousands of members who have submitted poetry, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and the late "Man in Black, Johnny Cash.”

And just how much will it cost me to walk in the shoes of the Man in Black. Uh-huh. I can have both the plaque and membership in the ISP for a mere $75.00 (plus $14.00 for shipping and handling). But, before I hand over the cash, maybe I should take a closer look at the International Society of Poets.

Their website, poetry.com, is actually a very large site with a very large (they claim 6 million entries) database of poets and poetry. Now, let’s see, Johnny Cash. Yes, there he is and he has several poems under his name. Would you like to read one? First, I’d better take care of the legal stuff. Don’t want to get my ass sued for copyright infringement. This poem is reprinted here under the “fair use” provisions of Canada’s copyright legislation, which allows copyright material to be reprinted for educational purposes and critical review.

Tourmented
By Johnny Cash

this was inpired by somebody
that i hope one day would become my wife.
She tought me that the secrets of life
were defined by the jagged edge of a
knife cutting my arm in the middle
of a slaughty night.
as the blood spills it's a thick blue water
that leave quite a soul that was fright.
It's freedom night flying high just like
some dirty old dust going out of sight.
we all love to make a killing upgrading
our own earning because life is all
about learning where nobody could do
for us the teaching i guess it's
the carrying that make us waiting
for the wisdom of an higher calling.

Are they kidding me? OK, so Cash went through some very rough times back in the sixties, with the booze and the drugs. But, was there really a time in his life when he got that strung out. I didn’t even bother to look for Bill Clinton's submissions.

To be continued . . .

Who in the hell is GEMA?

I had intended to fire another shot across the bow of the Music Publishers Association of America. You know, the turkey’s threatening legal action against OLGA, the On Line Guitar Archives. But, in browsing the net, researching stories, I came across an article from Germany that I found both interesting and scary.

A collection rights society is responsible for collecting fees for the performance and mechanical reproduction of musical or other copyrighted works. The MPA, for example, represents the copyright holders who publish sheet music and tab, and see to it that everyone pays for the privilege of publishing copyrighted works in any format, whether for profit or pleasure.

A collection “rights” outfit in Germany is currently negotiating a deal with manufacturers of PC’s whereby they will pay a “levy” to that society, GEMA, on the sale of all new computers sold in that country.

Their justification is that PC’s allow users to make private copies of text, audio and video data distributed over the internet. Since private copying can’t be stopped, they want levies to be paid on new computers in the same way as it is now paid on CD’s, DVD’s, audio cassettes, etc. The money collected, theoretically, will be distributed to the creators of the copyrighted works.

And, before I go much further, I should point out that the collection of a levy is a done deal; the sticking point is how much the levy will be. The organization representing the manufacturers of the PC’s has suggested 15 Euros ($20.00 Cdn) per unit. GEMA is asking for over 36 Euros per unit ($50.00 Cdn).

But, even the most cursory investigation reveals some very serious concerns with this idea. Among the major flaws is a presumption of guilt. GEMA is assuming that every computer purchased will be used to make illegal copies of music, movies and computer applications. This is not the case. And people who download, store or distribute perfectly legal material via the internet should not be required to pay extortion money to anyone for the right to do so.

For example, one of my favourite sites is Project Gutenberg. There you can download free copies of some of the classics of literature; Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, Victor Hugo, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Rice Burroughs, etc, etc. And, there are probably thousands of free computer applications being distributed freely and legally under various licenses across the internet. Should users be required to pay a fee for downloading and copying this legal material?

No one should be fooled by the suggestion that it is the manufacturer who is paying the levy, not the consumer. That’s a no brainer. The additional cost will be passed on to the consumer, whether or not they use their PC for an illegal purpose.

Then there’s the fact that there is already a levy on the blank media, the CD’s, DVD’s, etc. That’s already true in Canada, as well as in Germany. And, in Germany there is an additional levy on the device used to create the media, CD and DVD burners, for example. Adding a levy on top of that is going a little overboard.

And, if the levy itself isn’t going overboard, then the demand by GEMA that the levy should be retroactive to 2002 certainly has to be considered overkill. Estimates are that between 2002 through 2005, there were 13 million computers sold in Germany. The estimated cost of a retroactive levy is 350 million Euros; that’s roughly half a billion dollars Canadian.

Canada’s copyright legislation is being discussed in Parliament as I write this post. Given some of the things happening in the world of copyright restriction, enforcers such as the RIAA, the MMPA, the MPA, and GEMA in Germany, Canadians should be paying a whole lot more attention to what’s happening. There’s a lot more than a few bucks involved.

It’s a matter of personal freedom. Think about it for a minute. Every time you buy a blank CD to record a video of little Bobby’s birthday party, you’re paying a levy to some group you’ve likely never heard of, simply because that blank CD could be used to illegally copy restricted material.

Most people pay little attention to copyright laws, because they don’t think their personal freedoms are jeopardized by copyright restrictions; they’re wrong. And, given the material I’ve collected while researching this topic, I’ll probably be ranting about this bloody madness in future posts.

Weird & wacky county songs (Part 2)

Country music has been around for a long time. Most people give Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family credit for the creation of the genre back in 1926 -1927

Both those talents recorded old ballads, often with a new twist, before they got around to writing their own songs. However, neither of these icons can be blamed for the song titles populating the music scene since their demise.

Critics pan country for using the same tired cliches; writing songs about getting drunk, getting laid and going to jail. Admittedly, there are some themes used more or less consistently in country music. Country love songs, for example, seem to follow one of several formulae:

• Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets drunk and cries in his beer
  
• Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy gets drunk and cries in his beer
  
• Boy meets girl, girl loses boy to another girl, girl gets drunk and cries in her beer
  
• Boy meets girl, girl loses boy to another man, girl gets drunk and cries in her beer (Sorry folks, it’s true. Some guy wrote a song called, “I Fell For Her, She Fell For Him, He Fell For Me”
  
• Boy meets girl, boy catches girl cheating and shoots her winding up in jail before he can get drunk and cry in his beer
  

But not all country songs are love songs. For every song about some guy falling for a pretty girl, there’s one about some guy getting saddled with an ugly one. It’s just that songs about ugly women rarely reach the top of the country charts.

How many people have a copy of Ronnie Prophet’s Greatest Hits album, with Ronnie doing, “I Should Have Used A Brown Paper Sack”? Come on people. Give me a break. I can’t be the only one who bought that album. But, as bad as it was, Ronnie didn’t get as vicious as the guy who wrote, “I Wouldn’t Take Her To A Dog Fight (I’m Afraid She’d Win)” or that other classic put-down, “You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly”.

And, I’ve got very little time for guys who want to cry in their beer even when they get the girl. Mickey Gilley started it off with a song called, “Don’t All The Girls Look Prettier At Closing Time.” Wiilie Nelson piped in a few years later with a song called, “I Went To Bed At 2 With A 10 (And Woke Up This Morning At 10 With A 2)”.

I have absolutely no pity for those guys. Everybody knows drinking and chasing women go hand in hand. But guys, if you got that drunk, you got what you deserved. And if you found the situation so distasteful, maybe you should have gone home alone and hummed a few bars of, “At the Gas Station of Love, I Got the Self Service Pump”. Ok, that’s not country, it’s a weird Al Yankovic song, but it fits well. From a personal point of view, when “She Looks Good Thru The Bottom Of My Shot Glass”, it’s time to call it a night.

And, I guess it should be pointed out that it’s not only guys who wake up in the morning disappointed. How about Deana Carter when she begs the question, “Is This Why I Shaved My Legs?” She doesn’t sound a bit like a happy camper to me.

And, I guess I should offer a word of advice to the girl who sang, “All The Guys Who Turn Me On, Turn Me Down”. Try getting to the bar a little later in the evening, preferably near closing time. And remember, all the girls look prettier through the bottom of a shot glass, so buy him a few drinks. He’ll love you for it and that’s what you’re after, after all. Or, you could follow the advice of Georgia White, an old blues artist who used to do a song called, "If I Can't Sell It I'll Keep Sittin' On It (Before I Give It Away). Yes, the song was about peddling ass.

Another staple of the country genre is songs about the womanizer who runs off with your woman sending you to the nearest bar to cry in your beer. Songs like, “He’s Got A Way With Women And He Just Got Away With Mine.” Or that other old country standard, “It Took A Helluva Man To Take My Anne, But It Sure Didn't Take Him Long “ or the one by Jim Eberhart that says, “My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend (And I Sure Do Miss Him)“

And, country singers always have a word or two to say about nagging wives; songs like, “It's Hard to Kiss the Lips at Night (That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long)

Wow. Reading all these great song titles has suddenly filled me with inspiration. I think I’ll grab my guitar and write myself a country song. I’ve already got the title. I’ll call it, “I’m Gonna Put A Bar In The Back Of My Car And Drive Myself To Drink.” No, maybe not. I think that one’s already been done.

But I will return to this topic at another time.

The Torching of Todd's Outhouse

It’s Gone, Boys. It’s Gone
By Matt Todd

The night was cold,
The moon was full,
Snow lay on the ground
Some drunken bum came stumbling home
And burned our shithouse down.
We didn’t mind
His going in
We never locked the door
But he never put out his cigarette
He just dropped it on the floor

Chorus:
It’s gone, boys, it’s gone
The news is going round
Some tobacco smoking, drunken fiend
Has burned Todd’s shithouse down.

I’ll bet I know
Who did the deed
My brother Tom did shout
‘Twas that drunken weasel down the road
Let’s burn the bastard out
But Da said no,
Here’s what we’ll do
While the snow’s still on the ground
Dump the porcelain pot at Willie’s
‘Cause our shithouse has burned down
Repeat Chorus:

When the frost unfroze
We built a hut,
Dug a new hole in the ground
Still cussin’ that miserable son-of-a-bitch
Who burned our shithouse down
Repeat Chorus: