Category: Marginalia

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Surreal Estate: Reclaim My Domain

Somehow the registration for my main domain name lapsed. I don’t know how it slipped by me, but it did. Since my website gets a decent amount of traffic, it showed up on various radars, and someone snagged it. The guy who now owns my name told me via email, “I am planning to put in on Sedo for $2000 USD. These type of domains usually sell fast, because they have high PageRank.” The only reason this particular domain name has a high PageRank is because I have spent the last 15 years developing content for it, promoting it, and keeping it visible. Also, it’s not just some cute web domain, it’s my name. Because of the money-making land-grab of domain poachers, I didn’t even have access to my own email address.

I bought my first domain name in 1997. The ‘zine I was doing at the time was called “Front Wheel Drive,” so I made the leap online and bought frontwheeldrive.com. As it says on the About page here,

A few false starts later, it evolved into an archive of interviews and reviews that explored the peaks of theory and technology and the depths of the cultural underground. Following our interests and curiosity wherever they led, my small but dedicated staff (Tom Georgoulias, Brandon Pierce, Mark Wieman, et al.) and I kept the site up-to-date with in-depth reviews of books, films, music, and art from all the edges of culture — and interviews with the minds that created them. Scott McCloud described the site as “nicely designed and packed with ideas (a rarity on both counts),” and Mark Dery called it “brutally cool.” Though frontwheeldrive.com ceased operations in late 2007, the best of its content is archived in my book Follow for Now, and all of the above continues on this very site.

“This very site” was roychristopher.com, my main web presence from 2007 to, well, a month or so ago.

I spent those weeks trying to decide if it’s worth it to pay the guy off and maintain the name I have spent so much time and effort to build. To dispute this with iCANN would cost more than the guy wants for the domain, and I also don’t have a case. I inadvertently let the name lapse, and he bought it. I thought maybe since it’s my name–my legal name–and a brand of sorts that I’d have a legal precedent, but according to my lawyer friends, I don’t. So, I opted to see if I could raise the money to get it back.

I decided that getting my name back would avoid a lot of confusion now and in the future, but would also require help (as a grad student, I don’t have two grand just to get back where I was a few weeks ago). Eventually, the precious PageRank of my domain would lose its value. No one wins in this situation. Not even the poacher and his domain-trolling scripts.

So, I started an Indiegogo campaign, and I convinced the poacher that I’m no one and the only no one interested in this piece of surreal estate (save maybe the award-winning production designer of the same name). I also got his price down to $1000. Thanks to my gracious friends, I’ve raised enough so far to regain control. I don’t yet own the domain, but I am able to post here again. I know this may seem like a frivolous or minor problem in the grand scheme, but I work very hard on what you see here. If you like anything I do here, please consider helping me out of this jam. I have rewards available, and I will keep working on the site as ever.

Thank you all for your continued support,

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Gibson, Misrepresented

I think “round glasses” is the only accurate part of this: a new theme from Findings.com:

Gibson‘s favorite book is Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? He has no more than four cats, no less than three. Gibson doesn’t open a terminal, Gibson boots in terminal. Gibson adjusts his round glasses, swigs some more coffee, and types “swordfish.” “I’m in!” he declares.

Please stop.

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Ill Ish Mixtape

Thanks in part to my dude Tim Baker over at SYFFAL, I’ve come up on a gang of nice new Hip-hop stuff. I’ve been blasting it here at the office so much that I decided to throw together a mixtape and post it up. Here’s the tracklist, and the mix is embedded below. Enjoy.

nomadboy: Ill Ish [runtime: 44:43]:

01. Fan Ran (ft. Skweeky Watahfawls & Johnny Ciggs) “Hunnid Dolla Bills”
02. Mr. Muthafuckin’ Exquire (ft. Despot, Das Racist, Danny Brown & El-P) “The Last Huzzah!”
03. Thad Newman “Graveborn”
04. Gritty City Fam “What We Do Is Wrong”
05. Gunplay “Take Dis”
06. Bo Deal (ft. Waka Flocka Flame & Chief Keef) “Murda”
07. White “D-Boy”
08. Riff Raff (ft. Chief Keef) “Cuz My Gear”
09. Gunplay “Jump Out”
10. Lil Reese (ft. Chief Keef) “Traffic”
11. White “Code Names”
12. Johnny Ciggs “Fuck You”

 

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The Four Kings of My Musical Taste

When it comes to my interests, I am extremely prone to phases. I will read about nothing but architecture or cyberpunk for a months straight, or listen to nothing but prog rock or black metal for three years.

It always swings back tough. Way back. I typically find that my all-time favorite stuff is way out by the edges. When it swings back, as it has recently, I often wonder what grounds it. In trying to find some sort of middle, I constructed the following chart:

I Tweeted not long ago that my listening was informed by the four pillars of Godflesh, Neurosis, Brian Eno, and The Bomb Squad, but I think this chart goes much further in defining it. The acts used above aren’t necessarily my favorites, but they represent the things I love about the things I love. If it’s heavy, I want the walls to warp. If it’s weird, I want cognitive dissonance. If it’s cheesy, pile it high. If it’s wordplay, make me have to come back to it a million times.

In only a partially facetious manner, this chart illustrates the nexus of my musical tastes. Music is by far the form of art I consume most, and art should show you something you can’t find anywhere else.

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Separated at Birth: New Candidates

We’ve all seen how much Will Ferrell and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith look alike, and I always mix up Josh Duhamel and Johnny Knoxville, as well as having to double-take Paul Reubens and Alan Cumming.  I have a couple more specimens I’d like you to join me in comparing.

Will Ferrell and Chad Smith

I was watching The Cure in Orange (1987) last night, and it reminded me how much their very-soon-to-be keyboardist Roger O’Donnell looks like James Spader.

Roger O’Donnell and James Spader

Also, in Jay-Z’s Fade to Black (2004), there’s a clip of Jay in the studio with Rick Rubin working on “99 Problems.” Mike D. of The Beastie Boys happens in on the session. Re-watching the DVD a while back, I was struck by how much Mike D. looks like Perry Farrell.

Perry Farrell and Mike D.

Celebrity doppelgängers abound. Anyone else have any new candidates?

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Kickstarting Ume’s New Record

My dear friends Lauren, Eric and Rachel, collectively known as Ume, have been perched on the verge of the next level for a while now. With the interest of Grammy-winning producer Adam Kasper (Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Seaweed, etc.), they have a chance to finally break through. And we can help them.

Ume, being the DIY-minded folks that they are, have started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to book studio time with Kasper. These are hard-working, hard-rocking, talented musicians, good people, and good friends. Help me help them get this thing done.

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How I Got Over The Roots

I put The Roots collective head out over on my man Tim Baker’s SYFFAL site in a column they call “Old Yeller’d.” The idea is to kill off some cultural sacred cow that’s just gone on way too long. I picked Illadelph’s finest.

Here’s an excerpt:

It’s been a decade since anyone should’ve been paying any attention to The Roots (Phrenology for those of you keeping score at home). They probably peaked before that, and it wasn’t on that heavy-handed, overrated Things Fall Apart joint. It’s hard to innovate with that many crocks on the counter. How many dudes are in this band? I can’t imagine how they ever got paid, laid, or fed. It’s only fitting that they became a house band, slowcooking into onscreen oblivion.

It gets worse, and it’s only partially in jest. Read the rest on SYFFAL.

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Aggro Rag: Ride First, Read Later

I’ve expounded elsewhere at length about how zine-making during my teen years informed my life’s path, and I’ve mentioned fellow traveler Mike Daily before, but I haven’t really given him due credit. Mike Daily is a founding member of The Plywood Hoods, one of the most influential BMX crews in the history of our little sport. He also made one of the first BMX zines ever: Aggro Rag. Echoing my own feelings about making zines, Daily told Jared Souney in an interview for ESPN BMX in 2010, “Working with the printed page in mind has always been my way of creating something, from the early ‘zine designs to my cut-and-pasted writing journals. I like to lay things out visually, so the collage approach helps hone poems, lyrics for songs and fiction/non-fiction I’m working on. It’s more of a calling than a career — that kind of gnawing feeling that compels you to make stuff.”

Well, Daily’s never stopped making stuff. From his novels and zines to his complete rebuild of his original CW California Freestyle bike, he’s stayed on the make. His latest missive is a new issue of Aggro Rag, the premiere BMX zine’s first appearance since 1989. Each of the 500 copies is signed by original Plywood Hoods Brett Downs, Mark Eaton, Kevin Jones, Jamie McKulik, Dale Mitzel and Daily himself. Contributors include Mark Lewman, Spike Jonze, Peter Relic, Drob Meyer, and Pecos B., among many others. There are interviews with flatland undergrounders like Mark McKee, Aaron Dull, Gary Pollak, Chris Day, Jim Johnson, Derek Schott, Gerry Smith, Dave Nourie, and several others, as well as Hip-hop undergrounders like Dark Time Sunshine and Sole. You can snag a copy right now, and I suggest you do so.

As for me, Daily asked me to interview my dude Aesop Rock, which I did gladly. It’s an honor to be a part of the zine I read so avidly in my youth. Here are two of my friends and heroes celebrating the release of Aggro Rag #13 at Portland’s Wonder Ballroom on July 19th, 2012:

If the return of the zine weren’t enough, this issue precedes the forthcoming 443-page book, Aggro Rag Freestyle Mag! Plywood Hoods Zines ’84-’89: The Complete Collection, coming out January 1, 2013.

It’s going to be so dope, but as Daily always said, “Ride First, Read Later.”

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Ordering instructions can be found at the Aggro Rag site.

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You’ve Always Been My Favorite

I’ve sat for hours, sipping coffee, longingly staring at her from across the street. Her shape, her lines, the exquisite design of her angles intriguing, inspiring from afar. I’ve made plans, scrapped them, made others… She will never know how much I loved her.

There’s a building on the corner of 38th and Guadalupe in Austin, Texas that I just adore. It was The Austin Chronicle‘s 2004 “Critics Best Building to Consider for Preservation,” and was for sale for a while last year, spawning dreams of opening an office, coffee shop, gallery, or a boutique of some sort.

In spite of its quaint color and previous life as a tile outlet, the odd angles of this place remind me more of the pseudo-futuristic architecture of science fiction movies. Nothing quite lines up and for seemingly no reason other than not lining up on principle. It’s a beautiful little building.

Well, it was.

And then Planet K bought it. Now it has gaudy murals, banners, Christmas lights, and poster-board (!) signs all over it. Planet K is a Texas gift/headshop chain, and I have no problem with that. What they’ve done to my favorite building is unbearable.

So, little building, I’m sorry you’ve turned into such a whore. You’ll never know how much I loved you.

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This post was inspired by Charles Mudede.