Thing a Week 24 – Don’t Talk to Strangers
Yes: the Rick Springfield song. This recording is based on an arrangement I once did live at Little Gray Books with my friend Phoebe. I heard a recording of it recently and my voice sounded terrible, but I liked the arrangement a lot so I thought I’d flesh it out a little more and give it to you nice people.
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Furry Lobster Survives
Oh, come on! Are you kidding me?! Apparently some divers found an actual furry furry lobster in the South Pacific. It is white, blind and covered with hair (just like Ronnie Milsap). If we wait long enough, everything in Hodgman’s book will become true. Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
If you don’t see why I think this is a big story, then you haven’t heard this: Furry Old Lobster
Site Updates
Since everyone’s crazy for acoustic versions of things, I’ve put a bunch up along with what was in the old “Other Experiments” section as part of a new virtual album. As usual, every song is streamable and buyable, with a few freebies in there because I love you. Just scroll to the bottom of the Songs page.
I’ve also done a little reorganizing – there’s a section on the right called “The Good Stuff” that lets you get quickly to Baby Got Back, Flickr and info about Thing a Week. If you want to point some friends to any of that stuff you can point them there. And the Flickr page now has a few different file options, including one that’s good for iPod videos.
On a slightly technical note, I’m experimenting with some mod_rewrite stuff that lets me redirect some mp3 requests to actual pages. I like being linked, but when it’s a direct link to the mp3 there’s no guarantee that the listener will ever see my site – you see, I want people to see my site so that they can at least have the option of buying some music from me. I’m trying to do it without breaking anything, but if you have trouble with a link or a stream that used to work and that is now broken, please let me know.
House of Cease and Desist
Waxy.org has been sent a cease and desist for hosting the House of Cosbys videos, and the out-of-print “Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs” album. They’ve taken down the album because that’s pretty clearly illegal, but they’re leaving the videos up.
House of Cosbys was an animated show made for a site called Channel101. That site also received a cease and desist, and while they wanted to keep hosting the show they were forced to take it down after their web host was also threatened, and in turn threatened to shut off their site. It’s pretty obvious that the show is parody and thus protected as fair use, just like the many other times Cosby has been parodied in the mainstream media (there’s a list on the Waxy post). But when you’re small you get bullied, and that’s exactly what’s happening here – this is how fair use gets eroded. If you don’t have the money to defend against a lawsuit, fair use doesn’t really protect you.
All this aside, if you have somehow missed the House of Cosbys train, you should take a look. It’s pretty funny: House of Cosbys on Waxy.org.
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