Once upon a time, not that long ago, there was a performer named Meg Davis. She was a folk musician, starting to break out in the late 70s, with songs such as “Captain Jack and the Mermaid,” “The Elf Glade,” and others.

I didn’t hear any of it until later. “The Elf Glade” was the first song I learned to play on flute, back when I finally did. I still play it. It’s notated as to be played “with nasty intent;” I like that.

I never got to see her live; a triple-whammy of multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and arthritis ended her ability to play out by 1992.

But she still wants to be able to return to her music, it seems. With recent technological developments, she thinks this is possible, and she’s trying to put together a set of equipment she can use around her disabilities. She has some of it. She needs help buying an iPad2.

I was asked to spread the word. Below, please find a message I received, forwarded from Meg. I’ve edited it for length. I know it’s January, and you’re all spent out. But if this can happen – it’d be worthy.

My Dear Peeps,

I have a plan for all who wish to help me create using new technology. Although the main idea behind this fundraiser is for me to get a recording set-up to do new music, it may be that I end up creating art, poetry or fantastic stories. I could record some of my storytelling or video my animations… all kinds of neat things could happen. […] And, of course, when I have something ready to publish to the world you will get it free first.

[…] I have a friend from the Blind Association who provides guidance now when my vision goes wonky and has guided me to the computer stuff created for folks with ‘low vision.’ Consequently, I have lost my fear that I would not be able to use the iPad. Now that I know its capabilities I see nothing but promise.

My Paypal account will only be used for the iPad2 purchase and I’ve already had a contribution. I’ve been told to get the 64Gig iPad2 for maximum recording space. I can get a 5% discount through my Discover card so the cost from Apple will be around $665.

The other things I need, mic, speakers plus software will be managed with funds from Santa and my Birthday fairy (on Jan. 28).

Well, that’s plenty for now. Let me know how you feel about this. Now that I have figured out a way to ‘repay’ anyone who helps me I feel a lot better. How I will repay YOU will take a wee bit more effort 😉

My best to you this Hogmannay (New Year’s Eve),

🙂 Meg

If you want to help, here’s your contact link.
 

Separately, we have posters for our show with Kräken-Röhl and Leannan Sidhe in Seattle on the 27th! Please download and post: print resolution JPEG, 500 pixel JPEG, massive PDF. Thanks!

First, some eye candy: check out these Russian rocket factory photos by Lana Sator, before they make her take them down. She’s gone vadding into a test facility outside Moscow, and it’s cool.

December poll! While the voting was spread across many candidates, you guys clearly hate fax machines with a particular purity. The fax didn’t gain the majority outright – it tied for largest plurality – but unlike CRTs, no one spoke in its defence. Similarly 8-track cassettes, but those received fewer votes; even pagers had people supportive, hither and yon.

Mostly, I’m bored. I made yet another special cable today, sorted stuff, and engaged in Boring Business Crapimportant meetings with people about business matters. I’ve been backed off of rehearsal on doctor’s orders, after I Did Something to my shoulder a couple of weeks ago. I don’t even know how. I have been practicing some, using a weird strap arrangement, but it’s weird and I don’t like it.

That didn’t stop me from rocking the Tony Bennett Wednesday night after Session, but it has kept a crimp in things. I get to test NORMALITY tomorrow, as I ramp back up for the first show of the year, on the 27th, with Leannan Sidhe and Kräken-Röhl:

…and there was something else I wanted to talk about today instead of all this, but can’t yet. It’s not actually my thing; it’s entirely about somebody else, another musician some of you know. Hopefully, I can talk about it soon.

I’m going to see Tin-Tin tonight. I’ve heard good things. Have a good weekend!

Two more show announcements already! W00! In addition to January 27th with Kräken-Röhl and Leannan Sidhe at B-Side Music, we add:

• February 26, 2012: House Concert, Portland, Oregon. Details TBA, but 4-6pm. This may end up being a private show, I don’t know yet.
• July 14, 2012: Live at Comic Sands/Clallam Bay Comiket, Outdoor show, multiple sets through the day. Details TBA, but this will NOT be a private show! C’mon out, everybody!

ALSO, I posted this a couple of nights ago but everybody missed it because lol, drunk. The final Cracksman Betty track was released on the 31st! Read about all that here, and come back with me, to days of old, when computers weren’t bought – they were built! By hand! Come back with me – to the days of The S-100 Bus!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012, CASCADIA, AND ALL SHORES BEYOND!

With the close of 2011, we come to the end of the Cracksman Betty project. But not before we add a 12th track, a gift for your New Year 2012.

Some of the songs on Cracksman Betty are centuries old. This final addition – one I’ve been promising quietly for two months – isn’t traditional. It’s a cover, of sorts. The music and arrangement are my own, but the lyrics are by a musician named Frank Hayes. Frank wrote these lyrics in 1982, a mere 30 years ago, not centuries. But in computer terms, that’s at least as many generations in the past.

So come back with me, to days of old, when computers weren’t bought – they were built! By hand! Come back with me – to the days of The S-100 Bus.

It is, of course, a free download. Enjoy.

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD: Kräken-Röhl, CRIME and the Forces of Evil, and Leannan Sidhe, Live at B-Side Music, January 27th! Doors 6pm, shows start 7pm, more info on the show page and after that to come! 😀

NOW IT HAS BEEN FORGOT: Over on Twitter, Attoparsec‘s Matthew Dockery mentioned clearing out the old CRT computer monitors, and being glad of it. I replied that it’s funny how CRT monitors have no loyalists or preservationists, certainly not of any scale, unlike computers themselves, and vinyl LPs, and to a lesser extent CDs, the like.

It’s me, too; I have a couple of old Amiga CRTs I’ve held onto just in case, and even I want to get rid of them.

And that got us talking about old technologies without fandoms. Examples include CRT computer monitors, and those wretched devices, the FAX machine. So we’re wondering: what other dead tech lacks a fandom?

The polling software I have doesn’t allow fill-in-the-blank answers, but I’m going to start a poll anyway. Add other suggestions in comments!

[poll=22]

My principles have cost me a fan. That sucks. I don’t have fans to burn, and if I had more business sense, it wouldn’t’ve happened. But I have principles, even when they cost me; you might notice a parallel here between real life and band conceit. That’s not accidental.

Here’s the story.

Elsewhere, I relayed an article about Gary Johnson. He’s the libertarian-who-means-it candidate, not Ron Paul; he lacks Ron Paul’s history of racism, and other fatal liabilities. A self-described lover-of-my-music popped in to say disagreed with Mr. Johnson about almost everything, particularly marriage rights. “Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

So being a married dyke, I said, “Well, that includes me and Anna! So there you go,” quietly unfriended, and that was as far as I was going to take it.

But then this person sent mail, chiding me for how I “can’t tolerate as a friend, someone who has a different path from [my] own” and going on about how people like me are about hypocritical about tolerance.

I wanted overnight to cool down. Anna said I shouldn’t reply at all, but I realised I wanted to make a public response, because, in the end, they won’t read it, but maybe someone else will. And that way, maybe it will mean something – even if it is all way too personal. In this particular context, there really is no way for it not to be.

I have spent my entire. life. fighting efforts to keep and make me less of a person in the eyes of the law. I have spent, as they say, both blood and treasure in this war. My arms are wrecked for typing; I can’t do software anymore. (I’m terrified it’ll spread to playing; I work hard to prevent that.)

I’ve been assaulted, harassed on the streets, received death and rape threats more times than I can count. I’ve done ground work against religious conservatives working nationally-funded initiative and legislative efforts dedicated to making me various degrees of illegal, be it blocking me from employment, mandating public schools teach that I am “illegal, immoral, and wrong,” keeping me outright illegal in several states (as was still true when Lawence v. Texas (2003) finally tossed out those laws), and on, and on, and on.

I have spent hundreds of hours monitoring social-conservative and fundamentalist radio broadcasts, sitting there transcribing the blood slander they espouse. (It’s akin to blood libel, but instead of killing the children of gentiles to make our bread, we supposedly rape or molest the children of heterosexuals to “turn them homosexual,” and that’s asserted to be “how we reproduce.”) I’ve sat there listening to people like Beverly LaHaye extoll the virtues of bullying and child abuse against queer children to force them to “repent.” This included intentionally making your own children homeless.

I have not enjoyed it. Aside from the soul-searing brutality of it all, I loathe politics, and always have. But, of course, I lack the privilege of ignoring these fights.

And somewhere around the 20 year mark, I ran out of patience with people whose idea of “diversity” is keeping me second-class in the eyes of the law, on any level. That’s a sophistry I no longer have time for in my life. If someone wants to have religious beliefs, that’s their own lookout, and none of my concern; when they cry prosecution and demand legal action against me for it, I am done.

So do I lack tolerance for your intolerance of me? Do I lack tolerance for saying me and my family should be less than and unequal in the face of the law? Yes. Yes, I do. I also have contempt for the assertion that not being okay with your legal stances against me is “intolerant.” I mean, really? “You won’t let me legislate against you! You’re INTOLERANT!” Yeah, fuck that. I have had more than my fair share of that, and I am finished with it.

It’s not like I have enough fans to waste any. I most certainly don’t. Losing even one hurts me. It is damned difficult to get started in this business, and I need every fan I can get. The smart thing, the business thing, would be to ignore you and have not unfriended. My principles, here, are costing me.

And I can live with that. I lost a lot of friends for my stand against the Bush administration’s torture and domestic spying regime, and against Mr. Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s support of it. I can lose a fan over this. Such has been my story before, I guess that can be my story again.

So long.

— Solarbird, the Lightbringer

Here, a video pretty much none of you guys have seen yet. It needs more plays because 4 is a lonely number. Unless you’re monogamous, in which case it’s a crowd – with benefits. Or something, I’m not sure how it works. Anyway, this needs more plays:

Also, because I apparently have nothing better to do:

[poll 21]

Here, the only mandolin song I have up on YouTube! Yet, anyway.

When You Leave

It needs more plays, so play it. 😀 It also has very very slightly more sophisticated camera work than the other ones, so there.

Also, if you’re looking for last-second stocking stuffers? I have DRM-free downloads and I need listeners more than I need money at this point. Hit the tip jar if you would, but mostly, spread the word through giving! Thank yooooooou! <3

Here, this is terrible – try it!

First: I am looking for people willing to host house concerts in February and March. This is very easy – like hosting a small party. I’m looking for crowds of 6-12 people, counting the hosts, and it doesn’t have to be a house per se – it can be a condo or apartment or anything. I can play acoustic sets or can bring my own PA; all you have to do is invite your friends. Check the youtube page to see what one of these is like.

Second: So I kinda went on a bender in the studio? And then it was 3:30am and there were robots. Or I guess technically cyborgs. And robots. Anyway, this happened – and give it a minute, because it builds, the wheels don’t fall off all at once:

And no, you haven’t heard this. You’ve heard parts of it, but this is what actually happened. XD

Finally: Noted Canadian musician Heather Dale, who has a much larger career than I do, called Dick Tracy Must Die “Purity and edge; technical prowess and a kick-ass attitude” and informed you that “This disc will light a fire under you! Check it out!” Please, do. And maybe consider the pay-what-you-like albums Cracksman Betty and Espionage: Live from Mars as stocking stuffers in your end-of-year giving.

Please and thank you!