Archive for August, 2007

I was bouncing around the blogosphere, catching up with life in general, now that I’ve completed a completely insane project. So I wonder over to Chris Brogan’s blog and discover this “Blog Day“. Let’s participate.

• Chris Brogan. I met this guy at the first Podcamp Pittsburgh and followed up with reading his blog. This guy is out there practicing what he preaches in social networking. The insight on what the net is doing for people and what you can do forself is immeasurable.
• Cafe Witness. Justin Kownacki’s blog. Also insightful, from a guy that left the daily grind to pursue his passion in New Media.
• Honorable Mention. These are actually people I have just recently met, or got to know better, at Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 a couple weeks ago. And still feeling out.
• My blog n’at. That crazy bastard, fatherspoon, from Should I Drink That.
• MonkeysRunFree. The title had me (CRAP = monkeyflingspoo.com). This is by Jesse of the Creative Treehouse, and co-bacn founder.
• Locobone’s Periphery. Another fellow from PP2 I heard as legend, and ended up being a fan of my own show.
• Lyrique Tragedy. Another crazy Podcamp partier that is into books, education, and drinking. Enough for me…
• Star Dot Star Comics. The home of Josh Sager, who’s always under the next tech rock in this city, it seems.

Well, that’s more than I have time for in a day…

And of course, we’re expecting to have a talk with Big B in about a week on the WPAJ Interview. Stay Tuned

Ah, that one festival of the year I have to hit. Usually, it’s been the Gathering of the Juggalos, but this year, couldn’t make a trek all the way to Indiana, thanks to the day job, and decided to try this “free Ozzfest” gimmick. So aside from the “fun” it was to get the tickets, we get on with the show!

Now, it’s been a few years for me at a ‘fest. 2005, maybe? ’04? Anyways, I look at this list of bands and know NO ONE from stage two except Hatebreed as a headliner (and Devildriver added late). But I was plesantly surprised that it wasn’t a group of “Screamo” bands that populated the stage in the years prior. Instead we get some classic thrash in 3 Inches of Blood, some Metallica Load stylings (complete with performed Metallical homage) in The Showdown, and some sweet chick screaming in In This Moment. And of course, I find the return of Static-X to the stage. Hadn’t seen them since my first Ozzfest in 2000. Lordi was a surprise with their GWAR-esque costumes and pyrotechnics. Great show. And of course, Ozzy is Ozzy and we all still love it this 5th time I’ve seen him.

This was the first time sitting actually in the Pavilion, and not in the lawn. And I had a few key observations of the day…

Metal promoters don’t care Well, that’s been a fact for a while. Warped Tour, and even the Gatherings, you would see more of a step to make sure that everyone’s ok. Free water, well placed mist tents, and a general sense from the bands not to fuck anyone up too badly. This is partly the nature of the music, and probably couldn’t be helped. But alas. I spent probably $50 in just some nachos, one slice of pizza, and water/gatorade all day for me and my wife. Pluse $20 for parking. At least the ticket was free.

Hustler is still cool They had a stage for Hustler girls coming out, showing their stuff (that might have been duct taped) and tossing free swag. I caught panties…panties…oh well. They rested firmly on my head for a bit. I think I’ll hang them in the studio…

Smoker are assholes Yeh. Going to get flack for this one. But it’s the truth. When the venue posts no smoking in the Pavilion seating area. And my wife goes in large part to not having to worry about smoking because of, and you’re sneaking one in right behind us and she’s having a hard time breathing. Yeh, you’re going to hear from me. You have no right to poison the air others breathe. Walk your ass to the lawn and smoke up, buddy. This is a rant for another post…

Titties They were everywhere. That is all…

Where’s the swag? So this was a sponsor paid for Ozzfest. So where’s all the swag? Where’s all the tents? There was just so much less this year. No body painting (my father-in-law was dissapointed). No scores of booths promoting one thing or the next. They were there. FYE, Jager, Monster. But significantly less. Disappointing. Commercialize me, dammit!!! Swag matters!!! (at least a little).

Well, that’s all I can recall for my Ozzfest report. Maybe I’ll get to that smoking issue later.

Oh, and any CRAP fans out there can now pick up our album “It Doesn’t Matter” at The Exchange and Dave’s Music Mine, both on the Southside in Pittsburgh, PA. More stores around the city in coming weeks!

As sent to info@tnawrestling.com

To whom this may concern,

I am writing this letter, inspired by a video on the frustration of those who ever cheered for TNA. I have been a rabid supporter of TNA since the days of the weekly PPVs a few years back. I’ve seen its ups and downs. Show stealing matches and horrendous gimmick matches. When everyone was down on TNA, and its lack of direction, I stuck up for it. At least it has the X-Division. TNA has all the great talent that other feds would trample on.

But I’m undone.

In recent weeks, it seems that TNA more and more is interested in utilizing talent that has been tossed aside by their dominate competitor. Ideas and history recycled and regurgitated. Yes, I’ve enjoyed some of the skits in the past weeks with Kurt Angle. But then they didn’t stop. And they got worse. And your amazing tag team division and X-Division gets swept aside so Kurt Angle can be kind of the world. I’m a huge Kurt Angle fan, don’t get me wrong, but this is ridiculous. I’m not interested in Total Nonstop Angle. TNA has truely become WWE light: the bad years. The McMahons themselves have stated that TNA needs to deliver something different instead of emulating the big guys. ECW on Sci Fi is beating you, last I knew.

And I no longer buy the pay per views. The last to go…

I leave you now to read my WWE Magazine. Even that is a better representation of what I love about wrestling.

–
Michael Sorg
Video Specialist, Web Designer, New Media Producer
Vice President ~ Deface Marketing

www.mikesorg.com
www.defacemarketing.com
www.wrestlingmayhemshow.com
www.westernpajuggalos.com
www.monkeyflingspoo.com

Well, it’s the hot topic, and I’m proud to have been therein the beginning, so why not get on the bacn wagon? (ugh, I did that…)

Honestly, I heard about bacn via an odd announcement, most likely mid-hallway, or during our lunch viewing session on day 2 of Podcamp, Sunday. I don’t recall my goals for that session time, but nothing really caught my attention, until I happened upon a room with all the chairs in a circle, like the wagons of old, rounding up some sense of this bacn. When I see a circle attended by Tommay Vallier, Fatherspoon, and much of those I converse with the whole weekend, I knew I had to get in on this. Even iJustine came in and learned the bacn.

So it seems that bacn isn’t spam. But it’s not the email you want to read right now. Myspace notices, twitter requests, facebook updates, etc. A new trend and issue in this world of Web 2.0. During this past day, I found myself, after only 2 hours of not checking my twitter, being inundated with over 25 messages, most of which from my new twitter friends, and concerning bacn. Which, in turn, was causing bacn to appear in my inbox with all this new friends and an occasional DM. The irony, and fun, of creating a meme (a word I only today discovered means “to coin a phrase”).

Even if it’s this trivial word, which will be fizzled once Web 3.0, or whatever is next, hits the intertubes. But still, this just might make Podcamp Pittsburgh 2 “The Year of the Bacn”

From DefaceMarketing.com

That’s right, the Deface Family represented fully at Podcamp Pittsburgh 2, showing that we are dead set on staying on the curb of New Media and finding new ways to bring this shit to you out there on the intertubes! Representatives from CRAP, Nerdz Eatin Shroomz, WesternPAJuggalos.com, emcee lb, and of course, the Wrestling Mayhem Show all showed up, and participated in panels, met new people, and caused havoc at the afterparty!

We have scores of videos, including interviews, and various antics. They’re still coming down the pipeline, but we have a good list at Sorg’s Youtube page. Or hop on Youtube.com and flickr.com (for pictures) and search for “pcpgh2″ for media from the whole event!

And finally, I leave you with our good friend, the creator of Podcamp, Chris Brogan, giving us props and representing CRAP in the most appropriate way possible…

I honestly have no idea why, but as of me noticing at about 3:30 PM today, WesternPAJuggalos.com’s web host suspended our account. I’ve submitted 3 emails so far and received no response as of 11:25 the same very night.

A very odd lack of communication from a web host who’s site has a quote ont he front page about beig responsive and receiving emails back even in the middle of the night very quickly.

So this affects WesternPAJuggalos.com, Whatisajuggalo.com, wrestlingmayhemshow.com, monkeyflingspoo.com, parts of DefaceMarketing.com, and of course, my portfolio at mikesorg.com. And at least three of those are supposed to be looked at by certain people. And all of this leading into Podcamp Pittsburgh this weekend…ouch…

Was doing some searching, looking for some pics and mentions of past Juggalo Days, and other events, and found one of my old posts via Google…

“And where has my life been chronicled, in the meantime. Look no further than WesternPAJuggalos.com. This site has become my pride and joy recently. Not until now have I found so much pride and purpose in my work. I recently attended Juggalo Day at Kennywood Saturday. We had over 60 juggalos for the picture alone, and there were definitely more crawling through the park. I finally saw the pic from last year, and it looks fairly anemic in comparison. And I was handed some props left and right that day. I finally got to see the faces of those attending the site. The people I do this for. At one point, we were waiting to get organized to do the group pic. I noticed one ninja talking to Kryptik (of pittsburghjuggalos.net) telling him he did a great job and thanking him. Kryp turns around and says “thank this ninja right here.” I guess for those who don’t know what went down, and i guess i didn’t go over in my last post, I was talking to Kryptik about doing some joint shit between our sites. My reluctance to their suggestions (read: Nedenspreadin’s suggestions, apparently) led to a following out. Kryp got the .net and some former ninjas that got kicked from the original Pittsburgh Juggalos, and sought to remake the site the way it should be. He took the site down, posted a long explanation at what went down and to scope my site for info on the Juggalo Day. I ws honored for the passing of the torch and pushed the fuck outta that shit. Snackz and JuggaloJohn, a good part of the WPAJ family, pushed the shit on Faygoluvers and other sites.

Juggalo Day really put my work in perspective. I had some younger juggalos asking me shit like if Psychopathic sends me free shit. The next day was spent sorting through all the new juggalos messaging me on AIM. I ended up talking with one ninja, who had a site of his own and he’s now our new web ninja on WPAJ. He’s like 16 and already know more than I did at that age in HTML. He’s really ambitious to be working on something like this, I can see, and expect some fresh shit from him.”

This post was from back in 2001, after Juggalo Day 2 at Kennywood. Now, I’m less than a week away from heading back to Podcamp Pittsburgh to talk about what we’re doing with the Wrestling Mayhem Show, and everything else that’s going on to New Media enthusiasts. But I tell you, this is the epitome of “community building”

Here’s a few examples of that community…

2006

2005
2004

2003

These are results of websites centered around this music community, “Juggalos” making the effort and people reciprocating. Be it PittsburghJuggalos.com/.net that started it, to WesternPAJuggalos.com still keeping it alive today, it’s still happening.

To the New Media guys reading: this is what any of us can accomplish with anything people have a passion about. Podcamp feels much like these events do in that respect, honestly.

To the Juggalos: It doesn’t matter if you discover that Violent J really is a dick, or Psychopathic Records is just another money hungry label, it’s the Juggalos that make this happen, and they wouldn’t be shit with out you, and you don’t need them to have this. We have each other in this…

reminiscing
reminiscing

Ah, another Juggalo Day has passed. Unfortunatley, quicker than I had hoped.

First off, I find even more negativity for this event from one of my own “staff members” on WPAJ, whom I just never really understand where he’s coming from. And I went solo today. But dammit, you know you can always count on Juggalos. That ninja, CJ had hit me up Friday about my Twitter of not having a riding buddy, and offered a spot with his friend, who was an odd man for him. So I showed up, ran into some ninjas, and it was on. And this is what it’s about. We’d keep running into more Juggalos, and ended up with about 24 Juggalos on the Raging Rapids and Steel Phantom. There was a lot of chilling out, waiting for one or the other, or watching some of the crew hit the Sky Coaster. It was pretty good just bullshitting with everyone. And dammit I feel old. These are straight kids here, for the most part. But you’ll have that with this “scene”. Finally ran into Kraz and her crew, who were fun to hit the bumper cars with. Then we finally had the big picture at 5 PM. Some of the guys went and got a shit load of Faygo, and before I got there, set it up on the side of the entrance. Amazing. We got our picture. I made a little bit of a speech to everyone, because there were a few things that just had to be said.

Now here’s the “fun” part. Some of those kids wanted to do a Faygo war int he park. Hm…I think that’s how things went sour the first year this thing went down. I expressed my concerns. But one of the ninjas was an employee at the park, and directed the crew to a pavilion where they wouldn’t bother anyone. And, curiosity abound, I ventured to the site, hoping to make sure no one did anything too crazy. They did there thing in a picnic area, away from any sort of walkway, outside the pavilion. And everyone was good and cleaned everything up afterwards. No one paniced, everything was grand. I guess we stuck around too long, as we were rounded up, even those just standing around, by a couple security/cops from the park. Ouch. Unfortunate, as the majority of the crowd were just spectators, but no fault on the cops. That’s just how they know how to handle what they saw as a bad situation.

So I learned something, as we were all being escorted out in small groups. Apparently, even though I was an innocent spectator in all of this, the officer informed me that I could have been easily charged with “Inciting a riot” and “corrupting minors”. I am now educated.

Despite the bones from that incident, I have to say I’m happy with the turn out, and glad that this tradition can continue, despite its originators not being as involved anymore. I think I might have counted 60+ Juggalos in that pic, and of course we always miss a few around the park + later comers. Here’s looking forward to future mini’s, shows, etc with the fam….