Well those in the UK are – and should be concerned because Orwell’s predictions (and even Alan Moore’s in V for Vendetta) are seemingly comng true. With The Fear this time being terrorism – despite a terrorist attack happening last nearly 4 years ago – they are clamping down on a variety of things. They might seem small, even trivial – but the right to photograph protests, or anything you like in a street – have already been eroded, and if they think you might be a terrorist however spurious they can lock you up for a long time – stop me if you can see the way this can be politically used to oppress people?

And if they take any DNA off you, they can store it in their beloved police database against EU law:

And now with the new Coroners and Justice Bill the State want the right to use that information, or any other information they collect however spuriously for anything they like and use it for something else – as Boing Boing put it:

Clause 152 allows any Minister to take any information gathered for any purpose and use it for any other purpose

So now councils can spy on you to see if you’re emptying the bins correctly (ooh you terrorist) you can guarantee this clause WILL be misused, whatever they say – they said that about the anti-terrorism laws and there is a mounting pile of abuses that go FAR against the intention of that law and with all this CCTV, DNA databases and soon to be ID cards, we have become the most snooped country in Europe, if not the whole world.

What can you do? Well those in the UK can write to your MP – no don’t yawn and switch off it’s REALLY PISS EASY, I mean a muppet like me could do it, so can you – I did it and got results and a shiny letter from Glenda Jackson AND a big warm feeling that I had actually DONE SOMETHING – so can you. You can do it by email via WriteToThem and takes a few minutes. And you can join this Facebook group. – publicise, Twitter about this, bother friends, talk, phone – get the word out.

That’s not hard is it? Or are you going to be the kind of stupid person that Pastor Niemoeller wrote about? These are YOUR laws, if you just sit there eating your grub and shrugging then don’t moan at me when they come through your door.

Also word to my pirate radio bruvs (and gals out there – they’ve just raided about 30 of them in the UK and shut them down, heard via John. Keep going, keep the faith, don’t let em win. And that bullshit about emergency frequencies – they still using that as an excuse? As a former frequency scanner and radio geek, I can tell you the ambulance and other systems moved to higher frequencies from publically accessible radio waves (ie. on your dial) back in the 80’s – they use special frequencies with digital encoded systems for the ambulances, and obviously the police realised being listenable on a normal radio wasn’t really a good idea, so they did too. So I don’t see how the pirates could affect this unless some faulty transmitter is sidebanding. I call bullshit on that until I hear otherwise.

You see what I mean? It’s easy to shout fire in a crowded theatre, but since before Gordon Brown and that Weapon of Mass Distraction called a war where they ignored us, politically things have been shifted to make a whole bunch of people seem they are a potential threat, rather than the necessary watchguard (and yes the watchers?) to try and keep an increasingly distant and corrupt set of politicians accountable…ignorance and apathy just gives them the power to eventually really fuck up your day (or life).

This current state of affairs is really bugging me, there is a real danger we are going down the path of 1984 – you may scoff but do some research about what laws have been passed recently – and it will chill your blood.

After over 2 years (OMG has it been that long?) I’ve stopped the weekly DJ sets at the Parkade in Second Life.

No bad reason, no drama, just need to spend time on other stuff (like: finding work, career, photography). I’ll probably pop back time to time to DJ for the odd special set

I recorded the last set, at some point it’ll be here. Sad to leave ‘Cruise Control’ behind, but after 2 years it’s time to focus on career and paying gigs. I’m clamping down on creating free stuff, it’s great and all, but it doesn’t pay the bills – and the bills are the real problem at the moment.

To see some of the great times we had there, you can view the silliness here.

Starting a photo blog for my street/urban related photography – Streetise

At the moment I’m popping in stuff you might have seen – although a few recent photos you probably haven’t, but I’m planning to do more street photography (esp of shop fronts and surreal objects that get thrown out around here) and post it there.

Ok one of the things that is really starting to bug me is the endless comparison of podcasting with radio – ‘podcasting will replace radio!’ – ‘it’s like TIVO for Radio’ and even Steve Jobs at the WWDC saying “We see it as the hottest thing going in radio” . Talk about being totally wrong – Steve Jobs is talking absolute bollocks

Firstly podcasting is NOT radio – when it started the media looked for an angle, took the easy route and started doing ‘podcasting will kill the radio star’ type articles. All fun and funky, but it’s kind of stuck – with radio corporates moving into podcasting (Rush Limbaugh ‘hottest thing in podcasting’?!? Get back to bed, honey!) the trend seems to be heading that radio shows can be just ripped, MP3′d and it’s just another delivery channel. WRONG.

Secondly don’t judge existing podcasts by radio standards – they’re not done for an average drive-time audience, or on thousands of pounds worth of kit, and that’s not the point. They have no advertising revenue and most don’t want to have advertising in their casts. So why is the ‘charts’ of PodcastAlley/Podcast pickle et al all so important? And why do people bitch about casts that have great content but don’t have that ‘radio’ sound?

Podcasting is a revolution exactly because it ISN’T radio – the low-or-no production values add charm but also validity – you’re getting this from a PERSON not a coporation.

The voice is distinct, human, clear and warm and more importantly unique – this is where the corporates will struggle to get that one-on-one feel, I doubt they will be able to. That human connection is what it’s about – remember podcasting used to be called audio blogging (I’m sure I’m preaching to the converted here, but I have to say this).

The low entry value means it’s accessible – and will get more so. Trying to build in more production values is dangerous as it raises that bar and stops the very people you need casting from doing so. This is the problem with existing media – ‘I can’t make a film! I can’t produce an album!’ – it encourages apathy through high production values. it inhibits – but that gloss doesn’t actually add any more information or content.

Content is king – if you have something to say and we can hear you, then that’s great, that’s what it’s about – I was listening to Lucky Bitch Radio and Wanda’s recent breakup and past struggles with addiction and thought this is what it’s about – you’re hearing someone’s view on the world at a crisis point pretty much unedited. You rarely get that connection even in so-called ‘reality shows’ which are highly staged. It’s not self-indulgent – that’s exactly the attitude that stops people from starting things like podcasts.

Radio is produced for a mass audience and is increasingly commoditised into smaller and smaller chunks and market niches – or what the marketeers think are there. Podcasting is not the new radio – like all new technologies it’s going through the infancy stages of copying an existing medium to seek validity – photography did this when it started, aping the impressionists and fine art to prove it’s worth. Eventually it decided to go it’s own way and created it’s own self-confidence.

This is what will happen with podcasting – the radio production nerds and wannabes will go off to XM or Sirius or KYOU and the rest of us will build a future for podcasting with our own language, and our values. It will happen sooner than you think…the danger of looking to radio for validity is that it is a medium in artistic and monetary crisis – why replicate them like a kid trying to look hard and older for his big brother? We’re in out infancy but shouldn’t try too hard to grow up just yet and be like the big boys – like Podshow and Odeo are. I’d rather go out and play wouldn’t you?

Anyway I thought Dawn and Drew taught us all this?

Or did we forget?

I’m totally like 2 weeks late on this one, but I was catching up on my WholeWheat audio magazines and found out they are calling time on the daily rants/muffins/whatever. I can totally understand the decision (I have wondered in the past about the contradiction of a regimented radio schedule vs. JimBob’s talk of why they went to Alaska in the first place) but it saddens me.

We (the podcasting/audio blogging community) NEED people like JimBob and Esther.

Why?

Well him and Esther are the conscience of podcasting/audio blogging/whatever you choose to call it – they are like the little boy that pointed out the emperor’s new clothes. You might not like what they are saying, you might not agree, but I’d rather listen to someone who makes me think and is critical of podcasting rather than the happy(back)-slappy fest that’s going on over at Podshow and other places.

Thing is, obvious self-congratulation and cross-commenting for peer-visibility and networking is as boring to listen to as much as the Stern-a-likes and the irate geekoid techies doing their versions of Zoo radio/talk radio, and ranting and raving just for show. Your actions have to have heart, and soul; cojones; direction; the intention and aim has to be purer than ‘just being liked’. Otherwise you’ll just fade away…

But I respect Jim-Bob’s and Esther’s decision; I disagree with what he said that any of it ’sucked’; it was all good podcasting/audio blogging where I stood – well listened; but it’s the same PodFade and PodFatigue that we’ve all felt – trying to jump through hoops and do casts or entertain when you don’t feel like it is as ’sucky’ as it gets and is, actually, work.

The problem I find at the moment with DJing and music creation scenes, podcasting, designing et al is that it’s all about recycling media, recycling the same old bullshit. I’m very aware of it; I work with studios and marketing to make brands and websites all ’shiny lemon fresh’ and give them something nice to look at; it’s what pays my wage, I’m not proud of it.

What bothers me tho is when I see it in the very things I do to relax, get away from that world – the very recycling of media, or as Carrie from Sleatter Kinney talks in the latest NME about the fact people seem to need to record or do things so they can talk about them (probably on their podcasts or blogs)…this idea that you need to experience new things and record them to prove you were there. This ‘DJ Culture’ or endless recycling of stuff gets to me – sometimes it works and makes me laugh, dance in my chair, gives me hope, but it does the opposite when it seems like a churn, seems like work, people apply a work or commercial ethic to a free or hobby resource, when people are obviously remixing the latest chart shit to get a profile and not because they love the music, when I go to events like Bastard and everyone is talking industry shite. Stuff like that makes me want to give it all up and move to Alaska (and definitely NOT start up a radio station!)

But when Alan from Low (one of the things that gives me hope) stops the tour because of his mental illness, a very brave act which I respect, and talks about not being able to look a picture of John Peel in the face and the need to stop to get well, it not only puts things in perspective but also I understand that. You have to make sure that your actions are done for the right reasons and followed through because you want to, rather than pleasing other people. Doing things for other people, apart from being able to eat, and I’ve developed a professional ‘persona’ and seperation to cope with that, generally doesn’t work.

It dehumanises you.

It makes you a slave to the machine. It’s boring…

It’s like I DJ, I played at being a DJ for a while, I seem to be good at it and entertain people. But it’s not who I want to be, since I’ve seen people who DJ professionally and the all-consuming nature of it would destroy the very thing I like about music, and doing it. Ditto photography – I’m trained in it to a good level, I can take a mean picture and run a studio and print the results. I’m doubtful about making that my bread and butter because it will likely destroy the very thing I like about it. Sad but although it flies in the face of a hundreds of years of Prostestant western work ethic and Hollywood dogma (“you can be who you want to be!!!”) I think I prefer to be a technological and artistic dilletante. A sunday painter. A sunday podcaster.

And if it gets work for me, then I’ll stop just like JimBob, and go outside and breathe some (alas not as fresh as Alaska) air.

But until then, to end this ramble, as I wrote elsewhere about WWR and JimBob:

so the king is dead, let’s behold the podshow revolution! Umm I mean ‘bubble’.

Let’s pod that bubble shall we?

Sounds like a manifesto to me….search and destroy