This is about six layers of my voice and nothing else: "A Drone Tone Poem"

A Drone Tone Poem by Musclemouth  
Download now or listen on posterous

Musclemouth - A Drone Tone Poem.mp3 (2974 KB)

Enjoy.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/willconley777/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/wconley/
Posterous: http://willconley.posterous.com/

And for my fellow social media omnivores, here is my entire Web footprint: http://willconley.extendr.com/

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Rant? Poem? Satirical allegory to be read in the voice of fawning PBS naturalist Marty Stouffer? You decide.

Hi!

I'm Marty Stouffer.

*fawning, smiling Marty*

And this is:

Wild America!

*uplifting nature music*

Last week on Wild America,

we saw the bald eagle removed from the endangered species list
and take to the Technicolor skies!

*caw!*

Soaring freely amongst the smog,
this majestic creature surveyed the land
for some well deserved prey,

dove for a three-headed frog and
drowned in a river of pig shit outside a factory feed lot in Upstate New York.

*intense nature music*

The flowing river carried the eagle
along with several newly evolved strains of lethal microbes
spawned from the fanatical use of antibiotics
to your local water treatment facility.

The porcine feces was strained through a colander
and piped into some lady's quadruped bathtub in New Jersey.

*Marty takes a long drink of vodka from the plastic bottle*

*music picks up speed*

Curiously, her antibiotic hand soap had no effect
on the avian bird flue she subsequently contracted.

Had her grieving dog not hacked to death on its bark collar
alerting the neighborhood with its rotting corpse,
the old lady would never have been found.

*kazoos*

This week on
Wild America:

We'll see donkeys and elephants fight
like junkyard dogs

over sacred cows and red herrings

to the passionate bleat of
three hundred million well fed sheep.

*eerie silence*

*Marty shooting up*

Next week:

Jackals
rape
everything.

Same shit different day,
I'm Marty Stouffer.

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Here is a song I made about how I am a slut.

The Circle Game by Musclemouth  
Download now or listen on posterous

Musclemouth - The Circle Game.mp3 (2881 KB)

Listen to and download, free of charge, "The Circle Game" by Musclemouth, an alias of mine. I recorded this song, which is a hip hop fantasia of sorts on the Joni Mitchell song by the same name, in 2007. Its lyrical contents may or may not still be applicable to who I am today, depending on whether I am lying.

Yes, the song is named after the Joni Mitchell song.

Yes, the lyrics to the chorus are identical. Yes, the rest of the lyrics are mine, all mine.

Yes, the music was made from a slowed-down, beefed up, drum-enhanced sample of another song whose name and creator I do not remember.

Yes, this is acceptable within the realm of music, especially within the realm of hip hop, whose roots rest squarely in the art of sampling and re-purposing.

Yes, all the vocals are mine, all mine.

Yes, you can have it for free.

Yes, you can and should share it with your friends, family, enemies, ex-significant others.

Definitely share it with your ex-significant others. You'll look like a perfect lady/gentleman compared to the me represented in this song.

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Will Tries to Pour Heart out to Tony Beneath Major Low-Flying Airplane Corridor

This is just a very rough rough-in of a sketch comedy idea Tony and I came up with. All improvised using some sound effects on Tony's phone. Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/willconley777

Posted via web from Will Conley's Random Things

Dr. Strangetweet: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Sponsor

I am experimenting with in-stream advertising on Twitter.

I am terrified of losing friends over it.

What is in-stream advertising?

In-stream advertising is allowing an advertiser to post a tweet using your Twitter username, among your regular updates. An in-stream ad usually has a description of the product or service, and a link. Such an ad also contains a disclaimer hashtag for transparency, such as #ad, #paid, or #spon (short for "sponsored").

The idea is you would post multiple regular tweets (5, 10, 20, hundreds) per single ad. Theoretically this would strike a fine balance between regular content and paid content, so that no one calls you nasty names like "spammer" or "marketer" or "capitalist" or "content provider" or "deserve to get paid for all the work you put into creating interesting stuff online" or...

Oh wait, maybe advertising isn't all bad. After all, we let television and radio and movie theaters and the ass of your pants have advertising. Why not a tweet stream?

There are two common types of in-stream advertising:

• Contract: The advertiser pays you a certain amount of money to post a few tweets via your stream over a given time frame. For example, an advertiser might tweet through your profile three times in a week - once at the beginning of the campaign, once in the middle, and once at the end of the week. They might even rent your Twitter background design on the Web for the same period, as in the case of Twittad (although Twittad 2.0, due out next week, is updating some of its distribution methods. Big things are brewing there.) When the period is complete, you are paid through PayPal.
• PPC: Pay-per-click. You are only paid when someone clicks a link in the ad posted through your Twitter username. Dozens of ad networks use PPC as their distribution/revenue model. Magpie is a big one. MyLikes is another.

For normal human beings who lack superpowers such as flight, superstrength, or mainstream fame, payouts are usually a few bucks. Not bad. Not Benjamin-burnin' money, not "I'm On a Boat", but not bad.

I am trying multiple Twitter in-stream advertising networks because I want to compare them. Which ones have the best revenue model? Which ones do advertisers like the most? Which ones do I as the user like the most? Which ones do my friends and followers like the most?

I am taking it very, very slow. I am working with a live audience here - my followers. There is no controlled survey panel, here.

If I tweet out the wrong type of ad, or if a product or service I help to promote does not at least somewhat measure up to my standards, I will be rightly seen as untrustworthy, and my revenue model - *trust* - is gone.

That's why I'm terrified. Well, no, not terrified. Not after writing this post. Just scared. No...not even scared.

Actually, the fear is gone. I have confidence in what I create and share online. I believe in the words I write, the films I shoot, the photos I snap and select, and the other things I share. I believe in the genuineness of the relationships I have cultivated, and I am not afraid to lose a few ideologues who frown on the idea of making money from the content I create.

Those same ideologues are probably too busy blithely sitting through and readily tolerating a television commercial for Goldman Sachs to care about little old me, the free-of-charge content production machine.

We should all get paid for our efforts. And besides, the advertisers I take on to support me? I guarantee I am not letting anything by me. If it's not relevant, if it's trash, I am not running it. All of my advertisers have to have something going for them - a product or service that I am not ashamed to show to my friends - before I approve them.

To be continued, when I feel like it. :)

For a good time, visit:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/willconley777/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/wconley/
Posterous: http://willconley.posterous.com/
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/willconley777

And for my fellow social media omnivores, my entire Web footprint: http://willconley.extendr.com/

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

A Sort of Ode: Nature, Man, and Why I Respect Anyone Who Chooses to Exist

Mankind is an astounding innovation.

We procreate, we fill the Earth, we alter Her skin. We send bits of Her to other spheres, sometimes even riding along in little Earth bubbles, and back again.

We hold hammers and swing cities into existence. Show me one volcano that can do that.

Mankind can out-blast a volcano. Nukes. Out-sweet sugar cane. Aspartame. With paint we vie with flowers and macaws. The Sistine Chapel. Mankind is skilled in mimicry, driven by ego, helped by cunning, given wing by dream, and foiled by choice.

We do these miracles - for better or for worse - despite impossible odds. Such power deserves respect.

When you respect someone, you honor his appointment as drafted host to the awesome forces of nature that move through him.

We did not ask to be born. We were selected for the job of existing. Within our bodies course dozens of hormones each with its purpose, each its predestined agenda. With microscopic cells nature builds our bodies and conducts an endocrine symphony of autonomic functions and semi-conscious urges - including those that direct us to eat, sleep, fuck, and defend.

To make matters more complex we are arranged in interdependent communities of humans within an interdependent ecology of plants, animals, minerals, and astronomical forces. How we deal with this system of urges and consequences determines how gracefully we behave.

It's a hard job, existence. Yet here we are, transcending our limits daily and constantly bringing psychedelic dreams into the material world.

That is why I respect any individual who chooses to live, and why you should respect him too.

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

On Being Twitter-Genuine

I like social media. I use it for fun. I use it to connect with people, trade thoughts, open doors, and enrich my world IRL (In Real Life).

I use Twitter the most of all my Web profiles. Its 140-character limit encourages thought condensation. Twitter forces you to crack the shell and present the nutmeat of your message.

What are most people looking for when they go online?

Enrichment. That's it. People go online to enrich their lives - and the lives of others, believe it or not - through knowledge, information, interaction, creation, and commerce.

People want to feel as though they are not just wasting time and energy staring at a computer screen and tapping away at buttons. Activity does not equal experience. Those who go online to waste time just haven't found what they are looking to experience. It's easy to get caught up in virtual distractions and aimless Web wandering.

We need realness. Texture. A pulse.

On Twitter specifically, we need you to be more genuine. We need to feel as though your tweets are popping off the screen, and entering your being, and changing who we are in some small way.

How to be more genuine? Put another way, how can you be more you, online?

The first thing you need to understand is that the real world - the offline world - is better than anything you can find online. The five senses must never be forsaken. Understand this, and you will bring a vibrancy to your Twitter persona that 95% of users seem to have forgotten.

I spend a lot of time online. But I'm a multi-tasker, as they say. I walk a lot. I talk with real people wherever I go. I'm outgoing. I look at the world. As I write this, I see mountains to my right, and a clear blue sky above. The weather is chilly for a Southern California April, about 60 degrees. There is music playing on the outdoor speakers here at this coffee shop. "Hearts of Fire." Traffic rolls on all around me. People getting in and out of their cars.

Real life is what you want to share online. Avoid getting caught up in link bait (the gratuitous sharing of links), and other self-referential treasure hunts leading nowhere.

Be you. Be a thinking person. Be a philosopher. A humorist, an observer, a communicator, a mother, a musician, a Costco employee. Be what you are, and strive towards what you wish you were. Reach out to people. Share what you are feeling for real. Tell the world where you're at, what you are doing. The mundane details of life, the amazing revelations that occur to you through your senses or through your soul.

Share multi-media when appropriate. Direct friends and acquaintances to things online that you find amusing or useful or moving.

But be always on the lookout for that which is genuine. Don't be afraid to say something controversial. There is too much self-policing going on both online and offline. We don't need self-censorship, because that is boring and useless. We need genuine thoughts.

We need you to be yourself. If you do that, people will flock to you. We're hungry for the genuine.

For a good time, go to:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/willconley777/
Facebook: http://facebook.com/wconley/
Posterous: http://willconley.posterous.com/

And for my fellow social media omnivores, my entire Web footprint: http://willconley.extendr.com/

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Untitled

This is the latest in my series of documentary video clips starring my friend Tony, who is black. Followers of this series know Tony to be a frightening figure, what with his being from the ghetto. Note the intimidating bling (Blackberry on a lanyard) bouncing from Tony's neck. As you might already be aware, I am only friends with Tony, a.k.a. "The Tiger", because I am afraid not to be. You understand, right? Here he is depicted effing ish up, old school, on the real, in Oaktown, but in Los Angeles, but actually Azusa. Ish is rough here.

Here also is a new character in the saga: Victor, who is Latino.

For the record, I myself, who am white, am white.

Get to know Tony in-depth: http://willconley.posterous.com/tag/tony

Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/willconley777

Posted via web from Will Conley's Random Things

"Stone, Gem, Rock." (My third set of three related haikus a.k.a. "tri-ku".)

Humming through darkness,
palm thumps stone. Fingers encage.
Water falls, stone glows.

"There it is, your gem.
"You've barely scratched the surface.
"All this time, still pure."

Nodding donkeys pump
black gold from blue and green rock
awash in starlight.

© 2010 by Will Conley

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Three related haikus, or "tri-ku." Example here.

Lines. Calligrapher
meditates, drags brush through ink.
Stroke: "Vapor, Air, Sky."

Condensation trail
horizon to horizon
begins to disperse.

Razor crosses palm.
Platelets like poppies bloom one
by one by one by

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

The Crystal Ball: These Eventualities I Prognosticate

The next step in our cultural evolution is the televised celebration of self-actualization, followed immediately by the realization of the movie Idiocracy.
After Idiocracy, a religion of sticks and stones that emphasizes not sitting on cacti and hot stoves will spread like wildfire.
Economists will rule all. Unfortunately everyone will fancy himself an economist, so, still more-or-less anarchy but with dolphin-safe tuna.
Then, philosophers will emerge from the rabble. People will say how smart the philosophers are and how cute they look in cages.
Philosopher-safe tuna will be invented.
All the bubble gum will lose its flavor. A dark time.
At that point the sky will turn forever grey due not to global warming or other chemical or physical change, but to a lack of imagination. The good news: Charlie Chaplin will make a comeback. The bad news: It will be as the title role in "Weekend at Bernie's 4,753."
Then IQs will soar. Children will play Duck, Duck, Partical Accelerator. Mindful parents will play "Baby Jung" to their newborns.
Mysteriously, socks will cease losing their partners in the laundry.
At some point, reality television will depict a suburban strip mall and people saying "Hey, Hi, What up," and not really playing head games.
The last possible date of the apocalypse will pass without incident. In the face of such security and well-being, a general sense of meaninglessness will pervade the popular landscape.
Finally, Conan O'Brien will migrate to TBS. The end.

- inspired by Nostradamus, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and the distinct sensation that I am dematerializing

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Built to Last: Here I note 2 archaeological discoveries of the distant future, and 2 older ones (4 images w/descriptions)

Four photos of logos built to last, two of them contemporary:

• A communications conduit access cover stamped with the Verizon logo, circa 2000 A.D. Will be excavated at Azusa, California.
  
• A power conduit access cover stamped with the Edison logo, circa 2000 A.D. Will be excavated at Azusa, California.
  

And two older logos for comparison's sake:

• Roman Legionary stamped brick from the Roman Tenth Legion that sacked Jerusalem, c. 70 A.D. Such stamped bricks paved roads and comprised buildings.
• A personal seal that belonged to a military commander, c. 650 A.D. This seal is rare in that it depicts a Hebrew in the style of an Assyrian warrior.
  

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Within a range of intention, a random outcome. (Photo)

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

I am proud of these photos.

Each of these streak photos was taken along San Gabriel Parkway in Azusa, California while rapidly moving the lens across, toward, or away from the subject using a Samsung R451C cell phone equipped with a very basic 1.3-megapixel camera and tuned in Picasa 3. In my opinion the most geometrically complex photos in this set were captured during an apex of a zig-zag or shaking motion. The photos are meant to be viewed in a series, but I'm curious as to whether you have any favorite shots.

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

A trio of haikus.

Speeding comet tail
like whip of lion tamer
cracks upon Leo.

Horizons dilate.
Pupils stretch to lines, reaching.
Places weave fingers.

"Grapevine," said the post,
"Climb. Cling slowly. Cover me."
In darkness, tendrils.

- Originally posted on my Twitter. (@AlanEggleston commented: That's why they invented the exclamation point. "!")

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

There is something so triumphant and so undeniable about a well-executed flash mob.

via youtube.com

Some things you just have to respect.

Posted via web from Will Conley's Random Things

Frankly, this is one of the most beautiful public stunts I have ever seen.

via youtube.com

Posted via web from Will Conley's Random Things

Dearest Suniva: The Sacred Love Letter, Cornerstone of Our Civilization

The only favor she ever asked of him was to write her a love letter.

He wouldn't do it.

He never did it.

But then he did.

When she read it, it broke her.

The Love Letter was written in indigo ink on an 8-1/2 X 11 sheet of premium printer paper folded in three sections and tucked into a business envelope sealed to the corners. On the front of the envelope in indigo ink was her name:

Suniva.

Dearest Suniva.

That is how the Love Letter began.

Dearest Suniva.

That is all we know of the Love Letter. The rest has been surmised through decades of scholarly research since its discovery at the Atlantis Dig. Most data pertaining to the Love Letter is sourced in the oral traditions of families whose chief occupation has for centuries been the preservation of the metaphysical human heart.

According to the Keepers of the Oral Traditions of the Metaphysical Human Heart, the Love Letter opened with an anecdote. A little story about the sender's morning, which contained rain. A sentence or two to set the scene, so that the recipient could imagine him sitting down to write. Imagine him thinking of her, thinking of what to say.

With his indigo ballpoint pen he addressed his Dearest Suniva. His only Suniva, his darling Suniva, his Suniva forever and ever. The handwriting was flowing script, for he was of the morbid sort, and she the sort who longed to be imbibed.

There is some conflict on this point. Some Keepers of the Oral Traditions of the Metaphysical Human Heart insist that the Love Letter was written in the neat, block print of a successful IT engineer. Others passionately argue that it was the chicken scratch of a broke artist.

The Love Letter contained three fresh strawberries of the sweetest variety, the kind you can purchase only by the side of a highway. It also contained one bunch of grapes, plucked one by one and fed to a goddess. There was also a pomegranate, halved, its powerful seeds glistening amber in the sun by a tree by the lake in the summer.

The sentiments expressed in the Love Letter were born in the great hall of the great palace in little storybooks worn soft through years of "Read it again", and the Love Letter whipped up stardust bouquets through ominous astrological constellations.

It quoted Yeates and also Dickinson, if tradition is correct.

These are the facts.

They who recount the nature of the Love Letter invariably – to a person – take on a rosy glow when doing so. Their eyes close to slits as a smile approaches the corners of their lips which, when opened to speak, give the listener the impression he is opening the Love Letter for the first time - and that he is she who first opened it untold eons ago.

"The Love Letter," say the Keepers of the Oral Traditions of the Metaphysical Human Heart, "is our Rosetta Stone."

The Love Letter, in addition to being the cornerstone of our modern era, is well understood to have been extremely sexy. The Keepers maintain that the recipient of the Love Letter turned white upon reading it, and died of empty veins. No evidence of a wound is mentioned in the fossil record.

The envelope and salutation of the Love Letter will be on display at the British Museum of Natural Love through Thursday, December 87th, 3045. Tickets: $140 million. Students and Seniors: $40 trillion. Telepath Joe Kearney, docent, for more information.

###

Dearest Suniva,

I love you so much, baby. Hope you're having a nice day.

Love,
Joe Mann ;)

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Get to know Tony's patented walk: "The Tiger"

This is my friend Tony's patented walk. It is called "The Tiger," because that is Tony's nickname. Tony is was too awesome for the front of a Wheaties box, so they stole his nickname and made a mascot out of him for the front of a box of Frosted Flakes. Tony didn't sue, because Tony is nice like that. But if you diss his walk, he will sue. He will sue you right into the East River.

Note: Audio track was paid for dearly, but I could only afford 27 seconds of music. The film you are about to see is 34 seconds in length. To offset this handicap, you are encouraged to whistle the "Smurfs" theme for the remainder of the video, as Tony demonstrates here.

Another note: This is merely how Tony walks when he is not driving his whore magnet.

Posted via web from Will Conley's Random Things

My shadow looks very trucker. My jeans look pasted-in. Weird.

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Row of Salvador Dali bronzes depicting Don Quixote. What is this technique called?

I saw these at the Shatford Library yesterday near the old printing press and the 1948 Intertype.

I've got questions for anyone who knows.

1. Are all of these made of bronze, do you suppose? What gives some their gold tone and others their silver tones? Does it have something to do with galvanization?
2. What is this technique called - in which the material is raised three-dimensionally? Are these called "bronze casts"? "bronze bas-reliefs"? "bronze wall hangings?"
3. Is the subject Don Quixote as I guessed?

Even if you don't know, educated guesses would be appreciated. I ask out of plain curiosity.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Mariachis stormed my coffee shop this morning looking like a million bucks.

Nine nice young mariachis, El Mariachi Juvenil, stopped off here at Starbucks in Azusa, my usual morning spot, on their way to a gig. They were all smiles and good vibes and holding sandwiches. They humored my request to pose for me -- minus one mariachi, who was absorbed in a conversation with someone off to the side.

They were nice enough to pose, so I'll be nice enough to pimp them out. Here you go:

Their business card reads:

Front:Haga Su Fiesta Inolvidable con El Mariachi Juvenil (Make your party unforgettable with the Youth Mariachi)
Camino Real (Royal Road)
David & Rosalva Martinez
Información (626) 334-1193

Back:Mariachi Juvenil
Camino Real
Musica Para Todo Ocasión (Music for All Occasions)
David & Rosalva Martinez
Información (626) 334-1193

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Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

1948 Intertype C4 used keyboard and molten metal to produce lines of type for newspapers.

Shatford Library, PCC campus, again. (See a simple printing press here.)

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Posted via email from Will Conley's Random Things

Old Printing Press in the Shatford Library at Pasadena City College

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Meet Tony's whore magnet: a 1934 Ford suped-up with a gratuitous fifth wheel.

This is my black friend Tony's bitchin' pimpmobile. You might know Tony from such films as "Meet Tony. He's Hardcore" (http://bit.ly/meettony).

This dream machine kicks out 40 horses on four massively tiny cylinders. She's a state-of-the-art 1934 Ford with sweet rims, plus an extra wheel up front by the driver's seat so Tony, a.k.a. "The Tiger," can caress it like a woman's head when he kicks back and rolls through the 'hood in this teal whore-magnet.

Tony is pictured here with this, his preferred mode of urban jungle-ruling, sporting a fresh, steaming cup of Starbucks Pike Roast, because he does not. Mess. Around.

Even though Tony, who is very special as you can see in the YouTube video here, kicks my ass every morning when I see him chillin' by Starbucks just to help me to understand his plight as a black man, I hang out with him because I'm scared not to.

Tony owns the title and deed to this killer piece of machinery. Ask him to show it to you sometime. I dare you.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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What rain wrought. (Slide show.)

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This is how I roll: Blazin' C-notes on C-road, takin' photos for slide shows.

Straight baller, shot caller.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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