PayPal has recently stepped into some deep shit with their poor handling of Regretsy’s toys-for-kids campaign, but this certainly isn’t the only issue that’s come up. In fact, just yesterday there was a big story about my friends at Zivity losing their account… then there’s George RR Martin, Wikileaks, PirateBay, and many others.

Rather than a straight up boycott (or signing another useless petition), I’ve decided to try to affect change on a more immediate level by writing sites that I love to use, but only accept PayPal payments. After all, it’s hard to boycott PayPal when so few popular sites offer any alternatives. Below is a copy of my recent email to the awesome folks at Bandcamp.

Hi guys!

I’ve been a longtime fan of BandCamp, and have nothing but good things to say when describing it to other musicians. The only problem I sometimes have is that Bandcamp only takes Paypal for payments. I’ve long wanted additional payment options, especially since PayPal started shutting down accounts of Wikileaks, Regretsy, Zivity, and even a few close friends of mine.

I know that PayPal is just too big for me to influence directly, but I’m hoping in writing this letter that Bandcamp would consider adding PayPal alternatives, such as WePay. Though I certainly plan on continued use of your site, I am currently shutting off the payment options for all of my albums on Bandcamp (http://docpop.bandcamp.com/) and keeping my fingers crossed that you’ll soon offer different payment alternatives. To be clear, I’m not trying to get you guys to remove PayPal, I’m simply asking that you consider offering alternative payment methods. I’d hate to think of the number of sales that you and I could both be missing due to only accepting PayPal.

Thanks!

–
-Doctor Popular
Mobile Phone Musician and Photographer
www.DocPop.org
www.ObjectiveScenes.com
www.BeepsAndSmudges.com
www.twitter.com/docpop

update: I received this email from Ryan at Bandcamp

Hi Doc,

Thanks for the message and the love. We’re exploring alternate payment systems for the future, but there isn’t a set timeframe yet. Please watch the blog (blog.bandcamp.com) for updates.

FWIW, after the earthquake in Japan, charity compilations on Bandcamp raised over $75K for the survivors. Another album recently raised several thousand dollars for the families of FDNY firefighters killed in 9/11, and dozens of other charity releases have raised funds to support PTSD therapy, cancer treatment, and the building of schools, among many other causes. All of these transactions were processed by Paypal.

Regarding the Regretsy situation, PayPal has been in top form. Please check this out and balm your mind: https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2011/12/regretsy-issue-resolution/

Thanks,
Ryan
Bandcamp

Rather than bore you with my full response, I’ll just summarize by saying that I 1) thanked him for his quick response, 2) stressed that this issue is not specifically related to Regretsy, but more about offering alternatives for whenever a company like PayPal starts to piss people off, & 3) mentioned that PayPal may have done the right thing in light of public reaction, but other services that get poor treatment may not be so lucky. The last part was maybe unnecessary, but I think I felt somewhat defensive about the charity paragraph.

We had a blast at last week’s 8bitSF show. Enjoyed checking out everybody’s sets and it was cool to meet Attract Mode‘s Adam. Mike and I were happy to see our flier art featured on a big banner onstage. Thanks to @crashfaster for putting together another excellent show.

If you missed it, you can still download the March show sampler here.

The clubs modest front door was an interesting contrast for the secret within. Most of the smaller clubs used christmas lights as year round decorations, but every inch of ceiling at V/V’s was covered with christmas tree lights and mirrored disco balls. As I walked through the bar a tall black man with a HUGE blond beehive wig and red ruby heels walked up to me and “Mmmm… fresh meat.” The jukebox was filled with Village People and Madonna records. Even though I was there an hour before show time, the area around the stage was already filling up with indie rock boys and girls. I remember thinking it was the only rock stage I had ever seen with a cat walk.

I had never heard the Magnetic Fields before, but my friend Andy told me not to miss them. They took the stage an hour late and as they started plugging in their instruments the lead singer, Stephen Merrit, complained about the blinking lights to the sound man in the back of the club. He waited a bit, blocking the lights with his hands, then spoke into the mic again with his baritone voice “Fucking seriously, turn the fucking blinking lights off.” The room went silent during for a few seconds, but when the blinking lights suddenly got more intense, a few of us laughed. Merrit didn’t wasn’t laughing though, in fact he stormed off the stage and through the crowd.

We sat on the floor waiting for him to return. 20 or 30 minutes later he passed through the crowd again and took the stage. “I’m fucking epileptic.” he boomed in to the mic… then the band started playing. They opened with All The Umbrellas In London, a fantastic song, and my heart was won over. It was one of those special performances were everyone in the crowd was captivated. The band took turns switching up instruments, but mostly consisted of piano, cello, drums, mandolin, and guitar.

I loved the music so much that the next day I bought both of their available albums from Lucy’s Record Shop along with a 7″ single of All The Umbrellas. What I didn’t know was that Magnetic Fields were an electronic band and that last night’s performance had been a special acoustic show. I was heartbroken and lied to. What I had heard on stage was, to me, a new music. It was a sound I kept searching for for many many years in record stores and even with my own live bands. I hated those albums, but loved the songs, so when friends kept telling me I needed to listen to Magnetic Fields’ new albums I just scoffed. I rediscovered them many years after their album “I” was released. I remember hearing it for the first time and being instantly transported back to that summer night in ’97 when I 1st heard this new sound coming from a low voiced auteur in a drag bar in downtown Nashville.

Thanks to my friend Reed, I’ll be going to see Magnetic Fields tonight. It will be the first time I’ve seen them since that fantastic show 13 years ago.

I was visiting my parents in Tennessee when I got a last minute call requesting my immediate return to SF. My dad and I rushed to the airport, were we could see people boarding the plane. It was a brown Boeing 747 with a few missing windows and one of the emergency doors was missing. It looked unsafe, so my dad decided to come with me. We abandoned the car on the tarmac and boarded the plane without any luggage.

The plane started moving before we had even found our seats. It was a full flight and no-one else seemed concerned about the missing windows. The take off was smooth, and I started to relax, but after a few minutes in the air I looked out the window and saw that our plane was drastically losing altitude and swerving around unstably. At first I was the only one to notice how the terrible flying, but then other people started looking out the windows and all the passengers started panicking.

We were now flying right above the ground and nearly missing big buildings as we flew through some city. I made sure my buckle was fastened and braced for a crash, but it never came. A few minutes later my dad and I decide to take control of the plane and rescue everyone, so we storm the aisles and bang on the door to the pilots cabinet. No one answers so we tore the door of the hinge.

The flight cabinet had wall to wall shag carpeting. Red curtains hung in front of all the windows, tinting all the incoming sunlight red. There was a steward washing his hands in an elegant sink, he was face was covered with a mud mask and he had cucumber slices over his eyes. “Where is the captian?” I asked, adding “We have to save this flight.”

The steward pointed casually to the pilot, who was sitting in a nearby chair. He was facing the front of the plane, but had a curtain over his head, like the sort that old time photographers had when taking portraits of early pioneers. I touched his should and pulled his head out from under the sheet so I could see his face. The pilot, who turned out to be Ms. Jay (from America’s Next Top Model), said “Am I doing a bad job? Maybe you should fly this plane.”

I sat down at the pilot’s chair and prepared to fly. When I lifted up the red curtain, I expected to see a big window, but was surprised to find a wooden wall. Near the lower right hand corner was a tiny window, about 3 inches wide, that was the only way to see where I was flying. The plane jerked back and forth and I suddenly realized that Ms. Jay had done a much better job of flying than I was. I felt certain we were going to crash, but tried as best as I could to keep us up high and stable. Finally the plane seemed under control, and although I couldn’t see much, I felt that I finally understood the controls. A few minutes passed before my dad slide one of the big red curtains open that were on the sides of the cabinet and we could finally see out the sides of the plane. That’s when I realized that the reason the plane felt so stable was because I had accidentally landed the plain on a highway.

Since we were almost there, I decided to just keep piloting the 747 on the highway until we reached San Francisco.

Guess who’s sitting in a cell at 850 Bryant.

If you guessed the bastard who stole my van- you’re right!

AND I CAUGHT HIM!!!

This afternoon I was on my last delivery of the day to drop of some paint at a friend’s house in the Bayview when I spotted my van driving the other way down 3rd( right near Kal’s shop). I flipped a bitch to follow him and hit the speed dial for the land line for SF 911. If you dial 911 on a cell the CHP patches you through to the nearest center- sometimes San Mateo, Sometimes Bolinas.
Anyway, I followed him down 3rd, left on Mariposa, right over to 7th, left onto Howard and he pulled over right next to Jetset’s dispatch office. I was giving constant updates to the Police dispatcher the whole time. As I pulled up next to him he recognized me and took off again. He pulled out, cutting off a bunch of cars and turned left onto Bryant, cutting off even more cars and heading for the COP SHOP! He took a right on Boardman and a left onto Brannan, cutting off even more drivers.
That’s when the cavalry arrived!
An undercover car pulled up next to me, asked which direction he went, told me to sit tight and took off with several other cars and motorcycles following. A couple minutes later the dispatcher called me back, informed me that they had my van stopped and the driver in custody. I drove over to where they had stopped him at 6th and Bryant. Astoundingly, he chose to drive right by the cop shop again! At least the officers didn’t have to take him far. They had me do a cold show ID. It turns out that it’s the same dude that my next door neighbor and I caught as he was getting out of my van with my streetfinder last week. I guees we weren’t “persuasive” enough in our entreaty for him to vacate the neighborhood. His old lady and pitbull were also taken into custody for possesion of needles and teeth respectively.

While they were filling out paperwork, one of the cops told me that there’d been a rise in vehicle theft lately and they were planning on making an example of this guy.
Pardon my French, but did I mention- FUCK YEAH!

Guess my stolen van karma is getting a little better.

It even showed up on Buzzfeed.com in a post about “Awesome Error Messages” in which a commenter points out that technically my error message would be a 503, not a 404. I fail at failing… Success!?
All these posts got me thinking about one of my favorite gifs of all time:

What are some of your favorite error gifs?

Nerdcore For Life, the documentary about nerd and geeks and the hip hop that they make is finally coming to San Francisco! Although I haven’t seen it yet, I do know that several of my (Drown Radio’s) tracks where used for the soundtrack and my interview made it into the film. w00t!

The film will only be shown July 12th at 4:15pm at the Roxie Theater as part of the SF Frozen Film festival, I suggest getting your tix now. But that’s not all, hang around for the Nerdcore for Life afterparty with performances by MC Lars, Nomad, and myself (location TBA). I’ve heard from a few folks that have caught this doc in other festivals and loved it… I’m so excited to finally see it myself. I mean, my head is going to be on the movie screen… and it’s going to be huge!

Check out this recently uploaded video of Self’s Matt Mahaffey playing a one man band version of AC/DC’s “Back In Black” on drums and Omnichord. I’ve never heard an Omnichord run through guitar distortion before, but the effect is extremely rocking. After I watching more live Self videos, I realize he’s been using them for years on songs like Trunk Fulla Amps (live) and others off of Gizmodgery. I’ve been looking for a cheap Omnichord for several years for circuit bending, but now I’m really jonesin’ for one.

The video is an excerpt from Self’s upcoming DVD “sElf- Live at Spaceland Acoustic”. There aren’t many more details of the dvd’s release, which originally went on pre-sale in April, but some believe the hold up could be concerning copyright issue’s over Matt’s AC/DC cover. Of course the rest of the show footage will be acoustic versions of Self songs, not Omnicover songs… which would be a cool dvd on it’s own.

Also; previously posted video of Beck live on the Sarah Kutner Show with Matt.