Mar 27 2004
Miss P
After taking a few too many tablets the day before, and drinking a little bit of wine at the pub on Thursday, I passed out outside my favourite club and due to my entirely annihilated state, was consequently banned. What a great way to welcome my guest, Miss P, who has been staying with me for a couple of days. So tonight I’m going to attempt to take it easy. The sexy bitch brought her corset with her and we’ve been playing dirty…
March 27th, 2004 at 5:45 pm
lovely.
March 28th, 2004 at 9:48 pm
I love the top one, shes a great modeler
March 28th, 2004 at 10:25 pm
i LOVE these photos.
March 28th, 2004 at 11:34 pm
Great work.
Please consider submitting your images to HPS
Houseplant Picture Studio
http://www.houseplantpicturestudio.com
March 29th, 2004 at 10:16 am
these are fucking great! i love all of them……..mmmmmmmm…….
March 30th, 2004 at 3:17 am
These are hot… great shots.
March 30th, 2004 at 1:22 pm
The first and third are stunning. The second looks a little stiff and the fourth is (perhaps) a bit stereotypical, but the others are wonderfully ‘dark’ and powerful.
March 31st, 2004 at 6:01 pm
i love that you can just barely make out the features in her face… adds to the mysterious, fantasy-ness of the shots.
April 2nd, 2004 at 9:15 am
the elevator! great choice of place… the metal reflects the light in a wonderful way!
C it’s my favorite
April 9th, 2004 at 9:01 pm
this is great work!
August 31st, 2004 at 1:14 am
And now we present both parts of the legendary
Otis Fodder Retro Goofball essay
* NOTE *
this is conceptual literature and should not
be confused with serious prose or commentary.
hello everyone,
I was shocked to read that Otis Fodder is
proud to have been labeled a ‘retro goofball’ by us folks at [un-named website].
To be branded a ‘retro goofball’ by anyone is not a good thing.
To be called a ‘retro goofball’ directly by [un-named website] is almost too horrible to imagine
(I know, because I coined the phrase and have defined the phrase in
several ways…and the definitions ain’t pretty, kids)
I suppose it’s Otis Fodder’s prerogative to be somehow ironic and embrace
the ‘retro goofball’ label…but still, he’s a retro goofball for a variety of
concrete reasons (by the way, [un-named website] doesn’t just ‘award’ RGs - it’s a lengthy process, involving many variables)
It’s real weird that Otis Fodder would be proud to be a RG. It’s kind of like if we had
called Fodd a ‘big, dumb idiot’ and he respond by saying ‘yes, you’re right…
I’m a big, dumb idiot…in fact, I’m proud of it!’ Yes, that’s a hip response…but…
…it’s a weak response…and it’s not a good defense tactic to use in 2004.
A better response would have been “Hey, I’m not a retro goofball…and here’s why!”
By embracing his explicit ‘retro goofballity’ Otis Fodder
has indeed opened-up a whole new can of worms.
I feel that I now must explain exactly WHY we at ? labeled Otis Fodder a retro goofball. This is only fair.
Maybe Fodd can make some major improvements in his personal cultural lifestyle…
then and only then would consider removing the ‘RG’ label -
I think this will be good for all parties involved. It’ll be a learning and cultural growth experience.
These ‘RG’ explanations will take a while,
so it will probably take several posts to
explain all this Otis Fodder/RG stuff…please be patientFirst of all, there’s his music.
When we first heard some of his sample-based music,
three succesive thoughts went through our heads:
THOUGHT 1) “Oh, how fun…cute samples of cute old scratchy records placed over
cute jerky, happy Casio beat-breaks…man this shit is the cat’s meow, daddy-o! It’s like the B-52s on Diet Coke!”
THOUGHT 2) “Oh…more cute samples from old..records…and even more
meaningless jerky break-beat rhythms…fuckin’ hell, what’s up? Where’s the lyrics…where’s the ideas?
How come this music has no human feeling or intrinsic inner beauty?”
THOUGHT 3) “Good LORD! - does Otis Fodder do anything besides
sample kiddie records and put the samples over lame-brain,
non-funky beats? Didn’t Prince Paul perfect all of this 20 years prior?
Did the Foddmeister listen to nothing but Coldcut when he grew up?
What’s it all mean? This dimwit-kiddie-record-sampling-and-break-beat
BS has GOT TO GO!! My baby’s daddy can do better than this!
- and he in PRISON! Jeeeez…”
We won’t even get into Otis Fodder’s attempts at serious ambient
lounge music or whatever the over-35-year old ‘Starbucks iBook generation’ wants to call it.
Otis Fodder’s music and 95% of the music on his Comfort Stand ‘net label’ is truly not
worth listening to more than once. To these ears, it’s all ’surfacy-music’ lacking depth of any sort -
from my reliable vantage point, CS releases are mixed badly
and tragically…audibly weak to the point of being pathetic.
It’s heartbreaking to see such apparently talented musicians waste
time putting together unneccessarily pretentious 7th rate mp3s.
A good producer could probably repair some of the wacked-out mp3
mixes at CS - that’s CS’s owner’s job - obviously, neither the owner
of CS nor any of the participants have read any online tutorials about
music-mixing. I guess they assume that all audio that
belches forth from a Tascam 4/8 track cassette recorder (with dirty heads) is good.
And the 365 Days Project?
365 solid days of thrift store records?
Don’t worry…we’ll cover that in PART 2anyway…
Otis Fodder’s audio creations are the biggest
reason why he was NAMED a ‘retro goofball’TO BE CONTINUED - PART 2 COMING SOON
Otis Fodder, why he’s a retro goofball - PART 2
Otis Fodder’s “365 Days Project” is one of the main reasons
why he was labeled a ‘retro goofball’ by [un-named website]
HERE’S WHY…
(this is long, so shake-up a Martini and put on some Yma Sumac)
——–
1) the term “curator”
The pretentious term “curator” is used to describe the (mostly)
thrift store record collectors who contributed to the “365 Days Project”
We at ask: Since when is a common thrift store record collector a “curator”
- it’s one thing if Otis Fodder was being ironic in his usage of the term “curator”
- but he’s obviously NOT being ironic. It appears that he really believes that his thrift
store record-collecting friends (and his international thrift-store collaborators) are ‘”curators”
Encoding an mp3 and adding some (usually) poorly-written explanatory text
does NOT make one a “curator” - Fodder’s usage of the term indicates
a very high level of ‘retro goofball pretentiousness’ (???net for a deeper definition of ‘RGP’ - or email with any and all questions, or just to say ‘HI’)
——–
2) 365 Days - curator’s degogatory attitude toward their audio
In at least 45% of the cases, the mp3 entries of the 365 Days Project,
feature textual ‘put-downs’ by their “curators” - often ‘curators’ insult or
disrespect the audio they present (sad, but true…check it out yerself)
Most commonly, the curator’s explanatory text reveals an “isn’t this music dumb” attitude.
We’ve observed tha many ‘Incorrect’ or ‘Outside’ music fans have
a ‘holier-than-thou’ relationship with their thrift-store music ‘finds’.
It’s as if they must deal with the past by projecting their own feelings and prejudices into it.
The truth is that life in the 40s, 50s and 60s was NOT that innocent or worthy of disdain
or insult by 2004 thrift store music collectors. Besides, Pee Wee Herman did
the whole ‘retro-insult’ thing better 20 years ago (BTW, Pee Wee is NOT
considered a retro-goofball by …..he was/is a true conceptual artist)
Allowing his curators to “insult” the music (or audio) they present is
another genuine reason why we have labeled Otis Fodder a retro goofball.
——–
3) Otis Fodder’s 365 Days - 365 entries VS billions of audio releases
In the history of recorded sound, there have been billions of official
and unofficial audio releases worldwide (ie; LPs, 45s, cassettes, CDs, mp3s, oggs, etc)
If you simply contrast these billions of pieces of audio with the mere 365
“archival” mp3s presented inOtis Fodder’s 365 Days - you must surely ask the
obvious question: “what’s the big fuckin’ deal?”
In the real big scheme of things, Otis Fodder’s 365 Days is simply not of any
lasting musical importance. If it had been the “365,000 Days Project”
and if the mp3 material had been organised into some cohesive
whole, then maybe it would have been worthy of general praise.
As it stands, there is no real archival or collective historic importance in
a collection of 365 unrelated, mostly thrift store audio ‘finds’ - other than slight
entertainment value, Otis Fodder’s 365 Days is just 365 mp3s
(along with jpegs and poorly-written, often derogatory text)
We at ??? feel that thrift-store record enthusiasts such as Otis Fodder
(and misguided ‘Incorrect’ music cheerleader Irwin Chusid) have
attempted to define, control and therefore kill the wonderful independent music
(often labeled ‘Outsider’ or ‘Incorrect’ or…’Exotica’) that they claim to admire.
When one places any music into any ‘box’ (’Incorrect’, ‘Outsider’,
‘Commercial’, ‘Jazz’, etc) one automatically lessens it’s power…
When music is created it doesn’t come with a name (this is a fact)
Segregating music into convenient boxes is pointless (unless you’re the
president of Tower records or A&R man for Sony Entertainment)
It’s amazing to me that self-proclaimed open-minded music fans like Otis Fodder
(and misguided ‘Incorrect’ music advocate Irwin Chusid) would perpetuate the fraud
that there are such categories as ‘Incorrect’, “Outsider’ or ugh ‘Exotica’ music
(or the real pretentious one, “Cool and Strange Music”…ooh…
(where’s George Carlin when you need him?)
As I’ve stated elsewhere , I think genius-level artists like Syd Barrett,
Tiny Tim, Beefheart (most definitely) and others would (or would have) laugh(ed)
amateur ‘Outsider’ music mavens like Otis Fodder (and Irwin Chusid)
out of town if they presented their silly music theories to them.
How Irwin Chusid can lump Tiny Tim in with Syd Barrett or Beefheart is
beyond me (see his musically-criminal book “Key of Z” book for
the gruesome details…you can probably find it in the bargain bins)
Anyway, I digress…(I’ll get to more mind-boggling Irwin Chusid stuff later)
By placing diverse pieces of mp3 audio under one umbrella (Otis Fodder’s 365 Days)
Otis Fodder and his ‘curators’ have forever robbed the pieces of any beauty
or entertainment (or INDIVIDUALITY) they might have had prior.
Think about it.
——–
4 ) Otis Fodder’s 365 Days Project is unimportant as ‘audio archive’
Some delusional thrift-store music nuts will probably argue that
“365 Days” is some kind of important archival resource.
Hey, culture fans…if you’d like experience true archival resources, check out
the work of Alan Lomax, Studs Terkel, Rick Prelinger…
check out Dr. Demento on X-FM radio fer chrissakes…
These and other brave men and women worked (and continue to work)
for decades OUT IN THE FIELD (sometimes literally) collecting truly
unknown audio, text, video and spoken-word artifacts.
- thrift stores are not exactly
the cotton-fields of Mississippi (see Alan Lomax)
- searching through 3 boxes of 50 cent LPs at a thrift store is not exactly the
same thing as doing on-site interviews with truly great
people for decades and decades (see Studs Terkel)
- finding a worn-out Little Marcy LP for a quarter at a Seattle Goodwill is not
exactly the same thing as amassing several hundreds of thousands of true
audio rarities (see Dr Demento, AKA Barry Hansen …
one of the few who can actually be called a “music expert”)
365 pieces of often unlistenable mp3 audio stuck on the internet with
some amateur-ish text is not an “archival resource”
——–
5) 365 Days odds and ends
Like 95% of the music on Otis Fodder’s Comfort Stand ‘net label’, the audio items
featured on Otis Fodder’s 365 Days Project are for the most part unlistenable.
The sole track worthy of repeated listenings is “Chicago Policeman”
This is not a good (as they say at The Internet Archive) ‘batting average’
(BTW - I’m now creating a “365 Days of ‘Chicago Policeman’ Project”
website - it’ll be a conceptual website…kind of artsy, but not too artsy)
It appears that the Foddmeister had an entire army of ‘curators’ to assist him
with the monumental task of posting one whole mp3 per day (for a whole exhausting year)
How many years did it take Egyptian slaves to build The Great Pyramid?
(hundreds? dozens? 365 days?) Oh, yeah alien visitors built The Great Pyramid…I forgot)
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to encode one mp3 a day, write a paragraph
or two about the mp3 and throw together some relevant artwork…usually just a scan
of a record label, or a scan of some photo from the 1950s or 60s (retro nostalgia in action…)
Any 12 year-old with a Dell computer, a $50 scanner and MusicMatch
can post one mp3 a day…staff members at do this all the time, and we’re not that smart.
Amazing…one single mp3 a day…for a year!
Not that impressive to me or the staff at .
I’ve stopped smoking for 2 YEARS and it was easy!
(and they say stopping smoking is tougher than kicking heroin…
does that mean that encoding one mp3 a day is tougher than
kicking heroin? - eh, I dunno…phantasmical logic as usual)
How hard could it be to post one thrift store mp3 a day?
Very easy.
The Otis Fodder’s ‘365 Days project’ is another reason why
[un-named website] has dubbed* Fodd a ‘retro goofball’
*not Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry style dubbingthanks!
written August 2004
August 31st, 2004 at 1:26 am
Re: Otis Fodder
“Dont worry well cover that in PART 2anyway”.. uh.. please don’t?