jayshaffer.com

Under the Radar Radio

Jay Shaffer — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:47:53 +0000

I’m somewhat hesitant to write this post, for fear of the RIAA goon squad. But sometimes you’ve got to say “fuck it” and just go for what you think is right, even in the face of legal intimidation. I’m hypothetically testing the waters at being an internet broadcaster.
I am renting a streaming server for my Second Life DJ and MC gigs and so whenever I’m not broadcasting an event into SL, I thought I’d go ahead and look into streaming the music I love for anyone to listen to. And that got me toying with the idea of really running an internet radio station. It is not a good time to have these thoughts because the RIAA and their puppet enforcement arm, SoundExchange are out to kill small webcasters.
SoundExchange sets the prices on performance royalty payments for cable, satellite, and internet music broadcasters. Currently they are charging internet broadcasters 500% what traditional radio is paying and 200% of what cable and Satellite are paying. Currently that rate is a $500 dollar a year fee plus $.18 per 100 listeners per song. And at 15 songs per hour that comes to about $23,652.00 a year per 100 listeners. And remember this is not covering the publishing rights which are enforced by ASCAP/BMI. Thats another whole fee and payment structure. ASCAP and BMI rates start at $288 flat annual fee plus $.0006 per listener hour. So if I had 100 listeners on average 24/7 that would be another $525.60. So basically to be legal for a mere 100 listener web stream I’d have to pay over $30,000 just for musical rights licenses. Thats not including server rentals, or the computer hardware to broad cast or the actual purchasing of music to broadcast.

Think about this for asecond and you’ll see that it would cost me over $300 per listener per year. Who’s gioing to pay $300 a year to listen to net radio. Adverisers aren’t because they are only reaching 100 listeners, and Listeners aren’t going to contribute that much. the average donation to public radio is only about $60 per person that donates and only about 10% of public radio listeners donate
So you can see why I’m not going to mention the address of my hypothetical radio station.

May 1st Snow

Jay Shaffer — Thu, 01 May 2008 16:25:31 +0000

It’s May Day in Golden Colorado. Big fluffy flakes of snow today, and to think it was 80 degrees yesterday. click here to see some video

The Good/Bad Theory

Jay Shaffer — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:43:38 +0000

I have a good friend and colleague by the name of George Sanger, AKA The Fatman. That’s him over on the left. Besides being talented and charismatic, George is one of the wisest people I’ve ever met. He has this theory that he calls Good/Bad, this isn’t a really new theory, in fact it’s basically Taoism , or at least the Yin/Yang part of Taoism.
Simply stated, no event or thing is wholly bad or good. In fact most things are an almost equal mixture of both. I’m not a verbose writer, so I’m not going to bore you with lots of examples, suffice it to say that from any “bad” event , like getting laid-off, may grow a “good” event like a better job, or personal growth.
Don’t confuse this with fatalism, fatalism would say that every bad thing happens for a reason, and I can’t accept that premise. Good/Bad is more about causality. The reign of a tyrant fosters the revolution.
This blog post came about because as I looked back over the last few post in this blog, I realized that they may seem dark and sad to some. But in fact that’s not the case at all. Life flows past us in it’s own Good/Bad way and I go through making my Good/Bad choices that lead to my own Good/Bad results. It’s all Good/Bad.
If you want to find out more about George Sanger, go to http://fatman.com/ be sure to check out the FAQ page for some of his great stories.

No Clever Way to Say Laid-off

Jay Shaffer — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:22:40 +0000

The company I work for CleverMedia Inc. is reorganizing and I’ll be jobless as of Thursday, March 13, 2008. “Beware of the Ides of March” to quote Shakespeare. Gary Rosensweig is the owner and principle of CleverMedia, which he founded in 1997. I worked for CleverMedia from 1999-2002 as Technical Director, and did sound design and some web design for CleverMedia’s game sites. I was laid-off during the first Bush recession, as web advertising revenues dried up. CleverMedia struggled on with only Gary programming games and William the artist/illustrator supplying the artwork.
With the advent Of Web 2.0 and a resurgence of Web advertising CleverMedia’s popular free online games site GameScene.com was generating revenue. As a result, Gary was able to rehire me in 2005.
I was rehired as Video Producer, Gary had started Clevermedia.TV to try to exploit video podcasting and other video for Web opportunities. Over the last three years we produced hundreds of Podcast episodes, and became well known in the Podcasting community for our show “Podcast Salad” with Katie Bevard as host. We also produced a Podcast about books and publishing called “BookStories,” a conspiracy theory spoof podcast called “Secrets of Y” and finally we started producing a podcast called “MacMost” about all things related to Apple computers with Molly Stanberry as the host. Over the three year period, While I worked hard writing, directing and editing video, we we’re unable to find any way of monetizing (making money) from video podcasting. However, we were able to generate some traffic and Ad revenue from the MacMost.com website.
With the softening economy, Gary has decided to cut all full time staff, and continue CleverMedia by managing Gamescene.com and MacMost.com by himself, and hire labor on a contract basis.
I don’t blame him, and I feel bad that we were unable to turn podcasting into a viable business. It was a great ride while it lasted.
I will continue on seeking opportunities in video editing and producing, as a freelancer while looking for a full time employment. Any leads or contacts that you may be able to send my way are greatly appreciated.

The Music of Silence

Jay Shaffer — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 17:23:21 +0000

I teach two classes at Front Range Community College in Westminster, Colorado. I teach a Sound Design class on Tuesday nights and I teach a Music Technology/Production class on Fridays. So the interesting thing is that in the Friday class I have both a profoundly deaf student and a ADHD student. I’m actually reveling in the challenge of trying to impart some some musical knowledge to the deaf student, who says that she is extremely interested in music.

So I found a little speaker for iPods that has a 1/8″ stereo jack on a cable and two small speakers in a box. I cut off the grill so that the deaf student can rest her fingers on the speaker cones and sense the vibration of the music.
I also have a t-shirt that came from ThinkGeek.com that shows sound on a luminescent display on the shirt . I debated whether wearing the shirt and looking somewhat silly, was a good idea. First, the shirt is not as sensitive as I want it to be and secondly I was worried that by wearing the shirt, I would be taking the student’s attention away from the assistive signers in the class. But after asking what she thought, the student said that we should give the t-shirt a try.
I did a little research and found that there are indeed some deaf musicians.. The most famous being the percussionist Evelyn Glennie. And on a somewhat related note when I used to race cars in the SCCA, we had a program where we gave the blind the opportunity to drive on a course that we laid out in a large parking lot.
I think that this is one of the more rewarding of teaching experiences that I’ve had. I do hope it works out.

Never a dull day

Jay Shaffer — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:28:26 +0000

Apparently the dog, Iggy Pup, found a rat and brought it in the house last night
So when I got home from work this evening, Iggy was scratching under a bookcase, and I looked under and there was an injured rat.
Animal control is closed, so my wife calls the vet and they say capture it and release it outside.
So thats what I did.
Mighty hunter dog and almost dead rat, nature lesson for the evening.

Forgot to take pictures.

The Dog That Loved Me.

Jay Shaffer — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:42:13 +0000

Greta Garbone has left this world. She was a 90 pound (big Boned)Weimaraner , which is to say she was the most beautiful of all dogs. A German Bombshell. The story begins when we adopted her. I think it was 2003, Whe had lost our Shar Pei named Truffle to Mast cell cancer. And My wife was looking for a dog to adopt at the Shelters. I went with her a couple times, but for me, it’s difficult to see all the unwanted dogs, usually Pit Bull Terriers. Then one day she called me me and said come meet her at the shelter. I grumbled a bit and went to meet her. when I went into the lobby of the shelter my wife, Annie, was there with the Weim. The dog imeddiately game to me and started licking my hand. A passerby asked if she was my dog? I replied she probably will be.

I had to go home to get our other dog to make sure they got along, and then we had to go through the pet adoption paperwork with a very harassed and overworked volunteer. But eventually we got to bring her home.

Weims are notorious for seperation axiety, So it was good that I was working at home at that time. SHe was always right by my side, if not underfoot.
She was a lovely dog that tended to over eat ,(because we spoiled her. She had a hound dog bark that kept any potential burglars at bay. She a had a short but good life with us and the end came quickly after she was diagnosed with Lymphoma.
Hope her soul is chasing bad guys and rabbits.

Really Bad Day

Jay Shaffer — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:27:24 +0000

When the phone rings at 2 AM it’s never good news. Our phone rang and my wife’s sister was calling from the hospital, my wife’s mother was having an emergency appendectomy. At five we heard that she had had successful surgery and that she was in recovery. We all got some sleep finally and then went to the hospital. My mother-in-law was in a room. and also in the same hospital My aunt was in a room with serious health problems. I went up a couple of floors and visited with my aunt who was undergoing dialysis at at the time. She is not well. after a short visit, I went back down to my mother-in-laws room. she had been taken for an upper G.I.
soon the results came back that she also had a perforated ulcer and needed immediate surgery. So she went into surgery at 4PM. My wife and and I had to go home because we had a very sick dog at home and we we had an appointment for a vet to make a house call to euthanize our dog.
We have just gone through the emotional trauma of putting our dog down. My mother -in-law just got out of surgery and is in recovery. the doctors found the ulcer and biopsied it, but didn’t find the perforation. and put in a shunt. In a word today has sucked.

A Fistfull of Jays

Jay Shaffer — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 16:52:14 +0000

If you Google Jay Shaffer,there are three other Jay Shaffers that have some internet notoriety. There’s the chef that owns the Shaffer City Oyster Bar and Grill in New York City, then there is the business consultant, who runs the “Jay Shaffer Speaks Out ” website, and then there is the gay porn author and “actor.” This Jay has wrote such classics as “Wet Dreams” and “Full service” and is apparently bearish on short films.
Unfortunately, since I also authored a book (on Mac music software,) if you click on my author profile on Amazon, it appears that I also authored the afore mentioned fiction novels.
Just to set the record strait (pun intended,) Jay M. Shaffer (that’s me) has only written one book so far and it has nothing to do with men’s smoldering desires, unless those desires are to make music using Apple’s GarageBand software.
As for the other two Jays, I would love to exchange recipes with the chef and learn how to avoid the poor house from the business consultant.

Skylane 71178 Cleared Direct to Wray

Jay Shaffer — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:51:20 +0000

I haven’t flown in a small aircraft since riding around in helecopters in the Army the 70’s. So i was excited when my uncle Dave who is a pilot and flight instructor suggested that we fly out to eastern Colorado from Denver to meet-up with my parents, who are out there (Wray Colorado) visiting. So after a couple coversations we decided to fly out on December 29th. We met-up and went out to Metro (formally Jeffco) airport where my uncle has several planes. The plane we were going to fly is a Cessna 182 Skylane tail number N71178. I was quite surprised When I heard that the planes was manufactured in 1968 and that it was still worth over a hundred thousand dollars. Guess I wont be buying a plane anytime soon.
We too off on a clear cold day. the temperature on the ground was in the teens and it was zero degrees aloft. With Ice and snow still on the Taxi ways. As soon as we got airborne , it occurred to me that maybe the snowplows had yet to clear Wray’s single runway. Not to worry, Dave assured me. One thing that struck me was amount of communication between Denver Control and our small aircraft, it gave me a renewed respect for air traffic control. We had a nice tail wind and made the 170 Mile rip in just over and hour.
But Dave assured me that the trip back would be a bit slower with a 30 knot head wind. My parents picked us up at the Wray airport and we had a late lunch at the only restaurant in town that was open , The venerable and decrepit Sandhiller Motel and Restaurant. I only had time for a quick visit with my 97 year old Grandmother and then it was time to fly back. We were trying to make it back by dark, but by the time had said our good byes and Got the plane ready, it was almost sundown, being one of those short mid-winter days. We took off and flew at low altitude ( 400 ft. AGL) to avoid the high winds. and then popped up into radar range when we got close to Denver. As it was dark when we got back to Metro airport Dave did a simulated instrument approach. I was all eyes and ears as I had never done a night landing in a small plane. Needless to say Dave performed a perfect landing. After putting the plane away for the night, which was complicated slightly by the icy tarmac, we stopped and had dinner and Caught up on family news.
I had a wonderful time and of course it got me thinking. Maybe I should get that pilot’s license.