(from The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen)
". . . The two swindlers invited him to step closer, asking him if it wasn't a beautiful design and if the colors weren't magnificent. They pointed to the empty loom, and the poor old minister opened his eyes wider and wider. He still could see nothing, for nothing was there. "Gracious" he thought. "Is it possible that I am stupid? I have never thought so. Am I unfit for my position? No one must know this. No, it will never do for me to say that I was unable to see the material.". . . "
Question: Sorry again for the long delay. Do you have a proposal drafted up that we would be able to review? After talking with my boss, the concerns would be from the promotional material, logo usage, etc. If you have a document going through all the requests and stipulations, would you be able to send that over?
Answer: The only proposal I can give you is the summary that I have already submitted. There is nothing complicated here.
This is a celebration of local musicians singing about their local environment. Period.
I don’t understand concerns about promotional material, logo usage (you say etc. but if there is an “etc” could you please be specific.)
The CD will be promoted on cdbaby.com and on www.ohomusic.com described as above. Nothing more.
There will be NO LOGO usage. There need not be.
We have borrowed the basic melody of the fight song. NOTHING MORE.
The rest of the fight song is poetic license. Essentially jazz improvisation on chord substitutions for the basic, military march chords of the original.
Regarding ‘requests and stipulations’, I have stated our request. We would like to purchase the mechanical rights, meaning, 'the right to reproduce a piece of music onto CDs, records or tapes.' Nothing more.
Please, if this is not clear, call me (or have your boss call). I would be happy to speak with both (or either) of you.
An Excerpt
by Ray Jozwiak for the forthcoming MD/CD produced by Jay Graboski
My latest solo offering, Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak, featuring original, instrumental piano music is now available at - Just More Music by Ray Jozwiak
(To Access all Ray Jozwiak - Gonzo Piano music you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak)
. . . but it's a whole lot easier to get to now. Not too long ago, our living room was renovated, so to speak, after many years of the same, familiar, yet tasteful and welcoming decor. The furniture was comfortable, small enough to rearrange frequently, greens and rusts prevailed, one wall was papered for accent, all resulting in a quite cozy atmosphere. The new is every bit as wonderful. All new, larger furniture, beiges, dark wood and orange. Yes, orange is the accent color. Funny as is may sound, or maybe it doesn't, it is very tasteful. After the major paint, floor covering and furniture was complete, we concentrated our efforts on finding small, unique, orange items to place throughout the room.
About a month ago, I took a collection of loose papers containing original song material of a couple of artists with whom I occasionally perform and some co-written material and placed them in an old, white binder for safekeeping and easy access. Since I only use the book on a monthly basis, I neatly filed it at the edge of a bookshelf in the living room out of the way, a practically out of sight. At least I thought it was out of sight. The chief living room decorator looked up from her ipad the other day and said, "how long has THAT been up there?" which surprised me not a little. The stark white book among the carefully placed books, vases, picture frames and various items of orange and black caught the distinguishing eye of the decorator, and not in a pleasant way.
I agreed, as I in truth knew I would eventually, to move the white binder to a more appropriate location. The decorator suggested it be placed inside the piano bench, wonderful idea with which I heartily concurred. The problem with that however, was that the bench was chock full of piano tuning receipts, notebooks of original material, beginner piano and guitar publications, and various books and sheet music of popular and classical pieces.
Yesterday I actually made the time to sort through, organize and actually remove extraneous material from the piano bench and neatly file the mysterious white binder in the piano bench. After about a thirty-minute workout at the the keyboard, I leaned over to scoot the bench neatly under the piano when I realized . . . the vastly reduced weight of the newly organized contents of the bench makes lifting it much easier on my old, aching back. I suppose the entire episode can legitimately be called a 'Win - Win' situation.
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
. . . is that really a question? . . . anyway . . .
Created by Hailey Boyle on January 31, 2014
LOS ANGELES, CA Creative Arts, Music, Film
The Basics: After 11 years I am finally recording a comedy album. "FUNNY LIKE A DUDE" will be recorded live at The Glasgow International Comedy Festival this March (details below) and will be released in May 2014. Meanwhile I have theater rentals for the previews, sound guy, video guy, editing guy, plane tickets, train tickets, and maybe if I'm real lucky a shirt off the clearance rack with no holes in it. So if you know you want my album you can donate now, and when it comes out I send you the greatest comedy album of all time! Basically it's like when I wanted to make shirts. That worked out awesome by the way, thank you guys! I am much more financially stable now that I have shirts to fluff up my income on the road and I could not have done it without your generosity.
Lots of folks have asked me why I don't have an album already. The answer is because I want all of my albums to be kick ass. 1 hour of material doesn't necessarily mean 1 album for me. Lately as I have more chances to headline and I realized that my favorite jokes, the ones I really love, now run about an hour and 15 minutes or more. So now is the time. Like to over analyze stuff? Me too! That's why I wrote the next few paragraphs, so enjoy.
The Back story: I think the reason so much of my new material is becoming my favorite material is because I am at a really cool phase in my life. I am old enough now that people are no longer wondering when I'm gonna have a baby (never), or when I am getting married (it doesn't matter cause you're not invited anyway), and it has been ages since somebody tried to talk me into going back to college. It's a great time to be me huh? I also feel like the last year has been a big one as far as starting to comprehend my own personal responsibility for the impact of my comedy. Now I'm using my brilliant dick jokes to change the world for the better. Also I may be suffering from delusions of grandeur. But speaking of personal responsibility, I should probably explain the album title.
I'm calling the album FUNNY LIKE A DUDE because that has been my little slogan since I started comedy. It has always said FUNNY LIKE A DUDE SINCE 1979 on my business cards. It's a tricky little phrase. It's not very feminist, a fact I have been side stepping by being a dick about it. "It's a statement ON feminism" I would say like a giant gaping asshole, "but forgive yourself, it is very subtle". Spoken like a true self loather. I know I haven't always been fair to women, and I am working on that. I also know that I don't believe that separate can ever be equal. Take the WNBA. I have nothing but respect for those women, but it's not fair to pretend it's like the NBA. The NBA, not the MNBA. I just feel like the job is the job and the bar should be the bar. Gender should be irrelevant. I don't know how many, if any of the women of the WNBA would be in the NBA if they were eligible, but I bet the number would grow in relation to the number of years little girls grew up believing they could be in the NBA. BOOM! Mind blown. Back to me. Right now the most common compliment I get as a comic is that I have met/exceeded the expectations the complimentor has for men. I didn't think women were funny but you were hilarious. You are my favorite female comic. It's a catch 22! On one hand I get mad at them for saying female, not comic, and on the other hand I'm mad at me for feeling like female is an insult. Those are both bad, dirty hands. When I moved to NYC to be a comic 10 years ago I learned fast that if I wanted to get on a show the fastest way was to say I was funny like a dude, thus saying I am actually funny, and probably won't complain about your sexism as I am also a sexist. Not very cool on my part, not very cool on societies part, not fair to the women who came before or will come after me. It's all around lame that those words that got me the chance to show that I am truly talented probably cost other women the chance to show what they can do. This year has been about a shift for me. From a woman that thought standing up for myself was enough, to a woman who thinks standing up for equality is more important than protecting herself. It is a process, and I have just begun. At first I thought that being a feminist meant I had to support all women, be on the side of the sisterhood or what have you. Turns out feminism is really just another word for equality and I know I like that. I don't have to like all women to be a feminist, I have to respect all life. I have to make an effort not to perpetuate the behavior I have been a victim of. I have to try to be fair, which does not come natural for me. I have spent 34 years looking down on other women, and to be perfectly honest, it is still my default setting. Luckily some terrible things happened this year and for the first time I had to look at my roll in making the world less fair, less just, and less productive. I wrote a blog you can read here http://haileymailogram.wordpress.com/ and got a lot of crap for it. I got rape shamed and called a bunch of names but I also started being a better citizen because of it. I have a long way to go just to fix myself, but I'm hoping since the whole thing is making for some great jokes that my "journey" if you will, could inspire some other folks to start trying to do better themselves. Pretending I am a perfect feminist or that I have always been one doesn't help anybody. Admitting that it is a struggle and I have to work at it just might do some good. So the album is called FUNNY LIKE A DUDE cause I have been saying it for 11 years and now I am gonna talk about it instead of pretending it never happened.
The taping itself will be on Saturday March 22nd at The Glasgow International Comedy Festival. This is my third time touring Scotland and Glasgow happens to be my favorite city in all the world to do comedy. I'm told that this is odd because it is mainly industrial and known as the stabbing capitol of the world, but I feel very happy there indeed. I love the comedy community there and the way people regard comedy as an art and a skill, which it is. When I got booked for this festival the first time I had lost faith in my ability. I felt that as a woman who lacked extreme sex appeal I had no place in the world and I would even say that booking saved my life. It seems perfectly fitting now that my first album should be recorded in Glasgow, surrounded by the very women that reminded me that being female doesn't mean anything outside a medical office unless I believe it does. Thank you so much for your support!Additional dates and cities TBA
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4 (and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD).
My latest solo release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)
This
is the kind of bull-pucky that our 'friends' in the media provide
daily; a recent article about 'The American Dream', chock full of what
they produce best - NOTHING!!!
This little gem begins
by reminding us that we too can achieve success. Then they promptly
tell us the definition of success, "The big home in the suburbs, the
luxury cars in the garage, the kids off to a good college and the
retirement in a sunny locale." Funny how Merriam-Webster views success
in more spiritual, less-tawdry and materialistic terms as "favorable or
desired outcome; also : the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence".
From the stock, bullshit 'American Dream' teaser and
half-assed success definitions, this fine piece of writing moves on to
another constantly and frequently misrepresented concept, the economy,
and says that the weak job market is thwarting the best efforts of good
honest folk (like you and me) to 'get ahead', by which I PRESUME they
mean attain the aforementioned (theirs, not Merriam-Webster's)
'success'. Now I'm not unrealistic or particularly cold-hearted about
the job situation and the difficulties some people are currently
experiencing with employment and lack thereof. But somehow I think that
our journalistic scribes are providing us with third-grade-level
oversimplifications of the situation.
The particular
tome that provoked my ire went on to, in short, states that although
many present-day citizens truly believe that Americans all have an
equal ability to achieve success if they merely (and that's a BIG
merely) work hard. It does not venture (at least I did not detect it)
into any possibility that there exist many additional factors in
education, employment, the economy and geography that exert substantial
influence in the seeking, achievement and maintenance of something
called success.
The best, and most intellectually
substantial, part of the article was a quote from the academic world
that, in summary, stated possibly Americans need to rethink the
definition of the American Dream, putting less focus on having a huge
house and lots of cars and more focus on building successful
communities. Whiles supporting our families is certainly important, “we
need to scale back what the American Dream means to us.”
And
may I add, we must be more critical of what we read in the news and not
be so childishly willing to accept everything in print as true and
factual.
Many folks get many different things from music. Some people care very little for it, or at least do not pay it much attention. Still others are attracted, mesmerized, addicted, absorbed, delighted, voracious, dedicated or dependent upon it. Those truly dependent upon it derive an oblique, ethereal or indescribable satisfaction from it.
Some people dive into it with the intention of obtaining huge material gains from it and some do. While others dive into it with the intention of obtaining huge emotional or 'spiritual' gains from it and do.
One of those was Paul Tanner, who recently died at the age of ninety-five. No Grammy winner, Mr. Tanner, but not only did he play trombone on the 1939 hit 'In The Mood', he also played the electro theramin (which he helped develop) on 'Good Vibrations' and other Beach Boys recordings. A musical life, long and well-lived.
Who could ask for more?
What
do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
You can NOW download
your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE
SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.
In a world in which politicians regulate the Internet based on the influence of big money, Wikipedia — and sites like it — cannot survive.
Congress says it's trying to protect the rights of copyright owners, but the "cure" that SOPA and PIPA represent is worse than the disease. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer: they will fatally damage the free and open Internet.
The entertainment industry understandably feels threatened, and well they should. But instead of forcing potential consumers to pay for the crap they come up with why don't they explore improving the quality, the delivery and the price of their PRODUCT!!!!
What
do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html
Download
your
very own copy of
ANOTHER SHOT
by Ray
Jozwiak
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