PAST ANNOUNCEMENTS

Covering the year 2006 Part 2

Power Outage Hits D.T.'s Homebase/Idiot Convention Center Workers

Due to a power outage at my house, I was unable to do anything with my computer including answering e-mail queries until 4am on Sunday. Needless to say, the discovery that my house had no power since 1pm the preceding day came to me as a surprise as I was looking forward to hitting a cold shower after spending nine hours in that blasted oven called the San Diego Convention Center. It was a blistering 115 degrees in the top level including the heat index. Good thing the center had cheap tap water because that was all I could afford. The air conditioning there was just plain non-existant.

Anyway, at 10am I got to the Covention Center where the Comic Con was taking place after using the Trolley, and somehow got the staff to direct me to the Masquerade Booth who in turn told me to go to room 32B. I went there and told them that I was there to help Luke Ski out with his project, whereever it may be, and they gave me a Backstage Pass clipon. I proceeded to find Luke but I had no clue whether he arrived at that time or whether he was arriving later. I failed to understand the layout of the Convention Center so I could have told Luke where we could meet, whether entrance or nearby object we could meet at. The crowd was already sweltering when it opened at 10am. Good thing I got there early because later in the day, I could not have gotten in otherwise. Why do I have to be so damn Amish when it comes to my lack of owning a cell phone?

I spent the day sweating while trying to find Luke Ski who was also at the Convention Center where the Comic Con was taking place. I wanted to help him out with his job in the early evening, but the clueless staff at the Convention Center didn't know where Luke was. Even worse, when I ventured out at 1pm to find Luke, and tried to return to inside the building, one of the clueless Elite guards told me to get back into line where it was too hot for me to handle. I couldn't sight Luke or anybody else I was familiar with at all. I sneaked in back into the Convention Center through an open door and gave the idiot Elite guard the slip. Screw him! I repeatedly asked the staff at the Masquerade booth and the folks in room 32B about Luke's whereabouts and they didn't have any way to find out. Geez, couldn't these tech-impared simpletons get in touch with somebody in the Convention Center responsible for guest merchants and celebrities? Why didn't these morons in the Convention Center think about getting a computer or calling up somebody who knows? I never tried to exit the building again because the clueless Elite guards would have locked me out again and make me wait some four hours to enter the building.

Meanwhile, some time before the power went out at my house at 1pm, Carrie and Luke called my house and told me that I had arrived on my answering machine. When the power went out, so did my answering machine. I didn't get the messages until 4am the next morning when the power returned. Bummer. Hate these ancient technology holdovers from the 20th century.

Anyway, in the meantime, I was hoping that somehow, Luke or somebody would meet me in the Autograph Area or in the waiting area by Ballroom 20 or room 32B, but nobody showed. I spent one hour trying to walk around the perimeter of the first floor where all the Comic Con merchants were trying to sell stuff. I didn't buy anything. Not even food. There was no place to eat. Food was too expensive. There was no ROOM to eat and barely enough room to walk around. Too many people in the building. I left after an hour. Totally unbelievable. Couldn't they just hold Comic Con for three weeks instead of four days? Crowds could be stretched out.

On the bright side, and there wasn't much about the Convention Center to enjoy, I got an autograph from John Kricfalusi, the creator of Ren and Stimpy. Took me an hour waiting in line to reach him. I figured one hour waiting per line segment. I wanted to meet Robert Smigel of TV Funhouse and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, but the waiting time was too long. I also got an autograph from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Yes, that horror movie lady I used to see on channel 9 in the 80s was sweating in the hot level of the Convention Center and had to repeately reapply makeup. Also got an autograph from April Stewart, the cute lady who is one of the new voicists for South Park. I sighted Kristin Bell on a panel for the Veronica Mars question and answer hour in the room 20 ballroom.

Spent most of the day sampling some Anime, glanced at some of the programming panels, but no luck meeting up with Luke even after nine hours of mostly being on the AA or Ballroom areas. After 7pm, I finally gave up and left the building.

You can check out John K's website johnkstuff.blogspot.com for some of his works. I haven't checked it out yet since I had no time and no power to do anything else when the power came back up except sponge bath and resync my dozen machines that were blinking 12:00.

I finally got back to my house after spending an hour on the trolley full of downtown weirdos and drunks. That's why I rather drive downtown, pay Ace Parking some $20 to park all day, and get in and out fast. I went to 7/11 and bought a 64 ounce Double Gulp for 99 cents, and a Taco Salad at Wendy's. Finally, some decent food after 27 hours of fasting!

I got home and the lights were off at my house. The power was out. My mother told me that there hasn't been power since 1pm. I plugged in my portable TV into my car and watched the news. I found out that the power outage was for over 78,000 customers and that the temperatures at my house was near 120 degrees including the heat index! That was too much for the aging power lines to handle. I spent the next six hours in dried sweat and mostly wide awake until the power came back on and I could shower.

In short, the Convention Center staff and the SDG&E staff both sucked big time. What a total disgrace. They were unable to handle problems in a timely manner when they came up. How about limiting the number of tickets per day for the Comic Con next time? At least Comic Con had the power all this time. What did they have? Backup power in case? 14 hours without power in one location is unusual for a company that overcharges for electricity and boasts all of this bullshit about how they're saving this and doing that but doing nothing when it comes to preventing power burnouts or blackouts in the first place. The San Diego Gouge and Extortion company and its parent Sempra need to contract out electricity repairmen to get the power back up faster. Idiot San Diego companies.

No wonder that SDG&E and the Convention Center are just two more reasons why San Diego remains behind the times in America's Behindest City.

As for the finest city in America, think Crescent City in Northern California. Temperatures are a cool 65 degrees...in the DAYTIME!

Next time I meet with anybody in Dementia Land for some kind of venure, we better meet at my house first before carpooling to the destination for the music gig. We could leave the rental car in the Ace Parking lot, split up the $20 parking fee amongst us, set up our stuff, take them down, and return to my home base to sign off for the day. I'll rent a cell phone from somebody next time. I refuse to buy a cell phone as long as they have contracts and dead spots due to protesters against new cell phone cells in their neighborhoods. Get a life you protesters? Do you want better cell phone service? Then shut the f--- up and let the companies install the cells where needed. Get rid of the contracts, make the wireless phones work with any service I choose, and I'll consider getting one.

Hope it's not that hot when the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Bisexual Pride Parade takes place this coming Saturday in Hillcrest. At least some of the tranny geeks can attend both Comic Con and the Pride festivals in whole this year. Wish the trolley had a line into Hillcrest. I could have taken the Pink line.

X-Pod Playlist Overhaul Complete

It took a month, but after stunting with the Best of the Time Warp series for the last two weeks, DFSX's X-Pod playlist has returned to abnormal with a new mix of some new material that recently came in plus some favorites of the past year.

Stupid Audio 3.0 Drops Tuesday!

Looks like the project has been finished. Stupid Audio 3.0, D.T.'s third self-release CD, will be available on Tuesday the 18th of July.

"SA3" contains the hits "Centipede", "I've Seen Everything", "All My Demented Children", and "Watchin' Space Ghost", plus the commercial parodies "Papa Yawn's Pizza", "Puff Super Cigar Crisp", "Bam", "Kentucky Fried Fingers", "Radio Detonator 3000", and more. Also included are some filler stuff put on at the last minute like "Good Times", "What If Your Wife Was a Man", "Alyssa Milano," and "San Diego Radio Sucks". And as usual, MP3 versions of the songs, plus the lyrics are also included on the Enhanced CD. Stay tuned for a separate newsletter where you can get the CD.

DFSXRadio.com Website Redesigned

After a month of testing, the redesigned dfsxradio.com website has been launched late last month.

The "Listen Live" button is on every page for your convieience. There's also a tabbed menu at the top. The rotating ad/affilliate banner has been moved to the bottom of the page. A rotating "TONIGHT ON DFSX" program guide shows what's playing tonight on the station at the top-right. A QBASIC program I wrote helped to create the tabbed menu on the HTML pages (wish somebody could come up with QBASIC for Windows so I can run it on the XL computer).

At the top of every page, replacing the banner (due to lack of paying parties interested in advertising), are entry points to several of my websites in the cluster, many of which have not been remodeled as yet.

Movin' On Up

Thanks to a surge in new listeners, the Overall Rank for dfsxradio.com went from #1291 to #1104 among all live365 dot com stations. The genre rank, which is comedy, went from #13 to #11. Way to go listeners. Looks like my bumper sticker on cars and trucks are helping spread the word about the station. Let's keep it going.

Three ISGD Shows a Week

Starting the week of July 10, the Tuesday edition of ISGD will return, so ISGD will be on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays at 8pm ET/PT, 7pm CT, etc. Wednesdays will be left for the dfsX-pod until the Kahnman returns with new shows.

Format Modified

Judging from the past month, listeners want to hear their favorite novelty and comedy songs instead of mostly the new and rarely-heard-of material, so dfsx decided to tweak the format for the dfsX-pod and play mostly the classics from the 50s on up thorugh last year, and a few slots will be used for the newer material.

So, the best time to listen to the newer material is when you tune into the Dementia Top 20 radio show which plays and counts down the latest demented songs anyway, so there's still a spot for newer music.

Question Posed

If dfsxradio.com can legally obtain the rights to air the Dr. Demento Show, would you listen to the show through dfsx's 56k-22mhz-stereo feed?

Several obstacles would have to be overcome, most of which are herculean at best.

First off, Talonian Productions, which produces and syndicates the show, would have to be convinced that legitimate distrubution of syndicated shows through the Internet can be profitable to both parties involved.

Second, a rights fee paid to Talonian must be negotiated that is agreeable for both parties to accept.

Third, since Dr. Demento's show is produced in segments, even if the first two hurdles were cleared, dfsx cannot air the show the way it is produced because the segments are basically clusters of music. Each song streamed through live365's servers must meet the DMCA compliant rules, namely, each song must be accurately labeled and individually streamed, which is why I can't run the Kahnman's Comedy Corner or Dave's Gone By the way it's produced as one to four CD tracks for terrestrial radio stations to use.

I cannot run a segment with two or more songs unless the segment can be split so that each song can be correctly tagged with ID3v2 song title, artist title, and album. Furthermore, Dr. Demento cannot talk over the beginnings or ends of songs, or play another song before the previous song ends, so overlapping songs is not allowed, because when split, there is an annoying brief gap where the split was made.

Other rules also limit the number of songs by an individual artist or from an album for a 100-minute show to just one per show. This would be a major snag for internet radio, but terrestrial radio has no problem with that.

I once aired Little Orphan Archie for a month and that was the kind of problem I had to deal with, splitting the segments up into individual songs, but some of them had the ending and beginning overlapping each other, resulting in a poor segueue with an annoying gap between songs.

So, once all three hurdles are cleared, I could consider getting Dr. Demento to stream on dfsx up to three times a week at the most, not all of them on the weekend.

So, theoritically, I could make my money back if all of the free streaming slots are filled up and the overflow listeners subscribe to Live 365's VIP membership to get past the "station full" error, so they can get through and listen to the stream.

What do you think of this?

DFSX Changes in July

DFSX is overhauling its lineup for the summer. Several radio shows will all shift to new days and times!

Several series are being given the summer off or are on an extended hiatus: "The Kahnman Comedy Corner" (returns in November), "The DFSX Time Machine" (out of production), "Steve Jarrott" (returns in September, day not announced yet), "Manic Mondays" (may not return), and "Today in History" (on hold).

DFSX is overhauling its feed to 56K, necessitating a need to delete every old 24kbps mono file from its space on live365 account and reupload all of the music files that are 56kbps stereo file. Each three-hour show takes overnight to upload, and since they take a long time for studio365 to downconvert and upload, it's a better idea to put several shows on hiatus until further notice.

The songs from the 53 years of the DFSX Time Machine will be running in random order beginning on June 30 so that you can listen to up to ten of the best songs from each of the years for the Independence Day weekend and get to sample a lot of the novelty music since most of the specialty shows will be offline for the summer.

The Schedule for July of 2006:

Mondays @ 8pm ET: "I Still Get Demented"

Mondays @ 11pm ET: "I Still Get Demented"

Thursdays @ 8pm ET: "I Still Get Demented Thursday"

Thursdays @ 11pm ET: "I Still Get Demented Thursday"

Fridays @ 10pm ET: "Dementia Top 20" (in 56K stream on June 30)

Saturdays @ 10am ET: "Dementia Top 20"

Saturdays @ 11pm ET: "Best of Dave's Gone By"

Sundays @ 8pm ET: "Vintage Dementia"

Sundays @ MID ET: "Dementia Top 20"

D.T. Debuts an Item on Dr. Demento!

Now I know what it feels like for Susan Lucci to finally win an Emmy after 18 tries.

DR. DEMENTO TO PREMIERE FIRST DAVID TANNY ITEM JULY 2nd!

One of my productions will be premiering on "The Dr. Demento Show" on the weekend of July 2nd. I can't give you any more specifics, but I'll be sure not to ... scream ... too loudly when announcing it.

This was originally produced in the year 2000, a year before the subject checked into a mental ward.

56K Testing Done!

Thanks for the responses. I've been testing the 56K feed during the wee hours of the dfsx bitcast and hearing what it sounds like, and it sounds great, better than 11k stereo or 22k mono!

The 56K feed premieres after 2am this FRIDAY! Be sure to get your Internet connections upgraded because you're going to need it.

New David Tanny Item on DT20 Ballot!

One item I just produced earlier this week is a take-off on all those "Greatest Hit" compilations that were a staple on television in the 70s and 80s. It might premiere on dfsx sometime in July during the weekend of July 7-9, along with another one I'm working on, and it's a parody of a song covered by the man in black and recently parodied by somebody from the Great White North. It won't be on Dr. Demento yet because I'm still producing more stuff for an updated "Stupid Audio Sampler" CD sent out to radio stations and comedy radio shows that request it.

You may request a sampler CD to David Tanny, PO Box 19569, San Diego, CA 92159. Ask for CD Audio or MP3. Supplies are limited to ten. Only radio stations or shows that are credible may get the CD sampler.

Everybody else can purchase my songs from my Stupid Audio CDs right here except for stuff that will be on Stupid Audio 3.0:

http://www.davidtanny.com/9000.htm

New Shows On Hold!

Due to the stream change to 56K and lack of time, I regret to inform you that if you wish to have a show on dfsx, I won't be able to accomodate you until further notice. Some of the shows I have heard sound okay, but it would take me extra time that I no longer have to split up the shows into separate mp3 containing one song each so that it would meet the DMCA requirements.

After spending a week splitting up the Little Orphan Archie shows into songs, then running it to an audience that gave it a thumbs down, I decided that I can no longer waste that amount of time and I will be concentrating on getting more listeners for my station and my projects.

Thank you for your consideration.

Dave Interviews Christine Lavin!

In case you didn't catch it when it was originally run on WGBB, Dave Lefkowitz's interviews with Christine Lavin will be reairing on dfsx this June the 29th. Catch "The Best of Dave's Gone By" Thursday nights until June 29th.

This Thursday will be the final time Dave's Gone By will be on dfsx. Next week, it moves to Saturdays. Check the schedule on this newsletter for more.

Website Redesign Taking Place

All of the davesfunstuff and dfsxradio websites are being given a new look.

The Demented Subjects and Demented Song Almanac sections have been revamped with a new look, and finally updated for 2006 after a seven-year wait.

Check out the new look here. More to follow on other sections:
http://songs.davesfunstuff.com/0700.htm
http://songs.davesfunstuff.com/0900.htm

Testing 56K Feed for DFSX

Sometimes, I'll be testing the 56K stereo feed between 2am and 4am Eastern time for an hour as I present a random DFSX Time Machine show episode to test the 56K stereo feed.

Some bugs creeped up during the testing, most notably, the speeded-up programming note when coming out of the live365 break that made the plug for some of the specialty shows sound like a Chipmunk.

The station break files are uploaded at 24k speed, but when you play them on a 56k feed, then it's like playing a 33rpm record at 78 speed, which is why I have to delete every friggin' mp3 I currently have uploaded, reconvert the copies to 56k from the masters, and reupload them back up, all of which could take a day or two at once.

The new feed rolls out after 2am on June 30, in time for that weekend's Dementia Top 20 Mid-Year Recap Special, as well as a special Time Machine weekend playing many of the top 12 songs from most of the years from 1953-2005.

Steve Jarrott Reruns This September on DFSX

Steve Jarrott e-mailed the station affilliates to let us know that his radio show website is back up at http://www.stevejarrott.com/. His one-hour show will return to most of the other stations beginning on July 4, but DFSXRadio is mostly on a summer break from specialty programming with no date, day, or time set for the return of the new Steve Jarrott shows anytime soon.

Navigate To Another Page!