Fifteen Songs Meme

More FaceBook/Blog memes... This time we play "Fifteen Songs"...

To play along, here are the rules:

(1) Turn on your MP3 player. (What, no MP3 player? What century you living in, man?)

(2) Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.

(3) Write down the first 15 songs that come up--song title and artist--NO editing/cheating, please.

(4) Choose some people to be tagged. It is generally considered to be in good taste to tag the person who tagged you. Feel free to participate even if not tagged.

These are my 15 songs:

1 - Poets Into Space - Peri Urban
2 - Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
3 - Hot Sun - Adrian Belew
4 - So What (live) - Miles Davis with John Coltrane
5 - Permanent Hurt - John Hiatt
6 - House of the Rising Sun (live) - Bob Dylan & Tom Petty
7 - Dirty Life and Times - Warren Zevon
8 - Dave - The Bears
9 - Winter Sun - Lem Kuper
10 - Jesus is Vlogging for Me - Peri Urban
11 - Giving - Dave Davies
12 - Rollin' and Tumblin' - Eric Clapton
13 - Worried Life Blues - Eric Clapton & B.B. King
14 - Bandit of Love - Carlene Carter
15 - Accidentally Life a Martyr (demo) - Warren Zevon

I just gotta laugh that my buddy Peri Urban came up twice - purely accidental. Not surprised by the duplicates of Zevon and Clapton, but I am surprised that one Dave Davies cut was the only Kinks-related track.

Over-all, though, I'm pleased with all fifteen songs. It was tough hitting the "next" button to make the list - I wanted to sit and listen to them all!

Okay - Tagging aside, if you want to do a Fifteen Songs post, go ahead, if you don't, I truly understand. No tags here.

(BTW - The picture of me is from the debut and final performance of the Mutant Armadillos, Sacramento, CA, 1997.)

eNation : Real Community

While I've been off, not blogging, I've still been involved with some online discussions amongst a select group of online friends about the future of online communities, and the shaping of services and systems in a form of online democracy.

We're now ready for more, broader input. This video is an introduction and an invitation to get your feedback.

Are online communities real or virtual? Is democracy possible online? Is communal ownership of the public square necessary? We want to know what you think about these questions.

These are the links referred to in the video:

eNation discussion on Ning: enation.ning.com

The eNation testing site: www.the-enation.com

The eNation Vision (Peri Urban's blog): brainpilot.blogspot.com

VoicingWorld channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/voicingworld

Change One Thing

This is a story about about how the Internet brings people closer together. This is an example of why political borders are becoming increasingly insignificant. This is a demonstration of how a web 2.0 community like YouTube can be used to aid an individual or a family without the help of intermediary organizations or governments. Enough of an introduction, let's get on with it.

It begins more than six months ago in Australia, when the daughters of Ben and Amanda (YouTube username "Orbvious") were abducted by their birth father. He has kept them apart from their mother and step-father ever since. They've been running into roadblocks in the Australian legal and family court system, unable to find assistance. Amanda, of course, is wreck over this.

Ben wrote an email to Scottish singer-songwriter (and YouTuber) Peri Urban telling his tale. Peri was inspired to write a song for Ben and Amanda, which he posted on YouTube. This cheered Amanda up considerably.

That's when I stepped in and said, "If one song can cheer her up that much, what would fifty songs do?" And so, with Ben, Amanda, and Peri's permission, I started the "One Tube Group" on YouTube. We got our fifty songs, poems, and well wishers. We also got people from all over the globe to write letters on Ben and Amanda's behalf to the Australian authorities. And, we managed to raise a few dollars for their mounting expenses.

The video below is the latest part of this effort, and represents a great collaboration of the members of the OneTube group. Peri and I co-produced it, I wrote the bit of dialogue at the start, together we solicited clips from about thirty other members, and then Peri did the amazing work of writing and producing a new song and editing the entire thing into a cohesive whole.

Please take a look at the video, and if you are moved to join us, or read more about the situation, please visit us at The OneTube Challenge (on YouTube.com).