Mattie's Pad

“Those Laurel Canyon days were great. I have a real fondness for that era, 'til about '68. Musically, it was wonderful, and there was this great innocence, an idyllic view of the world. After that, everything got a little... edgy.”

Former Byrd, Chris Hillman as quoted in his memoir “In Between” and photographed with fellow Flying Burrito Brothers bandmate Gram Parson and friends at Peter Tork’s house in 1968.

“Those Laurel Canyon days were great. I have a real fondness for that era, 'til about '68. Musically, it was wonderful, and there was this great innocence, an idyllic view of the world. After that, everything got a little... edgy.”

Former Byrd, Chris Hillman as quoted in his memoir “In Between” and photographed with fellow Flying Burrito Brothers bandmate Gram Parson and friends at Peter Tork’s house in 1968.

54 mins ·

Someone sent a nice bottle of champagne to the band in Napa. I don’t drink usually and not enough to know what is considered a great or a mediocre spirit beverage. I ask people who do know.

Someone who knew tasted it said the champagne was “Excellent! Very, very good”. She spoke from an understanding of the difference between one and two “very’s”.

The band quite enjoyed it. I drank a sip in support and appreciation of the band and the gift. It was a thoughtful gift.

The idea was offered that one of the great rewards – reciprocations – is to be in extraordinary and fine company – to be among lovely and beautiful things, engaged in endeavors that are satisfying and pleasing, because we provide a similar high quality of goods and services. Because we belong there.

The champagne came from someone who loved the show. The band plays exceptionally well and deserved that recognition. They are all high-value musicians and players because of the way they play: precisely, positively, and beautifully.

Usually as a society and civilization we exchange money – but the symbol of money is only in support of the quality of those things we choose to live with and for and only valuable when it is exchanged for those high pursuits. Civilization and Society.

I spent the day in Warcraft yesterday with some friends in our Guilds – Videoranch Guild for Alliance and Welach for the Horde. We battled other teams and collected artifacts and frolicked and joked and romped in the Virtual World. World of Warcraft, for those who don’t know, is a game that builds a society based on team play in a mythical land of dungeons and dragons, and cities and societies.

WOW is nothing at all like VR3D, a virtual world I have built, which has no game play, no cities, dungeons or dragons. No weapons, or combat, or quests.

VR3D is a virtual world that exists purely to share experiences. One of the components that makes that happen is a live video feed that is embedded in the 3D world and streams different content – from teaching, to concerts, and conversations.

It is open to the public but is not active all the time. and only works on a few computers. So it is not as robust or persistent as WOW. There is still much development that is going on in VR3D. Right now it only functions in my studio and lab. One of my WOW team mates has a video show in there on weekends for a few hours. Doontube.

VR3D is still nascent but the seeds are planted and the roots are digging themselves deeper even as I write. WOW and VR3D and many of the other Massively Multiplayer Online games share the same goal. To gather people together to expand what we can share with each other. Like very, very good champagnes.

Besides being at work on VR3D, playing on our Guild teams in WOW, I am also preparing for the Monkees tour that starts on the 18th with rehearsals in Nashville.

An exciting tour.

if you want a good RECENT (as of the end of February 2022) overview of what is going on behind the scenes at tumblr, it is basically what i’ve been saying for years: the core staff is tiny, constantly not being listened to when they advocate for us, the community, and working there is a nightmare:

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials:  8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

Hii!!

Thank you!! The Monkees are so so good, and we actually made a little server for us Monkees fans to chill in if you want to join! We're really chill in there: