Public Service Announcement.

Hey guys, I learned something valuable today.

I know many commenters here have sent me comments that were not for publication.  I’m cool with that.

But, not publishing them fills up my comment thread, and I get confused.  My bad.

So what I did is start sending them to the only none auto delete folder I have on WordPress.  Spam.

Unfortunately, once I send a none-publishable comment to spam, all other comments by the same person are considered spam.  Until I “unspam” a comment.

So, if you’ve sent me a comment and it disappears, but you know you sent me a none publishable comment, that might be the cause.  Contact me on twitter, or assuming you have it, email, and I’ll fix it.  I’ll “unspam” your comment, and you are golden.

Sorry for the confusion the last few days.

And as Dalton says, “Be Nice.”

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof…

This is the last installment of my month long Sunday series on my involvement in theatre, but probably won’t be my last post about theatre.  The play in question this time is Tennessee Williams critically acclaimed play, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  I have to admit, I hate this play.  With that in mind, and the fact that I was burnt out on theatre thanks to endless tech directing jobs and set building, I declined to be involve with the play, despite one of my best friends directing it.  I did, however, serve as his assistant director and assistant editor on the trailer.

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.  What can I say about this play.  Not much, since I don’t particularly like it (which is a sin, according to most thespians) and I wasn’t really involved in it in any real way.  But my coworker and very good friend was the director, and he has a television background, so he wanted a trailer.  So I helped him shoot it and edit it.

It really is a fantastic trailer, and I wish I could work with the director on more projects, but we both have busy lives that preclude us from much theatre right now.  We borrowed the home of one of Huntsville’s blue bloods, and everything you see here was shot either in that house, on the grounds of that house, or down the street at the UAH’s president’s mansions gardens.  A very fortunate location for shooting this trailer.

Little Women…

This is another of my posts about my involvement in theatre.  In this installment I talk about Little Woman, a little musical by Jay Richards.  If I remember correctly, we were honored to do the southeastern premier of this beautiful play.  Once again, I served as tech director on the play, which meant I was literally building back to back to back sets.  

Little Women was a fantastic play to work on, as I got to work with some amazing young talent and some of Huntsville Old Guard in theatre.  I was pleased with the public reception and the amazing set I designed, but had so much help building.  But one of the things about the play I am most proud of was the trailer.

We talked a local park and museum to let us shoot the trailer on their grounds, so we had a plethora of building from the time of Little Women to shoot in and around.  The end result, if I do say so myself, was beautiful.

One funny story, toward the end of the trailer there is a scene where the entire cast is leaning on a fence.  We originally shot that scene facing the other direction, so the sun was lighting the actors faces.  It was a beautiful scene, and I was overly pleased with myself for setting it up.  Oh how pride doth fall.  It was the last scene we shot, and just before I released the actors, we reviewed the scenes.  I loved the fence scene, and everyone else did too, but since we were on top of the mountain, someone suggested we shoot the scene from the opposite angle and have the expansive view behind the actors.  I was skeptical, but since the actors wanted to do it, we set up the shot and quickly got the footage and left.

I finished editing the trailer that night, and sent it by email to the cast and crew and board of directors.  Word quickly came back that everyone loved it, and thought it was our best work to date.  I got the go ahead to post the trailer to YouTube and just before I did, I showed it to my kids.  Now keep in mind that the cast reviewed the footage before we left, I sent the footage to a dozen or two people and everyone approved the cut.  But the first thing out of my son’s mouth when it got to the fence scene (I had used my original shot) was why there was a bulldozer in the background.

WHAT!

There was some groundwork being done while we were shooting, and we had been shooting around the construction equipment all afternoon.  No one else saw the bulldozer in that shot.  I’m glad the cast convinced me to shoot the opposite angle, and I quickly swapped out the shot, emailed everyone about the faux pas and asked that they delete the trailer before sending it on.  Crisis adverted.

Here, now, is the trailer for Little Women.

Sordid Lives…

This is my weekly posting about my time in theatre.  This week we talk about Sordid Lives, by Del Shores.  The play is about a family in a small town dealing with the various secrets that have been hidden in the closet for too long.  It is a great play, a great movie and a wonderful television series.  Shores has released his latest movie, Southern Baptist Sissies, and I hope he will release it as a play as well.  

I was technical director on another play, Sordid Lives, and it went smashingly well, despite the total disaster my set design turned into.  We made do, and put on a great show.  But the highlight of that show was making the trailer.  Everything else was about half as fun as the night we shot the trailer and publicity photographs.

For one thing, the first gay bar in Huntsville had been closed for renovation.  It was Thursday night, and the bar reopened on Saturday.  But the owner, who was a big fan of Sordid Lives, and the manager both let us use the bar as the location of our shoots.  The big mistake, or should I say brilliant idea, was that since the bar was fully stocked, we got to drink while shooting.  Sordid Lives is not a kid friendly play.  It involves all sorts of adult situations, and being a gay positive play, we had a generous support from the local gay community.  The video and photography shoot quickly became a party.  There was a scene where one of the actors had to pour a shot of whiskey, and of course real whiskey was used.  But the actor had never poured a drink like a bartender would, so it took a few takes to get right… and well one should never let whiskey go to waste, should one?

So here is the trailer, in all of it’s concupiscent glory.  I hope you enjoy watching it a tenth of as much as we enjoyed making it.

 

I’m the stooge.

Let us give Bill Schmalfeldt the benefit of the doubt for a minute.

I know, that makes me exactly what Schmalfeldt has claimed.  His “mole” against Hoge.  Let’s ignore that if I was his mole against Hoge, yesterday’s tweets would ensure that there would never be another mole.  Ever.  Since the alleged person I was helping not only exposed his mole, but left his mole high and dry, instead of taking the mole to the grave.  (Hey Bill, try to get the section 230 identity of my post from me.  I’ll happily spend months in jail protecting my source).  Journalistic ethics and all that.

So, lets assume Bill get’s everything he claims.  Hoge’s copyright suit is dismissed.  Bill’s counterclaim suit goes forward.  Yet on May 27th, Hoge announces his suit against Bill.  On May 29th, Bill starts an 7 day auto delete on his twitter feed, which was central to his defense against Hoge, and pretty important to his counterclaim.  Hoge is high and dry, with no copyright claim (again, we are talking hypothetical) yet Bill’s counterclaim goes forward.  Let’s even assume after Bill’s epic fail with WordPress that WordPress breaks rank and gives up Kendler.  Which after the amazingly bad place Bill put WordPress is doubtful.  (Hey, why do you guys think Bill left the WordPress Platform for Wix?  I mean really.)

Yet, I sank Hoge’s copyright claim.  I’m the reason Bill’s counterclaim was saved.  I’m the reason Bill is fighting in federal court for both Twitter (oh my god, let’s not go there.  He’s so burned that bridge) and WordPress ( holy shit, did WordPress buy into Bill’s claim about NASA posts?) to identify Krendler.  Now, let’s assume it’s moved past the copyright, and Bill is demanding payment for Section 230 protected comments from Hoge.  (Really?  I thought ACME law was better than that.)  So Hoge has his case dismissed, and the counterclaim is going forward.  We’ve reached discovery.

Now let us assume that there is evidence that Schmalfeldt knew by May 28th that a suit was filed, since that can be proven.  Let’s assume that the suit that was filed was dismissed with prejudice, but the counterclaim went forward.  Let’s also assume, because it is true, that the plaintiff in the counter claim waited two days to start deleting tweets on twitter, which was central to the initial suit.  A full 5 days before his DMCA claim expired.

So, As Bill has said, his twitter deletions in this fanciful case is meaningless.  But, the case isn’t over.  He filed a counterclaim, with the full knowledge that he started deleting the tweets central to the original suit.  Oops.  Spoliation of evidence.

What could happen in that case?  Any number of things, but none to the aide of Schmalfeldt.  Best case, Schmaldfeldt’s clear deletion of evidence means that the presumption of negativity falls squarely on Schmalfeldt, which opens the door for Hoge and Krendler to pound Schmalfeldt in the counterclaim for everything and anything they can think of.  And Schmalfeldts only defense is “Yes I deleted those tweets, and they were not in my favor.”  Or the judge could be harsher.  Such as summery judgement.  Or worse.

Schmalfeldt is all shits and giggles right now, but that’s only because he doesn’t understand Section 230 and Spoliation of Evidence.  Me?  I’m the asshole who thought Hoge filed too soon.  My rational thoughts became Bill’s mole, at best.  (I have given Bill full leave to identify how I’m the mole.  Instead of doing so, he just keeps calling me the mole.  Why?  Because he has nothing from me.  Neither email or DM on Twitter.)  Bill’s dive into deleting tweets after learning about Hoge’s lawsuit.  Well, Bill.  I think Kyle said it best.  You need more pillows to cover your head.

One last word.  What kind of jerk spent all day two days ago threatening to sue me for exposing his lies about deleting tweets, and spends all day yesterday claiming I’m his mole and he gladly deletes tweets?  I submit to the internet, you’ve got two choices here.  Believe me, or believe the guy that was proven to lie inside of 24 hours.

And with that, Goodnight, till tomorrow afternoon.

 

Oh No! Did Bill Admit To Illegal Activity?

So today we found out that Bill Schmalfeldt started using an automatic tweet deleter that deletes all tweets older than 7 days.  That started on May 27th 29.  Interesting post can be found on Hogewash on May 27.

Beginning in late April, Bill Schmalfeldt began publishing a series of defamatory books and ebooks which used copyrighted works that I own. I advised the publishers of the infringement, and the books and ebooks were withdrawn from their catalogs. On 15 May, Schmalfeldt published the following on his Patriot-Ombudsman blog:

Here is my official DMCA Takedown Counterclaim.  Hoge … [has] until June 4 AT THE LATEST to file suit against me in US District Court for the District of Maryland.

This morning, I filed in the Southern Division of the U. S. District Court for the District of Maryland a lawsuit against William M. Schmalfedlt. The suit alleges 124 counts of copyright infringement since August, 2013.

– WJJ Hoge on his blog on May 27th, the day WM Schmalfeldt started auto-deleting tweets

I don’t believe that the suit hit PACER until June 5th, but it is clear it was filed earlier.  So why would Schmalfeldt decided to start auto-deleting tweets on the 27th29th?  Could it be that he got wind of a lawsuit that was filed against him on that daytwo days earlier, which heavily revolved around tweets?

Even if he set up the auto delete program, there is a strong argument that he shouldn’t have been deleting anything that may be used in a pending court case considering the DMCA Counterclaim he filed against Hoge didn’t expire until June 4th.  Purposefully deleting things surrounding that DMCA Counterclaim would be, in fact, deleting potential evidence if Hoge decided to pursue it.  And he did.

But even better, after being officially notified of the suit, the fact that he is continually deleting these tweets after getting the suit, and all while threatening to expand his counterclaim based on things posted after he filed his counterclaims, goes to show that Bill isn’t as smart as he thinks.  He willfully deleted evidence in a pending trial, evidence he himself was expounding on.  It is reasonable to assume Hoge would use his continuing tweets against him, but he gleefully continued deleting.

Wow.  The Hubris.

Update:

I was wrong. The proper date was May 29. So two days after Hoge announced his lawsuit. I’ll be updating above and just have to say this looks worse and worse.

Update II
From looking at comments on the above mentioned Hogewash post, Bill posted to a now memory holed blog on or before the 28th admitting to seeing Hoge’s post about the lawsuit. And yet, on the 29th he starts the deleting. Interesting. Maybe he’ll blame me for that too.

The Nefarious Lies of Bill Schmalfeldt

So I found this…

Oh, but Mr. Schmalfeldt, the man who threatened me with lawsuits all day yesterday for so much as suggesting that you delete tweets, and now we find out you’ve been deleting tweets over 7 days old on a regular basis.  Because, it makes your timeline harder to “Stalk?”  Thanks for the information, Mr. Schmalfeldt.  Good to know you spent all day yesterday lying about deleting tweets.  About how you don’t memory hole things.  But really, now you’re admitting to doing just that.

So, let me ask you something.  Every time I’ve called you out and you got upset, you spend the next several days proving, repeatedly, that I am right.  Why is that?

Why were so many of your tweets between January and April missing?

Why did you delete the tweet about how much you liked meeting Brett Kimberland?

Why did you lie about reporting Hoge to NASA and/or about not reporting him to NASA.  That was convoluted.  But boy was it a fun day.

You’ve been lying about so much lately, it’s not even funny anymore.  It’s just pathetic.  The Photo Editor of NASA?  The Legal Department?  WordPress?  Seriously Bill, like you have any credibility left.

Excuse me?

I have a new question for Mr. “I Don’t Delete Tweets” Schmalfeldt. What happened to all your tweets prior to 7/9/14?

I certainly hope they didn’t get deleted. I mean, the day after I post a Section 230 protected post from an anonymous source accusing Schmalfeldt of deleting tweets, and Schmalfeldt threatening I was a “cunt-hair” away from being sued for libel, it sure wouldn’t look good for him to mass delete tweets.

So do share the answer to this question, Mr. Schmalfeldt. Where are all your tweets prior to 7/9/14?

Also, can Mr. Schmalfeldt explain the difference between this screenshot taken at 9pm last night:

And this one taken this morning at 11:50?

My goodness, it would seem that 302 tweets, 79 pieces of imagery and one follower have vanished! You need not explain the follower.

Update:

Due to the fact that Mr. Schmalfeldt has been tweeting all morning long, the number of deleted missing tweets is most likely higher.  The 302 figure is just from comparing a 9pm and nearly noon snapshots.

Update II:

According to this comment at Hogewash!, the four part email, that was still incomplete, Mr. Schmalfeldt tweeted as proof that he didn’t ask WordPress to do anything about the NASA posts are missing?  Is this true, Mr. Schmalfeldt?

Another user found them somewhere in his convoluted timeline.  Thanks, nir!

And now, something completely different…

Frustration, Hopelessness and a Whole Lot of ‘Vettes | Simple Justice

Frustration, Hopelessness and a Whole Lot of ‘Vettes | Simple Justice.

 

Amen!