Complaining about state tax laws

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

I got the distro order out today & I also got a couple new leads for other small distros.  Hopefully some of them will not only start to stock the material, but also pay me when they sell it.

So yesterday the law in North Carolina outlawing affiliate kickback programs went into effect (basically the law said that if Amazon.com (or whoever else) had an affiliate in NC, they had a physical presence & therefore were required to tax any sales to NC residents & send the tax money to the state, so basically every company has canceled all affiliate accounts in NC.  In a show of ultimate intelligence, NC has estimated collecting these moneys from Amazon/iTunes (which is interesting in itself, because are digital downloads a physical & therefore taxable commodity?) /etc. into their budget while there’s actually going to be a deficit because of not collecting  the income tax from former affiliates.).  I had thought it would get declared unconstitutional before going into effect (it’s cloned from a New York state law currently in the courts).    So today I started trying to change my affiliate status around so that all the money goes to a friend out of state until things get fixed around, but I guess a lot of folks are doing this & so the affiliate programs seem to not be letting NC residents change their addresses to out of state.  I need to look into just declaring myself a resident of a state without income tax or better yet, declaring myself a sovereign nation like I was talking about a couple weeks ago.  There’s totally something shady about NC taxes as the tax burden websites that supposedly list total taxes paid including income, sales, & property taxes only add up to what my income tax is & I make less than the state average income.  So that’s today complaint.

Alright, back to work.

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grand theft swayze train

Posted on August 13, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

I’ve been getting further & further behind in personal contact with some people who regularly read this blog.  I’d like to apologize for that if you are in that set.

Did some work on Just A Man #2 today doing the separation of panels for laying out to print.  I need to start working on issue #3 soon.

Got in a nice little distro order today for some back catalog items.  It’s nice to see some of the old stock still moving.

A lot of response from folks about doing the Aarktica remixes.  It’s good because I know how hard it is to get things done & it should mean we actually get some good mixes in the end.

I got the beater snare drum & it has a wacky mechanism inside that works as a snare, just need to find a piece of scrap metal to use as a head for it & then I find out if my idea for a unique sound works or not.

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banks, comics, keychains, neti, chile

Posted on August 12, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Finally made the trek into the bank during business hours to deposit an international money order (they won’t take them through the ATM).  It’s always weird when I get a check instead of paypal money for a direct order in this era.

Went through doing follow up for the mini-comics again.  Probably only one more round of that in about ten days before I abandon them as not getting reviewed & build the next batch to send for review.

Ordered a test copy for a bottle opener keychain today so I can test the strength of the ink (& bottle opener since I broke mine on Sunday).

I used a neti pot for the first time today.  It reminds me of a rogue wave going up my nose at the beach, but it did seem to make me feel a little better.

Yesterday I built a little data base of small labels to approach for trying to do a dozen impov releases to go to the different labels.  Also in the process I found a few new weirdo distros I contacted for possibly working with.

Just wrote to a band about trying to make a Remora tour in Chile happen.  I said I’d do it for $900 for airfare.  I mean, who wouldn’t want to tour in Chile?  It’s totally over the top.  I don’t know if I’ve even heard of anyone touring in Chile.

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stuff & zombies

Posted on August 11, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Wrote the second half of the first draft of Lost Kisses #11 today.  Probably it should be a really serious story drawn by Adrian Tomine or something, but instead the mood will be completely altered by stick figures & gags.  I’m thinking about actually issuing the script to be re-done by other folks.  So if you draw comics & might be interested, please let me know.

The show last night was interesting.  I don’t know what more could’ve been done to promote the show & still nearly no attendance.  I know it was a Sunday in Smithfield, but what else is there to do in Smithfield Sunday night?  Honestly I think the attendance would have been comparable in most of the other cities I play in.  Things are just funny like that these days.

I read the first trade volume of that Walking Dead zombie comic that everyone has been telling me is so good for five years or so.  It had two things that I absolutely hated that reminded me of when I tried to write sci-fi apocalypse stories in junior high.  One was the guy finding his lost family right away (which he just should’ve never found at all) & the other was the “let’s have everybody talk about what they did before the apocalypse.”  Let me tell you my story, “Before the apocalypse I was a guy trying to stay alive without screwing anyone else over & now I’m still trying to do the same thing.  The apocalypse has had no real effect on my life whatsoever.”  In the full size comic format the ideal way to get these expositions in would be to have a one page backstory bio that is actual text just as an appendix.  Not some lame poorly written conversation.  Still, a friend had mailed me an issue that came out 40 issues later that was pretty great, so I guess at some point it changes to having less forced action & more character study (which is what the apocalypse literature is really about, forcing you to study your own character).  Maybe I’ll actually write the next issue of Zombie Kisses about my brother going to Texas & losing his moral center.

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If I write enough, it seems like something was accomplished.

Posted on August 9, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

I wrote what may be more than half of the first draft of Lost Kisses #11.  I’m still trying to figure out exactly how my planned story arc of ten issues is going to work.  I’m not sure if I’ve publicly announced it before, but I plan for the next ten Lost Kisses to have a female lead character.  I think I might do it that each issue just has a title like “Her: Age 34″ & is a story/character study about that year of her life.  We’ll see how it works out.  The first issue is about being contacted by the son you gave up for adoption, but a little more tragic than the experience people associate me with.

I put back together me effects pedal board today.  I realized that the main source of noise in my effects chain is my Lexicon MXP unit, which seems strange as it does say Lexicon on it & I have a lot of respect for them as a company.  I need to look into if it’s because of not using a ground (which generally eliminates noise in older houses) or if it’s from being beat up on a bunch of tours (I think the only pieces of equipment that have made it on more tours are my Schecter guitar, a Boss octave pedal (that I’ve been wanting to replace), & a Boss tuning pedal (which some people tell me costs me some tone, but I think it seems fine)).  I think I have an old Ibanez Noise Buster pedal that is basically a notch EQ that’s controlled with one knob & might fix the problem, but I might have given the thing away as my first attempts to find it have had no results.  So if I did give it to anybody that’s reading this & they don’t use it anymore, give me a shout.

I’ve been thinking that if someone can help me, I’d like to put RSS on essentially all of the Silber pages so that if someone wants to only know about one band they can subscribe to that band’s page.  Or just when there are new Silber Releases, the Silber front page.  Also moving the blog to the Silber page as some people seem to be abandoning MySpace.

Did some paperwork for the month of July & though the website traffic & also direct sales have had a pretty terrific decline lately, sales of CDs to distributors & through third party download folks seem to be holding steady.

I just listened to the new Aarktica album.  It is pretty awesome.  Might be sending it out to manufacturing as early as this week.

So I’ve been doing a Remora derivative piece based on the 8 Mile theme by Eminem & it seems like the “hit” from everyone who has heard it.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  I guess I’ll just take it as a compliment.

I found a place for making ringtones & so in the next couple of weeks it should be happening.  It does it where you just send a text message to get the download & I don’t need to administrate anything.  Still debating if I should make it a pay service or not.  I’m thinking something where the ringtones are free to the first hundred users or something & then they’re $1 or whatever.

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da-da-da-da-da

Posted on August 7, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

So I listened to the Vlor & I found another minor edit on a fade.  I’m quite certain no one will notice the extra loving care I gave the album, but I suppose that’s how it goes sometimes.

Got the stuff out to the distros & the descriptions for them to solicit with.  Hopefully things will work out for reaching a few places Silber hasn’t gotten to before.

Sending some samples to a new music library for film placement.  Hopefully it will lead to something.  I have had little luck with that kind of thing unfortunately.

I’ve been thinking of starting to record a bunch of improvisational pieces for release on various international net labels with a goal of touring in Brazil or Estonia or wherever.  Do you think the idea is too 1998?

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unprofessional/sucking

Posted on August 7, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

So I’ve been having a bit of a pet peeve with a lot of the reviews of the mini-comics lately.  A lot of folks are saying the artwork is “amateur” or “unprofessional.”  My problem is that the are is intentionally highly stylized, that’s how I pick who to work with.  Sure, it doesn’t look like Dave Sim or Alex Ross or X-Men or Spider-Man.  Saying XO is amateur is like saying Peanuts is amateur or Farside is amateur.  To say you don’t like the art is fine; honestly, I’m a bit surprised when someone likes the art of all four series.  But I think unprofessionalism would be marked by inconsistency of style, not by choice of doing a particular style.  It’s like saying all rock drummers are amateurs because they don’t play jazz.  Or that songwriters are amateurs because they don’t compose serious symphonic music.  But I guess it’s easier to say something sucks than to try to figure out why you don’t like it.

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French Assassins

Posted on August 6, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Finished the remix of the noise song & submitted it for the japanese compilation I was doing it for.  Sometimes I feel like compilation appearances on fairly obscure  comps are like an incredibly well placed ad targeted for 50 people, so probably worth the two hours of my time (or maybe even 5 hours).

I made the first template for the mini-comics display & the technology seems sound.  I’m pretty happy with it & I’m going to make a template on my computer so it will look a little prettier.

I remastered a couple more songs on the Vlor disc based on recommendations.  Is it now really the final final mix?  I guess I’ll know in a couple days.

I submitted a video version of XO#1 for this mobile phone film festival.  I think that my comics/cartoons are really well suited to that, but I have no idea how to break into that market, much less monetize it.

I just recorded a guitar tip bit for some folks’ podcast.  I’ll let you know if it comes to fruition.

I’m watching Man Bites Dog & realizing that it seems like the French have a bit of an obsession with hitmen/assassins.  I need to look into marketting XO over there.  I’d certainly rather watch a French film based on XO than a Hollywood one.

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Good Things Happen When I Do Nothing

Posted on August 5, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Having another lazy day & then I get picked up by Parasol for a trial distribution & get an order from Soleilmoon to pick up more of the catalog for distribution.  Awesome.  Now I need to get the packages ready.

I need to start building some displays for my mini-comics.  I think I have things figured out design wise.  I just need to get my razor blade out & see if it works.

Working on some promo stuff for the upcoming show in Smithfield.  I like the idea of turning Smithfield into a place where people come to shows & I can make some money on gigs.  I figure there’s a whole county of people there needing something to do.

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Getting some thing going.

Posted on August 4, 2009 by Brian John Mitchell

Did some more leg work finding some review outlets for the Lost Kisses DVD.  I also sent one to a friend in Europe to make sure it plays properly over there.  It’s the kind of thing I need to know before selling it.

Filled a few orders & got a couple checks in.

I got another place wanting to pick up my mini-comics for distro.  But here’s the thing, I need to figure out a display for the shop.  Anyone have ideas for that with my minis?

I spent a couple hours trying to figure out the problem I had of a weird high pitched noise in my rig & I found it.  I use some of those universal power supplies with daisy chains on them to power my pedals & basically they aren’t strong enough to power my new rig.  They are strong enough to keep the electricity on, but when I turn on a couple pedals they start to be sapped out & create the noise.  So I need to just slightly alter my set up to fit another power supply onto my six-strip & then I should be good.  I have to say it is kinda lame that the multi-power thing can only power three pedals, but I do know that three of my pedals essentially can’t be used with batteries because they eat them so fast, which makes this problem make a little more sense – the power-all things can only fuel one of them at a time.

I was recently told that some MP3s I batch encoded with iTunes have distortions in them.  I guess I need to look for another batch encoder.

I found a snare drum (like I asked for yesterday) on eBay for $15 including shipping.  Just hoping that I actually get the item as that’s a pretty good deal.

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