Fortress Of Freedom Board

Maurice Ali · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 8:02 am Post subject:

Man – what an intense weekend!

The Lucifari album is out there! I spent all of Sunday uploading files for digital sale and streaming and then on to the CD files and uploading therm. It took all day. Plus I spent Saturday changing websites to a newer format that allows embedded l inks to YouTube videos. So if you go to Shane’s website you get his episode on the index page. For artists less involved – like Tabitha – you get a music video or a clip from FOFSTOCK.

It actually came out well so far. I may add some more but IAIJ stays out of all that. Probably also More Vision and I have a sample commercial we made for Spin City Music but totally commercial so it stays on as a website located file. I also had to do the family stuff like go grocery shopping, something I never did pre-pandemic, but times have changed. Actually, the Lucifari album is much in the present times and much about the pandemic in all kinds of interesting ways. But there is one song in there I requested from Michael, an anthem for an organization like us. We will more than likely adopt it for the Positive Mandate and other organization objectives like the worldwide vote. So the album already has a score and we shall see if other NGO jive to the song in the future.

But I need some sleep. I wonder what it is like to just have absolutely nothing to do. What is that like? What do you do when you have nothing to do? Do you just stare blankly straight ahead? I’ll try that Monday morning and see what that is like, but I have a strangle feeling it gets old really fast.

Goodnight.....

https://youtu.be/7k5cEzDL0FM

Maurice Ali · Posted: Mon Oct 26, 2020 5:19 pm Post subject:

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW!!!!!

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2020 8:53 am Post subject:

Well, well, well - New Music!

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2020 7:16 am Post subject:

Ok, the notices and such are up for the new music, and now I have to take care of something else.

The United Nations

Yes, it’s at the United Nations. This is regarding the 59th session of the Commission for Social Development. This years theme is:

Socially just transition towards sustainable development: the role of digital technologies on social development and well-being of all.

And so you guessed it - I’m pushing the worldwide vote through smartphones at the UN idea again at the United Nations, but this time as a written statement. The deadline got pushed back a week and now is October 30 (2020). At least that is what it says on the UN website. Yes I’m cutting it close - but I like a close shave. If for some reason they won’t let me submit like saying the extended deadline was a typo - then we apply to speak again. Seriously, the link to submit does not work as I am typing this - but it could work during normal business hours. I could go there next February. I have the time off next February, I can quarantine and travel. It is up to them and I know some of you are reading this now. It’s a good idea! It’s time has come! You should at least consider it! So that is where I’m at, and everything is in flux. The pandemic has messed up everything and for the establishment that sucks, but for a ”wild card” like myself - it means opportunity! I did disseminate the idea at my side event in 2017 but this is the next step. Probably it won’t go anywhere but all good ideas take time and my job is dissemination to the point it becomes a talking point.

So if the written statement gets in there, then fine. If not we go for the brass ring again of the oral speech - even if it is by teleconference! There is no right or wrong here, you just play things by ear. You wait till the last minute as things are constantly changing. I could have submitted on my birthday but a written statement means you can’t talk about it in an oral statement later - it is one or another. Right now people in New York are like us in Toronto, just going about their business but wearing masks on the street. Could get worse or better - who knows. So I’ll just do what I can do and see what happens.....

I’ll stick almost exactly to the speech I had but take out the usual oral greetings out of it for the written one. I will show how the idea links to this year’s theme at the start and let the speech from last year play itself about. I’ll give myself till Thursday afternoon to submit. And then we shall wait and see what happens.

Man, this life sure got complicated, quickly - but I’m cool with it all.....

Goodnight.

http://webtv.un.org/watch/international-association-of-independent-journalists-55th-session-of-the-commission-for-social-development-1-10-february-2017/5314479253001

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2020 5:16 am Post subject:

Submitted!

That my friends is the first “formal” foray for the worldwide vote through smartphones at the United Nations. I was a different person back in my university days, full of creativity and arrogance - but in the end that younger version of myself would be impressed at where things have gone! Not just talk as I had a bunch of smart phones at the UN with the app installed to show you how it worked. I also had the instrument to add it to the UN located in the articles of the UN Charter. In short, I had a turn key solution to make this global vote happen! In essence this is the birth of a new form of global governance!

Man - what a rush - even last spring was a rush with me not even getting to give my speech, but the last minute plays and the “not knowing” what will happen was still a rush!. But it did get attention - the idea - it did get disseminated and noticed out of all proportion. It was the “elephant in the room” everyone pretended not to notice. I was alive - I live for this!

So that idea is in play again. 2020 for advocacy may not have been such a waste after all when all is said and done. I did things at UN headquarters twice in one year - and during a pandemic - how about that? I really want to flesh it out more, but I’m tired and always say stuff I have to take back the next morning. So I’ll leave it there.

I reached my goal this year even in a pandemic.....

My gift to all of you!

https://youtu.be/UioCvLN-370

https://youtu.be/mXnHDsXrPvM

Maurice Ali · Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 9:12 am Post subject:

So the Positive Mandate for Humanity movement/cause/concept/philosophy now has an anthem: Rise Unite!

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2020 7:41 pm Post subject:

Wow! What an insane week! I was all over the place doing things completely unrelated to one another – but that is the life I created for myself.....

TWENTY6HUNDRED at FOFSTOCK!

Night time crowd!

But I’m catching up on sleep and its Saturday night so for the one or two of you that watch these episodes as I set them up – here we go! Tonight it is FOFSTOCK which is a documentary on how to put on a big ass outdoor music festival. This was big ass because Yonge-Dundas Square is the most densely populated and busiest intersection in all of Canada. When I give estimates of 60,000 people at FOFSTOCK we are talking about the traffic that planted their feet on the official property where the concert took place. Adding the traffic on the other side of the street and you could easily add another 30,000 but we can only legitimately claim the official foot traffic estimates at the square between 12:00PM to 11:00PM.

Jelleestone's fans at FOFSTOCK!

Jelleestone's fans at the stage barricades at FOFSTOCK!

Now in the show you will see how we got the contract and also the preparations that went into putting on a real concert/music festival. This one was outdoors and headlined Jelleestone. The Lox concert was indoors as the opposite example of another concert we were involved with (involved with The Lox’s record label D-Block). The FOFSTOCK music festival cost 30 grand to put on with 3 grand of advertising on some of the largest radio stations in Canada. We had G4S as security, premium sound (but not the towers you see at the North-by-North-east as they required a building permit to put up). Food vendors: I had to vet and submit to the Ministry of Health, and the most important of all being the 20 million of special event liability insurance.

No insurance and no concert/music festival.

One of the reasons we are pushing out music now is to keep the label active until the pandemic starts to ease and concerts become a thing again. Realize it is easy to get sponsorship money for big outdoor concerts in the summer, but corporations and the City don’t want any liability if some shit happens at the event. And the only way to do this is to pile all the liability on the record label that puts it on. And – that record label has to be a corporate entity – and – it has to have been around for awhile with a President that has some integrity and won’t run off with the money. FOF Records Inc. checks all those boxes - so I have told my gang that we may be getting into concerts again when things get back to normal!

So if you watch the FOFSTOCK documentary you will see how “I lost my cherry” on August 1 2011 (the civic holiday) and officially got into concert production and promotion. Future concerts will be fully paid by others. I will accept the liability issues and production and promotion, but the price paid for this is no money out of pocket for yours truly. If some catastrophic event happens like at the Radio Head concert where the stands fell apart resulting in death – then we pay out with insurance and fold the corporation. Then FOF Entertainment takes over where FOF Records left off.....

Here is a photo of Shane and Scootz playing to a rather large crowd in the afternoon:

Shane/FRENZY

The funny thing is that I was never into music and just fell into it to get my ideas out there, same with the video. Musicians make the worst businessmen and that is why FOF is the last one standing – literally! And the stuff in the documentary is all real. Yes, they stopped the concert, turned off the lights and killed the mics! Yes the crowd rebelled and they turned everything back on! I didn’t set up anything as some think I did. Yes: Shane did quit on me that night and left his “Take this Job and Shove It” message on a jump drive for me to find as I reviewed the material from the concert. BTW: I just love that type of creativity..... Then he and Anna (who did the interview about the concert) ran off to the east coast together for a few months. He eventually came back to FOF and did an interview where he explained everything. He also spiked a brand new RF microphone that cost thousands which caused Yonge-Dundas Square to retain my deposit until it was checked out and fixed - man the memories! Its all there in the documentary except where I had to kick a bunch of the performers off the property because they were drinking and we didn’t have a liquor license (yes, you have to have that for a concert) and they would have called the cops. So I kicked them off the property and emptied all the booze down the sewer at the Dundas and Victoria intersection – too funny – but very real.

Jelleestone from behind the stage!

Check it out if you want some real laughs:

https://youtu.be/mN_g1Ml06f8

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2020 11:59 am Post subject:

Man, finally time to relax.....

Two things - first is that I submitted the written statement to the United Nations about the worldwide cell phone voting application as a popular voting to aid in policy making. It should stay and make the rounds as it fits in with this year’s theme - but anything can happen..... I did my part though, and so we now have a side event fleshing out the worldwide vote and the positive mandate, and then the formal dissemination of the worldwide vote and the positive mandate. That was bare minimum for me and so far we made it. Everything from now on is gravy! But we shall see what happens and how things go. But this week was a big score for that alone!

Secondly is the quip I made yesterday about musicians making the worst businessmen. Getting some push back from that rant. But remember that I am a businessman and musician in the end. My little composition for Don’s TV show was composed and authored by me, published and broadcast nationwide on CTV which was and probably still is the largest television network in Canada! So I am a musician but probably one of the best at being a businessman. Want some proof? Here we go:

Don at the party after his show cutting the cake!”

So I composed and authored an intro of gunshots for Don’s show on CTV. Yes, a song composed of nothing but gunshots. All of 15 seconds, but that is enough to obtain royalties from SOCAN. I used Fortress of Freedom to published the song. Then after the show aired, I approached SOCAN (a musical rights collective in Canada) with the cue sheets and the songs and artists to be reimbursed for their work. But first I - a producer - needed to become a member of SOCAN as a musical artist. This almost never happens as there is “one up-man ship” in the indistry between TV and music people and the two never meet. But when I approached them, they were so shocked that they did it while I waited over the phone. It was the end of the day but a few minutes of their time netted me an account in 20 minutes during business hours. So the producer becomes a musician. But here comes the part SOCAN didn’t think about or factor in.

Me and my keyboard: Hi SOCAN!

As producer of a TV show that aired on the number one network nationwide, it was my job to make the cue sheets as to the musical score used. Usually producers don’t care and can’t be bothered with this stuff - but I did. So SOCAN got the request for royalties for my composition, and Don’s environmental song “My Friends and I”, and a few other popular songs. But when they found out I was producer of the TV show, and author of music in that very show, and owner of the record label and publisher of the song - well they jumped up and down and started shitting their pants! They claimed I was writing my own checks through them! Which in the end was completely legal - they just never saw this at SOCAN! Now in the States this happens with veteran producers. One famous “boy band” had the producer listed as part of the band as in a silent band member. You may think that this is sculdugery on the producer’s part, but he would add that having himself as a part of the artist royalty mix means the other artists actually get a fairer shake than if he got nothing at that end. Every position has its argument.

Me and royalties: Hi SOCAN!

But for me - I won in the end and got all my royalties and doubled that as I was owner of the publishing company. I made enough for a steak meal at the Keg restaurant in Toronto and meals always taste better when you truly earned it! Micheal always points to that as how a non-musical guy like me makes more from SOCAN than he ever did. But he may surpass me with his present album. This was not me as a musician, but me as a businessman operating in the music industry. SOCAN respects me now. With our Prime Video play we may make some more off SOCAN as SOCAN made up a separate company for us specifically for USA royalties and now I may get some more money for our artists. I’ll have to check the treaties (yes they are called treaties) and see how we fit in.

DVCAM and Digital Betacam versions of Don’s show!

So yes, I stand by my quip about musicians making the worst businessmen, but since I am a musician I am allowed to say it without pushback - it’s so true.....

Goodnight.....

https://youtu.be/TKR4tBo_Ly8

Maurice Ali · Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2020 8:53 am Post subject:

Today is just catching up on emails along with - a now rare - video update.

That update would be the first since I got back from my trip to the United Nations last February, just before the pandemic hit. Then we all know how everything closed down so there was really nothing to talk about until this last week when everything started up again in the music and advocacy. So I’ll preen myself up and shoot the update and enter it before I forget about it and have to search and dig it up later. Truth be told, I don’t even know if I updated the UN trip into the editor. It has come to that.....

By the way - if anyone was wondering, not one word from Netflix as promised.....

I’m also happy to be out of that TV and movie “rat race” with my stuff now on multiple platforms around the world and finally on YouTube which truly makes it easy and available to anyone in the world. You had to get your head around putting it on YouTube, but Prime Video made it easy when they censored the Free Press documentary due to a complaint and without any notice to me. That was it right there! Sure it was nice to get money regularly direct deposited into two of my corporations - but when that itch was scratched, you look at the idealist side and there Prime fell down the scale as compared to YouTube. YouTube is different - Prime Video pays by minutes of videos watched. YouTube pay by views, subscriptions, likes, comments and content. I won’t make any money on YouTube, as the music is claimed to be a copyright violation (even though it’s my own music, it’s a different corporation and I’m not bothering at this point). Anything controversial can’t be monetized and now a review of gangster movies like Goodfellas is now decreed to not be monetized anymore. No Covid, no profanity or even a nipple showing. The ability to be monetized gets narrower and narrower. Since my stuff is documentaries and we can’t change real life - no money for me. So given this, the views, the subscriptions, and the comments mean nothing monetarily to us. It’s just there for those interested to watch. Since we aren’t interested in money we have multiple platforms to watch instead of funnelling everyone into one platform to make the most cash from the largest audience. So don’t expect to see higher view counts on YouTube - but my ego has now been suitably conditioned to accept this as long as it’s not an embarrassing view count. The journey is over now and the videos are viewable for anyone interested. I can move onto other things.....

Truth be told is that after dragging around video equipment for sixteen years, I just needed a break from all that. The years, yes years, trying to make all those ancient formats usable in a now 4K world. Being held to real ordinary people and their life experiences in a world where others can do anything in fiction on new resolutions that just positively age my stuff. But my stuff is there, the real deal and a real way to live a happier life. It’s all there and I have the material to make my plays at the highest levels and with the empirical evidence to back it all up! You won’t find that in the latest iPhone un-boxing video - even if Apple thinks their new phone will make your life happier - until the new iPhone comes out next year that is.....

Goodnight.....

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHNr8w4PL9Ez3TsCaCwQdTg

Maurice Ali · Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 12:50 pm Post subject:

If you are a journalist org or news agency then this day is hyper busy!

I’m posting by my phone and it will be a quick one. But I spent the morning taking care of IAIJ stuff. Always new members and the latest is from Greece telling us what the Covid-19 life is like over there:

https://iaij.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1043

Then there is all the other stuff I won’t get into. It’s that kind of day and won’t end until tomorrow at the earliest. I did make that video update yesterday on the last bit of virgin tape I had. It is done and we will just have to see how the advocacy proceeds going forward.....

Later.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2020 10:16 am Post subject:

Too much going on!

I’m just soaking in the tub and then off to pick up some music from The Brawlers. The Brawlers and ZX/81 are the next projects to get out there. As for just released music, well I have the song in there with the positive mandate for humanity TV series but I need a music video. Since this is for international and diplomatic consumption I’m playing it safe and - my video at least - will be a sunrise to sunset time laps video that almost matches the song’s time. I’ll render it today and have a link tomorrow for anyone interested. Before I go shopping for radio play I need a proper music video so this will work for the time being. I’m just so paranoid of offending people with video I have at protests I archived that I can’t take the chance. The video is engaging for the song and safe, so it works.

What else?

I finally updated the IAIJ website - and you won’t see any difference - but there have been changes for the better. Finally it is done.....

I was just telling people that our advocacy has more than a chance as I set up my strategy based on self-interest. All my advocacy is for everyone and as such everyone gets something personal out of it. Even Member Nations at the United Nations get much out of my advocacy and will endorse it out of self-interest regardless of their political, cultural or any other metric. They will embrace it with the enthusiasm of someone that gets something of real value for embracing our ideas. You watch.....

Goodnight.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:55 pm Post subject:

I can’t really post today. Went on the roof to check something out and found the squirrels are destroying my roof to get inside. More tomorrow.

We have the new Rise Unite video up and you can see it here:

https://youtu.be/9LYEbWnxzYc

Later.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 1:28 am Post subject:

Well the fifth of November came and went and not much happened.

A lot of stuff could have happened on this prophetic date. For example in the UK I believe many set off fireworks for the failed plot to blow up parliament on the fifth of November. Maybe others in the States rewatched “V for Vendetta” about government taking over control of the citizens through a manufactured pandemic. And others like me just kept getting force fed news from all sources all day long till it got maddening.

But things are quiet now, back to normal. I still have to climb on the roof tomorrow and seal up the attic. My car leaks rad fluid more rapidly now - but still not a sure thing to leak when the dealer looks at it. Aging parents, getting older, running out of time, Covid, etc., yadda, yadda, yadda.

Let this day be over.....

Goodnight.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Fri Nov 06, 2020 9:45 am Post subject:

Finally a sort of good nights sleep!

I should have a better HD version of the “Rise Unite” music video up in a few hours. Then It’s back up on the roof trying to reverse “Super Squirrel damage. It just never ends.

Seriously the critter problems take a toll on you and this one with the squirrels started maybe 2006? It’s just this constant hassle of them trying to get in and me repairing and relocating the hairy buggers. Then the car - all my cars leak. The Roadmaster had an oil leak on the driveway you could see from space. The Mustang 5.0 leaked it was always one thing or another. The 3.7 gave me two and a half years and now leaks. Everything works on that car and has been the most reliable car I ever owned - but it leaks - occasionally.....

It could be worse as in me having health problems but that is my life at this moment. Another big thing is whether I get the iPhone Pro Max - what a name - in shiny white stainless steel to match the watch. Yes my current dilemma.....

But the squirrel! I kid you not - I was greeted to a raised shingle held up by a piece of underlay that got me up there, and then the shock of seeing another shingle kept up by wood slivers wedged at the base and a small hole through the weather stripping. Like he was using twigs like Jane Goodall’s monkeys did! I’m telling you I bred a “Super Squirrel” and I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. I wish I took a picture as you had to see it to believe it! True evidence of Super Squirrel activity.....

Goodnight.....

https://youtu.be/9LYEbWnxzYc

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2020 8:20 am Post subject:

I’m taking a break this weekend.

One thing I want you to know is that no matter what happens to the advocacy, I want anyone coming across our story to see it in its entirety, the idea, the concept and the philosophy. And as expressed in real people’s lives over many years and archived as such forever! Even in the worst case scenario we score it presenting the best way to live our lives and through all media available to us. I don’t care about how commercially viable the material is. Seriously, how relevant is “You spin me Round and Round” nowadays? It isn’t but our lasting legacy can be. Our musical artists get a lasting legacy brought by the experiment and it’s concepts added to the fabric of human culture.

So that’s how I look at it all and address criticisms of how “Im going to get my money back” - nobody gets to keep their money. A armoured truck with cash does not drive into the grave with the owner. Money is a means to an end and making the collection money the soul focus of your life always is a let down. I actually have real life examples of this in my life. Money likes to move around and if you have no use for it others will. When you give your money away for investments - you are literally giving your money away - try to get it back! The banks say they need a month or so to give it back to you. The investment firm says it is not the time to cash in. The reality is you gave it away and now you have to beg to get any of it back - good luck with that. They will give you cute statements about how rich you are, but how rich you are happens when you cash out. Better to just buy the largest house you can. It’s there, you live in it, you know where every cent went! But the rest is a shell game with money - good luck there. You gave someone else your money, good luck getting it back. Do it my way with the house and me doing things. The Corps even have equity - a few million believe it or not but watch me try to cash in on it. And that is the world of finance in one paragraph.....

Goodnight.....

https://youtu.be/gD7pxCuvq7w