Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

We have new music coming out but it takes forever with distribution so I'm not getting ahead of myself.


Never ending bad luck since the weekend. I expected this with the good luck we had last week - I guess I really scored as the bad luck just keeps pouring on. You just ride it out as long as it isn't medical and especially if it's chronic. That UTI I had years ago was really tough with the antibiotics basically useless now. Normal harassing bad luck is what you want. Think about it, all the harassing problems you had at work, in the end it meant nothing. People who worked decades and retired - all the problems at work meant nothing in the end. Billions of people in the world all worried about problems and it means nothing in the end. Want proof? Every human who ever lived and died, how much of their problems matter to the rest of us now? None of it matters in the end - just something to keep in mind.....




The Fates



However, I am getting older and the older you get the more likely the bad luck will be medical. So make the big moves now and just "batten down the hatches" and just hope for the best and cruise the rest on the way into senility. I have to stay healthy and live a long life as I have responsibilities to others. But also, I have to play the advocacy game out to its conclusion. Everyone including the mythical Fates want to see this play out along philosophic and intellectual lines, and me dying quickly of cancer for example - lets everyone down. So let this keep going forward to its intellectual end. But yes - in the meantime it's nothing but bad luck for me.....




Goodnight.....





https://youtu.be/9D-QD_HIfjA?si=XFP8C7Nx1bvqbfT6

[Maurice Ali]

Well, there are always glitches when putting out new music.



I always tell the musicians when they send the files to us not to get ahead of things and post to media that the music is released or about to be. There is always a glitch that delays things and even if you get lucky there still is a wait to get it into the stores and streaming services.







This one is minor but another delay. I also had random people listening to the music and reporting back to the band. Years ago the label was busy with activity like this, new musicians miss the labels and having a home with other musicians and support while you make music - pretty much gone now except for legacy labels like us that still continue to exist. Anyway, just like flipping a switch it's all about the music.....


Oh yes, Apple finally started making the keyboard better with the latest OS update - why did this take so long.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

Music, music, music.....







Lucifari's latest single "The Heaviest Grace" is being reviewed prior to distribution. Once upon a time it just got sent off but now they check it for AI. This is a single and not an EP or Album, for those you see a longer lead up and teasers. Then you see the "so and so" finishes production, but not for singles. You just spring those on people.....




Shane Murphy



Still with the music is Shane looking into starting an FOF Records music related podcast. When he pitched it to me he did his research and it actually made a lot of sense, so now we just see how it goes. The plan was to do a podcast with Lucifari on their latest single and about the band and maybe even some history going back further. However, action speaks louder than words and we shall see how this pans out.



I did more work on the Humanity Assembly Constitution. It's a bit long winded but the present draft explains why the constitution is the way it is. It is a new Global Social Contract and this goes hand in hand with the name Humanity Assembly!



I have given up talking to people about the constitution as there is zero interest and parsing a word because of its possible misuse later and all that. I love this stuff - the others - not so much.....



In any case I present to you Minerva Bernardino:




Minerva Bernardino signing the Charter of the United Nations in 1945.


The numbers are up to question but she was one of the few women who signed the original Charter of the United Nations back in 1945. She came to my attention when I did that Worldwide Vote side event back in the day and one of the audience told us about her as he actually knew her well. Anyway she is known for the Status of Woman advocacy but it was her that pushed to have "women" included in the Charter of the United Nations in a passage that we use to validate our worldwide voting participation. It is these forward thinking parts of the nomenclature that matter in these documents - and it mattered in the Charter of the United Nations - just saying.....



By the way, me preaching the virtues of a Worldwide Vote while inside the UN Secretariat Building is something that can't happen anymore without the help of member nations. I also did it with the Positive Mandate before the door was closed to those activities. But to push for worldwide voting inside UN Headquarters and live stream it out to the world (in a conference room NGOs were not supposed to get) is an accomplishment that in time I am proud of!




Goodnight.....





https://youtu.be/QyONpXCLd2I?si=CbiuIDbc5NP0aOPI

[Maurice Ali]

We are still waiting for the review in the new music. This could take a while and the reason we want nobody to be enthusiastically talking about the release of the song. You just have to wait.....







In other news:



I was originally looking for a better way to prop up the existence of the Humanity Assembly but connecting it to FOF Advocacy Inc. seems the only way.


The UN arrangement would be cool but the United Nations is an intergovernmental organization that needs at least two countries to sign on to create it. Since we want the Humanity Assembly to be apart from countries, this type of entity does not work for its creation. All UN satellite agencies seem to be intergovernmental organizations also.


We could have incorporated FOF Advocacy Inc. as truly international by doing it in the State of Delaware. However, that means you are under the laws of America which for commerce is very favorable but for idealistic not for profits is less so. So we incorporated FOF Advocacy Inc. in Canada and got the EIN number in the States to prove it is international.


FOF Advocacy Inc. as a not for profit seems to be the only essential companion for Humanity Assembly. IAIJ and FOFSTOCK are its own entities now. FOF Advocacy Inc. is basically everything I created idealistically that also forms the foundation for the Humanity Assembly.







So that's how we ended up with this arrangement. Religions are also incorporated as not for profits or charities, so there are very few options on how to create these entities. So for now this works and is the best option, and that is how you get FOF Advocacy Inc. with the same constitution as Humanity Assembly. All the technical stuff like directors and term limits and taxes and reporting and all of that is listed in the by-laws and not the constitution of FOF Advocacy Inc. technically. That is how we will run it for now. There is usually no issue with the founders of a movement in this situation as the founders are the same at both entities. So this works for now.




Goodnight.....





https://youtu.be/Y-m9sztaWo0?si=dVAOKOOjBXvVm-fJ

[Maurice Ali]

The bad luck has ended.....


I'm still in one piece and still 100%.


But now I have a fully functioning Humanity Assembly to play with and develop - and - that is huge!



The reality is that doing what I am trying to do takes time and humans with a short lifespan run out of time fast. When I tell you I talk to successful businessmen and they all agree just how tight the timing is to make this work. But I'm still making the play and The Fates have left me alone. Every one wants to see this play out properly without side issues or an asterisk.



Why do I always reference The Fates?




The Fates



Well that topless Fate represents your birth into life spinning the thread that is your life, The Fate with the plants is the one that measures your life, and The Fate with the shears is there to cut the tread and end your life. She is the one I fear most as I want to play this to its proper end and only she can end it before. A bit of mythology there - but whatever. I really played the luck game - not quite there but close to playing for keeps - to get the Humanity Assembly into reality.



But it is done and I'm no worse for wear! I'll just take the weekend off and shop around and clean the house. The Humanity Assembly still needs work - but it is here in the flesh. We just scale things up from here and that is another mountain to climb.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

Saturday was supposed to be my back to normal relax day.


I went to the used DVD/CD store and got a DVD to watch. Then on a whim I figured I would go to Sunrise Records for a change. Change is right - I couldn't find the place! Where it was a Lens Crafter optics place and the guy there said it had been there for years. He must have been a new guy who didn't know his head from his ass, I checked the web and yes the Sunrise Records store was closed a few weeks ago.


Steve's Music last week and now this! The chain was still viable so there was probably no liquidation sale, just pack up and get out I suppose. I started to get a bit nervous about all this. When physical media is gone, owning music and movies goes with it.


I decided to finally get my backup 4K Bluray player once and for all. The Bestbuy I was right beside had none. This Vision 2000 store five minutes away was selling open box versions for a hundred dollars off - go there and sold out. I decided to go "on safari" out of town as a Bestbuy had two left. I get there and none to be seen. Two of the girls there started looking and one came back with a big smile on her face as she found one. So that is done. I have a plan when things really go to shit and that is ripping the movies but we are not there yet. However, streaming services would rather pull niche titles off the site as the paper work of paying everyone a few cents regularly is too much hassle, so the film disappears. And that is what is happening now.



The new music is still in review. Seems nobody cares about real music anymore.



I will centre the voting options online at the Humanity Assembly and a gradient background would be nice instead of a black background.



Shane is dragging his heals on the podcast idea so I started a podcast on Spotify to show him how easy it is. My intro episode is there if curious under "FOF Records Inc." but the final location is in flux as many hate Spotify now. So this podcast may be DOA already but it worthy of mention at the label. We will just see where it all goes.....



Life sucks but it's back to normal suckiness.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

A couple of things.....



First is that I got bored on Sunday and made another podcast, but this time about physical media and the future of music and record labels. Toward the end I made my case for a future where smaller indie record labels are looked at as not-for-profits or charities helping artists survive by donations, membership fees and such keeping the label alive as a home base for musicians as well as advocating on their behalf. At the moment FOF Records is a for profit corporation but all the ingredients are there for this switch if needed to keep it alive. It's just an idea but fleshed out a bit in that second podcast.



I hate listening to myself on those podcasts. I hem and haw all the time, something my gang always makes fun of. Anyway, the podcast is Shane's future gig and not mine. But if you wondered what I really sound like - then check it out at: Spotify / Podcasts / FOF Records Inc.



Again Shane is leaning toward YouTube, so we shall see how it goes.....



I also did some work in the worldwide voting inside the Humanity Assembly website. The voting page is a more attractive page with a gradient, but the confirmation page still retains the yellow page. I like how you are "shocked into seeing your vote recorded" but maybe the confirmation on the same centered gradient page works better - we shall see.....



The voting now happens on the two apps, the worldwidevote.org site and the humanityassembly.org site. If it grows, multiple site aggregation is probably the way to go early on.



So that was the recovery weekend.....




Goodnight.....





https://youtu.be/ftlVoKxD0AE?si=4ysu9ijPT3QMpBpU

[Maurice Ali]

The Heaviest Grave is the new single by Lucifari and will probably be released on Wednesday. This single is notable for two things that kind of intermingle with each other. First is the Featured Artist "Davidsaine" which most people think is a mistake as they feel it should be "David Saine" - that was deliberate. The second is the parentheses around the featured artist. We have the usual two around the featured artist but a second at the end. This technically should not happen as the featured artist is inputted by name alone and featured is a drop down menu list you click on. Maybe I screwed up or maybe Tunecore, but regardless, we have something I never have seen before.







The two )) is LOL apparently and Davidsaine is Michael's two middle names squished together, being a featured artist of his own band! Some might say I did this deliberately as an inside joke, but you would be giving me too much credit! It's a mistake that passed by all the checks before being sent to stores. We could just be seeing AI taking over moderation because when it was done buy the brown folk in India the emails would always come in the middle of the night. Our notifications came during the day - so.....



But that was just Part 1, Part 2 came when I tried to register the song with SOCAN:








Apparently the old way of doing things is gone at SOCAN and now you have to make a new login and everything is changed. This is probably to take care of a possible data breach and then SOCAN now accepts partial AI songs. This will take some time to figure out as 300 songs disappeared in the two companies SOCAN set up for us - one for BMI (Fortress of Freedom II) and the ASCAP company (Fortress of Freedom).



Anyway, no rush there. And that was Monday!




Oh, we may be going to the moon as Artemus is now on countdown. Starship is ready for another launch and that craft can take up to 100 people!





https://youtu.be/Bbv5B71KmkA?si=0aXKIJS_v_zBMfoZ

[Maurice Ali]

In the end we released the song as is:

[Maurice Ali]

RIP Andy Krehm.....





Andy Krehm



Andy Krehm was a musician, artist, performer and in the end one of the best Mastering artists in the world. To his contemporaries his skills in mastering here in Toronto matched the best in New York back in the day.



He was known to us as the man who could make beautiful music from the most craptastic files thrown at him. That is what I consider to be the mark of a true master at Mastering. We - I - actually visited his offices and did some interviews at his production studios and he gave me a lecture on mastering.




AAVRY KNAPP



https://youtu.be/aP-IxRWlzFM?si=Yl_u4JBj-PuOQiFr



This guy - man - I gave him Donald Brasseur's cassette tapes to turn into CD quality files. Same with the early AAVRY KNAPP songs. He made corrections on Shane's messed up singes and with only the completed songs! The real kicker was Corey Johnson giving me three songs on Windows Media Audio (about the most compressed and crappiest files you could have) - and he just worked his magic and saved it!




Corey Johnson


Corey Johnson - Speechless (not 16bit wave, but you get the idea): https://fofentertainment.com/Speechless_CD.mp4



So today's post is for Andy. I should post that interview by itself so that fans will have something to point to and remember him.



I'll link some Acid Jazz below in his honor and maybe one of Corey Johnson's songs if I can find them on our server. Fun fact, other mastering agents wound secretly send their botched files for Andy to save and he never got credited.



RIP Andy Krehm.....




Goodnight.....



https://youtu.be/OPkjnRIdQXQ?si=n7WlhNgjx1nqqK5p

[Maurice Ali]

The plan was to do something close to nothing for a change.....



Of course that only works for a few hours. Anyway the last few months were brutal in effort. In the last two months we created FOF Advocacy Inc. and started giving away corporations to the not for profits. The archiving corporation for journalists is owned by the IAIJ association. FOFSTOCK now owns FOF Records Inc. , and FOF Advocacy Inc. now owns FORTRESS of Freedom Inc. and FOF Entertainment Inc. and all I now own is the sole proprietorships and the More Vision Inc. advertising corporation. Setting all that up and then setting up the Human Assembly entity was just plain brutal in effort. I got lucky and then had to deal with the corresponding bad luck to balance that equation. But it's all back in balance and life is back to normal.








I'm still moving the record label in the not for profit or even a charity realm - maybe - as a test mule for future record labels. Indie record labels can't survive as a profit business anymore. No product as in CDs or Records for sale anymore and I seem to be the only person paying for downloads these days, and no streaming revenue. Then there is the impact of AI. So you may as well make it into a not for profit and maybe a charity and fund things like music production and festivals that way! We shall see but I'm not letting the music industry disappear entirely because of big tech. Musicians need gathering points like a large advocacy group as FOFSTOCK or smaller labels that handle smaller groups of artists like they always did. The difference is how they get money. A charity, a musical charity running the label on vapors could survive and even put on festivals as a legitimate charity. For FOFSTOCK 2 I was going to ask for donations which I could do as FOFSTOCK is a not for profit, but why not also the record label and actually get donations with a tax receipt for the large ones! That makes the tax deductible donations a more attractive proposition over just a donation. So, unlike a profit based company the large donations would now be tax deductions - it could work!




Don "Boots" Brasseur - and me!


Call me crazy but a record label as a charity could be the future!




Dave Getchell



Aside from all that I'm just chilling and working around the house.



The Humanity Assembly and a new form of Record Label is enough work for me now.....




Goodnight.....





(NSFW)
https://youtu.be/bZrF4-a5azc?si=e5mJapb6elAvUuw2

[Maurice Ali]

The "knee jerk reaction" is that you cannot make a record label a charity, but it is possible. Here is a quote from the Canadian Government:



"Arts activities and charitable registration
Important notice
On June 23, 2022, Budget Implementation Act, 2022, No. 1, received Royal Assent. This change in legislation includes new rules that allow charities to make grants to non-qualified donees. As a result, some of the information on this page could change.
On December 19, 2023, following a public feedback period, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) posted the guidance document CG-032, Registered charities making grants to non-qualified donees. This document explains how the CRA will administer the recent changes to the Income Tax Act.
The CRA is in the process of reviewing and updating all related guidance products and web pages to ensure they are consistent with the new rules.
Guidance
Reference number
CG-018

Issued
December 14, 2012

This guidance replaces Summary policy CSP-A08, Arts, and Summary policy CSP-A24, Artists.

Summary
Organizations that carry out arts activities may be eligible for charitable registration under the Income Tax Act if all their activities further charitable purposes.

Teaching or training artists, art students, or the public through sufficiently structured activities may further a charitable purpose under the second category of charitable purposes – the advancement of education.

Exhibiting, presenting, or performing artistic works are activities that may further a charitable purpose under the fourth category of charitable purposes – advancing the public’s appreciation of the arts.

Activities that enhance an art form and style within the arts industry for the benefit of the public may further a charitable purpose under the fourth category of charitable purposes – promoting the commerce or industry of the arts.

Activities that further the fourth category charitable purpose of advancing the public’s appreciation of the arts must satisfy two criteria: art form and style and artistic merit.

Art form and style: Art form means the field or medium in which an artist works, while style means the different disciplines or methods of expression within an art form. To meet the art form and style criterion, an organization must show a common or widespread acceptance of the form and style of art within the Canadian arts community.

Artistic merit: Artistic merit means the quality of an artistic exhibition, presentation, or performance. Once an organization has established common or widespread acceptance of an art form and style, it must be able to show that the quality of its exhibitions, presentations, or performances is sufficiently high to be considered charitable under common law.

Activities that further the fourth category charitable purpose of promoting the commerce or industry of the arts must satisfy the art form and style criterion and may need to satisfy the artistic merit criterion depending on the particular facts.

To be charitable, arts activities must be undertaken in a way that ensures that any resulting private benefit is incidental, meaning that it is necessary, reasonable, and not disproportionate to the public benefit that is delivered. If a private benefit is more than incidental, an organization can face sanctions or have its charitable registration revoked.

Appendix A provides a summary of the key characteristics of the main charitable purposes that can be furthered through the arts.

Appendix B gives examples of purposes that can be furthered through the arts.

Appendix C contains a list of art forms and styles that are commonly recognized in relation to fourth category purposes. These art forms and styles will usually be accepted as satisfying the art form and style criterion without more information. The artistic merit criterion may have to be satisfied, depending on the particular facts."



As of right now Fortress of Freedom is the publisher and the initial distributor but was never changed officially as the distributor. So FOF Records Inc. could be changed to a charity and 100% to a not for profit. But the real change for viability would be as a charity. Yes - it can happen.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

FOF Advocacy Inc. now owns FOF Records Inc.:

[Maurice Ali]

Saturday was mostly music.


Looks like Lucifari is coming out with more songs. Back in the day it would be an album or EP, but these days it's singles one after another to keep the algorithm happy.



I have finally got all my accounts from SOCAN up, but one miserable glitch is keeping me from publishing. So now I have to wait until Monday to find out the solution.



So Sunrise Music closed down at the mall I used to go to. I figured I would go to the next closest one just under half an hour away in the Prenade Mall. This Sunrise Music store is huge with this dark vibe about it. Lots of kids hanging out here. Anyway, when I went there they had tons of stuff and in categories. I'll come back another day and pick through things.



FOF Records Inc. will not become a charity although the idea is sexy and would get into the news about the plight of musicians - basically I chickened out - but for some good reasons. FOFSTOCK has the go ahead to become a charity and make the music festival a realistic goal again!



Humanity Assembly has social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook and X. Check them out if interested. Anyway, that got done.




That 4K Dolby Atmos player I bought last week got a test run and passed. I'll pack it back up for when the current player bites the dust.



I have to take care of my appearance as I just let myself go when I'm deep in the weeds with all this stuff. It isn't anything horrific as I'm not that "decayed" yet, but I now have time to preen myself up a bit. Just a bit - but I can look way better than I am these days.....




Goodnight.....

[Maurice Ali]

The long weekend was productive even if some of it was frustrating.



The Humanity Assembly website is basically done. It has its own fleshed out landing page and all of that. We only need a contact page and that's it for now.



The music stuff is being sorted out including that possible charity.







Oh yes - the IRS now has FOF Advocacy Inc. on its radar.....




Goodnight.....