I end up resolving to do some things every year. Some of them get done, some of them don’t. Some of them are very realistic, and then there was the time I resolved to set a homeless person on fire. I didn’t actually do it, wouldn’t dream of hurting some poor bastard like that, but it was good for comedic effect. Well…I laughed, anyway.

For those who like to keep score, here are last year’s resolutions:

• Every year, I resolve to get a hanging plant of some sort. I’ve yet to do it. This is gonna be the year. Please feel free to suggest good plants that I won’t get busted for owning.

  Done, regardless of whether it happened as I planned for it to or not. For those who are wondering, Inignot the philodendron is doing fine.

• I resolve to make being Scott Crawford a profitable enterprise, on my own terms. This means, among other things, that you fuckers are going to have to buy a lot of My Big, Black Cock t-shirts when they’re done. I’d have them available now, but I hate Cafe Press’s prices and policies…actually, does anyone know if they’ll make shirts that say “Cafe Press Sucks Dick”? If so, I’d consider printing those.

  Not even fucking close, but this is where you come in:

  Give Me Money

• I resolve to finish at least one album this year. The original deadline for the first one was to be done by March 1st, but I’m thinking 2 months, one of them very short, might be cutting it close, so I’ll say “April 1st” and hope to finish early. For those wondering, preproduction’s coming along swimmingly, but the record’s probably not going to sound at all like you’d expect it to. It might actually be GOOD. ;) Stay tuned.

  Nope. Still working on it, got sidetracked by some things, and some people. I was working on recording some vocals this week, though, so it’s not completely stalled or anything. Stay tuned.

• I resolve to continue to learn when to let go of the reins, and when to listen. Believe it or not, even a strong, proud, angry black man like myself needs to do it sometimes.

  A work in progress. This one was pretty open-ended, though.

• I resolve to begin figuring out a logical order to things.

  If we’re working from “begin” here, yes, I did this one.

• And finally, at least until I think of more, I resolve to either beat my sleep problems, or beat the world into submission as far as dealing with them goes.

  No such luck. Can’t win ‘em all.

To offset the somewhat hit-and-miss track record, here are some things, aside from the resolutions, that I did accomplish this year:

• With the help of qDot and some others, version 3.0 of My Big, Black Cock was finally completed, and is fully set up for syndication.
• I interviewed Andrew W.K., Slayer, Cathedral, Gene Hoglan of Strapping Young Lad (kinda), Gods Of Fire, and perhaps most importantly, RICHARD FUCKING HACKLEY. (Sorry, Richard. It had to be said. :D) Thanks to everyone who participated and helped make these things happen.
• I became the 4,901,438,012th person to become an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.
• I went to a lot of fucking concerts. No, really. A lot. I think this year may be some sort of record. I will most likely be writing some sort of year-end roundup after the first of the year.
• I went to Boston a lot. Not a bad town despite several members of their baseball team who shall remain nameless, but a bit cold at times.
• I had someone move in with me. It didn’t work out so well, but at least we tried.
• I planned and endured what I’d consider to be a successful move, right after the person moved in with me. It wasn’t easy on anyone involved, but the planning of this move was such that months afterward, I’d still consider it successful on a personal level.
• There are now 1.2 million people and counting in my Friendster network. That’s impressive enough, but what really impresses me is that despite my faults and shortcomings, I made some new friends this year, got back in touch with some old ones, and strengthened bonds with some existing ones. Of course, there were certainly some who I fell out with…there always are…but perhaps in the future, when we’re all wiser people, we can look back on those experiences and laugh about them.
• I became the owner of a painting that was made by a Paint Monster. Some other not-quite-so-sentimental but noteworthy material possessions acquired: an original Evel Knievel toy complete with motorcycle, helmet, and base, and (finally!) “The Last American Virgin” on DVD.
• I figured out how to network 3 computers together, all running different operating systems. In addition, one of those computers was a computer I managed to resurrect (after seemingly blowing it up a year and a half ago) with some help from this guy. It’s now correctly doing what I thought I blew it up trying to do (running OS X…it’s a machine that’s at the bare minimum of what you should be running it on…).
• I won my fucking fantasy baseball league. Cower before me, lemmings!
• I made it back to Toronto. I’m typing the final draft of this in Toronto, in fact. Fuck, I love this town.
• I got laid at least once. 15 calendar years in a row and counting, spread out across 3 decades, 2 centuries, and 2 millennia! While I don’t want to make it look like I hold the act of sharing myself with another in the same regard as winning a fantasy baseball league (to be fair, the fantasy baseball league thing was FAR more satisfying…I KEED, I KEED!), I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t take some pride in this, even when the underlying circumstances have not always been the best ones (I can’t think of any I’d call “do-over” on, though I do often wish the fallout of some of these experiences had been a little different at times…).

  To be lucky enough to have someone around who wants to have sex with you, even if you do it A LOT, should always be regarded as one of life’s great victories, and I consider myself blessed for having the opportunity to do it as many times as I have in my life. If we’ve had sex in the past, if we are having sex presently (though I’d hope you were paying attention and not reading this while…oh, forget it…), or if you’re thinking of having sex with me at any point in the future, even if we’re no longer friendly with each other, and even if I’ve said it before…thank you. “To all the girls I’ve loved before…”

I probably did some other things this year, but we’ll quit stalling here, and get to:

2004’s Resolutions:

New ones:

• I resolve to tell my friends that I love them more often. Hopefully not to the point where it irritates anyone, but I think we could all stand to let our friends know that we love them more often. I started a few days early on this one; a few of you may know what I’m talking about. To those who are my friends and don’t know what I’m talking about, the specifics aren’t important. Oh, by the way…(spoken in Evil Alternate Universe Eric Cartman voice) “I love you guys.”
• Since going for a cure/beating the world into submission on my sleep problems didn’t work out so hot this year, and I don’t feel like putting everything else on hold while I continue to work on them, I’m going to try (again?) to structure my life around my sleep issues, and see if that works out better for me.
• I haven’t been to a ballgame in a while; I’m going to have to see about making it to Yankee Stadium (and possibly some other parks, maybe the Phillies’ new one, maybe some others) in ‘04.
• I’d like to see about learning how to do one thing well that people are always willing to pay me to do. Or, if I already know how to do it and I’m overlooking it, I’d like to see about learning how to pimp such a skill.

  Those’ll do for starters, though I reserve the right to add others later. Nothing really high-impact, but along with some of the other works-in-progress, I think it’ll all improve my life in some way or another, even the ballgames.

  I feel like I’ve said it a million times this week already in various places, but Happy Friggin’ New Year from all of us at My Big, Black Cock.

meaninglesssexwanted.com

You suck.

Love,
Scott

YULE FUCKIN’ LOG!!!!!!!!!

Hey, I laughed.

Please resume the Scott Crawford Spending Orgy!

TIA K THX LOL!!!!1

DO NOT purchase anything from the Wish List until further notice, as I am experiencing difficulties with Amazon. I’d make the link inactive, but I haven’t got the time to fix it on a sitewide basis right now.

“‘Ankh’ is Egyptian for ‘gay’, isn’t it?”
-Mike P.

As those who are intimately familiar with this site may know, December 20th is the anniversary of its inception in one form or another. On December 20th, 1996, I first opened my shitty little Earthlink site (which a few of you still think I should emulate, content-wise), which morphed over time into My Big, Black Cock, to the world. This was about 6 months after I became a full-time resident of the Internet (later than some, but earlier than many…). Over this time, I’ve experienced a multitude of highs and lows of all shapes and sizes. It’s difficult to accurately describe the effect that being here has had on nearly a quarter of my life so far, so I’m not going to do it the injustice of attempting to in this space. In bits and pieces, it’s all been said before anyway. Quite recently, I’ve had something of a different feeling about it all, though, a feeling that’s part of a much larger set of urges I’ve been dealing with. I’ve been wrestling with the urge to pull away from it all, to withdraw. This urge has permeated my dealings with the world both on and off the Internet lately, and I’m really not sure what to make of it.

I sat down to write this piece not knowing what I intended to write, but I do have a fairly good idea of what I don’t want to write, or what I don’t want this piece to be interpreted as, so let me cover that before I explore the above subjects some more. I am not writing this piece as some sad, ridiculous telethon-like ploy to “stay on the air”. I am not writing it for anyone’s sympathy. As much as I could certainly use them right now, this is not a solicitation for offers of help of any kind.

I write things like this primarily as a way for me to gain some deeper understanding of myself, for good or ill, and even though much of what I write here has relevance only to myself, I believe in letting the general public have access to it so that anyone who is inclined to learn about me, get to know me, or understand me has the means to do so. Ages ago, I wrote that “I want you to come away from reading these pages feeling that you know me uncomfortably well”, and that still stands. I feel that anyone who is inclined to know about my life should have the opportunity to, be it family, friends, acquaintances, business contacts, total strangers, or government spooks. As The The’s Matt Johnson said a few years ago, “Truth hides in plain sight.”

Back to issue at hand. I’ve been feeling a very serious urge to become withdrawn and reclusive of late, both online and off. If you think I already was reclusive, trust me, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. It’s a struggle for me to leave the house these days, and I’ve been doing so with less and less frequency. Part of it certainly has to do with my dire financial straits at the moment; the stress of counting every penny spent while I’m out wears on me greatly. (For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I am really, really fucked right now financially. It’s never been this bad. At times, it feels like my wallet and my depression are having a prickwaving contest right now over which is the bigger sucking void in my life. I don’t expect any of you to do anything about it, as we all have our set of problems to deal with, but in terms of offering insight, that information will probably help.) It also probably has to do with the fact that when I do leave, it’s never for anything calm. It’s always a fucking three-ring circus of some sort. A concert. A party. A club. A large group of friends congregating somewhere. One of my semi-regular singing appearances. You know the drill.

It’s not because I’ve got everything I need in this house. Quite the contrary, as I’m really quite lonely, unfulfilled, and as selfish as it sounds to my ears, knowing the wealth of entertainment opportunities at my fingertips, I’m bored here. If you’ve ever thought “Wow, I wish I could just stay home, not have to work, and do nothing but listen to music, watch movies, play video games, read, sit on the computer, etc. etc.”, you’d better be careful what you wish for. Speaking as someone who’s had the opportunity to do so for the overwhelming majority of the past 16 years, spoiled bastard that I am, I can say that it’s a truly unrewarding experience in any continuous dose.

Perhaps I feel this way because I’ve spent so much of that time alone. I’m of the mind that one of the greatest rewards in enriching one’s life with any sort of art or entertainment is the ability to share that experience with others, either as it’s happening or after the fact. Time was, even when I didn’t leave my house much, this was a lot easier for me to do. I would have parties and visitors with alarming frequency, and when people were over, we shared the experience of listening to music, watching movies, playing games, discussing the books I had around, even playing with the thousands of action figures scattered throughout my home. I feel terribly disconnected from this process nowadays, and it’s left a huge void in my life. I think that, despite my leanings toward the hermit lifestyle, I really do need to remedy this soon. Perhaps, beneath the surface, my reason for wanting to withdraw from being social is because when I do see people, it’s in their world or someone else’s. When I’m out there, I’m typically overwhelmed by the stimulus involved in being there, so there’s little if any chance to share my world with them.

I am surrounded with fun things, more than any person could ever enjoy in 10 lifetimes never mind one, and I rarely if ever get to share them with anyone. This makes it all feel even more wasteful than it would if I did have visitors, especially in light of what I’m about to say next.
Even when I’m by myself and not busy with the few things I consider to be responsibilities of mine, I never get around to enjoying any of these wonderful things to the extent that I’d like to, because I spend so much time preoccupied with the Internet. As it has been stated here ad nauseum, I spend an ungodly amount of my time online, doing what effectively amounts to nothing, and have for the past seven and a half years. (See, there is at least some continuity to my thought process!)

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel on that front though, because in addition to my urges to pull away from the real world, I have been feeling the same urge to disconnect from this world, too. I’ve been simultaneously overstimulated, overexposed, and underwhelmed for a long time. As much as I talk about how great Andrew W.K. is until I’m blue in the face, in so many ways right now, I’m the antithesis of what he’s about. I’m so totally jaded about so many things, and of course, the ‘net is simultaneously one of the things I’m jaded about and one of the reasons I’m so jaded about everything else. To leave entirely would be self-defeating, and I’d be lying to myself and everyone else if I threatened to do so, but something has got to give here. I’m fucking burnt out.

Simplification of my life, both online and off, is greatly needed, and it’s probably easiest to start here. I have already started this by putting the weekly My Big, Black Cock Interviews on hiatus for the time being. There’s still a Machine Gun Fellatio interview pending, and I won’t rule out the possibility of others showing up (I may have more Flashback Interviews, and if the right opportunity comes along, I’d do others), but in retrospect, no matter how good the result was while I was doing it, I’d like to know what fucking drugs I was on to even attempt it without a staff and without being paid to do so. I think I wanted to see if I could improve at all on the crap interviews I used to do for Propaganda (I saw a slight improvement over what I used to do; even if you read Propaganda when I wrote for them, you probably wouldn’t know, because what I wrote and what got published were sometimes mutually exclusive, and not always for the better…), and I wanted a “loss leader” on the site that would bring people who didn’t give a fuck about Scott Crawford and his navel-gazing.

While, yes, we got some great results from the interview schedule, and I’d like to thank all of the artists who cooperated, I also drove myself nuts for 2 months trying to set up a plethora of interviews with artists and record labels who were completely and totally uncooperative. I even went through hell for some of the ones that did see print. It’s very difficult for me to justify chasing these folks down and begging them to let me advertise their product for free, especially knowing what a hard time they’re all having getting people to buy or even care about their product. “My Big, Black Cock” or not, it’s completely and utterly ludicrous of people at record labels to stonewall anyone who’s able to provide significant credentials. I realize that many of the publicists involved are overworked, and I realize that in this day and age, everyone with a fucking blog is a “journalist”, but with me, we’re talking about someone who has 12 years’ experience total and 7 online in some capacity or another, a bonafide readership, and after the first few interviews got cleared, I was also someone who a band as important as Slayer (inarguably one of the most important rock bands of all time) saw fit to talk to. If I was even getting “no”s from these people, I wouldn’t be a paragraph into a rant-within-a-rant about this, but they didn’t even have the courtesy to say “fuck off”. I’m really glad that you all enjoy my interviews (as well as the ones contributed by folks like Mark, Jamie, and justj0hn), but what would you do in my shoes? (And before you say “Get a job!”, realize that in addition to sleep schedules, I also don’t play well with editors or deadlines, especially not those editors who switch deadlines on me repeatedly and renege on paying me even the pittance that they offer freelancers nowadays.)

Aside from the interviews, I am re-evaluating how I spend the rest of my time online, both on this site and elsewhere in the near future. I’m spread really thin, with my interests far and wide online, and it’s pretty pointless. I get all of these brilliant ideas and go on these little kicks with certain areas of the ‘net that usually last about 2-3 months, and they need to be consolidated, integrated into something usable, or abandoned. I’ve already cut the time I spend on all of those cute little “social networking” sites significantly, for starters. I’m there, I’ve found most of the people I wanted to find, made it so that people can find me easily, but I don’t need to devote the time I was devoting to them by a long shot. I’ve also got a number of LiveJournal communities that I may be willing to transfer ownership of, and some that I’m locking or outright deleting (only REALLY inactive ones will be deleted). I may also be less accessable via the various chat networks and messaging services I reside on, but that remains to be seen.

As far as online things I hope to actually be spending more time on in the near future, there are two. First, I need to decide where my music will be going online in the wake of the mp3.com library getting destroyed by CNet. Soundclick seems to be where everyone’s going presently, but I want to see what CNet offers, even in light of the way they shamefully butchered a huge music library. Unfortunately, with music, it is about getting heard, so you need to be where that’s possible. Second, I’m going to work a bit on retooling the navigability of My Big, Black Cock, as my ideas for how it should be done in theory are not as comfy in practice. I always say I’m going to work on these things, though, so we’ll see how it goes this time. I move at two speeds, typically; slow, and “Fuck off, I’m playing Bust-A-Move!” (As an aside, the similarity between the Super Nintendo Bust-A-Move music and the theme from “Girls Gone Wild” is maddening. They’re these near-identical tacky ripoffs of “Under The Sea” from “The Little Mermaid”, and it feels dirty even to think about them.)

I spent a few days away from finishing this piece to gain some perspective, and for better or worse, I think I succeeded. While I do realize that I still have a ton to work on, and realize that some things aren’t all that good for me right now, I’m also aware that I’m damned lucky to have what I do in life. My problems aren’t exactly trivial by any means, but a lot of folks have it much rougher than I do. More immediate, life-and-death kind of stuff. It’s all rather scary, and I feel for all of the people who are being confronted and have been confronted with these types of things of late.

At my worst, I’m a grown person dealing with the aftermath of a spoiled childhood that, as I careen headlong toward the age of 30, still hasn’t really ended, during which my parents, however well-meaning they were and still are, left me completely unprepared to live. I’m not sure if that’s the alpha and omega of my problems (there could be plenty more wrong, or there could not be…), or if anything could’ve been done differently back then that would’ve altered where I am now. Either way, it’s my problem to deal with now. I’m the one who has to weed through the stubbornness and the sleeplessness and the depression and the anger and the financial hardship and the lack of an attention span and the chaos of it all, and find a good way to be. Will I get there? Fucked if I know. (”Fucdifino” is a fine Italian last name if I’ve ever heard one.) If I had an answer for you right now, there’d be no reason for you to keep reading, anyway. As is, I am amazed that some of you have actually come this far with me.

To sum up (if it’s at all possible): after the holidays are over, I may be much quieter in some of the places where you expect me to be loud, both here and elsewhere. I’ve already been leaving my house far less than most of you are accustomed to, and I may be out of my house even less than I have been until I’ve sorted some things out, most notably my finances. Beyond getting my shit together there, I feel a really strong need to get back in touch with some of the things I love to do that don’t involve being on the Internet for all of my waking hours. Too much has fallen into disrepair in my house, and it’s about time that I try to fix that. None of us are getting any younger, and none of us really knows how much time we have to accomplish and experience the things we’d like to, in the ways that we’d like to. I’ve experienced so much already, but so much of it feels stolen and not earned. If I can’t, I can’t, but I’d like to be able to live a full life at some point without feeling like I always have to dig the juicy bits out of the trash can when no one’s looking. In addition, I have opportunities to create, learn, and enjoy things I’d never dreamed possible, things that I’d really like to learn how to share with you all again. Those of you who care enough to find me and join me certainly can, and I welcome the company if you choose to do so.

Of course, it is also entirely possible that despite this retreat into myself that seems to be indicative of a yearning for a deeper existence, I’ll be doing something really fucking stupid that renders this entire thing moot by the time you read this, making this yet another in an endless series of these fucking delusions of grandeur I seem to have when I haven’t gotten laid in a week or so. ;)

I AM POSTING THIS EVERYWHERE BECAUSE I WANT ALL OF MY FRIENDS TO BE ADDED TO A WATCHLIST OF PINKOS AND/OR GET SPAMMED FROM HERE TO FUCK AND BACK.

David Lee Roth
Starland Ballroom
Sayreville, NJ
December 7th, 2003

For some reason, it took me forever to get out of bed to get to this show, but I did get there just in time for the important part, during his perennial opener “Hot For Teacher”…

Dave was sporting a flashy winter ensemble as you can see above, and has cut his bleached-to-hell-and-black blonde locks in favor of a shorter, more mature ‘do. If you haven’t seen him in a long time, the above picture probably scared the hell out of you, but trust me, he looks better than he has in ages. He seemed in good spirits, though not as talkative during his set as he usually is (his Tradewinds show in September ‘98 spoiled me on the between-songs chatter, so I went in expecting a lot here), and his voice sounded the best I’ve heard it sound in the 3 times I’ve seen him. He’s getting the hang of maximizing what he has to compensate for what he’s lost vocally.

His band are still a group of hungry session-ish guys looking to make the world say “Eddie who?”, hard working dudes who look like they love the gig and have the chops to live up to it. They were able to keep up with Dave’s propensity for musical tangents admirably, and really shined when the songs asked for them to improv while he was “off in other places”, so to speak.

The set was a nice mix of his solo work and classic Van Halen material, with a few welcome surprises (VH’s “Somebody Get Me A Doctor” and his own “Just Like Paradise” and “Goin’ Crazy!” stand out) thrown in for good measure. Only one new song, the title of which I didn’t catch, but it seemed more or less like a showcase for the band than a fully-formed song anyway.

All in all, a very solid night on Dave’s (and his band’s) end, which is to be expected, because while I’m never really sure which David Lee Roth I’m going to get, whichever one it is always manages to show me a good time.

Before I finish up here, a bit about the venue, since some of you are probably like “Where the hell is that?”: The Starland Ballroom, which was celebrating its re-opening night (since Dramarama got snowed out the night before) was a pleasant surprise (I’d never been to Starland when it was the embarrassingly-named Hunka Bunka Ballroom). Good amount of space, the main floor had an unobstructed view, and the bars to the left and right of the stage are raised, so people there had a good vantage point, too. The sound was just a tad off, but this was more than likely because Dave’s soundguy had everything set to “stadium” still. Everything sounded clear, but it was LOUD.

Starland’s very easy to get to from at least 2 different major highways around here (Routes 9 and 18, which also provide easy access from both the Parkway and Turnpike). The one problem I do forsee with the venue is parking; I got the last spot in the lot across the street from the venue, and this wasn’t a sold-out show. When someone big comes through there, they could have some problems on their hands. Hopefully, they work that out (I’ve been told that things are in the works), and wish them success with the space, which should serve as a worthy successor to the now-departed Birch Hill Night Club.

“Riot in Sierra Leone Over Midget No-Show”

If you were curious enough to come to this site after hearing my Futurephone entry there (and observant enough to work around Warren’s error with my site’s name), welcome aboard. I’ll try to make your visit here as interesting as possible for you, though I cannot guarantee that it’ll be as interesting as Hollywood Squares was tonight. Fucking CHARO, man…and holy fuck, she’s the Secret Square! As I was just telling people on EFNet #gothasfsck, I’d fuck her in ways that haven’t been invented yet, just on general principle. Not that a gentleman brags about such things, but with Charo, how could you NOT?

“What’d you do last night?”

“Oh, I fucked Charo.”

There’s really only one way to top that.

“What’d you do last night?”

“Oh, I fucked Charo again.”

*jazz hands*

Best band ever. Discuss.