misterabortion

The veil has been lifted.

2005-12-24T09:29:42Z

misterabortion is scottcrawford. Scott Crawford lives here and here and has music on the Internet here. Scott Crawford was in Get Precious, but he quit after the show tonight. Don't let that be a reflection on those guys, though, because he loves them very much and thanks them for the opportunity to make tonight happen.

Feel free to follow me over to my various homes. I'd adore it if you came with me.

I'll talk more about the show when I've had time to process things more. My first impression is that it was a trainwreck, but it was the most necessary trainwreck of my entire life. Kinda like the night on the whole.

I love you all. We'll talk more when I've had some sleep.

*huggles*
Scott Crawford
(formerly known as Mr. A)

Well, it's almost time.

2005-12-23T06:46:19Z

In approximately 21 1/2 hours, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.abortion will be taking the stage for the first and only time ever, at The Loop Lounge in Passaic, NJ. Do not panic if you don't see us named on the site; the owner is a little paranoid about having "Jesus Christ" and "abortion" written in the same ad, so we're unannounced, but completely and totally confirmed as being on the bill. I was at the Loop a few hours ago to go over some last-minute details, and it is most definitely on.

The doors open at 9:30 PM. We're not sure of the exact showtime yet, but we're reasonably sure that, between our draw and that of the other bands (The O>Matics and Get Precious, who have graciously invited us to play with them), it's going to be very packed there, so we recommend that you get to the club as early as possible. Admission is free, but the show is (unfortunately) 21+.

For those of you who are in the area, I would LOVE to see you at the show tomorrow. It'd really make a huge difference to me to know that this Internet stunt grew wings and flew off of the Internet to come visit me. Even if only one of you shows up, it'll really touch me to know that you took the leap and decided to have this adventure along with me. Either way, I'd call this experiment a rousing success, but I'd love to meet some of you at the finish line.

For those of you who can't be here for one reason or another, even though you'll only have one chance to see me like this in person, there may yet be hope. Tentative but potentially great things are in place, but I can't announce them yet. Stay tuned, and keep your fingers crossed, for us as well as for you.

The next time I speak to you all, it will be as a different entity. It's been an absolutely gorgeous year, and I thank all of you who gave me your time, your attention and your imagination over the past 361 days. You've been perfect little angels.

*huggles*
Mr. A
(RIP 12/26/04-12/23/05)

CDs

2005-12-11T01:20:57Z

How many of you would be willing to purchase limited edition 3 song CDs of the alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.abortion material? I am thinking of doing a very small run of them to commemorate the show, a few hundred or less (maybe as few as 100 on the first pressing), and probably hand signing and numbering them. Cost would be reasonable considering the size of the run, probably about $6 or so. Pre-orders would be wonderful, actually, because they would enable me to do a run of the CDs and still be able to eat and buy Christmas presents for Mommy and Daddy Abortion, so if you're interested, please let me know!

*huggles*
Mr. A

The Announcement To Preface The Other Announcement

2005-11-08T09:40:29Z

It's time for your early Christmas present.

On the evening of Friday, December 23rd, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.abortion will be staging a performance for the first time, and more than likely, the only time in this incarnation. It will be the end of a glorious year, and the beginning of a completely new era.

The show will happen somewhere in the New York City metro area, but not in New York proper. This date (December 23rd) is confirmed as of right now, and as soon as I'm able to release more information about the venue and other details, I will. The date and time have been secured, but I want to have the latest and most accurate information before I "go live" with the full details. I just wanted to give any of you who were thinking of travelling for the show some time to make arrangements. If you have specific questions related to lodging and such that need to be answered right away, leave a comment here, send me a message on MySpace, or email me if it's something you'd prefer to keep private.

In other news, I like that idea someone had for a "do an artist's rendition of Mr. A" contest, so let's do that. Best entry gets a hug from me, or some other major award-like-thing.

I hope you're all doing wonderfully, and I hope to finally see some of you on December the 23rd!

*huggles*
Mr. A

People in or near New York City and New Jersey...

2005-11-03T22:07:22Z

If I played a show in the area in late December, would you come to see me? You might only get one chance to experience the magic. This could very well be it. I would love to have you join me, but I need to know as soon as possible if you're up to the challenge.

*huggles*
Mr. A

The second-to-last word on identity

2005-10-09T08:06:52Z

I saw something tonight which changed my perspective on this whole "secret double life" thing, something that just about made me lose my lunch. I won't bore you with the specifics, mainly because the parties involved don't deserve your attention any more than they did mine, but it made me re-examine a lot about what I've been doing here quickly.

When I started doing this, I was curious to see how music I created could do when freed of the constraints of my existing identity, for a number of reasons. To touch on one of the bigger ones: I'd held a theory for a while that if people know who you are but aren't blown away by what you've done right away, they tend to discredit what you do later and you put yourself in something of a glass ceiling situation where you're always "just" that person who didn't blow them away the first time. I'm unfortunately as guilty of this mentality sometimes as anyone; it's a standard human response. In my "other life", I feel that I'm one of these people who has been around forever, but has never really hit one out of the park, and I definitely wanted to see if a fresh start would make a difference, like I thought it would (The Alarm did something similar with their "Poppyfields" stunt a year or two back). I think that part of my theory, as it did with Mike Peters and co., has been proven true. People who I never would have dreamed of reaching with the music you've heard here in its present state have responded favorably to what they heard, and I'm glad that I was able to make them happy or expand their mind or whatever it was that I did with it.

However, after seeing someone use an identity change as a complete and total denial of their past life (including their past art) tonight, I really don't think being "not me" is as much fun as it once was. I'm not saying it couldn't continue to work, I'm not saying that anything I've done from either part of my life has been one iota less than genuinely "me", but I am saying that I'd never want that to change and also that I'd never want someone else to look at me the same way I looked at this other person tonight. Hopefully, even though what I do elsewhere in my world is at times very different from what I've done here (this isn't to say that you'll never hear anything like what you've heard here so far again, but it is a warning that you might not hear as much backward masking and screaming orgasms as you've come to expect from what's here, at least not right away), there won't be any confusion about my intentions that way, and there'll be more for the people who've enjoyed my work here to enjoy.

For a while, due to a number of things, my health being chief among them (I'm stable, but I still don't feel "well"...my energy level's not so great, and I still don't have a clear diagnosis from anyone...long story...), I've thought of showing you all the wizard behind the curtain so to speak, because life's too short to not let the people around you know as much of you as they can. I think my experience tonight was the clincher, though. Despite a somewhat grandiose plan I've been working on for some months to bring these two worlds together in a live setting without warning, I will be making an announcement that will hopefully be of interest to all of you as soon as I work out the technical details of the "merger" as it were.

I have wondered, over time, whether or not I'd be as interesting to these people if I weren't so damned mysterious, though, and I've touched on this before. My other hope now is also that no one who got to know me and my work as alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.abortion will see me as being as much of a phony as the person I talked about earlier. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

*huggles*
Mr. A

Back from my sabbatical for a visit, at least.

2005-09-10T04:39:38Z

Hello, my cupcakes.

I've been OK. How are you?

I will hopefully be recording new music soon, but first, I need a new microphone. You see, at the last show I played with my other band, who shall remain nameless because you'd know who I was if they didn't, my last one, which I've had for about 16 years, got stepped on and squashed. :( Yes, it was a sad day. So, now, I want one of these. It's not entirely roadworthy, but it looks like a cool device to have in a home studio, and it'd enable me to eliminate a step in the signal chain. Plus, I could use it to talk dirty to people on Skype and Google Talk. Would any of you pay me to talk dirty to you on Google Talk or Skype so I can pay for my microphone?

I deleted a bunch of the bitter Betties who couldn't live with me having them on my friends list tonight. I still have to go through my other posts to see how many more people used poor etiquette and didn't post a removal request to the right thread. I'm thinking that I might stop being so nice and removing people soon, because it's really ridiculous of them to ask me to do it. It's not like I'm spying on their lives, as I unfortunately never get to read my friends list. I also posted instructions for how not to have your friend of list display the name "misterabortion" at least once. People get bent over the silliest things, and expect other people to clean up the mess. It's a byproduct of laziness and lack of education, I'm afraid. I'll decide soon whether or not I'll be stopping the "ask and I'll remove you" policy, so if you want off, make your request now.

I hope none of you live in or near New Orleans. Terrible things going on down there. If you do live in the area, I hope you got out OK, and at least have your health. If you live down there and need any help, don't hesitate to ask me. You won't be begging. I'm offering! I might not be able to work miracles, but I'll do what I can, and perhaps some of my other readers will too!

More later, perhaps. I will probably spend my night on here and MySpace, since it's been a while. You can also try reaching me on AIM at "altabortion", though I might not be on there much tonight. Thanks to all who posted "I miss you" notes and pictures. They made me feel warm and squishy inside.

*huggles*
Mr. A

I've been told that I'm missed.

2005-04-25T08:27:50Z

Prove it to me.

Post pictures of yourselves holding up signs that say "I miss you" in the comments. Seeing that would make me feel awesome.

And for the record, I miss you all too, very much. I've just had a lot going on, things that aren't necessarily fun and make the process of making music feel very small.

Apologies for my prolonged absence, my children...

2005-03-16T00:00:58Z

...but my life required me to be elsewhere.

I hope you're all doing wonderfully, except for you, you, and you over there in the corner. Yes, I see what you're doing, and if that girl finds out what you're thinking about her while you're doing it, you're going to have to register as a sex offender. Cut that out.

In a.b.p.e.a. news, I will be working on playing at least one, if not a few shows in the New York metro area in late Spring or early Summer. I will have dates for you as soon as I do. The MySpace traffic has been slower, but largely this is due to my lack of attention toward the site. I haven't even had a chance to post comments for people in a long time, and if you're one of my MySpace friends reading this, my apologies. I'll get to it as soon as possible. I'm also going to try to have a new song done soon, either one of my own, or the in-progress cover of Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" that I keep talking about. Finally, there's an interview with me up on Grave Concerns E-Zine now. Though I'm not in love with the attention the editor paid to the finished product (the interview was conducted by email, and my footnotes were left in; also, I was listed under "EBM+Electro+Futurepop", which, while it'll get me a lot more page views, hardly seems appropriate to the music I'm making), I am happy they gave me the opportunity to let their readership see what my music is about.

On a personal level, as I've implied, I've been extremely busy with things elsewhere in my life. Perhaps you'll hear of them someday soon, perhaps not. Perhaps you already know about them, but don't know it's my life that they're happening in. Isn't this fun?

*huggles*
Mr. A

Updates On Icicles And Other Things

2005-02-03T07:26:46Z

The icicles fell approximately 24 hours after I posted about them. If anyone had been underneath them, they would be dead, but they weren't. I saw some unbelievably huge icicles in a friend's apartment complex recently as well. We're talking about icicles as tall as people, no joke. It was staggering.

Oh, and there's an instrumental cut (still awaiting the possible addition of dirty stories) of my new song here. Note the new URL for the MySpace page (which I had been slack about updating here, and has no doubt confused many of you):

http://www.myspace.com/altabortion/

No, I haven't changed the name of the band. I just decided to make the URL for the page easier for us all to type. Ra!

Sorry I've been away so long, but I was recording, and tending to my life. MySpace (not exactly what one would call a "life") has also been incredibly busy lately, but regardless, feel free to add me there (I regret to inform you that I can't track down and add you all personally, nor do I have a mass add script for there, heh...).

Carry on as you were.

Today's project...

2005-02-03T06:44:14Z

I want everyone to make this picture one of their user icons:

Identity

2005-02-01T09:27:06Z

I have a lot of people asking me who I am these days. People say they want to know who the person making the music is. They often mistake me for one of the models in my user pictures (sorry, folks...those are just models; if you're looking to sleep with them, it's not going to happen by way of contacting me). Some of them are actively trying to decipher who I am. I'm not sure if I can figure out why it matters so much to them. Is it just because they're spoiled and want what they can't have, or does who I am actually matter to people? Would I be as interesting of a person to any of you if you knew who I was, or would I just become one more face in the Hall Of Douchebags?

None of you can fantasize about fucking me if you know what I look like and don't like it (which is not to say that no one's ever liked what I looked like, or fantasized about fucking me, because for better or worse, both have happened in my lifetime). Plus, say I have some completely different personality that has a public presence elsewhere online that totally turns you off. What fun would that be?

When I started working on this project, I decided to be anonymous, just to see where it would take me. I'm having fun with it, but it can already be tough at times. I've come to the conclusion, from watching how people on MySpace act, that most of the people here are here to fuck each other. I can't really participate in that (at least not easily), even if I want to, because it jeopardizes my project. I'm as much of a fan of sex as the rest of you are (my music is testament to that), but it will never come easy to me via the people who hear this music and love it, at least as long as I'm anonymous.

Heck, beyond the rather base subject of sex, I'm even having trouble figuring out how to accept money for CDs and other merchandise without letting you in on who I am. PayPal can be worked with, but not always easily. Shows are already nearly completely out of the question, because my music is just about impossible to perform live, but I can't gain any notoriety in the other ways that artists usually gain it, either. I can't meet journalists face-to-face, and I can't really do phone interviews for fear that someone will recognize my voice.

I'm not whining about this horrible predicament that I've been thrust into, because really, these were and are my decisions. I would like you to know that, if you're one of the people who is having a hard time with my anonymity, you're not alone. Some of the things that are hardest in life pay the biggest rewards, though, and I'm hoping that this experience will be as rewarding for you as it has been for me so far.

Oh, and if you are interested in fucking me based solely on what my music sounds like and how I compose my sentences on the Internet, I may be interested in helping you out, but I'll require you to sign a non-disclosure agreement if you want to do it.

*huggles*
Mr. A

P.S. I know a lot of you have been commenting, and I've been reading your comments, but I have been enormously busy this week, and will continue to be busy through Sunday. I will try my best to answer your comments and handle your removal requests in a timely manner, but right now, I would not expect many responses, or at least not quick ones, until Monday, the 7th of February. Thanks in advance for your patience.

Tell me dirty stories, and I'll make you famous.

2005-01-30T01:39:50Z

I need lyrics for the next alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.abortion
song, and I just came up with an interesting idea for how to get them,
and collaborate with you, my audience. I want you to send me the
filthiest, most graphic dirty sex stories you can think of (preferably
true ones, but if you've got a good imagination, I'll take the other
kind as well), and if I like what you write, I will either read it or
work it into lyrics in the next song. If you're feeling REALLY
creative, record an mp3 or a WAV file of yourself reading the story,
and we will make arrangements for you to transfer it to me. PLEASE do
not attempt to send any audio files to me without prior consent,
though. Thanks in advance on that.

IMPORTANT: You will not receive compensation for your work beyond a
credit on the record and anywhere the song is used, but I do promise
those. All stories, ideas, likenesses and sound files become property
of alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.abortion.

Also: if you're going to participate, PLEASE be 18 years or older, as
release forms are a real pain in the ass for this sort of thing if
you're a minor (and if you are, you really probably shouldn't be
looking at this stuff in the first place; where the hell are your
parents while you're on the Internet?)

You know...

2005-01-26T20:45:03Z

It wouldn't kill some of you folks who are blindly posting "WHO ARE U WHY DID U FRIEND ME" to actually spend a few minutes reading my journal before you do. That's about the same amount of time as it takes to complete one Quizilla quiz, and I know you have time for those. Perhaps it's a bit immodest of me to say this, but I'd like to think that my life is at least a little more interesting than finding out which "Saved By The Bell" character you are. Just because I'm such a selfless human being, I can even tell you which one you are, if you're the folks who've been posting before reading. You're either Screech or Jessie (Elizabeth Berkley's character), which means you're either going to grow up to be a bad stand-up comic or a much worse actress. There, happy?

Icicles

2005-01-24T15:56:10Z

So, in my part of the world, there is a lot of snow right now. There are also icicles hanging from the awning on my window. They're totally beautiful, but they're also poised to kill someone at any moment. My window isn't that close to where people would be walking, but it's close enough to be somewhat of a risk. Should I leave them up for a while and chance it, or should I take them out now?

Sadly, I don't have a digital camera, so I can't just take a picture of them and be done with this. I suppose that if any of you live in my general area and own cameras, I could have you come over and photograph them, but that's a lot of mutual risk for a few pieces of frozen water.

So, keep them up or kill them? What's it going to be, then?

Some staggering figures, as of this hour...

2005-01-21T06:46:58Z

This could change before the end of the night, but...

Recording artists I've had more song plays than today:

Motley Crue (UNBELIEVABLE.)
Interpol
Cradle Of Filth
Mindless Self-Indulgence
NOFX
"Elektra" Soundtrack (yesterday's "featured artist" on MySpace; Evanescence, The Donnas, etc. on the soundtrack)

Recording artists I've had more page views than today:

Hilary Duff (Sorry, doll!)
Korn
Jimmy Eat World
Kittie
Head Automatica

On the page views side, I am currently #1 in page views among industrial bands, and #3 among gothic bands (trailing only HIM and London After Midnight, the latter of whom I think I can beat fairly soon...HIM might be tough, their fanbase is insane...). I'm #11 in experimental, a big leap from yesterday's total.

Song plays-wise in my genres, I'm 2nd in industrial, 4th in gothic, and 20th in experimental (tough genre!)

My lead song, "Zenova" is #1 among gothic, industrial, and experimental bands in song plays in New York, and is #24 overall in New York (all genres), which puts me 7th among New York bands in plays.

Overall right now, I'm ranked 115th in page views, and 217th in song plays. I peaked at 97th in page views (Top 100!), and 172 in song plays. I was briefly ahead of one of Tila Tequila's songs, which seemed impossible just a few weeks ago.

I might be counting my chickens before they hatch by posting these numbers before the other numbers are final tonight, but at the end of the day, these charts are a buggy system, and are basically just there for fun. There's no money riding on this stuff, but it is fun to see how my little band matches up against all these other bands. I'm not really tooting my own horn about this stuff, so much as I am amazed that I'm having all of this success based solely on clever word-of-mouth press and content that's just compelling enough to grab people's attention for a moment. I really don't know if I'm keeping it; figuring out how "sticky" (big marketing word there) my audience is will be the next test. I'm aware that my music is uncompromising, wholly uncommercial and to some ears, unlistenable, and that makes this even more amazing. Somehow, I've found a way to confront people with music that they wouldn't come within a hundred miles of normally, and it will be interesting to see how the court of public opinion treats me over time.

Friends-Only!

2005-01-17T19:28:56Z

Please leave a comment here to be added. Thanks!

If I've added you already, there's no need to leave a comment. This entry was just put here for the people who come to my journal and can't read the other, friends-only entries. If you'd like to leave a comment anyway, go right ahead, but it is by no means required. Have a good one!

New Song

2005-01-16T20:28:45Z

"Zenova", my new song, has been added to MySpace. Don't be surprised if it sounds a little scary to your ears. I made it, and it scares me. Hope you enjoy, regardless.

w00t!

2005-01-16T10:19:12Z

Today, my song "Wolftab" was #1 in song plays among industrial bands in New York on MySpace! Thanks to all of you who helped out with that! I even passed all of Bile's songs, which is a great honor to me, because I am a big Bile fan. Onward and upward!

To the creatively-minded among you...

2005-01-16T04:49:13Z

I would like to make my journal look nice. If anyone has any layout ideas, or would like to help with user icons, I would *totally* give you props. I'm also looking for help with my MySpace layout.

Stuff with lots of blinkies would be AWESOME.

A bit more about the script I used...

2005-01-16T04:34:54Z

...so people who don't know how their names got here might be able to understand better.

LiveJournal has a feature called "Latest Posts", which is a constantly-updated page that shows you all the public posts that've been made in the past minute or so, as I understand it. "Latest Posts" is also available as a syndicated feed; if you don't know what syndicated feeds are or how they work, there should be a decent explanation of it here; if you don't get it, go here and there are a ton more articles on syndication. Long story short: LiveJournal itself publishes a document that harvests hundreds of our usernames per minute. I seem to remember a way to have yourself removed from consideration for "Latest Posts", but so far, in digging around the site, I haven't been able to find it. If anyone knows, please feel free to post about it in a comment here. Please DO NOT bug LJ's tech support team about how to do it for at least a few days, because their lives have obviously been hell because of the outage.

Now, some of you are probably still wondering "OK, so there's this page that LJ creates with a bunch of usernames on it. How does someone get all the usernames off of it and onto their friends list?" Well, they use a script like the one I did. I am not actually much of a techie, so I can't explain the specifics of what it does in a technical way, but in a non-technical way, it sort of works like "find" does within a Word document. It scans the page for the usual HTML code that would be around a LiveJournal username, and when it recognizes it, it locks on each one. From there, it just copies the usernames into a text file, with the words "friend add" before them, so it will be easy to copy the text file and paste it into the admin console here on LJ.

There's no real cloak and dagger stuff going on here, folks. Every bit of information gathered (which, truthfully, has been no more than a few lists of usernames that I haven't even examined, unless you've interested me enough to check out your journals, and trust me, there wasn't a lot of time for me to do that before things Went Boom yesterday on LJ's servers...I've actually been deleting the lists after I'm finished using them, too, believe it or not...) was and is information that's always publicly available for about 60 seconds at a time. There is no permanent master list of LJ usernames that The Boogeyman is going to use to get you, contrary to what that one person insinuated yesterday. If you notice, I've been good about removing folks from my friends list as well, so there are no worries there, either.

It will probably be a good deal of time before I'm able to really spend time reading my HUGE friends list here (though I certainly will try; at the very least, I may set up a friends filter of those who have added me, so I can keep up with the people who do have an interest in me), and of course I can't read any friends-only entries aside from those of people who've added ME rather than vice-versa. The only thing that my adding anyone has done is made my name pop up on their "friend of" list, and if you REALLY want me off of there before I even get a chance to remove you (and in most cases, I've been removing people almost immediately), just:

* Go to the admin console

* Type "ban_set misterabortion" in the window
* Hit the "Execute" button

...and not only am I gone from your "friend of" list, but I'm also unable to leave comments in your journal. Easy, huh?

We'll get back to more important things than some silly little line of code as soon as possible, but I wanted everyone to have a better idea of how this all worked, so they're hopefully not as afraid or annoyed or what have you. Again, if anyone finds a way to get your username removed from the "Recently Updated" list before I do (WITHOUT bothering the poor LJ team, as their lives have been heck this weekend; all the best to them!), please post it in a comment here, and we'll share it with everyone so this will never happen to you again!

So, with all that aside...what are you wearing? ;)

A little bit about myself, for those who asked.

2005-01-14T22:17:07Z

I'm male.

I live in the United States.

I have a band.

I'm keenly interested in abusing technology, public relations, and making friends.

Hilary Duff is one of my MySpace friends. Don't believe me? Go look.

I'll tell you more later. For now, how about you all tell me a little bit about yourselves? There's just so many of you! I just don't know where to start looking through your profiles!

Hello.

2005-01-14T21:43:21Z

If you're wondering why I added you, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Blame this no-good cocksucker for showing me how to do it, even if the Perl script they posted was all fucked up and needed to be repaired before it could be used.

That aside, hello. I'm looking forward to getting to know you all intimately. Please be my companions.