Rambles that are fluffy, by fluffy
My big fibromyalgia flare seems to have finally subsided, so I’m back to working on music, yay.
Right now I’m working on recording “Sunny Again” for Transitions. The Transitions version has ended up being somewhat more complicated than I was expecting, so this will take a while to get finished. But I really like the arrangement that I have, and I hope that I can pull it off.
I’ve been having another major pain flareup, or rather the pain flareup that started a few weeks ago has continued to get worse, and it’s super difficult for me to do anything right now. Typing hurts, my brain is in constant fog, and there’s no freaking way I can work on music or art right now.
I’m super frustrated by this, of course, especially feeling like I’m so close to being done with Transitions as well as my new music website, but I gotta take care of myself so that there’s still a me to do the things I want to do with.
I ended up handing off one of my video editing projects to someone else so that at least takes some pressure off, and I’m just giving myself permission to nap, a lot, which my body has been craving.
Pretty much I only have the spoons for basic self-care right now, and that’s gonna have to be enough for a while. I’m also pretty much stuck at home because I don’t feel comfortable driving (or leaving the house, really) and even if the stuff I wanted to do were accessible by transit, I definitely don’t have the spoons to manage transit right now.
Also today I realized it’s been a year and a half since I started my disability claim, and it just keeps on getting blocked by bureaucratic nonsense.
John Oliver’s overview of the situation only scratches the surface of what I’ve been having to deal with.
So, I’m in a bit of a frustrating situation right now.
I’ve been releasing music as “Sockpuppet” since 2006, with my first album under that name released in 2009. From everything I can find online, this firmly establishes me as having “common law” trademark status; for example:
Secure Your Trademark: Trademarking a band name
The legal advice is in; the mega pop star can’t force you to drop your band name because, technically, you arrived on the music scene several years before she did. But from now on, when you mention the name of your band, people are probably going to start humming “All About That Bass.” Here, the degree of trademark protection you missed out on becomes evident.
[…]
Key Takeaway: When two or more non-trademarked bands share the same or a similar name, the one with the highest seniority usually wins and ends up with trademark protection.
USPTO: I Received a Letter/Email…, particularly this excerpt:
Federal registration is not required to establish trademark rights. Even if a trademark registration expires or is cancelled, the trademark owner may continue to have “common law” rights in the mark. Common law rights arise from actual use of a mark for particular goods or services and may allow the common law user to successfully challenge another party’s use in court.
Anyway, back in 2021, I decided to try registering for a federal registered trademark on the name Sockpuppet, but it was denied because of an existing trademark on the band name “Sock Puppet Parody” which they considered to be too similar. So I decided to stick with my common-law trademark status for now and figured I’d only move forward until something came up.
And, well, something came up.
Hey y'all, it is Bandcamp Friday, a good time to buy independent music while Bandcamp opts to release their share of the purchase price.
As always, I have my latest released album, and the share also applies to preorders of Transitions. Or you might consider checking out some of my other many albums that you might not already be familiar with, such as:
But also this isn’t just me shamelessly self-promoting. I’m shamelessly other-promoting, too! Here’s a list of some of the albums I’ll be buying myself:
And, on the last one I preordered when air collapsed within by our dear friend, the medic, which was also released very recently.
Anyway. Support independent musicians by buying their music! It’s good for you, and even better for them.
Grab-bag of stuff going on for me, apologies for my usual unstructured rambling
If all went well, my concert is now underway. In theory, here is the VRChat instance (but if nobody’s there check the VRC group). And in theory, the stream should be live.
In practice, I am probably currently scrambling to get everything working at this very moment.
I’ll be performing in VRChat tonight at 9 PM PDT. Join my VRChat music group for the instance link.
If you can’t join via VRChat, I’ll also be streaming on my Owncast instance, and I’ll try to engage with the stream chat although historically that hasn’t worked out so well.
And if the time doesn’t work, the stream recording will eventually go on my YouTube channel.
For this concert I’ll be trying out a new performance setup for improved sound, hand tracking, and audience engagement, and also a different venue than last time for better environmental factors.
Here’s what’s currently going on with my music things.
I’m having a bad pain flareup and as much as I’d like to push through it and do the concert anyway, from experience I know that’ll just make things worse and I’m trying to get better at self-care and showing myself the same understanding I show others.
So, tentatively I’m planning on my next VR concert being on September 29, at 9 PM Pacific time, hosted on my VRChat group. And of course it’ll be streamed over on my Owncast. Here’s a Discord event link.
The great thing about performing virtually is that I don’t have to worry about venue booking. I can make my own rules for this and I don’t have to feel bad about the reality of my health.
💜
Hey y'all, it’s been a little while since I’ve done a VRChat music performance, and I have a hankering to try out my new performing gear. Please vote in this poll so I can figure out what the best time is for a show!
(Don’t worry about the name you put in, and I’ve also set it to hide responses from each other. Strawpoll doesn’t have any “allow anonymous responses” option for time polls, unfortunately.)
