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My recordings have consistently improved over the last three years as I learned how to get an authentic bass sound out of my guitar and how to edit drum tracks to fit into my often complicated time signatures. This is a creative freedom I have only had since it has become technically possible with new software programs like GarageBand, which were not available in the 1990's when I had my band, for any artist to produce a high quality multi-track recording at home. Still, it takes many long hours for me to play in those bass lines and edit those rhythms to produce that impressive effect of a full sounding band of Dave's who all know how to play outside 4/4 time. So it really sucks when lying fucks tell people that my background music is not my work. The harder you work in this God forsaken business, the less you seem to get for it. |
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| © 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Monday, September 8, 2014
So Much for Effort
Snob Problem
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You'd think there was a lucrative tax on arrogance when you see what some snobs get away with. I've learned that talent, rather than opening doors for you, slams doors in your face. Let's go back to 1996 when I sent a few cartoons to the Georgia Straight, the local weekly, with the hope of breaking the ice with the local arts community. They left my name out when they published them. That didn't help. Then I tried volunteering at the Vancouver Art Gallery for a year and a half. Nothing opened up for me. I simply spent the whole time stuffing envelopes and didn't make a single new friend. How about that acting course? Well, that might have got me into my web design course, but it cost me my first one-act play. I guess I was supposed to make connections in that course but I couldn't because people were too jealous of my intelligence and talent. I recall the first day of our computer programming instruction. The teacher asked the class a question that demanded extrapolation from our existing knowledge. Only two students out of thirty were able to answer the question and I was one of them. When I showed that I knew the answer, the student beside me got so upset that she had to leave the class. I remember a lot more from that weird experience in 2007 now. I remember showing someone a sample of my poetry in my best handwriting, which must be impressive. Instead of enjoying it, the woman I showed it to got terribly upset and said: 'You shouldn't have this!' I shouldn't have my own poetry in my own handwriting, over which I slaved? That's exactly what she said. Later I vaguely remember being at an event where photocopies of these poems were distributed. Then I remembered how I earlier lost my notebook while I was onstage playing a gig. I guess she or someone like her stole the fucking thing. Since 2007, I've already documented how impossible it has been for me to make friends or gain the slightest support for my work - when my work is in my hands, at least. Apparently talent means nothing to this arts community. All they care about is their own little clique. There's something extremely wrong with an arts community that can't make room for a man who draws, writes poems, writes songs and stories, sings and plays musical instruments, and even volunteered at the art gallery. I can think of no other explanation than that this community consists of the worst snobs on the planet. As for breaking the ice with this community, that would seem to demand a nuclear warhead. It's funny how these people are so jealous of me at the same time as they make my life so fucking miserable that I can't look back on anything but a black hole for the last twenty years. Here I am even now, standing in soup lines and scratching from lice, and these fucking assholes are more jealous than ever. These elitists can only harm artists. These snobs care less about the quality and originality of a work of art than they do about whose name is on it. As long as that name belongs to them or one of their friends, as was likely the case from 2007 to 2010 with most of what I shared on the internet, they will support it. And after they are caught and exposed as frauds or accessories to fraud, having threatened to kill the true source of such work, they won't lift a finger to help him simply because he won't kiss their ass. They're the ones who deserve to be ignored. And so do their juvenile sounding favorites on the radio. |
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| © 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Sunday, September 7, 2014
The Space Suit
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(Stan and John stand by a dumpster as John tosses out a stereo.) Stan: Didn't you just buy that last week? John: It's infested. Stan: Well, you don't need to throw it out! All you need is the Space Suit. (Standing by his bed in a silver snowsuit, John screws on a space helmet and lies down to sleep.) Voice: Are indestructible vermin invading your space? Maybe you need the Space Suit. Developed by NASA for lunar exploration, it offers the ultimate protection from insect bites. (Fast asleep, John is carried off his bed and dragged out of his room by creatures too small to see. The next morning Stanley opens the dumpster and finds John inside, waking him up.) Stan: Why are you sleeping in the dumpster? John: (Echoing inside his helmet) I don't know, but I didn't scratch all night. Voice: Make room for comfort with the Space Suit. Buy now for the sale price of eleven thousand dollars and receive an extra oxygen tank for free. |
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| © 2007, 2014. Scripts by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Jesus Christ Superstar
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I've made this point repeatedly in my writing but it may be time for me to restate it or rephrase it. We are blind to the greatness of artists in our own time. This is key in determining who the greatest stars among us truly are. This point was well articulated by Jesus when he said that it is better to be mocked and hated by your generation than to be spoken well of and loved: for their ancestors mocked and hated the prophets and loved the false prophets. Christ, himself, was crucified by his generation, wasn't he? And Christ is the biggest star in all history. Let's look at some other examples of this. Go back to Van Gogh's time and ask them to identify their greatest artist. They would point to some fool who still paints in the neo-classical tradition and tell you Van Gogh is a bum. Go back to Mozart's time and ask them to name their finest musician. They'd probably tell you a name you never heard before, while Mozart lingered in poverty for writing music that had 'too many notes'. I think there are two types of stars: talented ones whose names will survive the ages and untalented ones who are simply well positioned in society and whose names will disappear over time. |
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| © 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Saturday, September 6, 2014
20 Years of Media's Abuse
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I tried to recount all the brushes I've had with the media last night. I got off to a positive start in 1984 when I submitted a three-song theme to an Ottawa radio station. They liked my concept and broadcast the piece. They were decent enough to include my name with this work. It featured a Beatles song, a Rolling Stones song, and a Police song. Between then and 2003 I submitted the odd letter to the editor. These letters would usually be published with my name under them. These were the only times I recall being treated fairly. I submitted a few cartoons to the Georgia Straight in the mid 90's and they published them without including my name as the author. In 1999 I took an acting class and showed a script to my teacher. Kiss goodbye to that work. That was the year I opened my first Blogger account and if only I'd known how many readers it had. I think that was when I first coined the phrase 'force for good'. I took a web design course which may have been monitored by the media in the search for technical staff and I shared a few short stories on a private web space that I couldn't afford on the long term. I wonder whose name they're published under today. In 2004 CBC's David Frum passed some of my work onto George W. Bush for his re-election campaign. I also wrote and shared the story 'Four Progress' (see my 2004 blog) and later that day heard Bush say that he wanted to send a man to the Moon and return him safely to the Earth. I submitted my short stories to web sites for publishing and was rejected. Then I saw one of my works appear as the script of a suspense/horror show on television. In 2006 I started blogging again and wrote about how a loving God wouldn't punish us. George Carlin stole it and the media supported him. I added more bitter blogs about how people are boring, people are stupid, businessmen are assholes, and so forth, and then I wrote and posted Size, which totally changed my philosophy and made me believe in a higher power. This caused me to erase most of the angry, bitter works that led up to it, and Carlin was quick to cash them all in with the media's support. I mentioned that my favorite shows were the Simpsons, Family Guy, and late night comedies and those shows all started helping themselves to my scripts. In my defense, I wrote poems about each violator: Sappho Asparagus (Ellen Degeneres), Overweight Oaf (Homer Simpson/Peter Griffen), Jackie the Pro (Jay Leno), The Cinnamon Gang (Saturday Night Live), Shorty Suffuse (George Carlin), and others, as well as media violators like Dateline NBC (The Porcupine Girls), Irma Upskirt (FOX News), and even show biz execs like Dick Cheney (Buck Henry). Each one was stolen and broadcast as the property of the person(s) each was intended to condemn - all except Buck Henry, which Cheney must have paid Leonard Cohen to steal. The media supported this fully. Then Dateline NBC broadcast their first Kangaroo Court to determine my 'legitimacy' in October/November 2007 and apparently found me guilty of fraud. Every network broadcast their news stories in verse around this time. The public backlash from all this evil mass manipulation finally drove me from the web and the TV proceeded to loot what remained of my work to fill the content of their flagship comedy shows, cartoons, and music videos for the next three to seven years. In 2008 the local media stacked the crowd with fanatical supporters for a Crystalids concert made out of my songs. Nice people. This was after they broadcast an hour of my music on CBC FM, probably to spy on me and check my reaction and make sure I had no knowledge of my ownership. In their cozy limousine, The Crystalids chased me and harassed me for the next three years as I struggled to pay my rent. In 2010, as my scripts were winning laughs for cartoons like the Simpsons and Family Guy, the Daily Show bashed my cartoon 'A is for Altered', which I shared on YouTube. They told me I needed MacBook Pro. Tina Fey went on TV and told the world I 'sock'. And the Crystalids jumped on every new song I shared in my YouTube account and bashed it severely in an attempt to make me erase it so they could steal it. Thanks, CBC. Thanks, NBC. Thanks, FOX. Thanks, Comedy Central. Thanks, HBO. The music business managed to build up a whole chain of alternative rock stations, like Vancouver's the PEAK, around my songs and not share a measly cent of the profits with me. This experience was so traumatizing that I completely wiped it from my memory, returning me to my earlier, atheist mindset of 2006. I stayed like that until 2010, and by re-posting my song Size, I recovered my faith in a higher power. Along the way, I exposed a cast member of Saturday Night Live as a fraud through my blog and I believe that SNL wanted the Crystalids to return the favor by getting the band to throw me in jail for Size. They were so determined to incarcerate me that they showed up at my front door and were going to drag me off to jail with no trial. Lucky for me I wasn't home. Then I heard about a cartoon that a media show posted of me being spanked by the Crystalids with my own songs. How considerate. How helpful. Oh, but they wanted to help. Yes, that's why they bought my original blog from Google in 2011 and looked forward to busting every star on TV with it. Think of the ratings. That was when Dateline NBC tried to pass themselves off as my heroes, inviting my 'groupies' on the show to tell the world how unattractive I am, getting my brothers to talk about how ordinary I am, and encouraging Nasco production workers to talk about how much they hated my guts. Too bad I didn't know about this at the time. They did this behind my back to make it look like they had my consent, giving them more control over my image. And did you see how all the other media supported their campaign? Just like when they broadcast their news stories in verse on every channel, they showed how they march together in lockstep, those reporters and journalists - maybe not so much the journalists. But the media's true, unprofessional feelings towards me resurfaced in 2013 when I complained about their violations and recruited lawyers to my cause. Suddenly I was a bad guy again. 'It's not David,' they said, after saying the opposite for most of the previous year. 'You're an embarrassment to the whole industry,' they said, as if all their crimes against me were my fault. They tried resurrect the comedy career of the SNL cast member who'd been kicked off the show in 2010 for stealing my words. The Nasco workers rallied around Jeff Hisko. Taylor Swift was somehow allowed across the border for a local concert on Canada Day. That was when I heard that Tina Fey finally went to prison. So did the comedian CBC supported and tried to resurrect. He stole a lot of my work for his stand-up routine. The media must have hyped his comeback because the people lined up all the way from Commercial Drive to Clark Street to see him perform. Yes, and the big party for Jeff Hisko was cancelled at the last minute. Since then the media have been ignoring me and the arrests and prosecutions of the famous violators of my work. I've learned that CBC staff like David Frum stayed on the CBC payroll since 2000. I wish they would simply re-staff the whole media with new, innocent people. When they all march in lockstep, all it takes is one poisonous prick like Frum to turn the whole organization into a giant threat. If the media had put even a fraction of the effort they made to destroy me into helping me instead, I'm sure I wouldn't be stuck here typing this blog today. |
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| © 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Friday, September 5, 2014
Reader Request
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Oh, am I dead again? Some people out there really wish I was dead. They wish I was dead after they treated me like I was dead by handing over my life-work to a bunch of filthy frauds to use against my image and reputation for three to seven years. Maybe that's why the media doesn't talk about me. They believe I'm dead. They tend to fall for their own 'stories'. Another great way to avoid the subject of my life and work is to shun the incarcerations of major stars like Madonna in the news reports. After all, if they admit that Madonna went to prison, they might have to say something nice about her victim. And do other artists look bad 'because of me'? Everything's my fault with these fucking strangers. How often have I told you that I don't compete against other artists, I compete against myself in a constant struggle for self improvement? Maybe these other artists should just focus on their own work instead of on mine. It's great to see the insect bites fading from my flesh. You appreciate simple things like not having to scratch your skin off when you live a real life like mine. But when you get spoiled like Mick Jagger, you can have billions of dollars and have any woman you want for fifty years, but you won't be happy if someone else writes a more popular song on the internet. It's clear that the media are trying to cover up their ugly crime by simply shunning the story and pretending that I'm dead. You do me a favor and let them know that I'm right here, very much alive, and still waiting for the kind of help they gave to all those jerks who stole my work and lied to the world about me. |
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| © 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
Thursday, September 4, 2014
The Origin of Media Arrogance
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Why are media snobs such snobs? It is because their condescending manner of delivering false reports gives them an appearance of credibility. When people turn on the TV to watch the news, it's not very different from when Germans in the 1930's turned on the radio to hear a speech from their leader. In fact, the Nazis pioneered TV as a tool of mass manipulation so successfully that America modeled their own broadcast media in much the same fashion. It doesn't matter how ludicrous an idea may be to start with, it can be forced into the brain as credible information with the proper delivery. Hitler force-fed his silly ideas, such as how Germans were racially related to Japanese people more closely than to any of their immediate neighbors in Europe, directly into the brains of his people with repetition and on the strength of his warped personal faith. Today every anchor person on TV echoes his technique by passing on their information with the smug assurance of one who possesses privileged knowledge and is doing the world a favor by sharing it. This appearance is most misleading. The media must be condescending, in order to to be able to pass off their manipulation as information. Because it worked for Hitler, they expect it to work for them. Too many viewers fall for this routine, as has been proven by how much success frauds on the TV and radio have had with work stolen from my internet accounts since 2007. Some viewers are apparently even ready to worship frauds on command, so convinced are they of media infallibility. And if you want to know how eager TV viewers are to punish people who viciously lie with music and humor that doesn't belong to them, you'll have to kick all the criminals out of the broadcasting industry first and send them to prison where they belong. After four years of David Frum and fucking George Strombopoulos and fucking Dateline NBC, and let's not forget the Republicans of FOX News, George W. Bush's favorite Christian network, I won't hold my breath waiting for this necessary step to restoring law and order in the entertainment world. |
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| © 2014. Statements by David Skerkowski. All rights reserved. |
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