Reminisces of the HeatRock.....

bonzaisk8

Listening to the Fela Anikupulo Kuti "Sorrow Tears and Blood" HeatRock that Simon aka "RapeDonkeys" so generously donated by auction during the NOLA Soul Strut fund drive got me thinking on some things. Due to our society driven ways, it seems like we're now supposed to move on with our lives and forget a disaster like Hurricane Katrina ever happened. Because of this I wanted to to if I may, reminisce on the Heat Rock for another second....

(Before you read any further please take a minute or two to scroll down to the lyrics posted below, and imagine once more in your mind what it feels like to go through something like the victims of Katrina have)....




I want to reiterate a huge big ups appreciation to the Heatrock Massive on Soul Strut. I still can't believe how much of all us broke ass mothagrabbas here with a 3:1 match raised a grand total of $83,177.88.

I mean damn. Give you all fools that participated a pat on the back!

What all you all did was huge! Big ups yourselves especially Raj, Bam, Aspirin, Deepstank and everyone else that participated. It's acts like this that make the human race survive and thrive.

respect.



Fela Anikupulo Kuti "Sorrow Tears and Blood"[/b]


Everybody run run run
Everybody runs away

Everybody scatter scatter
Everybody scatters

Some people lost some bread
Some people lost some money

Some one nearly die
someone has nearly died

Some one just die
someone has just died

Police dey come, Army dey come
the police is coming, the army is coming

Confusion everywhere
there is confusion everywhere

Several minutes later
Several minutes later

All den cool down brother
everything has calmed down, brother

Police don go away
the police has gone then

Army don disappear
The army has disappeared then

Dem leave Sorrow, Tears, and Blood
They leave Sorrow,Tears, and Blood

Dem regular trade mark
Their regular trade mark

My people self dey fear too much
My people also has too much fear

Dem dey fear for the thing we no see
We fear the things we can not see

Dem they fear for the air around us
We fear the air around us

We fear to fight for freedom
We fear to fight for freedom

We fear to fight for liberty
We fear to fight for liberty

We fear to fight for justice
We fear to fight for justice

We fear to fight for happiness
We fear to fight for happiness

We always get reason to fear
We always find a reason to fear:

We no want die
We don`t want to die

We no want quench
we don`t want to be extinguished

My mama dey for house
my mother is at home

My pikin dey for house
my children are at home

I get one wife
I have a wife

I get one car
I have a car

I get one house
I have a house

I just marry
I just got married

So policeman go slap your face
So the policeman will slap your face and

You no go talk
you will not say anything

Army man go whip your yansh
the soldier will whip your back and

You go dey look like donkey
you will look like a donkey

Rhodesia dey do dem own
Rhodesia does not care

Our leaders dey yab for nothing
Our leaders' words are useless

South Africa dey do dem own
South Africa, they do their own thing

Dem leave Sorrow, Tears, and Blood
They leave Sorrow,Tears and Blood

Dem regular trade mark (Chorus),
Their regular trademark

Dem regular trade mark
Their regular trademark

Dem regular trade mark (Chorus)
Their regular trade mark

That is why-y-y
That is why everybody runs away

Everybody run run run...

asprin

Thanks for the post. It's true that it's much easier to move on than to remember, dwell and work for change. We all will have to keep reminding one another of this in the coming months and years.

Delay

kg,

your heatrock was sent wednesday.

bonzaisk8

thanks man. looking forward to the box of gems you dropped.

cheers.

day

Thanks for the post. It's true that it's much easier to move on than to remember, dwell and work for change. We all will have to keep reminding one another of this in the coming months and years.

absolutely.

ariel_calmer

Can we make heatrocks a tradition? Do it again like fatback band every 6 months or so?

I'd really like to throw together a php/mysql based program to make bambouche/asprin/raj's lives easier.

It would use the UBB style but without the pain of ebay fees and trying to put everything in message board format. It would allow a variety of ways to view & search auctions, as well as an entry form people can use to list their items.

Would people be into this?

BigSpliff

Can we make heatrocks a tradition? Do it again like fatback band every 6 months or so?

I'd really like to throw together a php/mysql based program to make bambouche/asprin/raj's lives easier.

It would use the UBB style but without the pain of ebay fees and trying to put everything in message board format. It would allow a variety of ways to view & search auctions, as well as an entry form people can use to list their items.

Would people be into this?

YES! but only if the money goes to the SoulStrut Foundation, located in a dormant volcano off the Cayman Islands.

Birdman9

Can we make heatrocks a tradition? Do it again like fatback band every 6 months or so?

I'd really like to throw together a php/mysql based program to make bambouche/asprin/raj's lives easier.

It would use the UBB style but without the pain of ebay fees and trying to put everything in message board format. It would allow a variety of ways to view & search auctions, as well as an entry form people can use to list their items.

Would people be into this?

Gee, I don't know....trying to make people's lives easier is soooooo last month.

asprin

Andrew, please make that happen. I would love you long time.

hogginthefogg

Can we make heatrocks a tradition? Do it again like fatback band every 6 months or so?

Absolutely.

I'd really like to throw together a php/mysql based program to make bambouche/asprin/raj's lives easier.

YES! Plaese to make their lives easier.

DJFerrari

I'd really like to throw together a php/mysql based program to make bambouche/asprin/raj's lives easier.

I'd be happy to do this.

DJ Ferrari

Bambouche

I'd really like to throw together a php/mysql based program to make bambouche/asprin/raj's lives easier.

I'd be happy to do this.

DJ Ferrari

The program would address one menacing aspect of the task of hosting our own auctions, but before it becomes a reality there are a number of other concerns that need attention.

ACCOUNTING[/b]
Luckily, my day job makes this an easy task for me. I was responsible for every penny of 7.9million this year, so this 30grand was a snap. To be clear, however, I spent no less than 12 hours a day working on these auctions. For someone less familiar with accounting, I imagine this task could be daunting. It's not easy.

GUIDELINES[/b]
Most of the questions I was asked during the auctions were covered in the various "rules" threads. However, if you have more than 2 paragraphs of text, people tend to get bored. Setting down rules is essential. For all that I covered, there were still a number of things that caused problems (bid increments, sniping, shipping costs, auction end times -- including time zones, etc.).

AUCTION TRACKING[/b]
If the php/mysql program can't track auction end time and auction winner (automated notification would be dope as well), then it wouldn't save much time. People need to be reminded. Winners and sellers. Tsega spent an entire weekend doing this. Reconciling the payment database with the auction database would be best, but probably impossible (log-ins, security, relational dbs, etc.?)

PAYMENTS[/b]
Paypal's user agreement is clear that they're not interested in what we're doing (or the way we've chosen to "do it"). Ideally, it'd be better to use another service. The best route I see would be to create a non-profit. Money Orders are the next best bet, but that adds time.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES[/b]
I needed a small group of people that I could be frank with, and trust that they would discuss matters and reach a compromise that (hopefully) was representative of the larger whole. There were still several problems, but overall it helped. The process of deciding what we're fundraising for and exactly how that process is going to be handled (tax receipts, deadlines, fees, hosting, accounting, notifications, etc.) is crucial. Given the time constraints, I chose to solicit opinions from a small group of people. If it were up to the board, I doubt there'd ever be a concise conclusion. As an experiment, try getting 25 people to decide on a place to have dinner. It's impossible.

ADMIN[/b]
The majority of the time in this endeavor is spent reconciling. Insuring auction listings have all the appropriate info, auction winners are notified, payments are received, payment amount equals final bid amount, payment is in the appropriate currency, sellers are notified of receipt of payment, shipping is coordinated, etc.

If the auction and payment databases can't be relational (which I assume, for a number of reasons, they can't) then someone is gonna have to act as go-between. This takes time.

Besides facilitating auctions, there will still be hundreds of questions. I think setting out the rules as clear as possible will help, but there will still be hundreds of questions. Everyone understands stuff differently. What was clear to me made no sense to others. So, someone needs to facilitate and interpret all these concerns (Assuming we want this level of attention, otherwise we could be like eBay and PayPal and just have autogenerated scripts: Thank you for your inquiry. Please read the FAQ. Please do not reply to this notification).



I'm not trying to discourage us from fundraising, but I want to be clear that there are a number of concerns outside of having a better way to host the auctions.