Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

I checked to see what was happening on Canada Day at Nathan Phillips Square and Sankofa Square (YDS) - and guess what - NOTHING!!!!!




Nathan Philips Square Stage!



Nathan Philips Square Stage!



Nathan Philips Square Stage back in the day!


This was so pointless as we would have put on a rocking concert for all! Known Canadian talent! At Nathan Philips Square we never even got to first base with our query being dismissed immediately.




The original estimate like h th e original with inflation!



Most of you know what happened at YDS/Sankofa Square. We got a reasonable price in the fall and planned for that. Then they doubled the cost making the thing financially impossible on such short notice. Also with discrepancies like that what else could happen?




The revised estimate at almost double the cost!



I have no idea what was going on. At the big winter Christmas event at YDS, two large retailers had to put up a side stage for the Bare Naked Ladies to have them perform - so why not the stage? I really think they just ditched the concert staff or something like that. There has to be a reason?




YDS Today!


Anyway, I was good on my word about putting on another FOFSTOCK. But you can’t put it on without a venue. And remember that when you go one step up like Massey Hall and places like that set up for ticket sales - you then get shut out for other reasons - like money as in acts that you can sell for ticket sales. The other reasons being shut out to a closed network of connected companies that basically have exclusive access to those venues. So if we can’t get into the public squares then that’s it for us. There is always the outside chance of just holding a smaller event at Mel Lastman Square along side some other event already there. That is still a possibility but not this year.



And that was the fate of FOFSTOCK 2. It actually was survivable financially in the original estimate - but not at double the cost - that was just too much and really was more of a message than anything else.




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

Sunday was a safari…..







Took the family out and did some shopping. Then I took off downtown to see what the deal was with this DVD store at Bay and Bloor. I was getting upset about even the drug stores getting rid of those DVD standup displays. So I looked to see if there were any more DVD stores and here it was. Nothing but DVD/Bluray\4K. There was another one but was closed on Sunday and did the CD thing too.




There are a ton of these isles like thousands of titles - this must be financed by the film industry. Nobody is flying home with these movies?


Sunday was the best time to go downtown Toronto as it’s a driving nightmare any other time. So I got down there and parked underground and went in. I was shocked at the number of titles! But 90% were for rental and just a few walls of movies for sale. How the hell do you keep going off rentals? I can only guess this is a place for the hardcore physical media film buffs. They keep the titles rent for view - but maybe - it’s rent for rip. It’s a cool idea and I’m just extrapolating as they will always say rent to view. Anyway the store is still in business with three people there on Sunday and nothing else on sale! Amazing - and perhaps it’s quietly financed by wealthy folk in the film industry while working up here and need to watch something. Who knows what is really going on - but it seems to be holding its own…..


I bought two DVDs and two blurays and got out of there and figured I would finally get to Steve’s Music also downtown.







A small chain and probably the last competition for Long&Mcquade The store was a decent size. Probably a little larger than a typical Longe&Mcquade store. First floor was all guitars and upstairs was all about drums and downstairs was pro audio. I did not know about the pro audio floor until I looked at the photos back home - oh well…..




Electric Guitars!



I have everything I needed but they did have a Tomex One out of the box so I had one of the guys hook it up to see if there was hiss and hum like the one last week. There was and so that was it for the Tonex One - or - Tonex Hum…..



Two rooms of Acoustic Guitars!



Then the long drive back home. The heat and humidity had lots of skin on display - so there was that!



And that as the weekend. Shane’s gang was at some downtown Etobicoke event and they even had a concert stage setup. This is one way to
do it but you can’t escape the main attraction. It would not be FOFSTOCK 2 but you would be paying for a concert with no name recognition and probably very few of our artists - see, that just doesn’t make any sense to
me…..




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

Some rather weird stuff I got co-opted into doing…..



As a film buff and cinematographer - I hate the term director as I mostly shoot docos but Google says I’m a director - I like many of my kind are sensitive to censorship, especially when the cinematographers/director ain’t around to approve any changes.



This one movie that shall remain unnamed was turned into a DVD by Warner Bros. who got the rights from MGM. Basically the same movie except that a certain actress now had her breasts cropped off in the DVD. Why? Some say the nipples were at the very bottom of the frame and could be cropped because of “masking”. This happened with my own movie and short before we watched it in a theatre with a 40’ screen and curtains closing at the end - epic….. It happens to all 16X9 frame converted to cinematic standards.



But another explanation could be that the actress now had considerable status and was given a title by the Queen of England and all that. Could it be vanity? More over, the changes were made around the time of the cinematographer’s death - Hummm.



I got drawn into the discussion because I had the original movie uncensored recorded off TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies with Elwie Yost. I even remember as a yong man noticing this actress showing her boobs in the film. Time works on people that some were even questioning if she showed her boobs in the film at all as the DVD didn’t have them. But a few had the evidence - or at least one did - and showed the screen frame varies showing both boobs in the frame. So I went back to that old VHS tape and digitized it off a new VHS machine I have into a camcorder with superior definition and got a half gig file of the clip. This is better than a capture of the boobs as we can go slightly back and forth in the framing to compare.



Right now I can tell you it was stretched vertically to hide the nipples and I have the rare evidence to make the case. Another side note was the idea that not all DVD regions had the crop so I had to spend 100 bucks getting the last known copies that supposedly are not censored. They probably are censored being Warner Bros. and not MGM - an early DVD and a later one. But I’m just being very thorough here.



Censorship especially with ground breaking cinema is no small issue. A film is a work of art. It has its own being and speaks to each viewer in its own way. To attempt to change the film and have or hope the old prints disappear with only the new versions available is just plain wrong. These older film guys made a huff about it 20 years ago. I think most are now dead or too senile to know or care. But I have all the evidence and the ability to tell the differences and maybe even keep and archive the actual film as the director intended. So that is how I got involved and what happened on Monday…..



As an aside. I love the resonant style of the 60s and 70s. I got another film on DVD (The Tenth Victim ) and I am struck at just how “cool” the style and vision is after all this time!


Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/gfAdbq71xHY?si=dUd2jt3cCFhdk7fb



https://youtu.be/k6S_EhnkLx8?si=a54HUideI8byjUfW



https://youtu.be/aykTSGPS9OA?si=ZYshe3IMMMUU-UhZ

[Maurice Ali]

Well good news on Tuesday!


The penalties on FOF Entertainment Inc. have been dropped which means that all penalties have been dropped. I had to present arguments to the CRA as to why they should be dropped and they worked. Funny how my head was swimming as envelope after envelope had an extra thousand dollar penalty attached. An absolutely crazy time then…..



Wednesday is a more administrative day, catching up on emails and such. I also have to top up bank accounts and check in at the office for mail and all that. One thing that is quietly evolving is the membership at both not-for-profits - increasing and increasing globally and not just regionally. This stuff is boring to all except the founder who marvels at what was once just a thought in his mind now becomes an actual vibrant set of organizations with members around the world. That is part of the pay-off for starting and growing these organizations!




Anyway, the banking stuff was finished last week and the CRA stuff is resolved. I’m still getting letters from the CRA like this week. After the announcement of the resolution of the penalties, the CRA has to mail you the revised summary of that year’s taxes of which we have four corporations the penalties fall under.




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/bxYhJpILIQE?si=tn_1UAmGKn35IQB8

[Maurice Ali]

I just realized that I. ever showed you the office but just the building.




7030 woodbine



Here and in the States it’s not proper to shoot a photo with the receptionist. So that one is ok.




7030 Woodbine



Anyway, that is what it looked like today when I walked in…..




Later…..

[Maurice Ali]

A new member at IAIJ talking about weponized music in geopolitical matters:



https://www.iaij.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1140



Of course I am above that and don’t get involved in such matters. I deal in the global layer only. As such you could label me a “globalist”.
Anyway a short and late one today.




Later…..





https://youtu.be/x7ZyiczFh4o?si=b5Sr1HB5S_G3CWYv

[Maurice Ali]

I’m almost up to date on the office stuff which is huge.



But it never ends because as of today More Vision corporate taxes have to be done. The only difference is that this will be done online with CRA programs to avoid penalties. It just never ends.



You take an interest in others facing problems. Even on Youtube as soon as someone has a channel for their business and starts making money - that’s when the trouble begins. One guy I was watching had someone try to trademark his business name - but that usually goes nowhere as trademarking is this long tedious process and especially for a registered trademark that I have at FOF (that will have to be renewed within a year and they are no longer 15 years but ten with extra cost for some service changes). The other was the loss of his operation license as someone snitched to the EPA about his lax operations. See, while piss poor nobody cares - but start getting somewhere and the jealous competition will rat you out anyway they can.




7 years to trademark that!



We are not in the business of just being in it for the money, so I don’t have that issue. My problems usually are with the CRA and the IRS. After that it’s UN protocols and then general license designations especially municipal. I can’t afford a lawyer for most of these things but I had planned to be one (lawyer) back in the day and took courses on it (especially tort law) which is why I don’t really need them yet and have launched legal cases (so far successful like the COVID case against the government).








3.8 Billion - that got their attention! Spelling mistakes don’t matter (the application was like writing a small book) - only that you did it - you started it and the government tried everything to stop it!



It’s a hassle but the overall organization keeps growing.



Why did I do it?



Because I was a philosopher at heart. Not only that but back at the start of the real internet (2003) I was on several message boards which were popular in the day - and was astonished by the global use of these boards. I spent a vacation just living on one used mostly by teenagers and you could see them all chime in time zone after time zone having fun with each other. They actually liked me but did not know who I was. So I let them see who I was and predictably (especially just after 911) everyone instinctively turned on me for no reason, even though they all liked me before. But there was an exception, the teenagers couldn’t care less and treated me the same as one of them. They really liked me and my lofty ideas and even made cartoons with me in them.







So screw those older folk who would hate me because they found out I was a brown guy - but what to do with the kids that never did anything to me, some even adored me and one girl wanted to drive up to where I lived from the States sleeping in her car along the way! I couldn’t turn my back on this generation that actually liked me and treated me as one of their own? So that’s why I decided to be selfless, embrace that moral imperative and try to make the world a better place - for them - why - because they never did anything to me!




Emily - 17 years old - 3 kids now?



They all are in their late thirties now. Most have kids. Even here at our offices. Emily, Gianna, Sam, Ainsley, Shane, Shaun, Gritz and all the rest, have even younger people, only these called me “Uncle Mowis” - how could I toss those generations to the dogs?



So I stick with it and so far we have beaten the odds and are actually successful with possibly massive impact still in the cards. So that’s why I put up with all the hassle we have here.




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/Z_smISPCJiY?si=RkJm8vEG3GZ63_ea

[Maurice Ali]

IAIJ is getting busy with news stories:

[Maurice Ali]

Some time to recover and think.



Funny how I look back to my teenage years. What was I doing back then? Physical anthropology - I needed to know our physicality before I went after that solid base for my metaphysical philosophy. I was into university text books - a struggle with the language but my IQ raised along with my vocabulary. So there I was trying to find out the cranial capacity of my skull. More complicated than you think! The funny part was people around me taking an interest and helping out - at that madness.



Then when I was 17 starting to come up with different philosophies - like once a week. I was ostracized by my fellow students and I asked my psychology prof why? He said he wasn’t sure if I was Phd material, but that I was smarter than the other students - and I knew it…..



The same time befriending my philosophy prof and it was her that told me my difficult life has build up mental strengths that would hold me in good stead in the future. She ended up heading the philosophy department at a prestigious university in the States but never did make her mark on content. This was Ryerson and there were others like the eastern Europe university prof that warned me not to lose my mind as I delved into metaphysics and especially limits that I was good at. Got out of there at 20.



Took a year off to formulate my own ideas as I did not want university and philosophy to “color” my own ideas. An insane period of my life - I was a different man - polishing of a text book and two novels a night. Yes that was me at 20! So back to majoring in philosophy at York. Taking philosophy and neural anatomy as I needed that secure foundation in reality. Descartes isn’t enough. Was told I was into grad school and then kicked out - maybe because of my arrogance. One prof told me they put up with me because I was a paid student, but things would be different in grad school - made it like a threat.




20 years of school and me at 24 (would have been 23 if I did not take that year off - I never really thought about that) - out on the street you go brown guy!



In the end they threw me on the street. I looked at it as a betrayal! But it didn’t end there. The guy who told me “things will be different” is famous and listed in Canada’s “Who’s Who” but never came up with anything original. I did, plenty and the reason for the jealousy.



You known the rest. I’m a player, but the closer I get the more disappointed I am that I’m not getting it all! The arrogance is still there that rubs everyone the wrong way. But like Shane says: “If it ain’t broke - don’t fix it”.




So I carry on. You only live once…..





(NSFW)
https://youtu.be/312Sb-2PovA?si=_DD2yM2swOzaiL7k

[Maurice Ali]

A bunch of things.







FOFSTOCK 2 may have happened tomorrow and I was hoping it would be rained out but no such luck.


I have finally gone and opened accounts for IAIJ and FOFSTOCK on Tick Tok. I down loaded the app into a cleaned up iPhone 6s Plus and will use that phone for Tick Tok exclusively. So it finally did happen, but only in these terms.



Remember when I got the deal in my 80 gjgs for 50 bucks from the happy salesmen last week. I got the bill and it’s now 39 bucks for 80 his with the largest telco in Canada - this dude must know me…..



I’ll probably take the subway down and do a recon on what’s happening at Nathan Phillips Square and Sankofa (YDS) Square tomorrow as it’s Canada Day and see if - surprise - there’s some big ass musical festival going on there. Don’t bet the farm on that one…..




Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/zcSlcNfThUA?si=DGplsd90ABMtKwI-

[Maurice Ali]

I was supposed to be doing a big ass Music Festival today.


I had hoped it would rain all day but that happened yesterday. Anyway at 8:00an I drove downtown to see what was going on at YDS and Nathan Philips Square. I started work at the original FOFSTOCK at 6:30am as the banners on stage had to be up first. I had to use a scissor lift and this had to roll around on stage before any cables and equipment were laid. So at that hour I would know for sure what was happening at each location.




Nathan Phillips Square Canada Day 2025!



Nathan Phillips Square “was” having events there including cultural music on stage. In the photo above you can already see the stage banner hung first. They are good to go!




YDS - Sankofa Squareon Canada Day 2025, Rejoice!



YDS was different as I expected. Nothing in their calendar. A barren stage and no banners. Worst of all - as I predicted - the water fountains were in full force. These are not for children - but to prevent protests and rallies at the square. Technically the by-laws say protests are never meant to happen at the square. Hence the use of the water spring fountains. If they get turned off and a protest ensues then expect the powers that be are allowing it. They could change the by-laws or even suspend it when they want, so this is not anything bad or nefarious here. In the end they can do what they want with impunity as it’s their square. I’m just noting policy as it exists at the square.


But as you can see there is nothing happening. There is a hidden lane for heavy equipment and trucks to use and no sign of that happening. I had seen enough - our concert and music festival could have happened today! But the powers that be didn’t want it to happen…..



There was a movie shoot happening on the others side of the south street at the Square. I asked around and all the employees played dumb. But I saw a guy my age hidden at the square watching things and that was the “boss man” - if your radar is up for this they really stick out. Yes, he confirmed the movie shoot - nothing more to do at the square so I left.




Shane with Ed Robertson of the Bare Naked Ladies December 2024 at Sankofa Square!



I’ll tell you the secret lineup if FOFSTOCK 2 happened today.


The Bare Naked Ladies
Kim Mitchel
Sash Jordan
Platinum Blond



Original FOFSTOCK (2011) lineup:


Jelleestone
2Rude
Kaleb Simmonds
Johnny Rourke
Avvry Knapp
Loco Mensolaza
Twenty6Hundred
Shane Murphy
URV Khan & CNS
Shaun Kelly
Dave Getchell
Yung Spot
Tabitha Blair
Kevin Adgey
Donald “Boots” Brasseur
DEEJAYSCOOTZ

& MC Scott Williams



Some were even contacted. But before the evening event we would have had a combination of our guys and random “up and coming” Canadians at this free Canada Say music festival!



This is all in the past now and I’m hesitant to say “better luck next year” but that thought did quickly cross my mind as I drove off the Don Valley Parkway onto Richmond Street…..



Yeh - I really tried to make this happen. I’m not attending any events today as that is like “rubbing salt in a wound”. Tomorrow is another day…..




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

I’m surprised I actually held off my planned Canada rant.



These are always a bad idea as the internet is forever. So I’m not going to rant about how Canada treated me and millions of others like crap their whole lives. How they interned Chinese during WW2 confiscating their businesses and land for nothing and giving it away to others. You thought Japanese - but I personally knew a guy just like that. The government waited till they were all dead and just issued an apology to get out of monetary reparations.



I - a born and raised visible minority - have to defend Canada at UN events as everyone in Canada has this communal amnesia about the shit we do and then criticize other nations about their own failings - and then have the nerve to say we are the best nation on earth.



Really?



What about the First People here? They were here first and now they live in concentration camps like many other occupied peoples around the world. I had to defend Canada when asked about the genocide of the American Indian and those “concentration camps”. I did the Canadian thing and told them “those are not concentration camps - we call them reservations.” And have these UN people look at me incredulously and nod knowingly to each other. But the reservations are not proper concentrations camps like the ones made for anyone that looked Asian during WW2 - no doubt those were proper concentration camps.



I could go on like human rights in Quebec if you are not Francophone. Turn a blind eye there.







Canada is the worst polluter and contributor to global warming on a per-capita basis. Take those “credits” (“blood money” to cheat on the results) away and we are one of the worst in the world - that is the reality. We are - worse than the Chinese (we always criticize) and again I have to defend Canada on this while abroad.



What about turning away Jews fleeing tyranny? Remember that?



The funny part is treating me like absolute shit my whole life here and then having me be an ambassador to Canada to the rest of the world - too frick’in funny!



We are not the only country with bad records. Literally they all have them. But maybe the smugness and “better than the others” attitude we have inside Canada rubs me the wrong way. But you don’t have to deal with that stuff like I have to outside Canada. So I stay quiet at international events because everyone has Canada’s transgressions in their little black book.



What about your loyalty to Canada - you say?



Ok, I have softened my rants to say that while Canada treated me like shit my whole life from the government to its institutions and the general population, the younger Canadians are different so I don’t include them and anything “for” Canada is for them because they never did anything to me.



But most Canadians on the street still don’t consider me a Canadian. Even though I was born in Winnipeg, raised in Edmonton and then moved to Toronto. Not a Canadian because I’m not White. Nope, not a Canadian! And I’m 65 years old…..



Neither was my Chinese best friend, who was also born here - See not Canadian - he’s Chinese and I don’t think he ever went to China. “Where did you come from” is the constant phase from Canadians to anyone not white - probably asked of First Peoples too - that is hilarious and sad all at the same time! When asked the question I used to say Trinidad and Tobago even though I was only there for 2 weeks when I was eight years old. 65 years in Canada doesn’t mean shit when you look like me.



By the way, I’m being nice here and I could go way worse with real stuff than I have above. This is the “Canada Lite” version of my rants. It’s way worse. And still many would say there is no racism in Canada - that always makes me laugh. Wake up Black tomorrow and you will be singing a different tune - guaranteed!



My persona internationally and inside Canada are polar opposites of each other. I don’t think any institution in Canada has ever recognized any of my organizations at anytime other than the CRA and maybe the CRTC. The abject racism of this place is very embarrassing to defend internationally.




Goodnight…..





(NSFW)
https://youtu.be/4oxAdQ3-NjU?si=FY9ybtQ5feK0PZa8