Fortress Of Freedom Board

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:16 am Post subject:

Nine days till the show.....

But what I am really thinking about is the life choices and life path I am in. The job chooses the man an not the other way around. We have had some significant successes here, do I have the right to lament not having a family to take care of. The reality is that I could not do what I am trying to do if I had a family. Especially now that things are getting interesting and I need to be mobile and unfettered, do I have the right to be selfish.

Take yesterday for example. I was in the Queen Street West area - a trendy part of Toronto - picking up a keyboard for Kevin Adgey and everywhere you looked was populated with gorgeous women. Even in the music store (Sam's Music), pretty women with short skirts with legs that go on forever you get the picture. And here I am trying to reinvent the music industry they love and yet I walk among them invisible. There is more going on there than that but I just find it funny that I can't find refuge in the place I am trying to help. New ideas are a lonely place and those people who operate in that realm pay a terrible price.

Anyway, enough of me walking down Queen Street with this is 86 key keyboard leering at the women walking by. But it is interesting how much time I devote to life choices - or were they choices in the end. I rationally have to stay this path, we have to take our successes and make it work and have an impact in the development of our culture.

And that is that - billions of people in the world having babies. How much have any impact..... You have to feel it - the idea that perhaps the direction and course of our human society is run by guys and gals like me - and realize that at the core, how vulnerable we are. It is better to know there are others better than you running things. It is a bit more disquieting when you think that maybe this is as good as it gets for humans and if you and others of like ability don't help out, all hell could break loose. You have to have and know that feeling, to never had anyone best you, to realize just how fragile and insecure our reality as humans "is" as we try to operate and make sense of things. And know that the ringleaders of the circus are people no better than yourself. That is empowering but also scary. As that saying goes.....

Welcome to the big leagues.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:54 am Post subject:

I just fixed the link on the FLOW ad- sorry some miss-communication there and it never got uploaded onto our server. Just in case anyone thought this was a one man operation.....

Amy Winehouse (who always reminds me of my sister whenever I see her), what can I say. I won't say anything. Truth is I don't know anything about her, never met her. but in this small music community in Toronto others have and they can make the statements about her. It is hard to get off the drugs when all your trendy friends are on them. Go the straight and narrow and you are "out" of the loop. Even though I am technically a musician, I am out of the loop in this club, but most support this as I also handle the money (insert all kinds of jokes here at all ends.....) and critical responsibilities of running the operations (no arguments from anyone here). But the lifestyle of musicians is "cool" and creative and in your twenties you feel invincible until something like this happens.....

What else, all sorts of bad luck happening to others with regards to FOFSTOCK, but none that can't be overcome. It is so late in the game that I just cross my fingers and look at the weather charts. I hate gambling with large projects that cost real bucks. But in a way dealing with this music business and all the uncertainty is just the kind of life leason some of us squares need to live a little. This is life, not a financial exercise. If you don't go with the opportunities as they come up they usually never come again, you get the drift.....

Some more later in this post.....

We may be listed in the Toronto Star event listings. I am a bit late to that party but we shall see.

Scissor lift training for me tomorrow morning.

Susan Earps flies in from England on Tuesday.

Overall we are sort of on top of things, What we have to do is keep circling the venue and picking off tasks one by one with the simplest ones being last. It has come to that.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:34 pm Post subject:

I am now a certified scissor lift operator. The banners should be ready on Thursday. We are confirmed for the July 28 print edition of Now Magazine - Hurray! It is getting down to the nitty gritty and we check the seven day forcast which is still a guess but so good so far - but that could change.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2011 7:54 am Post subject:

Sorry for not posting more often but we are running around like crazy now.

Most urgent is the posters - everyone take alook at this mockup and let me know what you think:

______________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________

More news as it happens.....

We just keep puttering along. This festival is not unlike planning for a military campaign, there is information/disinformation, logistics, personnel, maps and diagrams, timetables and more. In the end it just comes down to the weather - like D-Day.....

I am just tired most of the time and from now on I will force myself to get some real sack time as the first of August will be one long day. It really is like one long military operation, so much unknown.

Goodnight.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 10:21 pm Post subject:

One marathon day for me today. I am the walking dead right now and must sleep. But we are go to go at the production end. Pics to follow later in this post so say tuned.

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2011 8:19 am Post subject:

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 2:06 am Post subject:

We are making fnal preparations for the concert. Here are some Banners for the event. I am exhausted but a nights sleep will cure that. Big day tomorrow.....

August 1 will be one of the longest days for me.

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:34 pm Post subject:

I have done absolutely everything I could to make this concert - festival the best it could be. It is off ot bed for a few hours sleep and then to see how things play out. A year and a half; untold hours, a wack of cash and the thing is over in a blink of an eye - that is how life happens.....

See you all on the other side.

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:29 am Post subject:

FOFSTOCK! WHOA!!!!!

By Maurice Ali

FOFSTOCK was a success from start to finish! We had a walk through crowd of 45 thousand and the largest audience at any given time was pegged at six thousand based on persons per YDS square distributed on Yonge-Dundas Square. We are still recovering physically and I personally got up at 4:30pm the next day, so we will add photos and screen grabs as they become available so keep checking this post!

Jelleestone at FOFSTOCK!

Jelleestone's fan at the stage barricades at FOFSTOCK!

Night time crowd!

TWENTY6HUNDRED at FOFSTOCK!

FOFSTOCK "the Stage" is set!

Dan Strudwick of AAVRY KNAPP!

Yung Stot!

Shaun Kelly!

Dave Getchell!

MORE LATER.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 7:12 pm Post subject:

I know, I know - everyone wants pics and vids. All in due time. Actually I can't even look at them yet as there is still too much to do after the fact. Things had to be returned and accounts have to be reconciled. I am still trying to catch up on sleep. And today I finally started to walk again. Yes, walk! Yesterday after the equipment returns I was so physically wrecked - a combination of dehydration, heat stroke and physical fatigue - made me a bit of a couch potato. Sometimes it was so back I had to crawl to a door or wall and use that to help me get up. It was that bad after all the important things got done.

That day - August 1, 2011 - was one (if not "the") longest days of my life. 6:30am to 2:00am non-stop physical and mental exhaustion.

I plan to post some more photos but I am going to return Kevin Adgey's keyboard as he passed out from heat stroke later on in the day after the concert and the equipment was left to me. Those are the priority items right now my friends.

I have forever to get you all the details - terabytes worth of stuff!!!!!

Goodnight.....

Maurice Ali · Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:04 pm Post subject:

I was returning stuff today - hundreds of dollars worth of stuff - that we did not use. I also bought another version of Roberts Rules Of Order - in paperback..... This precipitated a meeting of the IAIJ Board Of Directors in the evening. That was enough and very little was done to move more files on the concert to the web. But it will happen before the end on the weekend.

I started to feel like my old self again but not quite one hundred percent so probably a complete recovery tomorrow. I still can't comment on the concert yet. My opinion changes day to day. We shall see. Things are certainly interesting in this universe than my other previous incarnations of my life - that is for sure.....

meggen · Joined: 30 Sep 2004 Posts: 25 Location: TORONTO

Was a great show. I was there way out at the back and enjoyed the music. Your hard work paid off

Maurice Ali

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 5:52 am Post subject:

Some more of the performers at FOFSTOCK:

URV Khan and the Central Nervous System

Donald "Boots" Brasseur

Loco Mezcolanza

Wow, are there a lot of performances at FOFSTOCK..... I am sorry it takes this long to get photos but everything is in video and I can only get the captures after the footage has been inputted into my video editor (Avid). Then I grab a single frame, each of which is 12MB in size and work on that. One and a half years, a ton of money and a bigger hassle than I ever thought - but it is over..... Reality is setting in after the physical recovery. Yes the physical recovery! I did not see that one coming...... But back to reality and bad luck which is manifesting in every way possible now that my big wish for good weather was granted. Yes I told everyone I would put up with all kinds of crap later if we just got good weather for the concert. There was just too much of everything invested in that one day festival that a "rain out" would be just tragic. But I got my wish and now it is pay-back and I will just put up and shut up.....

I still have a few more tapes to input that took all of yesterday, but now I can cut some avi files for the gang to evaluate their performances. We are also collecting as much video as possible from everybody just to get different perspectives, audio and photos. If you have anything you would wish to cotribute, then sent them to maurice_ali@hotmail.com and thanks to anyone who contributes. If the material is used then you get a credit in the credits of the TV show. Yes television, and I have been there on multiple occasions.....

Back to work now folks, it never ends but my place looks like it usually does now - as opposed to the warehouse it looked like a week ago.....

One of the last full tapes I have to input is the start of that day with me using the scissor lift to hang the banner. The beginning of the longest day in my life. I cherish those moments but really would not want to go back and do that again right now. We shall see in time. Was it worth it? That day I swore I would never do it again. Time does change things a bit.....

So it is back to the same o'l same o'l..... Back to preconceived notions. Back to prejudice, back to the rat race, back to all that. The Fortress Experiment is over. I fought to make the goals of FOF some of the best moments of my life. Was it all worth it? Yes!

Maurice Ali · Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 5:43 pm Post subject:

Question: How do you get those banners up there at YDS?

Answer: You get certified and use a scissor lift!

Here I am walking to the scissor lift.

Here I am on the lift getting ready to hoist myself up.

There I am on top wearing a hard hat.

The end result.