Draglist.com Drag Racing

Thanks, Billy...sorry, the image had a dark background behind the wheel and the lug nuts were sitting over the indentations. I removed the background behind the wheel and moved the lugs and center cap to show the whole deal, prettied it up a little, too. Still needs a valve stem. Hope this looks better! Cheers, WC1

I sent a copy of the Coot Cat AC unit idea to George K in Hitchcock; haven't heard back from him yet but I'm ready to take my lumps! He will either tell me I hit on something (with a digital chip programmed to run it properly, seems to me it'd work!)...or he'll tell me I need a nice, long rest...<g>

Those things are great. Better head to the patent office... lots of people read this board... bp

Good point, BP. I know a patent attorney here. I'll give her a call. Look, folks, it ain't that I don't trust you, but I'm going to remove the graphics so they don't get lifted by internet scavengers.
Thanks, WC1

I wouldn't worry about our group, but Google scans the entire board at least once daily and the posts become a matter of internet record... something to keep in mind for all... bp

That's something I just didn't think about, and thanks. I went to delete the posts but all I could do is delete the images, which is cool with me. I guess it's one thing to post graphics but concepts, ideas for new products, should be kept private. Good advice and I'll follow up on these with a visit to my patent lawyer friend...Cheers, WC1

If you want me to, I can delete them. Tell me which ones. bp

Your ideas DO have merit, Cat...but BP has a valid point. I would hate to see you get ripped off like you have in the past with your music. Theives are a real pain in the backside, but considering BP's and this board's delicate nature, I won't post what I "think" should happen to those low life, blankety blank, bleep bleeps...

I had all but forgotten about the music. Thanks for reminding me, Billy...
just for the "record", a superstar who will be on TV today has one of my songs on one of her CDs...it's the only song on the CD that is not credited to her, and I own the copyright to the original. The producers took credit for writing it. The CD showed up around 9 months after I filed the copyright with my song on it...I can't tell you the feeling I got when I was sitting on my couch watching MTV and the VJ came on and made the announcement, gave the title of the song (I chuckled to myself and said "Ha. I wrote a song with that title!") then they played the video...I sat up and said "My God...that's my song." I did extensive research and analyses of the formula that was lifted from my original. It held up. I then contacted my friend in LA who worked for Sony and Warner Bros in 2 different capacities and presented all this to him. His response was yes, it's your song. Yes, they took it. Yes, you can come at them over it. But...2 things...one, they have an army of lawyers waiting for me to show up and they'll completely dominate the proceedings. And two, if they do settle with me, I'll get money (less than half of what I'd be asking for, then my lawyer would get the other half of what I'd end up with) but I'd be blacklisted in the industry and I'd never get a break from then on. So I let it go. My music and my songs have appeared in commercials and a couple of radio hits over the years.

How it works is the record companies own the radio stations, first of all. Therefore, they control what gets played on the radio, hence, what sells and sits on the pop charts. They have scouts that go to the Library of Congress and they listen to all the new submissions that are sent in. They are allowed to do that there. They write down the "hooks" and the melodies that are catchy, and they take what they got from there to the corporate office, give their notes and tapes to the producers' team of scribes and session players, and a new version is procured and presented to the artist, who had nothing to do with the creation of the music. It's fourth-person by the time they get it, and they and/or the producer takes new songwriting and publishing credit. The paperwork goes to Legal, it gets processed and they put it in a file and wait for the guy who wrote the song to show up. It happens all the time. That's how big-time mainstream radio hitsville works, folks. But nowadays, home recording and independent, online distribution is just as good if not better and more accessible than what Wal-Mart sells.

The Citykings copyrighted each song individually, the CD as a whole, joined ASCAP individually and as a group, and formed a publishing company which owns the rights to our material on the CD we made. I still didn't feel comfortable with all that, but it was all I could do under the circumstances. So far we haven't been ripped off. I could rave on all day, but I get the point and I hope I made sense in explaining that. Thanks again, Billy. WC1

Thanks WC. That is just wrong, but I see your point.

I agree, ProZ. It does feel wrong, but it's perfectly legal. They have money set aside to swat songwriters away with...the major labels are mutli-billion-dollar corporations that have their roster of artists well-covered and protected from scum like me. They put a lot of money into them and their careers and they expect big returns on their investments. A system like I described is just one of many inside practices that keep their people on top of the world. What goes on in the recording studio's mixing booth is another story altogether. Now, I had to have a little talkie-poo with myself about it. They didn't really take my best music. Just the hits. It's just what they do. I still have a backlog of original material that I haven't recorded and a lot that I've misplaced and will find once I clean out the garage. When I call it a day on the live circuit I plan to install the ProTools system I bought a couple of years ago and start multitracking again. The non-stop soundtrack never stopped playing in my head. I expect it'll keep playing as long as I'm around. Thanks, WC1