Tonight, at 8pm Eastern Goblin Time, Wedji & Gandersnitch face off in a debate of epic proportions! Who will emerge victorious? Who shall dominate the political landscape for the next five minutes?Moderated by the only man mad enough to attempt the task, world renowned comedian and juggler, Paolo Garbanzo! Tune in live, and ask your questions on the air @ www.mixlr.com/gandersnitch
Goblin Talk is going LIVE! That’s right, we are going to broadcast unrehearsed, unedited, and censor free! It might even not entirely suck! And you can be there, in the comfort of your own home, wearing whatever you want, listening in and commenting to your heart’s content on Facebook!
So check it out, click the link, do the thing, enjoy the show!
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So Wedji went to get a cup of coffee… and stuff happened. It’s all better now and we are back, louder than ever! In the first episode of Goblin Talk Season 2 we discuss the biological engineering, the politics of immigration, advances in the culinary arts, and the upcoming Broadway season! You don’t want to miss it! It is pretty dang amazing!
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I think this one is pretty much self explanatory. I mean, who else were you planning on wasting your vote on? Oh, yeah. Other stuff too. Important stuff. Give it a listen, and you will see what I mean.
Whatever.
-G
Campaign Music: “Five Armies” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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We were planning a fabulous one year anniversary episode. It was going to be so awesome that we kept planning and planning and we actually did do a tiny bit of recording as well. And then, this crap happened! Mab Just Mab (and by extension Wedji TuCheeks) was banned from facebook and thus cease to exist.
So instead of celebrating, Azog and Gandersnitch must eulogize. We are not very good at eulogies. Seriously. Please let us have Wedji back.
We are amazed that more than15,000 people have now seen our post and over 5,000 have come to this web site to read more. And thank you all for the outpouring of support. Mab is pursuing official facebook channels (and has been rejected through official facebook channels 3 times now, with demands for the exact identification she has sent them three times over), but the word is that something like this can take months to reverse through normal channels, if ever at all. That is why generating a buzz is so important. And holy crap, you folks are buzzing! (If only we could find a way to make honey from all these bees.)
Please continue to share the original blog post: http://www.goblintalk.com/2015/03/mab-just-mab-aka-wedji-booted-off-facebook/
And the twitter post: #facebooklied @Facebook Reinstate @mabjustmab on facebook! http://wp.me/p4jBPm-3N #mynameis Mab, Just Mab! Please Retweet!
And most importantly, sign the petition (a new one we were directed to): https://www.change.org/p/facebook-allow-performers-to-use-their-stage-names-on-their-facebook-accounts
Thank you!
Gandersnitch, Azog, and the ghost of Wedji
Update: (Mon. 11:54am) – Mab’s back! Thank you, thank you, thank you! To see the full story on her return, and more heaping of praises on those who took up the call, see: http://wp.me/p4jBPm-4i
Update: (Fri. 9:28am) – We still need your help! Please retweet this: @facebook Why ask for ID if you just refuse it? WTF? #facebooklied Turn @mabjustmab back on, she is real! #mynameis http://wp.me/p4jBPm-3N
Mab just received her fourth rejection of her appeal to turn her account back on. She has provided 4 different types of ids that prove she is who she says she is, and this is the name she uses everyday in real life. Still, her PERSONAL facebook account is blocked, and a form letter is sent saying: We are unable to verify your identity with the id provided. Please provide identification from the following list… Which she has done. 4 times over.
At this point it is clear – Facebook won’t stand behind their promise from October, they are all about the money and not about their users or their word. They set up a pathway to prove your identity, and then refuse to follow it. They blew smoke in the media and continued to ban drag queens, performers, Native Americans, and anyone who does not fit their mold. They don’t care what name you use in real life, or why you use it – all they care about is sticking to their policy that everyone must have a “real name”, but lets call it what it is – everyone must have a “normal” looking name. They are on the attack again, booting swaths of people who do not conform. We need to fight back. We are trying to be heard, but we need to keep shouting. This is harassment, plain and simple.
Update: (Thurs. 12:26pm) – Some folks have expressed concerns about the first petition we were told about, and thus directed people to sign. We understand those concerns, and have just been linked to another petition that may work better for folks: https://www.change.org/p/facebook-allow-performers-to-use-their-stage-names-on-their-facebook-accounts
Update (Wed 7:18 pm) – There is a petition going to repeal this absurd policy. Not just for Mab, but for everyone affected. Please add your signature at https://www.change.org/p/facebook-stop-forcing-users-to-display-their-real-name
Update (Wed 3:15pm) – A bit more digging makes it seem like we might have the wrong twitter handle for Mark Zuckerman. If anyone knows a better one, please let us know!
Disclaimer: The following is my understanding of events. I may be wrong. It happens, though rarely. – Robert/Gandersnitch
It seems that the fb account of my dear friend and creative collaborator Mab (aka Wedji) was marked as abusive and deleted while she was away performing in New Orleans this past weekend.
A few weeks ago (if even that long) she had run afoul of the “real name police” and was forced to change her name from Mab Just Mab to Mab J’Mab, pending documentation – which she duly provided.
Anybody that knows Mab, knows her only as Mab. Hell, I only know her birth name because of a credit card receipt. She does not use her birth name in real life. That just exists on a piece of paper. She uses the name Mab. Her reasons are her own.
Not only was her account closed, all of her posts, pictures, videos, and private messages were wiped and replaced with this message:This message is no longer available because it was identified as abusive or marked as spam.
Mab is also locked out of the Wedji fb page and the Goblin Talk fb page.
Years of private communications between Mab and myself (and others) regarding performing, planning, etc – are now gone. Comments and posts she made on the goblin talk fb page – gone. Pictures she posted from festivals of us performing – gone.
All over a stupid policy that facebook said in October, after an outpouring of outrage, that they were backing down from. Well, no surprise – FACEBOOK LIED!
I get wanting user accountability, but every other social media platform allows anonymity without compromising user accountability. All facebook’s ill thought out policy does is allow thugs, bullies, and hate mongers to run free and harass people they disagree with without repercussions.
This “real name policy” doesn’t protect anyone. It endangers people who should be able to be secure in their chosen real world identity. It promotes racism and intolerance towards people with traditional or strange sounding names. It puts some customer service person behind a desk somewhere in charge of deciding if another person, who they have never met, is real enough. It puts the burden of proof on the accused, something that is completely backwards to the basic structure of our values in this country. In the end, it really just enables the asshole behavior that facebook pretends they are trying to stop.
Maybe someone disliked something Mab said. Or maybe they just disliked the fact that she performs burlesque. Someone complained. And because of that complaint, Mab’s online identity is wiped. Years of social media contributions are wiped. She is turned into a victim, while her aggressor remains hidden and running free.
This is wrong. This is garbage. This is abuse.
#mynameis Mab, Just Mab.
That is good enough for the rest of the world, and that should be good enough for facebook.
So, the question has been asked: What can you do to help? Mab/Wedji has requested that her case be reopened with facebook. Maybe they will, maybe they wont. In the meantime, the best way to help is spread the word. In the past, people have successfully overturned facebook’s zealous ass-hattery via twitter. It is worth giving it a try again. If you have twitter, please post this tweet:
@facebook Why ask for ID if you just refuse it? WTF? #facebooklied Turn @mabjustmab back on, she is real! #mynameis http://wp.me/p4jBPm-3N
Thank you. (And if you need to contact Mab directly, please do so via email: Mab@Mabjustmab.com)
As some might know, I currently reside in a house. Not the whole house mind you, but I do have the top of one closet, the shelf in another, about 1/3rd of the attic, and the entire liquor cabinet. More than enough real estate for one such as I, but only because the liquor cabinet is not a cabinet at all, but is in fact one of those fancy globe bars that opens up to reveal the secrets inside. Glassware, a tiny bottle of rum, and some really nasty blackberry schnapps.
Normally, residing in this house is fabulous. Especially when it is -16 degrees outside. However, when the power goes off at 5am, and thus the heat, it doesn’t matter at those temperatures whether you are inside or out. It is damn cold through and through. Compound this with the fact that once I finally crawled out of bed, there was no electricity for the toaster.
So I made floppy cold toast, also known as bread, and topped it with what I assumed would be a brilliant mixture of cream cheese and dandelion jelly. It was not as appetizing as I had imagined it would be. I blame this entirely on the cold floppy toast.
But it got me thinking. What in the hell is cream cheese anyways? It is certainly unlike any cheese I have ever encountered before. Is it even bloody cheese? Is it the leftover crap nobody wants when people make actual cheese? Should it be consumed in any raw state, or must it be further processed into cheese-cake?
My brief stint of research, all five minutes of it, turned up this little fact: Early prototypes of cream cheese were referenced in England as early as 1583 (wikipedia)
Well folks, they should have stopped then and there and moved on to making bacon and beer. This stuff is nasty! It is runny or all dried up and crusty, with no middle ground. It absolutely does not work on pizza, and only an idiot would put it on a hot dog. Therefore, it is not cheese in my book at all. It is white milky goo that lacks any of the finer qualities of a good cheese. Don’t even offer it to me unless you have taken the effort to bake it into cheese cake. And no, putting it on a bagel does not make it all better. People put mashed up fish on bagels for crying out loud!
Crap. Utter crap! Even with dandelion jelly.
I should know, I ate it!
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Happy Holidays everyone! In our final episode of 2014, we discuss all the Winter Holidays, the War on Xmas, what to get Wedji as a gift, and our favorite Christmas carol. Enjoy!
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Welcome to our very special Thanksgiving Episode, with the fabulous Dawn Hunt of Cucina Aurora Kitchen Witchery! In this episode we talk about food, oil, farts, popcorn, parades, children’s books, Italians, and being thankful. We even let Azog chime in! It is extra long, but you have the time off anyways, so enjoy!