Well, things were going in the right direction for a little while. But then…
I’ve seen this movie before. That slope is gonna keep going up. I’ve been to a local Starbucks a bit, to work. People flowing in throughout the afternoons with no masks. Packing the place every now and again. Same at the grocery stores.
And this is what we get. A new 7-day average of 472 cases. Next week it’ll be 1000. The week after it’ll be 2000.
If you’re gonna announce a pre-order, plan on announcing again and again. Schedule it out. Plan on posting about it a dozen (or more) times. Remember – not everyone sees your post at 10am on a Tuesday. Not everyone is ready to click (they might be in line at the bank, or on break at work).
Put the link in every post. Include your nice artwork. This isn’t about “creating content” this is just making sure your billboard gets seen.
Embed a small video clip of your music. You’re competing with bands and artists who ARE already doing that. People like music. Maybe they’ll like your music. Give yourself a chance and make your music as easy to listen to.
If you’re just waiting for Spotify to start sending you $1 per stream, you’re gonna be waiting awhile. Build your email list. Make your music easy to listen to. Make it painfully easy for people to support your art.
There are big bands with label support, radio campaigns, slick videos, great press… and there are still people in comments 3 weeks after the album release going, “oh, I didn’t even know they had a new album!”
You don’t have to be super active on every social media network, but at least post more than once a month about your new upcoming release / art / show.
Waiting for Spotify, labels, and about a million other things to get fixed is a waste of time.
This weekend I didn’t get out for any adventures. It was too hot at night, so I slept horribly, which meant I wasn’t well rested, so I didn’t want to over-exert myself and burn myself out. Better to be safe and healthy, I guess.
After working for a few hours at my local Starbucks, I hit the Bartram Trail, the trail head being less than half a mile away. I always make sure to get a cup of water when I’m doing these post-Starbucks runs, just to make sure I’m hydrated.
The trail is six miles out, six miles back, with a steady 0.5 to 1% incline for the first mile. I’ve never actually done the full trail yet on foot, so just did 30 minutes out to make it 30 minutes back, to get in a nice hour long effort. Low and slow, average pace was 11:48, to keep that heart rate down given the heat (86 ℉, 50% humidity). And really, every run doesn’t have to be hard. This was just enjoying time in the woods, in the shade, running past rocks that have been on earth for 480 million years.
Good writing is cheaper than special effects. In movies, that’s obvious. It costs far less to make The Big Lebowski than a Marvel movie. But the metaphor applies to just about any sort of creative project.
In my line of work it’s about writing a good song, which is a lot easier said than done. And even then, no matter how good, it probably won’t have first-week numbers like ‘Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.’
You can also have the best team, the best marketing, the best “special effects,” and it may not matter one bit.
I got talking about Carlisle, PA with a friend recently. We read about the city on Wikipedia (here) and learned of this boarding school called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, “an experiment in educating Native Americans and teaching them to reject tribal culture and to adapt to white society.” Horrific.
The most beautiful burial I’ve ever witnessed. After over a 100 yrs the children who died at Carlisle Indian Boarding School are laid to rest by the youth of this generation. Wrapped in buffalo robes and back to the comfort of Grandmother Earth in their ancestral Lakota lands. pic.twitter.com/K3Fykn4OqM
I’ve lived in PA most of my life and never heard of this place. This atrocity.
“Carlisle became the model for 26 off-reservation Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools in 15 states and territories. Some private boarding schools were sponsored by religious denominations.”
All our students attend Sabbath-school, the girls in our own chapel, the boys at the different churches in Carlisle. Sabbath afternoon services havo been conducted by Rev. Dr. Lijpincott, of Dickinson College, to whom I am greatly indebted for faithful and zealous services as chaplain. These influences have produced gratifying results.
I mean, how does the church justify this? How do they remedy this? They played a part in the genocide of a people.
I love any story that involves a “what’s really behind the curtain” element. That’s probably why I love The Matrix (1998) so much, and can watch that first movie over and over again. There’s ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ from 2011, too.
Not sure why I decided to give Loki a chance, being as all those “comic book movies” don’t really do much for me. I didn’t grow up on those stories, or the comics. Sure, the ‘Batman’ from 1989 will always be a movie I love, but mostly because I was in middle school at the time, and everyone had that Batman logo shirt.
Getting into this Loki TV series was pretty easy, though. It jumps right into the mystery and intrigue real quick, and it does it mostly without the huge pomp and flash of those comic book movies.
And honestly, Tom Hiddleston is a delight. I love every bit of him this – the dialogue, the wit, the charm, his dashing good looks, his… journey.
For me two parts reminded me of The Matrix.
When Mobius tells Loki, “you could be whoever, whatever you wanna be, even someone good. I mean, just in case anyone ever told you different.”
Remember Neo riding in the car in the matrix for the first time, going to see The Oracle?
NEO: I have all these memories. None of them happened. What does that mean? TRINITY: The Matrix cannot tell you who you are.
In The Matrix, the machines made up fake memories and lives. The TVA snatched people from the timeline and erased their memories.
Then I felt Neo’s lone meeting with The Architect was similar, too. He Who Remains said he paved the way for Loki and Sylvie, and The Architect said that the remainder was not unexpected, so there was a measure of control. Both were planned, expected. It was fate that led to these meetings.
Neo had to make a choice; return to the source and the salvation of Zion, or go back to the Matrix and the extinction of the human race.
In Loki, there was a final choice, too: go back and lead the TVA, or kill He Who Remains and await the “total destruction of… well, everything.”
I have no idea where The Loki story goes, and of course we know that Neo could have saved everyone a lot of turmoil if he just took the door to the right.
The problem is choice.
Loki could have stopped Sylvie, given his powers and strength, but he didn’t.
Neo coulda have returned to the source, but he didn’t.
Sylvie could have “listened to reason,” but like Neo, she was on a mission. She was in love with revenge, the story. She needed this ending, this finality, this completion to the quest that she’s been on for 1000s (?) of years.
Neo had to save Trinity because he loved her.
I’m fascinated by the Simulation hypothesis, which of course would mean that everything is made up, just like The Matrix, or everything is controlled by something like The TVA. In that, that means I can wake up as Tyler Durden tomorrow if I want, or someone with the confidence of Loki.
If we’re all making this up as we go along, why not?
“I just wanna be in good enough shape to go on last minute adventures,” is how my buddy Jesse (above) puts it. He said this on Monday, on the observed 4th of July, and said a few years back during the 24 hour Loopy Looper in NJ, when I ran a few laps with him on a hot summer day.
A few days later is was stupid hot, but I’ve been deciding lately that instead of simmering and sulking in the heat, I’m gonna rush head first into it. In the 90s and humid? Fine. I’m gonna go out, take my time, sweat my ass off, and find a way to enjoy it. Slow and low. Lots of liquids. Walk when I gotta.
To wrap up this work week, I closed my laptop and set off for a loop I never did before. Still hot, still slow, but it was a solid 6+ mile run, and a nice way to finish off a shortened week of work, which is actually five days of work crammed into four.
It’s been five years of running. Just over 1,000 runs, almost 4,100 miles. Haven’t run a marathon yet, but I ran 18 miles in one shot. Ran a sub eight minute mile once, and came in second in a local 5K. Had a lot of fun adventures with good people, ran in a few different cities.
I turned 45 this year, and I’m feeling pretty fucking good.
As much as I want a run to wash away all my problems, and be this big glowing orb of joy in a world filled with grimness, it’s just usually not the case. Not the entire run, of course. There’s usually a mile, or a section, or a hill, or a stretch, where the run feels great, effortless, and without bounds.
It comes, it goes.
I’ve had one run that I can remember, a small local 5K, where it all came together. Came in second overall. It was nuts. But that one run is a needle in a haystack of 1000s of runs since 2016.
And the wild part is this – it’s still worth it. I moved from third to second in like, that last 500′ or so. It was wild.
It took a whole lot of ugly, bad, gross runs to get there. I guess I’ll keep going.
