Gene Simmons' Moneybag [EC]

I love that Gene trademarked the moneybag. The thing we love to hate, money is what unites and separates us at the same time. I exchange my value for something you value, with a place-holder in between. As the ultimate means to an end in capitalist society, "money makes the world go 'round".

I used to cringe at the thought of selling my art, as Chris Guillebeau discusses in this post. In college I'd read Marx and sort of understood his concept of the exploitation of the worker, and I didn't want to feel that way with my art.

Then I realized that I WAS the means of production though. I owned myself. And I owned my art. As long as I didn't compromise that, as long as I didn't "sell out", I wouldn't have a problem selling my art. Maintaining control is difficult though. It's required that I decide on certain policies before considering specific situations.

Such a situation has come up. I previously decided, like Seth Godin states in this piece, that I don't want to create any conflicts of interest and take paid advertising. My online presence is meant solely to promote my art and to connect with a community of people passionate about creativity and culture. In promoting my art, yes, I am hoping to find people in that community interested in celebrating their particular passion with a commissioned piece of mine, but money is not an end.

Ramble, ramble. I'm not good at talking about myself like this. Suffice it to say I only say good things about things I think are good, and bad things about things I think are bad. And I won't take money to do the opposite. That's pretty simple. I value your trust and my principles.

Hopefully, that also gives more weight to it when I do say good things. Like with the iRecord. They asked me for a testimonial to put on their website and I obliged. I also had the thought that I could help promote their little white box on my site and blog because I think it is such a great gizmo. They were excited and wondered what kind of compensation I'd want for sales generated by my referrals. I hadn't even thought of that! I told them that I'd rather just keep it informal, providing a link to their site. I have the original iRecord. It does work as easily straight out of the box as it looks like on their site. I've chronicled my use of it in these posts and will continue to do so.

If you do get excited about their product, please tell me! I'll answer questions about my experience with it too. I truly don't care if they link me with your purchase, but I'd like to know what you think. I'm sure they would appreciate feedback from you too.

So, if you've got a collection of audio and video recordings on anything analog, like VHS tapes, records, or even 8-track, and you want to preserve those recordings and make them way more easily portable on an iPod or whatever, check out the iRecord. Consider this my whole-hearted endorsement of the product and the company's customer relations.

Peace.