Marketing Connections (Or How To Make The World A Better Place)

My friend Robert Benson just invited me to join a new site for vinyl lovers. Here's my profile. It looks kinda like a specialized Facebook. I hadn't looked at ning.com before, but it looks versatile and easy. The welcome email for this ning site said I was #59, so it's not big yet, but could grow if you guys join.

Growing the online network of people passionate about music, art, and creativity in general is perhaps my main lofty goal of this blog. Along those lines, I figured I'd give a list of blogs I've been keeping tabs on one way or another. These are people standing up for culture in their way:

Layla's Classic Rock
Imagine Echoes
Music Obsessive
Seth's Blog
davistudio
Think Simple Now
dig this / dig that
Zero influence
Magical Mystery Blog

This is an odd collection, but then I'm odd. I've commented on all of them, except Seth's which he has set up only to accept trackbacks and for some reason blogger won't do trackbacks right. So I email him. He emails back. He really does.

I got to thinking about marketers like Seth this morning. I like'em because they're job is to think of ways to make you make your life better. Or at least think it is. In any event, marketers push positive messages generally. Yes they do play to fears a lot, but that's what we respond to. If you haven't seen it, watch "The Day The Earth Stood Still" to understand that. Imagine if the Internet just stopped? Yikes. It's hard to remember what it was like before, say 1995 or so when the Internet took off commercially.

Anyway, marketers usually don't bash other products. They know they've got your attention for a limited time, so why waste it talking about the competition? I was thinking what it'd be like if political campaigns did that, promoting their candidate in and of themselves, not as opposed to the other one.

I don't like comparisons. My sculpture teacher liked to say that there'll always be somebody better than you and somebody worse, so worry about yourself. So much energy is spent by humans comparing themselves to others. Yes, society has to operate on norms to hold together, but participants in society don't have to judge themselves that way.

Be you, for cripes sake.

Be positive, too. Why spend so much time complaining about what you don't like? Like Zappa and so many others creative people say, if you don't like it turn it off, don't buy it.

Go one better and promote what you DO like, pay for music, contribute to society to make it what you want.

I know this post rambles, I know. My mind is a mess right now.

But it's me.

Peace.

SOLD - Jim Morrison 09/24/08