I'm not Oprah

This is exactly the way all of this should work. I will try to explain, although I am not confident I will succeed.

Call it the Harmonic Convergence of the Big Man Getting Smaller.

I have a tendency to experience things in the most simple-minded ways, but to communicate about them in the most complicated ways.

I come here every day to share some music, enter the BMGS weight and calorie info, and sometimes post something I have written for the site. All of this really seems to helps me to organize my life, stay true to what is important to me, and get my body into gradually better shape. I usually spend somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes, so it is pretty worthwhile in the overall spiritual and existential economics of my life.

(See what I mean? I can't help myself, with the overcomplicating of things).

Anyway.

You may have noticed that I link to a lot of stuff when I post things here. Some of this is just shorthand, a way of making it possible to look further without my having to provide information that is already out there. Some of it is to share information about good things and to send out pheromones that give people a nudge toward people who are doing good work, whether they work as barbers or writers or musicians or burrito makers. Sometimes it earns me some spare change, for instance, if I include a link to something on Amazon my blogging software automatically includes my "Amazon Associate" link and then, if someone uses that link on the way to buying something from Amazon, Amazon sends me somewhere between 4 cents and 10 cents on the dollar. This has netted me $95.91 so far in 2007. In the existential economics of my life, this is nothing to sneeze at.

But regardless of whether it helps to keep the wolf from the door, I enjoy doing this sharing process. I'm not Oprah or Don Imus, but anyone who has spent 5 minutes here already knows that I have plenty of opinions and I enjoy sharing them.

We are constantly, all of us, in the process of discerning quality and meaningfulness in the world. Communities can play a powerful role in this process. There is a lot of dreck out there, and we owe it to one another to turn each other on to what is good, what is important, what is sexy, what is funny, and so forth.

One thing I hoped for, but was not at all sure of, when I began this blog is that information would flow in the other direction, toward me.

I should have had more faith, brothers and sisters.

It kind of amazes me that the Alexa Traffic Rankings tell me that this is now in the top 5% of all the websites in the world. I am getting emails and links every day about books, music, websites, politics, etc.

It rocks my world. Starting tomorrow I am going to put a little box in the upper right hand corner with links back to these things that have come to me through the blog. It will be more fun, and it will kind of bring things full circle.

But today I noticed something that I thought was very cool. About once a month I check my Amazon Associates account to see what, if anything, people are buying through my links. Usually it is the actually books or music that I linked to, but it doesn't have to be. If you click on my link to the Amazon Kindle but you keep navigating around Amazon and, in that "session," you buy a copy of Richard Ford's Rock Springs, I get a little something for that sale even if they end up buying a used copy for a quarter. (Amazon, of course, does not show me who bought what).

Anyway, I am always sharing music and books.

But someone who used my link to get to Amazon bought a CD this week that I clicked on when I saw the link. Never heard of Sara Bareilles before, but I loved the full-length video track of her song "Gravity" that Amazon provides for sampling. Just go there and click on the "Play" Button. Loved it. Gotta get it. You too, maybe?

Here's the link to Sara Bareilles' second album, called Little Voice. She also has a cool page of her own at Youtube.

She self-released her first album, and it led to a deal with Epic. That is exactly how things should work. You can tell from her Youtube page that she is still working her butt off trying to promote her work at the same time she is creating it. If we can help her sell 3 or 4 more copies of her CD, all the better.

Art. Commerce. Food on the table. But not too much.

That is exactly how things should work. Did I say that already?

Wednesday's Soundtrack



and


One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) - Billie Holiday

Now I should get back to reading all the pinball-related emails I have received from my South House brothers from circa 1971.