Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.
Wow. When McCain sewed up the GOP nomination, I was resigned to hoping that he’d make a really great VP pick – somebody who would embody REAL Conservative values and principles. Sadly, none of the frontrunners really rang my bell. Jindal refused to be considered. Thompson wasn’t even in the running. Romney looked like a lock, but lost a lot of cred in the primaries, with unexplained “changes of heart” on core-values issues.
Then McCain surprised us all. [Read more…] about A Light Dawns.
Today is my anniversary. Lucky 13, to be precise. Mrs. Digital and I will be celebrating this evening, with a (hopefully) quiet, intimate dinner. Not much more to say about this anniversary (after all, it’s 7 in the ahem…it hasn’t even gotten started. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share with you something that happened almost ten years ago, regarding our anniversary… [Read more…] about Happy Anniversary, Baby…
Recently, I’ve gotten restless, and I’ve decided to begin playing music professionally again. Trouble is, I don’t have a lot of contacts here in Amarillo. So I’ve decided to apply the same techniques I recommend to my marketing clients to my own situation. That means I’ve got to find ways to get myself noticed around town. What you see at the left here is a poster I whipped up in an hour or so this evening. I’ve secured a one-night gig – kind of a “let’s see if this works” kind of thing. Obviously, I’d like this to turn into a regular gig. So I’m doing everything I know how to do to make that happen. First, we’ll start with promotions. I’m going to print several of these posters and give them to Pizza Hut. I figure that the combination of a nice-looking poster along with taking the initiative to promote my appearance there will go a long way towards helping them see the possibilities. It won’t cost me much to do it, and it will help serve my larger goal of getting my name out there as a musician in Amarillo. With only two days before the gig, I don’t have much time to self-promote, but I figure that anything I can do is better than sitting around and waiting for something good to happen. [Read more…] about A little experiment in musicial (self-)marketing.
When I was a kid, things in politics seemed much more simple. Republicans were the party of small government and low taxes. Democrats were the party of big government and big taxes. If you were for personal responsibility, you voted GOP. If you thought government had all the answers, you voted Democrat. Today, it’s not that easy. The GOP has been largely taken over by the RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), where conservative ideals and big government (and big government spending) have learned to peacefully co-exist. The Dems have been bushwacked by the lunatic left, with the George Sorros/MoveOn.org/DailyKos/Huffington Post crowd holding it hostage. [Read more…] about Six of one…
[Editor’s note: Mrs. Digital forwarded this to me, and I liked it so much I thought I’d share it with you.]
HOW TO START EACH DAY WITH A POSITIVE OUTLOOK
1. Open a new Word file in your computer.
2. Name it ‘Barack Obama’.
3. Send it to the Recycle Bin.
4. Empty the Recycle Bin.
5. Your PC will ask you: ‘Do you really want to get rid of ‘Barack Obama?’
6. Firmly Click ‘Yes.’
7. Feel better?
GOOD! – Tomorrow we’ll do Nancy Pelosi!
Not to call the late George Carlin on his math, but there are a lot more than seven words that are unacceptable in polite company. I’m not talking about “cusswords.” No, those are fine on pay TV, and most have made their way into the lexicon of free TV and the networks. No, I’m talking about those Words That Shall Not Be Uttered. Some of these words are so inflamatory that even uttering them is taboo. Take the “N” word, for instance. (Of course, the “N” word is only verbotten if you’re a WASP. It’s apparently perfectly acceptable to use if you’re black.) Or the “F” word – again, it’s apparently okay in a movie, but not okay on basic cable. Then there’s another class of words – words that have become weapons. These are words that have become marginalized, with meanings that are narrowly-defined…words that are used to label opponents, verbally tar and feather them, within an inch of their (public) lives.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you “Discrimination.” [Read more…] about The “D” word.
College Students and alcohol have historically gone together like mac ‘n cheese, Abbot and Costello, and livers and cirrhosis. Stories about binge drinking seem to imply that this is something new. Nonsense. In the 20’s it was bathtub gin and speakeasies. Back when I was in school (late 70’s, for the record) it was beer by the pitcher at our local pizza parlour, or the infamous Jungle parties at the KA house. Drinking is nothing new. Neither are its effects. Recently, a number of college presidents have opined that lowering the drinking age (back) down to 18 would cut down on drinking. I have a few thoughts about that. [Read more…] about CAUTION: Student Drunk Crossing.
I was all set to write about all the exciting things going on in the world of politics today. And then…suddenly…nothing happened. (But it happened suddenly!) It must be difficult to be the news editor at one of th 24-hour news networks on a day like today. Most days in fact, I suspect the news biz is a lot like what they say (“they” being the Van Patten family) about pilots – long stretches of boredom, punctuated by a few moments of sheer exhileration and terror. Trouble is, the newsies still have time to fill – and fill it they do, mostly with low-cal filler, tripe, trumped up stories, and navel gazing. Even my personal fave, FoxNews, does far too many breathless stories on the fate of ___________ (insert the latest tragic dissapearance, murder, or sensational trial). Currently, it’s the missing toddler, Caylee Anthony. Like most of the rest of the country, I suspect she’s no longer alive, and that her mom had something (if not everything) to do with it. Still, we live in a country where you’re presumed innocent, so we must let the justice system take it’s own course. Not the news media, of course. They’ve got time to fill, and just because they have no real news upon which to report, they’ll just find a way to stretch what they’ve got to fill the time available. [Read more…] about Slow News Day.
My kid loves BAND-AIDs. She believes that, any time she’s wounded, a BAND-AID strip will make it better. I’m not talking about bleeding, here – I mean, if she sprains her finger, the dog steps on her foot, or if she has a stiff neck – a BAND-AID will fix her right up. My apologies to the fine folks at Johnson & Johnson, but that ain’t necessisarily so. Don’t get me wrong…adhesive bandages serve a useful purpose in the healing process, but they are not the one-size-fits-all, universal cure that my daughter would have me believe. (If they were, I wouldn’t mind our anual expenditures for BAND-AIDs, which seems to be a significant portion of the family debt, since she’s taken to putting them on EVERYTHING…) [Read more…] about BAND-AID® Marketing.
On my recent sojourn to the place of my birth, I had the opportunity to revisit the church of my youth. I grew up in the Episcopal Church – St. Mark’s Episcopal Church of Shreveport, Louisiana, to be exact. As a child, my parents had been searching – unsuccessfully it turns out – for a church home, when they enrolled me in the Kindergarten class of the school run by St. Marks. I came home spouting Episcopal theology. It occurred to them that the Episcopal faith was the only thing they’d not really explored among the mainstream Christian denominations. Soon, we all became card-carrying Episcopalians. [Read more…] about The New! Improved! Episcopal Church! (Not.)