for the night.

Looking into your drunken eyes

for tonight.

Behind my own obstructed eyes

for the night.

I could be with you forever

for tonight.

Embracing you eternally

for the night.

Loving you for who you are

for tonight.

We are as one entity

for the night.

I know you better than any

for tonight.

Only because you’re buying my drinks

for the night.

I have been looking for internships and this is why this has been bugging me. I’m not sure what kind of internship to apply to now. I was initially going to go for music magazines, or magazines that have a music section I could write for. But now it seems like if I do that I will be just as tortured as any other job. The whole point of school and everything I do was to get into a area that I love. If I feel tortured every time I think about writing an album review how will I get through it for the rest of my life.

I also have started working as the music editor for a local student run magazine. This work seems so much more satisfying. I like being able to reach out to public relations and such to get albums for others to review. I also enjoy the editing process so much more than the writing process. Unfortunately, I know no matter where I end up in magazines I will one have to start at the bottom and two will still have to write certain things myself.

So this leaves me with several questions.  Do I continue with working in music journalism? Do I pursue my other interest? If so what?

To my great satisfaction he started out by explaining that though it was called marketing for creatives, there really is no difference. All marketing is based on the same principles.

Before getting into the explanation of what marketing is and how to perform it properly he explained the characteristics needed to run a small business.

1. Purpose
2. Love
3. Wonder
4. Courage
5. Grace

He went on to explain that most small businesses are still just a hobby. The major determining factor between it being a hobby and a business is marketing. To really be a professional business you have to be proactive and search out your customers through a thought out marketing strategy.

He described marketing as a system.  The goal of this system is for people to know, like and trust you and your business.

He stresses several points associated with a good marketing system. I’ve outlined a few of the main points I jotted down during the presentation.

• Strategy before tactics-A narrow focus and a clear definition of your ideal customer help with your differentiation and domination of your market.
• Marketing Hour Glass-This is essentially an extended version of the concept of the marketing funnel. Where that ends at the buying stage, he stressed the importance of the whole buying experience in order to not just make a sale but also get repeat business and referrals.
• The Information Business-With the abundance of available information on the internet business owners need to provide content to their market. Connecting to your potential customers in many forms of media can gain you more traffic which could turn into sales.
• Create a total Web Presence-Essentially make sure you are utilizing all the social media tools, local directories, and ratings or review sites to your best ability. In addition they should all connect back to your main website or online store.
• Live by the Calendar-Marketing can be a big task there can be many different elements to take on at once and it can be overwhelming. Using a calendar to outline monthly themes, weekly actions and daily appointments can help keep it to a manageable level.

All in all I think it was a very informative and entertaining workshop. For me a majority of the presentation was a refresher but there were some great elements I got from it. For those with no marketing knowledge it broke it down to pretty simple terms that could easily be followed.

It helped that they had refreshments and snacks, it made the trip there worth it. I found out later they would be simaltaniously live streaming the presentation. Though if I had been at home I would not have paid much attention.

To read John Jantsch blogs or find out more about him you can visit www.ducttapemarketing.com.

Etsy is a website and community for people that sell handmade goods, and connect them with customers. Visit www.etsy.com to find out more.

The website is kind of a vanity site. A place for me to post things that I have done. Mostly the idea started out as a place for me to put up my concert pictures. But I also wanted to be able to add some kind of depth to it with interviews and music reviews. I think the real goal of it though is to be a digital portfolio of my talents. I think it’s a great way for me to display all the different skills I have in addition to writing. It easily shows that I can work with many different media tools and learn any kind of software.

One of the other real inspirations for the site was that I just want to know that I made some kind of mark on the world. Which is really the true concept of the site. I want it to be like if I died tomorrow I can say this is what I left behind, hence the name, Last Remains. It’s a little similar to the concept I thought of when naming this blog. I thought of it as if I had a chance to write what my last thoughts were it would be things I post here.

Well enough babbling about the site so far I only have up one set of photos and an old interview but I am really hoping to be able to get some new stuff up soon. I am going to try and add new material at least once a week. By the way if any of you reading thing happen to be a musician, or work in the Metal music industry I am looking for new people to interview or material to review so please contact me. Without further ado I present Last Remains Website.

So as I sat there contemplating what to do I went through my choices.

1. I could get right back into the bed and wait for the day to be over and just start all over tomorrow hoping it would be a better day.

2. I could go hang out and spend the last of my money. I could also hope that hanging out would put me in a better mood and that at least I would have had some fun before I tried starting over again tomorrow.

Or I could do the smartest thing. Just try to work through it and force myself to do something, anything. I thought for a minute and pulled out the easiest thing I could possible do. Take out a journal and just write about how I felt. I just sat and wrote out the whole ordeal, it came out real easily once I began. About half way through it I was already feeling better. I’m not sure how long I wrote but it was about two pages. I stopped to eat and do a couple of other things in between but kept going back. (I tend to always multi-task once I get motivated) But by the time I wrote the last paragraph I felt totally better. I did still get back into bed but with different intentions.

I was just going to do a little mini restart of the day. Instead of getting in the bed and staying there until the next morning I was going to take a little mini nap and get up later to get some stuff done at night. I did get in bed but never up taking the nap. Eventually, I got some work done later in the night after watching a little television.

Whether or not I did get anything done though was besides the point. Writing my way out of my funky mood made me remember why I began writing in the first place. The writing experience has always been very cathartic for me. It was the easiest and most natural outlet for me to channel my energy into. Over the years I’ve lost my enthusiasm for writing. Well actually the better way to put it is I lost the momentum I once used to have. At some points life’s distractions took over. At other times it just started to feel too much like an obligation. With attempting to turn my passion and something that I did purely for fun into a legitimate career I had to write things I didn’t always enjoy, so it became forced. But while I was writing the journal entry it just all flowed out of me, it wasn’t forced and the more I wrote the better I felt. I just realized this is a sign that I’ve got to work out a new routine. I have to do more of that natural, fun writing so I don’t get that burn out from just churning out work.

I have to find a balance so that I don’t forget again that I actually do enjoy writing.

Goals for 2011

• Write everyday.
• Get my website up and running.
• Attend networking events.
• Organize my picture files.
• Edit poetry collection.
• Experiment with photo-editing everyday.
• Read at least 5 books on writing.
• Post something new online once a week.
• Update the website once a week.

Can’t wait to see at the end of the year how many of these I was able to stick to or accomplish.

I am not a model but I happen to be friends with an amazing model and one of  her favorite photographers. So last Halloween we got together and really just had a good time. Some workable images came out of it but mostly we just had fun.

Model: Elena Bathory, www.bloodgoddess.com

Photographer: David Velez, www.6of7.com

Check out their websites for more of their professional work. They are both incredibly talented at what they do.

However, the motivation behind starting the blog was to keep me writing on a fairly regular basis. I do get to do this with all the other work so I don’t feel that bad. As a matter of a fact I just got a new writing gig. As of today, my birthday, I will be writing album reviews for the website M is For Music. My first review was for the new band Baptized in Blood and you can read it here. I do hope to add more post to Last Words and I am considering creating a whole website. But for now I’m just happy that I’m still writing and enjoying it. (usually)

All this extra time on my hands has been driving me insane. Part of the reason I always worked was I needed to keep busy. So I’ve had a million little projects that I’ve been working on. In case you’re ever wondering how to pass some time if you have plenty of it here are a couple of my recommendations.

• Organizing your CD collection and/or uploading them all to your computer.
• Rearranging furniture.
• Saving all clips as pdf files, printing and creating a list of them, or updating your resume. In general preparing yourself for a job in your desired field, whatever that may include for you.
• Cleaning out your refrigerator.
• Get back into shape (with no real income I’ve become a fan of walking through Prospect Park for an hour or so).
• Take care of your health, if you don’t have it yet get medicaid, go get the physical you’ve been putting off.
• Catch up with old friends. Who knows it may lead to finding out about a job opening.

There are some also some other things you could do to keep busy that I don’t recommend, they will probably just keep you unemployed longer.

• Drink in the middle of the day.
• Pace around the house, unless it’s part of your workout routine. (I wouldn’t recommend it though, that’s the kind of thing that makes you start feeling a little cabin fever.)
• Spend all your time in bed. This could easily lead to feeling unproductive and useless, that’s when depression starts sinking in.
• Catch up with old friends. It could be a bad thing too, either you realize why you don’t talk to them anymore the hard way, or you occupy too much time hanging out instead of focusing on getting a new job.

At the end of the day the best thing to do is find anyway to keep busy while also being productive. If not, you could easily find yourself in a rut that will not lead you back to being employed. In my experience, the longer you stay out of work the harder it is to get back out there. Unless you have the luxury of not working and enjoy doing nothing, I suggest you find something right away and be flexible. Everything may not seem perfect but at least give it a chance, you never know it may become perfect.

Attempting to watch some real news for once I switched over to the CNN channels that are all strung along after each other, and every single one of them was talking about it. I almost lost it, the one time I finally decide I want to learn something I have to hear about what people who most likely have  never been near a  jail think she may have to endure. I guess being a newscaster makes you an expert on everything.

I think my favorite was when one “journalist” asked another about why she though people were so obsessed with hearing about this one young celebrity’s life issues. Really? Maybe it’s because its on every channel and being talked about by every single media outlet.  It’s a shame but we have sunk to an incredible low as a species.

And I know I’ve just added to the mania, but in this case I thought I just had to say something. Just to clear my conscience and cleanse the soul of my celebrity gossip sins.