Things that fascinate me #137 about this Brave New World today: What if I did pass out 5000 fliers?
It used to be the normal thing. Now you trust an algorithm. And now thanks to algorithms Donald Trump is President, and America is a fascist state the world genuinely enjoys laughing at – with every tweet. So every day.
So blindly trusting algirithms clearly isn’t the right answer.
It’s amazing how easily we just give up on things that work, because they are hard and you don’t have to do it anymore – like fighting for civil liberties. And talking to strangers. And passing out fliers.
‘We don’t need to pass out fliers, we have facebook now.”
“How is your draw?”
I am not saying that I am going to do it, but I might. As a social experiment. And also because it works. It always worked. It was just humiliating at times. But so is having no draw.
As I step back from producing concerts and talk to so called experts about marketing my hit single ‘Free Your Mind’, I wonder what happened to talking to perfect strangers.
I noticed as homelessness and opioides became more of an epidemic we spent a decade not facing – there you were passing out a flier as it stopped being a thing. You were that guy asking for gas money at a gas station or in a parking lot, that was really begging to score heroin.
That’s a shift.
Of course I am too old for such an experiment. But then again something almost supernatural happened this year. When I lost 75 pounds, kids, I mean adults, at Hangar 420 Snohomish that are 21 that attended my old high school kept guessing I graduated in 2008 instead of 1997. The first gradiating class. I couldn’t be any older and be from their alma mater. So now I am 28.
But I could be there father. I look at them, and tell them I could literally be their father.
Lets do the math. 11 years ago, I was passing out fliers in 2007 when our first album The 12th St Blues dropped.
So here I am. In their eyes, back to the beginning of my rise in Seattle music. But in much better shape honestly.
So I am 28. What happens if I talked to 5000 strangers? I can take the humiliation of rejection on the chin like a middle weight champ. Passing out fliers actually made me in someways invincible.
A person could wave me away and even laugh in my face, but the laugh was on them because that weekend I sold out the show and my humiliation was traded in handsomely for hundreds of friends, new one, old ones; some I passed out fliers to 6 months before; collectively screaming in defeaning adulation, that left my ears ringing for sometimes days.
But who has time for that? 5000 fliers. That’s a part time job. Plus gas…parking maybe.
But then again, if you don’t want to do the work doing actual publicity and outreach, why do you deserve to buy this adulation? Because you can’t. What happened to earning it or even deserving it?
Hell there was even a few friends you could trust to hand out 10, 25, 50 fliers for you, though most ended up in the trash can. The rain washed many away. Ink that runs in the gutters.
But real friends and true fans, and fans that become your true friends, have always been a invaluable commodity. In actuality there are more than enough Diamonds for everyone. And their Momma. But a friend that would pass out 15 fliers for you? Wow.
That’s a treasure. People ignore your posts. The same people don’t really even see em’ and soon forget if they did. But talking to someone. Actual word of mouth. Hallelujah.
And then there was Myspace. Aarika Renaa Clinger could just put your song on her page AND that was like passing out all those fliers. Stalkers were immediately notified.
But today’s push of a button, pay the devil today style of promotion can swing an election with hate, but it doesn’t make people really love your band.
Because the fans have gotten lazy too. Why would you go to a record store and talk to strangers when your phone has algorithms predicting what your basic ass probably also likes?
We throw around the term basic. But this technology has made us all pretty basic.
It’s not just an age thing. Because the kids aren’t passing out fliers. They are withdrawing further into a world that is easier, and ultimately much more depressing, isolated, and dangerous, because Safe is not the correct word. It never has been.
Safety is in someways the cousin of death. The slower kind. Safety is SLEEP.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
– Ben Franklin, party guy
Safety is the idea that easy is simple, and safety is progress.
We have safetied this Country so safely that we accept school shootings as swappertunities for truly empty Thoughts & useless Prayers.
Passing out 5000 fliers does not sound safe at all. It wasn’t so much then. But it was better than the alternative:
Nobody showing up.
I am suspect of the kind of a☆☆holes that would show up because of algorithms.
“Is that what Hipsters were Daddy? The clones?”
“No honey. That is offensive to clones. They were drones.
…Unless you say something stupid and only then will it go viral and get you fired.
Latest goal in my quest for excellence and reinvention. I ran to the Everett Public Library in under 20 minutes, bought a hot coffee and bought these $1 CDs and this .10 book.
I could have brought a thermos and I have all these albums on spotify. But I want to pitch in something to the library besides late fees. And this producing theater book is interesting. Some things are outdated. But theater hasn’t quite been atomized by the photon gun of digital media and its railroad baron silicon valley pimps. You can’t really stream Hamilton. The unions still got Broadway.
Back to the road. Running to see the witch at Moddejonge’s Herbals before she closes and would be pastor Chip Butters in the dungeon below, The Rec Room, home of Butters Sound. Getting my first album backed up and two tracks I want on The Staxx Brothers last album.
Digital treasures hidden everywhere. Now to run from place to place like Forrest Gump.
It’s a new world when you can run everywhere and here any song you want to. The evil of streaming has to have some charms.
The Devil does have the best songs. And in many cases the copyright.
I am trying to find a balance, at least while I am home. Some things are in the works. Something is going to happen. And I have to be ready. Ras Isachar heard me on Irie FM in Jamaica.
I am running for a reason. I am running towards something.
…I am also soaking up these books. Working out if you do it right is the best drug next to performing LIVE. But literature for me is drinking water. H20.
Secret? I was actually trying to sing Feed Your Mind. But Free Your Mind it was.
Things that fascinate me #137 about this Brave New World today: What if I did pass out 5000 fliers?
– Musician and writer Davin Michael Stedman has many ventures, such as the AMAZING blog, 100milesofmusic.com. In the spring of 2018 he spent weeks networking in and reporting from Kingston, Jamaica. He will return there soon for more recording. His single with British band Sherlock Soul is available here.
