A Temporary Thing
Being married to Luria was all I ever wanted in life. It was the thing I prayed for in bed when I was nine-years-old. I wanted to be married to a beautiful, smart, sweet girl. I’m not sure what I believe about God anymore, but Luria turned out to be an answered prayer. I loved her, love her and will always love her.
I worked on things to fit what she said where her dreams. Modeling didn’t work because that business is just weird. She groked it and that business doesn’t like girl who grok it. We then started writing a book. Harry Potter was taking off and we started writing a book set in New Orleans with a flood threat that skidded to a halt with Katrina. My next thing was podcasting inspired by Dawn and Drew. The Crappy Christian Show quickly evolved from Luria and me getting drunk and talking into a mic into a ministry type thing to share the idea that God may love gay people just as they are, without any expectation they change. I didn’t want to be in ministry and Luria certainly didn’t.
Steve Jobs announced the first iPod that played video and I worked to make that iPod play GeekBrief.TV. That worked well. We started making money. Mevio was a great partner. Luria wanted more, and people in her life convinced her she was the character I wrote every day. Her belief that she was Cali Lewis grew into an argument that led her to leave our marriage.
I still want to be writing tech news as Cali Lewis and producing GeekBrief.TV. I don’t get that as an option, and I’ve come close to launching alternative visions. I almost released a gadget show yesterday.
Here’s the deal though … I don’t want to work on a next thing that is anything but temporary. My heart can’t currently believe in long term. I want to work, but I’m not ready to say, “This is the thing that replaces Cali Lewis and GeekBrief.TV for me.” Even my dreams for Bacon.TV in partnership with Wright Brand Bacon isn’t that powerful!
The Mayans predicted the world ends at the end of 2012. Obviously, that’s silly just like when that preacher dude did it twice in 2011. But you know what? So what! What will happen if I live this year like it’s not only my last year, but yours? That’s what I’m going to do.
Tomorrow I launch a temporary thing I can believe in and I think it will inspire you to do something better than you planned to do in 2012. It isn’t serious because I’m not ready to be serious. It’s just about fun.
I’ve lost my life goal of being married to a beautiful, smart, and kind girl. I’m not making that kind of goal again. To make it through. I want to live as though it’s not only my last year but yours too.
Read MoreA Convoluted Post About Comedy, Louis CK and Me …
I wasn’t willing to be mean during the legal divorce stuff. My advice to any nice guy is BE MEAN or get screwed. When she divorces you, loving her is irrelevant. I gave up pretty much everything I created in the last five years of my marriage in exchange for ideas not yet pursued. One thing I got to keep from the past is iYule.TV. It’s a 30-minute, beautiful film of a fireplace optimized for iDevices. You can get your copy here for $4.50 with much gratitude from me!
$4.50
Download Link will be emailed to you within 24-hours.
Here’s my convoluted segue …
I WANT to be producing GeekBrief.TV. It’s my baby. It got taken from me and perverted by the most worthless man I ever met. Now my challenge in life is to want to want to do something else. That isn’t exactly easy, but I don’t seem to get a choice because I’m not rich enough to hire lawyers to make my choice an option.
I have this asset, iYule.TV. It was featured in the New York Times and on Conan O’Brian. I didn’t sell it last year because, after the torture of divorce, I just didn’t care. This year I’m working on wanting to want something else so I made it available. It’s beautiful. It’s a DRM-free film with a request that purchasers don’t give it away.
More convolution …
I feel expected to produce a tech/gadget show. I have one ready to go, but my gut says tech was the place to be at the start of podcasting. Comedy is the place to be in podcasting now. I listen to comedians like Marc Maron, Adam Carolla, and Joe Rogan talk about podcasting and it makes me feel like I’m back in the day when we were pioneers in this thing. The safe part of me wants to move northern California and work on tech shows. The innovator in me wants to move to L.A. and work with comics to do something brand new.
More convolution …
So Louie CK does this absolutely amazing show called Louie. You can see it on Hulu. It shows the future of entrepreneurial entertainment. That show made me a fan. A few days ago, Louie CK did an experiment that made me very jealous. Jealousy is one of my weak points. He released a concert on his website, selling it with Paypal for $5. That’s great and as a fan, I’m glad he found this route. My problem is he’s been on Fresh Air on NPR and the Tonight Show and covered on all kinds of blogs suggesting he’s done something first. He hasn’t. He followed the path laid out by geeks and it has worked for him.
He shared the details and any geek could tell him, he got screwed!
The video production shot over two performances cost him $170,000. Raise your hand if you live in new media and could have produced the same thing for $30,000? Then he paid $32,000 for his “robust, reliable and carefully constructed website.” Again, I ask geeks in the room, could you have not done the same site for $12?
Here’s my point …
The geeks have figured this stuff out. I can’t speak for others, but I look up to comedians and I don’t want to see you get screwed. Connect with us and let us help you revolutionized distribution!
Louis CK is selling a 1.12 GB video of a stand-up concert for $5. I’m selling a 1.13 GB film of a fireplace for $4.50. He broke even after selling 50,000 copies. I broke even after selling 30. That’s not the point though. His break even can sustain his life. Mine can’t. The crucial success point I learned about from producing GeekBrief.TV is to create an intersection between fame and geek. Fame + Geek = Money.
I could save a comedian huge dollars on production, but I can’t deliver the same kind of attention … not yet at least.
In the mean time, thanks for buying a copy of my fireplace for your pocket!
$4.50
Download Link will be emailed to you within 24-hours.
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The Flinch
I check Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Instagram before I role out of bed every morning. This morning there was something I hadn’t seen in a while … a status update from Chris Brogan. Chris wanted to let his Facebook friends and likers to know about a new book available to download for free called The Flinch.
A lot of people have an innate understanding of what it takes to succeed and they never do the work. Some people don’t do the work because they have family obligations, and they’re unwilling to take risks. Some people don’t do the work because of fear of failure (that’s one of my issues). Some people don’t do the work because they really just don’t want to do it.
Want to make money from blogging? Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog. Want to make money from photography? Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. I don’t make very much from this blog when I just post about how I’m feeling every once in awhile. The more I post about what I know and what I care about, ad revenue increases. It’s a simple principle: if you want to make money doing anything, it has to become your job … the thing you work hard doing every day. In short, stop flinching!
We’re flinching when we doubt we can do something. We’re flinching when the challenge seems overwhelming. We’re flinching when we’ve been hurt and don’t want to be hurt again. We’re flinching when we go to school and makes safe choices that go against the dreams about doing that thing we’ve always wanted to do.
The flinch is an important instinct when you come face-to-face with a rattlesnake, but it needs to be overcome when facing first world problems like having a critic who doesn’t like us. The Flinch, the book is about pushing through all the things that keep us from achieving dreams. I love this part:
“Somewhere in the world, a lion wakes up every morning not knowing what it’s going to eat. Every day, it finds food. The lion isn’t worried–it just does what it needs to do.
Somewhere else, in a zoo, a caged lion sits around every day and waits for a zookeeper. The lion is comfortable. It gets to relax. It’s not worried much, either.
Both of these animals are lions. Only one is a king.”
Inspired? I am! Get The Flinch for free and then fight to win!
Here’s Chris talking to Julian about The Flinch. Warning Julian cusses a lot!
Read MoreHelping Mom Blog! Part 1
This is part one in a series in which I coach my mom about how to build a blogging business. I’m always encouraging people I know to blog, but most people in my offline life aren’t geeks and the idea seems a little intimidating.
I crawled in bed last night, fired up Twitter and Facebook and saw that my mom is now on Twitter. I followed back and then noticed my mom set up a blog on blogspot. Wow! I’m impressed. I’ll tell you what I think it was. I set up an HD projector at her house over the holidays and she watched Julie and Julia on Blu-ray. I think that’s what got her motivated.
I’m proud of my mom for stepping out to do some work on the Internet. She’s an automative paint expert, AND she’s funny. That’s what she plans to blog and tweet about. When I was learning to drive, she painted an MG and taught me how to drive a stick in that car.
Over the next few days, I’ll walk my mom through building an online blogging brand, and I hope other moms, dads and grandparents get the bug and start blogs of their own.
My mom wants to write about paint. This is her first post and I love it…
Read MoreConfused by Color
Jason Kincaid wrote this piece on TechCrunch about a company called Color. It’s hilarious to read as Jason tries in vain to explain what a company called color hopes to convince Social to care about. Color was backed by Sequoia and raised more funding than Google did. Their first idea didn’t work so now they’re trying something else…
30-Second-Long Silent Video!
Rather than writing a status update on Facebook, with Color, you can shoot a 30-second audio-free video and let your friends guess what you’re doing. Maybe I’m misreading this, but I can almost hear Jason Kincaid laugh hysterically as he types this:
The original version of the Visit was actually a live video feed that could stream indefinitely — not just a 30 second clip. But Color CEO Bill Nguyen says that during the beta period at Texas A&M, students complained that these videos were too high-pressure. So Color restricted them to thirty seconds in length, and they also removed the audio. Nguyen explains that muted videos are much less stressful to record, as you don’t have to worry about what your friends are talking about, or any background noise.
This has to be the biggest waste of $41 Million in the history of start-ups.
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