Quesalupa Cheesy Breaking News

Convenience Foods

People are about convenience foods, and now it seems that fat cats who own the news marketplace are about serving up news that is just as cheesy. They also don’t want to have to do the research to know what is fact or fiction on the internet. Actually companies have cookie which track content you look at and spin everything into your ear that falls within the confine of your tastes, all to drive traffic.  News no longer is about truth.  The Kardashians (Sociological reasons) are news, Sarah Palin is news.  Prince William is news.

Fat Cat Press

Blogs

The quality of news is degraded by the blogosphere, many say. That’s because we can cut and snip out portions of news articles from reputable news sources, but the reputable is corrupted by the capitalism of the internet.  Yes, the advertising is what is paying the bills, and the fat cats who make money need the dollars to stay fat.  So really what is news on the web is only what fat cats think will draw money into their coffers. The chart below show the difference between what the public wants to hear about and what the news agencies place as content.

Oh, those two percent-ers. They could care less what is in the news, and they don’t see their owning newspapers, radio and TV stations and internet news sources as related to public service.  No, they see it from the penthouse view of looking down on their bludgeoning financial statements.  [Did I mention fat cats???]  Did the company make quarterly sales figures, and what we are left with is a Quesalupa new diet?  Cheesy and full of links to girls showing off their skin, what the hell has that to do with news?

Outrageous Carp mixed with News

Even news references are often paid spaces from those advertising, or those selling something, as I’m sure you are aware of half the links are pay-by-click sites driving money into someone’s pocket, and not yours or mine.  Having food, sex, fashion and popular culture, the popular menu items just waters down organization ability to generate decent news coverage.

Write it and they won’t come; Unless you link to popular culture! Then write consistently or your relevance fades fast.

As a blogger, I’m always microblogging and linking to content or cultural aspects of what I’m writing so that I can draw more points from the digital bots, (Google mainly) that reflect the relevance of my pieces. I’m at least up front about it.

[Notice that the first three years I was a super blogger, and now I’ve rejoined the rank ranks]

Do you really think my writing is good enough to put my blog up in front of a quarter million viewers, as it has over the past few years.  I’m writing this thing infrequently, and so I’ve found that to have a voice, I have to build a complex system of other people boxes to get up high enough to broadcast in the world of news and social commentary.  Maybe you are like me and lose interest if no one is reading your posts.  Sites like Yahoo and MSN are full of content they did not create, but snagged from other sources like the Huffington Post, New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, and a load of sponsored site.   Companies like Taboola are helping drive information regardless of its character, authenticity and accuracy.  The ethic is making money now providing reliable news.

 

My social experience is that you need Darth Vader, Clockwork Orange, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Prince and Michael Jackson type focus to get any real traction on the slippery slopes of blogging. Without them, your content is just zeros and ones floating into a blackhole of the unseen.  Digital conversations with the ether.  The tags are the communication that connects us, not the content.  People are not caring or even wanting your insights and commentary blog world.  They want you porn, your gossip, your pictures of the famous or notorious.  If I could place Osama bin Laden ‘s corpse up, I’d have something that many might like to see especially if it had a video, regardless if the picture was real or not.  Heck didn’t they make an Osama movie focusing on that death scene????  You need some violent psychopathic tendencies to illicit the type of traffic in this “dog eat dog” world.

Advice Point:

When placing popular cultural items in you blog, who cares if they make any sense, they will drive people to your site.

Internet News and Regular News is Corrupt

This graphic depicts the real world of how news doesn’t meet the public’s interest in content. The lines are out of whack.  This is the same reasoning that keeps the cheesy fattening goodness of the Taco Bell Quesalupa on the menu.  Everyone knows this meal is more like a cholesterol and sodium through the roof.   As CEO Creg Greedy, oh I mean Yum Brands Greg Creedy has stated, “Easy trumps better!”  As Yum does care about nutrition and quality, neither does the news agencies we read each day.  So enjoy your cheese, and also don’t worry about indigestion.  The fat cats want your money and they don’t care if you grow stupid by reading the poor quality news and information they  control.  What are you going to get cancer – if it were so they would own medicine?  Oh know, perhaps they do?

Article References

http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/taco-bells-quesalupa-what-exactly-is-it-w163753

Schnell writes: While many lament the seeming lack of quality, in-depth journalism today, a Gawker article argues that the inescapable problem is that you need a paying (in some form) audience (of a large enough size) to do it. There are plenty of free “news” sources to be found online, especially blogs simply regurgitating and putting a spin on wire news reports. But as the article notes, “The audience for quality prestige content is small. Even smaller than the actual output of quality prestige content, which itself is smaller than most media outlets like to imagine.” Even highly respected news sources like the New York Times are resorting to wine clubs, and the Washington Post is giving free subscriptions to Amazon Prime members to drive more corporate synergy and revenue. Rich parent companies are giving up on boutique, high-quality, niche journalism projects like ESPN’s Grantland and Al Jazeera America because there simply aren’t enough TV viewers/online ad clickers to pay the bills. So how do we reconcile our collectively-stated desire for high quality journalism with our (seeming) collective unwillingness to pay for it?

3 stylized facts: i) particular quality news markets are dominated by merely a few providers, ii) demand for quality news appears stable, but provision of news has become specialized; mainstream news is decoupled from quality news, and iii) the dominant business model of internet news mirrors that of radio, television, and newspapers in that costs of news production are recouped via advertising.

6 companies own the America news media are swimming in the money:

Radio Station Publicity Tricks

WRITERS WANT TO SELL BOOKS and consumer perceptions are the reason people buy books.  They have certain things in mind that cause them to lay down their green to get your black and white.  They have this good feeling, or this desire to learn, or to know, and they look for things that will fill their hungry little baby book-reading bellies.    You need to build a following of hungry readers.

Those who publish their own work will find that they have the following problems starting out.  Book buyers believe the following:

1. Self-published books are trash that no publisher will touch.

“But the flood of these books has convinced many people—wrongly—that all self-published books are ill-conceived and poorly produced, and the prejudice remains.”

2. Bookstore and amazon are where they buy books, not from authors.
3. Reviews for self-published books are written by novices, so the book must be written by a novice.
4. Social marketing tools are worse than reviews.
5. I don’t trust a book author I don’t know.

It doesn’t matter that these perceptions are wrong.  It matters that they carry them.

I tell people to think of their work as a small radio station broadcast.  They need to keep their writing in focus and develop a fan base.  They should be willing to listen to their listeners.  Social media is the way to do that.  You should be willing to give stuff away.  You need to think on terms of building a fan base and fans like stuff that is free.  Giving people your time and effort to write a blog, or to give out a free short story, or to feature portions of a book you’ve written, is a way for them to sample your style.

Trust is something that is built.  Trust comes from developing it like any other relationship you have, you are in.  If you aren’t willing to put the time into that relationship, then it will die on the vine.  Too often people are not willing to taste the sour grapes of criticism and analysis.  Readers and critics should have a stab at your work.

At the radio station, you go in for a three hours shift every day.  You may have the shift no one else wants the 3 am to 6 am shift.  That’s much like releasing your own book.  You have an audience of ten.  You sell those first ten copies, and you notice not everyone is really into your work.

At 3 in the morning, not many folks are going to be into whatever style of music you have, but if you are playing Jazz, then there  will be some lovers of Jazz around.  You are focusing in on them.  You don’t start adding country and rock when you are attracting jazz listeners.  So don’t deviate from the format.  You’d better darn well love writing in the genre you choose so that those who love that genre can hook into your groove.  Give ‘em that jazz, all the jazz you’ve got.

One record doesn’t make a musician.  One song doesn’t make a set.  Keep composing.  Get that next tune down.  Quit thinking about being on top of the mountain when you are at the bottom.  It takes a great deal of time and effort to climb a mountain.  Do the work; build that set of music your station plays, all in the same genre.  Give it some time – lots of time.  Build that following.  Go from 5 to 10 to 100, and see if you can’t mix up that to 1,000.  You as a DJ out to get out with one of those colorful vans and drop some tunes on college campuses or at an event like the Surfing International competition.  Hand out stickers, give children balloons.  Give out this (maybe use a lottery ticket system):

Here is a great page to learn more about Publicity>>>>>>

Here are two more  cool ideas:

On Kindle Use Authograph or used KDP Select Promotion.

Add a Mailing list to your web site or blog.

Here are 30 steps to marketing a kindle book.

If you want to go crazy, have your car covered in a skin:

 

 

Wrestling Psyches in the Gemini phase

I seem to have a dual personality.  Maybe it’s in the stars. After all I’m a Gemini.  Do the gods mock me with this internal striving of tastes and desire?.  I find that I go into a self-imposed exile and spend 7 months by myself to write and illustrate.  “Working on a new project.”  Making my own decisions, and staying out of contact.  But then the other personal nature wrestles me over and pins me so that my social nature can arise.

Being a creative spirit is a painful course of life.  You rarely find anything others who understand the gift.  You are living with others in isolation of soul.  There is this clawing and scratching to find a place of connection with other humans.  A place to ride the same vibe.

The closest I’ve gotten to this type of rapport is to play music with others, though that is not a true soulful connection.  But we all can catch the groove of a great song, and that seems to patch human spirits together, ever so transiently. We get great community connected through both music and food. Though you eat the same dishes and dance to the same beat, we really have trouble keeping the thread taut. It reminds me of the two cans with the cord we used to have as kids. Never worked really well, did it.

Being a writer can come from desiring this connection so strongly that you’ll do about anything to get the communication process started. Some of us have torn souls, ripped by the indiscretions of family or an evil neighbor who soiled our childhood innocence.

We spit out words and though to make a connection. We tried this as children and were often abused for trying to bother adults with our demands for shared moments. They slapped us and belittled us when we stepped forward with our fledgling efforts to make music, write stories or color a picture. But the more we (our feelings) are trounced upon by heavy sarcasm and mean-spirited comments, we grow in hunger to connect.

It’s like living as an alien in an alien world. A Stranger in a Strange Land. Jo Walton writes this review.

We then turn intelligently defensive, and withhold out thoughts and ideas from others. Or we build unclimbable walls. We then create in isolation. But that same powerful desire to connect keeps throwing us into the painful fray in our efforts to make that singular connection. Aren’t we all still looking for approval.

I’m at a place in my personal life that I’ve gotten some balance, and my soul is stronger now. It’s time to venture out into the world of humankind again. But this time, I’ll seek the company of artists and writers, poets and screenwriters, sculptures and musicians & of course, comedians.

My First Step

I’m considering joining a writer’s group. What do you think? I live in Orange County, California, so I know there are writer’s groups here.

My first search results:

If you are like me, living in your isolation? Are you sensing it’s time to step out and meet someone? Are you a writer or illustrator, poet or painter? Have you joined a community-based group? You may want to if you would like some companionship on this road to achieving success in your passion. You may want to try out www.meeting.com. On Google Plus I searched for “Writer’s Group” and got connected. But I live in OC not LA.

The LA Writer’s Group page

 

No real conversation

I have been looking at this webpage (blog) writing task today wondering if I’m not turning into a generational reject.  Coming back to these words, and splashing thoughts on the white screen is like an effort to mental masturbate.  The whole thing is like an explosion of misdirected creativity.  Who is impregnated by our heedless banter?  What senseless, soulless, drivel is going to pour out of my twisted mind?  Hell if I know.

What I do know is that we need each other.  In our breathless effort to father some original thought, we are sucked into the vortex of other’s words, works, and ideals.  We stick some tiny little innocuous teeth into a movie, a script, a photo, and album of sound, tracking some source of brilliance that erupted in ecstasy eons ago.  But the creative God never rests, he is pumped always, spilling his seed in the minds of those seeking to enjoy the strokes of creative bliss, over and over.

The leftovers of other geniuses, really paint a picture dripping with color that amazes us, sometime inspiring us to dip our own brushes in to splatter our own attempts of expression.

Without an audience, without a stage, without a readership, we suffer in the world of little closed minds, who do not even sing with the music, dance with the beat, or dare to lick drama off the spoon of life.  The world grinds onward filled with their fear and cowardice.  They are the types to bag Napoleon’s manhood.  We must not succumb to their vile ways or develop their vices, we must fight the darkness of empty minds and souls; we must think and believe.

This blog has received over two hundred thousand reads, but most of those reads are only looks.  I not that readers check out this blog from 300 plus countries too, but after all this time, I have yet to have a real conversation with anyone.  How is it that we pour over articles, blogs, news and facebook sputtering, and never stop and converse with anyone.

I think I need to strap on a nice straight jacket.  Or maybe I should watch Iron Maiden youtube videos. Try one.

Clockwork Orange and AC/DC amazing

I write this blog sometimes thinking that it will appeal to someone, to touch them in some way, but I’m realizing that the web really isn’t about that, it is really about a huge untamed resource of words, images and films, most of which are banal, wicked and pornographic.  The fact that many people are out their writing things that are just as good as any book you read is completely amazing.  I think of the billions of hours spent by humanity to feed this monster for some vain hope of profit is even more amazing.

I rub shoulders frequently with a brilliant young man who is studying communication.  We often swap stories about how the web organism works, how blogging prospers or doesn’t, and about how theories about all this really are preposterous.  I like that word, as it falls in line with absurdity, which is my favorite concept for this season.

For all of you finding my blog because of the Clockwork Orange theme that is coming up across these pages, I salute you.  Do any of you associate AC/CD and Angus, with Clockwork Orange and Alex.  Ever seen their picture together?  Well how about now.

Crazy on Guitar -- Angus Young

You see that Clockwork Orange is this amazing film that goes into how life without choice is no life at all.  I just remember it as a film that showed a rape which was disturbing to me, and the plot of the film had long escaped my wee little mind.  Just like AC/CD’s Dirty Deeds and Highway to Hell really coagulate into one message of party on the way to hell.

Psychopath and loving it

Actually I had lost that amazing interest in writing this summer, and when I found out many of you only visit my site because of Clockwork Orange, I thought, maybe, for once, I’m needed.  Maybe you need more pictures of the gang.  Kubrick makes for this blog, not me.  He was the genius filmmaker, and I wish he had made Napoleon.  Maybe if we are all really good, he will give a showing in the spirit world, where he had hoped we all could meet.  I’d sit through 20 hours of Bonaparte just to get there.

If you stopped at my blog, read this post, and got here by looking for A Clockwork Orange, I salute you.  Please leave me a comment, letting me know why you were searching for that film’s pictures.  What are you rewriting a blog and think no one reads it otherwise.

Here is a recent Clockwork Orange Review and discussion for those of you interested.

A Clockwork Orange

On the Highway to Hell