I’m going to be famous!!!

Well, this weekend was a big one for me.  Last week I did the legwork necessary to get my music released digitally online.  I already had it posted on my MySpace page, but I didn’t really have a way to sell it.  I did a little research and stumbled across Tunecore, a music distributor that deals with iTunes, Amazon, Napster, Rhapsody and several other online music retailers.  For a reasonable fee, they submitted my debut album to a bunch of different stores.  It takes several weeks to get the album live on all of the sites, but I was pleased to find out that it was picked up and went on sale at Amazon.com 2 days ago! 

I’m gonna be on iTunes…

I just spent the last 3 hours getting my first album together for digital distribution.  It takes a while to make sure all of the tracks are uploaded and artwork is taken care of, but I did it.  The thing that sucks is that I have to wait for all of the album information to be processed which could take several weeks.  So hopefully within a month, my worldwide debut album will be online on iTunes, Amazon, Napster, and several other outlets!  I’ll keep posting updates so that you all know, OK?  Cool.

Musings about email…

Today, before I’d even had my first cup of coffee, I was faced with a choice that could potentially damn me forever.  A coworker forwarded me a story about a little boy with a disability that played a baseball game, became a hero after hitting a Grand Slam (with some help from players on both teams), and then died.  Maybe you’ve received the same email.  It was heartwarming and made my eyes water just a little bit as I was reading it.  After reaching the end of the story however, I was presented with two options.  I could either forward the email to everyone I know or just go ahead and delete it.  The choices were framed in a way that implied callousness on my part if I chose to just throw the message in the trash folder or, conversely, assured me I’d be an awesome person (maybe eternal salvation?) if I were to just send it along and brighten anyone’s day that opened their email inbox to find this message waiting for them.

 I sooooooooooo hate that.

     Sending me an email with a joke, picture, or story that I might find interesting is one thing.  I have a very broad sense of humor, and I can appreciate even the dirty or off-color stuff.  And I’m not so masculine that I won’t cry if something is sad or touching.  Not only did I cry when Old Yeller died, but I cried every time Charlie Brown tried to kick the football and missed.  My heart melts when I see children ringing the Salvation Army bell outside of Wal-Mart at Christmas time and the tears of joy well up when I see Angelina Jolie grab the stickshift in ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’.  But don’t try to make me feel bad because I may not want to send the disabled kid story to a bunch of people who may or may not care about it. 

     As I was reading it, I thought about the people I knew who might find it nice to get this nugget of bittersweet communication from me.  Once I reached the guilt trip at the end  though, all thoughts of forwarding the message went out the window.  I…deleted it.  Not only did I delete it, but I then went into my deleted items folder and deleted it again.  I then searched my computer for any hidden, temporary files that might have the text of that story in it, but since I really don’t know that much about computers, I didn’t know where to look.  But if I had found it, I would have deleted it a third time. I even briefly considered erasing my hard drive just to make sure the thing was really gone, but decided against it since I have a lot of pictures of Angelina Jolie work stored there.  Callous?  Yeah, probably, but I’m callous of my own free will.  I’ve got enough guilt that I don’t need any more emailed to me.  Now if you’ve got some nice pictures of Ms. Jolie, please feel free to send them my way.  I promise they won’t be deleted.

-          Timmy

A star is born…

Hello, blogosphere!  It’s real good seein’ y’all here.  This is going to be the companion blog for my regular website, www.bookonmarx.com.  I’m still new to website creation, so that page is under construction.  In the meantime, I’ll be blogging here on a daily basis about the things that interest me, and may be of interest to you.  I hope to hear from you!