wordblog

The Wait of Words

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 22:30:05 +0100

13 years is a long time. A child can become a woman, a man may re-find love.

I cannot stop speeding trains, nor leap to untold heights, but it would seem that I am capable of living long enough to have something precious return to my life and in its happening, move me to my core.

The phone rang, and naturally enough, I answered. At first I thought it was a student, but no, it was someone much closer; much, much closer, and we hadn't spoken for thirteen years.

She called me. I was thrilled. I was amazed. I was so very thankful.

We spoke for a few moments and agreed to meet for a coffee – and we did. I tried not to cry when I saw her but I think she saw through me. I tried not to repeat myself, but I did. I told all my stories, mostly poorly and without structure. I rambled aimlessly with little direction and only the dimmest glimmer of adventure. I listened very carefully, hanging on to her words and hints and eye-movement and nuance. I tried not to be so old and tried harder to seem wiser than I might ever have seemed in the past. I tried to be kind and better than I have ever been. I tried not to show how thrilled I was that she was sitting across from me and that we were together again.

I had been waiting for so long for this thing to happen that I could barely, just barely contain myself. I was giddy with delight and as nervous as a schoolboy. Amazed that maybe, just maybe there was a chance to reconnect with who she had become.

And what a wonderful thing she has become! All that I might have imagined, all that I might have hoped for, all that the world needs. She is a woman now. Capable and strong, curious and determined – self aware, considered and kind. Educated and traveled. Loved and lost a little too. Complete, to a degree, and whole, with allowance, considered, well versed and passionate. Things mattered to her and she took those things to heart. She wore them proudly and spoke of her convictions with resolution when she could.

I am thrilled beyond belief that this wonderful thing has happened to me. I am thrilled that she called. I am overjoyed that we might have some kind of relationship again. I am proud of her. I marvel at her strength, her kindness and above all her courage.

Every single female friend that I shared this story with said that I absolutely must wait for her to make any further motion. That I must not 'push', that I must allow her to make whatever decisions she needs to make with regard to how we might proceed. Forward or not, with or without, more, or sadly, less. I will wait, and I will trust that we we will move forward, that this delightful event wasn't a one time thing. I hope that we can move from here to, well, wherever tomorrow may lead us. Thirteen years is a long time to wait to hear the words: ” Hi Rob, it's Amy.”

Why I Love Craigslist

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:06:20 +0100

Craigslist Ad:

We are a small & casual restaurant in downtown Vancouver and we are looking for solo musicians to play in our restaurant to promote their work and sell their CD. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get positive response. More Jazz, Rock, & smooth type music, around the world and mixed cultural music. Are you interested to promote your work? Please reply back ASAP.

A Musician's Reply:

Happy New Year! I am a musician with a big house looking for a restaurateur to come to my house to promote his/her restaurant by making dinner for me and my friends. This is not a daily job, but only for special events which will eventually turn into a nightly event if we get a positive response. More fine dining & exotic meals and mixed Ethnic Fusion cuisine.
Are you interested to promote your restaurant? Please reply back ASAP.

...and that's why we love Craigslist.

But Wait, There's More!

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:45:32 +0100

My friend Jonathan Stanley works with a group of people that develop entertaining content in combination with amazing technology for the tourism trade. They build systems that enable visitors of major tourist attractions to experience the attraction through GPS driven technology and dynamic story telling . Better still, they offer their entertainment in as many languages as the operator might like to service.

The other day, Jonathan turned me on to a video that had impressed him with its compelling subject matter and great story telling. Story matters to J, he's learned to believe in story and he now urges his clients to believe in their stories. I searched out the work and found 'Up There' an intimate look at a dying American art form. J's right, nice work, well shot and well told.

There's more though to this video than a quiet story about a disappearing art form. There's a deeper mission and conquest beyond good story telling. There's what can only be described as masterful advertising. Effective, targeted and utterly brilliant advertising. Better still, the advertiser never once mention their product, their 'slogan', their location or even what they sell.

How can that be? How can an advertiser claim a quarter of an hour of our attention and never mention his product? Never sing the song or scroll the catch phrase? How can an advertiser invest the serious and considerable sum of money to build his ad and never once blurt out his name or what he's selling?

They didn't have to. The 'sell' is so subtly built into the experience that we as viewers aren't even aware that we're being sold. Nicely sold to be sure, but sold nonetheless. Better still, we give the advertiser our permission to sell to us because he offers to entertain us, inform us and enrich us and for all those minutes we are fascinated by the story. The story, not the advertising.

'Up There' takes a look at a unique art form, an art form that was once hugely popular as an advertising medium in the US. It used to be common for a broad wall space, measuring many floors tall and many, many meters wide to be dedicated as a canvas for advertisers to paint their product awareness campaigns on. To accomplish this, skilled artisans toiled in often horrible weather conditions at considerable height and on very small platforms to duplicate on a grand scale the images of Coca-Cola, Quaker Oats and any number of laundry detergents. 'Up There' focuses on the artists, the pioneers in the field and the fading limelight of this colossal form of art. The film documents one of the last such installations as it develops on a massive wall in New York city. The characters are real, the story is real, the art form is real and the Director, DP and Editor – Malcolm Murray, invites us inside a world that seems both dangerous and magical. Messy too. A place where the last of a breed, always a compelling storyline, face the fierce elements of a changing landscape to take one last kick at the cat.

There's a link to 'Up There' at the end of this bit and it's worth the quarter hour investment to view. Both the subject and the sponsor deserve your few minutes of attention. The subject because it's a compelling story well told, and the sponsor because they let a compelling story be told, and what's more, they recognized that not every story had to be about them. Even though it was. Well played Stella Artios, well played.

http://vimeo.com/11175747

You didn't think...

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:59:36 +0100

When I was a little boy and got into trouble, my Dad would work the ‘discussion’ regarding my latest less than brilliant move, around to a point where invariably I would have to say ” I didn’t think…” hoping to add something like “…the window would be in the way”, or that “…the sink would overflow”, or “…the deck would catch fire”, but he of course would always cut in: “You didn’t think.” This always stopped whatever argument I may have been planning to initiate dead in its tracks. He always said this calmly, but pointedly. And, he was right; mostly I hadn’t thought about the outcome of my actions.

It’s taken me near a lifetime, but mostly today I do think about the result of my actions, and sometimes the actions of others too. So let’s think about the iPad.

Tons of words have been written about the iPad; tons and tons and tons of words. Mostly from the fans - the Mac people out there. We’ve all heard lots of praise, and lots about apps, and lots about Apple.

Now, I’m not a Mac person. Never was, ‘the attitude’ of the Mac clan got in the way. Especially the grown ups. And besides, when Wordnoise was bricks and mortar and I was working on PC’s, my co-studio worker Jarome swore at his screen (a Mac) as often as I did my PC screen - usually about once a day. That was over a good bit of time too. Recently though, Moyra let me play with her iPad. Its true; they’re just as cool as everyone says.

Over the years Mac has released lots of gear; some of it pretty startling in its grasp of the future. Those along with some duds of course, but at minimum Mac stuff has always been fashionable. On the PC side, not so much - kind of a tortoise and hare thing, with no finish line in sight.

The iPad though represents something a bit special I think. Something a bit deeper; a tiny shift has been orchestrated. The iPad represents a new way of thinking about how we interact with machines. We already rely on the net to give us answers: Need to know “Who won the F.A. cup in 1954?” and my friend Tony whips out his iPhone, and there it is. My wife’s BB answers the question just as fast - although for some reason less expensively! No, it’s not that aspect of the iPad’s release that’s innovative, it’s more than that. The iPad’s win isn’t so much in what it can do, but how we will interact with what we know it will someday do. We will change because a tool has been introduced that helps us to employ the resource more efficiently and more seamlessly into our lives. Wait for lightning to strike - strike a match.

Naturally, and like always, Mac has left out a ton of stuff on the iPad. Stuff they KNOW we’ll want; Mac gear has been doing that for decades. The apps will get better, friendlier, more expensive and will become more easily passé. The hardware will age and become obsolete more quickly than ever. The constant will be that for the moment, the latest iPad will be the coolest accessory one can be seen with.

The real magic though is that as the iPad gets out there, becomes more common place, less eyebrow raising, more ’oh that ’ol thing…’ in our lives, the more we will adapt it as a tool. As we adapt tools, they get better; sharper, faster, and cooler. It’s not the greatest invention since fire, not by a long shot, but I think it will change things. Business, culture, sharing information, interacting with machines… all of it will change because this tool will change us. Like computers and then laptops and now… this.

When I was little I didn’t realize my Dad was inspiring the future. How could I know that his calm influence could reach out to Mac headquarters!! I didn’t even know he knew any of the guys who dreamed up stuff at Apple; but his lesson got through somehow because clearly, they did think.

Today I found this:

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 06:23:25 +0100

Has it really been so long? So long since I had anything to say, to pass on, to contribute? Sadly, thus is so. Perhaps I might might kick start my sorry ass with these fine words I encountered just a few moments ago:

Dr. King once said:

"Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve from all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is LOVE."

All you need is love.

Imagine.

How big is it?

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:46:51 +0100

So, just how big is the net?

Lots. Big. Bigger than you thought and bigger than anything.

Of course we knew that. Everyone knows that. I knew that. I work in the ad game, in media, in the whole culture. I know this stuff and I've been telling my clients about this for years. It made sense, it was true, it's easily backed up - I wasn't lying. But. And there's always a but; but, I didn't really, not really, truly, wholly understand just how big, how powerful,how outrageous the net is.

There's not one of us, not one, that hasn't triumphed the net. I found this, I learned that, I laughed at him, I cried for her... it's all available, it's all out there waiting for us to find.

I stumbled upon Synthasite, and I have trumpeted Synthasite before. They get it, it's easy, it works.

How does it work? Simple.

They have a good idea, a great product, they believe in what they're doing and they support those that get it too.

I was lucky enough to get some support from Synthasite. They liked what I did with Wordnoise.com, I was lucky enough to be one of the chosen, er, picked - selected. Wordnoise was one of five finalists in a recent contest for the 'Best of Synthasite'. Cool, but I didn't win. I was a runner up. But; and what'd I tell you about but? But, while the masses were looking and deciding and voting, the hits on the Wordnoise site went through the roof! After that, things tapered off and although hits were higher, they weren't like when I was in the running. I expected that, and was thrilled by the brief attention my nomination garnered. And then.

And then Synthasite selected my site as a site that utilized the opportunities they provided with their on line tools, looked OK and showed off what they had to offer. They put a link on their homepage. Guess what? The hits went through the roof again!

It's not Wordnoise, honest, I know that. My business is targeted to a smaller audience. Voice work, audio, recording, creative, radio spots, TV spots... a very small part of what everyone out there needs. But those 'S' guys, they're talking to lots of people. Hell, anyone who wants to build a free web site! People like me, and about a million others. Maybe two million, maybe a billion! Lots more!

Then they chose my site to show off what their service can do. The spin off? Tons of visits. Tons. Tons and tons. Sure most people don't need cleaver copy, or great voices, or want to read about what I think. Some though do, just a few for sure, but some do, or so the stats would suggest!

People from South Africa, and Finland, and all over the States and Britain and Argentina and Japan and everywhere. All over, everywhere, the whole planet!, 'cause that's how big the net is. That's how far it goes. That's who the net talks to. Everyone, everywhere.

The net is big. Way bigger than we all think. Sure there are corporations, and companies and planets that know how big this thing is, but for most of us it's at best an accepted concept. We believe the net is big because like me, we 'knew' it was big. Everyone said it was. It must be. Well, it is big, it is powerful, there are lots of people looking, and deciding, and thinking, and changing things. The way we work, the way we act, the way we think. Ask Obama.

We are those people. We just don't know it yet.

wordnoise@live.com

Friends, the Gift That Keeps on Giving

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:16:19 +0100

This morning, Christmas eve morning, I received this lovely note from my friend Candace. She's one of the voices that I really like to work with. She's versatile, funny, takes direction well, works hard when she's in the booth and as a voice over artist, I always know that my clients will be thrilled with the end results.

So on to this e--mail I received, and one that I believe in.

Season's Greetings Everyone!

I wanted to wish everyone the best of the holiday season and as we say in my family, Happy Christmas. We all know that Christmas is the season of giving and most of us get caught up in shopping, buying and giving. The stress of spending and whether we have given enough or bought the right thing looms over us. We have created a hierarchy in our giving/receiving relationships, a pecking order that somehow leaves the “receiver” with a lesser status than the “giver”. That “receiving” forces you to give up control and in order to regain your power, you must reciprocate. We are hard-wired to give and have been taught all our lives that giving is better, so receiving has taken an embarrassed back-seat in our social networks. Receiving makes us feel guilty, that perhaps we aren’t worthy of what we get, or that we have to earn what we’re given. I pooh-pooh this! Embrace receiving with grace and gratitude and create strong connections between giver and receiver. Be open to the gifts you receive; the tangible things but also the intangible: gifts of life, love and each other. Take a moment this season to believe that you are worthy of all you receive.

Lots of Christmas kisses and love all year round!

Candace

Nice huh? Yeah, I think so too.
Thanks Candace, and a Merry Christmas to you too!

rob
wordnoise@live.com

Stand By Me

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:23:24 +0100

My friend Neil is a gifted guitarist, and, uhmmm... well; not much of a singer. Not that a silly thing like that would ever deter him, he sings like he wants to and to Hell with you if you don't like it. I admire him for that. He also says the single most liberating experience in becoming someone who can sing regardless of what anyone might think of one's singing ability is busking - simply standing on the street, instrument in hand and singing for passers by who might like what they hear and drop a few coins in the open instrument case. I always, almost without fail, throw a few coins into the open case of hard working buskers. In my book anyone that will stand up and try when it comes to music gets my vote, and my change.

Yesterday, I had a video link forwarded to me that deserves our pocket change. The video was of a bunch of street musicians singing and playing the Sam Cooke tune, "Stand By Me'. A great song, certainly a standard by now, and one of those tunes with a lyric that can find a home in most anyone's life. This version of the tune though was different. This version was put together by Mark Johnson, a filmmaker. Mark's brilliance though is that he was once inspired to do something with an emotion. For him, as he tells it, it all began with the hustle of New York City and two Buddhist Monks singing on the street and captivating both Mark and a lot of passers by. That spark followed Mark through the years, and he eventually found his muse. He would try to bring us all a little closer through music and film. Music from and by musicians from here and there and everywhere on our planet. All of them connecting and sharin' and groovin' and jammin' and bein' free with music.

Mark has succeeded, in fact he has more than succeeded. His web site, 'Playing For Change' ( www.playingforchange.com ) is a culmination of work that began in 1999 and now there's a docu/movie, a foundation, a goal and an audience. Bravo Mark! Good on you and all the others that believe and think and know and feel that music is our most powerful tool in creating a better tomorrow.

Don't believe me? Just try not to feel better about yourself, your neighbor and even our planet as you groove to this: http://www.playingforchange.com/pop.html

There's lots of information about 'Playing For Change' on the site, some mutually responsible affiliates, some background about the people and some. quite literally, world class music.

I bet Sam would stand by this one!

wordnoise@live.com

The Little Engine that Could

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:23:59 +0100

When I was little, very little, I really did have the storybook about the ‘Little Engine that Could’. There was a record too, a 45, it was yellow, called ‘Little by Little' - the song was about taking on a challenge and having the stuff to at least try something. Then there was a train set that my parents surprised the Hell out of me with as a Christmas present one year… and my Dad hadn’t gone to the local toy store and picked out one of those boring boxed sets, he’d gone to the trouble of finding a fellow who was getting out of the HO train set hobby and I was lucky enough to be the benefit of a big box of track and cars and engines and stuff! That was one of my favorite Christmas's ever!

One of those train engines, my favorite, was a little black engine that was modeled after the boxcar shuttles that used to work in the railway holding yards. It was a much smaller engine in comparison to all the others, and I fondly remember trying to get it to pull as many railway boxcars and tankers and flatbeds as I had available. Eventually, ‘Joey’ couldn’t pull any more, but the ‘test’ was always fun.

So the concept of ‘trying’ was instilled in me at an early age, and it would seem that it exists still. When radio threw me out all those years ago (not to worry, radio throws everyone out!) I started Wordnoise. Through good and bad times, easier and tougher, a tiny bit richer and way too poor, I have at least tried to make it grow and prosper and stay alive.

Then I met Synthasite. It was a Stumble Upon find. This was about mid November or so, and Synthasite as I met them, was blogging about “The Best of Synthasite” and offering a prize, and exposure if the site you built (or had built) was selected as one of the best. Now you have to recall that I had just discovered Synthasite, so I registered and started building. I probably put about 25, maybe 30 hours into building www.wordnoise.com. I even blogged the experience in my first post on this Wordblog. I had become a fan, and remain one – these guys are the future of software that builds things - docs, spreadsheets, presentations, web pages – this is what we’ll all be doing in a very short while. Yup a fan - especially today!

Near the end of November, just a few days before the “Best of Synthasite” contest was closing, I decided – “What the Hell” and boldly entered my site in the contest. I had nothing to loose, liked what I’d put out there, and thought that I’d incorporated a lot of the components that the judges might decide were worthwhile. I didn’t expect anything from this. I was pretty sure that all kinds of people, lots and lots of people, 1000's would enter and I’d be lost in the shuffle, but like I said, no harm in trying.

Yesterday I got a piece of e-mail from Synthasite informing me that the finalists had been chosen and giving me a link to the accompanying page on their blog site. At exactly the same time, I had another piece of e-mail from Steve Schwartz, a name I didn’t recognize. His header read: About your website, and that definitely got my attention! I’d get back to the Synthasite e-mail in a minute or two.

Steve's note said that he’d seen my site (and something else, but to that in a moment) but wanted to let me know that I had missed a repeated word in my copy. What!?!? But he was right; I had missed a repeated word. Fortunately the tools and flexibility of Synthasite allowed me to effortlessly correct the error, and three minutes later, I’d updated my site with the revised copy – try that with a web development service!

Now, on to the ‘something else’. Steve had also said, ”…I have just seen you listed on ‘The Best of Synthasite’ – WHAT?! Me?! Wordnoise?!

I was back to their e-mail in a flash, clicked on the link, clicked on the business link and there it was, www.wordnoise.com listed as one of the five finalists in the business category! How swell is that! How outrageously great is that? How personally rewarding! I felt like Sally Fields at the Oscars! “You like me, you really like me!“

So thanks to Synthasite for making it possible for people to do something they've always wanted to be able to do, but didn’t have the tools, and thanks Mom and Dad for teaching me that it's alright to try.

I wonder if it was the book, the record, or the little engine that could?

wordnoise@live.com

Guitar Hero?

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:24:30 +0100

I am a recording engineer, I have always made my living rotating knobs, pushing faders and moving microphones. Long ago, in my radio days, I was the Production Manager of a major market station. These guys had money, times were good and I had a supportive Chief Engineer ( the solder kind of engineer ) who let me have real and meaningful input into the design of our production facilities. Thanks Jack!

We were moving from an ancient facility built in the 50's across the pond to a brand new purpose built building. Three radio stations, three control rooms, a dedicated copy department of five, edit suites, a massive news room and best of all two huge multi-track production rooms. For a radio guy these rooms were magical. I had space, brand new and delicious gear, great mics, and spectacular talent to work with! Like I said, a dream studio.

On the wall above one of the custom made, oak trimmed racks of outboard gear I hung a piece of poster art. Properly mounted and framed - it looked nice. It showed a black and white photo of glossy black grand piano, mics set and ready at the centre of a very large recording studio. A big, beautiful room to record in. I can only imagine how wonderful that piano must have sounded in that gorgeous space.

The caption at the bottom of the photo read: "They say it takes 15 years to learn to play the piano well, I heard that twenty years ago."

I still can't play the piano and that saddens me.

This past weekend I was visiting my nephews and a recent birthday had brought a complete 'Guitar Hero' rig into the family room. Guitar, drums, bass guitar, even a mic! The kids were fully into it, played with the toy almost non-stop throughout my visit. Natually I had to see the thing in action, and dutifully sat and watched the kids and their friends work through dozens of one time hits and standards. They loved it.

While I watched though, I couldn't help but feel a little sad by the experience. You see with Guitar Hero, and I say this for the ancient, old, and completly out of touch among us - a player hears the music, and attempts to 'play' along with the music by pressing color-coded keys on the instrument as a guide track scrolls across the bottom of the screen. So, if the music has a drum track that plays snare, tom, tom, the player should be hitting green, blue, blue on the drum kit. Same with bass, same with guitar. Upon completion of the song, your score is shown on screen - this is judged by the players percentage of accurate 'hits' on the appropraite keys with what was shown on the screen skroll as the song played. You can also be booed off the stage if you lack the skill to press the right coloured buttons in the right order at the right time.

The kids, as I suggested, loved it. Not me though. For me, the problem with Guitar Hero isn't that it's not fun, the kids couldn't put it down! It's that there's no connection between playing the game and playing a real instrument. Sure, to get good at GH probably takes some time, some dexterity, some eye to hand skills, but even after you've become a master, a true rock God, you wouldn't be able to play a single note on a real guitar. Real guitars are hard to play. They're complicated and there's a ton of stuff to learn. You have to learn to read music, you have to tune it, you have to practice, learn technique and timing. Tons of stuff, and even with all those tools well in place, you still may not be much of a guitarist 'cause there's that thing inside, that gift that some have, that need to play, and the ability to translate that need into something organic and whole.

Some would say lighten up, that Guitar Hero is just a game, no harm done. I'd say though that in the long run Guitar Hero doesn't do our kids any favours, 'cause what happens when those kids do decide they want to play the bass or the drums or a piano? There's way more notes than the four colours of GH, there's way more strings, skins, there's keys everywhere. It'll be hard. Really hard. Playing GH, even if you play the game well, get perfect scores every time, will never teach you a damn thing about what making music is all about! Learning to play a real instrument isn't a game, there is no high score, no percentage of accuracy, the only similarity to GH is that even after years of practice and diligence you can still be booed off the stage.

In my favorite musical of all time, The Music Man, Professor Howard Hill scams the kids and their parents with solid silver things, and Marianne the Librarian was right, there is no such thing as 'the Think Method'. I guess my question has to be: Is Professor Harold Hill now working for the GH people? 'cause music isn't a game, it's frustrating, and demanding and difficult and as I read all those years ago, it'll take fifteen years to learn to play the piano well - I heard that twenty-five years ago.

wordnoise@live.com