A Rant: Don't Steal My Money

As you are most likely aware, the piracy of copyrighted material is an increasing problem in the world. Tens of billions of dollars are lost every year because people don't want to pay for their entertainment.

And you know what? That sucks. It sucks that people are so selfish to think they are above the law, above common courtesy, above creative rights. If these people created copyrighted content for a living, I have a feeling they would feel differently about people stealing their work. And let's say they wouldn't care, and would offer up their content for free with some grand plan to live off the generosity of others. Well that's great, but that's how you want to live, not how every content creator wants to live.

The fact is, each time someone takes a song, movie, book, mobile app, etc, they are stealing from me. Granted, I don't have a literal stake in every piece of content out there, but I do have a stake in the success of the entertainment industry as a whole. When someone takes Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" instead of paying for it, they are taking money from her label, Interscope Records, and its parent company, Universal Music Group. When millions of people do this, Universal is then out millions of dollars, money they could have spent on developing new talent and releasing new material, or developing better systems for reporting royalties to their licensees :). They are also taking money from the producer of the track, Nadir Khayat aka RedOne (a man who has worked with everyone from A*Teens to Usher over the last decade). They're also stealing from the songwriters, who in this case happen to be Stefani Germanotta (aka Lady Gaga) and Khayat, and their publisher, Sony/ATV. They're also stealing money from Gaga as an artist. And, in turn, from her business manager, finance manager, lawyer, personal assistant, and the rest of her team. Same goes for all those people on RedOne's team.

As that money trickles down, it flows through the hands of accountants and copyright administrators like myself. So while I have nothing to do with Lady Gaga's copyrights (yet), that person is choosing their dollar over my livelihood.

And you know what ticks me off the most about this? I can tell all of this to a friend, a family member, AND THEY STILL DO IT! What a slap in the face! So you want to watch a movie but don't want to pay $10 to watch it in the theater? Then wait until it comes out on DVD! Don't want to pay the $1 to Redbox it when it does? Then wait until it shows up on TV! Or borrow it from someone who paid for it! Is this really that hard?

I have a friend who's employer has a large server, and his co-workers have created a bit of a piracy co-op, where people who obtain copyrighted material (often illegally) load it onto the server and their co-workers can then download the material for their personal use. And while I can tell him over and over how frustrating something like that is, he still continues to justify his consumption. I say justify because he KNOWS that it's stealing, and yet he ignores that part of his mind because he only cares to see the people at the top of the money chain, and they already have too much money. Because I guess to think about the little guy like me that still gets hurt would hit a little too close to home. Literally.

End of rant.

We Are Nashville

Well a bit has happened here in Nashville since I last posted:

1. It rained. And rained. And rained. And people died.

I've had the unfortunate privilege to spend much of the last two weeks working in the homes of people who have lost most or all of their possessions. It's unfortunate for the obvious reasons, but it has been such an honor to meet all these amazing strangers, see how resilient and thankful they are in the face of such devastation, and help them move on to the next phase.

Now, in all reality, that next phase is several weeks and months down the road for most of them. But I love that I'm in the position to be available during that time, and to hopefully be able to see them through to the other side and maybe even come out of it with some new friends.

2. Apple is closing Lala.com.

Over the last two years, I had come to depend on Lala for getting me through the work day. The ability to listen to almost any song I ever wanted on demand was nothing short of god-like. And yet everyone saw this day coming as soon as Apple purchased the site in December. Now I hang my hope on the chance that Apple is going to shut Lala down in order to open a similar cloud-based music service under the iTunes umbrella shortly thereafter. Two weeks left and counting.

3. I've got people in Australia.

Well, almost. I am in final negotiations with a company out of Australia to collect on behalf of my clients in the Australasian territories. It's a big confidence boost for me, and gives me hope that I can lock down representation (what is referred to as a "subpublisher") in Europe and the Pacific Rim with the same ease.

4. I "wrote" a song.

That's right, I'm in the process of joining ASCAP as a publisher, and in order to do that you have to own a copyright. So I'm also joining as a writer and saying that I "wrote a song" and "posted it to my MySpace", which I have since "deactivated". I know it's lying, but when the GM of the company says to send the documents through him so he can make sure things go through, I feel OK about it.

5. I have my first Top 10.

My first administered single should be Top 10 this week! I'd like to think it has another seven or eight weeks before it peaks... that's the dream anyway.

Due to the lack of Lala, I am going to try to find another site that will let me post songs to my blog. Until then, go to http://www.thekicksrock.com and download their debut album and their new single for free! Great modern rock and roll; Kings of Leon meet the Beatles.

I am crushing it today!

Little Lies - Dave Barnes

The above is off Dave Barnes' new album "What We Want, What We Get" that was released today. He also played this Saturday night at the Music City Unsigned Tin Pan South Showcase, and I've had it in my head ever since.

So I guess I'm setting the bar for crushing it pretty low these days, but I feel like I've really accomplished stuff today (and it's only 2). I woke up this morning and filed my online registration as an LLC with the State of Tennessee. It was actually extremely easy because they have a website that fills in all the forms for you and files them electronically. I did the same thing with the IRS to get a federal Tax ID number. So by the time I got out of bed today I had already done two of the things I had dreaded about getting this thing going. Two down, a couple dozen to go :)

I also finalized my business cards today, and should have 250 coming my way within the week.

I was going to go to the bank today and set up accounts and credit cards and all that, but I decided I have to have something to do tomorrow, right? So instead I bought my favorite lunch in the world (small basket of chicken fingers tossed in Ole Smokey sauce at McDougals) and took it to Centennial Park, where I am currently sitting on the steps of the Parthenon using the park's free wireless. And the weather is GORGEOUS for this too! I'm definitely going to do this more often.

I also talked with my old job today to see when they want me to come in and help them get the quarter closed, and they said they'd keep me posted, but probably beginning of next week. Which, in theory, is great for them because they're trying to save money and all that, but it just means I'll have to cram 200 hours into 2 and a half weeks instead of 3 and a half. They really have no idea how screwed they are at this point.

Last night I went to see "Clash of the Titans" for my friend Ryan's birthday. Not an incredible movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it knew what it was and I appreciated that. An entertaining way to spend the evening, and I had good company too so I can't complain. There are a bunch of movies coming out in the next couple months that I'm excited about too:

April 9 - Date Night
April 16 - Kick Ass
April 23 - The Losers
May 7 - Iron Man 2
May 7 - Babies
May 14 - Robin Hood
May 21 - Shrek Forever After
May 21 - MacGruber (I LOVE Kristen Wiig)
May 28 - Micmacs

Looks an awesome way to spend the next couple months :)

Don't Stop Believin'

I have my first official client! Granted, it's one without activity at this point, but there definitely will be some in the near future, and you have to start somewhere, right?

In related news, apparently my negotiating skills, while still extremely uncomfortable, aren't as bad as I thought. I was able to get the software company to drop the price by a couple thousand dollars, and I signed the purchase agreement on Friday. No turning back now; this stupid software will end up costing me more than twice what I paid for my car. Dang.

I've been getting a fair amount of work from my old company this week, and it looks like I'll be spending most of April over there getting them ready to make client payments at the end of the month. If left to their own devices, they would be royally screwed in a couple weeks. But at least I get paid real money to clean up the mess :)

The weather in Nashville is b-e-a-utiful right now, and it doesn't look like that's gonna change at least in the next week! I can hardly believe it's April already, but since that's the case I guess this weather is about right. I've had a couple of landscaping surprises this spring: none of my plants died over the winter (including the bush I thought had died last summer and the three maples I planted in October) and apparently the purple bush-like things I planted in front of my windows have white flowers in the spring. Who knew? I really like them, and I may actually put a couple more in this spring. Now I just need to remember what they're called...

I get to go to two and hopefully three shows this weekend, all part of Tin Pan South, an annual songwriters festival in town. Friday night is JD Souther (wrote most of the Eagles hits), Jonathan Cain (member of Journey), and Brett James (hottest writer in Country music right now, and a member of my South Africa team). Then Saturday night are the Music City Unsigned showcases, featuring Dave Barnes, Jennifer Knapp, Charlie Peacock, Matthew Perryman Jones, and Katie Herzig, among others. I'm sure I'll have plenty of music to recommend after this weekend, so I'm going to take this chance to recommend Ben Rector from the show last weekend. Infectious piano pop at it's finest, Ben is, ironically, like Ben Folds covering Matt Wertz. Check him out:

The Beat - Ben Rector

I'm no Kevin Spacey

To those of you who are good at negotiating: Congratulations. Me? I suck at this stuff.

I just sent an e-mail to the software company I'm going to buy my administration software through. It's not like I was even asking for that much off; I think it would bring it down another 10% or something (which in this case is hundreds, but still). But I still had such a hard time typing that out! I feel like I'm stealing from them or something. Which is why I do this over e-mail, because if I talked to them on the phone they could talk me in to pretty much anything. Be strong!

In other news, I am back from South Africa! The whole team had such a great time over there, such a blessing to be able to work with, minister to, and be ministered to by the people of Red Hill and Living Hope. Living Hope actually came back after we left to finish the clinic, and it looks awesome! Here are pictures of the clinic we were working on, before and after:


































What a change!

Lastly, now that I'm back in the states I can start recommending music on here again! I went to a show Sunday night that featured three up and coming Nashville singer/songwriters: Ben Rector, Steve Moakler, and Andrew Ripp. All three were excellent, and I'm sure I'll be featuring each of their music on here in the coming weeks. But today's music is a new guy out of the UK called Daniel Merriweather, featuring my favorite artist of 2008 (and hopefully 2010 if she gets around to putting out an album), Adele. Glorious:

Water And A Flame - Daniel Mer...

Broken and restored in three days time

All right, I've finally got some time here to lay out what happened over the last three days of construction:

Tuesday: The Day of the Crane

So, as I said on Monday, Tuesday was a critical day. We had this crane, which they were renting by the hour, so we wanted to get its part done as quickly as possible. The crane arrived on time, and they attached the hooks to the containers they were supposed to lift. As this was happening, we were readying the materials to level the footings under each container corner. So far, so good.

Then, the crane operator lifted the containers. Everything held together well, and I was in charge of building the supports so I got busy working in the back corner. As we finished that support, apparently the crane operator decided he needed to shift something, and in the process the back part of the building descended onto the support, simultaneously separating the three containers from each other.

At this point, what we had hoped would be a simple matter of the crane lifting the two attached containers simultaneously while we fixed the supports had now become three completely independent containers we were going to have to lift one by one, fit back together, and level to each other... wow.

And so that's what we did. The team leader spent most of the morning dealing with 3 different people telling him what we should have done. They were:

1. The project manager with Living Hope, a man who is apparently a nice guy but who we always dreaded seeing on site because we knew it would mean several shouts of "Time is money!" and the revelation of materials he had that would have made whatever we spent the last three hours on markedly easier.

2. Arthur, the man from the Cape Town Health Department who was relatively quiet but his presence always put the Living Hope guy on edge.

3. The man who drew the plans for what we were doing, an 83-year-old widower who I called Old Man River.

Eventually this trio left, and we were finally able to get some work done. The crane was on site for about 3 hours longer than anticipated, something we were worried about because they made it sound like this thing cost a fortune, and our frame of reference reinforced that. Imagine how hard we laughed that night when it was revealed the crane and two operators cost $40/hour.

Wednesday: Picking up the pieces
Part of the destruction of Tuesday was the loss of the front door to the clinic, which we replaced before leaving but didn't have the materials to install the handle. As such, I spent the first half of Wednesday digging out the handle portion of said door. Meanwhile everyone else spent the morning getting ready to install the beam for our new roof, and they got it up in time for me to spend the afternoon working on top of the containers, installing supports for the rafters.

We needed to get the rafters up before the end of the day because leaving materials around the job site was not an option: anything left around Red Hill gets used on someone's house in short order. Early in the afternoon I was not feeling good about getting it all done, but our local help stepped up big time and we were back to The Team House just an hour later than planned.

Thursday: Redemption
Our overall goal for Thursday was to get the sheets of tin roof installed on the rafters. We got off to a slow start when the big three stopped by and Old Man River started telling us everything that wasn't right. He would stand over on the side looking disapprovingly and I'd look at Ethan and say "Looks like Old Man River's about to strike," and then he'd call over the Living Hope guy, who would then tell us what should be happening.

Again, we were able to get real work done when they left. I was put in charge of getting the tin installed, and I spent the afternoon crawling around on the rafters and drilling it all down. I may have put myself in some of the more reckless positions I've ever been, but we got it all done, again thanks to the local guys who were helping us. Getting that last piece on was just an awesome feeling.

We followed up the end of our time in Red Hill with a community party, where the kids club sang, the youth choir sang, the audience sang a couple of African hymns and we served 200 frankly awful looking hot dogs.

And now we've spent today (Friday) touring around Cape Town a bit more, visiting the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, the Malay district (where Malaysian slaves used to live and now all the buildings are brightly colored), the District 6 Apartheid museum, and Signal Mountain.

This is all a bit disjointed, and for that I apologize. But I'll close this post with the news that I've discovered the joys of Pineapple Fanta on this trip, and I don't think my life can be the same.

Down the home stretch

Sorry I don't have much time this morning, but just wanted to let you all know that things went slightly crappy Tuesday, very well Wednesday, and I feel great about the condition we're going to leave the building in today! More details to follow later!

Step one: complete

It's the end of our first day in Red Hill. I'm tired, hot, and hungry. But what a day!

Just to catch you up on what exactly we're doing: There's a clinic in Red Hill, a shanty-town of Cape Town, that has fallen into disrepair. It's made of three shipping containers welded together, and two of the containers are no longer level. There's also a porch area that is currently uncovered. Our mission this week is to level the containers (with the help of a crane), build a roof over the porch, patch the roof of the containers, and replace some of the floor of the clinic. And we're going to do it in four days.

Today was critical in the timeline for our jobs: we needed to get posts for the roof grounded in concrete, clear away brush and debris, and get measurements for the rest of the week. And we got it all done! Tomorrow is the other really pivotal day for us: the day of the crane. It will be lifting up the containers so we can raise the footings where necessary. If we don't get the footings level tomorrow, it most likely won't happen this week. And that, obviously, would not be ideal.

I also got to spend a bit of time this afternoon at the kids club the rest of the group is running. It was so refreshing to hear forty kids singing and jumping and dancing in praise! And it gives me motivation for the rest of the week, because this clinic we're working on will be used to house kids clubs going forward.

I would be remiss to not mention that we spent yesterday going to church (where we learned about all (and I mean all) the women's groups operating in the church), seeing penguins, eating the self-proclaimed best pizza in Simon's Town, hiking to the Cape Point Lighthouse, being chased by baboons, watching ostriches, looking out over the Cape of Good Hope, and listening to Prime Circle rock Kirstenbosch. What a way to waste the day away...

A picture's worth 200 Rand (at least the ones I buy, apparently)

I bought a hat.

It's a nice one, I bought it on the top of Table Mountain. We took a cable car up to the top, the peak of which is approx. 3500 ft above sea level, which normally wouldn't be all that high but since we could see the sea from where we were, it felt like miles. From this vantage point, we could see all of downtown Cape Town. Downtown itself was relatively compact; for a town with ten times the population of Nashville, the actual downtown area was probably about twice as big.

We walked around what's called the Company Gardens in downtown, a beautiful area that houses the South African Parliament, the former Presidents house, and an immaculately groomed selection of plants and trees. We ate lunch at a cafe in the gardens, where, out of a typical selection of American standards like hamburgers, sandwiches, and omelets, I chose a lamb curry and rice dish (pick your jaw off the floor). It was pretty good too!

After lunch we went to a market where people were selling their wares. I am a terrible haggler, and bought a couple of paintings on my own, and was then pressured into buying another (such a sucker). I also went swimming in the ocean today. And, by swimming, I mean I ran in and out because the water was so unbearably cold! They say the water is about 50 degrees, and I believe them, but it certainly felt like 35. After the second wave crashed over me, I lost my breath for a few seconds and decided it wasn't worth losing my life for an ice bath.

Now, back to the hat. The reason I bought a hat today is because I got so sunburned yesterday. I put on sunscreen in the morning, but didn't reapply throughout the day, and with the variation in latitude my skin freaked out. My skin also freaked out from what I think is a developing allergy to grass; woke up today with red sores up the bottom half of both legs.

We spent all day yesterday with the Life Skills Educators and other staff of Living Hope. It was so encouraging to see their passion for the people in their communities, their resilience, their hope. These 19 people spend their days teaching the children of the community where they live such basic life skills as proper hygiene, the importance of education, and the love of Christ. We started out at Kirstenbosch Gardens, and then went to a church in the area for worship, teaching, and games. We ended up back at our team house and had Brai, or barbecue. A great way to give them a break, and a great way to give us a glimpse into their ministry. Due to changes in management of American AIDS relief funding, the prevention side of Living Hope that these people encompass have had $350k pulled from their budget, essentially everything. They are hanging by a thread, and while they are honest about their struggles, they still soldier on.

I believe, help me in my unbelief.

Show me that smile again

Well, we made it to Cape Town!

Travel was...long. The flight from DC to Johannesburg was my first time on a jumbo jet (I'm not the type of person to know or care about what type of plane it was; if it's bugging you, let's assume it was a 747), and thankfully I ended up with an open seat next to me. I watched: Ratatouille, The Informant!, an episode of How I Met Your Mother, and listened to Coldplay and Beyonce, all on the in-flight system. I also made the mistake of watching Marley and Me while surrounded by a bunch of strangers. Now, if you know me, you know I'm not an animal person, but I was fighting back tears several times during that stupid movie! I knew what was coming, and it still got to me! Who'd have thought?

I also spent a good amount of time reading "What the Dog Saw", a collection of New Yorker essays by Malcolm Gladwell. Some very interesting stuff, and because each piece is independent of the others it's easy to read one and take a break.

I would like to take this opportunity to admit that I have a problem with Gummi Life Savers: I like them too much. I ate two(!) bags of them in the first 12 hours of travel, and my body hated me for the rest of the day.

And, in news of the random, Joanna Kerns (the mom from Growing Pains) was on all of our flights from DC to Cape Town.

All told it was 25 hours between the first takeoff to the last touch-down. My body does not really know what's going on, but I was able to get 7 hours sleep last night so I think I'm on track.

We spent today taking a tour of Cape Town, mostly focusing on the various Living Hope operations. Such a beautiful city! It's like a combination of the West Coast and Mediterranean, with a random shanty town thrown in for good measure.

Probably the most fun today was spending an hour playing with 5 and 6-year-olds at a preschool near Masiphumelele. We were serenaded by the children and then just got to throw them around the playground. Precious, precious kids, they knew enough English to express their gratitude and excitement with our presence, and it was such an encouragement for me to be able to just spend that time with them.

Tomorrow we are leading a day-long retreat for the Life Skills Educators of Living Hope. These people have chosen to live in the shanty towns, ministering to the children and educating the community on HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment. It is an honor to give these angels a chance to relax, reflect, and be revitalized.

Until tomorrow, further up and further in!

Cue Toto

I started today without any real plans, and am just now getting a chance to type it all out.

I'm working on a freelance publishing catalog sale for a former client right now. Basically, I'm in charge of collecting all of the royalty information for the last five years and get it organized efficiently. The tough thing is there are two pieces that are being sold together, and the owners of each side despise each other, leaving me to attempt my best Switzerland impression. Side A is telling me to give them and only them the data, and that they'll then share it with Side B, while Side B says they have rights to the data at the same time as Side A. And the crappy thing about it all is that Side B is totally in the right, and the sale will be under undue peril if I don't go with them, which sucks for both sides. I'm gonna have to do some creative processing to make this all go smoothly...

...Which makes it the perfect time for me to leave the country! I am going to South Africa with my church on Tuesday! I've been waiting for my passport to come through, and got confirmation tonight that it's processed and in the mail! Sooooo exciting! And one nice thing about the place we're staying is they have internet access, so I can blog about everything while I'm there. Also, the team has a blog (click here).
There aren't any posts yet, but each team member is encouraged to post at least once during the trip, so there should be consistent updates over the coming weeks.

Additionally, I now have a work e-mail address, business cards and a website in the works, and I made as much doing freelance today as I used to in a week.

Life rocks.

Africa (Album Version) - Toto

Let the adventure continue

I just quit my job.

Well, not really, it was three weeks ago. And even then, I really quit my job four months ago, I just didn't tell my boss.

Why did I do this? At 24, I was essentially the #2 at a young and growing company, doing something I was good at and that I liked doing. My boss was better than I could have asked for. I had a ridiculous number of vacation days, including two weeks paid at Christmas. I was interacting with some of the most creative and successful songwriters in Nashville on a daily basis. Shoot, I was exactly where any music business grad from Belmont dreams to end up.

So why would I give this all up? Because I needed to.

The company had become something I didn't recognize; certainly not what I had signed on for. We were running a business model that was not sustainable without the owner absorbing significant losses for the foreseeable future. To top that off, the owner didn't care about losing money. You would normally think that's great news: no pressure to turn a profit, great job security, all that jazz. But, for me, that was the worst thing I could have found out. My future went from one determined by my performance and the company's success to one determined by the whims of the owner. In this light, I was essentially being paid to be the owner's friend, and in this light I knew it was only a matter of time before my friendship became too expensive. And that's saying something, given my salary.

But, as I said, I love doing what I did. And I'm good at it too! So I decided to start my own company, doing exactly the same thing I did, just for myself now. It is so freeing to think that I can now control everything about my life. I now make my own schedule, I can take on the clients that I want, I can have the fee structure that I want; my future is wide open!

I've said several times over the last several weeks that the rest of my life begins now. And that's true. But that was true four months ago. That was true a year ago. At any moment, we make the choice to keep doing what we do or to make a change. Choosing to stay where you are is still a choice, and you live with those consequences for the rest of your life. So I guess now I just made a different choice. It's like I've been reading the same part of the "Choose Your Adventure" story that is my life for the last two and a half years, and this time I chose Option B.

And now the adventure continues. I've been at this point several times in my life, and it always feels the same, and it always feels right, and it always works out best. There are nerves, there are fears, there are unknowns. But there is promise, hope, and peace, and that's all I need.

Here's to the future!

And in honor of the Olympics, I give you one of the greatest recordings in music history:

Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell