I went to this website last night, and it kinda pissed me off a lil’ somethin’. It’s the website of this guy that travels around with Raheem Devaughn and paints while Raheem is performing. He probably did the artwork on that Raheem Devaughn link. I went to a concert a couple of months ago, and it was kinda dope to watch, cause he did a whole piece during the performance. Plus, I actually like his work.

But, even though I like this cat’s art, going to that website definitely annoyed the shit out of me.

The reason for that is because I hate it when people that I think are pretty talented in any artistic way (i.e. music, art, whatever) don’t seem to pay as much attention to the business side of things. This could just be me and my non-artistic self hating and not thinking about how they want to devote all their time to creating the art (and making ridiculously gross generalizations, unsupported by any facts at all), but I don’t really understand why, in so many cases, it always seems like people think business and art have to be mutually exclusive.

What I mean by that is, take a look at that guy’s site. I visited it as a person that had seen his work before, learned about the site cause I cared enough to write it down when he said it, knew I liked his stuff, and would possibly interested in buying one if the price were right (which I doubted it would be, but hey, you never know). When I went to the site there was no way, that I could find, to actually buy one of his joints. You would think that, when you are trying to make a living selling something, you would make it as easy as possible for someone to buy it.

Even if there WAS a link somewhere on the site to purchase a piece, I didn’t see it. It should have been somewhere that made it IMPOSSIBLE for me to miss. It should have been so prominent that I could go there and immediately see it. All I could see when I looked around were: a page with contact info and a mailing list that I wouldn’t bother signing up for, and another page that required you to download some shit (that I thought that I already had on my computer and was unwilling to bother trying to download again, and I download everything, so I doubt less tech-savvy people would try) just to look at some of his works.

That website is straight out of 1997. All it does is present you with a couple of pages of information. I know that I place way more faith and confidence in the Interwebs (and technology in general) than most people, and my perception of what it can enable is a bit farfetched at times, but I think most people still underestimate it. For people trying to get their work out there and seen by people and make a living, the Internet is one of the best things to ever happen to them, because it both lowers the cost of self-promotion and makes it easy to do transactions.

He could pay $25/year and upload a picture of EVERY SINGLE PIECE he’s ever done to a site like Flickr and EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION would be able to see them. No special software necessary, just a web browser. If he wanted to, he could sell large, glossy prints of his work in addition to the actual paintings.

Maybe some people would just save the pics off flickr and put em as their desktop background or print em out on their photo printer at home, but it wouldn’t even matter if he missed out on those sales, because all the pics would still have his signature on them and act as free advertising when those people showed it to their friends. And no matter what, nobody can duplicate buying one of his actual pieces. Even if he made no money on everything else, it would STILL act as promotion for people to buy his artwork, because the more people that know about him, the larger his audience of potential sales. He can go to a site like Custom Ink and get his artwork put on whatever the hell he wants.

I don’t know anything about the economics of art, so I dont know if maybe he wants to keep his stuff scarce and expensive, but shit, he could do a limited series of full paintings, a separate limited series for shirts, one for bags. The possibilities are damn near limitless. He could do a set that connected a bag, shirt, photo and painting through a common theme, in a way that would make people want to buy all 4 to get the whole story. I won’t even get into the communication/blog issues, this post is already longer than I intended.

Sorry for the long rant, and I’m sure doing all that would offend the sensibilities of some true artists that have some vision for their art and think doing that stuff would be selling out in some way, or something like that, but I think that not doing stuff like that is just limiting yourself, and when you limit yourself you end up putting your future in the hands of others.

I need to hurry up and get my shit together and work on my execution of ideas so I can just be a consultant. Thoughts on making some money in music in a later post.

• E

P.S. – I must admit, I developed a lot of the ideas I talked about here based on the articles I read over at Techdirt that talk about how businesses need to react and adapt to change. They got some smart guys over there.

I suppose that since I’m a lawyer I should start this out with some kind of disclaimer about this not being real legal advice, me not being your lawyer, and you getting a real lawyer before doing anything. So there you go, I have disclaimed, don’t try to sue me or anything.

This is going to be part 1 of an ongoing series. Pretty much ever since I started law school, I’ve been coming across things, either in class or at work lately, that I feel most people need to know, and shouldn’t have to pay back 6 figures of loans just to find out. So, I’m going to start writing about some of those things. Most of it is straight common sense when you think about it, but for some reason a lot of people never do. So don’t ever say your boy E never did anything for you.

Today’s lesson is mostly going to be on something called an advance fee loan scheme. Basically this is a scam where someone promises to make/give you some huge amount of money, but in order for him/her to do so, you have to send in some significant amount as a fee or down payment for the service. If this sounds familiar it’s because there’s probably an email sitting in your spam folder right now from a deposed nigerian dictator saying the same thing. The scam is so prevalent over there that everybody knows the criminal code for it and it’s just referred to as a “419.”

This kind of scam isn’t new, it’s just evolved over time. It was originally called the “spanish prisoner” scam. Now it’s been updated to use the internet and email, but it’s still basically the same. Believe it or not, people still fall for it, which is why you still get those emails. Think about it, if they send out a million emails, even if they only get a response rate of 1% (from those gullible people that are reading an email for the first time) it’s still worth it to them because the cost of sending out a million emails is practically nothing.

Anyway, I’m don’t really mean to go on talking about the 419 scams, because I’m sure you’re just deleting those. Last week in the judge’s courtroom, we had a guy on trial for a similar thing though. People with business ideas hooked up with this guy and his brother, usually through a friend, and he promised them that he could get them tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding in return for regular interest payments on the amount loaned out, as well as a small equity stake in the companies. All they had to do was send in a small upfront payment of $25,000 and he would hook them into an international network of banks distributing “humanitarian” funds that only a select few people had access to. Quite the load of bullshit there, but he ended up getting more than $300,000 from unsuspecting clients before the feds ended up tagging him with wire fraud (the jury found him guilty, quickly).

There are probably many many reasons this guy was able to get over like that on so many people. But there are a few things that stood out to me. I was sitting there listening to the victims’ testimony and wondering how they could have ever thought this was legit, and I tried to come up with some warning signs/reasons the got taken like that. In my mind, these seem to be the two biggest factors.

Knowledge/Ignorance. Not everybody is familiar with certain types of financial transactions and terminology. Nothing wrong with that, but just because you don’t understand something and someone else says they do, it doesn’t mean that you should trust them with your money. This guy just strung together real financial terms and transactions to made up ways that didn’t really exist, but sounded official enough, and people handed over their cash. If an opportunity presents itself for you to make some money, please just do some research on your own, or ask somebody else that knows about that type of stuff, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do that (one aspect of these schemes is that they sign you to a non-disclosure form or tell you you’ll be kicked out and lose your money if you tell anybody at all). If you still don’t understand it, you probably shouldn’t be giving that person your money anyway, even if it’s legit. Also, check to make sure the person/company has the correct licenses/registrations.

Greed/Desperation. Bad combination, this one here. Some of the people felt like they wouldn’t qualify for a traditional loan, but bottom line, most of these people got greedy. I mean come on now, one person said he was promised $210 million, and all he had to do was give his 25 grand and sign some stuff. I’m sure that huge amount of money staring him in the face, combined with low interest on the loan and a smaller equity stake than what venture capital investors would have asked for sounded like a great deal at the time. Maybe not so much now. Turns out they should’ve just headed to a community bank that works with small businesses. One guy lost some of his parents’ retirement money.

Hopefully I don’t paint too many legitimate businesses with this brush, because you could probably describe some perfectly legal businesses that sound like this. But basically, it seems like almost any deal where you have to cough up money upfront just to qualify for a loan or to be eligible to make some ridiculous amount of money in the future is AT LEAST a ripoff, if not an outright scam (I’ll talk about those semi-pyramid schemes where you have to sell shit to your family and bring in people to work for you some other time). Don’t let it happen to you people.

• E

I started this a while back, but it’s been taking me so long to finish that I’m just gonna post it and hope it’s a complete enough thought to get my point across. There might be future ones along the same train of thought, hence the pt. 1.

So I’m on Fergie’s Wikipedia entry (don’t ask – boredom can take you places you wouldn’t normally go), and I see that she was on the show Kids Incorporated and in a group called Wild Orchid before she struck gold with the Black Eyed Peas. For some reason it was mad funny to me that she had been involved with those two things, and I made some remark to Sean about how so many famous people just kept trying and reinventing themselves and trying again until they finally come up with a formula to get them where they want to be. They really work hard at being famous. But, now I wondered which one of those was the real Fergie, cause it seems like a long way from Wild Orchid, which I imagine to be one of those angst-filled groups, to Fergilicious. Sean just said hey, maybe they’re all her, just at different stages of development – a good point.

Him saying that reminded me of something I had been thinking about a while back about people trying to change. It seems like one of the most difficult and frustrating parts of a relationship (any relationship, not just the significant other type, but also familial relationships and friendships) is when you are trying to change and it feels like people are kind of holding you in place. I’m not even necessarily talking about a subjectively good/bad type of change, but maybe just doing something different from how you would normally do it. I think it happens because over time the people that have known you for a while tend to develop expectations about you – what you think about things, how you would react in certain situations, what you want to do, etc., and usually that’s a great thing. Having that kind of familiarity leads to situations where something happens and you just look at each other and start laughing. But, other times it’s not so great. I know every now and then I just feel restricted – like I can’t do something different because people might not know how to react to it, or might look at me funny – whatever. There are definitely times when I don’t even want so much as a comment about how I’m doing something different. With some things I’d just rather not get any acknowledgment at all that I did something that I wouldn’t usually do

The perfect examples of this are my dealings with my mother. Basically, I’m fairly sure that my mother still thinks I’m the exact same person I was the last time I really lived with, and was fully dependent on. I’m talking 1997 here. Nevermind all my experiences in the intervening 10 years, I’m positive she still thinks of me as pretty much the same – at least, that’s what her actions seem to tell me (you can always argue that I’m looking at her the same when she’s changed, but I’ll ignore that argument for now because I think you change a lot more between 17 and 27 than when you’re reaching retirement age, and I also think I’ve tried to recognize any changes in her).

An example of the way she looks at me: she still thinks that I don’t drink. At all. I admit, a large part of this misconception is due to my laziness. Every family function, when the champagne comes out, she’ll be like “oh, don’t offer him any, don’t waste it, he doesn’t drink.” And I’ll ignore just ignore what she said and take a pass on the liks, because it’s easier and more comfortable than accepting it and having to hear comments/have a discussion with her about how and when I started drinking. Besides, I’m usually the one driving home anyway.

My mother is a more extreme example, because she just has something to say about everything. I know most of my friends and family aren’t going to bother to say more than something small acknowledging it (if even that much) then keep it moving, unless it’s a pretty significant change that deserves some kind of comment. I’m also sure some people don’t consider what other people might have to say at all, but I think most people think about it to varying extents. Most of the time it isn’t a big deal, and doesn’t really affect what you’re doing. But that kind of inertia preventing change is at its worst when you want to change and you’re trying to change, but you are just so used to and comfortable with the relationship being a certain way for so long that you end up relapsing into the roles you usually play.

I’ve seen that happen with a lot of couples, where they just get way too set in dealing with each other in a certain way and playing the role they’re been playing for a while. And it ends up getting to the point that the only way they can break out of that is by breaking up so they can change on their own and hopefully come back and be in a different position. After all, even if you want to change, if someone keeps treating you the same way as before its too damn easy to fall back into old habits. I’m always hoping I don’t get stuck in any ruts like that with any other people I’m close to. Still trying to break some of those assumptions with my mother, but it gets tiring.

So coming back to Fergie for a sec, I wonder if all those people that were fans of Wild Orchid and loved her then are now rejecting her because they don’t like the change. Or if maybe some of those fans have changed too and like her new music. I guess its possible that they could like fergilicious and still like whatever hit songs Wild Orchid had as well. And, I wonder what Fergie thinks of all the music she made with that group – if she still listens to it now and then.

So I guess besides just trying to change whatever things about myself, I probably need to make sure I’m doing a good job of letting the people around me change and not doing anything that would hold them back. Maybe at the next family event I’ll take the champagne, and maybe when I do that, my mother won’t comment on it. I doubt it though.

• E

I read a lot of blogs. I would say it’s probably too many, but I’d be lying. It’s definitely too many. Far too many. It’s basically just voyeurism. It’s amazing because there is basically a blog about damn near any topic you are interested in. Some of them are people that just talk about their lives, which is cool to me, just seeing how other people live and what they think about the things they go through regularly — a different perspective is enlightening sometimes. Some of them are there for when i need a laugh, sports info, a lot are about technology, whatever (in case you’re wondering, this’ll probably be all of the above). I skim and read the interesting posts and waste entirely too much of my time doing so.

I’m also terrible at keeping in touch with people (not you, of course, just everyone else). Atrocious would actually be a better word for it. Sad really, because as much as I don’t like people in general, there are still a lot of people I do like. There are plenty of people I would want to keep in touch with, but I hate hate hate hate hate talking on the phone (unless it’s you. If I’m talking to you, then I love talking on the phone). I basically have an unofficial 20 min. phone limit (for everyone else). After that it better be a helluva interesting conversation, ‘cause between the hot phone making my cheek sweat (not pleasant, plus the screen gets greasy), my neck getting a cramp from being cocked to the side, and me thinking how many other things I can’t do because I have to concentrate on the phone call, I sort of tune out a little. Only a little, but when you’re talking on the phone even a little bit is probably noticeable. And that’s what I do when I talk to my friends and family that I love to death. I would really much rather be talking to someone in person, because these telephone convos tend to be just a catch up on any big things that have gone on in the past week to month. You don’t really want to start talking about how two family members and your favorite pet fish just died and you’re filing for bankruptcy tomorrow. Or at least I don’t, but maybe I’m weird like that. So I wait until I see people to really catch up, and if I don’t see ‘em, I don’t really get to catch up. Unless of course they’re on IM (gmail or AIM). If they’re on IM and actually have time to talk every now and then, I’m golden, because who knows, between all the idle chatter a conversation might actually break out. Even text messages are enough, because it’s not like you have to sum everything up in one conversation. Myspace and facebook fill in some of the holes too, I try and check out the bulletins every once in a while.

But in a perfect world, the thing I really wish would happen is for everybody I know to just start their own blog. I fully admit that I’m saying this for completely selfish reasons, but I can do that, because it’s my blog. Don’t you want that freedom? (hint, hint) It wouldn’t even matter too much what the blog is about. Of course personal insights and all that would be great, but I wouldn’t care, it could even be your joke of the day, stolen from another website (thief). So long as I could read it, see what other people wrote, and maybe leave a comment if the feeling strikes me, I’m cool. The connection is what’s really important. I like connecting with people, and detest situations where I’m talking/communicating with someone but won’t get that connection. That’s why I only tolerate networking events. I don’t get much of a connection with a quick conversation — that ol’ hi, what’s your name, where did you go to school, what do you do for a living kind of chit-chat. Some people can do that, but I can’t. I try to attend with other people that can. Phone calls are the same way, and I wouldn’t have time to talk on the phone with all the people I want to keep in touch with anyway. The way I see it, making everyone I know blog would be the ultimate solution to my problem.

But since you probably won’t blog, I’ll just start blogging and hope you leave a comment every once in a while. It’s still a connection, ya know?