Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Shooting Video in Pyrgos and Writing for Money

There was another shot at playing in the traffic in Pyrgos but, rats, my jacket flipped up in front of the lens and most of it was blocked out.  Maybe my first idea was right and I should have got a bra to hold the iPad!  You all told me that bras are really expensive and, considering what they carry, they're worth it as we want that cargo well-protected.  A bra may yet be the solution and it would so damn funny in the summer time to be riding and wearing a bra!  I might need to improve my skills in Greek before playing that stunt!

I do need a solution for summer time video as wearing my heaviest jacket when it's 41C outside is probably not a good idea unless I'm looking for a heatstroke.  I tried that last summer and scared the bejeebers out of Lotho.  I don't know if I was scared so much as I was wondering if I was dying.  I guess I probably would have if he hadn't been able to cool my body back down again.  That's about as close to death as I want to get without a whole bunch of singing angels and some killer music.

So, busted on the video and that was the third or fourth try.  There will be another!

As to writing for money, the advice I saw from Robert Heinlein was to develop a thick skin and to keep submitting whatever you have written until someone finally buys it.  I don't see any point in a writer's workshop as life is the workshop, your job is just to right it down.

The market seems obvious as the unbelievable crap they write on CNN appears to have been crafted by people with minimal skill with the language and their view of the pinnacle of English expression is the number of times one can use iconic, draconian, and/or awesome in the same paragraph.  These are writers who could make a cliche out of the return of Christ.

So, there is minimal serious competition but it's unknown if there is any significant jingle or if this is just vanity stuff.  Music is a flaming loser as I know multiple really talented musicians who don't make much of anything and yet there are others who are total crap merchants (i.e. do nothing but strum chords for covers of The Beatles and other nostalgic swill) and make all kinds of money.  That's not music but rather prostitution and the only saving grace is that it doesn't carry any communicable diseases.  Mother, mother, I dreamed that someday I would be an elevator musician.  May I?  May I?

It's unknown what happened to the potential gig here in Pyrgos but it was a vanity gig anyway.  It could have been fun but I won't lose any blood if it doesn't happen.  The situation is much too severe to be doing anything for ego.  If it don't pay the freight, it's got to get off the fookin' train.

The really insane idea is to write for publication in Germany and it's not so farfetched as there is considerable interest in Greece within Germany and likely Austria as well.  This is a summer playground for them as it's beautiful, inexpensive and relatively close.  The beaches are gorgeous and the islands are magnificent.  So it's not at all a silly idea to do it.  The interest in the articles I've written in German should give some evidence that this isn't stoner fantasy as the biggest ones have received well over a thousand hits and they keep coming.  (No, I don't have any reefer but the regulars know I'm well familiar with stoner fantasies.)

So, we shall see!

No comments: