What's in a Name? MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.

Let's forget for a moment that I'm probably the last one to the party. Let's ignore that perhaps this change took place two years ago, and I just wasn't paying attention (mostly because I can't afford to actually go to anything). Let's focus instead on a few months ago... when I was listening to the radio and heard them say "Coming to the Comcast Center this summer--" and I thought, "Where's THAT?"

Seriously--"The Comcast Center." Is that really supposed to be enough for me to go on? I doubt there's only one.

A little drive up the highway revealed to me recently that the Comcast Center is what USED to be the Tweeter Center. Good God. How does one keep UP? If every time a new corporation buys up the same place they CHANGE the NAME, how is anyone ever supposed to know where the hell they are going? I mean, had they said on the radio, "Coming to the Comcast Center--formerly the Tweeter Center," I'd have been with them. Though still totally aggravated.

Here's my real beef--aside from the fact that I can't actually tell what venue is what anymore: WHY is it necessary to slather your name all over everything? WHY? Do you really need the credit so badly? Have we gone so far with branding and whatever other baloney factors in, that we have to RENAME everything with our corporation name? "Check it out--we bought this. See our name?"

I get that these corporations spend huge amounts of money to acquire these venues. Well, big deal. They HAVE huge amounts of money--they are gonna buy things. I get that the reason they have huge amounts of money is because people recognize them above and beyond "the other guys." But actually I dare say they have huge amounts of money for providing some kind of service that doesn't suck more than the other guys--and THAT'S why anyone cares what their name is to begin with.

Would it not be enough to have banners emblazoned with their name and logo all over the arena or stage? Would it not be enough to have every paper cup and napkin printed with their name and logo? Really? Would that not be enough?

MARK MY WORDS: if I'm ever rich enough (I mean frighteningly, Bill Gates rich), I am buying all the local venues. And I'm giving them all their names back. Great Woods, Harborlights, hell--even the Garden (though the current corporate owners kind of found a way to sneak that back in). I'm giving them back their dignity. And the Worcester Centrum. Because calling it the Worcester Centrum CENTER is redundant--hello? I'm giving them a name that has nothing whatsoever to do with the person paying the rent, and instead to do with what that place embodies in essence. I miss those names. I miss what they represented. Mostly I miss knowing EXACTLY where the show was when it was announced on the radio, instead of having to Google it.

And when I buy up all the venues, and give 'em their rightful names back, I just may put the cover art of my latest CD on all the napkins. But that will be more than enough.

Should I Take it "Personal"-ly?

For those who don't know, I have a profile on Yahoo Personals. It's been up there for a while, just the free one, waiting for someone interesting to come along that will make me think it's worth the $25 a month to e-mail them back or whatever. Hasn't happened in a while, which is just as well because I couldn't really spare the $25 at this point.

But can I just tell you that like EVERY DAY I get e-mail alerts telling me that someone has viewed my profile? EVERY DAY. Often multiple times a day. "Kim, 1 person has viewed your profile!" "Kim, 3 new people have viewed your profile!" And that's it. They viewed, and MOVED ALONG QUIETLY. It's not like these profile-view announcements are followed up by "Kim, you have three new messages!" Nope. They looked... and they passed.

Why do I need to know this? Why on EARTH would I want to know how many people took the time to check out my profile and then went, "Nah..."?

Now, I'm sure there's some setting that will enable me to stop receiving these updates, but then I wouldn't have had anything to blog about, would I?

No, seriously. I'm gonna look into that and totally change it.

You know, it's depressing enough not to get any good hits when I get hit. The last thing I need to know is how many people aren't even bothering.

Of course, I would honestly rather they not bother than be THIS guy:

"Hi , My name is Sketchy Loser (name changed),

I am currently married but looking foward. I have 2 daughters and I do not want to hurt them .I know when people get divorced it doesnt help the children at all. So I guess you could say I am married and looking.

I know this is not what you are looking for but i was attracted to you and thought I would say hi anyway.

I like to cook, like rock to country, non smoker, greast sense of humor, love to kiss and cuddle.

I hope to hear back from you , Sketchy Loser"

Okay, let's forget for a moment that his spelling and grammar are atrocious, and right there I am pretty much turned off. Yes, I admit it; I want an intelligent man, capable of capitalization and proofreading. WHAT about my profile (and I'll tell you right now the answer is "nothing") would lead this ass-hat to believe that I want to date a MARRIED GUY? I mean, he puts it right in the second paragraph: "I know this it not what you are looking for..." But I'm a player and figure I'll take a shot and see if I can get some action. You're a big girl--you might be desperate...

*Shudder!*

Meanwhile, I love how Yahoo is always like, "Not getting enough profile hits? Maybe it's time to change up your profile! Change your picture! Blah, blah, blah!" I mean, seriously? Changing my picture is going to suddenly get me more action? I don't see it. I mean, sure, if the picture was bad or something. It's a great picture. I like my profile. It says the things that are true about me, with humor, and gets across what I want to say. If I can't find a match based on reality, then do I really want a match? Not so much. But it makes it all sound a little suspect. Like Yahoo somehow pushes you back into the top of the search engine based on how recently you've updated things instead of based on your actual criteria fitting with the criteria of another person.

Anyway...

After All, Our Parents Taught Us To Share...

I had a status update a couple weeks ago on Facebook about how I was famous in Medford. Here’s the skinny on that:

I was in line at Cold Stone Creamery—a place I visit far too often, but man is that Cake Batter ice cream GOOD! And is it my fault they did away with Cake Batter Light? Exactly.

Anyway, this woman waiting for her ice cream to be mixed was just kind of looking around the joint and caught my eye. I smiled in the neighborly way you do when you’re sharing a human experience like waiting in a line, and she smiled back. We both broke eye contact and stared around at some other fascinating things in our immediate environment, and then she looked at me again and walked over.

“Is your name Kim Davidson?” She asked.

“Yes,” I answered, staring at her quizzically now, trying to place her thoroughly unfamiliar face.

“I saw your videos on Facebook. I love your voice.”

No way! It turns out I absolutely DIDN’T know her, but after a few minutes of name-dropping we figured out who our common link was. And because a friend of hers who knows me posted one of my videos on her home page, she’d gotten to check them out. “I play them for my son all the time when I’m at home with him. He loves them, too.” She told me.

How cool is that?

What is the moral of this story? That word-of-mouth (or word-of-newsfeed) WORKS. A simple click to share a video, a song, an event—whether mine or someone else’s—can make all the difference to an independent artist without a massive PR budget. This woman I would never have found became a fan of my music because of one little click by someone else. THAT is the power of the Internet. So don’t be afraid to use it. J

Thanks to K.Y.B. for sharing my video and gaining me a fan. It was really fun to be recognized completely randomly like that by a total stranger.

So... Hi!

Because all I needed was yet another place to maintain on the web, and all you needed was another place to follow me on the web, here I am. Since I don't have many gigs on the books just now, I am trying to overwhelm Webland with my virtual presence by signing up for every crazy social networking thing that comes my way.

Remember when you could just hop in your pickup truck, drive to some far-out radio station, walk in there with your guitar and your pushy husband, and just BE on the radio? Me neither. But it seems so cool when I see it in "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Nowadays even if you're ON the radio it's hardly enough to keep your name alive in the households of America. And what if you're NOT even on the radio yet? Well, you start production on a CD so you have something to SEND to the radio people. And when you run out of money you start nagging everyone you know, begging them to send you even five bucks so you can finish the damn thing and have something to send to radio stations, and to sell at gigs, and to use as coasters. When they don't send you five bucks (because let's face it, the economy is a nightmare and I don't have five bucks to spare, so I can't expect anybody else to), you start signing up for things like Nimbit and Snocap so that you can sell digital tracks from the upcoming record, because maybe if people are GETTING something for their five bucks it'll make them more likely to part with it. And while you're at it you might as well sign up for all the other places you can embed that online store, and that brings us to now. A place.

And here is the embed...





Assuming it works. You can't embed stuff on Facebook--which is more than a little annoying. I mean, Facebook is annoying enough, with their ever-changing layouts, and other crazy dumb things that work my last nerve, don't get me started--but the lack of HTML freedom is REALLY irksome. I mean, COME ON.

But okay, I just checked it here and it works. Yay! So now here's the beauty of it, and this is where you get to help me further my career for FREE! You heard me right. See where it says "SHARE" in big letters under my picture? If you click on that, you can embed this handy widget (that's the official term for one of these embeddable promo thingies) to whatever website YOU hang at (except Facebook--unless you have "My Stuff" or some other special thing to bridge the gap), and all YOUR friends can check out my music and perhaps buy a digital EP, or whatever. And then they can tell two friends, and they can tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on (name that commercial, children of the 70's)!

So that's the dealio. And that's my blog. Welcome to the next level of Hell. ;-)