Spendi meno, fare più. Italian for spend less and make more. I don’t know what got into me this morning but before 10 I had already bought into the Apple music scam that allows unlimited free downloads (for three months) and a new on-line graphics package that creates instructional white-board animations. The former will cost me $9.95/mo starting on 1.1.19 and the graphics package cost me a $67 debit to my credit card. Here is my thinking:
I use iTunes to create the set lists for my spin classes, a tactic considered by many, especially the gestapo at AMI and ASCAP, to be a gray area of music licensing in as much as even though I purchase the songs, they are understood to be for private use and not for use in another revenue producing venue. And while this applies primarily to films, videos and commercials, the fine print somewhere says that playing downloaded tunes as background music for folks gathering to exercise is equally as criminal as using them for commercial purposes to sell crap on TV, or to gaslight a demographic to vote for smile-ball republican candidates. Such are the ways of a society awash in the waves of a runaway capitalistic oligarchy. Alas.
I can guarantee you that as a result of my spinning promotions of Tom Petty, Phish, Pigeons Playing Ping-Pong and PJ Harvey that sales of their tunes have increased as a result. It is like musical product placement. Sounds are every bit as powerful as sights, perhaps even more so. A well-placed song can trigger an emotional response equal to or greater than any fleeting video image. I have run to iTunes to find an oldie used in a car commercial several times. Mony Mony and Treat Her Like a Lady being the most recent examples.
That is the music example. The visual is the whiteboard app. I produce on average one hour long video a month for use in The PowerBarn. I shoot video, mash up with professional stock, on-line editors and custom bumpers commissioned through Fiver.com to show during our training sessions. Although I break the number one rule of independent video production, the rule stating ‘thou shalt not create expensive films for small audiences’, I find it a therapeutic and creative outlet. August’s thousand dollar trip to Idaho, Montana, The Dakotas and Wyoming continues to providing footage and I am still able to pay the rent and put six dollar loaves of craftsman bread on the table so its not like I am about to close the studio.
Art and music. Exercise. There are an endless number of ways to create wholesome experiences to expand the enjoyment and meaning of our short time together. I will gladly take the chance of getting busted for using a $1.29 song to enrich the health and fitness of my neighbors. I will pay out of pocket to provide a visual stimulus designed to motivate and inspire others to climb mountains for the sole reason that it simply offers another path to explore. The fact that we get healthier, fitter, stronger, more experienced and more likely to share those powerful traits and experiences with others is all gravy.
The ways we learn more about ourselves along that path is what interests me. There I find meaning and there I find rewards enough to justify any expense necessary to keep this crazy adventure alive.
With all due respect to Dante Alighieri, et al, I think it should be spend less, do more. Spendi meno, fare di piu. Si?
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