alex the girl

I wrote an email to KEXP, one of the most fabulous radio stations ever (and it streams via the internet as well) to see if somehow, I could get permission for Chris to see Air play live in their studio today.

To my surprise, Cheryl from the station wrote me back and said, "Come down today at 2:15."

We sat in the recording booth with the engineer and three other people and that was it. We watched Air play but what was most interesting was all that they said. It's my understanding that they don't do a lot of radio interviews or performances and, when doing interview, don't actually talk that much. But they answered all the questions with so much thought and information, that for Chris, that was the real treat because it was answers to questions he had about his own music and ways of thinking.

He wants to be in music and I think seeing this intimate performance showed him his own possibilities. It made his dream real in a way that it wasn't before. I told him that this experience felt like the one I had at his age where I met someone who showed me my own dream and made it possible. And look where I am.

What this also taught me was that a lot of people always say, "Why don't things like that happen to me?" but that they never ask for what they want. I asked to go to the radio station and it happened. I sometimes wonder how many more rock stars we'd have if people didn't sit and wait for things to be handed to them.

< March 2004 | Main | May 2004 >

April 23, 2004

Someone emailed me awhile ago and, after awhile, I replied. They replied to my reply astonished that a web celebrity wrote them back. This statement literally made my jaw drop. We're talking sweet baby jesus having to come in and close it.

I've heard that term used a lot for me and cheekily used it on a portfolio site once to see if it'd actually have any meaning - it doesn't. But I still don't get the whole web-celebrity thing. Especially for me because in the last 2.5 years, I've made only 80 posts. That's not a lot of updating and, in my opinion, shouldn't interest 90,000 every day.

The web, I'm finding, is a lot like highschool. There's cliques and cool kids, groupies and minions. There's groups of people who get lumped together and who's posts start all sounding the same. You know what I'm talking about. There's commenters (people who make a career at posting at 3+ blogs per day) who want so badly to be noticed by the cool kids. The cool kids then feed off the commenters, wanting to get more commenters to remain cool kids. It's a weird cycle. Weird man.

I've never thought of myself in these terms. I've had a web page for almost 10 years and just kind of do my thing. Sometimes I rock at it, sometimes I royally suck. Eh, what can you do?

I tend not to know the latest terminology, the latest web page gadgets, I don't have comments and I don't post daily. I just used the phrase I have a blog for the first time last month. I'm so not cool by any means and have very little idea how people view me (especially now since all email is down and I don't snoop for dish on me). So it's just strange, weird, surprising to have people think that I'm some kind of blogging rock star, when in fact, I just type a little and hit upload.

< March 2004 | Main | May 2004 >

April 05, 2004

Good things:

The Hip Traveller launched today, a fabulous travel web site with an article from my portfolio in it.

Also, Small Sprial Notebook's first Print Edition is now out. This is terribly exciting for me as it was the first magazine cover I've done (which I wrote about here).

I believe in the cycle of support and not in the worry of competition. I believe if I want to continue to have a career in writing and in art, I must support it with either time, donations, work or purchases.