flotsam and jetsam

1. they say that for an artist, record labels are obsolete. unless you're going to sing disco for a living (or whatever else they stick in front of you), you have to do your own thing. start your own label. release your own cd on your own nickel with no distribution. blah, blah, blah. of course, if you're independent and unsigned, the real money -- and exposure -- is in licensing. but nobody explains how to pull it off.
   
2. one thing is for sure: if you are a record label of one like i am, the worldwide web is your very best friend. if corporations take control of the internet, that would mean pure disaster to d.i.y. rock 'n roll folks like me. stay tuned.
   
3. if i could have gone to willie mae rock camp for girls for the summer instead of the state of georgia's governor's honors program for theater when i was a kid, i probably would have taken the guitar seriously a lot sooner.
   
4. better late than never!
   
5. just because black folks don't frequent broadway plays and musicals doesn't mean that they don't go to the theater in droves. just ask tyler perry.
   
6. the chitlin circuit is in the black (pardon the pun) but broadway has been hemmoraging money for years. so everybody's running to put up musicals in las vegas and corporations are producing them on both coasts. (las vegas?! ew.)
   
7. oprah says she doesn't have a beef with hip-hop. she makes some interesting points, though. everybody's got an opinion about it. (i think she's right.)
8. africa is ready for a black jesus. the rest of the world probably is, too. it's middle america that's going to have a cow about it.
   
9. here's a bit of insight from i just had a thought that made me have a few thoughts of my own. and last but not least...
   
10. in the article "what i wish i'd known about marriage," here's what lance armstrong's ex-wife kristin has to say -- "Here is the truth as I see it: Marriage has the potential to erode the very fiber of your identity. If you aren't careful, it can tempt you to become a "yes woman" for the sake of salvaging your romantic dream. It can lure you into a pattern of pleasing that will turn you into someone you'll hardly recognize and probably won't like. I am warning you because I only wish someone had warned me."
    
11. ...and in the article "first comes baby then comes marriage?" marianne reid says -- "The attitude that marriage is not necessary to nurture and raise our children is actually a new one in the black community. Historically, blacks have valued the institution of marriage and the traditional two- parent household. In 1890, 80 percent of African-American families were headed by two parents, even though many had started life in forced family separation under slavery. Even in the 1960s, when black Americans were in the height of civil rights strife, 23 percent of black babies were born out of wedlock, a modest figure compared with 70 percent today. And today's single moms aren't just welfare teens, either. Most out-of-wedlock black babies are being born to women in their 20s and 30s across the economic spectrum." Interesting stuff.