A moment of gratitude and recognition for my tiny steadfast circle of patrons.

Lots of folks are reading The Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer. I did, too. Here's my take on this memoir / how-to / inspirational hybrid book.

You’re an indie author. You have a website, of course. Optimize it to be the best indie author website it can be.

So I met some real live podcasters in the flesh today... some folks whose work I've listened to for the last few months. Don't think they've listened to me (yet) cuz I'm kind of a small fry... but based on my Feedburner stats, that may have changed after today. It was a fun meeting. It's interesting how quickly a group of people who haven't really interacted can just get to work on a common task. That's the pod/blog effect, though -- we have interacted, by being each others' listeners. Having an agenda helped, too... What did that agenda entail? Mostly deciding what we were going to do with our exhibition booth at the upcoming Portable Media Expo in November. Yes, I'm going to be a conventioneer. Crazy. See you there -- booth 313, November 11th and 12th, Ontario, California. It was invigorating, being around peers who do what you do. It was way worth the two hour drive "down the hill," and a great start to a day of socializing with old friends and new!

All right, folks! Here's a reminder that it pays to speak, to act. Earlier this week, it came to my attention that Nike was using a knock-off of classic, iconic Minor Threat album cover art to promote a skateboarding tour. Dischord Records never gave permission to use, never approved of, and never condoned the Nike ad campaign. In fact, they were diametrically opposed to it. Unfortunately, Dischord recognized that they didn't have the financial resources to mount a legal battle against Nike. So. I wrote a letter to Nike, essentially calling them out, and I spread the word to the folks on the Mike Watt discussion group on Yahoo!, and to my friends on MySpace. I encouraged everyone to contact their own mailing lists (most or many including many, many more people than I could reach) and we got viral on the whole thing. Today, Nike issued an apology and removed the image from the media, both in print and online. Fuck yeah. I'm not saying I'm responsible. I'm saying it feels good to stand for DIY, for what's right, and it feels good to be involved in something that ... in a matter of less than 100 hours... changed…