PUblishing, internet scams and other good things

Between random jobs and sitting around waiting to hear back from an $11/hr temp job, I've spent some time on the computa and learned a little bit how the production world works. For publishing and video production, it's about the same thing as far as I know. I guess it's all common sense too once you think about it.


I'm the little guy in the entertainment world. Because there are many people like me who think they rock, you can't get noticed from the big guns unless you have an agent represent you. I submitted my stuff to literary agencies. Then I get an email back from Robert Fletcher, a scam artist in Boca Raton, Florida. He sets up fake literary agnecies like this one, www.wlwritersagency.com, to give little guys hope. Then ask them for $100 for a little critique, sign a contract and off they go with the rights to your book and you're money. I googled the company and came up with all this bs about him before I paid up. Thank the lord. To hell with the agencies, I'm gonna self-publish.

The Bananadog flick is in about 8 film festivals now:
Ojai Film Festival
St Louis International Film Festival
Sacramento International Film and Music Festival
Moondance Film Festival
Austin Film Festival
Bendfilm Festival
Frozen River Film Festival
B-Movie Film Festival

They range in size, location and prestige.

I found all these on a site called withoutabox.com. cool site. it makes it super easy to find and submit your film to the hundreds of festivals around the world. I'm looking for exposure and to see if anyone wants to pick it up. Because it's all licensed music, there might be trouble.

I started sportin out the bandana a few days ago. We were talking to my brother in Iraq over skype the other day and he said in response to the new digs, 'Now that you're in the Peace Corps, I guess you're just playin the part.' So it goes.

Here's an article Barry wrote over there: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/may/1097.html. It's pretty raw, but it definately represents the reality that needs to be covered more often in the media. He's a reporter embedded with the military right now in Mosul, flack jacket and all.

This is the best thing I've ever heard come from our government: http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb160.htm. The Global Service Fellowship. Congress is discussing a bill for $50 Mil to sponsor people to go abroad and do community service projects. This along with trying to 'double the Peace Corps'. Whatever that means, it must be good.