Now that I have been spending more time in the little clubs and going to songwriter conferences, my respect for the songwriters has increased immensely. The performing artists have so many people to help them and so many advantages, everything from a backup band, hair and makeup artists, and bodyguards. But the songwriters mostly work alone or in small groups, toiling over every word and every note, and then handing it off to an artist or a label and hoping that someone will do justice to their handiwork.
Donate Your Used Newspapers
I am dismayed by how many read the daily newspaper and then just thoughtlessly toss the paper into the trash can. Newspapers are among the easiest things to recycle. If you get the morning paper every day, how hard is it to save them up for a week or two in a box near your trashcan and then drop them off at the recycling center when you are out running errands?
Even better, find a way to re-use the newspapers. I take my box of newspaper to the vet down by the shopping center. He uses newspapers to line the bottom of the cages and crates for the animals that are kept overnight after surgery or for special medical treatments. He also boards a few animals while their owners travel for short periods.
I feel that I am helping raise the comfort level for some animals in needs and helping the vet manage his expenses by no having to buy commercial products for cage liners. Plus, I am building good will with my relationship with the vet. And it doesn’t cost me a cent to do it.
Music Downloads
If you’ve shopped for music CDs lately, you might have noticed that they are creeping up in price. I know about 15 years ago the new music CDs were selling for about $16 each in the big stores. If you wanted to listen to the latest songs at home, you had no choice but to buy the CDs and the music business had no incentive to lower the prices.
Now today I can go to Amazon and several other websites and get the one song that I like for just 99 cents. So if there is all this competition now and there are avenues for buying just one song for a buck, why hasn’t the price of CDs come down at all? In fact, just the opposite is true – they are now $18 and $19 dollars for the new releases. That is just crazy. Not only do I object to spending almost $20 on a CD, I object to having to buy 9 or 10 more songs that I don’t even want just to get to hear the one song on that CD that I do like.
Short Week
Even though today is Tuesday, it feels like Monday since yesterday was a holiday and no one had to work. So today we have to double up and work harder to catch up on all the stuff we should have done yesterday. That makes it harder on everyone, but i did appreciate having the day off. It’s just that no one should have to deal with two Mondays in the same week.
Tape
For some reason I had to read about the 3M company on the internet. It tured out to be a really interesting story. The company was founded by three guys who wanted to make money mining in Minnesota. But the stuff they were mining wasn’t worth much and they had to find other ways to making a living. Their business actually lost money for the first 20 years they were running it. Can you imagine holding onto a business that lost money for 20 years straight? No way any banks in today’s world would back them for 20 years. Eventually they starting adding new inventions and selling chemical solutions to industrial problems. The first thing they sold that made money was sandpaper. Then the next thing they made money on was tape. Amazing resilience and determination from those men.
Gasoline prices
The price of regular gasoline here in Nashville has started going back up again and it has doubled in just a couple of months, we had got the price down to $1.25 a gallon and now it is over $2.50 a gallon in spots. I see it going back up to where it was late last year and that will be the end of many small businesses, I know the high gasoline prices last year took the wind out of the sails of our business and it never recovered. I hope to be able to start something else soon to make up the money we lost in our deliverey business and I need to get going very soon.