Cederstrom recorded their entire first album in spring. Katie worked really hard to finish it before summer started.
She and Fara stayed up the last 48 hours of spring finishing it.
Steven didn't really care.
The sound engineer, Randal, who recorded and mastered the tracks was so impressed with Katie's voice that he used every ounce of his considerable influence to make their single the itunes free download of the week.
Unfortunately for Cederstrom, people, in general, didn't like it. When they wrote reviews, they found it to be either "good background noise", or "boring".
Fortunately for Cederstrom, people, not in general, loved it. When they took the time to find the band email, they wrote very, very nice things about her and the drummer.
Katie found it remarkably funny when they said that the bassist sounded deeply moving, but distinctly indifferent. When she told Steven, he smiled.
It was the first time she could remember seeing him smile.
Since everybody downloads the free song every week, no matter who they are or what it is, it was downloaded 9,875,622 times; or about 10 million times.
Katie received 1,124 emails; or about 1,000 emails.
The band's fame grew as fast as their self-esteem and confidence, which was pretty fast considering. You would feel pretty good if you received about 1,000 emails telling you how amazing you are.
They were invited to play a show in New York.
This usually never happens to new indie bands, but I wanted to speed up the story a little bit, so I made Randal's half-deaf son who runs an underground indie hub of music in New York invite them.
It is really sad that Randal's son is half-deaf. It's like that movie Mr. Holland's Opus, but only half as sad. It frustrates me that Mr. Holland conducts with his left hand in that movie. Nobody conducts with their left hand. Ever.
Randal's son could still hear low frequencies, but had a really tough time with high ones. Even with hearing aids. He played upright bass. He was unbelievably good at it.
Months later, upon further personal reflection, Randal's son couldn't imagine why he did it, but considered it the best decision he ever made.
Randal was always proud of him.
Randal was instrumental in my life as well as Katie's.
Katie's parents wouldn't allow her to go because they wanted her to go to college and be successful. It was the typical story of parental oppression.
Obviously, Katie ran away with Steven and Fara. Fara drove all the way to New York from LA. At the California state border, he was strip searched.
From that point on, Katie drove across state borders.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
A Break To Complain a Little Bit
There are a lot of things in life that involve difficult decisions. Everybody knows that.
In an ideal world, there are difficult decisions because people want to benefit themselves, but they also want to benefit the people around them so that they will be able to, in turn, help them.
Here:
Take nature.
Nature, when left alone, forms a harmonious, beautiful, mindless ecosystem. Organisms live, they serve a purpose to their surroundings, whatever that might be, and they die. Their body breaks down, they become a part of everything blah blah blah.
Put humans into that equation, make them mindless, and they work together to defend each other and survive blah blah blah.
There are no difficult decisions for mindless people. They act instinctively and if they are right they live, if they're wrong then they die. oops. fortunately there's a couple thousand other mindless people of the same sort to take the spot blah blah blah.
I am referring to men of the "prehistoric" or "stone" age.
Whatever the fuck we are now, we aren't humans. Technically, we are, but theoretically, we aren't. I keep talking about that will to survive crap, to push on, to better yourself, well, its selfish.
Its about as selfish as it gets.
Selfishness is found in animals around the world, don't get me wrong. Ever tried taking food from a bear?
Yet the true selfishness, the kind of which I'm talking about, doesn't exist anywhere but in the human being. Ever see a bear mark an entire food source as his own, so that he can have all the food, and sell it to other bears so they don't die in exchange for their mountain cave with a stellar night sky view?
But its expected now. That's why we are different than animals we want more blah blah blah.
So when people tell you you're selfish, well, yeah. You probably are. And so are they, for wanting you to share.
Yet its easy to define good selfishness from bad selfishness. Hitler, "The world will be mine" Susan B. Anthony "I want to vote".
My point is that it really depends on what kind of selfishness you go at.
Hitler, "Once the world is mine I will make it how i want"
Susan B. Anthony, "Once I can vote, so can all other women"
Sure you could say that Anthony to Hitler is a bit of a stretch, but how about day to day decisions.
"I want all the cookies because I'm hungry, but nobody else will have any"
"I'm going to make all the cookies because I'm hungry, I'll make enough for everybody"
Sure you could say that Deuche to Faggot is a bit of a stretch, but how about business decisions.
"I'm going to protect my money during this economic crisis, liquidize my stocks, maybe even short some, sell all my bonds, put it all in foreign banks under a stable currency, and wait for the economy to turn around. In other words, fuck the banks and the market. At least I didn't lose it all. My company will have to make major cuts. I'll feel bad firing those employees."
"I'm going to keep my savings in the accounts and deal with the lack of interest, buy stock while its low, and work harder to keep my company afloat so that when the economy turns around because of people like me, I will have made money, earned the respect of my employees, and have a solid company."
Sure you could say that Safe to Risky is a bit of a stretch, but it's NOT risky if EVERYBODY does it.
Safe isn't safe anymore when the Riskys all collapse under their weight, their foreign banks shut down due to their own economic crisis caused by your economic problems, and when they run out of people to fire.
See the trend?
There are a lot of tough decisions in life. Don't lie and say you're unselfish. Jesus Christ was rumored to be unselfish. He has been immortalized in history if not by other means. Unless you feel like going the same way he did, and if you need modern, I mean getting screwed for an idea, no matter how grand, then don't be selfless.
Communism is a method employed by rulers trying to copy nature; in a seriously fucked up way. Communism doesn't work. There's too much selfishness in people. Its a good thing. It makes us who we are, its the reason we have have ipods, beds, the NFL, and schools.
Pick your kind of selfishness. Make decisions that help you. Make that help the kind that will allow you to provide others with that same opportunity to make such a decision.
This is just thought, no advice to be had. This is one of the reasons why the world is so fucked up.
The odds are so great.
In an ideal world, there are difficult decisions because people want to benefit themselves, but they also want to benefit the people around them so that they will be able to, in turn, help them.
Here:
Take nature.
Nature, when left alone, forms a harmonious, beautiful, mindless ecosystem. Organisms live, they serve a purpose to their surroundings, whatever that might be, and they die. Their body breaks down, they become a part of everything blah blah blah.
Put humans into that equation, make them mindless, and they work together to defend each other and survive blah blah blah.
There are no difficult decisions for mindless people. They act instinctively and if they are right they live, if they're wrong then they die. oops. fortunately there's a couple thousand other mindless people of the same sort to take the spot blah blah blah.
I am referring to men of the "prehistoric" or "stone" age.
Whatever the fuck we are now, we aren't humans. Technically, we are, but theoretically, we aren't. I keep talking about that will to survive crap, to push on, to better yourself, well, its selfish.
Its about as selfish as it gets.
Selfishness is found in animals around the world, don't get me wrong. Ever tried taking food from a bear?
Yet the true selfishness, the kind of which I'm talking about, doesn't exist anywhere but in the human being. Ever see a bear mark an entire food source as his own, so that he can have all the food, and sell it to other bears so they don't die in exchange for their mountain cave with a stellar night sky view?
But its expected now. That's why we are different than animals we want more blah blah blah.
So when people tell you you're selfish, well, yeah. You probably are. And so are they, for wanting you to share.
Yet its easy to define good selfishness from bad selfishness. Hitler, "The world will be mine" Susan B. Anthony "I want to vote".
My point is that it really depends on what kind of selfishness you go at.
Hitler, "Once the world is mine I will make it how i want"
Susan B. Anthony, "Once I can vote, so can all other women"
Sure you could say that Anthony to Hitler is a bit of a stretch, but how about day to day decisions.
"I want all the cookies because I'm hungry, but nobody else will have any"
"I'm going to make all the cookies because I'm hungry, I'll make enough for everybody"
Sure you could say that Deuche to Faggot is a bit of a stretch, but how about business decisions.
"I'm going to protect my money during this economic crisis, liquidize my stocks, maybe even short some, sell all my bonds, put it all in foreign banks under a stable currency, and wait for the economy to turn around. In other words, fuck the banks and the market. At least I didn't lose it all. My company will have to make major cuts. I'll feel bad firing those employees."
"I'm going to keep my savings in the accounts and deal with the lack of interest, buy stock while its low, and work harder to keep my company afloat so that when the economy turns around because of people like me, I will have made money, earned the respect of my employees, and have a solid company."
Sure you could say that Safe to Risky is a bit of a stretch, but it's NOT risky if EVERYBODY does it.
Safe isn't safe anymore when the Riskys all collapse under their weight, their foreign banks shut down due to their own economic crisis caused by your economic problems, and when they run out of people to fire.
See the trend?
There are a lot of tough decisions in life. Don't lie and say you're unselfish. Jesus Christ was rumored to be unselfish. He has been immortalized in history if not by other means. Unless you feel like going the same way he did, and if you need modern, I mean getting screwed for an idea, no matter how grand, then don't be selfless.
Communism is a method employed by rulers trying to copy nature; in a seriously fucked up way. Communism doesn't work. There's too much selfishness in people. Its a good thing. It makes us who we are, its the reason we have have ipods, beds, the NFL, and schools.
Pick your kind of selfishness. Make decisions that help you. Make that help the kind that will allow you to provide others with that same opportunity to make such a decision.
This is just thought, no advice to be had. This is one of the reasons why the world is so fucked up.
The odds are so great.
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