Preston Smith Stuff and Things

I use to do this music blog thing, it’s here. I stopped about when twitter started making an impacted… truthfully, it became less about the music and more about the ability to stay a head of the trends. I could post 5 or 6 times a day and most of the content was just regurgitated crap from other blogs and websites, I suppose it served its purpose. The site taught me html and some other basic code… which ultimately landed me the job i have now, but i digress.

Music is still a big park of my life, even though I don’t go to many shows or stay up on the trends anymore. Yet sometimes I crave originality, I really am not trying to be a dick about this, I’m not even talking about hating on the Goo Goo Dolls here. I mean, really? all we can get excited about out there is a new Bon Iver album or a new Fleet Foxes album? Am i reading the wrong blogs or is no one reporting on the cutting edge anymore? Bon Iver was cutting edge with his first release because he did it in his cabin and used saws and stuff to make the music but his new stuff is kind of a B-side to his first. If I read another blog post about Conor “bright eyes” Oberst lastest album, I will slit my wrist.

I don’t have any new cutting edge band to tell anyone about… I just think we are reaching that point in music where something needs to happen… instead of record labels telling us what to listen to, we have gotten to the point where there are a couple of blogs out there that tell us what to listen to. Maybe this is why we see bands like LCD Soundsystem (James Murphy) walking away from bands at the height of their musical expression.

I just think we all need to listen to the Talking Heads – Remain in Light

or maybe we should all go see Dan Deacon”

Yes Please!

Tweet

I made a final decision on my Soda Pop Video Blog URL… http://www.idrinkpops.com

I’m a quick start by nature so i wasn’t waiting to buy the URL because i was fact finding… it was because i have no follow through. So the fact that i recognized that i was not following through and ACTUALLY followed through, is a huge step. Almost as huge has that last sentence.

At any rate, I am motivated again thanks to ignite phoenix, which i attended with several friends: @electricoctopi, @matthewkprice and Dan (facebook). Kind of a bro-date! Ignite was fun, lots of awesome passion and topics. I will dedicated an entire post to ignite later but just wanted to mention that it has “ignited” me to continue with the process of getting this pops blog going… that and a little help from my bro-date partners.

So once i get this new house rented, expect a new camera, an actual site (instead of the current generic wordpress theme)… and my first post. I want to have my first post up by July 1st… there it is, goal set!

There is this running joke in my family that i missed a trivial pursuit question when i was 15 about Robert Zimmerman… The questions was, what musical artist’s real name is Robert Zimmerman. I got it wrong and my family has mocked me since… The answer is Bob Dylan… now i have been a Bob Dylan fan since my teen years… before i was old enough to really care what he was singing about or what he represented, to me the music was good. And it still is today.

His birthday was yesterday… happy birthday Robert! May the rest of your years be more productive then everything you did after 1975.

We closed on another house 2 days ago…

This little 1920′s cottage like place, high ceiling, old wood floors and a cool attic converted into some sort of room that i think someone is suppose to live in? needs quite a bit of work but should make a lovely little rental place.

Currently, Mindi and I and Jude are frantically working to get it ready to rent… but we are envious at the same time because the house is so swank and the neighborhood is kind of out of a John Hughes movie. Our neighbor across the street use to sing on broadway, the neighbor to the right use to be a professional baseball player and the neighbors on the corner have 12 kids.

Will try to keep you up to date on the process.

Questions… What would you do with the little room up stairs?

A. Rent it out to hobbits
B. Hide the Body
C. Since it has outside access to a balcony, start a restaurant that provides only balcony service
D. Rent it out to a really little family
E. All of the above

Also, as you can see from the picture we are selling a super ghetto mini van (not ours) for $3700… (Mindi and i feel like we have to explain ourselves to everyone that sees us driving it.)

I always laugh at people that get really upset when, facebook with change something about their profile function or the way the page looks… someone will make a page protesting the new look and argue they want the old way back. I always want to ask why? Generally the answer is that they are unwilling to evolve along with the product that they are using…

Here is a simple formula that i have used when the internet evolves: (Users X Feedback) + Innovation = Customer Satisfaction

The assumption in this formula is that the product/company I am using is taking customer feedback… I think the assumption is pretty strong because I don’t think any company would last very long with out taking their customers feedback and applying it.

A classic example of this was when facebook allowed businesses to change their facebook page (not to be confused with profile) to a Place… most people were super upset about the change, they didn’t like the new profile, the way it looked and so on… (I do realize there were some legitimate complaints). The truth is that “place” marketing is HUGE right now… facebook knew that, even if Mike’s Pizza didn’t… but Mike’s Pizza is all upset because their profile looks different, so they complain until facebook changes their profile back to a page. But people still want to check into Mike’s, so they creative there own check in, named Mike’s… someone else checks in but names it Mike’s Pizza… and someone else checks in and names it Mike’s Pizzeria. Mike’s Pizza has lost control of their brand because they were unwilling to innovate.

User feedback driven innovation will make a more satisfying customer experience 99% of the time. Companies like facebook, twitter and foursquare spend millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours researching how their customers are using their products. TRUST THEM! They don’t want to do anything that makes it harder for you to use their products… embrace innovation and it will give you a better experience, reject it and you will end up loosing the internet race.

I neglected to mention that one of my passions is music… while my enthusiasm for music has shifted over the years and is currently in a weird place, there is still no doubt that music has had a HUGE influence on me. This has just been a preamble for what this post is actually about…

One of my absolutely favorite albums comes from Joni Mitchell in 1971… Blue was a reflective album primarily but not entirely based on a break up Joni had recently had with Graham Nash. The history of the album has little consequence to this post, mostly I wanted to share a vision of one of the songs on the album, done by a up-and-coming… James Blake.

More James:

By definition the word genuine means: free from pretense, affectation, or hypocrisy; sincere: a genuine person. (here) Usually it is used to describe some thing that is, “the real deal”, but it can also used to describe our interaction with people. Genuinely care about someone, genuinely listen to someone or be genuine. But how do you do that, and why should you?

Why? Well because people are less interested in people who they feel is pretending to be something other they what they are. The, “they feel” is obviously important because it is something that you can’t control… so get over it, you will never be able to control the feelings of someone else. 97% of the time when someone “feels” like another person is not being genuine, they are right… and even if they aren’t right, they still feel that way and there is nothing you can do about it. Whether you want people to like you or not, being genuine helps you to realize who you really are, which will intern benefit you as an individual. From a business perspective, being genuine is becoming the ONLY way to communicate with your customers… Gary Vaynerchuk said, (roughly)… “our BS meter is higher then it has ever been”. Here is a great video with Gary where is talks about it for the first 2 minutes.

How? Be yourself… even if yourself is not the most likable person. Two scenario:

A… Sales rep faking who they are… and doing a good job at it, actually convincing the customer.

B… Sale rep being genuine, not the most likable but just being them self.

In A, the customer actually doesn’t like the person that the sales rep is faking… but not only that, they feel like the they are getting Shmoozed.

In B, the customer doesn’t like the person that the sale rep is… but at least feels like that person is being genuine and appreciates that… so B, lets the business.

Don’t believe me? The guy that I get all my loans from is named Eric… he’s from Brooklyn, drives an Escalade, wheres a gold chain and met me for the first time in a Kmart parking lot to get all my financial information. I will never go to anyone else, why? because he calls me from the emergency room where i can hear his screaming kid in the back ground, and because he wears a gold chain. He is genuine! I don’t even like people that wear gold chairs and drive Escalades… BUT i like people that are genuine.

I have ranked on far longer then i intended… all i am saying is to be you. Whether people like you or not doesn’t matter if you like yourself.

I think most people are shocked when I tell them i had a heart transplant… mostly because, i am health but also because it doesn’t come up very often… and why would it? I mean, i’m not running around telling people that i had a heart transplant, not because i am not proud of it but because it does not define me the way this type of thing can define someone. I don’t want to discredit the experience at all because it was and will always be one of the most significant experience that i have had in my life… that is how it should be. However, i don’t go around basing every decision in my life on the fact that i had a heart transplant.

I received some interesting counsel from a man that i really admire one day, he got really serious and looked me in the eyes and told me that i should not let the fact that i had a heart transplant get in the way of me getting married… well intended advice from someone that cares a great deal about my well being, however… up until that point, the thought of not getting married because of my heart transplant had never crossed my mind. Even still, i appreciated the advice as a reassurance of my own resolve.

I guess what i am trying to say is that if i learned anything from almost dying… i have learned that life is to be lived, regardless of what card you are played. It was best put to me by one of my doctors when i asked him if i could go and hike around Ecuador for 3 weeks with my family… “You didn’t get your life back, so you couldn’t live it.”

Today is my 12 heart transplant anniversary and here are 5 things i have learned from having a heart transplant:

1. nothing is more powerful then the love of your family…
2. the greatest miracles are the ones you never expect…
3. you can eat cheeses burgers anytime you want…
4. align yourself with something damnit
5. i think i was transplanted with Otis Redding’s heart…

Someday i will elaborate on these…

So where ever you are have an IBC, Henry Weinhard’s or some other type of bottled pop, send me a picture to prestonsmith543(at)gmail(dot)com or tag in a tweet, @prestoniscrazy

My wife and I are 20 weeks into our second pregnancy… which means we had the opportunity this morning to find out the sex of the baby. Both of us had pretty strong feels that it was going to be a boy, so it came at little surprise that our new little addition is going to be a BOY! We are super excited to have another little person running around our house… there is nothing more exciting then having little people around. I think we are particularly excited to have another little boy for Jude to have as a friend. A friend of Mindi’s has been in town lately with her little son and Jude has had so much fun with him… so it will be exciting to see how he reacts.

So now on to baby names, my favorite part of the process. The question is whether to stick with the middle name theme we have started with Jude “Redding” Smith, Redding after one of my favorite musicians, Otis Redding. Time will tell… here are some of the option below:

1. Koen Talmage Smith
2. Koen Coltrane Smith
3. Koen Regan Smith
4. Koen Kai Smith

So we are pretty set on Koen but the middle name is wide open… post any suggestions below.

I got a little quote that my mom shared with me today that kind of summed up my thoughts over the last day:

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Actual Full Quote:

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition…. The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

REVISED: I came across this mashable article about the above quote: http://mashable.com/2011/05/03/altered-mlk-quote/. I wanted to make sure i got it correct, so i have changed it above.