The Blog's First Press Moment & Getting to Hear Me Sing

I wondered why my reader count was up last week & last night, I figured out why. Avvo linked to it in their 2010 Legal Wrap Up, Part II!!

I've never linked this blog to places like my LinkedIn profile & so called "business" social media. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I can't imagine the typical lawyer really being interested in anything I have to say. After all, countless attorneys have made me feel like some clueless neophyte or just seemed appalled that I dared to have a personality or spoke to them as a colleague and not one of my "betters."

Let me tell you something: I don't have ANY "betters." There's me and there's you. You might be talented & you might know more about something than me but as far as I go, no one is "better" than me. Respecting someone's expertise doesn't mean you diminish yourself as a human being.

I don't suck up to anyone & if I wouldn't do that for some celebrity everyone's heard of, why would I do it for some attorney who isn't even a household name?

My attorney friends & entertainment law attorneys? Sure. Friends know I'm off beat & the entertainment attorneys who actively work in the industry can at least appreciate my creativity/warped world view/whatever uniqueness I have that makes me capable of writing a blog anyone would bother reading.

But the BigLaw types? Why would they read it? I feel like this blog may as well be written in a foreign language when it comes to them. I don't get their mentality & I'd be shocked if any managed to get mine. The last people on Earth I'd expect to be my fans are any BigLaw partners since the anti-establishment aura from me has to be nauseating.

2. Most attorneys are sticks in the mud. If you're a friend who's a lawyer, this is not directed at you. I figure if you're an attorney who can stand me, it means you have a personality & are not overly caught up in the "prestige of being an attorney" BS.

Per capita, though I'd say entertainment people have better personalities & a sense of humor. My raves from this blog have largely come from people in the business, creative types & those working in it. You have to be at least a little anti-establishment if you want to work in this business since that lends to passion, thinking outside the box, etc.

3. This is an anti-censorship space. I don't think a lot of established lawyer types would like what I have to say or my observations. It's not as though I really need to worry about blacklisting the way the law school scam bloggers might have to (though I still think if you hate the game that much, you should just embrace your exclusion, give the proverbial middle finger & do something that doesn't require sucking up to these "evil, greedy bastards", as you call them).

I do, however, have incentives to avoid being harassed about my entertainment connections or dealing with whiny people getting butt hurt because they aren't the grand humanitarians they think they are (such as bar associations who have no financial respite for people with NO MONEY).

I'm not going to write or allow this blog to continue if it means I have to censor my honest feelings & reactions to particular situations, however controversial. I will not condone using social networking searches as a pre-condition to an interview or playing Twitter nanny. Nor will I defend child molesters or change who I am to be "politically correct." I could see more attorneys whining about my exercise of free speech than entertainment folk, especially considering the BigLaw types don't have free speech rights or freedom of expression. The draconian policies I've read & heard about in those firms seem to support this.

This press moment took me by total surprise since I'm not on here to be intellectual or bore you with law review style tomes. One of my other sources of discomfort w/most attorneys is the fact that I don't lord my intelligence over other people nor pretend to know what I don't.

Another piece of great news: I learned today that I can now add audio samples to my personal website. This means you can finally hear my singing voice if you want to. Now, you can decide for yourself if I'm full of shit when I talk about my experiences as a singer or if maybe I have some real talent. Those who've heard me tend to favor option #2.

Once I find a good program that allows me to record longer clips in mp3 format (hopefully w/the best audio quality I can muster), I'll be all set. Thanks to my business partner, I was able to find a conversion program to convert my current wav files to mp3.

The sucky party will be having to hear myself sing. I'm so self-conscious about seeing or hearing my work; my inner perfectionist tends to come out in full force. I always critique myself, probably more harshly than anyone else ever could.

Soon, though (ideally before Christmas) you'll get to hear sound clips. At least I can now send them to people who want to hire for paid singing gigs. Soon I'll be able to simply send my website address (at least if I don't mind being public w/a total stranger).