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).

A New Step in My Singing Efforts

Now those of you who have heard me sing are probably wondering why on Earth I hadn't done this yet. You usually have to have sound samples for people considering singers & I didn't think I had the capability to do it b/c as far as I know, we didn't have a microphone or a way to record the sound.

One advantage to not having steady paying work is you have time on your hands. I chose to take time to figure this out. After doing the YouTube video, I figured I could see about recording singing samples. An ad from a studio seeking paid session singers was my kick in the pants to start doing it.

So since they asked for unpolished, simple singing & I'm too poor to get fancy stuff, I decided to create sound files using just that. I created a total of 4 that reflect different styles and ranges to reflect my talents + what I'm capable of doing. If you've seen me sing a lot, you'll notice a few things that I do:

1. I don't pick the most popular songs. I try to pick something lesser known or less popular so I won't have a bunch of people singing along.

2. I like to pick an act that is different from everyone else's or what the audience expects. When I was in high school & that crowd was more interested in Rap/R&B, I picked a song by The Cranberries. After that, I kept getting asked to sing in random places such as the local Pizza Hut, had people singing my own song at me & was forever known as "that girl from the talent show."

That day is coming for City Bar performances. I think I finally have a good gauge of that audience & some free time to do something unexpected.

3. I rarely do the same song multiple times. I'll only do this if a friend asks me. That's because I like to sing different things & usually pick songs based on my mood, whether I've ever seen it in a karaoke place before, what other people have been singing & how confident I am in being able to sing it properly.

4. There are songs I will not sing unless it's a special occasion or someone asked me nicely & is having some special event. For instance, I don't really like the Whitney Houston song I Will Always Love You, but I sang it for a sorority sister of mine the night her then fiance proposed to her at our karaoke place. If I do something like that, be flattered.

Singing is one of those things I've done since I was very young. I'm always sort of shocked when people tell me I have the talent for it & when industry professionals tell you this, it's even more of a shock. But I bounce back & forth between wanting to be a performer and not wanting to deal w/all the BS of celebrity. I'd need a career on my terms & I know going on American Idol would never do for someone like me.

I feel that way about acting as well; I'm not going to take certain parts but I like being on stage & bringing a script or a song to life. Honestly, I think my life is that conflict: wanting to be known for something vs. maintaining your private life, your relationships & being respected. I also don't want to feel like I'm throwing away my acting or singing talents; thus far, it seems like it might be possible for me to come up with a happy medium. See why I have some respect for celebrities?

Interesting Site & Things to Come

I have a significant rant to do but I think I'm going to wait until I start YouTube postings for that. Basically, if my entire life becomes at stake, I'm not going to roll over & play dead. I'll end up doing something newsworthy, even if it's taking up residence on the White House lawn.

Unless you believe in reincarnation, you only get one so you'd better live to the fullest. Even if you do believe in reincarnation, you aren't guaranteed to come back in the same form so you might want to take advantage of whatever form you're in right now.

I saw this website that looked interesting to me & is certainly relevant to my industry.

Now to the YouTube videos. I've never actually posted or created one before yet I do have the tools at my disposal to do it. Once I figure out, I plan to start doing more w/my YouTube subscription than watching other people's clips & giving support to my friends & colleagues by viewing their work. In short, I plan to start using YouTube for the reason everyone else does.

Maybe those of you who don't know me would be surprised by how I look or what I sound like, I don't know. I hope to create some singing clips as well since I'm a good singer & it's probably high time to expose that talent to others, isn't it? Otherwise, you either have to take mine or someone else's word for it and/or catch me in a performance on stage or at karaoke.