Pink Flamingoes Anomaly

I often get a kick out of an album I released a few years back that is on several streaming platforms, including Spotify. If I take accumulated totals of streams of all the songs I have released, both on that album and singles, the one that gets the win is the signature song on the album, Pink Flamingoes.

Now, you do have to bear one very important thing in mind here, and that's that music (if you want to call it that in my case) is entirely a hobby and nothing more. I do not perform live, am not in a band and never was, and it's all just for fun for me.

That being said, my style, whatever what one considers it to be is definitely mine and my songs are all quite a bit "different" and I would also say, "quirky."

I don't like to conform to a certain given format or rules. And of course, I don't have to because they are my songs, and I can do what I want with them. So long as a handful of people enjoy them, that's all that matters to me.

But Pink Flamingoes, misspelled on purpose by the way, is particularly "weird," I suppose especially in the long outro where I start singing about pink flamingos flying—which most people would say, "What the hell does that have to do with the theme of the song?"

Do songs always have meanings or are they sometimes just a combination of things the artist feels just "sounds good?"

The pink flamingos flying at the end I suppose could suggest just accepting who you are and what you are and not being afraid to be that. In reality, it was just "practice singing" in a section where I had no real lyrics to add, on a song I never intended to release. 

But after some test runs of the song, everyone suggested I keep it there. They liked it. And that was enough for me to leave it there and make it the title of the song, and subsequent album, as well as added a "remake" at the end of the album of that song with a slight, new twist.

In any event, I just wanted to talk about it because the "success" of that song just never ceases to surprise me.

Pink Flamingoes on Spotify
Pink Flamingoes (The Album) on iTunes
Pink Flamingoes (Remake) on YouTube
Pink Flamingoes on Amazon Music
Pink Flamingoes on YouTube

How To Make A Million Dollars

This is it. Right here, folks. Step right up. Take notice and DO take notes. THIS is how you make your mark on the world. THIS is how you make a million dollars. A MILLION DOLLARS! Yes, you heard me right. 

You CAN make a million dollars with absolutely nothing. Think about it. One of the greatest shows in the history of television made all of its cast MILLIONS of dollars. And the show was about absolutely nothing.

Of course, I am referring to Seinfeld. And Jerry Seinfeld was the mater at making millions out of nothing.

When you think about it one step further, take a look at YouTube. Take a look at Facebook. Hell, throw Twitter into the mix. Throw in any of those other social media sites that have not just made millions but BILLIONS of dollars like Instagram and Snapchat.

Are we sharing anything of value on any of these places? No. Not really. But yet, despite all that, people come in droves. People will come here in droves as well, rest assured. They will come here and drop umpteen thousands of comments. They will click on ads and they will buy stuff, and both Google and I will make millions of dollars.

Something is BOUND to go viral folks. It is all a numbers game. It is all a game of the odds.

And of course there is the sheer entertainment value of what I post here to consider as well. I mean, people want to be a fly on the wall. They want to know what goes on in the lives of otherwise ordinary people. 

Who is this Jim Bauer? What is this foolish but catchy little album Jim Bauer has created called Pink Flamingoes all about, and why is it making so much money when it never receives airplay on the radio and people are going to in droves?

What is this book, edited by Jim Bauer under the penname Ivan S. Graves called Dark Whispers, and why does it attract such a large audience?

Jim Bauer is making MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from nothing. And so will this blog make MILLIONS OF DOLLARS from nothing.

I just have a knack, folks. But so can you. YOU TOO CAN MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS FROM DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. This is the world we live in today. The world of the Internet. And people WILL and DO come in droves to see what you have to say. To dive into the meat of what you had for dinner, what you did yesterday, today, and what you will do tomorrow. They want to know about you. They want to know about me.

I cannot tell you how many times I have cashed a check and thought to myself, how in the hell did I get this money? What in the world did I offer that was worth a dime?

But here we are talking about it, and here I am cashing in those checks.

At the rate I am going I suspect any minute Forbes is going to be knocking on my door wanting to know more. They are going to wanting to know how in the world I have managed to amass such massive wealth from nothing at all? How it is that I have created completely shit music and actually was able to give massive bands like Green Day a run for their money? How I have capitalized on the Seinfeld genius of making money from nothing?

I mean, think about it. This POST is about nothing, but isn't it interesting? Are you still reading? Why are you still reading? Are you inclined now to click on an ad just because you are thinking, man this guy needs to KEEP ON POSTING?

If you want to make a million dollars in this world, all you need to do is come up with something about nothing and people will follow you, want to know more about you, and will come to you in droves. Because again, people want to be flies on the wall. They want to know about your happy and your sad. They want to know about your trials and tribulations, and they want to know about your successes. They want to know your hopes and aspirations, and some just want to know THAT so they can knock you down. They want to know about how much of an idiot you are when you post absolutely stupid shit no one cares about to YouTube like this video.

THIS, my friends, please DO take note, is a MILLION DOLLAR BLOG. In fact, I am writing this post from my yacht as we (the wife and I) are sailing off the shore of the Bahamas. A frequent stop for us.

I'd share a picture of myself standing at the bow of said yacht, but my phone died and it is the only camera I own. But do take my word for it. This is a million dollar blog and if you copy what I do here you too can make a million dollars. 

Now, if you are really interested in my million dollar secret, I would be more than happy to send you my PayPal address. Just send me $5 and I will send you a printed copy of exactly what I have posted here, just so you have a hard copy of this secret.

I want everyone to make a million dollars. I want everyone to be successful. I want everyone to make a million dollars from nothing at all.

It is simply a matter of time before no one ever has to work the daily grind anymore and work for some unruly, asshole of a boss. We can just post nothing and live the good life. We can look out at the rest of the dumb world from the high towers of our multi-room mansions...

Well one of the rooms in MY MANSION is of course a recording studio where I am busy at work writing a follow up to my Pink Flamingoes (misspelled on purpose) album. Onward and upward to my second million dollars.

Was this article helpful? Has it caused you to find your pathway to a million dollars of your own? Do you feel enlightened? Have you fallen for any of this? Are you still reading?

Giving It To MyLot

I TEND TO SPEND QUITE A LOT OF TIME OVER AT A LITTLE PLACE CALLED MYLOT, and I have to say that for the most part is indeed a site that, unlike many others before it—we'll just toss out the Bubblews name here for these purposes—it seems to have its act together when it comes to policing the site and making regular cash payouts to its members there.

I have not missed a payment to date.

While MyLot does not pay anywhere near a site like BUBBLEWS did, I think that is actually a good thing. The fact is that anyone who did not fully come to the realization at the massive payouts Bubblews offered that the entire thing was one giant scam just waiting to come to its very dead end, you just simply could not have been operating with even half of a brain in your head.

It was too good to be true. We all knew it. But so long as the cash register continued to ring, however unrealistic it all was that it could keep on going, YOU kept on going until the cash register stopped ringing.

And it did. Quite abruptly actually.

But I am not here really to talk about the good side of MyLot. I am here to talk about something that bothers me a bit about MyLot.

I said that MyLot polices the site quite well. And that's true. They keep out the riff-raff, and they delete posts quite rapidly when they break a policy. You want that and need that on a site like this, as things can get ugly right quick, and before you know it, advertisers start wanting to pull their ads.

And that's bad because that's the bread and butter of a site like MyLot, and of course what allows the content providers to get paid.

But I do think the site sometimes goes a little bit far on that policing...especially as it applies to what some might call spam. In one way or another, being that we are content providers, and that we are attracted to sites like MyLot at all, we all generally have something to sell outside of just the content we provide on those sites.

Like me, for example. I have an album out there on iTunes and other places. I have a book out there on Amazon which is also sold in a few places. I have this blog and other blogs. I have articles I have written on HubPages.

There's stuff out there that I want to share. Both for the purpose of sharing. But also for the purpose of increasing my opportunities for revenue if I can as well.

Other members of the site write books. Some have little side businesses making designer art, greeting cards, and even lotions and detergents. Not a single one of us expects to get rich doing any of this stuff.

Yet the site seems to warrant anything that even mentions indirectly about our "side gigs" is a post that should quickly and rightly be deleted.

I tend to disagree with this.

Look, if I post a direct link to my album on iTunes, for example (It's Pink Flamingoes by Jim Bauer if you had any desire to look it up) in a MyLot post. Yeah. That's undeniable spam. But if I simply mention, such as I did here, that the album is available on iTunes without providing a link directly to it, and use the post to also share for free a song from the album, to my mind that is not spam at all. It is simply saying to anyone reading the post, here's a song I want to share from my album called X, if you want to take a look at it here is where you can find it...

That is simple sharing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not outwardly complaining, nor am I calling on the site to change its policies. It's their site, they can do what they want with it, and they can make whatever rules they want to make inside of it. If I want to participate there I have to simply abide by their rules and live with it if I want to get paid anything at all.

But there's part of the thing. I don't need the money that bad. It's not enough money to get my panties all in a bunch over. So, to that end, I do have the ability to cite my disdain for an action they take by taking something from them that they need more than I do.

Money from advertising.

And so that is what I did after they pulled my last post that mentioned my album and where it could be found. I stopped participating. I stopped posting. I made my presence there very nominal.

It has probably not so much as made a slight dent in their revenue, and they probably haven't even noticed my lack of participating over there. Either way.

But it also reminded me of THIS blog I started which was a way of doing exactly the same thing (or something very similar to it) HERE and being in FULL CONTROL of what I post, how it promotes things, and HOW MUCH I can earn overall.

I am at my payout level at MyLot. So, that means that when "checks" are handed out in February for the month of January, I will get one. It will not bother me to continue to boycott the site (mostly) for the rest of this month, and simply focus on this blog to see if there is any opportunity for it to grow and find a place on the Internet where there can be some great discussions about anything and nothing in general, and keep a healthy dialogue of comments and responses.

I will keep anyone interested on how it goes, although I must admit to feeling a little bit like old Jonny Fever at WKRP in Cincinnati.