How Do You Win? Make victory your ONLY option!

No matter where you work, you are not an employee. You are in a business with one employer-yourself-in competition with millions of similar businesses worldwide...Nobody owes you a career_you own it as a sole proprietor. And the key to survival is to learn to add more value every day. -Andrew Grove

" The Heartz Of Man " ( produced by Luke Bredin of SPMtracks ) by Peta-Loc

The Art Of Making A Music Video ( Part 2)

 In case you missed part one, here's the link: http://www.locedoutrecordz.com/2011/10/art-of-making-music-video-part-1.html

The Art of  Making a Music Video
Part 2

Director’s vision
The  director’s vision is the most simple part of the article to write and read, but it might be the most difficult point to start with if making a real music video.
Before starting with a music video the director’s vision must be complete. I  personally do take my time after listening to the song and walk around watching  places, things, colors to get ideas. The director must have a basis for all of the scenes. To grasp this basis he is to find one basic scene, with which he will  start.
Having found the basic scene, the director may build all of the other scenes around this one. He is here to find a mode of filming which all the other scenes would suit.
A very  important thing is to find a way of filming. There shall be scenes with motion and static scenes. This in fact creates real motion. The director is to find a way to  frame the characters in the video, and find a composition for the picture. Note the Quicksand “Omission” video: there is a perfect  artistic framing. The camera is static, but the motion is pictured perfectly. http://youtu.be/4XstH23RYOA
What is interesting  in a music video, are the dancing scenes, cities, and landscapes; all artistically furnished interior with poetically arranged scenery, toy molds with  choreography, or any interesting ideas to make a video different.
The video shall be enriched with some extras, so the director is to figure out scenes of different picture perspectives, filmed in different places (scenery), with different motion schemes. It is important, that the video has not only the picture of the band performing, but also another scenes which illustrate the song. These extras can be poetic pictures. An extra is also a black and white or monochrome color scheme. These black and white and color scheme can be used along with each other. These extras are something the viewer will remember after having watched the video. Therefore, all of these extras should be outlined in the video, shown clearly. An extra must differ from the rest of the video.
Other extras are the use of computer graphics. Modern videos do use 3-D computer graphic design programs. The scenery is drawn with the use of such a program as Maya or Blender. The characters singing and playing are placed within an unrealistic world. Blender is freeware, and Maya, even if the purchase of the program is expensive, may be used in student’s version for 3 years.
The colors of the video may be fixed in Corel Photo-Paint.
As to the color scheme, the colors may be fixed after. Initially it is important to have enough light while filming. A dark picture is difficult to be fixed. If filmed in the interior, the room must be well prepared. If outside, the scenery chosen carefully.
Getting onto the first picture of the video we must find a feeling with which we will be filming all the scenes. This feeling is to be deep inside the director and not be lost while filming. It makes the video a whole art piece.
The director may draw pictures of scenes he wants to appear in the video on paper. A piece of paper is also very useful for drawing the way we want to frame while filming – the perspective, etc.

This is the end of Part 2. The author of this post may be reached here: http://twitter.com/#!/AneMonCaglio

" Rewind It " (Independence Day) "

How can you speak about repentance? Cause on the day of Independence; " my " freedom ended. With his windows tinted.I knew that he was scoping with a vengeance...and then he handed me my sentence. Why are they playing with me? He wants my license and insurance, my shit is legit, and I can ENSURE it. " It's a routine check, get out of the car so we can chat. " My lucks seems set. Cause now they're fucking with a vet. Straight to the pills and the hundred-dollar bills off in my shoe, what can I do? Cause once they hit the trunk this man is through. Termino'...Finido'..I guess I'm in denial, not me though, my thoughts are pre-occupied with SteBo. Where do " he " go? Or better yet...where do " we " go, after they run up on my set? Put his pistol to my head, he took my hands and then he cuffed em'...FUCK...I knew I shouldn't have trusted him.

It's a cold fucking game,

and hustlahz steady grinding,

" But I'm....kinda getting ahead of myself..."

Let me rewind it.

It's a cold fucking game,

and dudes are playing for keepz...

I sacrifice my life out in these streetz.

About a week ago, me and my boo went through our changes,

I'm bout to let y'all see how deep this game is.

It's dangerous, bumped up like going against the grain is..

People you thought you knew all your life...

turn out the strangest.

In six months, I'm bout' to born another seed. Me and this hustling chic'z at the room

smoking weed. Popping X and counting checks and drinking beer. A knocks at the door..

" Who the fuck have you told that we was here ? " I had a feeling that you were conning, when you told me you that you'd been jacked,..then...showed up at my trap without no scratch, without no pack...NOW,

Lady General's is in the room and I'm regretting it, I'm sweating it...she's just caught me with my dick in this bitch. " While we was pregnant? " Aww' Shit...

Bear with me. Cause dudes are out to get me. And snitch'z want me in this penitentiary. My clip will end up empty, cause I can't do another century. I'm balling til' I fall, nig-gaw'...RELENTLY! It's a Cold Fucking Game.

Since I done got ahead, I'll think I pick up where I started. It's time for me to see where these dudes hearts are at. I'm keeping dope, and seeking more, I gasta' sco'. I'm Houston bound. Kin-Folk, been beeping bout a week or so. I'm creeping now. I'm bout's to bounce off in a drought, to grab them rounds and stab, then pump them..back into the pound. I know Ne-Ne is down...but I can't have her in my mix, this shit has got too thick...I'm going solo in this bitch. My nigga Cream, it seems...been lacing up his weed. They beg me not to sell him no more cheese. My dreams have turned into nightmares, every time they call P-Loc's been right there...NOW THEY'RE TELLING ME THE STREETS DON'T FIGHT FAIR??? Mama's voice is drowning out reality, I hear her. They warn me from the grave. Police flashes in my rear-view mirror. At times it's hard to face the truth because it's sad. Feds were waiting for me off the Loop....HOW MANY COOKIES ARE IN THAT BAG?????

I invite you to something epic. Where we hustle out of  a sense of  hopelessness. Sort of  a desepartion. Through that desperation, we become addicted. Sort of  like the fiends we're accustomed to serving. Where we feel...we have nothing to lose so we offer you...well, we offer our lives. What do you bring to the table???-  S. Carter

I $tarted Small Time by Peta-Loc

" The Art Of Making A Music Video: Part 1 "

 
       Well. A long time has passed since the start of the Indie Funda Project. http://www.indiefunda.com/ For those of you who are not familiar with the Indie Funda Project I'll offer a summation: Indie Funda was my first official online crew. My community. Today, I look at my experience with Indie as a sort of boot camp that prepared me for the things that were to come my way in the future while getting involved with online communities. I met a lot of good people over at Indie. One of which I present to you below. A true comrade of mine. Here recently he'd expressed to me his feelings about Indie. Not surprisingly, his views mirrored the great majority of views that have been coming to me personally in regards to the Indie community. As one of the early pioneers and official representatives of Indie Funda in the past, I take it upon myself to offer every artist/fan who'd gotten involved with Indie and supported the project an apology. Even though I've personally done nothing wrong, I'm apologizing just in case there were any one of you that  believed  in " me " to hold the fort down at Indie. ( I actually intend to write a post here in the near future explaining in more detail what the current state of Indie Funda is- to my knowledge at least .) After hearing the popular concensus of all the artist and friends who've expressed to me how they felt, I decided to take matters into my own hands so to speak. After making that decision I came up with a solution. Of course, we as artist/fans can never get back the countless number of hours we've poured into supporting a cause which seems to have only served to turn it's back on us at the end- things like this happen in life; and esp., online- however; what we can do is use it as a learning experience, stay true to our craft, dust ourselves off and KEEP GRINDING!! We live and we learn. So, without any further riff raff on my part I offer to you, the work of my dear comrade, Don Cagliostro. Enjoy!

Introducing " The Art Of Making A Music Video " by R (Michal Rutkowski) Find him on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/AneMonCaglio

Note: I am not a professional film director. I wish to study film direction, and I have  made my attempts in creating music videos. Therefore the vocabulary used in the article may differ from the language used by professionals in film industry. Being a sincere public in person, and someone who filmed a few music videos himself, I wish this article is nevertheless interesting to the reader.

MAKING A MUSIC VIDEO/ article

The making of a video is a kind of songwriting. We are writing a song not with the use of notes, but with the use of picture.

The color scheme used in the video is crucial to the effect of the atmosphere of the video. It is much the beat alike: it becomes the measure for what we put into the frames of the video after, and the design for the scenery, which makes it also the song’s basic chord alike.

The band playing its arrangements is located upon this scene, which is the atmosphere of the video. To choose the instruments, the band, we must measure the scene: in a 4 minutes video there is some 20 cuts, within which we must enclose all the ideas we want to picture. This is in fact a scene. We want choreography, so we must count how much of motion may fit into the frame of our scene.

Best cuts, mostly short in length, do repeat. It is the chorus of the video.

Coming onto the video making, we must first choose if we want a feature film, an illustration for the music, or an impression.



Feature, Illustration, Impression

The feature film is based upon long cuts. The illustration for the music must go along with the song. An impression is a free way of film making, but it appears the most difficult one, because here we work with feelings, and we are therefore to go deep into the atmosphere of the musical track we picture.

In a music video, there cannot be long cuts except. There are some exceptions thought. The exceptions being if the video is meant to be a feature film. It is possible to make a video based on one long cut/scene, one act video. Starting at this point we are choosing from two slightly different ways of film making. The feature must be interesting, the viewer cannot get bored, so the film scenery here is to be a place, where we can move with the camera in different directions, without framing the same landscape. A simple example for this is the ‘Karma Police’ by Radiohead:http://youtu.be/IBH97ma9YiI  The car is rolling and we do see the same street, but there is movement. The use of a car's insides is very common in music video making, for there is one scenery (the inside of a car), but the surroundings do change. It is a trick: the viewer gets to focus on a changing scenery, but the whole is possible to be made with one long cut, without changing the scene.

For an illustration, the simplest way to communicate with the song is to picture the band/performer playing. It is to show the energy of the song. This is the most common way to make music videos. Its goal is simple as the video: it is to advertise for the live performance. Advertise not because it is assembled out of live performance scenes, but because the factor crucial to the video is the energy of the music, which is most important in live experience. Example: ‘Beauty School’ by Deftones. http://youtu.be/2bK4aeahcXc

The impression is to go deep into the feelings in the song. Here we do work with the use of symbols, or act a painter alike. The use of symbols is more simple than painting artwork in the video. A symbol must not be a straight visualization for what is in the lyrics or musical feeling. It can be an impression for what we do hear in the song. Beautiful example for this are the videos from ‘Inverta’.

Painting artwork in the video is the most deep and difficult way to present the music with the use of motion picture. It is multi-dimensional. It is more an artist’s audio-visual artwork presented in an art gallery alike. It is to be Arts, not Craft. It is based upon the poetry of the picture. Great examples for this are the videos for ‘Come as you are’ by Nirvana, and ‘Breaking the girl’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers. The director does act a painter alike: he/she is assembling the frame out of different pictures that come into his mind by feelings while listening to the music.



Arts and Craft

A music video is based upon feelings in its very sense. It is impossible to make a good music video as a craftsman skilled in his work. The skills needed is the use of the camera, the knowledge of the metrics of the clip, the eye for a well composed frame and the graphic designer’s skills for artistic remake of color schemes and effects while editing the video. This is needed for the director’s vision, which is basic before we begin with a music video.

A craftsman would measure the whole thing. He would count how many frames of this and that kind he must use to make the video interesting to the public, what kind of pictures and so forth. This is a failed way to make a music video.

An artist must be inside of the song/music. He must experience the music all around him, surrounding him, so that the pictures
appear. Inside of the music he becomes 100% responsive to what is in the sound and lyrics. This response will turn out the pictures for the video.

A shaman alike, the director is to trade his vision.



First step:
 The director’s vision.



End of part one. Here is my work in action. Enjoy. 

" Know Your Battlefield "

         Have you ever just sat back from your workstation, scooted away from the desktop, lit a cigar and asked yourself the most elementary of questions that you in your heart felt had to be the dumbest question that you'd ever asked yourself.... " who is my market " ? No, really, you've been in business over 10 years and here you are asking yourself whether or not you know who your market is. And so you proceed to answer yourself with something that falls somewhere along these lines here; " my market is those whom I must persuade to buy my product, my service, or my idea. " That little admonition seems so basic to you doesn't it? However.......

         It is the basics that we so often miss which cripple us in the end. To know your market, you must listen to your customers. In order to listen effectively, you must ask questions to probe for information. In addition to all of this there still remains the obvious: You must speak their language! Like I said, it's the basics. All praise is due to my dear comrade Barry Donegan for bringing this to my attention in this post. http://www.gazzmic.com/blogarchive/11-10-19/Promoting_Your_Songs_Worldwide_by_Empowering_International_Fans.aspx?CntPageID=1   

         

Right on to the Real!!!! 

Coincidence Or Conspiracy by Peta-Loc

" Four Fool-Proof Ways To March On In The New Industry "

    To build a strong position in this New Industry, you must first determine what position it is that you desire to occupy and who it is that you want your customers/fanbase to be. Then and only then is it time to figure out how you are going to meet the needs of those potential customers better than anyone else. The most secure positions in all businesses are owned by those who achieve a base of loyal customers. In doing this, you must MAKE TIME YOUR ALLY. Time has to be your ally in this instance. Why? Because to build a base of loyal customers/fan you must first earn their trust. This can only be done with time. The whole idea is to make customers so happy that not only do they not search elsewhere to have their services met , they don't even think of searching elsewhere to have their services met.

1. Occupy Strong Natural Positions: Find the strength of natural positions that cannot easily be occupied by your opponents- Understand: The perception of what we " are " is based on what we " have been ". Now granted, over time, the perception of what we " are " matches what we " really  are. " We, our true selves, or our product or service can't be something that we ourselves aren't. Just be yourself and do what it is that you naturally do best. That is the strong position that you must seek to occupy. Everyone who has tried to win by copying has failed. To change your position in a customers mind over time, you must change who you really are.When you say that you are what you really are, the believable message gets through to your audience.
2. Always Seek the High Ground: The high ground is the strongest position- There's no such thing as staying exactly where you are. Change is the essence of life. Everything changes, nothing remains the same. You either get bigger or you get smaller. The key point to occupy in the New Industry is the mind. You " own " a position in the mind either because you are the leader or because of significant differentiation. Keep in mind that the worst position  may be not having a position at all.
3. Make an Estimate of The Situation: Carefully observe the situation and attack only where real superiority can be obtained- Here are 5 questions that must be answered in order to make an accurate Estimate of The Situation. 1. What position does my competitor own? 2. What signals indicate they are changing or strengthening their position? 3. What position do they want? ( Where are they going? ) 4. What will be the effect on your position if your competitors are successful in their current activities? 5. What opportunities will open up if they are unsuccessful? Remember: Never " under" estimate your competitor.
4. Discipline Can Build Allegiance: Apply the same standards to everyone- If you consistently maintain high standards , this creates the environment where discipline is effective and accepted. In order to pull this one off, personal discipline has to be equally important. Until you learn how to master control yourself, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to control anyone else. "What's good for the goose is well "...I'm sure you know the rest.

 Feel free to offer your thoughts. Every one's opinion deserves equal respect and value.



Can I Make Amends (prod by B-Zy Brain) by Peta-Loc

" Loced-Out Recordz: The Open-Source Record Label "

On The March

" Strategically, a secure position establishes a fanbase for the offensive squad. Tactically, this secure position helps you use your natural strengths. Positions where you can occupy a key strong point are important in every endeavor. There are only a few leaders in each industry; everyone else marches in their shadow. 

In order for a position to be secure, we must " own " it. We " own " a position because of a perceived strength- the perception IS indeed the reality. People accept only that which is consistent with what they already know as they add to their perceptions about the position of a product or service. 

All positions are in the mind, and the entry into the mind is through emotions, not logic. Logic sounds most convincing to the presenter; it is in the emotions of the receiver that positions are changed. In thinking about attacking competitive positions, the first rule is:"  IT'S VERY, VERY, DIFFICULT TO MOVE INTO A POSITION OCCUPIED BY SOMEONE ELSE......" 

As always, fans, friends. It's love!!!!

Can I Make Amends (prod by B-Zy Brain) by Peta-Loc

" 3 Rules That Govern The Variation Of Tactics In This New Music Industry "



UNDERSTAND: Strategy determines direction. The actual execution of the plan to achieve objectives is called tactics and it begins with contact. Inside your cipher, that contact may be with the development or production process of a product or service. Outside of the cipher, that contact is usually with a customer or a fan. The contact makes personal relationships an important issue in tactics and explains why tactics must vary. A the point of contact, unpredictable personal equations become part of the scenario. And while strategic principles are unchanging for all time, tactics vary with the times and circumstances and must be tuned to current situations. The best tactical school is experience. Period. REMEMBER: The key to success in this game is " what the customer/fan wants ", not what you want. Your wants come second. http://dempseymarketing.com/journal/biggest-advantage-over-competition/ 

1. Consider Tactical Options- Victory depends on your strength, which you control, and the opportunities provided by your competition, which you cannot by any means control: In the complex environment of today's music industry, an artist may be on the offensive with one product, say a new single, and on the defensive with another i.e., selling merchandise to stay afloat financially. However, the same strategies and tactics cannot be used for all circumstances. So if for some reason you aren't your own manager, the question then becomes " how much time the manager should spend shoring up weaknesses as opposed to maximizing strengths ? ". The options differ depending upon whether you are attacking or defending. Keep in mind that regardless of the circumstances, the " spirit " of the offense must always prevail.
2. Prepare Adequate Defenses- The best defense is a good offense: Smaller labels/brands/artist can achieve a good defense by owning very strong positions in a niche market or particle segment of a product (producers,ghostwriters) in the New Music Industry. When you own a position in the fans mind, you can hold off the bigger name artists/labels/brands in your genre. REMEMBER: Even on defense, the rule is to seek every opportunity to seize the initiative and achieve results by offensive action. When you are constantly in a defensive posture, you can seldom win. Too often, the strategy that strengthens the defense is characterized by finding some way to redesign your existing material instead of getting out in front of the trend or technology. You have to be a trend setter. The mistake is to try to serve the old market in a new way instead of going where the market is. The defensive is not achieved by producing a better remix. 
   3.Avoid The Faults Of An Amateur Artist On The Internet-Flaws in the personal character of the artist will cause opportunities to be lost: Here are five flaws that every artist and manager must not exhibit. 1. Recklessness- The reckless artist or manager does not understand data. He or she shoots from the hip. They recklessly and without thought send widgets, Tweets, comments, likes, emails, " code ", everywhere into cyber-space without the slightest thought of where it is going. Trust me on this one: It ain't going nowhere! Your digital footprint is here to stay. 2. Cowardliness- The person who is afraid to take risk. The person who will use Twitter like it's Facebook when he  " isn't " using Facebook but for some strange reason he doesn't even have a Linked-In account. 3. Quick-Tempered- There's nothing worst than  trying to build a connection with someone who has a hot-head. Listen, words typed/written are text. That's it. You can't attach your emotions onto what another person has written. If you read it just like it's written with no emotions behind it you'll see that the sentence could've  meant tons of different things. The best practice if you feel offended, is to politely ask the person to make themselves a tid bit clearer. Trust me, you'll get your answer. Keep a cool head. 4. Delicate Honor- This one is in conjunction with the previous one of being hot-headed. Don't be too easily embarrassed, taking things so personally. Keep a sense of humor about yourself. Most importantly of all " do not let your ego get in the way ". 4. Too Compassionate- This doesn't apply to you sharing your gift with the world...FOR FREE. There's nothing wrong with that. You should be willing to give your music away to someone, " anyone " who'd even be willing to listen to your music over the competitors in this Digital Age. No, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about all of those so-called friends who've been hanging on your coat because at least you still have the courage to follow your dreams. I'm talking about the ones who used to help you get things done when it came time to get things done in your career. The ones that honestly, " They're in the way of you moving forward just by still being in the picture ". Listen, it's lonely at the top. Everyone isn't going to be there once you make it. So instead of not doing the honors early because you feel like this is suppose to be your BFF. Or, the ones that...if it weren't for "       " then you'd never be "   ". There's people on your team that are in the way and the only reason they are still there is because you don't have the heart to cut them off. 
   
   
   And of course, here's another one for your patience. Nobody Understandz by Peta-Loc
   
   
   
   

" The 5 Fundamental Truths Of Strength And Weakness "

 

 Chairman Mao wrote : " No leader is endowed by heaven with an ability to seize the initiative. It is the intelligent leader who does so after a careful study and estimate of the situation and arrangement of the military and political factors involved. "

1.  Take the Initiative- The most effective and decisive way to reach  any objective is to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. Being on the offensive puts you in control and forces the opponent to react.Taking the initiative is first a strategic mental process followed by real tactical action. By acting first, you preserve freedom of action. If your opponent moves first, your only choice may be to react. The keys to the successful initiative are skill, preparation, and information. ONLY RARELY WILL EXACT DETAILS BE KNOWN. In this Digital/Information Age that we live in, data is needed to launch the offensive; normally, the sooner that something is done, the better will be the odds in your favor, and the better will be the results. Remember: Action must be matched by wisdom.
2. Plan Surprise- Practice secrecy. Secrecy protects your plans, while surprise confuses your opponent. Learn to play the bluff game. Even though your current position may be weak, you can do things to divert the competition from knowing your position. The objective of surprise is to obtain a psychological dominance that denies the initiative to your opponent. Speed is an essential component of surprise. The longer you take, the more likely your opponent will be aware of your actions. 
3. Gain Relative Superiority- This is the way that guerrillas win. They found out where the enemy is weak and overwhelm at that point. When you try to concentrate everywhere you have no concentration. Specialization enhances your chances to win. Implement. Segment. Concentrate. Form an alliance. Achieve superior product or service quality. It's a business fundamental that you must focus your resources where you can achieve results profitably.
4. Seek Knowledge- As the Indomitable Bodhidharma, the great Shoalin Monk said, " Seek knowledge from here to China. "
5. Be Flexible- When we are rigid, we are predictable. Predictability is a weakness. Being predictable can signal your intended actions to your competitors. Keep in mind: Being consistent and predictable aren't the same thing. By all means be consistent.

http://soundcloud.com/peta-loc/whatislife

" Know Who You're Blogging About...Do Not Offend The Wrong Person "

 

Attention Hip-Hop Community: Never utilize the services of Mark W. Schaefer for your marketing needs. He believes that we're not critical thinkers.

 Be convinced, that there are no persons so insignificant and  inconsiderable, but may, some time or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which they certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it for ever. ( Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773)

          " You obviously know how to read, but are you a critical thinker? ".  Thank you Mr. John Falchetto for that excellent post by the way. For those who missed the post here's the link: http://expatlifecoach.com/expat-30/no-critical-thinking/ . Ask anyone who knows me well and they'll be the first to tell you that Quintius, the artist more commonly known by his stage name Mr. Peta-Loc, is what is called a biographical rapper. I take pieces out of everyday life and I document them in the form of songs. The majority of the time the pieces that make up the compositions are chosen directly from something that has at one time or another happened in my life. Now mind you, any " reality " rapper will be the first to tell you, the lyrics you hear in their songs are spoken in relevance to the past. If we were really out in society doing the things that we rapped about it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the one of two places we'd be other than sitting at the computer writing a blog post.
            Now, I first must apologize to the fans of my music who come here to receive good ol' fashion hardcore rap music mixed with a lot of knowledge and education. I must break from the norm with this post but I promise you we'll be back to business shortly after. ( However, you're still going to get what you came for ). Just bear with me.
           The past couple of days have revealed  me something real interesting. Especially dealing with a man who's taught me tons of stuff about tons of topics that I didn't know until I met him. You guys may want to stop by his site and pay him a little visit. You all know that I have never led you in the wrong direction. Here's a link that will get you there. His name is Robert Dempsey. http://dempseymarketing.com/journal/blog-sidebar-removed-positive-results/ . Ironically enough, the link that I just shared with you will reveal to you, I hope, exactly what was revealed to me: THE BLOGGING COMMUNITY IS A LOT LIKE THE HIP-HOP COMMUNITY.
          I realize that there will be parties from both of these two communities that will write me off as a lunatic but before you do, I beg you to read the comments to that post in the link, put your " critical " thinking cap on and give it a bit more thought. Once you have done so I assure you that you'll plainly see that there is a method to my madness after-all.
          In the hip-hop community, if you put out a song and someone gives you your props, you say thank you and inform that person that their input has been well honored and respected. In the hip-hop community, when you mention someones name in a song, you try your best to opt out for a nice shout out as opposed to " going against the grain ". However, if you just so happen to be the Billy bad ass that goes against the grain you have to know beforehand that there will be an answer along the same lines that you presented yourself to the hip-hop community. ( I'm about to bring this to a close...I promise ).

Dear Mr. Mark W. Schaefer,

I'm writing you this letter to make it as clearly known to the online world as possible that I read your comments to Mr. Robert Dempsey's post  http://dempseymarketing.com/journal/blog-sidebar-removed-positive-results/ and I feel that deep down, being that  you took it upon yourself to mention my name in your comments, that you were referring to me when you made the statement that people don't think critically. More so, when I replied to your comment and asked you to be so kind and lend to me your personal definition to what it means to be a critical thinker, I feel that I was blatantly ignored for whatever reason. No fret whatsoever as far as the definition is concerned. Gratefully, Mr. John Falchetto supplied a definition that I'm able to live with here: http://expatlifecoach.com/expat-30/no-critical-thinking/ . However, before you ever mention my name in an online forum again where it will be readily accessible for all the public to read I strongly suggest that you do yourself two huge favors. 1. Mind your own business ( Mr. Dempsey and I were speaking about something on a totally different level per se. If you thought critically before you made the comment you'd have noticed that I've NEVER had sidebars on my blog. ) 2. Use the search engines sometime so you'd at least know who it is that you're speaking about when you make reference to that persons name, sir. 

P.S.- I'll leave you with the words of  Robert Greene taken from the book " The 48 Laws Of Power ". Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. You can never be sure who you are dealing with. A man who is of little importance and means today can be a person of power tomorrow. We forget a lot in our lives, but we rarely forget an insult. Never reject with an insult until you know a person better; you may be dealing with a Genghis Khan.

P.S.S.- I just thought about something. Since my readers come here to get knowledge and music it wouldn't be fair to neither them nor you without leaving them with some music. So I'll kill two birds with one stone. They've already heard the song so their treat will be a free download. As for you...never mind Google, this is who I am: As Is!! http://soundcloud.com/peta-loc/as-is-underground-remix