With bleach product next to staining stimulant, you give the people what they truly want. Hated by the ADA, yet loved by Crest, you realize “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” so why not make a few extra bones?
**
My mind thinks of things like this, even at 7:30am while sitting in my dentist’s office. Imagine what it must be like to live inside my head!?
Yes, I know this person. And yes, I am honored to call this jingle-making wingnut my friend.
Some of you might remember one of Brian’s earlier ideas to make the world a better place.
Rivene’s Journey partnered with him to donate his amazing dreads to support Invisible Children.
And thanks to generous readers like you, Brian was able to raise over $5,000 for Invisible Children, by coloring and then cutting off his dreadlocks! (my donation was responsible for one of the Manic Panic pink cotton candy colored dreads).
Well, he’s at it again!
This time he’s using his talent to give us yourdailyjingle.com
Here’s how it works:
You bid on a jingle that you would like to see him create. The fastest bidder wins. The price has already been taken care of, as the cost for each day’s jingle goes up $1 per calendar day; e.g. today being January 8th, the cost would be $8. Want a jingle for Valentine’s Day? $45. You get the idea.
Brian then performs the jingle via YouTube video. As if this were not enough to brighten your day (believe me, I give you Rivene’s guarantee that your face will contort by the end of each video, either in a contented smile or a head shaking grimace, I mean, these are jingles after all!)
but wait..there’s more!
20% of the proceeds will be sent to charities and organizations like International Justice Mission, Invisible Children, and Project Cuddle, via a complicated algorithm that only an electrical engineer could have ever come up with… actually, it’s pretty simple, and only requires that you know how to click a mouse button.
On one level, it’s very creative. On another, it’s just plain silly. And I think that’s why I like it so much. Maybe it’s just me, but I am tired of the late night commercial & marketing technique that guilts me into social justice by playing woeful violin music while an Oliver Twist orphan bums for pennies on the street corner while his African cousin rummages through refuge in the background. I am 100% for social justice and activism in the world, but over the years, I have learned to appreciate artists like U2, Switchfoot, and Derek Webb who are able to wed creativity & social justice into a beautiful marriage of talent & grace.
That is why I would like Rivene’s Journey readers to help Brian’s jingle project off to a great start.
As an added bonus, the first 3 Rivene’s Journey readers to purchase a jingle will get a poem from Rivene himself!
Here are the guidelines:
As an added bonus
Click here to start. And let’s jingle all the way!
(oh, and if you were wondering what jingle day I purchased, keep an eye out for the back of my handsome mug somewhere around early spring on the jingle calendar)
Happy New Year!
I don’t do New Year’s resolutions very well, but if I did, my first resolution of 2010 would be to write 5 blogs every week for my ravenous fans.
Of course, I don’t have any fans, ravenous or otherwise, but I read somewhere that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time; and the way to begin the journey of a 1,000 miles is with one step; and the way to properly brown cooked meat is to dry it with a paper towel. I don’t believe that that last one has much to do with writing, unless you happen to be Julia Childs, in which case, it will earn you thousands of dollars and many ravenous fans (literally).
However, if I did do New Years’ resolutions, here are what they would be:
1) Obey God at any cost
Sadly, I discovered in 2009 the very painful consequence of disobeying God, namely, a broken engagement. If you have ever had the misfortune of falling in love with someone, being engaged, and then having that sundered, I pray God heals your heart, for it is the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life. Fortunately, friends and family have been very supportive, and I am healing, though it is a very slow process.
2) Finish what I start
I am currently 2/3 finished with my novel Blood Children; 1/3 finished with an untitled (though very good) faery tale; 1/10 finished with an interesting fictional memoir about sleep paralysis; and 95% finished with a long short story called “The Choice.”
I am very excited to announce that my friend Wes has procured me 9 days in March at his aunt’s house in Lincoln City, Oregon, where I will seclude myself with a stack of books, another stack of research articles, a large thermos of hot chocolate, my laptop, and a bound and gagged Muse who will help me finish the middle third of Blood Children; whereafter, I can spend the rest of 2010 polishing it off, sending it to an editor, and thickening up my skin for the rejection letters soon to follow.
3) Write more poetry
I learned in the beginning of 2009 that poetry is actually very helpful for prose writing. I discovered a mathematical formula that equates the amount of poetry written to the amount of useful prose:
(y stanzas X z lines) X .037 = # of useful prose lines
Properly calculated, this means that I produce, on average, 2 lines of useful prose for every 54 lines of complete poetic dogshit, which is still far more efficient than all of the economic stimulus plans produced in 2009.
Now, as this is a writing blog, I think it would be unfair of me to talk about my creative work without giving you a demonstration thereof. So, here are a couple of stanzas that I wrote during a worship service at my church (and again, if you find any of these lines emotionally gripping, remember the above mentioned formula).
**
Shallow pools hide deeper waters
and quiet streams flow to hidden caves
but my soul is a desperate Gobi
lapping at pools of mud
__
Peaceful dreams of kings
bring the din and roar of thunder
and only fools cry silence
to a night shattered by screams
**
Finally, in a completely non-sequitur move, I leave you with a belated 2009 Christmas gift: my very cute niece Abby, producing her very first magic trick.
