First, an image for this post that isn’t at all relevant to the subject, my mood or anything in particular:

I’ve always liked this image.  I pop it into treatments and presentations whenever I can.  Sort of sums me up in a way.  Sums me up sometimes.  If you turned it upside down, it would sum me up the rest of the time.  I would like to say it represents how I feel after three days on a cleansing retreat in silent meditation, but it’s more like how I feel after three days on something else.

It’s all about search engine optimization (SEO) for me these days, facing the beast, trying to figure it out. It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this blog on behalf of my little company, Pure Film Creative (note I insert a link in there so crawling robots can comb through the matrix and find it, and somehow I magically rise in Googlelandia; the company is currently on some triple digit page way beyond the reach of the <Next> button on the right of Google search results, so far away from the top that if you don’t know exactlywho I am and what I do, forget it, you’ll never find me).

Wait, here, let me do another link-plug for MY PORTFOLIO.  Okay, that’s better.

So it’s all about being shameless about increasing your SEO, or you’re nobody.  Gone are the days of hiding behind my Persols and being subtle while I turn pink sitting at a restaurant table, belching through Hangover Number 8, at the Cannes Film Festival; and not turning pink because of the sun, but because of all the fucking rosé I’ve consumed since I’ve been at this useless, loud, depressing intra-vaganza.  I’m too fucking broke for for subtlety now.  I need to be on TOP of Google, baby!

I know, I’m really late to this game.  How will this blog ever be found in a stack of close to 700,000 other blogs?  I have no clue, but never give up, never surrender.

Speaking of which, my favorite new accessory for Winter 2011 — now my third winter of this dreadful Recession, yes, I started early — is the charm bracelet of clichés and platitudes (if that isn’t redundant) that you get as a reward when you’re whining about your miserable life with your favorite Agony Aunt: “Hang on in there … it’s all for a reason … there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”  I’m writing the full charm bracelet on the memo portion of my rent check from now on.

I was Skyping with a writer/filmmaker friend in Canadia (yes, I’ve misspelled it on purpose), who has tons of work because the Canadian government subsidizes their industry; as long as you can write a bit of decent dialogue and can splice two images together, you’ve got work.  I wrote, “Hope is like heroin: it changes reality; makes the future look rosy when it isn’t; it is extremely addictive and the sooner you give it up, the better.”  I do feel much better and stronger since I gave up hope for Summer 2010 and stopped imagining a brighter future.  Finally, things seem to be happening.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all doom and gloom, not in the least.  This is all typed with a hearty, demented, end-of-your-tether Liberace smile.  The fact is, like so many people I’ve had some shitty luck, especially recently (Christ, you should get a load of my psycho landlady, Susan Blais … more about her later), but I’ve also been intensely blessed in this life.  Will it continue? Who knows.  But I can definitely die tomorrow, meet my Maker and say, “Thanks, bro.  That was awesome.”

Well, that was a ramble off on a tangent.  I went from SEO, to Google, to the glut of blogs to the hopelessness of hope.  I am proud.

Back to SEO and web content. I signed up with a really cool company today, or at least they seem to be cool.  Basically, it’s sort of an online temp agency for content writers called InteractMedia.  I was asked to write a sample of text for a web page, which they went off and reviewed and then came back with a test score, and I seem to have scored the highest for a newbie.  (Beating my drum! Can you hear me, Google?)  InteractMedia is still in its beta phase, but it is super well-managed and organized.  As we know, it’s all about web content for writers now, especially ones with an entertainment background, like yours truly.  As the film world shrinks, the internet expands.  So, yes, hang on in there, it’s all for a reason, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m really liking this blogging thing.  It’s almost as addictive as hope.