What’s Going On With Me?

I keep thinking the pieces I write have to be epic in some way. Either tell an entertaining story from my crazy life and career, or write something profound.

My apologies for taking the last month off from posting. Everything’s fine mostly. I just needed some time to think, reflect, and figure out what I want to do as far as writing/filmmaking in the next few years. I was feeling tired and burnt out. So I took a break.

When I started blogging (remember blogs? Well I still have one on my website here) and then moved over to Substack about a year ago. I kept thinking that the pieces I write have to be epic in some way. Either tell an entertaining story from my crazy life and career, or write something profound. And if it wasn’t at least two pages, then what was the point?

I will admit, sometimes keeping things to two pages was tough, but what became tougher was thinking about what to write. What’s going to be the topic this week? I felt like I needed to come off in a certain way so that people would not only want to read it, but they’d tell their friends about it as well. I have just over 100 subscribers, which is nothing in the internet scheme of things, but I’m okay with my subscribers because I know most of them and I know they actually read what I post. And for that I’m grateful.

All of my posts are free. I haven’t done the paid subscription thing because it feels like a lot of extra work. I’m not sure I have the time to do separate things just for “paid subscribers” but more importantly I don’t know what I’d put behind that wall.

Stolen Toyota 1995 behind the scenes

I am a storyteller. If you’ve seen my films or read my books, hopefully you feel the same way. I know when I write something for Substack it goes to all of the people on my list. Other people who don’t subscribe seem to be able to find me. I don’t know shit about algorithms and how they work, except in the case of sites like Facebook and Instagram where I have a ton of friends/followers, but I rarely see their posts. I see lots of ads and other things I’m not interested in, but I don’t see much from the people I actually know.

I know it’s supposed to work that way because these sites are businesses and they make money off of ads, NOT on showing me what I’m actually interested it. Some algorithm is intent on not showing me the things I want.

I promote my work on all of those sites which is what I thought I was supposed to do. I’m not buying their ads which may or may not help, I figure a lot of the traffic they will guaranty me are probably bots. Whether they are or not it doesn’t seem like those sites are transparent and will certainly not show me specifically who’s looking at my site.

From a sales standpoint, these last two years have been tough. My book and merchandise sales are in the toilet. I thought I was promoting things the way I was supposed to, but every few months we’re told things have changed and we have to have a new on-line strategy.

Paris 1995 Photo By Peter Appleton

In addition to my writing and filmmaking I do a lot of freelance film work. Mostly sound design and picture editing. Between the freelance work and my small Social Security check, which I’m grateful to get, that’s how I support myself. I’m beginning to wonder if all of this social media stuff is worth it?

I’m looking at the time and energy I’m spending on-line and deciding where I want to put my energy.

I’m finally starting a monthly newsletter this month so we’ll see what happens with that, and I do enjoy writing for my Substack account. I will definitely continue that. Maybe it’s time to get rid of all of the other distractions?

I’ll let you know.

And now a rant because I feel like it.

You know what I really hate? All of these social media postings that tell you to post a photo of your favorite book, movie, concert, Album/CD, party, alcohol, drug, sexual position, your job, or whatever and then say, “Don’t write anything just post the photo.”

WTF?

Don’t write about what you’ve posted? I don’t get this at all.

First off I feel like most of these things are phishing for information so companies or organizations can get your info, maybe steal your passwords, build a file about you and sell it to others. That’s what most of this social media shit is all about anyway.

But let’s not think about it that way.

Here’s the deal, if something truly influences you, I want to know why. I don’t want to look at some photo I may not recognize that you fucking posted without any explanation. That makes no sense to me and it’s a waste of my goddamn time. And if you’re too lazy to write then save us all a lot of time and don’t post the photo. I find these things meaningless.

If you’re going to post a photo tell us why, and how it influenced you? Why is this thing important? What makes you think of it the way you do? Did it affect your development as a person? Did it get you through a horrible part of your life? Is it the reason you became a writer, musician, plumber, CIA Agent?

That’s what’s interesting, the explanation.

We all have influences. We see or read something and it sets off a chain of events in our lives. They can be good things, or bad. But they are things that affect us and got us to where we are now. I did a few blog posts about some of my influences, (MAD Magazine, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Albert Camus…) and it was fun to look back at those things that influenced me.

One of my all-time favorite books - Read 4 times

Don’t just post a photo and leave it at that. That’s just lazy and clogging up the internet. I want to know more about you.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.

Don’t Let The Bastards Get To You!

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