They always make me feel like I am breathing fresh air.

It is a Monday and the neutral feel (you know, where nothing is happening) of the last week or so seems to have changed. People respond to email, phones ring, etc. Nice feeling. Like business is happening. Over the weekend I worked on this project where we are trying to bring together 5 or 6 publications across the country to act as an advertising network. The biggest reason we hear from record labels regarding not being able to advertise is that we are "regional" (how damning). [We aren't regional, 25% of our distribution is across the US (and Canada soon) and that number is growing. Also, the Website is international and receives 60-70,000 pairs of eyeballs each month ...around 1.25 million hits.] The idea of bringing together publications is sort of the New Times example where you can get to hit five communities or more at a time and save yourself a little cash. We are working with Boulder, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, and Salt Lake City...the nicest people and all sharing the same love and pain. I will let you know more about it in a few days.

My initial reason for writing this was that I was listening to the Housemartins. It was one of those cases where I thought "God, they are so fucking good" and had to tell somebody. They always make me feel like I am breathing fresh air. I met Paul Heaton once a long time ago when the Beautiful South played a club in Solana Beach out in CA. I was like a little girl and went to the club in the afternoon and dropped off a rockin flower (those things that bounce around to noise and usually sport sunglasses). I was too afraid to talk with the band at the time, but that night at the show I was thrilled to see my rockin flower on the drum kit. After my show I sucked up my courage and talked to the band (Brianna Corrigan was still with them at the time). I don't remember much of it, but I do remember that he was a gracious and sweet guy. Beautiful South went on to sell more records than God or the Beatles (for a while at least) in the UK. At that time they were just purveyors of slightly odd pop (check out the first three albums) and making a brief run across the continent. Lovely though. Right now I am listening to the ultimate collection of Housemartins songs Now That's What I Call Good and the song "Five get over excited." The sun is shining. Fresh air.  

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