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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
 "The Soundtrackers Group" 
"Blogging Circle of Friends "
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
"JAFBG"
"Take up Your Cross"
Thanks for stopping by! 
November 21, 2023 at 2:40am November 21, 2023 at 2:40am
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I just read an article from Hello! Magazine (already an auspicious start to a blog post  ) titled, "The Billionaire Club: Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift - How They're Singing All The Way to the Bank," and it included some pretty staggering assumptions about Dua Lipa's music. If you haven't heard the Taylor Swift side of this, she recently became a billionaire thanks to her wildly successful Eras Tour, which put her over the line and into the ten-figure net worth club.
This article starts with the sentence, "Forging the way for other young female performers, Dua Lipa is on track to become a dazzling new addition to the exclusive dollar-billionaire club, following in the footsteps of fellow pop star Taylor Swift by hitting a ten-figure fortune in a male-dominated industry. Traditionally, the billionaire club is the province of industrialists and businessmen, but now one of the most successful female artists in showbusiness could be joining trailblazer Taylor in their ranks."
Here's the problem... last I checked (which was quite recently because I looked it up for this blog post), Dua Lipa's net worth is somewhere around $35 million as of 2022. Apparently some new "wealthiest celebs" list this year says it's £75 million (about $94 million USD according to Google's currency converter). Which is certainly an accomplishment in and of itself. But saying someone is "basically already a billionaire" because they have less than 1/10th that amount of money now is kind of like someone who runs a 5K saying, "I'm pretty much a marathon runner already."
It turns out, the article's argument is this:
Displaying a business savvy as sharp as her songwriting, 28-year-old Dua, who ranked 21st in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List for under-35s, with an estimated worth of £75m, could hit the billionaire mark after parting ways with her former management company. She has bought the rights to her publishing catalogue and joined forces with her businessman father, Dukagjin, known as Dugi, to set up a company to manage all her commercial assets. “Essentially, the move has echoes of Taylor Swift – a huge female pop star rewriting the narrative and making money on her own terms,” a source told The Sun."
Okay, so she bought the rights to her own music catalogue so she can make the business decisions about how to capitalize on it. Cool. Great. That's honestly probably a fine business strategy. But if you want a look at what music catalogues are worth, it's probably a good idea to see what private equity firms are paying these days to buy them up from music icons. Here are a few artists that have sold their music catalogues recently... and what they got for them:
 Bob Dylan - $600 million between two separate deals for his publishing rights and his masters
Bruce Springsteen - $550 million
Phil Collins & Genesis - $300 million
David Bowie - $250 million
Katy Perry - $225 million
Dr. Dre - $200 million
Justin Bieber - $200 million
Imagine Dragons - $100 million
Don't get me wrong, I love Dua Lipa and think she's super talented. She's young, so she has years and years left to invest wisely and continue to grow her business. Maybe she will be a billionaire someday. But I don't think you can look at where she's at now, look at the estimated values of music catalogues that are more extensive that hers, and say that it's a foregone conclusion that she's going to be a billionaire because she and Taylor Swift happen to have a few things in common.
And while I'm ranting a bit here, why is being a billionaire such a big deal anyway? I feel like most people could manage to be perfectly happy with a $35-94 million net worth (and many people are quite capable of being happy with quite a bit less than that!), and yet there are so many media stories like this now where it's like, "You're nobody if you're not a billionaire" or "This person is smart and talented... but how much money will they be able to earn???"  I think there's way too much glamorization of wealth right now, and not just wealth but obscene wealth. While I can appreciate a YouTube real estate tour of a sprawling mansion, or imagine how nice it might be to never have to worry about standing in the TSA line at the airport if I had a private jet, that's all just escapist fantasy. The problem is, it feels like everyone's taking those escapist fantasies and trying to convince you that you're nobody if you don't achieve them.
Articles like this make me really sad and more than a bit angry because it feels like nobody's just okay accepting people as they are. It always has to be, "What are they doing next?" or "How will they top this?" or "What's their ceiling in terms of success and wealth?" And maybe it's just me, but I don't feel like I desperately need answers to any of those kinds of questions. What we do desperately need is for people to start accepting each other for who they are and celebrating the accomplishments they've already achieved, not making them feel the pressure to deliver whatever's next.
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November 21, 2023 at 1:55am November 21, 2023 at 1:55am
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I thought it might be fun to play a little game of "Two Truths and a Lie." If you want to play, post your guess in the comments to this blog post. One guess per person and the first person to correctly guess the lie will get a thematically-appropriate merit badge. I'm going to include a little bit of detail, just to add a little flavor to the statements.
1. I've visited each of the fifty states. Thanks to a lot of childhood road trips, family located all over the country, and an insatiable love for travel to new places, I've officially visited each of the fifty states in the USA. For the sake of clarity, "visiting" means an overnight stay, an extended drive through, or feet on the ground in a particular state... flying over in an airplane doesn't count.
2. I'm almost a black belt. I took martial arts classes throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school and was training to take my black belt test, but I never ended up taking it. I haven't taken a class or trained in over twenty years, but belts don't have an expiration date, so I'm technically still a third-degree brown belt.
3. I don't drink alcohol and I never have. There's no religious or moral reason; it's probably because my teenage years involved being around more than a few drunk people doing stupid things and it just never seemed that appealing to me. But, yeah, I've never once had beer, wine, liquor, or any liqueurs (outside of ones that are used in cooking/baking).
So... which one do you think is the lie? |
November 21, 2023 at 12:53am November 21, 2023 at 12:53am
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Tomorrow (the 21st) is "World Television Day," and since my last blog entry was on my most anticipated movies of 2024, I thought I should probably do a post about television too. Television doesn't have quite the advanced notice that movies do, so instead of anticipated future series, I'm going to post today about the current shows I'm watching that I really enjoy. I'm only going to pick current shows, nothing that's been canceled, ended, or is in reruns. In no particular order:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. As the spiritual successor to The Daily Show (which is weird to say since it's still on), this is one of my favorite entertainment news shows. I love the format of doing a deep-dive on a particular topic rather than a sweeping overview of a lot of stories, and John Oliver's brand of humor is perfect for the often heavy topics that the show covers. It's one of the few shows that I can honestly say entertain me while also teaching me something about the world, and I try not to miss an episode.
The Boys. An irreverent, gross, and disturbing send-up of superhero culture, this show is not for the faint of heart, but it's brilliant in the way it shows superheroes behaving badly and taking advantage of their supernatural abilities. The acting is great, and the show always comes up with really clever ways to shock and surprise the audience. I haven't seen the spinoff Gen-V yet, but it's at the top of my list of new shows to watch.
The Bear. Both seasons have been amazing character studies, and it's about the world of restaurants and good food, so this is right up my alley. One of the episodes in the second season ("Forks") is one of my favorite episodes of television in the past five years. It's so well written and so emotional and everything I aspire to be able to write myself as a screenwriter.
Only Murders in the Building. This show is just delightful. It's an old school murder-mystery show and it's great to see Martin Short and Steve Martin together again. Selena Gomez is an unexpectedly great addition to the cast, and each season has had a really intriguing mystery that's kept me guessing in the best way.
The White Lotus. At first I wasn't really into this show, but I love the anthology approach to it, where each season is a different "White Lotus Resort" somewhere in the world, with a different cast of characters. That keeps it fresh and interesting and, of the two seasons its had so far, there have been some amazing characters to root for (and against).
Selling Sunset and Selling the OC. This is my guilty pleasure reality show. Hot people selling hot real estate and getting into super-petty drama. It's a fun show to watch when I just want to mentally check out and watch something.
There's a whole bunch of other shows that I've enjoyed that are limited series and therefore not eligible for this list, as well as some old shows that I'm just now getting around to watching and really enjoying. I'm trying to watch a handful of seasons of new (or new to me) television every month, so this list is always evolving.
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