I'm a writer, editor and photographer. These are the things I do best and enjoy the most. I'm also a businessman—sort of—who sells fine art photography (mine, basically) for extra cash.
Last night , I met Kaka (See the blog Ode to Water), her boyfriend from Cebu, Ace, and a childhood friend of hers, Mary Rose. Ace and Kaka met me at Kitchen restaurant in Greenbelt 3 where we had dinner. Afterwards we walked to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and met Mary Rose.
Basically, I had to meet Kaka because she's also a framer and I asked her to fix one of my pictures, entitled Spin. Spin is a black and white picture of the lotus flower— styled in avant-garde fashion—that mysteriously got some sort of fungus behind the frame glass. The image is 24" x 36", plus 10" on all sides for the frame and matte for 34" x 46" in total dimensions— framed and mounted.
She was basically making a delivery.
[I gave her the picture on Thursday the 13th in Bonifacio Global City, where we later hooked up with my friends and AIM classmates in MAP 10 (Managing the Arts Program, batch 10), Jeremy Domingo and Ku Aquino, for a couple of beers and a big bowl of tahong (mussels) at Italiannis on High Street. See blog vISIONS IN THE lIGHT/hanging out with Jeremy & Ku.]
During dinner at Kitchen, our talk drifted toward producing bands, music albums and stage plays. I'm thinking of producing a band, or bands for that matter, and joining other friends in producing Shakespeare plays for schools.
In both areas, Ace had direct experience. He produced, not one,but many bands in Cebu and was in fact a popular impresario in Cebu City. He managed bands and produced—sponsored is the word he used—gigs and albums. He said he left the business because the influx of money was inconsistent. Last night, though, he uttered that maybe it was time for him to get back into the music scene.
Ace said he also produced El Filibusterismo for schools. It was a one-shot deal of 1000 tickets at P750 each.
I'm doing research because I want to learn and eliminate as much risk as possible into the business that I would like to get into one day.
(About a week ago, I met my friend, Jovy, on Yahoo chat. She's a true businesswoman, with a couple of dozen RTW stores all over Metro Manila between her and a partner. We delved into the taxi business that I also looked into sometime last year. After doing the math with a potential partner, it turned out the car company would be making money out of our sweat and tears for the first three years. No way!
(Jovy said the difference between us is that she acts on impulse and intuition. I'm not surprised because she is more than a fan to Rhonda Byrne's The Secret—the best selling feel good, get rich, get everything you want in life DVD. One of its main tenets is to act when the universal nudge and creative impulse are there urging you on.
(She was online in connection with her passion—related to The Secret, of course—as head coach to the Leadership Excellence Achievement Program, or LEAP, run by the Organizational Change Consultants International Inc., or OCCI. She said she was doing a fund raising in connection with her group but, because of a confidentiality clause, wouldn't tell me more than that.
(I offered one of my pictures, Mayon & Country Lights, that she could sell it and get the money for her group. We didn't really talk about the details. Last year, in connection with another LEAP group, I asked a PR person from San Miguel Corp. if they'd care to donate juices and snacks for charity work. They did.
(The picture is a black and white 26" x 40" image of Mayon volcano at dusk—printed on
Epson smooth fine art paper, using K3 inks—serving as a backdrop to the city of Legaspi as it evolves from daytime into night. I told Jovy it is a study in light and shadow, and serves as an allegory for the transitory nature of life.)
So, in TCB&TL after the Kitchen, we met Mary Rose. She's an attractive woman in her early 30s, vibrant, quick and witty. Mary Rose is taking a masteral program in Japan and is a scholar of the Japanese government.
Before you know it, it was nearly 1:00 a.m. We didn't really notice. Our conversation was totally animated, and the place was full and loud; although the store was noticeably dimming the lights as a signal that it was way past bedtime.
The four of us walked back to Greenbelt 2, where we were parked on the 3rd level. Kaka and Ace took Spin out of their van and, for the benefit of Mary Rose (and unintentionally the mall security and the girl behind the turnstile for the parking ticket), took the bubble wrap off my picture. It was like an impromptu, mini exhibit.
The cleaning of the glass was professionally done. Kaka also had the boys in her shop to replace the plywood backing with acid-free foam board.
Kaka said the picture turns her on. She doesn't know why.
Ace said it's sexual.
Mary Rose did not comment.
For me, Spin is an image I first saw through the eyepiece of my Nikon D100, and through the macro lens I was using then in Bangkok, Thailand—where I shot Spin four years ago on a tabletop in my home studio. I remember the image gave me more than a rush and got me quite excited.
Mary Rose? With the bright smile on her face, I think she liked Spin.
We said goodbye and goodnight and parted ways.
If you're wondering about the title and what's it got to do with this blog, here it is. It's been a while since I've paid attention to my Multiply. Since January, in fact. I was holding a copy of Personal Fortune, and cross checking my article against the blog I was uploading—tHE eASY lIFE. Afterwards, I read about an article in the magazine on how to make money from blogs.
Three things I remember from the article. 1) You must be consistent in blogging, as in doing it daily in order to gain a following; 2) but you can't write just about anything—meaning you have to be a specialist in a particular subject, or topic, so that people get to identify you with your blog; and 3) you make money basically by registering with Google AdSense and choosing advertising related to your blog; that means the number of hits on the ad on your blog translates into revenue.
The question on my mind was this: Can I be considered "specialist" enough that people can brand me with the kinds of posts on my Multiply? Or am I too general in the sense that my topics and subject matter are too diverse, too distended in the sense that they relfect more of a jACK o oL tRADES, mASTER o nONE kind of blogger than a specialist?
Sigh...
But then again... All I know is that I enjoy Multiplying.
To me, that is the litmus test.
But then again... All I know is that I enjoy Multiplying.
