Used to be when scribes and screens mixed, a lengthy “development” process would ensue wherein “creative executives” would take one’s work and execute the creativity.
Of course, that was back when the vicissitudes of studio interest defined the shape of one’s career. At the time, mine was the shape of a screenplay page scrunched into a ball – you know, like an origami “egg.” I had hoped it would hatch into a paper crane of folded checks. Instead, it was scrambled into confetti by the studio development staff. I vowed from that decade forward to never again let another executive mess with the mixed metaphors of my career. I’ve since refined this “Less pulp, more yolk” concept into a shtick I occasionally present to aspiring moguls. It’s a sort of “self empowerment through social-media” rant for creatives wherein I point to the democratized media landscape and advocate building an audience for one’s work right here, right now, rather than seeking approval from the paper chickens of the media industrial complex.
Recently, it occurred to me that my act would be lot more convincing if I actually took my own advice. In recent months, I’d been mulling the production of a passion project that refracts the world through the cracked prism of this particular Sonoman’s experience. Thusly, I invite you to tune into DHowell.TV, a web-based chat show, which features interviews with important figures, brief monologues and sketches as well as interviews with sketchy figures and monologues of brief importance. Made right here in Sonoma. Using online video chat tools, I’ve been conducting interviews with personalities hither and yon, working up bits and generally chasing stories around the globe and around the corner, which I think you will dig. Truly. The only hiccup was settling on a name for the show.
Despite the suggestion by my domain registrar that I forgo “.tv” names since the island of Tuvelo, to which the Internet suffix belongs, is sinking and the names go with it, I felt compelled to use it to signify that the project is a video endeavor (as opposed to DHowell.com, which is broader media and marketing company). Moreover, “Daedalus Howell’s Inane Observations about His Own Ego Show” is not only too lengthy, my first name is impossible to either pronounce or spell (were it not for editor Bolling, I wouldn’t know how to spell it myself).
At one point, I considered using the name “NomaTV,” from the colloquial abbreviation of “Sonoma” but dropped the notion when a google search revealed that “noma” is a form of gangrene that destroys the membranes and tissues of the mouth in malnourished children, leaving them without faces. So, you know, no more ‘Noma, people.
I resorted to the nickname after I realized to my horror that SonomaTV.com and Sonoma.TV were both previously registered by Sam Gitchel of Albion, California, and Ronnie McKenna of Glasgow, Scotland, respectively.
Be assured, Messrs. Gitchel and McKenna, that those of us actually in Sonoma would never cyber-squat your city’s name and preclude YOU from creating an online enterprise to entertain your friends, neighbors and the world-at-large.
Or would we?
In a fit of pique, I registered AlbionTV.com just to even the score. So, it appears, Mr. Gitchel, that while you were busy poaching Sonoma’s name you forgot to register your own.
Perhaps we can work out a hostage trade, Gitchel. You know where to find me. As for you McKenna, you “Glaswegian,” GlasgowscotlandTV.com is still available. Why? Because it’s 17 characters long, which makes for a crappy domain name. By comparison, DHowell.TV is a sleek seven. Besides its brevity, the show name adheres to the principal I’m always extolling to my seminarians – “your byline is your brand name.” Here, I hope I have at least a little equity on which to draw.
To wit, I’m pulling myself up by my own coattails, which is probably why I keep landing on my ass.
