Having been on the road a good 14 months now, I haven’t had as many opportunities to support my favorite artists this year.  But that’s why I came up with this whole True Fan Boost idea in the first place, isn’t it?  To use Labor Day as a reminder to do just that!

So even though I’m unemployed and living off savings, I’m going to make sure to give at least a little something to the people’s whose work I enjoy.

Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton, who made headlines this year with his interview on NPR, has just released a new album — perfectly timed to coincide with my Labor Day purchase!  I just picked up the $10 digital download version of Artifical Heart, but I’ve yet to listen to it (I’ll wait until I have the time to give the first listen my full attention.)  JoCo’s put a lot of his music out there already, but this album is different.  It’s his first studio-produced outing and also his first major album with a theme.  I also see he’s got Suzanne Vega on there!  I’m looking forward to this.

But I’ll confess one thing.  I haven’t played Portal 2 yet, so I removed one song from my playlist until I first listen to it at the end of the game.  Spoilers!

Roam The Planet

If you’ve been following along on our travel site, Postcard Valet, you’ve probably heard me mention a couple new friends.  We met Wendy and Dusty in Ecuador, hooked up with them again in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina, and even lived in the same building for a time in Buenos Aires.  We expect to see them again in Thailand in a couple months, too.

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Last year on Labor Day, I posted an entry on this blog about something I called “the True Fan Boost.”  The idea was to use Labor Day as a reminder to support the independent artists we love, either financially by buying some of their work or at least by sharing their work with others.  I’m going to do the same again this year.  If you like the idea, I invite you to do the same on your own blog, Facebook, or wherever seems most appropriate.

After the jump, in no particular order, are the artists I’m going to shell out some bucks for right now:
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With only a week before Labor Day, it was a long shot that my little blog post would fire up the Internet with the True Fan Boost concept. I did send out an e-mail or two, on the off chance that someone with a larger readership would push the idea. I actually got a response back from Kevin Kelly, but after rereading it a few times, I realized that I may not have been clear enough in what I was trying to accomplish.

Kevin thought that I was out of synch with the 1000 True Fans concept by using Labor Day to support any and all artists (i.e., He thought I was encouraging people to go out and buy Aerosmith albums, Stephen King books, or any other products by established artists.) Not true. I want nothing more than to “boost” the sales of independent, internet-based artists with this idea. Aerosmith is out, Jonathan Coulton is in.

Kevin also seems to be focused only on the TRUE true fans – the ones that will drop $100 a year on their favorite artists. What I’m trying to do is mobilize the Lesser Fans (as he calls them), in addition to the True Fans, into an economic force. This may be beyond my means.

I really appreciated the comment left by Patricia on my last entry; she came at the idea from a marketing angle. She’s distilled my whole post down to one sentence:

True Fan Boost: Commemorate Labor Day by actually purchasing the creative work of that wonderful artist you told yourself you’d support “someday.”

If you change “that wonderful artist” to “those wonderful artists,” then that’s what I’m going to do right now:

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While I was still debating about whether or not to go to PAX, Gabe and Tycho began to announce their lineup. Wil Wheaton was giving the keynote, Jonathan Coulton and Freezepop would be playing in the concerts. If Gabe and Tycho weren’t big enough draws, any one of the others might have been enough for me to commit. Put all of them together and you might not have been able to prevent me from flying to Seattle.

Just before leaving Juneau, I discovered that the first round of the Omegathon round was scheduled right up against Wil Wheaton’s keynote address. I couldn’t believe it! When I mentioned it to him, Travis promised me that the round would be over quickly and, at the very least, I could leave at any time to watch the keynote instead. Without a time limit, the last Jenga match dragged on forever. I could have left, but the suspense and anticipation was so high at that point, I didn’t want to miss the moment the last tower fell.

Gabe and Tycho attended most of the Omegathon, but they were always focused on the competition. I couldn’t bring myself to get all fanboy and introduce myself to them.

(Later in the day, I did ask Travis to introduce me to Kara, Gabe’s wife. I’d played a time or two with her in World of Warcraft and wanted to say hello. He introduced me as “Arlo,” and I think she saw me as just another one of the hundreds of black-shirted enforcers. I mumbled something it being nice to meet her after raiding with her a time or two. I will label her smile and reply as “dismissive.”)

I’d missed Wil’s speech, but I was sure the keynote would be all over the internet by the time I got home. It wouldn’t be the same as listening to him from the audience, but it would suffice. Besides, I’d spotted the booth set aside for his autographing session. Perhaps I would be able to spot him there later in the day…

Alas, no. I stopped by many times, but as far as I could tell, Wil never set any time aside for book signings.

Freezepop, who wrote one of my favorite song in Guitar Hero II, played on Friday night. However, my lack of sleep combined with a general lack of interest from the rest of our group of meant that I was easily talked into a casual dinner and early bedtime, instead. 0-for-2.

It was a good thing I was having so much fun hanging out with my new friends, because other than escorting the Neskimos to the stage for their sound check, I didn’t meet a single famous person on Friday.

Saturday and Sunday more than made up for it.
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