Nothing new up there yet, but there will be soon….

(Here’s the feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RyanMorgan)

Note: If you read this blog and we never met, want to?

See ya around,

Slim

Become a Friend of Local Matters during Local Foods Week (October 3-9, 2009) and get Jeni’s Ice Cream.

The first 250 Friends who sign-up to give $10 a month will receive a punchcard for four, buy one, get one free cones, available through September 2010.

The first 250 Friends who make a one-time, $120 gift will receive a punchcard for 12 monthly buy one, get one free cones, also through September 2010. You can sign up to be one of 1000 Friends of Local Matters on the website or in person at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream in the Short North on Saturday, October 3 from 4:00-10:00 p.m.

Stop by any Jeni’s location during Local Foods Week, October 3-9.

(Schedule for the week here.)

Join 1,000 Friends of Local Matters by signing up for $10, monthly donation (or a one-time gift of $120).

That’s it.

You’ll get a punch-card for a free cone once a month for a year.

And you’ll help Local Matters in its mission to make local, healthy, and delicious food accessible to everyone.

How to get a tour of the Jeni’s kitchen

Event: Kitchen Tour of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream

Time: Tuesday, October 6, 4:00-5:30 p.m.

Location: Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream Headquarters and Kitchen

Cost: $20 per person

Registration: (limited to 20 people) call Jeni’s at 614-488-3224

[UPDATE:][UPDATE:] 9/23, 1:18pm

And more…

Including local dinners, beer + wine tastings, cooking demonstrations, and a breakfast bike ride… here.

My pops and his pops.

On the back:

Date: unknown.

Wild Goose
Igloo Press
AmyD
Wholly Craft
Tigertree
Couchfire
Adam Brouillette
Jen Adrion
Mike Litzau
Dan Wilburn
Jeni’s
Rad Dog
Lucky Ladle
Available Light

See you there.

Dear Abby: My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes are covered in blood-

but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America

Way way back in 73
The States of America all slept sound

Way way back in 73
But in South America some shit went down

There are 8 million stories in the world economy.
Stories of greed, stories of hope,
Stories of men with means and men with ideas,
This is one of them.

Now Milton was a Chi-town math kingpin,
Preachin bout the gods of supply & demand.
If he had it his way the market would lead.
He despised social government and John Maynard Keynes

Okay, down in Chile, Salvador Allende
Won a fair election saying “Fuck you CIA”
An opportunity for Milton Friedman’s machine
When Dick Nixon cried “Make their economy scream!”

So they spent 8 million try ta undermine Allende but they failed that
Too many people had his back
So the military coup starred Pinochet
Who had Milton in his office by noon the next day

Now shit went insane. In the stadiums
They rounded-up 13,000 people
who’d witnessed their evils
Troopers marched in to wave their guns (guns)
3000 dead, many more on the run (run)
Makin big m-o-n-e-y
Had to liquefy the vox populi
It’s demanded
Now deruglation is expanded,
It’s commanded to cut social spending, understand it?

Now Chile is a clean slate
Cleared by Pinochet
The Chi-town class-mates’
Ideas ruled the day
Chile fell to poverty
And shock therapy
Unemployment overdose
And human rights disgrace

But people at gunpoint learn to obey
When they’re homeless and hungry and dying away
So the Miracle of Chile was mythologized
And Milton Friedman got the Nobel Prize

You either pay American businesses to build American-style highways and powerplants that your people don’t need, dooming your nation to be forever in debt … or you get ousted by a CIA-organized coup.

Which would you choose?

Some folks live by the laws of the wild
Some learn slower and die in the mud
Some stand up to protest for a while
But that’s when the big dogs chew them up

Now John was a bad man
an Economic hitman
Making cash by makin kings a third world con men
Started with the oil plan
Roosevelt in Iran
Overthrew Mossadegh
And Replaced him with Ike’s man

CIA coup d’etat Arbenz in Guatamala
Victim of the red scare and propaganda
The CIA marched in with 400 troops (hooray!)
Colonialism to protect United Fruit
A few years later down in Panan
John got involved in a shipping drama
Torrijos, the man who controlled the canal
Wouldn’t capitulate to the U.S. cabal
He had had this idea to sell the rights to Japan
But he knew all about what went down in Iran
So he predicted that fate for himself, and sure enough
In August 81 his fuckin plane blew-up

But the one
that blows my mind
Totally on of a kind
Scheme to rob a nation’s people
completely blind

It was Indonesia, see
Victim of another coup of CIA
design

Cleansing time once the left was maligned
Shooting lists were distributed
for which they were pentagon armed and suited

OH rivers clogged with bodies OH hell embodied
But who stepped in to stop the massacre – that’s right nobody.

Turns out
It was all part of the master plan everybody
So hold no grudge
And hold your tongue
Cause
This Indonesian story’s far from done
Sure we had the rubber, the copper, and the oil, see
But there was plenty more where that came from
Opportunity
6 years passed
The country’s almost hobblin
So we went back in and sent John the hitman and his staff to ply their stage craft

So it’s an infrastructure
Bullshit kit
They say the poor need highways and electrics

They’ll be in debt forever
The leaders shoulda known better
For the record don’t think they didn’t profit from the metrics

So kill your national pride
And give into our demands or else
We’ll squeeze your land dry and fill it with ourselves

(If not, check over here.)

I just found out yesterday I’m taking a pay cut.  About 7%.  Because while what I’m doing is ‘wonderful,’ etc, it’s not producing enough business, fast enough.

You know — that old tension between short-term goals and strategic, long-term growth.

Can’t say it’s too much of a surprise as I’ve been focusing on building relationships rather than pursuing sales for some time now.

(To be fair, this is a shop within a shop I’ve created and to say I’m in it for different reasons would be an understatement.)

(Plus times are tough.)

(Also note how I’m not complaining.)

Still, it caught me off guard a little.

In my experience, you don’t build partnerships with sales pitches, is all.  Nor with advertising.

Could just me be, but I don’t think so.

But so here’s where it gets interesting: the amount of the reduction in pay — X — I’m being given the opportunity to use it for quote ‘advertising’ (since my entire budget got the axe last year, which is why you see these all over town, but there was never a next step) to try and increase sales.

I don’t think advertising or old marketing (whatever you want to call it) is the answer.  Rather, I think it has more to do with love being a circular transaction.

(And that the best marketing is often good operations — i.e. doing something worth talking about.)

Operations-wise, everything I do and how I do it — from being mobile and open, to creating e-policies for people since insurance companies won’t — is to help people do what they do, better.

I need a way for more of the right people to find out about what I do.  To let them know I want to work with them.  Without doing to them what I wouldn’t want done to me.

(Or, tell me what you need and I’ll create the service.)

‘More, faster.’

So what do I do with this money then?

Want to go lunch?

[Update: What Spike says.]

@jenisplendid & @jenishusband

@luckbros

@skreened

@surlygirlsaloon

@bettyscolumbus

@tiptopkitchen

@thecandlelab

@chrisahamrick

@simplygcleaners

@dirtyfranksdogs

@localohiofoods

@littlealouette

@deliciousre

@thecouchfire

@jenadrion

@artbomb112

@lifesandwichdan

@avltheatre

@ruthmilligan

A new paragraph.

(It’s the parenthetical one.)

Couchfire has been a client for a while now.  Collectively.

But now 4 out of these 10 same artists also prefer brilliant brand chewing gum, individually, too.

(And you thought I was joking before about personal insurance.)

It’s also rumored that the Best Live Theatre company in town has similar proclivities…

But you didn’t hear it from me.

P.S. Like Black Sheep?  This is for you. Let’s talk some shop.

_

The funniest caption.  According to whom?

After a while, though, I started to distrust my own subjectivity.  Could I not be dispassionate, truly?  Plus who am I and what do I know.

So I did what any practiced shirker of responsibility would do and, instead, opened it up to a distinguished panel of judges.  One of them, actually.  Only.  One judge.

A true arbiter of taste: Diane Warren.

So, without any further ado, I give you our distinguished panel’s selection for the funniest [insert your own caption]:

Promo shoot for the first pitch of Big Love.

Congratulations, @danielskreened!  You’ll be enjoying $5 off your next meal at the Lessner joint of your choosing!  Check your mail.

Note: our distinguished panel unanimously agreed that, with the benefit of a little editing, the winning selection could very well have been the following entry (with a little thoughtful editing) from @mikergray:

Killing the environment, one perm at a time.

@mikergray, DM me your mailing address, and a consolation prize will be on the way.

The original post with all entries has been lovingly restored for your viewing/reading pleasure.

[REALLY important note: it was estimated that this pic was taken about 25 years ago.  4 of these 5 young women still work at Dawson.  Without them, I am utterly worthless.  I heart them, all.]

Thanks to everybody who played!