Editorial August 2015

Stress and distractions are everywhere. We all know we all have it, right? Evidence of stress can be found at any stop light during rush hour traffic. There is...

Stress and distractions are everywhere. We all know we all have it, right? Evidence of stress can be found at any stop light during rush hour traffic. There is that person who refuses to lay off the horn. Hey I’m stressed HONK! Hey, the light is about to turn green… HONK! Lol… Anyway, I’ve been very stressed and distracted lately. More than the usual. I’m not exactly sure why, oh yeah BILLS, Unforeseen car troubles (the car has high miles.. Couldn’t see that coming? Lol), kids all growing up to fast, people I looked up to all my life are getting old and leaving this earth. And WORK!!! Oh my, WORK!!! And PEOPLE!!! Don’t get me started… People can be so annoying and rude.
I’m here working on the latest magazine and searching the web for content, moving from subject to subject fact checking, and researching artist’s. Where IS that coffee?! I look everywhere for a good 5 min but I just cannot find it. So I sit in frustration (too lazy to make another cup) and I lift the mug in my hand and I take a sip… ding… light goes off. It was in my hand the whole time! Now I am feeling silly. I wasn’t going to even tell anyone about this but then I started thinking that it would be a perfect fit for my piece on stress and the distractions that we all face in life.
I think the internet was designed for people with Attention Deficit Disorder. We have become so used to reading something of worth or watching or listening to something, we click like and share and move on.. We are all becoming like computer scanners (or web crawlers). Scan for content, process it move on to the next. Some things we remember and others we do not.
I am an inventor, creator and a legacy work a-holic like my father and his before him. I have even noticed that I am training my kids up in the same dysfunctional behavior. I love art, crafts, making and fixing things. I LOVE problem solving and I hate it at the same time. I think the reason I’m a musician is because of the freedom to create on the fly. I love and live to create. I express this freedom through music and art. However, I have many interests on many different subjects. I have several businesses and projects on my plate, which makes for a partially painted canvas and a workbench full of incomplete projects. No artist enjoys looking at incomplete work. The internet is an addiction and distraction to completing and retaining anything, yet I am not sure if I could live without it.
I think society is wasting our dreams and living our reality through someone else’s eyes online. As art imitates life, we are living true virtual reality. What used to only be seen through the eyes of sci-fi films is now reality and we seem to be satisfied with this. People (myself-included) are content with sending a message rather than calling someone on the phone. Remember pagers? Now we have pagers on steroids! We search, read, share, move on is training our brain to function like this in other areas of life. It is keeping us from retaining worthwhile content and ideas. Society is stunted and superficial and deeper connections are often lost. I have found this to be true in my spiritual life as well. I am eating the meal but not digesting the meat. I hear or read a devotion and I think that was great now back to work. Rinse. Repeat. I should be thinking of how I can apply it to my life.
This is happening in the music industry as well. We hear or see a great song and we move on. Next! Artists must decide whether to create a physical album and assume the cost or release their work digitally. Blues-E-News has the same dilemma. People read an article and move on. The amount of time poured into a single issue of Blues-E-News printed magazine is monumental. Great care is taken to put out a periodical that has the feel of a book so that it will not end up in the recycle bin. However, many want the meat without the meal. Many electronic magazines offer free access to simply the content that they want. Potential buyers are used to finding the article they want without paying for it and moving on.
We see the demand for electronic news and are implementing some changes soon. I know many of our readers will be happy to know that there will be more online content! There will be content available free online. No worries, we are not going to stop printing our beautiful magazine! However, we are looking at subscription memberships. We are at a bit of a fork in the road. Music needs your support and so do we. Either way we are hoping that our loyal customers are willing to pay a small subscription fee to have access to the magazine while sharing the free content with your friends and family online. Whatever method you choose, we hope you do not just scan the content and move on. It is our hope that you are able to understand our mission, digest the information, and support the arts. “Liking” and “Sharing” is greatly appreciated! We hope to make our website one that you will visit frequently. ~Big Wayne Executive Editor and Publisher

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Executive Editor, publisher and creator of Blues-E-News Wayne Rinehart
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