Social Media and All That Jazz
I went down to Blues Alley last night to see my favorite jazz artist, Arturo Sandoval. Arturo is one of the greatest musicians alive and has an amazing life story. I mean, how many people can say that Dizzy Gillespie helped them escape from communist Cuba? (Check out the movie about his life starring Andy Garcia: For Love or Country)
Arturo is a Twitter user and as usual social media played a role in my adventures. Enter Jimmie Bise of The Sundries Shack and The Delivery fame.
@sandovalarturo1 Sir, my friend @anthropocon (a huge fan) is at your DC show tonight. If you have time, would you say hello to him after?
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) May 17, 2013
@jimmiebjr @anthropocon Absolutely Just come up the dressing room after showIt’ll be my pleasure
— Arturo Sandoval (@sandovalarturo1) May 17, 2013
@sandovalarturo1 Thank you! I’ll have him bring this tweet. You’ll make his day.
@anthropocon
— Jimmie (@jimmiebjr) May 17, 2013
Awesome, right? Except for one thing: being a polite music lover, I had turned off my phone for the show and didn’t see this exchange (or the text message Jimmie sent me about it) until after I was already out on the street and people were filing in for the second show.
@sandovalarturo1 @jimmiebjr Argh! I had my phone turned off for the show and didn’t see this until after we left!
— Jim J (@anthropocon) May 18, 2013
@sandovalarturo1 It was an excellent show as always though. I was right in front of Ed. You guys are all amazing players. @jimmiebjr
— Jim J (@anthropocon) May 18, 2013
@anthropocon @jimmiebjr thank u very much
— Arturo Sandoval (@sandovalarturo1) May 18, 2013
Social media is so cool.
Buy Arturo’s new album Dear Diz. Go see him play when he comes to your town. You won’t regret it. He’s still got two more nights at Blues Alley this time so if you’re near DC see if you can still get tickets. A great performer and a really good guy. Support live jazz.
If you can’t do any of that at least check him out on YouTube.
Maryland GOP Official Boasts About Anti-New Media Stance
After interim chair Diana Waterman narrowly won the election to officially become the next Maryland GOP chair, it didn’t take long for her attack dog, John Wafer, to (somewhat ironically) take to social media to boast about defeating a “negative blogger campaign.”
In the run up to the party convention, Wafer cast a lot of online aspersions against bloggers (acting as the party’s “Pit Yorkie“ ), accusing them of posting false information and the like. When asked to provide specific examples though he failed to deliver. To me he just appeared to be annoyed that rank and file Republicans have a forum to discuss why they are dissatisfied with the dysfunctional Maryland GOP.
During the campaign, Diana Waterman talked about reaching out to new media and conservative groups in the state. Immediately thereafter the party issued rules denying bloggers media credentials to cover the party convention. Now less than a day after the election, the party secretary is continuing his anti-new media rants. Alienating the only ideologically friendly media in the state is not a wise move.
In a state party that got crushed in the 2012 elections and has consistently failed to even slow down the Democrat machine, no one deserves to be so cocksure about narrowly winning a three-way internal election. The ship is still sinking. The crew shouldn’t be celebrating.
The new party chair should stick to her promises about “campaigning in the twenty first century.” A good first step would be to rein in the arrogant rhetoric of old fossils like John Wafer.
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Tune in to a special RedMaryland Radio broadcast about the MD GOP convention and John Wafer’s genius new media outreach strategy.