“Well…, many of the songs…, they aren’t sad. They’re hopeless,” he affirmed. 

If you’re going to sing and play the blues, you might as well be the best that you can be. Maybe that’s why Townes Van Zandt is revered as a Texas Bluesman.

Here is a video clip of him playing “Pancho & Lefty” for an intimate group of friends. This song later became a number one country hit in 1983 when Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson adopted it as the title track of their duet album “Pancho & Lefty”.

Van Zandt is remembered as a gifted songwriter who left a legacy of songs that inspired, and continues to inspire, musicians of of much wider acclaim and repute than he; really a musician’s musician. Influential in the sub-genre referred to as “outlaw country”, his style really makes you feel just how big Texas really is (it’s the size of 5 average “other” western states).

“Doing your best is a process of trying to do your best,” he was once quoted in “Zen Guitar.”

When I was growing up and attending Thomas Jefferson High School in the late 70’s, we listened to The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Grateful Dead almost exclusively. There was a little room any other bands save for Lou Reed, Roy Buchanan, Brian Eno, Roxy Music, and a couple others. But I never really appreciated Bob Dylan or ‘The Band’ until much later.

VH1 has played “The Last Waltz” several times lately, which is the Scorcese Rockumentary that documents the end of life on the road for arguably one of the most soulful bands of all time. They made a decision to get out when the getting was good, while they were at the top of their game.

Leave it to Robbie Robertson, a Canadian, yet another transplant, to recognize and articulate the beauty of the Mississipi Delta and The Old South, and to write:

“The Night they drove Old Dixie down…”

Extraordinary! I remember my Dad had a copy of “The Band” album. It didn’t do anything for me when I was 15. It sure does now.

Essentially, it captures the feelings of an entire population, The Old South, with just a few words and a few moments of music. It does more to express the pride, determination, and love of the land… than any history book I’ve ever read. I know these feelings first hand because I live in Atlanta for several years, from 5th to 8th grade (1972-1975).

The song literally brings history to life. And that’s why it’s one of the best songs of all time.

The key to online marketing is relevance. Relevance drives both your pagerank and your conversions. The secret to relevance is segmentation and targeting of your offers and messaging. Here is a simple 5-step plan to segment, target, and deliver (1) fresh traffic and (2) interested inquirers and buyers through your website.

We’re not out of the woods yet. It could still snow, and it’s still a little chilly, but at least we know we’re moving in the right direction.

It’s time to clean the yard of the remnants of winter. Time to open the windows and let the fresh air in the house. And time to re-acquaint ourselves with our neighbors after a long hibernation.

 It’s easy to forget. We really do have some fantastic neighbors.

Crisis “schmisis”.

There are still mouths to feed. Mortgages and taxes to pay.

Clevelanders, like most Americans, will do what we’ve always done.

We’ll make the best of things, and we’ll move on.

In the spirit of making the best of things, and of moving on, as well as helping companies make more money and achieve a higher ROI, here is a simple one-page lead generation website that that I built for the sole purpose of promoting the White Paper I wrote the other day in collaboration with some of the most extraordinary Direct Marketers I’ve ever met:

The “Ultimate” High Response Direct Mail Secrets for B2B Demand Generation and Management.

Go to B2B Lead Generation Systems for more information.

Here’s a picture of the University of Texas Longhorns Rugby Football Club visiting Rugby School in Warwickshire, England. That’s me in the lower left hand corner.

We went on a tour in January 1987. It was one of those “Dave Robbins Rugby Tours”, and there were matches arranged on our behalf in (1) Upton-upon-Severn, Worcester (2) Bedlinog, Wales (3) Malvern, Worcestershire, and (4) Tonbridge Wells, Kent. We were tired, wet, cold… and miserable. It was much colder than Austin, and the continental steam was not warming things as much as we had supposed in January.

Duh! I don’t know what we were thinking, but none of us really came prepared for the weather and the elements. In Bedlinog, I remember the clacking of boots hitting ice on the field at the opening whistle, and us having our butts handed to us in a sling. In one game we were absolutely trounced, and  I remember the opposing team singing “50-nil, 50-nil, 50-nil…”

At the time, Pope John Paul was very popular. Anyay, when we got off the tour bus at Rugby School,  with much ceremony, I kissed the ground…, as I joked “Pope John Paul does.”  Well, for anyone who’s ever played Rugby for any length of time (I played about 12 years), Rugby School was hallowed ground indeed.

Many people aren’t aware that Rugby derived from Football [Soccer is called Football everywhere else but here in the U.S.], and that American Football was derived from Rugby. The “distinctive feature” of Rugby is picking up the ball and running with it. The “distinctive feature” of “Gridiron” or American Football is the…” anyone? anyone? …. “forward pass.”

The plaque in the picture reads:

THIS STONE
COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT OF
WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS
WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL
AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME
FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT
THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURE OF
THE RUGBY GAME
A.D. 1823

So, bless William Webb Ellis, and all those who’ve had fine disregard for the rules, thereby creating something new. Including Rugby, including U.S. Footall. It seems like the “happiest accidents” occur because someone trys something new.

And, bless my old buddies that I played rugby with at UT Rugby.

Sidenote: Do you know how they say “You never know who’s gonna show up at your wedding”? Well I invited Chris Brunell to my wedding back in August 2001. He was the only one on the team I had really been staying in touch with. He’s the one on his back laughing in the front right (I think he was laughing about me kissing the ground like the Pope). Anyway, he drove all the way up to Cleveland, Ohio for my wedding, and completely unannounced, brought with him old friends Bill “Flounder” Bartok (2nd from left-top), and Jose Arellaga (not pictured). I was delighted to see them, and it was really nice to have old friends sitting on my side of the aisle (which was pretty sparse since everyone on my side was an out-of-town guest). 

Now that’s friendship!!

Here is a White Paper about using Direct Mail for high-response lead generation.

This 6-page document is using old-school direct mail copywriting techniques, and I’m using the old Army formula of 1) Tell ‘em what you’re gonna tell ‘em, 2) tell ‘em, and then (3) then I tell ’em what I told ‘em. It’s surprising how many people do not do that though. 

To promote it, I (1) featured it prominently on my LinkedIn page, which is really a very cool way to connect with people and let them know what you’re up to, (2) am sending an email blast to about 350 people that I keep in touch with periodically, (3) am creating an online press release on prlog.com, which should create some backwards links for me at the very least, (4) am distributing the same release to my media list, and (5) placed it on all my current on pages that are getting traction for specific keyword phrases like “lead generation cleveland”. 

Also, I tried my best to make it compelling, benefits oriented copy that really sucks them in and agitates the living hell out of ‘em, not a boring treatise or lecture. Lord knows there are enough of those out there. The case study I used is absolutely true. National City Bank spent about $100,000 and reaped billions for a 10,000:1 ROI. With my business partners. Amazing.

What attracted me to DM in the first place was if you could align your budget with achieving specific strategic objectives, and then measure your marketing to know what’s working and what’s not, then marketing becomes a really powerful tool… “a secret weapon”. So that’s the rationale for the title. Making a wise marketing investment, and making money for your company and yourself… that’s always very cool. A fatter paycheck. That’s cool.

The “Ultimate” High Response Direct Mail Secrets for
B2B Demand Generation and Management

Inside…
How you can (1) lower your cost of customer acquisition and (2) drive consistent demand for your products and services using high‐response lead generation formulas exclusively achievable through Direct Mail, and (3) achieve an ROI never‐before‐thought‐possible.
Discover why Direct Mail is more relevant now in 2008 than ever before, and:

• How to increase your response rates from 2%‐5% to 7%‐15% and higher
• The #1 hurdle you most overcome to convert leads to sales
• What the pros like IBM are doing to achieve consistently solid results

To download a copy of the Free White Paper, go to my website at http://www.lesproctordirect.com

The offer is a “Small Business Internet Marketing” Starter Package for $999: An affordable web presence & promotion package, including free web hosting for 1-year.

It’s got a built-in content management system. Also, I also added an automatically updating XML Sitemap to the site, and created an autresponder series called the “8 Simple Steps to successful online B2B lead generation.” I added a Fat-free Shopping Cart on the “Buy Now” page that integrates with my Google Checkout and Paypal Accounts.

 Note: This site went up on 3/18. As of 3/29, all the pages on the site are indexed by Google, and I’m starting to get some traction on the optimized landing pages, including “seo company for small business cleveland”.

Prior to arriving in Missouri, my ancestors lived for a generation or two in Lincoln County Kentucky, when it was still known simply as Kentucky County, and part of Virginia in the mid-1700’s. Before that, the Proctor line goes back to the ship that was essentially dispatched to rescue the surviving settlers of Jamestown colony.

As it turns out my first ancestor in North America (’John The Immigrant’) voyaged to these shores in 1609 aboard the Ship Sea Venture, which was a part of The Virginia Company. The Sea Venture was caught in a hurricane, seperated from its flotilla, and wrecked off the coast of Bermuda. My ancestor, John Proctor and 149 of his comrades built two ships (”pinnances”), ‘Patience’ and ‘Deliverance’ from the debris of the wreckage, and completed the journey, fulfilling the mission and bringing badly needed supplies to Jamestown in 1610. This was the year following the hard winter of 1609 that left only 60 of the original 214 settlers from 1607. In fact he would have been in the same group with, and contemporaries with tobacco entrepreneur John Rolfe, who married Pocahantas, the favored daughter of the Algonquian chief Powhatan.

Shakespeare is said to have written ‘The Tempest” after having been inspired by the accounts of this voyage.

Another one of my ancestors from that era, John The Immigrant’s son, George Proctor, was a small landowner in Henrico County who participated in Bacon’s Rebellion, which is viewed by scholars as the first real colonial uprising.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream–and not make dreams your master,
If you can think–and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;I
f you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!