Some of you may know that I do freelance writing for the Helium writer's website, and today I noticed that I've finally got my first "writing star". Writers get that distinction when the average ranking of all articles they've written is in the top 25%, and additional stars can be earned as more quality articles are submitted.
 

This isn't a big money-maker, and it's not going to get me on the front page of Time magazine, but I've put a lot of time into writing these articles, and I'm happy that folks seem to enjoy them.

If you get the time, please go to http://www.johndurantmusic.com and click on "John's Helium Articles" in the navigation bar on the left. This will take you to a listing of all my articles and you can just click on the link of the articles that may be of interest to you.

Thank you so much for your support!

John

What's up with all of these crybaby guys on Idol? The last contestant tonight was absolutely ridiculous! Is this what America is about?

This kind of blubbering by our young men on national television must make Bin Laden jump for joy when he sees such vivid displays of American weakness! I agree that guys shouldn't be afraid to show emotion now and then for a good reason, but this pitiful nonsense is way over the top!

The other day on the news I saw young Arab children holding AK47's who were being trained by El Quaida terrorists, and not one of them was blubbering like a baby! These children actually have a damn good reason to cry, because their childhood is being stolen from them by evil A**holes. I'm not saying that I admire these children, but when I see how strong they are in the face of death, it really makes me wonder if we're producing generation after generation of frail children totally unable to defend themselves in a very hostile world.

It's time for these whiny little babies to step back and take a look at their behavior, and realize that they have an easy life compared to about eighty-percent of the world. Do their parents have no shame? How can those parents even face their peers in the workplace after seeing their young male children act like this on national television?

Many of our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are the same age as these blubbering American Idol crybabies, and they face danger on a daily basis without crying a river of tears. I think the Idol sissies could learn a lot from our young men and women serving in such dangerous places with integrity, bravery, and honor!    

....and very few tears!

Hello Indie Artists,

I've just started a new Featured Artists area on my website. I want to include this new feature on my site to help give fellow Indie and unsigned artists more exposure, and to direct more traffic to Indie promotional websites like ReverbNation, OurStage, Indie Charts, and other sites geared toward promoting the Indie community.

The Featured Artists pages will include Indie artist music players which provide links that will help drive web traffic to the Indie music sites. I would like to include song reviews, band videos, and a "My Favorites" area which would showcase the best artists.

If you have a profile on any of these sites that have HTML codes for your music players, and want to be incuded on my Featured Artists pages, please contact me or paste your HTML code in my forum, and I'll paste it into my site as soon as possible.

I'm adding the players free of charge, and I welcome  all Indie/unsigned artists to take advantage of this terrific networking and promotional opportunity. Anyone who is trying to use the internet to promote their music through the internet should consider adding a player. We need to help each other out by taking the effort to join street teams and share our web resources to spread the word about our music.

Without promotion even the best music will not sell. The majors have pretty deep pockets to keep their artists in the spotlight, so the only way Indie artists have a chance is by combining their limited resources to provide maximum exposure for everyone.

I welcome all genres of music, and I also welcome artists that are just getting started.  Eventually I'll try to separate the genres of music so that visitors will be able to find the genres that they would be the most interested in.

If we're willing to work together maybe more of us can taste success.
 

Take care,

John