lowelldown

Hello everyone!

I’m off to NYC next week for yet another round of press stuff—the last for a while. I’m gearing up for desk-side interviews with editors, doing Martha Stewart radio, meeting with new product vendors and awarding some prizes (and a brief design consultation to a deserving small business) in the greater NY area…and who knows what else they have me booked for. I keep telling myself “it’s all good” and a small price to pay for living here in Santa Fe. So far the balance of extremes (solitude and spotlight) are working just fine.

We’re building the new production sites as we speak for “Ask CL” so I’ll let you know when we’re up and running. In the meantime, I’m trying to learn how to work these very expensive cameras I brought with me to SF from LA. I keep loaning ‘em out to production crews but have never taken them out of the cases for myself. I know—he writes, produces and stars—and now films? LOL, well I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to—but here’s why…

As part of the new series, I’d like cameras set up 24/7 in my home so that when the mood strikes me, I can sit and communicate with you all without having a full crew in my home breathing down my neck. I often get inspiration at the end of a long day, having decompressed. That’s often when I’m thinking, “Gee, I should have taped that,” or “Gee, that’s what I really wanted to say!” Plus, I know many of you on Twitter have been asking that I offer some of the recipes from my “killer” (as you put it) dinner menus which I often tweet about nightly.  I somehow never feel up to ‘demo cooking’ (step-outs require that you make the meal three times in various preparation stages) but, if cameras are already set and I can run ‘em by remote, perhaps I’ll get some of these fine, quick and easy dishes in the can for you all—meals I’m actually cooking for myself.

In addition, we’re thinking about adding a few features on the show that are clearly not “produced” but evident that they’re shot on the fly just between me and you. Kind of like Justine Bateman’s YouTube videos that my sister sends me from time to time—except not done directly on the computer. Check this installment out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAKlyMtjVmQ&feature=player_embedded#

I will however be a bit less colorful with my language! However, I love her message and hope her swearing doesn’t offend anyone. So, after 15 years of production there’s always something else to learn!

I know many of you have communicated that you’re trying to get up the nerve to reinvent yourselves. Some of you I’ve been directly advising and encouraging to move forward with your great ideas. Often hard times become the catalyst to birthing new ideas and this economic downturn is no exception. Entrepreneurialism is actually up a whopping 10% from only 2% in the last five years—staggering!  But it shows that when we lose trust in what we thought would be done for us, we then take matter back into our own hands—which is how it should always be. And, BTW, most of the folks who are sharing ideas and really making a dent have no capital either—just strong ideas and belief in their voices and points of view. With the internet we can all now find audiences we could not have before.   But it takes work and pushing through all the “I can’ts” too. It’s all you folks willing to put yourselves outside your old comfort zones that will shape the thinking of tomorrow.

You can do it!

Later,

CL