Justin Bieber vs. Patti Smith

Last year, a tourism board blew me off. I was surprised, I used to be on their VIP list. I didn’t want much, some help booking a hotel or two, a media discount, if possible. I’d already booked my plane tickets and my rental car and I was traveling in low season, but they were completely disinterested in assisting me in any way; they couldn’t be bothered to even answer my questions about what was on when I was there.

“Bummer,” I thought, “I guess I’m not a VIP anymore.” I shrugged it off and sold two stories anyway, writing them while I was traveling. It was kind of nice to not feel obligated to the tourist board and to be surprised by finding things on my own.

I don’t get invited on junkets anymore. Any press trips I’ve done in the last two or three years have been referrals  from fellow writers.  “I can’t go, take my friend from Nerd’s Eye View instead” or “Nerd’s Eye View would love your destination, you should have her in.” I miss the best of these trips; they were exceptional adventures, the kind of thing I’d never be able to do on my own. I don’t miss the packed group itineraries or traveling in a hive of media. I’ve met some people I like and been to some cool places but I found it demoralizing. In a collapsing media market, being shuttled about with a group of people producing the same story was depressing.

It’s weird to go from feeling like you’re at the center of things to feeling like you’re at the edge. For a while I was angry about it – and I still have hits of that from time to time. But Patti Smith only had one big hits (Because the Night) and I’d rather be her than Justin Bieber. (Justin Timberlake, though, he seems funny and like he’s having a good time and might not be an asshole. I mean, if you’re going to be a Justin, be Justin Timberlake.) Justin Bieber can sing, sure, but he seems mean and vain and not self-aware. He’s going to end up in some soulless crazy Johnny Depp like disappointing decline and now I’m done with pop culture references, who am I, even?

My point, which I am taking forever to make, is that I was nominated for a National Geographic (UK) Readers Award for Best Travel Blog. I found out when my editor at G Adventures emailed me to tell me she’d voted for me. There I was, along with The Usual Dudes and a few of the usual women. Nearly all of them are deeply involved with brand building and/or strategy and/or blog as business and/or search engine optimization and/or I don’t even know what the Venn diagram of their approach includes. Meanwhile, I’m just writing stuff I want to write, working out my ideas about travel and the world for, well… for you, here you are.  Seeing my blog on this list made me feel a bit Susan Boyle. If you’ve forgotten, Susan Boyle was the frumpy Scotswoman who set the Britain’s Got Talent audience on fire when it turned out that having a voice was all that mattered.

I don’t expect to win the award, I can’t compete with strategists, or those that have a newsletter subscriber base of more than my annual readership, or those that have shopped out the below the surface iceberg work of building Google attracting pages to a content shop in the Philippines (this is a real tactic, I’m not making it up), or, well, I just don’t have the numbers to win anything by popular vote because I’m not popular. But I’m not invisible yet, either, so I would be grateful if you would take a minute and give me your vote.

Or don’t vote. That’s okay too. I imagine Patti Smith –pitted against Justin Bieber — would pick up her guitar, play one deep cut that leaves the room gutted, then go get eggs and toast at a place that serves breakfast all day.

“How was that gig?” her waitress would ask. “Was it weird?”

“Oh, you know. God bless ’em. I can’t control what people listen to, but everyone should make music.”

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To vote, click start at the bottom of this page. You don’t have to fill out the whole thing; you can scroll directly the ‘blog’ section. And thanks.