A Delicious Irony?

Has anyone ever heard of a long-distance, East-West Relationship that succeeded?

Now they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder
And that tears are only rain to make love grow
Well my love for you could never grow no stronger
If I lived to be a hundred years old

Words never rang so true as when the late, great Roy Orbison crooned those heart-rending lines to all of us, lo these many years ago. Little did I know then, that one day I might live those words that once seemed just so much philosophy and wisdom, but now seem to be life itself.
I'm sure that you, my regular readers, clients, and friends, will be a tad surprised to find out that Pat has contacted me once again. Shocked is more descriptive of my initial reaction, you may be assured - shocked indeed.

Yes, absence does seem to make the heart grow fonder, or so I'm coming to believe, albeit somewhat reluctantly. What with my frequent trips across the country to participate in bi-athlons, pent-athlons, and extreme rock crawling, I've found that the offices here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC, humble though they be, are a welcome haven when at last I return home.
Somewhat similar feelings seem to be starting around other areas, and regarding other people as well. I can but imagine your surprise as you read the words I am about to type, but imagine (if you can!) my own surprise at being able to type them: Pat may be back in my life.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this yet, but we here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC do nothing if not drop grudges as events make evident that they ought to be dropped - and events seem to be conspiring to indicate just that.
No, Pat's not been re-hired, not by a long-shot! In fact, Pat's relocated to the West Coast, pursuing a life-long dream to get into screen-writing and other creative endeavors. Rather than allowing our former relationship to recede along the banks of Lethe, the added distance seems to have, as the song-writer would have it, made the heart grow fonder. Whether anything will come of this, only time will tell, of course. Still, I'm hoping for some "pointers" or "guidelines" or other "advice" from my friends and readers. Can these long-distance relationships - crossing time zones! - ever really work?

As we head into the "holiday season" - with Thanksgiving hard upon us! - I'm sure many of our thoughts are turning to turkey (or tofurkey if one is so inclined), pumpkin pie, and football. Well, my thoughts are more likely to be turning back - recalling days reclining in front of the fire on a bearskin rug with a loved one. Perhaps my thoughts are turning to mush, but perhaps that's where they really have always belonged!?

At any rate, more marketing musings coming soon, and thanks for being there for me.

Last time, Jay wrote about returning home from China and granting a paladin's wish:
Holger Dansk responded:
"Allowing a commie un-civil servant to take your sword away makes me wonder how much you really know about paladins and such, Jay. I know I would never have suffered such indignity without at least threatening mayhem or worse..."


Ah, Holger, my friend, if only it were so simple. I fear that a rapier is no shield against the machine guns the airport guards began wielding for the Olympic period. Still, I admire your spirit, and match it fully with my own - Excelsior!

-- Jay

Holiday Greetings

& other updates on life, business, love, and marketing - not necessarily in that order!

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Kwanzaa! Blessed Whatever!

The solstice is here, and it's time once again for my biennial year-end holiday update on life, the universe, and everything^TM, to coin a phrase. As always, I ask you to accept my apologies for this seemingly impersonal format for my "holiday" message; viz a group email [or an entry to a blog on the "internet" for that matter! -Ed]. Rest assured that I do this only out of respect for our great e-postal workers, who must be up to their virtual eyeballs in electronic greetings at this time of year. It is in their honor that I refrain from introducing individually formatted and addressed missives into the POP or SMTP streams.

There are simply too few full-motion-capable beverage dispensing machines (for now!) to reach each and every one of you with my personal best, and other than my sister, Kay, I didn't think many of you would appreciate a greeting running on Gas Station TV (oh - the odor, oh - the humanity!).


As you know, this has been a momentous year for us here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC. Not only have we been quite successful in a business sense, but it has turned out quite nicely for most of us personally as well (Pat's been sacked!).

With the writers' strike dragging on, there had been some talk about moving the air-date of the "Who Wants to Be a Pent-Athlete?" up to fill some potentially dead air. While many of my friends and family seem fit to burst with waiting for this program to air, it's still a bit unlikely, given the program's tie-in with the Olympics in Beijing (Peking to me!), none the less, we'll keep you apprised of any changes.


On a somewhat personal note, I'd like to congratulate my sister, Kay, on her marriage this year to her long-time sweetheart, J. Alden Miles. (As an aside, I urged her most strongly to hyphenate her last name, but she decided to go with Kay Miles, rather than my preferred Kay Miles-Standish - there's no accounting for taste, it seems!) We are fortunate to be able to say that the wedding went off with a hitch (it wouldn't be much of a wedding without one, now would it!?), and we look forward to many more Miles as their family grows.


It's been some time since we've had a national tour of our marketing seminars, and we're planning to remedy that in the upcoming year. In fact, we're looking to expand beyond these United States (!) and to share our thoughts and guidance with our friends to the North (that means Canada for those of our readers not in the geographical know). Current thinking puts us in Camden, Alpharetta, Madison Heights, Ada, Breckenridge, Fullerton, and Sammamish, returning via Chilliwack, Lethbridge, Brandon, Sudbury, and Halifax!

As always, we'll be looking for some forward-looking marketers as co-sponsors of the tour, and we'll keep everyone informed as we make progress with our tour dates and venues.


Finally, speaking of forward-looking, we're looking forward to receiving holiday notes, wishes, updates, and (dare one hope?) goodies for some or each of you. Please know that Jody and I (and all of us here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC! - including Bailey in Finance, who was somewhat upset at being referenced simply as "my bookkeeper" in an earlier newsletter - sorry, Bailey! hope this can help clear things up as the year ends!) wish you and yours the very Happiest of Holidays.

Excelsior!
Jay

Last week, Jay wrote about product integration in comic books:
Steve Kirby responded:
"At first, I was outraged at the idea of one of our heroes 'selling out' to The Man, but then I realized that we've all sold out to The Man in some way. Maybe letting Luke Cage have a favorite BBQ sauce for his ribs isn't such a bad thing, still ..."

Thanks for the kind words, Steve. I know these product integrations can be a difficult hurdle over which to leap: especially at a single bound! Still, once we realize that readers look to these characters for guidance, it seems even worse to tell them to buy generically-named non-brands of anything, doesn't it? I thought you'd see it my way!

-- Jay