The Writer's Life 5/23 - Pop

Pop culture is endlessly fascinating, especially in the age of the internet. There is a new phenomenon generating interest at youtube. A thirtyish mom at the wheel of her parked SUV, fresh from Kohl's department store, shot a video of herself donning a Chewbaca mask, and falling into uncontrollable laughter. It has received 1,626,572 hits as of a few minutes ago. Radio host Mark Simone mentioned it this morning. The video sparked a run on the product, which sold out. Appreciative managers at the store where she bought it made a surprise visit to her home, bearing gifts, many of them related to the iconic film. Although I'm not a fan of the Star Wars series, I love the way stuff like this happens in this great country. Here's a link to the video, which runs four minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3yRv5Jg5TI
And here's the Top Ten All-Time youtube hit generators according to a March 2015 article at businessinsider.com:
Psy: Gangnam Style, 2.15 billion views.
Justin Bieber: Baby, 1.12 billion.
Charlie Bit My Finger: Again! 804 million.
Jennifer Lopez: On the Floor, 794 million.
LMFAO: Party Rock Anthem, 777 million.
Shakira: Waka Waka, 774 million.
Eminem: Love the Way You Lie, 771 million
Psy: Gentleman, 759 million.
Miley Cyrus: Wrecking Ball, 725 million.
Katy Perry: Roar, 708 million.
I guess I'm really out of step with the times. I've never seen any. I'm not even sure I've heard any of the songs, at least not enough times to recognize even one. I do recall that there was controversy regarding Psy, but I don't remember the specifics. There are ten video clips on my channel, five of them various stages of ads for my books, reworked after a new one became available. My totals view are about 500, 317 of a street interview I did for Della Peppo Village, a half-hour show on a Brooklyn cable access channel. I feel dwarfed.

And from Star Wars let's go to "where no man has gone before." While operating the floating book shop today, I was approached by a former customer who now reads books on her computer. Maryann asked if I'd be interested in helping her clear some space in her place by accepting books. She said she had hardcover first editions of the Star Trek series. "Whoa!" I said. "You should be thinking about selling those on Amazon." I did a little research at the site and found Prime Directive by Garfield and Judith Reeves-Steve listed for more than $2400. That seems like the exception. Shadows of the Sun by Michael Jan Friedman seems more representative of the value, listed at $22. Still, that's nothing to sneeze at and certainly not something to be given away. We'll call it even if Maryann downloads the books of mine she has yet to read.

My thanks to the kind folks who made purchases today on Bay Parkway. About half the beautiful pictorials that were donated recently have sold.

Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
Vic's Short Story Collection: http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tiny.cc/0iHLb Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

Website: http://vicfortezzaauthor.my-free.website/