The Current Projects
Barton Police – the online comedy series which is being produced and distributed through my production company, Barton Ct. Productions Inc. is aimed for an August 2010 or September 2010 at the latest release on DVD and we’ll be pushing for a wider distribution beyond a Houston, Texas audience. The show currently has just a little over 5,000 viewers with many of its episodes remaining unseen. Our 9th and final installment to the series is currently under works in addition to the DVD release itself.

Survive, Replicate, Empower: The Science of Humanity’s Improvement – the new book will be complete sometime before the end of 2011. It is a non-fiction title that is entirely meant to be educational and instructional for those seeking a more rational, scientific approach to their self growth and development. This is going to be my ‘flagship’ material – it is POWERFUL STUFF! I’m very excited about its completion.

Upon its completion, this will be the first product that I will attempt to push on major publishers for an unprecedented level of distribution. Of course, while that is the current plan, it is entirely possible the contents of the book may not have a suitable place in the current marketplace (especially with the economy and the books on the top seller lists) and would thus see a smaller release. Its first edition is intended to be paperback.

The Social Solution – a new eBook that is under works which is meant to be a complete reworking of my old eBook entitled Principles of Social Attraction, which also had ANOTHER previous title: Principles of Seduction. Those who purchased Principles of Social Attraction will receive the new reworked edition for free. It will be at least 30% longer with revised content and a much heavier emphasis on social science and empirical proof.

One-on-one training – In the near future, probably within the coming year, I will be taking my personal instruction program far more seriously and will begin seeking new students and clients. Thus far, I have sought to train students on an individual basis for free and have been working on my instructional methods for a while now (almost 4 years).

My training will also focus more heavily on areas relating to the content of my upcoming book (SRE) and behavioral science and their application toward personal development. As a result, my hourly rate and other fees will probably be increased in conjunction with the new book’s release and my graduation with a BS in Psychology from the University of Houston.

So what is to become of some of these other lingering projects?

Dirty Mechanism Apparel is to be postponed until further notice. Unfortunately, my areas of focus have had demands put on them that are too great to really effectively give DMA the attention and energy it deserves. I do hope to one day return to DMA as a legitimate business related project and to provide some really revolutionary ideas in the world of casual fashion but so far I have to focus on my other endeavors.

New Government Project (NGP) here at ScottLee.name is also postponed until after the completion of my new book, primarily because the content of the book drastically affects the outcome of NGP due to the fundamental restructuring of ideas I have had to do in relation to what government both is and how it should function for a society.

Barton Ct. Productions Inc. as a company will be working on establishing Barton Police as its primary flagship material to carry it into further future projects and better goals. We hope to catch the attention of major players in the film making industry with this project and maybe even win a few local film festivals. Still, the primary motivation behind it is to provide something in entertainment people rarely get to see and we have already done that!

Aside from Barton Police, Barton Ct. Productions Inc. will be continued only by the efforts of Stephen Wolfe and other major members of the company during the course of the next 2 years as I pursue my more recent projects. My role in the company will be limited.  There is also the possibility of doing a sequel sort of project to Barton Police which would be a fully funded studio remake to turn the concept into a feature length film. If the remake receives a greenlight, I do intend to return to the project as Producer and to reprise my role as Commissioner Preston Leebo.

Quick Conclusion

Basically, the contents of the book have really caused to me to be inspired to take drastic, massive action toward teaching others what I am learning both through research and experimentation. I may even be conducting some studies in relation to the book’s contents in the near future in order to test and prove the material’s effectiveness. Everything else is going to be pushed aside for now so I can devote energy to making the book what it truly needs to be.

I would like to already, for during this year and all of my efforts, thank my friends, family, and those I love for providing all of the support they have and for continuing to provide that support, I’m going to need it!

And there’s the foundation of where you find the root of your problems in American or even global education. Education consists of left brain functions, for the most part, in which analytical, mathematical skills are highly valued over those of artistic, creative, abstract abilities. The mechanics are more likely to win over the physicists, the technical writers over the novelists. At a very simplistic level, it creates graduates that are geared only toward specific areas and simultaneously weeds out not just the “incompetent” but the exceptionally, creatively brilliant minds as well as those that are simply incompatible with the current system.

Myself, I have always been a huge fan of thinkers like Paul R. Scheele (creator of the PhotoReading Whole Mind System), or Win Wenger who created a method known as Image Streaming which can be used for both problem solving and general creativity. There are literally hundreds or thousands of other educated minds that all would agree there is something wrong with modern education.

So what are some of the ways in which we could go about fixing the entire system? Or, at the very least, since we are powerless to actually completely alter the foundations of education as we know it, develop a school that is better suited to the needs of the creative, the enterprising, the ambitious, the artistic, and the theoretically intellectual? How could we create a school that would do away with the bell curve style model that weeds out some of the most exceptionally brilliant?

Questions like these sound like the system itself sounds when it is first described: simple, yet in all reality entirely daunting. New tests that do not currently exist need to be developed which decipher from the “incompetent” and the “brilliant.” But more importantly: if the incompetent are incompetent then surely there must be some reason why they are the way they are. And on top of it all: surely there must be a way in which their incompetency could be transformed to some level of competency or even autonomy.

Does this mean that all students should be admitted to this school, regardless of their level of commitment? My answer, to be short, is no. I hate to bring up the science fiction world of Star Wars, because I often receive endless flak from my peers for being such a robust nerd, but the concept of the Jedi Knights comes to mind. In the fictional world of Star Wars, the Jedi Knights are a special order of protectors to a galactic Republic. The Jedi are trained with special knowledge of “The Force” which essentially is an energy force that binds all things in the Star Wars galaxy. They are also trained in the form of an apprenticeship with one Master and one Padawan apprentice.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that most readers have at least heard about Star Wars enough to know a bit more of the story, but the idea is the same. Not only do I love the idea of apprenticeship and think it is a great way to create highly specialized citizens who are incredibly valuable to any society, I also think the notion that people can achieve a unique mental state which allows them to help both themselves and others deal with the world in an exceptional way is entirely possible (and you don’t need The Force or any other secret energy binding type thing to do it).

In fact, the whole definition of The Force in Star Wars is an ironic one. It is supposed to be the thing that binds the galaxy together… but all of us are already connected to the entire universe in one way or another as it is. The size and capabilities of the human brain have enabled us to do amazing things. We do not even need computers to do some of the wickedly awesome things we are capable of on our own even though we are so capable of designing computers to do specific things for us. And that is where this school’s development gets its true genius: from the human brain.

A final aspect of the Jedi that I will compare to this school and its admission process would be the issue of age. Jedi in Star Wars are supposed to be born into the Jedi order or otherwise delivered to the Jedi order very quickly after birth to begin their training. Many people today should actually be required to follow this same style of indoctrination. While you can be indoctrinated into maladaptive, negative beliefs I think it is also entirely possible for you to be indoctrinated into positive, uplifting beliefs which allow you to function better in the world.

The school essentially has to function, first and foremost, on sculpting a different model of the world for its students than the students likely have on their own without the school’s influence. While in Westernized society we typically like to think of the period of our lives in which we work and then that work is done with by means of retirement, one of the things this school would teach is the more Eastern idea that retirement simply does not exist. Indeed, much of the research shows that those who do not retire or retire later will have longer lifespans. Another major theme of this school’s change in student thinking will be a sense of purpose.

In my own experience, my older brother was left without a sense of purpose for much of his adult life and the consequences have been highly debilitating. While some would deny the idea, one’s outlook on the world and on life is going to completely determine what sorts of decisions are made for what situations. A higher quality social network also means a higher quality of life. If students could attend a school where each attendee, each teacher, and each member of the faculty were all devoted to a particular outlook on life in which human beings are meant to not just be full of possibilities but actually forming goals and making very real things happen in each one of their own personal lives – the cumulative community effect could be tremendously beneficial.

Friends of mine have often objected to this entire idea claiming that it is going to start some sort of an amateur cult following. I do not believe that it would if enough research, evidence, and scientific principle were there to back up its systems and actual learning content. People have also made remarks to me about the kind of responsibility such an institution would have on its students to which I have responded, “you mean like any institution or university has with its own students as well?” Even major universities have a responsibility for their students and yes, things are far from perfect as it stands.

But a solution such as this one would no doubt be better than what we are currently stuck with. The limitations in this school concept are also seemingly non-existent. Under the general structure and theme of this entire idea you could basically go any direction you desired. Students could explore any area they wished and if we could design the content in a modular sort of fashion any sort of learning could be set up to be explored.

A short list of things modern schools don’t do that a school devoted to human fulfillment SHOULD do…

• Instead of nothing but lectures, notes, and black/white tests students could take alternative routes to obtaining class credits or certifications. For a particular degree type students could choose to become highly specialized in one particular field of study and choose to go straight into researching and contributing something valuable to the field instead of having to go through the excess paperwork. Think PhD without the fluff.
• Physical exercise could be based on lifestyle type, not what research necessarily says about any one particular item in physical fitness. Example: endurance running might be ideal for some but for others the time available in their lives might demand high intensity, short burst workouts instead.
• Nutrition and health would be a huge focus of the school’s goals, based purely on empirical evidence. Nutritional supplements and vitamins and what they do could be part of foundational and basic coursework while mental health literacy could be a major ongoing theme.
• Learning how to learn would be one of the first major things students would go through which would teach various study strategies outside of the norm such as the use of color, visual  learning methods, and different ways of processing information.
• The content in the classrooms themselves would be dynamic and more engaging than ever before. Presentations are meant to PRESENT!
• A huge key to any students success would lie in how they chose to employ their own mental technologies to aid in their thinking for decision making and going about their lives. Mental technologies such as introspection techniques of their cognitive-behavioral tendencies, for example, or neuro-linguistic programming to aid in their own self and social communication habits.
• Improved placement of students based on their learning style, thinking style, and strengths of intelligence. If someone’s natural proficiency lies in visual media then why tell them they should be an accounting major?

But of course, the list could go on and on for several, several pages. These are just a small number of ideas that also touch on extremely broad, detailed topic areas. Intelligence testing and placement has always been a controversial, touchy subject. Intelligence itself is constantly being redefined and reassessed in terms of both how it is measured and what intelligence itself is measuring. While I am a huge fan of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, there are various different schools of thought relating to intelligence.

Over the course of 2010 I will be working on putting together a rough draft of the foundational curriculum for this entire idea and will of course share some of the ideas behind this curriculum here.

Personally, I’ll continue to go through a number of transformations. One project I am working on in the depths and shadows is known as Project: SEA-2, something I’ve already begun writing about on my own MySpace’s blog. Project:SEA-2 is short for Project: Scott’s External Avatar 2, a complete rework of my own externally oriented social presentation and appearance toward the other people around me. Don’t just think weight loss (that would be too simple and plain), instead think possible weight loss plus muscle building plus clothes makeover plus new haircut plus new speech patterns plus new social response mechanisms plus new jokes plus who knows what else! It is a vast, dense re-exploration of social self.

Barton Police
For one, I’d like to get 100,000 viewers for Barton Police, the online comedy series from my production company, Barton Ct. Productions Inc. Hopefully, in pairing with those 100,000 viewers we’ll be able to meet a goal of selling 10,000 DVD’s of the first nine episodes. Things with the series are constantly in motion. Even recently, we were dealing with the issue of one of the cast members possibly quitting. Things continuously get resolved: hardware goes dead and it has to be replaced, the editing workstation fills up with dust and the inside of the case has to be cleaned, one of the lithium ion batteries on the cameras stops holding a charge, and the list goes on and on.

The project has been under works for two years now and has not even seen an entirely completed rough cut, but four completed episodes. We spent a total of three years producing what turned out to be a privately screened 2008 rough cut of our feature length documentary I’m Not Gonna Lie, the movie that attempted to present issues about modern American youth culture.

Dirty Mechanism Apparel
Dirty Mechanism Apparel is to be shut down until further notice. With a recent change in the commission structure that CafePress.com launched last year I am leaving them as a shopkeeper. Where before I could make anywhere from $10 to $12 per t-shirt, I’m forced to now earn no more than around $2.20 per shirt. That’s a fat difference and it adds up quick.

Scott Free Thinking & Previous Books and Printed Works
Scott Free Thinking is going to be relaunched with a different sort of theme. Out of every project I’ve done, it’s odd to think that Scott Free Thinking has actually gotten the most attention. During its peak it received thousands of visitors and it remains a strong source of inspiration for lots of readers around the world. What’s really strange is when old projects you have created yourself become so obscure you actually nearly forget about them. For me, that would point to my old books, The Island of Yellow, Principles of Social Attraction, and of course the two volumes that were released of the Scott Free Thinking Printed Edition. Island of Yellow and POSA will both be revised and re-released when I can find the time for it.

The New Book! …And School?!
For those of you who don’t know, there is a brand new book in the works filled with some of the most revolutionary, incredible content you have ever seen from me. Unfortunately, much of my practical life has become dominated by school work and working hours at a part time job. I’m now quitting that part time job, soon moving into a new place, and then the practical tasks will be freed up slightly, hopefully to write several more pages to this new volume.

The academic pursuits of mine relating to this website such as the NGP (New Government Project) will slowly get completed. It’s tough to keep up with finishing the different writing projects I’ve started over time and also painful to consider that most of the time in a matter of weeks I’ll think up a newer, better idea in place of the original one I’ve begun working on.

In the long term, there are currently two huge things I wish to undertake. One is the creation of a full fledged production studio for Barton Ct. Productions Inc., the other is a school. What kind of school? A wickedly awesome one that functions differently, very differently, than any other place you have likely attended in your life. Think X-Men’s Xavier’s School for the Gifted but not for mutants, realistic, and designed for opening up human potential. (As a side note:  if you happen to think X-Men is an awesome comic book and movie series, then by all means take favor to this analogy. If you do not favor X-Men, replace it with some other form of graphic thought that is analogous to the utmost height of human achievement and quality of living. )

It’s really a controversial thing to open up a place where you say “come here to learn how to live.” But when I think about it, in one way or another, that is what all schools basically do, no matter what background they come from. Universities began breaking open mythology, cult, and religion with scientific studies and in response new cultish schools and religious schools tended to rise up and take their place for those who still preferred a particular way of thinking. At this point in my early thought process, I cannot really see too much of any difference between what my university will appear to be and what all universities have always been in that sense.

One way it might be different is in its research, evidence, empiricism, and rationality while at the same time willing to examine more experimental viewpoints and methods. While most schools like to trash minds that function differently than the majority population and use their traditional and conventional methods of entry and acceptance I’ll have to find some sort of new way of accepting or declining students entry to my school. Unfortunately, I will not be able to base my acceptance rate on a purely numerical formula. This means that at some point, a “bad egg” or many of them will eventually come out of my school. Frankly, I’m not too worried about it. Most universities and colleges today are churning out as many bad eggs as good eggs. Again, it would be a bit controversial to replace eggs with people.

I think I’ve probably already said too much at this point but everything that is controversial in just this short little tidbit will become minuscule in comparison to what I will tackle in my upcoming book. Whether we’re talking about the creation of a school in the future or the training of students in a bizarre collection of mental technologies and tools for human growth – all signs appear to point toward the completion of that book.

Special Thanks Goes To…

Stephen Wolfe for keeping me on top of my game and directing the best comedy show on the internet.

Byron Wolfe for letting us have an amazing environment to use on the show.

Cody Gist for being a good student, applying many of the things you were taught, and improving your own life.

Dr. Ted Roeser for continuing to be my doctor and putting up with my numerous visits, especially during the first half of 2009. Asthma, bronchitis, STD testing, and even just general health inquiries – you helped me be healthy this year. You’ve also taken care of me my entire life and I cannot thank you enough!

Jessica Corey for being my best fran and being there for me and keeping all my deepest darkest secrets. BFF, FW!

Dana Mettam for helping me to realize what I really needed and wanted in life.

Justin Herman for being Barton Ct. Productions Inc.’s starring member and major supporter.

Chris Worrell for continuing to be my friend even when in the past I’ve put you through a lot of pain, producing the music to much of Barton Police, and acting on the show!

Aurora Krog for inviting me out, repairing things when they were broken, and coming to an understanding with me.

Litsa Leigh for learning.

Jessie Worden for being a great sister to Litsa.

Kim Scott for giving me further insight and material for reflection of the self.

Marcy Clark for letting me know I’m attractive and making me look cool when I’m with her in pictures.

Cacee Sexton for continuing to be a reminder to me of how all things in the world are connected.

Roberto Ganoza for being the best server in Houston, or perhaps…EVEN THE WORLD!

Tracy Collins for finding interest in my life and coming up with her documentary idea, and for helping us on the show!

Ben Sparkman for reminding me of how I’ve always been – intense.

Ashley Bentley for being a good friend and making me laugh and smile.

Jennifer Thedford for being there for me, loving me, and believing in me.

Chester Smith, Xavier Flores, Matt Cisneros, John Pandolph, Mitchell Ganey, Michael Gutierrez, Dustyn Whisenant, Michael Perales, James Monaghan, Heather Salinas, Josh Pearson, Sammye Darling, and the rest of the cast and crew of Barton Police – you guys have made an astonishing product!

Much of my time has been spent restructuring the actual physical portions of my belongings. I’ve been experimenting with micro and macro goal setting and it is really working wonders for me, it seems. My schedule is formed first by an entire month and is then developed week by week more and more thoroughly as dates approach.

Recently some old friends of mine have changed in status to no longer being friends. It has been painful after all this time to keep certain people around in my life, and it took me a long time to realize how much certain “friends” have been exploiting and taking advantage of me after all this time. When I felt the relief of cutting ties from them I knew I was doing the right thing.

From now on I’ve made a commitment to give zero tolerance to those what leech off of my hard work, be it the development of a social network, using my friends as candidates for dating, asking me for money, seeking my knowledge for free consultation, or any other number of things that people should not be getting at my own expense, and free of charge for them on top of it all.

At the end of the year, I’ll be posting several special thanks to this site as a way to show my gratitude for a number of different people that have helped me accomplish my goals this year. Looking back on it, this year was incredibly difficult. In fact, 2009 has been the hardest, most testing year of my life.

And I’ll be honest, I can’t wait to move onto 2010. New things await me and my newly changed habits…

So we might have Industrial/Organizational Psychology, which concerns itself with the well being and inner workings of organizations and companies, particularly the human factor in each of those companies. Abbreviated as I/O psych, I/O psychologists ask questions such as: how does employee pay affect an organization’s employee theft rate, if at all? What sorts of analysis methods are best for actually and accurately improving employee job performance? There is definitely a need for I/O psychologists if companies want to take questions like these seriously and have a human workforce. Alright, that is all fair and good with me.

Then we have two fairly closely related fields: clinical and counseling psychology. While clinical is concerned more with the extreme conditions found in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (currently in its 4th edition at the time of this writing), counselors concern themselves more with the day to day problems of the general population. Or, in other words: clinicians tend to investigate people on either side of a bell curve while counselors may assist more with the general, median and average portion of the population, tending to more minor anxiety disorders, problems of insecurities or self esteem, or perhaps just assisting people with more general psychological and mental goals.

No matter what field we are talking about, it is important to understand that the entire field as a whole has a huge problem: it all revolves around someone having a problem and then going to a specialist of some kind to get it fixed. Oh, I’m not debating that these specialists know what they are talking about (I better not say they don’t, I’m supposed to be one of them!), but the important thing to consider is that their model of treatment is designed around well…treatment.

Textbooks like to define personal development training for people as “prevention” in many cases. After all, if you have a set of psychological constructs within your mind that allow you to better manage your emotions and you are less likely to get depression, then we might say that you have performed preventative measures for depression itself. But is that the best way to go about it? Really all you might have received was training for mental well being or even mental growth and enhancement. Should we be calling ordinary personal development training “prevention?”

The fact of the matter is that there is another position in psychology that does not seem to have been invented yet, but I sure hope it gets invented soon, because it is what I dream of doing. In my opinion, there appears to be a growing need for us to put psychological mechanisms into the curriculum of elementary school children that will allow them to better manage their mental processes early on in life. After all, we see the basics of every other science being implemented as part of what children learn when they are at a young age – everything from basic math to reading and writing and even to biology and chemistry. Why not psychology?

Some who are uneducated or operating off century or even half century old stereotypes might argue that psychology is not a real science. Well, I will admit that there are a number of problems with many of the research studies that have been conducted since the beginning of psychology, but many of the most important ones cannot be refuted in any way possible. Ivan Pavlov and his famous “Pavlov’s dogs” experiment is something that the entire world has utilized. Without the concept of classical conditioning we would not see a plethora of different changes that have taken place throughout the medical, corporate, professional, and personal lives of people everywhere.  And thanks to those who are studying behavioral neuroscience, we are continuously getting to see how our personal decisions, constructs, and cognitions are altering our physiological selves. The gap between theory and hard evidence is shrinking every week, and it is making headlines.

When many people come to me with a problem, I have a bad habit of telling them what to do about it. But it seems as though we fancy negativity as a positivity in American culture much of the time. If someone comes to you and they are upset about a problem, suddenly you give them validation and recognition by paying closer attention to them. If you are constantly rewarding negative thoughts with increased attention and compassion but then just give people a simple “good job” when they accomplish their biggest feats, what do you think their emotional state is going to lean toward? The research shows that those who display negative emotion and are rewarded for it will increasingly give more and more displays of negative emotion, but the flip side is also true: positive emotional display that is reward will result in even more positive emotional display.

These are extremely simple concepts, but many children are not being taught them. Perhaps the biggest, ugliest, most embarrassing truth about us as human beings it that the majority of the time we are completely responsible for our own emotional and general cognitive states. We control our own thoughts, feelings, and actions and we hold a responsibility for them. Now, I know that some severe cases come along in a small percentage of the population that might have a chemical or neurological basis for which no amount of will power or simple cognitive alteration will do the trick. I understand that, but for the majority of us? How many of us need to be whining about work when we come home at the end of the day or make excuses for spending money on things we do not actually need when we are trying to save for our retirement?

The amount of problems that you can tend to on your own with the right training is overwhelming. Simple shyness can be overcome with social skills training, bad grades can often be overcome with learning better methods for learning itself, job performance can sometimes be as simple as an attitude alteration or shift in perspective and perceptions, the list can go on and on. What I hope to see is psychological training for people everywhere. We have countless different social networks that are not getting along or not connecting because of their world constructs, businesses that go out of business because of distorted perceptions or bad systems for operating and thinking, individuals that are unhappy when they do not have to be, and so much more. And it is all unnecessary and needs to come to an end.

When could we possibly see a change in our educational system? From what I can tell, not anytime soon. I would place an estimate that American schools will not change until the political system sees a severe change. One of the primary problems with the United States (and probably the world in general) is that it has shifted education down lower and lower on the priority list for years. But an interesting thing has happened within the U.S. military: soldiers are trained on every single aspect necessary to complete whatever work it is they set out to do and they are given that training as a mandate, without question. Soldiers are trained to have a specific set of tools for both their physical and mental states. People need these sorts of things for their lives, not just for protecting their country or going to war, but for living! While I might be going to school to eventually earn a doctorate in psychology, I do not think that everyone should have to in order to learn how to lead a life of good mental health.

So I will go ahead and leave you with this: what can you do on an individual level to help your local community see a collective change in how they place their education and their mental health/well being on a higher priority? How can you equip yourself with those tools so that you may be able to educate others to succeed? If the government is not doing it, and colleges are not doing it, and your employer is not doing it, then we have to start somewhere. The mission, should you choose to accept it, is really up to you. And again, we are responsible for our own thoughts, feelings, and actions. What will you decide?

Join the Dedicaid MySpace group, a group devoted to human empowerment, and respond with your thoughts on this article on the Dedicaid forums! Have you not yet joined? Click here to request entry!

Hopefully at some point soon I will be finishing my new book and writing out some general outlines that will be described here on this website that will talk about what exactly it is I teach and how it is pertinent to those learning it. In the mean time, I’m working on my own personal projects, one of which is one that will probably take a decent deal of time to accomplish. I’m working on saving money for my first place, a new car, and new clothes. In total, the amount I’m wanting to come up with is close to $50,000.

At the same time, I’ll be back to physical training soon, running five days a week and doing a lot of weight training to get in shape for next year. In any case, that’s just a quick update to let you all know what’s going on with me. Barton Police is continuing to release episodes and things appear to be going well with that!

On a quick side note: ScottLee.name has also received a much needed facelift. Here on this website I’m probably going to try to change the direction slightly, to cover my endeavors a little better. The NGP, or New Government Project, is currently on hold while I work on some other things involving my ideas, particularly the new book I’m slowly writing and planning to publish somewhere after I graduate from the University of Houston.

The past three months have been spent socializing, getting to know new people, partying, and working on the internet series. I attempted to get an internship for my degree at one point, but that did not really go through. Too much time past and too few people responded to my inquiries. I’ll keep you updated as things progress!

But some quick updates before I go about the tedious process of completely rebuilding and rewriting this website: Barton Ct. Productions Inc. is going well and we’re releasing both a documentary and a 9 episode comedy series this summer to be freely viewable on YouTube. Dirty Mechanism Apparel is going to be relaunched as a full blown brand down the road but how much time that will take remains to be determined. My personal development blog, Scott Free Thinking, has been done for quite some time. I’m working on two new books: one a novel and the other a non-fiction work, along with a screenplay. I’m not officially announcing that any one of these works will even be finished or completed ever, or any time soon, but they’re in the works as I write this.

I’ve spent the past two weeks writing and thinking, partying and laughing, crying and screaming, singing and playing. It’s been a very intense time period for me and has opened up a lot of new revelations. The events of 2009 have spawned a drive, a motivation, and yes: yet another new project of sorts that will set about to completely change the way I do absolutely everything in my life. My personality and even my clothes will probably once again change as this change gets set about.

I wish there was more to say with this blog entry, especially considering how long it’s been since the visitors to this website have seen anything from here, but unfortunately there is little more I can really announce at this time. Stay tuned.

Recently last year, Barton Ct. Productions Inc. began receiving the benefits of Dirty Mechanism Apparel’s income, and this year we have begun to make a renewed effort to keep the brand growing, changing, and interesting. But when you go from making anywhere from $7.00 to even $15.00 per t-shirt to making closer to $2 to $2.50 because of a giant corporation’s decisions without the consideration of the artists, it begins to put a damper on the whole spirit, and profit, of Dirty Mechanism itself. Instead of earning the full markup set on a product, we’re now forced to earn 10% of THEIR decided retail price on marketplace sales. When they are pricing their t-shirts anywhere from $20 to $25, that means not even $3 earned per t-shirt.

It’s funny, because not even two years ago they were recommending to all shopkeepers: mark your shirts up at $7.00, not $2.00! Why? Because people will buy it, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one with sales figures to prove it. While Dirty Mechanism’s overall sales were down 16% in 2008 over 2007, it’s easy to point to a bad economy and a lack of new products to that downhill slope. The recent comebacks we experienced in March and February also show that we were certainly capable of turning those sales figures around.

Now, Barton Ct. Productions Inc. is going to have to rely on some different source of income, and my brand of clothing remains in jeopardy. It is possible that I may go with another on demand service to continue producing t-shirts and making money, but it is also doubtful that the sales generated through other services will match the sales I have received over time from CafePress, and that is why they are getting away with it. It is only business, and they are lowering the price on the shopkeeper’s end instead of lowering their base prices.

So cross your fingers if you’ve liked DMA. There’s a chance it will either never be the same again, or there’s also a chance we may shut down the store entirely. And you can give thanks to CafePress.com’s new policies. If the ladder happens, then the only way DMA would re-emerge is with a fat chunk of start up capital (which will probably not happen), and at that point the entire point of an on demand production model is defeated entirely.