Rich Connor Singing Webmaster here. Sheesh. As things improve for me, they also get more complicated and demanding. I’ve got ten WORDPRESS websites I’m building and managing. I want to get past the building stage and develop an economical updating strategy… but not yet. I’m working with antiquated computers and zero dollars. This is April 2020 and I’ve lost all my Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chuan students from North Hollywood Park. Even my private lesson students haven’t enrolled yet in the Shaolin Chi Mantis ONLINE KWOON at www.ShaolinInteractive.com since I’m not going to travel or teach lessons in person for a while.
Anyway. This CoyoteRadio.TV website is a dream of mine that requires me figuring out how to make this dream come true. I’ve tested some WordPress templates of similar nature… but I’m not content or established yet. I’d like to be announcing new music videos and cute ways to listen to songs from our Shaolin Records artists… But not yet.
Another Shaolin Records ONLINE RECORD STORE?
The Shaolin Records website was proudly redesigned by me back in 2005. It hasn’t changed since except for adding products. It has the brown bamboo background and tells you the current date in the menu bar. I remember building it at night after teaching classes at the YMCA in Flintridge, California. I rebuilt it in WordPress when I was hospitalized and recuperating from surgery at Martin Luther King Hospital in Compton, California. Yeah, Compton. I’ve got stories to tell. Me, a whitey wandering around the perimeter of the hospital for exercise. All the neighbors kept telling me to get back inside before somebody shot me.
Anyways, I built a WordPress site that was cool for Shaolin Records but Godaddy.com crashed my website. They may have been good for other services, but never use them for hosting. I’ve confirmed this with other web developers. I could explain more… but I was heartbroken when they trashed a dozen of my websites just because they wouldn’t update their server and my WordPress plugins wouldn’t work anymore on their…
So I relaunched the old website, and I still like it. I was rebuilding it because I don’t sell but a handful of albums every year. Just a few. It’s humiliating and discouraging. I’m a one man operation so as CEO and Webmaster I’d replace myself if I could find a replacement (for what I’m getting paid… $Zero.) I tried not to be completely thwarted in my half-dozen years of homeless life. Nobody cared for that excuse, and I didn’t want to admit that a homeless person can’t rise from poverty with hard work and ingenuity. But I think I proved the opposite. A homeless person is doomed to remain homeless no matter how hard they work and no matter how smart they are and no matter how many products they have to sell. That’s not the story I wanted to tell.
Help For the Homeless That Was of Little Help
I befriended my councilman and other representatives and attended all the homeless conferences with political bigwigs and police chiefs and nonprofits and government health organizations. I gave them albums, books, flyers, and 2-sided business cards with plenty of contact information and websites of mine to visit or buy something from… No one helped me.
I was just thinking this morning of a retired marketing director of Sony Pictures. He volunteers every Sunday at one of the churches I went to for many years to get some clothing and free food once per month. He gave me his card advertising his website development services. I got excited. “Help me!” I exclaimed. “Please help me.” I explained to him that I had been building websites but not selling anything on them. I said, “You are an expert. You have experience in websites selling products. Please help me so I can end my homelessness. If I could sell a few books and albums and songs each week I could afford an apartment.”
Well, I’ve called him on the phone and left messages. I’ve texted him with updates when I’ve released a video or posted a book. He hasn’t helped me at all. But he will give me some used underwear and a toothbrush whenever I visit the church. I’m not badmouthing the church. Fact is, it was one block away from my nightly parking spot for three years, so I went there every Thursday for a hot breakfast.
My point is, that I met many people who volunteered to help the homeless remain homeless. I never could find one single person who wanted to help me rise above and escape my homeless life. Not one. I met volunteers from other movie studios and politicians and others who I really believed had some ability to improve my life. When my books are published, my memoirs and poetry and songs from those years, it will be interesting to view this weird void I lived in where people feel good tossing food to the pigeons (homeless people) but really have no desire to improve their lives.
Pray for the Homeless?
Sheesh. How’d I get there? Oh yeah. I was thinking of that Sony Marketing Director who refused to ever help me, give me advice or even spell-check a page on my websites. I really wish people wouldn’t have prayed for me also. Obviously, the God they pray to prefers not to help homeless people also.
Okay. So I’m going to ignore this website for a couple more weeks. I’ve got to do my taxes. I did sell some stuff. I also got more ASCAP royalties in 2019 than ever before. I don’t know which songs of mine are on the radio. Probably, “Cinco de Mayo.” Every year I see a bump in those royalties in my June payments. I tried to capitalize on the Christmas market. I’ve got several Christmas songs and one titled as a “Halloween Release” to garner annual sales… but I’m obviously not a marketing person despite all the college courses, seminars, and business plans I’ve made with the SBA.
In case you haven’t noticed: I’m never going to ‘give up’ and quit. I’m just complaining because my best friend died last month and I’ve got no one to complain to now. I just talked to one of my relatives who has the Corona Virus. He told me, “Oh yeah Rich, I really enjoyed working at the food bank and boxing up food for the homeless people…” I was surprised to hear that since he wouldn’t help me with my phone bill… I was calling him to suggest he find some service to deliver food for him. Ironically, he’s too proud to ever accept donation services (because he owns a house and has stocks and bonds…).
Not Homeless = No More Excuses for ‘Rich the Dreamer’
I ended my homeless life of 2012 to 2019 here in Lancaster. 50 miles north of that church. I just ordered another box of groceries to be delivered to me through my hospital program that got me Section 8 so I could live indoors now. I won’t be visiting that church, and I won’t be asking relatives for help anymore… but I could use some help… I can’t afford the gateway to process website payments and I just went broke purchasing a 10TB hard drive so I can video my Kung Fu classes. My life is finally improving. I’d like to thank people for helping, but the reason I’m here is because of my surgeon’s negligence and malpractice. He messed me up so bad I had to get a better surgeon to fix his surgery. So, if I thank someone it’s gotta be that shmuck who sliced me up wrong and caused me 24-hours a day of misery which ended up putting me in Martin Luther King Hospital where I finally got government assistance. Do I thank him for his malpractice? Without his botched surgery I’d be sleeping in a parking lot right now.
So back to CoyoteRadio.TV This is my dream. It will come true. But not today.