Yesterday (sorry I was too busy to get this up then, what with yesterday’s unexpected lay-off and all) I heard about this on all of my typical outlets, meaning every radio station I listen to, plus the Internet news.  This viral video features 20 strangers kissing as a first meeting.  The public’s reaction is polar.  Some people say it’s tender and beautiful, even wondering about that spark of instant chemistry … or not … between the strangers, while other people find it to be nothing short of gross.  My dream… my ultimate dream has always been to write something that does that; mine is a different subject (although a close-to-that subject) so this little experiment has me completely reeling in one of those why-didn’t-I-do-that moments!  As a writer, as a creator, I am happy with either reaction.  In fact that’s my goal of my dream project — to create something with two possibilities and no stated answer.  While I wonder if this didn’t cross my path as a message to me to write my own polarizing work that has been in my head since I was 30 years old, from an objective viewpoint, I see this as amazingly powerful because it shows that publicity can be brought and used under our own control. The video is publicity for a Los Angeles-based clothing company, with all the women in the video apparently wearing that maker’s clothes.  No doubt this publicity worked seeing the 30 million views the video has to date.  So my objective take-away is that this sort of campaign could be used for anything.  Why not advertise music that way?  Clearly, the tools to do these things, our own self-marketing, are within anyone’s reach now.  So I really do hope this is a new wave of a special kind of creativity – one where we can bring it directly to the audience without having to be signed, endorsed or promoted by the man.