Congrats Dash On 3,350 Fans Online!

Wow! Congratulations d-c.org!! A new online record set again! 3350 fans at once were online here on the Dash. I'm sure people were wondering about where David was during the Idol Finale and were looking for information here -- plus each new Idol Finale reminds us all of that glorious moment when David Cook won in May, 2008.

David Cook's winning moment:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h616-b0pKPw

This year, David was at a Kansas City charity event for Shadow Buddies (local children's cancer charity). Here's the link to his video message about it, posted the day before the 2010 Idol Finale:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi-XcnRTgBA

You can also catch up with David by checking his twitter page here: http://twitter.com/thedavidcook
NEMO

World Voice Day Twitter For David Friday Apr 16

Twitter campaign for David Cook, the Race for Hope, and World Voice Day April 16
Friday April 16 is World Voice Day. Help us spread the word and help David Cook raise more funds to fight brain cancer with this Twitter campaign. Anytime Friday is good, but we are focusing especially on 7-10PM EST. Make sure your tweet includes David Cook (full name) Race for Hope (full name) and #worldvoiceday. We suggest the following, which is short to encourage re-tweeting:

David Cook gives a voice 2 the fight against cancer. Donate to Race for Hope & help find a cure http://bit.ly/7HRMY9 #worldvoiceday

http://bit.ly/7HRMY9
The link in the tweet above goes to David's Race for Hope DC page. See you on Twitter! (NEMOCookFan there)
NEMO

Vote On Vh1: Win Declaration Tour Live Cd!

UPDATE: New Contest, New Prizes, More Chances Week of Aug 29- Sept 4
Come Back To Me has nearly made it into the prestigious 20/20 club on Vh1 -- just 2 more weeks, but the competition is VERY TOUGH right now -- and we're number 18 this week!

This is a fan-sponsored incentive to get everyone involved in helping David and CBTM win this outstanding recognition!

WHY: This is the only vote David has personally asked us for since Idol – it must be important to him!
WHAT: Vote for Come Back To Me on VH1’s Top 20 Videos Countdown site
WHERE: VH1 link
HOW: Just follow on-screen directions at VH1 – vote over and over -- for more ways to help, see below
WHEN:NOW – for 2 more weeks, then CBTM will be retired in GLORY, having been listed for 20 weeks on the Top 20 Countdown – we can help David achieve this rare honor! It will likely mean more resources and support for future magnificent videos!

This contest is being coordinated at DavidCookOfficial.com (DCO). I love the DASH, but we gotta keep it simple! I will stop back here to check this strand for questions or you can pm me here or on DCO.

Contest description: This week, at least THREE Declaration Tour live concert CD's will be given away by drawing names from a fedora. You can be entered in the drawing each time you vote 200 times on VH1 Top 20 Countdown. (CBTM is about 4 minutes long – I can get 30-50 votes in during one time through). You must log into the contest strand on DCO and report your votes each day – each time you log 200 votes, you receive another chance in the drawing. You can log in more than once a day for more chances, and you don’t have to enter every day in order to participate. PLEASE be honorable for David’s sake and report your votes accurately. You must have your votes posted on the concert strand at DCO by the end of this week’s contest: Friday Sept 4 at 11:00 PM CT (12:00 ET). The winner will be announced there on Saturday.

To be clear: please post once ON DavidCookOfficial.com for each 200 votes, to make it easier for pweller7 to keep track of your entries. State in your post that you have voted another 200 times.

Use the link below to access the contest strand on DCO, esp if you're not familiar with navigating over there -- just scroll to the bottom and add your post. You must be registered on DCO in order to post comments.
DCO VH1 Voting Contest Link CLICK HERE!!

TO DO THE MOST GOOD: please do the following to help keep CBTM on the Top 20
1) Register on VH1 so that you can A) rate and comment on CBTM, and C) put it in Favorites
2) Vote repeatedly on Top 20 Videos page (Rank’em again)
3) Run the video from the VH1 site continuously in the background of your computer while you are doing other things. It will go back and forth on it's own between CBTM and LO vid, which is fine. Mute if necessary while you do other stuff! We think this generates ad revenue for VH1, so they pay attention to it.
4) Get more people to register on VH1 and comment on the CBTM video
5) Visit David's VH1 Artist Page (over and over)
6) and/or search his name on VH1
We need to do more than vote -- we need to make it apparent that there is a LOT of interest in the vid itself on the VH1 site where they generate ad revenue – let’s show’em a David Cook Fan Firetornado!!!! (hee) What do we have to lose but a little time?

THE PRIZE: David Cook Live Concert CD! Winner’s Choice from 2 Live Concert Recordings
We know you vote because you love the VOICE, the MAN, the MUSIC and want to support David’s career. BUT, here’s additional incentive, just for the fun of it. The winners of the drawing will receive their choice of one CD of a live concert recording from the Declaration Tour performance at 1) Cedar Falls, Iowa (Feb 19), University of Northern Iowa OR 2) Rolla, Missouri (April 27 ). In both cases, these are directly recorded audio files, not ripped from video. None of these MP3's has ever been posted, so this is a chance at something special. These concert recording includes most banter. Both nights, David was in great voice and great spirits!
PRIZE ONE
It’s all good, but choose this one if you still crave a good recording of David and the EEB doing Man In The Box or an over the top performance of My Last Request!
Track List for Declaration Tour LIVE CD, Cedar Falls, IA: 14 songs, lots of banter
1. Heroes and Mr. Sensitive
2. I Did It for You
3. Life on the Moon
4. Declaration
5. My Last Request
6. Hot For Teacher (cover)
7. Permanent
8. Kiss on the Neck
9. Billy Jean (cover)/Man In the Box (cover)/Light On
10. Bar-ba-sol
11. A Daily AntheM

PRIZE TWO
OR Choose this one if you are in need of a great live recording of the less often performed Anodyne or Avalanche:
Track List Declaration Tour LIVE CD: Univ of Missouri Science and Technology, Rolla, MO: 13 songs, lots of banter
1. The World I Know (partial)/ Heroes
2. Mr. Sensitive/We’re Only Honest When We’re Sleeping (unreleased)
3. Axium banter/Kiss On The Neck
4. Rolla banter/Lie/Anodyne (MWK)
5. More Anodyne-Rolla banter/Avalanche
6. Little Lies (cover)/Declaration
7. Banter (David Cassidy)/Come Back to Me
8. Encore: Light On/Bar-ba-sol

Note: In order to receive the CD, the winner will have to provide a surface mail address (via personal message to NEMO Cougar) AND agree not to post these MP3’s on the Internet.

Okay, now go vote like crazy, and report back here in order to be entered in the drawing!! Good luck!

The Happiness Effect:

For awhile now, I’ve been thinking about the emotional connections that seem to develop in this online group of fans and friends as well as our shared emotional connection to David Cook. I’ve seen person after person write something to the effect that they don’t understand and can’t explain the connection they feel (David, too: “I feel you closer than you are”). I know personally, it’s not a crush – I don’t study his physique, I don’t care what kind of deodorant he uses or what he eats for breakfast. But am I fascinated by this man? Yeh. Do I feel down when I think he’s down and up when I think he’s up? Yeh – but even that makes me feel ridiculous sometimes – I mean really, this person named David Cook is NOT part of my real life. Or is he?

Last December there was an interesting piece in Time Magazine about the Happiness Effect, recently described by a team of British researchers. Here’s an excerpt:

In their most recent paper, published in the British Medical Journal, Christakis and Fowler explored the emotional state of nearly 5,000 people and the more than 50,000 social ties they shared. At three points during the long study, all the participants answered a standard questionnaire to determine their happiness level, so that the scientists could track changes in emotional state. That led to their intriguing finding of just how contagious happiness can be: if a subject's friend was happy, that subject was 15% more likely to be happy too; if that friend's friend was happy, the original subject was 10% more likely to be so. Even if the subject's friend's friend's friend--entirely unknown to the subject--was happy, the subject still got a 5.6% boost. The happiness chain also worked in the other direction, radiating from the subject out to her friends.

. . . there's a predictable topography to how people influence one another, one that can be reduced to a sort of social map. People who are central to their networks--who in effect are the hub through which most of the other relationships or information flows--may have the most influence on others and in turn are the most influenced by them.

Here’s the link to the entire piece:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...65960-2,00.html

The point is, there is a phenomenon that is now identified that shows how our own emotional states affect other people – even people we don’t know. I don’t know about you, but for me this is intriguing and helps explain what happens occasionally here on the Dash and on DCO (the joy and the sorrow and the anger and the angst and the giddiness all seem to spread like wildfire!).

Of course I love DC’s music and his voice and I listen to it more than I’ve ever listened to any other. But now I think I was feeding on this young man’s joy when I first got hooked – it was just so much FUN to see someone’s dream coming true. For a year now, I could log on and pretty much count on finding something happy and good, and that is addictive.

If you’ve been feeling down this week (haven’t we all??) then revisit those first wonderful days – I highly recommend the Idol Tonight interview with Kim Caldwell the night of the finale – one of my all-time favorites. David is exhausted but so well-spoken and amazing. Watch this and it will remind you that he (and the rest of us!) will be fine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJNDpln2j2I

That was a year ago – what about now? Well, here’s a charming interview with a totally cookified reporter at the Sunfest in West Palm Beach May 2, 2009. David said he was in one of the best places mentally of his whole life and it shows: (gracias, Brazilian Word Nerds!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2mfhSPsz4

Are you hard-core bummed right now?
1) go light a virtual candle at: http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/enter.cfm?l=eng
2) Double-dare you to watch the Disney commercial and not end up with a smile on your face (and just listen to that beautiful voice):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzvitWFHM-w

Bottom line: Far be it from me to minimize or deny the pain of this week. It’s caused me to think about the people close to me and to be sure they know how important they are in my life. But I’m also trying to learn about how my new group of online acquaintances affects me and how my bond with DC works. Whether HE knows it or not, David is at the center of a vast emotional network, and his ups and downs influence us whether WE realize it or not – in fact, through us they are influencing OUR friends and family, who aren’t even tracking the Cook saga. AMAZING but probably true – SO, now that we know, we should deliberately spread some joy.

And oh yeh – don’t miss that last point in the article – people at the center of emotional networks are also MOST INFLUENCED by others – we need to stay positive and send some happiness out – to each other, and to David. Watching the tapes, you can see that he gave and received lots of support, hope, encouragement, and affection at the Race for Hope. We need to keep the interactions online positive when we can, vote on VH1 Top 20, make radio requests, keep the faith. No doubt he appreciates our sympathy, our support for the cause, our concern for him.

But maybe the most important thing we can do is consider what kind of feelings we’re projecting onto others in our extended Real Life and online networks. Let’s not make David carry the happiness burden alone. We CAN smile. We CAN help.

Take a minute just to breathe. Everything will be alright (EBA).

Can’t wait to see what the rest of you think of this Happiness/(un)happiness Effect idea. Do you see evidence of it?
NEMO Cougar

Take This Small Confession As My Price To Pay--

Rob Cavallo is the producer of David Cook’s “self-titled” album. I hereby admit that I’ve been pretty hard on Mr. Cavallo – I haven’t written anything absolutely rude, but – well, I’ve been a little snotty at the very least. I listened to Light On and I didn’t hear enough David – I concluded that Mr. Cavallo may know a lot about producing records (he certainly has the credentials) but that he didn’t get David Cook or his incredible voice.

I was sorta stuck there till about a week ago, when I listened to a pre-David Cook interview with Rob Cavallo that Travis posted in the radio interview strand (see link below).
http://www.david-cook.org/Interview-With-R...llo-t15141.html

I highly recommend it to everyone interested in David’s new album . . .and maybe the next album and the next album. The interview is long – about 30 minutes – and it’s the story of how Rob Cavallo came to be a record producer and his philosophy. When it was over, I could only think one thing: he sounded like he could be a kindred spirit for DC. He’s definitely a Word Nerd, and definitely someone who regards record-making with the same reverence and excitement as David. I started to think I might be wrong about Rob Cavallo. Maybe he could do David justice in this important role.

Then, I heard David sing Declaration on SNL. Oh my. Then, a day or so later, I heard the snippets of the new album, just minutes after they became available. Oh my.

So, Rob Cavallo, I still haven’t really heard David’s new record, but I’m ready to apologize now. I take back all the smart remarks I thought and wrote about wanting you to lay off the mixer in the recording studio and go back to sipping your California chardonnay.
I get it now – it shines through loud and clear, even in 30 seconds snippets – this is David Cook, and you helped him make it happen.

I think the two of you made a record that’s not merely great, and that WILL make the hair stand up on the back of my neck, will exhaust me to listen to, and will inspire and thrill me for years. For now, it seems likely that your musical partnership with David is also the beginning of a wonderful friendship that we will all enjoy the fruits of for a long time. So, thanks Rob Cavallo. And --- sorry about that.
NEMO Cougar