Russell C. Smith,a Biznik member, is a Freelance Copywriter based in Seattle. He specializes in creating new and refreshed website content for businesses and organization by finding the unique aspect of a company’s voice to make them stand out on the web. Russell has been a Creative Marketing Copywriter for over 10 years, working with local and national clients. In addition to writing website content, he creates email marketing messages, sales brochures and letters, and just about everything under the umbrella of marketing content.
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
~ Oscar Wilde
When I first met Rags Madison back in October of 2008, we were both new to Biznik, and I immediately knew he was an interesting character. He wore a deep tan, evening wear with no socks and a bright and inviting smile to networking events. We’ve crossed paths many times over the past several years (including several enjoyable First Thursday Art Walk rambles), and recently his name came up as quite possibly “the Most Dangerous Man on Biznik” and I asked him why. Another Biznik member (Massage Therapist, Sierra Kennedy) had hosted a series of “Take Someone Dangerous to Tea” networking events, and Rags may have been the most dangerous person to have attended these events. Certainly not dangerous in the sense of scary, but in regard to his out of the box thinking. He openly discussed business models designed to radically change minds, sprinkled his conversations with sermons on life and spirituality, and to add some spice, tossed around insider anecdotes concerning Hollywood celebrities, Washington D.C. politicians, and famous business people he has known. Sometimes, you just want to know more…
You’re always so positive and upbeat? What’s your secret?
I’ve taught myself to be positive since I’m really so pessimistic underneath it all. I remind myself to smile and I change my body posture all the time. I constantly reinforce the positive energies inside myself and go against the fact that underneath it all I’m a skeptic. I learned that I have to be as positive as I can be, because I see the things coming at us in the world, and if I told people what I saw or noticed, they’d just wig out.
What makes you the most Dangerous Man on Biznik?
First of all because I’m so open and honest about my past. I tell people things about my life that others might keep secret, like that I used to be a male prostitute, and only completed the ninth grade in high school. I studied to be a minister, and I was in the adult entertainment industry. Rather than be hypocritical about it and try to hide these facets of my life and personality, I can reconcile having these sides to myself in one lifetime. When you have those type of radically different poles in your life narrative, many people have a tough time trying to make sense of it
We’re all living multiple lives in the modern world. What are a few of your current lives?
There are the lives I’m presenting to the public, the first of which is my current rent-a-butler business, which came after what I call my Year of Living Unconditionally, and the second one is letting the cat out of the bag perhaps sooner than I should, but what I’m pursuing right now is working with celebrities as part of their management team, and to this end, I think the Year of Living Unconditionally helped me tremendously to understand some things first.
Rags Madison
What is the Year of Living Unconditionally?
When you met me in October 2008, and I’d just joined Biznik, I was still doing angel investor type work, helping out wealthy clients. During this period, I decided to explore human sexuality in the same way that I’d explored spirituality, and this whole idea of both my spiritual talk and my sex talk are really putting together both of these ideas as languages, and most people haven’t yet thought of them as languages. I went through that for about a year, and I noticed that in primary sexual and gender relationships, there were a lot of conscious or unconscious considerations taking place, mostly around who is the financial support and who is the nurturer. Who is supporting the relationship financially is a huge question around sexual relations in our culture, especially since the role of provider has so drastically shifted over the last half century or so. I started attending
Al-Anon meetings a few years ago and I listened to narrative after narrative from people who were having struggles about power in relationships, about who was the financial supporter and who was the nurturer, and I began to realize that I had to explore the idea of unconditional love because so many of the stories I was hearing were based on relationships as transactions. People were with other people because of transactional purposes, but they just didn’t want to admit it. So about 18 months ago I decided to find out if it was possible to love someone unconditionally, to love them so much that I’d be willing to make breakfast in bed not only for her, but for who she slept with the night before. Right? And wink at both of them and say, “I hope you guys had a great time.” Can you love someone that much, so you’ll completely submit yourself to the process? I think it’s almost Christ-like, even asking the question, “Can you love many people at the same time unconditionally?”
If you wrote down a word of advice to solo business owners in Seattle on a post-it note, what would it say?
Create the forms that will work for you. For years I’ve had forms, and I’ve developed my own methodologies. My advertising and PR clients knew what they wanted. So think focus, think opportunities. And requirements. What are the requirements you need to make anything happen? A new business venture, a new phase in your life, anything. Do you need more self-esteem, an infusion of cash? Whatever it is, measure it. What are some of the milestones or measurements that you want to hit? What is your number? What is your beginning or your exit? Never begin a business without asking what’s my exit? Don’t just ride it as long as you can. Otherwise you’re on a Titanic of your own making, your own imagining. You’ve dreamed up the Titanic, financed and built the Titanic, sailed on the Titanic, and if things get tougher down the line, assuming you live long enough, you will have been rearranging the deck chairs on your personal Titanic. And you’ll hit the damn iceberg and you’ll die. So many people feel like they are what they do, but that’s not really the case. Many people have been defeated by these ideas. Have more than one or two or half a dozen interests and dreams during your life and change before someone or something outside your life makes you change.
Being a serial entrepreneur, what advice would you give to someone just beginning on a similar path?
What do you love? The secret to life, and especially the secret to being in business for oneself is to realize that in many ways your mind is a puzzle-solving mechanism, so the people best suited to begin businesses are the ones who have developed the ability of having a solid set of questions that they ask. Ask the questions, eliminate outcome. Ask the questions, eliminate influence. Go down the list and address and withdraw the problems. Microsoft was one of my clients from 1985-1987. One of the things people remember about young Bill Gates, is that when Bill was really in his prime, he was a driving business force who had a handle on both the business side and the development side. He also had a rapid fire way of asking questions. And he’d just begin eliminating whole swaths of perceived problems and go from the shell to the nut, to the essence of the nut. Discover what your passion is, find out what you want to do with it, and learn to ask better questions. Ask extremely specific questions that will really reduce things down. It’s the quality of the questions you ask that determine the quality of your life. Notice I didn’t say follow your passion or do what you do best, since for me, it is the asking of questions. And when you do ask questions, you’ll be able to find a market, a need, and your demographic.
So, a better class of questions leads to better answers?
Yes. Absolutely.
Why do some people think “money” is a dirty word?
I want to say Jesus. Yes, his words have been misinterpreted on this score, but 2,000 years later I think Jesus can be held responsible for the pro-poverty crowd. He said to “…give away all you have, just give it to the poor…” and he made pro-poverty messages throughout the Gospels. He said “consider the lilies of the field, how wondrous they are and how wonderfully they are dressed, and King Solomon, (who by the way was the richest man the world has ever known) was not as glorious as these flowers.” There is a certain Western history and tradition that comes from Jesus, and this is also echoed in the Islamic faith and in the Talmud of the Jewish faith. All of the messages say that to find yourself spiritually you have to get rid of your crap. I think the pro-poverty message is just so deeply ingrained in some people, it’s in the deep down layers from when these messages are ingrained in childhood. I say, dig in deep and pull those messages out from the roots. Ironically, I haven’t been able to do this either.
You’re an engaging conversationalist. What are two essential ingredients to have fun, inspiring conversations with people?
The first thing, of course, is vocal intonation. And have a leer of sorts when you make statements. That helps. Puts in some added drama. Think about the best public speakers you’ve seen. Channel your inner diva.
That’s fine for you, since you’re either gifted with a large personality, or you’ve created one. What about the average Joe or Joan?
Think about the Old West, when women first showed up in small towns, there were two types, the Prissy Preacher’s Wife, and Miss Kitty, the gal who ran the Bordello. Now, who would you want to talk with, hang out with, and have as the Mayor of your town? And of course, everyone’s response is to choose Miss Kitty. She’s more fun and you can work with her to make civic and social change. And I think that’s the energy I bring, because I spent so much time in the adult entertainment industry, maybe 15 years of my 52 years on this planet. So being in touch with the ‘hooker with a heart of gold’ side serves me well. Everyone has their own inner self to get in touch with, and everyone’s way will be different from mine. Some might be similar. I think people just need to get in touch with their own inner movie star or pop star. Develop your confidence and realize that we’re all more alike than different.
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about social networking?
It’s a bubble. That’s the most important thing. Like the tulip craze in Holland. Now everybody has to be on Facebook, and before that MySpace. It’s a bubble. That’s overarching. And corollary to the fact of it’s a bubble is the reinforcement to many of the observations I’ve made about human beings in social settings. Only now behaviors and interactions are happening at breakneck speed, and online.
You asked a question on Biznik last year. Where is the heart of Seattle? Have the found the answer to your question?
I still think the heart of Seattle, is on 12th and Madison, or possibly 12th and Cherry. Maybe for all us Bizniks it’s above a FedEx copy shop in Fremont (which bills itself as the center of the universe), with a perfect view of the statue of Lenin, rain drenched sidewalks, and naked bicyclists. Really, the heart of Seattle moves around, since it’s the heart.
When I picture Rags at home I see you in a smoking jacket with a martini close at hand, perhaps surround by a library of classic literature and being attended to by a harem. Is this accurate?
It has been. Definitely has been. There was a time in my life when I aspired to be Hugh Hefner 2.0. I came pretty close. At one time I owned a business called The Slave Cave.
Naturally, this was in California. However, since my walk with God and my conversion experience I do have a massive library of Christian texts, but I also have many books on human psychology, anthropology, sociology, and a lot of business books. One of the things people don’t know about me is my collection of bad prophecy books.
Like The Late Great Planet Earth?
Yes, and ones like The Coming Armageddon of Y2K. Yeah, like that happened. We both lived through that. It was devastating for us psychologically, wasn’t it? I’m fascinated by this idea of people who are pundits and prophets and…they write these books and become king or prophet for a day. Then poof, they disappear.
Who would you most like to meet?
God. He’s really difficult to get an appointment with.
Back to the dangerous side of Rags. Invention, heresy, promotion, or something else?
The thing that I think people don’t get about me…the best way to live a life well is to understand that you can’t be all things to all people, regardless about what the Apostle Paul said. What you can do is be some things some of the time. So I live with passion and purpose, and I try to do what I call an immersive lifestyle. I’ll throw myself into something and get as much out of it as I can, and once I’ve hit my milestones, I’ll withdraw and go on to my next endeavor. What works for me is an immersive serial lifestyle, and it’s served me very well.
Seattle has more in common with Vancouver B. C. than we do with Los Angeles or Miami. In the coming years, will the Buy Local movement reflect more of this type of local and bio-regional business interactions?
First of all, I’ve never have been a secessionist and I love my government, however you’re absolutely right. The idea of Ecotopia or Cascadia is a powerful idea and it could happen. If events follow as I think they will, future alliances could form. The nature of the human animal is to create monopolies and to form trusts, bigger and bigger scale, to create scale, mammoth enterprises of scale. And at some point the center cannot hold. The whole is just too bankrupt, but the parts will remain. At some point empires fall apart and get divided up. So, after Alexander the Great died…bam! Three sons or whoever was next in line, each of them got a piece of the empire. It is just how things go. I’ve often wondered whether in the Northwest it’ll be a Vancouver, Portland, Seattle, and maybe throw in San Francisco connection. It just makes a lot of sense. And they (I should say, my affinities) are all on the western edge of things, on the west side of the mountains. I certainly don’t see Seattle and Spokane eventually coming closer together, either philosophically or morally and working out their differences.
When you die (if there’s a God/Supreme Universal Being) what would you like to hear him/her say when you arrive in Heaven?
Well, well, well… (laughter).
This idea of being able to stand before God without shame or guilt, that’s an amazing idea. Will your knees be knocking? Will your voice be quavering? Will your eyes be averted and downcast? The God concept is so many different things to so many people. Our culture reinforces the idea of an elderly white male with a long flowing beard. Kind of a more serious version of Santa Claus. Or he’s a pillar of fire. There are so many concepts we carry in our minds. For me it’s the idea of reviewing our lives backwards. There was a guy I knew who was business partners with another guy, and he was an expert on near-death experience, and he used to live in the Seattle area. He was a doctor at Valley Medical in Renton. And from reading his work I found out about how there’s about fifteen percent of our brains that activate when we’re about to die. Something inside our minds that never worked before, its like a switch is suddenly flipped. So, people have epiphanies. My dad, when he died, suddenly sat up and said, “Oh!” He saw something, or realized something and then died. To this day my mother is haunted by wondering what he saw. And this doctor in Renton also found out that these near death experiences people have are culturally based. It’s all very cultural. What you believe in is what you’ll see at the end. So that tells you something. I think it’s about looking back on your life, because that’s what a judgment is, right? So, whether you want to view it spiritually or philosophically, it is about going before a tribunal. I thought one could die and get away from the bankers and lawyers, but it seems they follow us to the other side. So, what’s up with that?
So, yeah, maybe the best one can hope to hear is “Well, well, well…”
What is your favorite sound?
The sound of an infant giggling, being tickled.
How would you describe the Rags Madison brand?
I think it’s pretty scattered. I’ve been three things since my time on Biznik. Right now I think people view me as a narcissistic, arrogant, self absorbed moron. Dumbest guy in the room, who will spout out brilliant ideas every so often. Which is a good way to fly under the radar and listen to the undercurrents.
Ideas are contagious. Your thoughts?
They are! I think the movie Inception was brilliant. Anyone who saw that movie and got it would want to see it a second time. This idea that there’s literally nothing more powerful than an idea is tremendous. One of the things I’ve done in my life is consciously planted ideas in people. You asked me earlier about what makes me a great conversationalist. I try to be a consciously aware horsefly. I think one of the reasons I’m the most dangerous man on Biznik is that when I come up to someone at a cocktail party I try to be upbeat and vibrant, and there’s probably hundreds of people I’ve spoken with who would say, gosh that person is just filled with ideas. The problem or great thing, is that one of those ideas may have stuck in someone’s mind. And they walk away thinking, yeah, I’m going to look into that. There will be many times I’ll sit in on a Biznik meeting, with say five or six of us. And I’ll look at the group and say, “We have enough talent in this room to start a damn company.” We just break it down right there, and sure enough, there’s a company. We just have to want to work together.
Anything to add?
I feel like I’ve just climbed up an ivy-encrusted tower and I probably now make no sense to anyone. If anything, I would just encourage people to become more aware look around at the world we find ourselves here in the early twentieth century, look at the influencers in social networking, look at the changing face of the world of business, and choose the tools that will make your life and your business the one you truly want it to be. To me, it’s about the way the human brain works, as I said earlier, the brain a puzzle solving mechanism. If there’s an effect, there must’ve been a cause. And we need to find it. So people tweak this and tweak that. It’s like time travel movies in Science Fiction. Time travel movies always have a similar theme. A guy goes back into the past, and somehow how screws up something back then, so it alters his future present, and he realizes it’s a nightmare and he has to fix it. There are huge consequences to his actions, and he has to go back in time earlier than his previous time trip. So the character is in a nightmare scenario. I think that nightmarish utopian thinking is part of the human condition. Let’s say there is a God and he developed the Human operating system, comparable say, to the Microsoft or Apple operating systems. And there are flaws in the operating system, such as myself for example. If someone has the skeptical, doubting viewpoint after studying psychology and spirituality for years, it’s easier to see the software glitches in personality types, like the True Believer. And with the glitches in the operating system, one is always looking for the social work around so that we can communicate better, and get better ideas to the marketplace.
