"How are you going to stop the progress of fascism,
control, and centralized ugliness if you're not
producing anything heroic or beautiful?"
Requiem Mass in NY

I crossed the border into Mexico at Laredo, Texas 2 weeks before the 2020 presidential election.  I'd been beside myself with horror during the 2016 election cycle, but Trump won me over during the course of his presidency.  The artless, dramatic screeching engaged in by the left after his election, however, told anybody with even the slightest amount of discernment everything they needed to know.  It was clear that the disconsolate demoniacs on the left were going to screech and scream until they got to hell.  The only thing that was ever going to stop them was their inevitable collapse into the grave they were digging at their own feet.  Clearly, reason was obsolete.  No one was ever going to be able to talk about anything ever again.  Hell was at the door.

I didn't take it for granted that I was going to make it across the border, and told the Lord point-blank that if He wanted me to stay in the U.S., Texas, or even Laredo (which I liked, actually), I'd start looking for jobs at the dollar store right away.  My real skill-set is generally taken for granted and/or under-appreciated in the U.S., to the point of being almost universally maligned as an optional past-time for lazy wastoids than an actual trade.  I'm not just saying that.  The sentiment has been expressed to me directly, in no uncertain terms, by people who take their generous livelihoods for granted.  People who believe music is something anyone can do for no other reason than they can't do it, assume that they would have done it, if only they'd had the chance.

And when it comes time to hold a patriotic rally, who do they call.  Ted Nugent and Kid Rock.  While I have nothing against those guys personally (and would probably get along with Kid Rock), I'm not even going to bother finishing the thought.  If the thought doesn't finish itself in your own mind, I'm sorry.  You are among the many reasons that a "culture war" is raging in the first place.  God bless you, but get real.  You're not entitled to your living.  You've been allowed to have it.

Allowed to make a living.  Allowed.

By God.

Shane MacGowan was right.  The reason "America doesn't break unless it wants to" is because the culture war is spiritual, and people who believe they have the choice to deign to allow other people a reasonable livelihood (and/or are entitled to the fruits of other peoples' labors for free) are full of pride.  It has nothing to do with Ted Nugent, Taylor Swift, or anybody else.  The reason the ideologues and artless idols have been unleashed on you is PRIDE.  It pains me very much to say it, but America is blinded by pride.  The celebration of gay arrogance month every June is just a toxic side-effect of the foundation of unrepentant pride that plagues the nation.  "Pride month" didn't come out of nowhere; it was first conceived (by pride), then it gave birth to what we have today.  There's so much pride in the U.S., that the culture there genuinely thinks it has the choice whether or not to "break" for something.

That is why the music has been taken from you, as Revelation 18:22 said it would.  And because you've stolen the livelihood of an entire industry, and feel entitled to it, you are going to lose your livelihood yourself.  You don't get to decide from on high whether or not this is true.  The fact that you can't find anyone other than Ted Nugent to speak at your rally means the decision has already been made.

You've already chosen.

Because, while I have nothing against the guy personally, and am happy for him that he's been able to prosper, no one is waiting for the next Ted Nugent song.  From the article Love of the Game (linked above), "God bless him, but who's going to stand and applaud at the artistic defeat Tom MacDonald has blindsided them with, inspired with awe to the point that any political and/or competitive motives they may have brought to the game have been unequivocally replaced by an appreciation of the beauty with which they've been defeated, to the point that they are inspired to stand and applaud their opponent, possibly bridging chasms of divisive political fury in the process, unwittingly inviting everyone who's watching to share the awe and inspiration they feel at the game that has been played before them?

Ted Nugent?  Kid Rock?

Nobody."

Tom MacDonald.  I forgot about Tom MacDonald.  I am reminded of a video I saw of him once, talking into the camera about his business.  I remember instantly liking the guy, and being surprised to discover that he seems to be genuinely smart.

Smart, maybe.  But not an artist.

How much longer shall we indulge the postmodern fantasy of "it's art because I can't do it, and am therefore unaware that it's not art?"  As I declared in Typical, Uninspiring Conceptual Art Piece #1,

"The writing is superb."
©2018 Pablo Smog

Which is a brilliant line, by the way.  Because I said so.  It's writing because I say it's writing.  Aren't you glad I'm here?  Let's fast-forward to the part where I say, "you're welcome," and bask in the radioactive glow of the unearned adulation of people who are afraid to understand I haven't earned it.  People who are perhaps too lazy to look any farther than Ted Nugent or Kid Rock, when looking for a leader in a so-called "culture war."  From the high-horse of a professing work ethic, even.  Just taking whatever they give you, while wondering out the other side of your mouth "where all the good music has gone."

Talk about pride.  God help us all.

Remember the final fight scene in Rocky IV, when the Russian audience starts chanting for Rocky, because of the beauty of the game he was playing?  Like Bobby Fischer in Pawn Sacrifice, Rocky won the opposition over with the beauty of his game.  After the fight, he told the audience something along the lines of "If you can change, and I can change, maybe we all can change."  His statement was intended to bridge the supposedly-untraversable cultural gap between East and West during the Cold War.  

Kinda like this:

Note the entreaty Jimmy Dean makes to Ivan from the U.S.S.R. to join him in a prayer.  Not a rap battle, not a game of target practice with a case of Bud Light, but prayer.  Notice that the music isn't autotuned, country-fried, or in any way even very patriotic.  "Dear Ivan" is actually a gospel song.  Okay, well, a patriotic gospel song.  The Battle Hymn of the Republic, in fact.  Not "the rap battle of the republic."  The battle hymn of the republic.

Jimmy Dean recites his letter, his final soliloquy from Rocky IV, over a gospel song, because the culture war is spiritual, not cultural.  And since pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18), the removal (read: destruction) of your music is the canary in the coal mine.  God definitely called me out of there.  Perhaps it isn't wise to regale the dead bird with sanctimonious indictments of what you falsely perceive to be his laziness.  It is perhaps extremely wise to heed the warning of the bird-corpse, and stop taking things for granted.

“I was perplexed as to what the usefulness of any of the arts might be, with
the possible exception of interior decoration.  The most positive notion I
could come up with was what I call the canary-in-the-coal-mine theory of
the arts.  This theory argues that artists are useful to society because
they are so sensitive.  They are supersensitive.  They keel over like
canaries in coal mines filled with poison gas, long before
more robust types realize that any danger is there.”
Kurt Vonnegut

I'm sorry to say it.  I really am.  I have no bitterness about it anymore.  The bitterness apparent in articles such as Love of the Game and Permanent Vocation came from a misplaced hope, because I was still trying to solicit your attention.  As in, professionally.  Not in a self-important wannabe "influencer" way.  But simply to make a living.  Screaming into a brick wall that still invites Ted Nugent to speak at its events.  Whether I have your attention now, or ever will have it, is no longer important.  That bird has long-since sailed.  That ship has sprouted wings and flown.  You've outsourced your culture to a bunch of pagan Marxists on a power trip, and every single one of those "communities" has made it impossible for an independent artist to make an independent living.  It's possible I would know.  And even if you're not one of the easily-triggered liberals that takes offense at everything that doesn't affirm its own position on the high horse of its own self-righteous choosing, you come from the same rebellious culture, and I don't trust you not to take offense at this rebuke.  You have overestimated the power and importance of your own approval.

It's why I came to Mexico.  Whether I knew why I was coming, entirely, or not. 

God called me out of there. 

Hell is at the door.

My sincere apologies, for anything I've said that has tempted you to greater pride.  I'm a work in progress myself, and like Ted Nugent and Kid Rock, my material isn't The Battle Hymn of the Republic either.  I do have the one gospel album, though.  It isn't a ticket to Heaven, but unlike most of the sound product manufactured by postmodern sonic content creators today, I made it because I had to.  Not because I thought it's what would sell, or what people wanted to hear.  But rather,

Because I had to.

There's a difference, y'know.

Thanks for listening.