A rambling response to an email I received yesterday from an old friend asking me to send him more music, less emails (the emails consist of links to this blog, and samples from the articles). I realize I've been waiting for that email for months if not years. He wasn't enlightening me with his friendly frustration; indeed, I'm glad to see that somebody has finally caught up.
Without attitude or entitlement, my response to the request for "more music, less emails" could be perhaps summed up by the phrase, "more practical appreciation (money/a living), less good intentions." Or perhaps, "more art, less content." Why do you enable self-important, wannabe creators while demanding the fruits of my labor for free? Cuz I'm not making another album under a rock while living in a van in the parking lot. If you're an artist and not a self-important "creator" of cultural packing peanuts (content), you are certainly welcome to continue whoring out your talents to entitled, ungrateful people for free; more luck and power to ya. I simply can't do it anymore.
And in fact, "whoring" is too good a word. Whores have professional standards and get paid. There are things whores won't do, and they have a bottom line. Musicians are expected to take off their clothes and be grateful for the "exposure," for the chance to sit on the casting couch and be objectified at last.
It's true; the word they use is actually "exposure." That's what they actually say. I've been listening to it for years. They think I'm an exhibitionist slut, and tell me to be grateful for the chance to spread my legs for free, ad infinitum.
Well, I'm not grateful. The effects of that drug wore off a long, long time ago. I will not be roofied and date-raped by a culture of entitled, wannabe "creators," ever again.
Regarding the "content" itself, I've written the song hundreds of times. It isn't hard to find. If, indeed, you're genuinely interested. If the interest was obvious to me, I'd probably still be living on tips in your parking lot. That's a dry, morbid joke. You got the culture you paid for, and this is the best I can do for you at this time. Deny it and tell me how much I owe you for free, again, but don't be surprised if your ignore-ance is returned with increasingly-distant, apparently and effectively-mutual indifference. I left the United States for many reasons, for every reason. This is just one of them.
The other, more-difficult option is to perhaps actually listen to the sound of silence, and take the possibility to heart that this is the end game of a culture in which art has been replaced by entitled content creators. No music, too many emails, and increasingly-artless entreaties to repent.
A blessing in disguise, perhaps.
My email list is pretty exclusive, with only 40 or 50 recipients. It's an "exclusive" club of people I still believe are worth talking to. It has never been a mystery to me that probably more than half of them, at least, would concur with the sentiment "more music, less emails;" indeed, I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to this obvious, hanging question that has dominated the mental and financial landscape of everybody who spent the better part of 2 decades living in the parking lot, at last.
If you're down with the freeload, enjoy the free download. You can say I'm whining, but you need to start demanding the mechanic fix your car for free (I mean, DEMAND IT), walk out of the restaurant without paying, and act affronted when the staff confronts you about the bill. Then do the intellectually-consistent thing and give me your shoes.
If the song belongs to all of us, so do your shoes. You owe them to me. Give your shoes to the next musician you see, or stop whining about how you are entitled to the fruits of other people's labors for free.
In the likelihood we never meet again in this life, join me in Heaven. I sincerely hope to see you there.
Or hate me from an entitled hell full of wannabe creators, if you insist.
Vaya con Dios,
