Resist1776.info
7/16/2013
With this article, I am going to attempt to dive into an issue that is so dear to me that it is my very foundation upon this Earth. I know absolutely NOTHING in this world but art. I have been this way my entire life, and have cared about little else. Granted, as you may have guessed if you’ve read other articles by me, it HAS driven a lot of my views & opinions towards other issues. Make no mistake, my heart & soul is nothing but art.
If you’ve heard the expression “Starving artists” then you’ve probably met someone who’s either (A: So involved in their art that they won’t do anything but their art, or the more recent model of artist (B: An artist who’s tried their whole life to work at various jobs, only to find that the job market has dwindled to such a lull that it’s become a struggle to even call themselves an artist as a HOBBY!!! Why? Because some art that artists would like to do require some equipment (not surprising to most) and said equipment cannot be purchased by said artist because they cannot find a job that pays enough for them to be able to buy more than rent & food, let alone equipment.
This isn’t some sob story of an individual. This is the norm in the art world. Believe it or not, there are a LOT of artists out there. Many fit into category A as I described, others (including myself) fit into category B.
To give you a quick run down as to how my life as an artist went up to now: Early on I wanted to be a comic book artist. This slowly faded as I discovered that, even after college, you very well may end up being the dude who colors in the backgrounds to someone else’s comic book….forever. That’s right. Either somehow fund your own comic book company (like Image comics came to be) or wait for someone to DIE so a position comes available. So I dropped that dream as a child. Then I moved on to designing cars. That dream ended in a similar nightmare that is: you have to start with designing for a company you probably hate & hope to be picked up by a company that you wanted to work for in the first place (which will probably never happen… unless someone maybe dies). Then I moved on to wanting to direct & write films. That dream died when I learned that you need to be rich first. And I DON’T mean just for college. Yes, the college courses were expensive & I couldn’t get a scholarship because my state didn’t have any colleges in-state that granted a film directing degree, but even if I wanted to do independent films, I’d need some money to buy equipment, software, & probably pay people to help me make the films. FYI: I’m poor. I have been poor my entire life. At one point I had a full time job, but lived in a motel room eating grapes & cheap lunch-meat. That’s it. That’s all my $8/hr job could get me. Moving on to more recent endeavors…
So, I decided to be a musician. Did I have any training? Not a lick. Singing lessons? Nope. In fact, I didn’t even realize I could sing until the Doors mysteriously came on the radio one day when I randomly decided to flip through stations, namely one that was notoriously static filled… except for when that fateful Doors song played: People Are Strange. Static prior to the song playing & static immediately AFTER the song was finished. From then on, I picked up the Doors’ music & realized that I had a different kind of singing voice: Baritone. From there, I found a mentor in LaSalle, IL who taught me the lesson of dedication to my art. In a simple night when I performed & my harmonica’s got stolen at a bar, the next morning I informed my mentor that someone had taken them. I said “I don’t know what to do, those were like $45 harmonicas. I can’t afford to replace them.” He said:
F**K EATING, MAN! BUY A HARMONICA! Because THAT’S how serious you need to be.
From then on, my Art is all that’s mattered to me. So much that I ended up going through band member after band member in Las Vegas, NV & then moving to Ohio. Only to lament the fact that the best Guitarist I had still lived in Las Vegas. So the Guitarist & I decided to mail tracks back & forth to each other & make albums that way. Steely Dan was an all studio band & toured rarely… VERY rarely. So why not. Besides, what’s actually important? ART. Art is important. Screw distance, we can do this.
So we released our first album about a year ago & our second is on the way (it’s pretty much done, but we’re deciding in what order the songs should go).
Where am I going with this? Well, our first album awarded us 1 sale. That’s it. I honestly think that our second album won’t be much different. Not because it isn’t any better (because I’m WAY more proud of the work we did on our 2nd album… It’s just so damn good IMO). But because that’s the nature of art these days.
Think about it: How many people talk to you about art? How many people ever discuss with you how a band/movie/painting/picture/etc touched them, & that you should seek it out as well? It’s pretty scarce isn’t it? Do you talk to your family or friends about art? When’s the last time you actually discussed Art? When’s the last time you cared so much about a piece of Artwork that you felt compelled to spread the word about it? If you’re like 99% of people, you’re probably saying “uh, jeeze… I don’t know if I’ve EVER done that in my life!”
This is scary to me for many reasons. For one, Art is our expression. It is our way of getting other humans to FEEL how we feel, without words. As you may have heard me say a little expression I came up with: Words are ONLY an ease of communication. We are not telepathic, thus words are all we have. But that’s not even the actual case! We have art, but people don’t care.
Secondly, where does art fit in with our future? This is the scariest part of this article to me. Because I honestly see NO future for art. It’s going to die a horrible death & with it will go so many great honest heartfelt aspects of humanity (if not “humanity” itself). Let me word it this way:
Do you pay for art? Your answer is most likely NO. Some of you might say “well, sometimes I go to movies… but I usually don’t because the snacks cost $5 MORE than the tickets themselves.” Perhaps you smuggle in your snacks like I do. Either way, this is a sign that the ordinary person is having to abandon art as it LEAVES the realm of everyday affordability. So what does THAT mean????? Well, as of right now, it’s extremely easy to pirate movies, music, comic books, video games, etc. Just about anything that can be converted into digital information can become free by anyone willing to share it. Personally, I don’t care about that. Seriously. Pirate all you want. I don’t care.
The reason being, it’s not like there’s a future for art in this society anyway. Seriously think about it: we’re in a world where people protest the outcome of ONE trial because they believe the Jury didn’t decide what they wanted… INSTEAD of declaring the entire system BROKEN! The reality is that it’s all for naught. Yet, they participate in this circus anyway. So seriously, we should expect THESE people to respect art? Really? They can barely understand the simple fact of what’s wrong in the world, let alone judge a piece of artwork.
YES, I said that what’s wrong in the world is SIMPLE to understand. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I feel bad for you. As Einstein said about insanity being attempting the same thing over & over again but expecting different results, Government will never work. It has & always will fail. Some day, you might understand this. Artists have been trying to politely say it for YEARS, but nobody cares about art.
In fact, the people who “buy art” are so rich that it doesn’t matter. They’re not actually supporting artist, because they only see what’s promoted in “galleries.” As if that’s not the largest crock of S#%T that’s ever come to art. “Conform & maybe people will buy your stuff?” Please.
So what’s going to happen to art? I don’t know. But it’s not looking good. In any future I can think of, art will forever be crapped upon or simply non-existent. It doesn’t take much thought. Think for a bit about AFTER we absolve ourselves from this corporatocracy & attempt to instil freedom. Who supplies the masses with music? Corporations? They’ll be gone. So it’ll be up to the “popular taste” of the mind warped masses to decide what music they like. What kind of music? Well, I’ll try to put it lightly for those who actually LIKE pop music today: the kind of music that either has NO point whatsoever (by that I mean an actual message within the lyrics that is discernible whether you’re listening or just reading the lyrics), or music that focuses on sexuality ALONE (something that hasn’t been “shock value” for decades & really is NOT cool anymore & is NOT rebellious in any way… thus, it’s not rock). Regardless of WHATEVER art form you’re doing, there should be a POINT. A REASON!!! If the reason is: “I think this might sell” then you’ve just exited the art world & will probably NEVER return.
The long & short of it all is: Who’s going to pay artists after the revolution? How will an artist survive? Surely not on art. As nobody cares about art. NOBODY CARES ABOUT ART. You cannot refute me unless you’ve actually paid an artist for something. So just admit that we don’t play any part in society & you don’t care about us. Nobody values art. That’s just a fact. To “value” art, you’d pay people for it. But society steals it any chance they can. I’m not saying that pirating is wrong, as the popularity is still present. My problem is that artists are viewed as people who should really have OTHER jobs on top of their art. This is where ALL the BullS#$% comes in. Socialists & Communists probably can’t answer where an artist fits in to their society, nor could any other system. Even capitalism. As much as I love capitalism, I really don’t think it works for art. Because it bases the success of human expression on profitability. Thus, I don’t think art has ANY future whatsoever in human kind. I’m sorry, but you are ALL soulless people who value only your own entertainment over the interaction & understanding of another human’s experience in life. So, to continue how I got to where I am…
My dream was to make art & have it be available to the masses. After finding a way to do so, I’m happy. NO, it’s not selling. If it became popular, it would be pirated anyway so that doesn’t matter. The reason I do it still stands. I still have my emotions & my expression. However, in the future, I’m afraid that’s all going to go away. We will not see “music.” We may even see robots that create successions of notes that are predetermined to be pleasing to the human ear. In an age like that, I will LOVE noise rock. Break core. Because it will at least be expressive & rebellious. I don’t want the human soul to be a myth of the past. I believe very much in our spirit. I believe very much in art. But I also believe that something (be it Government, big business, or whatever) is successfully stripping away the conscious perception of human expression SO SUCCESSFULLY that it WILL be gone in a matter of decades.
If you don’t believe me, then listen & watch. Because some very prominent film makers (Spielberg & Lucas) have said that there will be a giant lull in box-office numbers in a great many upcoming supposedly huge films. This is already happening. Something like that is liable enough to send the film industry into a tailspin. What happens next? I don’t know. But regardless, I’m glad to ride this all down to the ground like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove: or how I learned to stop worrying & love the bomb. The end is Nigh. Unless YOU wake up. Unless YOU stand with me (I was the ONLY one at a local protest that I didn’t set up… yes, the guy who organized it didn’t even show up). Get out there & decide that our LIVES are more important than our routines. We’re people. We interact. We affect each other. What a better way than getting out in a place where people DON’T protest, & protesting anyway. I did it & let me say, I not only rustled some jimmies, but people came up & asked WHY I was doing it. So I was able to educate as well.
