news and knowledge: here is were I am going to post the things I get in the email that make me think: news and knowledge if for those of you who like to read more then most:

make contact home

i guess i should say this is the stuff i read .

Seeking a Vision of Truth, Guided by a Higher Power

December 2, 2002
By JAMES LEE BURKE


I have never thought of my vocation as work. I never had
what is called writer's block, nor have I ever measured the
value of what I do in terms of its commercial success. I
also believe that whatever degree of creative talent I
possess was not earned but was given to me by a power
outside myself, for a specific purpose, one that has little
to do with my own life.

The previous statement is one of fact and not meant to be a
description of virtue. I believe creativity is a votive
gift, presented arbitrarily by the hand of God, and those
who possess it are simply its vessel. Those who become
grandiose and vain about its presence in their lives
usually see it taken from them and given to someone else.
At least that has been my experience.

Robert Frost called his art a lover's quarrel with the
world. Ernest Hemingway said a writer must have the probity
of a priest of God. George Orwell believed the writer's
task was to set right the injustices caused by what he
called the bloody hand of the empire at work. I think all
three men could no more stop writing than they could will
themselves to stop breathing. Hemingway, in the same
statement about probity, said that once writing became the
artist's greatest pleasure as well as his greatest vice,
the only thing that could separate him from it was death.

When I was a teacher of creative writing, a student would
occasionally ask me if I thought he had talent, if indeed
he should try to make a career of his writing. I never
answered the question, because the student had asked the
wrong question. A real writer is driven both by obsession
and a secret vanity, namely that he has a perfect vision of
the truth, in the same way that the camera lens can close
perfectly on a piece of the external world. If the writer
does not convey that vision to someone else, his talent
turns to a self-consuming bitterness.

Shakespeare said that all power lies in the world of
dreams. John Milton, in a sonnet written on his blindness,
described his sleep as being filled with light, but at dawn
he was once again robbed of his sight and woke to darkness.


My old professor John Neihardt, author of "Black Elk
Speaks," used to say he wrote in the late hours because
that was the time of day when the voices of dead poets
spoke to him. It's no accident that each of these men saw
his art emanating from a world that exists somewhere beyond
the appearance of things.

Early in my writing career I came to believe that the
stories I wrote were already written in the unconscious by
a hand other than my own. In the 46 years that have elapsed
since I published my first short story in a college
magazine, I have never been able to see more than two or
perhaps three scenes ahead in a story. For me the creative
process is more one of discovery than creation. But I also
had to learn that the gift or obsession or neurosis that
compelled me to write was one that required a discipline
that did not allow exceptions, at least not if I wanted to
be successful.

At 20 I worked briefly on an offshore oil exploration rig
in what was called the oil patch, 10 days on and 5 days
off. I rented a mailbox at the post office, mailed off my
stories to various magazines before going offshore, then
found the rejections waiting for me when I returned. I gave
myself 36 hours to put the manuscripts back in the mail,
and I've maintained the same system all these years,
because to keep the work at home is to ensure its failure.

I know of no finer life than that of a fiction writer. You
need only a notebook and a pencil and a belief in that
quiet voice that dwells inside you in order to create a
book that is truly wonderful. My first novel, "Half of
Paradise," cannot be called truly wonderful, but to me,
when I was writing on a pipeline in southeast Texas, it
was.

Jack Kerouac once said, "Your art is the Holy Ghost blowing
through your soul." He also said that there was no such
thing as failure in art, not when you genuinely invest
yourself in it. What a critic might call failure is just
part of larger work that is ongoing.

The material for the stories is everywhere. The whole human
family becomes your cast of characters. You can give voice
to those who have none and expose those who would turn the
earth into a sludge pit. As an artist you have automatic
membership in a group that is loathed, feared and
denigrated by every dictator and demagogue in the world.
The greatest compliment I ever received was to have my
novel "Cimarron Rose" expurgated to the point that it was
banned at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville.

The most difficult test for me as a writer came during the
middle of my career, when, after publishing three novels in
New York, I went 13 years without a hardback publication.
My novel "The Lost Get-Back Boogie" alone received 110
rejections during nine years of submission, supposedly a
record in the industry.

It was during this period I had to relearn the lesson I had
learned at 20, when I worked on the offshore oil crew: you
write it a day at a time and let God be the measure of its
worth; you let the score take care of itself; and most
important, you never lose faith in your vision. God might
choose fools and people who glow with neurosis for his
partners in creation, but he doesn't make mistakes.

Interview with Elementree Records Brian Sirgutz Dean Cramer (Kings of A&R):Who are you currently with?

Brian Sirgutz: I currently run Elementree Records for the rock band KoRn.

Kings of A&R: What do you think of the current state of the music industry? Brian: I think that in any industry, there are cycles of growth and consolidation. In today's music industry climate it will get much worse before it gets better. This is because labels are still looking at artists quarter by quarter instead of making careers. The hits that Clear Channel requires for ratings are processed and delivered by the labels and the record sales in turn are driven by the hit songs clear channel play. Today, the industry is reaping what it sows. If you sell an artist by the hit song and not the artist, instead of the consumer paying as high as $19.95, they will just turn to the net and download it for free, it's easier to download than to purchase it online. Labels have to compete with ease of use and free. In this case, the labels will lose. It needs to get a lot worse before it gets better, but people need music like humans need air. It's matter of how music becomes commodified.

Dean(Kings of A&R): In your opinion, what’s more important. Songs or Live show?

Brian: Songs... No question. The greatest bands, singer/songwriters are built by a great song. A great song is a great song no matter what format. It captures your mind and enchants one's soul. A live show can be developed after the songs are there. The priority of the live show should follow the songs and music.

   
   
12/17/2002   
   
Dean (Kings of A&R): Most important piece of advice you would give to an artist.

Brian: Make sure you do it for yourself. Do not do it for the glorious record deal (it is not that glorious. It's a very poor bank loan) Make us want you, when you are ready, we will still be there. No matter how hard it is, no matter what odds are against you, your music will prevail because it is truth; your truth in it's purist form. Make sure you want to have a career and read everything you can about this business. I always want all my artists to know more than I do, this way we can work on equal ground.

Dean (Kings of A&R): How far away is the "Next" Nirvana? Meaning, an artist breaking new ground and crossing over to the mainstream market. A polar opposite of what's going on right now, not transitional. An Artist that changes a sub culture, fashion, radio formats, etc.... We haven't seen this in over a decade (since Nirvana). Think its about time? Tough question. But take a guess!

Brian: It is right under our noses, it just won't blow up as big as Nirvana. We will get artists that will test and even break new ground, but at the rate the industry tries to commodify this new sound, it dies. It's like trying to milk a baby calf, Uhh…aint ready yet. Let the sound grow organically, let it spread between people via the net and word of mouth. It's time for the labels to wake up and let their artists come along at a slower pace. Maybe then, a` new sound and the next Nirvana can develop. Until then, it's McMusic time, quick and bad for the music industry and the music consumer.

Dean (Kings of A&R): Well, I hope it's under our nose, because I think we all are begging for some great acts, both labels and consumers. It's on the breaking point!

The Global Accounting ScamBy Jonathan Rowe, Enough!

December 5, 2002Several months ago a professor at the University of North Carolina published findings that turned beliefs about the economy upside down. Health improves, he said, as the economy goes down. When the economy declines, to a point at least, deaths, smoking, obesity, heavy drinking, heart disease and some kinds of back problems all decline as well. "Sounds unlikely," said the New York Times. And indeed it is, by the standard reckonings at least. We all know that an expanding economy makes us better off – or do we? Another study, this one in England, found that shopping, which is the drive train of the entire economy, and which is supposed to make people feel good, actually can make them depressed. "For significant numbers, dissatisfaction is now part of the shopping process," one of the authors said. (As though we needed a study to tell us that.) What's going on here? How could we feel better when the experts say we should feel worse, and worse when they say we should feel better? Could it be that economists don't know up from down to begin with? This is the nation's hidden accounting scandal, the one that neither government nor media will touch. It concerns the accounting for the entire economy, the way the government purports to determine whether things are getting better or worse. This accounting is called the Gross Domestic Product or GDP. It is central to the big policy debate in Washington, and is the template for the policies the United States projects upon the world. The media regard it with a reverence bordering on awe. The Wall Street Journal recently called the GDP the "world's most reliable economic indicator." Yet like the books of Enron, Tyco et. al., the federal economic accounting is a sham. It portrays regress as progress and misery as economic advance. If you ever have wondered how you could feel so harried, stressed, maxed out and under siege, even when the government says the economy is doing well, the answer is here. If the president really is looking for chief executives who "cook the books," he might well take a look at the economic books over which he himself presides. They truly are a mess. Adding It Up - and Adding, and Adding... Imagine an accountant who can add but can't subtract, and who is so nearsighted he can't see past his nose. That is the mentality behind the GDP. The GDP simply adds up the money Americans spend and calls the result growth and good, regardless of where the money went and why. By this reckoning, the more medical bills you incur, the more junk food your kids yammer for, the more you sit in traffic and the more your credit card company rips you off with hidden charges, the better the economy is doing and the more the politicians can brag about the nation's "growth." At the same time the accounting ignores the implications of expenditures that on their face might suggest advance. Perhaps your neighbor loves her SUV. Perhaps she regards it as a step upward in her life. Still, when she drives the thing, she pours gunk into the air and adds to pressures to put oil derricks near coastal beaches. She takes up more space on the road, adding to traffic and causing everyone to burn more gas. Honest accounting would show such costs. The GDP ignores them. Worse, the federal accounting actually shows such costs as economic gains. All the gas, the fender-benders, the medical bills arising from exposure to bad air get added to the GDP as evidence of the nation's growth. Americans spend over $5 billion on gas they burn while stuck in traffic, going nowhere. That's $5 billion more for the GDP. Cook the planet, cook the books and call the result "growth." It's this kind of screwy accounting that enables the president to claim that action to address global warming would be bad for "the economy." Define regress as progress, and steps to take us forward look as though they would set us back. What's more, while counting bads as goods, the GDP totally ignores the genuine goods that don't cost money. The air we breathe, the care that parents and grandparents give their children, the games children play with one another, the quiet of the night – these are invisible in the national accounts. Only when the economy destroys them and forces us to buy substitutes do the federal accountants spring to life. Day care counts but mom-and-dad care doesn't. Driving a car counts but walking does not. The reason is not that government numbers-people are incompetent or ethically challenged. Actually they are top-notch. The problem is the antiquated system they are forced to use. It is so out of touch with reality it would be comic – if the consequences weren't so grim. Thriving on Absurdity The absurdities of all this have not gone entirely unnoticed. Economists and the media reflect upon them from time to time in a feet-on-the-desk kind of way. But they continue to use the GDP anyway. Observe the news the next time the Commerce Department releases the quarterly GDP numbers. Does a single reporter or economist say, "Wait a minute. Does this accounting really say what people think it says?" Not likely. And more, they never acknowledge how deep the phony accounting runs. They might remark on occasion upon the unfortunate side effects of consumption, what economists call "externalities," e.g. the way the SUV gunks up the air. But the consumption itself is always positive, another step up the Mountain of More. "A nation is by definition thriving if its major indices [e.g. the GDP] say people are making more things and spending more money on them," a writer in the New York Times opined not long ago. By definition, which means there's no need to observe actual experience and see if it is true. Yet reporters are supposed to be observers, not theologians, and these talents are desperately needed with regard to the hoary postulates of economic thought. The problem today goes far deeper than externalities. Increasingly the problem is internalities, the supposed cornucopia itself. Is it really thriving when kids nag their parents for junk food, or when credit card companies rip off their customers with billions in hidden charges? Is it thriving when teen magazines induce a pathological body-consciousness in young girls, to the benefit of the cosmetic and plastic surgery industries? According to a recent test, six of seven brands of SUVs are designed to incur major damage – upwards of $1400 or more – from a crash at just 5 miles per hour. That's GDP. But is it really "thriving"? When one actually looks at the economy, instead of thinking abstractly like an economist, one sees less a happy jaunt up the mountain than a slog through a swamp of the economy's own creating. Integers of Acquisition But let's face it. The problem is not just the economy. It's also ourselves. In the belief system called economics, we all are shrewd little integers of acquisition, who go through life with an unfailing calculus of benefit and gain. Since we all are "rational," as economists use that term, the sum total of our buying must be the nation's prosperity and good. That's the belief embedded in the national accounting – more buying equals more happiness and good. Leave aside, for the moment, the buying the economy thrusts upon us. Leave aside too whether it is really so "rational" to be obsessed with shopping to begin with. If we simply observe the life around us, what we see is – surprise – a lot of bad choices. We see in fact a nation of people who seem in constant lament over the bad choices they have made. The book stores are full of titles for such people. Support groups proliferate for those who can't stop eating, drinking, smoking, falling for the wrong people, spending money they don't have. The pharmaceutical industry is marketing drugs for people who can't stop shopping. (Some four million Americans are already addicted to prescription drugs.) Counselors are counseling them. Yet somehow, when the accountants put all of these bad decisions together, the result is supposed to be prosperity and growth, by definition. And when people start to get control of their lives – when they toss the gin down the toilet, put the credit cards in the freezer and timers on their telephones – we hear dire warnings of a drop in "consumer confidence" and a "sluggish" GDP. Rejecting the Hype It does get a little weird. Yet politically it makes perfect sense. A McDonald's, an Exxon or a General Motors finds great comfort in the GDP. An accounting system that turns obesity and pollution into economic advance turns the perpetrators of these into the heroes of the script. Politicians like the accounting too. It enables them to say that in helping their campaign contributors they are actually helping humankind. Oil drilling in wilderness areas is not a plum for the oil industry, they say. Rather, it's a boost for the GDP. For the media, meanwhile, the GDP provides a way to turn a complex story into a simple number, one that comes weighted with the combined authority of the federal government and economic expertise. It enables reporters to pontificate on the economies of entire countries without the need to leave their desks. That the GDP aligns economic reporting with the interests of advertisers doesn't hurt either. These mental grooves are deep, and they are set in concrete. They are not likely to change any time soon. That does not mean we have to follow along, however. The first step to change is to withdraw our consent. The next time we hear Dan Rather, or Tom Lehrer, or the solemn voices on NPR intone about the GDP and "growth," we can just chuckle at how out of it they are. As the corporate corruption exposés have shown to the nation's great pain, phony accounting can't cover up reality forever. Jonathan Rowe is director of the Tomales Bay Institute and a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly magazine. Enough! is a publication of the Center for a New American Dream. What do you think? Discuss this story!

This entry reminds me of a paper that i just wrote on a Philosopher Edward
Said. The book is called modern imperialism you should read it as well as
the heart of darkness and orientalism. Our economic system is capilalistic
and the reason stems from Imperialism. In Imperialism we have colonialism_
to take land from other countries and have them work and make products for
the western world. And yes the western world still outs other cons and
bribes other countries to do our work for very little pay.

Another example of how the western world is this. It costs so much money for
America to dispose of toxic waste alot of the time we will go to places like
Africa and by land from a very undeveloped tribe and dispose of our toxic
waiste. The Africans do not know any better but to use the waiste for things
that they need, such as the metal bins that the waiste is stored in, they
will use to burn fires to cook there food. As a result they get diseases and
deformed children. Isn't that grand.

In the Heart of Darkness Things Fall Apart

The modern understanding of imperialism defines the work of empires as an
exclusively Western phenomenon. Edward Said, a modern scholar, defines
imperialism in three different theories: the spread of global imperialism,
the opposition to the empire, and his view on moving away from hierarchy.
Said analyzes literature as a tool of understanding how each culture has
been influenced by imperialism.
Said’s notion of imperialism includes the actions of European empires, such
as the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, and British empires. According to
Said, Imperialism is when a country rules other countries from a distance
for its own benefits of dominating land and producing more material, also
resulting in colonialism. Said states, "As I shall be using the term,
‘imperialism’ means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of
dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory" (xxi). As these
governments rule over the undeveloped countries they have instilled into the
culture that they are superior to the undeveloped countries. This causes
many problems for the cultures being colonized, but at the same time Said
does not believe that the alternative is to put the blame on Europeans for
the problems of today. Said says, "What we need to do is to look at these
matters as a network of interdependent histories that it would be inaccurate
and senseless to repress, useful and interesting to understand" (19).
Through careful study of the purportedly imperialistic nations’ literature,
Said believes that the views of the Western World are biased. "Since my
exclusive focus here is on the modern Western empires of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, I have looked especially at cultural forms like the
novel, which I believe were immensely important in the formation of imperial
attitudes, references and experiences." (xii).
Orientalism is another aspect in the worldwide imperialistic movement.
Orientalism is "a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on
the Orient’s special place in European Western Experience," (Orientalism,
1-3,5). Said speaks mostly about the Western view and examples of "Arab"
cultures in his book Orientalism. An Orientalist is any Western teacher,
researcher, or philosopher who uses his Western ideologies in his teaching
or writings. Said’s argument on Orientalists is this, "To write about the
Arab Oriental world, therefore, is to write with the authority of a nation,
and not with the affirmation of a strident ideology but with the
unquestioning certainty of absolute truth backed by absolute force. One
would find this kind of procedure less objectionable as political propaganda
— which is what it is, of course — were it not accompanied by sermons on the
objectivity, the fairness, the impartiality of a real historian, the
implication always being that Muslims and Arabs cannot be objective, by
training, by the mere fact of their Westernness." (1-3,5). This is a concise
summary of Said’s theory of Western civilization’s inclination toward
imperialism. Said’s second theory is an in-depth view regarding the history
of opposition to the empire.
According to Said, the core of resistance to colonialism can be separated
into two categories, the first being the violent act of fighting the
colonialist face to face and the second being the restoration of the
community to work together against the colonial system. In each territory
the fight for independence differed. Some civilizations would use violence
while others would use less physical forms of rebellion, such as the novels
Said uses as the basis for his theories. Eventually, African nations became
independent after World War II, and the Western countries began to have a
better understanding of what was really going on in the colonies during the
imperialistic movement. "Many of the resistance movements, for instance,
‘shaped the environment in which later politics developed’, resistance had
profound effects upon white policies and attitudes" (198). For the colonized
to achieve independent status it took a global effort on behalf of
"churches, the United Nations, Marxism, the Soviet Union and the United
States" (199).
Said believes that in a world where everyone has a label, people need to be
given their individuality, traditions, and own history back. "Yet just as
human beings make their own history, they also make their cultures and
ethnic identities" (336). In summary, the Western culture has to cease
categorizing and stereotyping Third World countries. We need to stop putting
countries into artificial hierarchies and recognize their independence. "But
this also means not trying to rule others, not trying to classify them or
put them in hierarchies, above all, not constantly reiterating how ‘our’
culture or country is number one (or not number one, for that matter)"
(336).
I agree with Edward Said on many different levels. I feel as though the
colonialism movement was nothing more than a group of dishonest governments
at work, pretending to better the local cultures while in truth using them
for its own profit. Secondly I think that our government did and still does
intentionally mislead its own people, which results in our prejudices and
stereotypes of other nations. I also believe that the occurrence of
nationalism and decolonization is and was the bare minimum needed to
overcome this sense of a capitalistic and imperialistic government that
dominates the Western World.
Heart of Darkness supplies many examples to support my first argument that
the government of the Western world lied and still lies to its people about
its intentions with undeveloped countries. Heart of Darkness is known to be
one of the most important pieces of literature to detail the mistreatment of
Africans by the colonists. I feel that the most important of the sources and
backgrounds in this book was a letter to King Leopold II, written by George
Washington Williams, describing how he plans to help African civilization.
Leopold says to his nation’s subjects that he seeks "humane sentiments and
work of Christian civilization for and work of Christian civilization for
Africa" (103).  Williams proposes that the king’s intentions were not for
the good of Africa but for the good of his own nation. According to Williams
the European colonists had not even built a hospital in the Congo. He also
talks about the trickery used by the Europeans to persuade the Africans to
sign treaties . Williams states, "A number of electric batteries had been
purchased in London, and when attached to the arm under a coat, communicated
with a band of ribbon which passed over the palm of the white brother’s
hand, and when he gave the black brother a cordial grasp of the hand the
black brother was greatly surprised to find his white brother so strong..."
(104). These methods that were used by the Belgian army led Williams to
disbelieve what he thought was supposed to be an Africa that was supported
by Europe to provide "fostering care," "benevolent enterprise," and an
"honest and practical effort"(105). This type of misleading governmental
rule of European countries sets the tone for the whole imperialistic society
that we are still dealing with today.
In Heart of Darkness, the character Kurtz is the symbol of European
imperialism and Kurtz is the shadow of the character Marlow. Marlow’s
concern is not with how imperialism affects the colonized people but how it
effects the Europeans. Marlow suggests that by taking the Europeans away
from their civilized society and putting them in charge of a country that
has no European rule, they are tempted to be " barbaric." A perfect example
of this mentality Marlow maintains is when he uses this example to describe
what it must be like for the colonist, " Or think of a decent young citizen
in a toga — perhaps too much dice, you know — coming out here in the train
of some prefect, or tax-gatherer, or trader even to mend his great fortunes.
The utter savagery had closed round him — all that mysterious life of the
wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the heart of wild
men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the
midst of the incomprehensible which is also detestable. And it has a
fascination too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the
abomination — you know" (10). The influence of an imperialistic nation has
resulted in Conrad’s prejudices and limited view of how the colonial
movement was inherently unjust.
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, is the narrative point of view of a
native living in Africa during colonialism. Chinua writes about how with the
church, the Europeans also brought government. In this book Chinua also
shows how that the culture of the Africans changed when the missionaries
came to live with the tribes. The missionaries enabled families to be broken
apart and this caused the blacks to have prejudices toward the whites. When
decolonization began, the first phase of it was violent. Franzt Fanon
describes decolonization in this way: "You do not turn any society, however
primitive it may be, upside down with such a program if you have not decided
from the very beginning, that is to say from the actual formulation of that
program, to overcome all the obstacles that you will come across in so
doing" (37). I am of the opinion that one cannot just walk into a country
and force his ideas and customs onto people as if there are no
repercussions. Prejudices derive from imperialism on both sides of the
relationship, and only when we decide to treat other nations as thought they
are equal we will continue with the struggle to move away from an
imperialistic society.
Nationalism is the second part of Said’s theory in the resistance against
the empire. Nationalism for Africa was the reforming of the community to
emphasize their African origins and identity. Nationalism in Africa has
caused the most difficult problem for strategists looking for ways to put
some order into this new world. It will test the limits and challenge the
international system to devise universal norms and effective means for
protecting human rights. "This fight for democracy against the oppression of
mankind will slowly leave the confusion of a neo-liberal universalism to
emerge, sometimes laboriously, as a claim to nationhood" (149). It seems
that universally people need to be aware of what has happened under the
auspices of imperialism and how we can change the effect it has had. Dealing
with such issues will demand greater understanding of what is distinctive
about each ethnic conflict and of the characteristics that all such
conflicts share in common.

Beethoven

I wish Prince Lichnowsky’s instruments to be kept safely by one of you; as soon as they can serve you in a more useful way, sell them---how happy I shall be if, in my grave, I can still be of use to you both! So be it, I go joyfully towards death. If it comes before I have had the chance to develop all of my artistic abilities, that will be too soon for me, despite my hard fate, and I would wish it to be postponed---yet should I not be satisfied, would it not release me from a condition of endless suffering? Come when you will, death, I will meet you resolutely. Farewell, and do not entirely forget me when I am dead; I have deserved to be remembered by you, as I have often thought of you during my lifetime. May you be happy.

As the industry is changing radically, what remains constant is the fact that people create and people buy. As the distribution transforms, what steps do you think the industry needs to take in order to make sure that they are able to survive in the long run?

Lee Abrams, XM Satellite: Leaders must be open to radical and revolutionary new ways of doing things rather than being afraid of them, in denial or protective of the old way.

Sara Nichols, Emotional Pictures: Staying in touch with how the consumer buys and being very pro-active about alternate means of breaking artists and encouraging sales. Television overrides radio in terms of influence and breaking new artists. I don’t believe distribution transforms, the pipelines will change a bit, but we are dealing with more in the marketplace and consumers with less time to focus in one direction.


Demian Lichtenstein, Lightstone Films: We must all embrace the digital revolution and hang onto celluliod as long as we can. All motion pictures and music will eventually be distributed by digital tech. And some day in the future we will have chips in our heads and just download by thinking about it.


Dennis Damico, The Garland Appeal: Pay attention to the lost audience of buyers. Those 35 and older, those who have been so far neglected or completely ignored


Ritch Esra, Music Business Registry: First of all, I think threat they have to change their thinking first & foremost. The customer is their friend NOT THEIR ENEMY. In addition, they HAVE TO STOP SIGNING SO MANY ARTISTS! THE MARKETPLACE C A N N O T!!!!!! absorb that much talent at any one time (regardless of quality) Third & Most IMPORTANT - STOP WANTING EVERY ARTIST DO SELL PLATINUM THEIR 1ST TIME OUT. If we ever want to get back to the place where Artist Development is Paramount in long-term careers - we have to stop this obsession that every act MUST SELL PLATINUM ON THEIR FIRST CD.

Steve Zuckerman: I could go on for days about this. When you come to the Summit, you will know...


Jeffrey Abramson. Gen Art Film Festival: I am most influenced by artists nobody has heard of. A musician in the subway or an artist on the street. You know these people are doing it because they have to - because they love it and it consumes them. It is very inspirational. That said - i am drawn to songs that care more about the lyrics than the music.

Michael Barry, Laughing Buddha Productions: Artists and independents have to work together to handle their own products. Artists must do more for their own careers and labels have to once again focus more on long term development and "lifestyle" and "niche"marketing, as opposed to trying to find the next Britney. We all need to realize that the Music business and the Entertainment business are often two different things.

Hank Borodowitz :Get back to a smaller is better mentality. Recognize that no art form can resonate with everone at every time. No album should sell over 20 million copies. That's just too big a consensus.

James Fairs: Who are "they?" People will survive. And the human spirit is remarkable durable resource. The music industry as we know of it has passed... but people still enjoy making...and listening to... music. The relationship of listener and music is evolving radically at this time.. but (and I quote, here) "I trust everything will turn out alright."

David Wimble: Artists and writers must lower their expectations of what they want to achieve in the music business. The old way of thinking is to constantly look for the home run - waiting for the Big Label to come and carry you away to the land of fame and fortune. From what I've seen, more artists are now coming to grips with the idea that they may never become famous, but they can make a good living recording and playing the music they love. I'm sure the thought of excessive fame and fortune is on the mind of all artists (as it is all people) but there's a big difference in knowing that it's highly unlikely and taking steps to secure a solid career versus taking irresponsible steps because you believe that fame and fortune are obvious byproducts of your greatness.

Labels must educate and re-train the masses...especially the younger market. They are being fed drool right now. Mindless pulp. Canned music that doesn't make them think. The industry players must bring
to the surface more of the great music that is being held down.


Moses Avalon: Open minded and open ended solutions. Commerce is like life. Despite what some might have us believe, It functions without "winners" or 'losers." in a cycle, not a liner line. We all "win" and "lose" together.

Paul Ewing: The public has to be aware of you and the outlet be it an Amazon type operation on a brick and mortar Virgin or Borders has to be constantly reminded to promote your music.

Stephen Kallinich: I think we have to look for smaller markets-Allow more good work to come to the market place or a forum where they can Co exist with the Mega wonders who become less about reaching out to others and more about me-Me-Me-

Steven Masur, Esq.: The industry needs to remain focused on what people want to buy, not on what the industry wants to sell.

Steve Gordon, Esq: The content owners (Hollywood studios, recording labels, etc.) must work vigorously to develop new business models and distribution systems in cooperation with the electronics and telecommunications industries and to work with those industries in a collaborative manner to prevent piracy and assure a reasonable return for entertainment projects and talent.

"Bowling For Columbine" PLEASE DO NOT MISS IT YOU WILL BE
AFFECTED BY IT POSITIVELY I GUARANTEE.  I KNOW you are very
busy but am sure that you will be glad you took the time to
see this film.  Please take a few moments now to go to the
site, it is really good in itself (just read a few of the
comments it will take you five minutes...). 

David :)
 
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/home.php

Why he died before he got old

Kurt Cobain was adored, addicted and angry - the rest of the rock myth followed from there. Pete Townshend suffers as he plumbs the depths of Cobain's despair in his Journals

Sunday November 3, 2002
The Observer

Journals
by Kurt Cobain
Viking £20, pp288

'I hope I die before I become Pete Townshend,' wrote Kurt Cobain in his journal in the middle of one of his rants against the rock press establishment. Why? Because I had become a bore? Because I had failed to die young? Because I had become conventional? Or, simply because I had become old? In fact, in the early Nineties, when Kurt was struggling with himself over whether or not to do an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, I was not boring, neither old nor young, and I was not dead. I was, unlike Cobain, hardened. Tempered, beaten and subjugated by all that rock had delivered to me and via me over 30 years. Rock is, I think, particularly hard. And in this statement Cobain appears to be hard on me. But perhaps he is sad for me?

Nirvana, and their principal creative architect Kurt Cobain, are considered by many in the UK to be the most important band in the history of rock. The publication of Cobain's journals is considered, then, to be a major event and has been anticipated with a mixture of trepidation, curiosity and excitement.

As a songwriter and rock architect, I was interested to look behind the creative process of Kurt Cobain. Nirvana's second album, Nevermind was a breath of 'punk' fresh air in the musically stale early Nineties. So I picked up this book searching for connections. Where might a particular lyric idea have begun? What, for example, is behind the smart, striking and ironic wit of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'? If this sounds rather professorial, that's me, the first proprietor of the rock academy of lyric analysis.

Now here I have before me a sober and distinguished hardback. The word 'Journals' is quietly inscribed under the author's name. The inner jacket is deep purple. The first facsimile page is like a piece of pop art. It is an expensively and reverently reproduced photo of a page from a spiral book, the cheap kind sold in American drugstores. There are 11 marks on the torn sheet. 'Booze' - the first mark - is recorded in ballpoint, a light blue. On the same line, in a darker pen, is the second mark, the number '30'. Another mark is 'Records/watch', followed again by a number - obviously the cost - '50'. 'Food' and 'ticket' follow. The total sum is '200'.

What follows appear to be the scribblings of a crazed and depressed drug-addict in the midst of what those of us who have been through drug rehab describe as 'stinking thinking'. That is, the resentful, childish, petulant and selfish desire to accuse, blame and berate the world for all its wrongs, to wish to escape, or overcome and, finally, to take no responsibility for any part of the ultimate downfall. Me? An expert? Of course. Been there, done that. Back to the academy.

If the first draft words for 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' are here somewhere, I'm not sure I could find them without help. I believe that there are actually three drafts in this book. But the song on the CD is clear, outstanding, dark, ironic, amusing and disturbing at once. It occurs to me that somewhere along the way, in the business that passed between his first infantile scribblings and the rehearsals and recording studio sessions with his band members, Kurt Cobain had a lot of help to reorganise, focus and realise his ideas.

Most of these pages are facsimiles from what appears to be four or five other notebooks. The tatty front covers are sometimes themselves displayed. Apparently, there were actually 20 notebooks. It's a pity the entries are not dated, and that no attempt has been made to provide a chronology. The entries are not uninteresting. It is simply that they are devastatingly hard to contemplate. They actually hurt. These are the scribblings of a once beautiful, angry, petulant, spoiled, drug-addled middle-class white boy from a divorced family who just happened, with the help of two of his slightly more stable peers, to make an album hailed as one of the best rock records ever. I sometimes get letters from people who write and draw like Cobain. I put them in a file marked 'Loonies', just in case they try to sue me in the future for stealing their ideas.

Incidentally, Kurt was obviously a very good graphic artist. He drew artwork for early posters for his band. But what is reproduced here is gothic in its grossness. What is obscured behind the striking but puerile, classroom-brat drawings here is the ambition and excitement, the sheer energetic drive that was behind Cobain's youthful desire to become a rock star, to change the music, to sweep away the old and replace it with the new. That this should be muddled with his resentments, his political naivety and his extraordinary self-obsession (he worried at one time that he was lactating because his nipples were always sore) is simply sad.

There is some insider interest generated by some of the images. On page 139, there is a small cartoon of a baby swimming underwater, obviously the inspiration for the cover of Nevermind . But that art was redeemed because the face of the child was happy and free. Cobain's cartoon is captioned: 'Sell the kids for food'. No irony here. In a world plagued by the abuse of children, it is depressing, because what troubles Kurt was and is still real.

It is terrible that someone so obviously sick, so mentally deranged, so angry and unstable, should not have been helped further and beyond his wonderful work with his band. It might be that those around him will maintain that these scribblings were private and that at other times he kept such strange outpourings to himself. But if that is the case, I wonder at the result of publishing them now. It has the effect of unfairly accusing everyone around him of ostrich-like denial or ignorance.

When Cobain was in deep trouble with heroin addiction in 1993, I was visiting New York regularly in connection with my own child-abuse story, Tommy , which had hit Broadway. I met Michael Azerrad who had written Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. Azerrad asked if I would contact Cobain, who was in constant danger of overdosing. I had chosen this year to give booze another gentle try after 11 years. When Azerrad approached me, I was not drunk, nor unsympathetic, but I did not make the necessary judgment I would make today that an immediate 'intervention' was required to save his life.

It is desperately sad for me to sit here, 57 years old, and contemplate how often wasteful are the deaths of those in the rock industry. We find it so hard to save our own, but must take responsibility for the fact that the message such deaths as Cobain's sends to his fans is that it is in some way heroic to scream at the world, thrash a guitar, smash it up and then overdose.

Read this book to see that the human spirit, even at its most sublime, can effect monumental damage on itself and its fellow souls if addiction enters the story. I mourn for Kurt. A once beautiful, then pathetic, lost and heroically stupid boy. Hard rock indeed.

http://www.meditationinnewyork.org/
http://www.diamondway.org/ny/
http://www.jewelheart.org/
http://www.kagyu.org/centers/usa/usa-nyc.html
http://www.palyul.org/center_ny/
http://www.vikramasila.org/dharmateachings.html#newyork

L,
H