No use fooling ourselves. Have we been? Has the well run dry? Is the horse dead? We have been licking our wounds for a year without healing them. Put the thing to bed for a while. Sure. And do what, I suppose. What would the music sound like if you stopped long enough to hear it? Yes. There is nothing for me to say. The music wouldn\u2019t sound like anything. Birds chirping. Tires on wet asphalt. Wind in bare branches, wind in leaf piles. Slug on the leaf. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well. Yes. We have just been dashing from leak to leak without ever noticing where the ship is steering, and as it turns out, it\u2019s probably running round in circles. Fair enough. Evidently no harbor, anyway. Keep it afloat and drift in circles. Sailing somewhere is dangerous anyway. Yikes. Just another same sad story. An old hulk tub rusted onshore used to go on great expeditions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe the captain was crazy. Maybe the crew got the fear. Off in search of different treasure. It\u2019s pretty cold out here, if one guy doesn\u2019t pay enough, or the music isn\u2019t interesting enough, or both, then his players are gone. Some guys get taken out by Peterbilts and bring their consciousness back from the brink. One. Finger. At. A. Time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ll give them $30k to make an album and underwrite a tour. Nah. We have to write 30 hit singles that maybe no one will ever hear, and sell one of them to Norah Jones. The fucking business model is fucked. There\u2019s no way to wrap the mind around it. It\u2019s changing too fast, and there are too many facets. It would take superhuman stamina and focus. Focus. Shit. Are we lazy? I was happy to coast… to show up at rehearsal on time, get in the van, do some driving, hang out in towns and cities. We never went anywhere really special. That boat down the East River and around the Statue of Liberty was pretty legit. Levon Helm at moe.down was good. It\u2019s not like it was boring. Nobody cares about Fort Wayne, Indiana, or Yellow Springs, Ohio. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our positions are expendable. You mow some down, a new crop of musicians show up in their place, ready to work for the same or less money. It\u2019s an unnecessary expense, anyway. You can have Pandora Radio, for all anyone cares. Getting distracted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What to tell Jeremy at the Zin Wine Bar in Plymouth? $300 is only enough for 2 guys? A fucking trio at a clean $100 per man, still isn\u2019t really fair, for 4 hours of wor I don\u2019t know what the real truth is. I can play the daylights out of the trumpet from time to time. Anything else is beyond me. My mind is feeble, like a child\u2019s, when it comes to real-world things. I don\u2019t really have a job, right now, or maybe ever. Jesus. To think. What have we imagined this as There is not much in America that is worth investigating. People are just slogging it out, wherever, everywhere. Some of it is prettier to look at than others. Flint exists… We have been hanging out for 6 years at ground zero of the rust bowl apocalypse. Long Island City, Queens, Cleveland, Detroit, Flint, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Chicago… There is still some money in these places, but not much, and no one is throwing it around carelessly. There are plenty of bars. Utica, NY. Narraganset, RI, Providence. Hartford. Boston. The money in those places is tied up in accounts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I failed at mini-economy in Elementary School. I made 9 Just like the book says, it\u2019s really true. In the best of all possible worlds, you would have: General manager, tour manager, (and one, another, or both of these would ideally double as equipment manager,) Booking Agent, Promoter\/PR agent (who would ideally be an ace creative graphic designer, as well,) and you\u2019d probably have a lawyer around to look over contracts and to generally watch your ass, and a business manager, who specializes in keeping the books, making and overseeing adherence to the budget, managing payroll and taxes, and so forth. Then, you\u2019ll need a sound guy (who might take on the tour & equipment co-management, for instance,) a light guy, a merch guy, and that would probably do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At that point you might be able to count on having a Gen. Mgr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tour Mgr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Equip Mgr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sound<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lights<\/p>\n\n\n\n Booking<\/p>\n\n\n\n PR<\/p>\n\n\n\n Graphics<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lawyer<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bus. Mgr.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Merch<\/p>\n\n\n\n Extra Yug<\/p>\n\n\n\n Drums<\/p>\n\n\n\n Piano<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bass<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trumpet<\/p>\n\n\n\n Accordion<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s 17 people and you could probably get some kind of tax break if that was your business. Imagine if you were paying insurance for all those people! You\u2019d have to charge astronomical rates for a performance, and there\u2019s only 5 people on stage! By that time, you\u2019d want to get crazy costumes for the majority of the crew, 12 people, so they can dance around and get some stage time, and add some antics to the fray. Holy shit. There\u2019s just simply no way! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ideally, you\u2019d have these people working every day, working on their jobs, and keeping the thing going. You\u2019d want everyone into the office by 11 AM in the morning, generally, for the agenda meeting, and then all go off to write or rehearse songs, to book gigs, make posters, balance the books, book the gigs, send the contracts, send the press releases and carry out the advertising campaigns, design stage sets and crazy shit to light up, record, mix, and tweak the band\u2019s live show, maintain all the musical gear and the traveling equipment, settle the logistics for transportation, food and lodging to all engagements, and someone to oversee the whole mess and make sure everybody has what they need to get the job done, and that the jobs are getting done to snuff, and to keep the grand vision in mind, and to look after group morale, and so forth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then you\u2019d have to assume all these people have lives and that they might like to work together but not wipe each other\u2019s asses all day. It\u2019s just a gig. So you get 6-8 hours 12×16 is 192, you\u2019d need $192,000 a year to pay a staff of 16, all equally, and that\u2019s not even including operating costs. Vehicle costs, equipment costs, recording, production costs, etc. You\u2019d need another $50,000 for that. We did it on maybe $2,000. You need the motor coach, the trailer, the lights and sound, the instruments and amplifiers. Say $35k because you already have some of the stuff and you\u2019re getting some You need to be pulling $227,000 or nearly a quarter million dollars a year, just to be living about poverty level, and this is just assuming you can possibly play gigs and record and sell enough merch to make that much money. Play every Friday and every Saturday night of the year. 104 gigs. Play every other Thursday. Another 26 gigs. Add 12 for a monthly. 142 gigs. Those would have to average out to paying about $1,600 per You\u2019d be working close to 40% of the days, which is still less than a baseball player, and less than most people. Five days per week, say 2 weeks off, 250 days a year. 68% of your average worker\u2019s days are spent working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not the only one… how much does it bother the people who spend 68% of their time doing it? Then being taxed anywhere from 10-45% of their income? So while that goes to cool stuff like roads and firetrucks and armies, it still is Everyone is getting killed out there. Driving in conversion vans. Roofing. IT. Delivering pizza. It\u2019s a huge circle jerk. Security guards at art museums. Donut counter boys. Shoe stores, selling shoes. The shoes were made in a factory in China and shipped here, a silver stamp that says real Genuine Italian leather, and the stamp is real but the leather is not. The shoes on the feet of a museum docent, a waitress, a secretary. A business executive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t want to fathom it. People invest money, people buy and sell the future value of corn, soybeans, pork, oranges, beef, grain, commodities, and bandwidth is a commodity, terabytes are now a commodity, processing power. Precious metals are as much a commodity now as ever, because they are used to build huge engines which work giant fans that cool the tiny microchips aluminum silica silver Pulling everything possible out of the earth to run all this machinery to make the shoes that clad the feet of the workers who bring the pizza to the news desk who writes about the police chase of the booze maddened ex-husband, who was divorced because he was laid off from the factory that makes the shoes, because they were outsourced to China, they can make them cheaper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He can\u2019t support the family working at Arby\u2019s. He is working his way up to Something exists in Chicago, they are on their way back after a weekend at the lake house. They work in buildings for companies and no one can really know what they do. They look at blueprints. They make prototypes. They\u2019re looking for a more aerodynamic engineering solution. They put gardens on rooftops. They teach children how to read. They write programs that manage money, time, airplanes, data. They decorate shop windows with the seasonal style. They drive taxicabs, they come down from the building and into the taxicab. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t have to be that way but we\u2019re not seeing it so we can\u2019t change it. We\u2019re just seeing the ass of the person in front of us. The person behind you sniffs your ass, and you sniff the ass of the person in front of you. All anyone sees are butt cheeks, not a big circle of ass-sniffers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are beautiful roses and music covered in dewdrops, but no one is smelling that, because all we see are butt cheeks and all we\u2019ve ever sniffed are asses, anyway. We\u2019re locked into a pattern, our consciousnesses have become too entirely self-referential. Anyone who wants to sniff feet or armpits is executed. Anyone who wants to step out of line and smell a flower or a hay bale or some fresh laundry just falls out of existence. Not even death, just total never-happened-ness. People mourn death, this as if never having existed in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Truck driver delivers goods. Who is driving all of these trucks? Someone to maintain the trucks. Someone to regulate their weight and proper use. Someone to staff the Arby\u2019s at the exit, to unload the trucks full of roast beef to serve to the truckers. In the There is some whole world that I can\u2019t see. I\u2019m aware of it- I see people go off to work every day. People talk about it all the time. What do you do at work? All I see is the loading and unloading and driving of trucks. That\u2019s what we did… drive our little \u201ctruck,\u201d unload, drop off our product, which has a inverse expiry date, it only exists while it exists, from 10PM-midnight, perhaps, generously, it only lasts while it lasts, and when it\u2019s hot it\u2019s hot, and when it\u2019s cold it is the total absence of all heat. A vortex. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Load up our \u201ctruck\u201d, drive to another town, unload, drop off the cookies, load up and drive. All the motion makes it feel like you\u2019re doing something. You might be doing something. It\u2019s impossible to tell. If you\u2019re doing something it feels exactly the same as if you\u2019re doing nothing. There\u2019s no way of knowing. You have to have some kind of faith. There is nothing to do, anyway. There\u2019s no one to help but oneself, no one to entertain but oneself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All has become one great thrum media I need help. I need a job. I don\u2019t need anything at all. I need some desires. I need to use my imagination. I desire to use my imagination. I would like to play the trumpet and have that be of such value that I may have a home and things to eat, and a means of transportation to go to where I play the trumpet. A home with 4 walls, a floor and a roof, water and electricity, a toilet, a toaster, you know, a nice little bungalow, and I would like to pay my monthly bills with money that people have given me in exchange for playing the trumpet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When it is the song of the morning, the trumpet player plays it. He plays the sun and the birds, he plays the breakfast, hot coffee and scrambled eggs. The trumpet player plays the sriracha on toast. The trumpet player plays the song of the swimming hole, the lake, the cool water. The trumpet player plays the song of freedom so everyone knows that each crevice and crack is filled with the sound, and everywhere is free. Trees in the forest make a sound the whole time. The song of the Ents. We talk about these things jokingly because we\u2019d be batty if we took it seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is probably unacceptable in this day and age to have a job description that vague. I… listen for the song of the trees… and the trucks on the highways… and the giants sleeping inside the hills, I listen for the song of the earth and the sun, I listen for the song of the people, and I transcribe it, and play it for you, and call it my own. It isn\u2019t mine or yours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My job is to invite beauty into your home and make it comfortable there even as you yell at it and swat it with a rolled-up newspaper. I\u2019m no good at my job. What if my job were ever so clear! A baby is born, herald her. A man has died, a song is the copper coins on his eyelids, a song is A song for unity, how can one write such songs? It\u2019s not to be written, this is why improvisation. We build a tower to heaven, Babylon gets a new hockey team, the harvest has come in, the winter is freezing, the groundhog sees his shadow. Play a song. The dying light, play a song. Go gently or fight it. It will swallow you either way. Wait to see what is going to happen, play a song. What is going to happen? We wait. There is nowhere to be. We are not needed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We could fight for justice but no one can get into a war of attrition with a branch of the federal government. Bombs fall onto soldiers from miles away, they can\u2019t see their attackers. Mortar rounds. You just wait and pray. It\u2019s one thing if there\u2019s a guy with a gun, you can hide, or shoot. Mortars just fall from the sky from miles away. People are still fighting over territory and ideology. People have always fought over territory and ideology. Guns and sovereignty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone wants to lie in warm meadows naked looking at the Aquarid meteor shower, making wishes. Smell the tall grass and make love. Everyone wants a keg of beer and a campfire, everyone wants Ferris wheel rides, everyone wants to watch a ball game. You have to earn these things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The world will give no one anything, give you nothing, nobody gets nothing for free, Jesus, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Impossible. Take take take. Fill a copier with paper, mop a wood floor, add numbers in columns, find a more efficient way to do things. Things, things, the inefficient world of things. Humans who are tired and confused will screw things up. Humans are tired and confused. We are not at all capable of the great things we once imagined. It will take an endless amount of emails.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The buddha says to release desire, but the singing bowl lady down the street said if you do your vibrations right you can manifest not only what you need, but what you desire. I don\u2019t know how that is supposed to jive with the dharma though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" No use fooling ourselves. Have we been? Has the well run dry? Is the horse dead? We have been licking our wounds for a year without healing them. Put the thing to bed for a while. Sure. And do what, I suppose. What would the music sound like if you stopped long enough to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53,99],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nA few half-assed recording projects and some emails do not make a career.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Driving from town to town hustling up cash money is the business plan of lunatics.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Now the artist has to set up that infrastructure on his or her own. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
We must do the impossible. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How many shows would you have to do, how many albums would you have to sell, to even move that much money? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Now here, I think, is where we start to get into the shit that bothers me. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
I can\u2019t even fathom what goes on in the minds of people who run businesses. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Everyone is linked together, but it isn\u2019t going anywhere, it\u2019s a circle jerk. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What the fuck do people do all the time, all day, every day? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Not only do we have nothing special to say, but it\u2019s impossible to say anything special. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It is my job in society to hear the
My job is to expand my consciousness and be sensitive to the thousand swirling emotions, and tell you about it without words. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No one wants to be ruled, wants to be slaves, subservient, controlled. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n