Early Money is Like Yeast and Culture Vultures

My sister introduced the term Culture Vulture to me the other day. I hadn’t ever heard it but it made me chuckle. I guess that’s what people with actual cultures feel when they look down and see rich white people who’ve “come for dinner” and somehow forgotten to leave.

The musician who ended up playing world music, even though he’s from a very specific place (and time). The newly minted yoga devotee who feels if we could just get everyone chanting Sanskrit. The Buddhist who calls his fellow Americans “hungry ghosts” because he’s clamped a tight lid on his “Western consumerism”. The white suburban kid who out-sags Too $hort.

We live in a global culture—and are entitled to enjoy all its riches. So what’s the difference between an influence, an inspiration and a vulture?

I’ve came head to head with this exact question in a number of settings and it brings to mind one of my favorite stories.

Woody Guthrie was taken in by Leadbelly and from what I understand “studied” with him. I don’t know the exact structure of their relationship but legend has it that Woody, after seeing Leadbelly play something especially inspiring, asked him to show him how to play it. Leadbelly, according to the story, responded: Show you? If you want it you’re gonna have to steal it.

I liked this story but never fully understood it until it came time for me to stand on my own two feet culturally and ideologically. I was, at the time, very close friends with a man to whom I owed a lot. Who had showed me an immense amount about love and life. And I’m sure at times I looked like a culture vulture to him. Anyway—we got to the point where we differed in opinion and I saw that I was going to have to break if I was going to stay true to what I believed in. This was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.

After I had gone through the histrionics of standing up—and taken full responsibility for everything I believed in—I understood Leadbelly’s dictum. If he had showed Guthrie, and Guthrie had turned out to be a punk—or soft—or schmaltzy—then he’d run around telling everyone “Leadbelly taught me”. And use it to establish himself “playing Leadbelly” as an authority. Which is the scholarship—the opposite of a creative and vital culture. If he was forced to steal it, he would have to make it his own. He would be forced to incorporate Leadbelly as an influence but be less able to mimic him. And he’d have to do it with a combination of brazen nerve and respectful reverence. He’d have to be alive.

This process is what is known as “making it your own”. Once you make an influence your own it’s yours. I don’t know where the legal definition lies but everyone can feel the difference. The difference is between Vanilla Ice and Eminem. This is Missy Elliott and Timbaland sampling tabla drum beats vs. the guy who comes to your yoga class. This is the difference between all mediocre artists and all great ones. The great ones have taken the opportunity of being alive to commit their life to what they have chosen to do—completely and eternally. This is why kids and the mentally ill do pretty well at art—because they don’t know any different. But their output will never create a culture that feeds sane, mature adults. That we’ll have to do ourselves.

When you make something your own you bring it into a culture that is primarily yours—that is primarily you. When you become enraptured with a foreign culture and wish to forget yourself, you hang around and trying to usurp power by proximity. You go to the dance but refuse to get down. Or you refuse to get down with your own people, back at home, sober, in your regular clothes.

In my opinion, white people (and not all white people are white—but I'll leave that one alone for now) are ripe for this kind of abuse because we feel we’ve got nothing especially appealing to bring cultural influences home to. We’re living in castles but can’t feel our crowns, grounds, or adoring citizenry. In one of the strangest moves ever, we’ve largely given up cultural authenticity and “voice” to those we deem disenfranchised. A move that is ridiculously effete and inexcusably violent at the same time. Plus, we’re a bit scared of shaking ass.

So—why am I sitting here discussing it coolly like a white (in non-fiction form) instead of shaking it like I preach (doing the do)? A very good question—and an A+ to anyone who asked it (and I want to see your artwork as soon as you’re willing to kick my ass on it). The simple answer is I am—and I want to do more—so I want your money. You respond, for whatever reason, much more to the motivation of non-fiction—to a sales pitch—than to the inspiration of a picture or a novel. And I’m one of you. So the pitch is part of the art. Once you/we sacrifice financially for the mysterious unknown—just because you believe in it, just because you feel it—you’ll get pitch-free art. Until then it is my understanding that you won’t buy anything without seeing it’s provenance. So I’m gonna sell the shit to you. Your alternatives are marketing people talking about love or new agers trying to convince people they can do what they want (which seems to be so far to pretend they’re Native Americans or foreign shaman). If I were you, I’d go with me.

Money, money, money. Mon-aaaay.

Listen, we’re all tired of punk rock and dirty co-ops (and pretentious Whole Foods’) and drinking until 2 in the morning and waking up with coffee the next morning and wearing black and being ironic and cool and being the editors of the world, but no one wants to step up to the plate and create what’s next. Most white art is corny, depressed, activist (against the against), or just incomprehensible. A lot of it is childish and immature. The kids are the only ones with the time and energy to go make it.

I wrote a book called The Love Artist. It’s exactly about all this shit. I put it out on a label called White Gold. I priced it at $40. That’s the minimum I’m willing to charge for what’s real in a fake culture—with people who don’t even believe the real is possible. If you want a $24 book go talk to David Eggers and see where that gets you. Oh, and attack when they see vulnerability out of habit. And are scared shitless by their own asses. And a bit lazy.

At first I thought it’d go through the roof. Who wouldn’t pay $40 to get to know someone? To hear a real story? To see a main character smart enough so not fall victim to the plot? But I underestimated the lack of belief in my people. And their attachment to their copious amounts of money. When I shopped it around to agents I was told that east Indian writers were hot. They had a point, I was tired of white people too. That this wasn’t white in that (the bad) way but was in the good way I thought was obvious. But obviously not obvious enough. Book people didn’t believe a real white story was possible. (Plus, since they charge so little they’re basically selling cookbooks).

If the record industry is five years behind and gets caught up periodically by the Dr. Dre’s (who then discover the Eminem’s who then discover the 50 cent’s) then the book industry is 40 years behind (still with Kerouac?), doesn’t ever get caught up, and never gives anyone their own label to discover anyone else on. I guess people don’t expect anything real from books anymore. Real is for classics. The tomb. And black folks of course—Soul on Ice, now that’s real.

Most of my friends didn’t even buy one. I told myself that I’d sell it cheap or give it away to anyone who asked (expressed vulnerability) but few did. Everyone who read it said it was great. I say that five years later—having sold no more than a few boxes. And not even really remembering the person I was when I wrote it. And giving all the glory of getting it done and out to god. It is good. But that doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter if it’s my book or Johnny’s band or Barbara’s painting—we just need a fucking way to live. We need inspiration to create and no one even thinks it’s possible. We need a way for artists who aren’t type uber-A and hell-bent on conflict (or type B and reluctantly moping) to make money and work in public. We need places to go and talk and dance and not be drunk or high. As it stands even successful musicians make money mostly off of touring. I’d never make a CD just to try to get people to a concert. And the painters recycle their own depressed, coffee and beer fueled, counter-culture thoughts. None take responsibility for how they feel and what they create. None believe that they are leading thoughts and feelings around the world. None believe. And in a sense they’re right—why put love, why put yourself, why put anything real—into your work when you’re surrounded by vultures? By hungry ghosts.

So we get a culture that reflects us. Divided and at war. And stay frustrated. Mainstream and vapid and cheap or “independent”, “deep” and cheap. But always cheap. And what’s so deep about depression? And what’s so fun about the processed and professional? Why are the trendiest galleries and artists getting more and more into “outsider” art—bad art? What is so corrupting about reason and “trying”?

I don’t even care about the battleground anymore—I describe it primarily in the hopes of sparking interest in an active and joyous peace. God bless the kurta’d white yogi with an adapted name her guru gave her. Go sit at her feet for years if you think nirvana is eastern. God bless the boob-jobbed beauty queen who wants a singing career too. I trust you will find appropriate songwriters and choreographers. Do it all—and hard and emphatically—but don’t pretend it’ll matter. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that the real you will awaken only when famous, or is honestly solitary and dark. Be hungry for yourself. And understand that there can—there has to be—a culture that is about you. And you’re worth it. That loose and aching muscle that can be developed into a whole life. That tight feels like you’ve never been left—and never will be. It is possible. In fact it is inevitable. The question is when and where. The question is will we do it before we destroy ourselves and pick over every other culture on earth with our hungry tourism? Will we do it before we consume the ozone layer (or starve saving the ozone layer) trying to feel alive?

If you’re ready to be the world’s first money artist, please contact me. For $5 million I could most likely have the album ready in a year. I’ve already done the book and have the paintings. For $50,000 I could probably get close. Without any bells and whistles. Going more frustratingly slow. But hey, it couldn’t get much slower than it is now. And I know you’ll want to see results before you really commit.

There’s no reason on earth that the world’s most powerful people don’t have a culture of their own. Don’t have any love but have made every product. The simple fact is that we haven’t paid for it. And everyone else has.