CARE Muffler

Cash rules everything around me—C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla, dolla bills y’all!

Cash doesn’t really rule everything around me but I love that Wu-Tang line. If you’re already operating from your heart, get the damn money. There’s no way that by being meek you’re going to help/save/improve the world. Shake your thing, baby!

Lots of good stuff in the news these days. Newsweek on environmental (kinda) high fashion. My brothers and sisters in the middle east taking to the streets—asserting what they want. I’m telling you in four minutes it’s going to be worldwide business of culture. Real culture, not the processed cheese that passes for it these days. There’s only one way to go: up!

I think in a sense we don’t even know where we are as a culture (or even as an economy). Things have/are changing so fast and will continue to be flipping for a minute. We know intellectually that a kid from Waukegan could post one song made in his basement on the internet and go around the world in a week, but we don’t yet quite believe it. We’re still wedded to this major label/underground duality. And where once it was a pretty accurate description of what was, now it’s only here because we are hanging on to it. The power’s to the people, who are reluctant to take it, because they’re/we’re tired, a bit shook, and not quite sure we could do any better than a Slint reunion. Give me the devil I don’t know any day.

I met one of the next rap stars while getting my muffler fixed (took me two days to find a muffler place punk enough to just weld the damn tailpipe on—I had to leave the white (and adjoining) neighborhoods and go somewhere where they still take complete responsibility and aren’t afraid to do the damn thing). For my search I paid $47 for a new tailpipe and stainless steel tip (bling) instead of $230 for one without. My people, be not afraid. I heard “we can’t weld on that” too many times by guys who then smiled and handed me estimates for up to $305. A very important part of the new aesthetic is the ability to get down and dirty. Shake it like a salt shaker! Do it baby! Once you forget where your ass is you’re done. It’s not about being cheap, but real. Charge me whatever you want but don’t blow smoke up my ass.

Anyway, they took care of me on the West side. Much love.

While I was there, I ran into what I can only call a posse. It was a bunch of guys sitting around talking about how much Snoop and Dre cost to get on a track. I at first figured it to be the usual street corner speculation but it soon became apparent that they knew what they were talking about.

To make a long story short, the guy’s name is J.U.I.C.E. As he left he gave a guy sitting there a copy of his cd (one of his crew had one without cover in his coat pocket) and we went out to listen to it in my car. I was highly skeptical but intrigued. I know it’s kind of Chicago’s time right now. The track was tight, though. Killer beat and he laced it. For real. It’s getting airplay on the local stations but I’d put it up against half the stuff in current rotation. And I’m picky.

What I loved was how broke these mo-fos were and how hard their hustle was. They’re sitting there talking about $50k this and $20K for radio here or there and that they could get Lil Wayne on a track for $15K and when they get up to go, they have to check everyone to come up with the $30 to get their car out. The rapper didn’t have it, the manager didn’t have it—the girlfriend had to go out of pocket. While the sideman stated (to no one in general) that if they needed it, they had friends with money. And if they didn’t have it their friends’ friends had money.

They finally came through (and got their Range Rover out) but what I loved was that they were so full invested. Not a moment’s sweat about being currently broke and not a moment’s doubt about putting down $30K just to have someone appear on a track. Lovely, lovely. That’s the mindset I cultivate every day. Forward, forward, forward. Take no prisoners. Jesus says have no apprehension over where tomorrow’s food will come from, for as god feeds the lowly crow in the field every day, so shall he feed his people. Our part of the deal is to exercise a faith strong enough to do what it is that we want. When that’s not what we’ve been doing. Even if it takes 10 years to turn around. Especially if it takes 10 years to turn around. You don’t think that our culture will go from f-fear to loo—oove on a dime do you? No, we’ll have to pay for it, pray for it, believe it, and prove it.

When I got back, I looked these guys up on the internet (www.theconglom.com). It’s the same old story—he was somewhat of a backpacker (hip-hop’s equivalent of Indie rock) and e’ry one wants to know if he’s not selling out. Now that he’s not talking about other people. Now that he’s not spending half of his energy as a critic of the game. He may not be spitting about the holy holy, but I can guarantee that turning into what you want—no matter how it comes out at first—is holy in and of itself. Ain’t none of us cute when we go to get real at first. Yes it looks like hell. Once you get that out of your system, you can move toward your more gentle and lovely desires. There is a war going on and much props to anyone who enters the fray for $14.99 a pop. I wouldn’t do it for less than $24.

Ps: Got three agents reading my book, plus some more reading parts of it. Had one read three chapters, tell me it was marketable and ask for the rest. It’s beyond marketable, it’s nothing but legs. Kinda like Knut Hamsun’s Hunger—except that he didn’t know he would influence Hemmingway, Miller and the rest of the modern masters, so he didn’t charge for it. I’m going to. Our culture moves too fast (and isn’t loving enough to it’s artists) for me to do the same thing. I’m going to charge you for every inappropriate question asked by an insecure journalist who’s trying to make a name for him or herself through sensationalism. Through drama and dirt. And that’s a lot, unfortunately. I’m not going to submit my family to the kind of bullshit that passes for attention these days without ensuring that I have ample compensation. But I am going to take all the money and build even more loving culture and products. So it’s gonna be as if it were cheap for you.

Pulling together music gear as well. Got a new 4x12 cab—maybe for bass, got a bass—for bass, looking for studio gear, got a digital piano. VS-Gut, baby.
I’m off to church to help cook tomorrow’s breakfast.

Lots of love,

Eben