Cashflow Bubble

I read in the Tribune (Chicago) this morning about a board game named Cashflow 101. It was created by the Rich Dad, Poor Dad guy, who I have never seen or read, but have, of course, heard of.

It's all about getting out of the "Rat Race". And it costs $195. They've sold an estimated 500,000. Doing the math, that's roughly $100 mil. Players make investments and try to increase their cashflow while learning about the guys real estate techniques.

The Love Artist is the same thing, but it's for people who want to do what they love every day, what they feel like they're on this planet to do. It's a blueprint for what to do after the self-help, after the therapy, after you succeed in real estate (or fail). Whenever you decide to go all the way during this lifetime.

When you want to go beyond successful lawyer, golf pro, recording artist. When you want more than a career in any field can offer--when you want to become a fully realized person--and believe that doing so will not only make you more valuable, and more real, but also manifest in this world as an increase in your bottom line. Having more time with your kids, better love with your wife, etc., etc.

Anthony Robbins is selling 10 DVD sets for $3,600, people are buying board games for $195 and going to $3,000 workshops, so we know there's a demand for premium specialized content, what we are lacking, however, is premium CREATIVE content. Which is why our culture feels so empty.

As you know, we are made in god's image, and therefore primarily creative beings. If we were primarily material beings, our current material culture would have us sated like the junkies and sex gods we are. As it is, we feel none of it.

And Soderberg is releasing his next movie, Bubble, straight to DVD. And theaters. Wherever he wants. Because he's the artist. (Now if he'd just charge what he wanted).

Add this all up and what you get is a huge missing link: premium, or revenue priced, creative content.

Mass produced culture is priced to maximize unit sales. Which means for an artist, label to be relevant he or she must appeal to the largest number of people possible. Not the smartest people, not the most caring people, not the most valuable or productive people, just the most. This means that most people involved in culture are focused on moving units most of the time. (With most of the rest focused on resenting this). This is why people feel a sneaking connection between the "individuality" so doggedly cultivated by the culture industry and the mass conformity of thought and experience it seems to bring.

So The Rolling Stones compete with Jessica Simson's sister. And Aaron Neville with John Mayer. Every song on iTunes is 99 cents.

For a long time this system delivered. There was so little money (relatively speaking) in entertainment and culture that it was essentially self-selecting. People did it just for kicks.

But somewhere around the Monkees, people figured out that you could just assembly line it and take a bigger cut. As they say, no one ever went broke underestimating the American public.

This created a divide in our culture: people who had it and people who didn't. If you could survive on subsidized white "high culture" like the symphony, ballet, etc., then you kind of did. But this was "good for you art" and although beautiful in its way, is not necessarily real or relevant to what's going on currently. It's a dated acquired taste.

The strong, vital culture is a child's culture, a youth culture. Much of it is good as well, but that doesn't mean it feed grown-ups.

Which also means that very few grown-ups are drawn toward creating new forms, colors and sounds. Even though they're likely so starving that the "guiltily" survive on their children's culture. Until now, there hasn't been an adult popular culture to consume. In fact, popular culture has defined itself as thumbing its nose at the adult. Even the Bukowskis--the older practicioners--revel in their teenage freedom. As if there's nothing more beautiful or enjoyable in life than a spring break in Lauderdale.

The second way to price culture is by revenue instead of unit. This assumes (correctly, I believe) that there are people willing to pay more for better films, magazines, songs, etc., and that certain artists will find greater incentive to create better culture if they can sell at this price point.

(If you bore me by saying that artists don't work with money in mind, I'll ask you for his phone number. They've all done the math and either sold out or devoted a significant portion of their creation to fighting this perceived injustice, which is just another form of selling out.)

This youth culture has been a self-fulfilling prophesy. We roll around in it until we decide to "grow-up" and get a real job, get married, have kids that need braces. Growing up, in this sense, is a getting over enjoyment, giving up on meaning and a connection past your family. Growing up is isolated suburbs, 12 hour days--both necessary to live a "decent" life.

But when we start to think of our indulgences, and by this time they're as likely to be second and third cars and an overabundance of $500 shoes, as guilty pleasures, when we consume in hiding, they fester and end up as neuroses. We end up creating our very fears instead of what we want. Then, when what we really want does comes along (and with god in charge, it will) we feel too hurt and neurotic to reach for it. To try. To demand that it be. To commit to it financially. To step out on faith for it. At least our vintage guitars and snowboards are solid, won't leave or let us down, hold their value and can be resold. Fear is rock solid and love and faith fleeting and in need of support and tender care.

At least in our current economic configuration.

I learned this by feeling it. For years in a row. I now have $500 shoes even though I haven't had an income in years. I am believing my way to the top. By force of faith and will. I will bring beautiful and meaningful objects into this world with both my creative and my consumptive needs and urges, period. I am broke and reselling used guitars and computers to make my measly $300 rent (I live at my mom's house), but I still bought the best Mogami cables at Guitar Center last night. $70 for two 6' cables to use in my studio. And I probably have $500 in the bank. And no payday in sight. And $36K in debt. But long after I'm gone, someone, likely known to me, will enjoy those cables and the way they transmit information. Two crappy cables will be saved from the landfill as we grow as an economy and become comfortable paying for higher quality, longer lasting goods. It's what I'm willing to be on this earth and live and hurt and die for. We all make the same choices every day.

And that's how the world's going to be saved. Not as sexy as Ghandi had us believe, perhaps (especially if you live in the west and bestow sacred meaning to living on grass mats and not wearing shoes), but what works nonetheless. And we'll get to spend our time making items that last. And have to be relaxed and sane to do so. And get to spend our lives using items that work and are beautiful.

Now if I could just get paid for telling y'all something you didn't really want to hear.

Oh, and by the way, the cultural sphere is even more exciting that the material. The cables don't really matter. In fact they are completely immaterial to what makes me and every other human being here happy. That feeling, that certainty, that love, is what we'll get as soon as we TRULY realize that we are spiritual beings having a material experience and not the other way around. We'll create exactly what we want--a vital, mature, robust, inclusive, caring, warm, honest culture. By paying for it on faith. And sacrificing to create it. By leveraging everything we've got because we believe. Just like our forefathers and mothers did. By taking control of the enormously powerful tools we've created instead of playing victim to them. By growing up for real.

And just like our ancestors, the riches, both material and spiritual, that we reap, will be beyond our wildest imaginations.

But that's all y'all have afforded--actually much more since you haven't as much as dropped a dime in my general direction--I'd love to mess around with you all day but I'm off to buy and sell computers. We can talk smack all day but the market never lies! It must be what you want me to do. Piece!!