Cultcha

Maybe my point is as simple as this:

A youth culture is better than a fake culture, but almost any real adult culture beats them both hands down (assuming you're an adult or a kid interested in growing up).

The corollary being that we get what we pay for.

30 years ago, when I was growing up, no one would pay for kid's stuff, so there wasn't any. And there wasn't any fun. You couldn't find a skateboard magazine to save your life, let alone wheels or trucks.

Today, no one wants to pay for an imaginative, vital, honest adult culture. There's "fun" everywhere, but none of it's any fun. (How could Kong and I Walk the Line be boring? --We've seen them both a hundred times.)

The price for this new culture will be paid by artists who insist on being men and women instead of boys and girls (or gals and guys). And they will be compensated for their efforts by starving consumers who have run out of places to go, things to do, ways to be, and feelings they allow. They will charge what the real is worth--a lot. But first they must refuse to be victims--again and again and again--to money, time, the art world, the economy, other artists, everything. Living on scraps and making gold. Until they themselves realize what it is they've done and what it's worth.

In 30 years (with the basics in place in less than 3, I'd bet), we'll have as varied a warm, mainstream, adult culture as the youth culture and the previous superficial, exclusionary mainstream combined. Times three or four. We've got to get real first, and that's not going to be as cute as punk rock, hip-hop or even new age, but once we commit to the truth, beauty we can feel is just around the corner.

Happy New Year folks! 2006 is gonna be huge. Lots of love.

-------------
WhiteG.com