More, more, more...

(How do ya like it?/How do ya like it?)

Still watching the World Cup at the gym. And learning a lot about decisive moments. Creating your own luck and the like.

Number one: You've got to want it. A friend once told me that about writing my book: "You've got to want it more than that." He was right. You've got to really want it. So much of this world goes to who wants it most. Who wants to deliver pizzas the most gets to. Who wants to play basketball the most gets to. Etc., etc. It's the same thing as seek and you shall find. Those who refuse to be stopped rarely are.

The trick is being the person you want to be and infinitely loveable while maintaining your indominable spirit. Your indefatigueable hunger.

Number two: As you get closer and closer to what you want, the opportunities to "fall out" increase exponentially. It's no big deal to thank the shop that sold you your guitar in your liner notes, but when you've dropped a few hits, it means a whole different thing to start selling Pepsi. Money, money, money; moo-nay!

The problem here is likely that you've entered into a recording and distribution agreement (or book publishing deal, etc.) that artificially deflates your value by tying the price of your creation to other artists and restricting the amount of money you can make off of relaxed, stable (loving) pursuits such as recording and songwriting. Your dick is in the machine and it's time to for a summer tour to pay the bills. You're not a victim, because you agreed to it, but because you couldn't see and negotiate another way, you feel like one. Even more problematic, is that these resentments are already creeping into your art form. And crushing whatever love you did have in the first place that may have warranted being priced above other slap-bang and cheap thrill artists. Unless you started 40 years ago (when I would argue price and the goods delivered were more closely aligned), if you're making high quality product these days, you are likely grinding it out. And spending some part of you that shouldn't be spent to do so. A situation that can only lead one direction--and all the money, coke, sexual partners, Big Macs, cars, adulation, and ass-kissers in the world can't get that back. I spent four days in a hotel recently and I barely knew who I was afterwards. I might even recommend it for short periods, and for purposes of experimentation, but lord help the folks who try to live that way. Or become itinerant to pay the bills. We ask that our culture be rooted, have and be roots without a mechanism for our artists to live that way.

[This isn't anyone's fault, btw, just a historical hiccup. Like many others before it. Popular artists have rarely demanded what they are worth and those who produce and distribute them have never understood the enormous financial upside to pricing mass produced culture according to its value.

(Run for the hills, Betsy, he said that value isn't relative!!! He's a culltural supremist/Nazi/asshole/fascist/Republican/dog hater/uptight fundamentalist for sure! Go, go, go!)]

If I was on a label and went into a store and my shit was the same price as Brittany Spears (and no disrespect to Brittany, I even like some of her stuff), I'd freak. I eat potato chips sometimes, big deal. But I don't expect to get a Porterhouse served with quinoa pilaf and served by someone smiling for the same price as a fucking hot dog and nachos at 7-11. I'm not crazy! And I'm not twenty and I don't create for 14 year-olds with limited disposable income. Do I think some of them would like it--absolutely! Do I think that some of them deserve to be able to afford it? Probably! But I bet my life that it's more important for them to grow up in a culture where their parents, or even people their parents know, or could know, have access to a real, loving, warm, adult culture. And I know for a fact that they (the 14 year-old) know the difference. I just gave a copy of my book to my nephew, who's around that age, and there are parts that he really liked. He also gave me some of the most lucid comments on it of anyone who's read it. My point is that my work is not competing with Tigerbeat Magazine for anyone's allowance. Nor should it. This doesn't mean that any of my peers will pay for it. (And judging by the response so far, they won't.) But that doens't mean it shouldn't be available. And priced at a level that would support and allow love to flourish should they choose to.

It's prettty hard to describe your value after you've set your price. And I guarantee that I'll never be a car salesman--used or new--"This one's just like a Lexus, I guarantee!"

In any event, as you get coser and closer to that which you really, really want, whether it be in a relationship, business, sports or in bed--the temptations to pack it all in, to give up and join the dark side, to get the rewards and give up on all this process stuff, get increasingly more appealing. C'mon baby, the ends justify the means! You're the man! Can't nobody mess with you!

And this isn't a reason to get more nervous. But an opportunity to permanently relax. To remember to enjoy the whole thing. And give it your all. And take unreasonable risks. And get creative. And allow yourself the possibility of failing! Or remember that that's all that's real anyway. And all we're here for. And that you're just doing it as exercise. As practice.

US soccer team. Impressed with making it to the World Cup. Ready to play defense. Ready to stop everyone else. Played great when confronted bodily by the Italians, otherwise with certain fear of risk and little creativity. That'll get you to the World Cup but never win it. To win you must be willing to lose! Our soccer team was unwilling to lose.

Dwayne Wade, on the other hand. Did he care that his team was down two-none and Shaq hadn't shown up yet? Just give me the ball. Let me do the work. Let me go down swinging at least! Let me do whatever I have to until I figure out to enjoy it. Cause I'm dead until then anyway. (And you can be alive and happy, engaged, etc. and not win, certainly--but you also don't care. Feel like less or complain. You will bust your nut eventually--guaranteed--this world is too beautiful, too sexy, too warm and inviting--and you're supposed to! But it won't bust your flow when you do it right. You won't be tired the next morning. Feel guilt or shame. You'll celebrate! You did your thing! You felt love! You were yourself! Yeah, baby!)

Richer than kings, softer underwear than popes. More loving sex and alive and free women than despots, mauraders, industrialists and peasants alike. (Maybe even combined.) More comfort, more leisure, more tools, more toys, more time, more TEETH, more toes, more tunes, more love, more light, better toast and more power, education, freedom and rights than pretty much the entire world's population--ever.

Yes I have stuff I have to do. And gnarly lessons to learn, but they're fun ones. Sexy even. What about the generations it took to sit still and be quiet. Or shut up and get back to work.

Let's talk about music.

Paris HIlton is number 6 on iTunes. Gnarles Barkley is number 5. Then it's Rascal Flats, Christina, and Nelly Furtado. And Shakira. All bets are off. If you DON'T differntiate yourself by price--if you don't put a value on your values (and you make and sell music) then you too will have to either strip every vestige of funk from your person (including shaving all pubic hair most likely) or insist that you are, as Gnarles' title suggests, Crazy. Or you'll be something slash artist. It's a zero sum game and those are the states of being that our current price points support. (Unless you have some magic way of feeling everything going on around you, being real and not having it affect you at all.) Homoginized or "insisting I'm absolutely not, and could never be, Homoginized". Please tell me if I've missed anything in my figuring.

Just remember that I was the first white guy who told you to get the fucking money. And if you ever go to tell someone you can't believe how expensive I am, please remember that I gave you that for free. My book is really immaterial tto the cover and the price. Although it certainly helps rocket value to read it. Or at least have a copy sitting on your bookshelf :). (I'm still surprised that no one's asked for a copy yet. It seems obvious to me that like a bully I can't wait to be bullied. Or that like a woman, I might think less of guys who are interested but afraid to ask me out. --Or maybe I'm just blind to my actual attractiveness!)

(--If you didn't laugh at that there's not much else I can do, yo.)

Speaking of Dre, I accidentally put my Nano on regular play today (usually shuffle). I didn't realize until I got to the "D"s. Whic are just about all Dr. Dre. And all his stuff is killer. It made me think about the conversation I had with the manager at my bank about Dre, Eminem, 50 Cent and the Game. (Yes, it's one of the coolest branches of Washington Mutual--I'm sure HQ doesn't know they were playing Rakim's "18th Letter" at 9:30 this morning, albeit at a professional volume--or that one of their business customers chose them specifically for that reason for that matter.)

Anyway, the manager was detailing the recent history of the Aftermath's crew street cred. (Aftermath is Dre's label. Dre owns a piece of Eminem's work, who owns a piece of 50's, who owns a piece of the Game's--or at least used to. Dre makes all the beats.)

It turns out that The Game has essentially crushed 50s credibility--and his sales--by battling him and attacking his "gangster". --The same thing that 50 did to Ja Rule. Of course, 50s decision to let his movie (Get Rich or Die Tryin') slip into fiction didn't help either.

From this I took two things: one--be very careful how you come up. You will reap what you sow. Two--keep the business separate from the art. And if you want to still create, you better be ready, willing and able to bring it at the drop of a hat. Or else it's better to just produce.

I say this because what is beautiful about this, like a 40's cutting contest, is that the form wants to be advanced no matter what. Period. And it doesn't care about anyone. Or money. The truth wants to be heard. Art demands movement. And either you stay with it or it's gone and off to someone else. Ruthlessly. And if you get schooled and can't say thank you--then you're old news, pops.

It's one thing to be a father, another to be a grandfather (and still part of the family), and yet another to be a Dre, a Michael, a van Gogh--someone who instantly gives generations something to work with--a way to be valuable. As my friend at the bank mentioned, Dre could have put a weatherman doing vocals on "In the Club" and had a hit. Because of that beat.

And you're going to tell me he sells for the same price as Buck Cherry's second album? Say all you want but to me, that's like Dizzy having to smile for people to listen to him. And if I've learned my lesson well--the answer is to turn my back on that shit like Miles. And blow like a motherfucker.



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I'm off to hear Buddhist Monks perform Mozart downtown for free. That's the other option--an esoteric culture curated by the elite.


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The title song, btw, I just looked up on iTune, is by Angela True. The album it's available off of--One Hit Wonders! (And Best of the 70s).