Can Ya Feel Me Now?

We have premium drinking water, premium gas, premium chips, software, jeans, socks, and even premium air now!

But still no premium art. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the only sector of the economy that has failed to become more differentiated in the last 60 years is the creation of the values, ideas and inspiration that drives this whole motherfucker!

Art, my brothers and sisters.

Today's emo/goth hybrids aren't much more than dressed up 50s Beats. Or more hyper 60s hippies. Or very mental 70s punks. Read normal Mailer's "White Negro"--it's much more applicable today than it was when he wrote it. God bless the counterculture, but I go on results--and growth--not what's cool or seems right.

I'm a product of the lifestyle wars and I demand a life.

The Beat/Punk/Hippie ideal that everyone is or should be involved in the creation of a culture is outdated. That's like saying everyone should grind their own wheat. Even those who have no interest in doing so.

I understand that we are creative beings and will be doing what we want. But the reality is that person A, B or C is wearing square toed shoes with little or no understanding as to what they mean. They just liked them, or saw someone else wearing them and thought they were cool.

Nor should they. I have no interest in knowing every aspect about real estate law, I want to pay someone to do that for me. And our specialized market allows that. Thank god. We are infinitely more valuable and happier doing what appeals to us.

What we want.

And we have infinitely more free time.

But the thing about differentiation is that you have to let the market value quality.

Let me put it this way:

If you were dating a woman of Halle Barry's caliber you'd likely be happy about it.

And if she was interested in you, even if she wasn't your type, you'd probably take a second date anyway.

But imagine if this woman wouldn't step foot in your house. Even after you cleaned and got rid of all the nasty porn.

She'd become less appealing.

But you'd probably still be interested.

Now imagine she'd only meet you at one restaurant. And you had to order the same meal before she let you kiss her.

Ehh..

Now what if she only let you hit it on Thursdays--and then only if you had called on Sunday afternoon between 3 and 6 and on Tuesday after 4 but before 5:30.

On her cell phone but from your home number.

And may god bless all the beautiful women in the world--but if you have one half of one ball, you'd be out the door.

Or you're a pussy. And if you are she'd end up dumping your ass anyway. And after being played like you were it's gonna leave a mark like a mother.

Now apply that to the mass culture industry. A movie theater doesn't make much showing movies in theaters, but it's great publicity, and since they have no other way to make their product valuable besides stimulating demand by limiting availability, you have to see it in a theater or wait months, no matter how much you are willing to pay.

The same with books. You must buy the hardcover or wait maybe even a year--again, no matter how much you are willing to pay.

Both of these ploys are manipulative. And make the audience pussies. And we put up with them to the extent that we do because we have nothing else. There is no other delivery system. No other culture machine. No other source of inspiration and fuel.

This is so arbitrary--and such an incredible brake on the creation of such a delicate product--that it's lucky we even have the culture we do.

(And noting that it's the strongest in the world--while operating at maybe 15% efficiency, with both hands tied behind it's back--you can perhaps catch a glimpse of a) what is possible, and b) how unbelievably lucrative this industry will be.)

But also, we're a bit addicted to being manipulated. We like the attention. We're lonely.

And being messed with isn't being alone. Getting spam sucks, but at least it's not an empty mailbox.

And this attention is something we expect to be given--we demand--along with a purchase. --Be our friend.

Which is fine, the merchants and manufacturers just factor a good ass-kissing in and mark up the crap. (Or take the real thing and offshore the love out of it.)

But at least we don't have to make ourselves vulnerable by buying a product first and at least we still look and feel like we took a chance. (Phew.) It's called marketing. And fashion.

And everyone's happy.

But what happens to a society that matures spiritually. That no longer gets off on being dicked around? That no longer wants to pay for ads to be put between itself and the editorial?

That no longer fears being alone.

And instead values its own time and attention enough to pay what it takes to get the straight dope--what it wants--so it doesn't have to bitch about it ever. (Which makes what we have look a whole lot like a set up just so we can bitch, btw.)

(You do know that our culture is just a bitch-fest, right? Why would Billie Joe even talk about GW if he had the answer? Wouldn't he just hit us with the ken?)

To pay what it costs to get less actual talk and more actual rock--instead of better DJs promising "Less ta-alllk and moore Roo-ckk!"?

But even if someone went and got the answer, how could they re-renter the market--bring it to you--without getting put off by the hand-job getting folks to check it requires?

How could they even re-enter this manipulative market without becoming sullied, getting confused, turning the love they were able to find on sabbatical to shit and becoming just another company that people can bitch about.

The problem is not the people, or the ideas, or the intentions, it's the structure of the market. All it can deliver is pimps and hos.

That's all that pays.

The answer is a new market--a "White Gold" market.

(And boy I wish I could copyright that--if you ever think that I'm in it for the money, remember that long after I'm dead and cold, my most valuable work--figuring this shit out--was available free the entire time --to any single person with access to a computer--or within shouting distance of my house. And that I paid ten years to introduce it to the aforementioned market before I ever saw a dime.)

What's a White Gold market? It's paying for people as smart, as caring, as educated and in tune as you to create and deliver the goods--or, if you want to grow--pay for people more smart, more caring, more educated and more real to do it.

The short answer is it's buying what you want. All of what you want.

With the guts and faith of The Godfather. All in. Every time. Every day. With every dollar. In every way.

--Bringing your highest values to market. And taking full responsibility for the economy--the world--you produce with your labor and consume with your bounty.

______

Speaking of growth. I've been thinking about the city and growth.

A city is essentially a petri dish. It's hell-bent on growth.

But there's no way to grow past Donald Trump. Or Bill Gates.

So our best and brightest--even if they start out to be the next Coletrane--end up the next upper-mid level manager.

Which is not bad. A couple mil a year. No gut. Beautiful family very well taken care of.

See if you can get the kids into a good enough Montessori school so that maybe they can fix it. Without spoiling them of course.

But the problem is systematic. So even if they start off to be the next Stella McCartney, they'll end up running a magazine about it. Lots of work

Peep this: even Jay-Z, one of our generation's most important artists--took a desk job. He's back, but what's up with that? What's up with the real money--and the real lives--being with the squares?

Doesn't he have anywhere to go? Isn't he enjoying making songs, his clothing line, and Beyonce?

Are the prisoners really so much the guards now that we willingly put on the cheap tie and take lunch with the snake? The weasel?

The answer will come in the city. From the market. From growth.

It will come from White Gold, but I can't tell you that because you're so tired of being manipulated that even though it's the truth, you literally can't hear it.

(What--the market demands it's heros be unambitious, backhanded and coy? It hates clearly stated intentions and those with command control? I can't believe it. --Did you see Curt Cobain's notebooks--he planned the whole thing. He just couldn't tell any of us in Seattle what was in his heart. Or admit what he really wanted to himself. Not hard to believe he was split down the middle. As good an artist as he was, imagine what he would have been capable of had he rid himself of these chains.)

You devalue the truth when someone brings it to you. As well you should. But--if you hear it and it resonates and you refuse it again--if you insist that there is no higher truth than what you are living unhappily--then you ensure that your children will search the world, at great risk. That they'll investigate drugs, Satanism, casual sex, doing it just for the money and everything else you discarded.

I can promise you this: they won't take meaninglessness for an answer as easily as you have. It's not the kids in the ghetto I worry about. At least they know what the fuck they want. At least they know their options.

It's the kids in the suburbs that are at real risk. The kids from money. Whose family has everything but happiness. And some huge percentage of college kids are on anti-depressants. Hell, it's estimated that half (50%) of Fortune 500 CEOs are depressed.

Those are the folks that are really lost. Cause they have it all. And no reasons. Or a million reasons--and no love left. Have no implied or suggested solution. And may god bless them.

And the answer will be so swift and easy--such a dam have we built. When we allow true growth to occur. (And it does so naturally, I assure you, just get out of the way.) Not channeled or contained growth like lucky bamboo--not mediated growth--or manipulated growth like the latest worn out, acid wash jeans (you do know those faux vintage jeans are acid wash, right?).

What we want is what we want. And it's never moved an inch. Not in a million years.

We can deny it all we want. Play games and be coy. Ignore it. Cry on Sundays and hate the wife for telling us we really should stick with the job until the braces and college is done.

But what we want won't move.

And as we grow--up and toward the truth--if we don't embrace it, we will have to carve an increasingly bigger hole out and re-fashion our blinders more and more often to ignore it.

Not because it hates us. Not because the truth is hard and scary and weird.

But because that's just what we want.

And putting the screws on must deliver greater neurosis.

or else the world wouldn't be love.

And the world is so much love.


Feel it? (I want to do an ad taking off the Verizon commercial saying "Can 'ya feel me now? ...Can Ya fel me now?")


That's all.

Not a bigger, better cum shot. Or longer, more intricate action sequence.

Just feelin it.

Cause nothing else is real.

[Oh, and by the way, the only way to grow past Bill and Donald--and Martha, Warren, Oprah and Ted--all of whom speak to EITHER premium OR mass markets--is to, yes, you've heard it before--communicate with BOTH essentially and simultaneously--to make, buy, and sell premium mass goods.

This is what the New Agers call moving from an either/or mindset (which is based upon a 100 years outdated mechanical understanding of physics and fears about scarcity) to an and/and mindset, which acknowledges the certainties of quantum physics and the undeniable knowledge that we have not only survived but have grown and thrived through every single challenge we feared.

However you want to slice it, the answer is a premium mass market. Which we currently enjoy for all products, goods and services except cultural content. (Non-fiction is on it's own--though it could very well benefit from the same strategy).

A global quantum culture. A sustainable, warm, economy. Consuming with as much faith and joy as we create. (For some this may be creating with as much faith and joy as they consume.)

And ignoring your fears about Mammon to maintain contact with how rich you already are.

And communicating that fact with numerous like-minded folks through the miracle of our modern marketplace.

Which will make you even more rich.

Spiritually, materially, emotionally, mentally, existentially.

Essentially.

How could it not?]