Don't ever tell me that there's no market for $120 books.

People are spending $200,000 for a seven minute space trip. And there are at least two folks lined up to go around the moon on a Russian spaceship for $100 mil each.

And, like any tourism, they'll come back and feel exactly the same about their life after a short while.

Going farther out physically doesn't change anything. The world's best roller coaster isn't an adventure--because you don't even have to stand up to ride it.

No, the only frontiers left are internal. And they've been ignored so long you can't even glance in their direction without a pang of terror.

And White Gold owns the beach.

_______

And Apple raises the price for songs on iTunes? Do I smell a crack in the flat pricing structure? --It's for (of all things) audio quality!

And there are hundreds of thousands of young people combing the dying industrial towns for geezers with one undiscovered beat in his record collection that he's about to throw out. (Or at least they were ten years ago, my nostalgia may be stale).

In my youth, they'd go so far as to befriend these guys and work away at them slowly--knowing they had a garage full of vinyl that hadn't been picked over.

And now they raise the price for audio fidelity?

The 45s that we found, by the way--back in the day--were scratched and beat to hell. And we cranked 'em at the club, boy! Which just made our authenticity starved dance floor even more pumped. The worse they sounded, the more excited people got.

And we got a lot of people laid in an uptight ass town.

In fact it worked so well that people actually putting record scratches, crackles and pops in on purpose now.

And use purposefully outdated equipment to make things sound rough, rugged and raw!

--Yeah Bwoy!

My point isn't that pricing for different fidelities is shortsighted--quite the contrary--it's that the market has shown it will take just about anything if the damn beat is fresh!

Cause they're starving for music, not production techniques!

In fact, production techniques and editing are what many of them are dying to escape.

Why do you think they're wearing worn out jeans and mess theirr hairrr up on purpose.

Charge more for better music you idiots! Audio fidelity, better producer, better songs, better musicianship, better cinamatography, better feel, more love, smarter hate--charge for everything!

Otherwise, you're just another social realist. (And if you don't know what social realism is, check in to the cultural history of the Soviet Union. They went from some of the most interesting and progressive art in the world in the 1920s to the worst possible state sponsored political art in the 30s. Most of our popular art isn't state sponsored, but with a fixed price, it is market socialized.)

If it can't make money, you get dabblers or trust fund folks making it, not the best and brightest you'd want involved in a culture.

Put it this way: the baby is worth more than money could ever be, BUT, in this world, concretely and FOR SURE, if the baby can't find, get, or be given love, milk or it's mother no matter how it cries, sits still, laughs, crawls or fights--no matter what it does--the absolute best it can be is fucked up..

And that's if it even survives.

Turn this leaky faucet into what the Colorado looked like before we dammed it. When it routinely ripped rock from the canyon walls and changed the face of the land so completely that it now draws 5 million visitors a year.

Each of whom has paid significantly more than .99 (or even $14.95) to get there and look at it, be hot and live in the presence of glory for an hour or two.

That's the power we're sitting on as both artists--creators--and consumers.

And we're so afraid it'll kill us we won't even consider living.

It's a shame (it may even be shame itself).

Our economy could both harness and nurture that power.

It may even be enough untapped energy to solve both global warming and much of the world's chronic poverty.

But don't do it for that. Do it for yourself.

Because you want to live. Not just survive.

Do it because you want to.