I think I like Meghan McCain

It's not often that I find someone, alive in present day, whose logic and belief system I admire. This doesn't mean that I must agree with everything they say, but just fucking "going for it" and creating a movement out of an original and logical concept that could actually change the world if the laggards would actually open their damned ears...ugh. Well that is a breath of fresh air.

It's even more rare that those people have a viable, accessible, and marketed outlet for this brilliant communique; and even more rare that they aren't stuck preachin' to the choir.

While poor John McCain has been shackled, tarred and feathered, and mentally beaten into assimilation by his own party (even further chained to the idiocy of the GOP by the forced selection of Miss Sexypants Palin as VP candidate), his daughter, Meghan, was taking the reigns that he couldn't. She was busy, toiling away at Columbia University becoming a phenomenon writer and communicator. She was formulating coherent, logical, and progressive ideas. Most importantly, she was identifying herself as a republican but with all of the upgrades and improvements that the party ought to give itself.

There is nothing wrong with being a republican (I have probably contradicted myself in this blog on this statement previously, please don't look). There is something wrong with being an out of touch, "party of no", politician hell-bent on controlling others' lives based upon a reality of 40 years ago.

Meghan McCain is calling for the party to open it's fucking ears and listen to the way the world is. She appears to believe that social issues are not the government's god damned business and homosexual love and life should not be punished.

Meghan and her mother, Cindy McCain, campaigned for NOH8 in California and posed in ads for the cause. John McCain was forced, by lovely pre-scheduled, pre-aired, pre-written politics, to remain silent.

Where I have great difficulty with Meghan's views is when we get to the concept of socialism. She firmly believes the government should stay out of people's lives. She has also openly admitted that she does not understand economics (see her Wikipedia page). I believe that once someone understands economics, it will shape all of their social and financial beliefs. It is crucial, but not many people do understand it. I'm more thank happy to see economics be a pivotal academic tool utilized in the public and political debate forum for all issues. Debating socialism on the basis of macro and micro-economic principles is worth some blood, sweat, tears and thousands of sheets of paper.

What is not open to debate, regardless of political party or forum, is freedom over our bodies, sexuality, love, and lifestyle.

It would be lovely if Meghan was, at some point in the near future, empowered by the loudmouthed assholes of her party. Maybe once they get tired of Sexy Sarah they'll step aside and let a smart girl talk. She's a brilliant, shining, homage to the actual American ability to move forward and change, at the very least, our world if not THE world. She is a progressive.

I think I like her.

I hope you will check out her posts on TheDailyBeast.com (most of this blog I don't agree with, but Meghan refreshes me).

Newsflash: Online Dating is Still a Sales Stimulus for the Anti-Depressant Industry

I'm presently working with a market researcher on some uh-duh, market research projects at the office. He is a 40-something male, who I'm assuming is swimmingly single due to his over-enthusiasm for cars and travel. For those of you that may think being judgmental is a bad thing, that is what this guy does for a living, and he is fabulous at it.

One of the judgments he has made about 18 - 34 year-old males (who are the target respondents in our research) is that they are lazy and do not communicate.

"These guys are lazy, we can't ask them to just tell us how they feel, we're going to have to pull it out of them. Doing collage exercise and stuff just isn't going to work."

His words were relative my job and the task at hand, but immediately, I thought that these were words I really could have used to have heard during my time in the social cesspool of confusion and misanthropy that is online dating.

I spent almost a year trying to make it work, this newfangled match.com and (our dear) Salon personals, were my only lifeline to the male gender aside from bars. It offered a way to filter individuals, which was nice, however I quickly learned that like any survey: the answers to the questions asked in online dating profile generators are easy to doctor with "desired" responses.

I wish I had known that I didn't stand a chance in hell against a demographic that was 100% interested in fucking and 0% interested in my brain. If I had known that they are (except for my fiance, whom I met in a bar) lazy and impossible communicators, I would not have taken the constant rejection so hard. I wouldn't have been compelled by my frustration and discontentment to write a manuscript about it.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I did.

But I do still wonder, a little bit, was it me? Or are all these people on these sites really fucking insane? As soon as you sign up for Match.com, do you automatically lose your mind? I purpose that perhaps you do, because the internet is not real life and it becomes rapidly apparent to your subconscious that this is the case. For those of you that have never attempted to get something meaningful (i.e. a damned conversation that isn't like non-novacaine involved dental work) out of online dating, allow me to boil it down for you.

Phase 1: Winks or other horribly innocuous signals are broadcast through the digital wasteland and someone that may or may not be attractive. Next, if their profile indicates that they are interesting, you may opt to send a real message with real questions and real hints of who you are.

Phase 2: If the "messaging" process is going well, you may move onto the phone. However, be foreward, no one will fucking call you. They will all want to text you. Thusly, it's exactly like "messaging" and you won't learn anything of their mannerisms or personality traits.

Phase 3: You give up and decide to suggest to meet up. You are either 1) repulsed or bored or 2) elated and your genitals are a bit giddy

Phase 4: You become so enthralled that some attention is being paid to you by the opposite sex, so you quickly bed down.

Phase 5: Whomever you slept with will never speak to you again.

That's why online dating is a sales stimulus for the anti-depressant industry. When there is a sea of so many ready and willing fish, it's very easy to chuck one and go back to the sexiness ocean for more. Devaluing humans in a sexy economy is a nasty nasty and sordid thing. Immoral really.

While I've been (ever so merrily) out of the game for over a year now and am not going back in for another play, I wondered if things have changed. Are they different for older age groups?

My report from the nether regions of my poor friends is that no, things are not different.

My good friend recently encountered an odd fellow who insisted on texting her every morning and every evening to say something to they effect of, "good night sweetheart."

Let me remind you, they had never met nor spoken on the phone. El texto solomente.

She quickly cut the cord as this one appeared to have a bit of crazy dangling on the tips of his fingers and in the depths of his brain.

I deeply feel for everyone legitimately attempting to use online dating to meet someone. You are probably very deserving people and are 100% worthy of having someone to empathize with, love, and share your life. However, nutjobs looking for a quick nutjob everywhere are ruining the idea. They've created a people-store with very low involvement in purchase.

Just like every good marketing test, a benchmark must be set to determine success or failure. No one has set this benchmark for online dating, as it's a giant money maker without having any proven success at all, so that would all be for naught wouldn't it? A major sales killer. Nevertheless, allow me to do it: marriages that can persist for longer than 20 years.

Online dating sites have been around for less than 10 years. Match.com was launched in 2001. Only time will tell if marriages generated online can actually stand the test of time. Though my money is on the horses racing on the track'o'real life.

What Tokyo Taught Me About Illegal Downloading

I walked out on the stage, in my clothes that I'd been wearing for two whole days, after everyone else in my party. There were 700 pairs of eyes gaping wide open at us. Hungry for whatever we'd brought from Los Angeles. But they didn't know that the singer had almost just bailed due to "feeling like I'm gonna barf." Though the eyes weren't really looking at "us", the cumulative us, I wasn't truly included in that sentiment - I was just a bystander that happened to be awarded stage privileges because I live on the other side of the ocean with the performers.

I've done quite a lot of public speaking, which I enjoy. I enjoy it because of a bit of a rush it brings, it pushes me to say more interesting things, of a more dire interest. And often, try to be a bit funnier (on the internet I can call myself a satirist but write however I'd like; I think I'm a part-time satirist).

But I digress, I must say it had hardly prepared me for the vibe of this event.

My friends and I were in Tokyo. My fiance's band creates somewhat of a Venn diagram with a band that is American, but extremely popular in Japan. The drummer and bass player ride in the middle. We were there to promote the new band. We were there to create the meld between the two, the smooth any rough edges, to make sure all would go well - and of course to ensure that the A&R guy liked us.

The public that came to this show was unlike any that would ever come to a show in the US of A. Save for Britney Spears or the Jonas Brothers, or some other thing that had gone beyond talent but become a brooding PR spectacle. These show participants were true, dear, fans. They knew every word to ever song, they sent letters to the band, they got tattoos of their name and lyrics - sometimes without knowing what they meant (and we get kanji tattooed on us for god knows what fucking reason, I presume to appear culturally savvy though actually blissfully ignorant). They hung onto every word and every movement, yet two members of this band just couldn't see it. They either wanted to ignore it, or had profound cases Lead Singer Syndrome. LSS results in acting like an asshole to those which are your livelihood, because you don't fucking know, you just think you're kinda cool.

As Jab and I stood there, watching our friends play, those assholes ignore their fans, and the crowd beg with their eyes for more, more, more a beautiful moment happened...
our friend the bass player acknowledge a fellow in the crowd, whom we'd eaten and drank many a booze with the night prior, a beer.

His eyes lit up. His name was Makato. Then he drank the shit out of that beer.

Then Jab, of course a musician, muttered in my ear, "I want that to be my job."

As I had just been incredibly elated by the bass player's distribution of beer, I was immediately deflated by this statement. A very deserving man was watching two people do a job which he could do much better. And he could respect fans with much more grace. He wouldn't bitch about potentially being sick, or not wanting to sign autographs (as was later the case). He would do whatever it takes. He believes in mutual fame.

The night before, the band had another show. At this show, we wandered around while our friends signed autographs. Two boys came up to us and asked us for our photos - presumably because we were friends of the band.

"No, no, we are not famous." Jab and I replied.

We didn't want our photos taken for shame that we'd be appealed as something we really were not.

"I have a rule, " Jab said, "when I play a show, I always bring a book, and anyone that I sign an autograph for has to also sign my book." He's right. All fame has a source and it deserves to be acknowledged, especially by whom it has made famous.

All of this fandom seemed healthy. It seemed to explain why this band was famous in Japan and not the United States; because fandom and enthusiasm were acceptable and prevalent. Excitement spreads like wildfire, it only needs one influential spark. While all of this made the music industry in Japan seem alive and well, I soon learned that it was not. It had also fallen victim to illegal downloading.

I didn't used to think this was really a problem. I assumed most people that were having their money stolen by the public were already heinously rich and probably deserved to give back a little more than the tax system made them. Hence, I should take their creative product. But in Tokyo, I listened to a somber A&R guy describe how record sales had dwindled from the previous year, thanks to illegal downloading.

He's a guy with a wife in two kids living in a Tokyo suburb. His bands are working people, some of whom work for the record label. They are not rich, yet they're being stolen from. My friends, the American band with a couple of assholes in it, are not rich, yet their being stolen from. Illegal downloading isn't only unjust because of that, but because it de-incentivizes record labels from investing in new artists.

Enter the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. Nary a new artist took the stage. A result of labels' fear of investing in something new. Knowing that if the artist was not proven, they would never make a time. Just like profit generating companies, individuals won't invest in anything that is unknown. If they can get if for free, why the hell not? Nine songs out of ten on the album might be horrible anyway.

The person who invents a prevention of illegal downloading will be a millionaire. New artists deserving to be recognized will grovel at her feet. Artists have a duty to acknowledge their fans, just as artists have a right, if they are good and talented and interesting, to be sponsored by their fans. If Jab, or any other fabulously talented performer is to ever have a financial chance to commit their life to their art, illegal downloading must be stopped.

The Politics of the Cock Block

I think we've all been there.

In the heat of "oh I really really want this person," comes the realization,"but my friends are here." Which quickly turns into, "I can't ask them to leave." Then finally sudden hatred and the thought, "they're COCK BLOCKING ME."

At which point you kind of want to kill your friends, hoping they'll come back to live after you've completed the task. That way, you can tell them all about it.

I believe the phrase "cock block" can be unisex, given that it describes the act of preventing the subject "cock" in the activity of being "blocked" of a specific maneuver (read: "insertion). Though more often than not, it is not used in a mutually inclusive, genderbending context. Typically, it's a man wanting to get into the pants of a lady. Typically, it's the woman's friends preventing this from happening.

Last night, Jab and I went to grab drinks at a favorite local watering hole with our perpetually single cohort named Brian. His reason for being perpetually single is another blog, however, this blog may lend some insight as to the reason for his singledom. Brian decided that we must leave our sacred, and cheap, drinking grounds for Hollywood so that he could retrieve a specific female whom he'd previously had relations with. Jab and I let out a collective, "no way man, that area is a no-no." We just don't like it.

Brian assured us that we'd leave quickly if we were unhappy. Frankly, I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out: we didn't even have to enter some hormone laced establishment. We drove up to the front of Happy Endings on La Brea and Sunset to see a line stretching from the door to the street.

"No fucking way man, we're not going in there."

"Don't worry, don't worry, there she is." Brian recognized his reason for coming here. She was approaching the car with her boobs all cleavagey and her prance all libidinous.

I truly don't mean to sound like I'm judging, we've all done that as long as we could get away with it - and some of us for much longer than was a good idea. I'm so grateful I don't have to participate in the great female on female boob contest any longer. I could never have won anyway.

Brian's potential lady jumped in the car and we were off to another bar. One that we could just waltz into, and get a table, and drink.

Towards the end of our tenure at this bar, Brian's lady made a dash for the bathroom. At which point, Brian unveiled the plan.

"I gotta get her to come over. You guys gotta help me."

I was immediately smashed in the face with a pie of confusion. Do I help my friend? Or do I help my fellow female?

If this were biologically driven and completely tribal, it seems to me that I would help my fellow female. As we don't have brawn, perhaps it is our collective duty to protect each others babymakers?

But this is 2010. This is an era of birth control, taxis, and women having their own money and well...lots of choices. Truly if she didn't want to be there, she wouldn't be. But should I create social pressure to get her in the den alone with Brian and his libido?

I guess what really tipped the moral scales for me was the fact that they had had sex previously. And, I can verify, she was really into it.

So when Brian's lady returned to the table I blurted out my assistance to the "get Brian laid" program:

"Hey, have you seen 'Observe and Report' yet? It's hilarious. It's at Brian's house, we're gonna watch it when you get back there. You should come."

I knew no one had seen Observe and Report. It's funny as well, but it marked the point at which Seth Rogen began to lose his luster in the 18 - 34 year-old male demographic.

"No, I haven't, but my roommate is coming to pick me up in a little bit. He's drunk, so I don't know how long it's going to take."

Then the screams of "LAST CALL" rang through the bar. After much dilly dallying, we finally left.

Brian's lady bummed a cigarette from some fellow patrons. She realized her roommate was still quite far away. She agreed to come with us back to Brian's house and have the roommate pick her up there.

Upon arriving back at his lovely West LA bachelor pad, I was asked to give the confused roommmate directions to Brian's house. I gave proper directions, yet this guy still fucked them up.

When giving the second set of directions, directing the roommate away from the place he'd veered off to, Brian whispered to me "way to cock block, you shoulda told him to keep going the wrong direction!"

He was joking. He would never ask or expect me to do such a devious thing. But it made me go down that line of thinking. If I were to do that, it would be wrong not just because it was deceitful, but because it was deceitful to a member of my own gender.

There are few things, well okay nothing, that I consider to be a woman's duty. However, In this moment it seemed that it was a woman's duty to prevent another woman from getting laid.

Sorority Clothing Rules brought to you by Cornell's Pi Phi

I recall as a child, my best friend, born four days after myself, was forced to wear a Rodney Dangerfield inspired golf outfit to her own mini-golf birthday party. We were about eight years-old. She was fucking horrified at what she was wearing. Her mother asked me to go up in her room to get her to come out. Apparently upon putting on the plaid bell-bottomed pants, white turtleneck, and plaid vest, she rejected all sense of normalcy and threw a fucking fit.

As I walked in the room and saw this, I really wanted to laugh. It was pretty damned funny. Not only because of what it is was, but because her mother was making her wear it to her own party to appease her mother's sense of...um...I have no idea what. Maybe she didn't get to wear something so rad when she was in her twenties? Was this really a secretly Caddyshack-themed party and us eight year-olds weren't in on the joke?

I eventually got my friend to emerge from the room. Her face rosy and tear stained. Her mother shoved us all in the van and got moving. My friend's birthday wasn't that great.

I, on the other hand, was rarely made to do anything other than math. I used to figure skate and designed my own costumes on notebook paper for my mother to recreate in real life with her majestic sewing machine skills.

So when I stumbled upon the fashion rules from Cornell's Pi Phi sorority published on Fashionista.com, I couldn't help but imagine how I'd feel to be given such strict guidelines on what to wear. I would have tried to wear all the don'ts at once.

Click here to review and analyze
Cornell's Pi Phi Do's and Don'ts.

No American Apparel leggings?
No open-toed shoes?
Accessories required?
No plastic bracelets?
Nothing is uglier than cracked lips!

These are all things that are quite mild, but hilarious when done properly. All outfits should be capable of not only expressing one's mood and style, but not have to cost $500 to create to be acceptable by one's den mother or whatever the hell his woman is called.

I didn't see plaid bell-bottomed golf pants mentioned on here.

Sometimes Economies Float

Following Hurricane Katrina a slough of investors began purchasing real estate in the moldy, soggy, broken and economically depressed New Orleans. I suppose the most famous of these attempts to revitalize the town with Hollywood dollars and loads of sperm, ovum, and probably a zygote or possibly two at the time: Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Numerous celebrities followed suit and quickly, New Orleans regained its vitality and functionality as a retail center with nearly the same economic prowess as it had prior to the hurricane.

So...when a city falls apart due to natural disaster, injecting it with outside money from areas not affected by said disaster is a good thing. Yes. Yes?

Yes. I think so anyway.

Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines has been, well not quite criticized, but strongly and pointedly questioned about continuing to drop off their cruise patrons at their leased resort called Labadee on the northern portion of the island.

Click here for the article in the Miami Herald.

I began to debate with with my brain whether or not this was an appropriate and moral thing to do. I suppose the need to debate it is even debatable, but I did wonder, as did many:

1. Was the area affected?

2. Do people there need food and water rather than visitors to tend to?

3. Would the locals be offended at the idea that American tourists are conducting "business as usual" while their country is torn to fucking shreds?

As is typical when a news outlet is attempting to incite controversy, some logic and information were conveniently left out.

Labadee was not in an earthquake affected area. It was virtually untouched by seismic nastiness.

Check out the USGS "ShakeMap" (nice name guys, sounds like something AT&T and Verizon are about to do in order to permanently silence one another).

As the case is such that Labadee is unaffected, there is no reason to assume that individuals employed at the resort would be unable to work. Rather, if your friends' and their families', and their friends houses had just all burnt to the ground in a world where homeowners insurance is a fucking pipe dream, you might be pretty god damned excited to have a place of employment.

Feasibly, you'd be able to then provide your loved ones with some sustenance, a place to live, some semblance of normalcy if their lives in Port-au-Prince had been literally shattered.

So why the dichotomy? Why the judgment of Royal Caribbean's attempt to help Haiti and not Brangelina's attempt to help New Orleans?

I think it's because they're all corporationy.

I don't like corporations. Neither do most people in our ironically capitalistic society. The idea that Royal Caribbean actually attempted to perform business as usual and act as a financial savior by doing so seems impossible. The idea that two individuals could act as saviors seems normal, despite the fact that it is actually more rare.

Let's also not forget that Royal Caribbean donated one million dollars to the relief efforts, as Haiti has provided them with such financial gain over the years. Have they made more than one million dollars off of Haiti? Absolutely. But is it not a positive thing that the cruise line has continued to pump dollars into Haiti by way of employing its people?

I don't see how it's not. It's just their face, it's just that they're a corporation.

Sometimes economies float. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are worth approximately $220 million together. They are an economy and a business in and of themselves. They move themselves and they move people, just like Royal Caribbean. As opposed to generating business in one geographic area, why not move it around to where it is needed most?

Punk didn't die; it moved to Tokyo

I returned from Tokyo on Sunday. I'm still mulling the experience around in my head, as it was one that was atypical of any tourist. Please consider this the first of a multi-part (how many parts I don't know because I don't plan out my diatribes in advance, they must be semi-drunk spur of the moment verbal vomit) series on a recent visit to Japan.

The main feature and topic of the trip wasn't history or anything of like, it was music. Specifically, Japan being the final frontier for American bands. I'm prepared to declare Japan the only nation on the planet in which a non-publicized band can become famous by way of selling records and just being good. But what happens when Japan maintains its interest in non-PR whoring bands but loses its interest in buying their records?

We were traveling with a friend's band. You have probably never heard of them, because you probably don't live in Japan. So I'll just call them Banana Hammock, because it's funny and I don't care to associate them with their actual business secrets that I divulge in this here blog. They were playing two shows in Tokyo, one of which was without any supporting bands. They sold out the house. Their record reached second position on Tower Records Japan's charts. In Japan, they are a big deal. Alas, they have fallen victim to the little monster in the closet that is illegal downloading.

C'mon. You've probably done it. And you've probably thought that it was okay because the artists are rich. I agree, when they are rich and they're gallivanting all over town in the Lambo, by all means, steal their poor excuse for art. However, this is not the case of most recording artists. They're probably like Banana Hammock. They work day jobs and producing a high-selling record is just a part time job.

It would still be a part time job even if all these records were analog and all consumers who had the records in their hot little hands and legitimately paid for them.

So there isn't much money in music unless licensing agreements are all up in your business portfolio and tours are endless. That's fine. But those that do it do it for the right reasons are existing to make audiences happy. Their real payment comes in the form of signing autographs and taking photos with fans.

But in America, that's pretty hard to come by. Fans don't get excited anymore, unless they're in their teens. I don't quite know when it happened, but at some point in the last 20 years we stopped looking like we gave a shit. Artists that existed prior to that period are still famous. They still induce enthusiasm. Unless an artist regularly graces the postings of PerezHilton.com, nobody really gives a shit about them. What if they're just good? When did talent cease being enough to cause awe in the eyes of the general public? That's a bit sad, isn't it?

I think so.

It makes artists not want to try, or just abandon the USA and move to greener and more exciting pastures.

I used to be deeply entrenched in the underground music scene in Oregon. Making your friends well known was a prideful act. Because of this, I put on shows - anywhere. In my basement, in a church, in a park, anywhere. So long as it would be a catalyst for lots of people coming together and having fun. Then it turned into a high school popularity clusterfuck. The cool kids reigned supreme. I still have no idea what it means to be cool, I haven't figured it out and I'm a fucking dork. But hey, that's my cross to bear, and it means I get away with saying nerdy stuff and nobody has "coolness" expectations of me. It also unfortunately means no one will ever follow my lead.

And so, the cool kids set forth on turning this music scene into a seemingly negative place that only they controlled. They controlled it by scoffing, nitpicking, and mockery. Y'know, the same behavior you might remember from middle school. It seems that this a microcosm of what was to come on a large scale. This same behavior now has killed all underground music. Social acceptance based on listening to a certain type of music or a band always existed. Now it controls music in the United States all together.

At the first Banana Hammock show we met a guy that was a big fan and he took a shine to us - the Banana Hammock entourage. He had followed us to our own after-after party at a 24 hour udon place down the street from a club called Jump in Shibuya. He sat down next to me and didn't say a word. I assumed he spoke some English, since he'd thought to come hang out with us, but I was very wrong. I used my caveman-esque Japanese skills to try to muddle through a conversation with him.

I asked him his name.

"Matako...but please...call me...OG."

"You got it." He was henceforth known as OG.*

OG also came to the show the next night. We spotted him front and center. In his Banana Hammock band t-shirt and towel wrapped around his neck. He spotted Jab and I on stage and waved feverishly, like a kid meeting Mickey Mouse, from the audience.

At a break in songs we hollered to our friend on stage, "give OG a beer."

So he did. OG's smile lit up that night for me in a way I'll never forget.

Later, he showed us some album artwork that had been covered by the autographs of all band members save for one - the singer. The singer had been feeling quite sick that night but regardless, he needs to tend to his fans. Jab and I took the album cover back to the dressing room and asked Brian to sign it. He stared at it for a minute then finally made the minute motion with his pen that didn't mean shit to him but made all the difference in the world to OG. When we handed it back to OG, he hugged us, but he was shaking. I can only assume that was a shaking out of excitement and general enthusiasm. I hope I'm right, or I feel like a dick.

At the same show, two concert-goers approached my fiance and I and asked to take our photos. We tried to explain, in our shitty Japanese, that we are not famous and they should not take photos of us. Jab was very intent on communicating that we did not deserve to have our photos taken for the purpose of infamy. I understood, but was curious as to why this seemed so deeply important to him. A veteran semi-famous musician himself, he said, "I never play a show without bringing a notebook of my own for autographs. For every person I sign something for, they have to give me their signature too."

In our journey we met someone that was a hero of ours. We were ecstatic to meet him. He was formerly in a band called The Suicide Machines. They were punk rock icons. This fellow led the charge. He had moved to Tokyo two years ago to make music and work for a record label. He couldn't do this in the United States. While he makes a modest income in Tokyo, he makes more to do something that he loves than he would make in America.

My fiance told him regarding his own band, "we're not worried about giving our music away, we feel it's a necessary evil."

Our icon replied, "well get ready to bleed for it."

And bleed they will, as long as audiences are ready to welcome them with enthusiasm like OG had. That great hemorrhage of record selling blood is worth it to see the smile on the face of a fan. Being an artist isn't about fucking chicks and getting plastic surgery, it's about gathering autographs of your own fans and adoring them as much as they adore you. It's about cutting yourself open to ensure that your observers can dissect you. I suppose the challenge for which payment should be returned is that of opening up and being transparent.

I hope that our icon saw that in us. I also hope that it's the truth that the music industry may be able to be saved by truth and mutual adoration by fans and musicians. It may be forced into it by the eventual mediocre incomes of even the most business-savvy artists.

*Later I learned that what I had colloquially interpreted as "OG" or "original gangsta" was actually "oji" which means "prince." Regardless, that guy still holds a place in my heart for teaching me that it's possible to still admire musicians even if they aren't winning Grammy awards.