Dying Bears and National Parks, Music, Iraq, Boris Badenov and Malcolm X

News capsule:

From James I got this witty gem, Everything Popular is Wrong: Making it in Electronic Music, Despite Democratization, a great analysis of trends that happened to music the past decade, which are all really key to understanding why I live in a cab over camper at the edge of the desert instead of still playing shows and selling records and having drinks with girls in black latex.

His grasp of what has happened is fantastic. However, for those looking for a happy ending to the story, I'll go ahead and ruin it for you.

"...Therefore there is a need to have sources of income that are independent from your own music’s direct returns. That is, any income that can be obtained with spending very little time on it — no day jobs allowed unless you are a grossly overpaid consultant for a few hours a month, like I am occasionally... Separating income and music in your head can be deeply rewarding. The freedom experienced in creating music to your own criteria first and even “against the market” if necessary is way more elegant than trying to squeeze as much as possible out of music that has to produce your paycheck. That is another factor contributing to an artist’s longevity in the market — having guts and principles. Get your head around it, do your homework and you’ll quickly see solutions that work for you."

Yes, indeed, that elegant freedom of my guts and principles, my laborious homework, the freedom experienced in creating music to my own criteria first. Mr. Goldmann's "solutions" for "separating income and music in your head" seem to retreat back to the author's own original thesis, that "Being a 'musician' is increasingly becoming a profession for those coming from inherited wealth or being mercantily exceptionally clever."

Sigh...

Then! Yellowstone National Park is experiancing a major ecosystem disruption but fourtunately the friendly Park Rangers are there to kill the starving bears when they break into your trash. Check out The Ghost Park

Those who've been trying desperately for years (and often, succeding?) to pretend the Iraq war doesn't exist or effect them and won't probably continue for longer should double check the recent march where A Million Marchers Tell the US To Get Out of Iraq by the End of 2011 or Else.

And finally, in your own philosophical grasping for a framework to put all these pieces together, let us first understand, and then dismiss, the fallout from that day When Alan Met Ayn... And Tanked Our Economy, before (hip) hopping on over to Roots Grow Deep's latest posting, On Masculinity and Homophobia Pt 1: A Reflection on Hip Hop, Malcolm, and More.