Creating A Miiddle Class Of Artists

THIRTY, FORTY YEARS AGO I said that if American culture were a horse, it would be shot, a metaphor I evidently considered clever at the time. I still happen to agree with it.Much of my disdain has to do with the insane celebrity culture we have cancered into being, wherein somebody who entertains us is elevated to a godlike status, randomly, as if it doesn't matter who gets elevated, as long as somebody does, because we must have our pantheon of gods, no matter what, because we haven't any god at all that we can rely on. On every street corner in America stands a singer songwriter guitar player, singing and strumming, guitar case open. In the bars and nightclubs too. In any give calendar year are a million novels awaiting publication, and houses up and down the street have easels in the front window. There is no shortage of art and culture in the United States of Advertising, just a poorly distributed public attention span. Don't get me wrong. Taylor Swift is a great singer. She's written some good songs, and sings them well. Also, she's the ultimate business-person marketer. Works like a dog, and we all know how hard dogs work. Deserves her success. But, to what extent? But so are a lot of other good people, good at song writing and singing. Instead of Taylor "earning" fifty million a year, and most of the other starving to death, wouldn't it be nice to have a little bit broader, more open, free market of art in America? we compete for everything in America, including the entertainment dollar, and competition creates winner and looser, and, not surprisingly, monopolies, in everything. the internet give us fresh hope, perhaps. Anyone can market on line, and most people can usually get alive gig. And that's what its going to take in the future, what with all art forms, including music, writing, and the visual arts, becoming available to everyone free of charge. who knows, we may end up yet with a huge middle class of artwork, in which tens of thousands of singer, painters, poets, and writers make around forty a year, and nobody makes a gazillion.........TANKS FOR SUPPORTING FREE EXPRESSION!