...And
I Know It
It's
days like these I'm glad I'm
not a poet.
You
know -the days when nothing
seems to be going right? The
days when the downside of
self-employment rears its
ugly head in the form of inconsistent
pay checks, the lack of a
good health plan (okay, ANY
health plan) and the fact
that no matter how many times
I re-enter the numbers, the
balance at the bottom of my
Quicken page is something
only marginally above zero?
I'm tired of fighting an uphill
battle, I'm tired of pouring
my heart and soul into a song
only to have some guy say
"Hey buddy, when you're done
with that can you play some
James Taylor?" I'm tired of
waking up and wondering what
the hell I'm really doing
with my life.
This
is one of those days.
Making
a living as a musician is,
at times, hard. Late nights,
lots of travel, drunk hecklers,
crappy clubs, and a chance
of big success hovering somewhere
at about a million to one
against. And let's face facts
- the music business doesn't,
and probably won't, ever care
about music or art. They care
about SALES. That's why they
call it business.
Musicians,
on the other hand, could care
less about business. If we
did care, we'd have our MBAs
and be working for labels
as executives making millions
off of boy band projects designed
to sell merchandise to thirteen
year old girls.
It's
the old square peg/round hole
dilemma.
But
still, the chances of succeeding
in the music industry seem
as easy as getting a job at
a fast food restaurant when
you compare it to the career
path of a poet.
I
know a lot of creative people
with interesting full-time
jobs - golf pros, musicians,
cartoonists, writers, photographers,
chefs, music producers and
editors - but I don't know
a single full-time poet. There's
probably a reason.
Seriously,
when was the last time you
left Blockbuster without a
movie so you could swing by
the library and pick up a
little poetry for the evening.
Have you ever said to yourself
"You know, I'm really in the
mood for a little poetry."
And
guys - reading poetry to your
woman as some weak attempt
at foreplay doesn't count.
If
you are one of the few people
who does read poetry on a
regular basis, chances are
you lean towards the dead,
famous kind rather than the
living, unknown kind. Even
painters, long known as a
profession which values it's
talent dead rather than alive,
can whore themselves out to
do architectural renderings,
carnival portraits or oil
paintings at the mall from
your photograph.
Poets
don't have those opportunities.
They're relegated to writing
in obscure little journals
that only other poets read,
crashing open mikes to try
to win over a crowd more interested
in hearing music, or sending
the occasional poem to the
editor of the local paper.
They get lumped into poetry
contests with every sixteen
year old girl who submits
some sort of an unrhymed dissertation
about the unbearable agony
of being a teenager. They
write the really sensitive
greeting cards that everyone
feels they should buy for
their mother.
Oh
sure there was a time when
it seemed like the poetry
thing was going to break wide
open - back in the sixties
and early seventies when the
beat poets were all the rage.
It was cool, it was hip. People
went out, saw poetry live
and dug it.
Of
course once the psychedelic
drugs wore off people woke
up and wondered what the hell
they were doing and why they
ever thought bell bottoms
were a good idea, and poetry
fell out of fashion for good.
Now
I'm not knocking poets - I
was an English major after
all. I have certainly skimmed
my share in college and read
a bunch in the years following
- mostly as a weak attempt
at foreplay, but still...
I think that poetry is a beautiful,
stark, cunning and insightful
medium and certainly in the
history of the so-called civilized
world there are a number of
terrifically significant poems.
I'm
just saying that from a make-a-living-for-the-rest-of-your-life
standpoint, pretty much ANYTHING
is easier.
Even
being a musician.
This
column © 2001 Lee Totten
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