Letters to the Editor
timbuktom
Published Letters: 3137 Editor's Choice: 151
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Aren't You Glad You Get To Say, "I'm A Musician,"...
[Read the article: I'm a jazz pianist, nearly 50, and I need to make some real money!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... instead of having to tell people you are a secondary sub-prime mortgage sumpthin-or-other?
I assume you already give lessons. (I do. It's easy and fun.) I assume that is part of your $17k income. If not, be aware that do not even need a studio or a presentable home for lessons. You can go to the students' homes.
Do NOT move to Nashville, where everybody plays better than you and better than I, even though we are really good. Are you already in or near Nashville, though? I can give you one name. Maybe you can contact me through Salon.
Where do you live? $17k goes a lot further in Ann Arbor or Detroit (fantastic music towns, home bases of many great musicians), than it does in New York or Los Angeles.
Day jobs are a big problem. First rule: Do not get a night-time day job. Worst thing you could do is start bartending in a music bar. You will not be free for music ever again.
Here are a couple music markets to look into:
1. Do you know that there is a Nursing Home Circuit? You can get gigs at old folks homes everywhere. Early evening gigs, weekend daytime gigs, with minimal equipment. Play everything from "You Are My Sunshine" through the Beatles, including all the great jazz in between.
Grab one of your better singers, and try it out as a duo. You may find an organization in your area which books and even pays for these gigs, to brighten up the residents' lives.
2. Find a good black church, and start playing there on Sundays as a sideman with the choir. Even if you do not think you have any faith, the music will convert you, or at least make you extremely happy. And you will find the other singers and musicians at the church will pull you into great gigs on other days of the week. Also! The Preacher will pay attention to you, and listen to your story, and help you find a day job, if that really is what you need.
Conclusion: You can do any job you want to do. But (voice of experience!) you want to play music. Do NOT give it up. You may well go from being a proud $17k musician to being a miserable $18k sub-prime mortgage trainee.
Love!
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Perfect Review...
[Read the article: Lord of the ruins]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Aiming at people who love Lord of the Rings but could not make it through The Silmarillion is the prefect tactic. Amazon's Tolkien sector will light up tonight and tomorrow.
Speak friend!
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A Constant Grit-Your-Teeth Democrat Thing:
[Read the article: Note to politicians]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Public school administrators, who usually are Democrats, keep doing silly things. Not murder-a-couple-hundred-thousand-Iraquis silly, but this is one of those areas we need to learn to live with.
Like when some first-grader draws a picture of Jesus, they pull the picture from the first grade art show, and expell the kid from school.
I met Alger Hiss about 1974. He may be the most famous guy I ever have met. He was polite and moderately well-groomed. Compared to Nixon. he was a poofter. Compared to G.W. Bush, he was King Arthur.
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Great! Hooray! Get moving, please!
[Read the article: Windmills]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We need to get after these people this year, now, before they get near the ends of their terms in office.
Now, it will get attention. A year from now, unless the process is well along, it will seem irrelevant.
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Let's Talk MORE About Hair
[Read the article: Anatomy of Beltway conventional wisdom]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Have you not noticed all the preposterous haircuts in Washington? About half of the Congressmen and male Senators try hard for Hollywood Hair, and fail.
Trent Lott's hair??? Mitt Romney's hair is extremely fancy, probably very expensive. And, although it looks okay on TV, it probably looks very silly up close. (I think this same thing about Pamela Anderson's chest, and about John McCain's ideas.)
Maybe somebody at Salon can do a study of Washington Hair.
And, I hope Senator Edwards will come out, today or tomorrow, with a clever self-deprecating comment about his own hair. Otherwise The Swift Hair Veterans For Truth will get the upper hand.
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On that First Grader:
[Read the article: Note to politicians]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Sonofabastard asked: "Have you been watching Bill O'Reilly again? Did this really happen or is it another tall tale from The War On Christmas?"
I heard about this on my local christianist radio show. I believe it. Silly people on both sides of The Big Ditch do silly things all the time.
It is nowhere near as bad as Torture, but it is one of those things that keeps me humble when I rant at Republicans and NeoCons.
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This Has To Be A Local Issue
[Read the article: Why Democrats dumped gun control]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Detroit needs and wants strict gun control. Alpena, Michigan neither wants nor needs it.
Within the USA, within any given state, different places need different things. National politicians: Stay out of this issue.
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This Never Translates....
[Read the article: From Blacksburg to Baghdad]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Most Americans who have supported W.Bush do not even care about the dead Americans in Virginia. People who are far away from them are abstract, not actual people.
So they sit in Issaquah and Ada, and they continue to spin their theoretical justifications and common-sense justifications.
Reality is SOOOOOO passe!
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Short Term - Practical Advice
[Read the article: The biofuel scramble for Brazil]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Keep your heads down, Tropical Paradises! Please just quietly educate your children, and try not to attract notice from The Masters Of The Universe.
Let the creepy capitalists wreck your neighbors, but act stupid, and keep them from noticing you. In ten or fifteen years, you will be able to come out of hiding with clean hearts and smiles on your faces.
The all-knowing global exploiters will be dead, strangled by their own fumes. And the meek will inherit the Earth.