Re: living without money(O.T.)

[Mark Sottilaro <zerocrossing@gmail.com>]

The sad thing is the fact that live music isn't something that's
valued as much as it should be in our culture.  I can never quite
figure out how someone like Madonna can rake in millions yet great
small acts seem to beg for crumbs.  It always made me laugh when we
could fill a small club when we paid for free on a monday night when
it was normally empty, but if we charged $3 to get in people would go
to the bar across the street.  I'd have been happy to play for free,
but the club owner decided to charge us to use the PA even though we
had our own.  That's right, I'm talking to you, The Nines in Ithaca,
NY.

On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Daryl Shawn<highhorse@mhorse.com> wrote:
> Well, living this way is not for everyone. But I do hope that everybody
> finds peace w/the work they do for money, whether it be justifying it by 
>the
> things it allows them to do, or by finding the work itself to be 
>rewarding.
> I do, by the way, feel good about the work that I do get paid for.
>
> My touring does, in fact, get close to supporting itself (comes closer 
>each
> tour). That's beside the point; I'm happy to do this and have another job
> which actually supports me. The point is to play live music in front of
> actual breathing people as much as possible, and to combine that with the
> ability to see new places and to meet up with new people each night 
>makes it
> fully worthwhile. It's simply what I want to do; the pros and cons of 
>this
> model of "distribution" don't interest me.
>
> Daryl Shawn
> www.swanwelder.com
> www.chinapaintingmusic.com
>
>> Hitchhiking only works if someone's got it together to buy a car.
>> Couchsurfing only works if someone has spent their money on a couch
>> (and a place to keep it in)
>>
>> I'd love to live in a magic fairy land universe where everyone just
>> did the work they felt was "important."  I bet that land smells like a
>> pile of garbage... I bet that land would be a pile of garbage.   Who
>> wants to do that job?  Would the building I sheet rocked exist in that
>> land, because let me tell you I did not feel important doing that job.
>>  It did, however, give me the ability to buy my own couch, car and
>> rent a place to keep them in.
>>
>> While traveling in Japan last September it struck us that the idea of
>> "menial labor" didn't really exist there like it does in the west.  It
>> seemed like everyone was proud of their job and worked hard at it
>> whether is was fast food worker or hotel manager. It made me feel
>> ashamed of our culture where your self esteem seems linked to the
>> "quality" of job you have and not the quality of work you do.
>>
>> Here's a question I have.  If your tour can't even support itself in
>> terms of travel... why?  Wouldn't you be better off finding local gigs
>> and distributing your music all over the world via the internet?  Just
>> wondering...
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 7:10 AM, Daryl Shawn<highhorse@mhorse.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I've done a number of long hitchhiking trips, and they were some of my
>>> most
>>> formative experiences. I think it helped lead me to my current mode of
>>> traveling/touring, and even to the kind of work I can handle doing for
>>> money. I need to have control over my time. I feel very lucky to have
>>> ended
>>> up in computers, which has enabled me to have complete flexibility,
>>> working
>>> by the hour from anywhere. (The getting-paid-by-the-hour component is
>>> important - the concept of salary never sat right w/me).
>>>
>>> I wasn't necessarily going to share this here, but after some shakeup 
>in
>>> my
>>> personal life it has turned out that I'm not going to be based in 
>Mexico
>>> anymore. For the time being I don't have a fixed address, I'm just
>>> bouncing
>>> between friends and family in the eastern half of the US while 
>preparing
>>> for
>>> my next tour. I don't feel the need to have a solid home base, and with
>>> wanting to tour most of the time, it wouldn't be much of a home base
>>> anyway.
>>> But my communities are VITAL to me, whether it's old friends or groups
>>> like
>>> LD where there's common ground from which new friendships develop. 
>That's
>>> where my solidity is.
>>>
>>> Funny, just last night a friend told me that there's a growing movement
>>> of
>>> people doing something like what I'm doing, and then Stefan mentioned 
>the
>>> couchsurfing groups (which I'm definitely going to follow up on).
>>> Inspiring.
>>>
>>> Daryl Shawn
>>> www.swanwelder.com
>>> www.chinapaintingmusic.com
>
>