Moulin Rouge

(I took this photo at dusk in Amsterdam on our band trip to Germany) Yesterday, i took most of the day off to rest. I was going to spend the entire evening just sitting and reading and praying, but when I started to journal, I ended up seeing Moulin Rouge on my computer cause some of the band peeps put it on there to watch on our trip to Phoenix. I kinda felt like it was the perfect timing for me to see. Like i was supposed to see it or something. It summarized the way i feel about art, beauty, and love in the face of a sold out world.

FLICKER IN A SANDSTORM
In the movie, the theatre (or house of ill-repute) called Moulin Rouge represents most of the music industry to me. A place void of authenticity, beauty, and love. A place filled with money-lusting peddlers willing to sell their very selves at any cost. I hate to be dramatic...or negative. But when you are an artist, and you try to something genuine, it is too common to see it get lost in a sea of noises that the world is swimming in. When a small voice these days is not carried by a booming marketing campaign, sex appeal, or some scheme to convince the "buyers" that THIS is the NEW THING, then the voice gets lost. It is a mere flicker in a sand storm.

I'm sorting through all of this in my life as i approach the next stages of my music, the next albums coming up, and the next stage of who I am as an artist and what I do. Not a light thing to be thinking about.


WE CHOICE WHAT "THEY" LIKE
You may think that we actually chose what we like when it comes to art, but an experiment was done in 2007 proving that most people gravitate towards what is already popular regardless of whether or not the music was more or less quality (to read this article and experiment click on this New York Times link). That is a sad test result to accept when you are guy like me. What that means is that the value of music is only seen when you've got some popularity gimmick up your sleeve. Some way to get a few thousand people to push stats up high enough so that the snow-ball begins to roll.

I have to keep looking and appreciating the beautiful things around me that are not covered in make-up. To the artist around me who understand what its like to get lost in these oceans of plastic and varnish, you are not alone.