Your friends that have moved out.

Sorry about that. I tried to post this one from my phone but it wouldn't let me type in the little text spot. Anyway...

I understand there are some of you out there that still care enough about this foul little city to think that if we all pull together we can really turn this city around. I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong (actually I am). I'm here to say that no matter what you do, what community outreach activity you put together or what park you clean up or how much funding Metro transit manages to not lose, listen closely to this part 'cause it's really important.... Ready? I'm serious, this part will blow your mind...

None of your efforts will make any difference if people move the hell away.

"I know but we have to make this a place where people want to stay and work," many of you are probably saying (or probably not as I only have three readers). No, no, no no no no no no, no, no nonononono. No! How the fuck are you going to do this? Uh? The answer is that you are not. There is no way to stem the hemorrhage of decent music and art and computer science*. Are you going to magically move a large music publisher here? Major record labels? ASCAP, BMI offices? How are you going to do this? How? These are the things that musicians need to want to be in a city. Or how 'bout a public that cares enough to go see local music?

Here's a fun story about my co-workers:

First I must say that they are all awesome people and I love them to death. I also ask that if any of my three readers know where I work (you do), please don't disclose this information. I'm trying to stay somewhat anonymous and my co-workers certainly should be granted this.

K, so... There was this fellow I used to work with. Really nice guy, great guitar player, we talked about music all the time. The only problem was that we didn't see eye to eye, aesthetically speaking. One of my problems with him was that he was in several cover bands over the time that I knew him. I remember he used to ask me how he could make more money and complain about a $200/night pull.

Note: One of my bands played Friday night. We made $80. We were really happy with this.

Anyway, several of the other people I used to work with would put together trips to go see his band play cover songs. It's cool, we were all friends. The thing I didn't understand was why it took me several months to get a handful of them to come out to one of my shows. This isn't even a quality of music thing. They had never heard me play. They didn't know if it was good or bad. All they knew is that it was original music. So it can only be one of two things: either a feeling that I, personally, was incapable of making good music or that the thought of going to hear something they haven't heard before was actually a deterrent. These were my friends. How the hell can you make strangers give a fuck if you can't even get your friends to come out.

Fun story huh?

On to Art: How can we keep our artists? Easy: make it profitable to be an artist here. Wait, you can't magically do that over night? Okay, um, how 'bout a few months? No? Oh, um, well how can you expect anyone to stick it out?

Look, here's the point: For all of my bitter, angry banter and poor grammar all I'm really trying to say is:

You can't ask someone to put their aspirations on hold for a sense of responsibility to a city that has made it clear since the days of Miles Davis that they don't want any culture. This city does not want culture or to be progressive. Of all the people I have known that have moved away and found success they all say basically the same thing to the effect of "Sure, I would have liked to have been a part of building a scene but (some variation of no money to start a major corporation, they don't make movies here with enough frequency to really make a living, there's no school there that offers this thing I study, etc...)

I'm starting to get bored so... For those of you that agree I need to find a suitable way to reference the St. Louis (i.e. shithole, awesomely shitty shithole, you know only more accurate.).

For those of you that don't here's a challenge: what are you doing to make this a better place to live and work? The rules are that you have to live in the city (again U-city is NOT St. Louis city) and your efforts have to be focused in the city.

Bye

*I have a very limited knowledge of anything computer related but I have gotten a lot of comments from people in this field on my last post so I feel I have to include it. To be honest I don't even know if I'm using the proper term. What is the blanket term for all things computer related?