Are You Out There? Can You Hear This?

In the 1990's I served as singer/songwriter Dar Williams' manager. One of the songs for which we had high hopes of snagging the American public's ears was called "Are You Out There," about the takeover of alternative voices on the radio dial by the corporate behemoth known as Clear Channel.... of course, as we noticed in retrospect... hey! ....since Clear Channel ...had already taken over America's airwaves... the song didn't ...become ...a ...hit. 

This is why I wasn't a terribly good manager. But the line occurred to me as I sat down to try to write my first blog entry.

I've never blogged before. It sounds like a euphemism for something embarrassing, like "vomiting in public."

Oh. Right. It sort of is vomiting in public. But what's the harm? Since I'm apparently not in consideration for a post in the Obama administration, I can (metaphorically) blog all over everybody's metaphorical lawn till the cows come home.

Which sounds very Vermont. The cow part I mean. Not the blogging on people's lawns part. THAT sounds like something that would happen at Dartmouth, across the river.

ANYWAY, it sounds like many of us wiggly little artiste types are having a devil of a time trying to wrap our crania around just exactly what it is we're supposed to be coming up with in order to hit the Art of Action g-spot. It's really interesting. I think it may be that we are very used to the idea of us, the wiggly artistes, just creating the stuff, with it being up to the viewer to interpret the exact meaning of the work. Didn't we learn somewhere that it was not cool to be too overtly political (or at least too overtly sincere)? 

Everyone would much rather be Bob Dylan than Phil Ochs.