I don't think I'm being overly Pollyanna-ish or simplistic or anything lkse but realistic when I choose to see it this way---

Art, do you remember sitting on the curved bench/pew seat at the old No Exit in Chicago playing your saw? I do. I was a mere listener at one or two of your gigs. I'm sorry the world hasn't paid adequately for the time and care and talent you've put out into it. But it has gone into lives you never knew you touched, it goes into the lives of people living in communities you'll never see, it goes into the hearts of people in my town every Saturday night. It goes into the kids who caress my autoharp and coax out sound. It made other kids play pot and pan lids beautifully in church, and this actually made the "musicians" present among the adults very happy.

Our genre is one that reaches deeper, touches more of the soul, and lasts longer than any other. It's big and long-term like the work a stoneworker does. They're restoring our church's stone now and they'll be dead when it needs it again, it will last so long. It will hold so many souls' prayers...

I think we have to take the long view to see the power entrusted to us, and to be responsible stewards of the gift we are given to be able to experience it and share it. I don't really think I would want to relate to music as the thing I am paid to do and have to do to be paid. If it paid well it would be full of a lot of assholes. Let as many of them as possible gravitate to the other genres. And let them make enough money to stay there. We will still be here, right alongside them, doing what we do and making real differences in people's lives.