Don,

I think it was meant with tongue-in-cheek, but Mark Twain is reported to have said: There has never been a life lived that wasn't a failure in the eyes of the one who lived it!

I had to shift gears long ago. It was obvious to me that changing paradigms were diminishing the scene all around me. In Chicago nightlife terms, that meant "folk music bars." I was lucky and found riverboats to play on and concerts to do for almost any group out there. Those that locked themselves into the nightlife music scene were destined to drink too much and too long. (That often ended with sad self-destruction.)

Now, it's sort of like being in limbo after death (of my music) and still being able to sit back and see/watch what life is evolving into. It's a fantastic panorama -- but not one I'd care to participate in and fight for a place in--for most the valid reasons you have put down. The new stuff is embraced, often, by them that do not know what they do---or are missing.

It's the way of the world. "Is what is"---as Gordon Bok has told me. To me, it's a gift to be here to see some of it----all the while me wishing the younger ones had the ability to see and feel what I know---the necessary empathy-------and then, the ensuing ecstasy.

Art