Art KarmaAnd Green Karma (Money)

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Art KarmaAnd Green Karma (Money)

A member of the band Kiss says in the movie Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years , "Money only makes you not care about money." I feel that if you're doing it right, that's true.

My friend Mike Kelley says, "I try to think of money as a resource, like water or electricity. Somehow it goes away and then somehow it comes around again."

I got a parking ticket for 50 bucks today. So I just wrote a check, sent it off the same day, and let 50 bucks worth of green karma flow through me.

Money is not a measure of worth; it's a utility. It's a form of energy. And if you get some, don't gloat. You wouldn't feel bad if you had less static electricity in your hair than your friend or brag if you had more. Treat money the same way.

I particularly love the money karma "let it flow through you" idea. It works for everything, not just money.

As much as Hollywood is an easy target about which to complain, there is a beautiful magic to it. I'm not just speaking of the false magic whereby talentless people walk around and imagine what Jo Moskow calls "the sidewalks speaking to them" implying that they're the next big thing. I call this "Dilution of Grandeur."

No, there is an elegant spirituality to this place. It's probably a combination of Old Testament mysticism, 12-step ideology, California Hippie Zen, and traditional Ye Olde American Dream, back from when the American dream worked.

The more money you spend on others, the better you are. Donate. Fund. Hire. Give. Spend green, spend locally, spend well. When you travel, consider the town you're in to be your hometown for that day. Tip big, even if you can't afford it.

Get rich and then spread it around where it's needed.

Donate old equipment to schools when you upgrade. Or if you can, buy them new stuff. Historically, companies that give things away thrive. Ones that don't, don't. Even fat cats like the Rockefellers knew this. They supported orchestras and ballets and continue to help the arts today.

Art karma, man, art karma.

It doesn't matter how much money you have, but rather what you do with it. You can be a millionaire and still be pure. Just let the money flow through you; give it away; hire cool, talented people; pay them when you can; and treat people the way you'd like to be treated.

A long time ago a musician friend once did a really boss thing for me. I was about to get evicted and he gave me $200, which helped save the farm. But he said "You have to pay it to someone else, not me." (This was five years before that Pay It Forward movie.) Good plan if you ask me. And I did pay it forward. But I gave 50 bucks each to four people who needed money for food. Friends and strangers. Mostly artists , but not all. Good people, just broke. And I told them the same.

And it all came back tenfold or more. ^[7.] Art Karma.

^[7.] Maybe for him, too. His band went platinum a few years ago.

NOTE

When I have some money and go shopping, I usually buy a few cans of something I don't like very much. That way I'll have something to eat on those rare occasions when I'm really hungry and really broke.

Figure 17.5. Roach from Groovie Ghoulies. Photo by Newtron Foto.

"As long as there are 99-Cent Stores, we will never have to sell out."

Lydia Lam

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Punk Rockers

1 Pass it on.

Share information, resources, equipment, and opportunities. Especially opportunities. Some people hold their contacts close to their chest, afraid that if they help someone else, it will bump them out of the running. Nothing can be further from the truth. People remember help they've received, and what goes around, comes around.

And some folks have this illusion that there is a finite amount of exposure or "fame" available. This is horse hockey. There is enough for everyone who deserves it. If you calmly think you deserve it, you're right. You will get your chance.

NOTE

"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality."

The Dali Lama

NOTE

Food bought from money made playing music actually tastes better than day-job purchased food.

If you only look out for Number One, people will try to push you out of their way and knock you down.

If you look out for others and not just yourself, people will get behind you and push you along.

But if riches are all you're looking for, you're in the wrong school.

Conversely, don't give your contacts to self-seeking idiots or spammers who will dilute the power by harassing people and make you look bad. Protect the scene, and work to foster a scene.

2 Do what you love.

Do what you do and love it, but know that not everyone will get it. Once I was in line at the 99-Cent Store buying a dozen blank VHS tapes. A kid smiled and said, "You gonna tape the Olympics?"

I said "No, I'm sending out copies of a film I made to festivals." He grunted and looked disappointed. Seems that a lot of people would rather consume media than be the media.

Don't freak out. Just live to make art. You may not make a million dollars, but you will move people. That's what it's all about. And you will get laid. By very interesting, very cool, very creative people that you can know for a long time. I do.

I said in my novel , "It's all about art. All artists just wanna reach beyond the mundane and scratch into something real. Whether you're painting the ceiling of the chapel or banging out three shaky chords in the garage, you are declaring your intentions to smear your fingerprints on the veil of the infinite . And things just might work out all right."

And remember:

All art is just an attempt to augment or imitate God.

Follow the spark and the rest will follow.

We're not suffering. We're celebrating.

Figure 17.6. An Albatross bass.

3 Try not to lie.

At least to humans . Music making attracts a lot of liars because it attracts people who need to be seen and heard, even if they have nothing to say. And they will do anything to get seen and heard . Any time anyone tells you anything, run it through your own internal B.S. filter and ask yourself if this person has any reason to lie to you. Don't be paranoid and mistrusting; just listen with your heart. You'll get good at spotting the creeps.

I mentioned it in my film book, but I'll reiterate it here because it's just as important in music if not more so: Don't pretend you know people you don't.

The last time I played in Seattle, Dave Grohl was up front singing along with all my words and we had a drink after. But that doesn't mean we're buddies . I don't know him. I'd met him only a couple of times before (before he was in Nirvana, when he played in Scream, an amazing band that never got their due), but I'd be lying to say, "He's my friend." He seems like a nice guy, but I don't know him.

When people say, "I'm friends with _________" and try to impress you with it, ask them, "Did she invite you to her wedding ?" "Did he help you when you moved?" I think those are accurate tests of friendship. Don't lie. It's tacky, and you don't need to. And if you do, people will catch you.

4 Don't be piggy .

I was out walking the other day on Sunset Blvd. This guy was hanging up really cool looking big sticker flyers for his band. I stopped to compliment him and asked him if he made them. He was really cocky and said, "Naw, my record company did."

Then I started to walk away and saw the other side of the pole. I noticed that he had gone out of his way to cover up someone else's flyer, (a flyer that I had seen on my way up that street, for an independent film that looked really cool), when he totally had room on the pole not to cover anyone else up.

NOTE

Be humble . Death abhors a braggart. Death takes the loud talkers.

One thing that's wrong with the world is that a lot of people are willing to do any thing to get famous. I like being on TV but am not willing to lie, steal, cheat, cover up flyers, or go to bed with someone I wouldn't go to lunch with in order to do it.

That's everything that's wrong with the a lot of artists. Everywhere, but especially in Hollywood. It's not like there isn't enough fame to go around. It's not like if you crush the other guy it's gonna give you an advantage. Just be great. If you're great, you're gonna rise. That's a law of physics.

Cream does not destroy milk to get to the top, it just slides by it.

A lot of up-and-coming artists demand that people in positions of distribution power pay attention:

"Here's my tape. Listen to it now!"

"Why should I?"

"If you heard it, you'd love it."

It's better to try to get to know people and get to know them for the sake of knowing them without expecting anything in return; then they'll just naturally want to help you. It seems like a catch-22, and you might wonder , "Well, isn't it a hustle if I go out of my way to know those people?" It's not. Figure a way to do it and keep integrity. Just be a people person. Cultivate individual relationships. Music is all based on relationships. Not in a scam way, but in a real way. People want to help people they know.

There's something to be said for taking the "I think I can" tenacity and stick-to-itiveness of punk rock and applying it to your art, but don't bug people or screw people over. Again: Have hustle, but don't be a hustler.

There's a thin line between getting your work out there and trying to control things you cannot control. I don't always get it right, but I'm learning.

As I get older, I realize that I am powerless over reality. I can do my best to do the footwork to get stuff done, but then I have to walk away. The best solution is to work hard for your art on a daily basis and don't get caught up in the results.

Be so busy with the next thing that you don't care about the results of the last thing.

If you do what you do well, the Universe will eventually part her legs on your behalf .

Figure 17.8. Guitar.

5 Don't limit your self-definition.

I am less about self-definition and more about spirit. I didn't set out to make films to be able to call myself "a filmmaker." I just had a story to tell, and film seemed like a good way. So I endeavored to learn film. I'm a better guitar player than those in a lot of bands I see, and I sometimes play gigs, but I don't consider myself a guitar player.

I just do art and want to be able to do it well in every medium. And I don't want to be stuck with any one art form. That way I'm not limited. When a spirit moves me, I don't have to say, "I'll write a song," but conversely, "Hmmmm should I write a song, or make a Web page, or make a film, or write a screenplay, or a novel, or a poem, design some software, make a Flash animation, or paint a picture?"

Basically, my attitude is San Francisco-meets-Hollywood. And it's working out fine for me. I have the San Fran love of art and beauty. I spent 16 years there. Then I moved to Los Angeles and applied in the real world the stuff I'd learned up north.

Live this.

It doesn't matter where you are. You can make art anywhere . I really don't define myself as a resident of Los Angeles. I don't get out much, so it doesn't really matter what city I'm in. I live here because it's cheap and it's warm. A city is just a place to park my bed and my computer and get my mail. My life exists more between my ears and out in the entire world than in the few miles around my physical body. My view of Los Angeles is not Hollywood glitz. It's me staring at a computer screen in my apartment or standing in line at the Echo Park Post office on Glendale Ave. That's all I do everyday it seems like.

I remember being in a band on tour. My impression of a town was the bar we played in and the person's house we crashed at after the show. And a lot of my image of a place was based on whether or not we had a good turnout at the gig and whether or not I got with a girl. For a long time I thought Toledo was a great town and New York City sucked.

Figure 17.9. Josh from Insecto. He took my place when I left the band. He rocks.

You have to give up to get. I had to learn to give up wanting to be a rock star. Actually, it would be more accurate to say I am learning to not need to be a rock star. In doing so, I've come closer to being a rock star than ever. It's like the Tao of Steve or Fight Club . You have to give up wanting something before you can get it. It's total Zen Guitar.

I also had to give up wanting to be a rock star socialite so I could have more time and focusto realign my spirit so I would have more to say. As a result, the Universe gave me opportunities to say it and be heard.

D.I.Y. requires constant vigilance . There are no vacations . I had the social life of a monk during my first 18 months in Los Angeles, by choice. D.I.Y. or DIE and $30 Film School and $30 Music School were things that I felt people had to see. That made it easy to give my all, and I didn't feel like I was giving anything up. I didn't feel like a martyr staying home on a Saturday night when my friends were out partying and had invited me. In a different mindset, years earlier, I did feel like a martyr in my band because I was doing more work than anyone else, and I had a cranky "nobody loves me" attitude.

True D.I.Y. ethic is about loving what you do, not about getting pity for doing it. When I'm broke, but out spreading art, my rich patent attorney friend and my rich government economist friend who both own big houses in the suburbs envy me. They tell me this.

There's nothing wrong with being a nurd at home alone working on art on a Saturday night. ^[8.]

^[8.] Nurds rule the world these days. I'd bet my bottom forbidden donut that when the cool kids were out getting laid, Trent Reznor was at home in front of the mirror, wearing a Devo flower pot hat, a Pink Floyd's The Wall T-shirt, and playing air keytar along with "Foreplay/Longtime" by Boston.

People who change the world aren't out partying on a Saturday night. They're home changing it.

6 Hone your drive.

Artists have to keep moving their hands. That's what makes them artists. Look at the hands of the subjects in D.I.Y always moving.

I'm fidgety. Can't stop twitching. Sometimes people think I'm on drugs, but I'm not. I just always flow. I'm like a shark: I have to keep moving or I'll die.

Bassist Mike Watt is a big inspiration for me. That motherfluffer beat cancer that would have killed three other men. He was touring six months after his surgery. The guy never rests. Same with his frequent collaborator, Peter DiStefano. Beat cancer, too. I love that guy. And Peter also works all the time making great stuff.

Spared. We're Spared.

Little Mike treats me like a quitter when I sleep. "Sleep is for quitters. You're quitting the day! You can sleep when you're dead." But I love sleep and need it. It's part of my artistic process to process the day and prepare for the next one and to get ideas. What is all art except an attempt to make sense of dreams? Except documentaries, which are an attempt to explain waking life.

Art for me is an attempt to capture the way my thoughts worked when I was a child. My art is just me painting the sunny windy cloudy days that remind me of a cross-section of a sliver of the Polaroid sky of my childhood. And doing it in any and all media.

I have to make stuff. And I have to show it to people.

My studio apartment is a cramped art factory. A one-man voluntary sweatshop. It's a system, an equation. It exists only for eating , sleeping, loving, and making art. D.H. Peligro jokingly/lovingly called me a "Legend in my own room." But I spend a lot of time in there making the legend seep out into the world.

Genesis P-Orridge says, "Change your own bedroom and you can change the world."

My goal is to make art, and then get the product out of my apartment. That's why I'll sometimes sell CDs/VHS tapes/books/records/DVDs of my work cheaper than retail or even give them away. I still make a profit in the long run, but I feel my art is of no use to the world stacked up in my apartment. It has to get out !

I keep my office in my house because my life and my work are the same thing. I don't have an office or workspace separate from my home. This is partially out of economic necessity, but I actually believe that if I had the luxury of a bigger space, I'd still do it all in the same room. Or at least the same building. I can't go somewhere else to get this done. I work in spurts. I'll sit on my back porch staring at the sky with my feet up, come in and type one word or one sentence , and go back out to stare at the sky and pet my cat.

Figure 17.10. Me at work.

I have reverse insomnia. I fall asleep easily but get up too early. Sometimes I awake at 4 a.m. after a disturbing and/or wonderful dream and work until I fall back to sleep. It's in my DNA. My dad is like this, also. Sometimes he gets up too early and can't fall back to sleep and he just goes to his desk and works and starts his day. He's a businessman and I'm an artist, but it's the same.

And, like him, I nap. Every afternoon, starting when I turned 30. I eat lunch, take a burrito nap, then get up, drink coffee, and start over. It's like living two days in one. And then I'm good to go until I fall asleep watching old movies at 4 a.m.

This sleep schedule is just my rhythm. Don't try to imitate it; find your own rhythm and live it. Nurture it. Find a way to not meld to someone else's rhythm. That's the beauty of not having a 9-to-5 job. It allows me to work on art 24/7.

I've always put art first spent every cent on art. I've often gone without buying nice things, going to movies, and such.

Sometimes I really get a kick outa being me. I think that this is what makes me successful. I think I'm totally successful flying around the world and then coming home and having to wash my socks out in the sink because I can't afford to do laundry. Dig my life!

I am what the band MDC called a Soup Kitchen Celebrity. And I'm fine with it.

A lot of people never have lived like this. And it isn't something to pity; it's something to envy. I could get a job and have a nice car and a mortgage. But I don't want to.

I always paid my rent and phone bill somehow, though. Having a place to do my art is more important to me than eating.

I was never really starving , but I was often worried. I often had like $3, pending bills, and only a little food. And I'd spent $100 that day on computer upgrades or postage .

Sure, you will still have doubts , but it's always there, as close as your heartbeat.

7 Don't rest on the past.

I love this thing Ian MacKaye said. Someone asked him in an interview about the D.C. punk book Dance of Days . He said, "I have not read it. I don't read books about myself. (these are) history books, and history is about what has been done. I am not done. I am doing. I'm not there yet. I've got too much work to do."

Ian is mentioned on about ever other page of Dance of Days . I don't think I could not at least glance at a book like that about me, but I love his sentiment.

Music is a very ephemeral experience and is sensitive to trends, and fans are very fickle. I talked to this guy, Aaron Nemoyten, the other day on the phone. He's 18 years old and playing in bands in Northern California, playing clubs I used to sell out with my band 10 years ago. He's never heard of my band and goes to shows in the same clubs with happenin' new bands that are packing the place.

NOTE

I have a friend in Hollywood who is a pretty good songwriter, but really hung up on trying to be a star . He desperately wants a record deal. Only he's about 36 and probably too old to get signed.

When you stand at his kitchen sink, the view out the window is entirely blocked by the Capitol Records building. He lives about three blocks away. How demoralizing must that be?

This is a good place to remind you for a third time: "Be fair to everyone. You meet the same people on the way up that you meet on the way down." I found this to be so true. When I was in a happening band, I was cocky with the bookers at these clubs. When they'd call and offer me a paid show headlining on a Saturday night, I'd treat them crappy. They'd sometimes give me the gig because we were hot at the time, but they'd remember my pissy 'tude. Then, after that band broke up and I started a new band, the new band didn't have a following. I thought the band's fans would follow me to the next group because I was ego driven and thought I was the star . But people actually liked the band, not just me. So I'd call the club trying to get my new band a gig opening for a free show on a Tuesday night. They'd be like, "Don't call us; we'll call you."

Another ( happier ) parable on the fickleness of fans, on a larger level, is the story of T-Ride. T-Ride (Telluride) was a band from San Francisco in the late 80s and early 90s. They were kinda pretty-boy glammy looking but exceptional musicians . They got signed to Zoo Entertainment or Hollywood Records or one of those huge synthetic major labels ^[9.] that bled money and never had a hit. I forget which one. Anyway, T-Ride was the first unknown band to ever be given a million dollars to sign with any label.

^[9.] Synthetic in the sense that the label didn't grow and evolve . It just sprang up overnight as an already huge entity that splintered off from some huge film company.

Instead of blowing it on limos and strippers, they built a recording studio. They still have that studio today. I've recorded there (with Slish), and it kicks ass. They were very smart. That was the first moral of this story.

So, they spent four years in their studio crafting their debut record. Four freaking years! That's about eight times as long as most bands spend. Or more.

They recorded about 20 layers of guitar harmonies. They recorded about 20 tracks of vocal harmonies. They ended up sounding very much like Queen: incredibly polished and technical. The whole time, the label kept saying, "Give us the record. Give us the record. Give us the record. Give us the record." But the band stuck to their guns and waited until they felt it was perfect.

Finally, they turned the masters in to the label. The record hit the stores. And one week later, Nirvana's Nevermind album hit the world and completely erased any market for polished symphonic rock music.

T-Ride went on tour opening for White Zombie and got booed and pelted with bottles. Don't ask me how they got on that tour. Most likely the way this always happens. Some business partnership same manager or something.

T-Ride is long since broken up, but Eric Dodd and the guys still have the studio and are still happily making their own music and anonymously making a good living recording for other people. I think, in some ways, they are more successful than Kurt Cobain, who is famous and dead.

Parable three:

One decision I regret , which I add as a cautionary example, is this: My band used to practice down the hall from another band, The Himalayans. They had no following yet, while my band did. Their very earnest singer approached me one day and said "We're starting this loosely organized thing where different bands will agree to come see each other's shows. If 10 bands all do this, we'll all have a following, and it can only grow from there."

I told him "Forget it. My band already has a following," and stormed off. I would never do this now to anyone, but I was a lot stupider and a little bit mean back then.

The following year that guy started a new band called Counting Crows. Two years later, my band was broken up and I was scrambling for gigs with a solo project. He was going triple-platinum and giving a leg-up to all those unknown bands that had helped him with his project.

Parable Four:

I remember when my friend David Immergluck was in Counting Crows. They offered him a choice when he recorded their first record: Either some ghetto-rich amount now and no points later or no money up front and points on sales later. He took the money now.

Six months later the money was gone and he was working the counter at Tower Records in San Francisco, selling 100 copies of that record a day and seeing nary a cent.

Parable Five:

Another friend was once toiling in the hot sun laying tar on a roof. His co-worker was a former top ten singer from the 60s. One of the singer's songs came on the radio while they were working. The singer said "Well, there's another nickel for my ex-wife and the taxman.

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