Song Of The Day: You Can't Get What You Want ('Til You Know What You Want) / Joe Jackson
Word Of The Day: Anoetic / Conscious but passive and unthinking

I think Joe Jackson needs a new web site. It looks like 1982 on there. Joe Jackson. Every time I hear a record industry person tell me my stuff is too smart, too sophistocated for popular ears, I'm like "What the fuck? Joe Jackson can splatter Major Seven chords all over the radio, Steely Dan has been writing nothing but epic Hello-I-Was-A-Music-Major anthems for decades, but people hear Good Weird and bridle? People aren't as stupid and one dimensional as the record industry thinks. But I get it. I understand. Blaming the music industry for its monological, ever-shrinking aperture is like berating the quadrapalegic boy for his uninspired soccer performance. He can't fucking walk anymore, you asshole. The "music" part of the industry is too often incidental.

I write this because I've just spent the last five months trying to land a big deal for my new album, which is a FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE album -because of Alex Gibson (producer), because of Nate Jenkins (head engineer / instrumentalist), because of Rupert Hine (executive producer), and the amazing musicians on there. I mean, it's seriously one of those records where, when we got done I was like "If this doesn't get signed, I'm going fucking Tazamanian Devil on this town (Hollywood, where we recorded it). Alex hit a home run, that's all there is to it. We were all very very excited, very lit up. We felt invincible -dare I say favored? fated? to get this record signed. Rupert (who's broken countless acts into the big time and produced many stars -Tina Turner, Duncan Sheik, Thompson Twins, The Fixx, Rush, Stevie Nicks, Kate Bush, Bob Geldof, Howard Jones, Chris De Burgh, The Waterboys, Suzanne Vega) took the album around to half a dozen labels he had personal connections with, hand picked companies that he thought were likeliest to "get" what I do. Very selective.

They all said no.

And what can you do? At this point, I'm ten albums into my career. I've toured for fifteen years. We just made the greatest fucking record I've quite possibly ever made, we had the dream team on board, everything was aligned, and still, it doesn't happen.

Gotta chalk it up to ?~!~? and let it go. The truth, I spent many years avoiding or sabotaging any kind of mainstream success (my previous manager used to call me The Artist Who Said "No" To His Own Career) so I realize it won't all just flip instantly the second I decide I want to work with commercial organizations. Plus, what do I care? I love my career the way it is -I really, really do. I LOVE my career. Who can complain about being able to record whatever I want, however I want, with whoever I want? I've been ultra fortunate, I've been able to tour wherever I want, work with amazing artists in the studio and on stage. I've been able to branch out into other genres. Just finished my first book, and Ken fucking Wilber is my editor. Hello? Dream come true? Yes.

You see, I'm just a bit of a cantankerous fuck. I enjoy boxing with the industry. The truth is, I enjoy this dance with the industry. It's like being in love with a spoiled , shallow bitch that is really an angel deep down there somewhere. I already have a career, I've had a fantastic, vibrant career since I was 20 years old. I have nothing to complain about (I mean, come on, people are fucking being massacred on the other side of the World. Let's really put this trifle shit in perspective:

*Last year, an estimated 2.4 MILLION people DIED of AIDS in Africa.
*12 Million children have been orphaned by AIDS in Africa.
*Some 25 Million people are infected. 20% of the GENERAL population of Zambia is infected.

My problems? Right. Complete fucking joke. And that's the point, I don't really take it too seriously. Signing a record? Not a big deal. The Mystery will do its thing, and it's all going to vanish in a moment anyway, when my life is over, when the next wave of What comes crashing into the realm of form. We so easily forget how delicate and transitory all these ornaments are that we call "Reality" and "life". They're phantoms.

BUT... the reason I get upset is because it's important to remain engaged, passionate, and invested. To be useful as an agent one has to care deeply, participate passionately, and yet be careful not to confuse the phantoms (decoys) for the point-itself. Which is ineffable, inscrutable, and cyrptically embroidered into each new moment in means and modes beyond the scope of any individual human. You gotta defer to the ~!~?~!~ bitches, and if you don't, you're going to be subsumed anyway. It's for YOUR sake, not the Mystery's, that you offered the opportunity to comply with the native endowment of Unknowing that is your natural condition. You are a discrete, individuated expression of an infinite ?What? that is before and beyond any conception or cognition which can be registered. There are no objects. It's all Subject.

So the music biz? The work-play of careers and making art, business, etc? They're decoys, that's all. Useful decoys. The Mystery is kind enough to manufacture forms which we can inter-subjectively and inter-objectively relate to, interact with, and SERVE in the name of love. All forms are sentient. All work is supposed to be the Play, the metaphor we conduct ourselves within as Agents of Kosmic Communion. Do not be mistaken, that is the fucking Hokey-Pokey people, that is what it's all about.

So, I'm not really upset, I'm not deeply, truly pissed my record didn't get signed. But I do care, I do feel intense about it, I remain passionate about this art- because as a passionate person I am much much more effective as an Agent Of Communion, as a participant in the Mystery. Phlegmatic fucking navel gazers aren't worth two shits. Stone Buddhas are a dime a dozen. This precious vehicle of Human Form is a treasure too magnificent to comprehend, I don't want to take it foregranted -I can't afford to take it foregranted- for even a moment. Viva La Human!