SELL out.

i havent written in a while it seems, but it doesnt mean i stopped thinking or feeling, maybe it means just the opposite, and i've just been so wrapped up in conversation and poetry-writing, that i just havent made it to my neglected little blog. i'm going to nashville tomorrow, the music city/music-capital, whatever they call it, to visit belmont university! this should be great to give me an idea if this place is really where i should be going or not. speaking of music cities... i've been involving myself in many aspects of music lately, not just the me strumming on a guitar making sounds, and exhaling air through vibrating vocal chords, but also the whole intellectual/informational music-sphere (i feel like you can put the word "sphere" at the end of anything and make it sound cool... blogosphere, jodisphere, peoplesphere..)... yes well i'm researching for this 10 page paper and being very puzzled by the realities i'm unconvering. it's all very exciting, but i'll let you wait til my 10 page paper if you really actually care about the details. (it'll be good)


so i talked to jimi calhoun today and asked him about the truth about record companies, and what they look for. and it seems like they're pretty much after finding artist that can be commercialized, so really its about making money, chasing trends, did i say making money? and making money. so money, as nice as it sounds to the ears, and looks to the eyes, and feels when you spend it on the things you think will satisfy you forever, seems like its completely against the actual art of music which has nothing to do with profit margins, well unless your lyrics revolve around the stuff you own (sorry to bash rap, cause i know i grew up on it!)...


i mean, but everyones gotta make a living right? everyone needs to have a stable job where they're making an income, right? because otherwise they're failures to society, homeless ppl aren't worth much more than some extra change in our pockets, we are what we appear to be. everyones gotta be stable so that they can be seen as acceptable and presentable, right? god.. i cant get away from it, and even in ENGLISH class heres mrs. bennett saying "the world isnt going to change, you all need to grow up and accept the way things are and learn to live in the harsh world" i smiled at her whole comment and story only because she came out and SAID IT, when all of us go on trying so hard to conform barely even conscious that we're giving up the experience of being ourselves and learning from our own personal mistakes, she's here advising us to do work with the way the world works (so set on schedule that after a girl was raped and murdered at john hopkins, they went on with class as usual, without any mention of the tragedy), to work with that sooner rather than later... and i just know thats not what living is for.

--because if everyone HAD TO conform, HAD TO make money, HAD TO have a stable job where they were presentable and acceptable, then there would BE no ani difranco, no jimi hendrix, no albert einstein, no van gogh.... and those are just examples i know enough about to see that these people couldnt help being different, going against the grain of their time, dropping out of highschool, not having enough money to get to his next gig... yet we say how great these people are! we teach what albert einstein has to say after he gets kicked out of highschool for not always doing what he was told.

not to mention Galileo, man was in jail.. they finally realized the stuff he was saying was TRUE after he died, even though it seemed to contradict what religious people had believed. so no... i dont think its about being the same, i dont think its about toughing it out and accepting the harsh realities only to become a part of them one day. we seem to be leaving out some of the most important lessons in school... but i guess thats great, because it gives me room to see them myself, and learn on my own, forming my own thoughts... thats what this is anyway, this life is a process of forming thoughts that change the ways we live.

can you see how off we are to be so consumed by money? it doesnt even feel that important when you think about the passion involved with people who do what they truly felt they needed to do, what they were made to do, what they made themselves able to do. yet its still there, almost naturally, because how else can you make a living doing what you love without enough money to keep yourself going? is there really this fine line between trying to get your name and your music out there to reach people individually, and trying to get each one of those individuals' money? should there be just one intent (the primary intent of artistically reaching people), and is that why record company's are necessary (to deal with financial stuff artists dont care about)? i think the goal is not to be at some money-maker's disposal, but to be lifted by the experiences of performing to an interested audience. if thats "too optimistic" than i just dont care because some things arent worth sacraficing to get used to the world, sometimes the world needs to get used to something different. and i like to think thats what i'm here for. if not to listen to the different voices, then to also insert my soundwaves into the process... sometimes there may be silence i speak out into, other times there may be so much going on that my voice is babbling on a street corner in nyc with traffic, and conversation, and life, and laughter, and tragedy so mixed up that the only thing anyone will focus on is avoiding any type of connection they dont already have. well both realities co-exist. and each individual exists through both extremes of simplicity and clutter.

this is what we live with, but its not necessarily who we are. because conditions and contracts and proposals can change and be broken and redrawn... but who we are transcends those things, those materials, those weights. who we are is endlessly filled with possibility. love who you are, and what you do with your life everyday. to sacrifice who you are for the material exchange will never be fulfilling, and when all of america realizes this, i dont know what will happen to our economy! dont think i have to worry about that though, we'll just keep the little secret in my readersphere.



peace, love, and southern accents (more on that coming soon),

Jodi