secret pamphlet #4

common cents
common sense


On recently telling a friend about these pamphlets, she asked if they were like Thomas Paine’s. I suppose they are, though a very poor likeness.

It has been a wonderful thing – putting these out in the world. I want to thank you for reading them and for your fabulous responses. I regret that I am not saying anything very interesting or profound. I am doing this for my own sanity and to address certain points for myself. I know that nothing I say will have any lasting value.

At a party recently one of the guests declared that it is wrong for an artist to make money from his or her art.

I thought such conversations were long put to bed. Still, it’s interesting to consider that, as much as we know about money and the profound effects it has on a person’s circumstances in the 21st century, we still distrust it.

And I could launch into a rant about the loss of money’s intrinsic value with the abandonment of the gold standard, etc., but I have nothing to add to that conversation that has not been said better by others elsewhere.

Still, money, in itself, is power. In this day and age especially, we must not refuse the offer of power. At a time when so few have so much power, this is of great importance.

The Jon Sims Center is closed. Closed because of lack of funds. (Although I suspect covert governmental interference whenever a subversive group is so casually – and quietly – shut down. This is front-page news, people! Not something for my weak parenthetical. Alas!)

Queer bookstores across the nation are closing down for lack of funds. Art education programs are pathetically under-funded. Rents skyrocket. Credit and debt and mortgages and second mortgages...

Do artists need to be ascetics? Or do we need to feign economic helplessness so mommy and daddy can buy us lunch everyday? Do we need to pretend that we can’t survive without someone else paying the bills and wiping our butts?

The infantile-ism of the artist has got to stop, people. If we are to match the rising fascism, we must learn how to be responsible, active, effective – albeit controversial and outspoken – denizens of the world.

And that means, in my mind, take the money and run, baby!