Rick Davis

It was, indeed a grand auld tyme! Finn and I improvised a couple of stories we hadn't done in public before, trying out some ideas we had for them. And we did the one we had rehearsed. Came out well. The open mic was an interesting mix of stories and things. A good time all around!

I need to pay more attention to whats going on. It sounds as if I missed yet another doozie!! Thats par for the course for me though.

Hint, hint? OK--How do I buy the CD? Do you have it on line?

Go to http://www.cutedogmusic.com/cd001_ottc.html

After you've read all you want on the page - or even before that, scroll down and click on the link that says U.S. Order Form.

That will bring up a web form. Fill it out, then click Submit. When the printable order form page comes up, print it out, and mail it to me (address on the bottom of the printable order form) with a check for the amount shown. You can make the check out to either Rick Davis or Cute Dog Music.... Read More

How easy is that? When I get the order, I'll send the CD to you.

Exactly -- it's as if they're saying that art and poetry are ways of making peace with horrible evil, making sense of it, but bad ways. I don't know if Richard Adams believed that -- if he did, why write? But maybe he only believes it about particular kinds of art, or only that some people use art that way.

Interesting. One does wonder why he has that in there, and if he believed it, why he was a writer.

Art can be used in all sorts of ways. As a young fellow said in an interview in the paper this morning, "Art and music classes [in school] let me see the world the way I needed to see it to cope." He came from a broken family. It was what kept him in school and able to cope with life. Imagine where he would have been had they not had the art and music classes in school for him to draw upon - another statistic?

I cannot imagine where I would be without music having been taught to me in school. It kept me in school and made it bearable when I moved far from everything and everyone I'd known (except my parents) in 8th grade. I don't really know where I'd be or what I'd be like today if it hadn't been for music in Elementary, Jr. High and High School.... Read More

Even then, our culture was toxic to art.

Well, I guess that settles it. You'll just have to do the show again!

Just found out the station will have to get more bandwidth to accommodate more listeners at once. And they're considering doing that. Doesn't help with last Thursday's show, but should int he future.

Could anyone listen online?

Sounds like you are in the throes of this dichotomy and are having to figure out how to deal with it. Let us know if you come up with any answers!

Well, I think each person has to work this out for themselves because we each need some different circumstances in which to be creative. There are probably many things in common between artists, but there are differences one has to work out for oneself.

The main thing is to have your creativity be a priority that is not overwhelmed by the business side of things. This isn't easy, but it is absolutely vital to creativity, which, as artists, is essential to future work. If we take the "easy" way and give in to business demands that we be "responsible" and "adult" about our art and creativity, we can easily kill it. And if we allow that to happen, we kill the business as well. The creativity, the time it takes to be truly creative, needs to be paramount in our lives. Nurturing that is the priority.

In other words, the business is there to serve the creativity and art, not the other way round.... Read More

BTW, DJ, thanks for asking that. Sometimes we don't know what we think until we write it down. ;-)