Democracy for the genius
O.K.
Joshua Bell busked anonymously for 45 minutes and was collected approx 30 bucks.
Another great violinist, an English girl, did the same in England and made the same.
So it seems that the street value of top-notch violinists is about $45.00 /hr.
Perhaps this experiment should be expanded to other job titles.
Imagine a conductor on the street, hat out?
What would that be worth?
Or an executive director, a music director or a human rescources whatchacallit?
Or, a CEO?
A friggin' President, hah?
What would any of these people be worth if WE had any say in the matter?
What makes talent and bossiness more important than dirty hands and skinned knuckles/
Huh?
What?
Joshua Bell busked anonymously for 45 minutes and was collected approx 30 bucks.
Another great violinist, an English girl, did the same in England and made the same.
So it seems that the street value of top-notch violinists is about $45.00 /hr.
Perhaps this experiment should be expanded to other job titles.
Imagine a conductor on the street, hat out?
What would that be worth?
Or an executive director, a music director or a human rescources whatchacallit?
Or, a CEO?
A friggin' President, hah?
What would any of these people be worth if WE had any say in the matter?
What makes talent and bossiness more important than dirty hands and skinned knuckles/
Huh?
What?
Labels: Rant
posted by Lane Savant at 8:08 AM
4 Comments:
Excellent point, Doug Savant:
Perhaps they could put George W. on an apple crate and his circle of Secret Service could dress up like clowns, and jugglers, and tumblers, and acrobats, and they could have Congressional pages passing the hat. They could erect a derrick above George W. and his father, and Cheney, and all his Aluminati and Oil buddies could attach strings to his limbs and make him dance, and play a victrola with his little nursery rhyme and song on it, recorded by Frank Sinatra in a duet with Gene Autry.
Perhaps even Joshua Bell does not have the notoriety to instill proper alms and payment? Imagine if Bruce Springsteen, or Dame Elton John, or Mick Jagger stood on the street holding out a hat? It would be a damned riot. I love the image of the conductor with baton on the street. Actually in NYC one could find that reality, with the conductor conducting the street noises and the traffic and the pigeons.
What you are suggesting is that Joe Public actually has a voice in policy or eddicts or laws. Hell, where do you think your are, living in a democracy? And then again, imagine what little freedom any of us would have in North Korea, Cuba, or Baghdad?
Artisans, and professional people of all kinds hold the damned pieces together, the blue collar guys, the line workers in the factories and mills, the skinned knuckle brigade, the real grease monkeys (which I believe you were a charter member of, the truck drivers, the farmers, guys who shovel horseshit and drive combines--or as Marx used to say,"The bleeding lips of the proletariet"; and no that was not Groucho Marx, who actually was this country's finest philosopher, or if not, should have been,and George Burns, and on a good day Bob Hope or Will Rogers poked fun at presidents and kings and women and bankers; certainly had the right spirit.
I wonder if the public on the street would tolerate Yo Yo Ma sitting on a milk carton fingering his cello? I wonder how much he might earn?
It appears that you "read" the 24 entries that Anonymous and Myself cranked out in your absence. Maybe you can find some time to respond and answer inquiries? I especially liked the poem, THE PICNIC, that you appeared in, and the Adventure that Sir Lane Savant and Anonoman are involved in.
Of course, your readership is standing on one leg holding their collective breath, waiting for the details of your Road Trip.
Glenn
I am not a genius, but I have made as much as $300/hr for short periods of time
Besides, I am no longer a prole, now I am an independantly wealthy patron of the arts, excluding the foolish Seattle Symphony, of course.
My hands, my soul, my heart and my conscience are all clean.
Doug:
You wordsmith, you. I had no idea that a word like "prole" existed. There you go again, building up my meager vocabulary. Prole is, of course, a member of the Proletariat; for those other dummys out there like myself.
When it comes to intelligence quotent (IQ), you always convinced we younger punks that yours was like in the 200's, and you always did seem "smarter" than the rest of us. Of course in the last 40+ years, you have shown that even if you are smarter than most of us, you have not carved out any special status in the universe, and you have pulled just as many bone-headed stunts as anybody.
Yeah, when you would "beat the book" finishing a tune on a Ferrari, I'm sure you were making big bucks, or are you referring to a good hour at Palmer Automotive. As an actor, some time during the Spanish-American War I believe, I would work like an hour doing a commercial, and make huge bucks, if you counted it by the minute. It was not not there but twice a year, which was certainly not enought to sustain me or the career.
The powers that be tell me I make 30 bucks an hour right now. Seems like a fortune to me, and yet gas is $3.50 an ounce, and printer ink is a grand an ounce, and it costs 25 bucks to take you wife to McDonalds --so inflation has outstripped our sense of how much a buck really is worth.
Glenn
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