[Dixielandjazz] Big Business Sucking The Life Out Of Art

[Ric Giorgi]

Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Big Business Sucking The Life Out Of Art

"Robert S. Ringwald" <robert at ringwald.com> wrote (polite snip)

> IMHO, there is one answer -- MONEY.  As simple as that.

Doesn't MONEY drive just about everything in life?

[I reply] 
No, money doesn't drive just about everything in life, with all due
respect to you Steve and to Bob, no. BUT, I agree with you
completely Steve that the issue is what are you, me, we musicians
going to do about it. Money is a great medium for exchange, for
storing value and for rewarding effort but it ain't the bees knees
either. As I understand it (I'm not an economist) one of the great
frustrations of economists is that people often answer surveys as
though MONEY was the only thing that mattered and then in real life
do something quite different (AND VICE VERSA).

The Canadian comedians Wayne and Shuster who appeared on The Ed
Sullivan Show many times and had no end of offers from Hollywood and
other producers, used to tell the story of one of their meetings. 

The producer wanted them to move to LA and they assured him that
they would be happy to do any production with him but they were
happy living in Toronto and weren't moving to LA. The money offers
kept piling up from the producer and they kept saying they'd work
with him but money wasn't the issue and they were happy here.
Finally, the producer thought for a moment and in exasperation said
'Well you know, happiness isn't everything'!

Re: who runs things, anyone who hasn't read "Confessions of an
Economic Hit Man" might find it interesting.