If only the masses could hear my 20 minutes of ambiguous, pan-harmonic blowing, over a 11/8, Pakistani/Macedonian inspired vamp, then they would wake up to what a corporate-controlled, arts-wasteland this country has become.

And his location in the family plot on Authors Ridge in Concord is pretty funny, a little stone in the corner about the size of a toaster, “Henry”. Emerson’s grave stone is some big pink granite thing like you’d expect for Liberace.

Hank’s books didn’t sell well but evil B F Skinner liked Walden enough to crank out Walden II. Now there’s a recommendation.

“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” Life of the party.

An original narcissist and perfect boomer neocon icon.

Actually, a common element of many public and foundation grants is to propose for underserved audiences which can be defined several ways, either geographically,demographically, economically or culturally.

A good proposal has to address this stuff.But public funding is and has been wretched since Jesse Helms attacked it in the late 80s. Corporate funding, particularly among sports franchises, is noteworthy for also having requirements usually for low income urban youth. Same with McDonalds of all things.

Now that we are in a neo feudal period of maximum oligarchy, all oligarchs all the time, it makes sense that we have these huge ridiculous spectacles in some Emerald City for rich dickheads to back pat themselves. America is embarrassing. Europe does it better.

Hey, I told you it was a half-assed plan.

Actually, if the government would tax the rich in correct proportion, there’d be more than enough dough to make such a thing a WPA-like enterprise. I’d greatly prefer THAT.

Ultimately, however, my main beef here is with the very idea of huge non-profits like J@LC–how they exist mostly for the aggrandizement of a very few, and benefit almost nobody they generally purport to want to help.

I definitely believe that more good comes from direct involvement, as opposed to contriving a huge edifice as a destination for a pilgrimage.

Your point about jazz not speaking to the great unwashed is well taken. I would submit, however, that your parallels with pre-20th century philosophers and do-gooders are not as relevant today as they might have been even 20 years ago. Mass communication has contracted the borders of culture to such an extent that 16 year-olds in Birmingham or Lewiston are as likely to dig Jay Z and Alica Keys as their peers in Brooklyn.

(Of course, an unfortunate corrolary may be that those same young Alabamans or Maine-iacs [I was born in Bangor, so I’m entitled] are as likely to reject Sco or Iyer as their counterparts in New York. But perhaps not any more so.)

Hell, my father was introduced to jazz as a teenager growing up in the early ‘50s in Waynoka, OK, about as small and remote a place as can be imagined. His guide? A visiting uncle-by-marriage from Louisiana, who essentially did for my dad what I describe in my post. If it could happen then, in the heart of Hank Williams and Bob Wills country, there’s no reason it can’t happen today, when boundaries separating us are becoming dimmer every day.