Hi Crowd!

I have a mostly written piece about art and war and the world which I've been noodling on for weeks with the intention of sending you, but then you have a week like this one and suddenly everything gets back burnered because just trying to keep up with the news from 5 minutes ago is impossible.

I've mentioned this in conversation a few times recently so thought it would be good to relay here, as others might need to hear it too. I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the original quote, but story goes like this - It's 1985. Reagan is starting his second term as US President and things are really bad for a lot of people. Artists are responding, as they do, and musicians are writing protest songs that would become anthems of anger and revolution. I could spend hours putting together references and recommendations here but that's not the point I'm trying to get at. People were pissed, and lashing out. In punk, this was just before the birth of youth-crew positivity and the songs were very angry, and there was a lot violence to go with it. We can debate the value or effectiveness of any of that, but that's hindsight and at the time people didn't know what to do and they pointed fingers and saw targets everywhere. Everyone was trying to out tough each other. Attack or defense, a lot of fists were thrown and a lot of blood was shed.

In the middle of all of this, Reno's favorite export 7 Seconds release "Walk Together Rock Together." Tough guys in the pit all across the scene universally called this a bunch of pussy-ass hippy bullshit. Not long ago Dan O'Mahoney more accurately noted that this was the punkest thing anyone could have done. Daring to go against the crowd and suggesting people love each other? That was revolutionary. It took years for people to realize how important that was at that time. Some still don't. But there's a lesson here.

Some artists are really really good at making protest work. Work that inspires people. Work people lift up and rally around. And that's really important. But not all artists can do that, and it's really easy to feel like if you can't do that when you think that needs to be done, that there's no point. I've talked to so many people wrecked with self doubt, they don't think what they are doing is enough, so why bother? But that's the thing that's easy to miss - getting everyone together to raise their fists in the air is obvious and needed. But not all fights need fists, and fighting back might look different depending on who you are. Putting beautiful things into the world, when everyone else is trying to fill it with ugliness is also needed. Just being here is also needed. It's easy to forget that, and it's easy to step back and sink away into the shadows. Don't do that. Be here. We need you.

Doing something always beats doing nothing. Always.

Thanks for still being here.

-s