There is a gap in this town between culture and the masses of people who need culture to survive. Many people know me to be a man of passion; fiercely dedicated to ideals and to visible improvement and growth in the world around me. What does it matter if I go to school and learn and develop myself to be an informed and actively engaged member of society if the world I live in and the communities I have the most affinity for do not come along with me? This is how I feel. I feel like I was sent to sunday school and the boy scouts and advance work classes and it made me an outsider on the playground and in the locker room. I followed the American ideal path of school, job, carreer and it makes me an exception to the rule in many of my chosen social circles. I know the response from many will be, " Just change your social circles." . If you react that way you should take a real hard look at Boston's demographic census data; I just did and it is scary.

Never one to simply complain without planning and creating actionable steps to correct the situation I am always scheming and plotting events and institutions to get the ball rolling at least. My computers and hard drives and ZIP Disks (remember them?) are full of outlines and proposals and plans; almost as full as they are of images. In fact one reason I often give for not really considering myself a "artist" is that I commit almost more time thinking of how to get an audience for my work as I do working. This phenomenon only got worse once I started grad school and eventually teaching. Something about planning lessons and units was like planning events and vice versa.

This orientation to art and culture led me to scheme up this thing I called HAVEN (www.haven.com) eventually. It was a long time in planning. My best friend Chris told me back in Mass Art that you should always have a five year plan in place. It made sense and I had a loose one. I tightened it up and even drew plans for what it was I realized I wanted to
do. From then til now it's been almost fifteen years and I've checked off a lot of goals. I've collected information, skills and experiences to figure out how to make things happen. This is not meant to sound like a complaint or crying over spilled milk mind you. I give my life only as an example to help frame my point.

This gap that exists in this city is not one that is a permanent aspect of what Boston is. It is not a birth defect or a flaw in our character as citizens of Boston. We are in a cultural Mecca and a hot bed of new ideas. We are surrounded by brilliant pioneers in many fields. We open our arms and embrace folks from all parts of the world and all walks of life. We are often the first to speak up and change culture nationally and globally. Yet we are stuck with the label of being backwater and parochial. In the early days of HIP HOP we were saddled with the dubious and unwanted description of living in the shadow of New York. Yesterday at a conference held by "Greatest Minds" we were asked by a Boston musicologist, " What is Boston's 'Sound' ?". My immediate response was that other towns have venues and outlets to practice their craft at and develop a local sound. The same is true for artists although it can be said that there are far more opportunities for Boston's visual artists to exhibit and be shown locally. But to my point, the homegrown talent in the inner-city rarely has that exposure and the audience is not built up of our moms and dads and neighbors to the degree that it should be. If I make art about black people or about real folks and situations I encounter in my life ( picture paintings about Packy's) who will spend time in front of them thinking about the content much less buy them? And don't go saying, " I love art!" Or " People love your work B!" because I have tried to give work away for free and still only got lip service.
People need to be exposed and educated about art more; not so they can be collectors so much as so they can understand and appreciate and eventually engage in artists lives. The chances that they end up with an artist for a child is high. Their children being on the outside of the art world unable to engage in that world is a matter of power. Trust me when I say that those in power understand the value of owning art physically and culturally. Look at the curriculum for any good school. It is what informed parents want for their children's lives.

Boston has a wealth of large institutions that offer a way in for all to have access but the initial sense of ownership is not there. For many it is because there is no real representation of their life in what they will see in these institutions. For others there may be a language issue. There are some people in this and other cities who never leave their block. Many go out only to go to work. Their market and their church are right down the street. Their museum is not. Their gallery is not. Their music comes to them. Television brings them their theatre. Where do they dance like their father taught them? Or sing in a circle their songs ? Where do they point to their children and say, "Look there. That is what your great-grandma was like."?

We are no longer creating things and places and opportunities to hold onto our cultures and even to advance our collective mono-culture by enriching it with newer more well informed ideas. We are slipping as a generation into the mold of our parents and I hear us saying again and again "Back in the day this... When we were kids that...". We are the ones who create the funk. We are the ones with the experience and the fire enough to make things happen. We have the networks and connections and skills and knowledge. We have the memories of how it was and the vision for how it should be. We are the cool kids and we should run this place.

Right now we are all feeling the twinge at best and the stiff kick to the teeth at worst. The economy is bad. We have survived worst. We tell jokes about koolaid sammiches or sleep for dinner. We are industrious and we will survive this. My question is this, what will we have learned? The people we trust to provide us with structure, with safety, with entertainment and all the other things that used to be an offshoot of culture are reeling too. They won't admit it but their structure is faulty at best. When do we learn to look to ourselves and each other as a community to support and strengthen and to sustain our lives? That is the real benefit of culture; like the juke joint was a different kind of church, Like the speak-easy arose out of necessity or like Japanese people sitting in bombed out empty lots watching someone turn huge drawings one by one.

A big wig in the arts told me yesterday that it will simply be our passion that allows us to thrive in the vacuum of support for the arts that we are seeing from the audience and the would be patrons. Wow. My response was "wow".

When I questioned the Musicologist about how to keep the new energies and things we create authentic he said to educate people. I can appreciate that but I thought," Really? it's that simple? That's the best you got?". I knew he had more to say but time is short.

A voice in the crowd shouted that we needed to unify.
Some one said we should cross-collaborate between artforms.
Someone said ownership.
ON and On and Blah and Blah...
I could have written this as a script ten minutes before and I would have been hailed as a psychic or more probably just as an asshole.

My point is this. If our passion for creativity and culture and unity and social justice and for education and the bright new world of promise is so important and the answers are so readily available why don't we act? Why is it ok to just talk about the same things over and over? Why do we complain about the quality of arts and entertainment? About our image in the public eye? About choices? About being broke? Why do we balk at the opportunity to do something instead of letting the ball fly and trusting our skills? Is it because we are fearful or because we actually don't want these things that badly? It would make sense for me if people would be honest and come clean about the things they value.
The degree that you love or appreciate culture is made manifest by the degree that you participate and follow up on things. It is not based on what meetings you attend or how often you go to the theatre. Artists, it is not based on how long you have been doing what you have been doing. It is about how you have grown in what you do. If you find yourself without an audience like I have and we all have- grind harder, smarter, better and make better more provocative work. Take a cue from all of these powerful grassroots organizations around town who galvanize thousands of people to do walks. Look at small non-profits who fill theatres for a teen night or a film screening.

Let's start making the connections we need to. Let's start being about it and letting our work talk for us. The big wigs are not going to help us until they see what we are doing for ourselves under our own steam. If our work at this level is strong enough we will attract their attention and they will come crawling. So let's keep doing shows in cafe's and clubs and schools and churches and wherever they will let us in. Let's make them better and funkier and keep the buzz strong like dancehall bass. Let's hold on to our work as precious bits of our soul until we learn how to play the big kids game. And when we sell our work let's do it knowing that it grew too big for them to control or water down or spin. Most importantly let's not approach each other with wishy-washy, half sincere, half baked ideas about working together and doing big things. I promise to step to you real if you do the same. When we do what we say we will blow people out of the water. I have seen it happen time and time again.

If you actually had the patience to read this disjointed rant I thank you from the bottom of my heart.