jaywhitecotton

[jaywhitecotton]

I’m sorry to add to the numerous think pieces already exhausting every shred of attention being profited off Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, but please allow me – as a person who has had multiple people threaten me on stage (I’m very funny), let me cash in the last two cents in my pocket:

Chris Rock knew it was coming and was right to take the hit. He saw Will approach, tucked his hands behind his back and took it like a pro. You tell the joke, you take the hit. It’s that simple.

Now I’m not advocating for violence here at all. I know most of the comics on my timeline are posting a lot of the new fears they have about being attacked. Let me assure you – none of the nine people at the vegan/laundromat/dog park show are ever going to approach you off – much less on stage. You’re very bad at this and a disappointment to everyone who loves you. May god have mercy on your soul.

What Will Smith did was wrong. Stupid, selfish, fake, tired, entitled, all of that and more, but what if it’s something else all together? Something not many of the people currently turning a profession into a hobby is willing to openly address?

What if we take entertainment way too seriously and need to admit that, perhaps, using the industrialization of the arts as a meat grinder for the soul - is unhealthy?

What if turning a core foundation of the humanities into a numbers game fed off manipulating people on both sides of an advertising model – is bad for art and poison for the ego?

Did I lose you at the word "art"?

Look, I can spend hours discussing what is and what isn’t art, but that’s not going to do anyone any good here so I’ll just say that I personally believe art is the pursuit of combining craft, discipline and personal expression and I think we can all agree - very, very, very gay.

I also believe it can be entertainment, but calling something art shouldn’t be used to cover up for poorly executed craft. Saying something is art isn’t a shield or deflection of merit, especially if there are well-established objective truths defining its craft.

Standup Comedy is an art, but it’s a low art. Really easy to fake, incredibly difficult to master.

You go into a comedy show expecting that anything can be said. That’s why it’s exciting. You go to a horror movie unsure of what new fears will express themselves. That’s why it’s exciting. You listen to aggressive music, expressing rage and acts of violence. That’s why it’s exciting. You watch a man in a Speedo jump off the top rope to elbow drop another half nude man pretending to be passed out because it’s exciting and again - art is very gay.

We love to be excited and getting any opportunity to live out the horrors of life without the worry of certain death is one of the foundations of modern entertainment.

The beauty of the craft is all the work that goes in to making you feel like you crossed a line without actually crossing any lines. You go on a roller coaster afraid, but you know deep down you'll be completely safe. It’s the agreement everyone has to make when they enter the showroom.

If either side fucks up their part, they get bounced out. Fair and fine. Its not a relaxing past time. It’s mostly all growing pains.

Standup Comedy isn’t supposed to be comfortable. It was created by Jews dealing with a goddamn holocaust. Put the pillows away.

Comfort kills creativity and breeds complacency. It’s why rich creatives seldom make great art and second albums are mostly garbage filler produced in the name of content. The Smith family understands this very well.

Content for the sake of content is not art. It’s manufacturing. And it’s being pushed hard by an industry that has no value for artists, only in molding personal expression into a numbers game. The industry uses artists the way Uber uses drivers to make them money while actively investing in finding a way to replace them with unpaid AI.

The fact that most of their drivers are failing entertainers is not lost on me.

Again - if you hate that I’m using the word “artist” here that’s fine. If you think another discussion about this is stupid, I get it. No one said you had to consider yourself an artist, but pretending to be doing a business that asks you to mold your personal expression to their profit driven standards - while making you pay for the privilege - seems like a grift?

I really think Entertainers have become the marks, but in a new fashion. Before the industry always insisted you had to go through them to get your success and they fucked you. We accepted that.

Now they sell you on your “independence” by forcing you to buy your way towards “success” on their data collecting platforms.

How many of you think you're working for yourself when you're really working for Spotify, iTunes, Instagram, YouTube and so on? Sure you can simulate independence on any of these platforms, but try not paying your property taxes and tell me who really owns your home?

The industry used you to create an attention economy.

If you want to make “it” in entertainment, you have to keep your name generating attention. “Generate content, stay known, buy ads, someone is right behind you waiting to take what you thought was yours.”

Book deals are my favorite. For some reason the only way the average American reader will pick up a book is if some mentally ill celebrity needs to sell their exploits.

Will Smith just released his a few months ago.

Was the whole thing staged? Sorta. Was it truly spontaneous? Kinda? Possibly some dumb shit from the past about the movie Head of State and them racing to be the first fake black president in a movie or whatever.

I don’t think the reality or the pageantry of it even matters. I think the underlying lesson here is we need to care less about entertainment and enjoy it as a frivolous fun thing not to be taken real, even when they play it seriously.

(You know, the way pro wrestling used to be before the world flipped and everything became pro wrestling - except wrestling?)

Something Dave Chappelle said in an interview years ago really stuck with me. “What is this business doing to otherwise strong minded people?”

Dave specifically focused on black artists like Martin Lawrence and Mariah Carey, how their individual meltdowns happened so publicly. The general public immediately wrote these people off as weak. The man who amplified and blew up on Def Jam, arguably the toughest and most demanding of audiences – the man who commanded that stage and is “currently running half naked in traffic with a pistol” – is just “weak”?

Maybe pushing the public towards simulating celebrity while watering down the standards of art to allow everyone to feel like a professional something, is unhealthy? Like smoking before Reagan.

For all it’s current therapy speak, industry doesn’t actually care. There’s nothing in place to address the actual mental health of the people it’s openly draining of. Only quick fixes and enablers to keep these deteriorating spirits afloat until they’re sucked dry and no longer interesting or even human to us.

Did the industry step in to help Martin at any point he started showing signs of a nervous breakdown? No, they stayed in their seats.

“Never mind the broken man behind the curtain. He’s famous. He’s rich. Probably a kook, wandering the streets with a pistol like that. Probably a black thing. Now please watch this white savior movie we keep making because white guilt print’s paper. How is Martin doing these days? Is it time to profit off his redemption story yet?”

The industry is doing what all industries do. I’m not complaining about a dog behaving as a dog. I pursued standup just because. Never needed a reason or had much use for myth building. I just really love the challenge and think the idea of working one hour a night saying stupid shit is a brilliant scam and I love sleeping in.

Some of you hate hearing that. I’m sorry I’ve never been into hopes and dreams. I didn’t have your childhood. I’m not bitter. I’m annoyed. You have to believe in yourself to be bitter and I find projecting false confidence to be utterly annoying.

I just want to relate to the people around me.

Yet more and more I feel myself closer to a feeling of disgust with every attention seeking entertainer I come across and I just can’t shake it. A lot of you are just absolute nightmares if not outright hucksters and its getting harder the more you test how far you can play make believe with other people’s actual values.

You all lie so much trying to present yourselves as the leading voice for others, while doing and absolving most of the shit you purport to be “against”.

I’m not saying to stop, I’m just saying everything was way better when we were all IN on the scam, like proper villains – instead of what this thing has evolved into.

Car salesmen trying to sell their merch to other car salesmen.

The audience needs to be reminded who is entertaining them. Needy self-involved rich kids who can afford to appear like professionals - and the poor idiots in the trenches desperately trying to be seen as one of them.

At the time I heard that Chappelle interview, I was noticing so many of my friends move to New York and LA at the behest of the Industry – only to come back and visit as completely different people.

I mean empty shells, man. Just plaster with no walls or foundation. I’m positive most of you have noticed it too.

We don’t say anything to them, do we? Maybe a “You’ve changed!” followed by a sarcastic head shake.

I think we don’t sincerely approach this topic because we might be too nice and overly cautious. No one wants to sound too certain about anything because most of communication has become weaponized by an incredibly greedy attention seeking culture.

And even the people fighting against that are still succumbing to the trappings of self-importance. They consider themselves “on the front lines of the culture wars”, building an audience on the same media model they purport to rally against.

Morning Zoo Radio Hacks selling your values truly believe they’re free to say whatever they want with unyielding importunity. They genuinely believe they own their own business.

Again - Don’t pay your property taxes and see who really owns your home.

Its hard to even address this because we love supporting underdogs so much while believing we will also rise to the top. It’s how they found a way to sell us our own dreams.

The industry constantly pushes the rags to riches narrative, but if quarantine taught me anything - it showed me just how many rich kids and legacy acts have a stranglehold on all things media.

“You have to put in the work and really want it!” - a drug dealer

Maybe this is why the word “art” is so discouraged and heavily burdened with the accusation of pretension?

Maybe raising an entire generation on another generation’s nostalgia is turning the arts into something lesser?

Maybe this is why every movie is a reboot written by people drawing their work from other scenes from other movies, because their entire lives were so saturated in media – they forgot to experience real life themselves?

Or maybe we don’t want to seem like old people, the outdated “square” at the hip circle-jerk for thinking the Smith family is fucking weird and unsettling.

I’m sorry Will, but your whole family is weird and unsettling. I get bummed out every time your fevered egos try to hold us hostage.

I’m sure it’s not for me and you’d tell me to mind my own business, but goddamn do you seem to DEMAND it to be everyone’s fucking business all the time!

You made a talk show out of your personal sex life and marriage and now you demand people to keep your wife’s name out their mouths?

Bitch YOU.. maybe YOU need to keep your wife’s name outa YOUR mouth. No one owes you their fucking time so stop demanding it.

You.

I know way too much about your wife’s pussy from YOU, “Prince.”

And maybe that’s why Will had to step up and slap the funny joke man.

You see, you’re not just insulting the woman that lets him watch her fuck, you’re fucking up Will Smith’s money. His wife is an extension of HIS brand.

Everyone in the Smith household is a product. They all put their lives for sale one emancipated child at a time. All for the entertainment business. That’s not love, that’s a mental illness.

That’s entertainment.

Its ugly disguised as beautiful and breaks even the strongest of minds. Dave was right about this shit and no one wants to really address it because it means taking some responsibility.

Will Smith was a fucking smart, engineering rich kid who was plucked by Quincy Jones under the same model that tricked out Michael Jackson and many more. He had charisma for days and – from an obviously shitty industry point of view – could sell “black” to boring white people who wanted to feel good about themselves in the 90’s. He’s a true fucking talent and in many ways an underrated artist with an incredible body of entertaining distractions.

But so what?

I mean really – fuck Will Smith. Fuck actors. Fuck musicians. Fuck comics. It’s just fucking art. It’s frivolous even when it’s desperate to be seen as important.

Again – I’m sorry you’re whole family is fucking weird, I can’t shake how uncomfortable y’all make me. Fuck anyone for judging anyone, myself included, but those kids are weird and Jada is like some strange mix of Kanye West meets Eartha Kitt.

Do you realize ALL THE STUPID REAL SHIT ABOUT the Smith family Rock had to cross off in his head in that moment?!

Settling on a 1990’s Demi Moore flop was an act of comedic compassion. Chris Rock wasn’t surprised to be slapped, he was shocked because it wasn’t for the hundreds of things he chose not to say out of respect to THEM lol

Personally, I’m more pissed he went with GI Jane when Enemy Mine was RIGHT. FUCKING. THERE.

(composes self)

In the movie Independence Day, Will and an alien invader both crash to the ground after a vicious battle in the air. He climbs onto the craft to investigate and the moment he’s confronted with this horrific alien monster, he punches it in the face and yells “Welcome to Earth!”

That’s also the name of his new travel show for Disney Plus. An obvious grab for content creation bartering on Will’s charisma as he explores his business options in a broadening new medium.

I haven’t watched one episode, but I imagine the entire show is about regular people trying to de-celebrity Will back into a human being, instead of this Hollywood whore, pimping his family to the highest bidding media outlets.

My hats off to Chris Rock for taking the hit. He’s a pro and knows a new hour when he sees it. I can’t wait to see it. Probably gonna call it Taken’ the Hits. Bo Burnham will direct and it will be staged in the gymnasium of his old white High School.

It’s gonna be great business for Netflix, earn awards and everyone who clapped and supported Smith’s attack, will praise Rock’s resilience and artistry.

“HOW THE FUCK IS RICKY GERVAIS STILL ALIVE?!

HOWWWW THE FUUUUUCK IS RICKY GERVAIS….(STOMP) STILL (STOMP) A (STOMP) ….LIVE?

(softer, but more thoughtful) How is that man, Ricky, still alive, folks?

If you got a British accent you can say whatever the fuck you want to White America!

(Over exaggerated smile)

If… (insert recently disgraced celebrity) said that shit with an English, accent he’d be…”

(Five minute act out of Will Smith slapping Rock like an English butler, maybe dueling with the guns from MIB, I dunno, I’m too high to be writing this bullshit)

What I’m saying is Chris Rock is going to bounce back from this and certainly doesn’t need me defending him.

He needed that from the hundreds of millionaires pretending to be superheroes, who – for whatever reason – always seem to stay seated whenever real shit goes down.

They all sat in their soft chairs, half cheering undecidedly while the other half called their agents to get advice on which after party charity will benefit their career.

Who knows, maybe they’re all right? Pretending to care about things publicly pays a lot in an attention economy. Maybe alopecia needs a celebrity spokesperson?

And maybe that’s his redemption story.

Welcome to Earth, Rock.

[jaywhitecotton]

Fuck Elvis

I used to play this terrible game with some monstrous friends at karaoke shows. It was all based on how Michael Jackson died at the right time and if he molested just one more kid we’d be screwed out of decades of music and nostalgia.

We’d then apply other artists to this molestation scale. Like if MJ set the standard at say 7 known kids we’re pretty sure he finger banged, how many could say Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler get away with?

Turns out - it’s one. One for sure, but I’m pretty sure there would have to be at least three before we as a society are willing to let go of Dream On or Bruce Willis’s meteor sacrifice.

Bob Dylan? So hard. Old white NPR people would blame the motorcycle accident and give up everything after to protect his earlier legacy, but comparing Michael Jackson to Bob Dylan’s importance? He’s got to be able to molest as many - if not three more kids - than the King of Pop, right? I mean Jewish or not, he is still white so that has to give him the edge over Jacko in what he can get away with.

Anyhoo

Comics have been acting like comedy has been bringing “truth to power!” and patting themselves on the back, but thirty years of Michael Jackson jokes couldn’t do what one documentary has done.

Proving if you really want any justice these days, you need to first invest in some production value and an editor who knows how to make criminal acts look especially bad.

The reactions are pouring in and people are very conflicted. Many questioning whether or not it’s ok to like an artist because of their lurid personal life.

Look, can we come to a consensus on just one thing?

Human beings have been giant flesh bags of hot garbage since the very beginning of our upright existence. We started out so bad, we’re not even sure of what are real beginnings were actually like.

And its not even people that are the worst either. Look at life itself.

Nature is gruesome and horrifying! Every nature documentary is inherently a horror movie missing the scary cello mood music. If you knew how much ducks gang-raped in real life you would burn any remanence of all those duck-themed shows from the 90’s.

Even the creation of space and time was the result of a destructive explosion that shit us out into the nothingness of space.

Disagree? Thinks humans are great? Cool. Keep in mind a lot of people watched a movie about a guy who sexually abused children and their first thought was “Can I still grab my dick and effeminately scream ‘ohhhhh’ whenever it gets super windy? Because I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t do that!”

To me anytime a person does something exceptional - THAT should be the thing that is celebrated. Like “Wow, you overcame being a piece of shit and had a moment of triumph for our species, well done ya piece of shit!”

Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience, Beethoven’s 9th have all stood the test of time and those acts are worthy of praise.

Are we going to really miss Ignition (remix)?

I’m not saying any of these people’s flaws should be ignored, but seriously - there were plenty of slave fuckers, wife abusers, and piss-on-tweeners out there who not only did that shit - but didn’t even have the decency to form an experimental democratic republic placing power in the hands of the people, much less write a catchy tune.

We have got to start holding a higher standard for what we consider legit and meaningful art.

Is Trapped in the Closet really an achievement for humanity? Is the cinematic legacy of Space Jam ruined by the tainting of I Believe I Can Fly?

Was American Beauty and House of Cards our civilization’s finest cinematic moments? Has there been nothing else to watch?

Can we no longer backwards slide dance at house parties because a guy who dressed like a sequined private eye slept with kids?

I’m not saying you can’t still enjoy those things, or even question your feelings about them. I’m saying don’t make those things more important than they actually are. You can both think an actor should be castrated and get lost in visualized fiction.

Just as easily as you can decide to never watch again. It’s all disposable.

To me the real crime is needing a movie like American Beauty to be the pinnacle of human achievement because you got your first handy in the theater when it came out or whatever.

Not that anyone is exactly saying that, but you big bad wolves get my straw house point.

What is the value of achievement? How do we measure what’s important? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s what the consensus decides should stay. Maybe it’s the individual.

Sometimes it feels like a lot of our general arguments are between the perspectives of group thinking socialists versus self-motivated libertarians. Maybe they’re both right, I guess it depends on the situation.

Personally I think most the arguments about entertainers matters most to the people who have a vested interest in brands and making it in the ‘look at me’ industry.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in the thick of it having done music and standup most of my life and have the same guttural need for a stranger’s approval, but sometimes I feel surrounded by people who treat every moment of their lives like a biopic. Selling themselves on social media as if they’re the subject of their own Rolling Stone exposé.

People who define themselves by the most disposable of expressions and since trying to be good and known is so difficult, decided it’s easier to just simulate success instead of working harder on the mediums.

You know, frauds.

I’m surrounded by a generation of ‘fake it til you make it’ personalities who thrive on all the shit I find utterly useless, meaningless and the worst crime - boring.

Entrepreneurs in narcissism who communicate through gossip and trade in brand expression, littering the artistic landscape with recycled lateral thinking dog turds.

It’s exhausting,debilitating, and absolutely the future as AI replaces our normal careers, forcing all of us into becoming Instagram models and Influencers.

And everyday I have to have deep sobering introspection trying to figure out if I’m not equally culpable in this terrible trap of meaningless thinking.

Not that there’s anything wrong with meaningless. Not everything has to have as everlasting an impact as Ode to Joy.

I mean really, what actually matters if we all die and whatever impact we had becomes erased regardless of whether or not it takes years, months, days or even minutes after we are laid into the ground?

Most of everyone who has been born has meant nothing and left no trace or measurement that they even existed at all. Think of all the stillborn babies who didn’t even get the chance.

Nature the cold hearted bitch strikes again!

People call me jaded and bitter for these thoughts, but I promise you - I hold no anger or selfish need to compensate my own lacking by exclaiming ‘people are mostly shit and none of this will stand the test of time’. I’m very fun at parties.

It’s just the people desperate to matter that think reality is inherently mean.

Celebrate the achievement not the person, but also - let’s not over inflate the achievement to validate our own petty need for someone to hear our folk song about getting a handy while watching American Beauty or whatever.

A quick story.

One of the most talented people I ever met was a dude from Philly named Perone.

Perone played bass and was known across the city as being this incredible player who for some reason just never found a project he clicked with.

I met him when I was 18 and homeless, living in a 24 hour diner he waited tables at. Everyone loved this dude and for some reason he took care of me. Hooking up free salads, sodas, bread. He was the coolest dude I ever met.

I was learning guitar and we both loved 70’s soul and blues music so we’d jam together which in hindsight was wild.

I had no fucking idea what I was doing and yet here was this genius jamming patiently along.

Teaching me without putting in a show that he was actually teaching me, if that makes sense?

Was he perfect? No. Not at all. He was charismatic as fuck, but obviously weighted down with some demons.

The weirdest thing I could say about him - and I don’t know how to even properly frame this was - he used to draw on bed sheets.

For years he had a dream about a woman he never met and would paint her face on the bed sheets and attach lyrics to songs he was writing next to her face. These sheets hung all over his walls.

Keep in mind he was living with a girl at the time. He had a kid, yet here were all these sheets dedicated to a fictional white woman he was obsessed with, hung like championship banners across his entire two bedroom apartment.

My last conversation with Perone was perfect. I sat strumming his guitar while he smoked meth out of a can of Pepsi, telling me how Michael Jackson was the King.

Every click of the lighter, every inhale and exhale would punctuate just how much Michael Jackson meant to the world and music.

How Motown celebrated their 25th anniversary with a tv special and Michael Jackson came out and destroyed with the moonwalk.

“Dude, (click) black people loved Michael (inhale). White people loved Michael. (exhale)Young people loved Michael. (cough) Old people loved Michael. (click) None of this race or generation shit mattered. (inhale) It was because of the music and HE did that. (exhale) He bridged everything together in that one moment. (violent cough) Michael Jackson is and will always be the King. (click) Fuck Elvis.”

That was twenty years ago. I have no idea if he’s still alive, earned a living with his music or met the woman he’d dreamt and painted for years. Or if instead he succumbed to meth, took his own life and or manages an Olive Garden.

I don’t know and I don’t have to. I miss him and appreciate the things we shared that mattered and helped me grow as a person, but that’s all it ever will be.

Let justice be done and handled by those involved in their situation and value only the things and constructs that have some permanence or growth in your own life.

Either way you will still die, and wether it’s alone and forgotten or if it takes centuries for people to forget you were a miserable deaf cunt who wrote some sweet jams - you’ll eventually be nothing.

Fuck Elvis.

[jaywhitecotton]

Do Comedians Need Record Labels?

Are you debating releasing an album? The idea of recording an album may be very overwhelming and you may be at a loss as to how to proceed, but I’m telling you – you can pull this off.  Before making any decisions or signing any contracts, collect as much information as you can before you both regret and literally pay for it.

Fair warning, this is going to be as thorough as I can be, trying to cover angles you might not have even considered. There will most likely be some run on sentences and editing mistakes because I tend to blank out anytime I’m doing something that feels like work. Avoiding work is what attracted me to Standup in the first place and I’m not the most disciplined of people.

Also - I’m told visuals help break up the monotony of long posts so I decided to use the same picture of Jon Hamm and a German Shepard mix to ease your reading experience.

Let’s start here: 

Should you record an album?

Its on you to know whether or not you’re ready. Just please be ready and don’t be the ‘I have three hours of material’ fraud carrying pounds of notebooks, but struggles to fill a fifteen minute spot with consistent laughs.

Do you need something to sell on the road?

Clubs are paying less and less, no longer putting up Features in hotels, and having something to sell is almost a necessity just to cover gas. Headliners are even feeling the pinch trying to scrounge up more credits just so clubs will feel comfortable booking them over rising YouTube stars or that host of the Mr. Sexy Murder Podcast.

Do people want this?

Having an album feels cool and may con your parents into covering your rent while you pursue your dumb dreams, but nothing is going to put you down to reality harder then when you do all this hard work just to find out the eight friends who always ask ‘when’s your next show’ and never go – can’t seem to justify paying $10 for your ‘art’.

(Let’s all take a second to reflect on all the idiot musicians who are in the same boat, but with thousands of dollars of burdensome equipment they have to lug around. Lol art sucks)

Finally

Are you actively being sweet talked by industry and label heads looking to profit on all the years of work you already did by yourself? This is your best sign that you are ready. When industry leeches smell a hint of hope and money on you, ya know you have a shot of making a go at this.

Label vs. Self-Distribution

First the positives. If a label can’t contractually guarantee you plays on Sirius/XM radio and expose you to a large audience of new fans with contractually agreed payments for advertising and marketing in places that will get you seen – then you don’t really need a label. (Most don’t really do these things)

Here’s the nitty gritty. I’m telling you from experience and with the same level of lazy blindness when it comes to taking control of this side of the work that – you don’t need a record label. In fact most people don’t need record labels. We live in the future. If you’ve already recorded and edited an album, you can put it out on all the avenues the labels use and get 100% of the profit from your laptop.

“But Jay, doesn’t a Label sound cool to consumers?”

Get over yourself. No one cares anymore.You just want things that sound cool to give you validation. Fuck your validation. It’s not real. Just be good, it’ll be fine.

“But Jay, a label will promote me to a huge fan base! I’ll get new fans and lots more places will book me!”

Nope. That’s not really what they do. They may promise that to you and something like Comedy Central Records may be a giant boon, but if Comedy Central is releasing your album, you’re probably already getting exposure on the channel or getting writing work and in no way reading this.

Very few labels exist for ‘the love of comedy’. It’s about money. Labels make a money from a few physical sales, mostly digital sales and plays and some by getting the comics to buy their bulk physical copies through them.

Here’s the digital breakdown.

There’s a thing called Sound Exchange. And when your comedy gets played, a fraction of cents gets divided into two piles: The Producer and The Artist. Periodically you will get a check (usually quarterly) and the Producer will get an equal amount separate from you. Both checks are equal in amount. (I have a friend signed to one label who doesn’t even get his artist check. That goes to the label as well and it’s becoming a thing he has to try and legally negotiate with them about. There’s a ton of free floating confusion about this stuff, ask questions)

The money is based on your popularity and for some it’s great, others not so much. Most people tell me the pay seems less and less every year. It’s almost like these streaming services are designed to profit off the artists as well as the general public. WEIRD!

Here’s what this means. Basically – you as an individual have a ceiling of worth. When you release your album – the first three days is when you will pretty much get all your sales. You’ll promote it, you’ll have toured and built up a fan base interested in buying it, and when you release it – all their enthusiasm will come together in a big sales push to support you. After that – they move on to the millions of other shit in their lives. Welcome to the future! It’s a pool of nonsense swirling with illusion and you’re a drop of water.

The Label will have got their heavy cut purely on your years of hustle and work, then pretty much move on to another because that’s their grind.

You see – while you get that Sound Exchange, they also get one AND another for as many artists as they can gobble up. It’s not in their financial interest to take the time and help you build your fan base.

It’s in their interest to profit off you doing that work and the hundreds of other comedians trying to do the same thing for themselves. You understand? You get one check, but their goal is to get hundreds.

That’s the game.

If you’re still looking for a Label to validate you, look at the Label’s previous history of artists and promotion. How many likes or shares do their posts get? Chances are – you get way more. That means the Label is most likely profiting off of you more than you from them. It might be a silly thing to view social media likes as a barometer of interest to some, but really – you know what a post advertising your album with three likes on their page vs. 200 on your own personal page means.

Look at the roster. Ask people you may know about their experiences. Research how often the Label’s been sued. Seriously, that’s a thing. I almost released on one label that had a giant roster of my favorite comedians, only to find out most were one-and-done and more than a few ended up in court over the label’s shenanigans.

The Contract:

No contract is the same as the other and I’m not a lawyer, but here’s some sample verbiage you need to familiarize yourself with as to what it means to your career.

“Recording Costs and Procedures.  Each LP will be recorded at the sole expense of Label. Recording expenses shall include engineering, production, equipment, tape, editing and mastering expenses. None of these expenses will be charged to Artist’s account, nor will they be recouped from Artist’s royalties. Subject to any necessary third-party approval, Label will be allowed to record any performance of Artist during the Term, provided that Label gives Artist at least seven days notice of its intent to record.”

What this is saying is that the label will take on the cost of hiring someone to bring all the necessary equipment to record your performance and then spend the time to edit and master it. You won’t ever be out of pocket for these expenses. This is a good and worthwhile thing as getting the best sound is crucial. However, what if the label hires someone who’s not good at this? Just because someone has a mic or two and a soundboard doesn’t mean they know how to record a proper standup show. I’ve heard many a mix where the audience is super quiet and the comedian very loud. This usually means that the sound person just mic’d up the comic and let the audience laughter bleed into his direct track. It’s lazy, poor quality and also doesn’t involve that much actual “mixing”.  Ask to hear the specific person recording’s previous work.

Just because they’re a professional Label, doesn’t guarantee you a professional recording! I’m looking at you Rooftop Records.

You need to make sure there’s a stage mic and that it’s recorded direct into the board, an area mic above the audience to capture their laughter and two mics towards the back wings of the crowd. Why so many? You want to get the best mix between the crowd and the comic to sound fresh on your album, but also able to tweak in the mix in case you need to hide an annoying weird laughter, somebody’s coughing fit, or worse – a drunken girlfriend trying to be supportive by answering all your rhetorical questions. All shit that can happen. All shit a proper sound engineer and label should expect if they actually care about you. Ask for it in your contract.

“Ownership of Recordings and Underlying Works.  All Recordings made by Label and released on any LP under this Agreement will be deemed “works made for hire” under the United States Copyright Act, and Label shall be the sole and exclusive owner of all right, title and interest in the Recordings, including all copyrights and reversions in the Recordings delivered by Artist under the terms of this Agreement.”

This means the Label owns your recorded material.

“Label, its successors, licensees and assigns shall have the exclusive worldwide right in perpetuity, to manufacture, sell, distribute, exhibit, publicize, market and advertise the Recordings by any means and in any format.”

The Label and anyone who buys their catalogue can do whatever they want with it. It means if they want to put you on their ‘Now That’s What I Call Farts Vol. 5’ compilation – they can. You’ll still be owed money for listens and sales, but the label has this option. The keyword here that you have to be careful for is “in perpetuity” – that means forever. Permanent. You as an artist have the right to put a time table on this. You can negotiate clauses. Just know, the likelihood of being on a NOW Farts compilation is highly unlikely.

“Notwithstanding the foregoing, Artist will retain all copyrights in the original material (i.e., all jokes, stories, comedic and other material included in Artist’s performance), provided that Artist agrees not to re-record any of the same material contained on LPs produced hereunder for release as an audio-only recording until 5 (FIVE) years shall have passed from the termination of this Agreement. Label will be the ‘publisher’ of the material and entitled to collect the publisher’s share of any analog public performance royalties payable to the publisher of the material. Artist will receive its own share of analog and digital public performance royalties and digital master public performance royalties directly from its affiliate performing rights organizations.”

Ok – this shit is important. It says that while you own your own words and act, if you re-record any of it again in a 5 year window, the Label is owed money. Which makes sense – why would they record you if you were to just put out other versions in a year? The “audio-only” is important as it gives you the right to film the material if you get that opportunity.

Say HBO gives you an hour special, or SeeSo rises from the dead to feast on your act – you SHOULD be good to go to record your act for video, but if they make an album out of it you may be stuck in litigation and have to pay the Label to buy yourself out. This could turn into a motherfucker. Ask questions. Write it down.

Look harder at these words: “until 5 (FIVE) years shall have passed from the termination of this Agreement.” Ask when the termination of this agreement ends. If there’s no set date - then that 5 year window doesn’t really matter. Its five years AFTER you both decide to end the agreement. Is it the date of release? The date of recording? This matters because – and this seriously happens – if you record your hour and they drag their feet in releasing it. That means they still own your material even if it never gets released. That’s that magical “in perpetuity” coming to fuck you. It’s a predatory language in a contract and if you’re currently stuck in one – may give you a legal way out of a bad deal. Again – not a lawyer, but you see why you may need one to go with the ‘convenience’ of a Label?

STORY TIME: say you record twenty minutes opening for someone else’s album recording and they get you to sign this deal saying they could get you some extra money if you’d like from online streaming. However – they never put it out and you don’t think twice about it because you’re a comedian not a business nerd. Then – years later and after no communication with the label, your career starts to explode. You’re getting TV show stuff and decide to record your full hour and feel excited, but guess what – after years of silence, suddenly the Label dude announces that he owns that twenty minutes he oft handedly recorded years ago and you can’t use any of it for the proper album you’d like to release. Not only that, but for some reason there was a clause in the contract you didn’t notice because “TL/DR” and now you owe the label three hour long albums! You know – that thing we all can just write and do. Then imagine you have to pay the Label that did nothing for you to let you go and because you seem successful, the asking price to buy you out suddenly becomes thousands and thousands of dollars.

This happens.

Now let’s look hard at the Term of Agreement.

 “The Term of this Agreement will begin on the date on which it shall have been signed by both Label and Artist. The agreement will run for up to two (2) contract periods, one initial period, during which Artist will deliver one LP (LP1) and one (1) optional periods during which, if the option is exercised by Label at its sole discretion, Artist will deliver an additional LP (LP2). Within one year from the release date of each LP delivered hereunder, Label shall notify Artist in writing of its intent to exercise its option to record the next LP. The Term of this agreement will expire either: 1) nine (9) months after the release date of the last released LP; or, 2) when Label declines to exercise its option to record the next optional LP, whichever comes first.”

The word “period” is vague here. What measurement is a “contract period” much less two of them? At the end it says “The Term of this agreement will expire either: 1) nine (9) months after the release date of the last released LP” meaning that its over – only after the album is officially released. Meaning – in perpetuity – if not released. The other is a Label option for a second album after you record the first. That means the label can hold you to a second release even if you didn’t like how they handled the first, which may screw you if say you get interest from Comedy Central. Especially if you’re buyout clause from your agreement doesn’t have a set price like say $500 and a pizza.

Funny story. The above excerpt is from a contract that was sent to me by a stand up record label. When I verbally agreed to work with them, I had specifically stated that the deal would be for one album with an artist option for a second. Meaning whether or not the process sucked or was good, I had the option to record another with them or not. However – they wrote it in the official contract as their option instead. Meaning I could be trapped in a bad deal owing them a second album.

Just because you agree in person means nothing if it’s not written down to reflect your spoken agreement.  Always put it in writing.

 Artist’s Additional Rights.  

“Artist’s Right to Purchase Copies from Label.  Artist may also purchase an unlimited number of non-royalty bearing CD copies of the Recordings from Label for purposes of resale by Artist for Artist’s personal or promotional use at the price of five dollars ($5.00) per CD and ten dollars ($10.00) per LP, if manufactured by Label, (the “Artist Discount Rates”). Notwithstanding the foregoing, Label agrees to provide thirty (120) copies of the CD to Artist at no charge.”

This is about the physical copies. It means that if you’d like to sell them after your show you have to buy them from the Label. This is helpful because the label pays to have them made and you can sell them. However, $5 a copy? They are literally fucking you. There’s a whole bunch of services that charge way less to manufacture CD’s. (seen some as low as a $1 depending on quantity) Services the Label goes through themselves! That $5 is just another way the Label can profit off the comedians work.

Here’s a fun fact! It’s 2018 – who buys CD’s anymore? Do YOU buy CD’s? From experience I’ve seen comedians sell less and less physical albums every year. Everything is about digital now. The audience wants to stream it and could give two fucks about physical copies after shows. They want T-Shirts. It sucks, but it’s true. Stand Up Comedy was invented by the T-Shirt companies to move product. If any label tries to push you into buying CD’s from them at $5 a pop – suspect everything they do.

Back story: In my contract I negotiated down to $3.25, but found out from other people on the Label they were paying $5 while some were paying $3. This is shady shit and the Label head got super pissed we were talking to each other about it. Remember – If a Label head doesn’t want you talking to other artists about their contracts then they are trying to fuck you somewhere.

Digital Download Royalty Rates.   

“For each individual track from the Recordings (a “Single”) or complete album sold or streamed via Digital Download, Label will pay Artist a royalty equal to fifty (50%) of Label’s Net Receipts from such sale(s).  Label’s Net Receipts are defined as Label’s gross receipts from Digital Download sales of Artist’s Recordings, less any distributor charges for upload or file maintenance.”

Digital sales are everything you’re going to make here in the World of Tomorrow. That’s the bulk of what you get from iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon, the whole bit. Here it says you get 50% of Net receipts from online sales.

Quick lesson: Gross sales are the grand total of all sale transactions reported in a period, without any deductions included within the figure. Net sales are defined as gross sales minus deductions.

Here’s what you need to iron out.

“…less any distributor charges for upload or file maintenance.”

Say your album is sold for $10. Well, iTunes can take 30 to 40% of your sales just for hosting it. That means you’re immediately making $6-7 on your album. Cut in half with the Label, 3 to $3.50. Think about this hard. Half your sales are going to a Label just because they spent an hour uploading it to a distribution site. Did the label bring you any extra sales or were they all from the audience you already created?

Did you not have the hour in your life to do it yourself?

Food for thought. Do you get your digital sales back after the agreement is over? Or does the label get 50% of your online sales (again the bulk of where you’ll make money) in perpetuity? This is a real thing that can happen if not written out. For instance, if you eventually get your album rights back – how will the Label transfer all your future sales back to you?

There’s a whole bunch more to this process, but essentially these things above are what you need to really get your head around. Some of you reading this may already be in bad contracts. You may have a few outs, depending on state laws and the verbiage. You may have good legal reasons to get out of it and take your career and art back into your hands from predators and dream fuckers. Talk to other comics, work together, it’s not that hard and most of you have nothing to lose.

They’re the ones with something to lose and us talking publically about these issues is how we protect ourselves from frauds. 

Own your own hard work and make sure the people who get behind your talent are pushing it forward, instead of bleeding it out for their own profit. 

It sounds like you hate Labels, are you bitter?

I don’t hate labels, I hate frauds. My first album was put out by Sure Thing Records based out of Austin, TX. Not only are they good friends of mine, but also genuinely doing it for the sake of comedy. They gave me a great deal and were completely upfront with me about all the ins and outs, plus they had already signed comics I loved and respected. It was the perfect situation and if anyone asks me privately, I would recommend them wholeheartedly.

For my second release I did it by myself for two reasons. One, because Sure Thing and I couldn’t match our release schedules (they put all their energy/promotion into one release at a time and were already releasing another) and two, I wanted to research how to do this alone specifically to show others who may not have had the options I had (or considering working with leeches), how to take control of this themselves.

Its crazy how there’s so many options for comics to do this and yet we’re still resigned to banging our heads with car doors at the mere sound of handling business.

 But Jay, how do I know if I can record an album by myself?

No problem. Let’s go through that beat by beat.

Recording and mastering

Do you know musicians? Podcasters? People who record with mics and equipment? Ask around. Get on Facebook and ask if anyone can help. This also helps in seeing if the general audience is hyped about you even doing an album. You will find plenty of people to talk to who’ll probably be down to do this. I was fortunate and had a friend named Jess who did professional commercial editing. He asked for $50, but I ended up paying him more because he was incredible and as obsessive as I was about the mix. Mastering is very important, but you can get that done later in the process. Stay tuned.

Pick a venue according to your audience needs.

If you work mostly clubs, you’ll know which ones would love to have you record in their space, but keep in mind they’re pretty much bar/restaurants. You may not want the sound of waitresses barking orders or a random bridal party fucking up your shit. For my recording I found a bar that had a separate basement that was carpeted so the sound wouldn’t bounce around like a warehouse. It fit 50 people comfortably and maxed out at 75.

Plan on two to three shows (four is most desirable).

Hopefully you got your shit down and can do a full hour, but that said – mistakes happen. Bad things always get in the way. Sometimes you’re sharper the second show because you we’re able to get your rhythm in the first. Or better yet – maybe you knock it out of the park the first show and then can really relax and not be stressed out for the others. Maybe you think it sucks. You’ll probably think it sucks until you listen to it later and realize its fucking rad. Then – after tons of listens you’ll hate it and yourself again.

Promote.

Maybe do a suggested donation instead of an admission charge. You want the people who support you to come out excited to hear you record. Say it goes to pay for the recording. Its more legit then being one of those gofundme assholes.

After the recording.

Listen to it and mark notes if and when you hear a mistake or want to edit something out. Listen to all the shows. Pick what feels right. Do what matches your voice best. You or your editor can mix the tracks together on most any audio program like garageband, etc. Listen to it – take long breaks then come back to it. Don’t rush, you want to be proud of this thing that’s going to be in perpetuity. It’s your words, it’s your craft, whose hands do you want it to be in?

Once you’re satisfied with the mix you’ll need to master. GET IT MASTERED. This makes the audio even without extreme volume peaks and quality for professional distribution.

I have my album and track listings, now what?

You’ll need art. Put out the call on Facebook. Ask around, you probably know tons of artists or just use a clean headshot. I’ve designed tons of ideas on my phone just working with apps and being creative. Know anyone with photoshop skills? Put out the call, you’re friends want to help. Just don’t be too needy and reciprocate back. We all got to support each other. I was lucky to randomly scroll through Facebook and discover Brett Brock. He’s my favorite human being and a fantastic artist.

How do I self-release this thing I’m sick of now?

There’s a ton of options and a lot of people have used sites like Tunecore and CD Baby. Both have their strengths and easy to research, but I’ll just cut the bullshit and recommend Distrokid. It was the simplest process, the best priced and gave me the options I needed for comedy. You literally upload your album and they host it for $19.99 a year. To put this into perspective, other places charge 2-3 times more to do the same thing. More perspective? No problem. For that $19.99 you can upload all the content you want, while the other places charge for each individual upload. Meaning that if you wanted to release multiple EP’s instead of one album, you still only pay $19.99 a year. Or pay $50 and Distrokid will never take it down if your membership lapses or you die. It’s kind of rad.

Still want physical copies? No problem, there’s a ton of businesses who ship from everywhere in the country. I used https://www.affordablesound.com based out of Austin, TX and they were easy to work with. The price depends on the quantity you print, but keep in mind – people don’t really buy them anymore.

Release Strategy

Ok, here comes some realities. What do you want out of this release? Only you can decide this. When you upload to Distrokid you can choose literally 150 or more platforms to put your album on. If its just about exposure then click all the boxes and have a drink, you’re done. If its about sales then I’d suggest not putting it out on Spotify or Pandora streaming sites as it means people will choose to do that over paying the $9.99 for your work. Later on, go ahead and steam it as you like. I waited a year myself, but before that I personally wanted to set a value to what I produced and genuinely feel streaming lessens the public’s perception of what you do.

The fact is people don’t really want to pay for shit. Also - most of the people I know are broke, but that said - its up to you what your album is worth. There’s nothing wrong with saying your work is worth $10 and then putting it up on YouTube etc after a year as you move on to the next project. If your goal is to rank on iTunes, then make that push and promote the hell out of it on release day. I did that for my first album and got the #1 credit that pretty much no one cares about and does nothing for your career. For my second release I first went through Bandcamp before Distrokid. I got paid quicker and got to see who and where was buying the album. It rocked, was easy and they only took 15% of each sale. You have to link it with Paypal and I’d advise paying the $10 to go with Bandcamp Pro. This will help you keep it from being a streaming release (and you can cancel after you’re sales die off). However, most people would rather click the ‘Buy’ button on iTunes and Amazon instead of fill out the credit card information on Bandcamp so eventually you’re going to have to put it up through Distrokid anyways.

You have options. Above all else make a list and look at what resources you have in your own community and decide for yourself what direction you’d like best to go. When do I see money from iTunes, Amazon, etc?

If you are on a label or doing it solo it takes 3-4 months to get your sales information back (unless you exclusively go through Bandcamp). Distrokid keeps track and will help you get paid. Do you work for Distrokid?

No. It was just so easy and convenient to use especially for standup that for the price and speed of service, I was pretty grateful they were an option.

Is this post just a way to promote your own shit?

Nope. This isn’t one of those dumb marketing things. Its just information for you to use or not. No twitter handles or links here. Most likely I’ll go back and edit this as more people either correct me or provide extra information that’s helpful to comics.

I hope this helps.

[jaywhitecotton]

Game of Thrones: The Reality Show

It feels like years of watching Game of Thrones has prepared us for world events in 2017. This is truly a mess and I don't envy the crazy conspiracy theorists at all, but let's see what we can do. First, let's look at the money. Two proposed gas lines to supply Europe and lessen Russian dependency. One from Qatar, the other from Iran. Both proposed to go through Syria. Now let's look at all the players. We have a new American administration filled with Goldman Sachs employees and Military Generals both with ties to Russian spies and oligarchs. We have a Russian dictator, in all but name only, with a penchant for saber rattling and poisoning both dissidents and witnesses; whose country and own political power is hinged on their own gas lines used to supply Europe. There's Ukraine, a country Russia is actively policing and sabotaging for their own business interests (like when they hijacked Crimea). You have a European Union and US led NATO trying to build the Qatar gas line to ease their dependency on the meddling chest beating Russians. You have a genocidal Syrian warlord in a fancy suit blocking the proposed Qatar gas line to tighten ties with ally Russia. Who later approves the Iranian access pipeline - then suddenly finds his country mired in a civil war - funded by US ally Saudi Arabia. Who by the way is the middle man for the Qatar pipeline. The same proposed pipeline that goes through Turkey, a Muslim country that has been friendly towards democracy, but now showing signs of Muslim statism culminating in the failed coup of 2016. A coup they tie to Turkish businessman and cleric Fethullah Gülen, who resides in Quaker influenced Pennsylvania? Turkey is also a valuable member of NATO. NATO, a trade partnership that Russia views as a threat. Revealed by their own rhetoric, evidence of voter fraud and disinformation campaigns tied to the recent Brexit vote and a majority of Europe's rising ultra-conservative parties. Here's looking at you France's Marine Le Pen. This also includes ultra conservative parties like Alt-Right backed candidate Donald Trump. A man who is so concerned with Syrian babies that he is doing everything in his power to block our borders from accepting them as he bombs their country from his country club. AND All this while the staff members who got him elected are dropping like flies due to increasing evidence of secret Russian meetings and incompetence. To be replaced by even more reps and lobbyists for the Military Industrial Complex and Goldman Sachs. Does this make any sense? No? Fine - let's try this: Ok, you see - the Lannister's owe a lot of money to the Iron Bank of Braavos and are mired in controversy over questionable business ties with House Tyrell. To attain financial freedom they try to build a pipeline through Dorne, but Dorne refuses because it would hurt their ally - House Tyrell. The Lannister Boy King gets mad at implications he's a Tyrell puppet and decides to wildfire bomb Dorne - which also helps distract increasing investigations of hidden meetings with House Tyrell spies. You see - He's already gone through a few Hand of the King's and his Small Council is a mess with rumors leaking of master manipulator Little Finger being pushed out to the Stormlands. These wildfire strikes also shore up a war loving voting base, as well as sends a signal to everyone that the Mother of Dragons lost, she needs to just accept it, and no amount of cool garden walk interviews is going to change that. Meanwhile - There's a threat of a Wildling Invasion, but turns out they could be our best ally, but the Iron Throne insists a border wall and stronger legislation should be used to keep them out. Lady Brienne of Tarth, despite all her progress is slowly losing her ability to self-identify as a Knight much less use their bathrooms. Sean Bean still dies cuz that's what he does best. All is in disarray, there's a ton of dick wagging, hints of incest and everyone's still kinda waiting for the Dragons to do something more meaningful in Congress. Because if they don't, Nuclear Winter is Coming.

[jaywhitecotton]

Moby Trek

I have this story in my head. In the not too distant future our scientists make contact with another planet light years away. The travel is impossible, but for some reason we're able to transmit messages back and forth. It takes us years to learn how to communicate, but when we do - an explosion of new ideas changes and shapes our civilization. It starts with science and mathematics. We start to learn from each other new theories and advancements. Then after awhile the private sector takes over and we start exchanging music, literature, humor and fashion. The alien's culture becomes part of our own and vice versa. Businesses form as government regulation lessens. People are freely able to communicate with aliens from their own homes. Friendships are created. Bonds, rivalries, enemies - the whole bit. In this future a man falls in love with an alien. They talk business at first, but as they talk they find an attraction, a fulfillment neither has ever shared before. They both know they'll never see each other in person, will never share more of their life than these long distance conversations, but still - they connect ever deeper. Anyways, one day it all stops. Everything goes silent. It's then discovered that the planet the alien species lived on was destroyed thousands of years ago. We were talking to a dead civilization the entire time. Kinda like how we see star light even though it's origin is long gone. Space and time had warped our communications so that the concept of past and present were beyond our comprehension. The main character was in love with someone he could never meet and was in fact long, long dead, but he and the audience felt their connection as if in real time. Anyways, I'm fascinated with this idea, especially the development of alien culture that would mix with our own - the challenge of trying to put this effectively on paper. But I'll never write it. I can't. Because I know for a fact Neil deGrasse Tyson would utterly EVISCERATE it on Twitter and also - I have no knowledge of how space and time work beyond the popcorn setting on the microwave. Call me Ishmael.

[jaywhitecotton]

Death Rattle of Provacative

What is the value of free speech? In a world where everyone is a pundit, a commentator, a walking op-ed piece - just what is the value of free speech? What value is a voice that only serves an audience of sycophantic echoes? This week people have been arguing over whether or not alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulis should be given opportunities to speak. Should he be allowed to voice his opinions on talk shows and college campuses? Especially if his speech creates violent reactions like the small anemic riots in San Francisco. Well yes, of course he does. Its pretty simple.If an organization invites you to speak, they have the right to do so - and in turn - you have the right to protest and speak out against it. You have the right to condemn it as well as the right to ignore it. That’s it. You do not have the right to throw a goddamn violent hissy fit and destroy property. Don’t get me wrong – there are plenty of reasons to burn a Starbucks. I can think of twenty in LA right now, filled with budding screenwriters applying the Save the Cat formula to some trite bullshit that will eventually clog theaters with more artless crap. If you’re going to burn anything – start with the university’s student loan office. A greedy and exploitative institution that is actively destroying lives and creating the type of indentured servitude that straight up keeps people chained to shitty jobs with worthless degrees. But over Milo? Are you fucking kidding me? This is what a provocateur is these days?! Did somebody hit the snooze button on ‘effective challenging figures’?! Milo ' Greek Yogurt' Yiannopoulis is about as dangerous and effective as a wet fart. Sure you might need to go to the restroom for a security wipe, but it’s not like you’re going to call a friend to bring you some new pants. Lenny Bruce went to jail for the right to use profanity in his nightclub performances. The Supreme Court was forced to deal with the issue of indecency because of a George Carlin album. Frank Zappa, 2 Live Crew, Dee Snyder – all fought against the likes of Tipper Gore and evangelicals desperate power grabs to block or define their art. Good or bad - They all won in their own way. Maybe the problem here is that art is no longer challenging. It’s been suffocated by corporate monopolies, artless interns who work their way to becoming taste-makers and industry gate keepers. Comedy, music, film – I can’t think of anyone in this current crop of “successes” who is actually saying or challenging anything of merit. Why would they? In a world where media is so prevalent, so saturated in blogs, op-eds and TV pundits – how do you creatively challenge this kind of world? A world where everyone thinks they’re bland talking points are equal and deserving? When Johnny Square Dick Barista and Sally No Tits Paralegal think they have the ‘hottest take’ equal to the wisdom of Mark Twain. Myself included. We have all the free speech you can want and unfortunately – you get what you pay for. No wonder Kanye lost his mind. No wonder our idea of progress is Adele accepting awards in one hand while saying it belongs to Beyonce in the other. No wonder there’s an army of copy n paste ex-Disney kids growing up celebrated for their achievements only because we need the nostalgia to feel like our formative years mattered. That it was all worthwhile. Never mind the fact that art has been predominantly shit for probably more decades than we care to admit. Art is fucking dead. And what good, actual real art that might exist - has been mirrored and co-opted by brand ambassadors and self aware mimickers with WordPress skills. The effect is gone – the audience is on stage and the real artists are stuck suffering while watching this shit show play out. I mean when was the last time you saw a guy walking down the street with a guitar and didn’t think “who does this desperate asshole think he’s pretending to be?” Some people blame the progressives. Progressives were the people who used to defend ‘free speech’. Gradually over time they became the enforcers of shutting down communication. Shrill voices trying to yell down any opposing point of view - be it slight or egregious in disagreement. They unified and then - turned their attacks on themselves. Everyone became apologists deferring in one hand while grandstanding in the other. We couldn’t have a simple Women’s March in solidarity against the new Administration without people pointing out that 'white feminists were bad because they couldn’t effectively speak for black women', then 'black women were bad if they were Christian and felt that abortion was wrong', then 'abortions were bad because they enabled sex workers and it was bad to slut shame sex workers', then 'it was bad they were sex workers because many were virtual slaves to systematic patriarchal pimping'. I think – I don’t know – It’s hard to keep up with all this free flowing sanctimony. Maybe that’s why everyone is so desperate to be on the cross? It’s hard to flutter your opinions when you’re completely nailed down. All i know is you can’t be politically correct every hour of every day. ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE WRONG ONCE IN AWHILE. The need to always be the most right is the snake eating its own tail. Somehow in all this chaos, the conservatives have tried their best to posture as if they were finally on the side of hip and relevance. Even though their whole core being is against this entire concept. Most of their value judgments are either corporate funded or motivated by outdated religious dictum and prejudices. Its why most of their talking points are “See! We found a gay jew who bangs black guys to agree with our hate speech!”, or “Here’s a woman who thinks other women should shut up about who governs their bodies!”, or “Businesses shouldn’t be forced to serve gays ice cream cakes!”,” Indians are in the way of PROGRESSIVE oil pipelines!”, “Solar energy is in the way of Dickens-era coal miners!”, and “Environmental conservation limits corporations from profiting as much as they deserve!”, and also “Corporations are people and black, brown and poor white people need to be gerrymandered out of their districts because they can’t effectively be their own voice and we need to bring Democracy to the Middle East!” Or the now popular “Gender neutral bathrooms only encourage rapists to attack more women and children.” This is why Milo Yiannopoulis is considered a ‘provocateur’?! A rebel fighting for the right to free speech?! Bitch please! This motherfucker is so basic, why do you think the right embraced him? The fact that he’s so transparent makes me wonder how he gets away acting like he’s actually transphobic. He’s not. It’s an act. His only fear is the public realization he’s utterly irrelevant to any conversation. He brings NOTHING to the table. Never trust the conservative right’s opinion of what their version of a rebel is. It’s NEVER AUTHENTIC. This is the party that thought Tucker Carlson was making a rebellious statement because of his dedication to the bow tie. STOP treating Milo like he’s the new bad boy saying it how it is because he waves the free speech flag as if a Hero. I’m sorry, but a real Hero isn’t afraid to use a unisex bathroom. A real brave person doesn’t quiver in fear behind false statistics of sexual abuse in between shaking out mud nuggets in the handicapped stall. Trust me – I’ve taking shits in jail holding cells. I fucking know fear and bravery. Also – Lets clarify this shit once and for all. Milo isn’t a fucking comedian. The same way Ann Coulter isn’t a comedian. Comedy requires so much more than just yelling bland statements for the audience to agree and clap to – NO MATTER WHAT COMEDY CENTRAL PRETENDS OTHERWISE. We should let idiots have a platform. We should use their insipid, tired rhetoric to serve as an example and a teaching point for people to see through them. Nobody said you had to treat them with respect. People get the respect they give onto others and trollish fucks should be openly showcased and treated in kind. It all works out eventually. You ever hear the expression ‘give a man enough rope’? Look at what’s happening to Milo right now. By exposing himself so publicly he has opened himself to the worst trolls of all. The general public. And the general public LOVES false idols. You see – What people forget about the public eye is that it also has a mouth – and a fierce appetite for people who posture as if untouchable. And the public eye is NEVER bigger than our stomachs. We’ll chew every inch of meat on your body until we swallow you up and shit you out, courtesy flushing you into forgotten mediocrity. The best part - this bathroom is gender neutral. Just ask Lena Dunham. It’s already happening. When ill informed, no talent shrills make their living pretending they’re capable of actual satire – they get rooted out for the frauds they are. It’s why Milo is facing actual setbacks now that his recorded support of pedophilia has been unearthed for all to exploit. He’ll still have his audience for now, but the more this kind of attention consumes him, the more he’ll whither like a fish on the hook. The trolls he surrounded himself with will eventually get bored of him - and all he’ll have left are the few scumfucks who genuinely embraced his rhetoric who will eventually gay bash him. Meanwhile Leslie Jones will still be getting work. The fun and the power will be played out and he’ll have nothing left to devour, but himself. Because - again - the need to be right is the snake eating its own tail. Including the alt-right. That said.. I realize I’m just adding another voice to this. I realize that in some possible way, I’m playing a small insignificant part of the very thing I’m railing against. The difference is I’m not selling anything. I’m not even saying I’m right. For fucksakes I can be off a few points here and honestly – there’s plenty I didn’t add for brevity sake. All I can do is challenge myself to do more. To take a chance to be wrong. Maybe that’s what art has evolved to? Maybe art is no longer trying to challenge people – maybe art has evolved into challenging ourselves? Take it or leave it. Free speech. You get what you pay for.

[jaywhitecotton]

Inauguration Day in Whoville

(The Inauguration Day children's book we all need) "Ten thousand feet up, up the side of Trump Tower, He rode to the tiptop to dump progress and power! "Pooh-pooh Libtard Whos!" he was Trumply humming. "They're finding out now that my Presidency is coming! They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do! Their Tweets and Hot Takes will be Fire a minute or two As the Dems in Whoville will all cry boo-hoo! That's a noise," grinned the Trump, "that I simply must hear!" He paused, and the Trump put wee hand to orange ear. And he did hear a sound rising over the snow. It started in low, then it started to grow. But this sound wasn't self-righteous, hyperbolic, whiny or sad! Why, this sound sounded glad!? Every Libtard in Whoville, The fetus to the tall, Was singing without any Representation at all! He hadn't stopped Progress from coming! It came! Despite help from the Russians, it came just the same! And the Trump, with his Trump feet ice-cold in the snow, Stood puzzling and puzzling. "How could it be so? It came without Health Care! It came without Fags! It came without Planned Parenthood, or Bathrooms for Trans!" He puzzled and puzzed till his puzzler was sore. Then the Trump thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Elections, he thought, doesn't come from a store. With Racism and Putin and Grabbed Pussies Galore. Maybe Elections, perhaps, means a little bit more! And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say That the Trump's small hands grew three sizes that day! And then the true meaning of Elections came through, And the Trump found the strength of ten Trumps, plus two! And now that his hands didn't feel quite so tight, He whizzed with his rhetoric through the bright morning light With a smile to his soul, he descended Trump Tower Cheerily blowing "You're Hired!" on his Reality Show Hour. He road into Whoville. He brought back their Rights. He brought back their floof to the Who girls and boys or-whatever-they-self-identified He brought back their snoof and their tringlers and abortions, Brought back their pantookas, their dafflers added single-payer options. He brought everything back, all the food for the feast! And he, he himself, the Trump carved the roast vegan beast! Welcome Progress. Bring your cheer, Cheer to all Whos, left, right, far and near. Inauguration Day is in our grasp There's no reason to pout For we'll ALL share a wall to keep the Mexicans out!" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[jaywhitecotton]

News Cycle Blues

For our voice to matter we need to jail Bankers and CEO's for decades of abusive practices and gross negligence that has crippled this country. (You know - accountablity) 🎶 Trump appoints former Goldman-Sachs executive (who left the company before the housing crisis so he could profit off the massive foreclosures they created) - to run the Treasury Department 🎶 We need to break up the Monopolies. Banking, Communications, Food and the like because healthy competition creates growth. 🎶 Institutional Investors like Vanguard, BlackRock and State Street own the largest portions of stakes in competing companies across many different industries, thus controlling prices and keeping wages low. 🎶 We need to hold the Media accountable for sponsored stories, ignoring facts that go against the company line while sensationalizing the narratives that only serve to generate advertising - or people will begin to suspect every news story thus being open to manipulation by the powers that be. 🎶 Trump labels CNN as fake news after they raise questions about his administration, but not when it supports him 🎶 I mean - you can't really have journalistic integrity if they're owned by the very people they're supposed to be keeping in line. Just like there can't be any kind of competitive market growth if three companies are in collusion to corner an industry and control prices. 🎶 Drink Coke... Or Pepsi... The money goes to the same place (see Banking, see Manufacturing, see Congress) 🎶 Stop money from being protected as a form of free speech. This means only the wealthy will have a voice and our elected representatives will only further donor interests. 🎶 Super PACs can provide unlimited funding for a candidate and are often supplied money by wealthy hedge fund managers (see Vanguard, BlackRock and State Side) and even 'Ghost Companies' created to hide the identity of investors and evidence of collusion 🎶 Corporations are not people. 🎶 People are people so why should it be 🎶 Limit political campaign spending, enforce campaign reform and monitor donations. Require a third party to participate in debates. 🎶 The DNC and Hillary conspired against Bernie Sanders and helped circumvent democracy and implied impartiality 🎶 Also both parties do this 🎶 Address the district gerrymandering that has effectively limited minorities and the poor's ability to take part in the democratic process. 🎶Trump paid a woman to pee on him 🎶 The Electoral college is supposed to give farmers a voice. How many farmers do you know? Also - Farming has been mostly corporatized so... If the major worry is that "politicians will only focus on the highly populated areas of the country" while ignoring the rural - then use campaign reform to force candidates to campaign and spend equally to those specific areas. (Kinda like how the NFL forces it's teams to first interview minority candidates for coaching vacancies, because before they would never consider black coaches.) 🎶 All we are is just ah 🎶 another brick in the Wall we said Mexico would pay for, but really that was a lie to motivate the xenophobes and racists in those same rural, mostly white areas 🎶 [coda] Meanwhile we're sending troops to Poland to oversee energy rich Ukraine and its pipeline Russia highly covets 🎶 because Europe wanted to cut its dependency on Russian hydrocarbon companies 🎶 Which is why Putin is so active in both Syria and Turkey - trying to out maneuver NATO's attempt at accessing Qatari 🎶 NATO, an organization that Russia has always considered a threat 🎶 which explains why Russian money is tied to the campaigns of foreign elected officials who are trying to break it apart 🎶 elected officials like France's far right Conservative party leader Marine Le Pen 🎶 as well as a majority of the anti-NATO Brexit propaganda 🎶 Because let's face it, far right conservatives will always vote against their own interests because racism is the first tactic of manipulating a populace 🎶 "Marine Le Pen abruptly seen at Trump Tower." 🎶 All we are is just ah 🎶 another...

[jaywhitecotton]

The Evening and the Try Hard

Tonight I stared at a sunflower grasping the lips of a two inch shot glass. The stem slightly dipped in the shallow water it contained, sucking up the last juice it will ever know. I was conflicted. You see - as a flower grows from it's seed it blooms into life - striving towards sunlight and pushing it's earthy scent outward. As the season changes the flower dies and decays into the soil enriched already with its own seed - eventually growing to life anew with the coming spring. This flower however, would not return to its cycle of life and demise. Its death would be its very last and nothing would replace it accept an ever repeating cycle of bar towels and coasters. I paid my respects by smelling the last of its aroma - its last gasps of breath at life. There was no future for the fast wilting petals bracing itself along the drunkards glass. Just a clasping denial of how life had ended up. Holding it up to the bars neon lights I watched it go. Awash in red, yellow, and blue light - not sure if I shared its fate or if all my troubles were it's own cycle of life and death to come and go like the seasons. I'm not sure if it made me feel better - I was just relieved I still felt. So the next time you find me sitting at a bar, not engaged, not drinking - ignoring the pounding pop bullshit vapid people call music and decide to ask 'what I may be thinking'. It's probably something like all this.

[jaywhitecotton]

We Deserve This

Hillary Clinton was an unelectable war hawk whose entire political career was built on saying anything and everything to get elected. Also - Refusing to support a person that married and continuously defends an accused rapist - who - at the very least is a sexual predator - is not anti-woman. Donald Trump was an unelectable slum lord opportunist who has destroyed lives and brought absolutely no substance or ideas - just false bravado, racism, sexism and chaos to a shit system. Refusing to support him does not make you a hero. It just makes you right on every basic human level. Choosing between these two was not a fucking choice and forcing anyone to argue the subtleties of two evils is fucking sick. The fact that "Hillary was more competent to do the job" is exactly how the system works to fuck you. You actually root for a bad person to do the job. Knowing that and still voting for Trump is ALSO how the system works to fuck you. You genuinely thought TRUMP was anti-establishment because he gave Ted Cruz a swirly?! YOU FUCKING IDIOT. We. Deserve. This. Whether you voted Red or Blue you equally compromised your principles and put a stain on your integrity. And thanks to social media, we all got to see you do it. We all got to see people post solidarity with Standing Rock protestors while posting 'I'm with Her' hashtags at the same time. We got to see evangelicals abandon their faith in God to throw support at a walking representation of everything Jesus was against. We got see self described Feminists call out sexism while praising Bill Clinton. We got to see Dads screaming for Trump, forced to look their daughters in the eye and try to pretend 'grab them by the pussy' doesn't matter. It all matters and you all played into it with your votes. Red or Blue you're equally complicit in this farce. You want to blame non-voters and third party supporters because of YOUR inability to field any viable candidate? Go. Fuck. Yourself. You want to call voting for Trump a "protest vote for change"? Go fuck yourself too. Enablers all. We deserve this. We deserve the DNC and RNC. We deserve these two corporations when we allow them to hijack our democracy every election. They have a monopoly on choosing who runs and who does not. They're job is to game the system and keep it in line so they can get the most donor money. Thanks to this election - we all got to witness it too. That's how bad both parties fucked up. Donald Trump allowed us to witness the demise and shredding of any illusion that the GOP had the moral high ground. We got to see the puppets lose their strings and flop around like dying fish. Super Delegates and a lack of options showed us Hillary Clinton was a bully in a system engineered to silence the momentum and energy of its own base. Immediately and openly hiring the very person fired for helping her engineer that same corruption. The DNC and RNC owns us and will continually silence any voice that tries to rise above. Who do you think came up with 'if you don't vote, you can't complain' in the first place? The people who fight hard to gerrymander and game the electoral college, that's who. Why do they work so hard to circumvent "our" democracy? Because every vote is money for the company. Minorities know this shit better than anyone else. They're the ones whose districts get more realignments then a bad Asian driving joke. Every first year congressman spends his baby term - Not month - Entire first term on the phones begging for money for the party. It's the salesman that meet their quotas who are pushed forward. Not the people who can accomplish change and a better tomorrow. Marco Rubio makes the GNC money. That's his and everyone like him on both sides of the aisle's fucking job first and foremost. You want change? Start every thought with this. Politics is a machine led by money and double talk, not ideology and principal. Or in other words, Donald Trump doesn't represent the people, Donald Trump represents the Government we enabled. He is the perfect logo for a machine sold to the highest bidders. He's a bad business man using loopholes and a gigantic debt to float by on. He's racist, xenophobic, and thinks he can bully his way through foreign policy. He treats women like garbage unless they're hot or can make him look good in the public eye. He'll tell you one thing and do another and make you think that's how it's supposed to be done - and half of you will celebrate him for it. Donald Trump is American Government and if you don't get that you will never engineer change or make any lasting difference. We deserve this. We bought into a system designed to rile us up and wear us out so we never actually address the monopoly on government the RNC and DNC have. We divide, filter, block and project against each other. We scream about being allies because it makes us feel good without actually having to do the work. I mean why demonstrate when you can just say online you were at Standing Rock and reap those supportive like button clicks? Go ahead and celebrate you Trump voting idiots. Feel good that you and the KKK are blowing out the candles on the same cake. Go ahead and cry, miss work and hide in bed Hilldawgs. Go ahead and do the progressive version of hoarding guns and building a bunker. No one took their weapons and no one is coming for your think piece blogs. All of us still have to work jobs, maintain relationships and carve out some sort of good deal within the social contract in that 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' thing. Nothing has changed. Except now we all know each other better. We saw all of our well intended knee jerk hypocrisy scar the facade of our collective character and there's no back pedaling from that. None of us are pure and now we have the evidence. I feel fantastic about this. Energized. Knowing ourselves first is the only chance we have to actually talk to each other and make some kind of actual difference. This election showed us what we're willing to compromise in ourselves - to push for the things we want for all. And In essence - isn't that's what politics is supposed to be about? ------- PS - Third Party people who LOVE commenting how there's a third option on every goddamn post. Stop jerking yourselves off. You're not any better. Your candidates were essentially a pair of Dad socks and a ceramic bowl from a 7th grade art project - not potential world leaders. Pray pot is never federally legalized because on that day - both the Green and Libertarian party won't even fill the party room of a Dave'n'Busters. That said, thank you for at least trying.

[jaywhitecotton]

Last Man Standing

A man is chopping wood in the isolation of a forest. He stops a moment to wipe the sweat off his brow and quietly reflect. A faint whirring sound cuts thru the serenity as a black helicopter approaches from the horizon. The man grumbles and proceeds to go back to his woodcutting, ignoring the machine as it lands. Men pour out in sharp suits and weapons. They cover all the exits as another calmly approaches the wood chopper. "There's been another email hack." The man continues chopping. "We need your particular set of skills." The man drops the axe and responds without ever acknowledging the others. "I told you, I'm out. I'm not in that game anymore." The Suit gets desperate. "We need the best. You're this country's only hope." The wood chopper turns in anger "I told you I'm out! Why don't you put Kravitz or Orlando on it." "We did. They are... They're no longer googled." The Wood Chopper hangs his head, lips trembling in anger. "Who's the target?" "The Russians, sir." The man looks around the peaceful forest canyon, the setting sun and then directly towards the Suit for the first time. "I'll need a cell phone, Vladimir Putin's number and five minutes in the bathroom." "You'll have everything you need Mr. Weiner. Everything. You. Need."

[jaywhitecotton]

Motel 6 Checklist

Motel 6 Employee Checklist - Make sure hallways are covered in carpet with the texture of a dying dog trapped in a dried up mud pit - Do the stairwells smell of pee? If no - pee in the stairwells. - Have homeless pimps greet your guests in the parking lot. Make sure they litter misc syringes across the parking lot. - When guests are checking in, treat them with hostile suspicion. Make them feel guilty of some unspoken crime. Then ignore them completely throughout their stay. - Room keys should only work after the second or third time you tell the Guest they 'for sure will work" - Leave only one washcloth for a family of four. Soap is a million dollars a bar so make sure you only give them hints of it. - When making beds make sure the fitted sheet is constantly slipping off. - The comforter should be a thin spread of sand paper unsafe for human contact. If somehow smooth, apply one of our bathroom towels to it until it regains its coarseness. - Set a/c to be either too hot or arcanely frozen, but let the guest feel like their fiddling with the switch makes any difference. - If guest complains speak farci. If you don't know farci make something up, guests themselves will not know the difference.

[jaywhitecotton]

Thanksgiving Refugees

“The thing is

(grabs turkey leg)

about the Refugees

(piles yams on plate)

We just can’t afford to take them OUCH! Hot plate!

(Quickly puts gravy down, looks aside)

Isn’t this technically called a ‘tureen’? Anyways..

(pours gravy)

you can’t trust their religion. It breeds too many radicals

(takes extra roll)

What we should do is give em to Cuba or Mexico. Give those people a little taste

(dips finger in gravy, sucks on finger)

Yum! Delicious, Karen… Of their own medicine

(places plate down, sits at head of the table)

Ok, let’s all bow our heads 'Our Father on this day of thanks, we…’ OH FUCK YEAH! TOUCHDOOOOOOOOOOOWN!”

A TV quietly plays in the background:

“The Cowboys have reached the Redskins goal line.”

[jaywhitecotton]

Is the Show Safe for Christians?

"Is the show safe for Christians?" It's kinda Blue. "I don't know what that means." It's mature. Rated R. "Oh... Has anyone ever died eating your food?" What? No! - I'm pretty sure...(shakes head vigorously) Wait - how is THAT not your first question?! "We'll take two tickets, get wasted on Appletinis for an hour, attack your feature comedian by aggressively yelling 'THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN!' in between bouts of scream hissing and holding our hands up to answer every rhetorical question, please." Sure, that'll be $16... Would you like to upgrade to 'Comedian goes back to hotel alone after his set and questions his entire life's purpose while binge eating bad oatmeal cookies' for dinner? Its free of charge. "We insist. It's our ANNIVERSARY!!!"

[jaywhitecotton]

Vaudeville Abortion

"Women getting ABORTIONS should be SHOT!" But what about the baby? "Huh?" Wouldn't shooting pregnant women also kill the baby you are trying to protect? "I don't care about that baby, abortion is murder and murder is a a sin!" What about denying help to the refugees? "I don't care about refugees, charity begins at home!" What about people without homes? "I don't care about the Homeless, God helps those who help themselves!" What about the Black Lives Matter protestors getting shot by cops? "I don't care about Black Lives Matter, ALL lives matter!" So what about women getting abortions? "Women getting ABORTIONS should be SHOT!" Who's on first? "What?" Second Base.

[jaywhitecotton]

Relative Equality

Adversity works much like Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The speed of light is constant for everyone, but its perception varies depending on the location of the person perceiving it. What may be adverse to you can easily be considered invisible to a person traveling at a faster rate. Our Experiences, much like Space and Time are subjective - and it's very easy to project our bullshit onto others as absolute law. If any of this is true it means that - in the struggle for equality - we've overlooked the one universal denominator shared by all. We all have our own pile of shit. Just because you can't smell it doesn't make it stink any less. ON THE OTHER HAND - the guy who came up with the Theory of Relativity left his wife to fuck his cousin. So... The kink in all this is what value we place empathy or justice in response to adversity. How even that changes when you factor in the collective perception. The mob mentality. Are we just the sum of our averages? Is this why the catalysts for change are often wiped out ASAP? Is this self correcting? Doesn't mean it's not there. In fact it's equal for everyone. (This is also why I suspect there are fixed right and wrongs because our perception doesn't disprove the existence of anything) This may also be the answer to equality we seem to be so hard up for.

[jaywhitecotton]

If We ever Had to Describe Prince to Aliens

If you had to describe Prince to an alien - no one would believe that person actually exists. "Yeah, he's this tiny purple man. Struts in heels, sings falsetto, but has the richest baritone speaking voice. No - the ladies LOVE him. Also he's Jehovis Witness and swims in Lake Minnetonka. Well not so much swims, but purifies himself. No... He's not literal royalty, but we all just kinda let him have it. Oh yeah! He's really really good on guitar, but people always seem to forget that. Also everyone born after 1982 says they're huge fans, but can only name maybe three songs - none from the last twenty years. For some reason this accusation will make them go to great lengths to prove otherwise even though no one actually cares. Also something about Batman."