You know, sometimes I think too much. But sometimes intelligent thoughts and concepts come out of all that thinking. Feel free to discuss, because I know by no means am I an expert on anything really. Just some ideas I have had the past few days. It may seem like a jumbled mess as you read it, but I would hope you at least get the gist of what I mean.

I've been thinking about our country lately. Who we are, what we stand for, where we stand with the rest of the world, etc. With me being who I am, with my never-ending love for music, those thoughts eventually got tied to music, in the same contexts. Which brought me to ponder our "culture" here in America.

My thought is, America as a whole, has no real culture. No real unified voice of what we are, what we stand for, our own "Here we are world, this is what we love, this is what we live for." Now I know many who read this at this point are saying, "this dude has absolutely no clue what he's talking about," but please allow me to fully explain myself before dismissing me.

Now when I say we have no real culture, I mean it in the "traditional" sense of the word. Music, traditions, dress, ceremonies. What we do seem to have is an undeniable thirst for money and power. I know this doesn't apply to all, I'm talking about the country as a whole. America's culture is greed, which is terribly disheartening.

Now for how I relate this to music. I know America is a giant melting pot of sorts. Peoples from all over the globe, in one place, bringing their heritages, their cultures, their ideals here and sharing them with one another in hopes of a unification of many different peoples. This happens all the time, and inspires people all over to work different influences in their arts. Which is usually what culture stems from, however in our case, these new ideas, new musics and the like gain popularity (which in and of itself is not the problem). Then the large...

You know, sometimes I think too much. But sometimes intelligent thoughts and concepts come out of all that thinking. Feel free to discuss, because I know by no means am I an expert on anything really. Just some ideas I have had the past few days. It may seem like a jumbled mess as you read it, but I would hope you at least get the gist of what I mean.

I've been thinking about our country lately. Who we are, what we stand for, where we stand with the rest of the world, etc. With me being who I am, with my never-ending love for music, those thoughts eventually got tied to music, in the same contexts. Which brought me to ponder our "culture" here in America.

My thought is, America as a whole, has no real culture. No real unified voice of what we are, what we stand for, our own "Here we are world, this is what we love, this is what we live for." Now I know many who read this at this point are saying, "this dude has absolutely no clue what he's talking about," but please allow me to fully explain myself before dismissing me.

Now when I say we have no real culture, I mean it in the "traditional" sense of the word. Music, traditions, dress, ceremonies. What we do seem to have is an undeniable thirst for money and power. I know this doesn't apply to all, I'm talking about the country as a whole. America's culture is greed, which is terribly disheartening.

Now for how I relate this to music. I know America is a giant melting pot of sorts. Peoples from all over the globe, in one place, bringing their heritages, their cultures, their ideals here and sharing them with one another in hopes of a unification of many different peoples. This happens all the time, and inspires people all over to work different influences in their arts. Which is usually what culture stems from, however in our case, these new ideas, new musics and the like gain popularity (which in and of itself is not the problem). Then the large corporate machines who seemingly run this country catch wind of these new rising "trends" and hop on board. They clean up these great new ideas to give them mass appeal and sell them back to us, for them to fill their pockets. Sprinkle in a whole shit load of cross-marketing and what was once something fresh, new, and powerful will become drained and meaningless; eaten by the corporate monster.

I am not saying there is no culture in the peoples of our country. That's the last place it seems to exist anymore. But the US as a whole is a money-hungry country, willing to make its money anyway possible, be it by exploiting its citizens or exploiting the world.

Just look at the 20th Century for the US. More specifically the latter half. Our country would go to war for some ridiculous reason or another. People of this country would unify in song, or a new style of music to protest or just to get their opinions heard. That style would become popular, companies get a hold of it, and sell it back to us.

Unfortunately war seems to be a catalyst for this country in many senses. Whenever we war, our people tend to unite in one way or another. Be it to protest or actually support it. War made the hippies. War most likely had a hand in the grunge scene. War helps country artists. I'm very curious as to what this war is going to do to us. It's an exciting (not in a totally positive sense of the word) time to be an American.

I know this whole post is probably full of contradictions. I really don't give a shit. I'm venting. Hopefully someone as crazy as myself will read it and I'll get some intelligent conversations out of it.

I would continue on with all these crazy thoughts about this shit that I'm having, but every time I write something more, I go off in some other insane direction. I think what I need is someone to bounce this shit off of. Leave some comments. I'm very eager for some intelligent theories. Believe me, I could talk all day about this shit.