Let’s Begin Now. Brrrrring!
by Titus Gee
How do I start without sounding pretentious?
Maybe tip the hand on my insecurity with a question, eh?
Whatever. Just write it.
As fast and straight as you can.
See, I want to talk about greatness and success – two words that have always haunted me, but especially in the months since RedFence hit the web waves.
Web waves? Skip it .
Since we ‘went live’ with the project that has become my consuming passion.
RedFence isn’t mine. Not really. It’s the baby and brainchild of at least a dozen artists of various ilk.
RedFence doesn’t belong to me, see, I belong to it.
Ok … lets start over.
{ahem}
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Titus. I’m the Editor-in-Chief.
So, here’s my problem. I’m trying to express all my aspirations for the magazine and media group you now see before you.
I wanted to talk about the difference between the traditional, measurable (ahem, monetary) success on the one hand and what Robert Pirsig would call ‘Quality’ (note the capital q) – that essential element that screams through the centuries from the canvases and pages and pedestals of the masters – on the other.
I wanted to vow my loyalty to the latter, to give my hand in pledge to run after greatness with all my strength. I wanted to express the deep voice within me that cries out against the foppery and bureaucracy and commercialism that ruins so much of the product of creative industries.
I feel those things deeply and truly.
But you can’t say things like that.
It makes you sound like a pretender, a hack and (greatest of postmodern insults) an idealist. People get uncomfortable and start rooting against you, and who wants that?
So I’ll leave the philosophy references to someone else, for now, and turn to a more accessible sage.
The other day Jack Black was talking to David Germain, of the Associated Press, about the success of his band Tenacious D. He said, “It was about doing the thing that I loved doing. As soon as it becomes something you wouldn’t do if you weren’t getting paid for it, then it loses all its fun.”
To me, that seems like a worthy motto.
And perhaps a suitable path toward greatness, too.
