Real artists ask real questions. 

Fake artists ask...

Wrong answers only. I adore Miss Swift. And New York. And Lenny. So? I pay my respects. 

1000 years from now. They will say. This. Man. Cared. 

Great Americans and New Yorkers feel just like I do I know that. They just don't know how to phrase it. I want to help with that. Why? Without Lenny I'd never have the words to know who I am. I cried myself to sleep sometimes wondering what that man would think or say. Alone. Why? I never knew a single person who talked like him, walked like him, thought like him.

So I beat on the door. I'm not a phone guy you see. I must be because we all live so many degrees of separation away from the spirit and soul of anyone we encounter. 

And so I ask the artist of the day I respect the most. The questions Lenny would ask. The questions history demands answers to. That I know She can answer. 

And Lenny wouldn't let me leave these queations off my tongue. I am no rogue, no scoundrel. But I know New York deserves better. Always and forever. 

The world doesn't function when new york isn't new york. 

I know not one moral person who can't talk face to face about morality. or mortality. so? how unliveable and unlovable is society? I think it's the most loveable. I think it's deeply wounded. 

this. is why I speak now.

one more trick or piece of idiocy? spare us all.

If you recall what a society and intelligentsia and academia and artist class are for? you'd know of what i speak. the silence of the powerful.... hiding behind cute songs. 

as my friend the greatest living poet in Asia told me. any idiot can write lyrics. they're easy. poetry? thats hard. 

so? I don't bother with lyrics. they're a cute party trick for sure. can bands turn their cute ditties into musicals? some. if they wrote songs With purpose knowing what they were for. absolutely. some can change the world with one song. and did it many many many many times. 

and yet. to not know the levels of artistry and glory? is to underperform my understanding. I wrote and contributed to tectonic plate changing art. for what profits? unending benefits for my country. bullshit for me beyond the glory I experience and perceive. 

should I rhyme June and spoon? or moon and kaboom? should I sing of poets flung into ponds from my ten mansions? should I lay around on hundred thousand dollar couches and tell the working classes what love is? 

ART is for dirty hands. bleeding and bloody. guitar string scars as you say. I listen to everything you say. I love every word you wrote. I challenge to further greatness ever artist I see. this is my job. my mission. I want another seinfeld. Curb. chappelle show. south Park. Disney. a hundred MJs. a hundred of the other MJs. less OJs. More Tiger Woods excelling his human frame knowing only he knows how to. ignoring the peanut gallery. more of Oprah and Sandler showing everyone brilliance never ever ever ever fades. 

groucho told me to tell hollywood that all Hollywood is always classic Hollywood. but you're a real team. as real and as teamwork focussed as you want to and care to be. you fight for each other. with each other. for art and society and your city, state and country. 

when will Dylan stop reinventing himself and his world? I wouldn't hold my breath. when will jerry stop being the greatest? never. ever. ever. Larry? when will he give up the ghost? we don't do that. life is a comeback for a legend. one unending comeback. 

but if your greatness doesn't see the ceiling that someone - we dont even know who - set for us or us all..... what do we do? we phone a friend. it's nice to have a friend. but we need the realistic ones. without them we are a caricature. when society is fake polite to us it damns and dooms us all. the industry, the craft, our nation, our species, our gender, our race, our community, our everything. we suffer. we wither. even if it seems we are excelling. 

the cure nearly died. the Beatles too. what does Ms Swift think

I make sounds. Here are songs. Imperfect dumpster fire serenades for you.

Musician & author of NYT bestseller Crying in H Mart

AndyJames is following