Crowd-sourced funding is a brilliant concept.  People who seek funding for a project post it at Kickstarter, and regular folks can donate whatever they wish to the project — from $1 on up to thousands.  In exchange, they receive a reward for their contribution.  It may be a mention of the donor’s name in the project’s credits, copies of a movie on DVD, a limited edition of a given book or product, or a gourmet dinner at the artist’s house.  In short, it’s like pitching an idea from a soapbox in the town square.

And it is genius.

While there is an opaque pre-screening process before one may post a project, from what I can tell, there is no blatant political skew to the projects selected.  For all I know, perhaps there is one, but there’s not yet any evidence of that.  Every project is, quite simply, someone’s dream, regardless of where they stand politically.  Each project is an expression of individual ambition and exceptionalism in a certain discipline.  Each individual is given space aplenty to detail their project so that potential donors can choose of their own free will if they want to fund it or not.

In perusing all the projects that have been completed or are in the process of being funded, I am blown away by the breadth and depth of the offerings.  There truly appears to be something here for everyone.

Don’t be fooled; the arts are important.  They are particularly important to child development, and due to the financial mismanagement of public schools, they are being ignored in that regard.  They are important for any number of other reasons I’ve outlined here and here.

There’s certainly been plenty of controversy over whether or not government should be funding the arts, but Kickstarter proves that any artist has the potential to fund his project through the free market if he can give a compelling presentation why others should financially support it.  Yes, the free market exists in the arts, and Kickstarter demonstrates that it not only works well, but works like gangbusters.

In 2010, Kickstarter successfully funded almost 4000 projects and raised over $27 million for them — an average of almost $7,000 per project.  There were a staggering 386,000 pledges, meaning the average pledge was only $71.  That regular folks were willing to put up a small amount of money in this economy to help someone fund a project is really quite amazing.

And, in true American spirit, Kickstarter itself is able to stay afloat by taking a small commission on each project.

Kickstarter’s success is delivering vital and important messages to all Americans:

Pursue your dream.  Others will help.

Pursue exceptionalism.

You have a voice.  Express it.

Don’t let anybody tell you it can’t be done.

I would encourage BIG readers to check out Kickstarter and find a project to fund.

In this time of crippling deficits, what could be more obscene than the government funding art unable to sustain itself in the free market? What am I saying; even in times of a budget surplus this is obscene.

The National Endowment for the Humanities has announced $40 million in grants, including $3.2 million for scholars, museums and documentary filmmakers in California.

Like its sister agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEH saw its current-year budget slashed 7.5% in April, down to $155 million, and its future prospects are iffy given the deficit-cutting mood in Washington. For now, there’s still money to go around.

L.A.’s Grammy Museum will get $550,000 to help produce “Rockin’ the Kremlin,” a film by director Jim Brown about the role American rock music played in weakening the Soviet empire.  A UPI.com report last year on plans for the film said it includes an account of a 1977 Soviet tour by the Southern California-based Nitty Gritty Dirt Band that was said to play a part in capturing young Slavic imaginations, presumably helping to awaken them to the drawbacks of totalitarian rule. Brown’s past films include documentaries about Woody Guthrie, the Weavers, Peter Paul and Mary and a PBS series, “American Roots Music.”

Whenever I read about this kind of government spending I feel like the victim of a white collar crime — probably because I am.

—–

But there’s another side to the good doctor, one recently revealed on “The Adam Carolla Podcast.” The Nov. 26 podcast, which reteamed Pinsky with his old “Loveline” partner, found the duo railing against government overreach while praising the free market system. You won’t find that kind of material on HLN’s “The Joy Behar Show.”

It’s grand news for conservatives, who might hear their opinions shared by that rare TV personality outside the Fox News bubble. And Pinsky isn’t a divisive figure like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh. He’s not viewed through an ideological prism, so when he pontificates on a topic it has the chance to stir the independent crowd to action. He might even make a liberal or two rethink an entrenched opinion.

Behar likely won’t be swayed, though.

Pinsky sounded alternately defeated and outraged while discussing the state of the nation on the podcast.

“Our government does these crazy things … and we expect to be abused,” Pinsky says, his voice cracking with rage. “Do you know what the average federal employee makes, like, $120,000 a year and they get benefits. It’s ridiculous!”

Carolla discussed how, after the 1994 California earthquake damaged local highways, private contractors managed to rebuild a five-mile stretch of freeway at a remarkable clip.“The thing came in under budget and six months early. Why? Motivation,” Carolla explained about the hustle that made the project possible.

Left unsaid – imagine if government workers had been tasked with the assignment.

“In government, losing is winning. If you take longer you get paid more,” Pinsky says. “And we’re making the government bigger now? Really?”

Carolla used professional sports to buttress his argument about the free market.

“What would [players in] the NFL or NBA be like if they didn’t have a guy who was five years younger nipping at their heels?” Carolla asks. “In the absence of competition nobody does their job well.”

Pinsky brings an extensive background on medicine to any discussion, and he sounds horrified at the impact of Obamacare’s nest of new rules.

“Doctors will start fleeing Medicare starting January 1,” Pinsky warned, adding he‘s being pushed out of his own profession by over-regulation.

One of Pinsky’s podcast confessions could become a rallying point for his new show – and might make him a darling of the Right even if he doesn’t actively embrace an ideological point of view.

“I started obsessing about why I’m not doing something about this, how we just sit by and let stuff happens. We don’t speak up,” Pinsky says.

Come Spring 2011, he’ll be able to do just that.

The activist left, which denigrated the previous president in a merciless fashion, took the reins of power with reckless abandon and shoved its brand of poisonous hope and change down the throats of the American people. So we the people, the reawakening silent majority, responded in the form of a grassroots movement that is turning into a juggernaut set to roll past November 2nd and become something transcendent and long-lasting. Our Founding Fathers would be proud that we have rediscovered the spirit and the essence of their ideas.

While the Tea Party has not been specifically partisan–many Republican carcasses lie in its rubble–this conservative and constitutional checks and balances has created a rejuvenated GOP, chastened and wiser.

This weekend I have the honor of sharing the stage with one of the Tea Party’s and Republican Party’s fearless leaders, Sarah Palin. Since her arrival on the national stage, the Democratic Party has recognized her potential as a political powerhouse and has worked in tandem with its partners in crime, the mainstream media, to wage an unprecedented personal campaign against her and her family. The Tea Party can relate.

But the power of Alinsky and the politics of personal destruction vis a vis the Democrat Media Complex has reverse effects when the object of the hate bravely stands up to the bullies and thugs. The Tea Party and Sarah Palin have given America a great lesson in standing up to the bullies who have co-opted the Democratic Party and the American media.

As we head into the home stretch, Sarah Palin will be in California to draw attention to a state in economic shambles. After a generation of nanny-state and Ponzi scheme policies, Californians and Americans want a radical change. This is the Republican Party’s chance to win back one of the bluest states, and what better way to usher in that change than with a dynamic female leader like Sarah Palin cheering on fellow free market, limited government feminist success stories Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.

Michael Steele, “American Heart” singer/songwriter Jon David, other California GOP candidates and I will join Palin on stage to cheer on a new era of hope and change in the pursuit of helping California avert economic disaster.

I invite all of our readers to come down to have a rollicking and patriotic time. I’ll be hanging out to meet and greet one and all well after the bunting has been taken down.

Palin FACT SHEET – CA 9.29.10-1 –

The entertainment industry guilds are particularly pernicious. They have singlehandedly forced film production out of California, and now, ultimately, out of the country. Their bullying knows no bounds. They are quick with a nasty press release (as in the case of “The Hobbit”) but have no qualms about making threats to commit illegal actions to get what they want. One of Mr. Jackson’s studios burned to the ground shortly after the release of his retaliatory statements. Far be it from me to suggest arson. And no, this isn’t somebody repeating hearsay or parroting talking points. This is from someone who has had union organizers say, with a straight face, that physical violence and vandalism are not out of the question. I’ve lived to tell the tale because in some cases I’ve responded with a steely “bring it” and in other cases, I’ve made compromises or concessions that I could live with. In the cases where I told them to pound sand, I won. In the cases where I paid them off, they’ve won. In no case, however, have the actual workers won. In every instance, their conditions haven’t changed one iota. Perhaps they made an extra $5 a day, but the euphoria of extra money for a Happy Meal was quickly replaced by the misery of union dues, rules, and the inability to take work when the desperately need it. To make matters worse, the holy grail of “health care” is often out of reach for new members and the qualifications for full coverage are extremely onerous. Ultimately, the entertainment unions fail to do what is their mission: to protect the careers and working conditions of their members.

Talent unions made sense in the days of the studio system. At that point, talent was signed to long, studio favorable contracts. That’s how business was done. If an actress didn’t like being a chorus girl, too bad. She had a contract. If an actor got good reviews or he/she started building a fan base, too bad. The money and the conditions stayed the same. The Screen Actors Guild was created to help the actors negotiate with the studios. Because of the studio system, the guy playing the bartender was paid the same as the guy playing the heavy. SAG standardized these amounts, as well as insured that the working conditions were safe and fair. Not a bad idea, really.

The days of the “studio system” are long gone. And with them, the need for a union. No actor who translates into any sort of financial upside is ever paid “scale” unless it is a passion project. Similarly, it’s not like we call SAG when we want to book a “no name” actor who has a lot of talent. Talented actors usually have both agents and managers who carefully navigate and control their client’s careers (often to their detriment, but I’ll rip on agents and managers at a later date). Scale wages are usually a starting point for the negotiations, not an instant agreed upon, “contracted” amount. Why? Because talented people have a value IN THE FREE MARKET. Actors, directors, writers, cinematographers, special effects artists, etc., who are worth their salt can usually pick and choose their projects. If someone is at the point in their career where they feel that 18 hour days with no breakfast and no gas money for $100 is beneath them, they are free to not accept the job. Gasp! Free will and a free market? Where do I think I am? America?

If the unions were really effective and concerned with the careers of their members, there are a million things that they could do to help them. SAG could force signatory producers to submit audition rosters to insure that more of their members get a chance to be seen. They could limit the number of actors on a specific project that come from a particular agency to avoid “packaging,” which would give more members a chance, limit nepotism, and support the truly talented instead of the well connected. They could offer free classes in acting on film for their members to insure that we producers were getting better trained “professionals,” giving us more incentive to “go union.”

But those ideas, actually using the power of the union to help careers and allow the entire industry to make better quality films, do not help the union with their primary goal: to make money for themselves.

Union talking points fit nicely into the predisposed leftist bent of the Hollywood culture. Neophyte producers see union shows as a mark of status. Young crew people and actors see union membership as a worthy goal. Both groups get a rude awakening when the entire dynamic of their production and their very careers are dictated by a far away bureaucracy.

Nobody wants to really talk about the greed, corruption, and illegal activities of the union when we can sip our lattes and gripe about the evil studio executives and producers. After all, the union is there for the “little guy,” insuring “safety,” “fair” wages, and “health care.” Let’s ignore the fact that the head of SAG makes nearly a half million dollars per year while the average actor makes less than forty thousand. Let’s look the other way as less than half of the residuals collected on behalf of SAG members actually make it into the actors’ pockets. And I must be some greedy, studio hack who cares nothing about quality or fairness to point out that SAG’s investments, executive compensation, and administrative expenses are three times the amount they spend on servicing their health care plan.

No, damn you greedy Peter Jackson, and your $100 million budget!!!!

Still, when I do take in the rare hour or two, I have always found Rush to be a profoundly insightful thinker.  Far from the partisan blowhard the left portrays him to be, Rush is, from my limited listenings, a true philosopher, perhaps a bit more crude than his toga-wearing, boy-loving predecessors, but one of them just the same.  His philosophy is American Conservatism, and he champions it far above party.  In fact, I suspect it is the soft-left members of the GOP that fear him most, since the DNC cannot by their very nature be held to the standards of limited government and natural-liberty over enforced-equality he champions in the first place. 

Rush Limbaugh is hated, in my opinion, because he provides an inoculation in the minds of everyone who hears him against the permeating cultural narrative of relativism, peace through acquiescence, racial guilt, political correctness, redistributive change, and the soft-tyranny of an intrusive government bent on controlling the poor rubes and savages over whom it rules quite unconstitutionally.

All of this hatred is on full display in a new piece, published recently at the Huffington Post, written by Radio World contributor Bill Mann called, Rush Limbaugh’s Dirty Little Secret of Radio “Success”.  Like many critics of Limbaugh, and conservative talk radio in general, Mr. Mann’s chief complaint in the article seems to be that Rush is successful.  He bemoans the fact that Rush can always be heard in “rural areas,” which Mann generously identifies as everything existing “between cities.” According to Mr. Mann, this permeation of the EIB network to even so mean an environment as a suburb is “obviously” not due to audiences there finding any commonality with the views of Mr. Limbaugh (though Mr. Mann provides no support for this claim).  It is also not, as many on the right would claim, due to anything so pedestrian as the free market.  The truth of Mr. Limbaugh’s success is in fact, according to Mann, a little known and apparently nefarious system called the barter deal.

Here’s how a barter deal works, according to Mann:

To launch the show, Limbaugh’s syndicator, Premiere Radio Network… gave Limbaugh’s three hours away — that’s right, no cash — to local radio stations, mostly in medium and smaller markets, back in the early 1990’s…

In exchange, Premiere took for itself much of the local station’s available advertising time (roughly 15 minutes an hour) and packed the show with national ads it had already pre-sold.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that I don’t even know if this information is true, though I have no reason to doubt Mr. Mann’s statement.  I don’t have the slightest idea how radio is sold or marketed.  I did jock for a few years at a country music station in Lubbock, Texas in college (Esoteric Radio Theatre with Jeremy Danial…  You can imagine how successful it was…), but I have no idea how the economies of talk radio function.  (In the interest of disclosure, I do have a good friend who syndicates many of the top talk radio hosts in the country, but other than the fact that he is often generous when it comes time to pay for a meal, I have no real clue how his business works.)  I do know one thing though: THIS SOUNDS LIKE A BRILLIANT IDEA. 

Think about it, if you believe you have a product with a high value, and you believe that product can attract and sustain a broad national audience, why wouldn’t you trade the show itself for advertising time in markets that might not be able to afford the licensing rights upfront?  It is basically win, win.  You get to expand your income potential and your sphere of influence by adding gross listeners.  The local stations get to increase their ratings by hosting a well-hyped, news worthy, national show, which increases their ability to monetize the advertising time they retain.  I’m sure local radio hosts suffer, but that is true with competition of all kinds. Indeed, if the local station drummed up the money to license Rush’s show, the result for the local host would likely be the same. 

In truth, if you take out a few of the negative adjectives, I think Mr. Mann’s article would suddenly read like a glowing, how-to, self-help for businessmen of all stripes.  Instead of Rush Limbaugh’s Dirty Little Secret of Radio “Success,” you could just call it Rush Limbaugh’s Secret of Radio Success!, and sell a million copies to all sorts of radio entrepreneurs.  In fact, the syndicators of liberal talk radio would do well to emulate this model, if they haven’t already.  It makes great business sense.

Of course, that is where the real problem with Mr. Mann’s position lies.  Mr. Mann’s main objection to the barter system seems to be simply that he hates Rush Limbaugh.   He finds it immoral that Rush would use competitive advantage because it works.  How dare you use something that works!  All success and profit is patently evil, unless it is strictly controlled by the government or advantages people Mr. Mann doesn’t hate.  You see, the market still wins in the end.  Rush’s success in large markets has given him the opportunity to take a risk in the smaller ones.  He can give his show away in trade for something that might prove more valuable in the end because he has built enough success to sustain him if the gamble fails.  At the end of the day, though, an audience still has to respond to the show or the new ads will be worthless, as will the local stations remaining stock.  So, despite the protestations of Mr. Mann to the contrary, Rush Limbaugh is on the air nationwide expressly because his views are mainstream, or at a minimum, substantial enough to be valuable in the market (the fact that conservative candidates continue to win nationwide year after year speaks more to the true mainstreamness of Rush’s underlying philosophy…).  Certainly any other radio personality of any other political stripe could employ the same technique, the question that remains is will liberal radio shows that Mr. Mann approves of succeed in growing audiences capable of sustaining the deal with local stations. 

 The fact that so many on the left seem bent upon ensuring the government grant them equality instead of competing for it seems to be proof that they will not.  Perhaps it is Mr. Mann’s whose views are outside of the mainstream.

Help me along — I am apparently a bit slow.  Something is ‘art’ if the ‘artist’ says it is art.  Even if the viewer of said art is highly offended and appalled by this so-called art.  Then it’s his or her problem… get over it…go back to Wasilla and blow up a moose. 

But should you dare suggest that it might not be the best use of public funds to bankroll exhibitions that the majority of Americans consider to be highly offensive and even pornographic —  well…then you obviously must be a hate-filled, intolerant, racist homophobe, and you are to be minimalized as a right-wing fringe kook. 

Oh, I see…  The artist is to be given free latitude to explore the limits of his or her creativity without the stifling puritan sensibilities that close-minded conservative crackpots constantly try to place upon them.  After all, the ‘artist’ is above reproach.  The artist resides in the ivory tower of high aspirations, dontcha know.   They lift mankind up to a loftier vision of the possibilities of man, careless of where their heightened genius will take them.  They’re only the messenger of this Higher Vision that chooses none but the special people, (like themselves, the artiste), through which to speak to the world.  And they don’t want money for their genius contributions to the betterment of society, oh no.  (Or so they proclaim…as they lobby for and receive huge government grants and subsidies for their ‘art’.)

They are the self-Chosen Ones…smarter, more enlightened, brimming with brightness, and sweeter smelling than the rest of us mere mortals.  They deign to move about and amongst us, only by their generous beneficence.  They and they alone are the true Givers in our sad and squalid society.  They are the signposts that point us in the correct direction as we silly little peons putter about our sad, pathetic lives, hoping beyond hope that we can actually get along without their inspired and beatific counseling.  They have built crystalline cathedrals of ego dedicated to their shining self images of magnificence and human exaltation, their exaltation and nobility of … The Artist.

I love it.  You don’t have to go to school.  You don’t have to gain a degree.  You don’t have to work for any length of time at anything, really.  All you have to do to be an artist…is call yourself an ‘artist’.  I could glue some petrified dog-poo to a board, swipe it with blue spray paint, hold it up high — and some doodle-weed would call it ‘art’.

Which is fine!  I have no problem with that.  Throw monkey snot on the wall, frame it and call it whatever you want.  Just don’t make John Q. Public to pay for it! 

FTS!  

Having been a member of the film community for over thirty years…and considered by a few (close family members) to be somewhat of an actual ‘artist’ myself, I speak with a modicum of authority on this issue.  The level of merit (or the lack thereof) of my particular brand of ‘art’ is a debate for another time.  Suffice it to say that I have been firmly ensconced in the Los Angeles artistic community for the better part of my life… and I know a few things.

First off – there’s a ton of bullshit calling itself art out there.

I know – I’ve made a lot of it.  And the copious amounts of energy propping up the “it’s art!” illusion…well…that’s a whole industry unto itself.   And that rubs us up against one favorite saying of mine; in fact I think I coined it:  “Just because you say it’s ‘art’ – don’t mean dick.”

Now… I apologize for that.  Not for the vulgarity, but for the poor grammar.  (But it’s funnier with poor grammar, so there it is.)

And let me say that I have nothing against art, or even the worldwide community of artists.  In fact, I am a great lover of art.  But I’m also realistic enough to accept that my definition of what art is and what it is not and your definition of same are very likely, at the end of the day, quite different.  We will probably agree on some — and vehemently come to odds over others.  Because no two tastes are alike.  What is art to me might be dog-poo to you.  And vice versa.  That’s cool, to each his own.

And in a free market, this works out just fine.  The struggling artist on the sidewalk displays his wares — and as I walk by, my eye catches a particular painting that speaks to me.  I am drawn closer and stare at it in fascination.  Something about the texture in his brush strokes, or how he played with the light glinting off the ocean…or the posture of the old woman, say, and how it spoke to me of human resiliency and hope…and suddenly I had to have the painting.  We strike a quick bargain; the artist receives my cash happily and I walk away with a piece of art that moves me in some positive way.

Or I’ll be spending a lovely day at Venice Beach, having lunch at my favorite sidewalk café …and a street performer will suddenly break into a hilariously annoying comedy mime act, preying on hapless passersby, to everyone’s delight and amusement.   He charmingly passes the hat, collects his tips, makes us laugh some more and we are literally throwing cash at him, so grateful for the brief show.  His performance art was offered freely, and we enjoyed it, and many of us chose to support his craft and give him money.  This talented street artist cleans up, and everyone walks away happy.

The above scenarios happen to me all the time.  And this is how art is supported in a free and rational society.  Voluntarily.   By free choice.

It is not a free and rational act to form an institution that hires ‘artists’ of varying degrees of talent (and possibly dubious and questionable motives), paid for by dollars taken from taxpayers who have no say as how those dollars are spent.

One word:  Maplethorpe. 

Not to speak ill of the departed, but it wasn’t just homo-erotica and such exhibits, which included photos of bullwhips inserted in a man’s anus (all funded by the National Endowment for the Arts), that brought this ‘artist’ to fame; it was also a quaint little speciality called ‘Coprophagia — in which he displayed photographs of various insects consuming animal feces. 

Lovely.  Your hard-earned tax dollars at work.  (Hey – Art happens!)

And you know what?  I don’t even have a problem with people calling that ‘art’.  If they want to pay for photographs of flies eating poo, fine.  Not a problem.

But when you and I and my friends and neighbors are forced to pay for that — then I have a huge problem with it!

Art is probably the most subjective form of human expression imaginable, and as such — Art should not be subsidized by the government.  Either art is free – or it’s a business.  And if it’s a business, it should be run like a business, in which goods and/or services are offered in a free market and citizens have the option of purchasing said goods and services – or walking away.   This is just common sense; and I can hardly believe in this supposed age of enlightenment that this is even a controversial notion.

Art is a business.  And government has no business forcing us to pay for any of that business.

Granted, my dad was really just trying to simplify an explanation for me amidst a time in my life where I’d rather be lighting my own flatulence than engaging in true political discourse, but looking back… I realize that my father is a genius! Step aside Thomas Edison and Guy-who-invented-PopTarts, there’s a new sheriff in town.

The simple, yet brilliant description should be one of the “go to” weapons in any conservative’s quiver when it comes to debating the left. See, liberals hate it when you have a firm grasp on the role of government and more importantly, the founding fathers original intent. It makes their run-around, situational ethics a lot harder to peddle. Now of course using the “hockey referee” analogy may be blatantly Canadian of me, so for all you Southerners just replace “hockey” with “football”, and if you’re gay…. “Soccer.”

Now let’s break the analogy down for a second:

“His job (it’s purpose) is to keep the players (we the people )safe…” – The government’s first function (and arguably its only legitimate one) is to protect its citizens. This includes both external (thank you, United States Military!) and internal threats (thank you, police officers who’ve been continuously demonized by the leftist media!). Understanding this basic principle helps one swat down the comparisons liberals will try to draw between their ideals of intrusive government and things like “The Patriot Act.”

All you have to do is point to the Constitution and the first function of government… And while they’re distracted, be sure to strike them in the groin area.

Congratulations, you’ve now scored two valid points.

“…To keep the pace of the game (to maintain “flow” and allow the market to regulate itself)” – This one is important. A hockey referee keeps the pace of the game not only by enforcing the rules, but more importantly by KEEPING HIS WHISTLE IN HIS POCKET. See, that’s key. The referee is not supposed to hover, or have the whistle permanently clenched between his lips in an attempt to intimidate the players. As a matter of fact, the referee isn’t even supposed to call any minor penalties that don’t pertain to direct action around the puck. In hockey, if it’s an “incidental” penalty (ie: a victimless crime or bad personal choice) then it’s of no concern to the referee.  This is of course why I picked hockey for my analogy and not a sissified sport like baseball. How a “man” can be a baseball fan, I’ll never know.

If our government were to put its “whistle in its pocket” (or in our case, just stop blowing it for one second), the market would be able to find its groove and eventually establish a quick pace and efficient flow.

The funny thing is that this simple analogy shows us that today’s leftists are wrong about the role of government on ALL counts.

The one legitimate function of government (our military and law enforcement) are the only branches that libs consistently and vehemently oppose.  I’m guessing a liberal analogy would read something like this.

The role of a referee is not to keep the players safe, but to control the scoreboard.  The final score of the game is up to the referee’s judgment and to be be administered fairly.  The only time he is allowed to call a penalty is when a player is playing too well for his own good.

Who in their right mind, would pay to watch a game like that?!

Well… Sean Penn doesn’t count.