Stage announcer [archival audio clip]: This is one thing that I was going to wait awhile before we talked about, but maybe we’ll talk about it now

so you can think about it.

fans of Woodstock, or of Jim Ratts' wall to wall eighty minute Woodstock CD project will recognize the speech wherein the promoters communicated the changed financial nature of the disaster/ opportunity/ flashpoint that all were right at the epicenter of. it goes on:

Stage announcer [archival audio clip]: This is one thing that I was going to wait awhile before we talked about, but maybe we’ll talk about it now so you can think about it. It’s a free concert from now on. That doesn’t mean that anything goes. What that means is we’re going to put the music up here for free. What it means is that the people who are backing this thing, who have put up the money for it, are going to take a bit of a bath. A big bath.

I find myself now in exactly the opposite, and yet uncomfortably the same shoes.

I've been prideful and stubborn about the subject of needing money. from time to time, the idea of a benefit or a contribution has come up, and I've responded by saying:

* I have the world's greatest health insurance, for which I have paid the deductible for the year. if there were massive medical bills, I'd be shaking in my boots right now, and a lot more ready to talk about benefit help. but my understanding is that I am in the 100% paid for category now and really haven't a need to be bailed out at all.

*When the days come that I have and can have no income, I will let you know then...so far, I've been pretty much doing everything as it needs to be done, and bringing in enough to kind of get by. not earning a living, but living on my earnings.

*Boy, I've been seeing these Les Pauls (electric guitars I've always wanted) on ebay...really not bad!

it was my way of being sassy and optimistic about the future, not letting the cancer get to me. and, save a few people who have gone above and beyond to invest in my case in a little less dollar-spent-for-value-received way, trying not to let myself or others feel any sense I could be dependent moneywise.

I had quite the independent summer booked, where income was going to be well supplied. and we know that the last part of my participating in that summer had to be cancelled.

it's fall now. different days.

both my ability to sing and my ability to play have been decimated. I still try. push comes to shove, sometimes I can get a workable track.

but, mostly, I have no income these days, and no sense of what could change that.

and the thing that starts to compel me about that is my concern for the girls, at 708 Arapahoe and elsewhere. not one of them is flush...some are in some trouble getting by already. as prideful as I have been, they would be equally prideful about letting you know how scary money stuff is for them.

but, see, I can rat them out without my own pride being wounded. I want to feel I am doing something to help maintain life as they have come to know it...or, at least, not to have money be quite the worry it could be at a time of loss.

when I originally thought about it, I hoped that by flying under the radar, avoiding lawyers and funerals and services, that I could write an informal guide to how I wished my belongings dispersed and that I could die quietly outside of societal formality.

I can feel myself, the more imminent things are, kind of backing off from that idea. "hope I die before I get old!" spat out a teenage Townshend...he would have quite the conversation with the 60 plus man I saw front The Who a couple of years ago.

I took the informal document I wrote about my possessions to an actual lawyer. I liked her. she made some good points. at $250 an hour, she provided an hour's worth of information that would help me make the document stronger. she also said it would be $900 total for her to write up a will.

I caved. I told her to go ahead and do it.

when I saw the document she returned to me, it was obvious that it was a world of difference from my original, or anything I could write. that it showed that the participant was displaying his willingness to play the game. that this was a good decision.

$900.

so the point is twofold:

1. today, there was created a bank account called "Scott's account" it's kind of for the purpose of paying house bills, after death expenses, supporting myself as long as I need such support and supporting the girls' needs after that.

there's no crisis in that department right now. the girls tell me, we're going to make it. so I am holding back from...actually...asking...

but any checks or money anyone wishes to donate towards that goal can be given to any of the girls (or myself, I suppose) at any time. I just wanted to put the word out that the account exists, and what its intended use is.

2. it's the opposite of Woodstock.

this blog has always been free. it always will be free. I probably owe you by the time it's all said and done.

I'm going to put a Paypal button on the site. if you never have need of it, please ignore it's yellow presence every time your eyes stray across it. they tend to make me feel not only vaguely guilty but a bit compu-challenged... like I spent all of my cyber coupons just getting to and reading this site, and now you want me to interact with it? as if...

the promise of the Paypal button is that anyone who wants to support me, the girls, writing, or Illya Kuryakin and has a Paypal account can send their money straight to my existing bank account, which is different from "Scott's account". this gift can be given in any degree of smallness, with total anonymity, without me feeling any little bit less like George Bailey.

here's the thing about monetizing the blog versus "Scott's account", though:

my account...if I want a record or cd or something...that's where I'll take the money from. I mean, if that's the sort of thing you want to encourage...the Paypal button is for you. of course, bills and such can also be paid from here.

"Scott's account"...I actually can't sign money out of it. it's meant for house bills and expenses after my death, and any contributions to it will 100% go to that purpose. no AudioQuest, I promise.

filthy lucre. bit of a sticky wicket, this money stuff. I hope all y'all understand why I waited so long to set it up. I had kind of a naive hope of avoiding it.

but in a way, I hope it will be kind of a service to anyone who's spent time wondering..."I want to do something to help, but just don't know what I can do."

I am convinced that need is how we are brought into sharing with the world, and that the person who doesn't want to need anything is the person who is trying to avoid sharing their life with the world. I don't think that's a happymaking decision, and I don't want to be that person.

one of the smartest things I ever heard said...like so many others of them...came from the mouth of Dave Bell. he was talking about his college age daughter, and how her interactions with him were often wrapped up with her needing something, often money.

and he said, "she thinks she's taking...but she's actually giving."

I hope my CoHearts will not take it amiss that I let down some pride and some barriers, and allow some mutual sharing and giving through these ways. the button, Lord willing and the internet don't freeze, will come starting with the next entry.