Love-Hounds Digest #7.363

[viewpnt!echelon!henrik@uunet.UU.NET (Larry DeLuca)]

> IN response to Gene Lege'

With all due respect, sir, I am 27 years old, though I scarce see what
difference it makes.

>
> In response to Ben Haller, Gene Lege', and anyone else who can't
> get it through their heads that while one has to let the PMRC
> exist that they are still a BAD THING
>

I wish you (and Mr. Haller) would read a bit more carefully - I have
never suggested doing anything about the PMRC except speaking out
against it, its own misrepresentation of its aims, and its policies.
I fully expect to have to protect the rights of even the people I consider
the most unsavory in order to continue to have rights myself.  I 
support David Duke's right to run for governor.  I hope he doesn't win.
I would never vote for him.

HOWEVER - that does not mean that I have to like or approve of what they
(the PMRC) do.  It does not change my argument at all - they are bringing 
political pressure to bear in the name of "public morality" - however, 
I still believe that their personal goals are not even that laudable.

Maybe I am one of those "conspiracy theorists" your mother warned you 
about.  Perhaps (and I think) not.

I am, however, a musician.  I have written songs about guys who fall in
love with the girl upstairs from their apartment, and songs about people
meeting ex-SO's on the street.  No problem, right?

I have also written songs about premarital sex, people murdered by
their husbands, the jailbreak of a serial killer, and people driven to
suicide by voices they heard in their head.  Sounds like sticker time
to me.

I hope to develop my musical career to a point where I can support myself
doing it.  People like the PMRC could make that more difficult.  I have
to fight them, and do so every day, just by existing and writing whatever
kind of music it pleases me to write and even going out and buying a
record I might not normally buy to show support for an artist who is
getting hassled because of the PMRC's political "dirty pool".  

I'm fighting it on the terms you describe - creating a demand for the
artist (inasmuch as I can) so that the record companies have more leverage
against political pressure.  The only problem I have is that sometimes
I end up having to buy inferior music (such as 2 Live Crew's), whose 
ideas I do not support, in order to support the ideals I do.

I have also worked extensively in the theater.  I have received funding
(indirectly, through the Council for the Arts at MIT) from the NEA for 
shows I have put together.  I don't want them saying what I can and can't 
do with the money.  I'm the director, dammit, NOT THEM.  

I won't even apply for an NEA grant now - though much of the material I
would apply for grants to present is innocuous enough - because of their
"tainted" money.  There are other sources to go to.

With All due respect, Mr. Lege', what do *you* do for a living anyway?
How do these issues affect you?  Do you have to live with them everday?
Or is it just some vague concept that affects people whose ideas you
consider unsavory anway?

					larry...