good morning. had my coffee this morning with a tivoed 'meet the press'. during a commercial break, that i was fast forwarding through, i spotted dennis hopper. i wondered what product he might be peddling. he is talking about his dreams and youth yada yada. it turns out he was peddling some financial investment company. i recently went to an event at something that was referred to as 'artist loft spaces' in marina del rey. hopper was one of a few artists that were described as being artists-in-residence at these lofts. turned out these were carpeted condos and hopper was the evenings window dressing, the hand model. now im a reasonable man and i understand needing to make a buck. if you are an artist this is a tricky, shifty and always changing public tight rope you need to walk. we all have rents and mortgages but what i wonder is, in the dense thicket of 'edgy' media and advertising, when does an artist stop being an effective salesman of something that by definiton is not about sales. it seems like each time out, when you put your product next to a particular piece of art or artist, a direct relationship is created that we all recognize. there is a simple formula to this relationship with a zero sum. mojo of hoppers distant past is decreased while the mojo of financial company is increased. led zeppelin music mojo is decreased while increasing cadillacs mojo. but after these exchanges, one does not move on with the original amount of mojo intact. we can make a living and make compromises, because i know life is messy, but why not apply some reasonable ethics to your business affairs. i have made plenty of decisions that were certainly a compromise for financial reasons. but i also could have made considerably more money had i simply taken every big pay day offered. i dont say all this to pat myself on the back. it is just that i feel a sense of balance in this area. like evrything else in life, all is not black and white. i would feel like a real asshole is if i was using my youthful rebellion to sell some evil corporate deathburger. but hey maybe thats just me. or that just might be my intellectual vanity. but then that would be a topic for another post.