today’s vegetable

Healthcare issues are being debated on all levels of government and our personal lives. They’ve become central to our daily routine as this country tries to find its way, and they may well prove central to the Obama presidency.

I’m in no way qualified to talk about how to fix the system, but I feel plenty qualified saying it’s broken. This summer my family lost our health insurance because we simply couldn’t keep up with the premiums. Those of us who run small businesses, make art, or work on a 1099/freelance basis have to pay out of pocket for health insurance. In my case the bill weighed around $1300 a month for a family of three. That’s crushing, but with a toddler and a baby due…well…shit. You pay.

Long story short we spent about six weeks without insurance, and I had to hunt for a policy that would cover Taryn’s pregnancy and not consider it a “pre-existing condition.” After finding the right policy there was a series of phone calls to the insurance broker. I was given lists of paperwork, filled out page upon page, then back to the phone calls. Then more paper. In total the process took days, not hours, from my life. Now I’m paying the bargain price of $800 each month with higher doctor fees, higher prescription fees, and a pretty hefty deductable.

I don’t want to come across as bitching about a lousy system. I want to lend perspective.

Think about musicians. Artists who are touring the country playing music and working their way up can’t afford health insurance. An established artist who dares to start a family while continuing to make music can’t afford health insurance. Put your iTunes on shuffle. The music changes your life, but you can bet that a healthy percentage of the artists performing it can’t walk into an emergency room without fear of bankruptcy.

I don’t know enough about healthcare reform to say much more. The arguments I hear are largely centered around the comfortable middle class versus the destitute, but there are other perspectives to consider. Artists, entrepreneurs, freelancers, day laborers; all forced to pay out-of-pocket or risk ruin if they’re hurt.

The current system is broken.

One final, personal thought: Never should a family have to risk losing everything because they’re bringing a new life into this world.

My friend Raj, better known as Lushlife, just released an amazing record called Cassette City. It’s smart hip-hop with a tangible feel. You can listen and buy it here, here, or here.

But no review. I’m posting because I did the art for this record. I’m proud of the final result, but it was a pretty typical design process. While looking through all the files and iterations I thought that people might not realize just how much time goes into making album art. So I made this collage.

The first three rows are the final art. The rest are early versions, sketches, and revisions.

“Brevity is the soul of wit”
— Shakespeare, as Lord Polonius in Hamlet

Unfortunately brevity is not my strength.

But I’m trying.

We’ve been working to craft the mission statement for CASH as well as find a way to describe our efforts in less than an hour conversation. I wrote a few paragraphs (below) that don’t accomplish either of those goals, but hopefully start both on their way. So consider it a really early draft, but here goes:

***

33⅓ is a number etched into vinyl and into our hearts as a link to a bygone era in music. It wasn’t just a play speed, it was a technological baseline that musicians could count on when it was time to release their music to the world. A release could be upgraded to a picture disc, a gatefold. It could be backed by the most PR dollars or airplay. But making it spin at 33⅓ was a constant that all artists could rely on to make their music accessible to all.

CASH Music is trying to create a similar technological baseline by building open tools and services. We are a nonprofit and all code is being written as open-source, and will accessible to all either through a hosted service or by taking the code and setting up a new server. We feel that artists should all be able to release, promote, and distribute their music in the ways that their audience wants to consume. We also strive to provide education and case studies, so artists can make informed decisions in the use of any digital-era tools, ours or otherwise.

We’re not trying to replace any industry or service. CASH Music is simply trying to provide a solid foundation upon which all artists and listeners can build while participating in the new music landscape.