The Internet, The Arts And Everything
Harry Swart

As I started out this morning with one of my net sessions, a bolt of lightning hit me - probably caffiene induced - & I got some thoughts that I wanted to put online. Quickly now, before they coagulate into their usual morass.

To the downtrodden losers, (I'm speaking about a feeling here) there has never been such opportunity as there is today. When I was a young person, you either went to college, or the factory, or did something else, which the rest of the world called the f-ing off category. In my world of indecision and artistic bent, I chose the latter.

Today is not the same. There is a huge world of opportunity for the intrepid person who wishes to do something. The only thing that limits one is time. In my case, my age is my time limit.

"Career choice" as it used to be called has gone from Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, to thousands of subdivisions of these, which were not even conceived years ago. You used to perform music, or write it (seldom both). Now you can do both. In fact it is even preferable that you do both if you wish to market yourself. I could always sing like hell, but did not have a marketable image. You were either pretty, or forgotten. If you wrote a song, you had to go to New York or Nashville to sell it.

Not so, today. Hell, with the WWW, you only have to take the trouble to get it up there and someone, somewhere will probably like it, and even be willing to produce it! Years ago, this was not possible. To get a clearer picture to this whole theme, let me digress, a bit further: As I sat here at my computer, downloading a demo of ImageVice Workshop (to be used with Adobe Photoshop), and printing out all the information I could find as to its use, I thought, "what the hell is the sense of this? I'm messing around on my computer here and the world keeps on turning, and would never take any of my output as being serious stuff. After all, I work for a place that uses this artistic talent, but only if it comes with a paper degree. So why do I waste this time that I'm running out of?"

Then, it hit me: I may not have gone to the big schools, but I got an education. Going back to the time I spent messing around with an Atari computer, its music and desktop publishing programs to my current adventures in the PC world, I have accumulated an education. The same education that is available to everyone via the net. There are programs and information out there that can lead you through all the different levels of everything. You can better yourself, by hook or by crook, or by crack (not the drug). This gives a bit of credence to that oft misused ad slogan "Where do you want to go today?".

There is information about anything on the Net and cost is no object. You can get internet access for as little as $6.95 a month. You can use a government computer. You should be able to get something going. Good God!, the scammers use the Usenets and their web pages to generate dollars from folks who are to slow to realize that its all here... for zip. Want to learn to play an instrument? There are programs out that teach you to play by ear or sight-read. Want to write lyric, or be a poet? Use a word-processor, and a rhyme-dictionary. Want to make it pretty? Use a page layout and graphics program.

The fact is that I've tried plenty of artistic-oriented endeavors and educated myself, and yet I haven't seen much in the way of results... but why? Simple! I haven't really sent it anywhere! Through the use of computers and the Internet, I can reach an audience. There is something in it for me, and I simply (or maybe not so simply... whatever) have to find it.

In short: Create, Market, Sell! All this, for the price of connection.