and after all the grants and awards I have received, in any other profession, one would expect some sort of career stability - but no, not here, and not as an artist, unlike in every other industrialized nation in the world - here virtually all artists, Sky included I reckon, have been thoroughly conditioned to accept poverty as their lot in life, along with begging, an ersatz clerical hell and interminable schmoozing, usually with dreadful music in the background and unquaffable wine in the jugs - unless, of course, they're from the monied class or are amongst the .001% who achieve celebrity artist status.

As for tax-payer support, suggesting that artists are welfare queens, overlooks completely the paltry pittance we receive compared to the lavish support for researchers in the fields of science, medicine, engineering, sociology and economics, and last but not least, the entire military industrial complex. Moreover, if one takes the time to study the situation, it becomes clear that except for the .001% celebrity artists, the only people making a real living, in the performing arts in particular, are those in arts management — again, some with 6-figure salaries — now that does fit the busyness model, especially in the corporate paradigm.

After the decades of contribution I've made to Portland's artistic community, to consider leaving is, in itself, a serious career decision. If I do so in disgust, I expect to hear, "sour grapes" and various other sorts of derisive invectives, implying immaturity, or worse, insanity even. So what, at that point, it really does become existential. I came from a totally uneducated family who couldn't begin to understand what I'm doing, or why, since I could so easily have pursued many other lucrative careers. And, since I've lived outside the US enough to know the difference, it's not such a hard choice, and I should probably just leave quietly so as not to disrupt the common illusions about American culture. True enough, nobody likes a complainer. Don't go away mad, just go away.

Again, apologies for the nom de plume - I haven't left yet, and may not; haven't decided yet - certainly anyone who knows the density of politics within the arts-funding hierarchy in Portland understands the necessity for this.