I’m trying to recall, in the cold light of day, the many things I thought about last night, at 3, 5, 6 and 7:00 a.m., that kept me from sleep.  Sure there was loud snoring, but I’ve slept through that many times, joined the hearty chorus myself, no doubt.  There was that idiot banging garbage cans outside starting at 6:14 a.m., but he didn’t wake me, I was up. There was a parade of thoughts, no doubt, books I’d like to write, see in print, read from and talk about to nodding, laughing audiences in book stores.   There are places to do this, even today, in our shrinking corporate culture.

One thing I didn’t think about last night, I’m fairly certain, was an idea I told the mother of a struggling musician recently.   She applauded the idea, even though it was an impossibility that would require a total remaking of American society and its so-called values.  She’d mentioned the difficulty her talented daughter had finding an audience for her music.  She probably also mentioned the many millions generous, socially conscious superstars like Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce and noted philanthropist Britney Spears rake in.

“If Springsteen  and Britney and Beyonce each gave $2,000,000 a year, a fraction of their income, to a fund a music exchange trust fund, thousands of  talented but unknown musicians could be paid $30,000 a year to play five or six gigs a week at schools, Nursing Homes, Veteran’s hospitals, orphanages, hospices, hospitals, children’s aid societies, work houses, prisons, concentration camps, enhanced interrogation centers, etc.  That way you’d support generations of inspired songwriters and performers and allow them to live as working musicians with a large and appreciative audience they could entertain and inspire.”

“That’s a great idea,” said the young musician’s mother enthusiastically.  And it is.  But it wasn’t one of the things I was thinking about last night that kept me awake.