I’ve tried this. Guy next to me was playing a video game on full blast that I can hear over my noise cancelling headphones. I asked him if he could turn the sound down.

He said “F you! This is my console. I do what I want! You’re the only one complaining so shut the f up”…

Right, I get that. I’m just thinking that the song isn’t about racism. Other than the fact that he’s black and has the black man’s blues. If the song was talking about his life as a black man or how he ended up a bum that would be different. But it’s the way a child sees a black guy with killer guitar playing skills. Very innocent

Call me naive, but I always thought Curtis Lowe was about society not respecting bums who play good music for beer/wine money aka the starving artist. Even though the protagonist loved him as a mentor/entertainer.

Racism or the fact that he was black wasn’t the main factor in the issues the protagonist is singing about, just that he happened to be black… though I’m betting it didn’t help the way people/protagonist’s mom viewed the two of them spending so much time together

I always say him as an inspiration to Bleeding Gums Murphy and Lisa in the Simpsons.

Just my 2 cents. I agree with the rest of your list though.

Life well lived for me is the following.

1. My life ends in a comfy bed surrounded by friends and family having died before becoming a burden on them.
2. I’ve made a positive impact on those around me
3. I’ve left my children/family in better financial shape than I was born into (which, frankly, was pretty good already)
4. I traveled and saw what the world has to offer

Yeah, life is meaningless, and we’re one small speck in a universe so big it breaks our brains to think about and we only last a similar amount of time in regard to the vastness of time itself. . … so I might as well make myself and the people around me feel good

As far as the short term? Have a good conversation with friends/family, go for a walk through a nearby forest.

I was 14 and just got a cable modem when Napster came out. I just got introduced to modern music, had no way to pay for it other than asking my folks. Let’s jump on the pirate ship!

Now I’ll let you do the math on my age, I have very stable income, and a fair amount of disposable savings, and I still pirate pretty much my ears will be hearing. Plex has equal or better tools for watching/listening than every other service I’ve tried (shuffling episodes is my favorite)

I go to concerts, watch movies in the theatre, read physical books and support creatives in other ways… so I feel different about that…

I also started noticing this when itunes came out. You could only listen to music YOU PAID FOR on devices you’ve authorized. Then soon after I saw this, a friend was down on his luck but had a very good and varied cd collection. He started selling them to second hand shops and his friends.

I ended up seeing this dichotomy and thought to myself… this sucks. Let’s just pirate it…

I should note the amount of physical unread books I have on my shell are similarly rationed to the amount of music I haven’t listened to or movies I haven’t watched yet that I’ve also pirated