I just puked

Obviously Fatparrot you have a large body of great songs that you've written and the corporate types have been pursuing you for years to commercialize your art. No matter how many truckloads of cash they offer, you've stayed pure and resisted. Keep the faith, baby!

What's the difference between, 1) a middle-aged ex-rocker swinging a deal so that his grand kids never have to worry about money and 2) an equally middle-aged someone with substantially less talent and accomplishments in their lives complaining about what the ex-rocker just did?

The answer: at the end of the day the ex-rocker has a seven figure check in their hands and the complainer still has no talent and still hasn't written a memorable tune. What's the problem Fatparrot? Couldn't juggle three chords and a catchy lyric like "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" at the same time? Where I come from the talented are supposed to get rewarded for the fruits of their labor.

The rewards (monetary and otherwise) for success can be enormous in American culture. To say it's disproportionate can start that slide down the proverbial slippery slope. 99.99% of the world's population would argue that the audio systems of Audiogon members are "disproportionate" and reflect the excesses of people with way too much money for their own good. Imagine if the majority of people in the world restricted us few audiophiles to Bose Waves and made us donate our disproportionate excess to some worthwhile charity like clean drinking water in the sub-Saharan or eliminating AIDs in southeast Asia? The world would be more proportionate (and healthier), but would it really be more fair. Free choice can be a double sided sword, but it's alternatives are far worst.

Shubertmaniac, I think you misread or misunderstood my earlier post. I cherish and respect an individual's right to make their own choices, but I also understand that even the smallest individual choice has the potential for vast societal wide impact.