Just Artists

Changing the Rules
By Rik Leaf

“I Fought The Law” was written by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets and recorded on May 18, 1959 at Bell Sound Studio in NYC. The song was released on the album “In Style With The Crickets” on December 5, 1960. This was of course after the passing of Buddy Holly; one can only speculate what would have become of this song had it been recorded before his death. The most commercially successful version was recorded by The Bobby Fuller Four and released on the Mustang label in October 1965.
On July 18, 1966, Bobby Fuller’s body was found lying across the front seat of his mother’s 1962 Oldsmobile - parked in front of his apartment near Grauman’s Chinese Theatre - dead, apparently from swallowing gasoline. The fact that he had been beaten up and had ingested gasoline was not released to the public. Although police ruled his death a suicide, friends speculated that he was murdered, possibly by mobsters.
I fought the law and the law won actually brings up a point we should consider. If you fight the system by the system’s rules, you will get your ass handed to you every time. You can’t beat the house fighting by house rules, and the good news is…you don’t have to.
There are lots of things that need to be changed; there are a lot of things worth fighting for, including the rules of how and why we are engaged in the struggle to improve our lives and the lives of those around us. To achieve qualitative and lasting change is going to involve changing the way we keep score, the way we play the game, basically the way we fight.
Canadians will not win at the polls playing by the rules designed to divide and conquer the electorate. It is not in ‘OUR’ best interest to play the ‘US’ (same-sex marriage-gay-rights) and ‘THEM’ (anti-women’s rights & abortion rules) Not only do these rules drawn partisan lines down the centre of our lives, families and communities, they trivialize the fact that we’re talking about people’s lives, people just like us trying to find their way through the fog of life and love, hopes and dreams in the hope of finding a future worth living.
Rewriting the rules of engaging dialogue and discussion means more than simply propping up our wing of a sagging institution, it involves redefining the rules of engagement, crossing partisan lines, actively and effectively drawing people together so we can learn the value of an opposing perspective.
These days an increasing number of individuals feel powerless, the agents of change seem woefully inadequate or entirely unwilling to engage the enormous challenges that face us, which is why JUST Artists are so important. JUST Artists are able to work with the power and potential of our collective imagination. They are artists that can translate ideas into words, songs, movements, colours and sounds that will simultaneously engage a wide variety of learning styles.

JUST Artists is about entertaining ideas that engage and empower individuals, helping them to recognize how their talents, gifts and abilities provide unique opportunities for them to be agents of change. It’s about changing how we fight partisan politics, rampant consumerism, the destruction of our environment, epidemic childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes, third world poverty, the adverse effects of corporate mega culture, and the litany of ills and evils purported every waking moment of every day. It’s not just about battening down the hatches and trying to survive, it’s about changing the rules and learning to win.