Another New Deal.

Last night I dreamt that I was pregnant and constipated, sitting in Grand Central. For some reason, I kept having to go up and down the escalator during a conversation Kalle and I were having, trying to get coffee. I don’t know where we were going, but I know that we still had a long time to wait..

I was restless, uncomfortable, agitated. My belly was full. My stomach was tight. The train wasn’t coming, and I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew it was going to be a long wait.

I woke up with the same feelings of frustration, thinking about how pregnant I feel (also feeling like I had to pee…).

Not with a child, but with potential. With ideas. With music. With projects that haven’t found their shape yet because I’ve been in survival mode. Because the gig money is late, because I haven’t won funding, because rent is too damn high, because…the big ugly deal has me scared for not only myself but for all of the laboring community.

The government has made it clear that those with money are the only humans worth value; that we, the poor, will always be here to serve them with our talents and bodies. That we own nothing, we can have nothing, and we will always be nothing.

Is the train late? Is it coming? Or did it already leave?

In my dream, the escalator was a metaphor. Or maybe just a bad design. Either way, I kept going up and down while trying to hold a conversation and hold it all together, like I do in waking life. Doing so much motion just to stay in place.

Building, performing, teaching, organizing, we apply for grants with rejection rates worse than the lottery. We curate our own opportunities because what else is there? We do all of this in a country that loves to consume our masterpieces but refuses to acknowledge and fund the labor it takes to create them.

With my stomach in knots and hive flare-ups from stress, I dream of levity. Of a world where musicians, artists, and culture shapers are valued. A world where they don’t have to choose between survival and the work that saves them. A world where what we do is seen for what it is: labor. Necessary. Unrelenting. Sacred.

WHERE being an artist is not synonymous with being broke, burnt out, or on the edge of giving up.
WHERE the government treats cultural labor with the same dignity it claims to give essential workers.
WHERE there is guaranteed income for working artists—not just the lucky few, but the many.
WHERE healthcare isn’t tied to institutions, and musicians can see a doctor without posting a “please send me money @venmo” story caption.
WHERE community venues are protected like libraries, where public funding supports long-term projects, where grants are accessible, not cryptic riddles with word limits.
WHERE your art practice is treated as a career, not a side hustle to capitalism.

Countries do this...Belgium does it. Germany, France, Netherlands... Canada kind of does it. The U.S. could too…

I don’t know where the train was headed in my dream, but I know I’m tired of waiting. Tired of riding Escherian escalators. I want a sustainable life, a stable future, a cultural landscape that doesn’t require sacrifice just to survive.

I’m ready to get off the platform.

The world is on fire while flooding, New York is subtropical, the water temp is cooking fish in the sea, and the rich keep on raping whatever they can, and tell us we ask too much. Fuck that.

Don't let anyone tell you there’s not enough money—there’s just not enough imagination where it matters. As a fan FDR’s New Deal, Thomas Friedman’s Green New Deal, I have amassed a manifesto:

Whereas the United States has long built its wealth, identity, and so-called spirit off the backs and brains of the poor’s imagination—off the labor of artists, freelancers, culture workers, and gig hustlers—and yet still refuses to offer even the barest infrastructure in return;

Whereas the gig economy, dressed up as freedom, has left millions grinding through exhaustion without health care, without job security, without homes they can count on, without rest;

Whereas artists are not decoration—they are infrastructure. They are how movements move, how history is remembered, how democracy breathes. They build the stages, the archives, the chants, the rhythms, and the futures;

Whereas the pandemic exposed what many of us already knew: that this country can support people when it wants to. That checks can be cut. That systems can be reimagined overnight. That care is not impossible—it is just inconvenient to the people who hoard power;

Therefore, I propose The People’s Culture Deal—a cultural labor policy grounded in the truth that all labor is essential, and that survival, dignity, and creative freedom are not luxuries for the chosen—they are rights owed to the many who make this world worth living in.

Core Proposals

1. Universal Basic Income for Artists and Gig Workers

A monthly, unconditional cash payment of $2,000/month to all self-employed, freelance, part-time, and creative workers earning under an $90K annual threshold.
Funded through progressive taxation, financial transaction taxes, and redirection of subsidies from fossil fuel, defense, and tech monopolies.
No work requirements, no means testing beyond basic income threshold. This is not charity. This is infrastructure.

2. National Freelancer and Artist Protection

Guarantees labor protections to all gig workers, including:

Collective bargaining rights
Overtime pay and sick leave
Benefits (retirement, healthcare, child care)

Classifies creative and freelance work as labor protected under federal law.

3. The Artist Infrastructure Fund

Creates public cultural centers in every zip code—equipped with rehearsal space, recording studios, tools, childcare, and internet.
Funds long-term projects instead of short-term deliverables.
Prioritizes community-rooted art, not just high-profile or institutionally validated work.

4. Universal Healthcare and Caregiving Support

Fully fund Medicare for All with specific provisions for gig and cultural workers.
Establish a national caregiver stipend to support artists raising children or caring for elders, with flexible work and subsidized housing options.

5. Housing for Cultural Workers

Create federally funded Artist Housing Cooperatives and convert vacant buildings into live/work spaces using public land trusts.
Cap rental rates based on income and tie artist housing to community service (e.g. free workshops, public performances, mutual aid).

6. Cultural Reparations and Redistribution

Dedicate at least 30% of all federal and state arts funding to Black, Indigenous, disabled, undocumented, and low-income areas.
Fund Indigenous, Black, Latin X, and Disabled-led arts organizations directly without institutional intermediaries.
Restore community wealth lost to gentrification and displacement through land return, artist land trusts, and debt forgiveness.

7. National Cultural Recovery Corps

Launch a Public Works-style program for the arts—employing thousands of artists in community engagement, storytelling, education, and memorialization.
A Public Works-style programs that brings arts to the incarcerated for rehabilitation and therapy.
Positions are salaried, unionized, and designed in partnership with local orgs.

A girl can dream…

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