Artists are the expected masters of making do with less. Frequently since the world media’s nervous announcement of capitalism’s expected upcoming multiple stroke (there goes Iceland, Detroit, Japan), and despite chipper, patriotic ads from Best Buy that this’ll be the best Christmas ever, many musicians have been laughing about dark times ahead.

“There’ll probably be better music,” Field + Stream’s Nick Johnson shrugged the other day. Others have joked about eternal-bottom-line musicians being the only ones with the serious science to endure and thus offer classes on how to avoid answering the phone when a 1-800 number rings four times daily.

Unfortunately for a couple local players — including singer/columnist Ann Vriend’s place being broken into — making do with less is now mandatory. Singer/guitarist Gavin Dunn’s home was cat-burgled as he slept last week. Disappeared: Jeff Stuart’s black Fender Telecaster American Standard with a Rosewood fretboard, along with a Mac loaded with priceless sessions. “I saved up for a long time to get that guitar,” Stuart moans, “bought it almost 15 years ago when I was a teenager. It was, in fact, the one and only electric guitar that I ever owned since I got it.

“As much as that stings, I have to accept that in some ways it is just a piece of wood. But what is not so easy to rationalize and get past is the fact that the machine’s hard drive contained audio files representing countless hours of recording and editing work for two local bands’ recording projects that were both nearing completion after almost a year of tracking and arranging. Yeah, I would like my guitar back, but most of all, I want our work back.”

That would be a plea, incidentally — if you happen to have been the perp, at least have the soul to leave a backup of the files and anonymous tip as to its location. Pretty please?

Now, an analysis of the curtain of defence for Listen posted on the SEE website over the last week, words we thank you for. Two salient points glowed red hot. The first was from a happy-to-have-left Edmonton ex-pat, who challenged me, instead of bitching, to create something great, city-wide, and inspirational within the next two years, to help them be proud of coming from this place. Hm. Tongue-in-cheek or not, and despite their cynicism about this hilarious artist frontier, it’s a perfect idea which any of us should honestly take to heart. I can only aim to do so.

The second solid came from “oxygensmith,” a dead-on assessment that my virtual unmasking of Listen was similar to Neil Waugh demanding the misguided firing of Denise Ogonoski for her brilliant protest rappelling and banner-unveiling over Stelmach’s head at a fundraiser. It was the best human graffiti I’ve ever heard of. Meathead anger took me well over the edge, so, yes, guilty as charged.

My non-partisan defence remains, as ever, that you or anyone certainly has every right to be annoyed by tagging on their property, and that Listen in particular is so ubiquitous that there’s a large body of people who react to it as if it were just more unwanted advertising. This is a fact. No one was mad about being “excluded,” but in fact force-included yet again. On my part, this was empathy for those who reject the understandable and widely-accepted symbolism of another tagger claiming yet more real estate.

Still, I honestly shouldn’t have been such a little queen about it — that was both wrath and loyalty talking, which no doubt my detractors have never been guilty of.

But as oxygensmith wisely noted, there are better chops to fry, such as the fact the city has the ongoing nerve to threaten fines to small businesses if graffiti is left on their outer walls. If such a policy were successfully enforced in Montreal, the city would lose half its beauty in a weekend. The cops might find better pastimes in, say, reducing the murder rate or posing in chaps for sexy charity calendars.

Playing pig on my part was especially lame, but I wanted to metaphorically tag, enrage, and damage right back. Of course, that’s stupidly hypocritical, and I apologize.