We have to support our local artists. It's just that simple.

Host: The evening was painted in streetlight gold and neon red, the kind of night that hummed with half-forgotten dreams. The art district was quiet now — the crowds gone, the galleries locked, and the murals outside fading beneath the slow creep of rain.

A flickering sign over a narrow café read: “Open Mic Tonight.” Inside, the light was dim, warm, intimate — a refuge for the restless and the creative. The air was thick with the scent of coffee, paint, and second chances.

Jack sat in the corner booth, a sketchbook open in front of him. His hands were stained with charcoal, his coat with rain. He was staring at a half-finished drawing — a city skyline that refused to come alive on paper.

Across from him, Jeeny sat with her guitar case leaning against the wall. She had just finished her set — three songs, one broken string, and a roomful of quiet hearts. Her eyes still carried the glow of stage light, and her voice still trembled with the echo of applause that wasn’t quite enough to pay the rent.

Jeeny: “You didn’t clap.”

Jack: “I don’t clap for honesty. I just listen.”

Jeeny: “You mean you judge.”

Jack: “Only what I respect.”

Jeeny: “Then I’ll take it as a compliment.”

Jack: “It was. You sang like the world was ending and you were still hoping someone would dance.”

Jeeny: (smiling) “That’s all art is — desperate hope disguised as melody.”

Jack: “Al Jourgensen once said, ‘We have to support our local artists. It’s just that simple. Otherwise, we will have no art.’ But I think the world stopped listening somewhere between their streaming apps and their egos.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we start reminding them again.”

Jack: “You really believe people still care?”

Jeeny: “I believe they want to. They just forgot how.”

Host: The rain outside turned heavier, tapping against the window in rhythm with the café’s soft jazz. A few customers lingered — poets, painters, dreamers — each hunched over their own quiet miracle.

Jack: “You think art can survive neglect?”

Jeeny: “Art’s survived worse. Wars. Famine. Dictators. The internet.”

Jack: “But not indifference.”

Jeeny: “That’s where we come in.”

Jack: “You mean the broke ones keeping the flame alive?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The unpaid saints of beauty.”

Jack: “That’s romantic. And tragic.”

Jeeny: “So is every masterpiece.”

Host: Jack leaned back, eyes tracing the condensation on the glass. Outside, the reflections of graffiti bled into the puddles — faces, colors, stories dissolving together.

Jack: “You know what’s funny? Every city I’ve lived in, there’s always that one building — old, covered in paint — where artists gather. They build, they sing, they bleed into the walls. Then the developers come, paint it white, and call it progress.”

Jeeny: “They can take the building. They can’t take the fire.”

Jack: “Fire burns out without oxygen.”

Jeeny: “Then we breathe. We show up. We buy the ticket, tip the musician, share the painting. That’s oxygen.”

Jack: “And what if no one else does?”

Jeeny: “Then we keep breathing until someone remembers what air tastes like.”

Host: The barista dimmed the lights a little lower, and the sound of dishes clinking filled the silence between them. Somewhere, a young poet began reciting lines to a handful of strangers — his voice trembling, his heart naked.

Jack: “You really think this matters? One song, one poem, one painting — in a world that’s falling apart?”

Jeeny: “It’s the only thing that ever has. Empires crumble, but music lingers. Money fades, but murals stay on the walls long after the city forgets their names.”

Jack: “You make it sound sacred.”

Jeeny: “It is. Art is prayer without religion.”

Jack: “And artists?”

Jeeny: “The stubborn believers.”

Jack: “Believers in what?”

Jeeny: “In something better than silence.”

Host: A single candle flickered on their table, its flame fighting the draft that slipped through the cracked door. Jeeny’s fingers traced the rim of her coffee cup, her voice low and certain.

Jeeny: “You know what I think kills art? Not poverty. Not rejection. It’s apathy. The moment a city stops showing up for its creators, it starts dying in spirit.”

Jack: “You think we can save it?”

Jeeny: “We don’t save art, Jack. It saves us. We just have to make space for it to breathe.”

Jack: “So what — we guilt people into buying paintings?”

Jeeny: “No. We remind them they already need them.”

Jack: “Need, not want?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Art isn’t luxury. It’s how we remember we’re still human.”

Host: The music swelled softly — a saxophone solo that sounded like memory itself. Jack looked at her — this woman with calloused fingertips and eyes full of conviction — and he saw something holy in her defiance.

Jack: “You really think that’s enough? Songs, sketches, poems in coffee shops?”

Jeeny: “You’re missing the point. The Sistine Chapel started with one brushstroke. Revolutions start with one verse. The world changes because someone dared to say — or paint — something true.”

Jack: “You talk like art’s oxygen again.”

Jeeny: “That’s because it is. Take it away, and everything starts suffocating.”

Jack: “Even you?”

Jeeny: “Especially me.”

Host: The rain softened, and the streets glowed like veins of silver under the lamplight. Inside, the café seemed smaller now — not confined, but intimate, like a heartbeat shared among believers.

Jack: “So how do we do it? How do we keep it alive?”

Jeeny: “By showing up. By listening. By paying the price of attention in a world addicted to distraction. We don’t need everyone — just enough people who still care.”

Jack: “And if the world stops caring?”

Jeeny: “Then we sing louder.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You sound like faith.”

Jeeny: “That’s what art is — faith in form.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — the candle still burning, the window streaked with rain, two silhouettes framed against the hum of jazz and hope.

The poet in the corner finished his reading, and a few claps rose softly through the room — not enough to shake the walls, but enough to matter.

Host: Because Al Jourgensen was right — “We have to support our local artists.”
Not out of charity,
but out of need.

Without them, the soul of the world grows quiet —
and silence, left unchecked,
becomes extinction.

And as Jack and Jeeny sat in that little café — surrounded by words, colors, and melody —
the city outside seemed to breathe again.

Not louder.
Just alive.