My co-workers think I'm strange. After putting in my 40 for the man, I go home, spend 10 to 20 hours a week on my own web site and then, if I can, I work on fiction. Then there are things like brewing beer, working on the house and such. That doesn't even figure in such "simple" things as a marriage.

Everything but the web site, they understand. But why do I spend so much time working for bands who feel lucky if they sell 1,000 copies of a given release?

The honest answer is that I do it because I want to do it. That's all. I'm stubborn enough to spend massive amounts of time and energy on something that will never make any money and that the vast majority of people will never see.

That's okay by me. In fact, that's the best answer there is. But that's not the answer I gave. Instead, I recounted the example of Big Star, a band which never sold well when it was around, a band whose influence has become so pervasive that there is hardly an American band around today that doesn't owe some small part of its sound to Alex Chilton, Chris Bell and Jody Stephens. Don't believe me? Without Big Star, there's no dBs. Without the dBs, there's no R.E.M. Without R.E.M., well, I think you can go on from there.

That's what I told my co-workers. They found this a dubious argument. Or, as one said, "Michael Stipe is so brilliant he doesn't need to listen to anything else."

I was a good boy and didn't get belligerent. I didn't even condescend. I just said, "Whatever."

Andrei Codrescu once said that the two things writers need to nourish their souls are reading and writing. Dead on. Any artist needs inspiration. Some can actually find this in a single person or focal point. This focal point is called a muse. Most artists, however, gain inspiration from a variety of other art. My writing is inspired by my life, music, books, movies and other works of art.

The same is true of every musician I know, and over the years I've met more than a few. Musicians often look to musicians and other artists for inspiration and influence. Sometimes it's the case of the "famous" artist doing a song written by a rather obscure one. For example, the lyrics for Sheryl Crow's breakthrough hit, "All I Wanna Do," were written by a poet. A guy whose name you wouldn't recognize if it was painted on the Empire State Building. If you remember They Might Be Giants doing a song called "New York City," well, it's not their song. A band from Vancouver called Cub wrote it.

This happens all the time. It's called artistic ferment, the sharing of thoughts, ideas and talents. It's how art goes from the conceptual to the real.

But back to my reasons for doing Aiding & Abetting. Most of the folks who check out the site are not artists. Most of them are people who like the same sorts of music that I do. "Weird music" is how most folks would describe this stuff. But a good chunk of my readership is artists and bands, people who are searching out the latest and most unusual musical ideas.

And if one person reading A&A goes out and finds a CD that makes them think a little differently, well, my work is worth it. Period. I get occasional e-mails from people who thank me for turning them on to one band or another. These are great for the ego, but I don't need testimonials to justify my work. Every time I hear something new and original, every time a song or an album leaves me breathless, well, that's more than enough payment for me.

Perhaps this explanation is a bit too amorphous for my co-workers. My lack of cash drive alone has marked me in this corporate center. But fuckit. If I'm going to celebrate my intransigence in the face of extreme apathy, well, I'd better just get used to the blank stares.

Jon Worley works in a six-story building in downtown Raleigh, N.C.