This is, perhaps more than any other, an extra-gratuitous GPOY that Mike Dubin took last month. It is Wednesday after all.

Abner and Harper Willis are a pair of brothers who front “the New York City-based indie rock band” Two Lights. Their idea of success includes scoring a worthless “VIP pass” for an unnamed British pop star and then being surprised when the backstage room didn’t look like a P. Diddy White Party, a review in a third-tier NYC free magazine that meaninglessly describes their music as having “the magical power to obliterate wintery thoughts,” and hiring “a manager who’s helped break artists like Blur and the Smashing Pumpkins” — which is code that anyone familiar with the music industry can easily decipher as: “Our manager did some shit at Virgin Records in the ’90s.”

Time Magazine recently gave the floor to the Willis brothers for a slot in their “Entrepreneurial Insights” special, and the thesis came together almost instantly. Abner and Harper want you to know something: Being in an “indie rock” band is hard!

It’s also expensive. By their estimation, a handful of blog reviews and the privilege to work with someone who sent Lenny Kravitz posters to record stores in 1995 has already cost the band upwards of $109,000. I want to write that number again because it’s so absurd, and then pick up a sandwich board and write it again — next to the words YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG — so that I can boycott Two Lights shows around the country with a small, but angry cult called The Church of Rational People. I want to take them into a bank and show them what $109,000 looks like, and then slap them over the head with a fistful of hundreds. I want to drive their equipment into the most dire, economically oppressed neighborhood, sell it all to the local pawn shop, and then donate the proceeds to any number of families that could use a hundred extra dollars to make rent this month. Two Lights are like the Mitt Romney of sad boys with guitars, ambitious and chiseled white men who weren’t asked to release their financials under duress, but did so anyway because their utter lack of self-awareness never tipped them off to the fact that spending $109,000 to play Wednesday nights at the Mercury Lounge is on the same level of crazy as donating $4 million to the Mormon church in one year. Maybe even crazier.

Of course, I would be remiss to simply yell YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG and not explain myself. I played in financially viable bands for years without the money of major labels — or sometimes, for that matter, anyone — and while it certainly wasn’t always a P. Diddy White Party, I made a living in New York City without going bankrupt. Let’s crunch some numbers:

Training: Our folks shelled out for 15 years of piano and guitar lessons (times two of us!). These days, we’re spending $250 to $500 a month on voice lessons. Cost to date: $30,000.

OK, stop. First of all, it’s completely unfair to include your parents’ investment in music lessons into this equation — unless we also plan on adding the grocery receipts, too. (All that basement jamming makes you hungry!) But even if you take that out, there is no reason why these guys should be spending $250 to $500 a month on vocal lessons. (I listened to your single: they’re not working, you guys!) Learn how to breathe, learn how to warm-up your voice, and then treat yourself with an extra session when you’ve got the extra money. Otherwise, just lock yourself in the bathroom for the acoustics and fire up YouTube. Seriously.

As for me, I have a few books about guitar and took a music theory course in college once, but that’s about as much as I’ve ever spent on training. Cost to date since 1991: Maybe $50.

Rehearsal: We rent a space in Brooklyn for $50 per three-hour session. Cost to date: $3,000.

Oh hey, I think I know that practice space! $50 for three hours is great, but it sounds like these guys practice a lot, which means they could (and should) be sharing a monthly space with at least one other band. At the current going rates, you should be able to find a room in Brooklyn that costs the same as a few hourly-rate practices. That their ever-so-useful manager hasn’t filled them in on this point says something about the value of their services.

Technically, I’ve spent a good amount of money on rehearsals, but it’s always been strategic: Hourly practices are saved for upcoming shows or running through a set-list, but writing always takes place somewhere less expensive — like your drummer’s mom’s house in New Jersey, which also comes with free soda and chips. In that sense, I’d probably say I’ve also spent at least $3,000 on rehearsal space — but that’s including every rehearsal I’ve ever booked since 1990, which is, incidentally, the year young Abner was born. Pro-tip: Going on tour is like practice that pays you.

Gear: Our family has invested in dozens of musical instruments and other gear (pianos, guitars, drum sets, keyboards, mandolins, PA systems, amplifiers…). And, oh yeah, it cost more than $500 to move a piano down three flights of stairs and then up to Maine (a story for another time). Cost to date: $25,000.

Again, your family’s investment is not your own. But even if it were, you’re paying too much. I owned just one guitar throughout most of the ’90s — a Gibson SG that I paid $300 for — and a Marshall half-stack that I found at a pawn shop for $500. I spent another $150 on pedals. The only time I’ve ever spent real money on a guitar was after Texas is the Reason sold out two nights at Irving Plaza in 2006. I celebrated by buying a Gibson Les Paul that I’ve always wanted for $2,000. The only other guitar I’ve ever owned is a Fender Telecaster my brother gave me in 1991, and that’s it for my entire career in band gear.

Total cost: $2,950. You do with what you have, and it’s amazing how the creativity will come.

Performing: For gigs here in New York, we hire taxis to lug our keyboards, stands, guitars,basses, amplifiers and drums to and from the venue. Whatever cash we earn beyond that usually goes to our current drummer. And expenses soar when we hit the road. Cost to date: $1,000.

Here’s the thing: You pay for taxis in New York anyway, whether or not you’re carrying a guitar. One time, when I lived on the corner of First Avenue and E. 10th Street, I actually walked my gear around the block to play at (the now-defunct) Brownies. It happens.

Interestingly, a thousand bucks isn’t a lot to spend here, and that’s surprising considering that neither of these guys work day jobs. If they spent as much money going out on tour — and sleeping on floors and eating at gas stations like normal people — as they did on voice lessons, we might actually know who Two Lights is. We probably still won’t like them, but that’s not the point.

My bands have spent lots of money on performance and production, but except for the very first tour I ever went on in 1992, I’ve always recouped. For real. Even when we were playing to a hundred kids on a good night. I’m not even particularly good at math, but I know how to make it work on tour, and a lot of it is about making friends with sofabeds, asking the promoter to make some cheap veggie stew, or making smart merchandise at fair prices. As a result, total cost: $0.

Promotion: Once you have music out, you need to promote it. We pay a guy to send email blasts to databases of hip music blogs. Postcards, demo CDs and other materials are also essential. Cost to date: $1,000.

Actually, none of this is “essential” for a band no one has ever heard of. None of it. Abner and Harper Willis ostensibly have the Internet and access to the Hype Machine; they should be sending out their (tasteful and infrequent) “email blasts.” (Although as a former music writer, I can tell you that there is a very special place in my trash for “email blasts.”) Also, postcards? That’s just fucking gauche.

None of my bands used a publicist of any sort until we were signed to a record label, and truthfully, there is really no reason to have one until you’ve got an honest-to-goodness album to support. The same goes for management. It seems insane to have to explain this to anyone in their early 20s — who should probably be playing music because they have something to say and not because they want to “earn a lot more money than even doctors and lawyers” — but play shows, be nice to people, make friends with other bands, and send free music to anyone who will listen to it. Also, don’t write about how much money you have in Time Magazine. My well-tested strategy will cost you $0.

Lost wages: The two of us each put about 20 hours a week into band-related work. Abner (still in school) could easily make $10 an hour working at a bar on weekends. Harper (a freelance writer) has to turn down writing assignments worth around $400 a week. Cost to date: $25,000.

I’ve been trying hard to refrain from using the word “privileged” here, but come on. I always worked when I played in bands — even when I didn’t technically have to work. I was a freelance writer, a record label owner, a data entry clerk, a record store guy, an executive assistant at a publishing company, whatever. I did it because having a job made the band feel less like a job, and that’s a good thing. (Also, I don’t think it’s particularly noble to be a poor musician.)

So if the Willis brothers have “lost” wages, it’s simply because their privilege allows it and their pride demands it. But since I cannot relate to such nonsense, my “lost wages” to date come to $0.

Living in New York City: Our cousin Abby lives in Atlanta in a house — a house! — with a couple of friends. They pay a third of what we pay for our combined living spaces. New York is absurdly expensive — but the band’s future demands that we live here rather than, say, our hometown in Maine. All told, we estimate that decision costs us an extra $1000 a month. Cost to date: $18,000.

“The band’s future demands that we live here.”

No it doesn’t. Being a band in New York City is prohibitive for a million reasons, and the imagined big-city promise simply does not warrant the sacrifice unless, as it was in my case, this is where you grew up and it’s just home to you. If Two Lights were really good — spoiler: they’re mediocre — then A&R guys would fly out to meet them. Labels would fly them into New York for a showcase. The Internet would discover them immediately. There is no such causal connection between living in New York and “making it,” so if I were these guys, I’d call my cousin Abby and move to Atlanta. Fact: Once you’re in a van, on tour, it really doesn’t matter where you live.

Which brings us to our final tally. Two Lights: $109,000. Me: $6,000 over 20 years.

If I were a name-caller, I’d even call the Beatles fucking stupid if they’d spent that much money before having recorded Please Please Me. But hey, Abner and Harper Willis, I’ll spare you. I just hope we all learned something here.

If his tweets were any indication, Michelangelo Signorile dedicated his entire radio show yesterday to the question of Cynthia Nixon’s sexuality.

That’s weird.

It’s true that the public loves a good riff on some variation of the is-she-or-isn’t-she question, but in this case, we know. Cynthia Nixon is gay. She has a girlfriend. She isn’t hiding anything or campaigning against gay rights or donating millions of dollars to the Mormon church to help defeat same-sex marriage. The how or why is better left to the scientists, but the what — that she is an out lesbian woman — is well established.

Amateur biologists that we are, however, many of us just couldn’t resist taking the bait when Nixon gave an interview in which she asserted that “for me, [my sexuality] is a choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.” Of course, that didn’t stop Signorile’s followers on Twitter (and others) from doing just that, dismissing the comment as a byproduct of misguided bisexuality, using it to illustrate “another example of the difference between gay men and lesbians,” or just chalking it up to the very male perception that “women are allowed to be more sexually open in our culture.” (Really?) Incredibly, only a few people — all women, it seems — actually gave unconditional credence to the notion that Cynthia Nixon has a right to define her own experience, even when it appears to threaten everything we believe about ourselves.

First, the obvious. Cynthia Nixon “knows” that her being gay is a choice in the same way that I “know” my being gay is an inborn trait. We just feel it. Of course, sheer introspection is not a sound epistemological method by any stretch — for either of us! — but in lieu of a credible and falsifiable explanation, it’s all we have. So in this case, it’s not even a situation of respectful disagreement, but personal truth: Nixon is not telling me that I chose to be gay, but that she did. I can’t possibly know whether or not that is true because I do not inhabit Cynthia Nixon’s body and mind.

I can, however, think about choice and freewill and the fact that we are a species famous for claiming categorical agency when we have none. For example, most of us don’t ever question the moment we “chose” to be right-handed or left-handed, but this predicament was actually one of my childhood’s most pressing questions. I practiced writing left-handed for years, I mimicked certain left-handed affectations that I’d see on television or elsewhere, I even started wearing a watch on my right hand. I heard about this thing called ambidextrousness — supposedly my grandmother had it — and I thought maybe that was me, too. At one point, I realized that my handwriting as a lefty actually got pretty good! But in the end, I “decided” that it felt more natural for me to be a righty. Just like Nixon, who said, “I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay, and gay is better,” I tried righty and I tried lefty, and righty is better. As far as I was concerned, I made that choice, and there was nothing you could have told the 14-year-old me to convince him otherwise. It was as obvious to me as the fact that Knightwatch was going to become legendary television. (It didn’t.)

I realize now that it’s more complicated than that. That even if there is a “choice” involved, it’s not one of unmitigated freewill, and that — as with most of, if not all of the major markers that we use to construct identity — there is also some sort of genetic influence or predisposition. But what if there isn’t?

It seems obvious that the row over Nixon’s comments go way beyond personal truth and more into the thorny territory between social perception and civil rights: If “they” think we choose our sexuality, some argue, gay people will never be free from discrimination and oppression. But considering that the lack of choice that went into my identity as a person of color failed to provide any such immunity from the discrimination and oppression of being Hispanic or nonwhite in America, I struggle to see the logic (or dignity) in such a fear. At its worst, this argument proposes that a pure biological basis for homosexuality is the only escape-hatch from the moral argument against LGBT people, and in turn, submits that without this basis, there may be something to that moral argument in the first place. But there isn’t. Let’s not forget that the rhetoric of an “innate nature” is historically fraught with ideological self-interest, and that this point is not exclusive to a queer context: Late nineteenth-century theorists, for example, “presented the nonwhite person — ‘the savage’ — as lower down the evolutionary scale than the white” in an attempt to perpetuate a myth about the sexual insatiability of non-Europeans and to curb “the threat they consequently pose for the purity of the white race.” (If this sounds familiar, consider Pat Robertson’s recent warning that “there isn’t one single civilization that has survived that openly embraced homosexuality,” and that “if history is any guide, the same thing is going to happen to us.”) Still, at its core, this fear also enforces the wrongful assertion that nature operates in clean divisions of inborn and acquired traits, and totally disregards those evolutionary certainties that factually exist in-between the binaries — such as the way many “plants and animals are hermaphroditic before they are bisexual and are bisexual before they are heterosexual” or how “bees and flowers coevolve through mutually beneficial ‘deviations.’” (Timothy Morton can speak more about this point.) In other words, by placing a caveat-free premium on innate sexuality, gay people are actually making the same argument they are being oppressed with — that there are certain immutable “natural” binaries that exist for human beings in a way that defies the reality of pretty much every other plant and animal species on the planet. By yielding to such exceptionalism, we are clamoring to squeeze human sexuality and gender expression into a rigid box that we invented, which as such, enjoys no right to an existence in perpetuity.

The other thing, then, is this: Without any sort of real epistemic evidence for nature or nurture or neither, gay people ask straight people for the right to define our own experience every single day — even when it appears to threaten everything heterosexuals believe about themselves. Straight people certainly can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up gay, and many of the less sophisticated in their ranks can’t even imagine the possibility that two men or two women can love each other with the same kind of affection, desire, and commitment that they enjoy with their opposite-sex partners. Similarly, I have no idea what it must feel like to grow up with common, uncomplicated worries — such as whether or not a girl I like thinks I’m cute — and without attaching the fears of sin, morality, impending antigay violence, mental illness, and total ruin to every basic boyhood crush. Until we figure out how to inhabit the bodies and minds of other people, we might never know these things of each other.

Which is to say that, as improbable as Cynthia Nixon’s claim plays out in my own experience, I have no choice but to afford her the same benefit of the doubt that I demand for my own personal truth, which persists, unaffected. I mean, I believe I was born this way. But there is nothing about my personhood that would change if I weren’t.

“I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

I’ve been reading Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” today, and this excerpt stood out as still particularly relevant — especially in a country where political expediency is often more valued (or at least more practiced) than the unmediated justice our so-called principles demand.

These are the ideas we should consider when conservative Republicans and Libertarians try to shore up MLK as a member of their side, even when they belittle the civil disobedience of Occupy Wall Street as “socialism” or “class warfare,” and not the inevitable pushback of economic oppression. This is the argument we should present when Democrats try to shore up MLK as a member of their side, even as they regularly inform millions of gay Americans that the heterosexists are not yet ready to cede power, and that 2012 is still too inconvenient a time for full equality under the law.

What King says here is clear: Dismantling the ideology of the oppressor is an active pursuit, not a passive one, and the right time will always be now. There are no exceptions. Let’s not get it twisted.