Up The Country

I woke up this morning and felt an overwhelming desire to get the hell out of the city for a bit.  It hits me now and again that I should commune with nature, be among the flora and fauna or whatever.  One of the greatest things about Atlanta is that there are miles and miles of above average hiking, minutes from and even right in the city (thanks Jimmy Carter). Today was different for whatever reason.  Perhaps it was my inability to distinguish between the crack and report of the simultaneously sporadic, seemingly city-wide firework display and the randomly intermingled neighborhood gunfire last night.  I will say this for Atlantans, we are apparently a very patriotic bunch – I liken last night to the Shock and Awe campaign Bush launched against the Iraqis in the spring of ‘03.  It left me a might jumpy so to speak and I knew the standard hike along the ‘Hooch was not going to put me back on center.  Belle was inconsolable.  (We probably shouldn’t have taken her to that fireworks show at Centennial Park when she was a puppy.)   Regardless, I felt compelled to heed the call of that long forgotten (but oft-remembered) symbiotic symphony of Lynyrd Skynyrd and my truck tires on a gravel road.  So I set myself upon that quest, to go Up the Country, as it were. 

Not sure really where I intended to go when I left the house this morning.  I was listening to Uncle Tupelo so thought I might as well head up to Chickamauga.  The only true objective was to get out of the city and that certainly qualified, so up I-75 I went.  I got almost as far as Cartersville before getting distracted.  I had watched an Aerial America on Smithsonian recently and in it was a piece about the Etowah Indian Mounds, so I exited to see if I could find them. 

If you’re into the historical, as I am you would love it here.  The gentleman at the visitor center shared a wealth of knowledge about the Ocmulgee people who'd originally built these incredible mounds.  This was the first place I stopped after leaving Atlanta.  Though it couldn’t have been more than (50) miles from downtown, it felt light years away.  I was there early enough to be the only human being on the site and it was surreal.  Sitting atop Mound A, the big one, looking out onto the plaza below I could almost see back to those days.  I’ve always thought it would have been pretty bad-ass to be a Native American. I would have sucked at it of course – I don’t kill things, don’t have the best sense of direction and I suck at gardening. 

Baking there in the early morning sun, I couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed.  Where once stood an indigenous urban center of trade and art and ceremony now stands nothing.  The only evidence that they were ever here was the 63’-0” tall pile of dirt I was sitting on.  Not only did “we” strip them of their pride by forcing them off their land, we brought gifts of small pox and malaria.  We eradicated complete races of people to make this land “our” land.  If that wasn’t enough, we then dug up their sacred burial grounds and now charge admission to see what’s left.  Determined not to bring myself down with facts, I chose to remember what once was and honor that.  I chose to simply enjoy the world in which I live.

After another long conversation with Gary back at the museum, I left thinking what a kick-ass job he has.  Maybe I’ll do something like that when I’ve finished with the hustle. 

I was about to get back on the freeway to continue north when distraction #2 appeared in the form of Red Top Mountain.  I hiked all over that bad boy and never saw much of a mountain; exuberant hills, yes but nothing close to a mountain.   Good hiking here though along the shoreline of Lake Allatoona and up through the hills to the bluffs overlooking the lake – best hike of the day by far.

I saw tons of tracks along the water’s edge but didn’t expect to see any wildlife in the middle of the day.  Much to my surprise and delight, I would soon be proven wrong.  Coming up out of a deep ravine I heard a rustle ahead along the trail.  I assumed it was squirrels and forgot about it.  As I reached the top of that climb I saw several deer and hurried to my pack to get the camera.  By the time I had the camera in hand, there were only (2) left – I guess I scared the others off (like I said, not a good Indian). 

These (2) were chill though.  I don’t think I have ever been that close to wildlife in the actual wild and I didn’t really know what to do.  They didn’t seem to be too concerned with me considering I had snapped about a thousand pictures in the previous (3) minutes.  I sat down on a rock so I could get my sketch book without spooking them.  I’m an architect – I felt a sketch was in order.  As I did, I said, “Hey ya’ll, what’s up?”  I accept the probable truth that what happened next happened only in my imagination, but I swear the older one said, “Just chillin’.  What’s up with you?” 

In somewhat of a state of shock that they hadn’t scurried off with the rest of the gang, I decided to just sit there and see what they would do.  It was amazing.  At one point I walked up to within (20) or so feet of them and they were completely unimpressed.  I watched them, followed them along the ridge as they picked around the leaves, grazing on the tall grass for at least an hour.  They groomed each other, grunted and snorted, stomped a hoof now and then.  After a while, I realized that they weren’t going anywhere and I started to feel like I was intruding on their perfect little world so I took the left split and they meandered to the right, back into that little valley. 

Walking out, I couldn’t help but be thankful for having been allowed that brief glimpse into their wild world.  It is beyond me, how a human being can look into those big eyes and squeeze a trigger and end their life. 

After this interlude, I had given up on the Chickamauga thing and turned the truck back toward the A.  Halfway home, I remembered that I had never been to Kennesaw Mountain and thought I might as well check that off my list while I was out and about.  Incredible amounts of history here, but a little too populated with soccer moms and bratty screaming children for me to fully enjoy.  More than once, as I struggled to the peak in the afternoon heat I had to resist tripping, pushing and / or otherwise incapacitating the hordes of suburbanite assholes that I found myself forced to share earth with.

Upon my arrival at the summit, I felt finally like it was worth it.  That was a tough climb for my old out of shape ass: probably should’ve been a morning hike.  Either way, the views of Atlanta from the peak are exceptional even with mid-summer smog.  The only negative being that there was not a zip-line down to the base as I’d convinced myself there might be in an effort to push myself to the top.

The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain started on 27 June, 1864, and was the first significant battle of Sherman’s assault on Atlanta.  The battle is recorded in history as a tactical defeat for the Union forces, but it did not prevent his ultimate victorious March to the Sea.  Over 5,000 United States citizens died in and among the trails I walked today.  The weight of that loss of humanity was not lost on me. 

At the farthest point up, just before one might start back down, there were (2) flags placed in the ground between a couple of rocks:  one was an American flag and the other was a P.O.W. flag.  I don’t typically swell up with American pride.  I have it: it’s just not in my nature to make a show of it.  And though I honor the troops in my own way, I don’t often consciously think about it.  Maybe it was that bitch of a hike and the heat or whatever, but when I saw those (2) flags dancing along the high breeze I was paralyzed.  I say a lot of things and think even more that I never say that would make most people think I hate this country.  I’m critical, yes.  But I love this country, and I don’t think that I have ever been more convinced of that fact than I was today sitting on top of that big rock watching those flags fly in silent tribute.  It was only then that I realized just how hallowed the ground upon which I rested was.

After that moment, the return hike was a breeze.

Today exceeded my expectations.  I don’t often take a day off and when I do I too often do nothing with it.  Today was an exception – I didn’t, for the first time in a long time, feel guilty about not being in the office.  And as it turns out, the world didn’t stop spinning because I was not there.  There’s a lesson here, right? 

I never found that gravel road I thought I was looking for, but I found a helluva lot more.  Today was a good day. 

My spirit is full.

Golfing with Alice Cooper

I had the good fortune to see (2) of my favorite acts from my aforementioned misspent youth recently, Alice Cooper and Iron Maiden.  For a myriad of reasons, I was never able to get my body in the same town as IM back in the day so this was def a ‘can’t miss’ show.  I must say that I was a little disappointed in the Maiden set list – is it too much to ask to see Powerslave live?  Apparently so, but they made up for it with Run to the Hills, Two Minutes to Midnight, Phantom of the Opera…now that I’m thinking about it, it wouldn’t have sucked if they would have played Charlotte the Harlot if they were going to dig that deep into the catalogue.  I guess you can’t expect a band that’s been active since 1975 to do it all in 2 ½ hours, but seriously, how do you not play Powerslave?  The show wasn’t quite as epic as the video link above but it was as epic for me.  I’ll get back to the show but first, I would be remiss if I didn’t get into the glorious spectacle that is the Heavy Metal Parking Lot.

I’ve tried to elucidate this sub-cultural phenomenon to people before and they look at me like I have (3) heads sprouting from my shoulders.  If you’re not an aficionado, I don’t suppose you would have any frame of reference for understanding.  And if you’re not well versed in what’s left of the scene, these words are probably falling on deaf ears and I’m okay with that.  I will try once more to make you understand. 

It’s like being at a college football game tailgate but we are all cheering for the same team and we are all the best of friends.  The same people who were at the hundreds of shows I saw in the ’80s are still there – you never forget, right?  The only difference is now they bring their kids.  Parents with kids, frisbee, grillin’, chillin’, nefarious unarticulated clouds of weed smoke, cops, corn hole, devil horn salutes to distant car stereos, future (and possibly current) serial killers, beers, burgers, fist pumps, shenanigans – my strange utopia.  Old and young, rich and poor communing united behind a shared love of the band, the music, the thing.

People who don’t fit in anywhere else in the world, fit in here.  That always has been and remains the allure of Heavy Metal – it gave kids who were pissed off at their parents, or their teachers or probation officer or whatever else a venue to come together and forget it all, to scream it out, to slam themselves into each other in acknowledgement of shared struggle.  20+ years later, why should it be different?  It’s not, really. The things that vex us are different from what they were then, but the day to day vexing is the same.  I submit that a Heavy Metal Parking Lot represents the best possible case scenario of what the human condition is capable of.  There is no judgment.  No one is better than the other.  No one is smarter than.  No one is more successful than the other. There is no ‘red’ or ‘blue’ political posturing.  I’m sure that I’ve slapped hands with, “bumped” into and / or head-butted dudes that vote the other way.  None of the trappings of modern society, popular culture matter here.  We come together in black t-shirts and faded jeans on gravel and asphalt parking lots to celebrate the one thing that we can all agree on – the music. 

That’s what it was for me when I was a kid and all of those memories flooded back and consumed me that Saturday night.  On the rare occasion that I’ve found myself in an adult version of those teenage lots, I’ve found myself transported to a place and time where nothing mattered except the music.  For years that was enough, and if I let myself be honest with myself it still is.  How else can I explain my morning mandatory Metallica?  That music bound, binds me still to a family, a strange dysfunctional one yes, but a family nevertheless – a family that would lay themselves down on train tracks without asking, knowing I would do the same.

Those parking lot scenes from my youth are as entwined into the fabric of the story of my life as much or more than almost anything I can recall.  Being a kid doesn’t come easy for some of us – growing up is even harder sometimes.  To abate this, we occasionally would gather by the thousands before a rock show to reassure each other that it was okay to be different.  Most of us grew up in small towns in the middle of nowhere.  We were agitated, completed disaffected, dangerously bored.  It’s where the weird kids you remember from high school went to not feel weird.  The lot was always as important as, if not more than, the show itself.  What no one could ever understand is that the music was / is only the vehicle through which we communicated – the only way possible for some.  That’s how some guys are and I was one of those guys as a teen.  The fact that I had hair down to my ass when I was a kid had nothing to do with the music – it had all to do with positioning myself in the only community that I ever felt accepted into until I moved to the EAV. The lot was a tribal affirmation of my worth.  Without this occasional reassuring, Mississippi would have swallowed me whole.    

There are few things that I’ve encountered in my life that warm my heart as much as seeing a (10) year old in full Alice Cooper makeup or a father showing his son how to properly tuck the thumb when making devil horns.  It gives me hope for the future of this country.  I could bounce around the reality and the supposed of what a Heavy Metal Parking Lot is as long as I could coax my fingers to move and you will probably never get it.  If you do, you do.  If you don’t, you never will. So be it.

The show was incredible.  Alice didn’t disappoint and was up to his usual antics – the boa constrictor and top hat and cane, the onstage murder, the 20 foot animatronic Frankenstein – he even cut his head off in the guillotine and then sang I Love the Dead holding his own severed head.  It’s all so kitschy now, but it apparently scared the shit out of my parents’ generation.  Billion Dollar Babies, I’m Eighteen, Wicked Young Man.  He opened with Black Widow and closed with School’s Out.  As he left the stage, he whispered loudly into the mic, “You’re all sick things!”  Epic.

Intermission: when the head-bangers hit the head, buy a t-shirt, beer up and chain-smoke before the next set.  This is when emotions and tensions are at their highest and when if there is going to be a fight it usually pops.  If the first band does their job, they leave the crowd in a frenzied, maniacal state wanting more and this was definitely the case this night.  Having made a promise to myself to not get caught up this time, I discreetly did my thing, hurried back to the patch of grass we’d staked out and waited to have my mind blown by Iron Maiden.

It’s hard to explain what Iron Maiden is to me.  They were a different kind of band.  They were the thinking-man’s Heavy Metal, right?  They didn’t write songs about fast cars and strippers.  The first Maiden song I ever heard was Rime of the Ancient Mariner – an adaptation of the 18^th century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic of the same name.  This was heavy in a way I had never known prior to and I loved it.  Still do.  When his contemporaries were crashing their Lamborghinis after leaving the “Riot” House, Bruce Dickinson was practicing to become a world-class fencer.  When his opening acts were cancelling shows to go to rehab, he was training to become a commercial pilot.  The songs he penned were epic in scale and content and his band-mates joined in with equally epic chord progressions, intricate beats and mind-numbing, thundering bass lines.  Steve Harris is the most adroit bass player in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.  Nicko McBrain has about a hundred drums and cymbals in his kit and he hits every single one on every song. The harmonic framework of Dave and Adrian’s blistering, progressive dueling guitars is the foreground against which the low end is pounded.  Put this all together and what you have is unbelievable, inimitable music.   Combine it with the band’s larger than life mascot ‘Eddie’ and trademark visual on a warm June night in the ATL and you have a perfect recipe for a face-melting of epic, if not biblical proportions.

I left the show stunned, as if I had been tazed.

The next morning, I woke up sore – like having been run over by a train sore.  I dragged myself out of bed anyway with an 8:00 tee time looming.  Driving around the block to the course I was dreading who they might pair me with. My local frowns on single play and I’ve never had good luck when I go there solo.  Much to my surprise I walked into the clubhouse to see another long-hair checking in at the counter.  I thought to myself, maybe he was at the show and we’ll have that to pass the time.  As expected, we were paired and I absently introduced myself walking to the cart.  “Pleased to meet you, name’s Alice.”  What?  That’s right, the planets had finally aligned, my karmic destiny was being fulfilled and my dream of golfing with Alice Cooper was about to become a historical fact!  I was a babbling idiot, I couldn’t stop talking, I was nervous as hell.  I’m a hack – AC is an actual skilled golfer.  He’s going to think I’m an asshole.  It’s a short course; you can hold your own with this guy even if he is the Prince of Darkness.

We did rock-paper-devil horns to see who teed off first and of course he won.  As he was lining up his first shot I struggled to get a grip on myself and was just settling into the realization of and starting to truly feel the gravity of the situation.  Keep it together brother; this holds all the promise of being the most exceptional Sunday morning of your life.  That’s when I heard and saw the unthinkable.  Right in the middle of his backswing, Maynard hops out of the cart and shouts, “Dude, I’ve got to piss!”  Seriously?  As I was about to berate him for this unforgivable gaff, I couldn’t help but notice how sharply he was dressed.  My (12) year old Dachshund was decked out in full-on old school golf attire, puffing a Cuban with one paw, balancing a half-empty scotch with the other.  “Really, man?  What’s with your friend?” Alice said in disgust, slamming his club into the tee-box turf.  

Son of a Bitch!  I’m dreaming.  It was all a figment of my well-documented over-active imagination.    This was certainly one of my better constructed delusions.  It was absolutely real.  As I stripped off the golf shirt and put my clubs back in the closet (yeah, that real) I was crushed.  A round of golf with Alice Cooper would have certainly been a high-water mark for this old head-banger. 

Alas, my slow train into dementia steams on.     

    

Celebrating the Mundane

On (2) separate flights on the same day last week I sat next to (2) apparently famous people whose names I didn’t know and only one of whom I recognized as even vaguely familiar.  I assume they were famous based only upon the annoying observation that multiple sheep asked for their autographs.  I asked the one I didn’t recognize to turn his deafening, hideous music down as it was disrupting my anonymity.  I hate fame, me.

Today is my father’s birthday – Pop, I would listen to your music in celebration but the only song I ever consciously remember you declaring that you liked was that strange Willie Nelson / Ray Charles duet from way back and that's not my bag. (I suppose the music thing comes from my moms.)  I did stumble on to that reel-to-reel of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds of yours when I was I kid, but I wasn’t feeling especially Brian Wilson today.  I get the whole maybe I should build a giant sand box out of my living room thing, but that’s probably a weekend project, no?  Either way, Happy Birthday Pops.  I enjoyed our conversation tonight.  One of these days if I keep working at it and I'm lucky on top of, I will be half the man that you are.  

Monday was Paul McCartney’s birthday.  I’m not sure exactly what the opposite of Paul McCartney is but when I realized it was his birthday, I did my best to listen to the opposite in celebration.  As far as I can tell, the opposite is Jim Carroll – a true poet rock star who chose not to marry an heiress with horrific vocal ability but who stayed true to his craft until his untimely passing.  If you're not familiar, Jim was the deal.  Sir Paul was by far the least interesting Beatle.  At least Ringo knew he had no discernible musical skill and was content being the comic relief. Pete Best was a drummer – Ringo is at best a Muppet.  Stuart Sutcliffe was a superior bassist to Paul and if not for a hot German photographer named Astrid, the world might have known a different band.  It all revolved around and originated with John anyway.  He was the artistic force that created and completed the Beatles, followed closely behind by George.  I love what they did, but in my opinion, I’d rather they’d never written a single without the original lineup intact.  The primary positive that came out of that cluster is that we were graciously allowed to hear and see John Lennon’s voice and vision for those short (40) years.    So in your native tongue, piss off Paul!  Just because you are the last one with any talent alive doesn’t mean I should care that it’s your birthday.

Wow, that was the mother of all digressions.  I’ve just realized that I’m writing this with no specific purpose for writing it so I’ll just go with the train of thought thing.

Things that I gain the most joy from are simple things most often.  Things like cleaning out the air-conditioner vent, bathing the dogs, pulling weeds from the flower beds as I walk to the mailbox in socks make me smile like a mental patient.  I love my garden even though I clearly, at this point, have zero gardening skills.  When I say, I’m tending my garden, that’s code for me sitting on the top step throwing Belle’s ball while enjoying a refreshing beverage wondering aloud why my garden won’t grow.  I planted it.  I assumed it would do the rest.  I water it when I remember to, occasionally – WTF?  Slow cooking spaghetti sauce really turns my gear.  I know, right?  I’ve spent a lot of Sunday morning’s this early summer watching my grass grow and that is exactly what I wanted to do right then. I’ve counted the grains in the woods I chose for those uncomfortably over-sized chairs I made several years back more times than I care to remember.  Every time I do, it makes me real. 

My work is what it is, and I love it. But when you are occasionally required to sit politely in a room full of people (who have absolutely no idea what architecture is) discussing and critiquing your architecture, it wears on a body.  No other game I would rather play for sure, but the game makes me long for those Saturday twilight nothing nights.  As skilled and incredible as I am (sarcasm intended), one can only be expected to internalize and abide so much.  Everybody has their breaking point and when I reach mine, I’m in the back yard searching for (4) leaf clovers in clean tall grass, sitting in the fresh cut with my pups imagining what it would be like if the Jackson Five floated across the breeze the same way they do my memory. 

I need my solitary ridiculousness more than ever.  That statement illuminates me as mad perhaps, but I think I'm simply aware.  It is almost physically necessary that I compose a grocery list Friday night and traverse the minefield of my local Saturday morning Publix in order to summon the wherewithal to accost the inevitable client derivative of a poorly researched, unfounded exclamation point come Monday morning.  I need to wash my baseball caps early on Tuesdays and sit them carefully upon mixing bowls so that I ensure that they will be dry by Wednesday morning.  I need to clean last week’s receipts out of my wallet and balance my check book every Monday afternoon even though I can't remember the last time I wrote a check.  If I didn’t have to go to Target tonight to get razors, there is no way that I would be able to get out of bed tomorrow and do this all over again.  The commonplace propels me. 

Some say they tolerate the mundane bullshit that they have to endure in order to get to the punch line, the weekend-warrior type.  I celebrate the routine in order to get to the bullshit. I exalt its banality.  I couldn’t be even as intermittently visible as I am,  without the option to disappear inside of myself every night. Trying to be perfect is exhausting. 

Someone who has my ear more than most, recently suggested that I shouldn’t put so much of myself into my career.  I asked her where I should put it instead.  She didn’t have an answer.  I told her that I’d be here with a High Life and a Camel Blue, relishing Thin Lizzy’s Cowboy Song counting thin green blades of grass when she figured it out…celebrating the mundane.

Visible

Given the bravado of my last post, I’m only slightly shocked that the canvas is still blank.  That’s not meant as a metaphor – the canvas is quite literally still blank.  I may have sabotaged my own intent by making such a bold and truthfully, somewhat unfounded public proclamation.  I’m acutely aware of the fact that sometimes saying a thing out loud destroys the thing all together.  If that’s the case, I’ll more than likely barrel down some other dimly lit path – no harm, no foul.  I doubt that occurrence is in play, but reserve no apprehension that it might be thus.  Even if said is so, it will hit me again.  When it does, it will be unprecedented and I’ll do a year’s work in a weekend (again deceivingly confident, no?) 

Blah, blah, blah... So, I recently finished Klosterman’s The Visible Man. Outstanding work and a definite upgrade from his previous novel – put it on your list.  The premise is so simple that it pisses me off that I didn’t think of it first but as all good story-tellers do, he makes the obvious fascinating.  What are people really like when they are alone?  The question in of itself is a commentary on the voyeuristic nature of modern American society and our fascination with all things “real”.  I won’t bore you again with my feelings on reality television and the like (it’s buried somewhere in one of last year’s rants) but I do think that Chuck and I share a similar playful contempt for this not-so-recent cultural phenomenon.  He acknowledges without ever acknowledging that we all seem to be consumed with and even obsessed with what the other is doing and thinking and feeling at all times, at least in a digital sense.  The primary assertion he makes is that what or who a person is in public or online is not who or what they really are and that the only way to ascertain the true nature of a human being is to observe them in their natural, private state.  All manner of shenanigans ensue along his quest to obtain this knowledge and affirm his thesis.  This isn’t a book review, but if it were I would give it (2) enthusiastic thumbs up; even if one must suspend their disbelief that humans have the technology to render themselves un-seeable.

As is often the case after reading a good book, I reread the book mentally for several days after I was finished.  Dissecting the items of interest or skepticism or whatever I hold until I am satisfied that no matter how outlandish the tale being told might be that it could possibly be true.  (I think I’ve mentioned my predilection toward documentary film – I have an odd need to make all things documentarian in spirit.)  It is an interesting concept though, to ponder the idea that no person one knows or has ever known for that matter is truly who one thinks and absolutely, unequivocally might believe them to be.  That statement at first blush seems ridiculous, but are you truly visible to the world?

I think that it’s human nature to create a construct that we present to the world, our closest friends even.  It starts at an early age I would imagine, having only a rudimentary understanding of sociology.  And it is probably founded in all manner of environmental stimuli; family and your perceived station in that family, your family’s perceived position in society, how you are treated when you do something stupid or exceptional or unimaginable or completely ordinary etc. etc. etc.  No (2) public human displays are the same and they are all formed for specific (if unknown) reasons or reactions or insecurities or idiosyncrasies or a million other words that are hard to spell.  How close are you to the construct that you present to humanity?  How close should you be?  How would I know the answer?  How does anybody?  I'm not saying that people are fake or that who a person publicly is isn't truthful.  But it is a variation of the truth – it's only what you are willing to share of your true self.

Throughout the book, this guy sits silently in a corner and observes solitary human behavior without the human being observed ever knowing that he is there or that they are being observed.  Think about that for a minute:  what if when you are alone, you were not really alone.  Had the protagonist been in my house with me this weekend I wonder what his assessment of me would have been.  He would have seen a grown man occasionally curse the Sunday rain and lament his indifference toward his Saturday lawn activities.  I sat for hours this weekend staring blindly into the eternal blackness of an empty white canvas with the usual artistic triggers hidden away, unlockable.  Here is the typical, everyday part of my life that he would have observed – me talking to my dogs.  Not just talking to but carrying on full conversations, epic discussions presented in full character for each player, me included.  When I converse with the pups I do so in a voice that can only be described as a mix between a mildly-retarded Elmer Fudd and a Southern, drunken, elderly African-American women.  Maynard responds in his cynical, cigar and cognac soaked, unimpressed Jimmy Durante / Frank Sinatra.  Belle dances around the fray in high-pitched excitement repeating the same thing again and again and again.  But, but, but, but what about the ball, the ball, the ball…? Did you say ball?  Where is my ball?  I haven’t peed all weekend!  Have you seen my ball?  (She was born in Dahlonega, so there is a latent, almost imperceptible Southern accent in her diction.) Regardless the topic, nobody breaks character and this goes on for hours sometimes. 

Having said all of that, his assessment and yours are most likely similar – this guy’s lost his mind, right?  Because I’ve allowed you that glimpse, does that mean you know who or what I am?  Would you know the difference?  Is that part of who I want you to think I am or who I am really?  Does it matter?  Does sharing a simple piece of a thread allow you to see the quilt?  Of course not.  I’m still not visible.  If you are 100% honest with yourself, you are not either.  Which begs the question: should we be 100% visible?  The answer is a resounding no and that is exactly as it should be.  That’s how God or whatever you believe in made us to be.  The gold is in the not knowing.  The mystery makes the whole fantastic, that’s what keeps it interesting.

No one is fully transparent – therefore no one can be visible.  

(it doesn't suck as bad as it sounds)

Filling the Voids

I’ve had a notion recently to get back into a game that I turned my back on years ago.  Having never been one to come to things early, I don’t feel bad that the arc of this endeavor is so flat with a random spike here and there.  I will use the term art and its derivatives loosely throughout so be mindful of that.  As an artist, I’ve gone through various periods of excitement and disappointment, celebration and defeat, I suck at this – Holy shit I really am as good as I think I am.  It is probably as simple as traversing the stages of life but it is also possibly and more likely the nature of a periphery intellectual seed abandoned, seeking purchase in a barren, inhospitable soil.  I suppose most artists experience this phenomenon in varying degrees as the clocks tick, tick, tick. I imagine successful (rock star) artists navigate this roller coaster quickly and come to a realization or at least a position of satisfactory internal understanding before they declare themselves in public an artist and take the big first / final step – the sell.  For me, this roller coaster is coasting into the gate (25) years after the fact and that’s fine.  I mentioned the late to the party thing, right? 

Selling one’s art has always been a bit troubling for me.  I’ve sold art before.  I’ve collected modest sums of sweaty cash from clueless tourists selling art, bad art most often.  The trouble with selling is that you give away a piece of your soul.  It’s giving in the most profound metaphysical sense even if you do pocket a handful of bones.

I’ve given away the best work I’ve ever done because I was convinced that was the purpose of art.  For 99.99% of my life phase I thought art was only something that I did for myself or others, personally in both cases.  For the last ½ of 1% of my life I have discovered (finally, like a mental patient, I know) that I make art because I freaking love art – end of list.  That's enough for me.  That alone makes me an artist.  The last few weeks have been the most satisfying of my life artistically and I haven’t even made a stroke or a line or even given so much as a flirtatious glance to the smoking hot piece of art I might create if I could pry my elephantine intellect from its own luxurious logical sedentary couch.  I’ve been soaking up my own judgment and belief for maybe the first time in my life, dissecting and accepting and celebrating the clamor, eavesdropping on the nonsense that reverberates inside the gymnasium of my cavernous empty / crowded skull…listening to, internalizing my own internal, validating my own validity. Teaching myself to learn the long-learned / forgotten lessons I have taught myself and forgotten over the last (25) years about what art is – about who and what I am.  Remembering why I ever resolved to pick up a brush and push cheap paint across the bottom of an empty Budweiser case box when I was (15).  Remembering to be a human being, to let myself feel, to express, to inhale and exhale publicly, to speak with a purpose, to be solid in every manner the man that I am and to accept it – as fantastical and full of shit as it might be. 

If it's who I am then I should be exactly that.  Odd that it took (40) years for me to become comfortable in my own artistic skin but that's how it is, so there's that. 

Obvious questions persist.  Will I paint my heart or make a quick buck?  Can I do both?  How far am I willing to take this?  What if I really do suck?  Does it matter?  Do I want to be good or sellable? Is there a difference?   I want to be both, of course.  So I won’t allow myself to choose.  The choice is only will I keep it inside for (20+) more years or will I go public again.  I’ve been tangled in the web for so long that I have never truly allowed myself to give it much thought until now – I have a helluva lot of ideas in my head and I have only so much space on my walls.  It could be that simple.  I’m not foolish enough to allow myself to imagine myself as a working artist, but what I do is good and that’s freedom personified.

So in the spirit of giving, here is the first piece of this new-found personal freedom (enjoy – it will cost you mad $s next time):

I’m not sure that it is either sellable or good and frankly tonight I don’t really care because it’s mine.  It’s an obvious nod to a Brit band that you’ve never heard of (or forgot) called The Godfathers circa 1987-88 or thereabouts.  You didn’t think it was all metal for me did you?  Actually, it was exactly that until my brother turned me on to these guys and a few others around about the time I said. The song is about whatever it is about (you don’t have to be a genius): my piece is about the in betweens though, the voids between the demarks.  I’ve devoted a lot more mental energy to #3 than I have the others in this list and certainly more than I ever did the in betweens.  In so doing, I’ve ensured nothing more than an empty, forgettable #4.  But I can change that – the past is prologue, right? It is the in betweens that matter and what I've too often neglected.  What occurs between peaks is the gravy, man.  That’s where life really gets there, where you can truly feel a pulse.  Living is how you choose it sure, but life happens on random Thursdays at 3:47 in the afternoon when you think nobody is watching and you are envisioning what Friday evening might become. 

Filling the voids defines the solid.

Good time sunshine.  Fantastic.  Me.