"I always resented all the years, the hours, the minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me dizzy and a bit crazy — I couldn’t understand the murdering of my years yet my fellow workers gave no signs of agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as the dull and senseless work." ~ Charles Bukowski
As many readers know, I’ve been writing, traveling a looooooong time. However, it’s been a struggle, working as an artist in the shadows, doing the shadow work we artists do, and acknowledging each other with a wink.
Shadow-work, work done without pay: charity work, family work, community work—often what’s referred to as “woman’s work.” It is also the poet’s work, therefore feminized in the popular imagination—the reading, studying and meditating that is preparation for the “gift” of the poem. - Sam Hamill
Art doesn’t pay except for the very lucky and fortunate. And to get that paycheck you also need to compromise, settle, and do things that are poison to your pure artist soul. And then hope you make enough money to then not have to take that poison anymore.
Long story short. At this moment in my life, I’m coming out as an artist. Yes, I’ve always been an artist, practicing my art with passion, dedication, curiosity, intensity, will, and wonder. However, one should declare things to the world - live openly, and transparently.
SO HERE I AM - An Artist. No teacher, no guru, no method. Just my love of life and the need to express that life within.
I did my first “performance” on the boat, on my birthday. One of many more to come and follow my voyage as a reader. There is no artist without their beloved audience. Part of any work of art is that social aspect. And that is why an artist must be public with who they are, and what they do.
So thank you, my readers! Me, then (2 years old) and now, (60 years old).
In a very strange and magical way, art, my being an artist and writer is revenge. It is an act of defiance and sweet revenge against the game of hide-and-seek life plays with our poor souls. We know not how we came to be here or whence we go … My sweet revenge is to LIVE and defy that trickster behind the current and curtain, that makes us play things of the gods (and I believe the idea and word “god” is our way and our only means and symbol to understand however partially what is always a mystery and hidden. So I use that word.)
"This is the killer moment, and it comes to all of us. It came to me long ago: It will come to you soon enough. The creation of art is joyous, and it may be the closest we will all come to heaven. But the world that has been created in which art is alleged to flourish is so full of corruption and badness and absolute evil that the artist in all of us is crushed unless we are organically stupid or willfully retarded. You must blind yourself; plug up your ears; lie and smile and shuffle. And for what? To do what you know and love to be so pure and so necessary. There is a lobotomy that is necessary to survive the narcotizing stupidity and crassness of the theatre, films, television, writing--the big circus/whorehouse that calls itself the cradle of art. Handle yourself carefully. Smile and breathe and get to where it's silent."
--Marlon Brando/From “The Lake of the Mind”
Overrated
They’re always askin’ me
“When’s your book coming out?”
and I tell them
“Next month. I’m working on it.
Next year. You just wait ….”
The postman, the neighbor, my bartender
the neighbor’s kid, the barber, my alter ego.
I should just come clean
and say what I mean – “Never.”
Books are overrated.
The minute you finish one
the thing is dead, rotting
and then what?
My life is a book.
It gets written every day.
Enjoy me
as you turn my pages.