“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.”
I recently spoke with someone who reads Naked & Alive regularly. I got two pieces of advice. 1. Give more advice, you seem good at it. 2. Cut down on the length, so many pieces are too long.
Advice is good to get and looking at the 100s if not 1,000s of articles here, I get the point about the lengthy ones. Droning on … As I said in my piece giving writing advice - cut out the dross. So I’ll lay off the long ones and spare you all - for the moment!
And that is just it. Advice is good but it is just advice. Hard to apply universally, almost any piece of advice, even - thou shalt not kill. But I do enjoy giving it (this piece is a good example), so thought I’d share this poem, me giving advice to a young poet.
I hated Rilke’s book of the same name. I read it when a young poet while relaxing on the banks of Lake Geneva and it just didn’t go down well. I guess I’m not that romantic after all. So sometime last year, I wrote this one.
Like the advice of Waits in the video above, I produced - take it all with a grain of salt.
Oh, and one last piece of advice! Believe it or not, the best advice comes from those who can’t follow their own advice. I swear by this.
Want to learn how to quit drinking? Ask a drunk. Want to know what’s wrong with you upstairs? Go to a screwed up, pill popping psychiatrist. Want marriage advice? Ask the woman who’s been married 7 times. Want to improve your golf swing? Ask a guy who’s never won the local clubhouse annual tournament.
Advice To A Young Poet
Get yourself a girl.
Good, bad, in between.
Doesn’t matter.
So long as she’ll
pretend to love you.
It's easy these days.
Go on Instagram and say, "Whassup?"
and she's yours.
Get out there and almost die.
A couple of times.
Make sure the world knows
you're there and
you're gonna keep
coming back.
Eat glass.
A lot of glass.
Note and count
the suicides off
your local bridge with
scientific precision.
Never ask for anyone's opinion
or advice.
Memorize a few cool slogans
to impress people on those
rare special occasions.
Sleep in.
Drink strong coffee outside
in your underwear
watching the world
go by.
Read. Read a lot.
Do your own tattoos
and if you can swing it
buy an iguana and
walk it around town
in your purple stockings.
And whatever the hell you do
DON'T tell anyone
you're a poet.
Tell 'em you're a
funeral director, a bum, a widget counter
the president of Malawi, a bootlegger
whatever,
but never tell anyone
you're a poet.
Or they'll make you pay for it.
Giving Advice