April 2008 Archives

The lovely Rebecca not only ordered some Hy-Art, but with her money order sent me 1) a beautiful letter in content and form; 2) a gift called The Art Book, which gives a page each to 500 artists, most of which I was unfamilar with.  This rendition is a combination of Rosso Fiorentino and Paul Delvaux, both new to me. Delvaux offers the challenge of all surrealists (for me), which is how to make them even more surreal!  Seems like a renaissance cherub is as good a way as any.

I've decided to flirt at least once a day. Whether it's adding a new friend on My Space, or sending a rose on Facebook, or going to a new meeting and saying hi to someone who intimidates me, it would seem to be that the act of putting yourself out there even in a small way 365 days a year is going to bear fruit eventually.

Today is Tennessee Tony's 38th birthday,  What a gift he has been to me, even if our relationship consists now mostly of the occasional email and phone call. We always make each other laugh, and that is HUGE.  And oddly enough, the guy whose house I sublet when I spent several weeks in Tennessee in 2006 has become a friend.  We had exchanged a mutual interest in ABC soaps, and use that as an excuse to email practical every day and gossip about the characters and bad acting.  Inevitably, other topics are touched on, and through this back door we are getting to know each other.  He's way too smart to encourage a long-distance thing, and it's very hard to imagine myself in Nashville without being with Tony, but there is the feeling of a door being open, even if it's at the end of a long hallway. (He's VERY cute.)

This is what I wish Reverend Wright had said:

"There isn't a person listening to me who hasn't at one point or another in his life not been so angry at a spouse, a child, a brother, sister, or friend that he could have hit that person. In fact some of you have.  But you would have loved them nonetheless, so much that it hurts.

I do not hate America. I love America so much that it hurts. It hurts when I see what can be done in America's name that is unjust and wrong, and it makes me very, very angry. This anger has come out in my sermons, and as a minister whose purpose has been to motivate others to action, I have used that anger to do just that. I do not believe America is responsible for 9/ll, but I do believe America needs to take responsiblity for her part in provoking the wrath that causes so many to want to do us harm. I do not believe the government causes AIDS, but I do believe that we have a government capable of doing so, because it has shown itself capable of doing so many bad things.

There is no reason my beliefs should have the slightest bearing on the candidacy of Barack Obama, who I consider a great man. I deeply regret that I have affected his campaign. I will say no more on the matter. Thank you."

MCO 2008 

P.S.  You may notice that I have added Google Adsense to my blog.  Do not click on them just to put money in my coffers, as I have signed a pledge not to ask you to, and I trust that Google has the technology to notice if the same computer clicks on it every day. I don't want them pulling the ads if they feel that pledge is being violated.

However, if you have the slightest curiosity/interest about whatever products/services are advertised, certainly, I encourage you to check it out. 

A friend sent me a link to the work of Charles Sheeler, said to be of the "Precisionist School," of which I had not heard but which appeals to me as I like geometric lines and New York in the 20s and 30s. I then quite accidentally fell onto this self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, who evokes in it the semi-constant pain she experienced from a literal impalement she suffered in an accident early in her life.  I love the fit between the two.

The rod going through her is not far off from how I view the disease of alcoholism at times. It runs through every bit of your thinking, manifesting itself in all sorts of creatively seductive thoughts, marked by an astonishingly selective amnesia. 

For example, my drinking and using were very tied into my hunt for sex and intimacy, it is a reality that I had hundreds of encounters and was almost always dating and/or in love with someone--even if he wasn't in love with me. My disease will selectively remember the excitement and passion all that entailed, blocking out all the very unpleasant drama that came from mixing relationships with addiction. Specifically, it forgets that the loneliness you feel when you are with someone can be far more desolate than the loneliness you feel when you are alone. My disease will also try to reframe the serenity I've become accustomed to as a form of boredom, a lack, a deficiency.

I remember how I felt when I saw a particularly attractive personal ad that specified "no PnP" (Party n' Play). I remember thinking that one day I would sign on again, when I was somehow sober (although I couldn't really imagine that) and let him know I could now meet his requirement,  And yet, now, the idea of filling out personals and answering them fills me with dread. I want the result, not the process.

In my fantasy world,  God should have directed the right man to my blog, and after reading it for 6 months he should be saying: "Okay, I've fallen in love with your writing and your art, I live a few miles away, let's go on a date. Oh, here's a picture. As you can see, I'm quite dashing as you'll find out, a great kisser."

Basically, I am LAZY.  Did Frida Kahlo stay home and after she got a steel rod through her and weep at her terrible fate? No, she went out and had a crazy ass decades- long affair with Diego Rivera, taking lovers of both sexes while she created an astonishing oeuvre.

Don't cry for me, Western Hemisphere. What I need is a good slapping.

MCO 2008

The woman in blue are from a Swiss painter, Ferdinand Hodler, the men are from Velasquez. This, for me, is what Hy-Art is all about. I feel like I'm creating love children, plucking one artist from one century and mixed his creative DNA with that of another artist from another century.  I thank my lucky stars that I have actually figured a way to get a drugless high every day with zero toxicity or downside. Hail Computers. Hail the Internet. Hail Art.

I guess that's as good a sequeway as any to discuss the topic of the day: pregnancy. I was watching Desperate Housewives last night and Teri Hatcher's pregnant character referred to how unattractive she felt, like a "cow," I think she said.  This came after renting Juno the night before and hearing oh so many references to her being a "planet" etc. There are many other examples, which aren't surprising considering comedy writers will grasp at anything to make a joke.  But overall,  I see a trend. Popular media seems to doing a pretty good job of equating the weight gain from pregnancy with the kind of weight gain that provokes dieting and low self-esteem.

I know the actresses don't write their own dialogue, but I just wanted to weigh in on the sane side of the equation. My mom was pregnant 5 times, and most her peers were pregnant at least 2 times and some many more. Beyond the occasional affectionate tease, I am quite sure my father and most of his fellow husbands never made fun of their wives, nor did their wives make fun of themselves.  My father was properly in awe of my mother, amazed at her doing the most sacred thing a human being can do--not to mention bearing his own offspring.  Whether or not my father was turned on or off sexually by her pregnancy was never something that occurred to my mother, the whole idea that one would worry about desirability in the very state caused by it seems absurd on its face.

Pregnancy is no picnic, to be sure. Why would something as amazing and complex as creating another life be anything simple or easy?  In fact, in this insane world, the very act of getting intentionally pregnant can be viewed as the ultimate folly or the ultimate act of courage.  In either case, I do think it is always an act of hope. It should be honored as such.

MCO 2008

P.S. Another reason I love the internet is how old friends who've fallen out of touch can track you down.  I just had a long catch-up with my friend Bob, with whom I went to Stony Brook and got into much trouble in New York in the 80s.  What a blessing.

Many months ago, Rebecca, my Etsy mentor, (or womantor, if you prefer) asked me to do a Hy-Art using one her favorite works, Daumier's The Collectors.  I immediately had this idea, but did not have the bells and whistles version yet of Photoshop to implement it. (Yes, those are all Hy-Arts of mine they are looking at.)  It gives me great pleasure to post, as a gift to Rebecca, but also as it particularly captures my headspace as I build up my shop.  I received two orders yesterday, from friends, and while getting orders from strangers will be the sine qua non to prosperity, it felt rather good nonetheless.

I received an email from www.menotmeth.org, asking me to please plug their site. Here in Southern Califonia, they've started an excellent campaign focusing on gay men, replete with TV commercials that are quite good. If you haven't seen them, do check out the site.

I wonder if they might have gotten through to me back when I was using. It seems almost impossible to believe or even understand that getting help was an option I completely rejected for myself, even as I urged many of my customers to get and stay sober. I remember telling one barnacle (a hanger-on who did things for me in exchange for drugs)  how much he'd love AA, because of the extraordinary friendships one develops (this I knew from my sober year in 85-86).  And yet, I was convinced too much damage had been done in my case. It was sad perhaps, I thought, but I was only being a realist. I had gone too far to ever go back, my brain could never adapt to a life without crystal. I really believed that, or my disease had me believing it. It's chilling, isn't it? 

I don't talk about my addiction as much as I used to, because my life has gotten big and interesting, but it is because of recovery that I could get here.  If anyone out there still has a problem and thinks like I did, please know and understand that it does not have to be that way, and you can get better. What you feel like when you quit three days ago is not an indicator of how you'll feel 6 months, a year, and two years down the road. Your brain does return to "normal,"  you can feel pleasure again, in fact you laugh a lot more. The fears you sought to quell--you may think you're just trying to have "fun" but trust me, you're avoiding a lot of feelings--they become manageable. You learn to meet life on life terms and develop an intense spiritual life. It's a much happier existence.

I heard an interview on NPR with an author who wrote a biography of Darwin, and they asked him if Darwin believed in God. The answer was that "Darwin suspected there was one."  You don't have to believe in anything to get sober except that you need help, but in that very admission, I think there's a suspicion of God. So contact www.menotmeth.org, or call Alcoholics Anonymous and ask where a meeting is, or write me. And if you just can't yet, just open up your mind to the possibility.

MCO 2008

P.S.  Condolences to my friend Mary, who lost her Dad yesterday, to whom she was extraordinarily devoted.

I have to thank Mary for the suggestion of Dali (the cross) and Picasso (the woman). I had actually thought of it before, but most of their work is surreal or cubist or somewhat abstract, and it was hard to find a thematic match.  But this one is definitely a keeper.

Particuarly as I wanted to talk about Sean Bell. I'm not going to go into the specifics of the case, which can be read by anyone in far greater detail than I can offer here, and I think, in any case, can cause one to miss the forest for the trees. 

Looking at the big picture, it is impossible to miss a very salient fact. There are NEVER incidents where an unarmed white man, out for a night with friends or just coming home from work,  gets riddled with so many bullets you'd think they were about to blow up a metropolis. It just doesn't happen.  I believe that if you ask your average undercover officer staking out a strip club to guess whether a group of friends coming out of a club are likely to be out for a bachelor party or drug dealers, the answer will skew in different directions depending on the race of the individuals. This is called bias.

I think most white people know, intellectually, that the way most black people spend their time isn't very different than how they spend their time. We know they work, go the school, relax, visit, go shopping, talk on the phone,  watch TV, surf the internet etc.  But emotionally, on the level that counts, I also think there is a much higher readiness to believe that black people, particuarly the men, are up to no good. And that whiff of suspicion is increased tenfold when one is a policeman. The cops may understand, intellectually, that these guys just as likely to be coming off the nightshift or celebrating impending nuptials, but they're not operating from their head.  They operate from a gut fear that gives birth to a certainty that if a black man is reaching for something, it is far more likely to be a gun than an emergency brake. 

I have asked myself this question: is fear racist? There is no simple answer  If you are responding to an individual who is acting in a threatening manner, no.  If you are responding to a skin color, and making assumptions based solely on that, yes. 

White people, and police in particular, need to calm the fuck down.  Black skin does not give anyone superhuman strength, and the first instinct of a black man is not to shoot every cop he sees.  Give people a chance to show you who they are before you jump to any conclusions.  We all need to stop being so afraid of each other.

MCO 2008

P.S. I find an itunes radio station that plays only movie soundtracks. I'm in heaven. 

This is a picture I took of a gondola in the "canal" in The Venetian in Vegas, right next to where, post-wedding, the happy couple (Croat-Bosnian ex-pats) hosted one of the best meals I've every had.  Even though it's ridiculous to the point of absurdity to recreate a city on water in the middle of a desert, I have to admit, it's an impressive sight.  The photo (it was too dark) is rather less impressive than a Monet, but it does make me think of the process of trial and error even he must have gone through as he learned his craft, the mistakes that preceded the masterpieces, but probably helped create some of them. That thought inspired this poem.

 

Rebecca, who has been leading me through the mechanics of setting up a store at Etsy, has managed to convince me all this work I've been producing for fun and for free, all the Hy-Art and arted poetry I created because I needed to; all that, if not a goldmine, might at least constitute enough income to realize my dream of being self-supporting via my art.  Her guidance is a gift. (The store is not ready for viewing, but check it out in a few days.)

You may also be seeing Google Ads here soon, which will make for an interesting adjudication of the question of how many visitors to the blog I actually have.

 

I feel like the Karate Kid, who discovered all that window washing turned out to be exactly the training he needed.

 

MCO 2008 

Okay, here are the pictures from Vegas, and several of them I have doctored so that there are two different things in one frame.  But some explanations:

The Four Queens was the name of the hotel we stayed in (top left), below the marquee photo is the view from our room.  (As I get older, I've developed an appreciation for industrial landscapes, like roofs with heating and airconditioning ducts.)  Top right is a wedding party we witnessed (not the one we came for) right after we arrived, going down the Fremont Street Mall, which is Ground Zero in the world for White-Trash Watching.  This bride wore what I would call irony-free white, which I doubted, however, would remain free of beer stains, making it a little tough for re-use as a prom-dress for the daughter she will no doubt raise alone when her new husband, Eddie, violates parole. (Wild guess on that scenario.)

Did I say people-watch? I meant people-JUDGE.  Vegas is heaven if you enjoy, as I so do,  critiquing complete strangers with a self-satisfied superior smugness and unseemly dollops of sarcastic wit. (Hey, I stopped drinking, drugging, and smoking, Leave me ONE vice.)  Visitors to Vegas make it so easy.  And my very favorite prey were the masses of Eva Longoria/Beyonce/Cameron Diaz- wannabes all dolled up in the same overaccessorized slinky black dress and boob job, saturating the casino VIP lounges and hotel night clubs on Saturday night, desperately hoping to catch the eye of an NBA player or TV-actor losing a couple of thousands at the roulette table.  I call them the TTH's - Trying Too Hards.  For every one of them who found their dream man, there were literally hundreds who no doubt had to settle for 4 am drunk gropings with an overgrown frat-boy out with his buds the weekend they all told their wives they were going fishing where there was no cellphone reception.

There was precious little hint that anyone didn't truly believe that the key to happiness wasn't getting drunk, getting rich, getting laid,  or some combinations of the above. I certainly am no one to judge (the real judgement, not the recreational kind) on those counts. But having discovered in a very real way that there is no gold at the end of that rainbow, ultimately Vegas seemed to be a very sad place, desperate to distract from the inevitable understanding that rolls around a hungover dawn, that there's gotta be more than this. 

MCO 2008

I'm trying to figure out how to post a You Tube. Let's see if this works:

I actually have a fair amount of photos from my Vegas trip, but this Rockwell/Bosch Hy-Art of a snowman and his traveling companion in hell does an excellent job of telling the story of my weekend.  I have the feeling the prospect of a short story is slipping away, as I simply must devote time to enterprises that can help my financial picture in the immediate future.  Rebecca was kind enough to send me a bunch of advice/info on how to make an Etsy store work, and I need to follow it if I'm to hope for some income once the bump from my tax return and the upcoming stimulus have been spent. If yesterday is any indication, I've got a tough road ahead--two color copiers went haywire on me and I accidentally deleted my etsy listing entirely, and had to rebuild it from scratch. Oy.

A commenter from yesterday said I was "driven" but most days I feel overwhelmed from all this ambition running through me.  I have so many books/plays/movies in me that won't get written, so many trips that will not be taken, money that will not be made or given away, people that won't be helped, dogs that won't be rescued, foundations that won't be created, lovers that will never be met, great ideas that won't be implemented.

I wage a daily war with my outsized desire to make a bigger impact on the world. I used to think this was the case for everybody, but I have come to realize this ache is not universal. David, for example, seems perfectly content for his obituary to read that he cut hair for 40 years. I constantly probe him for a bigger dream, and a comfortable prosperity is as far as it goes.

So here's my Vegas story, in one paragraph.   Vegas is the best and worst of America in one city; the can-do-ism of a dynamic capitalism that constructs a vibrant metropolis from nothing in the heart of the desert, combined with every addictive instinct taken to the extreme without apology.  In its confines, there seems to be no questioning of the premise that there could be no greater contentment than another bet, another drink, another body, all pursued with a vengeance. It's all get and no give, a city with blinders in a state of denial, a city without pity or irony.  

I have proof. I took pictures. For another day, those.

MCO 2008

I got my first etsy.com order from Rebecca, one of my favorite readers (I would cite her blog, but I think it's set to private) and so I have to go and make some fresh copies of the Hy-Art cards instead of write the Vegas story. She's the one who recommended etsy, and it could be that I haven't gotten any orders because I haven't had any yet, i.e. I have no recommends from previous buyers attesting to my dependability as a seller.  It's rather a catch-22, but if any of you need a fantastic mother's day present, pleeeeeeease order a set of cards at www.makemarc.etsy.com and I'll provide such customer service it'll make your head spin! 

This Hy-Art is trying something new, two different works from the same artist! This would be a Lautrec/Lautrec (or Toulouse/Toulouse if you prefer).  I should title it: "What Gay Men Dream About As Children." 

Perhaps you can tell I'm in a good mood. I try to live on this deep spiritual plane, but I'm as superficial as they come.  Give me a sale and I have visions of empire dancing in my brain, just like this future choreographer! Plus, a hot guy cruised me on line, and even though he lives across country, my little ego got all stimulated.

All of which is a certainly a lesson in how we create our own happiness. The payment for the cards is on the way, but the idea of getting it (and of her going "ooh, these are nice" when she gets the cards) is enough to get me humming.  I'll probably never meet this hunky guy, but the idea of him and I having some hot romance puts a kick in my step.

By the same token, last week I got rather depressed at some scenarios I had created in my head about the future.  (To be fair, I had some tummy trouble that made optimism a challenge.)  Very rarely in my life is reality the real source of my misery.  People in ill health, or enduring abuse or poverty or hunger or violence--they have legitimate impediments to contentment. But me, (and many of you, I daresay), it's mostly in our heads.

MCO 2008 

No one professed to love their homeland with greater sincerity and fervor than the Nazis, all the while as they  dragged Germany into hell itself, along with most of Europe.

George Bush and his fellow legions of lapel-pin wearers  have fucked over this country perhaps beyond repair, every inch of the way with hand over hearts, while singing God Bless America.

You can be very angry at this country, at what is done in its name, at where your taxes go, at the prodigious waste of millions who don't think twice about throwing away enough food every day to feed entire nations, at our being the very worst contributors to global warming while doing very little to forestall it; you can be very angry at all these things and still love America very much. It is BECAUSE you love her that you are so angry. It's the same way you're angry at an alcoholic family member who's committing slow suicide with alcohol or drugs. You know what a wonderful person he or she could be. If you didn't love them you wouldn't be angry, you'd be indifferent.

When Bush and Cheney were dodging the draft, Jeremiah Wright was a marine medic in Vietnam.  I'd take Wright over Bush as President any day. He wants to get angry at the country, good, he earned the right to say anything he wants. (It's called Free Speech, by the way, enshrined in the Constitution Bush has attempted to eviscerate.)

People who cling so hard to notions of patriotism are looking for things to make themselves feel better about their lives.  Oh lookie, I'm an American, and since we live in the richest country in the world we must be the greatest county in the world, ergo, I'm great because I'm an American, and the more I love my country the better I am. They claim as a personal accomplishment an accident of birth. What facile, idiotic thinking, Mrs. Nash McCabe (who asked the question at the debate). You're the type who tells a battered wife to return to her husband because the next day he said he was really sorry and would never do it again. After all, you heard him and he sounded like he really meant it.

Shame on Mrs. McCabe, on George Stephanopoulous and Charlie Gibson and anyone who propagates the notion that festishizing the flag constitutes some sort of evidence that you are better than someone else, much less more qualified to be President. It's evidence only of the cheapness of talk, the effortlessness of stating good intentions.

You want to be patriotic?    Eat what's on your plate. Don't make more than you'll eat. Walk to the store. Turn off the lights when you're not using them.  Stop listening to the chatterers who want to make you believe one country or languageor people can somehow be "better" than another. Try to align your actions with your thinking, and change your thinking if necessary. Question any received ideas who grew up with but never examined. Inform yourself. Use your brain.

I'm off to Vegas at noon. Bringing along the screenplay I wrote in December in an effort to get started on a new draft. I need to shake myself out of the paralysis I've been in--I can't figure out if it's causing a depression or if a depression is causing it, but yesterday it was bad.

Won't have a computer. See you Monday.

MCO 2008

P.S. If you haven't heard about the world food crisis, then you need to listen to or watch better sources of news. There are food riots in Egypt, in Haiti. BILLIONS live on $2 a day and are slowly starving. Not wasting food is not just the right thing to do, it's a profoundly political and spiritual act.

 

One of the hardest things to get honest about is one's motives.  I like to think that I desire most to be of service to the world for the simple satisfaction of  making it a better place, to alleviate suffering; that I want to create art because beauty spreads joy and well-constructed prose tickles the intellect.  Well, none of that is entirely untrue, but if you told me I could give away a billion dollars, but I'd have to do it anonymously, and couldn't alter my standard of living in any way, AND I'd have to assume the appearance of Danny Devito--without the celebrity thrown in; OR; I could give away 50 million dollars, got to live on 10 million of it, look like George Clooney and be a well known celebrity...well, I would have an awful, awful time choosing the first alternative.

No, I know it's not news that me or anyone would like to be a wealthy philanthropist and drop-dead gorgeous and famous. Human beings like attention.  Alchoholics particularly like it--it jibes with what our disease tells us, that more is better, that what is outside of you can be applied to fix what is inside of you. 

I imagine the Viennese woman by Holder is wishing to be the actress in the opera she is watching (David).  What a life to be on stage in front of thousands, singing about tragedy and passion on a nightly basis.  And the singing diva could be equally fantasizing about what it's like to be the stately woman of standing in the audience, going home to a townhouse and a banker husband, entertaining in her salon, raising her refined children.

To be myself, and no one but myself; to accept my life exactly for what it is; to focus on making it the best life it can be with all the many gifts I have been given: this is my prayer for today.

MCO 2008

P.S. I wrote the above, and then in the porcelain library, was reading a profile of George Clooney in the New Yorker. He says that he got drunk with Sean Pean, Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio del Toro, and they all agreed they wanted to be Javier Bardem.

I'll have to drop George a line and thank him for making my point so well.

This wasn't my intent when I created it, but this Cezanne/Sargent Hy-Art embodies the idea that we keep the dead alive by remembering them, carrying them with us on a daily basis. I try to spend some time regularly with those I have loved and lost--though these extended moments are more and more punctuated by apology. For example, I was often impatient and unkind to my Dad when he was alive. Not aggressively mean or abusive, but definitely sarcastic and dismissive. It was easy to do, as his IQ dropped precipitously when he drank, and I would sharpen my teeth on him. Think Johnny Carson to his Ed McMahon. He would tend to laugh it off, but I'm sure it hurt, to the extent he felt it much at all. I am suddenly relieved that he was usually drunk when that happened, I take comfort in the fact that he had some numbing protection. (Yes, I note the irony.)

I like to think he would have been inspired by the example of my sobriety now. I got sober for a year and a half in 1985, but my understanding of the program and the steps at that time was relatively impoverished compared to now--it's not for nothing that I drank again. I thought sobriety was about what you didn't do--a passive approach. I spent 18 months NOT drinking, as opposed to genuinely living along spiritual lines--a very different outlook, an active approach. 

Yesterday I had a very nice interview with the Department of Rehabilitation.  I think they will pay for some coursework and we will put together an employement plan. It won't happen overnight, but I won't bore you with describing the bureaucratic steps that need to be taken, I'll just take them.

I also did something very cool. I called my landlord and arranged for a $110/month rent rollback!  My rent had gone up way more than the rate of inflation since I'd moved in, and I simply told them I was seriously considering moving. This is going to help alot. That's over $1300 a year!  That'll practically pay for the gas to get me across town!

MCO 2008

This slightly Cirque de Soleilish Hy-Art (Raphael and Velasquez) serves as on opener to mention that I am spending the weekend in Las Vegas. David has to go to a wedding, and he wants companionship.  The car rental and hotel is costing him the same, all I will cost him extra is a few meals and a few thousand in gambling money. KIDDING. I am limiting myself to $50--what I would spend here for a weekend on just living. 

While I'm gone, my dogsitter is going to install the deluxe version of Adobe Photoshop. And today I have my intake interview with the Department of Rehabilitation. The sense of impending change is upon me.

The latest flap over Obama and the "bitter" remarks is infuriating. He spoke the truth. This romanticization of small-town Americana needs to stop. Small-towns, in general, yield small-minds. Why do you think gays move away from them as soon as they can? Who do you think kept voting for the present nightmare regime for two elections, the one with the policies that keep sending their "patriotic" sons and daughters to die? (The one's who signed up to "kick ass" after 9/11, brainwashed that Osama and Saddam were best friends.)

Hillary is trying so hard to grab at anything to win that she's embarassing herself. For someone who went to Wellesley, and has made $109 million dollars since two terms as First Lady, for HER to call Obama "elitist" -- shame on you, Annie Oakley. (Like she'd be romancing gun ownership if she was trying to win the Connecticut primary.)

I don't fault ambition--you need it to run for President. But this sense of entitlement! What could be more "elitist?"

And when did "elite" become such a bad word? Isn't every other parent--small-towns included--hoping their kid does well enough to post a "My Kid's On the Honor Roll at Cannon Fodder Elementary" bumpersticker? Isn't going to college and maybe graduate school the hope every parent has for their kids?

Yeah, if I was drinking, it'd be Chardonnay. I think Volvo's a great car. I wear sandals. I love San Francisco. I wanna marry a man. I think guns are awful. I'm against factory farming and animal testing and I watch PBS and listen to NPR. I think violence on TV is far worse than sex on it, and you should read to your kids. I speak French and I can find any country you want on a map--and I actually think that's a really good quality in a President. Do I think I'm better than you, Western Pennsylvanian NRA-member bowling Reagan Democrat? We're all equal in the eyes of God. Do I think I'm better-informed politically? Damned straight. (Damned gay, according to your Church, actually.)

Enough of this perverse American pride in salt-of-the-earth monolingual beer-swiveling blindly nationalistic ignorance. Vive Unaplogetic Liberal Elitism.

MCO 2008

Yes, you have seen the Tissot before, I may have even used the Degas ballerinas as well. But why not? One of the perogatives of inventing an artform (or coming up with a gimmick, if you want) is that I can make up my own rules. And according to my rules, if it's interesting or beautiful, do it.

I've been thinking about my art in a different way in the past 24 hours.  After my lovely date yesterday with Mr. Colorado (yes, in on a layover, or laidover, in this case), I came back home and closed the shutters and turned on the A/C. It was unseasonably hot, the Thai Food festival just a block away made traffic impossible (and the amount of trash I found on my route this morning criminal)--- there was nothing to do but pop in a movie. I rented Atonement.

Apart from the story itself, which is original and compelling, the overarching theme of the movie asks us to look at how the artist uses art.  The author within the movie is using her writing to atone for a terrible miscarriage of justice for which she is responsible. But Ian McEwan, who wrote the book, seems also to be saying, I too write to atone, And I create characters who allow you, the reader/viewer, the emotional response of " I too have done terrible things for which I am ashamed, but I am not a bad person, I need forgiveness."  He seems to be blurring the line between your response to the work and the work itself. I felt like he was grabbing me and saying "Can't you see, you and I are the same. What binds us as humans is so much more than what separates us."

I was contemplating all of this last night when Sheria unveiled her video project, (see previous post). As I watched it, I saw that the artistic dialectic I had experienced in Atonement also occurs in my work.  I was inspired by art and I in turn inspired art.  There are emotional impulses and responses infusing all of it, in both directions, which in turn become part of the works themselves, just as how you feel moved by certain music becomes indistinguishable from the music itself.

I found myself moving several steps away from the idea that periodically encroaches on my thinking, the sense that in a world of suffering, art is a luxury at best, an elitist indulgence at worst.

No, today I feel rather that art the ultimate form of communication, even perhaps the only sane response to an insane world. 

MOC 2008

Don't tell anybody, but my friend Sheria? She's just a little bit, er, crazy. She takes a beautiful spring day (well it was beautiful here, perhaps it was monsooning tornados in North Carolina), a hard-earned day off, and what does she do? She makes a commercial for my Hy-Art! Yes, people, this is what she did!

This definitely falls under the category of "above and beyond the call of all friendship." I am greatly moved.

I'll have to send you to You Tube to see it because I can't for the life of me figure out how to embed a video.

Hy-Art

MCO 2007

 

I just love, love, love when 1) I combine two really big artists I've never combined before, like

Monet and Vermeer, and 2) when a Hy-Art looks, at first glance, like it is one painting.   (This one I'm tempted to name all sorts of things, like "The Last Lunch" but I fear to be smote from heaven. Catholic childhoods die hard.)

Yesterday I felt to be slowly reconnecting the experience of God that I felt temporarily removed from, like I'd tripped over an electrical cord and had trouble replugging the socket in the dark. It came back in the simplest of moments.  I was walking down the street, and I saw several store windows.

One was a wig store, with this ridiculous "before" and "after."  Now that I think about it, even though it wasn't a prop store, I have to believe they were marketing to costume designers.  Could anyone really think they looked better on the right, unless they were trying to infiltrate the Amish?

And later, I came across another store window, the one right above, a clothing boutique near my house, with the slogan: "Sometimes catastrophes become trophies."  Sort of a hi-falutin' way of saying when you got lemons, make lemonade, but I so appreciate any attempts to come up with original new ways to rephrase the truth that does underlie old cliches.

And what struck me, in both windows, was the sincerest attempts to market their products. And instead of store windows, I saw businesses, businesses that represented the most passionate dreams and desires of the men and women who found them, nurtured them, grew them, put heart and soul into them.

And I decided to look at every store window, every business I passed, not as mere commercial enterprises, but dreams. There's a novel that could be written about every one of them.

For me, that's the kind of thinking that expresses my relationship with God, a willingness to color the everyday with spirit, to see what is and then to perceive what also is but not evident to the naked eye. When I stay in that place, it's magic.

I'm off the brunch with handsome JT from Denver, in on a layover. I'm kind of excited.

MCO 2008 

 

This Ingres/Van Gogh is one of my odder combos, I must admit. If it works, I think it might be because it unintentionally evokes some sort of virtual emergency room, in which a dying Goddess has been taken in 19th century France. There's the glaring lights, and even a doctor in a white coat waiting in the background.

This was todays Just For Today (from the NA Basic Text)

"All spiritual awakenings have some things in common.  Common elements include an end to loneliness and a sense of direction in our lives."

 

Some kinds of spiritual experiences take place when we confront something larger than we are.  We suspect that forces beyond our understanding are operating.  We see a fleeting glimpse of the big picture and find humility in that moment.

Our journey through the Twelve Steps will bring about a spiritual experience of the same nature, only more profound and lasting.  We undergo a continual process of ego-deflation, while at the same time we become more conscious of the larger perspective.  Our view of the world expands to the point where we no longer possess an exaggerated sense of our own importance.

Through our new awareness, we no longer feel isolated from the rest of the human race.  We may not understand why the world is the way it is or why people sometimes treat one another so savagely.  But we do understand suffering and, in recovery, we can do our best to alleviate it.  When our individual contribution is combined with others, we become an essential part of a grand design.  We are connected at last.

-----------------------------

This JFT really spoke to me particularly the part about ego-deflation.  Apart from the semi-annual self-flagellation for not being Bono, I have been rather disappointed to have made not one sale of the cards via Etsy.com. Then I asked my webguy to explain the discrepancy between one very high figure for readership from my old stats counter, and one very low number from the more recently installed google analytics. My web guy's explanation for the discrepancy was less than satisfactory--something about spambots still visiting my disabled guestbook being reflected in the old stats--but he did tell me he thought the lower figure was the more accurate.  I believe him, because it just didn't  make any sense that I would have so many readers and so few commenters. Witness the power of illusion, people. The pleasure of writing the blog is the same, as is its content.  The only thing different is the idea I was able to indulge in my head that hundreds of people were reading me, seeing the art. No matter how spiritually evolved I think I've become, I still parked a daily dose of validation in the hands of a number that turned out to be completely distorted. Or not.  I don't really know how many people read me. But I recognize that tyranny can come in many forms, in this case, in the idea that the attention of 1800 strangers is somehow worth more than the loyalty of 50 friends. MCO 2008

So yesterday I went to get my hair cut by David and then we went to a show opening at an art gallery owned by the husband of a friend (who I just happened to give  a set of HyArt cards.)  It was the second Thursday of the month, hence the day Anglenos go trolling through downtown art galleries, sipping wine and giving the area a very cool vibe.  David and I keep talking about moving down there when the market hits bottom, for the first time, I could imagine doing so and liking it.

So here's a sampling of what we ran across, with some extra thrown in as filler.  Number 1 is from a collection called "The Barbisms," by DM Howard. Follow the link and read the one liners--it's genius. #2 I saw in a hallway and thought I'd remember the artist and I don't. I'm so sorry, artist. But the image is of presents playing the role of humans at Chistmas, as they open gift-wrapped children. SO witty.  Number 3 (Alyson Haller) and 4 (Evan Yavaisis) are from LACDA, the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, and the art was stunning, and obviously, up my alley as a potential locale for the Hy-Art. I will be following up. #5 I put in because I needed something to fill the space.  I have recently been back in touch with an old flame from San Diego, who took the picture of me in 1990, on his couch. He lives in Sacramento now and got sober just a few months before I did. Bribot (my nickame for him) -- I'm so glad you googled me. #6 is of this unbelievably hot security guard in front of one of the galleries. Definitely a work of art. 

Afterwards David took me to a very nice Asian Fusion restaurant. ( I knew the waiter, someone in early recovery who has to present, open, and pour expensive bottles of wine to people all night.  I think we were both happy to see in other.)  David is funny about money. He can be very generous to me (and others) when it comes to things like picking up the tab for dinner, but damned if I could get him to part with a dime during American Idol Gives Back. He seems to think one contribution will open the floodgates, that if he gives anything he'll magically lose it all within months.  He doesn't believe this rationally, but emotionally, the fear trumps everything else.

Ironically enough, after the discussion of the past several days, I heard a report on PRI's "The World" that reported on a Women, Faith and Development Alliance Summit in Washington this weekend, in which a very smart and committed agglomeration of activists from around the world are getting together to discuss the best way to spend a billion dollars to help poor women..

What a shock.  The elimination of poverty, hunger and suffering in the world turns out to not be dependent solely on my willingness to personally undertake the task. Other people are actually working on it, and have been for years! Who knew? 

MCO 2008 

Oddly enough, I created this Hy-Art (Fantin-Latour/Ernst) before reading this article, about the attraction the Internet has revealed between people who share the same name, or "Googlegangers".  (The mirroring effect is mine.) 

As usual with my big ideas, I was not the only one to come up with it. For  years, I've wanted to start the Marc Olmsted Club, and do a documentary about the 22 of us meeting. I thought it would be very funny for all of us to offer to pay a bill with the same credit card, among other discussions of the impact of one's name on one's life. I can think of a few of you with interesting appellations. Ever meet your googlegangers? Care to share?

At the risk of seeming to lay it on a bit thick about my feet, I neglected to mention that I stubbed my left fourth toe, (the one next to the pinky toe) about two weeks ago. Unfortunately, it has remained extremely tender, and exacerbated my limp. Yesterday, when I went to get a nerve induction test and physical therapy on my tarpal tunnel, it was decided that I should get an X-ray today on the toe, which I will do at 11..

What is it with me and my feet? (I wonder if other Marc Olmsteds have similar plaints?) I've had three surgeries on my big toe in over the years.  Once it got so infected I had to go on IV antibiotics and have the nail removed.  (This is what I get for being a klutz, someone prone to jerky, impatient movements.  Riding with me when I drove a stick shift was legendary. It wasn't pretty.)

I watched American Idol Gives Back last night, and spent the second day in a row feeling completely inadequate in the face of AIDS and poverty around the world.

And yet, I am ambivalent about the amount of money given by a Pitt or a Bono, not because I don't admire their generosity, but because I think part of the problem is a world economic system that rewards the few with far too much in the first place.

In a fair world, the rickshaw driver would earn as much as a doctor, the maid as much as a lawyer.  The teacher would make  more than the CEO, and the artist, the actor, the writer--we wouldn't make much at all, because we get to do what we love.

It's an odd concoction, to be an economic communist and yet a cultural individualist.  I guess I'm a Scandinavian Social Democrat at heart, not too surprising with a last name that comes from  Danish. ("Almstede" means  "Place of the Elms.")

 

MCO 2008

Last night I saw the Lady Vols win the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship (another legacy of Tony--that boy turned me into a sportsfan for every Tennessee-related team.)

Then I created this Hy-Art--that's a very famous Picasso guitar player entertaining some of Monet's ladies of leisure enjoying an afternoon in a garden.

It''s so easy here in the West to keep our eyes on all the ways women, past and present, have been approaching social parity to men.  (Even these cossetted and corsetted women to the left at least enjoy the benefits of their social class.)   When we Americans think of the dilemmas of modern women, we tend to think in terms of athletic or professional accomplishments, or of juggling work and having children--legitimate topics for discussion, for sure, but almost comic to most of the world's women, who know little else but work, at a level which we have little conception of, we of the 40-hour week and 2.1 children.

Safely ensconsed in my little delusionary cocoon, I had no intention of turning on HBO's The Greatest Silence, in fact I'd intended to avoid it for fear of not sleeping, of hating the world, of sinking into despair over how cruel the male of the species seems repeatedly destined to be. But as horrified as I was, I was more moved by the extraordinary courage of these women, of those who help them, of the doctors and filmmakers and co-survivors who do not turn away, who wake up every day and go back to confront evil and provide hope.

By far the most chilling moments are the interviews with the rapists-exhibiting a self-serving and perverse set of rationales that bespeak of what happens to the male brain when war and poverty deprives boys of anything resembling education.  The men have been raised by the language of violence, they have learned that empathy and compassion are signs of weakness, and weakness equals death.  Still, to  feel sorrow for these men who shove rifles up vaginas was a feat I could not manage, even if the angels of my better nature understand at least intellectually that no one is born cruel, that all victimizers were once victims, and that to commit such deeds kills the soul.

The filmmaker, Lisa Jackson, points outs that these rapists have left behind thousands of children, many who are being raised in orphanages or by overwhelmed, traumatized mothers often permanently disabled and considered shamed. The boys among them, shunned by society, are growing up to be very angry, neglected men. It's a recipe for even greater disaster.

Is it really such a ridiculous notion that we would have a government that uses its military to defend against genocide and atrocity than to protect our access to resources and to indulge the desires of cowardly old white men to play elaborate games of geopolitical chess? 

It's no wonder that for the first time in many years I actually lost my dinner.  I've been upset by the world many times before, so I really do think it was something I ate, but maybe my body was reacting to what my mind protecting itself against. 

Anyway, if you want to do something, the organizations that help are here.  At least I know exactly what I'd do with a billion dollars. 

MCO 2008

So yesterday I did a very odd thing.  I put a load of whites in the washing machine, started it, and then proceeded to put four quarters into the dryer next to it.  One of the quarters popped out and hit the floor. I looked for it for at least five minutes, and concluded it must have gone under one of the machines. I cursed my fate, and went back in and got another quarter, and ran the dryer.

This would be thoroughly uninteresting except there were no clothes in the dryer. That's right, I ran it empty. (Look no further-I am personally responsible for global warming.)

And the weirdest thing is that when I went back later, and realized what I'd done, the missing quarter was right there, exactly where I'd looked for it before, clear as day. 

Frankly, I honestly wondered whether I'd had a stroke. I've been absent-minded in my time, but this absolutely took the cake. I emailed a few friends, sharing the "ha-ha" story, but I felt the need to really examine what happened.

One friend suggested I must have been in intense thought over something, and I realized I was. I had refused a tag for a meme--I know, terrible blogettiquette, but who cares what my favorite ice cream is?--and at the moment I was deep in thought over a most harmless question on it but probably the reason I didn't want to do the meme. The question was:  "what would you do with a billion dollars?"

Leave it to me to obsess over something that will never happen as if it's a virtual certainty that it will. I would be so wanting to make absolutely sure that I spent the money to alleviate the maximum amount of suffering that I think I would die of ulcers and frustration as I realized that all the good I could do was still not nearly enough. God forbid I should be content with improving the lot of hundreds of thousands. No, only eliminating all poverty and violence on the planet is good enough for Grandiolmsted..

The thing is, when my parents told me "you can do anything you set your mind to" I believed them.  On some level, I still feel that I might be called upon to spend a billion dollars, and I better be ready. So my head starting spinning. More micro-loans to poor women? Refitted tankers to transport melting water from the icecaps to the desert to turn it into rainforest? Safe house for refugees of sexual trafficking? Howabout turning mines in landfills? Teaching everyone Esperanto as a second language? Free Trashpickers for everybody? But don't I want to make some movies? What about the trash problem in Naples? Children of prostitutes in India? Orphans in Romania? The working poor right here? AARRGGGHHH!!!

The way I started thinking about this, you'd think Bill and Melinda Gates were on the other line, impatiently waiting for advice on how to spend their foundation money.  The reality was--when I wasn't scouring my car for an extra quarter-- I was  setting up my Hy-Art card store so I can make it to the end of each month, much less cure malaria. So here it is, people:

www.makemarc.etsy.com

When I make my first billion, I promise the first 10 buyers will get a million dollars each!  (Don't worry, in 2025 money, that'll be about $40. Inflation you know.) 

MCO 2008

One of the most challenging things about the Hy-Art is to successfully mix works from different centuries. This Van Eyck couple is from the 15th century, the floating duo are from a 20th century Chagall.  (It occurs to me looking at this is that one of the great things about babies is that they never change! They're the same no matter what culture or what century. Dogs too.)

There was another consequence of Saturday night's view of Dark Victory that I didn't share yesterday. Robert Osborne happened to mention that Ronald Reagan, who plays a perpetual drunk suitor to Bette Davis in the movie, used to pronounce his name "Ree-gun" and to rebrand himself when he became a politician, changed the pronunciation to "Ray-gun."

I bring this up because my father always pronounced it "Ree-gun," and it drove my Mother and I--the Word Police in the family--crazy. No matter how many times we exasperatedly corrected him, he would stick to his pronunciation. Being my Dad, (no "Great Communicator") he never once could articulate that this was the way he'd heard it growing up in the 30s and 40s and going to movies every week.  My mother, having grown up in France, had no similar reference point, and of course I only knew Reagan as an adult.

Sorry, Dad.  I was more willing to think you irrational than to imagine that perhaps I just didn't have some information that would have explained your seeming arbirtrariness quite logically. I lacked faith and humility, while awash in a willingness to judge, with an overconfidence in the superiority of my intellect over practically everybody's. This may seem an exceedingly minor point on which to base such a sweeping indictment, but it is, indeed very representative of who I was.

I'm getting better. I still grit my teeth when someone uses"infallible" when they mean "fallible" but I get over it. I can either correct it or let it go, but there's absolutely no reason I have to let it ruin my morning. All that is is a desire to control everything and everyone, and what has never worked ain't gonna suddenly start working now.

MCO 2008 

Yesterday was the 100th birthday of Bette Davis, and TCM ran some of her best movies all day.  I actually went to a friend's to see Elizabeth and Essex, then some of Now Voyager, (I've seen that one so many times I can mouth the dialogue). I skipped All About Eve because I'd seen that for the umpteenth time just two weeks ago, and didn't turn back until watching Dark Victory for a nightcap.

I know it's a bit of cliche, women and gay men crying at sad movies. (For any philistines reading, Dark Victory is considered the first tearjerker, in which the heroine dies from a brain tumor so rare she's perfectly well until the last 10 minutes, in which she goes blind.  Bette is amazing--she really elevates the material.) But I have to tell you, the story of a vibrant and beautiful person dying in their prime hits any gay man who lived through the 80s and 90s between the eyes like a Mac Truck.  For fear of losing it, I'd intended to turn the movie off before the end and go to bed, but I was making this oddlly appropriate Hy-Art (Petrus Christus/Winslow Homer) as I watched, and suddenly found myself at the final scenes.

At first I cried over the death of Judith Traherne-Bette's character. (Who wouldn't love a woman who says: "My father died of drink, my mother lives in Paris.  I take a great deal of exercise and I'm accustomed to generous amounts of tobacco and alcohol. I'm said to have a good sense of humor. Any other questions, Doctor?" )  But soon it was impossible not to go through the roll-call of the dead friends in my head, their lives as I knew them flashing before my eyes.  Apart from my brother--which was like losing a limb--there was a core of 10 or so who died to whom was extremely close.  These were roommates or exes or co-workers who I knew well, went on trips with, who I kept in touch with a visited when I moved to California. Seven of them died in a 14-month period, in the middle of the 90s. 

It occurred to me for the first time that I may have suffered from more than grief, that my subsequent devotion to drugs may have been an actual manifestion of PTSD. (Rod, I think you're right.)  Which doesn't mean I might have not become an addict anyway,  but to the extent I was self-medicating, there's no doubt that I had enough loss in a short time to constitute a form of trauma.  One death was enough to fill a body up, but a dozen, not to mention the very real possibility of my own? I did not know where to put all the fear and grief.

Between the 12 Steps and my art, I do believe I'm finally processing though all that trauma  I can now imagine my friends Eric and Alan, lovers dead within a year of each other, canoeing away down the Delaware just like we did that fantastic 4th of July weekend in 1982.  Eric loved Bette Davis. For all I know he was watching with me in last night.

Or over me. If there was anyone who would have loved the Internet, if only for the sites on Oscar buzz, it was Eric. So just in case he can read this, hey Elaine! How are you, girl? You are remembered. And thank you, just in case you've become my Guardian Angel. 

MCO 2008

I love how this Eakins (the man) and Hopper (the woman) rendition evokes that very particular moment when you are first in love and have to go on a trip, and all you can think of is the object of your affection. You suddenly think you see his face everywhere, in the cut of the conductor's jaw, and doesn't he have a jacket like the one that guy in line was wearing?  You open the magazine you bought, and you try to read it, but the words evaporate before they reach your eyes.  You'd rather sit back and close them and think about the last conversation you had, or stare out the window, even though all you can think of is how you'll describe the trip to him.

Oh my, to be in love like that, it's so delicious. You are capable of setting aside any potential obstacle, ignore any red flag, no matter how madly it's waving. All that matters is the moment, the anticipation, the next phone call. You're at the place where it's almost more pleasant to be apart then together, because when you're with him you're as nervous as Fanny Brice with Nicky Arnstein.

I'm glad I had those huge infatuations, I can't imagine having gone through life without experiencing them. But never again, not that kind of unreasoned, anxiety-limned passion.  It's an awful thing to give someone else absolute power over your sense of self-worth.  The phone rings, you're in heaven. It doesn't, you're in hell.  No, no, no, I'm sending that order back to the kitchen! Been there, done that, grew up! 

Now for something completely different, and it's about the earnings of Hillary and Bill since they left the Presidency. I have no problem with what they made, as they paid 1/3 of it in taxes and gave 10% of it away.  What I have a problem with is foundations and corporations spending several hundred thousand dollars to pay ANYONE to give one speech. Bill is a great speaker, I'm sure he's very motivational, but $400,000 could pay for a lot of employee health insurance, among about a million other excellent ways to spend the money. If Bill won't do it for $25,000, then hire me.  I'll give you motivation! I'll deliver 20 speeches, and I might even throw in a Lewinsky or two!

Gaza's digestive system seems to have recalibrated back to normal.

MCO 2008