Art History is My True Family Album

i used to have to pee whenever i'd finally xerox a pen and ink drawing... they always came out so crisp and clean and ... perfect with no lumpy white out.

now i love the mistakes, the faintly-erased pencil lines. i want to see the paste up lines. the marks. the gobs of white out painted over white out.

i want to find out how you, me, and everyone got where we were. isn't that infinitely more interesting than fake tits? yes. to me. i'm looking for the twitches of truth. what makes you and me squirm as we fight to turn our face and hide.

now that pizza day is finally coming up, and i'm out of the hell, and going out into the world and seeing people as if for the first time, i'm confused by so much. i feel connected to everyone, and yet i simultaneously wonder what the fuck they're thinking? it's the little things. how we all hurt each other for petty insecurities. the damage reverberates like a gong.

and i'm dancing in the clear air of paradox. i smell the chai tea down the hall and know this has something to do with buddhism. that's where james comes in...

so i'm gonna type some of the basics of the conversation you inspired btwn james and me this a.m.

yes, we all know this stuff but all the books that get written are a lot about simply REMEMBERING.
we were discussing the endless paradoxes..

if i get james talking philosophy in the morning, he's good at this stuff. by day's end he's practically grunting "boobies!" with a motorcycle magazine in his hand.



Me: "why is everyone working so hard to maintain when letting go is actually stronger?"

James: "it's like our ego is a little tiny mouse. and we build these big robots to protect the little mouse. we THINK we're separate from others. we forget we're ALL connected."

Me: "ah! already connected. that's why some artists remind us of that connection."

James: "and we try desperately to connect to another 'separate' mouse but the robot body keeps crashing in the way and prevents closeness."

Me: "how come when i see people now, i feel simultaneously connected with this wholeness AND disconnected as i watch them struggling and crashing into other robots?"

James: "at the same time you know more and are more aware, you're also aware you know very little. you have to be okay with that."

Me: "i do?"

James: "yes. be okay with uncertainty and paradox."

Me: "hmmm. so, paradox man, then why do i make people feel almost simultaneously happy and scared when i meet them?"

James: "people get afraid you'll see their mouse. you want to connect to people in a real way and most of the time we deal with the robot and never get to who they really are. the mouse. you have to deal with a set of illusions. and you, you don't put yourself in a cage."

Me: "cage?"

James: "all the houses are beige and all the cars are silver. i don't really believe everyone out there REALLY wants a beige house and silver car, or wear the same clothes. but they don't want to stand out and subject themselves to criticism. you don't give a crap and that scares them."

Me: "oh, so when a big black guy tells me his penis is 10" and he could take me for quite a ride, but i laugh and say i'm no size queen because big-penis guys are the laziest lovers-- and besides, the best orgasms often come from basic fingers--you mean that's a blow to such a fragile ego?"

James: "of course spanky, we already covered that in class." [we did. i still thought not being a size queen would take pressure OFF even a big guy, but now it all made bigger philosophical sense now. it's all about the mouse and the robot.]

Me: "how come only some of us go into heironymus bosch paintings?"

James: "some of us are on that path. and when the ego is threatened, that's when you get nihilistic. and if the ego doesn't even exist, then NOTHING exists and there's no point to anything. if you can get through that, you realize EVERYTHING matters and DOESN'T matter simultaneously. only people on the path go through the 'dark night of the soul'/nihilistic stage. but the true master is okay with uncertainty and change because THAT'S reality. we all have weaknesses and have a hard time standing in the middle of uncertainty. only a true master can withstand it. that's when you know you're UP THERE."

Me: "Whoa."

--oh, and i also finally get why art history and Hieronymus Bosch meant so little before. i was YOUNG! how obvious. now it's all family pictures. Click on the painting to see it a little better. I ought to go to Hieronymus Hell for not showing it to you in color, but we can not afford the color here. We have bills to pay. Mistakes to make.

While I've been home sick...

(hit picture for closer view of mistakes)
Yeah, i've been sick for almost two weeks, but i've been more into the blogs about the WGA strike. oh, i love that union stuff. it's so exciting, all that togetherness and fighting for rights and stuff. i love it! such actions reverberate beyond the original ground zero, and so maybe others will start to go, "hey! that's enough!"

yes!

anyhow, i've also been home sick and drawing a lot. i'm going to illustrate my script and publish it as a book first. a PAPER MOVIE! yes! it'll help with the other movie. i am strong like water. like a river. i can find no rock that can stop me. i will go around it. i am water. i flow past the obstacles...through the cracks... and out out and away...

so there's one of the drawings above. an infamous green maid of honor dress from the script.

i'm also reading this great book on rhetoric that the bad-ass producer, Debbie Brubaker, turned me onto: "thank you for arguing" by jay heinrichs. i already learned a lot of this stuff from being around james for almost ten years, but it's about how present and past tense tend to tribalize people. politicians and radio talk shows do that all the time. but if you speak in FUTURE tense, it stops the boring blaming and clubbing.

i love love love this book! i was cranky (no sleep, can't breathe, or talk without coughing fits) and james came over as he usually does on friday night. i made him a quick supper and he made the mistake of answering his cell phone right as he was to sit and eat, and chatted as everything got cold. whoa! i was so mad i went back to bed and sulked for the next five minutes.
but he came over to me and while we argue beautifully anyhow, this book gave a name to everything.

james said, "i was only on for a few moments."

me: "but i feel like crap and sterilized myself to make you a hot meal."

james: "i needed to help my friend find a fedex office and no, i don't know why his iphone couldn't help him."

me: "let's get out of the past and present tense [i'd already told him some details of this book]...how can we stop this from happening in the future?"

james: "huh?"

me: "would you be willing to answer your phone calls after supper when you're with me?"

james: "...yeah, okay. come on down, spanky." [he calls me spanky]

i came on down with my box of tissues and cough drops that i always forget don't work.

and there's' this other cartoon book i love that you might get at the same time for the double-feature nature of the two books. it's called "sentences" by percy carey, and i heard him on terri gross' fresh air. he's what happens to you when you DON'T learn how to argue and stay in the scorched-earth policies of the dog parks. he got shot and ended up in a wheelchair. now while i don't usually care about such stories, they BORE me, actually, like sit-coms where you know everything's gonna go to hell because no one will say the truth. i don't wave lighters in the air for tupac or anything. but it was a good little story precisely because percy carey is so humbled and becomes like this zen master guy, without turning into a frail white vegan guy with a crew cut and glasses.

he's amazing and i hope he does well. he's truly good people. people who were never bad can be scary boring. but people who never grow out of all that kid stuff are downright tedious. you've gotta tell people like that, oh yeah, you're penis is SO huge! even though people with big penises tend to be the sloppiest lovers i've ever had. they don't even think they have to be in the room.

more stories on that later. for sure.

anyhow, buy percy carey's book because you want to support an artist like that who's trying to do his own thing after all that hell.

aha! i was right!

i ripped this quote below from my acting teacher, cliff osmond's post, on his blog site (click this post's title above for that link)

A Quote from Nelson Mandela:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are adequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, talented and fabulous?' Actually who are you not to be? Your playing small and self-accusatory doesn't serve the world."

aha! see? little ol' me was right about us ALL being geniuses and how we'd BETTER BE or else...

(click the drawing for close up of the badness)