(i had such a big monster crush on this girl, jen, i couldn't SPEAK. i get crushed out a lot, but rarely speechless. she was the alpha dog. i was such a dork. some girls can make you babble so i just shut up.)a lot has happened since i've been back from the UK.
as i said earlier, i killed the movie deal with a popsicle stick through the leg, and one or two people who pretended they were my pals suddenly stopped talking to me and it freaked me out like you wouldn't believe. i'm usually brilliant at reading people in a few seconds. us runaway girls have to cultivate that talent toot sweet or you're toast.
now i feel better because i see some people just deal with disappointment like retarded serial killers and are a little harsh. but they mean well. if you open your heart to people's differences, you can cut 'em slack and move on. i had to because i was quite attached to some involved. but i was sad, too. however now i'm over it and know it'll be way better in the long run. it's hard as hell to stay true to your vision even though you've got absolutely NO PROOF you're right because you've only got a vague SKETCH in your head of what you wanna do. you've gotta wing it... that's hard to do. let others think you're a fool and shrug it off and move on. i'm used to that through the years so i can wait it out. i love to be right so it'll make me work that much harder to secretly be able to laugh at THEM in my head later on.
it's exciting to be underestimated. it's fire. inspiration. creativity. the middle finger. it's all that. fuck yeah....
btwn the earlier director, simon, having a nervous breakdown but finally paying me back the $2500 and this uninspiring movie deal going down and being told how amazing it actually was, i felt like i'm in the wrong business because i found the dry cleaner-cum-producer kinda creepy. no. really creepy. but don't know what else to do.
but i had big monster plans and those are the only things that brought me back from all that despair after the spate of my friends' suicides. it's not about a little scratch anymore. it's about leaving the world better than when i found it. the camping motto.
it's all a little more settled down now and i feel like i've made the right decisions, even if i have to hold on a little longer. i'm on the right track. these tests in life show you your mettle. i pass and each time i like who i am more and more.
and coming back from the UK really kind of made me sad. i felt really at home with catherine in london and the girls who came out to the shows in london, and then staying with michelle green in manchester and her generous friends and the amazing turnout at the theatre... it felt like HOME.
(these are shots we took from the cell phone of real black people in the UK. they were way more cool than american black people. it blew my mind. the long leather coats, tipped hats, and hoochie mamas)
for a couple of weeks i tried to find any excuse to go back, my box was there too--i'll go back and pick it up! but i wanted to go back because i felt like an artist among peers with michelle and her friends. it was fun to set up a show and walk home late at night and ask about tipping and taxis and figure out the etiquette of things and i really was sad to leave. i was in awe of the beer, the friendliness and conor? i wanted to follow conor around all day and write with him. i haven't laughed that hard in i don't know how long.
i was really bummed to leave and in the wake of the dying movie deal i wanted back to manchester and laughter, where the black people look like soul music in 1977 and the white artists live like poor american black people in 1977.
it's still hard to make sense out of it all. to realize that people my age still hang out together and play records on turntables and talk about art and politics and lend each other lights and do professional favors. it was really beautiful.
it hasn't been like that for me in san francisco for quite some time.
thankfully the internet does keep a lot of us artists in touch and enables us to meet new ones.
so while i was going away and doing something new and scary, i felt like i was somehow going HOME to who i forgot i was.
i don't see any way back soon, so i'm a little melancholy about it, but work will dilute the sadness.
---
it was also good to go back out and play and just getting out of my comfort zone hovel here, i remember to stay in touch with fans and readers, for we are friends. you all have informed my work ever since i hit the skids and so many of you pre-bought my art book. i had no idea you all were out there and it became the beginning of a long-term give/give relationship. many of you became producing partners, made swag, gave ideas, read writings, bought merchandise, and kept me believing in whatever it was i was flailing around and doing.
and seeing the support and realizing performing and writing could be a two-way conversation gave work new life, new meaning, and i didn't stay so depressed when the gatekeepers on high ignored me. you all empowered me. and i hung in there and we pulled off amazing feats. we really did. i got to see a better future, a better way for artists. not struggling one-on-one, but that it was time for us to stop begging for producers to love us, and it was time to be in control of our own stories.
so i really thank you for being there and giving a damn. i say it a lot but not nearly enough.
i'm trying to write the proposal for the 4th tomato book so i will be sporadically around. i wish some of you would rant in the comments here! i like the give-and-take about twitter that way. but i die with 140 characters, as you can imagine!
thanks for the kind words. thanks for the courage. thanks for lending it to me whenever i'm short!
speaking of easter, you all have brought me back from the brink of artistic death so many times. i can't imagine being an ivory tower artist.
that's what i loved about going to the UK. meeting people i've talked to for years. like michelle green. she is like an old friend. i slept in her living room and got to wake up and spend all lazy day reading and leaving my hair like sideshow bob. what a good life. when you can just be yourself with people met through work, it's the greatest thing. having good conversations that pick back up hours later.
i felt at home. wish i could've found a way to go back. one day!
for now i will stay here and write, write, write.
all of you in the UK who showed up and were gushy amazing emotionally giving people, thank you for your generosity.
it really took me aback.
that's why i couldn't write on it all so fast. i still can't. it's hard to write about things that mean so much. the act of writing seems to belittle and simplify things. it's hard to convey their importance. sometimes i'm very white and just quietly feel my feelings! this is one of those times.
yes, there was culture shock and even is in the US right now with all this wealth and class. and i'm even having it regarding men and women right now. i'm seeing things as i've never seen them before.
but that's what happens when my mom calls. it snaps my neck.
and i have so much anger and disappointment in women, it shocks me. all the men we've made fun of for being run by hard cocks, i see women as being run by compliments. my childhood was a freak show because mom chased compliments like crack. and i have a lot of friends with similar experiences. we make cartoons out of men and our way is not so much better.
i tend to know men drenched in testosterone and they leave slimy testosterone trails behind them wherever they go. the honest ones admit many times they'd like to drag a 19 yo girl away by the hair and fuck her without asking her about her feelings. and i giggle. but these men are the most loving and generous to me. they never ever say "don't say that!" they are crazy mad generous and a lot of them have broken hearts about their children being taken away.
i'm not saying women are bad. i'm saying that as a woman who's afraid of being with another woman because i don't think my heart could take it, and as a woman who's been reared with feminists who spoke about how bad men were, i have a lot of creepy experiences from being on my own or sent away because mom got a compliment and was waiting for more from some guy.
i'm saying that stories are so complex and they're dangerous to solidify for we live by them too long. the welfare stories, the UK stories, all of 'em.
that's why i'm afraid to write too much. i have avoided solidifying my own childhood because it's complex. depends on the day of the week, how i see it. i get angry or happy or relieved depending on which facet. ultimately, i made it out without being brutally raped or fucked up, and a creative person with fight, so i can't deny it was all good for me to have so many experiences which made my life richer for the empathy i have for so many different types of people.
but it's scary to make a cartoon and try and be pat or funny about something. it becomes a story in stone and that's dangerous. a joke can be ossifying.
sometimes i don't want to pin any experience down. i want it to roll around in my head and my soul for awhile. sometimes it become its own punchline, then i'll go ahead and feel free to make fun of a canadian john. why? because he's complex but i give myself a pass because he was miserly and mean to people.
i do have a code!
and i will always make fun of myself. if anyone's trying to be earnest, i won't even want to make fun of them silently in my head. that's small and mean like a high school girl who imagines she's got some secret to being better.
but stories and experiences are like wine tasting. you inhale, swirl it around your tongue and only after tossing it around different segments of your mouth do you spit it back out. even then you don't make any pronouncements so quickly. you dig the aftertaste.
that's how i feel about the UK.
i was sad to leave. amazed to see how expensive everything is but how there's a squatting world and a huge community of artists and mixed people and laughter. so much laughter.
i really loved it. first opportunity to return and i'm there.
i felt so welcome. everyone's so loving and forgiving and involved in helping out.
thanks for treating me like a friend. a person. not a story. not a cartoon. a flat person. an ideal.
thanks for letting my hair be nappy and thanks for letting me stay in bed and be frightened. i get so afraid before shows. so frightened.
if i could've made a living behind the scenes, i would've. but this life you have to keep going by any means necessary. and you all have always been so kind. i have shared the stage with others and i instantly recognize THEIR fans and i want my own.
my new rule is that i will no longer share stages with others. others are fine. but my fans and friends walk in with their hearts on their shoulders instead of chips.
what is beautiful is that i think we've grown together.
i could cry. fuck. i AM crying. cripes. i make myself cry a lot when i write. i'm not making up what i see. when i share the stage, even years ago, i'd know who was there for the other people. i can see it in their eyes. their expectations. their distance.
my god i am so lucky. i have absolutely EVERYTHING. this is what artists want. they think all the money will mean this. it never does. it never does.
thank you for the lessons.
x
erika
