So I've decided to start a blog. Yeah, I know, who hasn't. I mean, I have about five different blog pages or so started already, why start another one, right? And who will really read it, again right. But given a need to create and my own personal feeling of adding something to the world that will survive past my time or flow towards the abyss with me, here I am typing away into a screen that is only fourteen inches wide. Yes!
Plus, I feel after having a complex, soul searching, artwork scratching, inner voice picking halfway-through-an-MFA-Thesis-review last week, I need to do some writing. Existential crisis be damned, I need to figure some stuff out. And I need to write to figure these things out. And maybe I need the structure of weekly writings to be able to do that. And maybe if others can read them I won't stop at some point or I will try more to make them not suck. Just maybe. We can hope.
So, what I don't want this to be.
Since I am opt to use the subtractive method to analyze things it seems like this is the best way to start to describe my intentions: what these pages are to not be. We'll see how long it is until I start to break some rules.
1) These pages are to not be whiny. Who needs that, right? Another person writing into the cyberworld about how disjointed or distanced things are in the world is entirely not what this world needs now. It needs another pop singer.
2) These pages are not to be entirely self indulgent. Alright, I am writing this for myself. I'll admit that, but who doesn't really write for themselves? The need to get the story out isn't entirely for the benefit of the viewer as much as it is the need of the creator to get something out of his/her mind that will consume and control them if it isn't released. Kinda like popping a boil.
So on a scale of one to ten with Dylan circa 1963 being a one (Blowing in the Wind sort of selflessness) and a Dylan circa 1979 being a ten (Slow Train Coming... really? Gotta serve somebody... ) my aim would to be somewhere between Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde.
Shit, how self indulgent is that? To place this humble artist ramblings between two of the greatest albums of all time. Okay, I think I broke these rules already. Oh well...
3) These pages aren't intended to be entirely academic. I mean, really, who wants to read about theory and the brain and sociology and psychology and all that pie in the sky, high fallutin' bull. Postmodernism killed all of that (and thank god for the lack of hierarchies!), as well as punk rock, ecstasy, the A Team and Amazon.com. It's been a crazy few decades, who the hell knows how the boat is gonna rock anymore and why bash your head against the wall trying to predict the future, right. New episodes of Glee start next week.
4) I claim no real, definitive authority over these ramblings. Observations, interesting readings and thoughts pertaining to them, maybe a link to a song or artist that jives in the right way, maybe some diatribe about this topic or that, maybe some sappy and quasi-romantic musings about nature and our relationship to it: all these are par for the course. An intention for anyone who reads this to follow my example, lead, or queries is merely on the part of the reader. I come to bury Caesar, not to judge or praise or live my life by him. Really, I have a hard enough time myself trying to figure out the in's and out's of this existence, let alone guiltily worry about if I'm leading anyone over a cliff with my name on it.
5) Another Facebook type blog page. I won't give Status Updates (that's what my Facebook page is for, right?) or bla bla things over or gossip or gripe (okay, maybe I'll gripe a little) or sell/promote upcoming shows, or anything like that. Friend requests and pokes are not allowed (though sometimes pokes are vehemently encouraged) and games and groups are just way too... sophomoric. So there. I'll just block you in a cyberspace version of passive aggressive behavior. There, you just don't exist to me anymore. Happy? Thought so.
6) Lastly, I don't want this to just end. It seems like something that I could really enjoy, something that maybe others can enjoy, maybe not. But I want to keep this momentum going with this baby. It seems like this could be a bit of a beginning into the questioning of what we're all really doing here, why we do what we do, and what impact that really has on us as individuals spinning from place to place on this rotating orb spinning around a star. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but I can't really accept that (as much as later writings may seem to contradict this). So I therefore intend to keep creating at least this blog/writings forever. And ever. Remember, I can't break these rules. Forever.
What I want this to be.
Now that I've gotten the negative Nancy stuff out of the way, what I want this to be, in all it's splendor and glory.
1) An honest and thoughtful investigation of artwork, human drives and motivations, connections that we as living beings make to one another and the places that we inhabit, and the ways that we deal with ourselves and others. I really wanna know: what is it like to know home, what ties people to place, why do we tend to pull ourselves away from these ties anymore, and is there any real way of knowing the paths to navigate through this world. If anyone knows, please email me. I'll reply back, I swear.
2) Funny and smart and flashy and low-key and hip and humble and big and red and minimal and conceptual and full of visuals and full of text and corn fed beef and organic vegetarian, all rolled up, battered then fried. Just like they make it back home. Well, the fried part at least.
3) At the very most, one man's questioning of his life, choices, thoughts, fears, laughs and fuck-ups. At the very least, one man's fuck-ups. But with a little questioning in there, always with the questioning. And the laughing (even if it's only on the inside).
I don't quite know who said it (see number 4 above) but it's been expressed that the unquestioned life isn't worth living. Or something like that. I think it was Thoreau. Or Socrates. Or maybe it was Bono or something. But I hope that this little blog of a thing will help me with my own set of questioning. Of my art, of my life, of the path that I travel (and then in the macro, that we all travel). Not that I am going to question myself so that you don't have to, you slacker. Question your own damn self. But maybe, just maybe, the paths that I take wandering through the desert are of some consolation, help, or distraction for you. Or maybe you just laugh at how much I can screw things up. Either way...
4) And finally, a compact set of evidence describing one person's thoughts, experiences, and meanderings through this world, lost. Even though he has plenty of maps to guide him.
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