Shame.

You’re too fat. You’re the wrong age, the wrong height, the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong type, too slow, too quick for your own good. You’re too dark, too light. You’re “only pretty”. You’ll never look like that. You’re ugly as sin. You could be a model. You’re plain. You’re nothing without your makeup. The beard makes you look like a dork. You should go natural. You’re a pizza face. Cover that shit up. Why can’t you be bothered to take care of yourself?

You’re a wallflower. You’re too loud. You don’t speak up for yourself. You’re too defensive. Too passive. You’re too angry. Too aggressive. You’re much too sensitive. Too needy, too self-possessed, too self-obsessed. You’re an easy target. You put yourself on a pedestal. You’re too outspoken. Too independent. Too negligent. Too proud. Too humble. You’re too easily influenced. You’re too stubborn.  What’s your problem, anyway?

You need to speak out. You need to shut up. You need to stand out. You need to play dead. You ought to have the strength of your convictions. You should do as you’re told. Keep your nose clean. Be yourself. Don’t rock the boat. March to the beat of your own drummer. Why can’t you be a team player?

You haven’t slept with enough people. You’re a slut....unless you’re a stud. You’re an old maid. An old fart. You’re pussy-whipped. You’ve checked out. You’re too involved. You give too much. You’re completely useless. You’re a busybody. You’re always helping the wrong people, making the wrong decisions, doing the wrong thing, hanging with the wrong crowd. You need to get seen. You need to be invisible. You need the right things. All of them. Real people have the right things. The right house, the right track, the right career, the right connections, the right clothes, the right car. Wal-Mart is for the subnormals. Are you subnormal?

They saw you were weak. They didn’t like your friends. The way you dressed. Your bumper stickers. Your books. Your thoughts. The things you did. The things they imagined you did. You didn’t share their interests. Wrong faith, man, wrong practice on the wrong day. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You fought back. You tried to ignore them. You pointed them out. You asked for it. You flaunt it. You give it away for free, so they came and took as much as they wanted. What were you expecting?

Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You shouldn’t need any help. You’re a parasite. You work too much. You’re lazy. You’re too young to understand. You’re too old to be making these kinds of mistakes. You don’t have anything to offer. You’re sitting on your talents. You should do something popular. Sell your soul on the open market. Make something unique. Take risks. Play it safe. You should have known better. You’re nothing but excuses. Just get over it. Why can’t you get your act together?

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Friday on the Downhill Slide.

It's January, 2013. I am officially four years older than my dad. I made it.

I'm not sure what that means, or if it means anything at all. 

When I first began therapy my expectations were broad and shallow. I wanted to get my professional life back under control. I was tired of feeling sad all the time. There were moments when I was so angry it frightened me. I was exhausted from swinging like a pendulum between these two poles. 

Doctor, I'm broken. My dad was a shrink so I'm familiar with the schpiel: "the therapist only points in the right direction. It's up to the patient to walk the path." Yeah, fine, whatever. Fix me already.

 

I wanted to keep looking out to the horizon, same as always, Mr. Intellectual, suspended at a critical distance from himself. My therapist made me look down and see all the ankle-snapping potholes that perforated the tarmac underfoot. Awareness of potholes in the road--stage one, check. Stage two: avoid potholes, check. One, two, one, two, one, two.

Nothing worthwhile is easy. 

I don't want to revisit my dad's death every January, any more than I want to accept that I'll be a flat-butted hairy Viking for the rest of my days, but walking backwards through life will eventually get you decapitated, right? That's the key to the trouble. Turn the problem around until it makes sense. Get the perspective nailed down, lest every step lead to a tumble. 

This isn't about dad anymore. It hasn't been about him for decades. It's about me. All of it, from the darkest moments when I think about chasing after him to the brightest, when it seems like everything is possible and within my reach, this revolving storm that hits the same point of land every twelve months is what I have become, sui paternis. I am more than my father's son. I am four years off the map and still going.

Maybe that means as much as I want it to mean.

Quit Apologizing.

Hey.

I know you fucked up. I know that you know that, too. You blunder your way though life, through people. When you're blind--and you're blind most of the time, be honest, your regrets prove you have hindsight--you leave unintentional destruction in your wake. You leave behind an emergency room full of victims. Awareness amplifies the agony. You watch as you deliver the blow and you wonder if the day will ever come when you can be something other than a spectator to your own behavior. You'd put a vise clamp on your mouth if you could. You'd stay awake 23-7 if it meant you could do all the things that would make everyone happy. You'd do anything to make it all better.

Some broken things won't ever come back together.

Accept that you won't receive absolution for the wounds you've left behind. Be thankful when someone surprises you with forgiveness. Don't wear it too thin. Do more than promise to change. Make the effort to effect the change that's needed. You can be more than play at being an audience of one to your own stupid behavior.

Forgiveness runs through a thin cord. It's not infinitely strong. It can be worn out.

Forgiveness relieves. Actions heal.

Turn and Turn.

Round and Round and Round it Goes.....

...Where it Stops Nobody Knows.

That's what sticks most in the craw when it comes to inner demons: they never stop having a say in your life. You wish they'd just go and stay gone.

Our media makes us addicts to the Miracle Cure.  Have a weight problem? Try the Zone, the Paleo, the Crawl, the Butterfly, the Strain. You're unhappy? Buy a car! An iPad Mini will put a smile on your face if the iPad didn't. Just get yourself a new house, a better job, more money, a man, a woman, Jesus, a baby, a submarine, a rocket-powered elephant, and all your problems will vanish. The message says internal turbulence has an external pacifier. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Your inner demons are a part of you. You were compelled to make them. You survived by staying hidden in their twists and folds. Then conditions changed. You grew up. You got out. The folds ceased to be protection; they caught your feet, tripped you up, held you back. You sought help and met your demons face-to-face for the first time. You came to understand them a little. Session by session you regained the control you'd handed them when the world was too hard to face any other way. You learned how to hold on when they fought back. You found you were strong enough on your own. Now you don't need them any more.

The inner demons don't know that, don't want to hear it, won't ever believe it. Their reality will forever be the nightmare that gave them purpose and they will always try to make you see the world through their eyes. You can dismiss them, calm them, quiet them, but forget about getting rid of them. They are part of your framework. You don't reach peace by waging war against yourself but by achieving a detente with the little bastards. They ruled you, once upon a time. You have to parent them to keep them quiet.

Periodically you'll slip and they'll drive you for a while.

Remember what you've learned and gently push them aside.

There is no Miracle Cure.

Healing comes one twist at a time.

Stormy Weather.

Hey. Looks to me like you're getting soaked out there.

You know you can come inside any time, right?

And therein lies the problem: translating awareness into action. It's easier to hold tight and hope for clear skies. The longer you wait, the easier waiting becomes, until the day when waiting is all you know how to do.

You got stuck out in the rain one step at a time. Quit thinking about retrieving safety in giant leaps. Go back to the tried and true method that you misused. Give yourself permission to take a step or two towards a place that's dry and warm instead. Keep at it.  That's what will make it into a habit.

One day you'll look up and realize you reached the sunshine all by yourself.

The End of the Road.

Is it?

The end of the road represents a choice. You can choose a new direction and move on.

The depressive's addendum to that moldy oldie "when one door closes, another one opens" is good to remember when you're trying to change where your feet tend to take you. (Hopefully you'll forgive the mixing of metaphors. That appears to be the leading indicator of today's personal climate.) The mentally ill know better than most how the doors tend to change shape the more you insist on the downward ride; how they get to be smaller, bleaker, less inviting, until the roads they lead to disappear into trackless forest.

The doors behind you often wind up locked. That's the toll for the road you've taken.

Don't give up on creating change within yourself but let go of the need for absolution. Changing your behavior is the best thing you can do for earning forgiveness. Just don't count on it. Don't expect it. Try to be a better person right now, this minute, then the next, and again, and again. Good habits accrue as the bad ones do, step by step. The straightest roads meander. Should they bend back towards a door that was once locked and you discover it's open again, celebrate your own growth for an instant. Absorb what it feels like to recover lost ground.

Big doors lead to smaller ones on bad roads. Make yourself turn around.

A High Note on Drama.

The Holidays have come back around.

Let the screaming commence.

We hate certain cliches for their obnoxious condescending truth like we hate listening to a singer whose voice we can't stand. It doesn't matter to me that Jimmy Corrigan is a rock star, nor (more importantly, for the sake of this analogy) that he's hitting his notes spot-on. I don't want to hear him doing it. If he happens to be singing about something that speaks directly to my experience in a chiding way I am even less inclined to tolerance.

The cliche I'm thinking of is "you can only change yourself".

Yes, it's true. Sure it is. It provides little comfort when you're awash in family disharmony.

I will find my way through to loving those I care for without getting hung up on old thorns. I know how to get there. I got the basic pattern down from digging my way to Dad's self-murder and back out again and the prospect of being a disassembled motorbike scattered across my life's living room floor is endurable for the prize I know is waiting at the end of the grind. Self-work is always worth it. Whether you get the spark from Jung, or the Torah, or Tony Robbins carries less weight than the good you can do from a place of peace. I don't hold with the idea that God only shines light on those who do good in the Authorized Way. That's not the model that produced Mahatma Ghandi nor Martin Luther King...or Jesus, for that matter. Doing good is foundational more than fundamental.

It's a hard row to hoe. Sometimes I can see past the button-pushing, crazy-making family patterning to all the things I admire and love. Much of the time I'm holding the scream back right behind my teeth.

Well....you can only change yourself.

Pre-Turkeyfest Musings

The first rock opera I ever heard was Pete Townsend's collaboration with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, "Tommy". It came in a big two-record set with a full-color insert whose contents were partly graphic--illustrations in a style like Peter Max on acid, or is that redundant?--partly artfully-staged photographs. Here's Tommy's pinball machine on the beach. Here it is, nestled amongst scrub and deadwood. Here's the chrome of the pinball containing the world in mirrored backwards perfection. Here's Cousin Kevin, made out of thick plasticized strokes the width of your thumb, and here's the chair he used to torture Tommy, the stylized chunks of glass rising from the seat in jagged mountain ranges.

The metaphor of the chair was a regular feature in my therapy drawings. It wasn't a conscious choice on my part. I made the connection six years after I began drawing my way through healing. The messages in the photographs and art from Tommy penetrated deep and so cleanly I needed the shock of therapy to understand how profoundly they'd affected me. This is a chair, and also a prison cell, and a panic room with glass walls, a baby's crib and the dentist's chair from Marathon Man, where I played both Dustin Hoffman and Sir Lawrence Olivier. The chair was where I was supposed to be.

Pete and his buddies put that kid Tommy through an awful lot of crap. He witnesses his father murdering his mother's lover. Mother and father demand he blot the event from his memory. Tommy's a dutiful little kid and he does what any child desperate for his parent's love would do. He finds a way to bend to their will. He makes himself deaf, dumb and blind.

That doesn't sound outrageous to me. Adults put their kids through jarring realignments of what equals security all the time. What wouldn't you do to stay in the shelter of your parent's shadow? What would you sacrifice to keep them together if they were getting divorced? What would you willingly become to make one parent happy after the other has died? A puppet? A perfect student? A hellion? A china doll? A perpetual child?

Tommy's spell is broken when his mother shatters his mirror, the only physical thing he's reacted with since the murder. Does that mean his mirror was like a projection screen for his mind's eye? Maybe that was the idea. It sets him free. The circle is broken and he spills into the world as a prophet.

I have never experienced one overwhelming shift in self-perception from which all the days that followed were free of old weights (or chairs). My revelations have come as fast as I've been able to handle them. Sometimes that's in been in bunches, like a fistful of grapes. More often it's been a slog. I got out of my chair like an agoraphobic going to the grocery store, slowly, hesitantly, resentfully. Comfort and confinement combined make you a junkie for dependence. I hated that I hated letting go of such a crippling thing.

The chair rests discarded in the attic of my head. I stumble across it now and then. I know I don't fit there any more. You can't blame a guy for trying. It's scary out there.

May tomorrow give you many reminders of what you have to be thankful for. May you face no Cousin Kevins or Uncle Ernies over the dinner table. I wish you love and to be loved in return.

May you be free.

Here I Go.

Confidence. Does anybody have that stuff bottled?

Who's to say they'd sell it to you, if they did.

You have to go get it for yourself.

I've learned an interesting tidbit about the world, though. It's a little fact with a great right hook. Here it comes. We're all born to fall for good eventually. We come equipped with the bounce to get back up as well. It's the force that keeps us loving when there seems to be no point to living. The bounce gives you the power to make a reason for living all by yourself.

If you've got that bounce in spades, bless your little pointed head, but if that bounce is hard to find, as it sometimes is for all of us, keep on trying anyway.

Fake it until you can make it. Don't let your opponent fool you into believing anything less. Everyone is going to fall in the end. Get in there and swing like fury. You can get back up, so go.

Swing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I walked into the world and the world bit me in the ass. I walked into relationships with my eyes closed and it bit me in the ass. I walked through life and life bit me in the ass.

Problems you can't see are kin to the crocodiles you can't see--they're the ones you should worry about.

And now, an Idea.

  

Ever wonder what being empty-headed would feel like? Sometimes I do.

Certain advantages are obvious. Think of the storage space! Not having to carry a lunch pail, a handy place of concealment for your iPhone or wallet, that elusive storage bay for when you're trying to juggle one thing too many and you need a temporary residence for the Stilton and that bottle of Chateau Latour so you can find your car keys; the possibilities are as bewildering in their variety as a snowstorm in June. Consider, for example, that you'd never risk losing your car keys again if you could store them in your head. They might periodically poke the backs of your eyes. What a small price to pay for peace of mind! All you had to do was pitch your mind in the trash.

Catching errant thoughts would be a breeze. Who cares if they're not yours? It would be worth it to sieve out all the rotten thoughts, leaving the happy ones behind, even if you end up catching a little bird crap now and again. This would be a commercial-free experience. The big corporations haven't yet figured out how to pollute your brain directly (though I'm positive they're working on it). Imagine a head full of pleasant notions, rose petals, an extra anorak, a list of the most expensive Italian shoes. Maybe even a bunny. Or--oh wait, this is AWESOME--you could rent out the space!! Think of that! Your empty head trusted to hold the valuables of some celebrity or Head of State! You could be walking about normal as anything while Chuck Norris's extra underpants are safely concealed in your noggin. That has to be worth some serious cash.

It would probably fill up with rain water. You'd need to beware of large men wanting to use you as a beer stein. I suppose that would only be in Germany. Falling victim to pranksters would be a risk. How long would it take you to notice your head was full of grass clippings? Or condoms filled with Crisco? Or a dead cat? Elephants might reach from their cages and root around inside your skull without permission. A latch or zipper might be appropriate.

Think about it. Or don't! What has your mind ever given you but trouble, anyhow?

Welcome aboard, 2012

And if it's the End of the World we have coming, then that's just fine. I choose to live, regardless of the consequences.

2011 was like traveling a comet's orbit around the sun. A case for extremes and instability....but without that parabola you'd never fledge. Be ready for the truth to come. You might as well. Truths come down the road blind and indifferent as a wrecking ball. One truth is that you'll fledge multiple times over your life. Adulthood is a state of mind leveraged against the constant pressures of swimming in the stream. Some days you'll stand fast. Other days you'll be swept off your feet. Accept that big dreams demand big risks.

Swim back to shore. Stand up again.

What are you lookin' at?

Shooting Star

Maybe something beautiful beyond words. Maybe something nobody else can see. That doesn't automatically make you crazy. Or maybe it's better to say certain kinds of crazy are good for the soul.
We're born porous to the wonders in the art of everyday life, a gift that's generally beaten out of us by the time we're adults.

Stop to appreciate the light between the leaves.

Give yourself the latitude to draw something ugly.

Write some bad poetry straight from the heart and give it to a person who matters to you.

The world will always be full of wonders but you're not a permanent resident. Enjoy what's given you and don't be afraid to be worthy of more. Maybe.....maybe there's only one shot at this game. Make it count.

Friday: back to presenting some personal art.

Oh Happy Friday, my Brethren.

Something provoked me into posting some of these old concept roughs. I don't feel the connection to this stressed-out little stones that I used to. That's tap-dancing in the right direction. Anthem Blue Cross doesn't cover bolts through your head.

They get me on an artistic altitude, though. Something tells me I'll be doing a second pass on these ideas eventually.

The Rescue.

Coming to SoCal was, as the saying goes, a "learning experience". I have indeed learned much since moving here. Wildfires are scary, for instance, especially when they're burning towards you and all you hold dear. Corporate culture and grade school still have much in common; there's another. Endless sunshine is not as great as it sounds. I remain capable of making a living at art, even here, where the competition is as fierce as it gets and the cost of living puts the "dick" in ridiculous.

Ever notice how sometimes you notice growth because someone else points it out, apropos of nothing, and other times you recognize it because you simply don't have feelings, or attitudes, or inhibitions you once had?

We are constantly urged to go, go, GO in this culture. Yet you can't bring about substantive change in yourself unless you're willing to stop, take a deep breath and look into the places that scare you. Intentional change is pretty much the best there is.

I've proven to myself that I can keep up. That's probably the single greatest revelation to come from my stints at Carbine, Meteor and Red 5. Okay. So I can keep up. That had as much to do with personal growth, if not more, than any art skills I gained. Now I want to get back to growing as an ARTIST.





I've got about a million paintings and drawings to go. Let's get going already.