"There is no success like failure." - B. Dylan

"You have permission to fail."

I was at Invision yesterday for an endings and beginnings seminar, it was one of those "out with the old, in with the new" kind of rituals, and that line about failure kind of stuck in my head.

If you write stuff, or sing and play music, or do any kind of acting or performing, there's always a "fear of failure" in the back of your mind. If you really think about it, it's an irrational thing. People will tear you down, they will sneer, or reject you, or maybe just shrug their shoulders, or whatever. It just goes with the territory.

Think of any artist or writer or singer and you will find people who criticize, who knock them, who make fun of them. In fact, it's usually the really creative, unique, artists those who try something new, something different, who are in for the greatest negative on-slaught.

I've written things that have kind of been met with contempt, or indifference. I think the key is to continue to work with heart, with love, with passion. If you do, you will find people who will connect with you. I believe that the passion, the love for the work is inspiring, and will inspire.

As Bjork says, "It takes courage to enjoy it." And yes, well, joy and love, and passion are worth taking a chance on. And if you "fail" in the process, good for you. Pick yourself up and go for it again! Let's bid 2006 a sweet goodbye, and embrace 2007 with passion, love...and no fear!

A New World

The last two weeks, the Lovely Carla and I have been living in a little creative idyll. It's kind of a self-made paradise. We have been working on our various projects, painting, writing, song-making, and at the same time we've been going to movies, floating, meditating, all the stuff that hopefully feeds the soul. Soul Food.

Last night we went see the film Pan's Labyrinth, and it is a very beautiful film. It works on many levels, at it's most basic level there's the split between the brute human realm we've descended to, or maybe in a way, we are married to, and the realm of magic and imagination. They co-exist side by side. Kind of another reminder of my insight in the tank (see previous post) of multiple realities crowding in on us. It is wonderful to be able to sink into someone ele's beautifully complete vision.

What's really great about the film, is that it is "true" to both realms. It leaves you exhilarated and devastated simultaneously. And well, that's a profound insight right there. That the exhilaration and devastation are somehow linked and maybe unavoidable. What's amazing also, is that a story about the right and left battling in the forests of Spain in the 1940s is oh so relevant to what's happening today, in so many excrutiatingly profound ways.

It's a Spanish film, (I think it's true they don't make them like this in Hollywood). It was great to see a packed house for such a clearly superior effort. We walked home afterwards and the streets were quiet. The trees and the sidewalks looked different. We talked as if something really profound had happened to us and we were still in the process of taking it all in. There was a numinous glow around everything surrounding us...now that's when you know a work has truly touched you. You can actually see the world with new eyes. And you know that not everyone is looking, that not everyone sees. And sometimes, you must spare the blood of the innocent...

"It takes courage to enjoy it." - Bjork

The Lovely Carla and I have a year end ritual that we have taken up the last few years. We visit Space Time Tanks for a massage and a float. It is truly an earth-shattering experience, at least, that's how it's worked for me within the confines of my own little noggin.

Hell, it takes courage to enjoy it, just like that little Icelandic fairy goddess so exuberantly tells us. By the way, maybe I'm a late-comer to Bjork, but this woman is an amazing little sprite, a mystical channel, a spiritual, dance-inducing singer-songwriter. I'm thinking she's some kind of genius. I've lately been listening to her first album and it's a beautiful and inspiring third-eye-opener.

Anyway, John Lilly used to take something like 10,000 micro-grams of LSD and float in an isolation tank for hours; our experience hasn't been anywhere near that extreme, just an hour or so, with a fairly clear head, floating in a briny soup. Time-tripping in our heads, doing some weird kind of "astral projecting," looking for space and, dare I say it, "enlightenment?"

So, yes, I started out with a "deep tissue" massage, very liberating, and oh so physical, and then, on to the float. And well, how do I say this, yes, I received a message, a voice in the darkness came to me. Was it a star? A cosmic dolphin? A god? A demon? Or maybe just an eruption of static from my own cerebral cortex? Who knows? I distinctly heard these words boom out across the salty water in that dank little tank: "There are too many fucking realities." Wow, wouldn't you know it, even the voices that come to me are profane!

Hmmm. I thought to myself, "great, what do I do with that?" I mean, I think it's true...and that may be a source of much of my confusion, and pain, and worry, and well general lack of focus, but well, now what?

So anyway, I float some more, I seem to be beyond time and space, I travel through the cosmic spider webs in my head and then out of the void, the voice comes again with a one word kicker: "SURRENDER!"

That's it. No explanation. No footnotes. No guidebook. I float some more, and then, well it's over, I get out, shower, dress. And sit in the lobby waiting for the Lovely C. in a kind of stunned silence.

We get back home, both of us in a renewed, rejuvenated state, silent and glowing. We sit and watch a Bjork DVD and well, that's when her words hit home, they kind of complete the line of thought started in the tank..."it takes courage to enjoy it." And I guess, all I can say is, "well, yes, it does..."

I'm With Bobby

"I've conceded the fact that there is no understanding of anything - at best, just winks of an eye - and that is all I'm looking for now, I guess." - Dylan (speaking around the time he tracked this joyfully rollicking masterpiece).

One Shit Sandwich Too Far

Today, declare yourself a Satanist, and well, you'll be the life of the party, an Athiest, you might get a yawn, an Anarchist, a giggle, but to declare yourself a Raw Foodist, ah well, that's one bridge too far, one toke over the line, I mean, that's as bad as calling someone (Rufus T. Firefly anyone?!) an Upstart!

We live in a tottering Giant of a nation, a Superpower that isn't so damn super anymore. I mean, if all we can do is blow shit up, aren't we really a pathetic beast of a nation? We are at most now, a Fast Food Nation (if you haven't seen the movie - see it - if you dare!) "You can't face the truth!" I mean, if you see it, you either have to dismiss it, or you might have to change your life.

Could we really change the world for the better by being more discriminating about what we put into our bodies? How simple, how radical! If we all stopped eating shit sandwiches (go visit a meat processing plant if you really want to suppress your appetite!) would our poor little pyramid economy come tumbling down? Bring it down! I mean, really, this empire truly is built upon shit -- with the right packaging, a friendly name, and slick ad campaign we will surely eat a shit sandwich (the meat industry feels it's their divine right to feed cows chicken shit, and well, dead cow brains too!) daily, and say it tasted good too!

What a fat, stupid, bloated nation we have become! Is there hope for us? Well, Studs Terkel tells us, "hope dies last." So, yes, I guess there is hope...but it is amazing how full of shit we really are...we eat it, preach it, and even start believing in it...where will it all end?

"Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life." - Duck Soup

A Writer

Since a very early age, rightly or wrongly, I have thought of myself as a writer. Even when I wasn't writing, although, I think it's true, that you are a writer only when you are writing. I wear the overcoat of alienation that a writer requires. I think a writer requires alienation from others or themselves, the better to observe. All good writing, I believe, comes from observation. All good ideas float in from the ether, and a writer, collects and filters. Imagination is a mirror.

Writing is solitary. It's a lonely activity, but really, when I'm writing, lonliness is an ally. Even if the world is knocking at your door, finally you gladly close it shut, and write, although, it's true, I can write in the middle of the chaos. When I was a bike courier, I used to write in a little notebook, I'd be sitting in the middle of a frenzied city plaza writing notes for my first play. Still, finally, you must find an oasis, a little corner in your head, to let the stream flow.

I'm enamoured with the flow. Sometimes you can stubbornly work your way through the text, I know some writers wrestle with every last sentence, but for me, it's best, when I can catch a wave and just hang on for the ride. I may go back and edit later, but when I'm riding that wave, editing is counter-productive. The worst censorship is self-censorship.

You trust that if you're true to the text, that something true will come out. Even the most ridiculous fabrications. You write and then, the words and sentences are on their own. They are not you, they have their own life. It's almost mystical or magical, and anyone can do it.

Isn't that true of just about everything?

River Deep, Mountain High

It must be the holidays...stayed up late playing music (me on guitar and my brother on harmonica), and exchanging presents with the family...I guess it all has something to do with the baby Jesus -- as John Tuturro's character in the Big Lebowski says, "don't fuck with the Jesus." So, well, I have no problem with the Jesus Man, I mean, he seemed like a peaceful dude and all, kind of met a violent end, and well, ain't that the way of the world? The peacemakers always seem to get the shaft. I don't buy the rising from the tomb thing (roll away the stone!), unless we're talking metaphorically or something, I mean, we all get laid low sometimes and yes, well, hopefully we'll rise again!

You've got to watch out for those who use the Jesus Dude to justify all their greed and hate and general bullshit...which also seems to be the way of the world -- someone comes up with a good idea, "love thine enemies," live with "love and forgiveness," and somehow that gets turned into a worldwide institution that beats the shit out of you, trying to make you conform to a weird brand of malevolent twistedness. Yeah, well, that's the way of the world too, right?

Anyway, I'm listening to some great soul music this morning, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Ike and Tina Turner ...I also throw in a little Rude Boy Reggae to mix things up a little. Right now, Tina Turner is singing River Deep, Mountain High...and well it truly is a miracle, ain't it? I mean eventhough Tina and Ike had a sort of dysfunctional relationship they really created an incredible catalog of
explosive tracks...and there's some kind of lesson in the music, methinks...

P.S. The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz has thrown in the towel. Goodnight Sweet Prince...and remember...you may have passed, but I'm really thinking it's just a case of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag!"

P.S.S. Check out the the great Trickster for an excellent little profile of the Godfather of Soul.

Better Than Prozac

If you're feeling low, I have a recommended course of action for you... drink three of these...and watch one of these...I promise you will feel much better at the conclusion of the session.

My Dinner with Wally

"It is astounding that America does work in the same way that an open dictatorship works, in that a handful of people really seem to be able to dominate an entire country.

If you go to a foreign country, and somebody looks at you frankly and says, 'Your country is going around terrorizing the world,' and then you say, 'Well, I'm against Bush myself. I didn't vote for him.' They look at you blankly. That's not enough. They know that's not enough. They know that you are benefiting every day, you are paying taxes, your money is actually paying for these things, so come on, that's not good enough."

Wallace Shawn (One of our greatest living playwrights).

The Creed

The Orange County Creed (as per Robert Greenfield in S.T.P. a Journey through America with the Rolling Stones): "We're gonna make this American Dream work. Yessir, we are. By God, yes. Even if we have to kill everyone to do it."

The Raw Life

I'm on vacation, which means another tempo, I have downshifted into a very creative cul de sac. It's amazing how happy I can be all by myself, reading a book, writing a play, recording music, running on the lakefront, soaking my old bones in a hot bath, drinking kick-ass coffee, eating raw. Yes, I have a new obsession, I have adopted the raw lifestyle. This is about as radical a step as anyone can take, I mean it's so fundamental, so contrary to the thinking of our modern conventional herd. I mean, being a vegetarian is one thing, you're already bucking the trend set by our fat, artery-clogged consumers of fast food, bloated livestock and overprocessed crap.

But to be a raw foodist is taking that contrary, looney stand to it's furthest extreme. I mean whole cultures have built their identities around cooking. Italian, Greek, French, Japanese, German, etc. To turn your back on anything that has been cooked, is to turn your back on thousands of years of culinary exploration.

So be it. I've been eating raw for about a month now, and I think it's been good for me. I'm not going to go into a rant about this, instead, if you want to find out why it's a good idea, and how it can make you happier, healthier and "more beautiful," I suggest this book. Beauty here is more than skin deep, in fact, the key idea seems to be that our internals spend a lot of time and energy digesting the crap we put in our bodies. We are basically JUICERS and some food is easy to juice and some isn't. The closer we can be to the raw, the live, the unprocessed, the better. Also, as a side benefit, by giving up meat, we may help save the planet, I'm convinced that our factory farms, the animal processing plants are brutal, ugly and dehumanizing. They're not so good for the environment or the animals either.

Anyway, it all makes some kind of sense to me. I can be quite disciplined when it comes to what I put into my body, although I have had my moments of debauch, where really anything goes, I'm speaking here of controlled and uncontrolled substances. Lately, I've been grazing on nuts, seeds and uncooked veggies. It hasn't killed me yet. Which I guess could be some kind of recommendation...

All We Need is Now

I'm still thinking about my post yesterday. Maybe I should chalk up my "disorientation," to "death of my youth." There was a time and place that now only exists in my head. There are others who probably share some of the same thought-dreams, but even if we think back to world events, they are all basically unique to each individual. I'm not really a big one for nostalgia. I think we tend to forget the bad shit, and remember the good, it's probably a survival mechanism, but "things were not better then," I mean, it was the same jumble of good and bad, sweetness and madness, chaos and order, life and death.

There was good music then, there's good music now. There were major upheavals then, there are major upheavals now. There was war and peace, love and hate and well, you get the idea. Songs like "A Day in the Life," and "Within You, Without You," still speak to me today, but they came out of what was happening then, and maybe they still connect because what they were about was more than the moment, but they were also of the moment and they are "time-bound," just like us. Most of my favorite art is "of the moment." No art really is "timeless." I mean, some works can speak to us across time, but still they are works that were made by people in a certain time and place and if we don't know who they were, their circumstances, their culture, their politics, then we are the poorer for it.

I'm thinking that nothing stands up on it's own - except maybe a mountain, a tree, a sunset, the full moon, a leaf. When it comes to art, even "functional" art, there is always a maker, and that maker came from a certain time and place, a context. Pop art, and at this point in our cultural progression, isn't it all just "pop art," is the quest for the perpetual now. So, yes, "Love" is now, even if it's old hat, been done before, in a time and place that does not exist anymore. So, it's now and it's kitschy too and, well, we can remember the past, but there's no point in living in the past...it's not true that "All We Need is Love," no, instead, (although this will certainly not be a hit), I think it's true that "All We Need is NOW!"

Gimmee Some Truth

I don't want to rap the new Beatles CD, Love, a remix by George Martin and his son for CirqueDuSoleil in Las Vegas. The CD is a beautiful soundscape, using some of the best and most iconic Beatles songs, songs that have embedded themselves deeply into our popular consciousness. Some of these songs sound like they were recorded yesterday, they are that alive, exuberant, rocking and beautiful. Martin and his son have done an admirable job of re-mixing and re-matching these songs, bringing them alive by changing up the context.

I've been a Beatles fan since about the age of thirteen. I have lived and breathed this music for many, many years. I think what kind of disorients me about the whole enterprise is the "context of no context" nature of the endevour. Yes, some of the best songs transcend their time, but for me, the Beatles cannot really be plucked out of the context of the time when I first encountered and grew up with them. They were not just musicians who wrote beautiful, inspiring or insightful and challenging music, they were representatives of another cultural consciousness. Lennon and Harrison especially, represented an experimental, searching vanguard in the culture war between the "straights," and the "heads," the war machine and the peaceniks, those looking for some kind of enlightenment and those selling the same old line of crap.

It all sounds so cliche now, but there really was a counterculture, and the world really did seem to be at war, the young against the old, the musicans and artists in opposition to the politicians and the power structure. Of course, all of this got swallowed up and disappeared into the Great Global Corporate Culture Machine, and finally you have Lennon's "Revolution" blasting out in a theater in Vegas, and well, I think a lot of the meaning of the music, or what it represented at one time has been lost in nostalgia and kitsch. Now it's just music, a nostalgia show, then it seemed like so much more.

Isn't that how the story goes? So, yes, it's great to hear the supreme artistry of these four musicians, and I'm sure Cirque Du Soleil puts on a good show, but I'm thinking something gets lost in the process, or maybe it's just the passage of time that makes it inevitable. Without the context, without knowing the turmoil of those times, without understanding the great convulsions that were going on when these songs were written, much of the story is missing, by plucking these songs out of the canon, it furthers this de-contexualization...in my book not such a good thing, because so much is lost.

Maybe it's inevitable. Of course, it may be significant that Lennon and Harrison are no longer with us. I'm not sure if they'd be on the bandwagon for this kind of enterprise, although that great avant gardist, Yoko Ono gave her approval...so really what is my beef? Beats me. Somehow it all just seems kind of phony and kitschy, and well it smells of the hustle, only it's all wrapped up in a classy package. I guess Vegas is our real Paradise where all great pop icons either go before they die (Elvis, Wayne Newton, Celine Dion, Prince), or once dead, go to be deified. We can get a ticket and sit ringside, and well, sorry but that's not what I love about the Beatles...but, well anyway, that was all a long time ago...

PsychoBabble

Hell, we live in a bi-polar world. There's a north and a south, and as C. Bukowski once wrote, there's the "South of No North." So, I don't know what's up with this bipolar syndrome. I mean, is it so unusual to go from euphoria to deep depression and back again? Especially considering the state of things today, it almost seems required. I think the real problem would be if you were stuck at one or the other poles. If you're swinging, hey baby, it's not so bad. "Don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that SCHWING!" I'm all for keeping up with the oscillation.

So lately, I've been in an existential wrestling match, wrestling with my demons, my expectations, my self-image, and my perceived enemies. There are people in the world who will go out of their way to fuck with you. Strange, but true. I kept telling myself "you've got to let it go, you've got to let it go." This then became my mantra, but of course, I was then stuck in the analytic process of trying to reason my way out of something I just wasn't ready to let go of. I ended up wrestling with my mantra. Remember as the Maharishi almost certainly didn't say, "the mantra will always win." And so you end up bouncing from one pole to the next. It can get kind of ugly.

Anyway, I hit bottom yesterday, this in the wake of our office Christmas party, which ended up being like a Pinter play, all sub-text; the important, essential conversations were the ones that were not verbalized. It was a strange kabuki dance that kind of crystallized it all for me as we sat around the table. I was able to detach, see my demons in front of me, and yes, finally let them go. So I settled in the deep south, and then started floating towards deep north...yesterday was deep, profound emptiness. Yes, I had finally let go. This morning, I already feel like I'm filling up, I feel renewed, ready for something new...and eventhough it's cloudy outside I can hear George Harrison singing, "here comes the sun." And I say, "it's alright!"

Music

"Music does not depend on being right, on having good taste and education and all that."

"Indeed, then what does it depend on?"

"On making music Herr Haller, on making music as well and as much as possible and with all the intensity of which one is capable. That is the point, Monsieur."

Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf

Life Coach - "I'll Sit Down and Wait for My Answer!"

The Lovely Carla has volunteered to be my life coach. I'm blogging from the coffee shop on the corner, making calls too, and the Lovely C. is by my side, working on paperwork. She has been giving me advice and encouragement. It's kind of like living with Knute Rockne ("Win one for the Gipper!") or Vince Lombardi ("Run to daylight!").

I can use all the help I can get, but really, it's a little much when I'm making a phone call and she's gesturing while I'm talking, almost like she's conducting an orchestra, she being Daniel Barenboim, me being the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She nods when I say something she likes, she gives me the "cut it," sign, if I say something she doesn't.

So, I get through one call and she gives me the thumbs up. So, okay, maybe this is going to change my life...all I ever needed was a little more coaching. Then, again, I hope it doesn't cramp my style. What next, a miked up helmut, so she can send in the plays?!

A Messenger

One year I worked as bike messenger in the streets of Chicago. It was quite the challenging job. I think I was more alert and alive, moment by moment, than any other time in my life. I mean, it was required that you be super-on-guard just to stay alive. The job was survival. I had my brushes with car doors, I crashed to the pavement a few times, but I always wore my helmet, and I used my roller blading elbow and knee pads to help protect myself. I was lucky to come out of it in one piece. I got real lean, thin as a rail. Anyway, one thing I really liked about the job, it was totally consuming, totally physical, but when it was done, it was done. I never thought about any of it once I punched out for the day. I didn't make a lot of money, it was not a high status job, but I felt more "free" (I almost felt invisible), in the streets of the city, than I ever have since. I have a much better paying job now, but it requires a lot of "head" work, which is really hard for me to turn off sometimes. I have lately been totally consumed, and even though I can set my own schedule, the work has totally crowded in on me. There's no going back. It doesn't work like that...but sometimes I think about those days with a slight touch of nostalgia...

Time

"Time is a dicovery which is only made by thinking. We create it as an idea and do not begin till much later to suspect that we ourselves are Time, inasmuch as we live." Oswald Spengler

Visualize This!

I don't know if you believe in "vibes" and "psychic energy," and "auras" and that kind of thing. I do, or well, I mean, it sometimes seems to "work for me," if you know what I mean. I mean, I'm a big advocate of creative visualization, of creating mental images and then sending them out into the world. Do these mental images actually have substance? Do they have influence in the cosmic soup of our lives? Well, hey, I guess that's an open question. I actually think this kind of thinking isn't all that "out there" especially if you start reading about the current thinking in the realm of science, what with super-string theory, black holes, dark matter, worm holes and the uncertainty principle, and well, even Einstein's theories that both time and space are really kind of fungible.

So, the truth is we can't even trust our senses...or, we live in a time, when it's accepted that the world is more than what can be measured and counted. The idea that we are more than our bodies certainly appeals to me, and it kind of conforms to how I experience the world. I don't draw any great conclusions from this, except, instead, I use the knowledge, I meditate nearly every day. I go through a series of visualizations that I learned at this school. I actually went through a two year program, learning and refining, and hopefully sort of mastering how to create these mental images.

I do know the meditation has helped me focus, it's helped in my creative work, it's made me more aware and awake. Which is sometimes a mixed bag, I mean, you really see the world, and the people in it, and well, sometimes it's a beautiful, marvelous place, and well sometimes it's amazing how ugly it can all look. Somehow you have to be able to see clearly without letting it destroy you. Nice trick, huh? So anyway, this weekend, the vibes around here were all positive, the Lovely C. and I were in a creative flow, she was painting, I was writing, and the energy we seemed to create between us, seemed bigger than the both of us. Very cool, it was just how I visualized it!

Sit Back and Wonder

I've been writing plays, or little perfomance pieces for about eleven years now. My great theatrical vehicle is our little company, Black Forest. I've been working on a new piece, and it's been a series of stops and starts. I must have about 100 pages of text. Some of it interesting, some of it total gibberish. The goal is to have a complete production ready for late spring 2007. I'm thinking, "rock opera," basically so we can incorporate some of the songs we've all been working on.

If it wasn't for this guy, I probably never would have started down this particular path. Or maybe I was always heading in this direction and Sam just provided the last little push. Sam's 1980 play True West, (I saw the Steppenwolf production with Malkolvitch and Sinese), really seemed to blow open the gates for me.

So, the last two days I have been writing in a complete stream of consciousness frenzy. I've got about fourteen solid pages. I love when it just flows out like that. Usually it's the best stuff. At least I think so. I can't predict it, I can't command it, sometimes it just comes. I think for some reason, reading an article in the New Yorker about Jasper Johns rekindled my imagination. He was asked how he decides what to paint and he said something like he just follows one brushstroke with another. That works for me too. One sentence, leads to another, and then you just let it come, and you sit back and wonder at all the words sitting on the page in front of you.