All animals including humans don’t instinctively like change because in the wild change is a threat. The more comfortable we are, the safer. Comfort and safety is great for relationships and probably society and happiness and health and avoiding stress and living a balanced life.
Of course this is the enemy of art. Art demands chaos. Craziness. Anarchy. Insanity. (NOT PERMANENT OF COURSE, that is a recipe for disaster but it’s a risk an artist must take). The crazier things are —whether personal or interpersonal, the greater will be the art. Just look at history (eg. beatles, dali, cobain). Of course the artist has to also think about one’s own life. Staying alive is important. Not being a complete asshole. I want to be a good person. Or at least honest. Intelligent. Respectful. Grateful. Fucked up sure but in a way that mooooves people. Emotionally.
And that’s where the conflict arises for someone like me. It’s an eternal conflict that will not be resolved unless I quit and do something else or delete myself. I am unwilling to do neither.
This the balance of the artist. To somehow stay sane among that war of noise and ideas and colors and energy. And of course with society itself that is not designed for people like me. And to keep a sort of controlled chaos around. That’s why I love booze, women, and films like Wild At Heart and Last Tango In Paris.
Then again, all this analysis and “things finally going well in my life” borders on success and once again we reach a point where the seatbelt fastens and inspiration runs away like a mouse chased by a starving tiger. However, I think there has to be some success to fuel the process. To eat. To buy the necessary technology. Pay rent. Pay hired guns. You know, I was so down for so long… I just can’t live like that anymore. I was so down that I couldn’t even make music anymore. It was fucking unbearable.
but yeah…
To avoid professionalism in expression. To remain human. Broken. Damaged. Imperfect. And to go on stage and showing it. Showing the uneasiness. The fear. The tension. Showing it honestly and proudly. Not manipulating the way a performance unfolds. So what if it takes me 4 songs to get going. Fuck that. That’s what is real. I don’t want to hide that and become another zombie on stage performing the hits. I will not do that. Thanks Fil for helping me realise that. That was a breakthrough moment for me…
Of course there is also great craftmanship (in my case musicianship) involved in being able to produce the mechanical aspects of producing that sound I have. With my voice, my piano, my guitar, my recording gear. My amateurish mastering skills (because I can’t afford anything else right now). What the hell, they’re just demos. All that demands lots of practice. Lots of time. So much time that it would drive most people to extinction.
Emotions are here and now. They are real. There is no practising. They can be captured in works of art like songs and paintings and stories. But they cannot be practiced or taught. You won’t find a course in your university called “how to be emotionally naked in front of the world”. Maybe I should start it. I’ve written about this before… It’s about failure. People like to put things on their cv to show what they’ve done. And they like to tell others all the good things they’ve done and the achievements. My cv consists of failure and failure and struggle and …well, I had an easy childhood. Then I broke free from everything. The chains. And the more free we are, the more we realise how alone we are in this great jungle ball floating in the middle of space.
What is a song? What do I really do? Besides nothing…
A song is just a collection of ghosts. I am a ghostkeeper. And sometimes I let out my ghosts to play.
Stability. Comfort. Security. Success. Health. Happiness.
Of course we all want those things (even me). And I feel quite good these days. Luckily I wrote so much stuff during my hard times that I can go strong for quite awhile with the existing material. I really don’t need to write a songs ever again but of course I will and do write songs. Just not that often anymore. Very rarely in fact. Now I refine the old ones. Record them. Currently, I prefer just… writing words. I have so much work to do with my existing songs that I don’t really want to add to the repertoire, if I can help it. But words I like. I love writing. There are a lot of books in me. I’m considering starting a novel. A trilogy. I would probably call it “Puppies of Steel”.
Crockett & Tubbs
I should’ve just gone with the original plan and become a cop in miami like Crockett and Tubbs. Wait a minute, that wouldnt’ve been safe either… especially with that crocodile on the boat, heheh. So I wanted this from day one. Viking genes…
I love it though. I really do.
My new motto: MAYBE I’M WRONG.
POSTED IN PHILOSOPHY, EXPLANATION, MADNESS, RAMBLINGS, MASTERY TAGGED HAPPINESS, MISERY,ART, CRAZY, ANARCHY, TRAGEDY, EASY, BORING, INTERESTING, COMFORT, SAFETY, SECURITY, LAST TANGO IN PARIS, WILD AT HEART, FREEDOM, MIAMI VICE, CROCKETT, TUBBS, CONFLICT, HEALTH,BEAUTY, EMOTIONALLY NAKED, BEATLES, DALI, GHOSTS