November

I wrote this on 11/7 and then chickened out. Come New Year's I want to be clear and ready for the future. So I'm going to leave it all on the field. If the truth doesn't work I'm screwed anyway:

I'm officially taking a personal day today, although I'd be kicked out of my studio anyway. In mom's basement, if the roots have been growing and the rain has been falling, then it's stand pipe back-up time. Gack. If you ever think you're not going to have to dig and get dirty for your gold, think again. Camping on the riverbank. Knee-deep in frigid water and everything covered in mud. Dark tunnels. Heavy air. Trying to figure where your claim ends when everything is black muck and slop. Guys getting hit over the head with shovels.

There's lots of this gold mining going on these days. In New Orleans, in Kashmir, in Baghdad. The process works, but it's usually pretty gnarly. (Though it's not like I don't have fresh, homemade pumpkin bread on the counter in front of me).

In some ways, I suppose there's a softening up going on. We aren't being allowed to live as we have been--semi conscious, heavily taxed, absurd. With both feet in the material plane and ignoring the bigger picture. We can't pretend we can't afford it, we can't pretend we don't know better. We can't even pretend we don't want it. Even though the it'll have to be ripped mercilessly from our clentched fists. (Tom Brady on 60 Minutes last night was exclaiming that he couldn't believe that where he was--3 Superbowl Championships at age 28--was all there was. You're right Tom. It's a great start, but almost nothing compared to what's right under our nose.)

What I'm most interested in now is the nature of love love. Not business or friendly love. It's time for the love artist to get some. Like all the rest of you love artists. (You are getting some aren't you?)

My great and wise friend Leonard, who was one of the first men I saw really wear pink right, and who has no problem whopping backside at any number of basketball courts around Seattle, is one of the only men I know who I trusted enough to ask about the nature of love. He's happy and attached. And getting happier. At sixty-something. He's got a great garden as well. And the aforementioned basketball skills.

I actually paid to ask Leonard what he thought about love (he had refused all my offers to go out to dinner). He told me it was the quintessential addiction. And basically that if you could solve it--if you could give to yourself whatever you wanted from your partner (and humble yourself to that fact)--then you got to keep it.

I liked his answer. And it reverberated for me for a while. I used it to learn a lot of things in my non-romantic relationships. I really believe that by being ourselves fully and ruthlessly--that by refusing to be a victim to anyone in a relationship (or to money, time, society, or god for that matter)--we can enjoy everything we've ever wanted. Money, a good woman, creation, family, friends, and ourselves. And feel it all. Without withdrawing from society like monks. In fact, without withdrawing from anything. I also believe that as more people move to this state, the world's problems will sort themselves out. Kind of like the most complex equasion ever solved down to something very simple. Like E=mc(squared). (Note to self: great DJ name!)

The Taoist sexual practices I've learned about reinforced this view. If sexual union is the most primary union--and where people go most often to lose themselves--then where better to practice being present and ridiculously yourself? Once I learned that by giving up my more immmediate gratification for a deeper, longer, more energetic satisfaction; I also could rock my partner's world like I never had before, I was convinced. The math must work. Be yourself all the way. Commit. And you can have the girl, can have the cash, can have the family, can have the love, save the planet, and be an artist without compromise.

In fact, how could it be any other way? (Or--if it didn't work--why would you care anyway?)

The book I took a lot of this stuff from is The Multi-Orgasmic Male. (There's also an interesting one for women called The Sexual Teachings of the White Tigress--but be sure to take all of these traditional religious practices, and all guru shit, with massive grains of salt. Take what you want but remember that 7-95% will be anywhere from lame to downright harmful. And that we're much different beings than they were even 10 years ago. What works is different. And we're Western motherfuckers. I'm serious. You can waste a lot of time investigating things that don't even work that well for the people who espouse them, let alone people from very different spaces and times. Any tradition from AA to Buddhism to Christianity to yoga is built on authority and has probably been used for social or spiritual control in some manner. The truth is a pathless land--and even the man who said that, Krishnamurti, fucked a lot of people over. Be very careful in letting anyone describe reality for you. Or better yet, just take complete responsiblity.)

The Multi-Orgasmic Male was so good my brother stole my copy and returned a new one a year or two later. He had just gotten re-married and had the smirkiest smirk when he handed it over and said thank you. Like he meant it. It doesn't take much either. Lots of guys are afraid to check it out but you can really read the first couple chapters and get the bulk of it. I thought the exercises would take a while or be hard, but believe me when I say I went from "school zone, speed limit 20 when children present" to pushing 90 in under two weeks and I'll spare you the details. If I still had any contact with that girlfriend, I'd have her vouch, but that is not going to happen. And she had pretty high standards. And her pick of guys. She still said she had had one better, but I was just a grasshopper then as well. And he was probably an jerk. The trick is to be compassionate/tender/understanding when you want, and when it's appropriate, or efficatious, and a ruthless killa when she wants it (or necessary). Jesus was a lion AND a lamb.

Which brings me back to today. My question now is is Leonard right? Is love really the biggest addiction or is that just therapy mumbo jumbo? If it is, then what is the best way to approach true love? Is it by getting over that which you are most fiending for and then falling in love? Or is that futile. Do you just go for what you're most attracted to and hang on? Work on being ruthlessly and lovingly yourself? (And ruthlessly loving).

In the spirit of keeping it real, I guess I'm most attracted to black women. At the newstand, I pick up King more quickly than Maxim. Beyonce does a lot more for me than Pamela Anderson. Halle more than Scarlett (though she does have something going). I'd take Rosario Dawson over a Vogue full of Eastern European supermodels anyday.

Chicago has some beautiful white women-and it's the first place I've seen what I would term "thick" white women (that's a good thing), but they don't really send my whole being spinning. I find a few intriguing but that seems just because they're untouchable. Trophy-esque. And it would be fun to show them what a guy their own age, with the mojo they thought they were getting, sold out for, could do. But I'm not sure that the day to day with a woman like that would be that fun. And I'm looking for grandma material.

But black women sometimes seem like too much for me. Which isn't to say there's anything wrong with them. The question is more if there's a gap between our cultures, can we maintain long-term? Living with serious differences in how one approaches life can be taxing. And I am definitely looking for relaxing to be one of the descriptors that I can readily attach to my relationship. I take naps, yo!

I'm definitely growing, and in some sense a work in progress, but I feel like I'm pretty solid at the foundation. And at what point do you say this is who I am and ante up? (Not that I've had to choose so far--the good lord seems to be pretty steady about when and where he presents women I'm interested in). I also feel like I'm about to quadruple (at least) my manifest power--to reap the rewards of about 10 years of hard-core delayed gratification, which I suppose will really make the decision for me, but that doesn't mean I'm not working on figuring the sucker out myself.

So if I am right with my current guess (and I've gone back and forth all the way about 200 times), and I really do want the strongest, most alive, bombenist woman I can find--of any race--I could easily say that I just assume that my current growth rate is going to continue and once I have money from my own thing and am not living at my mother's house (with my sister, mind you), I'll have a lot more energy to deal. Or is that my addiction? I swear I'll take whatever's best. More men have sold out for women than money and power combined. (Not that that the money and power was ever for anything but women anyway.)

What I want more than anything is a woman who is supportive. Who is loving and relaxed. Who knows that true power is under power, not over power. I guess to get it all I'll need someone who's 3-D.

Which slices my question pretty well: Do you go for the gusto knowing you'll be/get strong enough to deal or do you put together something relaxing, something you know will work, knowing that you have a lot to do? Do you get over the "addiction" before you choose your mate or just work on it after? Be a man?

I could barely be a love artist without believing in the first, but I'm perfectly open to the second. I've looked at this question long and hard. I used to think that you had to give up passion for support, and I hated that. I thought I had to give up attraction for kindness, but I think that was just me learning how to stand up for myself. I've given up 99% of my other cravings: cigarettes, booze, sugar even, but what if love isn't an addiction but holy. The thing you give up everything else for? That is easy once you know how to do it right? What if by doing your part really, really well, you can ensure a great relationship with all the passion you'd ever want?

A lot of my people tell me that passion is good when you can get it but it inevitably fades. I don't believe this. Or am unwilling to go down without a fight. Did I give up everything for this, or is this the last thing I have to give up before enjoying peace?


(An interesting note: I heard a preacher on the radio the other day saying that peace without joy was a crock. I like that. He also said that faith without faithfullness was bs. That there isn't really even a word for faith (the abstract concept) separate from the state of faithfullness (which to me implies action) in the language the bible was written in. Must be why they say step out on faith. He also said that as a Christian, joy should be central to your life and doubt and consternation peripheral. I like that, too, but am not sure it pertains to Christians only. --They can't resist throwing in the plug can they? They must not have realized that advertising no longer works.)