Stay Rich

My friend Thomas pointed out that I was prostrating myself to the gods of Pop Culture a bit recently, and I think he's right.

I thought I was fighting for access to your attention. I thought I needed a Dr. Dre to put my white shit on like Eminem. I thought I needed Oprah to do me like Dr. Phil. Or that drug rehab author. I thought I needed Spike Jonze to make a movie of my book. Then it would take off, I know it.

I thought I was a victim to the economic and distribution powers that be. I thought I needed them. I was desparately searching for a place to sign up to whore myself.

It turns out I don't need shit.

I used to know this when I was more of a punk rocker. That they need me. That all power flows upward. Rises on the thermal of our attention. I just didn't KNOW IT, know it.

But punk rock is more blue collar. I was born with a set of silver waiting to be handed down to me. And I don't like work like that. Too hard. Too dismal. No fun.

I thought all this because I wanted to get on. I was starving to get on. I want more than anything to connect the wires of passion and finance that have been shorted for so long in my life. (My social security statement would tell you that I've made perhaps $120,000 in my whole life. At 38 and after $80K of college.) And I thought to do this, I needed access. I thought that "they" hold it and dish it out to those of "us" on our best behavior.

WRONG! Nothing could be further from the truth.

God holds all access. He is the only one who dishes out 100%, all access backstage passes. In many ways God IS access. For all the real shit anyway. And no one is truly annointed without god's blessing. History is full of figures that have turned entire cultures around their will, their caring, their creativity, their rational thought and their love. Ghandi. M. L. King, Jr., Einstien, Edison, Tesla, van Gogh, Buddha, Jesus, etc. They tell you these days in college that the "great man" theory of history is a sham. Not so fast. It may not be the only truth, but it is true. Great men and women have great impact. And they MAKE a way where none has existed. Those of us who follow in their wake, who stand on their shoulders, have cars, laws, justice, culture, beauty, building standards, and good shoes because of what they have produced for us. The way they have made.

It barely occurred to me that I could gain access, could get everything I wanted by being more resolutely myself. By sticking more closely to my original vision. By pshawing the gatekeepers and simply creating something better outside the gates. That the people are free to come and go as they please. That only backstage access is limited. In fact, I had been taught that comrpomise is necessary, that professional editing and marketing considerations would have to be met to have any impact.

And the whole time I missed the entire fucking meadow in front of my face.

I refused to believe the whiffs of lilac (my favorite). I insisted I didn't have time to sit down in the tall grass and feel the sun. Rest against the tree. I ignored and stamped out the sunflowers, the poppies, the dasies, the snap-dragons. I chased the field mice and rabbits, believing them vermin.

The city is the truth I yelled! I believe! Better ducts! Conduit! Level concrete! Bionic curbs! Just let me paint them!

So thank god I didn't get on. Thank you god. You withheld from me all the bullshit I claimed I wanted to be a part of. To live with. The schedule I could never live up to and remain human. The coffee, beer and cigarettes I claimed to love. The race I had no interest in running. The compromises I was all too ready to make for less money! The people I thought I wanted to relate to who hadn't felt a thing in years. Thank you, than you, thank you. I owe you my life. And I strive to be worthy of the gifts you have bestowed upon me. I now know that it's not you OR me--not your will OR mine, but yours AND mine--ours. That it's all the same thing. What I want and what you want. And that's the greatest feeling I have ever had.

What if this were the time, my brothers and sisters? What if now, just by doing exactly what we really wanted, the way we wanted to do it, with who we wanted to do it with, the whole world worked perfectly? Every day. Forever. What if at the last moment, everything was possible? If only we had the courage to demand it all. Would you do it?

Would you sell a book at $120? Just because you wanted to? Would you buy one? Screw art--would you buy the shoes you really want, and not the cheap knock offs you already know you'll be tired of in two months?

Would you buy flowers for yourself? Stop wearing black and make pink (or blue, yellow or goldenrod) your color? Would you give up porn if it didn't deliver the intimacy you were truly looking for? Would you cancel your subscription to the Nation if you got tired of the bitter battles? Just because you wanted to? Without anyone saying you could? Or should?

Would you stand up to your mom, your sister, your aunt? Would you support your daughter, your father, your friend?

Would you say fuck PC, I make my own decisions. I shoot fast and loose and take full responsibility for every word I say? Would you understand that people are doing everything they can just about every minute? And give vulnerability a shot if judgement didn't produce the feeling you wanted?

Would you rest if you were tired? Would you train like a boxer just to make love? Without anyone paying you? Would you do anything? Everything? Would you spend every last dime you had to make the world you want real? Would you accept faith if it came knocking along the way? If it asked to come in and put its feet up after being shut out in the cold so long?

I'm puttting out a book called The Love Artist. It has a picture of me on the cover half-naked. Every page of it is burningly real. It was the best possible work I could do at the time. And I couldn't beat it now if I tried. I'm not even the same person.

I wrote every word for the same reason--because I wanted to. And I decided to live or die for each and every single one. True, flawed, arrogant, loving, overblown, honest, trying, being, succeeding, starting over. That was as full a picture as I could produce. And it's full. I put the photo on the cover and the price on the back the same way I put each and every word on the page. Because I wanted to. And ready to live or die by it. And for what it creates in the world. I believe in it 100%. We all do the same thing every day. We're all love artists.

And I'm not fighting for access, I don't need to become something before I go big, I want to relax while I do. Cause it's gonna be fun adn I wnat to enjoy it all. I'm also making sure I can express myself fully, relax, and have fun under all conditions before I decide to step into our emotionally crippled economy with my butterfly wings and hot buttered soul. Making sure that money doesn't cloud my decisions. That products and deadlines don't affect my relationships with artists, friends, family, or even Jonette at the cleaners (who jokingly told me not to forget the little people once I get famous, and rushed my man RIchard's shirt when he needed it for the Roll, Bounce premier).

I'm making sure THAT I CAN STAY RICH WITH LOADS OF CASH AROUND! I'm also enjoying the holidays with my family and friends and working on my documentary and album. I'm 99.9% of the way to full integration and at the gym three times a week and napping whenever possible for that last .1%. I'm learning how to relax and putting the cherry on top of the whipped cream on my self-care.

Ground Control, initiate warm, enjoyable, exciting, calm and gentle launch on five, four...

My Name Is..

I had a dream to tell people who I was. So here it is.

My name is Eben Carlson. I'm 38, Caucasian, 165 lbs, 5' 10 1/2, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. I live with my mother in Chicago. My younger sister is living here with us while she goes to grad school. My older sister lives in Seattle, where I grew up. I have three step-brothers and a stepsister. Two of whom live in Chicago. One with a wife and two kids. That's my niece and nephew, who I love a lot. I love my sisters and step-sibs a lot too.

I grew up in Seattle during the 70s. I lived in Chicago in 1981 or so when my folks got divorced and my mom remarried. I had a huge throw-down with my mom and convinced her to let me move back to Seattle with my dad. I lived with him for a year and then my mom moved back to Seattle and I moved back in with her. Probably for the better--I needed that mom structure. My mom is structure. My dad was laissez-faire.

In high school all I could think to do was be an artist. I didn't even know what that would mean. I could draw and liked to but more than anything I wanted to do what I wanted to do every day. I knew at a very young age that if supporting myself was anything like picking weeds in the neighbors garden, I wasn't going to last long.

My step-brother Brian moved back to Seattle with my mom and step-dad. At first I was like: "who's this guy taking my friends?", but eventually we became very close. Visiting each other at college and living together periodically afterwards.

High school was weird. I had acne over my entire face and back. When people patted me on the back it hurt. I was one of the popular kids and I think pretty sarcastic. Me and my friends always had something going on, usually involving significant amounts of beer and with a little luck, the girls we were interested in. I went to public school but ran around with private school kids as well. Most of my friends were upper-middle class but some were from fairly modest backgrounds. Seattle is pretty darn democratic that way. Everyone's pretty smart. I knew people from the football team, the punk rockers, the cool kids and the partiers. It was a school without too many cliques, though of course there were some.

In high school we messed around and were good and rambunctious. We TPed the school like we were supposed to. Did some stuff we weren't, got drunk, tried drugs, smoked clove cigarettes, etc. I lost my virginity at 17 as a Junior with a very foxy sophomore. This started a bit of a trend of dating what I considered to be above me looks-wise, but also an unfortunate trend of going quite a long time between girlfriends. Actually, it was probably good because I just got whipped.

I went to Hamilton College in upstate NY. It was the only college that let me in. I was the 37th Hastings (my middle name) to go to Hamilton. I got a scholarship from my cousin. I had no idea why anyone would go to one college over another. Or how you would even pick.

As a freshman I was put in the co-op. So much for being one of the cool kids. I felt much less confident than the East Coast prep school kids, but tried to work my way up to speed. A lot more drinking. I wasn't too impressed with the girls there. Not that any of them gave a rats ass about me. I didn't know if I was into joining a fraternity but didn't get a bid from any of them anyway. All my friends did and joined. I learned later I had been blackballed at the one I had somewhat hoped to get into. Praise the lord.

In my Junior year I lived down the hall from a very charismatic freshman named Pierce. Pierce had gaggles of people hanging out in his room, sipping tea and playing guitar. Lots of people thought Pierce was kind of a guru.

Pierce was a smart cookie and we hung out a lot. I wanted to be the Kissinger to his Nixon while he shook up lilly-white Ham-Tech so we started The Straw Hat Possee. We issued a manifesto, The Straw Hat Manifesto, and surriptiously took over the campus one day we named Dig Day. It was kind of a somewhat hippie post-hippie cultural revolution. We got blood moving at least. I was scared shitless and let Pierce do most of the freaking, which he did quite well. He stood up in the dining hall and organized "the wave" using a dust-pan as a megaphone. My dorm room was decorated in mostly red and referred to as "the womb with a view". I had started painting and guessed that that was what I was going to do. I also took a lot of intellectual history and history of philosophy and history of revolution classes, Which I often attended and participated in vigorously without having read the readings.

I had a girlfriend in college who I struggled with. I was a hippie/college rocker (we weren't as specific with our sub-cultures back then), she was basically a Republican. She dressed well. Thus started my love affair with the ideas of the counter-culture, which I was at great odds to reconcile with my preferences in women.

Went to Burlington, VT and started a short-lived group house. Sober for a number of months after a bad trip (described in The Love Artist as much of this story is). A disaster in community-living but fun for a few moments. If you can really have fun while working 25 hours a week for minimum wage in the winter in VT. The heat was not on all the time. One of my roommates taught me how to make pasta with sour cream and clams, which would help later when I was a bike messenger/punk rock aficionado.

Came back to Seattle. Moved in with brother. Waited tables and painted. hated what I was painting. Too depressing. Too hard. Met my friend Dave and regularly went to park over freeway at 3am to drink beer and discuss philosophy in the bushes. Met a guy named Zero who was writing his own bible after what he called a "lethal" dose of LSD wacked him out. Eventually moved into a four-plex on Howell where a good portion of the nascent Seattle scene was getting going. The story has it that the unheated back room of my apartment had been used as some kind of satanic ritual place. Weirdness and general mayhem ensues.

Shows, beer, bands, parties, we're going to take over the world. We do. Abort. People start dying. Things fall apart. I was a bike messenger and get hit one time too many. I borrow $5,000 from my mom and start telling people I'm a graphic designer. Thus begins my the important and frustrating interplay between my family's largesse (which isn't anything out of the ordinary) and my attempts to make a living.

Business takes off after severe doubt. I learn I hate talking on the phone. Find it very difficult to sell myself. End up with large national clients. More money than ever (which still wasn't much), less happy than ever. Radically sarcastic. Really don't know what the hell is going on. Not painting as was the plan. Marriageable women nowhere in sight. Depression setting in.

Meet a black guy named Eben who's got a program. Get on the program as able. Start weaning myself from what's left of the scene. I don't want to give any of it up but feel I have no choice. Write a review of Billy Wimsatt's Bomb the Suburbs for Grand Royal Magazine. Which leads me to get real about race or lack thereof in my life. It ends up on the cutting room floor, probably because it questions the veracity of a white guy writing a review about a book written by a white guy in a white rap group's magazine talking about race.

I start writing more. (There was a failed clothing company named T hree in there somewhere. Liberation Capitalists we called ourselves--somewhat of a White G prototype that couldn't escape its own cynicism.) Inspired by the other Eben, I write poetry, another manifesto (The T hree Manifesto), and start keeping notebooks.

My design business fails, largely because I start compromising on the work to get along. I also make the mistake of trying to hold on to everything (see The E-Myth Revisited if you have a small business). More depressed than ever, and having just blown $8K and 3 months on a trip around the world in a failed attempt to enjoy myself, I say fuck it, and decide to do whatever I want for as long as I can. Until I wreck.

Months pass. Confusion and aimlessness. If you can enjoy yourself while unemployed, you can enjoy yourself anywhere.

Laying on my back at family's summer house (often my come to Jesus place), in the grass, in the sun, the words The Love Artist pop into my head. Like a virus it starts spreading. More questions than answers.

Is it a book? A job? Would it read like 1984? What the fuck is a love artist?

Start writing. Can't write. Feels like I'm dying. I'm petrified. I write while wired on coffee. On a jag. Try to write something comprehensible but finally at mercy of the bile that pours out. Refuse to write ironic, scathing, ruinous critique of what's wrong. Decide to write/make something else or fuck it.

Say fuck it most days. Get out of bed at 4am on others. I can't do this if it takes longer than a year and a half. Living with three other roommates in my mom's house in Seattle. Cheap rent. No income. Way too old to be not eating decent food. Watch many friends buy houses, get married, make a million. Fuck it. Not getting laid. No comprehensive plot or narrative. Everything is in pieces.

Get a bunch done. Still feels brutally hard. Still depressed. Listening to Elliott Smith, Lee Scratch Perry, Radiohead and Al Green for inspiration while I write.

My step-father dies. He was the preacher who stopped preaching. A brilliant community activist and scholar who taught the only ethics class at Northwestern's Kellogg School for a time. I decide I have to get on with my love life and start pursuing the woman I'd been interested in the summer before.

Fall madly, crazily in love. Stop writing. Having killer, unbelievable sex. It hits the skids after 6 months. I literally feel I am going insane but at least I have my ending.

My father passes away from a relapse of cancer he had beat a few years before. Brilliant photographer and golfer who "got on the bus" and practiced law like his father to support his family and read tracts on things like the evolution of the mind for pleasure. Gave us all pens for Christmas and said he felt like he had something to write as soon as he learned a little more. I decide I have to go off--half-cocked or not. Rest in peace dad. I love you.

Reeling. Editing. Increasingly isolated. Cutting down on coffee. Don't really drink by this time. Sell a part of White G for $50K but the investor, a fellow artist and close friend, backs out.

Time goes by.

Decide I can no longer go without getting any and have an affair with a delightful young woman. Get enmeshed and seriously confused. Decide I have to settle my love issues once and for all. Start seeing a therapist. Move into my own place. Have a fight with Eben and am down to very little human contact. Try to get some work done most days. Looking for work. Borrowing money to live. Selling amps and guitars to pay rent.

I read Ayn Rand and start seriously re-examining my politics. I start shedding beliefs and with them feelings. Stop listening to basically all white, counter-culture music and "conscious" rap.

Thin to begin with, I start loosing weight. Start going to the doctor and having tests done. They can't find anything. 9/11 hits and I feel like I got bombed. I start thinking my fillings may be poisoning me. Doing some meditation, taking walks, take cover photo for my book. Decide I have to get it out no matter what and undergo massive push. Decide against letting anyone else editing it and let it go warts and all. The best one person could do.

I have a flash to sell it for $120. I feel I'll give it away--that's the most loving thing I could do. I end up compromising on $40.

I advertise it. Try to sell it. Am permanently out of my comfort zone. Just want to sleep. Have a vision of pink and start really committing to what I want. Start buying the absolute best clothes etc I can. Even though I'm living on credit. I reach $40K in debt. I am given $8K as a gift and buy a Rolex. Am thinking I just need to develop enough guts to get famous. Miraculously, the watch has a problem and they take it back against their own return policy. I don't know what the hell is going on. I think maybe I'm gay and want to move to Hawaii with my one remaining friend Darren, who I play basketball with periodically. I shop at Barneys.

I try to sell a friend 1/3 of White G for $7 million. I envision a home for the best art and using that cashe to sell the best clothes. Not even the local counter-culture rag will review my book. I pester the writer. I buy ads. Nothing.

Start taking nutritional supplements and trying different diets. Get some relief from amino acids and strict Type O diet. Colonoscopy and endoscopy come back negative. Starting to worry about weight loss but also finding moments of clarity. Learning how to stare past abject, sometimes constant fear to get present. I have a reading in Seattle. One in SF. books are not selling. Stores will not carry it.

Move to Chicago. Move in with mom. Book failed. At least now I can rest.

Continue looking for work. Have almost nothing to do with normal society. I've been out in the desert too long. This doesn't feel like rest.

Think I'll start nutrition counseling. Be a therapist. Go back to graphic design. Do marketing consulting. Work with kids. Start a non-profit. I have a dream where I collapse through a door after getting bitten by three dogs. My mom tells me I'm going to keep going. Nothing sounds worse.

I'm working out. Start gathering paints and canvas. Paint my mom's house. Going into the basement to put pink on a canvas feels like going ten rounds. Some days I just sleep on the floor. Start coming back to life. Interaction with other humans is good. I meet a homeless guy named Robert in the metaphysical section at Borders. He is dirty and weird but knows what the Flower Sermon is. We go out for tea and he brings his suitcase. His fingernails are filthy. He argues doggedly for a return the goddess. I tell him he just wants to get laid. He laughs.

Try to have an art show. Can't find anywhere to show. White Gold, the company I started to put out my book keeps popping into my head. Go away. But the ideas I've developed around are all over in the business books I read. Creativity is coming on strong. Love as a marketing strategy. Managing from beneath. Robert and I play some music then he disappears.

After looking for work everywhere, painting my cousin's house, and building a patio in back of my mom's house (all of which I hated) I decide again to do what I want first, and to go make money, etc. only when forced. The choice is painful. I babysit my niece and nephew for money. I am 37.

I do a few graphic design gigs and say fuck it to the non-profit world. I learn how to negotiate by arguing with Sprint, getting in a traffic accident with a drug dealer, working with a guy making computer boards who doesn't know what he wants (except not to pay) and whatever else comes up. I have a dream that I'm late for a meeting at a record label and that I'm supposed to go onstage. I have no interest in switching forms again but start putting together a recording studio on credit cards. I go back to Seattle and work on my mom's house there for 2 months. The work is hard but I learn to pace myself. We clear out a few tons of storage, memorabilia and junk from my childhood home. I spend 5 days in the shower scraping grout off of caked on soap-scum tile. I drop most of the 10K I make on recording equipment. I am periodically living on credit cards and then making a bit and paying them off. I hate this.

After four or so calls I contact Spike Jonze. He remembers me from the grunge days and says he'll look at my book. I drive back through Sundance imagining I'll have a film there someday. I get pulled over and a cop tells me that Sundance is in Park City, UT. I talk my way out of a ticket and ask him where a good place to eat is.

Back in Chicago I start making music. Spike doesn't return my follow up calls. Robert is back and he reveals that he's always dreamed of making movies. Following the "ALL IN" dictum of my record I buy a DV camera and start shooting a documentary. The charge a better one on my credit card. We start shooting. Buy extra computer for Robert and he starts learning Final Cut Pro on a laptop at his temporary housing. This'll never work. But remember KRS-1.

Decide to put The Love Artist out at it's original $120. My friends think I'm crazy. I've got a hunch about this one. I feel better than ever. 165 pounds. My niece said I looked like Eminem 6 months ago. I'm focused. Tanned, rested and ready. Turn the world on a pin. I'm currently feeling that what I've always dreamed of is not only probably but inevitable. And that every whiff of difficulty I've ever had was preparation. I believe that I'll have a mansion within a year or two. I want one of the new hybrid Lexus GS 430s. I want to make a new art and culture that fits beautifully ON TOP of our current youth culture. And is packed with spiritual values and nutrients. Get all us rich folks out of the way off making money. A new traditional culture if you will.

And I wouldn't be surprised if I was dating Rosario Dawson by next spring. Though I don't even know her. Her or someone better. That's what I want. Though I'm still 40K in debt, about to run out of money again. The books due back from the printer by Dec. 9. I already know the guy from the Wall Street Journal I'm gonna offer the scoop to. After that it should write itself.

All love and thanksgiving blessings to you and your family. I appreciate that you are interested and engaged. Hungry and looking. If you believe in symbolism, I just purchased an aviator jacket. And this post will read 7:47. Get ready for take-off.

(ps: in Chicago I started going to church: Episcopalian style. I don't know if I'll keep going cause the sermons can be, well, preachy and mopey (and remarkably short in faithfulness), but if you stay tuned--if you give a rat's behind--I'm sure you'll hear. I'm still working on the best way to live with god. All the best.)

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.)

Drop It Like It's Hot

In a recent taping for the White Gold Documentary, I asserted that the Mississippi is the alimentary canal for the US. I didn't go any farther than that (nor am I necessarily qualified to), but I do think there's something to it. That would make New Orleans the shit. Given that it has unusually high incidences of genius musicians, rump shaking and drug and alcohol use, I think there's something to this. Just like you'd be missing something if you didn't consider the Midwest as the heartland.

Where else do they celebrate death (and that is just as easily positive--witness the funeral parades--as nihilistic)? I can almost see the graveyards and the wrought iron even though I've never been there. From what I hear people steal the iron ornaments from the graveyards and sell them to antique stores.

For the US, New Orleans' hurricane was loaded with our shit. The government was slow to move. A lot of people, though warned, didn't move. In the aftermath, people rose to the occasion and sank to unbelievable lows.

And you can't talk about shit in the US without talking about race. In a sense, that's our shit. And there is an unmistakable butt component to race in this country. Shake your Rump-aa! She's got a flat butt. He's a hard ass. She doesn't know shit. They don't know where their own asshole is. It's where sex and knowledge and sense of self merge with the dirtiest dirt. It's about music and art and enjoyment and taking a load off.

My friend John Logic told me once that sitting on money is consitpation. That money is only good when in motion. That would make it like energy, I suppose, and water, and nutrient's. John runs his store, The Snowboard Connection (in Seattle), like an extended Italian family. Like he saw his grandfather Frank do at an Italian social club in California. He keeps the flow moving.

I firmly believe that globally, us capable, talented, white folks are going to have to get off the pot and start getting into what it was that we wanted money for all those/these years if we don't want to see more New Orleanses, more Frances, more Iraqs. Cause we constipated as a motherfucker. It's not enough to not do harm, or work on saving other people the motivation for not only a lot of non-profits but also Iraq, you'll notice). That may be a bit part of it, but getting up off the top of the unhappy (and massively efficient) economy we've created and going about our business will alleviate more downward global pressure than all the social programs in China. Let go. Have some faith. It's get off our constipated butts peacefully or spend an awful lot of energy dealing with the results (and pretending we're suprised). We can't not grow and expect the loving, growing, hungry folks around the world to just hang out while we provide goods and services more and more efficiently. Especially when we don't even want to.

For me, sitting primarily in the basement of my mom's house (and fixing up the basement of her other house)--getting into butt-ness--this year has been about learning how to both give and let go. It's also been about learning how to stand my ground and assert myself, but the less obvious, and possibly more challenging lessons have been about how to give without expectation of return. Just because I want to. Because I have extra. Because that's what my Franks did for me.

I'm pretty much a giver, so this surprised me. I kind of thought my bigger lessons were about how to assert myself. How to be myself in the face of disbelief, hostility, and opposition (and I have learned a lot of this--cause I used to be really nice). How to bark.

It was one thing to give what I thought I should. Or to some PC cause. Or where I was expected to. But this year was about giving exactly what I wanted to. When I wasn't sure. When I didn't know if anything would come of it. Putting everything I had on the line (again and again) to make exactly what I want to see in the world. Giving to myself and taking radical chances on others I may not have even deemed worthy. Without much faith that it would even work.

It's kind of relaxing.

What I am seeing is that I often expect some sort of compliance for what I give. That I expect some sort of fealty. Some sort of compliance or self-policing. Not anything overt, but powerful nonetheless. I want results. Control. Something to happen. I want to feel safe. THIS IS CONDITIONAL LOVE. And I think it has something to do with my ass.

I have sort of a bubble butt. Not big but it works for me. As I've been working out for the last few years I've been specifically working my consciousness down out of my head, past my shoulders and towards my butt. Not my whole consciousness, I still think and all that, but I wanted my gut and legs and sides to have their fair share (they were severely under-represented). They say the gut is another brain. And where I'm going I know I don't have time to think everything out. I want the immediacy that my gut brings. And the certainty.

But I never really thought about where it would go after my gut. It kept going. Down into my butt, my groin, and even spending more time in my ankles. As the saying goes: "This shit is deep."

With parts of my body chiming energetically in after years and years of relative silence, I've started to realize that our geographic and ethnic history is embodied in our bodies, and our geography, and our world. That who we are is no different that what, or how, we are. And not even distinct from how we look.

Upon hearing this, a lot of people respond instinctively that it's discrimination (even if they can't name their mistrust of what I'm saying). But I'm not saying that we can necessarily tell who someone is from how they look, just that who someone is cannot be separate from how they look. And that how they look is about as malleable as who they are. Which is considerable.

My minor point is: expect to look better, smell better, fuck better and be more appealing as you move toward greater and greater enlightenment. In a sense, it's all the same thing. This doesn't mean dress size is correlated directly to any kind of spiritual knowledge, it obviously is not. But look closely. Look for what's really attractive. Not just rare (cause that doesn't mean shit), or unattainable (ditto), or in fashion, but really, really attractive to you. Past your desire to bee cool, hip, accepted, gain the power of the ruling class/beautiful people.

I know this smacks in the face of PC, postmodernism, and even in a sense the Judeo-Christian world (as if those things were distinct). But those shits haven't saved us yet. And they've had 2006 years. There must be more to it that being nice and liberal. (Two things which I most likely am).

My larger point is that this is not only going on individually, but socially, racially, economically, spiritually, nationally, and internationally. If you belong to a larger group (and we all do), take responsibility for their shortcomings as well as holding tight to their strengths. Not superficially or stereotypically, but be aware. (And for some folks--hold tight to your strengths as well as taking responsibility for your shortcomings. The trick is a balance.

Back to the point at hand, I can feel it in my butt. Something about giving. I can feel it in my gut that Katrina had something to do with this nationally. It both exposed us (white America, privileged America, however you want to slice it) and provided the opportunity for us to transcend our fears. (and a lot of people out-did themselves giving to alleviate distress and need). I'm not sure I'd say it, but I think it may have afforded a similar stock-taking for black or less-privileged America. I'm not the one to go into it, but it sure seems like a lot of folks who had basically given up got a new start on life.

(A great movie about this, Nights of Caberia, was explained to me by a very intelligent black man in terms of black angels--who do what you want but not necessarily how. It's Fellini. And great by the way.)

But that's kind of just the run up. I don't want to have any fear of giving because I don't want to be responsible. My people have been so responsible for so long that it's giving us strokes. And bands called The Strokes. I'm too tired to be responsible for anyone other than myself. That's why I cling so fervently to inspiration as the prime mover rather than motivation. Do what the hell you want. I'll show you love and respect by doing exactly the same.

Your right side is your male side. And the one in charge of control. Your left side is your female side, and the one in charge of support (you'll notice both your heart and stomach prefer it). If you get an injury on one side, try to read it this way. I had/ve a left hip injury for years. Right in front of where I keep my wallet. And've been dependent upon the financial graces of my mother (and in a larger sense, my family and people) for my well-being and ability to do my work for years. I could go deeper into the specifics--sexual and relationshipal--but that should be enough to pique your interest.

When I give and expect something, just like when I think I know a situation and stand in judgment or someone or thing, I am making myself responsible for what's going on. A great trait when it affects me. But much less enjoyable when it is about someone else. I don't know where this fear of losing control came from, but it has fed us in harsh climates for many, many years. The same thing happens when I prejudge a situation and limit what and how I want to give before hand based on my own information. All of which are ways I keep from expressing vulnerability. Which, of course, makes love more rare than it needs to be in my life. The first state is one of control--of being a master. The second is of being a victim--of being a slave. They both have the effect of unhappiness and a sense of powerlessness--one a spiritual/cultural powerlessness (and an inability to truly enjoy the riches of the self), and the other a material/economic powerlessness, and an inability to enjoy the riches of this world.

White folks and black folks are entwined in some shit that is deep. But it's also holds many of the world's riches. At this point in history, I'd argue that we all have white and black representatives inside us. The way forward, the way out, and we enjoy it immediately every time we do what we really want without regard to either responsibility or circumstance, I would suggest, is for both sides to get ruthless about the part of themselves they really do want to hold onto--cause we all have great strengths--and really relax and work to drop the stuff we don't--our weaknesses. When we're ourselves in each other's presence, when we're friends, when we're lovers (Rosario e-mail me)--the rewards are deep. Radically, radically deep. Just like when you feel something from the bottom to the top.

Now get out there and back that azz up!

The Pope Wears Prada

If you've ever been to The Sistine Chapel, you know that the Catholics like the good stuff. (And that they over-cleaned Michelangelo's painting). (And stole mummies from Egypt). One of the great things that comes from having a long-term perspective: you treat every purchase like an investment. You discern as deeply as you can and then commit fully. Then you're done with it.

The Pope in Prada!

It reminds me of a t-shirt my friend Thomas G gave me, which said "I asked the Pope, he said gold is still dope!" It featured the pope wearing a nice thick dooky rope.

All of which begs the question: what if the left's sustainable economy necessitates the right's insistence on the best?

And you (not so) secretly wanted both?

Did you really think one side was going to win? We get to keep our area of expertise but we have to can the rest. The future is a purple hybrid. Let's go!

Mine, Mine, Mine

I may have dreams of trotting the world making popular culture real (and scads of money in the process), but today, Thursday the 10th, I'm scooping out sewer water in my mom's basement with a dustpan and doing my laundry.

Then I'm off to the hardware store to get some hooks to put by the stairs. Winter brings a lot of coat use here in the windy city. Tomorrow, if it's warm enough, I'll install the lattice that's missing where the old tree used to be in the backyard. A good use of my time? Who knows, but there are plenty of love artists of various levels of manifestation just plain 'ole taking care of business today. A brother's got to eat (and pay his credit card bill that holds the balance for the video camera he's shooting the documentary with and computer he's mixing his album on). I've been at this 10 years with no regular income and no trust fund.

My shit's not on Oprah yet. But it will be, I guarantee. 100% back end.
(Later comment: I might be a bit high-brow for Oprah, I don't know. Plus, I don't even regularly watch her and I've heard about the decoration of her new guest house from 4 different places. It seems like she's slipping. You know she has meetings about this stuff. Maybe I'll just leapfrog her.)

So what does an astronaut do the day before he straps himself to a couple thousand tons of liquid nitrogen and scrams? Putters around the house. I'll do a little filming on the doc. today and talk to the printer about the new proofs for my book. Work on selling my other laptop.

$120 a pop. The Love Artist. Which will bring a shot to the culture industry like it's never had. To culture itself. Imagine a feeding frenzy for real culture. Because it fucking pays! Oh, glory be, that will be a beautiful day. A search for the next Nirvana times 2,000. But grown-ups. That kid stuff was pennies on the dollar.

Not that I can find anyone really dropping it unsigned. A few years and massive inspiration in the form of cold, hard cash oughta change that. Get thirty to fifty thousand of our best and brightest working on it. Instead of the reluctant leftovers that currently do. It really does take five to ten years to change your mine. You can drop it straight out the box, but probably won't believe your tender, loving, unedited, fetid truth for at least as long as it takes to write and publish a book. And if you try to keep your day job that's a couple more years. Ten years in my case (almost), more like five after that. Eventually, kids will just be brought up with the expectation that they be real people and all the handwringing and crockodile tears will be ghost.

Mine, mine, mine.

All That Matters

White Gold eagerly awaits the day when TV shows are produced like music--by bands of roving artists and producers. TV is now going on demand, film quality cameras are cheap ($3K) and most hipsters have a computer fast enough to edit video on.

Now we need soundstages that rent out like practice spaces. With rooms of props and lights. In NY, LA, Chi-town, Omaha. Then maybe we'll get something worth watching. Or at least real reality. Regional, global, rooted eruptions that make tons of cash.

The pipe is almost finished. Just get your business and creative chops up. Your negotiation skills. Your gut. Do your woodshedding now.

White G's about to write the script. ALL*MYTEE's got the soundtrack. A set of how-to DVDs for $3K like Anthony Robbins. (Maybe more just to differentiate the goods). But you get to do what you've always wanted. Flip the script, not real estate.

Stay tuned my lovelies. My lover artistes. Capital is almost irrelavant.

All that matters is if you've got something to say.

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WhiteG.com

Hola

Hi Folks,

I just hit it big somewhere in the internet world. Could someone please leave me a comment or email me (see contact link to the right) and tell me where y'all are coming from. I'm on the onramp to the information superhighway! Hi Mom!

Welcome and please enjoy your stay.

(Whoops--had comments turned off--they're back on now).

Eben

Interview with Robert Williams

Here's an excerpt from the upcoming White G Documentary by Robert Williams from Cardinal Films. Some fun shooting the s#!&. (Includes profanity). Click on the link to the right. The ALL*MYTEE link should now have a song attached as well.

A sign?: I just got a junk e-mail that said "Momentum Stock Alert! * Art4Love Emerging growth art company that..."

I see no reason why I shouldn't be dating Halle Berry within the year. I'll tell you what it's like.

Lots of love..

The Math

World is a Safer Place Despite People's Fears

Plus, there was a little girl at the Whole Foods this morning who was a straight up angel. Just happy. Ready to play even though all the adults thought we were waiting in line.