I Can See Clearly Now...

I also wanted to say that I have, for the first time in as long as I can remember, the feeling that I've been working on so long I forgot I haven't seen, thought about, or felt it in years: the "it is" feeling.

It is happening. It is real.

In college and just after I played around with what I most wanted to do: create some sort of new art movement; but as no one actually did that anymore (and certainly not themselves), I considered it a somewhat enjoyable delusion. Something to play around at after work or discuss after a beer or two with a like-minded conspirator. Except for a couple times, usually in the early fall like now, where I got a sense of "it is". (Then there were years and years where it was absent altogether and I either drifted or clawed my way forward for no reason--or despite both reason and the way I was feeling.)

It's a feeling just on the tail end of the body (the summer) and just on the front of the mind (the winter). It's where thought and action combine to drop the huge harvest on your doorstep, but before it gets really cold. Where all your hard work becomes manifest and all the silly little things you worried about on the way there fall away.

Part of it was watching that documentary on Warhol. He put himself in the right place at the right time and nailed something huge. He did exactly what he wanted and rode it where he wanted. It got gross at points, but that, too was what he wanted when it was. Whatever it was, he created it. He created. And in a lot of ways ne nailed it. Although the years that I would have enjoyed (now) were fairly few. If I had seen this twenty years ago, I may have been able to skip a whole lot of difficult realizations.

When I left the east coast for Seattle a bit after college, on the train I felt like I had to step up my game if I wanted to create what I wanted in Seattle. I ended up being more of a consumer of what became known as grunge because I thought it was going to do what I wanted. I thought it would do it for me. (I hoped.)

It didn't. And it's taken me this long to even get a whiff of that "it could"-ness, of the whole world being in front of me, again.

It's funny, because I'm not even the same person. The part of me that remembers the feeling isn't really even embodied in my person, and it's not like anyone wants to talk about it. It's just there. And growing as I get ahold of it and understand how it's created.

It has something to do with the cool fall air. It made me go out and buy a Harry Potter book. You know--discoverd at 12 that we were wizards, and that a parallel world existed where you were already famous. And that in that world you were expected to undertake tasks that no adult of expert would even entertain. Partially because of who you were and partially because of your training. Even though you never quite felt ready.

Excitement.

And I remember that every century starts off with radical change. Picasso. Van Gogh. Was anyone moping around at the beginning of last century saying nothing was ever going to happen? Probably most folks. They had just been through the fin-de-siecle wringer. Cultural upheavals. They were afraid that big business was too big. That money came with too much power. There were wars going on. Things looked dark.

Now fast forward to the Black Ark studio in Jamaica in the 70s. What does the guy dancing around his mixing board playing with delay and reverb while one of the greatest singers ever kicks it down on the other side of the glass care? He has a board (and copious amounts of pot, but that's another story) and a mic. And knows how to get his records pressed. What does he care about Babbylon? He's broadcasting ("The Return of the Super Ape") all day and then eating fresh fish for dinner. And he's about to flip the script on what all those big businessmen thought--what everyone though--was true for so long. Their kids are going to wear his record out trying to get even a whiff of what he was immersed in all day. (There are some great videos of LSP doing his thing on YouTube, btw).

Some would say that Lee Scratch Perry went crazy, and maybe he is. But Picasso didn't. And van Gogh might not have if he hadn't insisted upon licking his toxic paintbrush. And not taking care of himself.

We're past the point where musicians are as healthy and prosperous as Picasso was painting. Now the final battleground is being and staying in love. Feeling love. Being happy. And creating a new world. AND getting the money.

It is now possible for a powerful enough artist to run the show FROM BENEATH--through inspiration instead of control. This is what the counter-culture has taught me. Business doesn't have enough ideas to move as fast as it, or it's consumers, want. It needs artists to tell it how to cut its pants, color its shirts, even build its engines. It wants to be told what to do (how's that for kinky for you?), it's begging to be dominated. It just hasn't met its match. But I can guarantee you this--this century is the century of business meeting its match. And if your family isn't in the arts at the beginning, chances are it will be by the end. If your family is in the applied arts or upper management, you're probably already looking for a crossover route.

We have built an ENORMOUS content delivery machine almost unintentionally. Providing the thinnest broth of content. We have an intercontinental pipeline we're sending one Capri Sun juice squeezer through. We have a warehouse of linked supercomputer running x(y+2).

No wonder we feel empty.

But we're all fully capable of receiving and enjoying that full bandwith--and sharing it, and talking about it, and sending back out our own. Once we drop our fears and prejudices. (Artists read Ayn Rand, Businessfolks go paint).

Me? I don't do one thing that doesn't make me happy. I love Ayn Rand (and know where she fall short) and I've painted plenty (and know where my paintings fall short). I'm a true hedonist. And for 20 years I've been building a personal, professional and social apparatus that will allow me ridiculous contentment, pleasure and joy for the rest of my life. If it takes broccoli and hamburger for breakfast every day; no caffeine, sugar or alcohol and two hours at the gym three days a week to get all the feelings I got from drugs without any of the downtime, so be it. I call that selfish.

And once that joy pays the bills, I'd call it a roadmap. (But it may very well be unmediated, which means no one will tell you it's okay. More about that in the below post).

[And, be notified: as with most gold rushes, there will be larger opportunities available to those who brave the risks first. This will be different than most in that many of the opportunities will be unlimited. Still, I can't imagine missing even a single day of this one. Or leaving it up to your children to find their own way there unsupported.]

Love.