Call For Artists

May 22, 2013 Leave a comment

Venus DeMars (performance artist, painter, founder of All The Pretty Horses) and hi/r wife Lynette Reini-Grandell (poet, professor, host of Write On Radio on KFAI) are being raked over the coals by the MN Dept of Revenue. Read the story by Jim Walsh on MinnPost: http://www.minnpost.com/minnpost-asks/2013/04/talking-taxman-about-poetry-and-deductions.
Despite living as professional artists for the past thirty years, Venus and Lynette are now being told that their life work is not work, it is a hobby.
This is not a new occurrence. Artists have drawn the ire of the tax man for years but it usually it ends in a settlement with little fanfare. This time they picked a fight with the wrong people; people with nothing to hide, people with nothing to lose, people with everything to lose, people with no choice but to fight.
But this is not their fight alone. This affects all independent and original artists. We are taking this to the streets and putting on a benefit concert to raise the $6,000 needed for Venus and Lynette’s legal representation, and develop an Independent Artist’s Legal Defence Fund to support other artists who find themselves defending their way of life in court. Our hope is that this will put an end to artist persecution, but if not, our hope is that this will be an annual event.
We are currently working with Sonja at First Avenue to secure a date. Current dates available include July 19th, 20th and 26th; August 9th and 10th.
Since this affects all of us we want to involve as many people as possible. We also want it to be a successful night for our beloved First Avenue. We want to put on a star-studded event with three or four short (20-30 minute) bands sets (using a back-line) interspersed with 1-3 song solo/duo acoustic or DJ sets, poets and spoken word performances. We will also have a silent auction and art show.
Please let me know if you or the people you represent want to be part of this important event. We need names. The level of interest will determine what kind of night we get at First Avenue. If you are interested and available we will find a way for you to be involved. This will be as big of an event as we as a community can pull off. If the TEA Party can attract national attention from their run-in with the IRS, we as independent artist should be able to draw statewide attention from this event.
Please contact me at: jevanmusic@gmail.com
~J Evan LeFreak (bass player for All The Pretty Horses)

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Wind out of my sales

May 11, 2013 Leave a comment

I have had to deal with all sorts of weather while driving pedicab. As an all-year biker I have a lot of experience with this, but every years, it still comes as a cruel reminder of mother nature’s power. Biking in the cold sucks. Biking in snow sucks. Biking in rain sucks. Still, you can fight your way through it. The one weather condition that will stop you dead in your tracks is high winds.

Last night around 10pm it started to rain lightly. It wasn’t enough to really bother me or the people walking around but it was enough to make taking a pedicab a less desirable option. I headed back to the garage to put on the canopy and rain tarp hoping the rain would continue. It did for about an hour and I was able to pick up a couple rides as a result of the rain.

After the rain died down the wind picked up. Now that I had a canopy on my cab it was like biking around a with a parachute behind me. The winds were gusting to 40 miles-per-hour. Even on a straight away, I would drop into the lowest gear, and still struggle to move the bike. With the wind behind me however, I could just put my feet up and let mother nature push half a ton of bike and riders down the road. That was kind of fun.

I had my first experience where I really felt like someone took advantage of me last night. Pedicabs will often congregate at The Local to pick up riders. There is always a lot of foot traffic going by and since we are there so often, most people know what to expect. I hate waiting in line to get a ride but the rides I get out of the Local are usually pretty serious riders so it’s worth the wait when I’m willing to do it.

So last night, when a sharply dressed, clean cut guy in his late twenties hopped  in my cab and asked to be taken to the Butcher and the Boar, I thought nothing of it. When we got to his destination he handed me money and I thanked him. Then I looked at what he gave me. It was a one dollar bill. What the fuck?!? Seriously? I mean, I took a couple other rides where people gave me a dollar or less but they let me know that they didn’t have any money before hand. I don’t have a problem with that. This guy clearly had money. He was just gaming the system. He was being a douche-bag!

I’ve got to say that it didn’t sit well with me. I know that my way of doing things leaves me open to being taken advantage of. I know that there are people like him in the world. Still, it shocked me. Most people are not like him. I could have gone in and confronted him. I could have told him that it was a dick-head move, but I didn’t. I let it go. I know who he is and it won’t happen again. If this is the way he acted with me I’m sure that he is this way with other people as well and probably has bigger problems than me confronting him on his behaviour. Scamming people may be one of his few joys in the world. That would be sad but it would explain why this good looking guy didn’t have a date on a Friday night.

All in all, my night turned out really well. Having music was a big hit and made my job even more enjoyable. I got to help people, show people a good time, received several hugs and a couple kisses and even had two very attractive women simultaneously give me a back massage as I rode. Yup, pedicab driving is the life for me!

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We are made of love

May 1, 2013 Leave a comment

It’s been the better part of a week since I last posted so there is plenty that I could write about my life. Despite that, I want to write about something more important than me. I want to write about Cloud Cult.

Photo by Cody York

Photo by Cody York

I first saw Cloud Cult at their CD release show for Aurora Borealis at 7th Street Entry in 2004. I went because my wife’s cousin was friends with the drummer at the time, Dan Greenwood. The Entry only holds about 200 people but I don’t even think the show sold out. Still, it was a full on rock-n-roll show and I was blown away. I’ve been a fan ever since. In fact I think that they are one of the greatest bands ever in existence  I get a lot of grief for loving this band. They are too hippy-dippy for my more hardcore friends and too serious for my hippy friends but I don’t give a shit. In my book, this band rocks! They have meaning and purpose and to me, that is what life is about.

Sunday night I went to the second of their sold out shows at First Avenue‘s main room. It still kind of shocks me that this little band with the big show, that I have been going to see for nearly 10 years, is now selling out the number one live music venue in Minneapolis.  It shocks me to the point that I didn’t even bother to buy a ticket beforehand. Actually, my life is too chaotic right now to plan ahead for much. Luckily, First Avenue holds back a few tickets to sell at the door for sold out shows. This is mostly to prevent scalping but it’s also to be nice to people in the know like me. I was lucky enough to get one of those tickets.

So how does a band go from barely filling the tiny 7th Street Entry to packing the mainroom? A Cloud Cult fan at the show said, “They are so successful because they have stayed true to their values.” It’s true, Craig Menowa, founder/songwriter for Cloud Cult, has blazed this trail doing it his own way. He has been offered record contracts but has turned them down in favor of keeping creative control over his art. I respect that and I think that Cloud Cult is very successful. They are successful to me because they have had a tremendous impact in my life. Rarely have I been to a Cloud Cult show that hasn’t moved me to tears. It happened Sunday night. I’m an emotional guy and I cry pretty freely but not usually at a rock show. I find that impressive, but is that really success? Tears don’t pay the bills. I responded to this guy saying, “You realize they still have day jobs.” I don’t know if that is true of everyone in the band but I know that this band is not financially successful enough to support 8 people. Actually, there are more than 8 people involved in this operation. Besides the people on stage, there are probably some road crew or techs. I met the sound guy who works for the band. I also met the merch person who told me that he refuses to take any money for his work. I respect that too. Art is about more than money.

But wouldn’t one think that a successful band would be financially successful as well? Very few local independent artists are as successful as Cloud Cult. I am racking my brain to figure out how many local bands that haven’t been signed to a major label have sold out the First Avenue mainroom. Trampled By Turtles has done it. Policia did it last Wednesday. I’m pretty sure that Mark Mallman has done it a few times. Maybe Har Mar Superstar. Obviously Atmosphere, P.O.S and Doomtree have done it. The short lived supergroup Gayngs has done it. The band I play for, All The Pretty Horses, has never done it. Before I was in the band, we opened for Peaches at First Avenue. I would like to think that show sold out but I’m not even sure. We are playing the David Bowie tribute Rebel Rebel – Rock for Pussy, a fundraiser for Feline Rescue on May 17th. It would be awesome if that sold out! Still, I won’t get a cent out of that show. Nevertheless, it’s one of the most amazing things that I do every year. There are things more important than money. I think cats are awesome!

But let’s do some math. First Avenue holds 1,500 people. At $20 a head that is 30 grand. That is some pretty sizable change. Especially if you do that two nights in a row. But the club gets a cut of that. Also, it needs to be spread out over the dozen or so people that put on the show. There was an opening act as well. There are promotion expenses, travel expenses, equipment expenses, lighting and recording expenses. These shows are not cheap to put on. Do I even need to mention that it took almost 20 years of really hard work for Cloud Cult to get to this point? I probably do. I told a guy at the show that I had every Cloud Cult album and he responded saying, “Yeah, I have both of them too.” They actually have 11 albums and I don’t really have all of them because I don’t own the first album, The Shade Project from 1994 or the re-release of Lost Songs from the Lost Years from 2009. Still, I have given this band hundreds of dollars over the years in album sales and concert tickets. So have thousands of other people but does that add up to financial security? Not really. Is a person who has been making music for twenty years without really making any money a success or just stupid?

I am convinced that the only way to get rich off of art is to create something that someone else can get even richer off of. But then your art is not art, it’s a commodity, it is a product. There is no way in this world to be a financially successful artist. We all need money to survive but can we admit that it is not about money, it is about survival. Define success anyway you want but to me, Cloud Cult is a successful band for one reason and one reason only. They are successful because 20 years later they are still doing what they do. They are surviving. And they have love. Perhaps love is the definition of success. Love is the title of their latest album and while I hope it makes a lot of money, love is more important than money.

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This is big

April 24, 2013 1 Comment

This is a big deal and I need your help. The art world is under attack. Creative people are under attack. This is nothing new, I’m aware. Society is always scared of new and original ideas. That may not be a bad thing. Some new ideas suck bat turds.

But this is America. We have the First Amendment which protects our right to speak out, to be original and to dissent. The First Amendment supports art. I don’t mind if the American people don’t like my art but the Government is trying to destroy artists. I have a problem with that.

THIS IS BIG! and we can’t let it happen.

We’ve all heard of the starving artist. The fact is that it is very difficult to make a living creating art. Most of us have to finance our own art. Some go in debt, some work odd jobs, but for all of us, being an artist is our main occupation. We write off our expenses of being an artist just like any business would. We all hope that we will make a living off of our art even if the reality is that we never will. We are not doing it as a hobby, we are doing it for the betterment of humankind. Of course we think that has value. It’s not our fault the current economic model doesn’t have a place for us. We still matter.

But we are in a time of recession. The country is hurting financially.  We can’t tax the rich because they have too much power. So who are we going to throw under the bus? I’m here to tell you that it is the artists.

This is a really bad idea. You want to talk about who the job creators are? They are the creative people. They are the risk takers. They are the originals. They are the artists. If we want jobs we need to stick by them. We can’t lay down and let the bus run over them. We need to get on that bus and sit right up front.

We have our ROSA PARKS!

Hi/r name is Venus DeMars!

S/he is one of the most brilliant artists of our time. I’m not just saying that because I play in hi/r band; I play in hi/r band because s/he is one of the most brilliant artists of our time.

Hi/r wife, Lynette Reini-Grandell is a brilliant poet and writer and educator. The two of them are being told by the Minnesota Department of Revenue that their life paths are invalid.

Pretty much every dollar they make they spend making the world a better place but because they don’t make a profit the government wants to shut down their artistic careers and prevent them from doing all the good they do. Making art is expensive. Building a career is expensive. Both of these artists work very hard and both generate significant income from their art, just not quite as much as they spend to produce and promote it. That is not uncommon in the art world. It’s also not illegal for a business to lose money.

Maybe you don’t care about them. Maybe you have no fucking idea who they are, but if you care about me, if you care about any other artist anywhere please read their story and share it with your friends. This could happen to any one of us. It does.

What is happening can not go on in silence. I still believe in the First Amendment. I still believe in the power of the people. I still believe that our voices need to be heard. It’s time to rise up and let the government know that we NEED ART!

Please read and follow Venus’ blog

Please read and share Jim Walsh’s article on MinnPost.

Please read and please repost. If there is more you can do, please do that. This is going to take a movement. We can’t lose the arts!

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Parenting is easy

March 7, 2013 1 Comment

People always say that parenting is hard, in fact it’s the hardest job in the world. I think that’s bullshit. I think that people make it hard but it doesn’t have to be. I have two kids ages 14 and 19 who have turned out just fine and I didn’t have to work very hard at all. I know that some children require more work than others but that’s all the more reason not to make it any more difficult than it has to be.

Here are my five simple principles for raising happy, loving and successful kids:

  1. Don’t let them die

  2. Let them know you love them

  3. Don’t fuck them up

  4. Share what you have to give, recieve what they have to share

  5. Enjoy every minute

NOTE: I might expound on these principles as time goes on but I don’t think I really need to. They are pretty self evident and each parent will have their their own approach to achieving them.  Just do these five things and nothing more. Children are individuals on their own life path. Everything else that they need they will find for themselves in their own way and in their own time.

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A week in a day

March 2, 2013 Leave a comment

Taking a couple of days off last weekend totally screwed up my daily post schedule. It’s also been a hard week for me to get anything done besides writing. I don’t know if that’s because I had a big weekend but I doubt it. Weeks like this happen regardless of what I do. It’s just the natural ebb and flow of chronic illness. It would have helped if I had kept up on taking Vitamin D every day but that got neglected in all the chaos.

Here’s a synopsis of my week to the best of my recollection:

Monday (25 Feb 2013)

I woke up at 11 am but was moving pretty slow. I had gotten 8 hours of sleep, which is two more than I usually get, but I had no motivation and an achy body. I had nothing to be excited about until I saw a text message from one of my best friends. She was also lacking motivation but needed to spend some time promoting her new business. Sometimes it’s easier to find motivation for someone else’s project than your own.

We spent several hours that afternoon putting up flyers. I was mostly there just for support but sometimes that’s all it takes. At least it got me out of the house. Without that, I have a feeling I would have laid in bed all day.

I was still beat by the time I got home. I received a call from a friend seeing if I would go out with her but I was done. I spent the evening writing and was passed out by midnight.

Tuesday (26 Feb 2013)

Tuesday sucked! After sleeping 10 hours it still took everything I had to get out of bed. I guess there was a high pollution count in the air. That may have made things worse. Fuck pollution  Not to mention, I had run out of coffee. How the hell did I let that happen? Oh yeah, sucky week so far.

The only thing I had to do was pick my daughter up from school at 3 pm. I did manage to do that but she was also having a really bad day. She just wanted me to take her back to he mother’s. I’m still glad I got to see her, even if only for a little bit.

In a way, I was relieved. This way I could just go home and get some more writing done. I stopped on the way to get tobacco and coffee, two things I neglected to pick up while out the day before. I also got some food for dinner since I hadn’t eaten all day.

At 8:15 pm I got a txt from a friend asking if she could call me. I had called her a couple of times over the past week or so and she was feeling bad about not getting back to me. I sent her a message back saying, “Call me. I’m just sitting at home writing.” [Actually I put two t’s in writing. I make that mistake a lot.]

We talked for a good hour but then I needed to get back to work. I finally got my post published just after midnight and headed to bed. There I got sucked into watching House of Cards on Netflix and didn’t actually fall asleep until 3 am.

Wednesday (27 Feb 2013)

Wednesday was my job day. I woke up a little later than I normal but not so late that I couldn’t get my route done in time. It just meant that I would run into a little more rush hour traffic at the end of the day but I skipped the morning rush hour traffic. Now that it is not getting dark so early I think it’s totally worth working later in the day.

I was still done by 4 pm or so. I called my friend to see if she would come in early for her restaurant job and hang out with me before punching in. I also called a mutual friend to join us. Good thing I did because friend #1 didn’t show up until it was time for her clock in. I would have been fine on my own. It’s just hard to see all the people I want to so sometimes I double book. I’m glad when I get to see at least one of them.

I ordered half a sandwich, soup and a beer. Shortly after, my friend showed up. I had not seen her since she got back from Florida so I was really eager to catch up. The whole time we were talking, I was eating and drinking my beer and she was just drinking the water I brought her. I was wondering why she wasn’t ordering anything. Was she not hungry? Was she not drinking? I didn’t want to pry but I was perplexed.

Then, through the course of our conversation, it became clear that she was not ordering anything because she couldn’t afford to order anything. I felt horrible. I could have at least offered her some of my soup or sandwich. In any case it would have been the polite thing to do.

Instead, I was selfish. I was treating myself after getting paid to a meal at a restaurant. It was the only real meal I would eat that day and I didn’t want to share. I was afraid to share. After six months of barely making it, I was afraid to be in that position again. I felt like I was splurging as it was and I didn’t have anything to spare.

But I did. I had money in my pocket. I could have at least bought her a beer. Instead I was a selfish dick. As bad as my financial situation was, her’s was worse. I made it through these past few months only because of the generosity of friends. Here was an opportunity for me give back and I blew it. There were other ways I could have helped that night but I kept over-thinking the situation, giving in to fear and not following my heart. Let me tell you, not honoring your core values feels really shitty.

I must have gotten home about 8 pm. I still wanted to get some writing done but I felt so far behind on my daily updates that I didn’t know where to start. Instead I decided to write my About page. I figured it was about time I had one of those.

Thursday (28 Feb 2013)

Getting out of bed on this particular morning was the worst it had been all week. For two hours I struggled. I would begin to get out of bed, roll half-way over and become too exhausted to continue. I would rest for another 10 – 15 minutes and try it again. I kept trying to entice myself with thoughts of coffee but in the end I just had to get all drill sergeant on my ass by tapping into my anger and frustration. I believe that chronic fatigue syndrome is primarily a condition of the brain but the brain is a pretty power piece of machinery.

About the only thing I accomplished during the day was writing my daily post which had nothing to do with my daily activities anyway. I did manage to get a shower in for the first this week but as a result I was running late to pick up my daughter from school.

When I got out to my van I discovered that my battery was completely dead. Some idiot had left the dome light on overnight. Okay, that idiot was me. Still, I was in a panic. A man a the end of the block was sitting in his car waiting to pick his daughter up from the bus. I asked him if he could give me a jump. I explained the urgency of my situation and he agreed to help. Unfortunately my jumper cables didn’t work for shit. We gave up and I realized I needed to get a hold of my daughter. It was ten to three and she would be out of class at 3 pm.

I didn’t even have the school’s phone number. My daughter’s phone has been lost in her apartment for over a month. I had no way to get a hold of her. I had to call her mother who started spewing so much information at me I could barely keep up and it just made me more frustrated as it got closer and closer to the time my daughter would be getting out of school. There was a time crunch here.

Anyway, I figured out what I needed to do. After some research online and a number of phone calls I finally got through to someone who could get a message to my daughter. She could go home with a friend and everything would be okay.

I still had to get my van running though. Normally I would just call AAA and someone would come give me a jump but I have already used up all my service calls until April. Yeah, I get my monies worth but now I was on my own. I couldn’t afford to call a service station to come give me a jump. I didn’t even know which of my friends to call so I turned to Facebook. Within 10 minutes I had two people offering to give me a jump. These were not even close friends, just people who knew of me and were able to help. It really made me feel like I was part of a community. I am so grateful for that!

Now with my van running I was just waiting to hear from my daughter so that I could go pick her up. I waited and waited. I sent a text message to her mother stating what I had done and that I hadn’t heard anything. I called the apartment but there was no answer. These are the moments a parent dreads, but I knew that they usually turn out just fine so I tried to remain calm. At 6:51 I called again and got my daughter on the phone. Her mother had picked her up. Relieved, I asked if she wanted me to come pick her up or if she wanted to stay there and I would see her the next day. She informed me that she had a doctor appointment in the morning so we decided I would pick her up after that and she could spend the night Friday.

I need to get this girl another cell phone. I can’t go through another day like that.

Friday (1 Mar 2013 – today)

I woke up today feeling pretty normal. I was excited to see my daughter. I was excited to get my life back on track. I made coffee, took my Vitamin D and got to work writing. I had a week’s worth of daily updates to write. Monday and Tuesday were pretty easy. I don’t know if you’ve notices but each day get’s progressively longer. I don’t know if that is because the passage of time gives me clarity or because I just fucking forget shit.

It’s now after one in the morning and I really need to get this done before I go to bed. I’m helping a friend move in the morning so I don’t want to spend all night doing this. Let’s see if I can be brief. This is already my longer post I’ve ever written.

At 10:09 am, as I’m exiting the freeway, I get a call from my ex-wife saying that my daughter is done with her appointment. I told her I was 2 minutes away and would pick her up at the main door of the hospital. When I got there my ex told me that she was going to miss her bus to class and asked if I could drive her to the bus stop. I love my ex-wife, as I love all people, but I really can’t stand being around her. Still, I know that if I can help someone I need to help them so I drove her to her class.

The next thing that needed to happen was to get my daughter a cell phone. We drove to World of Wireless. I’ve had some good experiences with them before but I think they are now way over-priced. A new place opened two doors down that is cheaper but my daughter and I both though we could do better.

We headed back to my house to check Craigslist and eBay. We had some fun bidding on eBay but didn’t win. Then it was time to run off for her chiropractic appointment.

When we returned I checked the mail and found my State tax refund check. We went back to eBay and bought a brand new phone, the same kind she lost, for $75.

We talked, had a snack, played a game, made dinner, watched TED Talks and a movie and whenever she was distracted with her own activities I would try to get some more writing done. That didn’t really work. Even when she is doing her own thing she could still manage to interrupt what I was doing. As well she should. I don’t see her that much and she loves her dad and she is absolutely my priority. We just need to work out some boundaries and mutual respect. She has a blog that she is working on as well. We will work it out in our own way. I just don’t think she has much experience with these things. So I sent her to bed at midnight and now I think I’m done.

In the news this week…

Minnesota introduced a bill that would remove the prohibition on same-sex marriage. After defeating an attempt to change the constitution to legalize this kind of discrimination I believe now is the time to end it once and for all.

Chuck Hagal was confirmed as Secretary of Defense. I think this is a very good thing too. Even though he is a Republican, I believe he is a man of principles and integrity.  That means more to me than whether we agree or not on all the issues. Unfortunately the congressional Republicans don’t see life that way…

…and so we have enter into sequestration.

 

 

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Fear and loathing in Minneapolis

February 13, 2013 3 Comments

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.” – John Lennon

For most of my life I have subscribed to the philosophy put forth here by John Lennon; and for the most part I still do. There is a lot of wisdom in those words. I just can no longer treat love and fear as two sides of the same coin; two competing forces vying for our response. I can no longer view love simply as something that is good and fear as something that is bad. It’s not that black and white. Nothing is black and white. There are no absolutes, there is no certainty, there is no escape from fear. Am I absolutely certain of that? Well no, and hence I stand convinced of my doubt.

Writing this blog has been a life goal of mine for at past two years. For two years I have failed at taking that first step. For two years I have procrastinated.  For two years I have made excuses: I don’t know what I want it to be about, I don’t know what to call it, I don’t know how to set up a blog, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I need a better computer and countless other arguments in my head that kept me stuck in my thoughts. For two years I have felt paralyzed, unable to take the next step in my life, because of the weight of a dream.

But that’s bullshit. I haven’t just been sitting around doing nothing. I’ve been living my life. I’ve been growing, changing, struggling and preparing myself for this day. The truth is that this blog came into existence on the absolutely first day it possible could. The truth is that getting to this day has not been a two year process. The truth is that it has been a 46 year process. Everything that has occurred in my life has been leading up to this very moment. That’s a pretty overwhelming though,t but it’s true, not just for this moment, but every moment. The present moment always arrives right on time. You can never be late for now.

So what possessed me to write a blog at all? What is the motivating factor behind this endeavour? Am I being driven by either love or fear? I would love to tell you that this is a labor of love. I would love to tell you that being a writer has been my life passion. I would love to tell you that I possess some great wisdom that needs to be shared with the world. I would love to tell you that I am so fabulous of a person everyone needs to know who I am. I would love to tell you that everything I do is motivated by love. I would love to tell you all that… but none of it would be true.

The fact is, this blog is a product of fear. To be precise, my fear of death. Well, not of literally of dying, I’ve already experienced that and I’m not really afraid of death. What I am afraid of is not living. If I’m not growing, expanding, taking risks and moving forward… well, that feels like death to me. I’ve been reading a number of blogs lately and it seems like a lot of them are born out of a period of tremendous life change: divorce, loss of a job, loss of a child, major medical diagnosis, physical injury, spiritual awakening or coming out process.

For me, it’s because I don’t know what the fuck else to do. I’ve been through my share of hell and along the way I have developed a lot of tools. I have a tremendous skill set and support system to cope with what life has thrown at me.  Still, it has only gotten me this far. I have worked through all of the issues I am aware of, I have made all the changes to my life I can and accepted those things about me which I cannot change, yet still, my life sucks. It’s time to shit or get off the pot. It’s time to forge into unknown territory or just give up. It’s time to face my fear… or die. I know, sounds pretty dramatic, but that’s how it feels to me.

I don’t think that it is an irrational fear, however. I think what I am setting out to do is pretty fucking scary.  I intend to share every aspect of myself with the entire world. I intend to share every thought, every hope, every dream, every fear, every strength, every weakness, every doubt, every secret, every opinion and every activity whether successful or utter failure with anyone who chooses to read it. Granted, I know that is impossible and there is no way I could actually share every aspect of myself so I guess in that respect the fear is irrational. But fear is fear, it doesn’t really give a shit about rationality or logic. It just is.

Regardless, I’m exposing myself, making myself vulnerable to the world; a world which can be cruel,  a world which has judged me… a world that includes my mother. So you may ask, why I would want to do this, and the answer is because it is all I have to give. For reasons I am still trying to figure out I have always wanted to be the best at something. I guess I figured if there was someone better at a particular task than I am then they should do it and I would find something else to do. Well the only thing that I have found that I do better than anyone else is BEING ME. So that is what I am going to do. That is my gift to the world. Don’t worry, I won’t be offended is you exchange it for a different size. I’ve never claimed to be one-size-fits-all.

I’m not fearless and I have not overcome my fear. What I have done is learn to love it. I embrace it. It has purpose and it deserves respect. As I have been writing my daily entries for the past two weeks I have realized that I am still experiencing fear. I am practicing cation as I am writing; not cation for my own safety so much as cation for those with whom I interact. I accept that this is part of the process and I trust that in time I will find a way to find peace with it.

It seems fitting, at this point,  that I should share my number one fear with you. My number one fear is hurting someone I love, and I love everyone. My second biggest fear is not living with honesty and integrity.  I imagine that balancing these two fears will define my life struggle.

Filed under Personal Growth, Philosophy Tagged with , , , , ,

Truth is stranger than fiction

February 5, 2013 1 Comment

What lurks in the deepest recesses of our brain? What hides behind our pleasant out-going demeanor? Not all wounds heal. We can bury the hurt but it can also be exhumed; either by choice or behind our backs when we aren’t looking. These are the places I want to explore. I want to forge head-on into the darkness and shine the bright light of compassion. I want to swing open the closet doors and meet the skeletons stashed within and give them a hug.

I must be honest, to do this scares the hell out of me. I’m going to need courage and I’m going to need protection. I find my courage in a bottle of wine. I find my protection in undying love. But how do I protect those who walk beside me? As I set forth to tear down the wall, who is going to be hit by the falling bricks? Who will stick by me as I journey into the realm of secrets and unleash the demons we have locked away?

—-

Who was that girl that I met last night? I know I have met her before but she usually comes out in twilight. This time she came out of the blackest of nights, beaten and abused, ready to unleash fury on her attacker. But instead she met me, a lonely brokenhearted boy who meant her no harm and was in deep need of comfort. She was a warrior; fearless and strong. Certainly she could defend me. Grateful to no longer be alone I approached her in hopes of being received by her embrace but as I got closer I could tell she was lost. She had run from the terror that had found her earlier, to place of safety and solitude but she knew not where she was. I wanted her to know that she no longer had anything to fear; that I was there to protect her.

Unbeknownst to me, I had been followed. For how long, I don’t know. Perhaps he had been there all along. There in my shadow lurked a monster. I caught his reflection in her eyes but not in time to avoid her attack. I guess she must have thought that we were together, and there is no denying that we were. Her assault with fists, feet and fangs were indiscriminate; half hitting me and half hitting the monster. I didn’t want to fight back. I didn’t want to hurt her but I didn’t want to run away either. I didn’t want to leave her alone with the monster. If I could convince her that we where on the same side perhaps we could defeat this threat that plagued us both.

I grabbed her arms and said, “Please stop! I’m your friend.”

But this just seemed to enrage her more. A friend would never bring a monster into her sanctuary. A friend would never violate her solitude with requests for affection. A friend would never restrain her ability to defend herself.

At this point her aggression was squarely focused on me. The monster stepped back to shout taunts and egg her on. He was enjoying this. For him, seeing two friends fighting was pure joy. As I was trying to calm her down the monster was adding fuel to the fire. I had become the target of her rage and there was nothing I could do. There was no way to find peace and everything I tried only made matters worse. I was helpless. I wanted to resolve this but I was not in control. I don’t know if anyone was in control. Among the three of us there was not a rational brain to be found.

I needed reinforcements. I needed calmer heads to prevail and there were none around. I ran off to find help. My girl retreated to her den of solitude and the monster, bored with the lack of violence, returned into the shadows. Once again, I was alone. I wandered until I ran across a woman who knew of the keepers of law and order.

“Can they help me?” I asked her. “Can they resolve this conflict?”

“The keepers of law and order can only address conflicts between warring nations. This sounds like an internal struggle. You need to speak to the sage.”

I protested but in the end I had to concede that the real struggle was within. The battle had ended yet I still carried the fight. I had no adversary but myself. She pointed me off to the mountain where the sage resides. The walk wasn’t far but the wait in line to see him seemed to go on forever. Apparently there are a lot of internal struggles going on.

When I was finally able to speak to the sage I broke down in tears.

“I know that she knows me but when I look in her eyes all I see is hate.” I explained.

He responded with some mumbo-jumbo about living in the moment and that spirits work in mysterious ways. But for some reason it made me feel better. Maybe it was just the passing of time that calmed me down or the fact that there was another person to talk to and I no longer felt so alone.  In either case I knew what I had to do. I had to return to my girl and make things right. I believed deep in my heart that love would always triumph over hate.

When I finally found her she was held up in a cave guarded by two ferocious lions. Tried as I might I could not penetrate her defenses. Exhausted, I took refuge under a tree. Perhaps she would come out on her own and find me laying there, helpless, and take pity on me. She did in fact come out eventually, but pity was not what I received.

“What the hell are you doing under my tree? Get the fuck out of here!”

I rolled away to a nearby tree and we both sank into slumber.

I woke the next morning to inspect my wounds; flesh torn from my chest, shattered teeth, choke marks around my neck and a bruised ass from where I fell upon a rock. But I was alive. No one had died. Perhaps the monster was right. Perhaps this is fun.

I looked over and saw my sleeping beauty laying there. I walked over and stroked her hair.

“Wake up. We need to talk.”

She had no recollection of what happened the night before and I started to wonder whether it was all a dream. But then I grabbed my chest and realized it wasn’t.

Filed under Fiction, Moments Tagged with , , , , , ,

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