van gogh’s missing ear

Last night I’m grappling with this idea that success of an artist is linked to a personal painful history. Why else does Van Gogh to cut off his own ear? My assumption is he was abandoned as a child, beaten up at school, got confused with the drink, heartbroken and divorced, found an art class when he was 23 and became the class wunderkind.  I ponder this at a Burke Williams spa. I’m naked in a jacuzzi drinking a guava smoothie. It’s time for the steam room.

Am I under a ceiling because my life was too easy?

Maybe we move to India and raise a vegetable garden. Teach them how to work with mud and build strawbale houses. Go homeless for a week and sleep on the Earth. I felt ashamed of being privileged when I was younger. I didn’t ask why I deserved this, but felt out of place at the expensive restaurants and on the Mexico cruises. I’ve made the claim that people fed by the silver spoon face a harder, different set of challenges compared to someone who’s poor. Lisa argues that it’s not exactly harder, but different. They’re both hard. It’s hard to rise up and up if your feet are stable on the floor. You realize you can never fully sink into the ground. You move back in with your parents. You take your old room back. There’s always bread and deli meat to prevent starvation.

Indulgence can be a distraction at times. But now in my late twenties, I’m spending more on ‘personal wellness’ than ever before. My mind is racing now, trying to amass as many experiences as possible.

The steam room makes me nauseous. It’s Egyptian cotton robe time. My friend and I go outside to the co-ed patio lounge. A fireplace warms up our feet. What do we do now? Go online and buy some Apple stock? Cocktails? Louge lessons? Sure. But first let’s look at Thailand tickets.

 

life at 28

all your friends are either in or out of relationships, others are married, others went through it. your best friend who was a total fuckup has a nice house, a kid, landed the hot wife. you have a gym membership and a yoga membership and don’t have time for either. $8 juice is more delicious than absurd. you buy home appliances online. you take buying jeans very seriously, and you’re a guy. your gay friends are wildly successful. you read less even though it’s how to stay sharp. facebook makes you feel jealous of what your traveling filmmaker journalism friends are doing in iraq and afghanistan.

you develop a closer relationship with bourbon. you can manage two stiff cocktails and drive, somewhat. tequila shots are strictly for rituals with best friends or future in-laws. champagne can be drunk anytime of the day. you’re in bed by 1:30 on Friday for the yoga class at nine. you buy your second pair of slippers online. you take shaving and mustache grooming very seriously. you’re tired of waging inner battles and bet that confidence wins out. the bills keep coming. you are the 99 percent but ready to join the one. disconnecting from everything for a while is the greatest feeling in the world. vinyl over mp3, LSD over molly, PBR still tastes like piss.

it’s lovely to feel sad and happy at the same time. your friends go to Burning Man and beg you to join their zombie art car project. your parents’ records are now in your  hands. you find new meaning in john coltrane and led zeppelin. life and planet earth documentaries hypnotize you for hours. you move back to san francisco. you take trips to mexico and meet couples who work in finance and smoke Cubans together. no matter how many crunches and leg lifts you do, a six-pack is beyond your means.  hand sanitizers are all over the house. you shell out more cash on the birthday gift, because you’ve learned it comes back to you. you buy a crock pot online. your glasses cost more than a car payment.

brunch is the most important meal of the day. one hour of softball makes the muscles sore for three days.  poker is an art form. you know the cheese guy at the farmers market. your parents’ friends chests look larger. you nail the recipe on your first try. ryan gosling causes a wedge in your relationship. you only need one amazing leather jacket. when your parents call, you pick up. you’re fascinated by babies, even though kids are a few years away. nothing beats a night of beer and board games with your best friends. it’s now new years eve. your face hurts from laughing too much. it’s almost midnight, ball’s about to drop, you fall asleep.

 

 

cartoons

the woman in you

one year later I still find
the woman in you.
traveling with grace
scintillating the room
like a gangster
sweet, lovely punkish
hours later you melt into my arms
like wax dipped onto wood
I want you to know
I’m never coming off.
– that’s just where I want you.

reflections on love

I.

how you’ve managed
to turn months into minutes
confuses the logic of my heart
cuts me up like fabric
turns this wild wild world ever so small.
you bend time in your arms
press your chest against mine
turn your head sideways to mine
I can do nothing
but unfold.

II.

thank you for tolerating
my hyper attention to diligent shaving
running conversations with plants
cooking when there’s no time
my extended family
when I refuse to drive
my love of quinoa
how these hands can’t stay off you

III.

the kabbalah says
when the world was created
god retreated to make space for the earth
so during the interim
what was in the space between?
dreams that love. words of power.
a quiet space where there is only silence
and loudness that makes no sound
Lilli –
I’ve discovered
where we’ve been all this time.

IV.

when the world melts away
you show up with a backpack
water, smiles, and wine
a pillar I can lean on
even though I stand seven inches taller
we build a tent, ride out the monsoons
search for higher ground.
and when it’s safe
we stay in a little longer.

 

burn 3.0

So I’ve switched back to journals.  Boner fide, hardstock quality paper. I like getting hand cramps from writing too quickly at weird angles.

Rites of passage was the theme for this year’s Burning Man. The art was incredible – walkways, bridges to nowhere, 30 foot steampunk ring portals into new worlds. It felt like Stargate, minus the weird Egyptian super soldiers. LED lights lighting up the pathway. What made things interesting is how my trip of all trips started.

I landed in Las Vegas en route to Reno. And realized I forgot my ticket at home in LA. Intense panic sets in. My face goes numb. I want to crawl further into the bacteria laden airport chair and disappear into myself. It’s so easy to skip that part: I have my gear, my tent, my pink el-wires, headlamp, I smell like I’ve been in the forest for days. I actually need to provide ticketed entry?

Hours later I’m exploring every cravas of the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno. Men with hats and their silicone enhanced, bleached blonde wives making love to slot machines. The girl at the Starbucks counter smiles and offers me a free bagel with my third coffee. But I’m reading. I’m writing. I make a friend, another Burner, and we head to the pool. It’s 89 degrees. There’s a mister on my shoulders. I’m drinking a blueberry mojito. The bartender hooks me up with a cabana. There are worse places to be. I’m in this odd transition state, letting go earlier than expected. I felt resigned to my fate – I’d be getting into Burning Man a day later, stuck in Reno – but eventually, I would arrive. So enjoy it. Take some chill pills – not really, though they were offered – and calm the fuck down. It was happening. You are not always in control. It’s best to ride the wave and see where it leads.

I arrive at 3 am, campless. So I pass out at the Jazz CAfe. Climb a scaffolding and find my friends. That night, after Indian curry is fully thawed and cooked, we venture out into the playa. Our plaza is taken over by the Pervitical Playground, a 3-story art car with slides and ropes and Bloody Marys. Rappers Delight, which plays the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song and any good hip hop song from my high school days  – plus adjacent rock climbing wall – a glassblower team in the center of the plaza that formed molten glass from midnight till 4 am, curious onlookers high on LSD wondering where the fuck this came from. And us, Camp Zen as Fuck, a monkey hut, hexayurt, and shade tent that provided fresh reggae and freestyle battles in the morning.

Why on Earth would I plan things on the playa? My coworkers ask me “So what do you do there?” If I had hours, I could ramble and explain. But shit. What really happens? You learn to let go again. To ditch expectations for the day. To ride along, to say hello to strangers, allow serendipity to unfold before your eyes. I was amazed this year to see how good things build on each other. Getting stuck at the Temple compels me to walk 20 minutes in this direction, watch a ferris wheel where an animated skeletal Charon transports into the afterlife  (I cannot put this it into words. Sorry) and stumble into an elixir and electrolyte bar served by a guy who drops maca man aphrodisiacs in my mouth. His partner hands me a coconut and I scoop out the meat. It’s a party. I’m playing billiards with bowling balls. Drumming while Victorians take photos in a psychedelic purple forest made from reclaimed wood. Earlier I’m on an art car/mobile wedding chapel, having drinks with a man named Gordon who flew in his dad from Switzerland. He is a diplomat and dressed the part. Khakis, belt, tucked in dress shirt. An hour later a topless girl is offering him candy and he’s wearing face paint that would make Mel Gibson upset.

 

How is it possible to have so much life crammed into one day. The days are weeks. The week is a month. Burning Man is a thing. it’s not a festival. It’s a turning point. A reset button, a marker for what to take on, and what to burn and leave behind. So many things. So many things to lose. More to find.

The loss of fear
The loss of patience
The loss of control for things I cannot control
The loss  of anger towards those in proximity
The finding of a beautiful heart
The finding of best friendship
The finding of friends who were once lost
The finding of confidence
The finding of a partner.

You all should be here.

thursdays

Downtown Art Walk. My hips sway as the intertia of the metro pulls me backwards. The car is packed, full of mustached men, canvas shopping bags and Spike Lee lookalikes. My legs catch up, elevating on the escalator, the lights noise and street smells vapor into my face. Grimy, homeless, and smoke from sewers, noise noise and foot traffic. Bodies stand in line, fight for position between the food trucks. Tacos of all countries are here – here’s your two dollars, thank you sir – tucked into paper containers, side by side like mini corpses in tiny coffins, devoured in seconds. Charlie Sheen whispers a winning smile, look up to see people dancing, fucking maybe, to the deep red glowing neon. Glossy eyed artists paint creatures on wooden sidewalks, the engine of the crowd feeds the evening muse. We move forward now, block by block, navigating through leather and smoke, towards whatever’s next. “Where’s the art?” Julia asks. We step into a gallery. An older black woman with a black hat of folding fabric on her head asks if we want red or white. She pours red. Lots and lots of red. I examine the collage of white, and green acrylic, what they call mixed media art, the paint swirling and dripping over wood pieces, stitched together like a high school diorama project from someone who gets high and works at Home Depot.

More movement. More red lights, more traffic, beautiful people walk past us passing judgement. A dozen people surround a puppeteer, his stage a miniature rickshaw – a cloth, vaudeville music from old movies, a ragged, weathered corpse puppet that’s spent too much time underground. Brown and tan, ripped clothing, from potato sacks, no face, hands of a skeleton. The speakerbox comes to life, loud enough for the front row to hear,  strings move as the small man slithers along the stage. My love left me. I’ve got nothing, nothing, nothing to live for, except the dark depressing days that leave me wanting sleep and nothing else. The man hides his face, shaking from the vibrato in his master’s fingers. And then it ends, the man collapses, falling into himself, hiding from the world outside.