"Blogging" is weird. Well... this kind of blogging is weird. It's narcissistic. To think that anyone out there in any universe has any desire to read what another person is thinking is ridiculously selfish. Who cares what I have to say about anything? It's utter nonsense. This blog is - to quote my favorite band - not for you. This cyber-space is my own. To keep myself writing. To tap into the creative process. Here it is. Poems. Mental vomit. Short stories? Plays? I don't know what this will become. Hopefully it will adapt and evolve and discern itself all on it's own without much help/influence from me. That would be the ideal.
If you're here it's because you've been invited. Or you've stumbled. Either way you're welcome to it. Eat it. Keep it. Laugh at it. Throw it up and pass it on. Doesn't matter. It's all nonsense anyway, right? So why do it? If it's all nonsense? You tell me. Compulsion. Peer pressure. Yearning. Thought. Creative conscience. All of the above... We sing because we must...
More will come. Some days it will flow. Some days it will be dry. I can't predict or promise what's about to happen here. And, frankly, I wouldn't want to. This blog should always be from the gut. It should come and go as it sees fit and it will never apologize.... so.... here we go....
I'm listening to Pearl Jam today - Friday, May 22nd 2009.
I started with VS and now I'm on No Code. I skipped Vitalogy because... well... because I always listen to Vitalogy! : ) Now 'In My Tree' - the namesake of this new venture - is ringing out. Still punctures me. New meanings, old meanings redefined, with this one. It's a precious piece. It's true. Someday I hope to create art as pure and honest as this song. I wonder where it comes from. Stephen King speaks of Boo'ya Moon - a magical place, but very real, where all the ideas hang thick in the air, on the trees, in the water, waiting to be plucked. I have dreamt of Boo'ya Moon. I have been there. I've found ideas there that have been discarded or ignored by others and I'm astonished by that fact. These ideas just lying around... and NO ONE wanted them? So, yes, I took them. I tooled them, and out of them have come creation - artistic expression. But nothing I've done -yet! - has come close to the blatant, bitter truth of 'In My Tree.' For those who are not in the know:
"Up here in my tree
Newspapers matter not to me
No more crowbars to my head
I'm trading stories with the leaves instead
Wave to all my friends
They don't seem to notice me, no
All their eyes trained on the street
Sidewalk, cigarettes, and scenes (tem-ped)
Up here so high, I start to shake
Up here so high, the sky I scrape
I'm so high I hold just one breath here within my chest
Just like innocence
I remember when
I swore I knew everything
Let's say knowledge is a tree, yeah
It's growing up just like me, yeah
I'm so light, the wind me shakes
I'm so high, the sky I scrape
I'm so light I hold just one breath and go back to my nest
Sleep with innocence...
Up here so high, the bows they break
Up here so high, the sky I scrape
Had my eyes peeled both wide open, and I got a glimpse
Of my innocence... go back to inner sense...
Baby got it, still got it."
And that, my friends, is the gods' honest truth. If you've never heard that song, I would suggest you get it - or the album, NO CODE - and throw on some headphones. Go to the park or sit by yourself in you car, throw that tune on and just let it wash over you in waves. It's the truth.
My life's goal is to create something as true as that song. I've written six full length and five ten-minute plays, and on one cares. Well, my wife cares. She's brilliant and she gets it. Candace gets it, which sort of blows my mind. And my mom gets it, because she has to -- but no one else gives a shit about what I've done. I'm 29 and I've got a career's worth of art finished and taking up valuable memory on this Toshiba of mine. FINISHED. No one cares. But they will. The stars will Aline for all of us. Days in the sun and nights, drunk with friends. Impostors will infiltrate. Yes. People will care. Someone will care more for my work than I care for 'In My Tree.' They'll be wrong, but I won't argue. : ) You have it in you too. Just in case you didn't know. Watch out. We're all about to break free. Waves will crash and the world will change. Hopefully, you'll be around long enough to see the break-through. I hope I am... My friends are going to control the world - or at the very least, they're going to course correct it... are you ready?
So what's next? The same thing everyday. You plug away. You work. You strive. You do great things that go unnoticed. You do stupid, vapid things that go unnoticed. You write checks. You pay bills. You dream. You wake up. Art is good. Art is bad. Art is subjective. Someone gets it. A million others don't, and the world keeps on turning. Maybe something breaks through. Maybe you write 'In My Tree' and a million people cry. Maybe you don't. Maybe your best offer is something mundane. Volunteer on weekends and spend fifty hours slaving beneath people who are beneath you... maybe... it takes all kinds. And your happiness can not be defined by someone else. So... what makes you happy? What gives you joy? What is your greatest goal?
My greatest goal was to share my passion with someone whom I love more than myself. I have achieved that goal. It's all downhill from here... now all that's left is to tell the truth. Do I have an 'In My Tree' within me? You'll have to decide that and get back to me. But I think... I THINK... I just might. When we are dead and gone how will we be remembered? By our blogs? God! By our deeds? By our words? By our art?
My legacy is the love I give. My legacy is breaking free. My legacy will write my own history. Care to join me as I search, as I try to figure out what the hell any of this really means? Okay. Cool. Welcome aboard.
I'm open, come on in...
Joe
