Thursday, April 28, 2011
A Moderate Success
Today was better. I did Tae Bo as soon as I woke up and worked up a moderate sweat, then went outside with Miles, fed him lunch, and put him down for his nap. Then I finally had a chance to wash off that moderate sweat in the shower. I found a moderately interesting local band on the net and checked out another local band on the net that I had heard about. Painted after that. Have decided to paint what I am calling "Process Paintings" for a while. More about the flow of the process than in the past: painting so that the process feels like an artform; graceful, like a dance, with very little stress involved. A little mindful of the product in that what I put on the canvas is pleasing to me at the time in relation to what is already on the canvas. And I don't get stressed out if I can't find the "right brush" or if something bumps against the canvas and smudges the paint or if someone interrupts me and I have to leave off at a point that I hadn't planned because those things are part of the organic flow of the creation of the painting. It was nice. Later Miles wanted to have another Easter egg hunt. This time he hid them and found them. He was better at finding them this way. :-)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Blah
I've been pretty depressed since I hurt my back about a week ago. It feels better, but I guess not being able to do anything for a few days left a dent in my psyche. I'm also depressed because I was going to try to get a job being a house monitor at the City Mission (which I probably wouldn't have liked anyway, bc it was on the men's side which might have been difficult), but I was too incapacitated by the back injury to take in the application. I had decided that I should probably get a job instead of going back to school to get my Master's in English, but now I don't really know what to do. I was really enjoying digging up a plot of land to make a garden, but that's how I hurt my back, so I'm scared to work on it anymore for fear of hurting my back again. I think if I had a friend to do things with, or if I could go to NA meetings, I'd probably feel better. Blah.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Fame (some thoughts I posted on Facebook the other day)
I've been thinking about fame a lot today and, well, lately. When I was around 24 or so I had changed my major from Psychology to Music because I wanted to understand music more and to become a better songwriter and musician. One day at school I ran into an acquaintance who has been playing music for a long time and is perhaps a little bitter about his lack of "success" as a musician.
I told him I was majoring in Voice and he said, "Why?" in kind of a disgusted manner. "What are you waiting for? I mean, you don't have that much time."
"You mean because I won't be a sex symol anymore?" I said.
"Yeah," he said. "I mean, like, women who are in their forties trying to play music should just get fat and have kids."
Wow.
********
I played a game with fame once. I achieved my goal of some semblance of fame and when I had done it, I felt completely hollow and like a puppt or a performing monkey. As soon as I got the fame I thought I wanted (being chosen to play in an international festival with Nina Hagen as the headliner) I completely shrunk from it. After playing at the audition in NYC to much critical acclaim, I felt sick from the fakeness of it. It was what I thought I had wanted and had been working for some time to achieve. There were radio dj's at the show and Polina, the head of NY Decay, told me to talk to them and give them a copy of our CD, but as soon as we played and everyone loved it I was over it. There were also personal problems within the band at the time that made the whole "success" thing seem even more hollow. Polina also began making plans for us to play at CBGB's just before it closed and when we got back home several NY dj's emailed me saying that they had been playing one of our songs in clubs or that they wanted copies of our CD's. I never even sent them the CD's. The whole thing seemed like a big joke to me and very insubstantial. I had had a lot more fun playing for open mic night at Calamity. It definitely had not been worth the hassle and seemed like a big orchestrated game just to get a bunch of strangers to say, "Wow, you're great."
I really didn't understand what was happening to me at that point. I grew very depressed after that because something that I thought that I had always wanted turned out to be a sham.
I felt like Naomi Watt's character in I Heart Huckabees when she plays a model and kind of goes nuts about having to be pretty all the time and always being in the public eye. She looks in the camera and says something like, "Everybody, look at me; look at me; I'm so pretty; everybody, just look at me; look at me!"
***********
Here are some quotes I found about fame that I think are interesting:
Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
Erma Bombeck
"I won't be happy 'til I'm as famous as God."
Madonna (ha!)
If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.
Oprah Winfrey
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise Pascal
What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.
Lord Byron
If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.
Jean-Paul Sartre
If this fame, which people call my lucky break, were to stop tomorrow, I shouldn't care.
Brigitte Bardot
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
Jean Cocteau
My career should adapt to me. Fame is like a VIP pass wherever you want to go.
Leonardo DiCaprio
A lot of celebrities, especially when you're talking about the really big ones, live in what I call the fame bubble. Nobody ever says no to them or challenges them or even teases them.
Kathy Griffin
We're constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
Desiderius Erasmus (I wonder what he means by legacy from paganism? I'll have to look into it....)
Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.
Baruch Spinoza
Fame makes me feel wanted and loved, anybody wants that.
Michael Hutchence
***************
Reasons humans seek fame as far as I have determined:
1. To feel wanted and loved/accepted by as many people as possible (positive affirmation on a grand scale)
2. The media says it's important
3. Money
4. Power/"VIP pass"
5. To be recognized for one's accomplishments
6. To be remembered
But why do we want to be remembered? Is this an evolutionary or innate drive similar to the procreation drive so that our name will be carried on like our DNA? Or is it kind of a skewed drive for immortality or life after death?
I told him I was majoring in Voice and he said, "Why?" in kind of a disgusted manner. "What are you waiting for? I mean, you don't have that much time."
"You mean because I won't be a sex symol anymore?" I said.
"Yeah," he said. "I mean, like, women who are in their forties trying to play music should just get fat and have kids."
Wow.
********
I played a game with fame once. I achieved my goal of some semblance of fame and when I had done it, I felt completely hollow and like a puppt or a performing monkey. As soon as I got the fame I thought I wanted (being chosen to play in an international festival with Nina Hagen as the headliner) I completely shrunk from it. After playing at the audition in NYC to much critical acclaim, I felt sick from the fakeness of it. It was what I thought I had wanted and had been working for some time to achieve. There were radio dj's at the show and Polina, the head of NY Decay, told me to talk to them and give them a copy of our CD, but as soon as we played and everyone loved it I was over it. There were also personal problems within the band at the time that made the whole "success" thing seem even more hollow. Polina also began making plans for us to play at CBGB's just before it closed and when we got back home several NY dj's emailed me saying that they had been playing one of our songs in clubs or that they wanted copies of our CD's. I never even sent them the CD's. The whole thing seemed like a big joke to me and very insubstantial. I had had a lot more fun playing for open mic night at Calamity. It definitely had not been worth the hassle and seemed like a big orchestrated game just to get a bunch of strangers to say, "Wow, you're great."
I really didn't understand what was happening to me at that point. I grew very depressed after that because something that I thought that I had always wanted turned out to be a sham.
I felt like Naomi Watt's character in I Heart Huckabees when she plays a model and kind of goes nuts about having to be pretty all the time and always being in the public eye. She looks in the camera and says something like, "Everybody, look at me; look at me; I'm so pretty; everybody, just look at me; look at me!"
***********
Here are some quotes I found about fame that I think are interesting:
Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
Erma Bombeck
"I won't be happy 'til I'm as famous as God."
Madonna (ha!)
If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are.
Oprah Winfrey
Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise Pascal
What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.
Lord Byron
If I became a philosopher, if I have so keenly sought this fame for which I'm still waiting, it's all been to seduce women basically.
Jean-Paul Sartre
If this fame, which people call my lucky break, were to stop tomorrow, I shouldn't care.
Brigitte Bardot
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
Jean Cocteau
My career should adapt to me. Fame is like a VIP pass wherever you want to go.
Leonardo DiCaprio
A lot of celebrities, especially when you're talking about the really big ones, live in what I call the fame bubble. Nobody ever says no to them or challenges them or even teases them.
Kathy Griffin
We're constantly striving for success, fame and comfort when all we really need to be happy is someone or some thing to be enthusiastic about.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
Desiderius Erasmus (I wonder what he means by legacy from paganism? I'll have to look into it....)
Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.
Baruch Spinoza
Fame makes me feel wanted and loved, anybody wants that.
Michael Hutchence
***************
Reasons humans seek fame as far as I have determined:
1. To feel wanted and loved/accepted by as many people as possible (positive affirmation on a grand scale)
2. The media says it's important
3. Money
4. Power/"VIP pass"
5. To be recognized for one's accomplishments
6. To be remembered
But why do we want to be remembered? Is this an evolutionary or innate drive similar to the procreation drive so that our name will be carried on like our DNA? Or is it kind of a skewed drive for immortality or life after death?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Into A Swan
This song, "Into A Swan" by Siouxsie, is my theme song right now:
http://youtu.be/31iTJgkK6U0
http://youtu.be/31iTJgkK6U0
The Christianized Pagan Spring Holiday
I went to church today with my family. It was all right. Miles, my almost 3 yr. old, decided that he wanted to hang out with us in the adult church. He kept telling me that he was going to play the drums while we were listening to the music. He couldn't seem to comprehend that he couldn't play them just because they weren't his.
It's weird to me that my parents are fine with going to a church where a rock band leads the music. As a kid I remember getting in trouble because I had recorded some "rock" music off of Reading Rainbow and was dancing to it. Stuff like that's really confusing. I guess it's pretty amazing that my parents have grown and changed somewhat. I guess when one of your kids is a drug addict and the other a professional hobo, you figure you did something wrong. I'm really grateful that my parents are helping me, now, though. Gotta go; more latah....
It's weird to me that my parents are fine with going to a church where a rock band leads the music. As a kid I remember getting in trouble because I had recorded some "rock" music off of Reading Rainbow and was dancing to it. Stuff like that's really confusing. I guess it's pretty amazing that my parents have grown and changed somewhat. I guess when one of your kids is a drug addict and the other a professional hobo, you figure you did something wrong. I'm really grateful that my parents are helping me, now, though. Gotta go; more latah....
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