Urban Crawing

I love traveling to new places. As an artist, I often get to travel on someone else's dime. 

"Hey we're doing a show in (insert name of city, here) at (name of gallery) and we'd love to have you be there for the opening." 

I'd negotiate travel cost and a place to crash as my fee, knowing that as long as I could get there, I'd be able to sell a piece or two, cover my expenses, and still have something left over for my savings. It was a win-win situation: the curator would get to parade 'the artist' around and impress the V.I.P.'s, the art groupies got to mingle and do photo ops, and the gallery would get a HIGHLY motivated sales person chatting up potential collectors. 

In cool circles, that's called a "scene." 

Inevitably, the opening would devolve into a full tilt rager, and that would be my cue to head out on my own and regroup. For me, these jaunts were equal parts work trip and mini vaycay, where I got to meet new people, see new things, talk shop, and grab some sweet, ironic, touristy bullshit.

My favorite way to do this, is to indulge in a little game that I call: Dicing. I came up with it in my freshmen year of college. I had just moved back to California, was living in San Francisco as a newly minted adult, and loved nothing better than to go on a late night urban crawl. Over the years, I've taken many, many folks dicing: friends, dates, family... weirdly, it caught on for a time and soon there were all kinds of people dicing. Since those days, I have made it a point of introducing fellow travelers and new contacts to my quirky little game but these days, with everyone lost in their phones, the practice has more or less died.

In recent years, it's pretty much just me out and about touring whatever city I happen to be in. By now, I've diced around Picadilly Circus, old Paris, Shanghai, most of Belgium, Berlin, Milan and every major city in the Sates, just to name a few. It's one of my small joys in life, and I always have the best adventures while doing it.

So what is dicing, you ask? Well, as I just happen to have written a thing about it...
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To "dice" is to wander about the city and get – essentially – lost. Do this often enough, and you’ll see it all. Shake through the pockets, purses or messenger bag of any given local and you’d be sure to find a pair of garden variety, pick ‘em up at any liquor store, six-sided dice. Mine happen to glow in the dark, as my tendency is to 'dice,' 'toss' or 'roll' after hours.

A lot of times, if you need to clear your head or if you’re out courting or showing some out-of-towners a good time or even if you just feel like being out for the sake of being out, you'd grab your dice, give them a quick shake and toss them on the ground in front of you. How they land depends on what you do. For instance, you toss your dice and they line up left to right, three and five. From wherever you are, you’d go left for three blocks, turn right and walk for five, all the while doing whatever you’re doing and taking note of landmarks as they happen. If, on the next toss, the dice line up head to toe, you’d then total them up and walk that many blocks forward. On the rare occasion that you run out of blocks before making your count like, you hit the docks or a closed road, you’d just “bounce back” how ever many blocks you had left, and then toss anew. Some of the more cunning types talked about 'crapping.' Crapping is basically the same thing as dicing only done with a partner. At every toss, you and your buddy bet against each other; odds or evens, high or low.

Sometimes, you’d be sitting on a bench somewhere, having a burrito or a smoke or whatever and you’ll see a small crowd – maybe a roaming bachelorette party or a bunch of out-of-towners, crapping on the corner. However you wanna spin it, it’s the only way to REALLY see the city – just as long as you’re not in any kind of hurry. I’ve done this enough times that no matter where I go, I know exactly where I am and how to get to wherever I want to be.

Life should be so simple.

The Artist's Conundrum

In media and on television, there's this glamorized view of musicians, writers and artists like, once you sign that record deal or land that publisher or get that gallery exhibit, you've hit the big time and now money's going to start hemorrhaging from your asshole by the bucketful. 

Hell, I certainly thought so.

 But if this were actually true, the service industry would utterly collapse for want of able bodied staffing. Picture it:

* Restaurants would all be self-serve buffets

* No one would be there to park your car

* You're pouring your own mochas.

Capitalism, as we know it, would come to a screeching halt. Meanwhile, the arts would bloat and over-saturate its respective markets to the point of intellectual hedonism before finally caving in on itself; crushed by a level of smug pretense and self righteousness the likes of which the world has never seen before. 

In College – sleep deprived and either drunk or delirious, we hailed this event as: “The Artapocalypse,” noting that at the very least, the end times would be beautifully documented. 

We were grossly unaware of how much of a bubble the college experience can be and the subtle way it has of setting you up for disappointment. In my senior year, I was required to take a business class and an intro to marketing class. Now, at that point, I thought it was a complete waste of my time. I mean – OBVIOUSLY, my instructors were unable to fully recognize the sheer magnitude of my brilliance. Surely, upon graduation, agents and publishers alike were all going to vie for the privilege and honor it would be to represent me. My voice would be loud and strong and speak TO the masses FOR the masses. Critics would worship me. Sad boys would frantically expose their chests at my readings just so I could sign them. I'd inspire the world and spur a new movement with my unique style like the Beats once did, thereby changing the face of literature and the arts forever. Felicia De Rosa: “National Treasure” – beloved by all. That would be me. Fuck yeah.

If only.

The real, painful truth here, is that in order to simply get representation, you must first suffer through literally HUNDREDS of rejections. Phrases like; “Instant Classic” and “Overnight Success” are just made-up buzz-terms that weaselly marketing execs use to try and sell (insert creative endeavor, here) to we, the general public. 

The hard lesson we 'right brainers' eventually learn, is that success is subjective and depends wholly on how you perceive it. If it's creating… whatever... for the sheer joy it can bring you, then you more than likely have an alternate source of income and are, on the whole – a content and fulfilled person. 

If this is the case... for the record, know that your peers probably hate you. 

However, if success entails you doing what you do AND making a sustainable living while doing it... you best lube up because you're gonna get fucked. It takes commitment, endurance and cunning to eventually make it to a place where you are recognized and, hopefully, remembered for your efforts. It's from this point where you see the Piccassos and Morrisons and Benatars start to emerge. In the art world, that's Valhalla.

It's the means to an end. Yes, I do what I do because something in me compels me to do so. It's like breathing: if I stop doing it, I'd suffocate. But at the same time, I understand that without some commercial success, when I die, so does my work. 

A Trauma Kids' Thoughts On Modern Parenting.

I once read somewhere that “We are the imagination of ourselves...” – I’ve forgotten where – it could have been on a tee shirt, in a fortune cookie or in one of those shitty zines you find in an even shittier coffee shop… doesn’t matter. The point is, I never imagined my life turning out like this, wound up and twisted the wrong way. 

Each of us starts out the same: a pure, shapeless lump of potential. I hate that word – “potential”. To me, it’s synonymous with “failure”. It means not good enough or, at best, “half-assed”. Teachers tell parents that their kid has “potential” like it’s divine intervention. This wretched term translates to the parental ear as: “Your kid MIGHT discover a cure for cancer,” or “Your kid MAY become president,” or whatever their shortcomings and dis-proportioned expectations might be. It seems that in many cases, these people only become parents to distract them from the sad truth of their own un-pursued “potential.” Sadly, when a teacher tells them that their kid has “potential”, all they’re really saying is that your kid’s not a moron – be happy…

My own family experience was no less frustrating. For my parents, having a child was an act of reconciliation… a way of vicariously reliving their own lives with a sharpened sense of hindsight – lucky me, I was their collaborated effort. Growing up, I envisioned carefully laid blueprints showing what on me was to go where and how.

“No, Dear,” My mother would say to my father, “Those aren't her lips.”

I could see my father drinking gallons of milk and doubling up on iron and protein supplements months before clumsily coming too soon into my mother’s frustrated womb. This is a night I often curse. In my opinion, just because you can have children, doesn’t mean you should. It often baffles me on how much bureaucratic bullshit you have to sift through just to obtain a driver’s license… Prospective parents, I think, should have to take a test.

“Sorry folks, you got 48 out of 100 – 90 is passing.” BAM! Down comes the huge rubber stamp – ‘F’ in bright red neon. “Better luck next time.” This, of course, would send my father into a frenzy of male posturing.

“This is an outrage! Blah, blah, blah…” I can almost see him pounding on the table for punctuation as my mother calmly shoos him away. She always plays the good cop.

“Can’t you bend the rules this one time?” She’d have those blueprints out at this point, drawing the clerk in closer, making eye contact and slightly licking her perfectly lined lips; “We’ve been working on this for quite some time.” The clerk, no doubt, is watching his line zigzag out the front door.

“I’m sorry ma’am,” he'd say severely, “No children for you.” He'd motion to a nearby security guard; “In fact, I’m sending this officer home with you to collect any plants or animals you may have. Good day.”

Ah, but only in a perfect world would such a scene transpire. As it happens, I was born into this world a healthy, unassuming, eight pound lump of –“potential.”

FYI? My first word was “ironic.” 

Blood Lust

See me, as I rise
Resplendent; piercing the dark
My eyes upon you
Shimmering, drenched in moonlight

Like whipped silk beneath my touch

Will you dance with me
Occupy the quiet darkness
Embrace living death
Step in my parlor, dear fly

Invoke my name, shun the light

Guide your mouth to mine
Hitching breath, soft tongues release
Your presence, fills me
Hot copper, spiced ambrosia

Flowing, spilling down my chin

Beg me not to stop
Drink of me and be reborn
My whimsy, my muse
Your breasts crush against my own

My fingers exploring you

Pleasure radiates
A cold wave that burns within
The tides wax and wane
Pull me closer, guide my hand

Drown in my oblivion

Worship at my shrine
For I am retribution
Mistress and mother
Claw marks, tooth and gash, arched backs

Be with me, love… evermore