DREAMS DIE (posting anyway)

I was listening to NPR where a singer was getting interviewed.  When asked where she got inspiration for her music, she said “people leave and dreams die.”

How starkly candid.  It got me thinking.  Sometimes you spend more time trying to just get on, despite it all.  It might be something to actually slow down and look at the fallout.  People sometimes, in fact, leave and not always in the most affable of ways.  Dreams die, people disappoint you.  Avoidance is my M.O.  Alternatively, to look at and try to process it, so it’s not dictating your life under the surface, might be a thing.  <----wow that was honest.  Having a failed marriage under my belt seems to haunt me.  

I’m a romantic but I hide it really well.  I’m so unnerved about exposing myself in my writing, that I'm fighting to not make this particular post anonymous.  I’ve swayed so far away from anything “romantic” at this point in my life, I sexually identify as a golfer.

I will try to illustrate this next part without gushing, because I love Marc Maron so much I might not be able to pull it off.  He was interviewing Springsteen.  What is better than an informed, intelligent performer interviewing the Boss for fucks sake?  At one point Bruce was talking about the fire we all have inside.  He said, “. . . you get the burn, you aim it towards the right thing.”

I’m actually doing this process, (maybe) but it doesn’t feel like it, because I’m not painting.  I’m furiously writing about my frustrations with writing and living and performing in New York.  I’m trying to work on myself and not kill anyone (like roommates).  I keep writing about the art thing though, which means it’s trying to get my attention.  I mean, I write, and I average about 5 shows a week.  Depending on what else is going on, sometimes it’s less.  I’m writing, I’m performing.  But I’m the most honest when I paint.  What Bruce was referring to is life.  It comes at you and you have a choice.  Sometimes you definitely get overwhelmed by the dark stuff.  He’s saying do something with it.  

Valentine's Day 2017

I am practicing extreme self care.  I went to the chiropractor which is $100 hard cash because I don’t have health insurance.  It’s like a drug deal.  I also went running and then took myself to a wine bar in Brooklyn Heights, one of my favorite neighborhoods to go write. The bar is cute.  It has a romantic setting with candles & swank (cuz valentine’s and all).  Here’s what I’m enjoying.  All of it.  Sinatra is playing.  Thank God !!!!  Lately, the hipster bars that I venture to play AWFUL neo-punk garbage.  After an hour I’m irritated.  I like jazz motherfuckers ok.  Straight on, 1950’s, big band, lush orchestrations with some horns and someone who can sing. <----(Wow that makes me sound old).  A lot of people don’t like Sinatra, but they never heard him sing It Might As Well Be Spring or The Night We Called It A Day, or any of those torch songs that he recorded with Capital.   Maybe I should stop writing.  Perhaps writing is just a series of thoughts that when put together it’s like sharing.  Ew.  Is that what writing is?  That’s what my writing is lately.  Would I rather write like Daschiell Hammett?  Yes.  But perhaps at this time, my writing is what needs to happen right now for my own personal growth.  I just cringed that I wrote that.  It’s as if I’m trying to evolve, but I’m in utter resistance to it all.  The tough guy/artist in me wants to go “fuck it man, drink some vodka and read Kerouac - don’t be so serious.”  This is true, but writing about exactly what is going on in my life, it turns out, is sort of therapeutic.  Who knew.

Personally, I think I need to read more about death.  I’m into gritty, post-war American characters that get involved with the underbelly of society and have a Smith & Wesson.   Happy Valentine’s day everyone.