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Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allen Poe...

So The Beatles released a new album today. You can listen to it online. Sir George Martin and his son Giles remastered this album from tapes of basically everything they recorded from 1962 onward.

It's very interesting to me seeing as I was quoting a John Lennon song yesterday. I had no idea that the lads from Liverpool were doing anything new. Well considering that John and George shuffled off this mortal coil some years ago I find it rather surprising to say the least.

I have to say though it's kind of trippy hearing this music this way. Kind of George Jetson in a strange way. I can pick out bass lines and such from other songs. So is this just the beginning of the end? Or is it viable? I'm digging it, but is it just repackaging? The music industries riff on re-gifting?

There seems to be something a little morbid or invasive about it. Especially For The Benefit of Mr. Kite with it's weird background vocals from Helter Skelter. Or maybe it's just a reworking of original art? I mean, I do that. I look at old art and do my take on it. It helps me figure things out. What is that old saying? - Amateurs imitate and artists steal.

In My Life

Isn't it strange how songs can give you sense memories? This song was always a special song to me. Probably moreso these days. I wish I was into deep lyrics. That I took the time to read them and understand what they mean to me. The truth is I listen to music first and lyrics second. Consequently I'm not very deep. John Lennon probably was though...


There are places I'll remember
All my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

Enough

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye

Crossroads

I've been looking into why artists create. There is a quote that says, and I'm paraphrasing here, "insanity is to artists like garlic is to salad". Maybe that is true. I've been told that I'm crazy before. I've been so obsessed with a painting or a role that it consumes me.

There comes a point with everyone I think where you have to make a choice. I've always tried to make the right choices in my life. I've succeeded and I failed several times. I'm at such a crossroads now.

The thing is I'm not even sure if there is any choice left. Supposedly you always have a choice. Or so I've been told by people who seem to know. Sometimes I feel like I can only follow the path I'm on. That there is only one way. But that's never true.

I'm so confused about myself these days. It's just been such tough year. I'm so unclear about my relationship, my life, who I am? I haven't felt this raw since 1989.

I know that I will be okay. I always am. Some people even say I'm lucky. I personally don't believe luck has anything to with it.

I have been creating this new art. It's the only thing seems to make feel better lately. I know it's gloomy and morose but isn't that better than carrying it around inside? I don't know?

Does anybody?

Sometimes I think the desert changed me irrevocably. I should have never gone there. It wasn't okay.




"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to Heaven."

Fool You Are

More foolish art.




"And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing"

More Sad Bastard Art

So yeah I'm all emo. So what? I've been doing homework all day.




But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am

Yeah well...

I’m just trying some new things with art. I can’t seem to focus on things the way I used to but I do find that there are some images in my head that come out when I doodle. This is an example.


These violent delights have violent ends . . .

I know there's an answer

I know so many people who think they can do it alone
They isolate their heads and stay in their saftey zones

Now what can you tell them
And what can you say that won't make them defensive

I know there's an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself

They come on like they're peaceful
But inside they're so uptight
They trip through their day
And waste all their thoughts at night

Now how can I come on
And tell them the way that they live could be better

I know there's an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself

Now how can I come on
And tell them the way that they live could be better

I know there's an answer
I know now but I have to find it by myself

Evil

Rosemary, Heaven restores you in life
You´re coming with me
Through the aging, the fearing, the strife

It's the smiling on the package
It's the faces in the sand
It's the thought that moves you upwards
Embracing me with two hands

Right will take you places
Yeah maybe to the beach
When your friends they do come crying
Tell them how your pleasure's set upon slow-release

Hey wait
Great smile
Sensitive to fate, not denial
But hey who's on trial?

It took a lifespan
With no cellmate
The long way back
Sandy, why can't we look the other way?

We speaks about travel
Yeah we think about the land
We smart like all peoples
Feeling real tan

I could take you places
Do you need a new man?
Wipe the pollen from the faces
Make revision to a dream while you wait in the van

Hey wait
Great smile
Sensitive to fate, not denial
But hey who's on trial?

It took a lifespan
With no cellmate
the long way back
Sandy, why can't we look the other way?
You're weightless; you are exotic
You need something for which to care
Sandy, why can't we look the other way?

Leave some shards under the belly
Lay some grease inside my hand
It's a sentimental jury
And the makings of a good plan
You've come to love me lightly
Yeah you've come to hold me tight
Is this motion everlasting
Or do shudders pass in the night?

Rosemary, Heaven restores you in life

I spent a lifespan with no cellmate
The long way back
Sandy, why can't we look the other way?
You're weightless, semi-erotic
You need someone to take you there
Sandy, why can't we look the other way?
Why can't we just play the other game?
Why can't we just look the other way?

Cruel Choose

I'm feeling like there is a spiritual simplicity that lives on the left, just down the road from convolution. Like Charles Darwin said; ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

My own ignorance stems from some simple lacking in knowledge. Or acceptance of knowledge really. I've been trying to simplify my life lately. The last few years have been terribly complicated. Very dramatic, and not very conducive to truth or to living with any kind of consistancy or simplicity. I'm not entirely sure where this need for simplicity is coming from? Perhaps I've just gotten tired of the grind. Or maybe the grind has tired of me.

I've spent the last nine weeks in a heavy contemplation about what my vocation is. Who precisely I am. I've asked people what they believe I should do with my life, where they see me; how they see me, what to do next, etc.

Swimming is this morass of "Lake Shawn" has left me pretty open to new ideas and experiences. I'm finding that life, love and family are very different from where I've been living them. I've found that I'm pretty damn ignorant and sorely confident in my ignorance. I'm finding a thirst for knowledge, ideas and experiences I didn't know was there.

I've also found some simple moments, and at this point they are only moments, in which I find that I like myself, hell, even love myself. I didn't for a long time honestly. I also didn't see that coming at all. I've realized some miraculous things about myself.

For example I've found that I'm an artist. I paint, draw and act; at times I've been a screenwriter, a poet, a filmmaker, director and animator. So yeah, obviously I'm an artist. But more than that I've found that my approach to life and it's problems, it's passions, it's living, are in my case very much artistic.

Frankly, I sometimes believe that if I had it do it over again I probably would have chose fireman, cowboy or astronaut instead of "artist". Being an artist is preposterous. It's "blue collar work" as someone I admire said to me recently(although I'm paraphasing because she actually said "acting is blue collar work"). Not that there is anything wrong with blue collar work, mind you. But I chose "artist" or it chose me. Sensitive and aware. Feeling and cruel. That's what it gives you, that's what it takes from you. If you are an artist and are reading this you know exactly of what I'm speaking of. It's not easy, it's often not rewarding. It's something I can't define at this point.

I believe what I've really gotten out of my experiences over the last few weeks and really the last few years is that I don't want a complicated overdramatic life any longer. I'm embracing my artist. I'm good at being an artist. Some might even say great. I'm good at being a person; I'm good at being a friend, a dad, a husband, a lover, a man. It's part and parcel of being an artist. I live in a daily passion for life, for justice, for change. It's not a bad place to live.

Perhaps acceptance of myself was all that was stopping me all these years. That and maybe just missing the simplicity, beauty, joy and love all around us.

That seems simple enough for today.

The Rivals

The Rivlals By Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Opens Friday November 3, 2006 at the Jungle Theater
Directed and Designed by John Clark Donahue
Starring Claudia Wilkens and Allen Hamilton
Written by the author of School for Scandal, The Rivals tromps though mistaken identities and social mores in a society of high manners with some of the great comedic characters of the stage including Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Lucius O' Trigger and Lydia Languish

"We will not anticipate the past-our retrospection will now be all to the future." - Mrs. Malaprop, The Rivals



The Rivals runs Tuesday-Sunday .. November 3-December 31 $22-$34 with discounts for Seniors, Students (half price with current student ID) & Groups of 6 or more.

Audio-described performance: November 11, 2006
Half-price rush tickets available Tuesday and Friday evenings 30 minutes prior to performance

612-822-7063
JUNGLETHEATER.COM