Out of the Ashes

So far, this journey has been a bit dizzying, yes? Well, as you may recall, I really didn’t know where this all was going when I first began this craziness. This was, more or less, nothing more online to take up some cyberspace – a bit of psychobabble regarding life and the random taking of certain liberties from it. This was about the pursuit of slap-happiness and the search of the “New American Dream.”

As you know, my life is in transition. Not only am I now in the process of moving into a new apartment, but I’m also in the process of unpacking and downsizing my possessions. A great number of the boxes I’ve gone through haven’t been opened in 7 or more years. The reason behind this is simply living an unstable life for, well… quite a long time now. I’ve lived on the streets, in broken down cars, and spent a while bouncing from one eviction notice to another. This, as you may already know, is no way to live. I have merely “existed” all this time, similar to this blog. But, in both, I have discovered a couple of problems. Of course, I would like to take up a few hundred words and explain these problem as it helps to understand why they’re there and how they came to be. Obviously, there’s no real desire to bore the living hell out of you. So, if you suffer from ADD, ADHD, or sheer laziness – or you just happen to have a short attention span and/or a dreadful fear of being bored to death, feel free to skip to the end. Eventually, I will start talking about a few hypotheses I’m testing out in my quest for solutions. Just look for the magic phrase, “Proposed Solutions,” in bold, friendly letters below. Now, for the rest of you… grab some coffee. It’s going to be a long, slow, painful ride down Memory Lane.

The statement was made in the first post that I needed a change of routine and a change of lifestyle. The problem is… I’m not your average 9-to-5 kind of guy. Oh, I’ve tried to teach myself to be one. But, let’s face it… it’s probably much easier to teach a fish how to breathe air.

Like a great number of people on the planet, I’m an artist. Now, what that actually means is obscure, really. Artists are all unlike one another, probably more so than those whom are not artistic. Being creative is just the tip of the ice berg. Artists tend to have their own unique way of seeing life which not only sets them apart from everyone else, but apart from one another as well.

This is not to say we’re better or worse than everyone else. No. This is just to state that there are those differences that set us apart. In my case, for example, I cannot, for the life of me, hold down a steady job. Something always happens that triggers events which lead to either my untimely dismissal from a job or which causes me to simply cut my losses and walk away from it.

My last job was in Denver at the beginning of 2009. That lasted a mere seven weeks. Each paycheck I received in that time was shorted, building up to almost $10,000 in unpaid wages. And, between that and the wreck in Kansas, I lost everything. But, what I haven’t explained was why I was in Denver in the first place. Well, it’s simple really. I was trying to build a “real life” in my attempt to change how things were for me. I was trying to do more than “existing.” And, like they say in football, it was a “false start.”

Bottom line, I dropped the ball. I thought I was doing the right thing and had it all under control. But when I got hit with opposing forces, I fumbled in the worse way. I was not prepared for that and, while standing outside of a cheap motel room in Oakley, Kansas, I realized just how fucked up things can get.

The term “rock bottom” is a bit of a misnomer. The bottom is more like a collection of soot and ash, like the aftermath of a house fire. When you hit it, you left to look around at the scorched ruins of your life and make your attempts to salvage the remains.

When we returned to Florida after being “rescued” by my roommate’s father and brother-in-law, I fell into a deep rut. The job market here was non-existent. I have spent the last year and a half trying to find work, coming up empty on almost all fronts. I did find a gig with an alumni directory business, but that didn’t work out. I’m no salesman and getting on the phone trying to conduct interviews isn’t my bag. The first night I was on the phones, I had something similar to an anxiety attack. That job lasted a whole 3 days.

Like many times before, I am out of work. (Not a good thing to be without when trying to move into a new apartment, but it couldn’t be helped really.) The house we moved back to was my roommate’s parents house and, well… things went south for all of us. Back in the beginning of this year, my roommate’s mother passed away suddenly. And, thanks to my lack of income, we found ourselves a thousand plus dollars further in debt at the end of each month since. Bottom line, we lost the house. My roommate’s father is moving at the end of the year, but he has graciously decided to hook us up with a place we could move into and loaned my roommate enough money to help us get into it.

Of course, I have left out one major detail. In this time, I met a lovely lady in Shanghai who offered to help me out in a huge way. And, as I’m sure you have already guessed, something happened. In this case, things didn’t work out. Why? Well, what can I say? I fucked it up. Caught between trying to rediscover myself and failing at finding success, I found myself greatly conflicted inside and blew it all. To be completely honest, though, the whole idea of getting that help scared the shit out of me. I totally did not know how to handle it.

Of course, my old therapist had a word or two for this phenomenon. What that word or words were, I have no idea. That’s nothing new, though. There are many things in life I’m clueless on. Thinking “inside the box” tops that list.

Some people are nonconformists by choice. I am by default. This goes back as far as I can remember. Despite my intelligence, I did horribly in school. I often found myself bored with the studies and angered by how the human race existed. I was, for the most part, an outcast. Most people considered me extremely too weird and/or simply too socially awkward. This hasn’t really changed much, but I have discovered that beating myself up over it was a little more than a waste of time. Now, I just do my best to have fun with it.

Now, I’m a pretty much just a nice guy with strange ideas regardless to how I’m judged. I like helping people out just for the sake that it helps them out – and it gives me something to do while trying to help myself. Sure, I’ve been a victim of my own kindness a few times, but the pros outweigh the cons and I’ve learned how to spot most of the risks. Still, this habit really doesn’t do much for me in the means of an income – especially seeing how I do all of that for free.

I’ve also noticed something else… being nice to people creeps most people out big time! Sometimes, it seems most folks would rather find me lurking outside their window with a butcher knife than to give my assistance with their flat tire on the side of the road. Why that is – again, I have no clue. Just how things are, I guess.

Anyway, seems none of this behavior translates to employment. Or, maybe it has…

At work, the more I do, the more I’m just expected to do. It never led me to getting a raise, but it has lent a hand in getting me ripped off on many occasions. Bum luck? Eh… if you believe in luck, I suppose. But, something has got to change. This is no way to go through life, trust me.

And, now… some Proposed Solutions:

Back when I decided to dedicate my life to art, I had only one goal in mind: to make a living from what I could create. I figured if I couldn’t find a job and had the damnedest time trying to keep a job anyway, I might as well create a job for myself. So, seeing that the only thing I’ve been success with is creating art, it seemed logical that I should start there and see where it could take me. Sure, my first few attempts at this fell to earth Hindenburg-style. But, why give up? It’s not like I haven’t had some success with all this. I still freelance and have been doing that for 13 years now with small bursts of clients from time to time. I did create the position I had in Denver (and practically everything about that company was based off of a few ideas I brought to the table) from which I was ripped off. I did manage to get three degrees from college – all for the price other students were paying for just one – and did so with a 3.45 GPA. Not bad for a guy living in his car, right?

But, I have talked about becoming an author for years. I’ve spent those years studying the craft and teaching myself the lessons learned by the great masters. I have wild ambitions for becoming a filmmaker, too, and have done the same in that craft as I have with writing. In fact, I give credit this ambition for getting me into photography – another passion by which I am now possessed. Of course, talk is just talk. That’s why I finally sat down and started writing again a few months ago. Sure, it may not appear so by all those words above this line, but I’m tired of talking about it. I’m tired of being easily discouraged, distracted, and derailed. I’m tired of being fearful of repeating failures and I’m absolutely sick of being afraid of success.

Like I did with college, I have got to see things through to completion. Abandoning projects gets me nowhere. I don’t want to be that old barfly bitching over a bottle of bourbon about how I could have been somebody. I want to be the owner of that bar who throws those wild New Year’s Eve parties bragging about the “good ol’ days” and telling people to pursue their dreams by any means necessary.

Yeah, obviously I’m not that guy yet. But, that’s kind of what this whole thing is all about, no? This is that journey. That graphic I made to headline all this promises a novel. I will fulfill that promise. When I say that I am looking to make something out of life through my art, it’s not just because I have that undying passion to do so, but every intension to see it through as well.

And, yeah… there will be a few bumps along the way. There’s going to be some detours ahead. That has to be expected. That’s life in all its majesty. But, I will find a way to reach this journey’s end. And hell, if any of what I’ve said reminds you of your life, perhaps this could be your guide to find your own way Out of the Ashes.

About a year ago, I decided not to just be an artist, but to seriously dedicate myself to art as a lifestyle. Now, I know that sounds all beatnik and philosophical, and sure… in many ways, it is quite so. However, it’s not as obscure of an idea as one might expect.

The idea was simple: become living art. This can be done with tattooing, right? And, yeah, I’ve seen some awesome ink work done on many different people. Myself, however… I have none. Not one piece of art anywhere on my body. Strange, huh?

So, how else does one “live art?” Well, I am a performing artist. I dress up, put on a face with a paintbrush and my fingertips, don a hat and wig, and tell jokes while doing some sleight of hand routines. I do this to bring some “quality of life” to many patients, their families, and for many kinds of charity functions. I spread joy and wonderment… and love doing so. But, this is just part of it. This is just a percentage of it all.

Confused yet? Perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe you should be. I haven’t gotten to the point yet. Let me explain it like this: if you were to live your art, you have to see life as art. You have the art of observation, for example. I use mine to learn, on an ever-constant basis, how to imagine what I’m seeing as if through the camera’s lens. When I walk into a room, I try to imagine it as if it was a location for a photo shoot or for a scene in a film. I picture where the subjects would be positioned, how they would be posed or what movements they would do to interact with the set. Often times, I write their dialogue in my head or create the scene with imaginary stills. But, just seeing the world like this is, also, just another part of the whole.

In addition to that, I look for the natural play of lights and shadows. I try to see the beauty in everything I see, even if that’s just for itself and how it came to be. I look upon science with the eyes and heart of a child, and I see the world as a playground waiting to be explored.

I was tired of all the small talk we often find ourselves engaged in, be it standing in line somewhere or in random passing. The statements of the obvious: “It looks like rain,” “Hot today, isn’t it?” and “I see you have a dog with you.” This all had to be replaced. Now, and as far back as I can remember, I’ve taken those opportunities to ask strange questions or to make off-the-wall comments often relating satirically to cannibalism or human experimentation. But, hey… that’s just the kind of guy I am.

But now, I see doing this more as my mission rather than a mere form of self-entertainment. Also, I’ve added a few new tactics such as asking people what they had dreamed about the night before and inquiring about childhood ambitions. Seems more important to me, anyway, to do this than to talk about the weather or politics all the time.

I’ve incorporated a few other things as well, like giving gifts to strangers or complimenting people on things I can see they spent a lot of time thinking about – like hairdos, their choice of wardrobe, or something they had created. I send “get well” cards to people I’ve never met and make jokes with the cashiers checking me out. I seek out the hidden talents in others and encourage them to explore those talents more passionately.

I do this, not only to add more joy to the daily routine, but to remind myself to explore my passions with vigor and drive. I’m truly interested in where this is taking me, but I must admit… I love every minute of this so far.

Yes, I do have some crazy ideas. I have a soft spot in my heart for the weird and love life’s little eccentricities. I find great humor in irony and try to laugh at even the most horrific moments we live through. This helps me deal with these things better and with more clarity. Like, in Kansas, for instance, where I totaled my vehicle on the side of the interstate, I didn’t get down on my knees while crying out “why?!” No. I simply climbed out, took a look at the damage, and said, “Well, there goes my trade-in value.” Life’s too short for all the anxiety and mental anguish, you know? I get enough of that from others, why give it to myself?

Oscar Wilde once said, “Life’s too important to be taken seriously.” These are words to live by.

Bet you’re asking yourself why I do these things. For me, this is the art of experimentation. Creating realities rather than merely experiencing them. If life is but a stage, set it and become the main character in your life. Reprogram your brain, who says you have to think a certain way? Who said there were any pre-determined reactions to the things people say? The next time someone asks you about the weather, throw them some comment about how it would be worse if we all lived on Jupiter. “There’s no ground on Jupiter… it’s just a massive ball of gas with a stationary hurricane. Wild, huh?”

Of course, there is a method to this madness, oh yes. See? By doing all of this, I have learned things about people they don’t teach in any school. By studying their reactions, I receive insight to the human consciousness which helps me develop characters for my novels. And, by controlling all I can of a given reality, I change the direction of life for many in some small degree. That lady in the grocery store would had just stayed in a rotten mood all day if it wasn’t for me coming along and telling her how I admired her style of dress and how well I thought she did on putting her outfit together. Sure, it caught her by surprise. It also caught her by surprise that I just walked away after telling her all of this and wasn’t using that as some sort of pick-up line. (That also showed her, clearly, the honesty behind my statements.) But, I left her with a smile and I yanked her right out of that foul mood she was in. I’m going to be a story on her lips for the rest of the day, too. I’m betting she told at least three people about me… and she never even knew my name.

Life can and should be explored and I say be hedonistic about this. Find those things in life you enjoy and run with them.

In the last year of doing this, I have far surpassed, length-wise, anything I’ve ever written before with my forthcoming “Mason Stone” novel. I’ve also worked out how to arrange the photography book I’m working on down to the sizes of the images, which images to use, and which images I would like to include once I’ve shot them. I even settled on its title, “An Intimate Collection of Crazy Ideas.” But, wait… there’s more…

I’ve have about 12 more novels already planned for the future and have created outlines and notes for them all. In fact, the two novels which will follow the one I’m writing now are completely ready for me to write them without pausing in between, including the chapter titles, plots and subplots, and a list of characters to use. I did this simply so I can foreshadow now what is to come. “Mason Stone” will be a trilogy.

This is what I want out of life. I want to see how far I can go. I want to see everything I think about materialize in some fashion. Call it a divine madness, but I cannot see myself being happier living any other way. This is why my art has to feed itself… like anything else “living,” it has to be nourished to grow. And, my mind… just another canvas, just like yours. It’s time to paint.

Recently, I’ve been pondering this idea. Perhaps I’ll share it with you. See, it’s been like a week now and this idea just grows and grows. And, like a skipping CD, it reaches a point in the song and starts the track all over again.

So, what the hell am I talking about? Well…

A few days ago, a friend of mine called me up and, to my surprise, asked me to help her figure out what to do with her life. My first response was the simple truth: “I’m 37 and I’m still trying to figure that one out for myself.”

Yeah. That wasn’t too helpful, huh? But, let’s face it. How many people know what to do with life? How many people have it all figured out? Hell, that’s the whole reason behind a mid-life crisis… reaching a certain age and finding yourself in the midst of some chaotic people trying to live out the normal routine. And, like a rat stopping dead in the middle of the race, you turn around and look in every direction trying to decide where to go from there.

Life is, in all seriousness, is a mere plain sheet of paper or a blank canvas. With each day, something new is recorded and removes a small bit of the vacancy. At the end of it all, this becomes the portrait of your time here, no matter what it looks like when it’s finished.

Now, this can be done in one of two ways. You can either fill it in yourself or someone else will fill it in for you, but it will be filled little by little until the portrait’s completed. This is where that idea I was talking about comes into play – the idea of creating something rather than to be created by something.

This not only goes back to what I was talking about in my last post, the pursuit of a new American Dream, but it goes back to 2003 when another friend of mine and I were talking about fate. I’m not sure how we ended up on that subject, mind you. It could have been inspired by the bullshit we all know as “manifest destiny,” or it could be something about the meaning of life itself. Who knows? Point here is this: we quickly agreed that fate does not truly exist. There’s no pre-written plan for us, nor is there an instruction manual or a how-to guide to living life. Sure, people claim left and right that there such a thing does exist, but that’s really a matter of opinion and everyone’s opinion is different. I feel if such a thing did exist, it would have already been programmed into our DNA like the need to eat and the desire to procreate. Therefore, there would be no questions about it and no doubts that the “how-to guide for life” we felt naturally was the correct one to follow.

But, we do have “free will” pre-programmed, don’t we? The desire to do what we feel we want to do and that… determination which tells us nobody has the right to tell us what it is we should or should not do.

Of course, I’m not about to get on the soapbox here or open the floor for the discussion of laws and why we have them. No. I’m only going to share this idea with you and you can do with it whatever you want. Based off of the concept behind free will, I believe that it is up to us to create our own “fate.” Not just a plan to get a job or head off to college, but a ploy to experience whatever it is you wish to in life – to create a dream and live it out. Think of it this way: how do you want that portrait of your life to look when it’s finished?

This is just another way of asking how you want to be remembered and what kind of mark do you want to leave behind. We’re here for just a brief moment in the long scheme of things and, obviously, we’re not alone here. But, we do have our lives… just laying there like a highway ahead of us. No matter how long you’ve been traveling or how long you have before hitting your exit ramp, at this moment, we’re all at the same mile marker… all 6.something billion of us.

So, back to the phone call I got from my young, advice-seeking friend. I asked her just three questions. The first was an easy one, but a hard one to answer: “what is it that you want in life?” The second was more specific towards career and, really, a loaded two-parter: “what are you passionate about and can you see yourself doing it with the same passion five/ten/twenty/fifty years from now?” The last question was concerning that which I’ve been babbling about above: “have you thought about how to create this reality?”

I’m not actually sure if I got to that last question or not on the phone with her as I am often side-tracked by an intelligent answer and she had many offered up in our conversation. But, how these questions are answered reveals a lot about you and your ambitions in life, so I ask of you, my reader, to answer these questions for yourself.

And, by all means, take your sweet olde time with this. Take a few days if you have to, please. This is your life, my friend… and it’s going to move forward with or without your control. It’s going to tick away regardless, so why not create some moments generations to come will be told about? After all, we “live” through all of that which we leave behind, right? Isn’t that how the story goes?

[to be con't...]

The last few days have been spent sorting through some boxes I haven’t opened in quite some time. Some were packed back when I lived out in Colorado, others from back in my college days. So, there’s been a few “damn, I haven’t seen this in a decade” and a couple “when did I get this?” thrown in for good measure.

Most people suggest that when you haven’t used something in years, you don’t need to keep it. In the general sense of this concept, I abide. However, it’s not like I’ve been able to, up until now, unpack what I had boxed up from years back. The last opportunity I had was back in ’04. The trash collectors hated me that week.

Of course, I have to mention that I am most appreciative to have a slow-schedule move-in process. It gives me a lot of time to reduce what was once a two-bedroom apartment and a sum of years just boxing stuff up in my attempts to “clean house” into a one-bedroom, 450sq ft “glorified motel room” into which we are moving. I have time to gather the boxes from the shed in the back yard, from the garage, and from underneath the mattress we sleep on.

Furniture isn’t a problem, either. We’ll have plenty. And, it doesn’t take long to fill 450sq ft, trust me. We now have a new bed and a new chair to make life a bit more comfortable. After not having a bed for a couple years, I am looking forward to sleeping in it. The only thing we haven’t figured out is where to set up my computer. Since I’m up odd hours and sleep whenever I fall asleep, it would be best to keep it out in the living room. This way, my roommate who has a normal routine and sleeping pattern can get the rest she’ll need to survive work and college.

This, by the way, is nothing new. I’ve been a human alarm clock for years. Her only problem with that is the fact I have no snooze bar. On the flip-side of that coin, however, I am a grouch when I wake up… and that’s if you can wake me up. Those who know me can contest to this: I could sleep through a car wreck.

Regardless to all of that, my mind hasn’t been focused on the unpacking. It’s been fixed on the life that’s going on around me.

Recently, we had the worst election in our state’s unnatural history. How accurate is that statement? I have no clue. It just sounded good at the time. But, how many people just throw out random statements like that? How many times have you heard, “this is the best nation on Earth?” Most of those I’ve heard say that have never been out of the country to make said comparison. And this is based off what, opinion? Don’t you think the Chinese say the same thing about China? Perhaps the French believe nothing beats France. It’s all a matter of opinion, man. Reality is what you make of it.

But that was what brought me back to the whole concept behind “the American Dream.” Not the belief that I live in the “best country” or not, but the fact that I live in a country which once believed you could do anything. A land of freedom… so long as you didn’t violate any major laws, prohibitions, or actually think you could get protection from the Bill of Rights, anyway. This all started with the idea that we lived in a nation where a man can grow up in the gutter, work his ass off, and achieve mediocre success, at the very least. You know, the Ozzie and Harriet/Little House on the Prairie lifestyle with the white picket fence and a neighbor named “Bob.”

Somewhere along the way, this dream evolved into a monstrous delusion that everyone could become rock stars and celebrities. Then, the inedible happened. We all slowly realized that just doing stupid things with stupid people for stupid reasons wouldn’t cut it. We had to have something to offer up to the world. A talent or a skill… or simply being the craziest or the stupidest person alive was necessary. Or, for that matter, a wild idea that people could latch onto. Ideas like gluing plastic eyeballs to small rocks or invent something people come to believe they cannot live without.

Now, the dream has become lost for the most part. Some say it died with the rise of Bushes and the decline of Western morals (whatever the hell they are). Others claim the dream died years ago and we’ve been living a lie for generations. I don’t agree. I believe all one has to do when beginning the search for “the American Dream” is to simply wake up first.

It’s obvious that this “American Dream” is different to us all. It doesn’t matter if you are one of those who think we need to step backwards to achieve it or forwards, it’s not the same dream. But, don’t tell me one man cannot live beyond his potential, I can read. It is possible for a child from a single mom growing up in a motel room in South Florida to become rich enough to buy an island. It is possible for a gas station clerk or an employee of some corner store to break loose from the wage-slave life and direct cinematic features in Hollywood. I’ve watched their films. Things can change. Shit can turn around. All one has to do is be driven to develop their given talents enough to be somewhat marketable and discovered by some care-free schmuck with money to invest. This is America, right?

Oh sure, that same thing can happen in a great number of nations, but I’m not running around the U.S. looking for “the new Belgian Dream.” That would be silly.

No, this is my search for something better; something larger than life as I know it. Sure, I need a stable income, etc. – I have to make a living somehow in this nation. But, that’s not the end-all, be-all of this. I have much to offer this world, despite that most of it would have to be force-fed to the mainstream. There’s still the ever-popular “cult following” and there has never been a problem with that in my mind. I know the flow of the mainstream is like Colorado rapids. You have to act fast, change directions quickly, and do your best to avoid smashing into the rocks. Ask this of any politician or producer and they will tell you the same thing, the mainstream is a fast ride to a slow death.

The cult following, however, will stick by you no matter what. Those whom are fans of Lynch or Tarantino will stay loyal even through the darkest of times, waiting for that next big moment when their minds are blown away once more by something they have created.

On the mainstream rapids, your name is a brief wave. The struggle to stay in the limelight all depends on one’s ability to dazzling an audience and one’s skill at swindling one’s producers. Everything changes quicker than you can sneeze and the current could easily swallow you alive. But… in the gentle, artistic waters of those cult status rivers, all one has to do is to keep moving enough so you don’t stagnate and be true to the craft itself – create for the art and not for the audience.

Tricky, yeah… one has to first get that following and that status. But, if one is true to that philosophy, “staying true to the art,” and if the art you’re creating catches the eye of enough people, I believe it’s quite possible to set your own current in life. And it’s all about finding your niche – that thing you can do that others just look at you and wonder to themselves “should we praise him… or should we lock him up somewhere and attempt rehabilitation?”

Yet, aside from my sarcasm and brutal honesty, I’m not looking for fame and fortune. Surprise! No, that’s not the American Dream I’m chasing after. I’m just looking to sustain myself financially through my creativity. That’s it, and it’s really just that simple. Whatever money that comes after the bills are paid will become an investment for the next artistic undertaking and not wasted on fancy cars or super-sized mansions. But, if my work somehow makes me famous one day, I assure you that it was purely by accident. Let me be crystal about that now.

What I’m seeking is the liberty this country has to offer and the ability, as an artist, to travel the globe doing photos and writing the whole thing off as a business expense. I’m looking for that opportunity to one day say, “Yeah, I created that. Glad you liked it.”

See? Art is, after all, a form of communication. In those respects, art is lost when it has no audience. No matter what you’re creating, you’re communicating something with it. Sure, it’s not always in words. Communicating an emotion or a sensation can often be the goal of the artist. Music, for example, is better often better “felt” to understand the full spectrum of the artists’ communication. Each instrument you hear drives its own form of expression. When you combine a few of them together, another form of expression can be understood by the listener. The same can be said about elements and characters in a story or brush strokes and hues used in a painting. This is harmony, alive and kicking.

So, yes, I do seek an audience in that sense. Keep in mind, though, my art wasn’t created for them, but rather for me to communicate with them… and, often, in ways that won’t be easily ignored.

Of course, I’ll probably stir up trouble along the way. There’s always the issue of what I’m communicating with my art that I’m sure some people will just get all unhinged over. That’s bound to happen, providing I got my message across.

In just one week, I had that old-fashion “rise and fall” with life in general. Well, alright… it was a bit more like a “rise, trip, and stumble,” really. And, I am refusing to fall.

I got a job on Monday. 64 hours a month at minimum wage, which translates out to less than $400 at the end of the month, in case you’re curious. Four hours a night, four nights a week, making phone calls to interview people for an alumni directory with one ten minute break an evening for using the restroom and such (which has to be logged on my computer there.)

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like shit to me. Sure, it’s money… enough to stay in debt and to come up empty when the bills come in. But, that wasn’t as big of an issue as finding out on Thursday that making those calls would give me something like stage fright that was so close to an anxiety attack, I could had licked it.

So, to compensate, I decided to speak with an accent. Seeing on how I was calling Amarillo, TX — sorry, “am-UH-rill-UH, (don’t mess with) Texas,” I used the same southern draw I use while in clown. And, just so I don’t forget to mention it, I was instructed to say the city names as if I had lived there myself. Therefore, if I was calling Rio Grande, Ohio, I would have to say “rye-oh grand” rather than pronouncing that city’s name correctly.

Anyway, like I said, I flipped into a Southern accent as it was much easier for me to actually make these damn calls. It worked. I was still a nervous wreck, but it worked. Unfortunately, my bosses had no sense of humor and I was excused for the rest of the night and went home an hour early.

On Friday, I performed four hours of street magic at an event on “Haunted” Honeymoon Island with my roommate. We had a great time doing it, too. (Of course, that was under the heading, “volunteer work through Hospice.” It’s a part of the community out-reach side of volunteering, obviously. But, the point here is that I (gladly) did it for free.)

On Saturday, we went back and did another four hours shadowing people on the “haunted trail” dressed as a brain-munching zombie. Well, I did three hours shadowing, one hour was spent “crawling out of the ground” and herding our guests straight towards the chainsaw-wielding maniac at the start of the trail itself. I’m sure you get the picture, right?

So, yeah… we volunteered as the living dead for an organization that helps people who are dying. (Oh, the irony!) Still, I did have a sudden realization while doing this that making people scream is just as addicting as making the laugh or seeing that look of amazement sprawled across their mugs like children opening presents. On the way home that night, I found myself lost in thought: if I could make a living playing dead, I would literally lunge at the chance!

When I got home, I had another thought, one which spelled everything out quite clearly. Outside of my volunteering as a clown magician, I also “rent myself out” for birthday parties, corporate events, and grand openings. For this, I make about $100/hr. In retrospect, if I could just get five one-hour gigs a month, I would make $100+ more than I would calling people for the alumni directory business with a 64 hours a month work schedule. Seems like a no-brainer, right?

This morning, my roommate and I signed a lease on a new apartment. This was a good thing for the fact that we lost the house we live in now, but not so good as I lost that position doing the phone interviews. Just as well, though. See, they paid by direct deposit only. I don’t have a bank account. So, I would had to end up paying them to give me my paycheck and pay someone else to cash it.

Tomorrow’s a new day. I’ll get up, look for a new job, try to find a bank that will take me with my crap-for-credit and without any money to open an account, and continue my quest for the new American dream.

I did mention this would be a wild ride, right? Just checking.

If you have eyes in your head and a brain behind it, I don’t need to tell you that this is one fucked-up world that continues to spins in absolute disagreement and confusion at something like eight miles a second.

So who am I? I’m just another victim of the system. There’s a good chance that you probably are too. The infrastructure has failed and it left us all in the cold. Businesses and economists have destroyed our country, and like idiots we’re standing here looking to businesses and economists as if they will fix it? People just want to keep their shades on and stay wrapped up in a blanket of ignorance. Guess they would get cold way too easily when everyone else can see just how naked they are without it.

But not me. Not anymore. I’ve been looking for job from businesses who have already shipped away all the jobs. I finally realized that we’re all fucked and the people who did this aren’t interested in undoing it. I’m sick of watching my suburb of a suburb as it turns into a ghost town. I’m sick of hearing the cries in the night and the moaning slaves of industry drone on by day. And, if you’re like I am, you’re just as sick of the lies and empty promises from those whom hold the handle on this hand-basket bound for hell. So, what can we do? I have no clue, but not moving is a certain slow death. Non-action’s an early grave, boys and girls… and I have no intentions of surrendering to it.

I was talking with a friend of mine earlier tonight and he suggested I put this madness up for the whole world to read. What madness exactly? Pure, unabridged, and unyielding madness. Much like life itself, its direction is random and its targets are a mere step to the left of uncertainty. But, that’s just like me, really… in a nut’s shell. Just another happy-go-unlucky walking ball of craziness and creativity.

To break that down in bite-sized pieces, let me shoot some bullets by you:

- I am a guerrilla photographer. The other part of that is the simple fact that the only equipment I use is a Canon Rebel XT I got as a birthday present 5 years ago, the kit lens I got with it, and whatever I can scrape up for props. I shoot everything on location (without permits) and work with unpaid models. That’s right, I’m a cheap bastard, no budget photographer who’s had a few run-ins with the law.

- 12 years ago, I got off the streets and went to college. It’s amazing what one can do on student loans, really. Sure, I lived in my car which rarely moved from the campus parking lot – not because I spent all my time in class, but because the damn thing was dead on its axles. I worked 2 full-time jobs just to be able to afford the supplies I needed for my studies – which, in an art college, isn’t easy to do. The lack of sleep was balanced with caffeine and hellbent determination to graduate. (Starting to see the trend yet?)

- Now, 7 years after getting a BFA and two AS degrees, here I am… still lying to myself about all that not being a complete waste of time and hoping that things will pan out. I’m swimming in student loan debt, and the best job I’ve gotten with those degrees paid no more than working in a gas station.

- Oh, I did get one gig that paid decent out in Denver, but it was a scam and I never actually got paid. That led to an evicted. So, back to the Sunburn State we had to return. On the way back to Florida, however, my truck was in a rollover accident and what was left of my life was scattered across Kansas. I lost just about everything, including my truck and it’s shiny new transmission I had put in the morning I wrecked it. Bummer, huh? But, regardless of my luck, I’m still a graphic artist with 12 years of experience… for what it’s worth. (By the way… there’s a whole lot of nothing in Kansas. Miles and miles of flat. I do suggest you see it for yourself one day, if you haven’t already. Folks there would be happy to see signs of life.)

- Ever since my unwanted return to Florida, I’ve been looking for work. I finally got an interview for Monday for a part-time gig doing telemarketing. It’s the only response I’ve received recently, after sending out thousands of resumes. I’m not sure how this company is, but red flags did fly when they gave me a spelling test as part of my application – a spelling test, mind you, with the words “Presbyterian” and “Christian” on it, along with a series of biblical terms. I just find things like that odd.

So, what am I doing for money? Anything I can, honestly. I’ve always wanted to write a book, so in my extensive free time between job hunting and sleep, I have been working on my first novel. I’m up to chapter 16 (about 175 pages deep into the story) and hoping something comes from all the time I’ve put into this. It’s a satirical comedy, a bit bizarre, and written in a style which nearly resembles Gonzo journalism. As crazy as that may sound, I have found hours of entertainment creating it. Call it “therapy for a twisted mind.” Why not?

A lot of hoping, huh? Well, when you got nothing else, “hope” is quite valuable. Oh sure, it won’t get me a bag of groceries or pay the rent, but it beats the hell out of depression. Besides, I can’t afford Prozac.

On the positive side, I went to clown college at the beginning of the year. Now, I perform magic and tell bad jokes all over the place as a volunteer for the Suncoast Hospice and for a few bucks doing shows at birthday parties. This has been a life-saver, really. If it wasn’t for being a clown magician, I might have ended up completely insane by now. The downside, though… it’s addicting. The variety of different expressions on people’s faces when I pull out their card from my hat or when I make pens disappear inside a dollar bill has become my new drug. Of course, making them laugh is just as addicting, but I’ve been a giggle junkie since early childhood. This isn’t anything nothing new. All I’ve done was add make-up.

So, now that you know a little about me, let me tell you why I’m here…

I’m here because I’ve had it. Like I said above, I’m fed up with being a part of a broken system and living like some greasy monkey wrench in a busted machine. Something has got to change in my life, and I suppose that has to start with me. I’ve seen that done before, so I know it’s possible. One man can change history… just look in any history book. Of course, I’m not out to make history. If I do, it will be a mere by-product of everything else I’m doing, which is simply carving out a path to a better future using whatever I can create to do it.

I don’t know what’s going to happen yet, or how it’s going to turn out, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Will people enjoy my book? Who knows? Will I end up selling everything I own and riding around the world on a cruise ship? Eh, maybe. Will I become a vagabond clown, couch-surfing my way around the country? I don’t know, but it would go with my theme. I mean, my clown’s a wayward magician. Bottom line, it’s clear that what I’ve been trying hasn’t worked, so it’s time to consider something new options.

Want to come along for the ride? I have a feeling it’s going to be entertaining, if anything else.