my brain is tapioca pudding. my insides are red. papa raccoon is being eaten by his young.
Call me Elphaba.
I’ve been sick for four days. I’m pretty sure I had a lithium buildup in my system resulting in mild lithium toxicity. It isn’t hemlock but it’s nearly as glamorous–that is until you’re puking up the whole-grain cinnamon roll you bought from the trendy coffee house at 2 a.m. and continue to do so until long after the sun has come up, and gone back down, and up again ad nauseam. Until your muscles and skin ache, until your hands are trembling so bad you can’t type and you spill your drinks, until you can’t hold yourself up but can’t afford to call in to work. Until all those things. Something like that. It’s simple. Drink plenty of fluids. Two to three liters of water a day. I simply hadn’t been following that rule. After two weeks of slacking that’s what happened.
Everything is behind. My writing, merchandising, editing, interviewing–basically my mental pudding capacity. Right now at this very moment I’m listening to The Smashing Pumpkins because I’ve reverted to some form of fetal state and listening to The Pumpkins is what I used to do in high school when things were overwhelming and I needed comfort. Guess what? It still makes me feel better. Little teeny parts of me are starting to push through the black cloud I’m wearing even though it’s terribly out of season and everyone is talking about how frumpy and clueless I am.
I have promises still waiting to settle, t-shirts still brand new, a balance in the red and one large, encompassing dream way out on the horizon.
And my lime Jello brain asks: why should I press on?
M. Orphans, whether or not you decide to pursue a career in the arts, one day you’ll have every conceivable odd stacked against you, and you’re going to say “what in the holy fuck am I doing this for?” How you answer that question will determine whether or not you have the guts and gumption to keep doing whatever the “this” is. I was reading a post by Tom & Lorenzo [T Lo] and although their answer is pretty blog specific I think it’ll make sense to a myriad of artistic mediums:
“…we started this blog because we were in the midst of Hard Times and Dark Days and it was a way to keep that at bay and just do something for the sheer enjoyment of it and because, contrary to our expectations, people actually came to read us…when you have a blog that suddenly becomes “talked about,” and when you feel like you’re drowning out in the real world, that blog becomes your lifeline and the people who read and support you become, in many ways, more important to you than even your friends and family. Because those wonderful strangers are demonstrating something that even your closest compatriots sometimes fail to: they believe in you.
It’s a small thing and one that can easily be overstated and over-dramatized, but it’s still a unique and powerful experience – especially because its one solely of your own creation. There’s no publication or editor or marketing department. It’s just you, and your thoughts, and (hopefully) your talent, putting it out there in the ether to the faceless strangers who have, to your eternal gratitude, decided that you have something to say worth listening to.”
Now everyone on the face of the planet can understand the comfort and necessity of needing someone to “get it.” But I’m also of the mind that any struggling musician, poet, mixed-media artist, interpretive dancer, street performer, novelist, etc. can feel what that’s trying to say. If you’re in this business you know it has it’s own brand of difficulty. However, I was having a discussion yesterday where I mused that the arts and artists were one of the few lucky sorts that “work” in a thanked position. (We aren’t going to include the heads of English/art departments or what’s left of the record industry at the moment, that’s an entirely different post.) So many jobs are thankless (see: most of our day jobs) but art is one of the few professions where you are able to meet your “customer” face to face because they want to say “you inspire me,” or “you saved my life with your words,” or “that color scheme inspired my bedroom plans,” or whatthefuckhaveyou. Fans of art want to meet the artists who make it so they can say “thank you.” Now, being in a “thanked” position doesn’t mean you’re getting rich and famous–you might, you might not. (God let’s hope so.) But it’s more than most people get, and one of the unique perks for choosing an entirely difficult profession.
Then again, being an artist can get you these sorts of responses too:
D has candy, kiddies. Totally harmless.
(Taken from Monsieur Devine’s latest Kill Hannah Fuse Blog where he has an open call for questions he’ll answer at a later [likely much, much, much later] date)
“Dear Mat-
I am not a Kill Hannah fan. By that, I mean that I don’t know much about your music. I am a hardcore Nine Inch Nails fan, however. But my best friend loves you guys, so I went with her to see you perform with Lacuna Coil a few weeks ago. I noticed something then, and now, after my friend showed me some of the responses to this post, I have to say something.
Your fans. How do you deal with it? How do you deal with having a bunch of teeny bopper, illiterate, stalker fucktards as fans?
Seriously. At the concert, there were girls who were following you all over – I have to say right here, that I wonder how the hell they’re affording it in this economy- and saying that they think they’ll be able to get in your pants because they’re “friends” with your newest band member, (who I can’t remember his name, it has something to do with a fish, though) who left them a comment on Myspace saying to come to the next concert. You might want to tell him to stop feeding the delusion. Unless, of course, it really does mean you or a band member are planning on fucking them. Which I doubt, because there were some really ugly, obese girls there.
I guess my question, in short, is how do you have the patience to deal with the douchebags and stalkers?
Oh, and how do you think Obama’s doing so far? 202 days in office now.
PS- thanks for giving my friend a kiss. You made her night.
Spy Girl on August 9, 2009 at 06:23 AM”
(Poor Papa Raccoon. His kids are gnawing on him. Now if that isn’t fodder for a great work of art Orphans, I don’t know what is.)
Addendum: Of course I’m eating my words. M. has answered his first round of questions over at his Fuse Blog and, I found myself talking to the computer screen: “You motherfucker, you haven’t lost it.” His response to a klepto who wanted a career in the arts:
“…but you have to understand, one doesn’t become at artist to make money… one becomes an artist to bare one’s soul, to search for truth, to quiet the demonic voices in your head, and to score chicks at local galleries. That’s Art with a capital A . the rest is just “craft”. If you’re content to whittle wooden seagulls on he weekends for a local fair, then that’s cool, but that’s not art. if however, you are fully consumed by a suffocating twisted desire that can’t be tamed, then you have to let everything else go. Forget about the word ‘lucrative’ and ‘career’— cos you were an artist the day you were born and you’ll be one on your deathbed. Commit fully, never compromise your essence, pay your dues, and as you do, the universe will guide and protect you. Get tortured baby. Stop stealing jeans. Steal paint.”
I should make that an honorary addendum to the What is a Modern Orphan? description and page.
Tags: currently playing: crestfallen, fuse blog, i actually finished this post three hours ago i just forgot to publish it, i have an interview coming up that you're going to love love love, i love boys with brown eyes, i need to take a shower, kill hannah, lithium poisoning, mat devine, the smashing pumpkins, thinly veiled pedophilia jokes, tlo, tom and lorenzo, vicodin eaten: one, you are a modern orphan
That might be the most insightful comment I’ve ever seen on a Mat blog post. Especially the part about the fish.
I’m glad you’re starting to feel better and I’m very glad that TLo’s words were as inspirational to you as I thought they might be. Keep the faith, my dear.
its when you write things like this that reminds me how important this art battle we are all waging is important and we need to keep going at it and never never never give up or give in to the tempations of doing something easy because that is not who we are. this is our life, love it, hate it, embrace it no matter how hard writing tries to take us down and destroy us sometimes. you are writing on behalf of all of those that cant. remember that. you are the voice of the voiceless and we need you to keep going. that and you need to always keep going for yourself. dont worry when it gets hard, you always get back up. you make me so jealous of your talent sometimes when i cant even put together a sentence and babble like i just did now. i failed you that i cant even get a damn interview together and keep stumbling at it.
Elphaba Fabala is one of my most favorite literature characters.
That is some kind of question to ask Mat. Would like to hear his response.