...do i write?
if i had a simple answer,or better still, knew what to say to properly explain it, i'd have already wrapped it up. since that's not an option,...onwards and upwards.
i was / still, am by nature insular. perhaps "only child syndrome" whereas my imagination was always vivid and took to art formats like a fish to water. being very young, or as far back as coherent memory will take me, i drew all the time, half heartily creating stories that i'd abruptly stop in the middle of because i would have, what i thought, was a better idea to follow through on. this had become, until the time of this blog entry, a consistent habit. thoughts and ideas flow much faster than i can physically catch up with.
as many children, my major influences were what i saw on television, movies or comic books. all of which i hoped to aspire to someday until i grew a little older and began to appreciate music around the age of ten or so. for everything else the aforementioned mediums inspired me, the use of sound, like my mom's doors', bowie, beatles, and velvet underground albums opened up a realm where the most amazing feelings and ideas came fourth by nothing more than just listening to a 4 minute piece of music and it acting like a drug. i was hooked.
also by that age, we purchased cable television and a mainstay for me was mtv. the idea of paying to watch television seemed alien but since i wasn't paying the early MTV channel was something i would never turn off, even though i had in my hands my first remote control. synthesizers has just broken and bands like human league, and artist like gary numan and thomas dolby were exciting. here were songs that were exhibiting sounds that felt like another race of beings had descended onto earth and were playing wonderful celestial soundscapes. down with guitars, up with synths and sampling devices like the early fairlight. exciting times as a child, but the price paid for true artist was growing dim. the sun was setting on true artist. directors who had no idea what to do for a video, and musicians who had no idea what to do with the new technology were both fucking it up and by a good wide margin. the decade of credit cards, cocaine, and bad fashion had kicked up dirt over the substance of true artist. jesus was replaced by coca cola.
back to the writing,....i felt some background of the times was required to explain my mindset.
i began writing in 9th grade. i was at the time, kicked out of my school for being a problematic student who failed 2 grades twice. not that i wasn't smart enough, i just didn't give a shit. this landed me in a special program called the "phoenix project" ( to this day sounds like a bad movie ). the problem, or blessing with this was out of the 3 schools in the city, they took 10 of the least wanted students and put us together. this of course ran the same risk of putting criminals in jail. they all share their bad ideas and come out more educated and savvy in their exploits. however i found a connection with two teachers, the most important being an english teacher mrs. harrington. until then i hated english. reading shitty books and writing shittier book reports. i was finally encouraged to write something of my own. a poem. it wasn't very good, but apparently good enough for her to pull me aside and ask me to write more for extra credit.
so i wrote the extra credits and was inspired to write more. it's notable that at the same time, i had my first experience with drugs and alcohol. usual fare, pot, schnapps, and the occasional acid trip provided by my hooligan classmates. This may or may not have contributed to the extension of my urge to write, sketch, and paint. in any event, in measured doses i found that it at least seemed to speed up the process.
it was around this time, i discovered a developing nocturnal nature, and spent hours in a 24 hour coffee shop from 11 to 3 in the morning meeting both nice people and unsavory characters. i foolishly gravitated towards the more dangerous people, which put me, as a 14 to 16 year old in situations i was thrilled by, as equally frightened. drugs and sex were the natural way to spend a night before school. i was intimidated, frozen, and wanting to know more. these were individuals who eclipsed any 'dangerous' fools i knew as classmates. sneaking in and out of my house was easy. shaking some of the odd ideas and practices i saw and took part in while in an altered, sometimes comatose mindset was something all together a separate entity.
this gave me my very first outlet to write. experiences i felt i couldn't talk about so my only recourse was to take pen to paper. at first it was all very blatant, however i had begun finding books i'd enjoyed like '1984' ' a clockwork orange', and 'do androids dream of electric sheep' which became the film 'blade runner'. the overall felling in those books somehow connected to how i felt. not at all literally, but as most disenfranchised teenage idiots feel.
i began to write about my personal experiences as well as fictional stories under the guise of these atmospheres. like 2 pictures on tracing paper put on top of each other that together looked abstract. this allowed me, by the time i was 17 to begin seeking out my own lingo and mannerisms. i also enjoyed slamming two words together just to see how they sounded bouncing off one another.
i wrote from the only experience i knew in short form...lyrics. these eventually back doored me into several go nowhere bands, but they liked my writing and had a steady deadpan voice that allowed them to put up with me. i tried to learn instruments despite my lack of coordination and found a solace in keyboards as by then, sequencers and 4 track recorders were available to the mainstream public, however still, at a steep price point. i was far too thick headed to want to accept any ones ideas, so i usually took my lyrics and left in a huff. i fought rhyming and writing a chorus. i wish i had played well with others. i needed them more than they ever needed me. i was too short sided to realize that at the time and in certain ways,...still that way. I always, and still do feel that i could bring something productive to a musical environment.
so, that's why i write. it's a good therapy and years later it was necessity as certain personal reasons demanded such a safe outlet. drugs or hurting yourself are not only ridiculous ways to vent, but they will both, eventually kill you.
i enjoy writing things to this day. especially that i can put very personal feelings and dip them in metaphors and twist them between lingo spoken in a fictional place, even if it is a place set in my own imagination.
some are actual events
some are complete fiction
most are a blend only for certain people to decipher.
not sure if any of this was a clear explanation.
