Painting in the Park in the Dark

Today I hurried off to finish out a Sunday painting in the park- one I'd started a few weeks back but figured I could develop better, and the light was just getting right- sunset, and sort of a dimness over everything. A busy day with bees, and as soon as I got the last hive buttoned up I loaded up and headed down there.

The town where I live has lost a lot of its soul- everything is cleaned up, lots of  new people with their dogs and bikes and running gear- lots of folks speaking Hindu and Russian (not that they aren't a welcome addition), and its just different. In the same place I go now, when I used to paint,there was no trail, just a tunnel in the Salmonberry that you'd  lean down and follow a long ways until you came out on the river, and there would be a 12 year old farm kid there fishing in a chair with a fire, throwing catfish on the fire to kill them, trying to catch Steelhead in this slow water, and  there was just a little strip of sand.

Now its dogs and people in outfits, or with earphones, and they have no idea, it seems to me, of the great heart of the place. None of it is  on the internet, for any little town.

What they might not see it the way the sun gets low, but can't get too low, as there is the valley wall in the west, and so its like this angled light- maybe 10 degrees- and never totally horizontal, and then  it disappears, and then there is this amazing glowing time- a half hour or less, when the sun is still technicality "up"- the sky is lit- but there is no sunlight. And the valley glows, in blues and warm lights, like a canyon, and a blackness in the shadows that's hard to paint. Actually, it's all hard to paint.

I have painted this same river for 40 years- and that's no exaggeration. 40. Not all the time- but in my studio I have a painting I did when was 20, and its of part of this same river up by North Bend, when I and my GF Mary took a road trip in the back roads in my primer black '65 VW bus(fondly remembered), and I painted. I can't recall what she did- its not like she was the sort of person to hang around and watch.

It's a better painting than I can do now. I never got better.

It's like, as you get older, and don't really practice like a violin player should, you might get smarter, but what you paint loses touch. Its no longer fresh, not exploring, not brand new in the world, try as you might. As it can't be- you can't reinvent yourself, you continue to seek the same motifs despite yourself. And if you try to break with it, unless you are a very serious and very good artist, no one likes it. Even yourself. You are drawn to certain things, and unless you spend the time you need to with them, even years,  you don't get to go through the next door-as those things are the way you get there. I don't of course know this for a fact, but its how I explain to myself why its always the same motif.

Maybe an analogy would be your signature. Its just a few letters, but to change how you write them, they subtle slants and loops, is almost impossible without extreme effort. It's called a signature as it is you- and painting is very much about making your signature, in every line, and in the motifs. You can't do otherwise even if you wanted to.

Today I sat in this small wood trying to paint the last light on the trunks of trees, while seeing the green of the grass between them. There were dried orange leaves on the ground- but not Fall leaves, just those that had dropped in summer. There was an orange light-or so I thought-  but the trunks seems to glow with green- and then there was a purple in them- and all was so dark and grey and getting moreso- it was very hard to get right (which I totally did not).

And this was round two on this painting- which is such an incredibly difficult time- so hard to try to move this from a lively sketch to something more solid- but yet not as solid as a real painting should be. Usually- easily 90% of the time- I find this to be a disaster. You can't go home again. Painting over a sketch is what separates the men from the boys. I am a boy.

Its getting late in life to think I'll ever gain it now- so I need to keep it simple.

I showed  this painting it to a friend, who has some of my work, and they said "yes, that looks like your work, I could identify it in a lineup, same lines and colors".  That's pretty much as good as it gets these days, compliment wise, but I'm OK with it.

Day 30

I think its day 30 now- painting when the weather is tolerable, trying to get through 16 canvases, to hang 10- maybe- and a few weeks to go.

I can't imagine at this point that anyone would ever read anything I am writing now, but to me it seems like a "finishing-out"- much of what I have experienced this past year, and now in interacting again with painting, has told me much about where I am in the trajectory of life, and what I have in me, and what I have left to explore, or care about.

I paint now, at almost 60, with some of the same paints I had when I was 20 - those colors you only need a bit of- that never dry, like Cadmium Orange for example.

And the palette of colors I use now has only changed slightly- as I realized I did not need some colors.

Still, I am a neophyte. The grand subtlety of color mixing, and understanding how each color mixes into another, is as hard for me as memorizing a poem. I just never will. And with paint,heck, I've made all those charts, all those mixes, trying to understand the subtle way a color changes as you add other colors- and I still don't know. I still don't know what blue to grab when I  paint this late fall sky, and what to mix with it to make it the glowing, brilliant, non-blue that is is.

Much is about value. A painting in all the wrong hues, and all the right values, still gets it right. Thus we can easily interpret a black and white photo- stripped of color- though no such thing as a black and white world exists.

My eyes aren't so good now, and when the light gets dim, as it does when I paint in the evening,I know I am not seeing what I once saw. I didn't expect this change.  No one told me. I have no idea now what I am not seeing.

I suspect- and know- that if I had a prime time to paint- I am beyond it. It's past. I feel much the same things when I look- but it is slower, more like dealing with something one could never figure out, and now lack the super powers of youth to do so.  I didn't expect that exactly- another surprise.

So I paint what I always have painted. Same things . Cezanned talked about motifs- finding one- finding one's own.  I stick to what I know- and when I think, what else might I want to paint? Nothing comes to mind. Though if I painted 24/7, or even 1/7, I know I'd find a new motif or two.

5 year Hiatus. Back on it. Grazing.

Revisiting this blog, that last time I must have painted was in 2014. I don't doubt a few paintings happened between times- but I couldn't tell you what they were. There are a few on my easels.

But though I think of myself as a painter- more in love with painting than anything else I do- but I know I barely know the bare basics of it all- and my time, if I even had it, has come and gone- it is still the central thing to me. There are lots of things similar- I can find similarities in every thing I love to do-everything that makes me happy- if that's even the word- they all have similar roots.

For one, you don't do this with other people. It's something that is 100% alone- something entirely between you, the materials at hand, your hands, and light. And a conversation running in your head that you can't turn off.

I have no idea how the really great painters did it. I ve read what they wrote (or used to), but I don't see the things I would say. So it makes me wonder sometimes if I am even painting. If I were, someone, sitting next to Constable, out on a river with clouds and trees- would we even talk about the same things? Or a more modern artist- our times- would we have anything to talk about?

Oddly, I think not. In fact, in all my 59 years, I don't think I ever met anyone whom I thought felt the same way I did, or visa versa. My experience isn't broad, so I don't know for sure. To correct myself, there was one time- and odd time- when a painter was excited about my work- and sat in front of a piece- fully focused- and started asking questions. Why is that color there?What's that shape doing? I do that part different...

That sort of thing. Can't recall her name. Totally appreciated her. Don't want to more, lest I realize she had no idea what she was talking about.

I'm writing this now as I painted today. No big deal, but I had to build 20 canvases (16x16), and today I forced myself out to the river. All those years  of experience had a hiatus, and I feared that it would be a horrible disaster.

But in the trunk of my car is a painting. Pretty much like every other one I ever painted. Maybe worse. But not horrible. And all my equipment- the paints, the easel I've had since I was 19, the old army bag,and a (now) empty flask of Port wine- they are all in the trunk of my car right now. Brought home from an evening out.

And a pretty extraordinary and perfect one.  I've lived in this valley for 30 years,  in the area all my life, third generation, and have this feeling for the dark, wet, dripping landscape- that feels like its in my core. That's what I want to paint. And I pretty much think I know half a per cent of half a percent of 1 percent of what there is to know.  I don't have the skills to know how to draw it all out- in paint, or a poem, or anything. Even in a personal feeling, seeing the light a certain way, I feel like I am just grazing the surface.

Ink, Black, On the River- Last Light

Drawing, on the river.

Way out at the end of a trail I used to walk on, and fish. A bowl and curve in the river, so pretty, so beautiful, that you get your breath taken away in just glancing up. And there's this one shot- one view, where all the curves and lines and shadows come together into this shape that makes sense, seems right,  that suddenly- I have a motif. Though in fact, its the same motif as always.

A river. Shadows. Curves. Lines intersecting, and the boundless convexity of curves that grow- that describe life- and how it bulges out in green and gold curves, always convexity- and somehow, this means something, to me.

My friend and adviser, Kim, with deep insight, remarks that I respond to green, and to these things, for a reason. Actually, I can't right now recall her point- its Jungian. But regardless, I agree. I dial in on this one thing, again and again.

Of the two things I like to paint and draw, rivers, and the female figure, its the river that speaks most. Odd, I know. But the female figure gets so mixed up in other things- and the river- well, it pure sinuous, pure flat, pure shaping its way though a plain, or valley, and taking in both light, and darkness- sometimes a glint, sometimes the blackest black in the whole picture. And if you get it right- the way it appears, in the distance, and swells, in the foreground, and departs- if you get it right, well, that's much. Because there's infinite interest in all aspects- the way the blue sky is deeper, more profound, the way the divits and swells make sense, have logic= but of such fractal complexity and motion- that it is amazing to me, that any pre-photographic painter, could capture this.  So if I do, in muddling, without much training, well, I feel I have like scratched into that thing they sent to Jupiter-something that might survive me.

The world seems crazy with football, and cars, and wars, and dammit, the phone and all it entails-and its this intense swirl of complication, that for God's sake, I hope the smart looking 20 years behind me in this bar understand, and can control- because to me- the Genii is way way out of the bottle, and I, personally, know that I have this very tiny tiny circle that I can barely manage, and though I'd like to help, I only feel pleasure at the edge of a river.  A metaphor, of course, the river. But all non-river places, interest, but mystify, me.

Of course, this week, they begin shooting things at the edge of the river. Pheasant Season. You surprise a bird, it flies up, your shoot it down. Your dog runs out and gets it. Good dog. Reload.

Re-Beginning

A writer writes, a painter paints, etc.  The point is, a painter doesn't write (much?), and visa versa. Unless you're Henry Miller. He gets to.

My love is painting, not writing, it just so happens, I can write. Or, I do write. And so, its a bit of a crime to write about painting when in fact, I am not.

In my studio, an open paint box, ready to go. Metal box- beckoning. A perfect thing- a typewriter of painting- barely 10 paints laid out in cubicles- and brushes, and some solvent- and an old palette. Ready to go. Go. Paint.

Yet days go by- and I walk by it- and then a week, then a month. Now, a few years. Of course, there's dust.

Side story: I have a stack of guitars. Cheap old Stellas, Harmonys, etc. But they sit in cases. And the law- my law- of guitars is that if they are to be played, they can't be in a case. Just that single step- open the case-and options flow. Ideas. Most of all: feelings. Which we don't lack, but are confused about. Opening a case allows the whole mechanism- playing a guitar, painting, the whole flow of it- to be an open gate- a hinged door, the secret garden we walk into, alone, and then we get to experience something far beyond our simple selves..  A case: Never opened- is a wilting flower.

Pretty basic, but as I have both guitar cases, and paint boxes- maybe I know this better than you.

What I lack- when I think of it- and its like the whole damn thing- is a motif. MoTEEF. Not motive- that's a murder thing. Motif. Its a Cezanne thing (the WORST PAINTER EVER whom I love).

My friend, Kim, who is using my work, as dim and hapless as it is, in her own work-suggest to me, in an email, that my Motif, or one of them, is Green. And a river. Something else- I can't recall,

What she says true ( if I could recall it all?)- its what seems to work for me, but I can't see why- I grew up NEAR, not on, a lake. In dark woods. Why a river? Green?

So on my to do list- I write "find Motif". Like its a code word. Actually, find a new one. Something that sings to me- something that is above, beyond, something to hang a hat on, something timeless? Is there such a thing? Something that means something.

Right now the best I can think of is this swirl of a road, below this wooded hill, and nothing much going on, but this untouched valley, and beyond, blue mountains. There's tall grass, and Cottonwoods with long shadows, and fields that go on and on- and the heat of summer-now Fall- bearing down.

Its State game farm land- with dogs and shooters, and orange vests- and that's a motif? Explain.

Playing Guitar, For a Cat, Canvas Waiting

I look to find something really fulfilling. Something that would make me think- well, this is worthwhile doing, and somehow fits into the craziness of the world. Half my time is sitting next to the internet, as its part of my work, and its vast world of information and connections and people doing vital things- and also, the tiring overhwhelming trivia of the world, and the constant shouting of people connecting to the greater world. Facebook, all of that, I don't get it, don't like it, find it depressing.

I have new canvases stretched and ready to prime. I have them laid out and gesso ready. And i have a lot of landscapes in my mind, things that need to get out. Not in my mind really, just places i have seen here, in the valley, driving.

Why doing that would be worthwhile, i have no idea. Its not a TED broadcast. Its not anything.

And i have this idea about color, and calculating how many colors there are, and making a movie, and I have the complicated model all made, and think- well, that's something. I could do that.

And its sort of like making up reasons. I have a list, and its why i am here, and I am here, to make a list, and do it. I guess. Its the snake biting its tail.

Painting is vital. Vital. Vitality. Its not the internet, not blogging. Its doing something, thats just between you and whatever it is that gets painted. And there's stuff, like paint, and trees, involved.

Our greatest poet, Emily Dickinson, wrote unpublished, unblogged, unknown. And though Edith Sitwell says her poems suffer from lack of skill, each is like a sweet fruit with dirt in it (i just read), well, somehow she, and not us, found fullfillment in it. As apparently, she did not write for us.

And by chance, hre poems survived. Unlike many other like-spirited, who disappeared from this earth, unknown. And that goes way back- millions of years.

This evening I sat playing guitar for my neighbors cat. Who ran up and down the warm stoop, and then lay down in the sun at my feet, watching the street. Which was quiet.  I didnt play that well, but it occurred to me- this is pretty awful. No one anywhere, a beautiful evening, and warm, and this guitar music, and me pouring out my heart...to a cat. Who seems to like me, but i doubt cares about the mood of a guitar. And i thought- well, you (I, not the cat) are spoiled, as this IS what its about. A cat, and warm sun, and you've got your hands on a guitar and a little bit of what you feel coming in, goes out. And there's no big deal. And be OK with that.

What was it exactly, I did before texting, and blogging, and emailing, and telling the people I dont know I was playing guitar for the neighbor's cat?

Two Things, for Now, to Focus On

Here, it is Spring, or a little past, green, powerful fluids coursing through veins, powerful, pungent life scents, that catch you like sharp perfumes, when outside, you poke your nose up to suck more in, and if there is a such a thing as aromatherapy, this is the best of it, calming, healing, and reminding. Reminding that life pulses it yellow blood yearly, and years go by fast, and then, faster,  and at one point, you get to smell it and feel it only one more time. Or, you just have, and that was it. So I poke my nose into the air and suck it in as deep as i can- the cottonwood, the grass, the sky.

I'm not a pro artist, I'm a wager earner. Working on computers to make other people's dreams come true. Day after day after day. And that's a lot of computer work, and a lot of sitting. Fortunately, in the AM, my mind registers pleasure. Its why the computer, and this whole technological infatuation, works. It tends to encourage endorphins. To be efficient, resourceful, to Google this and that, and use the great Gelatin that binds us all- or at least, will eventually- and have it work for us, and make us money. And a livelihood. But I know, it has no footing. It isn't really what matters, to my generation at least, as all.

Now, at this particular point, and hour,  I need to consider, that doing art, that painting, for me, can never be part of sitting at a computer. If it is, I die, inside, at least. Blasphemy. But i straddle worlds, and much needs to just be sitting in a field, looking. Not looking at a field on a computer.

I'm writing some B.S. And I know it. I am processing. its been a tough winter, a tough week, a tough 24 hours.  I get to do one thing in this world, beside the endless round of maintenance, and fixing things, and minor pointless projects, and trying to figure out how i fit into world of other people, and what they want, know, expect.  I know it. I get to paint, regardless if it has any place in the world at all. My eye sight is diminishing, my memory taking exponential leaps into not remembering, my understanding of what is worth painting no more developed then it was when i was 16. Yet, its this thing one gets to hold on to, because, I am told, and barely believe it, that i am good at it.

So i bought more Harbor Freight canvas on the way home tonight, and spent a half hour looking for the gesso, and bought some boards- and connect it all to what it is i need to do to stay sane, to deal with the things i have been told are indecisive,  to turn back into my inner life, which is what i always go back to when the bigger life seems like its not quite working.

I haven't written since December. Nothing to say. Now, i feel like i need to say something, suddenly. To get back to where i was, and be maybe more like other people. I doubt it. But whatever, i will gesso tomorrow, start looking at how the light hits the maples. And i keep bees, and so thats a big thing, a focus and distraction. So there are two things to focus on. Its Spring, bees, paint. And endless being a cog, working. Jesus. It feels sort of desperate, and. in fact, there's a bit of that. Trying to see how it is, that i, me, and in your case, you, if you are of the same ilk (unlikely), fit. Fit and make it work. And don't pass out of this world with a lot of, well- i could have done better. I don't want that. And i don't think i want that much.

About Water, and Drippiness, Painting

Two paintings. One half pint of whiskey. A rainy day, and this odd warm wind that shook the lingering leaves, and pushed curves along the river. The main thing about these two paintings, for me, is technique and materials. If they look good to you on the internet- I promise- they don't look that great in reality. Sort of flat. But that does not discourage me at all- because of two things I know:

1,) These are both about wetness. I am drinking, some, it is raining, some, there is a river, thick clouds, a wet place to sit, and most of all: these are in acrylic. Not oil. And acrylic is all about wetness and splashin water and dripping and rivers. And in the middle of December, there is this logic, that oil paint, cannot touch. It binds with the season, does not dry quickly, is liquid and abundant and splashing- and covers up things. Both of these were painted on old paintings of nude women- and so- unlike oil- this is covered. Though as a painter, all of it bears on the painting- it is not the same as painting on a white canvas.

2.) One painting has been worked later with moulding paste. Im not done- it still sits in the studio. its this super great stuff that is like sculpture- and yet- its paint. You can move it about. You apply it with a knife, cut it, move it, glaze it, sand it.

This is how my mother painted, though when i ask her, she cant recall. But i do. I recall a large blue painting, and structure to it, stuff, substance.  And i know it appealed to me, as a small boy. It was already in me. Its a bit like the blueness of Whistler and his Nocturnes- pots of paint in the face of the public- it feels like that to me- all three of us painting, myself, my mom, and Whistler, and well, Whistler's mom in her grayness, and the shiny bits of light, and sparkle, and blue. Same on the Thames, I guess, as the Snoqualmie. I don't know for my mom- Orcas Island , where she grew up? And the lights across the water? I don't know. Seems like its all about water.

Yew Tree, In Deep Woods

Maybe its not clear in this pictures, but in the center there is a frail tree, on the side of a hill, in the shade of cedars and alders, and Sword fern all around.

I went to Mercer Island today, where I rarely go, I went to measure a house (I work as an architect), and on the way back, I drove down into the long ravine i grew up in, and stopped my car, and walked into the woods to see if places that existing in my memory, places that are mythic and huge to me, and clear as any childhood memory of being in the woods can be, were still there, I took the risk, and went to see. Its all park now, so a lot is unchanged.

I went to look for a Yew tree that used to grow here, and a deep pond we floated rafts in, and of course, it was all much more compact than i recalled it, and there were hills and areas i have no memory of, and places I recall that i can find no place for- but the Yew tree- I knew it was here then, and I recall climbing into it, and it's berries, so odd, and drawing the berries, and looking it up in my Tree books, and knowing that Robin Hood made bows out of Yew, and wondering how I might do the same. I suppose I did, I can't recall.

It has been 4o years, and a tree in 40 years should get pretty big. There was no big tree. Over the years, I have thought about this tree, and I figured it had been found out when Taxus had become a hot commodity, in the 80's?, and the tree had met its fate.

So- at first, no tree. Though i found what i think was a shallow basin of Sword fern that was once a pond.  I wanted to bring my sister back here- what do you remember about this place? Do you remember us lined up on the bank, and someone on a rickety float? Was there a rope swing?

But then, walking back to my car, stopping here and there to stare at the shape of the land, to see if inspired a memory, i saw it, higher up on  hill then I recall. But the same as it ever was. Not like I thought it would be. Hard to see how I climbed into it. And,I saw it's dying. Thin, small, with only the wisp of leaves left, it never really flourished in the woods. But a beautiful quirk, an anomaly among alders and cedars.  Yew is a rarity. Have you seen one? Do you know it has red berries?

 No progeny, despite berries.  I know this is not My Grandfather's Clock, but there are more layers here that I am not sharing (how my father owned this land and developed it, and who lived here and what became of them), so its a poignant as a tree can be for me, and i spent a lot of childhood time in trees (as I am sure you did), and this was a unique one. Still, it could be that when the tree goes, I go. Same day. I suppose trees can go in a day. Total coincidence, we're not bonded in any way. But I seriously doubt that in these woods, in the damp and dark, that anyone else even knows it existed, and I would bet, that only one child has ever climbed it to look at the berries, and I am sure, that only one 52 year old balding fellow ever came back to find it.

None At All, At the Side of the River

I sat at a picnic bench watching the sun set down, and the river was swollen up and flowing in swirls, up river, down river, in circles, and smooth. Full, churning. I had ink, and a plate, and a box of pencils, and a stack of newsprint, and tried to get one bit of what I saw drawn out. But I got very little, I feel, I just don't have the skill, the only thing you can do is knuckle down and focus and trace the lines and the shadows, and pick what is important, and draw, like you've drawn all your life, and hope for the best. This type of drawing is backward, more like photography, you don't know what you have til you're done. So much is chance- its  a print, backwards.

The wealth of things to draw from this picnic bench, in the last light of the valley, is enormous. And the primary force here is the force of a river night, black is blacker than black, the clouds billow, but like shadows, and light is focused in on place, the sun, now set, and the trail of brightness that follow it below the western hills. And there is a chill rising, a dampness, and the sound of the river which is totally on its own, no one, but me, I think, observing.

Once you begin, to draw the evening, the world swells and punctuates, and subtle colors, and tiny changes in light, are this enriching experience, deep wells. Deep wells you fall into, and excuse me, deep wells you fall into and see stars, like kaspar hauser, and its not like its just dark, but its all around.

Maybe if you fish, you get to see this.

I draw a line by watching the edge of something, and pull it, and feel how much i press into the plate so it hurts, and i think- am i weak with this? And pull it strong, and press hard and make this line the record of this tree, and follow it up again, and know that the tree swells at its base, and that its line shifts, this way, then that.

Is it important? To anyone? Whats important. Whats important. I don't have any idea. None at all.

Not some Damned Painter, Playing Bass

I play musical instruments, and have lots of them. None of which I play that well, but not because I don't want to. I am not even that musical, and can't hardly memorize a thing. Yet I really love it. I love the art of it, the science of it, the way one skill builds on another, the way that practice opens up new experiences. And I know that there are millions of musicians far better than I could ever be, and I struggle. And I know, that fundamentally, despite me being an architect an painter and drawer and reader, and the world coming through my eyes, that it is ears that matter, That music is the lion tamer.

I play bass now, with this old awesome red epiphone that Denny found in an alley, and gave to Stuart, and Stuart is selling it to me for $62.50. I don't even know if it sounds that good, but what I like about playing bass- and this is so like painting- is that for the most part, its one note at a time, and the deepest, most thunderous, darkest, fundamental part. of music. I play other things, blah blah blah, but the bass, its a 2x4, will whack you on the side of the head, will carry you.  Painting is one stroke at time, one paint daub, one line. Your arm, your hand, one mark. Like the bass. I think there is a link here.

Last night I played at the amazing Steven Bell's studio, Top of the Hill, up in the woods, rain pouring down, as sort of a session musician, for this corny, but loveable, composer, and just tried to do my best. I had to know what a half diminished chord was, and how to play E flat, and all that, and it just fits  me and how I think about the world. That it is beautiful, or not, but always, there is structure, and sense, and a way it is put together and a way to take chaos and organize it and make it something that has deep feeling.But- there's this Pythagorian sense to it, not good, not evil, just there, abiding.


The drummer, who I don't think I have ever met, went to my same high school. Graduated a year after. Knew my dad, said he had a great sense of humor. Said he was in band and was a stoner. Said his band teacher was a stoner. Went to the same middle school, but not to the hippie one I went to (we were in portables).  Knew what I knew. Remembered what I remembered. And he had this great attitude. But when I looked at him, I thought, he looks old. Not bad, but done. And I am older. I know, its what happens, but it scared me,.

And the guitar player- I worship the guy- soulful and a great bluegrass voice, and I smoked a cigarette with him out in the rain and he said he was an air force brat, and never made friends, and I told him, man, I have seen you play for 10 years, up at maltby even, and you are awesome, great way of being on stage, great presence. Love your band (man). Pretty much boy talk, out in the rain, and a cigarette is way too short to get all of one's ideas into it.

The composer had a beautiful daughter, or wife, or friend, I have no idea. He was brooding, friendly, odd,  a good person, who knew what he wanted. He said, play a third here, not the tonic. I am an architect. I know what a third is because I read about it in the encyclopedia. Which i saw a whole set for free on Craigslist today. I play it as well as I can. This is just a short song, but I want to get something right, so I can be here again. I am here because the engineer thought an old epiphone would sound right. I trey not to drink too much, but it is really hard. And I try to focus.

I don't get to play much music where people are really listening, and telling me I am playing the wrong note (how embaressing), but it feels right. Painting has no equal. Painting is by yourself. Its you, and you and the stuff on the canvas, and your rolling thoughts. Music is with other people. Or can be. Painting can't be. I have, I think, both parts. Mostly the painting part, but what I want, is, I want to be Bob Dylan, not some damn painter, not Jackson Pollock. In any case, 52, time's up. I feel this. I know there are a few years to go, but really. Time's up.

I spent an hour with a CPA, asking how to make my business work, now that I am unemployed. He has a globe in his office, and every year travels somewhere. He says Africa is best, Zimbawa, and I thought, he is right, its this globe, its seeing things, and you will never see enough, I spend my time in a tiny drainage ditch, a river, a few homely towns, and see nothing. He said, look at this printer, it prints out postage stamps and there's no fee.

What is this all about?