Confession

I have a confession to make.  I’m a tech geek with a tech degree and I don’t like the internet.  I don’t like twitter and I’m not a blogger.  Let me specify, oh wait, I was being specific, I don’t like the internet.  I don’t like using it to meet my social jones.  Ok, yes that is more specific.  I like to talk to people one on one in person.  I like to go to social gatherings and interact with real live people.  And once I’m done with my outings, I like to be left alone.  I’m not big on talking on the phone, I do prefer text messages, but this isn’t about my hatred for the phone, this is about my dislike of the internet.  So anyway, I don’t like social sites like myspace, facebook, blackplanet, downelink, yet I’ve had accounts on most if not all of those sites.  I’ve deleted most of my accounts too.  

 

I don’t like the people I meet online either.  I mean I like them when I don’t have to see them, but once the internet façade is gone, and they have to present themselves to me, I can see right through all of their petty little coverings.  I can see all that they are trying to hide, quite clearly.  I usually cant tolerate what I see either.  Now I will say I have met about 3 people over the past 6 years that are real and true and I talk to all the time, but 3 people over 6 years, you do the math, its just not worth it to me.

 

I don’t twitter and I don’t like to blog.  But Tiha, you say, you write 2 blogs and make guest appearances. Yes, yes I know.  They are a means to an end for me.  I created my personal blog, for the third time, as a platform for my art, I needed something to get me writing again, and it worked!  The blog I cowrite is my therapy for my work, and I’m not giving that up. But I’m not a blogger.  I don’t even like reading other people’s blogs.  I only read certain ones, I’m so picky, just like the people I choose to keep around me, and just like the food I put into my body, oh so picky. 

 

So I write all of this to say my visibility online will become minimal.  I’m staying true to me, that means I don’t need online attention, I don’t like online attention, so I’m turning the spotlight back onto those who deserve it.  Not the kid.

 

And for all those hyper sensitive online junkies who straight up got their feelings hurt over this blog that had nothing to do with them, bite me!

Short Story: The Emerald City

The Wandering Poet took the little black girl into the emerald city, which was made up of parks, city buildings and neighborhoods. A microcosm of the place she’d been banished from. As they passed through the city the poet pointed out places of interest. To the east, far off in the distance there was what looked like a castle perched on top of a mountain. Was that castle made of ice? She wondered aloud. The poet told her that yes the castle was made of ice; it was the home of one of the oracles, The Ice Queen. The Ice Queen and The Alliterator were the founders of the Emerald City. They too were banished from there and set upon establishing a place where they could be themselves without scrutiny or persecution. They had the forethought to plan for others just like them, and here you have The Emerald City. The poet pointed to the west to where there was a crowd gathered around a podium. At the podium was a woman, fantastically dressed, giving a speech to the crowd. The little black girl strained to hear what she was saying, but all she could hear was the ooohs and aaahs from the crowd. The poet told her that the woman was the other oracle, The Alliterator. Just ahead of them was a man approaching them quickly. The poet called the man the Albino General. The man was clearly an albino, skin pale with curly blond hair, and eyes covered with a pair of stylish shades.

The poet introduced the little black girl to the albino and disappeared into the crowd. He had just passed her off. The albino general picked up where the poet left off. He took her to his condo, a courtesy he extends to all new arrivals. She found that hard to believe, but accepted his invitation nonetheless. He let her stay there for a few days, then told her that she was to meet the oracles.

The city, so far, had been a wonderful place. People were free to speak their minds and express themselves as they wished. They showed her around the city, took her out to eat, and exposed her to all kinds of events she had only dreamed of attending, back in the other place. So when the general told her she was to meet the oracles, she knew she had nothing to fear, but fear was exactly what she felt. The woman at the podium seemed nice enough, although she could never get close enough to the podium to clearly see the woman. The Ice Queen, however, made her shiver with just the mere thought of it. She had not seen the woman, nor had she been to the castle, and the people around the city would only say a few words about her, most were good things, but it was almost as if they were afraid to say anything else. She would find out soon enough about both the oracles.

To be continued in: The Oracles

More Inspiration

My SO decided to send me some inspiration and a swift kick in the butt about my art and the direction of my career. Sometimes forces bigger than ourselves need to come together and shove you off the cliff, before you would willingly push yourself off. So anyway I read the blog and was so inspired that I'm going to share. Since my life kinda parallels this guys life, complete with getting a gun shoved at me, I'm feeling a connection to him. So please, read and be inspired.

It's only Life or Death. It's always only life or death.

The best thing that ever happened to me was the night an angry, messed up cab
driver pulled me into the back room of a 24 hour diner and held a huge handgun
to my head for over ten minutes, all the while describing in intricately
fetishistic detail exactly what would happen when he pulled the trigger.
Why?
Because it changes you, staring down a nutjob holding a gun. After that, the
small stuff just doesn't get sweated. You either break, or break through to a
mandatory satori of keeping things in proportion that most people never get to
walk away from. It's an ice calm I wouldn't trade for anything.
The second best thing that ever happened to me was when the dot com crash of 2000 wiped out most of the design industry at the peak of my career as a freelance print designer. I went from turning away work every week to working exactly 7 days of the next year. I lost my girl. I lost my loft. I lost part of my thumb in an
accident moving out of the loft. I pretty much lost it all.
Of course, the only reason I was working in offices was to fund the art career I wanted… materials, space, tools, etc. I worked eight hours in the office and ten in the
studio, sleeping when I passed out involuntarily. I decided that if my industry
had tanked, I was damned if I was gonna retrain to do something else I didn't
want to do. I chose to make the art be my sole means of support. I built some
monumentally scaled commissions working out of borrowed shop space, with
borrowed gear, sleeping on borrowed couches.
It worked. I've been making my
living as an artist ever since, and these days I earn triple the income I ever
did from the best corporate gigs.
The third best thing that ever happened was the day my studio building collapsed under a load of snow while I was standing on the roof shoveling. I rode that roof to the ground like a gut-shot rodeo pony. The building and some pricey tools were completely destroyed, but I was unharmed… until I spent the next three months (December, January and February)
without heat, running water or a stove because the natural gas line into the
house had been severed in the collapse. The gas company refused to fix the line
until they could bury it in the spring. I lost a few brain cells, I'm sure, by
running an unvented kerosene heater inside the house to stay alive.
How was that good? The bank came out to assess the damage, saw my work and suggested I do a $10,000 commissioned sign as the down payment on the remaining two buildings I'd been leasing with an unlikely option to buy. Getting this place
had a lot to do with making the art career fly. I had affordable space to work
and a place for customers to find me. I don't think the deal would have happened
without the disaster… They didn't want to take a loss on the property (or hold
it) and I was willing to take it on at the cost of the mortgage before the
building fell.
Bottom line:
The only way you can tell the difference
between disaster and opportunity is to decide to make an opportunity out of
every event.
Postscript:
During the second and third disasters, my friends
were pretty evenly divided in their response to my choice to make the world work
on my terms.
One camp said, "Dude, you're so brave to just bail on the day
job and do your own thing. You're my hero. I wish I could do that." The other
camp said, "Look, don't be crazy. Just take whatever work you can get until
you're on your feet, even if it's fast food or something. You're never gonna
make it without some cash." Really, both camps were wrong (though I love them
all dearly).
I wasn't brave. Not the least bit. I was frickin' desperate, is
what I was, but not terrified. I was back to that ice calm… you learn that it
just ain't over till it's over, and that giving up never got anyone out of a
jam. I didn't want a life of stability if it meant I had to do digital layouts
of junk mail for a living. I wanted to do what I was best at, what I loved, and
get paid for that. It was worth the risk. It was the only real way I could see
to better my situation.
I wasn't crazy either. By the time I figured out that
the design work wasn't just in a slump, that it wasn't coming back any time
soon, I had about $5 in cash and $20,000 in debt. There was no way that a
subsistence level job was gonna fix that… I ran full tilt towards the art career
because I knew if I did it right, and worked my ass off, I could probably make
enough to get out of the hole
I had to think about it again when the building
crashed. That time, I almost did pack it in. It felt like my dream was a stupid
idea after all, that I had just run everything into the ground betting on a long
shot. But in the rural economy here, few jobs pay well enough to escape the
poverty line and there are fewer and fewer jobs available anyway every year. A
job wasn't gonna save me. It would just suck all the time and energy I needed to
realize my dreams, while keeping me alive enough to resent it.
I remembered
other businesses I had started on a shoe string earlier in life… each of them
ultimately failed the first time something major went wrong because I hadn't had
enough cash to keep them going. Or had they? Had money really been the only way
to get them back on track, or was it a failure of creativity and nerve? Had they
really failed because when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, I'd
believed it to be what it seemed, bought into it, walked away because I didn't
feel able to do the so-called impossible? I decided that what I really couldn't
afford was to waste all the time and energy I had put into building an art
career that was just on the edge of being sustainable. I'd come too far this
time to back down.
Having weighed the pros and cons of sticking to my guns, I
decided to force a positive change out of the crisis. Within a month, I
unexpectedly sold a few major pieces, paying off the last of my old debts with
the money and having cash left over. From that moment, the art has sold
exponentially better each year. If I'd given up at the moment, none of the great
things that have happened since would have come about.

Short Story: The Wandering Poet

The little black girl wandered slowly on the outskirts of the city. She hadn’t seen a person since the driver had dropped her off 45 minutes ago. She was just about to give up when she heard the faint sound of someone strumming a guitar. She picked up her pace and followed the sounds until she came upon a man sitting on a bench near what looked like an abandoned park. She didn’t want to sneak up on him, so she moved into his line of sight, walking right in front of him, slowly until she was in speaking distance.

He looked up at her blankly, hand in mid strum.
“I’m, I’m looking for someone called The Truth?” she muttered, looking intimidated. The man began to sit up straight as she started to talk, then he smiled and stood up. At his full height he looked like he belonged on someone’s football field, protecting the qb. But football was part of a life she no longer belonged to, another place, another time. The little black girl took a few steps back to make room for his presence.

“So it’s the truth you seek, that’s why you are here?
Well then it’s the truth you meet, have no fear.
I am who you want, you have caught me, my dear
your search you can stop, the answers are near.
But before you mention my name again,
over there they know me as another man
I have to keep my cover, let me tell you before I forget,
I’m known around these parts as The Wandering Poet.”

The man lifted his arm and gave a great bow. Seeing a man of his size bow so gracefully was funny to the little black girl, and for the first time in awhile she smiled. The gentle giant, she thought to herself, and allowed herself to relax a little. The Wandering Poet told her about how he was initially banished from the world they knew, just as she had been. Then he found a way to sneak back in and pass messages from the world they knew to the city they had been banished to. He disguised himself as a crazy artist, a babbling poet that wandered from city to city. No one ever bothered him, because they thought he was crazy. He would take the secrets he found in the world from the past and tell them to the people in the new city in the form of poetry. The others never gave the arts the importance that they deserved, so they didn’t take the time to decode The Wandering Poet’s words. The perfect disguise. However, this meant that The Wandering Poet ALWAYS spoke in prose….

“Freedom you will find
and a sense of self
a lot of people, if you don’t mind
but they will give you help
you are ready to join your people
you are ready to be among the free
so follow me up this path
to The Emerald City…”

The Wandering Poet picked up his guitar and all of his notebooks. A few pens spilled out of his pockets. She quickly bent over to pick them up, and as she stood back up she saw The Emerald City. She hadn’t seen it when she first walked up on him, but it had been there the whole time. Lined with evergreens, bushes, and vines, the gates began to open and the city unfolded right in front of her.

To be continued in: The Emerald City

no title

running through the forest clutching my macbook pro, I dare not look back, gotta keep moving forward. I finally figured it out, I finally figured it out! I shout to myself as I leap over a fallen tree trunk. I’m not running along a path, but cutting through the forest, making my way on my own terms, trying so hard not to twist my ankle or stumble over tree branches. as I side step an elm, I enact a basketball move I saw Iverson do a very long time ago. I step and spin around the tree, pushing my glasses up the bridge of my nose with my index finger. I know the clearing is up ahead, it just has to be. on google maps it said the clearing was only a few feet from my point A. trying not to gasp for air, daring not to pause for a moment, I can see the clearing bouncing in front of me, just past a few more trees, I’m almost there. Yes, I made it to the clearing, I slow down to a fast walk. I’ve reached a cemented side walk that is alive with the movement of people bustling to the jobs. I straighten out my clothes, brush the leaves and dirt off my shoes and loosen my grip, slightly, on my macbook pro. I look behind me briefly as I stand in front of a towering building in the city center. I made it before they did. I wipe the sweat from my brow and give a sigh of relief. I step forward into the building, but wait something isn’t right. I feel a tug on my heart. my macbook pro suddenly becomes heavy. My legs become stiff and my shoulders are weighted down. I bow my head in frustration, take another deep breath and force myself through the glass doors. Shaking my head I say to myself “I know, I know”.


This is an example of the voyage of a brilliant idea being sold to the highest bidder.

getting my groove back

I didn’t have to fly all the way to Jamaica to get my groove back. Let me back up. I’ve been sticking my toe in the kiddie pool of painting for a year now. Holding myself back afraid of, who the hell knows. I’ve bought canvases, paints and been sketching and doing a painting every 4 months or so. Then I started to surround myself with artists and been talking to them and just about everyone about painting and stuff. After a brief but encouraging conversation with an oh so naturally talented brother, I’ve finally got my groove back! Now everything I see is a painting waiting to happen. I’m just doing what feels right, so to speak, with me and laying it on canvas. And I must say, it feels good. Any artist can tell you that once you get into your zone of creativity, you almost become possessed. You eat sleep breathe whatever project your working on. I’m skirting my zone, but when I get there, it is so nice. My escape from the madness.

In my zone there are no cell phones, no text messages, no emails, no place to be, no people to please. There is just me and my creativity and my product. Just me and my art. My art lets me do whatever I want with no judgments. My art doesn’t criticize me, not like the criticism I give to myself. My art has no expectations, except to be completed. My art doesn’t care that I make mistakes, and it gives me plenty of chances to fix them. My art believes in me so much more than I ever could believe in myself. I’m starting to think my art is my great love….

I’ve neglected my art for far too long, but it was still there when I came back. It didn’t try to make me feel guilty for being away so long; in fact, it showed me that I’m even better than I was before I left. Dang, I’m so happy that I have my art and my groove back!

*above is a painting by my all time favorite artist. I could blog heavy about my love for Salvidor Dali. This is called Impressions of Africa- Salvidor Dali

Short Story: You think too much!

The little black girl lifted her head from the table, her mouth dry, lips cracked. She had been trying not to take a sip of the water in the paper cup that was put in front of her, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She reached a weary hand across the table, grabbed the paper cup, and sipped long and hard. The water tasted faintly of cardboard and it was lukewarm. The taste was horrible, but the refreshment was to die for. She finally looked up at the two men seated across from her. She looked at the recorder perched on the edge of the table, where it had landed after she had smacked it aside.

They had been grilling her for hours about what she thought about everything. Her views on politics, politicians, the government, and her people. She couldn’t understand what they wanted her to say or to admit to. After awhile of being asked the same questions a hundred different ways, she started to make stuff up. The more she fed them, the more they wanted to hear. She was tired of the interrogation, and they wouldn’t tell her where she was or what they wanted from her. She eventually just put her head down; she was convinced that they weren’t going to let her out.

“Have I committed a crime? Why am I here?” she asked in a last effort to get some clarity.
“We are not the police.” There was a tap on the door and one of the men went to answer it. After a brief discussion, another man entered the room.
“I’m sorry ma’am, there has been a case of mistaken identity. You are not who we are looking for, you can go now.”
“What?!” she shouted as she stood up. She knocked over her chair in the process and sent the men reaching for their guns. She quickly put her hands up in surrender, knowing how quick these kinds of people were to shoot someone like herself.
“We’ll escort you out, ma’am.” The third gentleman took her by the elbow and led her out of the room. They put her in the back of an SUV, similar to the one they had snatched her in. The third man talked to the driver, the driver nodded, locked the doors, rolled up his window and sped off with her so confused in the back seat.
“Where am I?” She asked the driver, who happened to be a black man.
“Girlie, I can’t tell you that.”
“Well where are you taking me?”
“They want me to take you to the place where they drop off all of the people they want to keep away from the general population.”
“Excuse me?”
“Honey, you think too much! I don’t know what you said, or who you said it to, but they have you listed as one of those thinkers. They are afraid of what you know, and they are trying to keep you away from everyone else. They don’t want someone like you giving everyday people ideas about what’s really going on.” The little black girl sat back in a daze. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, she couldn’t believe what was happening to her.
“Look, I’ll drop you off right outside of the city. It’s up to you whether or not you go in. If I were you, I wouldn’t go in there just yet. Walk up the road a little, around the city. Don’t go up the obvious path. Seek The Truth, he’ll help you out. And please, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT. These people aren’t ready for what you have going on up there.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. She looked out of the tinted window at the passing scenery. What in the hell had her big mouth gotten her into this time?

To be continued in: The Truth aka The Wandering Poet

Short Story: Kidnapped!

One night, as the little black girl threw back drink after drink with her cronies, she saw a flash of news come across the TV in the bar. CNN reported something about the upcoming election that meant absolutely nothing to any of them, but sparked fear in the mush heads just the same. In her drunken state of loose lipped liberation, the little black girl let rip, unceremoniously what she felt about the election and the people running. Once she saw that she had an audience, she began on her commentary about the government and how she felt about the entire democratic system. Many of the patrons laughed, many didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, and some cheered. To her, it felt great to be able to vent and get her opinions out there for once.

Not everyone was so pleased to hear her diatribe. The next morning, on her way to work, a black SUV skidded up to the curb in front of her building. Being half awake, she didn’t react fast enough and two big guys in suits snatched her up, leaving her dunkin donuts glazed donut on the side of the road.

To be continued in : “You think too much!”

Short Story: The Land of Hot and Heavy

In the land of Hot and Heavy the little black girl found everything she had been hoping for, and much much more. She spent a lot of her time catching up on all of the parties and socializing she thought she had been missing back in the banker’s box. She eventually found out that in the land of hot and heavy all there was was more of the same. More of the same parties, more of the same kinds of people, more of the same bs that she thought she’d left behind. That was all hot and heavy had to offer. She began to chafe under the weight of the superficial life she had bought into. She realized that her focus, back in the banker’s box, was to escape from what she couldn’t handle, what she felt she had no control over. She escaped by emerging herself into the frivolous things that people do to make themselves feel better. The parties, the drinking, the drugs, the after hours activities, were all tools of the escape. They weren’t what she needed. What she needed was a purpose, something to fulfill her, something to motivate her to become what she was supposed to be. Hot and Heavy had none of that. It was the escapist’s dream, superficial distractions for the lost and aimless. It was time for the little black girl to move on…

To be continued in: Kidnapped!

Short Story: The Bankers Box

Once upon a time in a land as hot as the fiery pits of hell, with cockroaches (waterbugs) the size of kittens, lived a little black girl. Her height, just short of the model cut off, build slight, with an ever lingering pouch around her midsection, a place to hold her stress, and hair locked as a symbol of her freedom from the chemical lie. This little black girl had escaped to the pits of hell, running from a trap that placed her so tightly in a box that she’d just about forgotten how tall she really stood. The little black girl was looking for a way out, to a place far away from the box, a place that at that time would be, just had to be, better than the cramped bankers box she had been residing in. She craved excitement, invigorating adventures, reckless abandonment and maybe a little something to appeal to her darker yearnings. What better place than hell? She had heard rent was cheaper down there, and everyone was the complexion of the sugary sweetness found in a Russell Stover’s chocolate candy box. Yes this was the place for her, hot and heavy and oh so different from where she had been. She broke out of her box, leaving no forwarding address, informing no one, and burned up the road to her next destination…
To be continued in: The Land of Hot and Heavy