How much of your hand should you show? Once you have worked to find your voice, how afraid are you that it will be duplicated? What if the person you want to collaborate with, the person who has the ends in hand, can duplicate your means if you have to go through them to gain exposure?
Eventually you can cut them out. Eventually you will not have to worry about intellectual theft. You'll always be one step ahead by default. What if the person you have chosen to work with is capable of pirating everything you have created prior and your only proof is a series of time stamps? What if you have the capabilities and where-with-all and all out gall and disregard to forge time stamps too? What if the skillsets you have used to survive for so long, all thirty years of you, forced you to develop the skills you needed to make any claim of origin moot? You can design locks and you also have a very fine set of lock picks. The line between used and new blurs to infinity.
Collaboration is a minefield. When an artist opens their book to you, enjoy it. Do not see it as a requisite. See it as a privilege. See it as a pact of ultimate trust. Closer than sex. Closer than that bullshit conversation heart to heart over a beer or nine. Closer than that time they drove you home drunk when you were too drunk to drive and they almost crashed, killing the two people in the backseat not buckled up. Closer than that girl you've been talking to and haven't closed the deal on. Closer than that friend that dropped you off at the emergency room when you died for twenty seconds and had to be resuscitated with a balled up fist to your chest. Closer than that secret your dad told you when you finally got a couple drinks in him when he hit fifty and waxed nostalgic. Closer than that blank spot in your memory everyone else knows. It's a minefield.
If I show you how the sausage is made, do you see dollars or do you see a way to be a better you? Do you see a way out or do you see a way in? Will you steal or will you harmonize and create?
Every creator has the hang up of collaboration. How many collaborations have started and failed? How many flash in the pan, in the searing oil, spill over for an instant, lick the flame and light the entire venture ablaze? Every time someone asks me to collaborate, I am reluctant. It never ends well. It never ends well! IT NEVER ENDS WELL! It is to a point that I know it is me. I know I am at fault. I go on tears. I have vision. I am the spark. I am the fire. I am the galaxy. I am the clouds. I am the sky. I am the grass. I am the atom. I am the brick. I am the pipe. I am the fist. I am the womb. I am the rain and the sword. The broom and the dust. The wall and the fist. The string and the mattress. The thimble and the apple crushed during lunch breaks. I am the napkin and the grease. The spear and the beast. The insect eaten bone and the loam.
There is never any commitment. No real sticktoitiveness. I churn and it burns and they push thumb to index and make empty promises and break appointments that actually matter and it goes round and round until it hits the drain. That's not the end. I go into the waste lines, shrink myself down and dive in, like that mini sub movie we all know that I can't remember. Sealab? Fantastic Voyage! And I dive through the septic system after I get no response long enough and search it out and try to revive it and report back and the reports come thinner from the surface until it's a science fiction movie with a starship in The Dark Between the Stars and I'm hoping I can land somewhere and I do not want to do it again.
Forgive my apprehension because I will not forgive your abandonment. Not again. You say you want to collaborate. I say prove it. You say you want to work with me, show me something I have not seen. Give me a reason to believe in you because your word is worth dog ____. Hell, help me be a person better than myself right now and I will trade you. If you call yourself an asshole and behave like one, the book of life will not open for you. Fear is not stopping me, hate is not stopping me. Waste is. Time is. Trust is. Anyone can shout into a hole in the ground. Anyone can shout into a knot in a tree. Anyone can program a machine. Anyone can build one. Craft is another being altogether.
Another state. If you are searching for your voice, say so. If you are searching for your base, say so. If you need guidance, say so. Make it clear. As it stands, you have nothing to offer me. Nothing within your catalog will help me refine, reinvent, understand, or see myself anew. What you ask of me is to help you. Help you do what? Why should I care? Why should I turn myself on the spit so you can eat while I listen to what a self starter and go getter you are on and on through the nights? Show me something. Show me you have learned something. If you show me that you have learned something beyond your current state, I will engage you like you have a soul. I will answer your questions and accept your challenges. Keep coasting. I will leave you behind. Challenge me and I will fight. Challenge me hollow and I will go through the motions right along with you and play down.
Hell, I'll help you bury it. Our collaboration. I don't take it lightly. I do not like feeling used. I know I am not disposable. It is fun to feel like or be an inspiration or muse or riff target or mirror or foundry, however in collaboration I demand more, expect more, I want to be inspired, mused, riff against, see a reflection in you, and forge new alloys and atoms through you. As I gift you, give me something to work with. Turn my gears. Blow my turbines. Feed my generator, as I shovel coal into your own.
Do not make me regret this. Not again. Never again. Do not waste my time.
///Mazzy Star - "Look On Down From The Bridge" rainy winter. the river never froze. it is strange to be disappointed in the spring. it is immensely frustrating when i can't talk art with you; when everything turns toward monetization and consumers. screw that, can we look at a sky and say it's nice without you turning it into coin?
Clean with alcohol only. Do not attempt to replace blown fuses. Do not remove access panels. Return to certified mechanic for regular maintenance. Made in the USA.
Showing posts with label tragedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tragedy. Show all posts
10/16/15
At the End of the Seventh Week (damage report)
Out of the fog of wars, asked for and not, comes the final damage report.
The total bill:
1 fractured left jawbone submandibular fossa.
1 dislocated left jawbone condylar process.
1 dislocated left jawbone coronoid process.
The total paid:
1 healed jawbone submandibullar fossa.
1 healed jawbone condylar process.
I don't think the coronoid process will ever heal correctly.
Total bill:
Zero $.
Constant pain in the coronoid process, but bearable and adaptable.
Final result:
No crippling pain.
Unforgettable pain. The kind of pain every morning and every evening and every time I think about eating. However, the kind of pain that will remind me to be a better a person. The kind of pain that is unforgettable and good in its way because it will diffuse further scuff ups and other opportunities to speak my mind whenever I feel like, be it the thrill of getting ice cream or the the assuage of killing off the thrill of murdering someone else because I ... a good deterrent. There are only so many ways to explain so many things. This one is adequate.
I can eat. I can chew. I can tear. I can exercise. I can use the rest of my body. I refuse to incriminate myself. And I will not start here.
The healing has been amazing. I am able to smoke again. I wake up every morning feeling like a railroad spike has been shoved through my skull from the left side, right up through my ear, behind my eye socket and I've never had a migraine by definition, but this must be close to it.
I choose to let it go.
I choose to move on.
I have to.
Head hunters don't lead good lives.
I am furious and love struck and oh so amber and rose and pink in the joy of being able to wake up with 90% of my function back and if that's as good as it gets, hell baby, I got off lucky. I will take that and dance and swing hammers and think about the next time and maybe I will strike first or maybe I will disarm myself before what you are carrying becomes an issues, but for fucks sake, it is good to be able to laugh free again.
The final damage report is this:
Mistakes were made on one side. Mine. I ate it. I came out on the other side, tempered and galvinized. A shorter fuse and a shorter leash too. I expect less of other people and more of myself. And that is flipping pretty good for a prognosis of a wire job.
I've known what it is to not be able to speak for days at a time, not because you couldn't, because you were literally locked closed. A blindness. I've known unprovoked hate in the shade of unbridled happiness. Your spectrum is Roy G, Biv. Mine is unspeakable in its range and color and temperature and length. It has no name yet and I may not be able to give it a convenient one.
I now have the power to teach, and I will not. Unless you press me.
///TV on the Radio - (Lovers Day) of course, there are miracles... the people we think you are. give me the keys to your hiding place
The total bill:
1 fractured left jawbone submandibular fossa.
1 dislocated left jawbone condylar process.
1 dislocated left jawbone coronoid process.
The total paid:
1 healed jawbone submandibullar fossa.
1 healed jawbone condylar process.
I don't think the coronoid process will ever heal correctly.
Total bill:
Zero $.
Constant pain in the coronoid process, but bearable and adaptable.
Final result:
No crippling pain.
Unforgettable pain. The kind of pain every morning and every evening and every time I think about eating. However, the kind of pain that will remind me to be a better a person. The kind of pain that is unforgettable and good in its way because it will diffuse further scuff ups and other opportunities to speak my mind whenever I feel like, be it the thrill of getting ice cream or the the assuage of killing off the thrill of murdering someone else because I ... a good deterrent. There are only so many ways to explain so many things. This one is adequate.
I can eat. I can chew. I can tear. I can exercise. I can use the rest of my body. I refuse to incriminate myself. And I will not start here.
The healing has been amazing. I am able to smoke again. I wake up every morning feeling like a railroad spike has been shoved through my skull from the left side, right up through my ear, behind my eye socket and I've never had a migraine by definition, but this must be close to it.
I choose to let it go.
I choose to move on.
I have to.
Head hunters don't lead good lives.
I am furious and love struck and oh so amber and rose and pink in the joy of being able to wake up with 90% of my function back and if that's as good as it gets, hell baby, I got off lucky. I will take that and dance and swing hammers and think about the next time and maybe I will strike first or maybe I will disarm myself before what you are carrying becomes an issues, but for fucks sake, it is good to be able to laugh free again.
The final damage report is this:
Mistakes were made on one side. Mine. I ate it. I came out on the other side, tempered and galvinized. A shorter fuse and a shorter leash too. I expect less of other people and more of myself. And that is flipping pretty good for a prognosis of a wire job.
I've known what it is to not be able to speak for days at a time, not because you couldn't, because you were literally locked closed. A blindness. I've known unprovoked hate in the shade of unbridled happiness. Your spectrum is Roy G, Biv. Mine is unspeakable in its range and color and temperature and length. It has no name yet and I may not be able to give it a convenient one.
I now have the power to teach, and I will not. Unless you press me.
///TV on the Radio - (Lovers Day) of course, there are miracles... the people we think you are. give me the keys to your hiding place
6/27/06
common sensing 06/27/06
Subject : common sensing
Posted Date: : Jun 27, 2006 7:51 AM
i read an interesting piece the other day about film noir.
The piece discussed the fall of tragedy from a tale that depicted the struggles of a hero, a real tale of tumbling from way "up there" to way "down here" and all points southward and more hellish then wherever "here" happens to be, to a tale of the struggles of the common man. It pointed out that the commonizing of tragedy in film noir marks the end of tragedy as a genre because any persons experience could be referred to or depicted as tragic. Then the essay turned. It shifted gears and threw in the exception.
The argument went something like this: "tragedy as it stands today must be reborn into something that not everyone can identify with,but everyone can recognize as uncommon pain not like their own. Tragedy as a genre is not dead. It is only more difficult to properly diagnose. Tragic figures are no longer the aristocrats of society displaced to hell. Tragic figures are those who are already there who are socio-economic minorities and are cut off from the common pool of society, who through incredible and fatalistic turns find themselves somehow further ostracised from the common pool of suffering, which is a far worse place to be because it is suffering without the ability to identify oneself with the common sufferings of your fellow man." thats a total paraphrase. the guy who wrote the piece had a much more in depth argument... but you get the idea (i hope).
the problem with being hard out for luck, in need of support, or on the ropes for any reason is that /everyone/ really believes thiers is the ultimate tragedy, and they "turned out okay" so why should they help or even try to empathize with you? thank you media for making hugh grant look like the saddest man alive.
according to this article, a true "tragic figure" candidate could be one of the poor bastards interned in cuba who later returns to society, his life in shambles, dirt poor, and with literally no one willing to identify with him because of his nationality, and his own government, the shining united states of america, unwilling to touch him so they wrap him up in red tape, put a nice little tag on him that says "don't worry, it's all taken care of" and poke him into the back corners of everyones minds with a thirty foot pole to quietly rot away like so much discarded food behind a stove.
so next time you read something that sounds like a person is whining about how hard their life is and they didn't just return from a foriegn countries prison camp where they were raped every night as a prisoner of war maybe give some consideration to the idea that they actually are having a hard time of it (assuming, of course, that their whole life isnt one big complaint. there are people that are addicted to sorrow and lamentation, or at least i think there are). instead of accusing them of crying to heaven "WHY ME!!" get out of your own stories of overcoming woes for just a moment, discard your images and ideas of how everyone suffers the same, and take a minute to consider that given their circumstances you really have no frame of reference (besides media, which pollutes, dilutes, and confuses the idea of what is and is not suffering on a day-to-day basis and, loosely, your own personal experiences) to judge them accurately.
this is not to say that you have no right to make your judgements. it is to say that i believe you should not pass judgement based on the idea that you've had it just as bad or know someone who has, when what you're really operating on is an idea based in the commonizing of tragedy and the assumption that suffering is an experience without meter that unifies us all. it doesnt.
i wish i could remember the name of the article... it was very provocative.
Posted Date: : Jun 27, 2006 7:51 AM
i read an interesting piece the other day about film noir.
The piece discussed the fall of tragedy from a tale that depicted the struggles of a hero, a real tale of tumbling from way "up there" to way "down here" and all points southward and more hellish then wherever "here" happens to be, to a tale of the struggles of the common man. It pointed out that the commonizing of tragedy in film noir marks the end of tragedy as a genre because any persons experience could be referred to or depicted as tragic. Then the essay turned. It shifted gears and threw in the exception.
The argument went something like this: "tragedy as it stands today must be reborn into something that not everyone can identify with,but everyone can recognize as uncommon pain not like their own. Tragedy as a genre is not dead. It is only more difficult to properly diagnose. Tragic figures are no longer the aristocrats of society displaced to hell. Tragic figures are those who are already there who are socio-economic minorities and are cut off from the common pool of society, who through incredible and fatalistic turns find themselves somehow further ostracised from the common pool of suffering, which is a far worse place to be because it is suffering without the ability to identify oneself with the common sufferings of your fellow man." thats a total paraphrase. the guy who wrote the piece had a much more in depth argument... but you get the idea (i hope).
the problem with being hard out for luck, in need of support, or on the ropes for any reason is that /everyone/ really believes thiers is the ultimate tragedy, and they "turned out okay" so why should they help or even try to empathize with you? thank you media for making hugh grant look like the saddest man alive.
according to this article, a true "tragic figure" candidate could be one of the poor bastards interned in cuba who later returns to society, his life in shambles, dirt poor, and with literally no one willing to identify with him because of his nationality, and his own government, the shining united states of america, unwilling to touch him so they wrap him up in red tape, put a nice little tag on him that says "don't worry, it's all taken care of" and poke him into the back corners of everyones minds with a thirty foot pole to quietly rot away like so much discarded food behind a stove.
so next time you read something that sounds like a person is whining about how hard their life is and they didn't just return from a foriegn countries prison camp where they were raped every night as a prisoner of war maybe give some consideration to the idea that they actually are having a hard time of it (assuming, of course, that their whole life isnt one big complaint. there are people that are addicted to sorrow and lamentation, or at least i think there are). instead of accusing them of crying to heaven "WHY ME!!" get out of your own stories of overcoming woes for just a moment, discard your images and ideas of how everyone suffers the same, and take a minute to consider that given their circumstances you really have no frame of reference (besides media, which pollutes, dilutes, and confuses the idea of what is and is not suffering on a day-to-day basis and, loosely, your own personal experiences) to judge them accurately.
this is not to say that you have no right to make your judgements. it is to say that i believe you should not pass judgement based on the idea that you've had it just as bad or know someone who has, when what you're really operating on is an idea based in the commonizing of tragedy and the assumption that suffering is an experience without meter that unifies us all. it doesnt.
i wish i could remember the name of the article... it was very provocative.
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