The Sellout?

As an artist I am always very intrigued by the notion of "selling out" and its various interpretations.
I usually hear the term used in a derogatory manner especially surrounding artists who achieve some sort of monetary success, but should it be?

An artist takes a turn in their artistic direction or is picked up on by a mainstream audience and suddenly there are cries of "Sell Out!"  

Why?
Is an artist supposed to be perpetually stuck in a rut or go unnoticed in order to maintain some semblance of artistic integrity?
For whom?
For other artists who are possibly not as talented or artists more talented but not as good at promotion or have less business acumen or even luck?
Or a host of other reasons people become jealous and cry "Sell out?" 

I feel that the arts community would be excited to see one of their own achieve success. Does it not bring some sort of justification to the arts communities as a whole? 

I cannot think of many other  career fields where this is the case.  Imagine your buddy who is an accountant. They make a great investment by doing something a bit risky or get promoted for doing a great job and getting noticed by others; are there cries of "Sell Out!" within the corporate accounting community?
Or do they all just go for happy hour drinks after work to celebrate?

I think artists need to think about more happy hour celebrations for fellow artists in this same situation.
For most artists (this includes musicians, writers, painters... the whole lot) it is their chosen profession. Isn't the goal to get ahead?
To experiment?
To try to break new ground or personal limitations?
Change it up to keep from getting stagnant?

If you do that and get recognized and paid for it, isn't that supposed to be the point or at least kinda cool?
You can pay your rent and feed your family and help the community and all the good stuff.

What got me thinking about this is the current Bruce Springsteen tour coming up and the cost of the tickets and people complaining that it goes against who "The Boss" touts himself to be. 
What is it these people think he is?
I mean, he's a musician and entertainer.
Like Madonna or Elton John or the other big ticket performers, right?

Bruce is not necessarily my favorite but I don't dislike him either.
In middle school and high school I had friends who were crazy about him.
I enjoy his music and think he is incredibly talented.

On June 18, 1985, I went to the local bar where we all used to hang out and noticed it was kind of empty. My buddy, Clayton came in and said everyone was headed to the Bruce show at the Olympic grounds, as was he and did I wanna go?  I said sure and paid my DM40 ($15) at the kiosk in the train station for my ticket to the 'Born in the USA' tour.  To this day it is still the best concert I have ever attended and I have been to A LOT of concerts.
Maybe it is because I was 19 and all my friends were there. Maybe it's because it was a great outdoor venue and the weather was great. Maybe it's because we were pretty close to the stage and had good drugs and great beer. 
Mostly I remember it was a great show!
The band played for around 5 hours straight and took little breaks to tease the audience and spray us down with hoses to keep us rocking from daylight into the night! Such great performances by everyone in the band! Incredible was the only word to describe it! 

So, Bruce has been doing this for damn near 50 years. If you don't count the early stuff and start around 1975 then it is still close to 40 years. And he does it well. Incredibly well.
Now, would you expect anyone who has been doing their job consistently for that number of years to still be making the same amount of money or charging the same rate for their skills as they had when they first started out?

That would be nuts. 
Would you consider the increase selling out?

I sure hope not.

Remember, he IS called "The Boss" and that's the guy who usually makes the most in the company, right? 
That's my 2 cents, kids. 😉

Happy Anniversary?

 Well, it is that time of year again
- the anniversary of the day my life took a turn that would alter it ever after.

June 4, 1999 was the last time I would ever know NOT being in pain EVERY. DAY.
This is the day the negligence of another human caused my spinal cord to be crushed and leave me partially paralyzed on the left side of my body and in extreme pain like I had never felt before and wouldn’t wish on anyone. 

3 years of physical therapy, three times a day - Traction in the morning, muscle atrophy exercises at lunch, motor skills and massage in the evening.
So many pills, so many needles, so many tests. 

Crying myself to sleep every night because the pain was unimaginable. 

Angry because this wasn’t cool. It wasn’t fair. 

I became extremely overweight - I’d never weighed much over 100 pounds - Being sedentary caused a whole host of new health problems - high cholesterol, high blood pressure and all that shitty stuff.  I found an incredible neurologist who helped me regain the use of my left side and then the real work began. Learning to use my hands again, learning to walk properly - I walked with a cane for many years.
I bought a treadmill to try to begin to lose the 75 pounds I had gained - at first I could only walk for 2 minutes at a time before the pain became unbearable but I kept at it and was able to go longer and longer as my muscles became stronger and healthier - I was vegetarian/pescatarian during that period….. anyway long story but eventually I got to where I am today and it takes A LOT of maintenance on a daily basis (I still have the same treadmill and use it as often as possible) 

I have not been on meds for about 12 years now and use a regimen of supplements, exercise and diet set up with my neurologist to help maintain a healthy weight and manage pain as much as possible without drugs. 

It is hard to remember what it was like to live without pain and my PTSD has kept me from getting a good night’s sleep for the past 23 years. 

Every day I wake up, I feel like I have been fiercely struck on the neck and shoulders with a baseball bat - that’s my norm for the past 8,403 days -  sprinkled in with all the other fun issues that come from an impaired spinal cord.  They cannot do anything for me because there is a 90% risk of paralysis from the neck down if surgery is performed. 
I did receive some good news last week when I had my annual MRI - the discs crushing my spinal cord have shrunk and receded just enough to finally allow a tiny bit of spinal fluid to pass around the cord - somewhat reducing the ever present risk of paralysis from tripping or falling.

I would say the thing that has aided the most in my process along the way has been my faith and my ability to try to maintain a positive attitude - some days my situation weighs on me heavily but I can only sit in self pity for a minute - I have a life to live. 

I want to live every minute of it having fun and spreading joy and laughter where I can. 

I want to enjoy my friends and food and places I have yet to go and people I have yet to meet - all the good stuff!

I will never get better and it has become degenerative - but technology is cool and advances daily.

So remember to tell your people you love them. 

Don’t hang on to anything or anyone negative in your life and try to spread joy when you can and at the very least, be kind - you don’t know what people are dealing with

Hard Truth: your life can change in an instant.

Blackout

He sat in the old leather chair in the corner of the room in the dark. 
I was already in bed. I had been there for a while when he finally wandered in to sit, beer in hand.  He had been wandering in periodically to talk to me while taking a break from whatever he was doing. I can’t even recall now - only recall that each time another can was emptied and placed upon the mantel in front of the chipped and foggy mirror.

At some point, I woke from my half sleep to him sobbing in the chair. 

He started telling me I wasn’t special and he wasn’t special and he was a horrible person, as he related a series of stories recounting the horrible things he had done to women in his past. Abuse and screaming and cheating, you name it, I heard it all. He would just end up doing the same to me.  The whole scene something from a Hemingway novel. Head bobbing trying to stay focused but too inebriated to be successful. I could barely see him in the dark but I could smell the beer, hear the sobs and the halting breath and sounds of a man well past one too many.

He was in blubbering sloppy drunk mode - talking to himself now trying to justify his past behaviors with the women he had hurt and disrespected. Convincing himself that it was his only recourse and he was the REAL victim.  He did what he had to do because of reasons - so many reasons that only made sense to him. Eventually he just passed out in the chair and I fell off to sleep while assuring him, before I did, that everything was cool and I was glad he opened up to me. 

The next morning we both woke up in the bed.
The day started late but things just carried on like nothing happened.
To him, nothing had happened. He didn’t remember any of it.

A recovering alcoholic once told me that being a blackout drunk made it easy to continue to be an alcoholic because not remembering meant you didn’t have to be accountable.  Everything you did was hearsay and therefore easy to dismiss. Not remembering also made it easier to say and do things without remorse.

The night I couldn’t take anymore of the disrespect, we were both drunk. He was blackout drunk. I didn’t realize this until a few weeks after I had sent him out of my house at 2 in the morning for saying and doing some of the meanest things I’d ever had anyone say to me, let alone someone who called himself my boyfriend. It wasn’t until I was recounting a few of the things he said and why I broke up with him, that I realized he had been blackout - He honestly had no remembrance of why I made him get out of my house and broke everything off. All he remembered was how I ‘made him drive home drunk’
Always the victim.

Looking back, I now realize why he couldn’t remember much about our first date. I never saw anyone drink so many beers so fast. We were having fun, drinking and dancing and playing jukebox games all of which he doesn’t remember. This was the trajectory on which our relationship set off.

We would often joke about the daytime persona vs the nighttime persona. The daytime character was my lover and best friend. The nighttime character was sometimes funny and sexy and silly but more often than not, sad and mean and self destructive; making my nights with him miserable. Then the sun would rise and he was my man again.

Forgiveness became my own kind of blackout.

They say that everyone in that position has to hit rock bottom before being able to deal with their demons but what if someone keeps you from realizing your rock bottom?

We woke up one morning from a wild night and his car was gone.
Just gone. 
A series of factors led to this very moment. Running through his very hot brain were thoughts of financial mismanagement, a DUI and the breathalyzer attached to the car ignition, parole officers, inability to recover the car, not being able to get to work or to take his kid to and from school and an impending threat of losing custody of his kid. All this loomed large in the moment of realization - the car was not stolen but repossessed.  He looked at me with the distress of all these weights sitting on his brow, visible in his face. He said he didn’t have the money to fix this situation. His stress and fear was staring at me with large black eyes.

Was this rock bottom? 

Should it have been his rock bottom?

I volunteered to loan him the large sum of money despite his objections. 

He needed his car, right?
I cared about him and what happened to him. 

That’s what you do, right?

Looking back at the contention this brought about, I should not have.
I never even got a thank you. 

Had I interfered in what should have been a pivot point?

Perhaps all that followed after would have had a different outcome; my best friend still with me and the nighttime guy gone or in process of being reconciled.

There’s no way of knowing now.

And still no way of remembering, come tomorrow.

The Choice

You're looking for a toy.

Not just any toy but one that will suit your needs perfectly.

One that will bring you joy.
One that makes you feel alive when you hold it.
One that you can display with pride.
One to cheer you up when you aren't feeling your best.

There are boxes of toys here. You begin the search.
Rooting around for a while, you bring up a toy from near the bottom of one of the boxes.

"IT'S PERFECT!" you think to yourself.
Satisfied that you found a great toy; bringing you such great joy upon its discovery.
You dance around with it smiling and singing a little tune.
You assign a pet name to your new found companion.

You set it up on the counter knowing you found a gem.
How did you get so lucky? You have been searching for a while now.

"Let me just peek in the next box." wanders through your mind so you turn back.
You really are satisfied with your choice but "what if...?"

You dive down into the next box shuffling the toys around and pull up a pretty good looking one. 
You hold it in your hand for a few seconds. You look at the price. You wonder if it will hold up because it doesn't seem quite as well put together as the other. 
After a few minutes, you drop it back in the box. 
You glance back at the toy on the counter.
"That's still the best one for me" you're thoroughly convinced.

Standing over another undisturbed box you decide you should probably not leave without at least inspecting a few of the offerings in there.  You dive down into the box and pull up two - one in each hand.
You compare them to each other - turning them over and over and considering all the possibilities.
You let one fall out of your hand back into the box knowing it is not a good one for you at all.
The other gets a moment's linger longer before it, too, falls back into the bin.
Why are you even looking at these other ones when you have such a great find waiting for you at the counter.

You finally decide to quit inspecting the remaining boxes and return to the counter.

"What happened to the toy I put up here? It was the perfect toy. Exactly what I needed!
Where did it go?!" you ask the cashier with agitation.

"I didn't think you were serious about it. You ignored it for so long and were distracted when I asked you about it. Busy messing around with all those other toys so I sold it to someone who knew immediately they couldn't live without it."