I have nothing to say

Occasionally you sit down n front of this thing and say to yourself -I have nothing to say I have never had anything to say.  

You look at the keys and they all look black as if it doesn't matter which key you press.  They are all the same.  They are all meaningless slabs of black rock with ancient Egyptian symbols on them.  There is no possibility of meaning because you don't understand them.

And certainly the same should be said about the paintings.  They have no sense, no form of expression and convey nothing.

I feel like I'm fifteen again, a time when no thought had the energy to enter my head, no feeling had a feeling to express, nothing was glued together, everything fell apart with its lack of sustenance, its total void.  The only possible answer was reading and playing music.

And rowing.  Taking that metal boat down to the lake and rowing.  That at least felt good.  Where is everybody I used to ask myself out on the lake alone in a bizarre quiet on a warm Virginia spring day.

And how did Aldous Huxley know the name of those plastic wraps on the end of his shoelaces?  How could he make up phrases like the near familiar object beyond the diaphanous prism?  What did that mean?  And where is anyone?  Are they all at home doing homework?

am I free?

I often wonder: Am I free?  I don't know exactly what that means.  But for me its something like do I feel free?  Do I feel like I live where I want to? Do I do what I want?  Think what need to think?

And even down inside I want to know what does free mean?  Why do I often feel chained, strangled, unable to say what I need to say, unable to express what I feel welled up inside me?  Am I simply a recalcitrant?  Not even able to stand the authority of my own inarticulate self?

And I wonder did I forget how to say things, how to think things, how to look at things?  Did this happen back in kindergarten when I painted my first painting that wonderful blue piece I did then?  

Did I forget what I was doing?  Forever?

Why do I do the work I do? What can these things say to me?  How do I know when they are done?  I stare and stare at them and I think, speak to me please,  tell me why you exist how did I form you? or even how did I find you?

It is totally ridiculous. Don't cha think?  Why does anything get found or painted or shaped or even expressed?  Why in heaven's name does a book get written?  Who does that writing?  What are they saying?  What can an artist be thinking?  What happens?

And I wonder sometimes, how many of them disappear? These artists.  Go unnoticed unwanted unneeded?  Probably millions and millions of them.  My father used to paint these extraordinary things,  sometimes the bleakest work, or a beautiful joyous watercolor, not many, but enough to establish a broad range.  Then he stopped.  He would do something else, like collect stamps.   I'd like to do that.

But I only like them on envelopes with a letter inside.  I found one once from a woman in Paris writing to her children in England.  It seemed so touching.  She claimed she would be home soon.  

It was in a beautiful handwriting...but something in it rang false...a strange phrase maybe, a wandering when she should be saying when she would come home.  I felt a sadness.  I thought, she is not coming back.  Ever.

the mad doctor

I was sitting in the dentist's chair for two hours again this week and the dentist was working on the same tooth once again.  Now two hours twice is a long long time...and while I was sitting there I started to wonder what could be really going on..

I began to wonder if she wasn't implanting a device in my tooth that could tell them exactly where I am and what I am thinking...and I began to wonder why this sweet and sensitive girl would be doing this to me -what possessed her?

I could imagine her and the other dentist listening to my thought and talking about them...

-Well he asks, why isn't it working?

-Well it is working, we checked all the signals thingies an stuff.

-No there are no thoughts! he responded.

-I guess he doesn't have any.

-People always have thoughts...

-Maybe he's not a person, or maybe he just doesn't think...

Slowly they are unraveling my mind, breaking through the iron bands that guard my thoughts...

hello future

Hello future...I know when you read this all of us reading it now will be gone.  I hope you can think kind things about us.  Maybe your dads and moms spoke of us in happy phrases.  But I'm not really going to talk about us.  We're gone after all, swept away, its a new playing field, a blank canvas, it is you future.

Let's see...hmm...how are you?  Are you all liking this new world?  It kinda looks hazy from here, out of focus...I'm sure it has all the new miracles, the inventions of the future, like walking, that's a good one, do you like it?  I always did.  

I bet there are many many great artists in your day, from all over the galaxy,  that must be fun, to see the new stuff as it is created.  It's a great pleasure now really.  Although only a certain group of us care to see the stuff.

You might like it if I talked about this stuff, but it's just too boring.

Well not really -its just that I can't think of anything to say today.  I think I've just got to much on my mind, like going to pick up the phone for Guthrie and getting Rook some new insects to eat, and taking Seth to get a shot and going to his guitar lessons and getting him some more lunch food etc. etc. I'm sure you get this stuff, like I've got to figure out how to get my wedding dress fitted etc...

And what happens sometimes is that that kinda stuff just wipes out my dreaming...even erases my connection.  It's like I fell on the ground and got dirt and grit in my head...it just don't work right...in fact it just stops movin...

maybe its just that I haven't taken anything in recently...the stuff that oils my brain...and it gets rusty fast when left on it own.

It feels good

I must admit it feels good to be back in Painterland.  I've been busy the last few days, and they were fun, but this is the place I call home.  This is where I sit at the big table and Vincent sits across from me, and James Whistler to my left, and Matisse and Picasso to my right.

Anyone of them could be sitting anywhere really.  They do not move around though.  There is a lot of drinking going on, though there are those who never drink,  there are a few chess games that are happening.  And there is me, embarrassed to be here at all with these geniuses,  I'm just sitting here and I feel like I am in heaven -I am glad to be here -I know I am a defalcator, a confidence man...

And I know they know it too.   -but they just don't care.  There is too much to drink and to eat, and marvelous arguments going on about nothing.   I am glad to be invisible in this grand company, just to listen and to watch.

And once in a while someone will stop and talk with me for a minute or two, be it Max Ernst or Andre Breton, Robert Rauschenberg, or Juan Miro.  I find them all charming, all flattering, even though the comments may not be so flattering.  They are all interested in images, in the shaping of perception, in the recall of memory.

And though I can be here only a minute or two before it all fades away in the morass of responsibilities and duties,  this visit has been golden for me.  Thank you my friends for having existed, for having lived in this world, some even concurrently with me.   Thank you for all you have created.