I had to start again. The first thing I wrote was scathing…interesting for me, but not so interesting for you I am afraid.
My sinus thing continues…too much air conditioning in my face all summer long.
Ah, the long weekend is upon us. And what do I feel like doing? Working in my studio…working on the website. Yes.
Jann Arden thinks she is being weird in her latest column, August 26, 2002…but I think she is once again dead on the money. Check out her journal…I hope you love it as much as I do. She’s wonderfully honest.
I have not been able to get to making some actual music all week. Now I feel so far away from it again…what will it take to jump start the whole thing. The songwriting thing is still blocked. No interest. Years of having been ignored by the music industry will do things to your creative outflow. There are all kinds of excuses…but perhaps the best one is…I just don’t know what to write about. Plus I already have so many songs in the can just sitting there. How many unpublished songs does a songwriter need or want before they have enough? I think it's about 126 songs…that’s enough.
One of the things I want to do with this website is strongly endorse other artists I have faith in. Perhaps you will enjoy my recommendations. I have been listening to Rufus Wainwright for the past three weeks. The song that keeps me coming back for more is “Poses”, the title track of the CD. Check out his website…it’s all flashed up.
I did go from wanting to be someone
Now I’m drunk and wearing flip-flops on Fifth Avenue
Ruffus, do I even know what you are talking about here…If not literally then at least figuratively. What a great writer you are!
Not that it means much, but I was born in a hospital on 5th Ave. So I came into the world where Rufus wears his flip-flops, and all I really want is an apartment overlooking the Park where I was born. Near the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Is that just too much to ask?
Well, the long weekend begins now…lot’s of chores around the house to get going on. Weeee.
So a new day begins…and let’s just see what happens next shall we?
I had a hell of a night. Willi was restless again. All night long he repeatedly jumped on and off the bed. He just couldn’t seem to get comfortable. I even took him for a late evening walk before calling it a night just to make sure that he had done all his business. But at 4am he was staring me down. My dog can actually wake me up with a stare and a few well timed jumps on and off the bed.
At some point I sensed that he was not going to settle down unless something different happened. First I let him out into the back yard, thinking that perhaps he was picking up the scent of raccoons and just wanted to investigate, but when I let him out it didn't take long and he was back in the house staring me down. No, this could mean only one thing…Willi needed to go for a poop, and he needed to go fairly urgently based on the intensity of his stare. Fine. I get dressed and go out into dark damp night. And you know what; it really is darkest before the dawn.
So there I am walking to the park at 4:10am. Well wasn’t he just sniffing every nook and cranny? He was taking his own sweet time sniffing his way a long. Luckily half way to the park he decided to get down to business. After a wee runny poop, which I had a very difficult time picking up in its entirety, he still wanted to take a wee leisurely stroll to the park. Was it my imagination or was this taking twice as long as it usually took? Willi seemed to be sniffing each spot of interest with an intensity and thoroughness that was unlike him. Come on Willi, this is not brain surgery here…I want to go to sleep now. Forgetaboutit.
Of course when we got home and went back to bed, Willi was fast asleep in two seconds, and I was wide awake and frustrated. After a while I just gave up trying to fall back asleep. I read the new Dreamweaver MX book that Stephen had brought home from the office and then around 6:30am I began my morning writing practice.
Now I am here writing to you and just giving you a wee little look at what has happened so far. And what a riveting story it is!
Yesterday’s cable guy experience was fun. This particular appointment went from 2pm until 5pm. You know how they are; they can only guesstimate as to when they will be able to show up at your house. Anyway, the cable guy showed up at 4:30pm in his little red Rogers truck and came in to look at the cable and the ghosting picture. “Wow, look at that…on every channel eh?”
Yep.
I tell him that I suspect that this problem resides at the junction box on the street, so he pulls his van out on to the road, up to the box and pulls the cable out of the ground to test it. He then connects the wires to a television that he has on his truck…very smart…to see if the ghosting image is at this point in the line.
Well what do you know…sure enough there they are…ghosts! It has nothing to do with the house, the wiring…the cable leading up to the house…It’s their goddamn crappy cable in the junction box. And guess what? My mother’s house is the only house joined up to this particular box, so she's the only person on earth that has this particular problem. Hmmm. The long and short of it is that Rogers will now send another repair team within 24 to 48 hours to fix the problem. This may involve digging up the entire cable to Timbuktu and back again for all I care. Fix it!
What are the odds that this new repair team can fix it?
Any bets.
I will keep you filled in on the cable guy story as it continues to unfold in all its horrific, tedious detail. All this for high speed internet access you ask? Damn straight! I want some fun, quick and easy action here people!
So the day begins well, if not entirely too early.
Oh my…late this morning. And I am hungry. Never eat pizza. Of course I know this but I still, on the rare occasion do things I know I should not…Just testing! Like knowing that I shouldn’t smoke cigarettes, so I’ve been pretty good for the most part. But then some one will have a cigarette handy, and I can’t resist it. It’s like meeting an old dear friend. There are old dear friends that are toxic, cigarettes are a good example; infinitely better in theory than in practice, but sometimes you need to test it again.
What is it with the dreams I always have about my dog running out in front of traffic. Yvette, this is your doing. She nearly hit a dog that was off the leash the day before yesterday. What is it with people who leave their animals off the leash near busy streets and cars? I don’t get it. Our pets are precious creatures that rely on us to keep them safe. Keep your dog on the leash people!
I have decided to leave the sketches up for another day because I didn’t get the change to tell you about them. They are really a serious of sketches done over the course of an hour and a bit during February of this year. They are sketches of the inside of my mind…nothing more and nothing less. Abstract work is really about an invisible internal reality becoming visible. And the fantastic thing is that until the artist brings it into this realm, the images have never existed before. You couldn’t photograph them even if you tried. These images come from a place where no camera can go, that’s what I find so fascinating about abstract art. Are they “real” art? Who cares… who knows.
Do you think that I could get myself to work out since I came back from New York? Once I break a routine…that’s exactly what it is…broken. New York was worth breaking my routine over. Ground Zero…there are no words to describe it. It is heart sickening to see. I will need a picture. It takes your breath away. The images we see on television are tiny. The real thing is massive. The image I am posting here will likely fill up you entire browser window so that you can scroll over it to see it for yourself. The size of the photo will help give you a better idea about Ground Zero. What has the world come to? Will human beings ever be safe for each other?
Speaking of New York...Stephen and I had a fun time with Barbara and Wallace in Bryant Park.
Chloe, their Daughter was happiest while riding the carousel. She has frequent flyer points…no joking. We had a happy time, but everything is over so quickly.
Well, since I started so late today, I am going to wrap this up now. Please remember to keep your pets on leashes and your eyes on your small children. They are counting on you and I to keep them out of harms way.
So, the day begins well for the independent artists of the world.
I scribbled through my morning writing in twenty-two minutes. It used to take me forty-five minutes, but now I am in a hurry to get to this column. I’ve been irritated by some sort of sinus headache these past few days; too much air conditioning in the face while driving or something.
Off to the lawyers this morning…you’ve got to love lawyers. I love their offices; they always have the best offices. Our lawyer's offices over look Lake Ontario, but then they do this strange thing…they block the view with a wooden grid that has rectangular holes in it. You can look through it but you have to go right up to the window to really see the view. Strange…a beautiful view but obscured. I wonder what the metaphor behind this little peculiar touch of interior decorating is. Fortunately, in the boardrooms they have not made the same mistake. Why am I telling you about this?
My plan to work in the studio on Tuesdays and Thursdays has remained only a theoretical possibility. Yesterday was about telecommunications. First, one of the phone lines in our house went down for no apparent reason. So naturally I had to wait around in the morning for Bell to fix it. As it turned out it was all on their end. How nice.
From 11am until 2pm…it was all about Roger’s Cable.
In a somewhat over optimistic effort to bring my mother into the wired world, I thought that it might be nice for her to have a high speed internet connection on her computer, so it follows that I ordered a cable modem from Rogers with a full installation just to make absolutely sure that all would be functional before the cable guy left the house. So he came at about 1pm and started to drill holes and draw cables and before long he had everything hooked up. Only one problem…no connection! The modem just sat there flashing as it was trying to establish contact with the server. The cable guy said that this was quite normal, that it could take up to a couple of hours before it shook hands with the server on Rogers end. Ya…(They lie through there teeth). A couple of hours! Give me a big fat one.
Anyway, to make a long, frustrating story even shorter…it never worked. By 5pm I was tired of waiting for things to connect and I called Rogers to book yet another service call.
They are sending out another cable guy this afternoon to see what’s up. I can hardly wait!
Can you see how this is simply never going to work?
I have a theory: my dear, departed father is out there interfering with anything to do with computers in his house. It’s a technological pox on the house. The cable television has “ghosting” on it…No joke, that’s what the cable guy called it. Ghosting! And there was a bird flying around my mother’s house the other day. Where did that come from? That was surely my father’s spirit flying around the house scouting for technology. I know he hated computers and mistrusted them with a passion…but this is going a bit too far. Dad, knock it off with the high jinks already, OK? Let mom get wired!
So the day beings well, but what are the odds of it staying that way given the two major things I have scheduled? Don't expect Europe.
The record industry just released a report that says their sales are down 7% in the first part of this year. Their study blames illegal downloads as the cause of this rather steep decline. Well, I’ve been saying for several years now that the cat is out of the bag. Anyone with half a brain can tell the record industry that the party is really over. The controls are off and they can't put them back on.
Sorry the internet had to happen. Sooooorrrrrry!
The record industry is a dying, but downloads are not entirely to blame. The noise that the record industry has been shoving into our brains for the past few years scarcely would have been even considered music a few decades ago. Of course there is still good new music. thanks to the artists, it’s just harder to find it in the current sea of mega hype and noise that the big five have been serving up.
Here’s a fact that should go up every music lovers’ ass. There are basically only five record companies left controlling what the entire world hears as music:. Sony Music, AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Music Group, EMI Group Plc, Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, Bertelsmann AG's BMG Entertainment.
The consolidation of the music industry has lead to some interesting trends. If you listen, the music itself sounds merged and consolidated.
I maybe veering off topic here but does anyone remember a thing called the “single”? When I was a kid I was able to walk to the nearest Towers, (a discount department store) and buy six singles for $1.50. I would have six great songs from six different artists in the Top 40 that I absolutely wanted to listen to. This routine would go on week after week. Now, I can scarcely find a single song that I would want to play six times a year. And if I do find one, the record industry doesn’t seem to have a problem with me going to the nearest HMV and plunking down $15 to $20 for an entire CD of songs that I don’t really want to listen to, just so I can get to the one track that I do really like.
No wonder they are in trouble. These businesses deserve to be in trouble. They have ruined recorded music with their greed.
I can see a day when there will be precious few CD’s sold and the record industry will virtually cease to exist. Artists and their management will make music and will find creative and innovative ways of sharing it with the world. Power will belong in the hands of the creators and the supporters of music. As for the big five, well, why not complete the trend: Merger and acquisition to the point of oblivion. Wee, what fun.
And the band played on....
Of course everything I have said is totally biased. As an artist that could never get an audition, much less signed to a label….well you fill in the rest. There are hundreds of thousands of artists out there like myself that never had a chance to be heard.
I think what’s even more troubling to the Record Industry than the downloading of their copyrights is something that hasn’t happened yet: The independent artist that has a smash hit through free downloads alone. What happens in a world where an artist rises up out of obscurity on the merits of his or her own music without any help from the record industry whatsoever? Frankly, I think, it’s just a matter of time…and when that time comes there will be a massive shift in the way artists will want to do business. This constitutes an even bigger threat to the music industry; that it will lose its audience to the independent artists out there on the merits of their music alone. Hmmm, that would be fun.
Obviously I am still passionate about his topic.
So a new day begins for the independent artists of the world.
Just ten short years ago, what I am doing right now would have been impossible. I am writing my thoughts down and in minutes you will be able to read them. There is nothing and no one standing between you and I. If I want to I can tell you just what a piece of shit my relatively new, one year old Volkswagen Jetta really is. I can tell you all about the rattle in the driver side door that is driving me mental and makes me hostile every time I hear it. Queensway Volkswagen, the supposedly wonderful award-winning dealership I bought the car from can’t seem to fix this annoyance.
Hey, what do you want, a brand new Jetta that doesn’t rattle? Isn’t that too much to ask for?
Should I mention names? Why not. I can tell you that I bought this rattle box from a nice German fellow, Karl Mahler, one of the sales reps at Queensway Volkswagen Inc. Nice middle aged guy with a deep authoritative voice, who thinks pretty highly of his product and made a big fuss about how fantastic Queensway Volkswagen Inc. is. Did you know they've been in business longer than the Queen of England?
Well, Karl dear, the new Jetta rattles and clunks. My ten year old 320i BMW never had a rattle like this. As if this isn’t annoying enough, your service department first claimed they couldn’t “hear” it at all…very insulting. But then when they did “hear” it they simply said they took everything apart twice to fix it but couldn’t get the noise to stop and retuned the car to me with the rattle intact.
Sorry.
But it gets even better. Since the “repair” I have a new added feature. I suppose, in an effort to fix the rattle, the “service” guys tightened the shit out of the door and every moving part in it, and now I have a clunk and a rattle. Two for the price of one!
Very impressive! Great service!
When I open the window all the way now…CLUNK! It hits the bottom of something rather noisily. But hey, why should I complain, I left with more than what I came in with. Now I just blare the radio very loudly as I am driving in an effort to numb the frustration, and tell every living soul on earth, just how much I hate this car. Hate it, and the pile of German engineering crap that I was sold along with it.
What’s so hard guys? My brother bought an Acura at the same time I bought the Jetta, and his car doesn’t rattle or clunk. I guess he was right about German cars. Right Karl? Be honest.
2002 Jetta with 14,000 km, with rattles, clunks and frustration included…$29,000.00.
Being able to expose lousy workmanship and all the German propaganda crap that goes with it ...priceless.
So, the day begins well, if not without a few rattles and clunks.
This morning I am late coming to my writing. My morning pages were three pages of absolute chaos. I have learned that this chaos is actually the state of wild creative energy entirely devoid of any structure. Open the gate…flood the page with chaos…then when you have something to say to someone, when you have a message about something, this same energy, this same chaos flows down a pathway of meaning and organizes itself quite under its own volition.
I had many thoughts coming to me all day yesterday about what I had written in the morning about the Wicked Witch archetype. I had a few conversations about it that further served to unnerve me about this archetype. I distinctly remember the first time I watched the Wizard of Oz, and how the Witch was perhaps the most frightening thing I had ever seen. This is a visceral thing, to this day I can still feel the adrenaline coursing through my four year old veins at my first encounters with the Wicked Witch of the West. What a repulsively terrifying creature…but you cannot turn away. She pins you down with her gaze, with her intensity, her raw and focused rage at all things that are innocent and good.
Such fear
Such enchantment
Thank you Margaret Hamilton.
The day outside my window is a gloomy soup of gray this morning. This day, the way it begins is not enticing me out into it…not in the least bit.
The dryer just blew a belt or something. It made a big noise and died. Oh, the Laundromat is in my future. The smell of freshly washed laundry and hot dryers spinning just came to me. Hmmm. If you have ever been to a Laundromat then you know the smell I am talking about. It’s a nice smell actually.
I have fallen hopelessly behind in my letter writing. My cousin Johanna must have stopped wondering what has happened to me by now. I am sorry Johanna…I will write to you soon. I will send you some pictures and things. Susi, I am sorry…I said I would send you a CD and I still have not gotten around to recording it. Yicks! It’s been a hectic few weeks. And there are the pictures from Susanne’s wedding…still not up on the web site and we are talking last year June. Perhaps I procrastinate just a wee bit then. I will do my best to get some of these things underway today.
So, the day begins well, if not sunny.
There are voices in our heads. I know you have yours and I have mine and sometimes they make us wonder. Who the heck are these people in my head and what business do they have getting off on my floor? I didn’t invite them…they just show up.
“You will never get the recognition you mistakenly believe you deserve.”
”Who do you think you are?”
“You are going to do what? You can’t even spell.”
“Shakespeare, you idiot!”
“Ya, that was OK, but it was a fluke... fat chance you will ever be able to do that again!”
I used to think these were my very own thoughts about myself because they were bebopping around in my mind. I scarcely even heard them since I was so used to them. The voice says other nasty things as well, these are just the appetizers.
Does any of this sound familiar to you? It’s my contention that this particular voice is an archetype, which comes through every human being that ever lived. Julia Cameron calls it the Inner Critic. I think of it as the voice of The Wicked Witch of The West, or Cinderella’s stepmother. Both these characters have oppression of the “innocent” (creative) as their primary purpose.
“You will never succeed, as long as I have something to do with it”, is what this archetype is saying to us.
Artists and creators of all sorts are all too familiar with this voice. It seems that it really doesn’t show up until a person tries to do something outside of his or her comfort zone. Then all hell breaks loose. Teacher and author Barbara Sher calls it “Resistance”.
The word resistance sounds very polite to me for what this little devil is capable of. For me it is the archetype of the Wicked Witch as depicted in the Wizard of Oz that I find most resonant. Here the archetype has magic powers, is cunning and lurks behind things, secretly scrutinizing each step forward, each move in the direction of you cherished goals. When the Witch steps out from behind the foliage you are actually hearing her in the form of the “voice”, but most of the time she is stealth. She follows your every step in her crystal ball, every step closer to you goal, and she is actively plotting against you, and trying to make your ultimate failure a certainty.
She will pull you off the road and make you think it was all your idea. She will put nice smelling poppies in your face and poison you with them. In short, very cunning, and very persistent even when you think you have finally melted her.
Don’t be fooled.
Underneath the melted robes, she is still there; ready to pop up again like some nightmarish Jack-in-the-box. You might notice it…or you might not.
“Give me back my shoes!” she will hiss at you.
The only problem…those shoes do not belong to her...but she is very intimidating and will try to make you believe that the shoes belong to her. What are you doing with her shoes?!!!!! Those shoes are your creativity; those shoes are your power. Do not surrender Dorothy.
I would take the advice of Glinda, The Good Witch / Fairy Godmother archetype quite seriously.
”Stay tightly inside of them! Their power must be very great or she wouldn’t want them so badly!”
I say, stay tightly inside your creativity. Don’t let the Witch seduce you, scare you, divert you from your creative path. Don’t let her convince you with her litany of tricks. I can guarantee one thing, and that is…she will show up and when you think she is gone, she is lurking there in the woods of your mind, getting smarter, finding your weaknesses, getting ready to outwit your every move.
Outrageous?
Maybe. I don’t think so.
So a new day begins...if not pretty.
I wake at five thirty AM. What gives? I am turning around the events of the day in my mind before they have even happened.
After giving it a lot of thought, I finally have come to the conclusion that I need at least three days in my studio each week to keep my connection to creating music strong and moving forward. I’m thinking Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday or Sunday. Tuesday’s session (session # 1) went extremely well and made me happier than I have been in months. Take a hint Mark…you should work in your studio…daaaaah.
Going into the office the next day was a breeze. I enjoyed the day there as well because I had momentarily satisfied my creative itch. I thought to myself, hey, I can balance this after all. Balance is good.
Too much of one thing…not enough of another can leave us feeling stupid, tired, bored, cranky, idiotic, fucked up…blocked.
And I’ve been cranky and bored for months.
“To Thine Own Self Be True…..”
This is real swell advice and I can’t even tell you who said it first…I should know this…so should you. If you do know who said it, could you please fill me in. I’m an idiot. mark@thatmark.com …thanks so much.
The word “thine” is interesting.
“Thine hast a wee piece of crap hanging from thine face.”
Hmmm. No wonder it has fallen from favor, and I use the American spelling of favor lightly and casually as if it were a Wet One. Ya, aren’t words just too marvelous for words?
Ok, it seems that I have lapsed into I don’t know exactly what, but whatever it is I’m sure you are wondering about my whereabouts. Hello, this is not the Baghdad Café!
“You have no power here. Be gone before somebody drops a house on you!”
Yes indeed.
No, but in all seriousness, I’ve been reading Jann Arden’s online journal for a year now, and I just want to let you know about it if you’ve never read it. Jann is perhaps one of the best popular singers alive today. She is also a wonderful songwriter…and I say “also” because for me it’s her voice that takes me home and keeps me there. Her ability to communicate exactly what she wants you to feel is substantial. Her intentions are transparent. She is pure music, and her journal is no less musical than her voice. If you love her singing as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to go to her website on a regular basis.
She is one of the great artists but stands apart from others in her humility and open honesty. I am cheering her and hope you will also.
Jann Arden does not know me from a coat rack, and she certainly does not need me to endorse her work, but hey, this is my place so I can do whatever I damn well please. I also happen to know that she loves Karen Carpenter’s voice, because her own voice has become a vehicle for some of Karen’s vocal energy. I definitely hear the ghost of Karen Carpenter singing background vocals for Jann Arden, especially on her “Living Under June” CD. My copy has skips from over use…and that is not an easy thing to accomplish.
Could Jann Arden and I be joined subconsciously at our love for Karen Carpenter’s voice?
Yes.
So a new day begins...
After 3 years…I finally had a decent, all day long, into the night recording session in my studio. Oh the good old days. When you don’t have time to work on your art…steal it. I am now into stealing in a big way. When in doubt, steal it.
I am not advocating theft or kleptomania…believe me. I am advocating total focus. I need days to work on my music or else I will go slowly insane and we certainly don’t want that now do we?
The studio session, which I will refer to from now on as session #1, went extremely well. It was hard work, it was long work, it was painstaking work, it was exhausting…it’s the only way I know how to make art. It also left me feeling like I had gotten my fix. I had finally gotten over that nagging feeling that I would never again do meaningful work with my music. I was wrong.
Why should you care? I don’t know, perhaps it will inspire you to get going, to steal time for your art, your sport, your most important thing. Learning to steal time back for this one thing is so important. Go ahead, steal some time, it feels great.
I keep coming back to this: The most important thing in life is intimacy. A life that is not intimate is simply not worth living. Intimacy takes time and it begins with self-intimacy. We need to get to know ourselves better. We need to do that thing that makes us feel complete and happy, and in order to do that we need to know ourselves intimately. We need to know what that thing really is. For me it’s an intimate involvement with sound, music and voice. If I am not intimate with these things I am simply unhappy and bored. Accurately put…I need it.
Fact: No one cares if you get “it”…or rather…no one ELSE cares if you get “it”. But you must care, and you must get “it”, even if you have to steal back the time from whatever is taking it away.
Outrageous?
Maybe.
Go steal you time back for what you sincerely love the most in life. Life is very short.
So, a new day begins...
I have nice finger nails now. This may not seem like such an amazing accomplishment for most of you, but what we are talking about here is a person who bit his finger nails to the bone pretty much since kindergarten. We are talking thirty-five long years of nail biting. I was a pro and it was disgusting…and the end result was not a pretty site. No matter what I accomplished in my life, no matter what talents I may or may not have possessed, I had the hands of an obsessive compulsive nail biter. It was so ugly, and it seemed that I simply could not knock it off.
There was not rhyme or reason to it either. In good and bad times, in stressful and not so stressful times…I bit my nails down to the place where you can’t go any further without being arrested or locked up. So, I was annoyed to say the least. Years of therapy, pharmaceuticals, failed attempts at stopping had finally given way to an insidious resignation: Until I had yet another midlife “crisis”.
I am here to tell you that if you think you are getting older, you are…but life really does begin at forty. So, according to this nifty little formula, I am now only one and a half years old. Being the late bloomer that I have historically been, it wasn’t until I turned forty-one that life began. It seems that life really begins when you realize that most of the good years are already over. It’s time to get serious; it’s time to get real.
One hundred and ninety-four days ago my life began. The lights came on. I began writing morning pages and discovered something which I call a CHOHWA. (Come Hell or High Water Activities). A CHOHWA is an activity that you commit to doing regardless of how you feel. You just do it. PERIOD!. And you do it once a day at about the same time, or Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. You decide. You pick. Then you stick to it.
In essence, it doesn’t matter what the activity is. In my case I chose morning pages. Each morning I moved all my excuses to one side and sat down and wrote three pages of absolutely anything. There is no way to screw it up. Once I was writing daily, I realized that I could turn any activity, any action into a CHOHWA. You do this chosen activity period. The only exceptions are things like floods. If you are flooded out of your home, if a tornado comes along, if you are hit by lightning…well you get the picture.
You chose the activity for only one reason. You want to do it but you find that you have a number of handy excuses for not doing it. CHOHWA give you an excuse not to do this activity. It give you a really good excuse…Floods, tornados, acts of God. No other excuses are included. You know this in advance before you choose your CHOHWA. Be careful. Once you have decided on a CHOHWA you can’t take it back easily. Remember, I am talking actual floods here, forty days and forty nights kind of thing.
So how did I stop biting my nails? I didn’t. In fact, biting my nails was actually an addiction and I knew that stopping the behavior was highly unlikely. I decided to get rid of the nails in advance so that there was nothing to bite.
The next step was to make filing my nails a CHOHWA. I began to file them each morning (come hell or high water) guaranteeing that there was simply nothing left for my habit to bite. After about forty days, I filed them a little less short each morning, but I still filed them. After a while I had strong, healthy nails, for the first time in my life. During the whole time I never once tried to stop biting my nails. Over time they simply became too strong to bite. Success at last! Actually, I have been able to reduce my filing now to once a week or so, and still my nails remain out of my mouth and on the tips of my fingers where they belong.
I have no idea why I am writing about this. Maybe someone out there has the same problem and is trying to quite.
“What have you learned Dorothy?”
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
Preemptive sticks work.
Sometimes when you want an end result you have to find a way of doing something indirectly to get it. As long as I was focused on getting rid of the behavior I couldn’t do it. Instead, I found a way to make the persistent behavior impossible. Now people actually comment on how nice my hands look and I learned that even habits that are thirty-five years old and seem impossible to break are not all that powerful after all. Get your own CHOHWA, and let me know how it goes. I can hardly wait to hear how you have finally out smarted those old persistent habits once and for all.
So, Monday…Ya. Weekends are short. But I have some ideas about how to make them longer or at least seem longer. But then again not everyone wants to install a hard disk on the weekend. Never mind.
I just finished writing my morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing by hand about absolutely anything. This tidy little invention is the brain child of Julia Cameron, the well known teacher and author of “The Artist’s Way”. She teaches people how to unblock. If you have never felt blocked in your creativity…or you don’t give a rats ass about it one way or the other, this is a real good time to turn on the “Price Is Right” and call it a day.
Why are so many of us so afraid to write? Are we afraid of intimacy with ourselves? Are we hiding something we suspect is there and therefore don’t feel comfortable with blank pages lest they reveal something to us about us? What would we reveal to ourselves, the truth?
And the Truth will set you free. -- John 8:32.
Not to get all religious on you here, because you know me, you could hardly consider me religious, but I have found this little ditty to be of interest. Daily writing tends to puts me into the middle of myself, where, for better or worse, I get used to what is there; good, bad, pretty, ugly, ridiculous, boring, exciting, stupid, clumsy; deft. Does it take courage? What worthwhile thing doesn’t? Does it help to unblock as Julia Cameron suggests? Well, I sure am writing more these days with a great deal more ease, but you be the judge...why not try it?
I spent yesterday afternoon trying to help my good friend and co-writer Robert install a new hard drive on his computer over the phone. What a frustration for both of us. After trying every jumper setting under the sun, after having tried every BIOS friggen setting you could possible ever imagine, we still wound up with the same result; a computer with only one (the original) hard drive working. Ya.
Robert: "I want to hurl the whole thing out the window."
Mark: "No hurling ...please."
It seems that, it being his computer that was still no better for it, Robert had a pretty intense case of computer rage. I wonder how many people are killed or wounded by hurled-out-of-the-window computers. I’m in a bungalow so the people in my neighbourhood are likely to be safe, but what about downtown high rises? Hmm.
Well, one way or another Rob will get his hard disk to work. I have confidence in sunshine. (Sound of Music)
Now, the day is rapidly moving right along here so I had better get my big, fat, lazy, tinny, bony ass in gear and hit the road. Always check your blind spot, beware of computer rage and high rises, and don’t say, and don’t ask?
So, the day begins well.
I need to make a list of people I want to write letters to. There are so many people in my thoughts this morning. If it’s like this at my age, then what will it be like in another forty years or so? I will indeed be large and contain multitudes. (Walt Whitman, Song of Myself)
I suddenly find myself thinking of you, my dear reader.
Yesterday I spent most of the day working happily in my studio much to the chagrin of my family members. People seem to get very concerned about me when I am working in my studio. First Stephen pokes his head into the office every once in a while to see if I am still functioning. Another Saturday with Mark in his studio…gone. My mother phones in the evening, “Are you working in the studio again?” Yes. “Do something else for a while.”
Ok.
Stephen, in the afternoon: “Let’s take Willi for a special walkies…to the beach or something. You need to get out of the house.”
I do.
“You can’t just sit in front of you computer all day again.”
I can’t… I want to, but I can’t.
So we drive to the beach, Marie Curtis Park to be entirely accurate.
The beach is bug-infested, and there are men cruising each other in the woods…who knew? How is this apparent you may ask? Well, you can see them coming in and out of the woods in their skimpy outfits directly from the beach…pardon me madam. I was never one for woods, rest assured, or cruising in them for that matter, but hey, if this is the kind of trouble my passion for music is keeping me out of…hello, tomorrow is another day.
But on this particular day it is hot and muggy, a thunder storm seems possible, the beach smells of fish and half submerged, algae covered shopping carts. The beach is littered with remnants of the Friday night before, mostly plastic pop bottles and paper wrappers, surrounding little burnt out campfire remains. Why are people so messy? Are they simply too drunk, or too young, or too stupid, or too unconcerned too clean up after themselves? Perhaps when they put their little campfires out, it is just too darn hard to see the mess in the dark?
And as if all these things were not enough, the other animals on the beach, a horse, some geese, and the occasional dog, have also left their contributions unattended. No stooping or scooping apparently required on or near the beach.
“This is a pile of horseshit!” Stephen says with a tone of disbelief.
Yes, indeed, but the bugs like it.
Marie Curtis Park…nice on the pictures, shit and bug-infested in real life.
Now after this much “nature” a trip to Blockbusters seems to be in order don’t you think?
So, there goes yet another Saturday. “Bridget Jones's Diary” on the DVD, Me futzing in the studio and did anyone even mention the laundry?
We didn’t do the laundry did we? Ooops! Well, there is always Sunday.
The day begins well.
Mark
This morning…overcast again. Just around the edges, ever so slightly, there is a feeling of September. The days are shorter, and my morning writing is done in partial darkness.
I have started exercising again. My week off weigh training turned into almost three weeks without batting an eye. But yesterday I began again. I’m beginning to think that it’s all about beginning again.
At my age my body simply doesn’t really care all that much about fitness, so it often becomes a struggle between me and it. My body says, “What do you want to workout for? Don’t you know it’s a losing battle? You will get old, and you will die…who are you kidding with this working out shit?” “Shut up!” I explain.
It seems that when I hit forty, I found myself in this conflict with my body. The eternally young part of me wants to workout and look good, the aging part of me wants to relax and call it a day. These past seven months have been about not listening to the resigned part of me. Resignation is such an unattractive quality.
I give up. It’s pointless. Hmmm…is it?
No. Not yet.
When ever I think of getting older and rotting away, I try to keep Cornelius Reid in mind. Mr. Reid is arguably one of our times greatest voice teachers and authors. I was fortunate enough to have a few voice lessons with him at his New York, upper Westside studio in the early nineties. At the time he had just turned eighty and was at his teaching peak. David Dunbar, who was my voice teacher and friend at the time had arranged my classes with Cornelius and sat in during the lessons. In a break during one of the classes Cornelius and David spoke about Cornelius’ eightieth birthday party. This man could have passed for a sprightly sixty-something in a blink of an eye, and had the voice of a man in his thirties.
The advice and teachings that Mr. Reid imparted to me during those lessons still instruct me and guide me to this day, but perhaps the biggest lesson of all was that being eighty or ninety didn’t mean a person necessarily had to be “old”. Mr. Reid was definitely anything but old. Last I heard, he was still teaching and giving lectures around the world in his nineties! Thank you Cornelius Reid for teaching me all these things.
Some people have a profound influence on a person’s life. One day I will tell the story of exactly how Cornelius Reid changed the entire course of my life by writing a book called “The Free Voice”.
So, a new day begins...