–

other day i’m gettin an eye exam from the doctor. we get into a talk about borders and immigrants. dont remember how it happened. trust, i dont go looking to tell random people about my passions in this area. folks can get weird. when they will soon be in your food, your home or your eyes, you dont introduce elements that prove unpredictable. like human rights activism. but this is info i’ve been building over the last four or five years. if you drop it in a few minutes, you can get in depth but keep it bullet pointed. treaties, agricultural industries, campesinos, economic desperation, prison industrial complex, families. bring more to a person’s awareness than “mexicans who are breaking rules.” even when they do care about progressive politics and human rights, if this image is all they have in mind, they don’t have enough mentally to battle the constant hostile vibe propagated by the corporate media, or help bring awareness to others, even if they want to. anyway, i guess he wasn’t expecting it. i mean…i know i wasn’t.

i live in a very liberal area. a pretty progressive town, in fact. despite the overwhelming whiteness. at one point while i’m talkin this stuff, he just stops looking at his screen and typing into his computer. he turns toward me, puts his hands in his lap and just listens. and just listens. i felt stunned tho i didnt show it. it was clearly a show of respect from this white-coated doctor dude, white haired white doctor guy…to me, in my LA hoodie and baggy pants. we are talking for five or more minutes. the entire exam ground to a halt. i never quite had an experience like it. we begin talking about our own family. his son, about chicanismo. he is a white man with an adopted child of color. like tons of families here. (the number of these feels just a bit creepy, honestly. i didn’t know i was coming into a town that had a mixed-adoption theme when i arrived. i don’t mean any insult to him or families that adopt children of color. but when a town has a massive concentration of this, but is very white…it sort of stands out is all.) anyway, he finally says well i should set you up with contacts before you go and we laugh and get back to the exam.

he says at the end your appearance doesn’t match…who you are. i’m not sure what he means by this. my ink? my clothes? my ethnicity? all of it? and…who am i? what does this mean. he says it forces people to re-examine their ideas of things…you challenge perceptions just by being who you are. this odd complimentish statement sticks with me for days and days. i’m not sure what to make of it. how should a person like me present? what appearance would not strike a conflicted note when i began speaking? what would that person look like?

yet i know what he means. i’ve always been like that. my getup is madeup. its never been otherwise. i can take on genres of person like costume. maybe that’s because types and roles are costumes to begin with. perhaps its because i dont feel any of them are me. perhaps it is because all of them are me. equally false and true and interchangeable. maybe it’s because i was born into a nexus of situations and identifiers that never took hold. maybe thats why i can wear names like hats. dont know. guessing is a fun game for a while.

all my life, people stop and look at me when i begin talking and only then, and only then–pay attention. i guess i thought that was over. i still don’t know why this happens, honestly. but i don’t much care for finding an answer in the end, and the guessing game is unsatisfying. the Why just doesn’t matter. it turns into self-obsession and that bores me as of late.

as long as i can talk to people from my heart and find that Look, i feel that an important connection is made. that’s what matters. not this world thrown over my shoulder like a cloak, over my face like a pair of mardi gras glasses. not my manipulated reflection. in truth, i don’t think that moment has to do much with how i present. i guess if anything, i think people are used to speaking in certain ways, tones, clumps of predigested thought, entrenched reflex of conversation, prepackaged idea. maybe. that sounds pretty self-important too, as if i’m not one of the fools out here. and i am. there is no doubt about that.

i do know one thing. you know what that look is in their eyes? it is them. it is them showing up. it is them being awake. the clarity, that sharpness, that electric flicker look? it has nothing to do with me, doesnt have to come about in that way. but i don’t want to talk to sleeping people.

–

the virtual life is a beautiful boat, a liquid silvered vision of freedom. a stage for the imagination. a platform hosting dreams that exist (only) with con-edison’s cooperation.

–

nagualismo, chapter 3, section 2. know how to navigate a storm of the Mind. it is from there that the hurricane hurtles forth into the world. watch not only the gray sky, but the graying of the inner eye. yes, know how to build shelter from nothing. know how to eat in the forest. know basic first aid. store a backpack of spare tools (knife? mess kit? hand saw? pen? paper? think it all over) and basic first aid kit. imagine living in a time when law collapses, even temporarily, or the social or cultural order as you know it were upset entirely. where would you get water? food? could you keep your mind? if your cell fone were dead, what would you do? internet down, could you access cash? if your life has thrown you curves in a few ways, you may be more ready than others for these types of situations.

don’t rest there. next level.

practice waking up in another mind. stare at every belief with courage gleaned from your long line of ancestors; find the modern lunacy or well-polished falsity wrapped around the core of truth. do you feel prepared for a life other than the one you cling to today? in what ways do you not feel prepared for great change?  in what ways is the container of your mind predetermining every thought?  in what ways do you insist on your own barriers? let yourself count the ways in which you court a cocoon.

this is not an exercise in Survivalism. it is a treadmill shaped for the slippery, shining footsteps of the soul.

keep the body and mind as nimble as possible. exercise intuition and imagination. at all costs. can your perception of life and people withstand an assault of reality born from a shifting of most the structures that form the skeleton of your daily expectation? if not, too much energy will be invested in supporting those structures, even when they are harmful.

how often do you tear apart your own tendency to become fixed? exercising this part of preparedness, if you want to type it this way: keeps a part of the neurological and spiritual response system(s) intact and limber and will aid you in many drastic (and daily) events, like having to swim a sea of illusion to reach the beaches of peace.

he might have felt lonely if it hadn’t been for his thoughts: not the consecutive, reasoned grey of intellectual thought, but the bursts of kaleidoscopic imagery, both flowering in his mind, and filtered sensuously through his blood…

—The Vivisector, Patrick White

it has been an unusual autumn. an auspicious approach to winter. several relationships have fractured or fallen away, initiated by one party or another. different reasons, different causes, and yet the end result is i am alone heading into this rainy winter forest. alone in an apartment, and my day, and my nights. i don’t say that moaning, or in complaint. i don’t even speak it with the angst which has accompanied the last twenty posts here or so. for once, i am only noting it. and in fact, i think this time comes destined. but yes, it is unusual. the long, deep silences in this apartment are unusual. so many days and nights in a row with so much space in bed is unusual. the quality to the days are utterly unusual. again, so much silence. room to move about and think. that made things very painful for a while. too much space. too much silence. i feel i have moved into a new season, now.

at first this aloneness felt like a withdrawal stage. the apartment in disarray was a wound. a ghost moaning incessantly of the past, and of shame and failure. someone asked me “isn’t there another way to frame it aside from ‘failure’?” and if i were being more honest with myself i would have just admitted ‘no’ instead of trying to rationalize that, yes, i understood there could be other ways to frame it. some nights i went mad for a while. most nights, at first. i lost myself in moving furniture. trying to reshape the interior. cleaning. trying to help my brain over the landing. through the change. i’ve used booze too.

so strange. not having someone here to always hear my thoughts. nobody’s company watching a movie. nothing at all. the displacement paralyzed me. almost like after 9/11, when i froze and everything fell to the ground in a tiny echo of what the city had all just lived through. this time things almost fell entirely into disrepair, financially and spatially, before i lurched into action because, no. not twice in a row at least.

and so i got up and scheduled things and set up some jobs, and worked for the right amounts of time—and i’m still doing that—and i’ve had a little help, too, from friends. i’ve got things going and i’m doing food shopping and am keeping things reasonably clean and maintaining my time with luna and i feel i’m on track. i’m paying the rent and my fone is not shut off and i don’t feel crazy every night, nor dread the evening whenever it comes around…that’s a big one.

i’ve simply started moving again, turning the wheels again, accepting that there is a reason to do so, and that in doing so, progress can be made in some way. it occurred to me the other day a lot of this is replacing old routines with new routines and in this way i am moving through it. and now i’m no longer just holding on…i’m beginning to enjoy some of the silences. and settling into my own seat. taking a breath, looking around. now that i’m not in survival/shock mode and wondering if the ship is going to go under any moment, i’m beginning to think about where i want to steer this thing.

and i’m not part of any daily dysfunction that feeds a bristling ball of anger, pain, and general negativity within my own sphere and others’. that’s first and foremost. nothing happens until that part is removed. no, i don’t know whose “fault” it all was. if it was mine, well then. i’ve removed myself and that seemed to work. and i didn’t even plan that. unexpected happenstance was the catalyst, but this continued path i walk is about more than that, now.

actually, i’m amazed. mostly because being alone for too long has been a bit terrifying for me. i don’t do that. i’ve always traveled with a best friend, or lived in group settings with other males (institutional settings) or lived with a woman—since i was 17. on one road trip (20) i stopped at my father’s who I’d just met again for the first time in 15 years. when he saw me and my best friend, he asked me pointedly “why aren’t you ever alone?” it wasn’t until at least ten years later that it occurred to me what a cruel question that was coming from someone who walked out on your life before you were even born. but to the point, and as strange as it might sound to someone else with different experiences, being alone in my own place is a brand new pattern. waking up alone, going to sleep alone. figuring out how to eat each day. paying bills all alone. making structure out of no structure at all. being with myself. i feel a change lately, in that i can bear it. this seems important to me.

if anyone has wondered why i’ve maintained a distance around myself at certain times or a lack of promise or investment its because i’m trying not just to be fair to others, but to brave these silences for once. i’m trying to reap the benefit of this struggle. if there is anything positive to be wrought from the depths of such a crack-lipped rift as this which takes a family apart in this way, it is to be found in my reflection, solitude, loneliness, thoughtfulness. it is to be manifested in a gathering in of my energies and a careful application to that which is positive and creative and constructive. I want to be careful not to be reactive, nor to simply distract myself from the ache. There is a meaningful and profound pain running through this change, whether it be called a failure or otherwise. I want to use that pain to hone my effects, to pare away the distance between my intention and application on multiple levels.

i find with more time to myself i have more time to consider not simply my emotional reaction to the world and to others, but the origins of my own emotion. there seems to me an important distinction.

i feel i am less grounded in other people’s ongoing reality, and that is a good thing. as an artist, i am a bit like a receptor. a tuning fork. i feel easily, deeply, and intensely. this is coupled, of course, with the recoil and response which artists have as a matter of function. you receive the energies of your environment, are imbued of them, resonate with that and then transmit it back/outward—and if i dont have time to process or consider the transmission or interpretation, the event can become like an echo track overloading and overheating the circuit. me, being that conduit. part of what was so painful in my marriage was that i was ultimately contending with cluttered emotional freight on a daily basis. there was not the room to get to more fragile or more subtle vibrations such as one needs to contact for much of their art. and if an artist is not doing these types of things, i really think a great amount of unhappiness resounds. and then, that is what you transmit.

i dont write these things to blame anyone else. i think these are problems inherent in an artist having any close relationship, to tell you the truth (and i’ve got plenty of my own freight). and i’m sure we could embark on another discussion here. but i’m talking now of my specific life. not theories involving love, intimacy, and artists.

we could no longer dance. we could barely move. we were both dragging around lists made of lead. i tag neither of us as some sort of sole destroyer or victimizer. if she does, that’s her view and for her to espouse or defend. but for me arguing about it brings no clarity, only more pain. i didn’t know what went wrong. or how much was right to begin with. even when i tried, i couldnt navigate simple kindness anymore and i couldn stand myself for that lack. i don’t know what is the future of her or myself or our children. but i don’t want it to be anything other than kindness. kindness or nothing. and so far, this is better. though it is certainly not ideal…

i want to be truer to myself. that means seeing what i am good at and what i am not. and applying myself doubly hard in the areas i have interest and talent and ability (and yes calling) and retracting myself more from areas where i am just lounging or killing time. i am 39. if life were fair, i’d live to be 400. because i’m an infant in terms of mastering my talents and being a human being in general. i feel such great awe and earnest gratitude for every new thing i learn, but i’m hardly half way to being self-actualized. and so it is with a certain tinge of (sorrow may be too strong a word, but i don’t have enough terms for shades of sadness) wistfulness that i admit my life will be incomplete. meanwhile, i don’t want to waste too much more time pretending or starching up my collar or posing—unless its for really weird art fotographs or installations.

i want to be truer to my art. i’ve been practicing brushstrokes and gradients and arcs and shading and hue and image capture and composition and layering and narrative and theme and subtext and transition and meter and metaphor for two decades, now. i feel i am ready for another round of production and another level of corazónian expression. i havent made any art (and i mean paintings in the 3D) or sculpture or albums in a long time. I’ve dabbled in digital grafiks and fun little audio tracks or quickie songs for about two years and i see this as a buffer period where i’ve been soaking up a lot of new information, thinking about things in new ways, and in general, changing and not quite ready to “produce” yet. i’ve also done a lot of thinking about art and how i’ve used it and what the gift is for. my entire approach to art has transformed in this time period where i’ve not been really exploring any new ground. my thoughts on the use of it, the debt owed to it, the power and function of art, and consequently how to speak with it. a reader could track this since i began writing years ago in el grito about euro-centric media, and indigenous art, and capitalism’s minions, and sexist and racist media…and actually, it began years before, while learning about media messaging in NYU Film/TV, and even earlier with my photography and SBS and marketing courses in community college. In fact, “this” is a long path, and we cannot find the toe or head here. i am but standing aside for a moment and marking the journey. once again.

my art (and i include music) itself was a reaction for a long time. and it was a mourning. it was a mourning without a full accounting. it was a hand of anger with an incomplete grasp of cause. it was a vow to take vengeance but overlooking many important actors. in this way it was typical. the “truth” of what i am creating is of greater importance to me, but apart from all other considerations, i certainly do not strive to be a typical creator of sound or imagery or story. if i’m going to bother, i don’t need another hobby. no, i want to reach new, original levels of creation/interpretation/expression. not necessarily in the world’s canons, but definitely within the context of my own repertoire of style. i want to push myself toward the greatness that may lie at the seed of this ability. looking back, so much of what i was saying was repeating lessons i’d been given. or reacting viscerally to realities i was living and sometimes the result was beautiful, maybe, in its striving for honesty. (granted, there are still people who swear by much of it. and i would take nothing from them. that’s an argument i dont win even when i seem to!) but there are always deeper levels to plumb. without evaluating further or degrading past efforts to be real, these stated conditions are why i say that my years of art—soulful gestures for sure—has been mostly practice. then again, i’m sure every artist wants to look back with scorn upon her or his seminal or early work. so perhaps i am not being so original after all.

regardless, i feel something truer and vast beneath the surface. and i would dive down to get at it. i would risk drowning to find it. that i know to be so much of my purpose here.

not this:

and while words are very much a part of my work and what i am presumptuous enough to think of as my gifts, this blogging thing has tended to steer me toward overuse. an effervescent outpouring of words, words, words and that’s all too easy for me, isn’t it? and all this time i’m typing and talking i’m not doing enough of other things. words, as i’ve written before in el grito, are dangerous and at the same time, inefficient. (all these value judgments of course depend on intent and function and goal, that’s a given). but lately i’ve been looking at my easel a lot. and lately i’ve been picking up my guitars more often. it might not mean a thing. then again, it might.

one last thing. in my last post i talked, joked, about having contempt for the entirety of the human race. now of course, this is not a great statement to make wholesale, and while i’m okay with the amount and quality of people who choose to stick around despite the many off-the-cuff statements i make like this, i had a few thoughts about it. and what i thought was that there is no time i am more unhappy with the human race as a whole then when i am improperly interacting with it. that might mean holding a job that offends my nature, or lying too much, or trying to engage people in ways that feel phony or unnatural to me; against my own grain. it might mean a number of things. but i’d like to take back the locus, if nothing else. people are no one thing. people are in turns, wondrous, disappointing, ugly, beautiful, amazing, selfish, shallow, generous, remarkable. there is no blanket statement that holds fast. and again, it comes down to where i’m trying to place myself within that entire exchange. if i’m more careful and honest about it, there will be less moments like that. at least that’s the idea.

what was i saying? oh yeah. too many words. pretending i understand them and that they fix things. or that they say what it is i’ve been feeling. missing getting my hands wet, dirty, bright, staying up drawing impossible suns all night. less of that and more of this. announcing my alliance with fearlessness and bliss.

somewhere in all of this, my back muscles knotted up something fierce. it is actually really painful and cramping my movement. i think i need to immerse myself in a hot, hot shower. knead that out. i wonder, again, how much of that is from the bed. i keep looking at them. its such a chunk of cash, but i am sure it’s worth it. to wake up feeling rested and not aching and cramped for space. this will be the next purchase. this also means that lil ‘nita needs a new bed, as she now has the air mattress which she sleeps in more and more. tho she still wakes up and crawls into bed sometimes. she’ll be happy to get a real bed, her own.

it’s odd, the offense some feel when you affiliate and align yourself with your heritage(s) where you did not before. there were one or two people at the start. they liked me much better when i didn’t bring up many things. it’s still like my father said. so many will appear claiming authority to tell you who you are. well, he didn’t say that. i’ve paraphrased him by now. he said something like “everyone seems to know better than you,” when it came to feeling out your identity, your meaning as attached to what you are made of ethnically, socially, whatever.

ever since crazyface tried to use the word “jew” to stab at me recently, i have been thinking more and more on that side of my family. i’m writing a long post on it. soon, i am thinking i may change the star in my UMX symbol to some fashion of a Star of David. the eagle, the serpent and the rock at the start of tenochtitlán, in front of the Jewish star. i was using the EZLN star, but i think its time for this change. i have to try the design out. it may mean a new blog. or it may just mean a tweaking of the old. more on this later…this quandary i’m in lately over whether i should change my UMX blog as i change…or just let it rest at some point as an archive and sign of an earlier time and move on.

i’ve just been thinking of it a lot, jews and mexicans. how both peoples have been persecuted, displaced, despised and hunted, becoming almost nomadic in quests to live and survive. nowadays illegal is slurred and dripping with ugliness and hate and a blanket license to treat as subhuman just as much as jew was in scary days past. not that people cannot resurrect that ugly past with much more than one word.

i was not taught much affiliation or pride with being descended from jews or mexicans, but (in addition to my personal need to reconnect with my roots) as both peoples are under attack, and have been, i feel very strongly that my remaining silent and unidentified with them is somewhat disloyal. not to die out, and not to hide out. it’s never been about pretending to be something i’m not. to me, living under some adopted name and by speech and appearance attempting to distance myself from these is pretending. and i feel a duty to underline and resuscitate my affiliations with mi antepasados and my ancestors, considering not only have the groups typically been “nomadic and hunted,” but specifically, my ancestors who came into this country only 2 and three generations ago on both sides did so to live, to prosper. for a chance at a better life or even moving away from violence that sought them. not simply to move in some exotic or worldly way.

and i’d have to add that it’s not all about them being persecuted. it’s about the name of jews being used in israel to oppress others, and i feel i should say something on that, too, as i do not approve of that, and would add my voice to that disapproval. as a person, and as someone affiated in some way, even if small. but i’ll save the rest for the post.

there is so much to know as a craftsperson and an artist who uses digital means. oh if it were only so easy just to write and make visual art/video or record music. before any of these finished products can be presented, there is SO much learning about the tools. ugh. mix camera with computer (shooting/editing video) and you have a library of information you have to know. how tape is made, how it captures, what 60i vs 24p vs 24Pa mean, how to digitize them, how to use various software programs, tools IN those programs, how they all interact, how to troubleshoot problems in everything from blogs to mixing boards, i can go on and i know you know what i mean. i taught myself adobe illustrator “on the job,” as when i illustrated my first book (i’ve written a few, only one is published now), it seemed that vector art would be a better bet than pixel-based art, so i had to learn the software. that’s usually how it goes. need gives way to self-teaching in a new area. i love the new learning. and the bigger knowledge base. as i’ve said before the more you learn the more it can overlap and intersect, and thus deepen your understanding in all areas at once, a sort of whole-greater-than-the-sum-of-parts thing, but with understanding and intuition to use that understanding in new ways. sometimes all the pockets of ignorance that can rise up and stymie a project at various points, or the demand for time that is needed to keep moving forward with different learnings in different areas is frustrating. and the technology moves so fast that you really have to work hard to stay on top of all the changes in all the various places. but nothing makes me feel more alive than learning something new. well, perhaps that is hyperbole. but if so, only barely.

i was really annoyed that my obama vid showed so much interlacing. i wont bore you with technical talk, but there was a lot to figure out in the way of avoiding that, and i’m still not sure i get it all. it will take a few times shooting/editing more until i can test out some things and see what the best workflow is. interesecting considerations between cameras, formats, software, settings, final presentation format, etc. ugh.

i’m so hungry. i guess i should push Submit (on the compression window, as well as for this post) and then go eat. and then shower to try and work out these knots. and then come back to this virtual tail-gunner seat and try to finish up icirr. hop back to richard’s illustrations before dawn tomorrow. hit UMX posts in nibbles, hope to have a solid one for monday. i think i may have some Headline posts saved up not posted yet. see if those are still timely, fill the weekend up a bit. i think i have a youtube on reserve too.

lately my dinners have been so big and heavy full of sauces and calories and flavors and butters and steaks and i wonder if i’m trying to put on weight for the summer. it’s all very odd. i was running on the regular and really getting fit. and then i just sort of fell into king henry the eighth mode. a drumstick in one hand, a carafe in the other, and gravy running down my neck. mmmm. gravychest. it’s like i’m singlehandedly battling (and batter-ing) winter away from the dining hall doors. trying to bundle up in a regal layer of fat or something. hunker down in my throne room of ribeye. king fatty will rule with a tenderized fist.

moo-yah!

here is axiom #1: The Crazy can express hate, and in fact has an excess of it. The Crazy can bury you in adulation and pseudo- adoration, a flipped reflection of its own narcissism, but The Crazy cannot maintain emotional consistency and The Crazy cannot feign love.

when i say “emotional consistency,” you might think “well, the very nature of emotion is that it is changing always, that sadness is so unlike joy is so unlike fear is so unlike anger is so unlike calm” but i don’t mean a flat line, i don’t mean a lack of affect. i don’t mean stoic and i don’t mean bland. what i mean by “emotional consistency” is, for example a certain reliability in the temperament, even when pushed to its general extremes. for example, if someone gets rude with me, i may get angry at my worst moments. usually, i will not feed into this a whole lot. but say i’m not feeling good, or already annoyed. at my worst, i may get angry, may retort angrily, may get stupid for a  minute. but if so, and usually even before that, you can generally rely on me quickly backing off, coming to my senses, trying to defuse the situation in some manner because i don’t want to see conflict reach its extreme, which in my experience can be violence. if i find myself feeding things toward that end, even to the point of being reactive or unrestrained in my anger, that is a path to The Crazy. backing away from that path as a reflex is a healthy emotional reliability. in relation to the emotional terrain and behavior which most people demonstrate and deem acceptable, you can rely on my remaining in a consistent relationship to it, tho not in sync with it and despite that i can be very excitable, very forward, moody, and even angry.

so i hope i’ve outlined somewhat clearly the distinction i make between “bland” or “calm” and “emotionally consistent.”

when people talk about those with Borderline Personality disorders, they talk of something called “Splitting.” this is a form of  emotional inconsistency (not to mention always a symptom of underlying problems). aside from my undergraduate study (and brief employment periods) in the fields of abnormal, regular, and child psychology, i once lived with a person who had multiple personality disorders.  even on their meds—Xanax,  perphenazine (antipsychotic medicine related to thorazine), and others—this person did lots of Splitting and as a result, you never knew who their friends were or enemies were at any moment. it all interchanged.

people who practice “splitting” think you are the Tops one moment and the next, they think you are scum and treat you that way. they can actually jump back and forth with alarming pace and extremeness and expect you to still be standing around when they are done exercising The Crazy. Splitting is emotionally inconsistent with what most of us understand and demonstrate as acceptable. that is why there is a name for it in psychiatric books.

• beware of those who burn through many relationships in very quick time. beware of those who carry loads of stories about people they hate who have done them wrong.  if you do not back away very quickly, you will soon be the new story they are telling the next person.

and mostly, watch for the love part. search for compassion. not cloying saccharine poses of empathy or affection, but actual realtime-demonstrated, organic and selfless compassion. look closely. you won’t find it in The Crazy. inside The Crazy, there is none to be found. only a spoiled, twisted, stagnant sort of emotion that seems capable only of looking upon itself with pity, and assigning itself the excess and rotted surplus once meant for someone else, or others. in a like manner, The Crazy will dole out all the vile and bitter feelings they have about themselves, but as if it belongs to you.

connected to why i find compassion in a person so endearing and valuable. the presence and exercise of compassion demonstrates a healthy heart, one able to love. practiced and nourished compassion is a barrier to madness, in fact. compassion is a pathway to others and to freedom beyond the confines of the self. losing compassion or lacking that path outward condemns one to the backtracking and fragmented lunacy of a lifetime-long pacing session in a painted-stuck closet where the air is fetid and all the faces look like your own.

good.

i didnt get too deep into it, though i think i gave a good idea in my last post how that incident affected me. not to sound overlydramatic (tho why not? i am!) but there was a certain point in my life. i think it was 1996 or so. i think of it as a nadir. not to be too smug, because for all i know, one could lay in my future! but…never in the same way. i’ll tell you the story sometime when i feel like diving into that mess again. it was right around then, and i made a major mental shift. i was living in a way where i just didn’t care. things were fucked up in a few ways, and i think i was working like a wrecking ball. swinging back. not really out for much, just reacting. echoing. swinging. and because of that as well as valid concerns about the culture, the whole society game was far from my heart and hands. didnt want to touch it. cared nothing for all the measures of success it would bestow. status, money, brand names, titles, positions, accolades, credit reports, degrees, i was like fuck that.

my bills are late they keep sending me statements
i’m making a statement by not making payments

—Jin, Determination, from I Promise

sometimes its not fair to look back and think we can sum it all up, think we can understand. the view changes as we change…its hard to be so definitive. but aside from whatever else it was, some of this was a reaction. to a lot of things in my youth. and at a certain point since suicide wasn’t working out, i decided i wanted to go in a diferent direction. and i began to focus my fire.

since then, in many ways, i have achieved things with that focus. community college, NYU, honor rolls/president’s lists/grants, quit smoking, got published, finally joined a dojang, got better tools for my art, worked on my own attitude and awareness and behaviors, got this got that, its not important, the entire laundry list. the fact is that i think of myself as an indomitable spirit, and on the rise. and i am.

the bank thing felt like a punch in the face that dropped me to my knees. in public. i didnt see it coming, and it broke my stride, i missed a step, thought i’d miss the next step. staggered, heard a ringing in my ears.

man plans, god laughs.
—my nana, who died this year

i dont let myself “get depressed.” no dispersion on anyone clinically diagnosed (its not hard to to, i was at one point long ago), but i just dont go there. to me the state includes a heavy serving of hopelessness and helplessness. i dont do “helpless” anymore. i dont to “hopeless” anymore. its a very nasty feeling to me. i’m just explaining my overall approach.

of course i’m human. with the range of emotions that includes. and i’ve been feeling good, i’ve been feeling very good the last year or so. putting my writing and art and energy online has resulted in many positive opportunities and jobs and scenarios. and as i said. i dont rest. i work very very hard. i burn hot. i begin in the dark in the morning early and work pretty hard for as long as i can until all the energy is gone. i’m an “i can do it” person, a “just try and stop me” kind of person. none of the scenarios in my life now—MTV vlogger for OR, acting jobs, art jobs, new media consulting situations, published here and there, invited on radio shows—floated to me as a gift. i worked my ass off to tractorbeam that shit over to me.

i couldnt see a way around the bank obstacle. and it reduced me to a helpless role. a dependent role. and that really was upsetting. very much so. for a night. and then this morning i got online and read up. and as you see, it’s not quite as bad as i thought.

and i’m still me. good morning.

let’s go back to jin, for somethin hot to drop in ya coffee.

i’m so determined yeah the fires burning inside of me
i want it so bad i think of it every night when i sleep
and when i wake up in the morning its on my mind as well
and if you dont think i can do it you can all go to hell

of course i want to be a household name
have a mouthful of gold, ice out, chains, and arrange
a lifestyle of fame and entertainment
i’m aiming to have my name engraved in pavement

i want the throne so bad its aching
don’t care if its vacant or not, i’m a take it
i’m on the grind like jamaicans
watch how far a bit of determination will take ‘em

i stay two levels above you
while you in the basement
i’m in the attic like
‘come on if you chasing’

after we battle they’ll wonder where your face went
i put a JIN logo there now that’s product placement!
i’m so close i can taste it
i’m a keep doing what i do while you lay and stay complacent

mind ya own business and stay out of mine
the way everybody watch me you’d think i’m out of time
i’m the truth, i ain’t hot on the proof
i don’t expect you to see what i see from the other side of the booth

let me explain what it’s like when i’m in front of a mic
my blood boils sort of like i’m ready to fight, a’ight?
i’m not the physical type but lyrically
i might make it so you don’t walk the rest of your life

see that’s JIN, i’m determined to win
let me put it in terms easier for you to comprehend

you wanna know how bad i wanna be on top?
just picture a crackhead who wants to be on rocks
or all these little rappers who wanna be like pac
i just wanna do everything they say i cannot

it is not over
it is not over

—Jin, Determindation, from I Promise

i also have a wild and odd story about one of the cats in high school who bullied me endlessly getting so upset when i quit at 15 he called me at home and begged me not to, thinking it was his fault. i was soon rooming with him in his bedroom in his parent’s house, because i left my home shortly after leaving high school. that will definitely have to make its way into one of my stories or films one day. life, it always surprises you. just when you think you can’t be surprised. (and i probably did think that even at 15!)

but anyway, i do love those moments. when against all odds, and unexpectedly, people reach out and give a helping hand. don’t think i haven’t been on the other side of it, to, i have. and in my mind those otherside moments bring me tears. but when you talk about them it doesn’t sound so much like “oh the humanity of people is beautiful” but rather like jerry seinfeld when his inner monologue echoes out “i really AM a good person!” so i’ll skip those times if ya don’t mind, except to say that each one feeds the other. as i’ve said before, and probably heard before, its’ all contagious, and it’s all a weave. it can be hate and anger and killing we give away and take from others in a seamless and self-propagating exchange that blankets the world, or it can be kindness. and utter generosity, and you know, each one is undeserved. nobody really “deserves” anger and hate. and nobody really “deserves” your unsolicited and unearned generosity. i think its more about what kind of world do we want to be living in. but there i go again, acting like the obvious is something that can save us.

regardless, for the first time in a long time, i am not burdened with longing and lack, with thoughts of all the things i dont have but would love so much to have, and by this i mean TOOLS i mean art tools. painting, music tools, video. some gained by fate, some by hard work, and often, some arrived at by the generosity of others, but by whichever means, i now have the things i need to make my art.

i just dont really have much time for some reason!

as selfish as i feel i am, sometimes i meet people who really impress me with their ability to see nothing but their own end of things. who cannot keep in their mind that others might bear consideration, that you may dally with more than their one comment or issue or request. who read you and think they are the only person reading, and so all the time and energy you have is theirs for the taking. or the abusing. who think they have the right to treat you as they like. or who are just plain fucking crazy!

on the UMX blog for instance. i handle loads of spam. every day. the ratio is maybe 8 to 1. the comments you see are about an eighth of what i field. maybe less. its horrific. i delete in big chunks. i must have missed one the other day and accidentally deleted a reader’s christmas wish that started out “we dont agree on everything, but” and then went on to wish me a merry christmas. i didnt even know i deleted it actually. but hold on for that part.

sometimes i get offers of friendship, or help. or offers to partner in business, or feature my work, or my voice, or just whatever. “stop in for a beer if you’re around our neck of the woods” and such. very heartwarming stuff. well, a few days ago someone said just that. stop in for a beer, a cerveza, if you’re ever down this way.

then, a few days later, i get an email swimming at me, among the many.

them: why did you delete my comment? [offers more links and information showing me how marcos and others are not genuine in what they want and say and work for] have a nice life asshole.

me: (after reading this many times and checking my blog in bafflement) 1. you clearly have emotional issues, 2. it was an accident and i didnt mean to delete your comment, i deal with a lot of spam and delete in big chunks, must have deleted yours.

them: you are just like republicans and corporates, i call you on your shit and you say i have emotional problems. what a fake. and to think that i invited you to dinner. i would have even given you a surfing lesson.

me: you didnt call me on my shit! you called me an asshole and i said you have emotional problems. and i appreciated your offer. but i dont trust people who flip out and get nasty so easily, to be honest.

them: sorry for calling you an asshole, but deleting my comment seemed an assholish thing to do. i offered you information first that disagreed with yours, thats why i thought you deleted it. and i dont trust people who delete non-combative and honest comments.

me: thats a weak apology when you consider that i’m not the one who acted like an asshole. and the deletion was an accident! you only guessed it happened! it didnt! why would i delete your comment for saying you dont agree with everything? i leave worse comments than that up to this day!

them: it made me feel weird, like reverse racism that you deleted my comment. you are just as bad as stormfront.

me: um yeah except it was an accident and there is no such thing as “reverse racism.” later, freak.

them: freak? oh how educated of you, [batshit statements proceed]

i block the email address. they send from a different email to tell me i’m abusive for calling them a “freak.” get that? they call me an asshole for something they imagine. and then when i block their email they find a different way to contact me to tell me i’m being abusive! and then they begin saying things that make me feel they are a little racist underneath everything. and i just dont get who these people are.

but then again, i may.

i guess the scary part to me is not the idea that there are crazy people in the world. i know there are. i’ve lived with them. more than once. and i know anyone is capable of just about anything. even if they aren’t diagnosed. (dig in, they often are.) i don’t box myself in with bad guesses when it comes to people. i’ve already had my mind flipped. once you live with a genuinely crazy person, it changes you forever. they can look and sound like anyone at first glance. that is often how you end up entangled with them.

there are important differences underneath the paint job of course. and i’d rather blast bill o’reilly from a boombox all the way down the block then wrestle with a crazy person on an intimate level again. (i know, almost the same thing, but not quite.) you can’t work it out. you can’t grapple it. you can’t prepare for it, you can’t clean up after it, you can’t defend against it. if you find an actual crazy person in your life, just get the hell away, do it quick, and don’t look back. because they will do all they can to hook a nail into your clothes and drag you down into the busy, stinking pit of their own madness. and you’ll go blind there.

i will weed out people who sow distrust and disharmony, and i dont care if they come with a smile or with a sword. when your statements tell me over time that you are interested in pronouncing me a “fake” and appealing to me through various pressures to post information or comments that throw my agenda into an unfavorable or contradictory or doubtful light, and shaming me for not doing so, and/or warning me that i “cant trust everything i read or who is saying things,” well, i think you ultimately tell me quite a lot.

this is something i deal with somewhat regularly. i think i’m finally talking about all these thoughts and awarenesses for the same reason that i plan on doing my year-end review soon (i may resist doing predictions this year). and announcing my intentions for next year, regarding online life and my blogs. and trying to finish up projects. (trying!) because here is a seam. here is the segue. and washing the hands clean. and then digging into a new patch of soil.

so now, this blog.

this blog now has custom art. i’ve spent a little time getting ready for next year. i plan to be posting a bunch on my video life, and i want to have a place i can do it well, and a place that is mainly for my art and thus doesn’t use endless representations of art by others (siquieros, rivera, orozco, etc). while it has a bunch of eyptian themed art, (except for the Coin ‘o Nezua that you see here) i do plan to move it to aztec and maya and toltec, olmec, etc. but that takes time. these are actually illos from the second children’s book i wrote and illustrated, but that doesn’t yet have a publisher.

my books. this is another area i wish i had more time for. as some of you know, there is a pretty big talent agency in nyc that wanted to read my new novel and consider me for representation. that is, they wanted to look at my stuff and possibly rep me. (my old editor turned them on to me). and i had to agree not to show my work to anyone else until they make an offer or not. this was very exciting, as you can imagine. wildly exciting, as you might imagine. (haven’t sent them the novel yet, still editing it. or rather…too busy to edit it now.) so that is stalled. its kind of freaking me out. what a HUGE opportunity. they have the money to market my work. my last publisher did not. there was interest, and they let it wilt. in fact, the last deal we were approached with—people pitching to nickelodeon and such for my character—was killed by ME. i told them things that scared them off. basically that my publisher was letting me down. and not holding up to the deal. so if this talent agency dug my junk, hey. i could get a contract that might end this whiny shit for good. that might enable me to buy that power mac i need. its hard. need more money to make more time. need la novia not to have to work. she doesnt even make much. we both work. i dont have time to do a video vlog a week and edit my book.

there’s such a thin line. i feel i will finally cross it. already, look at how much has happened. just since last year! once i thought artistic success for me was puro fantasy. i dont want to be prince or madonna or some filthy rich megastar. i just want to make money from my natural talents—those activities that i fight off the urge to do most the times i am doing other things. and be secure. take my friends out for lunch when i want. and buy my kids all they need. and help my mother as she ages. to be able to think of doing more and more for others as i am caught up less and less in surviving, myself. i dont want to have to go crazy trying to put a tie on or acting like a normal dude at a normal job. i really dont mean to complain at all, i dont see this as such. because i’ve been on this arc for years. even my life now is outtasight (to borrow a saying from my youth). even doing blog design for cash is a huge step up than the way it used to be. labor for almost minimum wage. thats how it used to be. homelessness. sheer inability to make consistent money. hunger. bad situations.

i know i always jump to the ‘rags to riches’ type story when i begin getting romantic about success and such…forgive me. but it really is that way when you spent a number of years at the start being both poor and talented, i think. seeing success around you, but you dont have it. being told all your life you have talent, but that’s mixed in with the rest of what you are told. and then there are the obstacles in your life, obstacles to even remaining sane. learning how to work things, to bring in food, and keep shelter. to not hate everyone. to see hope. somewhere. to not give up. i almost did a couple times.

that’s one of the reasons why i always hooked into hip hop. that theme about being too tuff to keep back, about rising above antagonism and situational challenge. i loved muhammed ali the moment i heard him. i was about six? i had a doll as a child. “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” i said it over and over. “you can’t beat me. i’m too pretty!” unabashed egoism. its extreme for a functional reason. sometimes its the only thing that can carry you through the fight, that can buoy you up through unbeatable and extreme odds. we need those raised fists out there. we need those battle beats and anthems out here. its a hard world. and many are born into circumstances that do a lot to make you feel you will be buried. buried in hopelessness, or poverty, or violence, or whatever. those things are not obstacles to me now. there is finally much opportunity in front of me. things have changed over time. where did i see that quote the other day? damn. think it was thoreau. “things dont change. people do.” i’ve changed a lot over time. and so has the world.

there is more to come.