grafitti

“People got the idea that ultimately what mattered was the quality of what you were doing and how much importance you gave to it, regardless of how widespread it became or how many records it sold. ” Lee Ranaldo, Sonic Youth

There’s much music I sort of twirled around, and missed, growing up. For instance, Sonic Youth. Fortunately my best pal and mentor and fellow edge-dweller Gavin O. in Oakland, CA has made one good suggestion after another over the years – see me sitting in his fourth-floor studio classroom on Perkins Street, just up from the lake – me crashing there again and again, and contrary to genetic inclinations, actually showing up for class. School’s never out.

Which is background to the Ranaldo quote above, and my re-immersion into the frantic milieu of struggling artist, and – digging this long-sentence thing – what feels like a life force encouraging me out farther on the edge. It’s comfy there. I like it there. The joy’s in the journey, they say, and that’s me thumbing down a lonely road these days. Merging with the suchness. I’m drawing and coloring and painting and editing old stories and completely disengaged from much of the world and throughly all-in with much of the world. While coming to realize that every book I’ve written and published has been the do-it-yourself thing the way punks published records. You won’t make it – we’ll make it. You won’t read it – I’ll read it. You won’t see it – I see it. Look! More grafitti.

Like T. Rex sang – “I’m just a jeepster for your love.”