A Runaway Train

Maybe I should become a diptych artist.  This is astounding to me.  But it is new and that is what new things do.  They are shiny and they astound you.  I will have to let it ripen before I can say "si" or "no".  But ripen it will. 

I have been drunk for a number of days, it seems, and I know I haven't drunk any water.  That is (almost) verifiable.  Virtually.  But I have drunk and fucked and not eaten or drunk water for days on end, and I have worked in the factory and then in the studio day after day after motherfucking day.  I haven't been to the gym for over a week.  I wanted to be a dissolute artist, I guess.  I am becoming just that. 

So. . . today was a most beautiful day, and I didn't step outside.  I chatted up a friend and then went to work on the images I so desperately need to get out.  I worked all day inside until it was time to meet a model at four.  I drank wine as I worked, both at home and there. 

She arrived. . . a chubby thing with a boy in tow, a seven foot biker looking dude who weighed about 300 pounds.  They worked at the local BDSM club.  I was certain they would chloroform me and eat me, but that never happened.  Afterwards, I went home and drank and then went to an art festival party that I have been going to every year for a while now.  You know. . . I go for the band.  They are called The Cook Trio, and I look forward to the party every year just for them.  I get a drink and a dinner and sit in a chair before the group in a yard that is a sculptured garden, and I eat a meal and listen to them and believe I am a Bohemian in Paris. 

Tonight, I sat next to a woman my age who was as cool as me, as pretty as me, strong but aging thick.  She was not objectionable, and she had good qualities, and she wanted to talk to me.  She would go to get me drinks when mine was finished.  I would hold her seat.  She would look at me while I was watching the band.  Eventually, she took a photo of me, I know, for she forgot to kill the flash.  She looked embarrassed, and she should have been. She was an interesting and good woman and I hope she is screwing younger men who will be fascinated by her.  I was not, however, only interested.  She had a look and a vivid life and I'm certain she has enough tales to be fascinating for a very long time. Her low, steady voice spoke of confidence.  She asked me if I were an artist, of course, for it was a party for the festival artists.  "Not of this ilk," I said.  I let her take that as she would. 

The band played on.  They had forgotten to bring lights, and so the video I tried to take to send to women I know in order to show how cool I was and how my life was to be envied didn't show much. Later, however, the host brought out some lights.  I took the video.  "Now I'm cool," I wrote.  As always, it was beautiful. 

I don't really know people at the party, but many of them seemed to know me.  There was a Salvador Dali looking fellow with an age appropriate wife and a young Asian woman in tow.  He got them both drinks, then put his arm around the young Asian.  It was a story I wanted to know, something out of the '20s, I was sure.  His wife had certainly allowed him a concubine.  Later the Asian woman walked around the party taking pictures of people with a big flash.  It made her very desirable. 

"You've been sitting in that same spot for four years," a man behind me said. 

"Yes.  Have you read "The Great Gatsby"?  I'm like old Owl Eyes in the library.  I have just taken up residence here." 

Later, a woman came up and said the same thing.  I didn't know I was so obvious.  As the band played, I overheard pieces of conversation.  "If they all come through, I will sell $60,000 worth of paintings to the ten of them. . . ."  I wondered what those looked like.  "How'd you do today?"  Etc. 

The Great Artist was always surrounded by a crowd.  He is a very talented Thai whose looks haven't changed for forty years, long black hair past his shoulders, long, thin mustache, thin like him.  He is very talented, really, and has made a good living.  They all wanted to be intimate with him, wanted to be inside the circle.  The mystique of the artist.  He had that. 

I sent the band video to Red.  She had been here two years ago and her voice can be heard in the video I shot then.  She wrote back--"Wish I were there."  I didn't even know she was in the U.S.  I was drunk, though, and full of gypsy music and moonlight and the blue darkness of a warm spring night.  And after awhile, early on, it was time for me to go.  There is always a beautiful sadness in exiting a thing like this, something you look forward to, the walking through the door and the automatic dimming of the party din, the walking into the street toward your car, remembering the half full scotch glass that is there awaiting you, the careful driving down residential streets toward your own neighborhood and home. 

And there is March Madness.  It is all too much for me.  It is sacred time, like trying to relive a memory.  My college roommate and I have had much fun watching the college playoffs, rooting for the underdogs, watching the come-from-behind victories and the unbelievably close endings to games.  It is an emotional memory that you want to consume again.  It is too much.  Everything is too much now.  I've lived a lot, done so many things.  It is impossible to bring them all back to life.  Everything is impossible, especially what is happening now.  My life, a runaway train of a thing.  The tracks are sure to run out somewhere, probably on some sharp curve you just can't see around, not a brick wall, just the end of the rails, not a crash but a rolling horror you get to watch for awhile. 

But not today.  There is to be a brunch with friends and then the festival.  Tonight there will be the usual dinner with mom.  But I am so tired.  I'm exhausted.  I must quit it, quit everything I do and just sit again without thinking or moving, barely breathing in and out, in and out. 

Ommmmmmmm.