the artist
01/11/2005 04:46 p.m.
just something i wrote this morning in creative writing.

so, I’m looking for an excuse to do most anything besides work. I detest doing work in creative writing, it really takes the point from it when you’re forced to write. it should be something internal, something that strikes you in the middle of the night when you have to shoot up out of bed, fumble for the nearest light source and scrawl something, half awake, on whatever’s convenient. that is writing. this is exercise, really. and I hate exercise. Necessary? Perhaps it is, I don’t know. I don’t really want to think about it. I just want to light another cigarette at some point (I never really got addicted to it, but I do smoke from time to time), and just enjoy it. I do enjoy it, I think. but in any case, it doesn’t really matter to the point of the story because I’m still here and replete of energy. and now people are starting to crowd around me, talking to me. It’s sexy the way that life is such a whirlwind of activity, of light and dark, color versus black and white; it’s beautiful. but at the same time, it’s never really quite like the photograph makes you think it is; there’s always something just outside the frame of the picture. there’s always someone behind the camera, too. and that’s really the scary part; so much is left up to other hands observing our life. they decide what gets where in the shot, what’s aesthetically pleasing, what we can really accomplish within the context of what’s been shot. we’re all the stars here, desperate and grasping for our five minutes of time. I think andy Warhol was an optimist; fifteen minutes is a long fucking time to fill. you ever been on stage trying to think of things for 15 minutes? it’s way too fucking long, really. at least we’re not left up to the whim of the painter who’s only objective is to explain to the world that yes, he is far more talented than you and you are nothing to him. artists really bug me. I mean, we’re all artists. but the ones who know they’re artists, those are the ones to look out for. the ones to be afraid of, because they will destroy everything for the sake of destruction. for the sake of ‘it hasn’t been done before’. people who will push the button on the doomsday device because the apocalypse would make for a nice photo shoot. this is my life. I’m one of these people, and I’ve ceased caring about it. But I’m just a writer, really. I don’t think I’d have anything creative to say about the apocalypse or the random destruction of things; and I’m not in control of anyone besides whoever I want to throw into the story. even then, it’s just a stage. everyone is just acting, and I’m directing. but they go home, they run off and have lives after I drop the pen. I can’t destroy them. only they can; and that’s why we’re all artists; because we have the power to (and usually do) destroy ourselves. We self destruct. The artist is the opportunist in all of this madness. and I’ve just destroyed a perfectly good blank page of paper; but what would I be without it?
I am currently Bored