[July 5, 2016]
Most days I find myself with a drawing board propped on my lap and leaning against the front of my desk. Just beyond my drawing board is the computer screen which will be my sole companion through the long day ahead. With the door shut to the world and windows blinded, I am flying solo. Is today going to be a Lindberg flight, or an Amelia Earhart? I once drove from Fishkill to Kingman, Arizona without ever turning on the radio or popping in a cassette. I was writing a lot back then and I’d work on my story as I drove all day and then write it down in the motel room at night.
I have never had a problem with the solitude of a productive creative life, as long as it’s not 24 hours a day of it, day after day. The difference between writing, and drawing or painting for me is this: when I’m writing I need solitude and silence. Making art is a different story. I need music and it needs to be loud. This means I need headphones so I don’t disturb the neighbors. Depending on the subject matter of what I’m working on, and sometimes the style or medium I’m working in, I choose what I want to listen to and conjure it up on YouTube. So far there is not one album I’ve wanted to listen to that I couldn’t find. Even though I own hundreds of CDs and still have close to a thousand vinyl records in my collection, I endure the commercials that I can’t skip, because I don’t have to get up to change a CD or record. I just reach over and tap a few keys and some new tunes begin. Also I can go to documentaries of my favorite bands, interviews, concert footage, videos, and T.V. appearances. And that is just the music part of it. You can do the same thing with writers, painters, illustrators, filmmakers or whatever you might be interested in.
I used to think YouTube was where people put all the photos and videos I saw them taking with their telephones. I thought that was why it was called YOU tube. Then one day I was talking to a co-worker at the wine shop about how much I loved Salvador Dali when I was young and he said, "Have you ever seen the animated film he made for Walt Disney?"
I nearly laughed at the thought of Disney and Dali, so he conjured it up right before my eyes on the damn screen we use as a cash register and it blew my mind. When I got home I watched it over and over again and since that day I think I’ve discovered at least one thing every day on YouTube, that has enriched my life in some small way, and occasionally in a big way. If you are curious the film is Destino, from 1946. It’s about seven minutes long.
This is not a commercial for YouTube, by the way. It is a commercial for feeding your mind. I know how much time everyone spends telling everyone else what they did all day long, so I know you have the time and the means to devote to enriching your mind in the same way these social media connections with friends and family enrich your heart and soul. Before the computer, most households had a set of encyclopedias from which a person could make themselves familiar with just about any topic relevant to the world we were living in. Today in my humble little studio, I possess access to the archives of the knowledge and achievements of the world, from pre-prehistoric to the present. There is also a lot of crap, a lot of good material presented badly, and the commercials. Sometimes they put a commercial in the middle of a song, which is unforgivable; boycott those. Not everything has commercials so shop around.
Recently I watched a clip from Elvis Costello’s show Spectacle, of Elvis and Lou Reed performing, ‘Set The Twilight Reeling.’ I love Lou Reed and have since John Higgins first pulled that big yellow banana out of a record bag and we put the disc on the turntable at Dave Stafford’s house back in ’66.
So forgive Lou’s vocal shortcomings, and bask in Elvis’s gift for interpreting another writer’s material, something rare in a songwriter of such renown, and allow yourself to be lifted out of your seat by what these two guys do with just their guitars, no drums, no keyboards, no bass. Then again, to some it might just sound like noise.
It is such a bittersweet treat for me, to watch things like this. Especially this year as we watch so many of the musicians we loved growing up disappearing in what almost feels like, here today, gone tomorrow, fashion. Fortunately, we have gems such as this, to preserve forever the flashes of brilliance from our fading stars. Like listening to Johnny Cash’s last recordings, or Warren Zevon’s last album, and the documentary of the making of it, and most recently those videos of David Bowie. These artifacts are like withered orchids that dream a faded beauty that we try our best to hold onto. Sweet Dreams.
Most days I find myself with a drawing board propped on my lap and leaning against the front of my desk. Just beyond my drawing board is the computer screen which will be my sole companion through the long day ahead. With the door shut to the world and windows blinded, I am flying solo. Is today going to be a Lindberg flight, or an Amelia Earhart? I once drove from Fishkill to Kingman, Arizona without ever turning on the radio or popping in a cassette. I was writing a lot back then and I’d work on my story as I drove all day and then write it down in the motel room at night.
I have never had a problem with the solitude of a productive creative life, as long as it’s not 24 hours a day of it, day after day. The difference between writing, and drawing or painting for me is this: when I’m writing I need solitude and silence. Making art is a different story. I need music and it needs to be loud. This means I need headphones so I don’t disturb the neighbors. Depending on the subject matter of what I’m working on, and sometimes the style or medium I’m working in, I choose what I want to listen to and conjure it up on YouTube. So far there is not one album I’ve wanted to listen to that I couldn’t find. Even though I own hundreds of CDs and still have close to a thousand vinyl records in my collection, I endure the commercials that I can’t skip, because I don’t have to get up to change a CD or record. I just reach over and tap a few keys and some new tunes begin. Also I can go to documentaries of my favorite bands, interviews, concert footage, videos, and T.V. appearances. And that is just the music part of it. You can do the same thing with writers, painters, illustrators, filmmakers or whatever you might be interested in.
I used to think YouTube was where people put all the photos and videos I saw them taking with their telephones. I thought that was why it was called YOU tube. Then one day I was talking to a co-worker at the wine shop about how much I loved Salvador Dali when I was young and he said, "Have you ever seen the animated film he made for Walt Disney?"
I nearly laughed at the thought of Disney and Dali, so he conjured it up right before my eyes on the damn screen we use as a cash register and it blew my mind. When I got home I watched it over and over again and since that day I think I’ve discovered at least one thing every day on YouTube, that has enriched my life in some small way, and occasionally in a big way. If you are curious the film is Destino, from 1946. It’s about seven minutes long.
This is not a commercial for YouTube, by the way. It is a commercial for feeding your mind. I know how much time everyone spends telling everyone else what they did all day long, so I know you have the time and the means to devote to enriching your mind in the same way these social media connections with friends and family enrich your heart and soul. Before the computer, most households had a set of encyclopedias from which a person could make themselves familiar with just about any topic relevant to the world we were living in. Today in my humble little studio, I possess access to the archives of the knowledge and achievements of the world, from pre-prehistoric to the present. There is also a lot of crap, a lot of good material presented badly, and the commercials. Sometimes they put a commercial in the middle of a song, which is unforgivable; boycott those. Not everything has commercials so shop around.
Recently I watched a clip from Elvis Costello’s show Spectacle, of Elvis and Lou Reed performing, ‘Set The Twilight Reeling.’ I love Lou Reed and have since John Higgins first pulled that big yellow banana out of a record bag and we put the disc on the turntable at Dave Stafford’s house back in ’66.
So forgive Lou’s vocal shortcomings, and bask in Elvis’s gift for interpreting another writer’s material, something rare in a songwriter of such renown, and allow yourself to be lifted out of your seat by what these two guys do with just their guitars, no drums, no keyboards, no bass. Then again, to some it might just sound like noise.
It is such a bittersweet treat for me, to watch things like this. Especially this year as we watch so many of the musicians we loved growing up disappearing in what almost feels like, here today, gone tomorrow, fashion. Fortunately, we have gems such as this, to preserve forever the flashes of brilliance from our fading stars. Like listening to Johnny Cash’s last recordings, or Warren Zevon’s last album, and the documentary of the making of it, and most recently those videos of David Bowie. These artifacts are like withered orchids that dream a faded beauty that we try our best to hold onto. Sweet Dreams.
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