Reverb11: Loathing
Who or what do you loathe, and how have your expressed that in 2011?
A simple prompt that the author suggested be taken lightly, so as to step back from the sometimes serious, introspective nature of Reverb11 in general. This means I could possibly answer this in a million ways, but I will narrow it down and indeed have some fun with this.
I loathe the fandom of three specific sports teams, as much as I loathe the teams themselves. The teams are the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Dallas Cowboys, and the New York Yankees.
Notice I say the fandom, and not the fans themselves, though I loathe a good share of them as well. But I have friends who cheer for some of these teams, so I won’t single out individual people for hate. But the overall concept of fandom for these various packs of assholes? Fair game.
Let’s start with “Steeler Nation“. I’m not sure what exactly illicits the hatred from within me. The lard-ass bum of a quarterback with questionable sexual proclivities? That ever present shampoo shiller Troy Polamalu with his obnoxious horse mane hairdo? Those ubiquitous rags that are too ugly to use even as emergency toilet paper and yet are treated like Holy Relics? The borderline mass delirium among them which causes them to believe that the Steelers are somehow the only team ever called for penalties, when they actually get away with more penalties than any other team in American history? The endless shifting of responsibility when they get their asses kicked (bad calls, Troy was out)? The Deschapelle Coup of claiming to be better than the world when they win with a backup quarterback, but being the first to blame the back up quarterback if they lose? The insistence, regardless of how they perform in the post season that they are the best franchise in the history of football?
Oh yeah, it’s all of those.
I am a Baltimore Ravens fan, and so I find all of it particularly loathsome. Yet if you know football you know you don’t have to root for Baltimore in order to hate the Steelers. Because the Steelers are worthy of hate. A hate they claim to welcome and love, but whine and bitch about. They complain incessantly the minute anybody expresses even the slightest bit of contempt or criticism of their team, their plays, their front office, Mike Tomlin, Heinz Field, or anything remotely connected to any of the above. For a team that loves to be hated, they sure do a lot of bitching when the trash talk comes their way.
I expressed this loathing this year by talking up on Facebook how Baltimore swept them this season. I may in the future express this by buying a terrible towel to use as that cloth everyone needs to tie around a slightly leaky pipe somewhere in the house.
Now let’s talk about the Dallas Cowboys. A team I hated before I even watched football, because growing up in Maryland, you have to hate the Cowboys. It started with the idea that they are Washington’s arch rivals, even though I don’t pay much attention to the Redskins anymore. But the arrogance of the franchise, even when their record is dismal, keeps the hate alive.
There have been billionaires more arrogant, unpleasant, and weasel-like than Jerry Jones…but not many. The man acts like the world owes him another Super Bowl. An arrogance that carries over into the team’s unsubstantiated and vilified nickname “America’s Team”. Few things that are American bare any resemblance to anything so Texan as the Dallas Cowboys.
Making it worse is the fact that the largest population outside of Dallas of jackasses rooting for the Cowboys can be found in Washington, D.C. and surrounding areas. Natives of this geographical location. Meaning of course that 90% of “authentic” Cowboys sports bars nestled into the suburbs of Silver Spring, Maryland and other such places consist purely of people that chose a football team specifically for the purpose of giving the middle finger to everyone around them. They didn’t come from Dallas, have nobody in Dallas, and no plans to move anywhere near Dallas. They root for the Cowboys because more than they love football they love to cause trouble, get into bar fights, and scream at the top of their longs, “I’m independent, rugged, and individualistic! I root for Dem Cowboys even in the shadow of FedEx field and I am proud of it!”
Kind of like the guy with the really loud motorcycle that blasts through small towns rattling windows is proud of his “masculinity”. No compensation being made there. I expressed this loathing this year by giving the New York Giants a standing ovation when they blocked Dallas’ final field goal in week 14, handing them a much deserved loss.
Finally, we have the Bronx Bastards, I mean, the Bronx Bombers. The New York Yankees. I loathe everything about them, and I don’t even watch baseball much.
Yankee fans also have a touch of the Steeler Nation, Love/Hate relationship with being hated. They claim they love the insults but can’t ever keep their mouths shut about them. They strut about claiming they do their talking on the field, but fans wouldn’t shut up about defending their team if the ghost of Babe Ruth himself showed up and told them to put a sock in it.
They thrive on how much other teams hate them, but anything I have written here in this column would get me murdered in New York, and will probably illicit nasty comments here on the blog. That’s because try as they may to be “too talented to care”, nothing gets up a Yankee fan’s ass quicker than simply saying something like, “Piss on the Yankees.” If violence doesn’t ensue, a loud, bloated, rambling, borderline incoherent defense of all things that have ever or will ever come out of New York City will follow. (As though the totality of New York itself is encapsulated best, and exclusively by one of two baseball teams within its borders.)
I actually stopped being friends with a guy who turned the fact that I hate the Yankees into the fact that I wouldn’t have to if I ever knew what it was like to take pride in where I lived. That only those from New York City can know what it is to love a city immersed in culture, history, and some of the greatest parades in all of the post-World War II era. And of course, better than all of that, they have the Yankees.
I’d pay money to be present when such people tell citizens of Boston they have no idea what it is like to love a city, and embrace its history and culture. Let them then tell people in Chicago. In Los Angeles. Or any number of I don’t know, hundreds of cities anywhere on earth.
Yankee fans, you love your city and your ball team. This makes you somehow unique in the world? You haven’t even been World Champions in two years, and you claim superiority over not only all other teams, but all other cities? If your team is that great and you love to be insulted so much, why not convert some of that energy into explaining the choke for which your team has been so famous the last few years? Sounds like some people are a little insecure.
Especially when we go back further than two years ago. Yankee fans are the biggest legacy whores in the history of professional sports. No matter how often you watch Jeter choke the team right out of the post-season, I have to hear some New Yorker spew off about how many times the Yankees have won the world series lifetime. How nobody has won more titles than they have all together. How yeah, they may be watching this year, (and last year’s) World Series on TV, but how many times has any other team won five championships in a row? Zing!
My response? How many times have the Yankees achieved such a feat since Ike left the White House? Answer: zero. More than half of the Yankees who were part of that dynasty are now dead. How long do you get to claim any kind of team superiority on the backs of men who were in their prime before color television was available? If you want to play that card, on behalf of Maryland, I claim the Orioles superior, because when they were a minor league team, they had on their roster none other than Babe Ruth.
But I will cut you some slack, Yankee Nation. Tell me about the last time your team just went back to back as World Series victors. What’s that? You say that last happened when the Y2K bug was a news story?
All that matters to most people is what the team did this year. And if you are anything but a Yankee or Ranger fan, you congratulate the Cardinals this year for winning one of the biggest come back World Series victories in history. If you are a Yankee fan, you stand there the minute the Yankees are eliminated from contention, accuse the world of being intimidated by your team’s non-existent swagger, and count off on your fingers:
“Hey, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson…”
When you finish listing 20 minutes later you will say something to the effect of; “They will be remembered for all time. Who the Cards got ? Nobody will be talking about them in 50 years.”
Yeah, and nobody will be listening to you trying to win today’s argument by talking up the 1950 ALCS. Fuget about it. Your team not only has choked more than once in recent years, but is filled with some of the most unpleasant athletes in all of baseball.
I of course only hate them because they win, right Yankee fans? Even though I don’t hate the 2011 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals anymore than I hate the 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. I don’t hate teams because they win. I hate them because they are staffed with jerks who console themselves after their team’s latest choke job by trying to convince each other that legacy, name, and “swagger” are more important to anybody than winning the whole thing. They’re not, and never will be.
I expressed this loathing earlier this year by, as I said, deleting a colleague right off of my Facebook, after it would seem he had to focus on a jealousy within me that simply wasn’t there. He invented it to have something to attack me with, because defending the New York Yankees of this generation was, it would seem, too difficult a task.
So there you have it. Some things I loathe and how I expressed same in 2011. The author was right; I did have fun with that.
Reverb11: Community?
Online and in real life we’re all part of a multitude of communities. Tell us about one that moves you.
For the first time during this Reverb11, I think I have to flat out cheat. (That is assuming you don’t find some of my previous answers cheating.) I will begin that cheating, (that is to say, sidestepping the prompt) with this provocative, and controversial statement; I am a part of no community that moves me.
To lessen the blow that I am sure many readers will feel that statement delivers, let me mention what this doesn’t mean.
It doesn’t mean I have no friends. It doesn’t indicate there have been no noteworthy people enter my life, either online of offline in 2011. It is not a refusal to take part in communities. Nor is it casting any aspersions upon those who are a member of a community that moves them.
What it does mean is that I have not had a great deal of luck with becoming a solid, important and valued member of a community. Since I am not a hermit, I am by default a member of some communities, but do they move me? Am I made to feel welcomed, protected, supported or loved by any of them in particular? Do I find their mission to be inspiring in its own right? The astonishing and depressing answer is no.
“That’s bullshit. I happen to know a few communities of which you are a member that you could talk about for this prompt. Based on your writings and the fact that I am in some of the same communities, I know this isn’t an accurate statement you make.”
The above is the generic version of the response I anticipate from some people who read this. Yet consider my preemptive answers in each case.
The blogging community. I am in it, and have met some people through it. But I am not a powerhouse within it. My readership, though at times pleasing, is by no means impressive, and is usually without comment and anonymous. I appreciate all patronage, but without comments, or with comments that are anonymous, I can’t really call that a “community”. Plus the blogging community, like Twitter, is so nebulous, it isn’t really defined by one set of rules, norms, or missions. So I am in the blogging community, but not of it, as it were.
The theatre community. It is a large part of my life. Has been for years. I blog about it even. (Did you know that?) I have been in many shows, often with the same people. Certainly in the same area. I volunteer for a theatre wherein I do most of my theatre work. It is not the same theatre where five years ago I did most of my stuff, and that is part of the point; I have never truly been assimilated as a full fledged, appreciated, loved and accepted member of a specific community theatre, or the community of theatre in general. Don’t get me wrong, I have made a lot of friends through theatre. Good friends. Lots of excellent individual people. Many fine individual productions. Yet meeting friends through theatre doesn’t mean the community itself is a moving one, and for me it is not.
Now theatre can be that way. Supportive. Loving. Creative. And there are people in my group who are ingrained into the fabric of any given theatre in the area. Yet I myself am not. I don’t know if it is because I lack networking skills, or that once I step off of the stage I don’t make much of an impression on anybody personally. But I can’t get my own projects off the ground, get boards and directors to collaborate with me very often, and in general don’t feel overall warmth from the theatres of which I have been a part.
That is not to say there are no warm decent people involved with any of them. There are. Again, it is not so much the individual here and there, but the community as a whole that eludes me. In some cases, the pettiness, competitiveness, arrogance, fear of change, and other such negative traits in arts organizations tend to outweigh other aspects too often for me and my personality to make much of a dent in the way of “community”.
I am a good actor, and have been in some great shows and met some great people. Yet in the end, I am on the outside looking in when I am not in a show, and sometimes even then. I move about within the theatre community, but I am not personally moved by it. (Though I would like to be of course.)
The writing community. People bristle at this the most, because they find it impossible that I could have been a blogger, writer, and tweeter for so long, and yet not have found at least some branch of the writing community by which I could be moved, loved and accepted. Yet again, like theatre, I have met some fellow writers, (all online), and even made some writer friends.
Yet the community itself is not “moving” to me. Not that it can’t be, but once again, I am on the outside looking in. I have never been successful at breaking through the cliques so common on internet message boards. There are no local writing groups for in person contact, (yes, I am serious). I don’t go to conventions and conferences because I know I would have a miserable time, and the one or two local magazines with whom I work semi-regularly have not given much of an indication that friendship is on the table. I socialize with none of them, and really only hear from most of them when it is time to pitch, and time to file a piece. (I did recently join the Agent Query Connection message boards. Perhaps I will have better luck there.)
In other words, I write where I can, spend most of my time hoping for more places to write and make money for it, and follow a few writers on Twitter. Yet I am not a full fledged member of the community, despite meeting some great fellow writers and aspiring writers.
Where I live. Two months ago someone in the apartment building I had lived in for three years said something to me for the very first time. It was a nasty comment about how I wasn’t parked well. I ignored him. Then there is the fact that back when I used to believe in small town democracy and email city officials with questions, most would be ignored or answered with “thank you for your comments.” No answer to the question, just thanking me for comments. Rubes. Also very common in all of the cities near here. That is but one example of why I have never felt connected to whatever neighborhood I find myself in.
So it is obvious that there are many communities out there that are moving to many people. Loving, supporting, interesting, fascinating, fun communities covering everything from art to hobbies, to sports teams and so on. Many of my friends are members of them, and I’m happy that they get so much from them. Yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
How can I not have found a stable, supportive community of some kind that moves me? Welcomes me? Honors my contributions long after they are made, not just when they are required? I have no idea. I know that it has usually been the case in my life. I hated pep rallies in school because I could usually give a shit if the team won or not. They certainly never cared if I aced my final or not. I have felt no loyalty to schools I have attended, and still do not. I didn’t bother with clubs very much either. (The Young Democrats in college gave me the wrong time to meet them for an Al Gore rally on purpose so that I couldn’t get a ride with them, though I saw them drive right by me on the street. They said later it was because there was no room. There was also no phone call explaining why the time and location of the meet up had been changed. I left the group after that.)
That kind of stuff is common when it comes to me and groups and communities.
The reasons could be numerous. That I am a quiet person, and nobody wants to hang out or invite the quiet introvert. It could be my intelligence and perspective intimidates a lot of people within communities. (Sorry for the horn tooting, but I take pride in what I am, and the fact is I am an intelligent person, and have been previously ostracized for being such.) I am not overtly handsome, charismatic, wealthy, or unique, and that may keep me out of some communities. Yet you find plenty of communities filled with outcasts and oddities. Those who cannot or refuse to meet the status quo. Those that are in fact Too XYZ. Yet I am a member of none of those either.
Plus, I expect to get something out of a community at some point, if I am to put something in. Even if all I receive is a warm welcome or a curiosity about my presence, that is something. Not silence, or begrudged nods and obligatory “welcome aboards” that become the first and last thing ever said to me by the group.
It may just be timing. That I have just so happened not to have found the right communities yet. However, I cannot help but wonder sometimes, when an actor doesn’t feel moved by his theatre community, a writer doesn’t feel moved by a writing community, and so on. It starts to feel like my own fault after a while. And if I have to abandon my principles, pretend I love people I do not love, or sublimate my opinion into group think in order to be a part of a moving, loving community, I suppose I will forever be without such a community. Yet if there is ever time or a way wherein I can take part in a community like the one described in the prompt while still being true to who I am, I will line up to get in.
There are suggestions. I am not a member of any volunteer service communities, and many swear by them. I have attempted it here and there, to no avail, however. I am amazed at the stories I hear of the loving communities so many people out there find through volunteering. That has never been my experience, and I have given up on the notion of volunteering in general. (Read this oldie but goody to understand how I got to that point. It is honest to God the number one Google return for the phrase “Volunteering sucks.” Try it.)
Also a friend told me recently that I should consider finding a local Goth bar and frequenting it, as that community would appear to embrace personalities and histories of all types, black clothing and white make-up optional. Perhaps, though there is no such bar near where I live. (Another reason I am perhaps not a member of many communities: geographical area, though that doesn’t explain the online problem, or the problem when I was at school.)
So there you have it. For whatever the reasons, despite knowing some great people, I can’t claim to be a member of a community that moves me.
Reverb11: Surprise Teachers
Sometimes we find teachers in the most unexpected places. Who surprised you as a teacher this year, and what did you learn?
As with so many of the Reverb prompts, I find this one invites questions before answers. For example, in order to be a teacher, must one be aware that they are imparting a lesson of some kind? Is intention an intrinsic component to being a teacher? Or is someone a teacher simply because I learned something as a result of their existence and behavior? And would the lesson learned have to be a positive one? Or might we learn what we do not want to do?
Is being reminded of something one forgets the same as being “taught”? Is it still teaching if the lesson is reiterating “curriculum” from other sources?
I can’t say for everyone, but for me, let’s say that there doesn’t have to be intention to teach, and that being reminded is a form of being taught. Those ground rules being established, I am going to go with my sister’s pets as examples of teachers this year. How’s that for surprising?
Actually though, it isn’t that surprising. Animals often make us think or react in ways we otherwise would not. (So can people for that matter, and therefore I think anybody could teach me something, and I am not usually surprised at who becomes a teacher. But I’ll let that go for now.)
Earlier this month I was house sitting and pet sitting for my sister while she was out of town. She has one dog and two cats. Don’t ask me the breeds, because I am never good at remembering such things. Thankfully I am good at remembering that I am quite allergic to cats, and I brought a full supply of Allegra with me.
An animal person I am not. I think they can be fascinating, and great company in the right circumstances. While I am not a Vegan, I do believe that all animals should be treated humanely and with respect. Which I do. Most of the time. That is to say I put a great deal of effort into doing so. Yet depending on the animal, I will sometimes yell the occasional (and I realize, useless) “Shut up,” in their direction.
My sister is an animal person. She showers her pets with far more attention than I tend to shower upon animals. To be frank, I think her pets are pampered to a degree. Now they are her pets, she has a right to pamper them as much as she wants, don’t get me wrong. Yet it makes for an interesting situation when someone else is running the house in her absence.
One cat and the dog would have been content I think to be carried around by me as I made my way around the house all day. So insistent were they about sitting next to or on me when I was trying to eat, or read, or do anything other than acknowledge them that I spent a great deal of my time and energy keeping them somewhat at bay. I don’t usually like animals on me. Even animals I like. So this was one of the bigger adjustments.
They had to adjust as well. They have much freedom over the house, and while I didn’t deny them any freedom over their surroundings I did deny them freedom to touch me most of the time.
Yet they would not be denied my attention when it came time for meals and other routines. These animals are definite creatures of habit. When 5:00PM rolled around, no matter where I was, it would become clear that it was time to begin the feeding ritual. (And it very much was a multi-step ritual, believe me.) Lest I forget that it was time for said ceremony, every step I took during the appointed hour had to be a careful one, as animals were at my heels for every moment. (Except for the female cat, whom usually did not participate in all of the meal time ruckus of the other two pets. She, therefore, was my favorite all week.)
The dog also goes out at certain times, naturally. But he will only go out of certain doors at certain times. Most times, he goes out of the basement door into the back yard, barking at non-existent threats the entire time. But after the glorious meal time mentioned above, he expects to go out the door leading to the deck, from the living room. (The barking remains in place once he is outside.)
I had a print out, authored by my sister, explaining these intricacies. I was there for about three days before I had it down cold. And I did try to follow it to the best of my ability, even though I was dumbfounded that a dog that had to shit would refuse so to do if he was set free via a different door than that to which he was accustomed. (I tried it a few times.)
Now what does all of this have to do with being taught? In the process of keeping the animals literally out of my face, off of my lap, and nowhere near the guest room in which I slept, (they tried to invade that all the time before I closed the door behind me), I realized that it probably wasn’t easy for them either. Their idea of being inconvenienced is not the same as ours, but I feel certain they realized I was not the master, and that things were not proceeding as normal. I was determined therefore that since I couldn’t have them nuzzling me as they do my sister, to at least make the daily march of the immortals that was 5 o’clock in that house as normal for them as possible. Sort of to make up for my personal coldness.
What they taught me, (or as the case may be, reminded me) was that no matter how different certain environments are from what you are used to, once you find yourself in one there is only so much alteration you can expect to make. When in Rome (or Annapolis) do as the Romans (or the pets) do, to put it another way. One must try to be aware of which settings can be altered by their presence, and which cannot.
One should always be aware of personal limits. Just as I was when I was firm in keeping the animals out of my lap. It was not going to happen. Yet if I didn’t want total, barking, mewing, spitting, earth shattering, work interrupting, floor cleaning chaos, I needed to embrace the meal time expectations and the routines of “toilet” time. Not that I couldn’t have just ignored what they wanted and forced my will upon these animals. I could have. Yet I was not there to create a house in my own image. I was there to be the back-up quarterback who knows the playbook, and does his best to follow it. Had I not, I would have heard about it in loud, angry fashion, and I don’t mean from my sister or any other human.
It’s all rather Taoist, I guess. Once you step into a river, you are not going to change its course by any more than the tiny divergence the water makes around your body. Embrace that, learn to use it to your advantage, or stay out of the river.
Reverb11: Gratitude
What Five Things Are You Most Grateful For from 2011?
– I am grateful that I, and everyone in my family appears to have been mostly in good health for another year.
I can’t elaborate on this much, but I remain aware of how many people cannot say this. So despite the cliche of it, this is on my list.
– I am grateful for the first shadows of the ideas I have pertaining to rebooting my life and my writing/business in 2012.
Make no mistake, I know there is still a great deal of planning to go. There are many steps I have no idea how to take going forward. I have pretty strong fears about trying some of this stuff. But I am grateful that at least a loose framework came to mind during 2011. I won’t be starting cold in the very least. Chilly, but not cold.
– I am grateful that I don’t have to sleep in a shelter or in the street or a car while I engage in said rebooting and strategizing.
Despite the embarrassment of having to make use of my mother’s spare room for a while, I have to be grateful it was there. Otherwise it would be the unthinkable. (And because it is unthinkable, I don’t wish to write much more about it.)
– I am grateful for the people who continue to consume the material I create, whether on the stage or on the page.
Those that have been doing so since before 2011, and those who are “new” this year. I confess that I prefer more frequent comments from readers, and more feedback in performances than I get. However, what I do get is appreciated, as are the silent patrons of what I offer. I know some of them are there too, and they do count.
– I am grateful that I was able to finish the drafts of my first novel this year on schedule.
Getting people to read it has gone slower than I thought it would, and I may have to give up on as many people proofing it for now. Yet as far as setting down the deadline for myself, and achieving it, all went according to plan. Editing is an easier form of writing for me in most cases, so I am very happy that is what I have to do with this novel now. That the process of first drafting is behind me.
Reverb11: What Scared Me.
What scared you this year more than anything else? Did you learn anything new about yourself?
The question is a bit unfair to me. I think deep down everyone is most scared either of dying, or loved ones dying, whether they have reason to be scared of same or not. It is especially true of people like me who might be suffering from higher than normal anxiety levels on the whole. (See yesterday’s post for brief thoughts on that.) So even if in a technical sense that would be the answer, I am not going to explore that in this post.
I think perhaps it would have been better had the prompt been “what did you fear this year more than anything else.” Synonymous to most people, to me being scared is different than fear. The former is the result of a specific occurrence. A reptilian brain response to stimuli. Fear, however, is something more ephemeral, less immediate most times. More conceptual and more internal. (Though by no means less potent.) A fine line, perhaps, but I sometimes think my mind is a tapestry weaved out of fine lines.
So, while I can’t say if I am following the spirit of the prompt or not, I am going to mention one of my greatest fears of 2011. A fear that was not unique to 2011, because it has been in place for a while. Ensconced in both my conscious and subconscious for years. It is the fear of irrelevance.
It is not quite the same as the fear of failure. Failure to me is humiliating, enraging, and far too frequent in my life. I am fed up with failing, and to an extent I fear it will continue. But I am somewhat anesthetized to it by now. (That’s a whole other post for another time.)
No, the bigger fear is of my talents and accomplishments rotting, like so much corn in a forgotten and unharvested backfield. Going without attention and recognition for what they are, or what they could be with the proper help and collaboration. I have a great fear of my talents being unseen or unappreciated.
To not matter because nobody thinks I write well enough to be read. To go through life with unread stories, articles, blog posts and tweets because nobody out there thinks I have anything to say, and no style with which to say it. Performing in shows that nobody comes to see because my vision and talents on stage are not deemed artistic, creative, inspiring, bold or good enough. To be seen as someone who is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. These are some of my biggest fears.
I have always said that the two skills I have that have remained immune to self-doubt and outside influence have been my writing and my acting. I feel in a part of me deeper than I usually feel things that I am a legitimate talent in both of these areas. That I am quite frankly good, and at times great at both. When I have the proper motivation, venue, co-stars, and opportunities and such that is.
Yet I have a choking, bone-chilling fear that nobody is seeing that. An apprehension of semi-epic proportions at times that my pedigree, my credentials, my artistic educational provenance, to coin a phrase, has stamped, NOBODY across my forehead. A collection of scarlet letters that have the potential to fence in my talents, vision and creativity, and deem them of little worth. Confine me forever to a place where I am free to shout ideas into the wind, and be unheard, whilst the same wind carries the flashier, better loved, better marketed and sexier lesser talents into influence and stardom.
Have I learned anything about myself as a result of this fear? Nothing new, I don’t think. It reiterates what this fear has always reiterated to me; I am uncertain if I have the luck, strength, tenacity, nastiness, power or support to break through the coldness of a dark cynical and at times celebrity and credential obsessed world. It reminds me that I often see the world as a cruel, unforgiving, and destructive place for people like myself, with my given set of personality and talents.
At times I see a vision of the future, not unlike Scrooge saw, wherein the cracked, overgrown and ignored grave at the back of the obscure churchyard turns out to be my own. Not in regards to my life, but in regards to my potential. My art. My desire to tell the stories I want to tell. My relevance.
Can I, like Scrooge, alter this shadow? Is the shadow even there, or have I created a false image in my mind as a result of this fear of which I speak? I don’t know. I only know that my experiences in life have lent themselves to incubating a real fear within me. The thing that outside of safety and health of myself and loved ones was probably my biggest fear, the thing that scared me most in 2011. As well as in 2010, 2009, 2008…
Ty Unglebower 