We Don’t Really Like What You Do

We Don’t Really Like What You Do --
We Don’t Think Anyone Ever Will

Rarely -- very rarely, I hear a song and have to sit down. I have to listen. And then I have to hear it again to see if it was real. After all, I have a vivid imagination and much of my life is just in my head. “The Story of an Artist” by Daniel Johnston is real. Every line digs deeper into the ground of truth until it uncovers exactly what I have been thinking all my life but could never put into words.

I played this song for Diva -- I had to. As each clot of truth dropped, I could see it in her face: she felt exactly as Daniel Johnston and I have felt, and still feel.

Songs can connect us with each other in a very deep way that nothing else can. It can make the lonely and the lost feel understood -- sometimes for the first time in their life.



"Story of an Artist"
by Daniel Johnston

Listen up and I'll tell a story
About an artist growing old
Some would try for fame and glory
Others aren't so bold

Everyone, and friends and family
Saying, "Hey! Get a job!"
"Why do you only do that only?
Why are you so odd?
We don't really like what you do.
We don't think anyone ever will.
It's a problem that you have,
And this problem's made you ill."

Listen up and I'll tell a story
About an artist growing old
Some would try for fame and glory
Others aren't so bold

The artist walks alone
Someone says behind his back,
"He's got his gall to call himself that!
He doesn't even know where he's at!"
The artist walks among the flowers
Appreciating the sun
He does this all his waking hours
But is it really so wrong?

They sit in front of their TV
Saying, "Hey! This is fun!"
And they laugh at the artist
Saying, "He doesn't know how to have fun."
The best things in life are truly free
Singing birds and laughing bees
"You've got me wrong", says he.
"The sun don't shine in your TV"

Listen up and I'll tell a story
About an artist growing old
Some would try for fame and glory
Others aren't so bold

Everyone, and friends and family
Saying, "Hey! Get a job!"
"Why do you only do that only?
Why are you so odd?
We don't really like what you do.
We don't think anyone ever will.
It's a problem that you have,
And this problem's made you ill."

Listen up and I'll tell a story
About an artist growing old.
Some would try for fame and glory
Others just like to watch the world.

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Echoes of Winter

It is my greatest fear -- I wake up one day and the fire has gone out: I can no longer create. My dream has died. Superman has become Clark Kent forever. Creativity is a superpower after all, it allows me to fly. It allows me to go to worlds no one else even knows of. I am so happy when I create. Yet every now and then a monster attacks -- a thing called depression. Last week he tapped me on the shoulder.

You see, my inner world is a pond at the peak of spring. It is full of life, speckled sunlight and the smell of roses. Manet is my interior decorator -- most of the time... other times, without warning, I go to my lake and everything has changed. The water is frozen, the sunlight is gone, replaced with a gray, creepy light. There is no life. I am numb. I can not create in such a place, no one could. I just sit motionless. Lying on my couch, I watch movies and fall asleep. Food doesn’t taste good and everything is boring -- particularly me. I want to do something -- anything, but I can’t. It is winter in my head and I am ugly, lost and hopeless. Nothing will ever work out. I will never be happy again.


Going to work, everything feels odd and out of sync. I grab scraps of paper just in case an idea flutters by and I want to write it down. It does. Before I know it, I am in a flock of thoughts and I jot them down as quickly as I can: bright monarch plans, dragonfly darting ideas. I realize it is spring in my head again. My pond is buzzing with life and I am so excited -- a kid with a butterfly net trying to catch everything I see. I couldn’t be more alive.

My inner world only knows two seasons -- they come and go on a schedule I can not fathom. Luckily, there are far more springs than winters these days.

Warhol and I

Diva entered my paintings in a local art show, the results were surreal.



The program for the Art and Ability Exhibition.


This week started badly at the Strange Light Cafe. The dogs of depression and paranoia were eating at my self-esteem. I had to get up at six this morning, by the time I was done at the cafe -- I was tired, blue and feeling very small. Quickly, I grabbed a bite, made Diva tea and changed. Her photos were in an art exhibit starting tonight, so we raced through the horrible rush hour traffic, snotty drivers (bent on our self destruction) and road construction (designed to confuse). We thought we were late and scurried like confused Muppets toward the awards ceremony. Before rounding the last corner, I saw some amazing original Andy Warhol prints and slowed to gawk.

“Oh no!! Later!” Diva muttered and forced me around the corner.

It was a sizable venue. On the far wall, I spotted a canvas I had painted ages ago. (Diva had insisted I enter it in the show.) We walked about, chatted with the other artists and enjoyed their work. So many paintings -- so much talent, I was blown away. But finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean really, I hadn’t thought about the show all week. I was there for Diva, but I was suddenly curious -- did I win anything? With all this amazing art, I was trying not to think about it.

Sneaking over, I looked at the tag below my painting: Best in Show. The hell?! Turning, I saw a hundred chairs they had set up for the awards ceremony. On every chair was a program -- and on every cover was my painting. That forgotten painting that had hung like a dead pond in my apartment for so many years was now everywhere I looked. Crap. Worse, I had to swim that sea of my own making. You see, I had to sit down -- quickly. The rest was a blur.

I heard Diva talking to one of the judges and words like, “we were all blown away...” and “the amazing expressions...” were used. I don’t remember the award ceremony at all. I was there (I’m told) and I didn’t faint. Diva has pictures of me vertical and grinning like a dork. It looks like I enjoyed myself immensely -- sorry I missed it.



My paintings.


The next thing I remember, we were walking past the Warhols again as we were leaving. Diva stopped this time and remarked; “Do you realize your painting is hanging in the same building as Andy Warhol’s work?”

I didn’t faint -- in fact, I didn’t sleep all night.

Welcome to the Strange Light Cafe

Vincent Van Gogh, Beethoven, Eugene O'Neill, John Keats, Tolstoy, Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Schumann all had mental illness. One in four American's will suffer from it during their lifetime. Yet I was afraid to admit that I had mental illness since there is a stigma attached to it. People, like life, can be hard.

I wish there was a place I could go, sit down and not feel I'm being judged. I'd love to hang out in a Bohemian cafe with Vincent Van Gogh and Sylvia Plath. They'd understand my problems and their conversation would be full of fire -- not weather and football scores. I feel more comfortable with other minds that aren't limited by main stream dreams. In my head there is a place as freewheeling as Dylan in Greenwich Village.

.

My artist's cafe of the mind is now open on the web. A place where artists with huge imaginations and minds unlimited can fly. Painters, writers, musicians, poets and dreamers -- welcome. It is always open mic night at the Strange Light Cafe. And our walls are always ready for another work of art.

If you want to share something (thoughts, dreams, songs, rants, poetry or art) with the world, the stage is ready.

Email it to me: vincentblackwod@yahoo.co.uk

Meet the Diva

Well, good morning everyone! Traffic on the net is expected to be at an all time high today because Vincent and Diva are live on line. I know what you’re thinking (if I am not, please tell me so.) You’re thinking, “Oh God, here is another voice, another text of that insanely happy woman…” who, yes, believe it or not likes it when someone says “Happy Monday!” Why? Because people actually react, no matter what they’re doing, when someone says, “Happy Monday,” whether it be “Oh God, I want to smack that person for saying that.” or “Well okay, or “Oh cool, another sarcastic person behind the Happy Monday!!” In few seconds were all connected. In a very odd and strange way, I like stuff that. Before I go off on this tangent… I know, I know… you’re already prejudging me.

Behind my pink keyboard and monitor, I am a 36 year old about to become 37. I love being 37. I am alive. I have so much more life to live and to contribute. O Captain, my Captain… Seize the Day… shout to the dead poet’s society!! Whoot! Whoot! For the love of humanities! Humanities is the study of looking at things like mental illness that is more than what we think it might mean or have been taught from TV, movies and news and, yes, our families. That is why I believing in this site so much. It is a positive place for anyone to go to whether you have a mental illness or not. If you want to see something in a different light… a strange light, we have that here with the help of my love, Vincent. He came up with the idea to have site where everyone could go and see mental illness in a positive light -- in a non-threatening and a kind, caring atmosphere. Can that exist? A non-threaten and a kind, caring atmosphere for mental illness? Low and behold, it can. My man… do you see me blushing with love!! Anyway, my man and I have created that place.

I am so tired of hearing about mental illness in the news. Why is it always the guy who commits a really bad crime that gets the media talking about mental illness? I have committed no crime. I just have mental illness. The media’s view of mental illness is crazy. Oh, another thing, we do not use the word crazy on our website. It is known fact that in order to change people’s vocabulary we need to start teaching.

Our new word is funky instead of crazy. I mean, when you call someone crazy people get all shook up about it… there are others who will call a person crazy. Well, that is their weakness, the rude m-ther F--kers! So if you’re gonna say crazy on this site, it can only be when you spot a stigma buster… I will go more into that later… We will have stigma buster page… in the future.

I have major depression, and you know my life is not all that bad. In fact, it was much worse when I was learning I had major depression. It was much worse before I knew I was like Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice, “My whole life is a dark room. One big dark room.” But I will talk about that later. Right now I am going to show you photos that I took. I also do collage, oil painting, embellishing I am like the Renaissance man Leonardo Da Vinci, except I am woman. Vincent asked me to choose just three photos. I said, “Are you nuts, only three?” I mean, I love looking at all of my photographs so to narrow it down to just three is like asking Vincent to stop talking for a few minutes while we’re in the car doing errands (otherwise I’d get lost while caught up in the excitement of our wonderful conversations.) I love you, Vincent ….

So as promised here are “three” photographs I say three because I could not just choose three...

Shadows

Bees and flowers

Bird Flying

Shadows

Sunflowers

Fair colors flower

I will write more about what I think of each one when you get these and start posting them. A note from the diva then again it’s never just a note!