As I am navigating through a point in my life where I am noticing everything as it ages, I am finding a lot of time for self-reflection.  Which is a chapter that I guess I skipped in my youth.  I am seeing the aging of people that I know, and witnessing a loss of parental figures and celebrities that have accompanied me along the way- which in turn forces me to consider what I am doing and I guess, how long I have to do it.  We all misspend youth, and I feel like I spent mine on a credit card binge without the income to pay the bill.  Youth is about beauty and stupidity.  There is the rare youth who is both in the grasp of  beauty and experienced wisdom- but I was not one of those few.  Little did I realize the comfy ease of day to day living with the want to do’s over the have to do’s. 

     I aged the hard way, like putting on pants that don't fit- lot's of struggle and denial.  Getting older should be about acquiring wisdom.  Wisdom that helps cope with the fading beauty and the willingness to comprehend what is changing around you.  As I am getting older, the days do not ease by- they are overcrowded with the have to do’s in order to complete the responsibility checklist of adulthood.  I think that may be the great life prank- we misspend our youth on trivial issues and cannot return to the days gone by when we are wise enough to know better.  Now not everyone that ages is wise, and not everyone that is young is stupid.  In 10 years, I may look back to now and declare what an clueless moron I was at this age, as I tend to do in looking back on my youth- I was not overflowing with any fantastic life choices.  I have, however; learned a few things about mistakes.  You should always consider and think through mistakes, if possible fix mistakes, and always learn from mistakes.  But never dwell upon, or ruminate on life's errors.  That'll only give you something to do that leads nowhere.  There is no intelligence in that path. 

     I have a favorite common philosophy about intelligence.  There is book (or academic) intelligence, and street (or common sense) intelligence- too much of one negates the other.  Academic and street smarts are very different things- as are wisdom and intelligence.  Intelligence knows how things work, wisdom makes the mistake and learns how to work things correctly (and better) down the road.  Intelligence knows, wisdom considers.  Wisdom does not forget the mistake, intelligence never knew it in the first place.  I know those that are street smart, but are stuck in the rut of always outsmarting themselves.  And I know many academically intelligent people, but they seem to be manufacturing a bland life.   They have not explored the experiential quandary of making mistakes that pose a serious challenge to one's convictions.  And that creates a particular dilemma.  Let me put the example of two men I know out there.  I have seen the path of an intelligent man (I'll refer to him as a boy scout) living the straight edge life, staying safe with youthful choices, picking a good path.  He has made intelligent choices of schooling, employment, wife, and home.  Sensible...vanilla...safe.  I have seen it all play out to a lovely (if not bland) life.  And I have seen a similar (almost identical) safe path destroyed by an unexpected/unforeseen incident mid-way through those vanilla choices.  Without any experience, that incident grew to epic proportions- and he had no means to manage the dilemma before it became a full-on disaster.  It was enough to derail that train, and once tipped- it could not get back on track.  Even though I am watching the boy scout lead a "perfect" life, I dread his looming train wreck.  And make no mistake about it, I wish for the best for him- but that train is coming down the line.  And my conclusion as I witness these two lives, is that the early mistakes of youth prepare you for the wisdom to manage your life when things don't go right.  The life without mistakes offers no true challenges to WHO the person will become through their convictions.   But then again, I have never led the mistake-free vanilla life, I have no real idea what it means to always be on the right side of the train wreck.  So maybe the prank is not in misspending our youth, but in how that youth is spent in our age.  You cannot be old without first being young,  you cannot be young without eventually getting old- and you cannot become wise without first experiencing stupidity.

Being close to the end of a life does not wash away the sins of that life, 

it just makes those effected by those choices realize that they must fix the ills within alone.

Chapter I.     I believe that being near death, or dying does not fix the evil that men do.  I really believe that we tend to pardon the dead too much on the wrongs that they have committed out of some form of respect- but I find that nothing short of disrespectful towards the survivors.  Both the good and the bad interactions of others stay with us for the rest of our lives as luggage.  The kind of luggage with wheels that just follows you everywhere you go, the kind that has to be unpacked in order to get through security.

     Sometimes I write in some attempt to understand myself better, and sometimes I write because for a very long time my thoughts and my artwork were my only family.  I spent my childhood pretending and dealing with what would be later labeled "Children of Alcoholism Syndrome".  If it wasn't comic books and sports- then it was ignoring that one or more of my parental figures was dead drunk in a living room chair.  No pity necessary, that is appropriately in the past- but it still has a lasting effect on who I have become and how I interact with the world.  While I cannot go too deep into explanations, as a child of an alcoholic family it is common to have a split with real life and pretend life.  I once heard it put that a child of an alcoholic has to show everyone the well kept pretty front living room, but keep them away from the unkempt disasterous and dysfunctional mess that is the rest of the house.  Like I said- I am ok with those being the cards that I was dealt, but I also like to examine what effects this has had (and will have) on me.  As Socrates said: the unexamined life is not worth living.

     The split of reality and illusion creates an interesting concept as I think that I am a fence-sitter.  My whole life points to having this dilemma as a core of my DNA.  I always find myself stuck between 2 places, so much so that I am not even sure how to write on this topic.  Do I make a list?  Do I approach it in humor, or in all seriousness?  Is it too personal, or is there a chance that someone reading it may identify with it or be helped?  Maybe I am a split personality that has yet to come unglued.  Maybe I'll end up at a Midas Muffler shop at 3am trying to order tacos with no pants on.  Oh, that'll probably never happen as I don't really like tacos. So, I guess I’ll just start with the collision of my father and mother.

      An abbreviated outline of my father:

     My father was a child of the great depression, and a veteran of World War II.  While most of my friends parents were in Vietnam and listening to the Rolling Stones, My dad served in Europe and listened to big band music. My dad fought the "krauts", my friends fathers AND mothers fought "the man".  He came from a tight Jewish family that immigrated from England and Russia.  I was brought every weekend to the synagogue, and had a yamaka slapped on my head, but I was allowed to sit in the lounge reading comics instead of being in the service.  I was also called by my father on every Jewish holiday and reminded to call his family- but I was not forced into religion.  Despite a huge age gap (he was 52 when I was born), we got along very well.  I celebrated Christmas, which my father also celebrated…by “celebrated” I mean he gave gifts and cards and came by for dinner.  He was a recovering alcoholic and a liquor salesman (irony?). While I was into football, baseball and basketball as the cool sports- my father taught me golf and bowling (pause for heavy sigh here).  He overcame an overbearing Jewish family, struggled through a war with the Holocaust, and eventually beat alcoholism.  He had 20 years on my mother, and they divorced when I was 5. I spent weekends at his apartment reading comic books and watching universal monsters come to life on 8mm silent movies projected on his wall.  While most of my friends spent time with each other on weekends, I spent time with Spiderman and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.  He was a pack rat…he had dust so thick on his tables it turned into a wax.  His organization skills of what he owned was simply to stack it up on the floor against a wall.  Tables were loaded with papers, coupons, fast food napkins, paperclips in piles, and on his car gear shift he had hundreds of rubber bands. I recall a few times when I was young where we would pull into a Burger King or McDonalds, and he would run in only to come back out with a handful of 100 or so napkins.  Nothing else, just the napkins.  He would have huge stacks from Burger King, Wendy's, McDonalds, Arthur Treachers, Pizza Hut- if there were napkins, he would come.  He must have made some type of most wanted list.  To put it mildly- he was a clutter savant.

     An Abbreviated outline of my mother:

     My mother was a child of the 50's without any real anchor.  She was adopted and at the very least emotionally abused.  She has shown little in the way of ties to family through strained-tenuous interactions that always involved small bottles of alcohol clinking in her purse.  It would be an understatement to say that we never really got along, we coexisted.  She grew up in an all-white area of Florida, and in her own words the only black student she saw as a child was thought to just be “un-washed and dirty”.  Bigotry was the norm from her childhood.  She was also an alcoholic and lifelong smoker. She worked a variety of jobs, from selling Tupperware to home realty to house cleaning.  Her first husband (she has had a total of 4) worked for NASA (he died young), and they were friends with Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon.  My father (also an alcoholic) was her second (they divorced when I was a wee tot), a short lived third marriage was to a severe alcoholic (divorce #2); before she finally settled with alcoholic number four.  As a young kid I was well taught on how to mix drinks and look the other way, that's not a pity statement- it's a fact of life.  I moved 4 times in 6 years, but I always had a roof, toys, and food- that is more that most have once alcohol ruins lives.  While it came into play in my sisters lives as well, it was always the practice to turn a blind eye.  When I say "sisters" I mean the 2 from her first marriage, and the one surprise that was announced deep into my adulthood.  See, my mother had a child out of wedlock very young and gave her up for adoption.  Later (via newspaper ad) my "sister" found my mother who reached to the heavens and claimed "she had so much love to give!".  After about a year, things fell on the rocks (so to speak), and now they no longer see or speak to each other.  There is some irony there...I think.  My mother kept a "clean front room", the surface appearance never set off any alarms.  Why would they?  We were clean, the house was clean, everything had to be allright.  My mother was not obsessive compulsive (OCD), but she was all about having things put away.  At any moment, she would spontaneously repaint a room, or re-organize, or steam clean the carpets. Make of that what you will, but as I got older I used to think: what are you really trying to clean? She had multiple jobs in her life, she seemed to change employers every couple of years (or less), which also coincided with a streak of address changes.  Like I said earlier, 4 addresses in 6 years.  Later in life one of my pet peeves was moving, I hated it.  I figured that if you are unhappy on the inside, no matter where you moved to- it went with you.  Maybe it was the drinking, maybe it was the search for stability and happiness- I don't know.  Eventually she ran her own cleaning business, and in stark contrast to my father often prematurely de-cluttered by throwing away things she might need in the future.  Is that a metaphor?  So to sum this up...

Depression/WWII vet, pack-rat/clutter king, Jew, family tied father 

VS 

50's teen, overly organized, anti-clutter, Christian, non-family tied mother

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Chapter II.     This created quite a dynamic by those assigned to my rearing, how do I interpret this in looking at my own life?

Career

1.  I went to school for both commercial art and fine art -2 complete opposites.  To put this in perspective...one is someone telling me what to do/ and doing it in a clear concrete manner...and one is independent/ and doing it in an abstract manner...it would be like trying to talk in English and Spanish at the same time.

2. I am an artist, but I do not care for the stigma attached to that choice. Nor am I too thrilled with the financial gains (which I often reject), or the career gains (which in the end I threw away after waiting a decade for stability). Artists are stereotyped, and I do not fit (nor do I embrace) that mold.  That leaves me both loving and hating art.

3.  I have worked as a college professor, and in social services (for a number of years at the same time).  So I have full degrees in one field, but work in a field that I have no true degree, only experience.  That dichotomy came to be due to my art studies spurring the social justice within me, but offering little in the way of doing anything to create meaningful change.

Personal 

4.  I have a wicked sweet tooth and I am a diabetic.

5.  I am a white guy that has had a long passion for race.   I was a white suburban kid dropped into a nearly all black grade school for 3 years, my MFA masters thesis was on race relations, large portions of my artwork has a focus on race, I worked with nearly all inner city black youth for 9 years, and I read a lot of black literature (I love Harlem Renaissance poetry- in particular Langston Hughes).

6.  For at least 7-8 years, I spent weekdays at my mothers house, and weekends at my fathers.  They remained good friends throughout the rest of my father’s life, even after my mother re-married.  This meant as a child my weeks were always divided.  Friends spent weekends playing together, I spent mine at a golf course, with 8mm silent films, or the Jewish nursing home.

7.  I was the original "latch-key" kid.  I was raised by tv families like Welcome Back Kotter and the Superfriends.  After school, I would come home to an empty house.  As early as 4th grade I was making my own meals and spending the evening with friends or by myself.  Not from neglect, but because my parents divorced and my mother always had odd hours or a second job.  My sisters were at an independent age in their 20's- and that left me to figure it out.  Luckily Fonzie and the six-million dollar man softened the reality.  The story that my wife hates comes from 5th grade.  It was mid winter, and I was at a friends house until dinner.  I walked home in the dark, but was too scared to go into the house alone.  The house we lived in at that time had the same Amityville horror house attic windows, and of course, unsupervised me that I was - I had recently seen the movie.  So I rang the doorbell a couple of times with the hopes that someone would answer, and when no one did I sat in the unheated enclosed front porch too scared to go in alone until my mom came home, which was about 2 hours later.  I sat for 2 hours in the dark of a cold winter night too scared to go into my own dark empty home.  That again must be some type of metaphor?  Funny, because now I love to be scared by horror movies.

8.  Growing up, my friends heard Crosby Stills & Nash, the ills of American establishment, and stories of Vietnam.  I heard the Andrews Sisters, the glory of America, and World War II stories.  I am very familiar with World War II era history, but I am a 70's child. 

9. To add perspective to that I listen to jazz, big band, 80's/90's Hip Hop, and modern alternative music. 

10. As an adult, I also continue to play videogames and like- no LOVE toys.  My way in the world is play, but most people would tell you that I can be a very focused and serious adult, especially when it comes to work.

11. I am skeptically minded person that also loves the paranormal, but I don't believe.  I want to, but I don't.  No, really.  My pet peeve is psychics and the fake paranormal- I have no tolerance for that level of ignorance.  Despite regularly viewing "In Search Of" with Leonard Nimoy in the 70's, I am waiting for the proof. 

12. I have 12 years on my wife, my father had 20 on my mother.

13. I am from the pre-internet/computer days.  I am always torn between technology and hands-on methods.  Which is funny because I have had a website since 1999, but I have NEVER had a cell phone.

a.  This does not even begin to really breakdown the typical family secrecy aspect of alcoholism, I only mention that because it created a further split in my life of real life and fake life.  It’s worth pointing out that I am not an alcoholic.  I rarely drink, but had my "experimental stages" as a teenager.  My experinces had me realize that no amount of any substance could help me escape what was inside of me.  So it was better to sober up on my own and face down the demons, than to pretend there were no demons at all.  That all boils down to another life split.  Picasso had his blue period, I had my stoned period.  I quit that segment of my life on May 27th 1990.  And I quit just because I had enough.  There was no incident, no legal issue, no terrible experience.  I just had enough brain dead time. It wasn't just dulling the pain, it was killing who I wanted to be.  It is very hard to describe the problems that marijuana can create.  Marijuana pales in comparison to alcohol, but there is a reason that they call it dope. I have always said that it just stopped my maturity cold.  It was like I froze for seven years, I was stuck as that kid sitting in the dark of winter on the front porch.  Finally, I just could not stay there waiting anymore, because I realized that nobody was coming to let me in- I had to do that myself.

b.  Nor does it really take into account religion.  As I mentioned, I was exposed to both the Jewish and Christian faith- but left to my own accord.  This means that I am in neither camp.  In fact, I am in a whole other area.  While I am spiritual, I consider myself a Taoist.  In actuality, I am anti-religion.  While I respect those beliefs that respect my belief- I do not believe in "God".

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Chapter III.     I have used that term “fence-sitting” for a long time, because I was so regularly challenged in college about my choices in art. Being an "illustrator" in a fine art program caused great distress for my professors.  I may just have well been sitting there smoking crack and planning serial killing with the way I was looked upon by those in power.  I use that term "power" purposefully, because my college education was what really fueled my insight.  While it was hard on me, it had to be that way.  The challenge is what broke me through the wall, what brought that kid on the cold porch inside the house.  The challenge of others trying to force me into one hole or the other pushed me into fighting for who I was going to become.  People want you in a category, not outside. That's a normal response, otherwise we become overwhelmed by all the variations we come into social contact with each day.  I honestly think that my first protest to being “pigeon-holed” came in 4th grade. Instead of actually taking the standardized test, I just randomly marked boxes. I remember thinking "Why do I have to sit here for an hour?  This is boring.  I can do this really fast and be done." After they scored the tests, there was some type of meeting and I was put in a remedial class! …Swear to god that's true (see? I don't believe in God, but here I am swearing to one).  Just as good is that when I switched from a nearly all white suburban school in 4^th grade to an inner city school, I went from that remedial class to the advanced class.  Then two years later when I returned to another suburban district, I found myself once again pushed back into the remedial class.  I went from the middle class suburbs to the inner city to an affluent suburb, only to return to where I started.  Even that young I was exposed to (and understood) the effects of money and social status.

     Does this mean I am doomed to never pick a side, or is it just a life-long case of not wanting to be classified?  Or is it about challenging change within my own life via the learned experience of having my father change his own life for the better?  I still enjoy having someone look at me, the way I dress, my skin color, my education- and have certain expectations.  I embrace gorilla tactics in social situations.  People expect me to hum Journey tunes, and instead hear me quote James Baldwin. They expect a soft core vanilla, and instead get Malcolm X.  They expect nice sofa sized paintings of flowers, and instead get a dead dog painting.  I waited 10 years to become a full time professor of art only to throw it away for an ethical argument that I was sure to lose.  I did not feel entitled, but I did expect a certain fairness.  I guess that was naive, but it was the new reality that I was making for myself.  The world as I want it to be, if it's not going to be fair- then I won't play.   That really is naive isn't it?  I think that the majority of the times that this has affected my life, it has not been in too serious a manner.  Only once or twice has it done some damage (heavy sigh, pointing to educational career).  I tend to split myself, but I reap both the benefits and detriments of numerous placements both in social situations and career decisions.  I witnessed my father change his life for the better, even with those choices being extremely difficult, and I see that in myself.  So I guess all that this self-indulgent journal amounts to is a shrug of the shoulders.  Eh...time spent writing for no real reason beyond capturing the thought, but I started this by saying that my thoughts were my like my family.  Whatever the case is, if you should ever see me ordering tacos at a Midas Muffler shop at 3am without any pants on- just go about your business.

"We don't need no education.  We don't need no thought control. 

Hey- Teachers leave those kids alone!  All in all we're just another brick in the wall."

     I had no idea what I was listening to as a teen when I put Pink Floyd’s the Wall on my record player for the first time in 1982, but I knew it was something important.  I had no idea why so many people wanted me to watch this new fangled V-H-S of a movie based on the album.  You can just sense when you are witnessing creative genius unfold in front of you.  It pulls up the shades to let the light in, and that is what this music did to me- it blasted the light into me.  It planted the very first seed of doubt in large political or social movements.  It peeked into the isolation (the wall) of mental illness.  It fed the small lil’ part of me inside that was hiding an individual.  It’s only now that I am older, how much I realize the powerful effect and the importance of that message.  (That's Roger Waters spray painting "No Thought Control" on Israel's separation barrier in Bethlehem.)

     As a teen, I fell into the group in “need of direction”- but there was very little there to offer me anything substantial. The adults in my life were very removed, some cared- and some didn’t.  That’s life, but every kid desperately desires help- whether they admit it or not.  I had friends who were all over the board; some studious-some slacker, some racist-some political, some sexist-some old school, some innocent-some guilty, some tuned out-and some tuned in.  They were all products of the adults in their lives.  That IS what adults are, every adult is a guide and a teacher- whether they admit it or not.  What the Wall did for my generation x was to reinforce the belief that we do not need to fall in line like everyone else.  That individualism keeps a society honest.  It spoke to us in a way that only true art can- to the core of our being.  That is the importance of art.   It made us believe that we can rise up, that in the end- we can win…even if winning only means that we get to stand up before being slapped down.  It exposed those slippery slopes that lead to dubious power, slopes that are created by a weakness and insulated against through bully-like behavior later in life.  It strengthened an old-core-moral standing that we all contain the ability to make the right choice, even after many wrongs.  And it shined a light on the growing disconnection of youth and adults.  God this music is good!

     I credit this story- this music- this creative genius with starting me on my path of self examination, and my interest in community equality.  I am not crediting it with making me Mother Teresa (I am far from it), or making me utilize every hour to help mankind- just in being a piece of the puzzle that gave me direction when I really needed a map.  All along my life's way, at any point- I could have taken a different path.  What kept me on the right path was music like the Wall.  And to all of those moral activists preaching that music is what ruins youth, I give you one more rebellious Johnny Cash middle finger to tell you that music is part of what saved me.  How many have been saved by censorship? 

     So whenever I am overwhelmed by the struggle of financial life as an artist...when I am hounded by those barking about 401K's, and money-money-money, and expensive cars-vacations- success and failure, or the grand technology running every aspect of our lives...when I watch CNN-or FOX news-or read a newspaper, or see the latest self-help craze (scientology, mediums talking to the dead, or kabala anyone?) or hear just about any politician- I just need to put this CD on to feel strong again.  It led to the right path- one of free and independent thought.

 In September of 1993 at the age of 78, my father passed away.  In October of 1993, I took a part time job working in an animal hospital.  I wanted the job because I loved animals, and I needed to do something extra that felt soothing.  One day in October I came in to find a large German Sheppard half in a large cage, and half on a blanket on the floor of the back exam area.  It was alive, but just laying there.  His name was Thunder.  Thunder suffered from a common problem with large dogs.  His stomach had twisted and he could not ingest food, nor process anything in his bowel.  At the time it was a $600 surgery to fix the problem.  All day I sat around and petted him, waiting to see if he was going to have surgery or if he was going to be put down.  ALL DAY I waited.  The whole time I was petting him I was thinking about my father being in intensive care for 3 months.  There was medication being administered to ease the discomfort, and an IV, and everything we could do to make him comfortable.  Just at closing, the owner came in.  He was a gruff man in his 30's that looked like a trucker.  He could not pay for the surgery and opted to put Thunder down.  I held Thunder on my lap while they injected him.  I made the decision to have my father taken off of life support less than a month prior.  I felt his breathing slow, I felt his heart stop, and then Thunder was not there…my father was not there- they were just gone. There was a body, but no dog.  There was a body, but no person.  Whatever my father was-  what was left was not what I knew.  

     At the same time as this event I was teaching Illustration at R.I.T., and I did a painting demonstration for every class I taught.  I thought that this was a great chance to show students that the depth of visual art can hit on many levels.  That the idea was to capture the change of that moment, from life to death.  Something “real” and something missing.  Chaos to nothing.  Sound to silence.  And in my head, maybe to understand the weight of my fathers death.  This painting hangs in my dining room and represents one of the great turning points of my life- the one where I had to suddenly pay attention.

    I find myself thinking about this a lot- that moment when what makes us "us"...goes away.  That moment when we just return to being a random selection of stuck together carbon.  I titled it “Thunders End” for a few reasons.  Obviously it was the end of this dog’s life.  But more importantly there was a painting by Andrew Wyeth called Distant Thunder.  Many people have characterized this painting as a signal to the oncoming turbulence of the mid to late 60's.   It was painted prior to the mass social upheaval and change (The dog is said to have his ear perked at the thunder which represents the coming social change).  I was a big fan of his work, and it just clicked: "Distant Thunder...Thunder's End".  His painting may have symbolized the social upheaval breaking the peace of the nap.   My painting was more about the internal struggle and loss of my father.  I am not comparing my work to Andrew Wyeth, I am bringing Wyeth into my understanding.  I have 2 or 3 paintings that I think are actually important.   Not just as art, but as markers for my life.   This is one of the most important.

1. (August 2007)  What's in a name?

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