Baby, I feel not good enough.
I can say that I know with near certainty that my current inability to perform is due to chronic back pain. I can talk about potential causes & solutions [1] but I can also say there's always been something[2] preventing me from performing. I can say that it's ultimately how I am. If I want to I can say, “Baby, I feel not good enough.”
What I have always worked towards is emotional healing. My visual art and my online posts and the books I dream of writing. My current practice is streaming to organize my thoughts.
I can’t function
one of the reasons i want to move, the reason i want to move is that I can’t function as things are. but i have to function in order to move. no one is available to help at the level that I really need. i came home motivated to move with the idea of doing the minimum things to get out: specifically putting aside the things I want to keep. even this attitude {minimum gathering of things i want} seems to be more than i can accomplish. there’s so much stuff and i am alone. others have their own motivations. no one is available to help me transition to new phase of life. not the practical stuff i have to do. i feel that i have to accept doing a poor job just to focus on escape from current situation. i have to accept that things won’t go to the friends & family that I would like. i have to accept that i will not enter my next phase with most of the things i will want. i feel that i have to accept losing most paintings.
#ScribesAndMakers 8 April: Share a song lyric that resonates with you.
Like a lot of these prompts, a simple question can be a tough question. Lately I'm not listening to music very often. I go through phases it seems. And when I do I often don't even know the lyrics; I'm drawn to the sound of it. Like I love to sing along to the following in French to stretch my mouth: Eartha Kitt singing Je Cherche Un Homme & Françoise Hardy roaring Je N'Attends Plus Personne. Even though I like the words in those I can't really say that the lyrics resonate. If I were going to select a favorite Eartha Kitt song with lyrics I embrace it would be Lazy Afternoon, a short (2:22) song about appreciating nature languorously with a lover. Does that resonate? Yeah I love being able to do nothing in nature. But it's another love song & I don't want to imply that someone else is required to enjoy a lazy afternoon.
Am I overthinking? What some call a hashtag game I call an opportunity for reflection. I re-listened to my Frank Ocean favorites. “Why see the world when you've got the beach?” (Sweet Life) I listen to Frank for the melodies more than lyrics. Or tbh I am always conscious of his role as a closeted-then-out gay hip hop star when I listen to Frank Ocean. What lyrics resonate with my life experience? In music I'm often drawn to mixing meaning and nonsense, in songs by Bowie, Prince, REM, Talking Heads, Negativland, & They Might Be Giants.
Then I remembered a snip from a They Might Be Giants' song I don't even love. Towards the end of XTC vs Adam Ant is a repeating line that has resonated with me for years, “There is no right or wrong.”
I have TONS of web presences. Sometimes I try out new places based on the ownership structure so then I end up with people following me on Patreon, Ko-fi, Instagram (all of which I hate for their corpo-ness) while I post mostly on Fedi, where I have an entirely new community (my favorite place to be). I have blogs & websites. I used to do newsletters. No matter what they're named they all end up being hodgepodge collections of me. The spaces I create especially for humanissome have Rartsy material, and vice versa. Even the space I made for my fiction project has overlap with my video diaries & daily posts. That's how I am. [1]
I struggle with organization of thoughts & projects. I share my journey. My art is me sharing my life. I have friends, fans, and followers. Even patrons. But... how to strengthen connections and community?
Hear me out but I think frequency is a good way to organize content.
When I start a new whatever the site setup kinda wants me to know what my project is and that effects the structure of how I share it. But I'm figuring things out as I go. There may be some who want to know everything that I'm sharing... but if I take it away from ME for a moment... there is nothing that I follow 100%. How or why would I expect others to sign up for Rob-Firehose? And it's not that I expect anyone to do that. But that's all I'm offering. I am putting myself in eleventy spaces (but not using eleventy; my laptop is too outdated) and hoping that some of what I put out reaches some of the people who want to see it sometimes. It's just me living my life so I'm not gonna criticize that, but as a content sharing method it's inefficient. Now I've figured out how to do it a little more orderly that still feels ok, I think.
I learn as I go. I struggled for years (decades?) with file organization on my computers. Eventually I figured out that I can't always make myself fit into a structure. That's not how I am, it's a constant struggle producing turbulence that burns up energy. I learned how to make an organization that fits me, rather than trying to fit me into what seemed like good organization. I do have a few file categories but the vast majority of my saved files are organized into folders by year and month. Within the designated categories the files are by the same date structure. That order is the closest to the truth of my mind. Whatever I read, bookmarked, saved at a certain time is related & interacting. My projects might contain audio, video, and text files, as well as downloads, in a variety of formats. Organization by date makes the most sense to my work style.
Each type would have a URL that you can bookmark, an RSS for those noble few using the best internet interface, and the option to receive an email newsletter (I am working on this idea; not for firehose).
Instead of creating new sites, new things for each of the above I will use some of my existing addresses. Their descriptions will change to “monthly” or whatever, and explain about the RSS & email options.
I'm liking this idea.
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[1] [2] soundtrack for post, I'm a funny dame performed by Eartha Kitt:
[2] even my notes require notes. putting a number in brackets is the format for within the text, above. down here the norm would be to start simply “1. Note text...” but if I do that markdown will format it as a list, indented. there's a way around it but i just like how it looks better in brackets :D
I struggle with character limits. I struggle with feeling connected. This post began on Mastodon.
One of the prompts that keeps me going on Mastodon is a hashtag #ScribesAndMakers. I like the style of questions. Keeping up with a daily prompt is difficult for me. I might miss a day or two, sometimes without even realizing. I guess that's ok, right? I do not live only online. Right? (He asks himself, uncertainly.) Instead of skipping questions I go back and answer them, because as I said I like this prompt. I am finding it helpful in organizing my thoughts. Many people respond thoughtfully, yet I'm uncertain whether I feel belonging in this group. Sharing and relating in art and online is the subject of this post. I know that I'm on a journey but I am unsure if I (a) am alone, (b) have companions, (c) accept companions, (d) am accepted by companions. Phew I “think too much”—definitely it's too much for social media character limits so I fired up the blog.
I suggest that the United States needs to do much more than elect better people under the current constitution. A peaceful revolution is called for.
The right is right. Under the US constitution and historical tradition, the right is in keeping with American values. Liberals are wrong when we have said:
America is exceptional
America is the greatest country on earth
Bigotry, hate; and murder are not who we are as Americans
America values equality
None of the above are true. All of the above are wishful. Trump and his cronies are the heirs to the slave-owning founders, to Polk, to Jackson, to Jim Crow, to Woodrow Wilson, to FDR, to Nixon, to Reagan, and to the Supreme Court for all but a very few years.
The United States has never stood for equality. I'm not so much saying this in anger as with a clear eyed coldness. The nice words in the revered documents are lies. They are marketing materials. It's quite clear that the professions of equality are lies; simply look at the laws.
Current Temporary Contact Email:bitmap.beau-0k☹icloud.com
I live inside my mind. I view my number one task as survival. Before I can do anything else well I must sustain myself. What am I? A consciousness in a body. But I think more accurate to say a conscious body. My senses supply information that I interpret using emotion, aided by memory.
I am sitting in the sun enjoying a recording of a violin concerto by Saint-Saëns as I write this. Why so I like the sound of this music? And the nearby splashing water that I can hear? Why do I dislike the sounds of loud motors, and shouting, and most human broadcasts?
I try to keep the election far from my mind. I'm a white man. If I wanted I could pass as straight. I fantasize myself organizing a meeting in which I, crying no doubt, say to a group of Trump voters: “I think of you as evil people. And I am scared of you. Why am I wrong to feel this way?” The responses that I imagine would be defensive, righteous indignation, and filled with factual errors they all learned from intentionally lying sources. And they would be demonstrating their own emotions in response.
If I think anything like this I just get stuck. It's been this way for decades. It's why “good whites” cannot reach our relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.
I can't get stuck. To go on I focus on the Saint-Saëns, followed by They Might Be Giants, and everything else I'm checking out from the library to keep my spirit afloat. James Baldwin. Poetry. Abolitionist history. A film about fascist Italy. Aretha Franklin.
I'm changing me. Change the world? Maybe tomorrow...
I love what I do so much. A snarketarian might say, “What the fick do you do? You have no daily job that produces income!” And that is true.
Here's what I do:
Now I'm waiting for a telehealth call from my pain doctor. Improving my physical condition is essential for me to do anything else. I'm happy to be working on this goal with help.
I'm talking to friends and new friends and neglected friends and physician assistants and neighbors and random folk — all with joy and respect. I'm not at my best every moment so I'd rate myself as spreading 93% joy. I see results in my effect on others.
I'm cleaning my house. A little every day. With joy. I'm keeping an assortment of plants alive. I'm inviting visitors over.
I'm cooking every meal at home, happily.
I'm walking and stretching every day.
I'm enjoying nature so much.
I'm celebrating human culture with books, videos, and music all free from the library. I'm so happy about that.
I may use equipment at the library to digitize some old family items. I feel good about that.
Is there more? What else is there?
I'm sharing my journey openly. I feel very satisfied with that evolution of my art practice.
What I'm not doing: feeling mad, sad, bitter, jealous, greedy, impatient, or bored.