Why most art is shit

So art's for you? Well done. Congratulations on making the right choice!
Now here are a few tips to help you on the road to fame and fortune.
Firstly, join a school of art or the appropriate faculty within a university or college. If you have any difficulty in persuading the examiners of the quality of your chosen medium, just fall back on that old safety net, fine art. Exponents in this field will know that it covers most things from sculpture to painting and consequently, will offer you a wider choice from which to convince them of your talent.
But of course art isn't just clay work or paints. Dance, drama, writing, music, poetry and even photography can all be art, too. So even if you can't draw fingers or hands properly, don't despair- have a go at being a naturally gifted choreographer!
Without question, you must remember to look like an artist. You'll be surprised how easy it can be to fool family and friends alike that you possess genius. After all, just look at the top fashion designers! Always relate your genius to childhood hardships and difficulties. Tell everyone of your unhappy memories, when you would be locked in your room and, as a result, learnt to perfect your talent for anatomical sketches of the lower parts. Wear ridiculous clothes. Advertise yourself! You will discover your 'Medusa with crewcut' will travel to the eye more fluently if you explain its meaning clothed in unconventional attire.
Remember we are talking about creation, and if you have enough conviction, anything can appear as art. Sculpture is the easiest access to the exclusive membership of art Avante-Garde, and one must always remember to speak of 'Concepts' when explaining ones work. This term is acceptable to the intellectual audience while at the same time nullifies the persistent critic. Most artists cohabit a wide field with critics who have been to the same colleges, academies and universities as themselves, people who talk the same language. There is an abundance of room in this pasture, mostly taken up by those versatile connoisseurs, the sculptors.
Often misunderstood, these extraordinary craftsmen and women, continually berated by philistines, suffer more than other artists because their work is less intelligible. They are often the cause of controversy due to the infinite choice of materials they use and the manner in which they construct them. Work that comes not by repetition and a birth of style, but by idea. But why should they devote themselves to the long monotonous road to renown when there are countless short cuts instead?
Who can forget the mephitic exhibition where rotting meat is displayed in glass cabinets? When first seen, one is immediately struck by the smell, and that is something not expected. To hear talk of an exhibition of rotting meat would usually cause you to wonder of the sight, the colour of flesh, the disassociation of carrion placed within white clean walls and spacious floors. The contrast would be stunning. But it was odour, the stench of the work that jolted the senses. 'Nasally mesmerising-' sniffed one notable critic; 'The rancid smell of success-' said another; 'It stinks-' commented the editor of Art Break, beautifully encompassing the essence of the display while at the same time exemplifying the reaction of the casual visitor.
Another piece of work which has continued to inspire is the massive construction of motor tyres designed in the shape of a submarine. What is so striking about this work is the juxtaposition of two totally alien abstractions, and the way the creation of it appears new and at the same time identifiable. We can recognise tyres and can easily visualise their purpose, and we imagine a submarine and know of its use. But a tyre submarine? It tangles in an instant our conception of what is acceptable, rewires the complex network that is our interpretation of the norm, and stimulates what it comes from- ideas! Within the sculptor's mind is a union of creativity. One, the image fabricated mentally and two, the image actually, what he hopes will be the finished article.
Now imagine yourself in the mind of this creative constructor. The idea may arrive while you are laying awake at night before sleep. You visualise a pebble in a jar on a beach and are stunned by the concept. The jar is consumerism, the pebble nature shaped by the elements, and the beach nature shaping nature. Here is art, delicately designed with the mind to personify the uneasy, possibly conflicting relationship, between the natural environment and the utensils that are made to capture it, snare it, if you will. Two months later you hold an exhibition in London and call it 'Discordant Cosmos', or something similar that hints at the meaning in your efforts (You have to make them work for their information). The work shows the way the natural world is enclosed within the objects she herself is made of. The reviews are good and you occupy a double-page spread in The Observer Supplement. 'Pebble in a Jar' is the Genesis of the exhibition, but 'Raindrop in Can', 'Leaf in Box' and 'Grape in Plastic Bag' also receive favourable comments. 'An exhilarating concept' says The Guardian; 'Breaking the back of the concept of conformity', gushes The Times; 'It will Challenge people's concepts of Modernism, Individualism, Masochism and Hinduism' predicts The Independent.
At last your life has been opened and you suddenly realise that you have always wanted to be an artist. It was only something dormant waiting to come to the surface, like breaking open food from a freezer that still tastes wonderful when thawed. You have a million ideas coming now, better than old tyres, better than rotting meat. What you have now is potential. And all those short cuts are multiplying. There are so many that you have to programme your memory like a computer, filing each prospect in order of priority.
Of course you are still humble enough to know you have your betters, masters of their craft who have set standards to follow. We are talking of the legendary Penelope Studentus, whose conceptions are so original, technical and ahead of her time, that others rarely attempt to even match her achievements. Astoundingly, this woman has constructed man-shaped man-sized figures with clay, wires and plaster, and dared to attach to them artificial genitals! Big, long protrusions that aren't real, but actually resemble the private parts of a man! She takes this novel concept even further and develops it with female subjects. It makes even the most imaginative designer wonder at how such unique visions are born. She is also an inspiration to others whenever they experience the inevitable temporary loss of their creative impulsion.
She herself talked of the barren years when she struggled to find the accord vital to the foundation of the work. "It took me six years to find the exact point where the genitals would manifest the idea I desperately needed to reveal." she confessed.
When genius blooms, small clues are usually always evident in the early years, signs that prove indicative of the promise to come. In Penelope's case, it was in her outrageous college years. Here was a girl who would dare to don sweaters and T-shirts with real swear words on the front! Not just the first and last letters with the customary two dashes in between that only hinted at the expletive, but the whole word, in capitals! This recklessness is difficult to imagine even today, but to display such nonconformity five or ten years ago seems beyond belief. It was obvious that this talent for controversy would instigate an unrestrained response from the art scene in London.
These phenomenal sculptures would mark a point in contemporary art that most would fail to excel, and it was actually questioned by other artists whether similar pioneering work would, in the future, be best kept secret for fear it might advance the excellence of form so far forward that art itself would completely re-circle and impel a totally new concept from the ashes that would result from the genius-fire of this prodigy.
Phidias of The Parthenon, eat your heart out. This sculptor isn't crap, you philistine! She's only misunderstood! It's the ones you understand that you have to be wary of! Where the hell would we be if everybody started understanding everybody else? Conceptual art has to be a language that no one can read. Don't you start getting ideas about what you think a piece of art should be- just listen to the artist's definition and believe what you're told. There's no such thing as bad art. That's a contradiction in terms. If you start placing borders or rules to art then it's the beginning of the end. Art is its own limit. To be artistic is to be different, special. Out of the rut so damaging to creativity. To be an artist is to resent authority, to cut against the grain. Don't be afraid to risk the accusation of Charlatan.
Remember that art can be anything to anyone, and Surrealist and abstract art are big pigeonholes. To be a sculptor of surreal or conceptual or abstract art is to demolish every enclosure of artistic specification. Gone are the days when time and effort were necessary for the ideal result, when you needed to go through monotonous trials and experiments in order to weed out all the bad stuff that covered the best. Who wants to know of the ten canvasses sacrificed for the one, or the twelve pages of written work condensed into two? Forget that rubbish about art begging the dedication of the misled; that its apex is beauty. That wonder, exhilaration and even discomfort can be reason enough for admiration; that abhorrence and indifference are its enemy. Forget about art colouring in questions that you are not even aware are being asked on your behalf, about each truthful contribution filling in unchallenged spaces their addition proved existed. Forget also that artists are relieved of their hardships only when they are working on the very cause of them. And with enough belief, it doesn't matter whether you chose your art or your art chose you.
This one goes out to all the fakers, pretenders, falsies and shammers who infest my stage. You know who you are. The truth will out and you, with your deceptions, along with it.

Memories, and why they'll rot you

This appreciation of life is a three stage process and this is how it gets to you.
You reminisce.
You think of time and its way.
You think of your own life. It's inevitable.
In the dark late at night, with the body prostrate under warm covers, you close your eyes and wait for time to gently roll you over the slope that is unconsciousness. When you fall asleep, you know nothing of the transfer until morning when you wake again. When you don't, you will find yourself becoming restless and more open to the influence of thought. With nothing to see, or feel, or do, you exist in a comatosed state with only the mind alive. After all, what can the mind do at such a time but play with itself?
So now that you have this infinite space in your head, what do you do with it? You remember. Yes, you could surmise the future, but conjecture always gets carried away with itself. It's fairy tale stuff that has a million routes to take. Fate will certainly lead you only one way, and if you've been desperate enough to consider too many scenarios, then your disappointment will be worse when you discover reality soon enough.
Everyone in the world is ageing at the same rate, no matter what their time of life, beyond a new century, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. You might as well be blindfold. It is a helplessness that is never expected to require courage. With so many other people involved, with all their potential for affecting your own life, the future is a dice with a thousand sides. Preparation and planning are not guarantees against mishap, only safety nets for the falls to come. So treat the future like the wind on the sail of your boat that floats on a sea to undiscovered experiences. Alternatively, the past is a refuge that can enhance the present and the future. Looking back through the years is remembering something that has already occurred, a type of dangerous animal that you once knew alive but you can stare at it and touch it because it's dead. You can resurrect a specific event without concern because you are now living in a time that defines it as history. The recent ones may be still too fresh to rest with comfortably, but the older ones are precious because they carry with them the dust of wishful thinking. The gaps in the facts are merely opportunities and you can complete the whole picture with colourful inclusions. It is only preferring to see your personal history as a containable story, a mental diary with some pages having too many dirty fingerprints while others are still clean. Fond memories will depress those whose lives at the present are not going smoothly due to the inaccessibility of the past, and discomforting ones will relieve those whose lives are smoother, for the same reasons. The grass is either greener behind you or with you, depending on your present fortune.
Then again, what is the present? As time is always moving, when does 'now' occur? It is a logical fact that no one can ever tell anyone else the correct time. If a man waiting for a bus asks another man the time, he will always get the answer four seconds later: Two seconds for the calculation, two seconds to be told. And if anyone thinks they can get round this by giving the time four seconds in advance, then all they have done is give the incorrect time, for they were not asked for the time four seconds into the future. And even if they were given an answer, it would still be incorrect. Even as the first sound of the first consonant leaves your lips, it is as much as history as the Pyramids by the time you have completed the sentence. One is recent history, the other is ancient history, that's all, the same as an ocean and a puddle are both water.
We are never really on the surface of the present. We are a few inches off it like a hovercraft, and the sensation of motion comes not from our movement, but by time that travels past us. So now we know the future is hypothetical, that it is nothing but hope. We know that the present, because time is a progressive state, can't really exist, that it is only a moment ahead of the past and a moment before the future. With all the uncertainty of the future and the frustration of the momentary 'present', it's hardly surprising that reminiscence is so attractive. For those old enough, memories resemble an entire life already spent. It is looking at an existence that has survived, that is proof of the promise of longevity. The past is certain, unlike tomorrow, and happy times have solidified inside you like stonework to protect you from doubt for the future.
And this is where a devotion to reminiscence can enhance the future. We accept that the future can't be altered. But to remember the past is to look at life that has already been lived. The years of hours and days and weeks that have passed will come again in the years ahead. All destiny has to do is leave you free to live, which it does to most of us. So if the future can't be changed, the next best thing is to influence it. Not by material things, but by an attitude of mind that takes into consideration the three aspects of time; past, present, future. The momentary present, a term that by its definition gives past and future their meaning, is the only point from which to start.
Setting a date for the beginning of the first day of the rest of your life would seem so arrogant. After all, isn't every day the momentary present? So if you wake up one morning and decide to play with time and memory, be prepared to look three ways at once. Treat each day not as one before another to come, but one that will never come again. As your momentary present is your history in the future, you will want it to be remembered with contentment. Just by living life more fully, you will have an affect on past and future.
When you see a photograph of yourself as a child, you might perhaps try and stare into the face and look for a sign of acknowledgement that as the photograph was taken, the younger life was already prepared for the comparisons that would be made when the face in the years ahead would have more wrinkles and the eyes less sparkle. And is it really you? Well, it isn't, but it was. And now you are you, instead. And if you took a photograph of yourself today, you would not be you in twenty years time, but someone else. The same person, but not the same man. Life is quite prepared to drift on without your enlightenment to it, and looking at family photo albums is possibly the only way to jolt you to its travel. They are the occasional ramps on an otherwise deceptively smooth surface and date the progress in your life far more effectively than New Years or Birthdays.
Reminiscing with time enough to learn lessons can be exhilarating and beneficial. But some of us might pray that our last days will make us immune to the sadness of recollection and dead life.

The whore's prayer

To out farthest where there is art in Heaven.
To the Whodunnit ignition of the Big Bang to giant Gas Cloud Solar Nebula whirling to worlds, spiralling to cool, liquefy and become molten mass.
To the surface of foetus Earth, solidifying and becoming crust, enabling centuries of rain to fall.
To chemical soupy-sea from which life would grow.
To the Super Continents of Pangaea, Gondwana and Laurussia.
To slimy amphibian preceding Dinosaur, who preceded Ape-man Ramapithecus, Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens. To Fertile Crescent, Sumer, Babylon, Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Venice and New York.
To four thousand six hundred million years of human evolution, from Star Dust to Star gazers.
To the question of life and the presumption that it needs translating, like a language or code that will only make itself known when every race of humankind is the intellectual equal of every other.
To the knowledge that life could be parts of a whole, each environment a piece of a jigsaw that may show the definitive image.
To the Philosophy of Dice, that we are here because a prehistoric stage was conveniently cleared for us, allowing our mammalian ancestors to gain room for evolutionary development.
To the discovery that there is no Theological design to our beginnings, only a self-delusory attempt to justify our presence; fortunate creatures who sidestepped the trip wires of possible extinction.
To further questions, and the answer that the reason for life is the examination of itself, that Deoxyribonucleic Acid can write the biological manual for human reproduction, so arriving at a point where we can play at Gods instead of worship them.
To the realisation that we will appear primitive and biologically indistinguishable once the patterns are compared to other animals and we discover how related we really are.
To have morality, our in-built conscience interfere so that we can feel comfortable with ourselves.
To see life as a tea-maker, an appliance carefully designed for a specific task, the wires and electrical components out of mind to the user who is only concerned with the end result; to the fact that the user knows a fault with one of the components could prevent him from getting his tea; to his indifference to this fact, for it's been working fine for years so he's accustomed to only success and satisfaction.
To see life from the same perspective, carefully designed for a specific task, the environments and life systems out of mind to the living who are only concerned with the end result; to the fact that we know a fault with one of these life systems could prevent us from continuing; to our indifference to this fact, for it's been working for years so we are accustomed to only success and satisfaction.
To believe nature has done what it was supposed to do, sustain mankind, the culmination of millions of years of evolution.
To the laws of nature where only the strongest survive.
To being animals first and civilization second, playing by the rules all beasts play by.
To the reason that we are here not only to rise above all other species but because we rose above them.
To suspect that asking the meaning of life was evidence of our consciousness and its first question.
To the possibility that the question condemned us forever, leading to self-obsession and an ignorance of the impression we make on all things surrounding us.
To the spirit of Mankind, or the romance in science, our excuse for dangerous curiosity.
To the fact that we are tired of ourselves.
To so much life on Earth we're sick of it, a glut that bores because it is only a touch away.
To the fascination of Dinosaurs and alien life forms because they are unattainable.
To the fanatical obsession of exploring Moons and planets and the unquenchable human desire to locate and return from another world a life form no more complicated than a Bacterium.
To the kind of life we can't have, an obsession with the unreachable, an apathy with the over familiar.
To the extermination of life everyday, intentional and unintentional, including ourselves.
To a mirror fixation without the sense to see our compatibility with other creatures whose form and contrast prevents us from imagining any kind of resemblance.
To the evolution of life forms that have the ability to unearth the roots of all organic existence.
To our arrival on Earth's calendar at midnight on the last day of the year.
To the staying power of other species that make us forest floor shoots beneath a continent of Redwoods.
To less than a hundred years within the millions that have shaped us, where we have advanced from rifle-maker to missile manufacturer, from Kitty Hawk to Apollo leaving Earth for the first time.
To a rate of progress that ought not to astound but concern us.
To the danger to ourselves and everything else in our acceleration because of a development that is not natural or measured.
To a Cosmos where everything has taken so long to appear and each individual is stuck with a life span frustratingly brief.
To fast answers to all questions, whether scientific or philosophical.
To the truth that there is no meaning of life, only life itself.
To the truth that there is no secret of life, only open knowledge.
To the truth that there is no mystery in life, only a process of stages from birth to death during which each has the chance to reproduce and maintain the species.
To the misapprehension that we are entitled to an explanation as a privilege because of a unique consciousness.
To the valuable time wasted in trying to find a key that has no lock.
To the waste of something we only get once.
To know that the knowledge of our inevitable end will enrich the life we hold presently.
To only two irrefutable certainties; one, that as long as we are unable find a solution to the question of what came before the cosmic egg or even what caused it, we will remain lost in a maze we can neither see or comprehend; two, as sure as we are here now, so will we go. Not to colonise satellites of distant suns, but to nothing, to extinction.
To the acceptance that Religion, science, philosophy and desperation will not prevent it.
To the madmen who used to walk the streets with their End is Nigh placards and their replacement by logical thinkers who know that anything finite that gives can only give so much.
To a crucial time not long ago when we missed the chance to become symbiotic with our planet instead of malignant.
To the Paradise we thought was always only mythical but was real enough.
To the opportunity wasted, not once, but many times.
To refuge in ignorance.
To the fathers who once had the Kingdom, the power and the greatest story to last forever and ever, our men.

Woman, the root of all evil

Guys are superior to broads. They are physically stronger. They needed to be. That's nature's way. Broads are superior to guys an' that's nature's way too. Am I right?
When broads demand equal rights an' fair shares with guys, they have a cause. When crazy, over-zealous butchoes demand more say-so in this commercial and political society and accuse guys of deliberately screwin' up their progress, then they fight an impossible brawl against an imaginary foe who's not even aware of the conflict.
Let's get this level.
Broads succeeded in their right to vote and should have been given it eons ago. The same goes for equal pay in the same job. But gripes such as these were always too justified to be ignored for long. And instead of broads understanding 'em as inevitable changes in social attitudes, they prefer to judge 'em as preliminary stages to higher aspirations. Which is fine and dandy where the parity is so obvious it's kickin' out to be heard. But to situate a broad in a position simply to balance the genre game only emphasises the desperation of the butchoes. A lot of it's a history thing. Guys who believed a broads place was in the home risked being labelled out of date with the times, an attitude almost prehistoric. But this seems an appropriate place in the big picture at which to begin, 'coz it's about this time where the roots of world society first began. There ain't no apology for anthropology.
So get this; if the family means anything, it means responsibility and the need to secure the continuation of the offspring. Parental guidance an' stuff. Rules need to be set, roles established, cooperation. Families, whether we like it or not, are the bricks of the house that is a nation's society. The moral guidelines in the civilized family, the rules established, reflect the nature of their community. Tribes, clans and families were the birth of societies, and you just don't separate one from the other. The structure of the family thousands, or even hundreds of years ago imposed specific duties for the husband and wife. Differences of responsibility were apparent before children, but they were a hell of a lot more defined when husband and wife became father and mother. This stuff ain't no pic 'n mix- you were either one or the other. An' this shows the craziness of the guy 'n gal sex-war thing, 'coz how the hell can you judge someone guilty or oppressed in a conflict when they don't even have the choice away from fate to decide their sexual identity?
Anywayze. As the family and society are inseperable, so is nature and the family. A pattern which has evolved successfully since pre-history can hardly be expected to snuggle up nice 'n easy with those who consider their stand contemporary within a contemporary age. Guys, in leading the family, are only part of it, however big a noise, an' the world is just a larger family. The society which developed from the amalgamation of many families is now only a much larger society constantly fed by a liberal point of view which happens to be the fashion of the day. We are told by the politicians that we live in a democracy, and this social condition greatly influences the kind of consumerism that has resulted from it. The female is dead, long live the woman. She has broken free from man's concept of her. She don't wanna' escape from the world according to him but wants to have a share in the spoils. The big media mouths, eager to shove each other aside to show the world that they were the pioneers of this great modern revolution, found it profitable to popularise this image, and so a transformation occurred.
Remember the old movies? Time was, you'd only see a broad as a supplement to the main theme of the story. The guys would often be the story and the broads only went along for the ride as long as the ingredient of romance 'n stuff accompanied her. It guaranteed her value, ensured her presence. As guys have continued to progress to better ways of living, the broad, through the advancement in domestic technology, has learnt to use her free time to fulfil her own ambitions. It ain't enough now for the sexes to be equal. It has to be seen that the so-called weaker sex is not only able to reach the levels of achievement of those considered physically and mentally superior, but even to surpass them. The strength in the new broad shows itself no longer through her ability to raise and care for a family, but through the awareness of herself, the freedom to explore the potential of sexual and career demands.
It would be takin' the easy way out to believe all this is the child of a certain cultural revolution, some kinda new-born perspective demanded from an antique way of livin', but to do that would be a mistake. Sure, technology might have created the child, but what nurtured it was the fantasy of the media's entrepreneurs. However, in their over-eagerness to appear the great champion of sexual equality they sometimes look the real jerks they are.
In a newspaper recently perused ran the headline, 'Woman Leads The Way!' , highlighting a broad's promotion to the big table of Chief Executive in a company boardroom usually associated with the male of the species. The very fact that this paper mentioned so spectacularly something which would have been more beneficial to broads had it been reported more composedly, proves that it is a male dominated society! They blew the chance to mention, almost as a normal statistic, an event that really oughta' be commonplace if equality between guys an' broads really is as established as they would like us to believe. It comes from the same place as the condescending commercials with the fragile young housewife doing the wallpapering to insinuate that even a woman can do it.
And as for recruitment, gimme me a break. No matter how many struggle for the rights of women, there will always be those who'll flash their titties for the magazines, fall in love an' do anything for it or get married and have kids an' all the responsibilities they bring. An' if that's imprisonment then they've been lockin' themselves up for years. Or maybe fallin' into true love is Sappho's worst scenario. And when the Titanic went down, countless women were further imprisoned by having their lives saved thanks to all that macho/courtesy discrimination crap.
Truth is, you can't tell women to be free. There ain't no conversions and you don't get 'em while they're young. If broads really are convinced they're free, then they resemble contented Christians who know there is a God simply because they believe it.
Broads must find it hard to locate that balance between liberated woman and seductive lady. And it appears they ain't found it yet. As one judge said when trying an attempted rape case; never before have women dressed so provocatively yet complained so vehemently when harassed. Paglia herself said if you're willing to advertise, you'd better be prepared to sell. An' what about that prostitute who complained to the cops about being' raped by a client? The charge shouldna' been rape- it shoulda' been theft, you morons! If the guy didn't pay for it, then jail the sucker for stealin'. Are they really sayin' a broad who screws strangers for a livin' an' then is forced to do it can be humiliated the same as say, a young housewife? Get outa' here! An' all the sisters will say yeah, well have you ever been raped? An' I'll say no I ain't, but neither have I been willin' to sell my body to any pervert who wants it.
An' while we're on the subject of sexy sex, watching guys chase broads is a primitive yet instructive way of understanding better the real intentions of people as male and female, and, more importantly, their position in the game of reproduction. Only the dumb guys believed they were the hunters in pursuit of their mate. It's gotta' be common knowledge by now that that broads are the hunting species by their more subtle approach. And ain't all broads masqueraders simply because they are broads? They wear make-up to both enhance their beauty and to conceal their plainness. By any other name, this is called disguise.
They are wearin' paint on their faces to create an impression. They put red on their lips, black on their eyebrows and eyelashes, light-brown on their cheeks. They pin metal decoration in their ears, hang beads and ornaments from their necks and put trinkets, bands and tiaras in their hair. Their hair is often false colour, dyed blond if they are truly black, black if they are truly brown. It is up in buns, down in plaits or out in perms or pigtails. So it follows that with simulation in appearance comes simulation in behaviour.
Where spider puts up web invisible, broad puts up disposition invisible. Sure, while the beauty may be apparently obvious, hiding the character is harder work. So the broad needs to pretend that she's not the kind that wakes up in the mornin' bad tempered, who has bowel problems, who is overweight. She is tryin' to be the nearest thing she thinks her lover wants her to be. Every guy will discover the genuine broad some three or four months after he's found the false one he was first attracted to. If most of the good original bits are still there throughout the relationship, they might be lucky enough to endure the problems ahead. But how many times have you heard one of an arguing couple say 'I don't love you anymore- you've changed.' Think again, sucker. They ain't changed. You're just seeing the real article. An' it works both ways.
Some guys like to impress with the bravado and macho shit, and the broads will always say, "Oh, that ain't what matters! I like the gentle, considerate man, not afraid to show emotion, willing to be my best friend as well as my lover!" Don't buy that bullshit- that's just broads simulating again. The truth is, they'll go where their instincts tell 'em. Put a broad on an island with a hundred men who resemble Adonis and one guy who's a bespectacled seven-stone rat-catcher an' she'll turn to the rat-man for no other reason than he's a contrast. She might be certain of her choice, but she won't have a clue why. Logic ain't involved.
Another problem for a broad is that no matter now she wants to portray herself to a guy, he will have his own thoughts on the matter. He'll screw her more times in his head than he ever will in his bed. And he'll screw her how he likes. Broads ain't as free as they think. They think because they tell jokes about sex an' stuff that they're up there with the kings of crude. Broads might make little dirty jokes in the office amongst themselves, but they are still feminine enough to know that it don't go down too sweetly with guys on a first date who are expecting a completely different female. Equality in vulgarity ain't on 'coz some men like broads to take them away from the knowledge of menstrual cycles and saggin' breasts. And the ones who take them further are the sweeter broads.
The affiliation between the sexes and the nature of things is even more proven when you consider the act of copulation.
The broad has the genitals that, when she is horny, can only be receptive. The opening of her legs is an entrance in itself an' if they remain closed, nothing worthwhile occurs. Legs open on a broad means invitation, an indecent exposure that is carefully avoided when not dressed in denims. Hence the effeminate pose of one leg before another when sitting for a photo in say, swim wear, or the crossed legs under the skirt while sitting in a chair. The ankles of a broad are her first vulva.
The genitals of a guy on the other hand, are projective and can be said to be offensive- 'an you can take that any way you like. The broad has something he wants, is something he wants, and he has to act the nice guy before he can be the animal. It don't matter how affectionate or romantic the kissin' stuff is before the bed games. Love an' selfish lust look practically the same three hours later under the sheets. Each sex also reflects in their behaviour to one another the purpose of their genitals. The broad waitin' an' wonderin' whether to allow the guy access. The guy eager and direct, talkin' of how pretty she is and how much he needs her, which all things considered at the time, is probably true. Guys are often more honest even when they think they're lying. This temptation an' persistence runaround is the dustiest game in history, potentially good fun an' ridiculous.
There was once a butchoe-boffin who wrote a book about a world without guys not being impossible. I guess she musta' come into this life through some powerful sexual accessory with extra strength batteries because as far as I know there ain't nothin' walkin' in shoe leather that didn't come from the union of sperm and ova. This dumb broad made the wrong career move 'coz she missed out big time on an opportunity to write a great Sci-fi novel. How the reality of cold, hard life must weigh on these poor ladies. There we all are, thinkin' that by enterin' our allocated urinals and conformin' to the established style of relevent attire that we are only makin' life easier for ourselves, when in fact these differences are brutal and provocative reminders to Miss I-wanna-rule-the-world that there is a real war on here. As much as these broads would love to disassociate the effect of themselves an' their bodies on guys, it can't be done. Lust an' dirty thoughts work far better in silence and on a personal level. And broads can't stop it even if they cover themselves up with the grubbiest pair of overalls from a car mechanic's wash basket.
You can hear shite from Shere Hite all day, but unlike the mythical race of Amazon warrior broads who sacrificed a breast in order to be able to use the bow more efficiently, not many girls today would be willin' to go half as far to be equal. We were mapped out long before we breathed air an' you're either a Plug or a Socket. Change those rules and the broads really would be able to keep the toilet seat down for good. When established titles such as 'Chairman' has to be changed to 'Chair-person'', you start questioning whether it's done for the advancement of the modern outlook or the restraining of guy's presumptions. So let's dig up a little dirt about where all this liberation started.
The Sixties was a time that saw the beginning of the end for conventional cultural existence in this green and pleasant land and the start of a love-in from which we're still clearing up the used condoms and soiled nappies. Today's older society is the geriatric of a once optimistic world. He took the drugs an' now comes the cold turkey. The female emancipation of the time was encouraged by near full employment during an' after the war. And with all the girls 'doing their bit' for the nation, they'd had a taste of solid employment with solid pay. So after the war, with her full or part-time job, housewife changed from bread maker to bread winner. It was a psychological as much as a material advantage. No need to wait subserviently during the washing up while the man of the house counted out the housekeeping allowance. Now Mum had her own pocket money. In addition to this, Pops had to look after the kids while she was at work. And as any mother will be glad to tell you, that ain't the same as playing with 'em an hour before bedtime just to help lose the guilt when he thinks he ain't seein' enough of 'em lately.
But there was life in the old marriage dog yet. Wedlock was still an institution respected and the pattern wasn't really that disrupted. After all, you worked hard on your marital contract if you were aware that to end it you had to go to court to explain your reasons. Could be humiliating, not to mention expensive. One party needed to be 'responsible' for the separation and that kinda' meant winners and losers. But Christmas then came early for the non-committed in the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, and it had in its magic bottle a kind of opt-out clause. To separate, you simply required evidence of an irretrievable breakdown of marriage after a period of two years. Somehow the marriage vows don't have the same ring of permanence when you have the security of an open back door should matters get a little difficult. Why waste time workin' hard tryin' to save somethin' when it's easier to just cut 'n run? An' there was all those romantics thinkin' that the whole idea of marriage was to endure it's problems, the bad times that are necessary to the experience that strengthens the bonding. Get real, suckers!
Anywayze, the outcome of this Divorce Act was the beginning of the one-parent family, at this time the drip before the flood. And the pill, ready to replace the diamond as the girl's best friend, loosened knicker elastic like nothing else. The great advantage of this contraceptive to married or engaged couples not yet ready for children seemed a negligible benefit compared to the freedom it provided to women eager to symbolise and exercise their new independence. As a precaution to unwanted pregnancy it was necessary. As a licence to playing the field it was vital. Broads now had control over birth. No stretch marks for Georgie Girl if she didn't want 'em. An' if she got careless and missed takin' it, don't worry. Another safety net against the hard fall to male slavery had been fastened with the help of the 1967 Abortion Act. If she don't want the kid, then screw you Jack, it's my body. But if motherhood appeals to her, then that guy by Christ better face up to his responsibilities. At her whim perishes not just the baby but a potential family. There's your liberated broad in all her glory and power.
So armed with the trident of The Abortion Act, the Divorce Act and the magic tablet, broads could, over a matter of a few years, be free from husband, children and the dated obligation to have either. This was such a fresh and agreeable time. The Broads were happy to burn their bras and the guys were happy to see 'em do it because when broads become more liberated, it don't just mean equality in wages and the same retirement age, it means easier lays, more screws and more dirty fun. You won't hear of any guy refusing sex on the grounds that it contributes to a permissive society, which in turn leads to grave social problems into the next decade. A guy thinks he's the only man alive when those knickers slip off.
The image of the independent broad, free from what was once a predictable future, is one everybody now recognises. More of 'em are going to University today than ever before. Fifty years ago, there didn't seem any point in a father educating his little girl to degree standard if she was only going to end up getting married. This intellectual liberation has come from the same direction and at the same time as the sexual one. The graduate who has achieved her grade and travels off to her new executive post in New York has the same thing as the young mother who lives alone in a one bedroom flat in the slums of the inner-city: independence. The fact that the first one probably couldn't cook an egg, or the other read a book don't matter. Both lives stand as a sign of the times and as a contrast to each other. The big problem for broads is that they were liberated at both ends of their body at the same time. And the repercussions of a liberated vagina are very different from those of a liberated mind. Babies and people only come from one place and every broad is a prospective mother- unless she says no. Guys can aim as hard as they want, but unless they get to that stage where the shot is worth any chance at all, then they might as well be impotent. And societies don't develop from children of rape.
'No' will be proven to be the most important word hardly spoken in the previous thirty years ten years from now. It was the remedy never used for something too late to take today. Time was, a pregnancy out of marriage was an embarrassment to the family, but a shame saved if they got to the church before the belly got too big. Today, Single Mother is a term as acceptable as mobile phone or car owner. Eyebrows have lost the ability to rise because we've grown accustomed to it's mention and meaning. But we leave out one word from this title that not only matters to the security of a growing person, but makes the vital difference. Young. If the majority of single mothers were over twenty five at the time of giving birth, the chances of their children developing in a more stable environment would inevitably increase. The bad news is that the broads who are rearing today's kids are kids themselves and are teaching while they themselves are learning. So we have proud, smiling grandmothers in early thirties with their photographs in the tabloids hoping to get themselves in The Guinness Book of Records.
We have a problem differentiating the joy of life from tragedy. The traits so attractive in young people can be calamitous to the rearing of a life. Just because they've reached puberty don't necessarily mean they've reached maturity.
OK, so being a young mother is no guarantee of a screwed up kid, even if bets against it might be few. The change in the odds come when the other half of the union is nowhere to be seen. An' even though that's no guarantee of a screwed up kid either, the bets would be for it. Sociologists might say a single parent kid is better off than two parents dangerously unsuited, but however precarious the traditional match, it's still a natural balance. It is a tripodal structure that represents family; Mother, Father, Offspring. Babies need Fathers. So do kids and adolescents. Not just 'coz the father will, or should exercise discipline, which is reason enough, but because he is vital to the necessary detachment of the child within the family. He's the other half of a tutorial discussion constantly monitoring, a compatible interest. The kid is made aware that it is the subject of debate and concern. It learns that it's actions often cause reactions from it's parents, whether it's argument or self-congratulation. It's an independent brace that makes opinions and decisions on it's behalf, a regular voice of instruction, and the kid will discover the limit to its insurgence during each stage of it's development. By the time it's almost an adult, it will find it easier to settle to independence because the values ingrained into it as a child shouldn't be that much different to those of a civilised community when it leaves home and has kids of its own. At least that's the wise guy theory. You don't have to be a child psychologist to suspect the single parent falls well short of delivering the same security. With no one else to discuss the child's welfare, no second person to share the responsibility of parenthood, the lone guide contemplates the decisions alone, weighs up the options in silence.
This ain't no stand for the 'Man of the House' bullshit, but the necessary half of a pair. It ain't simply a case of numbers either, two bein' better than one. It's the two of their child, the stability of the opposing sexes representing nothing extraordinary. An' it's desperation to say that the love of a mother is enough; love ain't got a back broad enough to compensate for such a basic requirement. People make people, and a single parent kid will soon discover the same face comes to it when it weeps, the nature of that person never changes, the voice is the only one it hears. It notices the mother alone or with other people who hold it's attention briefly over a matter of days or weeks. There is no consistency, no adaptation. An' though dependent on it's mother, it is also affective upon her, and will feel a sense of equivalence when it discovers talk is always done on a one to one basis. There exists no contrast of temperament always evident in the normal family.
There ain't a kid born who couldn't tell you which is the more lenient of it's parents, because it learns early who, and who not to take liberties with. Even if the single parent is austere, there is no official guardian to which it can find refuge, no choice to run to.
Listen up.
Society is constructed with the element called family. It is the established formula that ensures stability and regeneration for the future. This element is made up of three parts, and these parts constitute what we know as the family. To separate and disconnect one third of that element and not to expect the overall plan to be disturbed is to show the optimism of a dice-thrower. And not just any third. As far as damage limitation goes, the regular fatality, for whatever reason, of hundreds or even thousands of children would mean nothing to the social structure. It would only signify a decrease in population. Yet an increase in the one parent family is an influential embryo independent of the familiar course. But it is of the normal pattern, and being different to it, has to affect it.
Ain't it funny how we find the emotional tragedy involving the death of children easier to understand than imperfect social structures that hold more serious repercussions. The death of millions is a problem solved by replenishment. The problem with the other is that is ain't even recognised as one; only a change in social values.
But society regenerates. Thirty years from now old people who believed and stood by a traditional way of life will still be dying and more babies will be born to replace them. The single mother of a mother-to-be will see nothing wrong in allowing her daughter to bring the child up without a father. To do that would be to practically admit that irresponsible errors were made by herself, and what mother wants her own kid as an accuser?
Mothers blame society when one of their own is arrested or imprisoned, but not many stop and think that they might be the very society accused.
So.
Recap.
Neither mother or father make the family; they constitute it, get it? And a generation is developing which refuses to judge a fatherless child as disadvantaged. To do that would be unfair and an act of discrimination. These kids are only different. Society in thirty years time will be made up from today's kids. An' they may have to fit in to the mother's working life instead of being first priority.
Child minders have become the new disposable parents. Play groups are the artificial homes of a whole generation. Baby-sitting used at one time to mean more or less that; sitting with the baby for a few hours, maybe a neighbour or a friend you know a few doors down the street. But Baby-sitting is dead. Now it's Child-minding, a full-time profession deserving of qualification. We no longer have mothers with jobs, we have employers who have babies. Before long we will have breast milk in tins or the means for the parent to store her own milk herself and pass it on to the child minder at the stipulated time.
In the modern age we have mechanised rocking cots, a substitution for the absent mothers arms and the archaic lullaby. All you gotta' do is press a switch and you can catch up on the office files. They've got broads recording their voice on tape so that the mother's there even when she can't be there. Maybe they oughta' stick a photo of Mom beside it to evoke an image of presence. What's comin' next- an Embracing Machine? Mark three on the dial for a 'Leaving-for-School' cuddle, mark seven for 'Grazed Knee'. An' watch out for the headline in a newpaper ten years from now; "BABY LOSES LEG AFTER AUTO-NAPPYCHANGER MALFUNCTIONS!"- so the mother sues the company. And that's bad news for the company 'coz the mother is a full-time £ 100,000 per annum lawyer.
Don't you ever wish we could start all over again? There's technology makin' out it's freein' the woman when all it's done is displace the parent. Whether broads like it or not, they an' they alone are the attributable mother. Where the guys have transformed their environment over thousands of years to suit themselves, the broads have been transformed over tens of years by society. What she helped change has changed her.
We are the Adam and Eve pissed off with the marriage an' livin' in a dirty house littered with kid's mess an' puke, an' toys strewn across the floor to break your ankle, the little shits. When she was dumb enough to listen to a conniving snake, Eve made the first transgression an' messed up big time. And having tasted from the tree of knowledge she grasped the insight to realise she was naked and in need of fig leaves where before she was inhibitionless.
Some guys just can't help but ask the question; does a broad do the dishes at home because there are dishes to be done, or does she do them because she feels obligated? And the guy, no matter how able he is, will always suppose his mother or wife can get the stain out of a shirt better than he can. Most females won't entertain the notion that he might have asked because he knows he's incapable of even the simplest task, rather than just because she's a broad. This guy should be pitied, or ridiculed, but not accused of female enslavement.
The catch is, when you talk of families and moral issues you discover, almost without realising it, that your views stand as 'Traditional values', which is almost a political statement. Which also means you've elected your enemies at the same time.
Listen up, suckers. A political philosophy of the Western world helped to create what was its own sales department, the advertising industry, a direct involvement of it's purpose. When the emancipation of broads, which began after the war, progressed to equality in the Sixties and beyond, the advertising industry exploited and advanced this popular cause. Not because it happened to be true, but because it's motivation was profit, and profit is careless of speculative consequences. A transformation happened from the business of promoting a product to presenting a perspective, and the unshackled broad became iconoclast; she was no longer a housewife selling goods that were used by, or associated with women at home. Instead she sold universal products and was used figuratively.
Today the model reigns seductive and seditious, an image for women to envy, for men to desire. No more will you find her in the kitchen holding a carton of washing powder. Now she flashes her assets behind the wheel of the latest BMW. The character and the product no longer need to relate in the sexual way.
Liberalism is such a beautiful word. The sound of it runs off the tongue as free as it's definition- no sandpaper consonants. It's what everyone wants when politics becomes a trend. To attempt to redress it is to go back and that's unfashionable. After all, ain't this the new age? No, it ain't. It's only the latest one. And anyway, since when has new always meant better? The association comes, y'see, when people misunderstand new as modern, and modern as progression. But new only means different, not better. It is something other than what you used to know, and it only can mean progression.
Rather than correct, we prefer to change with the change. So because we live in a society where a rot is developing, we choose to retranslate rot and accustom ourselves to the shift. We're righteous enough still to recognise poverty, violence and permissiveness as things not favourable to society, yet are hesitant to seem traditional when talkin' about what caused them, or their remedies or preventions.
Today we're living in a society with sleaze the blood of its life. We're in a speeding car on a route that is going downhill and looking out of the rear window with our view that tomorrow is another day and if all the other days turned out fine, why worry? We are going to be right on time for everything we deserve. Right on time for the unpredictable and fantastic results our lazy work reaped for our glorious future society. Let freedom reign.

Blinkered sheep dense with stupidity

In an office of ONE TRAK MIND Advertisement Agency in London, four executives are discussing promotional options for the launch of a client's latest product. Mr Dour, who appears to be in charge, is ready to hear proposals.
'OK people, this is a tricky one so listen up. The baby we gotta push is slippers. 'Superpadder Slippers', to be exact.'
Ms Yorn leans back on her swivel chair and gasps a gasp. `Slippers? Are you serious, Gordon?'
`I'm afraid so.' said Mr Dour. `I know what you're thinking; how do we make the connection from product to consumer. But we don't employ losers here- am I right?'
`Damn right!' they all reply in unison. Following this brief rallying call, Mr Dour continues.
`Now. For the last few years the magic word has been Secks. It gave us a lot of mileage, made us a lot of money. But what makes this mission even harder is that we have a new word- and that word is Fux.'
Mr Boor nods his head in approval.
`Fux. I like it! It's got that kind of, I don't know, a kind of direction about it.' `I agree.' said Ms Yorn, `Admittedly, Secks took us a long way, but this has much more mileage.'
Mr Dour was pleased with himself. `I thought you'd like it.' he said, `The only problem is how to relate Fux to a product like slippers. Upstairs says we've got the nod to take this one on and the whisper is if we come through, our finished article will be on every billboard and bus stop in the UK.'
The four executives ponder silently at the shiny brown table and all take a sip of mineral water from their bottles at the same time.
`Did our client actually stipulate that he wanted to relate the product to Fux, Gordon?' asked Mr Boor. On hearing this remark, the other three at the table stare with disbelief and Ms Payne is the first to rebuke him.
`Clive! Everything has to relate to fornication!'
`And Titillation!' said Ms Yorn.
'And nudity!' said Mr Dour, `Especially nudity. Sexual innuendo is itself naked without bare breasts and bums to encourage the meaning.' Mr Boor smiled subserviently and the others at the table relaxed again, satisfied he had been properly chastised. Mr Dour continued.
`So; our main problem is this: young people don't wear slippers. Christ knows it would be a wonderful world if they suddenly did, but that's fashion's fault, not ours. Old people wear slippers. It's a fact of life. Must be something to do with their feet or something. Anyway, we certainly can't advertise two wrinkly old fossils anywhere near nudity- we'd be out of business in a fortnight. What we've got to do is create a situation where wearing slippers is an OK thing. And because our new word is Fux, we've got to find some way of getting two young people in bed together. That way we've already got Fux in the programme and the public will watch that, they always do. It gets 'em in the crutch, every time. And if any of you have any ideas about having oldies in the picture, I do not want them disrobed. Understand? Youth and looks sell. Old is death. Or at least dying. The consumers are not interested in reality even if they don't know it. They want the superficial not substance. So. We are talking of the standard one image picture poster. Everything we need to say has to be on one shot. A story in a photo. OK; let's hear it.'
Mr Boor, desperate to get back in favour after his earlier inane comment, makes the first proposal.
`How about this, G.D. A young girl wakes in a cold shack on a snowy morning. She is seen taking her sleeping grandfather's Superpadders quietly from under his bed.'
'Describe said girl-' orders Mr Dour, trying to catch him out. Mr Boor looks skyward in contemplation.
`Sixteenish; tattoo on shoulder; ponytails; a little view of her breasts under her negligee as she bends down. The grandfather is of course a living skeleton on the bed, mouth agape and teeth in a glass on the bedside table.' Mr Dour considers, over-exaggerating a pained expression.
`Like it, like it. Plenty Fux potential. I mean, who wouldn't want to do it with a sixteen year old first thing in the morning? I know I would!'
`Us too!' says Mr Boor out loud, speaking for Ms Yorn and Payne. Only Ms Payne is happy to entertain the possibility.
`We'll keep it in the freezer, Clive.' says Mr Dour. `Anything else?'
`Two Superpadder slippers screwing the shit out of each other!' voices Ms Yorn suddenly. Mr Dour allows her to elaborate, hoping her idea might not be as ridiculous as it sounds.
`What I'm seeing here is up-front, in-your-face sexuality.' she says enthusiastically, `This is innuendo killed off and sold to daydreamers. Let's get straight to the point. Give the Superpadders the features of humans as far as the design will allow it, give them each a face and have them
humping for all their worth. Sure it's blatant, sure it's crude. But it's funny- and it has Fux written all over it.'
Mr Dour cuts her short, finally certain that her idea really is as ridiculous as it sounds. All turn to face Ms Payne, whose mind is already in gear. `Spanking!' she says. `It's got the old word Secks, has the new word Fux and has even that most rare of inclusions, an element of truth. Who hasn't been spanked with a slipper at some time in their lives? What is one person's punishment is another's fetish. This scenario gives us an airfield of space to play with!' Mr Dour feels himself becoming aroused while Mr Boor just feels himself.
`It's perfect.' says Mr Dour, `I can see it now; big, studdish young man over the knee of tattooed, rebellious, girl-powered babe, who exemplifies the modern sexual outlook in today's society.'
`Hey!' says Mr Boor, beginning to get carried away with all the excitement, `Why don't we have the girl over the boy's knee? Wouldn't that be even more sexy and Fuxy?'
Mr Boor's excitement fades as he recognises the familiar staring faces turning in his direction.
`No it would not!' protest all of them at exactly the same time, `That would be sexually oppressive and so un-pc!'
Mr Dour shakes his head sadly at Mr Boor. `Clive, I'm beginning to wonder if you're really cut out for this line of work...'

Against the grain in Athens

Our civilization has developed through the natural process of reproduction, through human male and female copulation. The beasts of the waters, air and forests follow the urge to procreate, to further their species. This urge is so strong it is independent of them, a source nonexistent to influence. Man is different from the beasts when he needs to procreate. Because we are a society, our dignity will not allow us to behave like animals. The Gods have chosen us above all other creatures. They save us from procreating indiscriminately with females which would lead to conflict and disorder.
The Gods gave us the gift of love to discipline our desires, for love not only forcefully directs the affected to the cause of their craving, but also suppresses attraction to other females. The love between man and woman is the richest love. There is also maternal love, paternal, fraternal and sacred love. The evolution of social life substantiates the categories. Man loves his wife, brother, sister, niece, nephew, son, daughter, mother and father. All of these are uncomplicated within the whole definition of love. Love either physical or non-sexual. It does not involve assessment.
As it is generally accepted that, like the beasts, our instinctive urge to procreate is independent of us, a source nonexistent to influence, we must assume that any deviation from this instinct is both unnatural and detrimental. Therefore, we must also judge any such deviation as a conscious and deliberate act, an artificial desire invented for personal gratification. Man loves Woman not because she is female, but because he is helpless. Her sex is not considered a necessity, it is something taken for granted. Yet men who claim to love men can only fall into their love by acknowledgement of a sex. To them it is a necessity, a prerequisite for the union. They do not fall in love and then concern themselves with the matter of compatibility, but fall into their love because they are sexually compatible. Yet how can man be in love with man when his sexual disposition dictates the very direction of that love? If man loves man it is proof that love serves the sexual preference. But how can love follow anything? The place that is nonexistent to influence is part of the content of love; it is the egg of the life that is love, and therefore inseparable. It is the origin of itself and love cannot follow where it leads.
Every man has the potential to show adoration, yet if it is to another man then he has only created an artificial source for his own benefit and no man can create what is not of him, what does not consciously exist. This evolution of perversion does not progress but only recycles familiar emotions until the lack of natural love devalues the deed to nothing more than the result of a search for compatibility. This love can have no fruition. It has no purpose and is injurious to the health of society.

What you have to do to be an artist

Too many live by art but are not artists. Go for a walk through a park on a warm day and you might see men playing with a ball. Even though they are playing football you would not describe them as footballers. They are Postmen, engineers, labourers or drivers. They score goals and stick to the same rules, but are not what they seem. The real footballers are elsewhere, giving their lives to the game and the game to their lives.
Those who do art as a recreation are far better focused than those who serve one master and think themselves better because they do nothing else. To be good is not good enough. To have flair for art is to be better than others who haven't a clue, which simply removes you from the majority. Potential is only promise and promises are often broken.
To be an artist is to be careless of the progress made while embracing the obstacles still to be overcome. It is not desire for reputation but resolution to clarity, even if you want to be clear to confuse. Art is not an open field with indistinct boundaries. It is a place made real by others of a contrasting frame of mind who look in from the outside. People you are not unhappy to be apart from. To be artistic is not to join Gertrude Stein salons where all are members of vanity gangs, surviving on sycophantic compliments from others who exist likewise.
Art is not anything goes. It is the disciplined indiscipline. The discipline is there and is enforced by the disposition of the artist. Not by his work, for the work comes from that disposition, but from the experience of endurance, through consistency and self-criticism. Working hard does not make an artist but it makes the artist. The indiscipline is the necessary freedom in his work that can be a deliberate or subconscious reaction against his own principles. But because artists are their own legislators, he cannot be free of them entirely and his work will have caution, no matter how it appears. If his principles include integrity his work will always possess truth. The self-criticism, the principles and establishment of method can only really develop when he is alone, when his thoughts and ideas rebound inside himself to evolve into possible opportunities. To discuss them with anyone else, especially other artists, reduces the internal force that helps create his work.
Fakers would define loneliness as being away from company, not as solitude vital for work to be done. Henry Miller said the artist is always alone if he is an artist. It is what he needs. There are too many impostors in art and they work hard on two things; their image and their belief. They mistake art as an outlet for the promotion of controversy and personality and there is an abuse of the exemption from restriction which art often personifies. Talent can scandalize but to scandalize does not imply talent. They would not understand that to be conscious of your own belief is to have an artificial compulsion, a manufactured fuel for a manufactured engine.
To be an artist is not to need a belief. It is to be resigned, to be almost helpless. The problem with surrendering yourself is that the drive that leads you on can seem limitless, which apparently it is not. You think that because it will always be there, no effort is needed to rouse inspiration. What you think is patience is really laziness.
Art has to be removed from College curriculum and University courses. It is not an option from a wide choice of professions but an inclination separate from routine. To work at art in seminar clusters is to impede the opening of ideas and there can follow no desperation for discovery. Most students of art want to be artists and enjoy the impersonation of the Bohemian. For them it is not a vocation but a fashion and they become nothing more than the finished article their University has made them. They are simply qualified artists, and to measure talent by qualification is to grade the artist and that suggests that some are better than others only because their certificate says so.
Art's intention is the pursuit of emotional disturbance. Music is the most accessible art from which these emotions can be unsettled and it is the sensations of sadness or joy that is stimulated through this medium which identifies art closer to people better than any other. This is art's beauty and it's reason.
Most events in our lives run on the pathways of what might be called rationality, the pavements premeditated. When we listen to music we like, we sometimes slip from this walkway, or drift a little sideways and feel slightly light-headed because we are experiencing something we haven't the perception to understand. It can be forceful enough to invigorate, but may be too brief to be taken as remarkable. To most, it is not so much the effect of music as the temperament of themselves, and they would be reluctant to admit that one plays on the response of the other.
In art galleries, leaving the premeditated pavements requires a more discernible awareness, which is why it is always so quiet. No one wants to risk ridicule by giving an uneducated opinion about the intention of the artist. But most of them are a bad waste of time because the artist, as he works, hardly knows himself.

Go ahead, kill yourself

To call a man who takes his own life a criminal is the biggest crime of all, for if he hasn't the freedom to do what he wants with what is definitely his own property and no one else's, then he might as well be dead anyway.
As long as you know what it is you are leaving, then no one has the right to accuse you of insanity. There was nothing for you before you were born except plans, but it wasn't plans for you, it was plans for someone. A foetus is a nobody despite its potential.
So life is here to be left if some want it that way. You squeeze every drop of virtue from your life to see how much comes out. If there is enough to place doubt in the decision then stay put. If not, keep what little goodness there is out of it and say goodbye to yourself- risk the loss. If the pluses in your life are as rare as you calculate you won't be afraid to lose them. But existence goes on, and so which is worse? To go over the line and miss ages of pleasure and contentment that could have possibly been attained- or to go on enduring and feel even worse on not achieving them after all? It may not be enough to say that the things which make people happy will overcome depression or sadness, or whatever else makes suicide an option, because these problems may not be just poisonous additions to positive life, they may be an inherent part of the life that is lived. Perhaps even the more influential part of the whole. You know a little about what you have but nothing about what you don't. Is death a sleep of a kind? Does anyone ever come back? Maybe the nothingness after death is the same as the nothingness before birth. It is only a preceding and succeeding state from living people's perspective. But for those who have gone it's just nothing, a void not experienced. And that sounds such a secure and irresponsible place.
Some are afraid of death because they think of it only after pain, most others because they don't know what to expect. Everybody is so used to life that the opposite of it is unimaginable. But if it's a blank unconsciousness, then what's the concern? How can you worry about something you are unable to worry about? Dreams will come to you and then suddenly they don't. From that moment you're as animated and as actual as discarded carrion. The soul, which is our insurance against total oblivion, will apparently rise up to God knows where or become reincarnated in another life. But wherever it goes, it won't need a suitcase and toothbrush. When your body is gone other people will clean up your room for you, settle your bills and put you to rest with no more itchy jumpers to wear.
To leave life having no alternatives wouldn't be the same as leaving it when you do. And it is this sensation of precarious uncertainty that heightens the severity of the deed. Finding the right balance is difficult to achieve because the more you consider the place you are leaving, the less sure you are of the place you are going. You might think it necessary to overrate what you have so that you can be sure of your uncertainty in remaining, rising your condition to its limit and more, so that you get to a level where your pessimism is equal to it. And because pessimism is a good ingredient to the food that is suicide, it will begin to rot where it reaches. There needs to be that parity where hope and despair are taken to their furthest points so that you can say the choice was fairly made. To do it after a death in the family or some other personal tragedy would be too rational. Questions wouldn't really be asked. The best side of life must be seen to be of no value so that its worse side seems torturous.
Suicide is removing the floor on which everything rests. It is a personal end of the world disaster. That's what makes it so attractive an escape. The only catch is that you disappear along with the concerns that hastened your escape. Apart from a possible moment of sombre contentment, there would be no feeling of deliverance from them. For hesitators, it is the approach of the future that delays the final decision, the puzzlement of what's around the corner. There might be predictions and forecasts, but you will never really know unless you meet the next day. Each individual has had experiences like no one else alive. And it's the power in that knowledge that exemplifies the wonder of unpredictable life. The experiences may be worthless or the memories painful, but the very fact that they are yours, and the fact that you say so, instantly impresses upon you a sense of individuality, the feeling that, although the birth was out of your hands, you can do what you want with the rest.
Every man has an island for himself even if he isn't one, and sometimes people feel their own isolation. And how many more of us would kill ourselves if we had a way of seeing the impression it made on friends and enemies? To witness our own funeral and see who would turn up. Above the sound of the weeping, the orator telling all what a great person you are in death that you never seemed to be in life. You'll get friends you never knew you had and be a convenient conversation piece with no right of reply. A flattered punch bag. And when you are buried beneath the buried to come, Socialists all, they'll present you with a noble inscription across the tombstone.
But does anyone actually leave life by their own hand at peace with themselves? If a man rejects life and makes up his mind to kill himself because he is unhappy he must be better off than he was before. But that is the frustrating thing about suicide- the motive so often goes with them. There is little confusion as to the reason because it is a controversial event that cleans up its own mess; he must have been disturbed for he took his own life. But that is like saying passengers die in plane crashes because the plane hits the ground. Find the reason and you find the cause of his disturbance- and the true cause of death.
Consider for a moment the curious self-destructor. What if there existed a man who lived his life free from terrible misfortune or depression, who managed to avoid the perils of alcoholism or drugs to become a normal and contented settled human being. A man who had had just enough ups and downs in life to shape him neatly to a meaningless statistic. And what if, during one lucid, unexplained moment, he experienced the same inspiration that urged Colombus to risk his sea voyages, or the Wright Brothers to attempt flight? What if he was adventurer instead of depressive? Isn't death, or whatever's beyond it, a frontier as real as these? The catch is that if he is to discover death then he can't come back. At least not to life as we live it. And when he doesn't come back, most are narrow-minded enough to judge him disturbed where he could have been discoverer. If his attempt failed and he later confessed he really did want to find out what death would be like, or where it might lead, he would still be thought of as crazy. What is this blindness in people that causes most of them to live methodically where the rare live fully, yet instinctively impels them to judge someone insane because they may have had the insight to see no hope in their life and do something about it? They were mad apparently, while the rest of us calendar our lives away to a slower death. Suicide is at least action. It is solution, no matter how negative.
But it isn't the death that astounds; everyone dies after a short time. It is the reality that someone had the nerve to beat fate to it, to hijack their own destiny. It is someone discarding the image of comfortable security, blowing the myth that all problems can be confronted calmly, and reminding us that it can become unbearable. Whoever threw himself off a bridge thirty years ago means nothing to anyone due to the length of time passed. But the familiar face who used to mumble hello to you every Saturday morning and was found overdosed and dead two days later, is close enough to alert even the most indifferent attitude, because the life that we are breathing, enduring and living under was the same that took him down. Personal circumstances are only contrasting moves on the same board game. There was, perhaps, something we missed that he didn't.
We have to accept that suicide is a freedom of choice. No one can, or should be, forced to keep themselves safe. You can advise and encourage, but if someone wants to leave, then they will. The ones who are talked out if it only received the appropriate reply to their cry for help; they didn't swallow all the sleeping pills but just enough; they didn't cut their throat, but slashed a wrist by the door in the hope that a scarlet pool on the floor would raise the alarm. It's the ones who are gone and who meant to go that shouldn't always be considered unstable.
Politicians are always reminding us of the right to vote. They forget that some people want the right not to vote. In the game of life suiciders are simply abstainers.

What you have to do to be a writer

Books are deceptive.
They appear to be written like they are read, fluently and without pause. So writing is partly about learning to perfect a craft by reading something that already appears perfected. It gives a false impression that something that is easy to understand can be easy to duplicate.
Consider the book as a building with words as its bricks: though straight walls are not so difficult to erect, arches and corners are much harder. If one part of the structure is unstable then the whole building collapses, for it is the architecture as a whole that attracts attention and decides success. The secret of the constructor is to show no joins.
Writing and reading is language in silence that forms a link between two people without utterance. It is contact from one who is giving to another who, by receiving the words, acknowledges. Story writing is using words that first have to describe before they can impress and become more than the sum of their parts. Then the story is something almost separate from the words that transmit it. It is already there, waiting to be understood. Work in progress becomes a process of eliminating mistakes until the words that are left are good enough to be rewritten.
There is rarely a book published that could not have been bettered, but it shows the skill of the writer that he is able to convey an impression of finality to some who could probably be fooled by a lot less effort. There will always be authors who know grammar extensively, are perfect at spelling and who can write syntax like a professor. But writing is a disposition, not the natural vocation of those academically qualified in the disciplined arrangement of words, and a technical writer would find it difficult to 'tell' a story from a character's point of view.
Learning to write isn't having different sized envelopes for different sized correspondence or ink pens in one box and pencils in another. It isn't avoiding smudges on paper, or staggering through words conscious of nouns, verbs, adjectives, participles, prepositions or clauses. It isn't meetings in libraries discussing one another's stories which might have a chance of winning local competitions, or reading the Times Literary Supplement to find the most topical themes. Neither is it studying Phrenological diagrams with the word 'Inspiration' circled. Writing is something that cannot be helped, like an illness. There isn't a writer of any merit who will not have to go through the marathon of incessant work. He can miss a day, a month or even a year without putting blue on white, but the work he imagines he's sidestepped only waits further up the path.
Every writer is his own legislator and law enforcer. He sets his own rules and sticks to guidelines. But all have to revise, correct and rewrite. The bad stuff has to be written out of the system first so that the better stuff can come through, even though that bad stuff, which seemed wonderful at the time, came from the best effort. It is impossible to intentionally write something below standard simply to save time and get to the better stuff easier because most words put down on paper have to be built or elaborated upon.
Integrity is important. Six or seven pages may be done that need about sixty to seventy per cent rewriting, but this is only removing the layers of dust and dirt that covers the core. It is like an archaeological excavation where a gold pot is unearthed, and it is brushed and cleaned until presentable. It is a matter of digging, and writers keep digging until they arrive at a vein where the hand can't move fast enough to keep pace with the thoughts. Some images are lost but most of them are caught.
Poets might get inspiration from falling in love or some other emotion, but the inspiration in writing prose comes from the act of creating from the mind. Writing is its own inspiration. No one sees the mind of a writer moving like they can the hands of a computer programmer. Most people will accept the union of brain and body working together if there is physical motion justifying even the most inert pose. But they will resent having to understand thought as work without a button to press or a pen to hold.
There is a saying that the wife of a writer can never understand he is working when he stares out of the window. There seems to be no evidence of production. But writers need solitude and silence for the thoughts to come, and then there is nothing to do but think.
Before a book is written, weeks and months of apparent inactivity might be spent consolidating ideas. It is a process of synthesis, of thought feeding thought, though others would mistake it as daydreaming. There may be plenty of hours in a day to discipline a fruitful result, other times not enough to leave room. But a level is finally reached at which almost every moment alone, or even silent in company, is used to strengthen this attitude. These ideas enter and exit the head as interviewees applying for a job not yet defined. Connections begin to make a little sense, and further connecting ideas make more sense until there is a foundation for the beginning. And once part A has been established then part B is next and so on, even though the alphabet may be lapped several times before the preparation is complete.
As a lot of this preparation takes place in the head while out walking or awake at night, a lot of notes may be taken and extended upon, which in turn means typing pencilled pages on to Word Processors at a later date. And this is before several revision and correction phases even start- which comes before the final manuscript- which, when sent off will more often than not be rejected. Even when the book is accepted, there is further editing and correction and advice, and this, for the first time, from someone who didn't write a word of it. And just as writers begin to think success is defined by publication, they may still be labelled failures by the critics, who will leave them in a worst position than before they started; a bit like beginning your dreams from the first rung of a ladder only to end up falling down the cellar.
Finally, when editors and critics have had their meat, even posterity judges whether or not his work is good enough to be called literature because no writer writes it as he works.
So because of all this golden potential for failure, anyone who wants to become a writer must want to write. It is as straightforward and daunting as that. Everything else must be sacrificed, or at the very least placed in lower priority. Which is why any other employment for a writer is detrimental and severs the continuity vital to the work. It is not difficult for writers to perceive a lifetime as short. For the amount of time and effort spent on writing, the return is nearly always pitifully small. Architects are luckier. They'll reflect on their lives with more satisfaction when they look at their contribution to civilization, when they know people can touch their creations. Their work is momentous and visible for all to see. With writers, everything is small; their pens, their words, their books, their social life and even the rooms they write in. It is their ideas that are big and these, fortunately or unfortunately, live only in the imagination.
So for writers there grows an urge to recognise the value of everything and appreciate things taken for granted. To write is to notice the most simple observations. But noticing the simple things in life or in people amplifies everyday existence as a whole. It isn't essential to study the natural history of man, to worship biological creation or search for refuge in a philosophical doctrine. By writing stories well, a particle is taken from a whole that would be too large to comprehend, and placed into a frame which everyone can see and decipher. A translation by simplifying the complicated, or what appears to be complicated. And writers do this subconsciously.
It seems impossible and ridiculous to attempt to invent characters from nothing, to have them say and do things extraordinary enough to make them interesting and different, yet realistic enough to make them believable. It is the character's dissimilarity from his vital familiarity to ordinary people that makes him convincing. To write is to be affected and then affect.
The art of writing can dictate a life, and the life that is dictated to learns to rely and trust ever more on the vocation that might be welcomed but never summoned. It's been said that writing is the hardest job in the world, which may not be true; that it is the most difficult of the arts, which probably is. The hard parts are before the writing starts and in the effort required during the long pauses that occasionally come when the concentration slips. But when free and in good flow, the writing itself is not hard work. It is the reward for hard work.

One way they keep you stupid

Scene: Blond-haired young girl called Eleanor, blatantly un-ugly, wearing two bits of bright material called a bikini, goes to door to exit house. Just as she opens it, she meets tall, pony-tailed, blatantly un-ugly over-tanned young man in tight shorts who has his hand lightly clenched in anticipation of knocking on door. His name is Kingsley, Eleanor's recent ex boyfriend who was apparently caught in the act with Barbara, the local vixen, by Kilburn, an untrustworthy worm who secretly wants Eleanor for himself. Kingsley tries to look surprised at exactly the same time as Eleanor looks surprised. The TV camera switches to both characters one after the other to ensure the audience at home is really convinced of their mutual surprise. Eleanor's eyes are wider than Kingsley's but his mouth is more agape. Both are really surprised at such a coincidental meeting.
"Oh-! exclaims Kingsley perfectly, although the initial expression of astonishment has been a little affected by a grimace of disappointment- not an easy profile to execute.
"I thought you'd be at work."
Eleanor, concealing her still passionate feelings for him behind the easy but unfair emotion of anger, reacts furiously.
"What the hell do you want!? I thought I told you to stay out of my life!"
(This popular phrase, consistently used by writers of soap serials, has lost some of its affect through over-use, but as a means for carrying the definitive intention, it is hard to beat.)
"Look, Eleanor. I don't want to argue with you. Can't we still be friends?"
This pleading from Kingsley will of course get him nowhere. But it does endear him to the viewers at home who sympathise with his efforts for a sensible reconciliation.
"Friends! With a creep like you? You must be joking!"
The inclusion of this verbal insult is vital. Calling him 'creep' implies crawling, a term wrongly confused with Kingsley's genuine desire for appeasement. By this time, all the viewers will be very annoyed with this little Madam and will hope to see her get what she deserves. Poor Kingsley struggles on.
"Look, Eleanor, I know you don't believe me when I tell you nothing happened between Barbara and me, but you've got it all wrong! I- "
"Oh, sure!", interrupts Eleanor at precisely the same time as Kingsley stops talking, "-It's perfectly natural for two people to be lying on a bed practically naked, wearing only towels!"
"But I've already explained that," protests Kingsley almost in tears, "I had to deliver Barbara's groceries because Damien fell ill at the last moment. When I arrived at her house, one of the boxes accidentally fell and covered us both in some gooey foodstuff sauce, and we had to take a shower and change into clean clothes. When Kilburn just happened to be passing Barbara's house to remind her of her appointment at the Masseur Parlour and walked in and caught us accidentally slipping on the floor to fall onto the bed, he got the wrong impression. That's the truth- honest!"
"What-?" yells Eleanor, "You expect me to believe that?"
(Why not? 14. 08 million viewers did.)
By now, the clones at home are almost rabid in their efforts to contain their rage because they are in the same shoes- or flip-flops- as poor Kingsley who just happens to be telling the truth. It is extremely frustrating. But it gets worse.
"Oh, what's the use..." sighs Kingsley, shaking his head at the floor and acting depressingly.
"Now get out of my way-!", snaps Eleanor rudely as she is about to rush past him, "I have a date to keep....with Kilburn!"
Oh, NO!! This is definitely the worst thing that could have happened! Kilburn is the sneakiest, meanest, baddest, worstest man in the neighbourhood, the very opposite of Kingsley- and he doesn't even have a sun tan! His complexion is practically albino, a skin tone that causes a long, suspicious scar on the side of his face to appear even more pronounced.
"And let me tell you this, Kingsley Baron..." continues Eleanor, narrowing her eyes and pointing her longest finger into his face to make sure all the viewers at home know who she is talking to, "-If I ever see you at my door again, I'll get the police and have you arrested. Now stay out of my life!"
"Are you all right, Eleanor?"
The camera turns behind Kingsley to focus on Kilburn who has just arrived. He wears a suit that, although smart, doesn't suit him, proving that if you're a loser in life, you lose on all fronts. He stares eyeball to eyeball with Kingsley, giving Kingsley the chance to practice his 'proud but not humbled' expression.
"You heard the lady-" growls Kilburn, even forcing his scar to sneer. "Beat it, creep!"
Kilburn smirks mockingly. Eleanor smirks derisively. Kingsley frowns despondently. And the camera closes in on his face as we enter the commercial break. Viewers must hold on for another five minutes to see the conclusion of this tense assembly. And just in case any of them have the attention span of a goldfish, the camera at the beginning of part two does another lap around the profile of the characters; Kilburn mocking, Eleanor smirking, Kingsley despondent.
"Beat it, creep!" repeats Kilburn for the benefit of the less attentive viewers who need a point of reference. The face of Kilburn by this time, has transformed itself from its original mocking expression into a threatening grimace.
"I can't go..." replies Kingsley defiantly, "I'm waiting for someone."
"Oh, really?" goads Eleanor, "And who might that be? My Mum and Dad are at work, and Trisha, my young, spotty-faced sister who no one ever asks out because she's so quiet, naive and simple, is outside working in the stables."
"As a matter of fact," replies Kingsley, hurtfully, "-it is Trisha."
Eleanor laughs contemptuously, holding her belly with the pain at the same time as Kilburn leans on the door to stop himself from falling over. The Camera captures the trio in this cruel scenario; the two bad people- that is, Eleanor and Kilburn, got it?- belittling poor Kingsley, who don't forget, is the good person, the one that we all like. Kingsley is dignified enough to ignore them- but it must be very hard for him. At least % 88. 05 of viewers would certainly have used violence by this time had they been in the same situation.
"What?" squeals Kilburn through his laughter, "You have just gotta' be kidding! Who'd be daft enough to take Trisha the shit shifter out for a date?"
"Hello, Kingsley..."
Suddenly the camera switches to Trisha, who has somehow managed to walk up behind everybody without anyone noticing. She looks like a Goddess, a Beauty Queen and a great Mud-wrestling partner all in one, which isn't surprising considering the script dictated she was to wear nothing but overalls, wellies and industrial gloves, while carrying a large shovel since her character was introduced six months previous. Now she adorns a red, low-cut dress and high-heel shoes. Her hair is beautifully platted and her face is made up like a china doll. Despite the fact that any life form with the ability to walk and talk simultaneously would have seen this coming a mile and a half away, every one of the 14. 08 million viewers gasp in stunning amazement to witness this miraculous transformation. This stable girl, who no one ever took seriously, who uttered only a few lines of 'Yes', or 'No', and '-must clean my nails', was actually, underneath all the horse manure, really gorgeous! Who'd have guessed it? Meanwhile, Eleanor and Kilburn stand stupified at her appearance.
"Trisha..." begins Eleanor, "You look..."
"Different?" breaks in Trisha, "Yes, Eleanor, I look different. But I'm still the same person as before. The same person who's been forced to clean out those stables week in and week out for months without protest. The same person who has taken all the insults and name-calling. The cheap, demeaning references about 'Skunks breaking wind'. The same person who-'
Camera remains on Trisha to see her give a moral and vengeful speech, but occasionally switches to Eleanor and Kilburn who continue to maintain the physically demanding expression of open-mouthed amazement. By this time the viewers at home are drunk with joy, triumphantly embracing their cats and dogs because the two villains- Eleanor and Kilburn in case you'd forgotten- are getting what they deserve. After ten minutes Trisha is coming to the end of her lecture.
"...and that is why I'm leaving with Kingsley to go to Africa with The Red Cross, so that I've got the chance to do something useful in this cruel and vindictive world. Now stay out of my life!"
She leaves with Kingsley and slams the door, almost collapsing the whole set. She departs not for deepest Africa as viewers believe, but to a new three-year recording contract with RCA. The camera returns to the poisonous couple left alone together.
"Come on baby, we'll be late for the beach party!", says Kilburn, demonstrating his total lack of diplomacy at such a sensitive moment. Eleanor, suddenly realising she has lost Kingsley for good, turns to the wet fish she is left with and throws it out.
"Get lost, creep!"
The camera closes in on her face which by now has covered the entire range of unfavourable manifestations; twisted, angry, and somehow ugly. You can almost hear 14. 08 million voices repeat the whole story all over again the next morning...