welcome to spring....

(what follows if a rant after a shitty night and yet another shower at a truck stop....and remember this-i come home when i'm ready and when i'm tired of sleeping in my car, but i mainly come home because as much as vancouver drives me crazy, all my friends are there...and issy. g xoxo)

ok.
last night was a shitter to be sure. after leaving stumptown coffee roasters-where i was using their internet and having a tasty beverage, i headed back to the elephant to figure out what to do next. i’m not gonna lie, i was ready to drive into the river off the burnside bridge-but i didn’t. in the car i had no idea what to do next-monday night in portland. raining, cold, shitty and monday. nice. after sitting in the front seat for approx. half and hour i crawled in the back and had a little relax. i had charged up the computer so i was now surfing the net in the back of the elephant-i felt homeless (except i had a car, a computer, food and a bed…it was just all in my car.) after looking at movie listings and leaving a scathing message on the kid robot bbs for some complete idiot, i had to get moving. off to powell books.
powell books is a huge book store up on burnside that seemed like a place to go on a shitty rainy night. i have been looking for the new richard ford novel in paperback but, even at powell books, can only find it in hardcover. oh well. what i did find at powell books was or were two novels by a friend of mine-kristen den hartog. i haven’t seen her in years and maybe never will again-who knows? but i was happy to see she had written two more novels since her first, water wings. kristen used to date my friend jamie sinclair who has since moved back to halifax and besides the odd very odd and cryptic e.mail disappeared. she knows how to weave a good story and i recommend water wings to anyone looking for an odd story or returning home for a visit.
after powell books i drove up to a movie theatre near taqueria nueve and saw casino royale. i actually made it in a few minutes after it had started but it seemed enough of a miss that i had no idea what the fuck was going on. but it didn’t seem to matter. some guy had to be stopped from doing something and without all the money he needed to do the nasty deed he was fucked. so it was up to bind to make sure he didn’t get the money he needed…or something like that. bond. james bond.
it’s funny how a little rain and cold weather can take away all the goodness of the past week or so. i am guilty of getting in my own head so deep it’s a long way back out. last night was hard. i don’t mind saying. at one point i thought to myself, “what the hell am i doing sitting in the back of my car surfing the net? i’m 42 and can afford a hotel but just can’t do it. i’m a fucking idiot.” or something like that. and what were people thinking as they drove and walked by? thanks to the tinted back windows i can’t be seen in the back. and of course i start thinking about the last week and what it was worth, if anything, and if i really had a good time or not. was the baseball fun? was it worth the drive? and last night in the back of the element as it got pelted with rain, nope, it wasn’t. and maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. i have no idea. i have a hard time looking at things with any sort of clear perspective when it’s still so close to the event. in time i will have a better idea of the time spent. it was great to see spike. meet daniel. eat in-n-out burgers. meet ronnie pirovino in la. see art. sit in the sun sweating my bag off watching that asshole barry bonds hit a home run. go to la bonita, i like the desert. so maybe it was good. like i said, right now, i don’t know. i always feel this way at the end of a trip. you always have to come back to what was driving you crazy and often times, it seems as if you never left.
the other day driving between los gatos and san francisco i felt inspired. i’m not sure why but in my head i was making art, i could see it in my mind as clearly as if it was sitting right in front of me. i was clearly daydreaming as the miles flew by. maybe it was the art i had seen in the past day that did it, or old ideas that come to me once again when my mind is relaxed and able to reformulate the ideas. maybe i’m just so bored it all seems good. maybe all of it. will i act on the idea? maybe but probably not. i think the main reason why not is that i am surrounded by so many great artists-corie, don, mishi, sebastian, tobe, pam, nick to name a few, that i feel whatever ideas i may have will be seen as amateur and for lack of anything better, bullshit. years ago when i was involved in the music and downtown art ‘scene’ i played in a few ‘fuck’ bands that were made up of local musicians and artists. it was a great way to exercise the rock and roll demon in me without having to really be in a band. as long as it was seem as a joke and not to be taken seriously i could do it-without any thought about what i was doing. i was asked to form bands with people, make real music but could never do it based on my low self-esteem. that’s the truth. i could easily sing in front of hundreds of people in a ‘fuck’ band but i could never have done it in a real band. i would have felt like some sort of fraud playing in front of some many other great ‘real’ local musicians. does that make sense? maybe not. but with art it was the same or is the same. to think i should be making art is an insult to all of them. i am only so handy and skilled and the execution will be far less than the vision. oh well. i have learned this as well and am trying to learn when to say when and leave certain things well enough alone. last night i was reading a couple of magazines-juxtapoz and stop smiling, and could only marvel in the greatness some people possess. i rush when i make things and need to take my time and see results less quickly but will be satisfied…or something. or just pay people to make things for me whenever i think of them instead of trying my hand at it and being pissed-off in the end when it looks like shit or i have a scar from a piece of metal flying off into my head and almost killing me.
today i’m gonna head down to office to get the garbs stuff-some of which i think they may have lost-which is so great. afterwards head to seattle, pick-up some chairs that mishi has ordered and head for home. this was quite a rant. i’m sorry-i’m all full of eggs and bacon and just waiting for office to open and started writing. it’s not all that bad-and if it were, what can ya do? right? the rain has stopped for now so maybe it’s time to leave this truck stop and hit up stumptown coffee for a real coffee before i deal with tony and kelly at office.
see you soon.

g. xo