Saturday, October 25, 2008

Arts and leisure ..Chelsea 1994

When I returned to NYC in 1994, after abruptly packing my shit from mom's house in Reston, Va..I encountered the renovation of the Flatiron District and the emergence of Chelsea as the new art scene. By this time the East Village scene had peaked and died, with it had died that whole "down and out, with a beat-ific vision" aesthetic myth which was born in the DeKooning era and reached it's apotheosis with Basquiat and Haring.
Chelsea was where Warhol'ism bi-furcates. Andy was downtown, but once he got shot he decided to be more UP-town for the rest of his life. Chelsea was where the gay scene left Stonewall behind for martini bars and Dolce Gabana. It was also where the artworld demanded it's products be now high gloss and produced by MFA's with resumes and dense ideological premises.
to be cont'd

The Hamptons 1989-1993

I joined the Coast Guard when I was 25, in 1987. They sent me to Cape May for boot camp, Wildwood NJ for first Seaman's station , up to Governor's Island..that's where I studied marine electronics and got to choose my next station. I chose Coast Guard Group (East) Moriches...gateway to the Hamptons and reasonably close to NYC.

My previous experience with the Hamptons had been with Dalton Schools friend, Doug Zang's Summer home in Westhampton. We all used to hang out there fairly often in 11th and 12th grade. So I called up some of those old friends clueless about the area, and asked them what "Mastic Shirley" was like. They joked with me.."Like 'Queens' only more intimate.."..I had alot to learn about the Hamptons...and I did. to be cont-d

Friday, October 24, 2008

New York 2009

Let's begin with the end. When you start to think on "paper" or virtual paper people often take the approach of "castles in the air". But I will start with where we are and where we want to go. I will focus on myself as "already installed" in a world but free to "write and draft up" other involvements.

Themes..
1. Artworld
2. Race
3. Sex and loving
4. Success, income
5. Friends, social circles
6. Political Science
7. fringe philosophies
8. the Hamptons
9. Bohemia
10. CIBT
11. Family

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Be it, do it, no matter what the circumstance.The Basquiat Legend

Christopher Lee's great drama of being to doing...

Have you stepped out into a new career, or your life-long dream and found that it’s not working out? So now you are angry with God for holding out a promise (“follow your bliss,” etc.) and not keeping it. Yet God has not failed you. What has happened is that you have confused “Doingness” with “Beingness,” and therein seen failure. (There is a lot said about this in Bringers of the Light, which discusses, among other things, the concept of Right Livelihood.) Let me just state a principle here which I believe I can reduce to one sentence.

It is from Beingness that Doingness springs... not the other way around.

In other words, let’s say you feel you are a writer. You would really be happy if you could “do” the thing called “write.” It could be poetry, prose, novels, whatever. You just want to write. But you can’t “do” that, because you’re “caught in the corporate world,” or whatever the particular “trap” seems to be that you are in. Okay, so you can’t write for a living, and therefore you are not “being” the thing called “happy.”

The above paradigm suggests that “beingness” springs from “doingness,” and is dependent upon it. That suggestion is false. In Ultimate Reality, it is just the other way around. Your “doingness” is a demonstration of what you are Now Being (consciously or unconsciously).

If you want to “be” the thing called “writer,” “be” that thing no matter what you are “doing.” In other words, you could be a dishwasher at the Stork Club, and still “be” the other thing called “writer.” (Half the writers in New York are.) Put another way, writers write to be happy, no matter what they are doing to stay alive! A true writer never stops writing, no matter what he is doing, no matter where she is working, no matter how little time there is. There is always time to be who you are, because the time to Be Who You Are is all the time.

So write, write, and write some more! Write day and night! On the bus! In the john! During the coffee breaks and after the day is done. Write. Write! Write from the heart of what you think is good and beautiful and wondrous about the world. Or about what you think needs changing, if you prefer. Just write your truth, and write it truthfully. Then send it off. And keep sending it off! Keep writing and keep sending it off! For days. Weeks. Months. Years.

Insist to the Universe that you Are who you Are... no matter what it “looks like” you are “doing.”

For further clarity on this question of being, please reread CwG Book 1, Chapter 12. Also Chapter 11 while you’re at it.

Beingness must always precede creating. The person who gets the “perfect” job is not being “rewarded” by the universe, but is simply being presented with that which he has already created through his beingness. The universe did not “reward” the man, but simply presented that which he had already created through his beingness. The universe does not “reward” as such. Rather, it only presents us with the opportunity to make use of that which our beingness has manifested in our lives.

Your responsibility is to be the Greatest Version of the Grandest Vision you ever had about yourself. In this, you have total responsibility. Your beingness will attract unlike things like a magnet, but, if you can continue to be that which you have chosen to be despite the appearances of these “unwanted” occurrences, an amazing thing happens. By maintaining your beingness despite everything else, it is as if a vacuum is created which draws opportunities to you for you to experience your beingness to an ever-increasing degree.



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