TEN DAYS BEFORE...

I spent the afternoon in the Anarchist Book Fair in the Hall of Flowers, in Golden Gate Park. Sounds like a funny place for an anarchist's convention, but here in San Francisco anarchism's almost mainstream--half the town votes Green. Think of it as a flowershow full of big, talking, political, musical, black-petaled orchids, some with green spiky stamens or pistils. No pistols though--it was an activist crowd, not an angry one. In it for the long haul.

Eric Drooker came back from his trip through Palestine with a slideshow on political art projects on the Wall itself. He had a few copies of his new book with Alan Ginsberg; I bought one. Leafing through it later, at home, it got me thinking how long it's been since I've written poetry or music. Ginsberg never quit, never seems to have agonized if the work was flawed--just learned from it and did the next. Drooker's bold rough graphics have that same strength.

Over the next week, I practiced music and tried songwriting. But one key on my synthesizer kept going silent! Took it apart, cleaned it; fixing it for a day or two, but then it'd die again. Maddening. Well, I got it for free, what did I expect? Time to face it--I have to buy a keyboard. Artistic flaws are one thing, but unreliable tools aren't. Our band can't play like this! But I delayed a few more days...

THAT DAY (2005/4/5)

I do some art work, but I'm tired, sore-jointed, with a headache. Are my allergies acting up? Dust my room, then leave the house to air out. Go to the gym for the first time in weeks. But the moment I start exercising, a wave of achy fatigue hits me! This is no sinus headache; exercise clears that up. It's a relapse of that mysterious nagging illness I caught at Burning Man. It's been months! Thought I was over it at last. Not!

In the evening, just read comics--it's all I'm good for. Neil Gaiman's The Wake: the last of his Sandman stories. Shakespeare's retirement, his regrets, the parallels with Gaiman's own long run. Of course, Shakespeare had a choice, a life as well as an art-obsession. He chose the work. Did I? Sick my whole life, what else have I had but art?

Sorry, self-pity there. Slightly feverish.

THAT NIGHT

• A gifted teen questions the purpose of life = I read the graphic novel "Death: the High Cost of Living" today. Sexton, a gifted kid, plans suicide for trivial reasons.
• Singer-songwriter = 1: The inner me? 2: Death drags Sexton off to a club to hear a singer; she and Death and a girl in long gloves (hiding her wrist-scars) eventually lead him out of despair.
• Shyness, vaginas and zits = "Lions and tigers and bears" in The Wizard of Oz! They chant this in the scary forest, and Judy G adds "oh my!" moments before her worst fears manifest--a lion attacks. Well, the Cowardly Lion! And some of my worst traits turned out to be staunch friends, too.
• I think the dream hints my spiritual malaise is part teen moodiness. Twenty years of illness robbed me of both adolescence and normal adulthood. Today, healthier, I may be facing adolescent issues I mothballed long ago!
• The song also echoes Neil Gaiman's portrait of the aging Shakespeare in THE SANDMAN, who at fifty worries he wasted his life on art. But he CHOSE art over family. I had no life to give up for art--art's all that chronic illness left me. I was resigned to that when my illness was severe; now that I'm better, setbacks like the last few days frighten me more; now I have some life to lose.
• The dream's a warning. This is no midlife crisis--I'm not questioning my career, marriage, or commitments. I have none; I doubt I ever will. I struggle just to survive. I wanted so little--tolerable health, a few friends, maybe a lover, a part-time job that'd feed me. But I wasted years of very limited energy and got nowhere. So now I just write and paint and sing and let my life fall apart, trusting the art will either pay off in the end, or I'll die of neglect but leave work I'm proud of. I think "Anarchist Fair" is endorsing this risky path. That child prodigy sang ""You tried for years to be a grownup--what'd you get? Enough!" She sees my self-neglect as spiritual focus--on what'll matter when I'm dead. The work.

It turned out my perpetual "flu" wasn't depression (as doctors tended to tell me) but a persistent virus or parasite (I'm still sick as I write this a year later). Not HIV, thank God, but something equally tenacious! So after years of being sidelined by environmental illness, I had a few years of tentative adult freedom, began to grow up at last--and now the door's slammed shut again.

On the other hand, I won't let it stop me. The dream made me quit delaying--I got a decent keyboard the next day. A major investment, given my poverty; but the dream made it clear I've got nothing to invest in but my art.

Because life's not giving me a damn thing for free.

A PROMISE

I swear, I swear, I swear on Kropotkin's grave that I'll somehow learn to play this damn song and get it recorded and post it here, OK? I'm still struggling to learn the chords. To my own song.

Or is it my song? As far as I can tell, a thirteen-year-old genius I met in my dreams wrote it, not me...

But send me the royalties, OK?

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