It’s weird waking up to the realization that a whole city is going to read my name.
Steel workers and teachers. Construction monkeys with blue on their collars. Empty suits shuffling meaningless paper. Coffee shop vagrants. And the matted masses collecting across the street for their yoga class. Or, as I like to call it, “Bendy Toots.”
It was a strange experience being the subject of an actual interview. Usually I am the one chasing the stories. But instead, I stood awkwardly in front of a gallery wall covered with the stupid shit I drew and answered the questions of a talented reporter to the best of my socially retarded abilities.
And he did a great fucking job with the story.
Not only is it an entertaining peek behind the curtains of my inner madness, but it’s easy to tell that he also did his homework. Picked up the crumbs I threw down. Expertly blended them into a compelling narrative. And did me the huge honour of mentioning the writing.
That was exactly what I had hoped for ever since receiving that first email confirming the interview—I wanted it to be about the art. I am, after all, just the rather inconsiderate inconsistent conduit. The oft-hungover springboard to written or doodled shenanigans. The ones intended to bring something new into the world, be that laughter, colour, or occasionally, tears.
Because sometimes it’s hard making the art. Especially when the odds and obligations begin to pile up. Or the adulting world conspires against artistic intentions, manipulating circumstances in such a way that a response is forced. When all you really want to do is throw some crap show on a screen and stare blankly at that vapid nothingness for a few hours.
So you push through. Pull up the “big boy” pants. Put an ass in the chair. Bang out the words. Scribble something ridiculous, just because it brings a smile. Or maybe even draw something a bit more provocative, just because it’s so damn fun to push the boundaries. To break the rules. And jumble it all up into something fresh amidst the backdrop of a city choking on its own reinvention.
It’s a hell of a way to fill these cookie-cutter Michigan days. Because most of the nights are already booked with the obligation of kicking tin. Feeding that winged beast of consumerism, one loaded ULD at a time.
Then it’s often hours spent winding down after the engines have long since spooled up to take the tin away. Hours spent wandering an empty and skeletal downtown. Those magic moments when the fox runs free. And it feels like the whole fucking city belongs to just him.
Empty streets become the potholed springboard to dreaming up the next big thing. And provide the clearances required to dodge the ghosts that inconsiderately insist on wandering out of their graveyards.
In the empty of that overnight, there is often time and space to chase after that something lacking a proper name. Or even a clear definition. That fuzzy outline of something big, seemingly forever just up ahead. And out of reach.
I don’t know what that big thing is. I just know that I fucking want it.
Then it’s back to the Boulevard hovel for a few hours of sleep. Restless in the best of times. Terror-filled in the worst. Several cuppas to get a head back on straight enough to face the day. An unhealthy dose of tobacco to help knock away the hangover web. Even though I have started to feel guilty about that yellow-boxed pleasure. Because I know she wants me to quit.
That would be more easily accomplished if she were close enough to give me that smack of redirection. I am, after all, a barely civilized fox. And I often find myself in desperate need of that domesticated realignment.
Maybe that is the missing piece. Perhaps that is the figure absent from a more meaningful equation. Not that I have ever been particularly good at math. Just ask the long string of broken “plus ones” left trailing behind me.
On second thought, maybe that is a question better left unasked. Because when you break it all down, grown-up style, I am admittedly nothing more than just an asshole with a typewriter. A literary Bad Boy who has a tendency to make things messy. A bohemian fuck-wit still chasing after the dream, even though the time to grow the fuck up has long since passed him by.
I am okay making that sacrifice. Because you aren’t a real fox if you love the enclosure.
And I’d rather run free, chasing after something green rather than to surrender to the mundane. I’d rather stir the metaphorical punchbowl with my magnificent dong than to choke swallowing the mediocrity of another bland, mittened day.
So fuck the dial tones and bring on whatever is destined to be next. Because who knows where that upcoming open mic night will take me, the one where I plan to read about Ireland? Or the typing event at the gallery? Or the frozen tarmac of another peak season scheduled to be filled with even more tin for me to kick?
I am not scared.
I may not have yet found a home. But this fox has finally found his voice.
And I’m not afraid to fucking use it.
