Awash

I had a mind to write an entire list of things that I don’t like about waking up early — but the truth is I hate the night before more than the actual morning in most cases.

I am becoming aware again of the absurd, yet less able to manipulate it for art. I am far too sober. Not as far as drinking and such is concerned, though I’d love to blame the fact of it on my lack thereof, but it’s grown obvious to me that the world is in a ridiculous state, and quickly people in day to day life are refelcting it to the only people it occurs to them to take it out on — those at hand.

Here are some soberly streams of my suffering consciousness with regard to my awareness of the absurd: approximately 1990 — Public Enemy, a resounding voice for black frustration and arguably the most artistically sound political poetry I’ve ever seen signed on with Warner Brothers, (now Time Warner).

I am studying music. I went to school hoping to become a composer, as opposed to remaining a “mere” songwriter. That means learning to read and write music, applying my aesthetics, and coming to understand what it means to write music with no words — that’s what it meant to me anyway. Learning to read and write music at the age of 36 is an example of an old dog taking on new tricks. It can be done, however requires time — the kind of time that, to borrow my composition teacher’s analogy, is comparable to having root canals on every tooth in one’s mouth. Long story short, now that I’m fairly literate this way none of my teachers at this school in question offers me the slightest bit of encouragement in my composing- I’ve been sidestepped at best, and blantantly discouraged at worst — this discouragement was particularly layed on thick by the man I paid 260 dollars last semester (this on top of a bold tuition figure) as a private teacher on the subject of composition. Hey at least I got an “A.”

You’re waiting for the absurd part of this story? It’s that I still feel surprised by it, stunned even.

What else, what else? The Art Institutes are a chain of tech. schools, nothing more. This and the Public Enemy flash above makes me think of “The One Dimensional Man,” a Marcuse book with a chapter on art that had me feeling more suicidal than I’ve felt in at least a full year.