WHAT I’M PLOTTING/SCHEMING NEXT…
I woke up and realized the renaissance cannot possibly happen in san francisco or on the western seaboard. there’ll be pockets of happenings in oakland and even back in new york, but the creative ecosystem has long been hollowed out. the bureaucratic policies restrict too much and there is too much envy. envy doesn’t lead to healthy competition, it leads to drowning babies in the bath as is happening with me currently.
what’s happening to me now is about envy as in a salieri thing. and when i was stalked before, same thing. so we have to be where we’re welcomed as a form of new life, and we who have been envied to death, must learn to breathe life into others so that they may partake in the party. it’s essential because the old dying way of thinking is “look at ME!” and that is boring and leads to nowhere. but envy.
so i’m already thinking of doing a welcome home cross country tour when i drive across America, we have little tiny live readings on the fly. we’ll podcast it for others to be inspired to start their own things.
i’m thinking of you, lilly. and old fans are suddenly getting in touch with me from decades ago. again: why i scream loudly! so that we find each other.
i met James because he found my book, “Flaming Iguanas,” in the library. i now think that entire book was just to meet JAMES. no lie. there was a career and many adventures but James was the reason because how else would i have found him in colorado???
we had fights because we weren’t straight up lovers and we had to find out what kind of lovers we were while being kind to each other and not just leaving or quitting because we didn’t fit some pre-defined version of whatever we were to be.
so that’s what i’m thinking. after a day of tears and missing James yesterday and selling his motorcycle, the new young couple reminded me of LIFE and to keep going for the little ones who come next.
i’m gonna start my part of the renaissance by doing live readings, which are more like performances, on my route cross country. but whenever that is i know not. it’s just that i’m seeing a FUTURE and really thinking where it is for creative life.
it cannot be here although i love it here. this is “paradise.” now i put the word in quotes (smile).
but we need an ecosystem of people who actually DO THINGS and i want to figure out how not to simply “gentrify” but help us hold onto whatever we start ourselves. i wrote about some of this in “HOOCHIE MAMA: THE OTHER WHITE MEAT.”
you have a fake front to keep speculators out and thinking you’re too scary to gentrify.
but America is over as we know it and i don’t know if there’s going to be too much gentrification in the future compared to what i’ve experienced wherever i’ve gone, be it west philly, south philly, center city, the mission district…wherever.
America’s contracting and there is not much leadership and wisdom on the horizon. at least not officially. but artists are the unofficial legislators of culture and it’s time to wrangle back culture.
“GEN X NOT DONE” because we’re the last ones who remember how to actually DO real things in The Real. we do not live by intentions or websites or talking smack.
i have a fantasy of carding people at the door and have millennials and whatever snowflake generations come after that, have their parents sign permission slips for them to attend Adult Time. not XXX but they have to sign up to dare to be offended or they have to leave because they will be under age.
no phones. talking open ended conversations. i won’t make it a rule just a suggestion so that outliers get side eye for not being present where we are at this New Thing.
so there it is. i’m thinking of doing readings and little appearances cross country when i take the cats back east. no way i’m flying on a plane. not suicidal anymore. the state of the planes and boeing are what i’m talking about.
regular people are broken and are just zombies going forward into the inferno.
i’m going to turn everything that hurts me now into opportunity and promise.
(i already have!)
see you all soon. or eventually.
thanks, Sarah Schwartz. you made MY summer, too. (all my fans of decades ago are returning like long lost friends all the sudden. this is why i SCREAM! this is why i don’t hide. no one shows up when you look too cool. be hot sweaty and moving stuff around to make room for what’s next!)
The Renaissance is coming! The Renaissance is definitely coming…
x
erika