Creativity

Last page of a story I wrote in 3rd grade

When I was a little kid all I liked to do was draw and paint.  I used to make books of my drawings -  for instance, I once drew the alphabet in animals with names that corresponded to very letter.  Art supplies were always my favorite gifts.  I was obsessed with a Crayola Caddy that my mom bought me for Christmas one year.  It was like a lazy susan that was filled with paint, markers, pencils and crayons in a rainbow of Crayola colors.  I even won a few prizes at art shows and contests around town and had a watercolor painting a did of a deer in snow with a fuchsia sky on display at the local library branch.
     I'm not exactly sure when I let the creativity slip away for the 1st time.  My parents got divorced when I was 7 and that was physically, mentally and emotionally crippling for me at that age.  Some other traumatizing life events took place after that coupled with the fact that I was cruelly teased and bullied in school - all of this lead me to retreat within myself with a profound desire to escape and disappear.  I exiled myself to TV Land and anything else that would distract me from the emotional pain I felt in reality.  I would shop lift and spend my whole afternoon at the arcade and slowly and surly the creative stuff fell by the wayside.  Of course later on when I discovered drugs and alcohol it was a match made in heaven - until it turned to hell.
     When I got to high school I finally had like minded friends.  We were definitely a motley crew but the thing that bound us all together was a level of intelligence that was generally missing from the majority of our high school peers.  We sought out cool bands and artists to explore and we challenged and accepted each other no matter what freaky style we had going on.  It was a pretty creative group to say the least.  In my senior year of high school I felt like I was ready to explore my creative outlets again, being surrounded by all of my artsy friends inspired me.  I took a ceramics class with this amazing art teacher that had been my mortal enemy in 9th grade.  This time around we got along like gang busters and I let her teach me and expand my horizons and it felt great to make art again.
     Around this time I had also started doing photography.  I took some classes and got an amazing camera for my Bday and even joined the yearbook committee which was a life saver my senior year.  It meant a stack of hall passes and "get outta class free" cards that my favorite English/Photography teacher & yearbook advisor had given me at the start of the year.  I spent a majority of my year stoned in the darkroom and then had the privilege of flooding my senior yearbook with photos of all the cool kids and paying little mind to the jocks.  It was a very Breakfast Club moment.
     Since then my life has been this constant tug-of-war between me and my creative side.  For some reason when life gets tough I'm generally inclined to let the artistic side go instead of exploring it and using it to reach new heights and depths of art.  These days I've gotten a lot better at expressing myself and even let some of my uglier truths rise to the surface so I can tell on myself and free myself from them.  The writing has helped a lot.
     I 1st got the idea to write a book of my stories about 8 years ago on a trip to Costa Rica.  I was going to meet a large group of friends, mostly from NYC, and when I booked my travel I had the dates wrong.  I ended up arriving 4 days before everyone else and it was the best thing that could've happened.  In those 4 days all of the stresses of city life melted away, I read 2 books and had this creative avalanche pour out of me when I put pen to paper to start jotting down one of my famous stories involving a really expensive pair of custom made pants and some cheap ass cocaine (you'll have to read the book!)  It was one of those moments when the words literally flowed out of me as if it wasn't even me writing.  The pen was furiously scribbling words on paper and I was sitting in the backseat like a passenger or observer.  When you have those moments while you are creating something it is truly magically - it's when everything aligns and you are really in the moment.
     Just this year I have re-committed myself to finishing this book that was conceived on the sands of the beach, next to the jungle of Costa Rica many moons ago.  I have been getting up every day a 1/2 hour earlier than normal so that I can write before my day gets going.  Some days it's a challenge and other days the words flow out from that magical sweet spot of creativity.  The book will be done in a few moths time and I cannot wait to share my ridiculous happenings with you and the world!!!!











   

Stranger Than Fiction

  

   There are many famous stories of mine that I am asked to re-tell over and over again.  Humorous, ridiculous, even fabulous anecdotes and experiences that I have had in my crazy life.  Some of my friends even know my stories by heart because they've heard them so many times, and, according to them they never cease to be funny.  Some of the magical & absurd situations I've found myself in you just couldn't make up. That's why I have decided to write them all down.   It's always been a fantasy of mine to write a book of non-fiction stories like David Sedaris or Chelsea Handler  and I'm determined to make that fantasy a reality.
     I have been fortunate enough to meet and befriend many amazingly talented, creative and beautiful people in my life and have even traveled the globe with some of them.  My Mom and stepdad lived in Mogadishu, Somalia - as in, a-country-in-Africa-most-people-barely-even-know-exists - for 2 years when I was a freshman in college.  I got to go there not once, but twice and the second time I lived there for the whole summer.  Not too typical a stay abroad.  Traveling is so important because it ignites the powers of perception and observation.  When you always walk or drive down the same streets you stop noticing things and it all becomes familiar and routine.  Try walking down the dirt "streets" of Mogadishu and I dare you not to notice how completely different everything is around you.  Being in an unfamiliar place forces you to rely on your senses in a more profound way.
     Several years back a group of 10 of my friends all planned and actually managed to go on an amazing trip to Costa Rica.  Most of my friends were coming from NY and I was flying from LA.  Somehow, I got the dates wrong and ended up arriving 3 days before all my friends were scheduled to get there.  It ended up being the biggest blessing.  I read 2 books and seemingly out of the blue got really motivated to write.  I started journaling and even penned my 1st story while sitting on a glorious beach, adjacent to the jungle, all by myself, no one around for miles.  I recently looked back on that journal and the thing that I wrote right before the story was "there's no reason why I couldn't be a published author, in fact, I'd be quite good at it."  That entry was dated 2/15/09 and I just now, this year, started writing down my stories again.
     The creative process has always been a bit of a struggle for me.  Finding motivation is usually pretty easy but the follow through is where I always get stuck.  Thus, the 5 year gap in writing.  Part of the reason I started this blog was to practice getting my words out there regularly and also, when I have a reason beyond myself to complete tasks I always step up.  Committing to a weekly blog and knowing that people may actually be reading this gives me the motivation to make sure I don't slack.  Funny, too, how just the act of putting words down on paper or on a computer screen makes me feel so much more in touch with myself and the world around me.
     I allude to some of the things that I am writing about in my book in this blog but the stories that I am compiling will still, mostly, be a surprise to people that don't know me well.  Also, I figure if I put it out there that I'm working on this project then you guys and the universe will hold me accountable for completing it.  The thing is that it feels so good to do that it doesn't even really matter  if anyone ever reads it - the act of completing it will be a victory for me and who knows how that feeling will color my future.


Top photo: Matt & I with the legendary Phyllis Diller taken on the magical day we got to spend at her house shortly before she passed away.

Kate Bush

     Today seemed like a good day to start a blog.  It's something I've wanted to do for a while now and after receiving a rather exciting email this morning I thought "today is the day."  Yesterday was a crappy day both figuratively and literally.  I've had an upset stomach all week and I was having a real pity party about my whole life in general - often, I tend to get too inward when I'm not feeling well and I start judging myself harshly.
     After an entire day of feeling hopeless and unaccomplished I woke up to an email from Kate Bush! Well, not actually Kate Bush but an email from her fan site stating that she would be playing a series of shows this summer after a 35 year absence from the stage.  If you are asking yourself right now "who is Kate Bush?" please, I beg of you, PLEASE Google her, download her albums, look on the interweb - educate yourself to this mystical, musical master (http://www.katebush.com)!  After the shock of the news, and the fact that I'm a big enough nerd to be registered on her fan site, wore off I felt a strange feeling of elation and excitement and, well, hope.
     People always say that music saved their lives and I really, truly must concur.  As an awkward and strange, gay child growing up in upstate NY I didn't have much to identify with or look forward to.  Discovering music was like opening a magical Pandora's Box (not the drag queen) and riding on a magic carpet to amazing new places where there were like minded souls - and unicorns, of course!  When you "discover" a new band as a kid you feel like you have found the key to something special that no one else has.  Listening to an album for the 1st time makes you feel like you are the only person who has ever been lucky enough to hear these particular sounds.
     Kate Bush is a strange and magical creature.  She's the strangest kind of strange because she looks pretty normal but, in fact, is kookier that the kookiest.  She's kind of like the Marilyn Munster of music.  I use words like strange and kooky as a reverence because I LOVE the strange, the kooky, and the queer.  She found a way to express outwardly the swirl of kaleidoscopic emotions that I was feeling inside even though I was a far cry from an English, country girl with a seriously musical family.  That's the thing about music, it's universal.  Kate could play a heartbreaking melody on the piano and sing words that caused tears to spill and then switch to a braying donkey howling in possession.  Perfection!
     I even used to perform lip synch numbers of her songs when I was a young drag queen in NYC.  For a while I worked as a waitress at a place called Stingy Lulu's on St. Mark's Place in the East Village.  One time I was performing "Wuthering Heights" (a song Kate wrote at school when she was like 16 or something crazy like that) and I decided to run out the front door of the restaurant onto the icy, winter streets wearing a see-though, flow-y gown.  Right on queue I pressed myself up to the plate glass window from outside just in time to lip the words "Heathcliff, it's me -- Cathy. Come home.  I'm so cold.  Let me in-a-your window." The patrons of the restaurant went wild as I ran back inside, teetering on strappy-stilletos, onto the stage in time to finish the song!
    Some people don't "get" Kate Bush or they feel like she's too much of a girly, emotional singer.  She clearly didn't fit into the punk scene at all - I mean, she trained under Marcel Marceau and is probably the only person ever to make mime not detestable.  That being said her album "Hounds Of Love" is on every single list ever compiled of the best albums of all times.  I would have to say that "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" is the most perfect song ever written, or one of them at least.  Personally, her album "The Dreaming" is my favorite because it is, well, the weirdest one.
     The tickets for her upcoming 15 shows in London have not even gone on sale yet.  She does not travel and most likely will never play in the US.  I may not even be lucky enough to score any tickets for those gigs.  The idea that she's playing and the possibility that I may actually see the only living idol of mine left that I have not seen live yet fills me with hope.  Just receiving that email alone gave me the nudge I needed to realize that life is a grand and awesome journey.  Music really does save lives.  It sure saves mine.