It’s been longer than usual since my last update. I’m out on Michigan Ave right now, the same spot I’ve posted up with a painting and a table of prints for the last week and a half (the corner of Van Buren, I think). It’s gone phenomenally well pretty much every day that I’ve come out; I’m making way more money than someone who paints funny faces for a living should. Today is one of the few exceptions. I’m not sure of it’s the weather or something that I’m doing differently.

I’ve got a bunch of new, finished paintings that I haven’t added to the site yet ’cause I’m waiting on getting them professionally photographed. It looks like that should be happening sometime this week though. I’m really proud of them.

About a year ago, something happened. I made a painting about it. It’s the only piece of art I’ve never shared online in any way because I felt like it was too private. Something like that’s sort of / maybe happening again now. I make art for myself but I can’t pretend that a big part of that isn’t the validation I get when I share something. Knowing that I won’t want to share something if I incorporate certain details fucks up my shit. Art is very much my therapy these days. In that way, this situation reminds me of December 2012, when I was still living in Tranquil Shores and I was unwilling to tell my counselor about the shit in and out of my head that was fucking me up.

That was a little more serious because my life was on the line over it. There’s nothing happening today that’s gonna kill me but I’m noticing the ways in which I’m behaving differently. In moments, I catch myself feeling bitter. Smiling less. My humor (which I’m told is already pretty dark but doesn’t usually feel that way to me) is … striking me as pretty dark lately. My smiles are meaner. And – as always – this problem I’ve got, I know it’s not a huge deal and (honestly) I don’t even know if it really is a problem. (I might be making something out of nothing – or something out of very little). Like I said: it’s nothing that’s gonna kill me.

I guess that’s all I got for now. Traffic at my street table is slow, I knew I could use a little journaling, and -what the hell- I might as well make a fucking update out of it ’cause that’s what I do, right? (Pay attention to my every whim and thought, everyone).

And since every entry should have a photo, here’s one I forgot to share when it was first emailed to me by Jacksonville artist, Andrea Ashmead. Back in April, she painted me while I was painting “Corporations are Cool.” Pretty awesome, huh?

Yesterday was fucked up. Today was cool. It’s 2 AM and I’m on my way to St. Louis ’cause Rational Anthem are playing Dekalb, Masked Intruder are playing STL, and I’m a capitalist, opportunist, little fuck.

So – two nights ago in Lexington – my feelings were hurt by something a friend said to me and I let it fuck up my emotional well-being (which has been pretty shaky lately anyway). When I woke up in the morning, I was still a mess and I got some pretty bad ideas in my head – so bad that I was incredibly hesitant to share them with anyone even after I pulled my shit together. So – of course – like most of the thoughts I’m most afraid to share, I put it out into the world. LOUD. (I wrote it on my fuckin’ T-SHIRT). Which made a few people uncomfortable and a few more really proud of me for being so honest. Which made me feel better / less ashamed but still… Even though it’s already out there, I’m hesitant to spread it around anymore ’cause it’s embarrassing and makes me out to be way more fucked up than I (usually like to think I) am.

The new Masked Intruder record is really great.

I don’t like anything anymore.

It’s times like these I wonder why I do anything that I do and if any of this “being alive” experience is worth it. WHICH IS FUCKING INSANE because I have such a great time most of the time. Why am I so fucking prone to these ridiculous spurts of absolute hopelessness?

No matter what I do; no matter how hard I work at everything; no matter how SPECTACULAR of a life I build for myself… in the midst of all good things, I’m always gonna slip into these awful dark spots. That’s my reality. It doesn’t matter how happy I am most of the time because, when I start to feel this way, (short as these moods might be) everything goes out the window. I KNOW I’ll be okay any moment and even that doesn’t comfort me.

I’m in panic mode. I went to the Triple Rock to set up around the side but was told I couldn’t. They were cool and said I could hang out ’til the liquor store next door closed and then set up over there. But it was supposed to close at 8 and never did. I came over to Memory Lanes to try and set up for the show here but no one’s going to be here, I don’t want to set up in the parking lot and I don’t want to have to go inside, muster up the courage to find out who to ask, find the courage to actually ask, risk rejection, and – even if successful – take the time to set up only to discover that turnout is even worse than expected, sell nothing, feel weird about painting at this random show – all the while – not being able to listen to the music I want to listen to (which is one of the most important parts of my “trying to feel better” process).

I can’t do a lot of the work that I need to do with updates and my website because I don’t have wifi access for my computer and I can’t do a lot of that stuff on my phone. I hate spending time driving to places that have wifi and then doing that stuff in public because I’m a fucking weirdo and I have anxiety about everything. I could call a friend and ask to come over but I don’t like asking anyone for anything.

Part of me wants to hit the road for Chicago because I know my friends there will welcome me but I still don’t like the idea of being dependent on anyone for anything and I don’t like feeling intrusive even when I’m assured that I’m not. I’ve also yet to hit any galleries in Minneapolis because none of them are open until Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. So it seems dumb to leave before then. But there are more galleries in more cities than I could ever hope to get into so maybe that doesn’t matter.

Even though I don’t want to live in any one city and (most of the time) like living the way that I do… right now I kind of wish that I just had a home. And I really don’t like that I feel that way.

I don’t know what to do with myself. If I were on my own, I’d probably just hide in the back of my van for a while but I have Chris with me and you can’t hide when someone is sitting right there with you. And I’m glad Chris is with me but sometimes it forces me to make better decisions when I don’t WANT to make better decisions. And other times (right now, for example) it puts me in a place of total indecision. I act differently when someone is “watching” me. I don’t know what the fuck that means or what I’m trying to say. Really, I’m scared that he’s gonna interpret some of this as meaning that I don’t want him with me anymore, even though that’s not the case and even though I can just turn the fuck around in the chair I’m sitting in and tell him so. WHICH I’LL DO ‘CAUSE IT’S FUCKING WEIRD TO WRITE ABOUT SOMEONE ON THE INTERNET WHEN YOU’RE SITTING RIGHT FUCKING NEXT TO THEM. Why do I even write these weird random public journal entries?

‘Cause I want attention! Me! Look at me!

Fuck.

I’m gonna postpone doing my computer bullshit, drive the fuck back over to the Triple Rock, hope that the fucking liquor store is closed, set up my god damn print table, and work on my new fucking painting. And it’s all gonna go kinda poorly because that’s what happens when my head is in a bad place. I do well when I’m SMILING. When I’m genuinely happy. Nobody gives a fuck about some miserable little shit. No one wants to talk to or buy art from someone that looks unhappy.

What the fuck is wrong with me?? I have literally ZERO problems. Fuck. I need something to snap me out of this. It doesn’t take much but I never know ahead of time what it’s going to (or needs to) be.

If I were on my computer, this is where I’d embed an audio stream of Sass Dragons’ “Diaper Baby.”

“I don’t care – I want attention; it doesn’t matter where it comes from. I’m as needy as the day I was born. Like a crying baby: ‘Somebody change me!’ and tell me just what I’ve become.”

With Chris driving, I’m free to use the travel time from Jacksonville to research the galleries in Atlanta so I can map out how I wanna hit ’em once we arrive. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. The last time I did this was in Delray Beach and – though it worked out for me there – I’m a little nervous to be going to a city with galleries that actually have a never-ending stream of hopeful artists submitting themselves for consideration. I think my strengths may also be my weaknesses but that’s okay. I already know I’m not for everyone. I’m not emailing a PDF with images of my work and a résumé highlighting my fine arts education. I’m walking in, off the street, in my tattered, paint-covered clothes, with my fliers, prints, and stories. I’m walking in as me. I don’t want to be accepted as anything other than what I am. My work is excellent. It’s likely that most of these galleries won’t give me a moment of their time but I don’t need most of them to. I just need one – one that understands what I’m doing, why it’s great, and why it’s worth their attention.

I believe in myself; everything is going to be okay.

I’m going to work on that artwork I owe Mike for Dead Broke now.

—–

Here’s a drawing I made for another artist the other day. He didn’t want a print and couldn’t afford the original so we compromised and I scratched out this “update”/”variation” for a fair price.

The key differences between it and the original original are (1) the label on the can and (2) the fact that it took me just a few minutes and not a full hour. That means I’m getting better, you guys.

The name “Chris Spillane” is gonna start popping up in just about everything I write (and already has in my Facebook posts) so I figure a little explanation is in order.

Chris is one of my oldest / best friends. When I came back to Sarasota two weeks back, he was in bad shape. We got into heroin together back when we were kids but have slid in and out of the danger zone with it to different degrees and at different times. After a relatively long stretch of clean time that began last summer, Chris started shooting up again earlier this year. He also started smoking and shooting crack. That’s not entirely new (I’ll tell the story of the first time we smoked crack later) but it had never been a regular thing until just recently. So, anyway, Chris’s April featured such exciting developments as (1) losing his job, (2) losing his dog, (3) losing his home, and (4) losing his girlfriend. And things weren’t exactly getting any better from there. On April 30th, some friends and I filed Marchman Act papers to have Chris picked up by the police and put into detox and then (ideally) transferred to the Salvation Army’s long-term inpatient treatment program. Which all worked out until Chris panicked and ran off into the night last Friday. With ideas about heroin, overdosing, and death. Thankfully, before he followed through with that, he called me and I picked him up. He’s been with me ever since.

We looked at the options. Chris could try to get back into the Salvation Army’s treatment program, which might be good for him but it’s pretty clear that it’s not all that tough to leave on a whim and – should Chris get anxious or scared and walk out again – things might not work out quite as nicely next time around. SO, with that in mind, we’re going with plan B. Chris is coming on the road with me for the time being. He can help me with all the practical/work parts of my “job” and maybe (just maybe) see that life without heroin can be pretty fucking spectacular. I realize that art (and my lifestyle, more generally) isn’t a universal cure and I don’t think Chris is gonna wanna become an artist and live like this for the rest of his life. But (hopefully) he’ll have some fun and find something to get excited about (something worth living for). All I know for sure is that that’s a fuck of a lot more likely to happen on the road with me than back in Sarasota. And a whole lot less dangerous, for him specifically.

Granted, this has the potential to become pretty stressful for me (it’s a lot of responsibility to take on) and I can be pretty fragile myself some days. But, ultimately, it’s more than worth it to me. I love the kid. And – like I said – Chris will be able to help me out in a lotta ways. Just for starters, the distances between the cities I’ll be visiting are about to increase exponentially as I get out of Florida. Chris can split the driving with me and I’ll be able to hang out in the back of the van and actually paint (or write) as I make my way from city to city. (That’s pretty awesome).

So that’s the latest development and (barring any further unforeseen developments) the next time you see me, you’ll be seeing Chris too. He’s one of my favorite people on the planet and will be one of the best people you’ll ever meet. Here’s a picture of me eating some pizza and cutting his hair, the morning after he left treatment.