A Mandate for Myself

Oh Greg, you sorry fool! How you have squandered and lost sight of your dream in the slings and arrows of Los Angeles life. But you are 33 and all is not lost!

You are from the mountains. You were born there, you grew up there, and most everything you know to be real, you learned in nature.

Remember Rye Creek? Please never forget the pleasure you found there. For that matter meditate on your north country home daily, and if that is becoming difficult, use your beautiful Highland Park yard, and SoCal nature opportunities to remind yourself. Even better drop the cash and fly up for a 3 day weekend. You have a very wonderful future ahead of you where your heritage is concerned, Indio, so you must nurture it. I know you feel distracted in the city, so exercise outside, working in your yard, trips to the beach and mountains and desert...these are crucial things that you must find time to do.

You are a crazy long ways from home. It's ok. Yes, you went to the city seeking gratification and mass acknowledgement of your talent; don't berate yourself -- it was the right thing to do! Had you stayed, can you imagine the horrible stench your family would have endured as the passion in yourself( which you have come to know intimately )smouldered, imagining of the possibilities which were never explored? It would have been a sin.

True, you have been reduced to a pathetic shadow of your potential, probably just as low as if you had stayed! Haha! Hats off to the good friends and lovers in your wake! It's true, you are on your knees right now boy: You have learned so clearly just how small of a fish you are in that vast whirlpool of people. But every adventure must have its chapters of misery, you know it, and you are learning to live with it. Good!

You have been introduced to the world! From this experience, you now can draw a truly relevant identity as a citizen and survivor in the modern era.

So, here is how to proceed, my beautiful friend; some boundaries on your imagination and yes your potential:

1) Stop wasting your time on the game of love -- someday you may have time and inclination to write an internet version, but consider it a hobby project of a retired internet professional. Inventing something that will free you from the money machine is not your destiny, so buy lotto tickets each week instead. Serious.

2) As for the women, you are not a Don Juan either. You have in creativity the edge that you lack in desirability, so searching for it with all your free time is a waste of time. Eventually you will be drowned in the shallow puddle of it all, and not once will you have found anything fitting your dreams.

We are not saying you are not to continue improving your confidence in social settings. The bar is a happy place! but reset your agenda from sex to art. Then you will begin to see why you are so drawn to the nightlife.

3) Stop tripping about weed smoking -- instead of celebrating that it is now a legal medicine in both California and Montana, you spend literally hours per day in conflict about your desire to smoke it. When you feel like smoking it, smoke it! Who cares if people think you're a stoner. Everybody has a tragic flaw and that doesn't mean they are short-changed in the long-run. It is your lack of groundedness, which we will discuss below, that is the real killer of your productivity.

Same thing with tobacco for that matter. You are gifted with a love of physicality as well as a sensitive physiology...you simply will not allow yourself to kill yourself this way, so enjoy!

4) Now, as for Liz...mmm, this is a very very delicate situation, and you are handling it...mmm...you are handling it. There are no rules, and love is something you will never understand fully. "Let it be" is probably the only lasting advice I can give. You dropped a lot on her over Thanksgiving, and rumor has it from Owl that you were encouraged to do it, so the agitation is probably necessary for her to loosen that crazy load she's carrying. To follow up with a divorce would be the end forever, so...let your heart be your guide, Response De La Johnse.

I can say this: that notion you have about her always having the upper hand because of womanhood is hogwash, fool. First of all, if she didn't make all those concrete definitions, your wishy-washiness would produce no love to speak of. Secondly, you feel she dictates emotion to you because you have no emotional center other than what you feel for her( which crushes her btw ), so! You must get grounded.

We have been telling you this for a while, but here is what it really means: When you are grounded, you are in harmony, you are "tight" with your dream. Lately you've been drifting, a lot, completely ignorant of why you are in the world.

And here's what you are going to do about that:

For Christmas, consolidate your wish list with the family and get the money to replenish your oil paints, brushes, etc. Go over to Sanborn and get your art table, even if you don't get anything else, just get that table set up in your living room. Let a work-space emerge -- you have a dream studio if you would but set it up and utilize it.

Then, PAINT YOUR LUST. Paint it big, and paint it true. Paint, paint, paint, paint. You will see what begins to happen, even after the first piece is done.

The conflict you have between music and art will get easier over time -- you are indeed a great musician, gregory, but you have many, many, many more years of learning before you will be exhibiting this potential. And once you begin to see the strength of these paintings, relegating music to a year or two in the future when you have more time will not be such a hard tablet to swallow. Honestly, you have reached a level that can only improve with cross-training. Relax, man.

Your career is such a crucial piece of the puzzle dude! The internet is your gallery! To be able to showcase your work there is something that none of your contemporaries are able to do successfully. Yes, it has required a huge fantasy in your heart to motivate your ass to reach your pro level in the time you have. We are sorry for the emotional confusion there, but congratulations! In this respect, hard times are over.

Finish the gallery app, consider paying Pong to design a really, really, really beautiful, simple, and scalable interface. When he sees you painting he will be inclined... Then proceed with your idea of digitizing every scrap of every drawing you have ever done -- the idea is to prove to the world that you are the oldest character in the game...that you have been doing this since you were born. Even though your new work will be the best, the timeline of your development will be what truly attracts people to you.

As the sight gets finished, you should have a new painting and several portraits ready to go. Get those slightly odd-sized business cards printed, print and mount a show's worth of your black-and-white material on substantial weight board, and GET YOURSELF YOUR FIRST SHOW.

From there you will be rock-and-rolling, buddy!

Truly it would be sweet if you could get all this up-and-running before summer 2010, but the truth is, you work a lot, you need plenty of chill time, and that cannot be changed any time soon. You hope to have your debt done in a year...plan on it being at least 2 years. Then, as you become debt free, your art career will manifest.

We now have to reiterate: Channel all of this love emotion. Failure is certainly a possibility if you become grossly involved with anyone during this period. Even Liz, so check yourself CHECK YOURSELF. Warm to the idea of a family by yourself so that if you two do succeed in smoothing the sheets, you will be able to jump right into that. You guys will only be 35, and she will be the healthiest she has ever been. Yes, you may tell her that is your goal.

Return From Oz

I grew up isolated from people. This was partly due to the fact that, in rural Montana, there are few people around -- however, it was mostly due to being "mommafied", which led to believe I was the number one most special son. So when I did go to public school, I met the regular cast of characters. But, even though I thought I was the King of the World, the boys and girls who knew lot more about this world disagreed, and they made it clear to me my rank in comparison to them.

The result of this battering, both verbal and physical, was a full retreat into the wild trappings of my mind. A place that I will call 'Oz' for the sake of metaphorical generalization.

When I left for college, I had no acceptance of the disparity. Because I had discovered the fantasy-world of comic books, I had aligned myself with a notion that there was not only a career for me, but potentially fame and recognition for having developed my imagination. So I believed I had no incentive to see the world clearly.

So I cast-off on this journey, which led me ultimately to Los Angeles.

Thus began my formal adult education: A 15 year( and continuing )oddesey into reality.

At first, I relied solely on youthfulness, naivete, and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, I realize now, these gifts are not what gets a person to their goals.

Rather, my charm accomplished as much as it could accomplish, and I had many wonderful adventures. It was as if the world wanted to lure me out of my shell, and it did so with tantalizing opportunities to work, to travel, and be intimate with beautiful women. The only thing even partly wrong with all of those memories, is that they came as fast as they went, and because of my mostly mental relationship to it all, the net result was nothing.

All the while, I was projecting on those events a wild fiction with plot leading to some fantastical destination of my imagination. All of it slipped through my fingers while I was counting the grains of sand.

Now I can see emptiness, it is on all sides of me. I have become well-acquainted with my ability to cast illusion on the life going on around me. Because all of that effort actually created nothing other than what was already here, life, I find myself feeling so tired of my old ways.

But alas, I have no other scripts to read -- who will I be? Who am I?

I feel...mostly sad. Sad for the great love I have received via the hearts and souls of people who are no longer in my life. I had believed my passion would lead me to their love, not away from it.

I am not berating myself. I have been foolish, but it was destined to be so -- I did not know then what I know now. I recognize that the rasberry has no idea the size of the patch until it has been plucked and taken away from the garden.

It seems I have no choice other than to learn to love myself, with the same strength and fairness that has been demonstrated by my lovers and friends of youth. I should begin by being more thankful that I have such a fine group upon which to draw examples. I was taught to be intelligent, well-spoken, athletic, ambitious, humorous, gentle, caring, strong, independent, and good-looking. With these tools, I really should be able to do something with my life.