“Some guys they just give up living and start dying little by little, piece by piece/some guys come home from work and wash up and go racing in the street”--Bruce Springsteen
My cousin Madeline is one of the coolest people I know. There are hundreds of photos of her hanging with Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Ian Hunter, Mick Ronson, Mick Rock, Adam Ant, Sean Lennon–well the list is practically endless. She is also the author of the most comprehensive volume on the life and art of Yoko Ono in existence. She’s friends with Joe Elliot from Def Leppard. Well I could go on, but you get the point. She lives the hell out of life.
When I was 10 years old, going to her house was the equivalent of Disney World. Her bedroom had the most incredible posters and mementoes covering every square inch of wall and hundreds of records in stacks going around the entire perimeter. And as cool as all of that was, that wasn’t even the best of it.
She introduced me to and created an undying love for Iggy and Bowie. Any time I would get $5, I would run to the record store to see what albums were available. My pulse would quicken every time–especially if I spotted an import of a rarity. Then I would run home and tear the cellophane off and read every word on the cover and sleeve while listening to the record. When the record would end, I would turn it over and play it again.
As far as I was concerned, Iggy Pop and Bowie were the Rimbaud and Verlaine of the 1970’s and 80’s (ya know, without the love affair, the gun violence and the jail term). They weren’t in it to be rock stars. They didn’t show up at The Hit Factory or Trident Studio to create songs that were going to chart. They were exploring what they had inside themselves and discovering brilliance along the way.
I noticed, probably at about 12 years of age, that Bowie didn’t care if his latest iteration made a ton of money or not–the lifespan was always one album.Ziggy Stardust, Thin White Duke, Heroes period, Scary Monsters and the Let’s Dance era to name a few. Fans like me would never dream of bad mouthing any of it. We were just happy to get the creative output.
There was a famous interview, during the later part of Bowie’s life, where Bowie was asked if he had any advice for artists who were just beginning. First, he tackled artistic integrity:
“Never play to the gallery. Always remember that the reason that you initially started working is that there was something inside of yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society. It’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other peoples’ expectations. They produce their worst work when they do that.”
Then, almost interrupting himself, he said:
“If you feel safe in the area that you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth, and when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
No disrespect to my father (God rest his soul) but this was the most important paternal advice I have ever gotten. It proves out every time. No one ever set out to become a rich artist and became one. In almost every biography of a wildly successful artist, it’s always been a case of someone doing their thing the best they knew how and the public coincidentally catching on.
But we can take this a step further, outside the realm of art, and apply it to life in its most general sense. For many of us, we have to give large swaths of our time to “the man” just so we can eat or pay bills or have a roof over our heads–but it’s what we do in those small hours that we call our own that separate those that make a living from those that create a life. This is what I always loved about my cousin Madeline, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and all the other artists that live in my heart.
I will always love the ones that seek, the ones that cry and laugh and grow and write and draw and sing and act. The guys who come home from work and wash up and go racing in the street.
I love that I am struggling through the process of trying to write my first fiction book. It makes me feel alive. Here, on this day when we pass from 2022 to 2023, it’s a great time to ask yourself if you are coming home from work and washing up or dying piece by piece.
And since I have drowned you in quotes through this entire piece, there’s no sense in stopping now. There is this last line in Stephen King’s “On Writing” that always gets me a little misty:
“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free, so drink. Drink and be filled up.”
Happy New Year Billy and all who gather here. May we all be found racing in the streets or at least meandering through them in search of our best selves. So much resonance here, per usual, thank you for always bringing whatever you have and more each week. The cup you're pouring from, Billy, quenches many a thirst. I believe paying it forward by sharing your passion, through whatever platform gets utilized, manifests a priceless return in so many ways. Carry on fellow writers and readers and singers and givers and such, you are felt and seen vividly :) love & light
Thanks Billy! Great timing. I always wrote and painted because it needed to come out of me. I was never looking for money or fame. Then some work came around to change that a bit, but it was still the desire to get it down on paper. Then I let that change since it was all medical stuff and I had left it behind, grateful for a little money, but happy to get back to creative work I had long craved. When I started writing on EJ, I had no idea that some folks got paid. My first piece made the top 25 of February 2019 and I made $75. I was surprised but quickly let it go, and wrote because I needed to. Having to beg to get 500 reads was annoying, then even 108 was annoying. I found myself having an unusual for me pity party as my work is struggling to even get 108 reads and minimal hearts and comments. I felt less desire to write. The last few days I pondered this and realized I was trying to win the reads, hearts and comments instead of just writing. Your blog has lifted my spirits and I go forward writing to write, maybe to publish, perhaps to share to more platforms, but writing because it is my passion, my dharma. Thank you, have fun playing music tonight. Happy 2023.