Exclusion is the goto tool of the narcissist - i know this because i was raised by one, maybe two. Growing up in a vastly white suburban city of Orange County, bordering the wannabe center of the known universe - Newport Beach, i went to school with many; i probably possess more traits of a narcissist than i am comfortable with admitting to, but not so many i can’t hold the possibility up and peer into its darkness. My saving grace was to be born a two-eyed cyclops which gave me just enough cache to not be murdered in my crib by my beautiful family. Rather than narcissism my condition gave me a near-pathological revulsion for bullies - i say near pathological because murder is for people who do not know how to adapt, and as a two-eyed cyclops - adaptability is something you acquire or starve to death trying to find your food on the plate. G_d in her infinite mercy created a great imbalance in the visual acuity between my two eyes, with the one eye no longer correctable - if it ever was. I think this was meant to help me orient in a 3 dimensional world, having no concrete example of what 3 dimensions looks like; i know this because when young and someone asked if it was right or left, i had to pick up a pencil to find left - that much i knew; i’m still left-handed, emphatically: most of my compliments are left-handed; my politics are left of left and i usually take what is left over because the crush of VIP’s and wannabe VIP’s at the buffet table gives me a rash.
As does cruelty of any kind, and as i grow closer to death most especially the cruelty i’ve yet to purge from my own being. Being a blind person with sight, i’ve had to sense a lot of things in the world. I wear my hair long because i’d read somewhere of a military unit during WWII that was recruited off the reservation because of supernatural gifts at certain reconnaissance, but after induction and their locks had been shorn the gift had vanished. Whether true or not is of little importance, because like the placebo - if you believe it to be true · you’re halfway home. This supposition is partly what drives me to distraction with the frenzy surrounding the current nincompoop occupying the West Wing of the White House. He is a an empty suite of the purest kind - a man devoid of character and essentially composed of nothing more than the attention you give him - don’t believe me, ask his wife. What is most dangerous about this phase of our species’ disappearance from the face of the planet is how much time and effort are wasted combatting a cipher. Like the people who fill a room of strangers with tales of their travels, the extent of their accomplishments and a list of the do’s and don’ts you must comply with to be of any worth to the gathering, so too d_rump relies entirely on cooperation and proximity to the microphone.
I am very wary of people who require microphones to make a point, but more wary of people such as young master zuké of the ubiquitous fb channel who presumes the role of who talks-to-who, or as Bob Dylan said so well “you dance with who they tell you to, or you don’t dance at all.” Zuké not unique to this conceit if you’ve ever been to a Hollywood anything you will find that the importance of a conversation is ranked by its proximity to the microphone - the closer to the microphone, the more important the conversation. I’m sorry, it seems stupid to me that we humans have arranged our world around amplification. My neighbors have just suffered a great loss which was only been made clear by their absence. On their return and in my awkward efforts to be of service, the matriarch could only answer in the negative to my question - is everything all right? - “Khong, was her only reply. Someone important to my neighbor friends has died, that is clear. The country i was born to has just past 90,000 deaths from the same virus that has claimed a single life in Viet Nam - the U.S. is only 2/3 larger in population. This is what i mean about proximity to the “microphone” someone in control has determined to listen to the wrong channel about how to live, or humanity is listening to the wrong channel about how not to live.
The greatest irony is there are acolytes here in VN trumpeting the benefits of “free market economies” and how, if VN would only emulate the very successful ways of the “Western World” they too could enjoy the benefits of goods-galore in the markets and be as “cool” as all the characters they see on Movie screens and TV screens, and Telephone screens . .. etc., etc., Even the the artists that i’ve met in this nation are taken in by the allure of fame and what it can do for your “career” - if only you would _______ fill in the blank. As a failed artist and deeply flawed genius, i have no standing in the argument. These are not the days when noble Patrons employed noblesse oblige in service of a better world. These are the days of avaricious gallery owners pimping artists to the lowest bidder. Go to the Art Basel Galler-Rama and see what is selling; to who and for what price and you will see how low the bar has been set for the “end-days” culture. If you know “Artspeak” and are properly hooked up - the sky’s the limit, you might even get hung at “Mar-A-Lago,” imagine what that would do for your career to be included in the chump collection?
But these are the “Extinction Chronicles and rather than point out what all but the most dense amongst us see, but won’t talk about - let us examine whether it is useful to adhere to the whimsical dictates of the big shots amongst us - those who have more “likes” more “local friends” more “destinations” and most importantly - more “money than g_d”. How about if we invite jeffrey bezos to come and give a seminar on how VN might rally from its recent C-19 success and attract new markets that will ultimately benefit all of VN, like the same petro-nazis who have skimmed the easy pickings from the U.S. Stimulus package. Those fuckers are not nationalists anymore than the art industrialists give a fuck about your development as a creative person desperately trying to find correlations for your suffering in a way that will contribute to your tribe’s survival - whatever tribe that may be. For my money - i have no tribe; like Groucho Marx said so well “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member”. Being a human is a condition i cannot excise from my being, however much i whistle like a bird or moo like water buffalo i am stuck with all the conflicting human emotions of hate, envy and pettiness that our species continues to hand down to each generation until something greater in our souls can be found than greed as a reason to wake up each day.
Wasn’t this fun · yeah, i’m laughing at you too, whoever you are who was dumb enough to read this far looking for an answer to an impossible question like “how do we survive” ?
jts 18/05/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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