I'M ONLY A PERSON

"O where are you now
pussy willow that smiled on this leaf?
When I was alone
you promised a stem from your heart
My head kissed the ground
I was half the way down
treading the sand
Please
Please lend a hand
I'm only a person whose armbands beat
and his hands hang tall
Won't you Miss me?
Wouldn't you miss me at all?"

--Syd Barrett, "Dark Globe"


As I prepare to embark on a whole new path concerning painting, I have been looking at online galleries of some of my favorite artists, and also at the works of artists whom I know by name but not by works.

I am also looking at a lot of folk/outsider art, because that stuff is the coolest.

I know there's people out there who think outsider art is exploitive. So fucking what? Art is art. Either you do it, or you don't. I'm sorry if some grade school teacher dumped on your abilities, but don't get mad at the rest of the world because of it.

Hell, you wanna know why I never got into painting or art, despite my ability to draw?

Two words: Gan Golan.

Quite possibly the most skilled natural artist I have ever met, Gan Golan and I attended school together for a decade. We were friends. However, I was always overshadowed by his pure genius-- and I don't throw those words around lightly. Gan was, and still is, (as far as I know) a true genius.

Imagine Da Vinci as a preteen, what his sketches might have looked like. Imagine Mozart's first works, when he was barely starting to attend school.

Imagine Salieri saying, "Fuck this, I guess I'll become a writer instead..."

That's how talented Gan Golan is.

I stopped being his friend for other reasons, but I will never take anything away from his abilities. His vision was so perfectly realized, in every aspect of his art, that I just didn't have the heart to compete. In fact, I went in the totally opposite direction as Gan in regards to art-- I decided that doodling dirty pictures was the best application of my own talent that I could bear.

I remember a few times when Gan tried to encourage me, saying things like, "Man, I wish I could do the things you do with drawing, James." But it always rang hollow-- I'm not implying that Gan was humoring me... I'm just saying, I suspected that he was humoring me.

The fact is, Gan knew he was a genius as well, and that made getting along with him a bit of a drag.

The fact is, everyone else regarded him with such awe and admiration that they overlooked his personality flaws.

I just couldn't take the heat, so I left the kitchen.

If I hadn't done that, who knows how much I'd resent him? Nowadays, I've mellowed out, and the past no longer occupies such a dark section of my mind. That's because I made a break from it. I had to go my own route, forge a new path.

I got into writing. I was the Gan Golan of writing in my school years.

I got into music. I had no talent or aptitude for it, but it was a relief to not have to be so good at anything. There was freedom in the noise we were making in those Valley garages during those formative years.

It's been years since I've talked to or seen Gan Golan. I know he's doing great things, because I expect nothing less from him. I looked him up online once, and found that he was into urban planning and development.

No surprise there. He could do anything with his hands.

It's a shame that I couldn't be like everyone else, kissing up to him and feeding that massive ego of his. I don't know, I guess I had an ego of my own that I wanted to feed, but I was smart enough to know that, if it came down to some sort of art contest, Gan would beat me every time.

Now, in my 30s, I have found the courage to paint. I've been looking at the paintings of one Roger Keith Barrett, aka "Syd" Barrett.

Syd was the founder and leader of Pink Floyd, way back in the late '60s, when the UK's underground hippie party scene was at its peak. Those crazy Brits know what to do with strobe lights and psychedelics, I'll tell you what-- every ten years or so they innovate some type of music scene with a variation on the "freak-outs" that were staged during the Summer of Love.

Anyway, Syd was a genius also, but in his own right. He was an accomplished blues guitarist, mind expander, and also a painter. He was an eccentric lyricist with an ear for both melody and dissonance, sometimes both in the same vein.

He went a bit mad, so the legend goes. The band went on without him, and they paid him a tribute with the Wish You Were Here album, but the Pink Floyd we all know and love is nothing like the early Syd stuff.

I prefer the early Syd stuff because it's rarer. You don't hear "Arnold Layne" on classic rock stations. "See Emily Play" is best-known as a David Bowie song. People forget that "Astronomy Domine" off of the Floyd's mid-'70s opus Ummagumma is a Barrett composition.

Syd was a visionary, and he burned himself out. I have this thing for mad geniuses, people like Barrett, Arthur Lee, Roky Erikson, and Nick Drake, whom I was turned on to a few years ago.

But now, thanks to the Internet, I can see Syd's paintings and check out a whole new facet to his persona. I like his style, and I'd like some of my stuff to resemble that style, in some way.

Maybe I'll search around and see if Gan Golan still paints or draws or does anything far-out, like he used to do. I might even have a sketch or two of his somewhere in my notebooks.

Speaking of which, I found an old notebook and started looking for poems. Ayelet had made a comment about the last original poem I posted. This got me thinking about how I used to post old poems from my numerous notebooks that I've kept over the years.

Here's one right now, circa Spring 2001:

Muse exists not
except within the psyche
Ruins of Valhalla Erato Nike
strewn about an interior dimension

Now that my perception is clearer
than it was as a young teen
I think I can finally see what it was
that the adults had seen
It makes perfect sense--
forestry shaded
shrubbery dense intensifies my only defense

Hence, I am older
wiser
Bold enough to surprise
those with doubts wrinkled and etched
into their foreheads
I go ahead into the notorious dread
breaking bread
dining on steak
making no mistakes at all

Someone always breaks the fall
but how much longer can I rely
on them before I finally die?


I don't think that one was especially good, but it fits my mood today.

I also found a few poems I'd written about Eve. One reason why I hang onto my notebooks now is because I can always look back to what I was feeling not too long ago, to gain some perspective.

Man, the anger in some of those poems... the sheer rage, the pure dissatisfaction...

I may be having a bit of a headache right now with her, but considering some of the sentiments of those poems, I would say that I've come a long way with my feelings regarding her. Some of them are so mean, hateful and venomously bitter that I would NEVER ever allow anyone to read them.

I won't destroy them, though. They serve as a reminder.

I was fine after I spoke to her yesterday, but reading those poems also refreshed my memory on a few things. She's no saint, that's for sure. I shouldn't beat myself up over it, really.

I will try to post more poems today, but I fear that my work will be busy. It's all good, though, because I've posted enough for now.

PEACE