Peony Queen

I am full of all kinds of beautiful songs that God sends to me in my dreams.  They flutter within me long enough for me to get them out of me and onto an album, so I can fling them out into the world by any means necessary. The better I get at playing instruments, the easier it is to get those songs out of me.  The thing is, they were there when all I had was my voice and a tape recorder. Thank God.

This is what it feels like when I sing -- ever blooming, ever exploding, in everlasting technicolor.

Flowers have their own language.  I instinctively embraced the peony awhile ago, as it turns out, with good reason. 

That New York City Hustle!

This is what it feels like to live and work in New York City as an artist when you aren't a millionaire or a trustafarian or a rock star or otherwise bankrolled comfortably -- from my perspective, anyway.  Nothing ever slows to a complete halt. Everything is on and coming at you and coming on strong and the hustle never, ever stops -- and that's just what it takes to pay the rent. Nevermind what it takes to make art -- that is, if you're the kind of artist that makes art.

(Actually, a hamster on one of those spinning habitrail wheels would have been much more apropo but I couldn't find that gif.)

Let's face it: when rich and famous rock and roll icons like david byrne are threatening to leave the city and a well-established writer like andrew sullivan can't last a year, you'd think someone would sit up and pay attention.  But no.  Something else will have to flip everything upside down. Like everyone leaving, en masse.

What's different nowadays is that I hit the ground running for my projects. If I were sitting by the phone and waiting for it to ring so I'd have work, I'd be running a lot harder than that.  I've been running for so long, it's almost impossible to keep still.

Nimble, aren't I?