Why

I'm enjoying this "blog" thing. I really am.

It's been years since I've done any kind of consistent creative writing. In high school and college I did a lot of writing. A computer crash caused me to lose everything I had written, and I never quite picked it back up again. This blog thing is pretty interesting though. It's fun.

I think it's the audience. I think it has to do with knowing that people will read the work, even if it's unfit for viewing. For the most part, the few passages I've entered here have been sort of "freewriting" exercises with very little editing or preparation. Despite not being ready for an audience there's something about letting people see the raw material. It's invigorating.

To be honest (to go out on a limb and be really honest) my ultimate goal here is to come up with some useable theatrical material. At least, I think that's my ultimate goal. In particular, I want to come up with Monologue material. I'm a big fan of the performance art that is the spoken word. Whether it be stand up comedy, character based monologue, or storytelling, I love the craftsmanship that goes into writing it, and the heart that goes into the performance. In fact, as I typed this paragraph, the word "monologue" ended up capitalized by some freudian slip of the pinky to the shift key. Now if that's not commitment on a deep mental level, I don't know what is.

I've noticed that the majority of the artists I really admire I not only admire for their performance ability, but for their writing talents as well. What I really enjoy is the mind behind it: the brainwork. The effort and thought that goes into shaping the words, and arranging the phrases. The careful art of rhythm in speech, and structure. Listening to their words is like listening to poetry. I want to practice and practice until I can write that poetry too.

I want to sit at that table. I want to sit at that big wooden table that all those other wordsmiths get to sit at. George Carlin, Eric Bogosian, Lewis Black, Kevin Kling, Mike Daisey, Spalding Gray, Lily Tomlin, Brother Theodore, Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce: stand ups and storytellers, character actors and monologists. There they are, sitting at that table, each one content with a body of work. Each one with a stack of papers in front of them; a memoir of the sparks that have ignited from their minds over the years. They sit around that table, nodding at each other, happy to be in each others' presence, knowing that they belong at the table. A criss-crossed fellowship of artists.

There are so many kinds and types and each one uses his words so carefully. They all know these words can destroy societies, and they know that people can fear words with a kind of fear that's used to kill. It's not melodrama, it's history. Ask Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, and Alan Berg, just where their words got them.

When I listen to these artists spin their yarns I can taste those words. It's intoxicating. I can feel the presence of their punctuation in the air. Commas, colons, semi-colons. Dashes, slashes, parenthasis, periods. Question marks? Exclamation points! There they are, floating up into space, and the best part is that whether this punctuation is correct or incorrect, whether they're carefully placed or sort of jury-rigged and holding together one too many conjunctions, it doesn't make a difference. The text is meant to be spoken. The nuts and bolts, though detectable through pause, emphasis, and conviction, are ultimately invisible.

Most importantly of all, these artists are doing everything they're meant to. They are playwright and performer. The roles are perfect for these guys! They wrote them! The plays are telling the public exactly what the actors want to be saying. They wrote them! They get their messages across; their meaning beyond mere "entertainment". That's important. That's good. That's power, and I want that power, too. I want the tools to turn the gears, and the ability to create change and affect the thinking of another human being.

Maybe I'm not ready for it yet. Maybe I need to work more, or endure some great suffering, and through that suffering find enlightenment, and there my abilities will be. I'll have some huge revelation, an epiphany, and a tool-kit will just appear, seemingly out of nowhere, with everything I need to shape my words into something more than meaningless drivel and poor excuses for thoughts. There they'll be, hammer, wood, and nails, and I'll connect those words one at a time until i've built my shack. My house. My castle. My city.

My vast metropolis of material whose preservation might actually be worth considering, and whose fellowship extends beyond. Far beyond, to that table of wordsmiths who will welcome me, nodding.