Last Tuesday I rolled with the NZ grappling champion, a guy who also placed 4th at the last Commonwealth Games in wrestling. He frequently travels to Russia and Hungary for training camps. He’s my height at least, maybe 105-110kg’s and merciless with the leglocks. He’s also only 24 and as strong as an ox. There is absolutely no way to call what I went through over 5 minutes fun or even enjoyable. It was a beating, pure and simple. Like being in the middle of a washing machine.

Outside of the moments where I’ve managed to fuck up my own life, this was hands down one of my most humbling and demoralizing experiences. And I’m probably the guy who’s known the most in the club for not bringing his ego to the dojo. Still, it’s pretty awful to spend years training and have someone come in and use you to clean the mats. I think for me the most difficult part is that this guy, as good as he is, is only a purple belt. Obviously, he’s a damn good purple belt-but from my perspective it makes everything about jiu jitsu an even bigger mountain to climb. I just don’t see how I’m going to get anywhere on it.

What makes me sadder is that jiu jitsu has lately gone from something I enjoyed doing to something that just makes me melancholy and dejected. And I can’t tell if that’s because I’ve improved and everyone is rolling harder, or because I’m really just shit and need to hang it up. It’s hard to get excited when you’re getting you guard passed, choked and smothered for 2 hours a night, every time. Jiu jitsu used to be enjoyable because it was something that helped me escape the grind of being alive. But now, its just become another aspect of the grind. Another situation that I’m not enjoying. Right along with art, living abroad, my career, my kids and everything else that I keep seeming to make a mess of.

I want to quit. I won’t quit. Once you do you can’t go back because it’s only worse and more painful than you remembered. So not this at least, not yet. I don’t know why. Maybe I have more to learn about humility and fortitude first. Or maybe I’m just a fucking moron.

Image: Gracie Jiu Jitsu San Diego©®

In the secret principles of Yagyu Tajima no kami Munenori there is the saying, “There are no military tactics for a man of great strength.” As proof of this, there was once a certain vassal of the shogun who came to Master Yagyu and asked to become a disciple. Master Yagyu said, “You seem to be a man who is very accomplished in some school of martial art. Let us make the master-disciple contract after I learn the name of the school.”

But the man replied, “I have never practiced one of the martial arts.”

Master Yagyu said, “Have you come to make sport of Tajima no kami ? Is my perception amiss in thinking that you are a teacher to the shogun?” But the man swore to it and Master Yagyu then asked, “That being so, do you not have some deep conviction?”

The man replied, “When I was a child, I once became suddenly aware that a warrior is a man who does not hold his life in regret. Since I have held that in my heart for many years, it has become a deep conviction, and today I never think about death. Other than that I have no special conviction.”

Master Yagyu was deeply impressed and said, “My perceptions were not the least bit awry. The deepest principle of my military tactics is just that one thing. Up until now, among all the many hundreds of disciples I have had, there is not one who is licensed in this deepest principle. It is not necessary for you to take up the wooden sword. I will initiate you right now.” And it is said that he promptly handed him the certified scroll.

Image: Thirteen Assassins ©®

Image: Antoni Tapies©®

‘Being is what it is.’-Sartre

Long time between blog posts. I had a long written post detailing everything that’s been going over the past few months, but somehow it seemed really insincere. Anyway. Maybe I’m finally free of the illusion that anyone really reads this thing, or moreover that it matters. It’s a huge relief to sidestep my own ego and accept that not only was I not the center of any blogosphere, chances are I never was and probably won’t ever be. I don’t want to get caught up in my own self-importance. I’ve been known to do that-it’s detrimental, it didn’t work out too well for me. I’m trying to keep an even keel on everything, as much as any human can keep an even keel on life. For me, artistically and personally, managing my expectations is not easy. My motto these days has boiled down to a simple saying:

Savor everything. Even the bad.

Because it can always get worse and there are things you can live through that are worse than dying. In the past 3 months there have been more earthquakes, my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer, and we’ve been told we have to move out of the house we’re renting because the owners are putting it up on the market. For the past week or so, we have had no idea where we’re going to live. I don’t throw that out there for sympathy, I throw it out there to illustrate the point that whatever difficulties you’re dealing with (unless they’re extreme), could probably be a lot worse. For us all. I’ve got a lot of stress, but man it’s all relative, you know? I’m not living in Homs, over in Syria.

At this point I’ve made a conscious decision to try to stop worrying. You know why? Because worry and stress are going to kill me, and kill me quickly if I don’t. Honestly, my stress levels through all of this were through the roof. Worrying doesn’t solve much. It has zero power to make something happen or moreover, prevent it from happening. Unless you’ve got superpowers you’re keeping under wraps there’s not much you can do except roll with the punches to the best of your ability, and keep going forward. I’m not being blasé, and I’m not being cavalier: There are some things and situations where worrying can’t be avoided. I am certainly not advocating denial. But I am saying that often all worrying does is occupy your mind, sap your strength, and detract from your ability to process appropriate information and make some sound decisions. Maybe refusing to worry isn’t the most pragmatic way of dealing with my current circumstances, but right now it’s what I can manage and it’s working for me. Sometimes you have to take the positives where you can. Standing in the middle of traffic is no time to stop and start worrying about what’s on the other side of the road.

Image: Antoni Tapies©®

So in case you’ve been under a rock lately, the financial world has turned its myopic eye and news on Facebook’s IPO. Obviously a lot of people besides Zuckerberg are going to make a lot of money. One of those is the graffitti artist-turned gallery superstar David Choe. If you don’t know the story: back in 2007 Choe was commissioned by Zuckerberg to paint murals for Facebook’s offices. Apparently viewing the FB business model as ‘ridiculous and pointless’ Choe took stock in the company as a form of payment instead of cash. End result? Fast forward and now he stands to make in excess of over a cool $200 million USD from FB going public.

This story has taken off like wildfire man.

Everyone is spinning this as the lucky artist who all of a sudden is going to come into a lot of dough. What shouldn’t get lost in the story of this windfall is how Choe was already a very successful artist before this happened. He’d already built up a huge cult following, been a successful graphic designer and illustrator, published a graphic novel and shown in galleries from LA to NY to London, Barcelona, Beijing, and Tokyo. Sure this decision is going to pay off for him, but the key is that he worked his ass off to maneuver himself into this position in the first place through his own efforts.

It’s a great story. I’m happy for the guy (not that it matters to him, because he can now literally afford not care what anyone thinks. A quarter of a billion grants you that kind of liberty). You can tell by his work that he’s sincere about it and his approach to it. You can’t say that about a lot of artists out there who make a shit-ton of cash. Professional artists often fall into 2 categories: wildly successful but indifferent, or earnest and talented but relatively unsuccessful. Choe seems to be crazy successful and genuinely care about his craft. I like him because he hustled and built himself all on his own, not only once, but twice, after a stint doing time in jail in Japan. But I’m also pleased to read about any artist getting paid well, because usually the art world is trying to fuck them for free. In fact, I’m sure the people at FB thought they were getting a deal at the time. Think about it: If Choe had said “It’s gonna cost you $200+ mil for me to paint your walls.” I’m sure they would’ve laughed in his face. But at the end of it all, that’s what it is.

This entire situation is an example of the vagaries of luck and artistic success. I get a lot of artists asking me about success and what it takes to achieve it. Often its a matter of redefining what your parameters and/or expectations of success are as an artist in this first place. The one thing I do know is that luck, contrary to rumor, is rarely as random as people like to make it seem.  For sure there is an element of luck involved: FB could’ve tanked, Choe could’ve said no, or I’m busy, or pay me cash. Zuckerberg could’ve asked someone else. Still, you can’t file this scenario down as random luck. Most good things don’t fall out of the sky for anyone. Even if and when they do, you’ve got to be in a position to catch whatever is coming your way. Choe’s illustrates that perfectly. He had his head down and was on the grind. He put countless hours into his work to make it what it is. He put countless hours without pay into networking and pushing that work on his own, with untold disappointments in there along the way I’m sure. He put the hours into the actual FB job itself. He put himself in a position to receive something beneficial, even if he didn’t totally know it at the time. Luck is a matter of working hard and working sincerely, but also being in the right place in the right time. It’s really easy to do the former, and much more difficult to figure out the latter.

Image: David Choe©®

‘The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not.’ -Edward Albee

Generally, I hate art reviews. You know why? It’s because the majority of art reviews seem like they’re written by people with little talent of their own putting forth their condescending soliloquies to the masses like they’re Moses with the Ten Commandments. I generally don’t like reviews and or critiques, because I don’t think it requires much talent whatsoever. It’s pretty easy to sit on a soapbox and talk about what other people are doing.  It’s easy and it’s safe. Critics don’t assume any risk while mauling the people brave enough to try and create.  Art reviews especially, strike me as little more than over intellectualized pap scrubbed up for the art world audience. Ninety five percent of the time they’re rife with pretension, with a snobbery that most people won’t relate to. They tend to get lost in a deluge of artistic words, endless brambles of intellectual prose. For example: “The painters work is almost lyrical in its thematic undercurrent; harking back to the existential parameters set forth by Cubist doctrine and the draconian nepotism of the avant-garde. Their work presents a profound new archetype, a Homeric voyage of the brush immune to the sirens of contemporary deconstructivism. Adrift on the roiling seas of Neo-Dadaism, and beset on all sides by the Sibylline murmurs and Dionysian outcries of pseudorealism, they continue the valiant battle of painting to break forth and echo in a new era of formalism and romantic content.”

See what I’m saying? And I just made that shit up.

Art reviews will often give you the entire context of why a show was put together without doing the simple things, such as saying what about it encouraged them to tell you to go see it. It’s a shame really because I think reviews should be put forth in a way that’s informative, but that also makes the work accessible to people who might not know much about art. You shouldn’t have to be able to expound on the Abstract Expressionists and the dogma of Barnett Newman in order to look at a De Kooning painting and just appreciate it. A review should give you a gentle push, and then let you decide from there. So like I said I’m pretty fed up with most of them. Many are ass, so I decided to write my own. I figured I could probably write something just as bad. At the very least, people might appreciate something written on art from a person who is in the trenches still making it.

So I rolled down to the The Phillips Collection specifically because a friend told me they had a Degas show going on. Degas is one of my favorite painters and has been for quite a while; a long time. His work had a big impact on me as far back as my early 20′s, so when I heard there was a new show I knew it would be up there on my priority list. The show is titled “Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint.” And to summit up before breaking it down, it’s pretty great. The main theme and premise of the show is basically a reflection on Degas and his works dealing with dance and ballet, mostly from the time period of about 1870-1900.

The bonus of this show is the entire context that is given about the work. Not only that but it presents a fairly vast array of mediums. Let me just preface this by saying that I’ve never been much of a fan of pastel. Tried it many times and it never took. But seeing the works of Degas makes you want to pick up the medium; they’re that good, that lush. But really so is the majority of his work: His pastels. His oils, monotypes and sculptures.  Along with the works of Degas, the collection also displays pieces from the artist’s personal collection. This means viewers also have access to works by other notable masters such as Bonnard, Ingres, Daumier, Cassat, Matisse, Toulouse-Lautrec and Delacroix. There is a great variety of work in this show, and while all of the work was strong (it is Degas, after all), there were a few works that really struck me. In addition to the works featuring the dancers there are also a lot of other notable and worthwhile paintings. What follows is a few that stood out for me.

‘Melancholy’ is a dark and reflective little painting; a great little oil that is easy to miss in the middle of the larger works and the overall theme of the show. It’s a small, somber rectangular work that features a woman leaning over a chair looking to the left. If you catch this work just take note of the smooth rendering of her face juxtaposed against the loose brushwork of the rest of the piece. The red of her coat and how it stands in stark contrast to the low light on her face.

‘Dancers in Green and Yellow’ is a large pastel awash with luminous colors. Look for the amazing flecks of green and gold in the crowns on the heads of the dancers. This is the work that I saw that made me really believe in the power of pastel again. The work itself is so vibrant and lush: from afar it absolutely vibrates with color, up close they meld together and provide a range of depth and contrast that’s really hard to believe. There’s a dancer on the far left of the work and above her left shoulder are golden bits of yellow, just there in the air, sparkling. That’s mastery for you.

‘Dancer Onstage Holding a Bouquet’ is another pastel featuring a dancer onstage, illuminated from below by the stage lights. It’s an outrageously good work. The thing that struck me most about this piece is the way Degas managed to capture her elated spirit in her face. The basking in the applause, rendered smoothly in the pastel medium. But it’s also his command of color and of contrast that are prominently on display. And as if to just reinforce his mastery, he also designed the frame that surrounds the work. : A minimalistic gilded beauty.

‘Dancer Adjusting Her Shoe’ was yet another pastel. Incredible and unique composition. I loved this one for the angle of the dancer’s neck, the view from above and how it causes the bow to be prominently displayed.

‘Two Dancers’ is a larger rectangular work. This piece was originally completed on bright pink paper which has since faded. It is mind bogglingly good. I mean I must have stared at that piece for ages. The ease of the brushwork is fantastic. Not only that but also the way the simplicity in his strokes displays so much detail at the same time. There is a real confidence and mastery in his painting; he puts forth what he wants to put forth, quickly, easily. Stated, but never overstated. The guy is a master draftsman with a great ability to render the figure proportionately and with a free hand. But this work, in particular really spoke to me. For all the reasons that I mentioned and also for the composition, the way the two dancers speak to one another and the way he has painted the right hand of the right dancer twice, without worry-instantly placing the viewer in the conversation and moment. The sliver of light on the rounded left shoulder of the left dancer. Fantastic.

I caught this show on the most incredible autumn day you could possibly imagine. The temperature topped out at about 74 degrees, with a fall breeze and nearly not a cloud in the sky. I wrote this review sitting in the Hunter courtyard of The Phillips; adjacent to a clean and stunning Ellsworth Kelly sculpture. It was an inspiring sort of day, the kind of day that restores your faith in art. No matter how you spin it, this show is worth seeing. I haven’t gotten this much out of ten bucks in a long, long time.

Image: ‘Dancer Adjusting Her Shoe,’ by Degas©®

‘Honestly? I don’t need the commentary. Eyes on your path. Play your position. I’m gonna live. So do you. Peace.’-Jeorge Watson

The fun house mirrors of perception put forth by those around us conduct a constant war of attrition on the soul. Look into them long enough and even the most sincere, informed, and compassionate person will see little more than a bloated, twisted or degraded apparition of who they thought themselves to be.

It wears on you.

Every mirror that gets held up to you is colored with someone else’s lenses. You’re this kind of friend, you’re that kind of parent. This kind of son, that kind of illustrator. Daily assessments from those around us; outrageous slings and arrows. Sometimes it feels like the fact that you might be trying to do your best or sincerely putting forth compassion to the best of your current ability isn’t even relevant. You’re just going to get judged anyway. So what’s the point? Sometimes I think if I’m going to have this many people in my face all the time when I’m putting out a sincere and concentrated effort, I might as well be a total douchebag because what’s the difference? Get into extortion and refining methodologies for cooking up meth. Go out with guns blazing in back alleys, beat my kids and rob banks.

Society is just, ugh. It seems like we’re all trapped in our own parameters like flies in a bottle thinking what we see is the real world. We don’t even see the glass. The Church of Judgment is tyrannical, puritanical and that joint tortures and excommunicates people left, right, and center in ways the Spanish Inquisition could only dream about. People are going to tell you what you see, they can’t tell you what you are. Only you can do that. Gotta find a mirror and hold it up by yourself. When I was younger, I never thought there could be a point where so many days would string together where I’d get so tired of being alive. Wtf.

I’m really tired of feeling like whatever I’m doing is coming up short and wrong. Tired of feeling like I’m supposed to have limitless energy and not knowing why. I’m sick of being judged by people who can’t even stay in their own freaking lane.

This world just wants more of us all, constantly. More time, more effort, more work, more attention, more emotion. More everything. At some point what’s happening, what I’m doing right at this moment has to be enough. If people don’t like where the train of my life is headed, they need to get off at the next station and quit complaining about how I’m conducting the journey.

That’s what I’m saying.

Image: Unknown

On and on.

What this koan points to, is the nature of ones own ego and delusion. You don’t meet the Buddha, you are already are a Buddha, Bodhisattva. There is no one, nothing to meet. The koan points to the cutting, the striking down of ones own thoughts of Buddha, or attaining enlightenment. Ideas brought about by thinking that have no basis in the present moment. There is nothing to attain if you already have it.

It serves as a reminder that in a more general sense our thoughts and our own mind often obstruct our potential for insight and growth. In whatever form that might take, or whatever path we may be pursuing albeit Buddhism, art, parenting, friendships, you name it. Our fixed attachments to things are without self-nature. Funny the things that perplex you when young and come into focus as you get a bit older.

I’ve come to the realization that for 40+ years people have been telling where to go, what I should do, and how and why I should do it. More than a few of those people were really insightful and helpful. Most of them though, in retrospect, really didn’t know what the hell they were talking about as it related to me. You get older and the realization that a lot of people are winging it, flying by the seat of their pants becomes a light so blinding that you just can’t ignore it. You start to figure if that’s the case, your own deductions for most of the issues in ones life are just as valid. It’s time to sort some shit out for myself in ways that no one else is going to be able to help me with. Years of preparation in order to sit down and look at some deeper riddles and questions. To realize I have it within me to search the dark on my own, unafraid, and by my own torch. To understand that while looking in  the dark you are free, not lost. Why? Because in the dark, you have no form, no guidelines, no parameters.

Perception colors everything.

I spent the first 20 years of my life doing whatever everyone told me to do. Just going to school and sharpening my mind; accumulating knowledge. Spent the next 20 honing and developing my body: building it, testing it, training it, putting to its own personal litmus tests. Time now to clean out the intellectual clutter and to polish my spirit. I feel secure in that. I don’t feel secure in a lot of other aspect of my life, even the day-to-day. I get the inclination though that most of what  I learned in school has little bearing on all that comes next. You know, I don’t have much in the way this world considers rewards and things of worth. And to be truthful I don’t know whether or not that makes me a slave for aspiring to any of it, or whether it liberates me completely from all of it. I’m saying: There are riches and treasures beyond what you can see or touch, or equate with words.  I don’t have much in my personality vault aside from a few remaining admirable qualities plus the ability to be pragmatic. To release the idea that there is some perfect ideal in every area that I just need to reach. Success is bestowed by man. That shit is subversive, subjective, and elusive. It’s not meant for everyone, perhaps not me. I’ve gotta make peace with that too; or redefine my perspective. Fixation with it is blocking my path, and I’m standing in my own way.

A fixated mind is a stagnant mind. True understanding and belief in oneself is such a long process, contrary to the instant self-help, 10-minutes-to-total-self-assurance books and ideas that permeate our culture.

Not all the answers are found in books. Few, if any, of the really important questions can be answered for you by others.

When you meet the Buddha, kill him.

Image: Akira Kurosawa©®

Men who did well at the time of their death were men of real bravery. There are many examples of such:

Among Takeda Shingen’s retainers there were men of matchless courage, but when Katsuyori was killed in the fight at Tenmokuzan, they all fled. Tsuchiya Sozo, a warrior who had been in disfavor for many years, came out alone, however, and said, “I wonder where all the men are who spoke so bravely every day? I shall return the master’s favors to me.” And he fell alone in battle.

Image: Unknown (Akira Kurosawa)©®

I put up a post recently that said “It’s official. I’m overwhelmed.”

It’s true. Yesterday was the 4th, the one year anniversary of the first Christchurch earthquake. One year already and I can still remember hearing about it via phone like it was yesterday. It’s been one year to the day and given everything that’s happened to me in the past 7 months I’m not ashamed to admit that last night I slept with the keys in the lock of the door. I had my keys there, and my pack on the floor by the bed with water, cash, wallet, cellphone, rain parka, and documents, packed up and ready to go. I wasn’t taking any chances.

So in case you missed it we had two natural disasters roll through here in the past couple of weeks, bringing my total to 3 within the last 7 months. That’s not even counting all the aftershocks that were a by product of the NZ quakes. The first was a 5.8 Earthquake two weeks ago Tuesday that gave everyone a jolt, literally and figuratively. Two days later that trollop Hurricane Irene decided to buzzsaw her way up a large swath of the East coast causing $7-10 billion in damage and killing 40+ people. Unbelievable. In DC, we were fortunate enough to be on the fringes of the storm. Even so there was a deluge of rain and winds still strong enough to rip up large oak trees before depositing them on various houses and front lawns. We spent the entire time cooped up in an apartment alongside two coltish kids with a severe case of cabin-fever. It was one of the longest 36 hour stints of my whole life.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of fear-mongering, panic and sheer hysteria that went into tracking that thing. I understand where it was coming from: Nobody wants to see another situation like hurricane Katrina. And having lived through a few natural disasters now, I understand preparation is everything. But still the level of shock and awe transmitted across the airwaves was something to behold. It was 24hr, non-stop weather-people screeching into the cameras that this was a “storm for the ages,” or that people “hadn’t seen anything like it in generations.” It was a meteorological orgy of drama. Normally jaded city-dwellers and ultra-cool hipsters started buying up batteries, flashlights and water like it was London during the Blitzkrieg. I mean empty shelves everywhere. Like a fucken supermarket in Chechnya. Filling sandbags. Honestly? it was absurd. It would have been one thing if we were in a remote area where you had to be self-sufficient, but this was going on in stores across the street from the National Zoo. I mean, come on DC.

The quake is a different story. I’m sure all the DC residents have moved on from that one. But I haven’t. My kids were upset. Before we came here we swore up and down that DC didn’t have earthquakes. So when last Tuesday happened they were steamed. They wanted to know why we had lied right to their faces. I didn’t have a good answer.

That quake messed me up inside. Not as badly as the Christchurch one. I guess I was feeling like I was just starting to decompress and return to a sense of unobstructed ‘normality’ when this DC quake just cleaved that in two. Not to self-diagnose or anything but I’m sure I’ve got some form of  mild PTSD. After the quake, just off the cuff, I decided to check out a list of symptoms and I ended up matching a bunch of them:  Anger and irritability? Check. Difficulty falling or staying asleep? Check. Difficulty concentrating? CHECK. Sense of a limited future? Check. Nightmares? Check . Intense physical reactions to reminders of the event (e.g. pounding heart, rapid breathing, nausea, muscle tension, sweating): Check

This will give you an indication of where my head has been: I have this project I’ve been working on for a good 4 months, right? Childrens book, with a lot of back and forth with the client over layout, plans, directions, contract discussions, all of that. So far I’ve made 7 amazing illustrations. I just realized last night after reading a concerned email from the client that all the illustrations are scaled wrong. Nice.

Last night at the end of yoga class right, we’re supposed to be in Savasana (Corpse pose). This yoga studio is in an fantastic space. This class was in the ballroom which sits on the second floor. It’s huge and wide open with new, polished wooden floors. The ceiling is ornate with latticework, chandeliers and inscribed angels. Anyway, on the floor above is where they do the fitness and kettlebell training. The running joke is that you can hear the elephants running overhead because when the fitness class is in session above you, the ceiling in the ballroom rumbles like crazy; the chandeliers jangle. This eve the place was stacked with people for both classes. At the end of class, everyone is lying in Savasana, and the fitness class is going bananas. The ceiling is rattling something awful, and not only that I swear it was rattling so hard you could feel the ballroom floor rattling as well. Everyone else was just as calm as could be, while I had to fight the survival urge to get up and run for cover. It was a really visceral experience and not in the good way.

For a long time I haven’t known exactly what was going on with me. I just knew I was functioning, but not very well. Because I’ve had a lot of that going on: Waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep. Fearful of letting my kids out of my sight when I wasn’t before, while they were at summer school. Apprehension. Anxiety. Total inability to string together coherent thoughts for any decent span of time. I wake up in the morning bone tired. I’m used to waking up tired and sore from training. But this tired, is a different tired. It runs down into the essence of who you are. And the fatigue filters over everything; it becomes a prison which leaves you trying to view the world from between the bars of your own exhaustion. It sucks man. It numbs down your joy for the act of living.  It’s really ridiculous. How exactly am I supposed to overcome anything when I’ve got these two kids stacked up on top of me, bickering endlessly? Kids arguing, work on deadline, earthquakes, hurricanes. This would challenge even the most hardened optimist.

They say that a lot of the process of overcoming is to continue doing what I’m doing: training, being out in nature, discussing what’s going on. That, and ample time. I sure as hell hope so. Right now, it’s not working.

Image: Times Square just before Irene. Copyright unknown.