The Job Of The Artist Is To

The Things Keeping You Back-these Embarrassing, Boring, Stupid Obstacles-are The Heart Of What It Is To Be Human. They’re The Whole Reason For Making And Needing Art. So You Might As Well Go Ahead And Begin In Whatever Way You Can Right Now.

Are You Angry? Punch A Pillow. Was It Satisfying? Not Hardly. These Days People Are Too Angry For Punching. What You Might Try Is Stabbing. Take An Old Pillow And Lay It On The Front Lawn. Stab It With A Big Pointy Knife. Again And Again And Again. Stab Hard Enough For The Point Of The Knife To Go Into The Ground. Stab Until The Pillow Is Gone And You Are Just Stabbing The Earth Again And Again, As If You Want To Kill It For Continuing To Spin, As If You Are Getting Revenge For Having To Live On This Planet Day After Day, Alone.

Some May Say That Such A Girl Is Not Ready For A Relationship With A Man, Especially A Man In His Late Sixties. But To That I Say: We Don't Know Anything. We Don't Know How To Cure A Cold Or What Dogs Are Thinking. We Do Terrible Things, We Make Wars, We Kill People Out Of Greed. So Who Are We To Say How To Love. I Wouldn't Force Her. I Wouldn't Have To. She Would Want Me. We Would Be In Love. What Do You Know. You Don't Know Anything. Call Me When You've Cured Aids, Give Me A Ring Then And I'll Listen.

The Whole Thing Of Working In All These Different Mediums, It's Just So That I Can Always Be Playing Hooky From One Of Them. I Can Always Be Rebelling Against My Boss. Like, I'm Supposed To Be Writing This Book, But - Heh Heh Heh - I'm Writing A Movie, Secretly. I'm Procrastinating, And In My Off-hours I'm Working On This Movie That I'm Not Allowed To Do, Because I'm Supposed To Be Writing A Book!

I Asked Myself If I Would Kill My Parents To Save His Life, A Question I Had Been Posing Since I Was Fifteen. The Answer Always Used To Be Yes. But In Time, All Those Boys Had Faded Away, And My Parents Were Still There. I Was Now Less And Less Willing To Kill Them For Anyone; In Fact, I Worried For Their Health. In This Case, However, I Had To Say Yes. Yes, I Would.