I Should Coco, Because All My Friends Are Dead

A question about webspace. Is it so large and infinitessimal that any mark we leave, whether it be blog, or shadow, or awkward social networking post will never get erased? I mean, here is this blog, sitting in the depths of the internet since 2007, the two and half years between posts long enough to to raise an army of adolescent kids discovering the horrors of Saturday morning cartoons. And it's still here!

So it's come to this. I, author, manipulating and guilting myself to start writing. We've all had that moment, or for the more awkwardly-prone of us, moments, where our dream scenario runs all too perfectly. Kiss and make up, get that job, write 8 hours everyday until you get discovered and carried to Hollywood via throne carried by underlings. Then reality. The reality never leaps on to you, never jumps and you and slaps you in the face, telling you what an idiot you are for thinking things would be easier. It sort of creeps up on you...very slowly and awkwardly. The morning of the interview, you might accidentally brush your teeth with shampoo. A small symptom of epic failure. But who ever sees it coming?  

Something smells off. The receptionist looks at you a little funny. And before you know it, you're stuttering and listing off your greatest weaknesses like it was your pastor asking you.  

For those of us lucky enough to be sane in America (the number is dwindling), these are mere moments. We learn to chide ourselves for being too optimistic, but at the same time, know better than to jump out the nearest three-story window when we accidentally brush our teeth with shampoo. Those are just moments. Unless you go to art school. In which case, it turns into a lifetime. Of 'moments'.

The thing is, it's not a....bad life per se. Minimum wage jobs and all the cheap booze a half broke person can buy. Mmm! You wake up, give yourself an extra hour to start working. You start working, give yourself an extra two to catch up on your favorite television program. Get drunk, give yourself an extra day to recuperate. And then the avalanche. Hours into days. Days into months. Months into years. Before you know it, you've become so old that the "mailbox" you place your screenplay in is really just a cleverly disguised trashcan your significant other created to spare you the embarassment. And you didn't even know the difference! Ah, the life of an artist!

It's scary, it's sad, it's insecure. And that's why it attracts the craziest of us. A good chunk of this country is depressed, and a good chunk more are gluttons for punishment. There are too-good-to-be-true moments where all you need to do is hit pause in your mind, let things crawl a bit, and keep everything in a beautiful equilibrium. But no. Not for the artists. Maybe its being so used to being in a constant state of despair. Happiness is strange, and elicits a near-paranoia. Why am I happy? Is someone plotting to kill me? Is there some sort of evil conspiracy going on to make life happy for the next 50 years and then kill me of old age?

The constant tension is that the days don't go any slower when you're looking to work in entertainment. Every day, your friends bring home ten times more money than you, and logically they're ten times closer to a comfortable life. Meanwhile, you try to convince yourself that a bottle of liquor will release the brilliant artist hiding inside you....and then you puke the little bastard out four hours later.

To say I'm lost would a bit cliche, because its not that I don't know where I am. I just refuse to accept that as the truth. It's a weigh station, right? Byways, highways, and surface roads full of traffic.  

And like a true artist, I'm taking up valuable webspace to write inane thoughts. 

And like a true artist, I'm writing the end before the end should be written.

Gotta love those fake artists. You know, the successful ones.