SOFT DAY.

Today I took what people I used to know called a "mental health day". Just a bit of time off to slow down and breath a bit. When I was a wee Zed I hardly ever stopped until I was so drained I simply fell over. Age brings a certain wisdom if not endurance. It's the usual thing when I do this that I find myself towards the end of the day pacing about looking for a nameless something much as a bloodhound casts about for a scent that should be there but isn't.

This seems to be a part of the creative process for me, this restlessness. It's a spur to do something that I'll find if I only look hard enough.

I also know this defeats the purpose as art always comes unannounced and sudden. But search I do and most likely always will.

It's my nature.

Oh, but for an extended period of inner tranquility, what a blessing that would be.

Portrait of the artist as a somnambulist.

So peaceful.

Maybe tomorrow.

M.Z.

IMAGINE A BALLOON.

Tres elegant no? The symbolism of a balloon as art?

wonderful concept: pretty on the outside but absolutely empty on the inside.

I'll name no names, point no fingers, largely because some of the work that sparked this was done by nice people. Really nice folks. The kind you'd love to have coffee with and shoot the shit.

Er, there may be a horrible pun in there. Sorry.

It boils down to wallpaper. I love good wallpaper. Hand blocked, warm, colorful, and utterly vacant wallpaper. Something for everybody and no one's feeling ever, ever need get involved beyond the surface. Soma eye candy. It's everywhere, made by everyone. Why there's ever perfectly acceptable "rebellious" wallpaper. Sanctioned rebellion to the popular taste.

How charming.

Yeah. to a point.

Apples and pears. What? What happened to the balloons? The wallpaper?

Keep up with the flying metaphors, they are a bugger unless you think in circles. You gotta learn to duck or you could get a cramp. Which brings me back to apples and pears.

At one point in my career, it was expected that I be an apple. At one fateful intersection, I was told to be one. I honestly tried, largely because I had what's known as a "life". Read that as a mortgage, a lovely companion, pedigree dogs, a tricked out jeep with more balls than a stockyard, and closet filled with coolasfuck cloths. You know, stuff.

Well, as hard as I tried, my essential pear-ness won out.

So I did the only sane thing a befuddled and weary pear can do: I quite.

Nowadays, In refuse to be an acceptable anything. Nicely of course. I just wander off on my own when the conversation comes around to wallpaper, balloons or apples. Rebellious or otherwise.

You see, I'd rather fly at the sun and fail miserably that hover a discreet inch or so above the ground. I'm all about an old love letter in and empty dresser in an abandoned house, a ruined fountain overgrown with weeds in some odd place that stirs the heart. I'm about trying and winning pure poetry. The kind that bleeds without shame, and rouses the mind to long forgotten dreams of something that mean something. I want to be the perfect failure. That's where art lives. I never wanted to make balloons. All surface filled with nothing but air. I stumble around in the dark looking for light and by God, I find it from time to time.

Walt Disney can kiss my ass. So can anyone else that doesn't have the stones to get fucking dirty and make Goddamn art.

I won't live in a world of posers. Even well intentioned, talented ones. I'll make my own.

And I'm just insane enough to believe that the world I make will have enough room for anyone who wants to come too.

Michael the happy pear.

My love to you all.

M.Z.

UNCYNICAL UNIRONIC UNDARK

My fondest wish for you all today, not just to those who call themselves Christian, but to all people of all books and all hopeful, persons lost and dreaming of better things: a day peaceful and with your dear ones. Let a tiny ripple go out from your hearts to the vastness we call God.

It is possible. Every breath you take sings like angels.

M.Z.

*GROAN*

I'm just bloody exhausted. I spent nearly a month in limbo while the studio froze solid and now I'm paying the price.

Even my teeth hurt.

I DO have a "working" blog ready to go......maybe tomorrow eh? Let this boy relax a bit ok?

Sallaam's and comfy pillows.

M.Z.

BETTER NATE THAN LEVER.

Word has just reached that I've missed the celebration of the birth of a splendid young man by the name of Nick Dunbar. Well, this will never do, no indeed! Not on MY blog. The very thought!

*Hhhrrummph*

So, a very happy, if belated birthday to Master Nick. Be wise, be kind, be yourself.

Always.

Now, MORE CLOWNS!

m.z.

SADDLE SORE

It's been a big week and it's Monday. Can you appreciate this?

I've been back working on Le Book for several days now and all I can say is that I've begun to feel I'm looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Things seem to be as far away as I imagined.

It's not as drastic as all that, mind you I've a certain flair for the dramatic. Irrepressible me.

The pages are falling like leaves and igniting as the drop. Lovely to behold. It's a shame really, that what I do is so solitary and distinctly un-festive. That's where the new "Working" blog will come into play: a place for me to celebrate my isolation while I work. A bit more patience and suddenly it will bloom like poppies in the spring.

A new thing has cropped up the last few weeks that DOES concern me though. My eyesight seems to be falling a bit further back into unfocused than I'd like. Time for another loathsome eye exam. Bugger.

I have more or less figured that if I had the funds available, I could finish the book by mid July, instead of mid September. Send money.

Ah, well, worth a try eh?

EEM. ZEE.

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

Rumi.

HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?

Some days.

Some days I've just had enough of this great, retarded, raving insane world.

A great flow of black bile with claws just swells from somewhere within and I want to either burn the world to cinders or die weeping in a river of tears for the beauty raped and plundered for fake golden dust.

I just hate feeling like this. It does neither me, nor anyone else any good.

But I do. Sometimes.

I'm glad I'm not God.

M.Z.