Everything's desolate. Old ladies are screaming. Old men have given up their pills. Young men have little hope for the future. Young women have dropped their compacts and fled. It's like that one famous Picasso painting, "Generica." So named for the generic havoc that was caused when people had no hope, like when war consumed them. You see their bitter struggle, how they turned on each other and were at each other's throat.
If I knew anything about painting I could definitely give a blank canvas a run for its money. The canvas would see me coming and meet me halfway. I'd go to the art store to get supplies and people would fall to their knees to commission something from me. I would be signing my autograph to blank canvases and simply selling those. Because I have the art up here, in my mind. But, alas, I don't have any actual artistic ability down here with my hands.
One big reason for my artistic limitations has to be the fact that I'm way too self-conscious. I know what would happen if I looked at a blank canvas. It'd be just like this, I'd be thinking I don't want to imitate, I don't to paint cliches, I don't want to do what they expect, I just want it to be real. But exactly what that is ... yes, I have the ideas up here ... I wouldn't be able to paint because my hands wouldn't coordinate with my mind when I picked up a brush or a pencil.
Really, though, I do have enough masterpieces stored away in my brain, up here, that I have to triple bolt my door at night just to keep art thieves from stealing me. Then they'd have me on sale at Sotheby's -- and because I would have to waste so much time everyday trying to explain why I'm so valuable, I know I'd get bored and very frustrated.
I think there's a lot of inspiration in desolation like war. I like to drive by poor neighborhoods, like a block away from where we live, just to be inspired. And you know that I'm something of a Skidrow aficionado. I'm a connoisseur of condemnation. If I see a kid wandering through the rubble, it puts me in an artistic frame of mind.
You know how some people hate those commericals for the Christian League Of Helping Poor Children in other countries. You've got the big well-fed guy from the United States walking through a slum. And you think, couldn't this guy at least have lost some weight before he filmed this commercial? And you know he's staying in a fancy trailer or hotel somewhere. But there he is crying big tears for their plight. I like those commercials, especially if we could get rid of the American guy. And I'm sitting there with my hands framing the scene, as though I'm about the paint another masterpiece. Because squalor is a great subject for art.
Well, squalor ... rubble ... desolation ... that's what my hiatus has wrought for me. There have been good times. Walking around the half acre, having the sun smile on me, all that. The days off. The occasional root beer float. Dreaming of bigger and better things, like going to the store and seeing what food they're giving away samples of today. All those things take time, and having a hiatus from the blog and my newsletter has given me the time.
But like I said, it's left behind a lot of desolation. I've lost everyone who ever came to this blog. They've deserted me for other Grandma imitators, and possibly news sites. And certainly the internet hasn't been the same since they introduced pornography to the general public. The day they did that my traffic dropped like a rock. And I never got that traffic back either. But I'm strict on one subject, I will not run any blue content here ... not for any reason. If you're a pervert looking to get your jollies off from something twisted you think I might say, then please, I'm begging you, leave this site right now!
So I don't know what will be next. Maybe I'll use some of my hiatus time to get some art supplies and try again. I wonder how big a canvas I should start with. It can't be any bigger than the door. I don't want to leave it out overnight and have thieves take it half finished. Maybe I'll get some of that fluorescent chalk and a black light and make some art that has deer's eyes glowing in the dark. That's very artistic. Or I'll tell you another, some glowing white chalk on a waterfall, as though it's beamed there from moonbeams. Extremely nice.
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