What makes an artist an artist? It’s a question that’s been asked thousands of times by thousands of people who have the creative urge and use it. Am I an artist? Do I really have what it takes to create something memorable and interesting to others? A lot of questions and very few answers usually.
As a young man I had a constant stream of creative thoughts, but it took many years for me to find a way to express myself. I tried everything oil painting, sculpting, photography, poetry, and even jewelry making. I’ve used every type of media from acrylics, latex paints, pastels, charcoal, and pencil sketching. I found I loved writing and BANG; my blogging life began. I love doing them all, but I still was never sure if I was a real artist. Even to this day when I’m struggling with an idea, I still have my doubts. An artist’s curse, I suppose. These short essays by some very smart and intelligent men helped to put most of my doubts to rest. Enjoy . . .
“The biographies of great artists make it abundantly clear that the creative urge is often so imperious that it battens on their humanity and yolks everything to the service of the work, even at the cost of health and ordinary human happiness. The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a force of nature that achieves its end either with tyrannical might or with the subtle cunning of nature itself, quite regardless of the personal fate of the man who is its vehicle.”
Carl G. Jung (1875– 1961) “On Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry” 1930
“A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want. Indeed, the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) ” Soul of Man under Socialism” 1891
Even these supersmart gentlemen don’t have the ability to remove all doubt about whether a person is an artist or not. It’s that consistent need by an artist to doubt his own abilities that inspires him to strive to become even better.
I’ve been a music lover since the age of seven. My tastes in music are eclectic to say the least because I love good old rock ‘n roll from the 50s and 60s, psychedelic rock from the 60s and 70s, and a few other things that caught my fancy along the way like opera and Glam Rock. Most people that know me would be shocked to know that I’ve been a David Bowie fan for many years and with his death the music industry lost a true star and innovator. This post today is celebrating the birth and introduction of Ziggy Stardust in London’s Toby Judge pub on February 10, 1972.
Bowie was just a minor rocker at the time but with the creation of Ziggy Stardust, Glam Rock was born. Any rock musician can put on a costume, but how many could have inhabited the identity of an androgynous Martian rock star come to Earth in its dying days, so effortlessly? To quote Vince Taylor, a figure well-known in late-’60s London, He was “A finger up the nose of pop sincerity…a boot in the collective sagging denim behind of hippie singer-songwhiners”. The album of the music age, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. was voted one of the top 30 concept albums in history.
David Bowie
With the death of David Bowie in New York City on January 10, 2016, music lost one of its greats. Fortunately for us all, Ziggy Stardust will live on forever.
I thought I would offer up a few of the oldest limericks I’ve found so far. After reading a few of them I quickly discovered that the sense of humor then was a touch bawdier that many recent ones. Our ancestors probably needed something a little more attention getting in their humor. I’m sure many of them had very little to cheer about.
1882
There was a young sailor from Brighton
Who remarked to his girl, “You’re a tight one.”
She replied, ” ‘Pon my soul,
You’re in the wrong hole.
There’s plenty of room in the right one.”
1870
A young woman got married at Chester,
Her mother she kissed, and she blessed her.
Says she, “You’re in luck,
He’s a stunning good fuck,
For I’ve had him myself down in Leicester.”
1868
There was a young lady of Ealing
And her lover before her was kneeling.
Said she, ” Dearest Jim,
Take your hand off my quim.
I much prefer fucking to feeling.
1871
There were three ladies of Huxham,
And whenever we meets’em we fucks’em,
And when that game grows stale
We sits on a rail,
And pulls out our pricks and they sucks’em.
I hope to post many more of these. I live to keep the tradition alive and well here in the 21st century.
Sixteen years ago, I was a lonely bachelor living with two ferrets and a cat. Part of my routine at that time was to explore the internet, read blogs, and participate in selected chat rooms. It was about that same time I serious became interested in blogging but was really unsure just how to get started. One of my favorite blogs at the time was called gutrumbles.com. The gentleman that ran that blog was Rob Acid-Man Smith. He captured my imagination immediately because he was brutally honest, totally outspoken with absolutely no filters, and had a great sense of humor. I exchanged emails with him for a time, learned a lot, and I was hooked. That day he became my blog-father. To say he upset a large number of people over the years was an understatement, but he did it with humor and a whole lot of truth. After reading his blog for almost two years I decided to give it a try myself.
My four years of blogging on my first blog were eye opening. I was brutally honest and voiced my opinions loudly and crassly. I spent most of my time complaining about politics, religion, and any other topic that piqued my interest. It was great fun, and the responses were more than just a little interesting. I actually received a number of death threats from idiots around the globe. That was enough to convince me I had more to say and to hell with the critics.
But as with all things age tends to mellow a person. I decided to discontinue that first blog and then created Every-Useless-Thing. Hoping against hope that I could mellow my opinions down a little and make the blog something more than a bitch session. I’ve been doing Every-Useless-Thing now for approximately eleven and a half years and ten months ago I felt myself slipping and losing my edge. A lot of it had to do with my medical issues but it was more than just that. Anytime I felt myself slipping in the past I returned to gutrumbles.com to reinvigorate me. Gut Rumbles continues today at Rob’s request even though Rob passed away in 2006. It was and will always be my “Happy Place”.
Today after that lengthy and boring explanation I’m going to repost an article from Acid-Man’s blog. Hopefully you’ll read his thoughts and then understand where I’m trying to come from. I hope you enjoy a little of Acid Man, because I always have. If you want some good reading, go to his blog and read some of his archives. Here he is!
I have a Southern accent. I drop the “g” off the end of gerunds, so I say talkin,’ climbin,’ smokin,’ and runnin’ instead of speaking standard American English the way Dan Rather does as he lies his ass off on the CBS Evening News.
I say y’all. I have ‘druthers. I know how far yonder is. I know how to see ’bout that. Whatchadoon is a real word to me.
That’s the reason I don’t like to talk on the phone. I sound like a goddam hick. I AM a goddam hick, but I am educated and I can communicate well when I want to. Where I live, everybody understands me just fine when I say, “Whatchadoon? I’d ‘druther ya not go ’bout it that way. Lemme show ya sumpin. Thadded be better, doncha think?” That’s Southern English and it works well in person-to-person communication.
Try that shit over the phone when you’re talking to a yankee. I doesn’t work. The yankee gets all nasal, I talk Southern and the next thing you know, we may as well be from foreign countries. That’s why I would prefer to write to someone I don’t know. I can appear to be halfway intelligent on paper.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about this communication gap. I COULD be like the BC and talk like a yankee at work and sound like the biggest hayseed on the farm at Quinton’s football games, but I’m not a chameleon, able to change my skin color and blend into the scenery the way she can. Everything that woman does is an act and she wears many masks. I’m not built that way. Like Popeye, I am what I am and that’s all that I am.
Sometimes, that’s not the right way to be. Honesty is not always the best policy.
Let’s have a little fun today. While I’m not the greatest sports fan who’s ever lived, I have a deep and abiding passion for baseball. Not listening to or watching games on television (other than the Little League World Series) but actual playing at it for many years. I find watching sports these days is as much fun as watching paint dry. They’re not the same games as they were when I was growing up. All that being said there are certain things about sports that are universal and forever and one of those is the words of wisdom spoken by Yogi Berra. He was a great ballplayer, but his little tidbits of wisdom made him more famous than baseball. I’ve picked up a few of them here and there over the years and then I discovered a gold mine of them in recent weeks. These are the ones I like the best and here they are for your enjoyment. Let’s go…
“This is like déjà vu all over again.”
“You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
In reference to movie star Steve Queen, “He must’ve made that movie before he died.”
When asked what he would do if he found $1 million, he stated, “I’d find the fellow who lost it and if he was poor, I’d return it.”
“Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical.”
“A nickel isn’t worth a dime today.”
When asked for the time, he stated, “Do you mean now?”
“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
“I never blame myself when I’m not hitting. I just blame the bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it wasn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
“It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.”
When asked about his hat size he stated, ” I don’t know. I’m not in shape yet.”
“You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise, they won’t come to yours.”
“I take a two-hour nap, from one o’clock to four.”
“You give 100% in the first half of the game, and if that isn’t enough, in the second half you give what’s left.”
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
Well, there you have it folks. The sport of baseball hasn’t been the same since Yogi retired and passed away. We need more like him in all of today’s sports to keep us aware that it’s just a game for kids. That’s how it was before it became nothing but agents, money, negotiations, social media, media interviews, and a few hundred talking heads who think they have all the answers. They’ve all done their best to ruin “Americas Pastime” and it’s a damn shame.
Let me start off by saying that I’m not a beer drinker. I haven’t had much use for drinking beer since my early years of college and even then, I mixed it with Seven-Up because I couldn’t stand the taste. Also, most of the girls wanted it sweetened and who was I to argue? And now I’m living with one of the greatest beer drinkers I’ve ever seen, my better-half. I would easily consider her a professional beer drinker. She knows all the brands, flavors, the history of the breweries, and that makes her an expert in my eyes.
Many years ago, I worked with a man who made her look like an amateur. This guy could sit and drink a half a case of beer, leave the bar, and drive home. I never saw him intoxicated regardless of how many beers he slugged down in the course of the evening. I consistently ragged on him about drinking too much beer because even then I didn’t have much use for it. Finally, he decided to respond to my constant badgering and gave me the list you’re about to read. He felt that I spent most of my time chasing women and that in his opinion beer was way better than women. Here we go, his list of reasons that beer is better than women.
You can enjoy beer all month long.
You don’t have to wine and dine a beer.
A beer will wait patiently for you in the car when you play sports.
Beer is never late.
Hangovers go away, beer never does.
When you go to a bar, you can always pick up a beer.
Beer never has a headache.
A beer won’t get upset if you come home with beer on your breath.
If you pour a beer just right, you’ll always get good head.
A beer always goes down easy.
You always know if you’re the first one to pop a beer.
Beer is always wet.
Beer doesn’t demand equality.
The beer doesn’t care when you come.
You don’t have to wash a beer before it tastes good.
As I was typing this list, I had a small but equally important epiphany. While I dislike beer immensely, I absolutely love bourbon. If I replace the word beer in this list with the word bourbon, it still makes perfectly good sense. I guess it’s true what they say.
Today I was sitting quietly at home thinking seriously about our previous night’s dinner. As a last resort, when my better-half and I disagree on our evening meal, we have hamburgers and fries. We’ve become quite creative with that meal whether it’s cooked on the grill, in the air-fryer, pan fried or on the grill on the deck. I’m not a big red meat eater and under normal circumstances (not birthdays or holidays) I prefer chicken and fish. Burgers are my go-to meal or comfort food if you prefer, and yes, there is no ham in hamburgers . . . Ever!
Due to my idle curiosity, I did some searching to be sure I was correct, here’s what I found:
The popular book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse included a recipe in 1758 as “Hamburgh sausage”, which suggested to serve it “roasted with toasted bread under it”. A similar snack was also popular in Hamburg, Germany, by the name “Rundstück warm” (“bread roll warm”) in 1869 or earlier, and supposedly eaten by many emigrants on their way to America.
There always seems to be a rush by dozens of Americans to claim they invented the “burger” and everything else for that matter. Don’t forget the Russians and French who always insist they’ve invented or created just about anything you can think of. Too bad boys, Germany wins this contest.
My own favorite is a one-half pound well-seasoned burger on a whole grain toasted bun. Medium rare, topped with hot pickled jalapenos, mayo, a layer of mushrooms, a layer of sharp cheddar cheese, a slab of red onion, and hold the lettuce. Old school fries on the side, hot and crispy with Heinz 57. I’ll have that just about any time.
One of my favorite things to do during the holidays is surfing the web and reading letters to Santa from the younger children. Most of these letters are from kids in the second and third grade from cities across the country. Enjoy them, they’ll bring a smile to your face like they did to mine.
I hope I am on the good list. I hope the reindeer get enough food. Please thank the elves because they have been working hard. I hope you like my cookies. For Christmas I would like an iPad. I would like an iPhone too. Have a safe trip. From, Allison
I want surprise presents. I want my cousin Barchetta to have a puppy and my dog to have a squeeze toy and a coat to keep my dog warm. I really want my little cousin Natalia to be nice and happy and it presents. I want a PSP game and the game for the PSP. I also would like this Christmas to be awesome for the whole town. Sincerely, Danna
I take great care of the toys you got me. All I would like for Christmas is for it to snow and forth to be a happy Christmas. It’s okay if I get toys. I do want them, but I want a happy Christmas more. I saw a route off last year. What is your favorite kind of cookies? We’ll make sure you bring a happy Christmas. Sincerely, Camrynn
I hope you like the cookies I made. I have been good this year. I hope the reindeer get enough food. I hope you have a safe trip. I wish you a Merry Christmas. Love, Elizabeth
Can you make it snow at night? How are the reindeer? Hmmm . . . I would like a remote-control airplane. I would like an iPhone maybe. I would like to make people happy at Christmas. Could I have surprise gifts? Merry Christmas Santa. Sincerely Katarina
I think I’ve been really good this year. I hope you like our chimney. It is very wide. I hope you have a Merry Christmas! I hope you like the cookies. I hope you like my letter. I love you Santa. From, Natalie
I want you to surprise me. My mom said when she was little she got surprised by you. So I am trying it this year. I can’t wait till you come. How hard you work in your workshop? I hope you have a great Christmas. I am going to have a great Christmas. Sincerely, Abigail
In my humble opinion Christmas, the gift giving holiday, is mainly for the young children. Christmas, the birth of Christ holiday, is for everyone. I hope you and yours enjoy both sides of the holiday and prosper in the new year.
everyuselessthing.com 