The Happy Bohemian

Did you ever feel embarrassed about being happy? No? Well, try being a happy bohemian. (Or a happy intellectual, for that matter.)

Once, years ago, while I was teaching, I was telling my class a story that had to do with my personal life -- something about my family I think; some funny incident. A student said, after the story (I can still see his face -- and I remember his name: Curt): "You're a pretty happy guy, aren't you?"

Reflexively, found myself wanting to correct him: Well, I wouldn't say "happy"... Heaven forbid people should think I am happy. There is not a whole lot of dramatic value in being a happy person, is there? And, as an artistic dude, I almost felt, at that moment, that I had shirked my movie/play/novel-established responsibility of being tortured and conflicted. 

"Yeah," I said, almost apologetically. "I guess I am..."

I think of Adam Duritz, the singer/lyric writer of Counting Crows. Somewhere on their album Recovering the Satellites, (which I love, by the way; I like most of that band's stuff) he utters the line "we're so ___ed up, you and me..."

A Stranger in an Ever-Stranger Land

It annoys me when artists wallow blissfully in their weirdness. It doesn't bother me when they are weird; it bothers me when they wallow in it and wear it as a badge -- and especially when they feign it to seem more artistic.

Maybe I should go to a priest and confess: "Father, forgive me. I fall asleep with no problem every night. I have no drug addiction and I don't drink absinthe. I don't wear scarves or knit caps when it is hot out. I come from a close-knit family, with a mom and a dad and a sister and a dog. I don't focus on pain in my writing. I have a whole bunch of what some might label "traditional" beliefs. I even think there is a God up there. Father, forgive me -- I have sinned against the artistic archetype."

That said, every stereotype has its origins in some fleck of reality, I suppose. We creative types can be a strange lot.

For instance, I am wrapping up composition of pieces for my next CD (a CD of piano music; no vocals) I need to decide when I have enough "stuff" to wrap it up. A few days ago, I finished writing a cycle of pieces called "American Sketches." So, last night, I was clicking around on my computer, wondering if I had any unfinished things that might merit completion...and I found something I had completely forgotten about: a symphony.

No, I am not kidding. I had totally forgotten I wrote a complete symphony a few years ago.