Good conversations are at a premium (I was going to add 'these days', but really, when are they ever in abundance?). Throw a bunch of alcohol into the mix (for everyone besides yourself), and you've pretty much shot down your chances at getting any decent discussion started, or sustained.
However, odd characters, and interesting psychological specimens are everywhere. (Even if what makes them interesting is purely ironic, unintentional or mind boggling).
Such is the nature of a recent house party I attended (don't ask me why I was at a house party).
"Why were you at a house party Niko?"
HEY!! What did I just say? Don't make me pull this car over young man!
Before I regurgitate the odd dialogues I eventually found myself in, you need to know one thing: All I want right now is good, intellectual conversations. I literally crave it as if it were laced with nicotine (though, not being a smoker, that sounds disgusting).
I don't really care if the person has the same viewpoint I do, as long as they can carry on a spirited conversation, and are willing to entertain other points of view. (I know you think that I can't listen to other points of view, given my writing style and all, but assure you I'm much more tame and friendly in person).
That being said, let's move back in time to that strange evening at the house party.
I'm never good a large gatherings, but I did my best, as the only girl I knew at the party led me around and introduced me to various people. After meeting most of the young, hip, people in the house (I just assume), an older fellow, probably in his early sixties, with short all-white hair, a large frame (from muscles not fat), and very tanned or just brown skin (it was hard to tell, though he was of some Mexican decent) came around the corner and into the kitchen. I noticed that he was clutching an almost empty beer stein.
He was introduced to me as "[can't remember his name], Anthony's father"; Anthony being the one who owned the townhouse. I shook hands with him (the older guy, not the townhouse), then stayed suspended in mid-handshake as he refused to let me go while he asked me a series of small talk questions.
As a quick aside, I really have a hard time with small talk. It makes me uncomfortable.
"What was your name again?" He asked as his vision tried to catch up to his head's movement.
"Niko" I replied.
"Miko huh?" He confirmed. I smiled to myself, but said nothing.
"What's you last name?" He continued.
To which I told him, while still, strangely, holding his hand.
"What are you, [insert any off-target ethnic sounding region of the world here]?"
"Dutch actually. Some danish." I replied, still trying to make light conversation.
"Oh, really?..." He started, while still keeping my hand firmly in his. "...I've been over there before, it's a great country!"
This is the kind of talk I really don't care for. I feel like I'm always trying to find the most uninteresting thing to say, as it is what is most likely to make the other person feel like I'm playing by the unsaid "rules of polite chit chat".
"I'm sure it is. Never been." I tried to make one of those not-really-funny, but light and conversational jokes. "Land of wooden shoes and cheese I hear."
*cringe* See what I mean?
He stared at me with slight smile, still holding my hand.
"You know a lot of good artists come from over there."
He did not strike me as someone who was into art (not that I really know a Monet from a canvas covered in the soupy vomit of a seizuring retarded child). But at least the topic could go somewhere more profound. Could.
"Yep, that's true" I said (I actually have no idea), testing where he would go with the conversation and trying to find a way out of his strange motionless hand non-shake.
Without missing a beat he plunged into self promotion.
"I'm an artist and a poet. I've done all kinds of big stuff over the years. I've been an artist for 30 years."
Though it may seem odd, since I would consider myself a musician, a writer (lyrics are kind of like poetry right?) and a somewhat artist (mostly graphic design stuff these days, I'm sure my drawing skills would on par with sub par), I really don't like talking with most artists. Those that make bold proclamations of their artistic nature and then apply it to how they see the world... it's just so... irritatingly conceited.
...which is precisely what I do, in my own way.
And yet I hate it. (Always some sort of dichotomy in these blogs lately huh?) Which is why I generally try to hide the fact that I do anything artistic until pretty far down the "getting to know someone" line.
But maybe this guy is actually pretty cool. Maybe he has some interesting perspectives on life and art and people. You never know. They are out there you know.
So...
I tried to find some common ground, (as you do), and admitted (a bit hesitantly), that I too, was a bit of an artist (sort of), though I refrained from any specifics. Little did I know that this one line would change the course of the night and be the entire reason this blog ever happened. So, sorry, in advance.
Once finally released from his episodic grip (which got turned down for a 3rd season, thankfully), I stepped outside on the patio to hang out with the girl that asked me to come down in the first place. After a few wonderfully poignant asides and quips, which have no bearing on this topic (so I won't post them), the older white-haired guy walked out onto the patio, came right next to me and said bluntly, "So let's talk about something. What do you want to talk about?"
Strange way to get a conversation going, I know. But I realized why he did it. You see, he had now singled me out as the other "artist" at the party, and therefore, I must think like he does, or at least similarly.
I knew that from the start, he wanted to wax philosophical about art existentially. He did not say that mind you, but you could tell by his eyebrows (or was it his wrist?).
Since conversation was my goal, and everyone else at this party was just a group of drunk, mid-to-late-20-somethings, the option of a discussion about life and art with a self-proclaimed artist and poet seemed the only potentially amusing choice.
I started with simple questions about his art, like "do you have anything that I can see?" to which the answer was, no.
Well, that's no good. If I can't see his work for myself, can I take his word for how good his art is? (Of course not. It is always a bit too convenient to brag about your great art, or whatever it may be, and not have to have any evidence to support it, eh? Speaking of, take a look at my giant crotch... sans evidence of course).
Then I asked him if he had ever done any commercial art, and he began a short diatribe of how he doesn't like to do that, see, "'cause then it's not art."
Ah yes, what is art indeed. It's actually a wonderful topic, and I have my own thoughts on this (as per usual), but not now. This blog is fucking long.
I will say this though. That whole, "anything commercial is not art"? That was me. Not more then five years ago. I said those same words. And it's still a complicated set of opinions for me.
I was now talking art with my younger, less experienced, more immature self.
It was right about here where he began talking about what makes art good, and where good art comes from.
"I did a lot of drugs back in the day. LSD, heroin, you name it. All those other guys who didn't do any drugs, that's fake art. My art comes from what I see, from my heart."
Unlike all of those other artists whose art comes from Milwaukee.
At this point my heart (mind) sank as my hopes for a grounded, interesting intellectual conversation had been trampled on and squashed (make note of that as it will come up later... plus it's funny). I could see where this guy was going now. I knew it all too well, and to quote Mr. Horse, "No sir, I don't like it."
I've had my fair share of conversations with Artists (yes, that's with a capital "A"). Most of the ones that come out and pronounce themselves as artistic people right off the bat are those that usually just like to mention that they see the world in a strange/different/interesting way, and talk about how unique they are in regards to their perspectives on things.
What really gets me upset about this type of person, is how depressingly similar they are to the person I was years ago. It's almost like I want to physically reach out, grab them, and shake them out of their silly "I'm so cool because I'm an artist" mentality, as if I were shaking those very same ideas out of my older (younger) self.
So what do I say? What do I do? When I see that the option for legitimate rational dialogue has run dry, my only recourse is to find something funny and entertaining in the situation.
So I did.
From that point on I had the mindset of trying to keep him talking for my personal amusement. I'm kind of a secret asshole sometimes. (Secret?).
But I digress, we were discussing drugs. Tell me more!
"When you do LSD and look at the world, you see the truth for what it really is. When you look at that flower you see just the flower, but on LSD, man, you see it as beauty and as connected to everything. It's all connected."
*sigh*
Again, it's so frustrating because I really wanted some good, "deep" conversations. But I have to admit reading it back now, it's really fucking hilarious to me.
Now back to his comment.
So if being on LSD gives you the truth, what does sober reality give you? Lies? Doesn't LSD actually create a false, dream-like reality in the brain where it has difficulty discerning between what is real and what is only in the mind? How is that more real and truthful? No one else can see what you are seeing, and you can't confirm that evidence with an outside, non-biased source. I guess actual reality is not the way to tell what is what.
Write that down.
And by the way, everything is connected, regardless of what drug you are on. I'll prove it, go do a line of coke right now.
Sorry. Continue, Guy-Who-I'm-Now-Fucking-With.
"I look at the world in a different way, when I look at the world I see beauty and truth."
Bam. There it is. I was waiting for that one. And he said it like it was right out of The Oxford Book Of Artist's Cliches.
You know, if he were more sober, and would have actually remembered anything I may have contributed to the conversation, this would have been a good point to ask him to clarify "beauty and truth". Yes, they are poetic and often just a metaphor, but I really think that he was just saying those words to say them. He is, after all, an artist, and those are the kinds of things artists are supposed to say. But does it have any real meaning? Can he define beauty? Truth?
I probably can't. But I'm not the one making the statements.
After a few other observations, he opened up his fictitious book of Indiviualistic-Triteness to chapter two. I was no longer upset or frustrated by his observations, I found them now quite hilarious.
"I don't conform. I'm never going to conform. The world moves this way..."
*He makes a forward spinning motion with his left hand*
"...and sometimes I move with it."
*Both hands do the forward spinning motion*
"But sometimes I go against it..."
*He makes a backward circular motion with his right hand*
Ha ha ha ha... oh man. Damn you are unique! I can tell by the gestures!
What does that even mean, people? It seems to me that he's just really trying to hammer home the fact that he sees himself as a really unique, against-the-grain, non-conformist, to try and impress the fellow "artist". Does that sound about right?
What I found fascinating, and see if you agree with me, was how he sounded more and more like a high school punk or goth kid, whose most important goal in life was to not conform, and thereby, ironically, conforming to a sort of counter-culture in the process. (Yes, sadly, I also used to wax on about the "conformists" in my teen years. Embarrassing to admit). He is that very kid who never grew up.
So now I'm being talked at by a drunk pseudo-artist with the existential and philosophical perspective of an insecure high-school outcast. Oh goody gum drops!
Do you, by chance sir, have some more metaphors dealing with your implied uniqueness?
"When flowers grow and open up," *He cups his hands like a flower* "some don't open, and some open in a different way. I'm like that flower that doesn't grow the same way as the rest of them."
Though I was trying to stay in playful spirits, and secretly poke fun at him, the more he droned on about this, the more it started making me a bit depressed.
Why?
Well, just to go with the empathy card for a second (only a second, I promise), I really started to feel sorry for him. Here he was proving, without a doubt, that he just wanted me to accept him, to think he was really interesting by spouting typical generic "I'm an artist" rhetoric at me, and all I was doing was being condescending and disingenuous, internally mocking his every phrase, idea, and gesture as I stood silently nodding and smiling.
So far, I had contributed absolutely nothing to the one-way conversation, as most of my energy went to coming up with mental one-liners.
To keep things interesting, I decided to play a bit of devil's advocate to his over-indulgence of by-the-book arty-ness and asked him, "So from an evolutionary point of view, being the non-conformist and the strange interesting one - the flower in your scenario that can't open, or grows in a different way - would that odd flower be the one to survive and carry on its genes?"
He thought for a beat, "no, it wouldn't."
OH YEAH! ZING! BURN!! (I said to myself)
He smiled at me, thinking. Then he added, "it's the one that gets trampled, and stepped on." (told you that line would come back).
So Mr. Bond, it's on to the martyrdom of true artistry? Oh the tragedy of the struggling artist! Oh the plight that besets all true beholders and prevailers of beauty and truth!
Yes, there is something to the idea that the genuinely unique ones can be caught in the rip-tide of mediocrity, but I was not in the mood to let him turn around my secret zing and use it as ammo for his unique non-conformist artist-poet mentality.
****************
Tune in next week for the stunning conclusion, where I face a new, much drunker challenge, filled with wacky observations and edge-of-your-seat thrills!
Continued in part 2...
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Tags: art artist cliche philosophy psychology party conform society self perception beauty truth sarcsam humor funny
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