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Ambition: the ups, the downs, and the short-term memory loss. |
Ribbons FOUR Excerpt from Interview with Burl Wonder By Emily Parker, Kontrast Magazine, May 2008 # BW: “I don’t want to create anything for creation‘s sake, that’s my biggest advantage. I want to create something for the sake of money, women and the envious assholes my creation will attract. If I give a hundred percent, I’m giving too much. I want to give seventy-five percent at the fucking most, then hit on the buyer’s wife when he pays me and hear him say, ‘Thank you,’ while my assistant counts the coins. “See, that’s where those other bastards really make me laugh ‘till I cry. Yeah, of course, making something beautiful is nice. It’s fulfilling. It might speak truth to some fucking guy walking by your booth at the local art-fair. It’ll get your dick hard, even--maybe make you shoot a wad ten feet in the air! What it won’t do is support your starving ass when the economy has a fucking heart attack. It’s not going to fool Little-Miss-Big-Tits out of her panties and into the backseat of the car you’re living in. And it’s not going to hold your head up for you at the high-school reunion.” KM: “Some might say that is a very materialistic attitude for an artist.” BW: “Not at all. Exactly the opposite.” KM: “How so?” BW: “When I stretch my canvas tonight, I’ll be thinking about stretching my canvas. When I mix my paint, I’ll be thinking about the perfect, color choice. When I take out my hundred-dollar brushes, I won’t be worried about what kind of flow I’m going to get out of them or if I’m going to find a loose hair in the paint after it dries. I also won’t be worrying about rent, or food, or getting a blow job, or that other part-time job I had to take to make ends meet. “I meant what I said about giving no more than seventy-five percent towards the actual execution of a painting. I know a lot of broke-ass artists who are much better painters than I am. But they ruin everything by giving too much of themselves and taking too little. In the end, they quit, compromise, or kill themselves. I love my work too much to suffer for it because, in reality, my work and I suffer together. If I’m forced to paint, the painting looks forced. If I’m shitty because I’m broke, the work will be shitty and I’ll keep on being broke. In taking care of myself first, I’m ensuring the care I can put into my work, which, in turn, ensures the care I can put back into myself. It’s the circle of fucking life, I’d say.” The artist taps his cigarette into a plastic cup filled half way with lavender-colored water as he sips a glass of scotch and ice. The enormous studio is littered with such cups--some containing various colors of water or mineral spirits, some containing paint with a layer of dried skin at the top, and most containing ashes and cigarette butts as well. KM: “So, what practical advice would you give an aspiring artist who wants to, as you say, take care of his work by taking care of himself? How might he get a foot in the door?” BW: “A drug habit or a nervous breakdown can help to get the ball rolling. A criminal record can’t hurt. Some nefarious rumors, scandals. Sex tapes are becoming a fucking, industry standard from starlets to senators--anyone in the public eye, really. Of course, these are gimmicks. Valuable gimmicks, but gimmicks, nonetheless. Or maybe symptoms. Occupational hazards? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, you’re either good or you’re not. But even if you’re good, really good, the chances of you doing anything with your talents are as thin as a pussy hair. To be one of the memorable ones, you need a backdrop and you need a benefactor. “Your work is an extension of yourself. It’s a snapshot of your story that they‘re really buying, and your story is always more valuable than the snapshot. That’s why crazy fuckers do so well in this field. If you really want a shot at success, make sure your story has giant, hairy balls.” Just at this moment, a blue flame ignites for no apparent reason, leaping from an orange, five-gallon bucket in the center of the room. “Jacob!” the painter calls out calmly. A tall, thin man enters with a bucket of water sloshing around and spilling onto the hardwood floor. “Sorry,” says Mr. Wonder, and continues, “Linseed oil. If you don‘t wash it out of your rags thoroughly, it’ll spontaneously combust.” He proceeds to then tell me the story of how linseed oil once melted the bed liner of his pickup while driving on the interstate during rush hour. He then recounts the sexual experience the incident presented to him. It seems that each artifact in his studio has a story behind it, often a sexual one, and that is just one of many reasons why Burl Wonder remains such an interesting figure in the art world today. # # “Okay,” she chuckled and turned off the recorder. “Well, I think that’s as good a place to close as any. Thank you so much, Mr. Wonder. I’ll be sure to get a copy to you before publication.” “Eh, don’t bother.” He grinned a toothy grin. “How about your phone number instead?” The journalist hesitated at this, her eyes wide and her brow raised, her lips drawn together in a bloated, pink circle. “Oh, I left a card with Jacob,” she clarified, only to receive a playfully sarcastic look from her host. “Ah. Hmm,” she teased, then, reconsidered. “Yeah, sure. Okay.” She tore a corner from her notebook and began to copy her personal phone number. Burl interrupted her. “You know what? Don’t,” he proposed. “I’ll never call; I’m too afraid of rejection. Here’s my cell.” He took the pen from her hand. “You give me a call some bored and lonely night. That way I’ll know you actually want to talk, because I love to listen to women with British accents talk. But not for professional purposes,” he stated firmly. “No work stuff. I’ve already given you an interview. Next time, I want to give you a back rub and some alcohol. Mostly alcohol.” “Alright then. Well, I’ll be in touch.” She suppressed a smile and shook her head slightly, looking down. “Wait. Actually, let me get your number anyway so I can program it into my phone--so I’ll recognize you when you call. How do you spell your full name?” “Ha! Bravo. That’s very clever,” replied Emily. “Oh? What‘s clever?” Burl feigned confusion. “You don’t remember my name, do you?” She smiled. “That’s okay. Here.” She finished writing her name and number on the scrap of paper and slid it across the paint-spattered table. The painter looked embarrassed, possibly for the first time in his life. “Alright then, Emily Parker. I’ll be waiting. Hold on,” a thought struck the painter. “You’re not--“ “Yes.” “From 30th Street?” “The same.” “And we…?” “Several times.” “Well. Wow! Did you, uh…?” “Also several times,” she gleamed. “And now you’re going to have your revenge?” “For what?” she asked, although she knew to what he referred. He just raised an eyebrow and smirked. “I’m a professional,” she irradiated. “I only write what’s there and, besides, I think you’ve done more here to reveal your true nature than any spurned woman could ever hope to do.” “Shit.” “No need to worry. I still may call you,” she teased. “Good luck on your show, Mr. Wonder,” said Emily as she threw her British bag over her British shoulder and passed under a tall, brick archway leading to the elevator. “It’s Burl. Call me Burl,” he beseeched her, catching a waft of her scent stapled to the studio air. He breathed her in as deeply as he could before the myriad of pungent and pithy, chemical odors swallowed the room again with a gaping yawn. As he stood biting his fingernails and pondering his newest, old acquaintance, another small flame flashed to life in a different, orange bucket behind him. Without turning around, he allowed his eyelids to fall and the corners of his mouth to turn slightly upward. He drew another deep breath, feeling his chest expand and collapse. “Jacob!” he shouted, not unpleasantly, and listened to the water splash about the floor again while Jacob uttered insincere and unwarranted apologies. # # The young boy searched the driveway for his spilled treasure. It was his first encounter with the phenomenon of obsession; he could think of nothing else. Had Armageddon occurred at that moment, he would have been oblivious to it. Fireballs might have rained down from the heavens, boiling lava could have erupted from each of the alley’s many potholes, locusts might have descended to devour his neighbors and their children and the ice-cream man and all the world’s puppies--it would not have distracted him from finding his twelve rocks and returning them to their home in the pink, egg carton. Within half an hour, young Burl managed to find eleven of his trophies. Only the quartz remained--the beautiful, white, shimmering quartz. His first and favorite find. In tears, he plopped straight down where he stood and decided to send up the Bat Signal: “God,” he wept, sitting cross-legged on the gravel, his head so low to his lap that dogs were gathering in amazement, “Find my rock for me.” Five minutes passed by like an ugly parade as he sobbed. At last, he opened his red eyes and there, right there, directly right there was the quartz--his Queen centerpiece because it sparkled the most brilliantly--perched on the other, common gravel like a pearl in an unsightly oyster, or a rough diamond in an egg carton, nestled there, six inches from his nose. “Ask, and ye shall [immediately] receive [sometimes].” # # Excerpt #4 from Burl Wonder’s Journal Dated 12.24.2010 # I am from Indianapolis, the same city as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. His writing has greatly influenced me; I’ve always tried to paint like he writes--with broad and brilliant and simple strokes. He was proud of his heritage and I am trying to be proud, also. Stylistically, however, he was a true storyteller, whereas I am more of an explainer or a describer, with canvas rather than page. Substantively, he was a humanitarian of sorts, whereas I am merely an obsessive compulsive. If anything, then, I try to copy him primarily in that I seek to remind myself to shut the hell up once in a while and let the story happen, let the tones and hues fall where they may, to tell the truth with my colors and shapes, and to keep in mind that, “I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.” 1 “Kurt is up in heaven now.” (That was his favorite joke.) 2 “So it goes.” 3 There are other similarities, too, besides sharing a hometown. Kurt smoked a lot, as do I. He smoked Pall Mall cigarettes and, occasionally, when I buy cigarettes and I ask for my usual brand, Parliament, the cashier misunderstands me and gives me Pall Mall cigarettes instead. So, there’s one similarity--sort of. He also experienced a lot of failure before finding his true style, as have I. So, there’s two. He thought socialism had its good points, and I agree. There’s three. But I think that’s pretty much where the comparisons end. Too bad for me. He’s a good role model and is one of the greatest artists ever intentionally distributed to a public in need of something beautiful and profound and largely forgotten. Reading one of his books reminds me of talking to my grandfather. I lived for two years only a few blocks from where Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. attended high school in Indianapolis. My apartment was in an old building with nine floors; I was on Floor Three. I lived there with Catherine and her young son and should’ve been very happy. This was the second time we tried to make our love work for us and, after two years of being separated from her, one would think I’d have known better. But I was young and impulsive. I was searching for something elusive and had no time for logic: # I step inside the old building. Once upon a time, it had been a famous hotel. Marilyn Monroe stayed here--it says so on a plaque in the lobby. But now it is an apartment building in a schizophrenic neighborhood directly across from the world’s largest Children’s Museum. You can get as high as you’d like on one street-corner, then examine dinosaur bones on the next. A true wonder of the twenty-first century’s American melting-pot. There are old mirrors in the lobby of my building, stained with nicotine and aged agelessness. The carpet is worn in the middle, but surprisingly fresh against the walls. There are fake plants and ugly, mauve furniture--such potential left in the hands of tasteless morons. At least I always thought so. The antique elevator arrives with a “thud!” and I get in. It is too old to be functioning properly, yet, somehow, it does for the most part. Once inside, I press the button for the third floor and the doors groan and slowly begin to close. I hear squeaks and gears and mechanical junk moving around as I am hoisted up. Through the window in the elevator door I see the floors pass: Floor One, brick wall, Floor Two, brick wall, Floor Three, brick wall, and so forth. Up and up I slowly climb. I have entrusted my very life to century-old engineering. We do it every day. It stops at Floor Five on this particular day. Why it does this, I’ll never know. Something happens so that if I, a passenger on the elevator, press my button a second after someone on another floor has pressed his or her button, the elevator ignores my command and goes directly to the other person’s floor. It does this so often that many in the building have taken to skipping the elevator altogether, unless they live on one of the upper floors. But I take it. I’ve got the time to explore an extra floor or two. Besides, it seems to represent what is happening in my life on so many levels: aiming for one spot and winding up in another, stuck in a box, often with total strangers, and trying to make polite conversation. The title of my final painting should be: My Life as an Old Elevator. The air in the elevator is spoiled like a damp basement in a dark house. The gate is tarnished brass. The paneling of the elevator walls is painted a faint, hospital green and the trim is blood red. It is a good color combination--possibly the only decorative success in the entire place. A young lady gets on with me at Floor Five, and I say, “Hello,” and press the button with a “3” on it, and we begin to descend. Her perfume makes war with the staleness in the air. “D’you get stuck?” she asks. “Excuse me?” I respond. “In the lift? Got stuck rocketing straight up through space at half-a-kilo an hour, did you?” She laughs. “Yeah,” I chuckle and scratch my head and look down at my shoes--the way the movies have taught me to. “Every time.” “Well, could’ve been worse, right? You could’ve been stuck in here for two, whole floors with Johnny.” “Johnny?” I ask. “Yes,” she snickers, “surely you’ve heard Johnny through the ventilation.” “I’m not sure,” I answer. We arrive at Floor Three and the gate begins to draw into itself, opening for me. “Well, I’m sure you’ll hear him soon enough,” she says. “Have a nice day.” “Oh, thank you. You, too. I’m Burl, by the way.” “Emily Parker, Floor Five,” she replies and offers her hand. “Very nice to meet you, Emily,” I say as the elevator gate tries to pin me to the shaft’s opening. “We should get together sometime.” “Get together?” “Yeah, you know, a couple of neighbors getting together for coffee.” “Well, that sounds pleasant enough. Make it tea?” “Yeah. Coffee, tea, whatever. Maybe wine and cheese.” “Wine and cheese? You’re thinking of the French,” she goads. “Stop by anytime you see the green jeep out back. It’s Apartment Four.” “I’ll do that,” I say and back out, letting the door finally do what it must. I am confused a little, but mostly just aroused. I have never been able to contain my attraction for a girl with a British accent. I’m completely in love with Zadie Smith, for example, even though I‘ve yet to finish White Teeth. On Floor Three now. I can smell a Mexican dinner through the cracks in what used to be a pantry door--back when the place was a Five Star Hotel with a kitchen on several floors--that is now a permanently locked door leading to my apartment’s kitchen. Black beans and rice and chicken fajitas. Smells good. I hear young Madison crying on the other side of the door, and Catherine telling him that he shouldn’t have hit the cat with it, whatever it is, if he didn’t want her to take it away. This is my life. I am a family man now that Catherine and I have reunited, plus one in Catherine’s case. That is a scary proposition for everyone involved. I decide to have a smoke out on the fire escape before I resume my family-man role. I open the heavy door at the end of the long corridor. I step out onto the fire escape and light up. I love my life at that moment, and at that moment alone. I suppose I love life only when on the tip of one of its precipices. I’ve just returned home from painting a large mural in the study of one of the wealthier people in the city, a professional basketball player, and I am about to succumb to my second position as future spouse and step-father, which will undoubtedly lead to my third position as a slightly imbalanced alcoholic later in the evening. I’m aware of these three, separate identities that somehow define me and this recognition is incredibly heavy. For now, though, I am just a man on a fire escape. The alleyway behind my building is perfectly teeming with weeds and uncut grass, litter and abandoned toys, the way a good alley should be. I doubt a car could actually maneuver it. To the right, in the distance, I scan a straight shot down Meridian Street, the jugular of Indianapolis, and can see the tallest buildings downtown, thirty blocks away. To my left is a slightly newer set of apartment buildings where an old friend has recently moved in. Her building is spread out, whereas my building is vertical. The neighboring apartments look more inviting to me. For some reason, the grass looks greener next door, just beyond the fence. Below me is the outside parking-lot where anyone in the building can park, and it leads to the entrance of the underground garage where our new Hyundai Accent is resting. We pay an extra forty dollars each month for the privilege of parking underground. Yep, a man on the tip of a precipice, suspended in mid-air on the side of a tall building, just looking and observing. On the edge of everything, a part of none of it. Happiness, for me, is always spring or fall, never summer or winter--or if it is, if it should turn extremely hot or extremely cold, it must remain that way. That’s the only way I am comfortable. I suppose I am hypersensitive to changing extremes. As it stands, though, it really is fall--not just metaphorically, but actually--and the crickets are chirping their last chirps. The leaves are still green but for a few more weeks. Cars whiz by, carving a space through an ever-crisping atmosphere, as the summer humidity runs thick into the gutters. The clouds drift along overhead like fluffy battleships moving into position. The sunshine skims the tops of the tall buildings like a level. This is the city I love. For the duration of my cigarette, everything is perfect. It occurs to me that I should smoke longer cigarettes--120s perhaps. I could even tear off the butts and tape them end-to-end with another rolling paper. Anything to prolong a perfect moment. # # Michael Jackson called early one morning with one question and Burl answered the phone after one ring. “Hello?” “Burl?” “Hey, what’s up, man? I was just making banana pancakes and thinking about that time we--” “Did you sleep with Chloe?” Michael Jackson interrupted as though he were about to undergo open-heart surgery and Burl was holding the scalpel. Thirty seconds passed without a response as Burl’s pancakes turned black and his mouth hung open, speechless. Click. The line went dead. Burl replaced the phone on its charger and put his hand over his open mouth. He’d been sweating for days about how this would affect Catherine if she ever found out, but he hadn’t even considered how it would tear Michael Jackson in half. Resting on the easel in the living room was the beginning phase of a still life featuring an antique clock, a toothbrush, a flashlight and an assortment of used condoms. He abandoned his pancakes to the trash, poured a tall glass of straight gin and put his fingers to work on the clock. He’d deal with the condoms at another time. # # “Once, when I was ten, I rode with my dad to Cincinnati to pick up a wayward cousin whom I’d never met. As we were driving along I-70, a car passed us. For no other reason than the fact that I thought my dad was the best at everything, I told him that he should have sped up, that that car should not have passed us. He looked over at me and said, ‘Burl, no matter how fast you go, there’s always someone going faster.’ “I don’t know why, but that stuck. For the rest of my life, whether it was in sports, or at school, or as an artist, or with girls--especially with girls--no matter how well I was doing, I always felt like someone was passing me and laughing. It created in me a drive, a competitiveness that I couldn’t quell no matter how successful I became. And I couldn’t stop trying to kill it, that sense of being less than someone else, even if it meant stepping on and over good people. In the end, really, I just wanted to be somebody. To be loved. “Looking back, as I sat on the bed, alone in the Room and terrified of what I had become, scratching itches that couldn’t be satisfied, running my fingers through dirty hair that refused to be tamed and was coming out in bunches, tonguing alcohol-induced blisters inside my mouth and trying to outrun an hourglass that only emptied when I emptied it, I realized that I’d been gravely mistaken about what constitutes a good life. In my efforts to be the best artist and conquer the most pussy--always convinced I could take one more shot or one more pill or do one more line than the next guy, always certain that I was infinitely more talented than anyone who sought to come close and generally the smartest guy in the room--I’d forgotten one thing: No matter how fast you go, there’s always someone going faster. “We passed that motorist eventually on our way to Cincinnati; he was stopped on the side of the interstate with red-and-blue, flashing lights bearing down on him. Too bad that part of the trip didn’t stick in my mind as well. “I took another swallow, another milliliter gone. Twenty-five minutes now; no more, if that.” # --Recovered from Audio File Dated 12.31.2010 # Footnotes |
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