Failed Visionary
I have spent my entire life
preparing to do something
that I am never going to do.
I thought that accumulating
all this learning and experience
might result in something: a body of work…
or a body. While neglecting to take into account
that I might have to do something to achieve that end.
I tried, to no avail, to rot.
I really gave it my best shot.
But vitality kept getting in the way, appearing
unexpectedly, when I was most hopeful
of abandoning hope.
But still I refuse to give up
on giving up. I remain optimistic
that I still have it in me.
A selection of Victorian Choking Paintings will appear in a group show –
ATTRACTION The Science of Love. The Gallery at 3517.
3517 W.Sunset Blvd, Silver Lake, CA 90026. Feb 8th – March 24th
Opening reception: February 8th 7-9pm
Hour after hour, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, consumed by this precious illusion of service to the pen: priceless time that might have been used to benefit others, from which I might even have derived pleasure. And what have I received in return for this self-serving – if that – satisfaction of having actualized myself? Poverty and solitude have been the chief rewards. And what, actually, am I actualizing? Do I have anything to say that is worth saying at all or that hasn’t been said better before, that might justify this massive investment of time and energy, this insistence on keeping going, this unflagging commitment to a lost cause, as if it were a sacred act and not a sickness born of vanity? What would happen if I didn’t do it? Nothing. Nobody would notice. It wouldn’t make any difference to anybody… other than myself. And I would probably be a lot better off without it. As a compensatory last resort there’s always the myth of posthumous glory. But to receive that one has to die first. How inconvenient. I must put that on my to-do list. It would completely validate the work, of course. The only problem is that I haven’t done the work. I must also put that on my to-do list.
The silence preceding the anticlimax. A pitiful bid for validation or a claim on eternity. One keeps going despite continual rejection and lack of reward, spurred on, presumably, by some measure of self-belief – doomed to ambition by a sense of superiority or insecurity. The fantasy that we have something going on – that somebody is listening, somebody is watching – facilitated by the insidious web of social media that all too easily creates the false impression that one’s life and one’s musings might be of interest to others. It doesn’t seem to occur to most people who write that nobody’s going to want to read their work. Then again, there are enough unread (and unreadable) books out there already. One more won’t hurt.
My sadness is deeper than yours. My interior life is richer than yours. I am more interesting than you. I don’t care about anybody else’s problems. They are not as serious as mine. Nobody knows the weight I carry, the trouble I’ve seen. There are worlds in my head that nobody has access to: fortunately for them, fortunately for me. I have seen things that you will never see, and I have feelings that you are incapable of feeling, that you would never allow yourself to feel, because you lack the capacity and the curiosity. Once you felt the hint of such a feeling, you would stamp it out. I am a martyr to futility and I don’t expect to be shut down by a pretender. Mothballs are an aphrodisiac to me, beauty depresses me. You could never hope to fathom the depth of my feelings, deeper than death. I look down upon you all from my lofty height of lowliness. The fullness of your satisfaction lacks the cadaverous purity of my pain. Don’t talk to me about failure. You don’t know the meaning of the word. When it comes to failure, you’re strictly an amateur. Bush league stuff. I’m ten times the failure you’ll ever be. I have more to complain about than you, and regrets: more than a few, too many to mention. I am a fully-qualified failure, I have proven it over and over again. My credentials are impeccable, my resume flawless. I have worked hard to put myself in a position of unassailable wretchedness, and I demand to be respected for it. I expect to be rewarded for a struggle that produced nothing. I want the neglect, the lack of acknowledgment. And I want the bitterness that comes with it too.
In support of stand-up stand-up guy Rick Shapiro. Vlad the Retailer: 4270 Melrose. Saturday May 26th, 8pm. $10.
This compulsive need to ‘actualize’ myself
Has consumed far too much of my being.
I wish I could divest myself
Of this tiresome illusion
That I have something to offer.
It would make it so much easier
For everybody concerned.
Not that anybody else is concerned.
Book Soup and Kerosene Bomb press presents.
The Literary Event of the Decade
On Thursday Jan 19th at 7pm,
John Tottenham and Anthony Ausgang
will appear at Book Soup.
8818 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(310) 659-3110
Tottenham will finally be putting the Inertia Variations to rest,
giving the last-ever reading from his lauded collection
of 8-line poems on the subject of work-avoidance,
indolence and failure.
Ausgang will be bringing The Sleep of Puss Titter to life –
the hallucinatory ravings of a hyper-articulate madman –
with a rare public airing of his inimitable spam novel.
This promises to be a night that will be spoken of for years,
featuring two innovators and orators of the first water.
Don’t let the remote (for some) location, inconvenient hour
and lack of parking come between you and this
night of high-spirited seriousness.
John Tottenham 