Where Is that Cross that I Have to Carry?

Where Is that Cross that I Have to Carry?
Ernest Samuel Llime - Woodhaven

Don't start me up with that Jewish shit. That famous guy with a cross was Jewish too. Besides, humans do not have enough limbs nor are they constructed in such a way that they can be nailed to a Magen David (David's shield). Makes you wonder if the Jews are actually awaiting an alien Messiah with six limbs and is that why they had to repudiate the one called Christ.

I am an artist. After many years of struggling with the way our social hive is functioning, I have finally achieved that epiphany:
I AM AN ARTIST! and that is that.

My head is filled with new story ideas and new tunes that can go with some of these stories; where there is any space left, it is cluttered with novel inventions and ideas for new ways of employing old artifacts.
I look at things and I see new ways of making music, new ways of hinging a toilet seat so that it will not be peed on, new ways of getting strangers to talk to each other when they cross paths on public transportation, new ways of using rosary beads, new ways of selling yarmulkes to the goyim because they need them, new ways of solving armed conflicts and a hundred more new things, but I am an artist!

I need!
What I need is someone who will pay my bills, prepare my meals, heal my ills and keep the fucking taxman off my back.
I need someone who will read what I write, listen to what I say and hear what I sing.
I need an audience, a manager, a cook, a wife, a bunch of beautiful and well behaved children, a guitar, a pen, a computer, a recording studio and a stage.
I need to find a better way.
I need a pension, I need social security, I need a grant for the arts, I need the dole, I need a handout, I need a soup kitchen, or maybe I just need to tell everyone to go fuck themselves.

But I want!
I want too many things that keep me from my art. I want my Broadway shows, my Roseland, my Fillmore, My Beacon Theater, my Carnegie hall, my Lincoln Center and all the live bands on the lower East side. I want Peter Lugar's, City Island Restaurants, Suzy's Chinese on Bleeker street; I want Tequilla Sunrise with their 120 varieties of tequilla, I want the Potato Republic and I want a Two Booths slice of pizza. I want to drive to a casino sometimes, play the slots, put some money on a roulette number, play a few games of blackjack or Texas hold'em, roll them dice a few times and blow the smoke of a fat cigar into my cognac snifter. I want a home that I can come back to after getting shitfaced in some low brow dive. I want a wife that will understand that the pain of the world lays heavily on my shoulders and that I need to get blitzed once in a while so that I can forget about all of that.

I have!
What I have is bills and obligations that I have to fulfill so that I can get a little bit of what I need and a little bit less of what I want. I have a pile of mail that needs sorting. I have some movies that I need to return to the video store. I have 10 internet sites that need constant maintenance and TLC that will one day allow me to be an artist and not an accountant, business man or future entrepreneur. (Yeah right!) I have 11 guitars, (2 acoustic 6 strings, 2 acoustic 12 strings, 6 electric guitars, one bass guitar), a banjo, 3 keyboards, 2 saxophones, 2 computers with recording interfaces, an electronic drum machine, congas, djembes, bongos, shekeres, cymbals, gongs, harmonicas, recorders, a bugle, an accordion, a conch, and many other small instruments. I also have a house and I have 2 cars. But I do not have enough time! And I am running out of cash.

I wish!
I wish I could leave all these behind. I am 62 years old and there is a possibility that I am closer to the end than I am to the beginning. I do not have an urgent need to leave a legacy behind me; I just wish I could write a few more songs, tell a few more tales, have a few more laughs and a few more drinks. I wish I was strong enough to get up and go one day. I have enough money left to get me to someplace warm maybe on the fringes of the rainforest. I would bring a guitar, a good knife, a good old fashioned flint, the clothes on my back, and as much as I could fit inside a medium sized backpack. I could get lost in that forest and live a carefree life with the trees and the animals for an audience. I know that you can find fruits and nuts all year round in the South American Tropics. When I was born I knew nothing about taxes, gas bills, telephone bills, mortgages, insurance bills, heating oil bills, cable bills, or credit cards. I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

So, I am an artist and this is my cry of rage, this is how
I rage against the machine,
I rage against the dying of the light,
I rage against .....

Ah, what's the use ... I'm pretty pathetic aren't I?

Oh yes, I guess I did know that - this is the cross that I have to carry - actually, I have carried it for most of my life.

Fuck it!

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