Two Multimedia Entires documenting my life as a young american writer. One Audio/One Video.
(A) Audio: This is just a new idea (based on the old) I’m playing with. Some of my writing for a demo spoken word album. I’ve recorded spoken word in the past, but never with instrumentation behind my voice. These are a few passages taken from my Summer Travelin’ Book. This is just a demo, and it’s still just an idea, still just an example of my artistic evolution through trial and error. About three minutes. I need to slow down as I read, but I’m just trying to be playful and get people excited about my writing. It’s called: Introverted People In Extroverted Marble Homes (Peace For Sale)
(B) Video: The Long road of where saying You’re a Writer Gets You
An actor once walked in on me as I was in my one of my many temporary writing studios, and while I was writing with my glasses sliding down my nose and suit jacket on he laughed and said, “Andrew, you’re such a cliche’ of a writer sometimes.”
And yeah, he’s right, and so two years ago I lived in an artist commune. It was never easy. I got a ton of writing done, writing that I don’t even have the time to edit (I completed the skeletons of two novels, one called the Nature of Words, and the other called The Written Life and Other(s)) and for three months when anarchy took over I wrote without power by candle light in the summer, and without air-conditioning and constant drugs I stayed sober but became depressed as the huge gang of youth was trying to find themselves through new aha moments of the same ol’ misguided theory of metaphysics.
But still, for months and weeks before I shipped out I (perhaps out of manic desperation) typed away and had many dark moments, and I ended up moving out of the town after I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked out of the door and with my Remington noiseless I boarded the Amtrak for Detroit.
When I moved in everything was great. 150 a month, people playing banjos, people painting, people sitting down and talking with jugs of wine. The fact is, that looking back on those days, I was already too old, and at the same time I was (and really still am) a cliché and romantic writer. This is just part of who I am as an american writer, almost as if I’m part historian and relic of our literary past.
This was a video from a party after we had a spoken word concert. I headlined after releasing my book A Spontaneous Revolution. I felt like I was officially a writer, the writer, and for (perhaps laughably) many of the younger cats, well I was a celebrity, a great local artist that was just coming back from a road trip out west.
And man, hell yeah, I lived it up and forgot who I was. I thought the path was over, I was only twenty seven. In truth, the path, the long and hard road of being a writer was just coming into view, and I’m still on it, and it’s still the beginning. The video is short, and it’s kinda funny, but at the end I say “we just try to make the world better”, and yeah, this is really the main message tucked within all of my writing.
This is for documentation Purposes. (the link is to my facebook page. I made it public for this blog)
Adventures In American Writing 