2/29/16

Living the Dream

(top)me in 2015 proud to say "those ARE my monkeys, this IS my circus!" (bottom)me in 2000 fire dancing in San Francisco opening for Genitorturers...
 
97 or 98 somewhere in there.. I actually ran away and joined a circus! Truly one of the very small handful of groups responsible for the post modern circus evolutional come back trend thing. I even invented the burlesque inspired sexy clown costume including the thigh high bell bottom stilt pant covers.. in my eyes anyway cuz I was the first to figure it out (due to heat more than need to be cute n sexy really..) in my 100 people big circus ensemble in SF that everybody then copied and is now quite the staple in the whole EDM festival circuit however the anorexic look was an accident if I had any influence on it.. but now more so the fact that I don't live on nothing but diet pills instead of my age is what disqualifies me from getting paid to go perform at those things... that or they don't pay very well considering what they're making to produce them and there's tons of newbies who haven't learned to put their foot down and not be exploited for their enthusiasm yet. I'm old and jaded but still realistically re-envisioned... Living the dream! ;)



Meaning I took a vow of poverty in order to be an artist and that's okay... I've also gained a self taught degree in business management, marketing, web design, graphic design, SEO, accounting etc. to become a "working artist" which means the highs are not quite as high and the lows are calculated and expected so that just being a working professional performing artist is "Living the Dream!" Not something you learn overnight and never is nor will be exactly what you expected, especially since you can't know the goal is equilibrium and not reaching the pentacle of success because if and when you do reach it you still have to get up the next day and LIVE. Do you want your career to have the highest highs and then retire after your brief stint as a hot go go dancer between the age of 23-26 with no retirement fund put away so you have to go back to work (if you ever left your other job) and forever talk about your glory days? Or do you want to build a foundation for a sustainable respectable lifelong career as a working artist who lived through the struggle that forged your personality and fueled your never receding source of pride & integrity that's the fundamental principle of every good inspirational story of the artist's life and every single hero mythos that's ever left a mark on history? I may never see my name in lights in this life nor win a shiny dumb trophy for acting, but for me success will be dying knowing I never gave up and therefore kept on going, and being, unpersuadable, unrelentlessly my whole life long... Living the Dream!