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 I was on twitter the other day & I got a note from Christina at Inspiration Flirtation (on twitter: IFlirtation). It seems she was holding a Storypeople-esque challenge on her blog & she was hoping I'd drop by to check it out. Well, I did & when I saw what it was, I immediately went into competitive mode. Not only would I do something, but I'd win. (Yeah, I know. It's something I'm still working through, but at least they've got me weaned off the raw meat now...)

(For those of you who drop by her site, you'll immediately see that it wasn't THAT kind of challenge. It was a creative challenge. A way of jumpstarting your creativity. Can I help it that my creativity jumpstarted with claws & fangs & went bounding off through the countryside looking for innocent victims? You say creative challenge. I say Death Match. Whatever.)

Anyway, I did have the sense to write her back & say that I was thinking of doing something, but I wasn't quite sure it was fair. I mean, it's kind of tricky to do something StoryPeople-esque when you're the one who actually does Storypeople. (I was much better at parodying myself when I was younger. But I've been thinking this way for so long now, that I actually might BE a parody & I'd have no idea. Maybe I should run it by the crew at the Facebook group I Hate Brian Andreas again, just to be sure... :-))

She wrote back & said she'd love to have me join in the fun. So, here it is. An entirely new story. Though I have to admit that the REAL new story has a few more words in it. Maybe four or five more. But, I had to trim it to the 30 word limit that the Death Match demanded...

Hope you enjoy it.

with love, Brian

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Paradise keeps shifting. It's actually about as shifty as Hell. Both ideas, of Paradise & Hell, have slithered & morphed throughout history, ever responsive to the demands of whoever was in charge at the moment. For example, I've always liked that in Dante's Inferno, Hell was bitter cold. Makes perfect sense when you live in central Italy & the most sybaritic months in existence come in the balmy springs & summers. Obviously, the complete opposite of this lushness would be to spend eternity in the freezing cold. 

I still haven't figured out, though, why our culture still has so many people with a fascination for the Fires of Hell. I was reading an essay several months ago that suggested that we lifted it pretty much in its entirety from the Etruscans. Not a whole lot of thought around it, it seems that if it worked well enough for the Etruscans, it'd work well enough for the rest of Western civilization. That actually leads me to the idea that the real meaning of a fiery Hell is to remind us of the anguish that comes from settling for someone else's picture of life (or the afterlife).

So, this drawing is just another piece of my ongoing project to revise all the old myths.

As an aside, that's the thing that's easy to forget. The myths were made up once upon a time. They were living stories. The details changed with the telling, so they spoke directly to the lives of the listeners. Guess what? There's nothing stopping us from making them up again. Maybe it's my long history as a storyteller, but if a story is not lively & fluid, if it's not adapting to the time, if it's not alive NOW, you might as well pull up a seat & be quiet. Because you're making too much noise for everyone else to hear the tv.  

This one comes mainly out of my intimate experience of our teenage sons. After a lengthy lecture by me on the evils of whatever count for evils in this day & age, my elder son finally shrugged & said So, let's cut to the chase. One, do I have to move out yet? & two, can you put more money in my account?

I guess it just makes sense, given the intensely creative life of our family, he'd come up with a different view of Paradise than all of the previous generations. Somehow, I can't help think that with him, like Adam & Eve in today's sketch, it's going to be an adventure no matter how it turns out.

Especially if there's more money in the account..

with love, Brian

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I've seen lately that there are two ways of holding the moral high ground. The first is the one that most people think of when the topic comes up: doing the right thing, even in the face of (sometimes) overwhelming opposition. This kind of high road most of us set aside for saints & spiritual leaders & some of our elementary school teachers that we still have a crush on after all these years. Because it's not something that we want, or even strive for. 

OK. Wait a minute. That's not exactly right. I think we DO want to take the high road. We do want justice for everyone. We want all people to be free to love fully & well. We want a world that cherishes our children, all of our children. I think we just don't want the part where you have to stand on the moral high ground & actually do the work of it. Because, let's face it. We're busy. We're just trying to hang on under the onslaught of our daily fears & frustrations & the all-too-few moments of grace...

The second way of taking the high road (& much more common) is as an offensive weapon. Like this: I know what's right & you darn well better act like it, if you know what's good for you. This particular approach to the high road is irksome to me. Go tight-lipped & righteous on me & I can guarantee that my next step will be right onto the boggy low road, laughing & singing drinking songs with a vague Irish accent & generally having a marvelously bawdy time. Give me that over the hard-edged high road any day.

Besides, I like the low road. It's the place where you can actually talk to everyone else without any arbitrary obstacles like class, or money, or self-righteousness getting in the way. A place where we look each other in the eyes & see that there might be another way entirely. A place where we're willing to give up all the suffering that comes with being busy & distracted, where we don't swing so wildly in the gap between high & low. That's the day I believe we'll start to walk the middle road. The road where we GET to do the right thing, because it IS the right thing & we can all see that.

All I can say is that's how it works for me. They're simple equations: busy + distracted = you're bugging me + get out of my way. Not busy + distracted = it's all fine + come & sit down with me for a lovely glass of champagne. (I'm calling it the New New Math... :-))

So, here's to the low road. For now. It's pretty easy to find. It's where we're laughing & singing our favorite drinking songs together, at full voice & just trying to figure it out...

with love, Brian

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Ellen & I have been married for 28 years & she still has whole buckets of unused magic words for turning me into a toad.

Or maybe that's not quite right. Maybe I turn into a toad all on my own & Ellen is just puttering along minding her own business, expecting that she'll run into her husband at some point. She walks into the kitchen & there I am - a gruesome human-sized toad. Of course, she screeches. I, on the other hand, secure in the knowledge of my own self & not suspecting in the least that I transformed into a toad when I wasn't looking, suddenly become acutely aware of my changed status. (A sudden screeching in your presence is a VERY good indicator of Sudden Toad Onset...)

We are deep into the third decade of our relationship & when I have occasion to look up, whether as a toad or a man, I still see myself surrounded by whole regions of mystery. It's like being in rural Iowa in the deep night: here & there you see a single blue mercury vapor lamp where people are holding back the dark. Now & then a dog will bark. Mainly there is nothing but the soft whisper of the grass & stars blown like dust in the black sky. There is more mystery here, more & fuller, than Ellen & I can ever hold, yet, somehow, there are times we find ourselves settled into making short entries into the journal of our lives together, a journal with the not-particularly-inspiring title of 'WHAT WE KNOW TO BE TRUE ABOUT OUR RELATIONSHIP'. Maybe when you enter the fifth or sixth decade of being together, the ground rules shift & suddenly everything comes clear. I have my doubts, but I can't know that for sure. It's like those pools of blue light scattered through the landscape. They mark the line between known & unknown. Between the willingness to be changed & the anxiety about the little deaths that accompany that change. Between loving someone for everything they are & hating that they still turn the closet into a disaster zone in less than 20 minutes. 

We know so little about the real world, the dark areas woven around & through our tight little circles of light. Yet, that is where the invitation really is. The invitation to a life fully lived, to a relationship that goes beyond the known & expected into a full & rich dance of heat & passion & endless discovery. We're 28 years in. I feel a change coming on. I think it's time to walk out into the dark again..

with love, Brian

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We always thought we would have Buddha-baby children. You know. Calm & happy, with their thousands of past lives glowing like a serene lighthouse of wisdom behind their eyes. It made sense to us, since we were (relatively) calm, too, to our way of thinking.

The operative word was 'relative'. While we are calm compared to a Mary Kay convention, or any normal day at the DMV, we are not what an innocent bystander would call calm. In fact, when we lived in a small town in Iowa, a friend called us the Norwegian-Italian family on the block: Norwegian because of all the blond boys & Italian because there was always someone yelling, or laughing, or crying. Often simultaneously. I could navigate my way home from the studio with my eyes closed, simply by following the noise.

So, we have finally come to see that we have the children we deserve & to tell you the truth, after all these years with them, we wouldn't have it any other way. It'd be too quiet & we'd always be vaguely anxious about when all hell was going to break loose...:-)

with love, Brian

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As I got older, I discovered that I could sketch machines & make notes faster than I could actually build them. I also discovered that it's more difficult for people to point at the drawings (unlike my former prototypes built of off-the-shelf parts) & sneer & say things like, Oh, THAT one's going to change the world as we know it. Because now I could look at them & shut my notebook with a snap &, with only the slightest hint of disdain in my eyes, say, WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?

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I'm a big picture sort of thinker. 

Maybe that's why I've always thought of writing as a machine. As a consciousness machine. Just by the way you put words together you can see things you never imagined before. Or better yet, when you see things all over again that you've forgotten, or ignored because you thought you knew all about them already.

Looking through my sketchbooks, I find that I've got hundreds of imaginary machines. Machines that turn people into robots & back again. Machines that force teenagers out of their rooms & into the sunlight. Machines that make the tough decisions for you & are even willing to take full responsibility for it, in front of the media & everybody, when you clearly see how wrong they were a few years later. 

But my favorite thing about them is that these notes about machines remind me how NOT like machines we are. How we aren't easily replaceable parts in a giant mechanism. That we're messy & sprawling & emotional & marvelously wonderful explosions of love & enthusiasm. That we NEVER will be good machines (which is a good thing, in case you have any doubts). & that when we try to be machines, regular, ordered, objective, we are at our worst. So, maybe it's time we tried something different. That, just maybe, there's a kind of machine we can be that we haven't imagined yet. A machine that is messy & filled with love & enthusiasm, calling us to be our best selves. That's a machine that I'd be willing to try..

with love, Brian

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Lately, there's been a lot of talk around here about getting jobs. My son, the musician, came out to the studio yesterday, somewhat dejectedly, & said he needed some ideas. I want a job that leads somewhere, that pays me a lot in a very short amount of time & that doesn't take a whole lot of work, he said. Preferably, I'd like to be famous, so I can keep doing what I'm doing now. Only get paid for it.

He has a very wry delivery, so it actually took me several minutes before I figured out that he was absolutely serious about it.

Look, I said to him, it's kind of like that old construction triangle: cheap, fast & good. Except worse.

What do you mean? he said.

Well, with the construction thing, you can have any two. You can have it cheap & fast, but it won't be good. Or you can have it good & fast, but it won't be cheap. Like that.

So how's it worse? he said.

In your case, you only get one of them. Except for the getting paid a whole lot in a very short amount of time. Oh & the not having to do any work, I said. You basically just get to have whatever job you can find.

Whoa, he said. That IS worse.

He put his head down on his knees & sighed. & suddenly, I remembered a long-ago conversation with this same son about the kind of work he'd like to do when he got older.

I want to invent a career that doesn't have a whole lot of competition, he said.

Any ideas? I said.

I kind of like Teaching Board Games to the Dead.

I agreed with him. Not a lot of competition there.

He smiled & the room lit up. My second choice is inventing things, he said.

What kind of things? I asked.  

You know, things like electricity. Or China. Or the Blues. I could be the little white boy that invented the Blues...

But, all that stuff's already invented, I said. I still remember the withering look he gave me.

Dad, he said, have a little imagination.

Have a little imagination. Maybe that's the thing he's missing in his current dilemma. He's so fixated on the job without any effort combination that he's forgotten that any work we do is an act of imagination. The most tedious job is an opportunity to bring your own life & energy & will into play. It's a regular refrain in our house: You're going to have to do it anyway, so you might as well have fun with it. While this is usually in relation to dishes, or taking out the garbage, it's equally applicable to other kinds of work.

In that spirit, I give you Scrabble for the Dead. It's a quiet job, with plenty of time for reading, or thinking. I'm not sure about the pay, but it's definitely got room for an ambitious person to write their own ticket. Or use it as a stepping stone to bigger things. Feel free to take it & run with it. At least, it's a start...

with love, Brian

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There are lots of reasons to do art. But it's like my elder son said to me a couple of months ago about the reason he is a musician, There are only three things you need to do to get women to sleep with you, he said, with the enviable certainty of a 21-year-old. Cook, tell good stories, or play music. Everything else, he added, is a waste of time. (Later on, he said that best of all is to be a triple threat. Which finally explained his sudden interest in learning to cook simple, yet satisfying meals in this, his 21st year on earth.)

Obviously, I have a male bias here. No matter how much I believe that I've had more than my fair share of female past lives, this time around it's pretty much undeniable that I'm a man. Arguable, of course, as you'll find in the Facebook group I Hate Brian Andreas. Which I ran across a couple of weeks ago, to my utter delight. (I suspect it requires a bit of explanation about why it would delight me so. I'll save that for some other time. Somebody just needs to remind me later on...)

All I know is that there is a sensuality to art making that is often overlooked, or politely ignored. Not having the immediate ability of a woman to birth new life, I have sometimes wondered if art is the closest I will get. For me, art is the practice of paying attention. A long, curving line on paper like the touch of a fingertip on warm skin. The elastic sound of wet paint on canvas like the movement of two bodies together. Words that drop like rain on a summer's eve, in perfect rhythm. When that happens, it is something more than making. It is remembering, a moment between long-time lovers, hearing the echoes of their own secret language in the rush of the world. 

Even with all that juicy lushness (as my friend SARK would say), it takes a bit of work to get there. Sometimes, making art is just plain work. Those are the days when lust seems easier & art can just wait its turn. I guess the trick is to keep a balance. I'm still working on that one myself. (Isn't it about time we go cook something & then sing a story song about it? Anybody game? :-)) 

with love, Brian

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I cannot honestly say I believe that religion is a good thing.  If you follow history with any objectivity, one thing is clear almost immediately: religion is one of the biggest excuses for bad behavior we've ever invented. 

But, religion is also one of the most intriguing things we do. Completely insane, but still intriguing. On only the barest shreds of evidence (& often on no evidence whatsoever) we build entire universes of belief. Then we have long arguments (& frequently bloodshed) with each other about whose made-up universe is right.

Don't get me wrong here. I know I've already said I think that religion, especially organized religion, is insane. But religion is not spirituality. Spirituality is the thing we hold within ourselves that is perfectly sane. Religion is the thing that stuffs spirituality into a squeaky clean new suit & too tight shoes & makes it sit through hours & hours of boring sermons when outside the mud is bubbling & there are happy people wearing only shorts & there are turtles & goldfish with tails the size of banana leaves stretching their noses out into the warm spring air. Spirituality is wild & individual & curious. Spirituality throws us into the center of life with only this bit of advice whispered in our ear: go out & love it all.

We're getting deeper into what I see as the current global project of re-inventing the world so it works for everyone. One day soon, I think we're going to have an epiphany about religions. We're going to look at each other with a smile of wonderment on our faces & we're going to understand: everyone should have their own. Whatever it is that feeds you & sustains the life & the love around you will be your religion. 

Anyway, here are a couple of notes about one of my religions. I say 'one' because I have pages & pages of notes like this & not all of them go together.  The more I track these notes down, the more I think I may actually have a bouquet of religions that I can pull from depending on my mood. Depending on what I want to celebrate & uplift & hold sacred. Depending on what Life is asking me to love in that moment.

I like that. I'm going to go now & make more notes before I forget...

with love, Brian

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Women have this mistaken idea that men are inherently slippery creatures. We are not. The truth is that we have an innate sense of self-preservation & we know PRETTY MUCH INSTANTLY when we have walked into a death cage situation.

For those of you who don't know, a death cage is when they put two trained street fighters in a huge metal cage & only one of them walks out alive. It is an appropriate metaphor for certain phases of a relationship. The only difference is that in relationship both people walk out alive, more or less, one of them glaze-eyed & limping & the other marching ahead stiffly, carrying his testicles in her purse. :-)

So, I'd say we're not really all that slippery. Because we're not actually thinking of it as lying. Lying takes much more focus & intent. We're thinking of it as a diversionary tactic, as keeping you busy with a random conversation, while we frantically look for any method of escape.  That would explain the furtive glances...

Just thought I'd let you know the truth, so you can cut us a little slack. :-)