Social Distancing – A Poem and the HUMAN TOUCH
I feel like we are living in a movie, though in truth if you are a fan of Science Fiction, often there is truth in fiction. Science fiction writers are often science buffs or even scientists. We went to the moon and discovered lasers in fantasy long before those events actually became reality. As such this pandemic was not a surprise but a repeat of history. Man’s infallible. At points in history nature has a way of telling us we are not perfect or all powerful. In a strange way though this is why I love the arts. I have no hope and yet when I think about that, the one glimmer inside me that is HOPE is ART. We have the power to make beautiful things. I find beauty in the darkness and in the light, in the sadness and joy.
We are all stuck in boxes and cages right now. It has been my life for a decade. I have been in quarantine by the acting community and by the industry and I now think it is lawyers doing it to me out of spite. Also people in this country who think I need to grow up and stop playing, but I do not see them telling people who are MEN striving to be actors to do that. How many artists have been told to quit and is it really healthy to do that? Humans have been making art for 10000 years. I thought growing up was being allowed to decide for yourself your life. If I do not want a mortgage and a home with a man who has nothing in common with me and makes me miserable that is my right. I like men. But I like men who love humanity and the human condition and see with more than what is between their legs and that confining American dream. It was my life but in a way I have been living in a dystopian novel for a decade and this pandemic is just another layer. If you are a man and not into my art I am going to despise you and see you as a hindrance to my happiness and not a source of joy. I am not interested in the twisted love of a two income house hold without human connection. We are living in a world now where the HUMAN touch can be deadly and I will not risk my life for someone who wants to kill the best and brightest in me. No artist should want people in their world who kills their spirit and strips them of your creative nature. If you think I want to move on to being bored and unhappy and unfulfilled then you are crazy.
We do not have a democracy when to have justice you have to have fame or money and when you work to earn something it can be taken away on gossip and lies with no due process. Due process is where you get to meet your accusers and find out why you are being abused and bullied and violated. I am talking about before COVID, this pandemic killing people. Now with a pandemic we have fear ruling the country and a man desperately trying to look competent and failing. Hint- Orange is his color. Garcetti the Mayor of Los Angeles recently has said he does not want a police state. But to me we have been living in one, on the federal level. Also to me my UNION has been acting like the police and I have been branded a criminal and without a trial. I have never cheated on a test or with a boy friend or broken a law. But I wanted to be an artist and work in the arts, and that is a crime now in America.
We have a version of hysteria and unhealthy bravado with ignorant people refusing to wear masks. Just pay attention to the celebrities who are not wearing them. Wear a MASK. Let the inner artist out and take steps to make a MASK fashion statement, but wear one. We have celebrities in castles wanting us to still worship them and read about their love lives and how they are thriving, while too many people are scared and dying. Pay attention, because the real artists are the ones who see and are not ignoring the PAIN. The real ones are the ones who have a heart and are not trying just to feed their own ego. To be an artist is to know the pain of humanity. I think if you can not empathize with others, you can’t be an artist. But then it seems bullying is the fashion these days. It should not be.
Please do not hoard. Please check on others. And this is the time to start learning to cook if you do not know how, or work on that project you have been putting off. I once made a list of things that made me sad. One on that list was to be locked in a room and never touched. I leave you with two songs about the human touch. We need to get back to our humanity and wake up. We need to focus on making things beautiful from the air we breathe to the food we eat and stop poisoning ourselves with toxic substances and toxic love. Make art people. BE HUMAN!