2003-03-17 - 1:34 p.m.

I went outside the next morning to find one of those impossible to believe Santa Ana days. The wind blew hot and dry, charging the air and sparking my starter button. These days were very exciting and I always felt very happy. Because we'd had some rain, there wasn't the usual dust. Instead, the sky was a penetrating blue that hurt the eye in the same way that something too sweet hurt the tooth. I was always amazed that the sky was blue. It looked like one of those invented colors by the Fauves. The intensity of the blue was, well, intense. The palms high over the apartments made a dry ripping sound in the wind. Palm fronds lay on the ground and on the roofs. Birds flew high in the air, wings dipping wildly in the gusty breeze. I loved the state of hyperactivity I felt during the Santa Ana's. Atmospheric perspective seemed to disappear, edges became hard, sharp, and clearly defined. The atmospheric perspective of my mind also disappeared, my thinking became razor keen. I wanted to smoke some pot, sit out with my sketch pad, and enjoy the day.

But I had to go to work. If I didn't go to the gallery, the owner would never know. And if he did find out, he wouldn't have cared. But I had this distorted work ethic that made me do what I said I was going to do. So I called in sick.

I got off the phone and opened a nice, cold beer. I took my baggie of pot out of the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator. I took the box with my bong in it off the shelf. I kept my bong in a box to protect against breakage and prying eyes. I put tap water in the bong. Since this was a special Santa Ana day, I took the extra time to get the mini ice cubes out of the freezer. I put the ice cubes in the bong and swirled the water around, the ice clinking like tiny bells. The screen had fallen into the box. I found the screen and inserted it into the glass bowl. I pulled a green bud out of the bag. I lifted it to the light slanting in from the window. The bud was full, fluffy, and glistening. I smelled the skunky smell that always makes my mouth water. I sat the bong on top of the oven lid, next to the pot. I broke a piece of the bud off, the size of a fly, and put it in the bowl. I took the box of matches out of the drawer. I took one of the blue tipped matches out of the box, slid the box closed, and put the box back in the drawer. I turned on the left burner of the stove. The right burner didn't work and I never used the two back burners. The flame poofed on blue. I turned down the flame. I fit the bong into my hand; it felt cool, and there was a slight condensation on the glass. I put my thumb over the hole. I touched the match to the fire and watched it flame up. Sulphur smell. I circled the match over the pot and sucked through the tube gently at first, watching the pot glow red. The bong filled with smoke like white clouds dancing in the sky. I blew the match out. I took a deep breath and exhaled, emptying my lungs completely. I took my thumb off the hole on the pipe stem and sucked in the smoke, slow and steady. The smoke was cool and smooth from the ice water. As I held the smoke in my lungs, I emptied the bong water into the sink, careful not to lose the screen down the drain. I sat the bong in the sink figuring that was the least likely place to knock it over and break it. I exhaled the smoke through my nose, emptying my lungs halfway, then sucking in my breath and holding it again. I put the baggie of pot back into the refrigerator. I blew out my breath through my mouth, clear, until the very end of my breath brought a trail of smoke. I took a drink of beer and wondered if I should have loaded up that bong one more time. When I realized that I was staring out the window, debating this point over and over in my head, I decided I was high enough. There was a bulls-eye that I tried endlessly to hit, high, but not too high. I pretty much perfected the dosage over the years. I reopened the match drawer and took out a stick of Jasmine incense. I turned on the stove burner, and lit the incense. I held the incense vertically and looked at the glowing ember, held still and watched the curl and twist smoke blooming. I took a sip of my beer, the bottle feeling cool and smooth and organic against my lips. I sat the bottle between my knees, and slid the incense between thigh and cushion.

On my way outside I turned the ringer off the phone. Just as I reached to turn my stereo off, Trane came on playing Giant steps. I froze, just breathing slightly, riveted to the stereo. Time slowed allowing me to hear notes, inflections, rhythms and interplay among the musicians. I laughed out loud remembering that this was all improvised. The sax solo went on and on and on . . . I could hear Trane's breath scorching through the horn whistling down like a feverish Mistral through the Matterhorn burning sang-froid sweat dripping from his brow splashing tearful patina on engraved soprano, rimshot, brush-splash, hi-hat snap. Notes glistening cleanly in the air melting gently into phrases. And everyone of those notes rang straight and true like a dagger into my heart. There was so much going on in that piece I couldn't follow . . . subtlety layered in subtlety . . . I sat on the edge of my seat in total concentration and anticipation watching this high wire act, right on the edge, pushing it to the outside of the envelope. All the years and all the pain and all the regrets and all the sadness and worry and doubt and anger and brooding and melancholy self involvement didn't matter . . . what mattered was now, this moment, locked chains of repressed emotion undone by the right key, the true key . . . tears running down my cheeks, eyes pressed closed, knuckling second charka.

As the piece faded out, I hurried clicked off the power. If another song came on, I would probably would be enraptured again. What a dilemma! What awful choices we have to make in life! It was always the same when I was high, the anxiety of decision making: Whether to write, read, draw, listen to music, or just sit in the sun and think my thoughts. Mental masturbation. I wanted to drink my beer and listen to music, but the day was too rare, too marvelous to stay inside.

I sat the incense on the porch, went into the kitchen, finished my beer, rinsed the bottle with tap water, and put it in the trash. I was rushing and anxious because I was on a wonderful high and I hadn't done anything yet. I wanted to get outside before I came down. I kept screwing around in the house. Now I had to take even more time to drink some water. And now I had to pee. The gods were against my having any fun. So I went to the bathroom. Then I had to find the perfect book to go with the perfect day. I didn?t want to get outside with the wrong book and have to come all the way back inside . . . what a waste of time that would be! I went for old reliable, Van Gogh. Couldn't go wrong with Van Gogh, I figured. As I started out the door, I felt thirsty. I hesitated, debating whether or not to take the time to get one more drink. I realized I was wasting time thinking about it. I went and drank. Finally, I made it out the door into that glorious day. It had been ten minutes since I first touched match to pot.

I couldn't determine whether or not to take my shirt off. I hated the neighbors to see me with my shirt off, I looked pretty bad; not quite out of Triblinka, but close. What did I care what they thought? I probably didn't look as bad as I imagined. It was a perfect day. And of course, they were all at work and wouldn't be home for hours. I decided to leave my shirt on, it was a bit of a hassle to take off anyway.

The Van Gogh book also had some pictures by his contemporaries. I opened the book at random to Gaugin's Yellow Christ, the one he tried to give to a church, but the priest rejected as a joke. I thought this story apocryphal: I couldn't imagine Gaugin having anything to do with religion, and he wasn't an especially generous fellow to say the least. This was how my thoughts went: I tried to enjoy the pictures, but my thoughts would run off in different directions, like Gaugin's biography, the times he lived in, what would he be doing if he lived in contemporary times, etc. I thought a million thoughts and wanted to write all of them down. I couldn't stay on a single thought for long, my aposiopetic concepts racing and whirling like an automatic card shuffler. I was coming up with brilliant thoughts, new and original insights, revelations, connections between disparate ideas . . . as soon as I would get a revolutionary idea, I would immediately forget it as another popped into it's place; while trying to remember what I had just forgotten, my thoughts ran off in another direction, equally brilliant. I had to get back into the house and write these things down! But it was a lovely day. I had no doubts that my ideas would change the world, but so what? It was more important to enjoy the sunshine.

I found myself looking into the trees, or at the sky, amazing at the blue and not knowing how much time had passed. I ran dialogue in my head, arguing both sides of an issue. I would talk to myself, laugh out loud, clap my hands at a delightful memory of twenty years before and then quickly look over my shoulder to see if anyone were watching. Sometimes I would get very animated, if anyone were to see me, they would most certainly think me mad, or on drugs. If the shoe fits . . .

The wind gales in a tenderly vicious way. Down in my court I was immune from most of it, but the palms slam danced, pieces of fronds littering the courtyard. I looked down into the paintings of that wildman Van Gogh. The Santa Ana's, so similar to the Mistral's which blew through so many of Van Gogh's paintings. He would sometimes hold them down on the ground with one hand and a knee while he painted insanely. He would often paint outside in the hot sun all day with no hat upon his head and no water. Prolonged exposure to the sun with no food or water would starve the brain of sugar. This was the same thing Mescaline did. Van Gogh's paintings had that Mescaline texture to them. He often held tubes of paint in his mouth. When he had an epileptic seizure, paint would fill his mouth, jaws crushing the paint tube. The paint at that time was lead based, so he was dosed with heavy metal toxins. He never ate properly, just bread mostly, and drank lots of coffee and absinthe, which is now outlawed, for good reason. Throw the family history of insanity into the mix, and you've got one fucked up individual. When finally they locked him up, and rightly so, they gave him foxglove, or digitalis. Digitalis has the interesting side effect of highlighting the color yellow. Yellow was his favorite color. This to a man who's color sense was already on the screaming edge.

I suppose Van Gogh appeals to contemporary artists because he lived out of his brothers pocket, spending his money on drugs and whores. He only bought the finest artist materials. Only pre-stretched canvas for him, painting two or three a day. He was a slob, never taking care of his materials, not washing his brushes, leaving the tops off tubes of paint. Gauguin would walk into Van Gogh's workroom and be overwhelmed by the noxious smell of turpentine. Breathing turpentine is not so great for a person either. He was a brilliant man, no doubt about it. He spoke several languages, taught mathematics, was well versed in history and literature. His letters have been compared to Doetoeveski. But he was crude, obnoxious, spoke with a thick brogue, was literally insane, and worst of all, he was an idealist.

It was no doubt a relief to everyone when he finally killed himself, for him more than anyone. His is the story every layman is somewhat familiar with, which gives them a sense of self worth that they know something about art. The art-historians cluck their collective tongues that they weren't there to discover the obvious. The no account artists use him as a paradigm for their own failures and bohemian excesses. In short, everyone gets what they want from Van Gogh.

If he were alive today, he would be even more of an outcast. In Europe, he was considered an artist, even though he made no money at it. If I were to tell someone I was an artist, the first question they would ask me would be, "Yes, but what do you do for a living?" The only people who are considered artists, are those making money at it. Otherwise, it is just a hobby. If I were to insist I was an artist, at best I would be openly patronized, at worst, calumny. If Van Gogh were alive today, he be a repugnant street person, claiming to be an artist with no art background: An artist, the final failure in a lifetime of failure.

The Santa Ana's like the Mistral blew. The winds caressed me like a gentle blanket. In spite of all the inequities and sickness in my life, I'd finally found a moment of peace and tranquility.

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