DRIVE ME

I tossed and turned all night feeling slightly feverish, although now that it comes to mind it must have been a side effect from my heated discussion with Edith, my non-artistic follower. Whenever I see ourselves in dreams we’re actually driving through random places; this time it was through a tunnel in Elyria. I swear I could even listen to another song in the background, Supersonic. It got me so hooked it actually inspired me to get my first real ride when I became famous.

"I need to be myself
I can't be no one else
I'm feeling supersonic
Give me gin and tonic
You can have it all but how much do you want it?
You make me laugh
Give me your autograph
Can I ride with you in your B.M.W ?
You can sail with me in my yellow submarine."

Anyway, for some goddamn reason I was riding barefoot, gave it a sense of freedom I suppose. Edith was my copilot, she looked like a sort of blonde, skinny girl, with a long silky ponytail, yet she’s doesn’t look like that in real life; she has these amazing long legs, freckled face, killer blue eyes and raven hair. One time they told me that people show their real selves in dreams. Hmm, it figures. Other than I think I may have developed a guilty pleasure.

Edith was awfully scared of being behind the wheel, she´s hardly done that in her short life. So, as I proposed,

“let’s add an element of risk. You do the driving, I’m just gonna guide you "

I scared the Hell out of her.

So she slowly positioned herself on the driver’s seat, can’t recall the speed on the meter though, who cares about road rules, screw them all!. The act of watching her take over was to show her that I’m the one who’s been in control of this relationship all this time, but she was afraid to jump in, most girls are like that with me, it makes sense now. It’s not like I’m gonna crash or anything like that, she acts like a child who cries over spilled milk. Can’t figure out what cosmic force drove me to her, I refuse to believe in that shit that opposites attract, but my presence keeps attracting vermin.

My sweet raven´s been feeling sort of homesick lately, holidays are coming up and her family keeps making plans way ahead of time. I should probably give her a hug every now and then. The problem is Edith always asks for something else every night, if you know what I mean.

I really wish you could do such a thing, test drive women, so much easier than dating.

ADRIAN , ARE YOU WELL?

And I answered feeling slightly puzzled, “how come you’re asking me that?”

BECAUSE IT’S NATURAL TO ASK THAT WHEN YOU DON’T LOOK SO WELL. Just like it´s natural for you to get sick.

I see, now it makes sense. My little adventure the other night had cost me a case of pneumonia, haven´t experienced since I was like, seven years old.

I can´t let this beautiful car of mine get crashed that easily, so whether I liked it or not I had to let my unconditional Edith take over the wheel. After all, she loves it to death.

A LITTLE MONSTER

In my dreams I see myself as a traveler. I kept thinking the other day whether I had done the right thing and leaving my family behind in Elyria but they still stand by me.

And so yesterday I dreamed of going back home, like on a tour bus; funny thing, could have just used my BMW. We took some very strange turns like going through exits shaped like SPIRALS…that's another recurring element in my work, one of nature's most primitive symbols, no end and no beginning.

I was on the way to pay the Old Man a visit where he worked at. Unfortunately, I found out his ´job´ was terrible; he adopted the form of this street artist who built small mechanical wind-up toys. He made a little monster, sort of furry, stubby with a rather dimmed color.

"How's business doing today?", I bothered to ask as I stood puzzled about what I was about to experience.

"Not so good, son, things have happened. But I'll tell you later, right now just watch the show..."

He cranked up the toy and placed it on a model of what seemed to be his house. It was shaped like a music box that eventually started to unfold and reveal different rooms meticulously decorated. The walls must have been colored in bright gold. Everyone cheered and the monster was happy and lifted its tiny arms as a sign of victory.

But then again, shiny things attract vermin. And so they did. The house became invaded with rats and cockroaches. But to my surprise they started fighting each other in a rather hearty battle. And what was even more surprising was that the damn roaches won. Dad told me when I was young that if the world ever ended they would become the best survivors.

And then I heard a song in the background, seemed sort of familiar, probably may have heard it once in my entire life:

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

"Nature Boy", from an old Nat King Cole vinyl Dad used to play when he couldn´t sleep. He was very fond of that guy anyway, his voice always invaded the house with a sort of mystique, but don't get me started with The Christmas Song.

Nah, Adam was cool, but he was always trying to protect as if some giant and mysterious supernatural force was going to snatch me. Truth is it did. I attract lots of things, that's why now I that I think of it the wind-up monster was me.

That inspired me to make a painting called "Rabbit Monster".

About the whole rooftop euphoria thing yesterday I apologize...I´ll do it better next time. Edith and I talked it over and she keeps saying I wasn´t thinking, and I go, "of course you have to think, woman! It´s a matter of coordination, a ´hit or miss´ thing."

I´M SORRY, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, THEN?

And I politely answered, "I thought to myself, what if I hit this time? Will I fall or float, or fly, or warp into another universe?

YOU´RE HUMAN, YOU´LL FALL AND DIE...

"Then you know me awfully well, so then tell me what I´m thinking right now?" I asked as I progressively lifted my eyebrows.

I´M NOT A PSYCHIC!

"Neither am I, so we ignore what will happen then. Who knows, maybe I´ll land on my feet just like a cat. After all, my Dad thinks I´m actually a monster."

Good night and sleep tight, young vermin.

1:11 AM

by Beli Cantú, 2010.

CHAPTER 1:  1:11 AM.

The piercing sound of silence, the emptiness that's left and the Cold Moon as my witness. I´m standing on my rooftop trying to jump, something I've been practicing for quite a while though I seem to keep having some flaws in the process.I was wondering if I'd become successful this time...

Learning to jump is essential for any rabbit, an effective means of escaping from the pain, Mother Nature would say. But not in my case, I'm tied and I'm nailed to the ground until God knows when. How did this handicap begin?

Well, as the Mad Hatter said once:

"Start at the beginning and when you get to the end, stop."

When I was younger I had a nasty habit of writing in black notebooks. I made my mother go nuts trying to get  them otherwise my mind went blank. I felt like a had a tiny hole in my hands, a void waiting to be filled with anything, and I mean ANYTHING...

When it turned into SOMETHING I was relieved for a moment, a scape valve for my hurt psyche.

GO AHEAD, JUMP, GO AHEAD JUMP, WHY DON´T YOU...

Not today, not today, wait another day or two, or three or four go figure...

"Automatic writing, that´s what it´s called my dear, you´re not mad," said a school teacher once. "You have become aware that the unconscious is manifesting in the form of words. "Tell me, you don´t talk much, do you?"

Of course I didn´t. And it´s still utterly irritating that they confuse the way I feel with my quietness.

"Then when you decide to shut your mouth, the words come out of your hands. Like a blind man, he develops another way to get around. So if you decide to make this your most common way of expressing yourself, then your vocal chords will begin to weaken..." Ironically, the next day I had to give a book report and I couldn´t speak because my throat was so sore, it was like razorblades scraping my tissue.

My teacher was mad as Hell. Artists have always been known be eccentric, a little confused because they live in a world of their own, or maybe they´ve redesigned the actual world until it fits them well.

In my case art saved me many times, from the cold shoulder of loneliness and from the pain that lies within, it´s a kind of magic, more powerful than the one you read in storybooks. It gave me an invisible shield in my teen years. Back then I used to see myself in dreams in gray and black. So i figured out that there would be no problem for me wearing those somber tones every day until it made some sense. But then, I wasn´t counting on the fact that I´d be labeled as:

GOTH.

Oh, so now there´s a name for that too. Subcultures can be bitchy in high school, I know that. They brought me some very disposable friends, like Lisa, though I couldn´t call her exactly a girlfriend. She used to be the kind of person who´d always hang out in the same little corner with her jet black hair covering her face, like the silhouette of the Moon hiding behind the clouds, with cigarette in hand .

"Don´t give that look, woman, I´m not the one to blame," I said one time she was horribly pissed because I stopped calling her.

"You´re so selfish Adrian, why are you so insensitive , you don´t think that we have a heart too?" she shouted giving me bewitching looks.

And that´s another thing. She was always addressing her issues as WE and not ME, as if she were speaking for the entire population of dark monsters, when the whole thing started with just her. So she used others as her shield, I wrote and drew and my black diary as usual until my fingers bled. In fact she got even more pissed because it had become a ritual of mine carrying that damn book everywhere. She threatened to show it  in class so they could see how twisted I really was. But then I safely said, "Go ahead, you´re just reassuring I´m mad. I´m proud to be this way . Give me the fame I deserve."

Lisa was supposed to be blurred out of my mind anyway, but she didn´t just because she wound up in one of my paintings. Now I´d transformed her into SOMETHING.

My teacher, a middle-aged short woman who always wore those large patterned scarves saw the portrait and she began saying this whole ass of a speech in which I shouldn´t have done this in the first place, that Lisa had been glorified and elevated to the point that I became powerless. And that then if one did want to become a true artist he´d  first look into one´s self and exteriorize both the inner demons and angels and then use them to blind everyone who saw them, that´s what makes you will make you inmortal. So the fact that I ceased to hang out with goths to hang out with myself was a very good step for my initiation into the art world.

What kind of people was I meant to be with, then?

There was not much promotion for the art at school, not that it was highly noticeable. Not that my hometown was well known for that either. They only had three major topics, at parties, in family conversations, at CHURCH, and they were beginning to get stale.

"Sure, get out of this hellhole kid, YOU got a future, not so sure about the other folk,"  my daddy used to say. Enough said, I had nothing to lose.

COME TO BED, ADRIAN, COME TO BED...

That unidentified voice was Edith, my non-artistic lover, by the way.

But that´s a story for another day, got to much to do tomorrow, Damn, I always say that, I need to come up with a better excuse, I´ll work on it, I promise.


NEXT BLOG:  CHAPTER 1 CONTINUES...

We are proud to introduce a new writing project named "The White Rabbit Diaries". 

"Adrian is mad. He cannot stop painting, but he has become highly successful for doing it. His creations are unconventional and sometimes very disturbing.

For years he has been obsessed with using rabbits as his subject after having had a very intense lucid dream as a child. What he ignores however is that this represents his "other side", the one very few people talk about but have experienced dozens of times in their slumber."

Beli Cantú, 2010 

I have a feeling you want to follow him...

NEXT BLOG:  INTRODUCTION TO THE BLACK DIARY.