Saturday, December 12, 2009

I've been Blogging for almost 4 months now.
I don't even know what BLOG stands for & saw one for the first time maybe a year ago.
Because of my compulsive & additive nature I avoid new things that might suck me in.
My original intention was to create a photo journal of sorts.
Mostly pictures, with a short sentence, or no explanation at all, for as the the mouth breathing masses say; "A picture is worth a 1000 words". I disagree. My imagination tends to be more lovely than life.
Back to point, this BLOG was not meant as my soapbox... but here I go.
Just finished watching JULIE & JULIA, a film, no heterosexual male should admit enjoying, yet I loved it. For some reason this "feel good movie of the year" spawned this rant.
My wife is a foodie, restaurant owner, caterer & cuisine student. Her cook book collection pails in comparison to motorcycle library, but that is just me bragging.
In 1999 I meet Jack Silverman at the ARMA races which used to be held at Steamboat Springs.
For some reason he took a liking to me & invited Kelly & I to stay a time with him in his home in Aspen. Jack & I shopped that day, we were to cook dinner for the girls that night. Salmon with a heavy pesto sauce, cooked out of doors with snow at our feet huddled around his side yard adobe oven. That night I slept blissfully under 800 thread count sheets. I bored Jack quickly, as I am sure my use of 'the' before university or hospital gave away my middleclassness, & we don't keep in touch. A shame really, I like him.
Now to my point. There are clear cut lines between social economic classes. Don't fool your self the poor know who they are as well as the rich know who they are. They seldom ever develop meaningful relationships. There is no climbing. Bill Gates is middle class with billions of dollars, so is Oprah. Now a Carnegie, Morgan, Getty or Rockerfeller is high class. These people hide, the new rich show themselves. I have clients with millions of dollars & others with billions. The ones that made it in their life time are quite different from those born with it.
Their is no climbing in one generation. But there is one group that throughout the ages has been able to move back & forth, slipping between class divides. Court Jesters, Artists, Authors, Poets, Starlets & and other such people that the rich find as interesting as a yacht or a fine time piece.
I have flown to a place alone in a Lear jet & returned home on a Greyhound bus. I have slept in my van in the parking lot of the Ritz Carlton waiting for my several thousand dollar complimentary room. I've had Top Ramen for lunch & fois grasse for dinner.
Artist are treated special(PC for retarded). If our joke is in poor taste, it is tolerated, if our behavior is not acceptable, we are eccentric. Somehow the rich as well as the rest of us let artists be freaks, because we can't help it, were different. I think I ought to be held accountable for my stupidities, but as long as people forgive... the worst I'll get.



8 comments:

  1. To quote Popeye; " I am's who I am's cause thats who I is." The rich are often miserable, fake or just out of touch. I don't think that artists are freaks to them, just free thinkers. So called upper society respects, and wishes that they could be free thinking. Your talent stands out and they want to be near it for a little while.

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  2. ”Controversy of life”

    OK Jeff, having a blog and doing ”soap boxing” means you might get commenst from who ever read what you write.
    I`m not quite sure what you try to tell the ”reader” with the words above, but my understanding on the theeme is that beeing rich either middleclass or ”upper class” does not neccesearly make anyone any more intellegent, this beeing social, intelectual, artistic or practical.
    Some of the most clever, litterate, artistic and social intellegent people I have met I are for sure lower class from an upper class view.

    OK I wouldnt mind having the money that allowed me buying the motorcycle I want at any time or the art that I dream of, but heck I am lucky with those I have and have fought for getting.
    Well I`m lower class or maybe touching the middle one but I feel OK with that as I know I am real in what I am doing.

    Taking the chance of offending, do you ever as an artist think of the fact that art at an certain point when the artist is getting famous no longer reach the masses but is limited to the ones yourself describe as the ”upper class” or wannabees from the middle class for them to hide in their hallway?

    Oh well and anyway.
    Truly apprechiated your book that I recieved the other day. Bet most of those guys wearing those colours where ”real”. Keep on posting the cool black and white biker shoots.

    Sverre
    http://AmericanMotorcyclesNorway.blogspot.com

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  3. Blog stands for weB LOG. And its yours to write whatever you want, so soap box away. If no one wants to read it, then they wont.

    Stumbled onto your page the other day from a link on chopcult.com showing your new book, really enjoyed the photo's of the colors on here and wish I could have gotten a copy. You should do another printing if you can.

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  4. Thats so true, ive had the chance to see some great things i wouldnt have been able to see without the camera. Most memorably, boobies. But being from a more humble begining will more times than not, anchor you. Which is an awesome scapegoat too.

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  5. Jeff, please write more. Yours is an exceptionally entertaining and rich style.


    Cris

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  6. That last paragraph sums up most of my adult life. Something few people understand. It is a comfort to hear it from another's mouth.

    Funny that for me one of my Lear jet moments was thumbing thru your collection of Von Dutch art work.

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