The World, The Forest

When people feel uncomfortable with their lives they like to blame the "world". It's such a big idea, it's like saying nothing at all. "The world" is a catch-all term meaning anything about America/Earth/the Cosmos we don't like. "The world" is...shallow paparazzi. It's those doctors on Grey's Anatomy, always sleeping together and guzzling tequila. It's New Age spirituality, gangs, the commercialization of Christmas, floppy-haired Donald Trump!

If someone is materialistic, sexually errant or unaware of the correct ways to talk about God, that person is "worldly". The term is subtler (and less blatantly condescending) than "sinner" but it means the same thing. It means there's something wrong with them. Worse than what's wrong with us.

Sometimes I too see the world as antagonistic; the spiritual, emotional and physical equivalent of a dark, hanted forest. I stumble through the night like Snow White fleeing from her murderers. Tree trunks frown and gnaw at me. Branches tear my clothes. Roots rise up to impede me. Owls are demons. Logs are ravenous crocs. Bats are, well, they're just bats. I run but it's no use! I fall hard. I pass out. Then the spell is broken and I awaken in warmth and sunlight. In the morning, the world hasn't changed much but the way I see it has.

What is the world?
Is it hostile? Does it want to thwart us?

Is it friendly? Does it, as the people in The Secret say, support us?

Does it even give a damn about us?

Is it full of inherent meaning?

Or is it a blank page, waiting for us artists to write our stories on it?

I find all of these views compelling at different times of the day.

I used to try so hard to be unpolluted by the world. Now I sometimes worrry about the world being polluted by me. I no longer want a priest's purity. I don't want a scholar's distance. I want to dance with the world, to push and be pushed. To be a rebel and a follower. A star and a team mate. I want to change the world and I want the world to change me.

Here is a new one-minute song ('Change the World') with some ghostly, adorable vocals by three-year-old Snow White fan Lillian Kate. Song two of the two-song piece is coming soon...

http://www.facebook.com/musicplayer/index.php?owner_id=118706994836181&success#!/pages/Matt-Mintz-Music/118706994836181

My Authentic Swing

In "The Legend of Bagger Vance" Matt Damon plays a promising golfer who leaves the game to serve in WWI. He returns alive but the traumas of war lead him to a life of cards, drinking and isolation. He abandons his first loves. He loses his swing.

Enter Bagger Vance, Will Smith's caddie. He's wry, brilliant; he may even be an angel. Bagger doesn't teach much in the way of technique but he helps Matt find his authentic swing. It isn't a particular way of golfing, a rule or trick. It's just the unique way Matt was made to swing.

I worry sometimes that I've lost my swing. My fortieth birthday is headed for me like a slow, unavoidable bull and I'm not as far on the journey as I thought I would be. Hearts have been hurt. Projects have been abandoned, and replaced by other abandoned projects. Time has been frittered away. Too many apple fritters have been eaten and too few miles jogged.

I write and record songs but, before I can finish them, the fun is gone. Instead of trusting my ears, I see images of listeners not getting it. My new song, Transform Me Into Any Shape, started with a spark of inspiration on the guitar. Through playful trial and error, chords were chosen and the arrangement solidified. Then I started recording. By the time the first session was over, I didn't like the song anymore. Or, more accurately, I was afraid other people wouldn't.

Then I remembered: it's none of my business (especially at this point in the creative process) what others will think. It's my business to be as good as I can, to be truthful about what I think sounds amazing. As much as I love an audience, my authentic swing doesn't have a thing to do with the people on the sidelines.

If I trust myself, I will find it again.

Here's my new song:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matt-Mintz-Music/118706994836181

Crippling Doubt & Giddy Enthusiasm

I've been reviewing my old writing journals. It is amusing to see crippling doubt trade blows with giddy enthusiasm over individual writing projects as well as my entire calling as a writer. Last year's journal tells of my Hollywood internship. The hardest and best part of the job was writing reviews (or what they call 'coverage') of the scripts that were submitted to us. My opinions (and how persuasively I wrote them) helped determine if scripts advanced up the ladder. I could read a script and write four pages of good coverage in about half a work day. The bosses asked a lot of me but they valued my opinion.

Then, on my last day, I submitted my best script, a theme-park park comedy called AMUSED. I went home and checked my email hourly for two weeks. I envisioned them writing, "Matt, we love Amused!!! Dare we call it genius? We have forwarded it to Judd Apatow's agent--who loves it!--and would like to meet. When can you come to L.A.?" I pictured walking through the production company offices on my terms; not to Xerox seven-hundred page books and make coffee but to talk million dollar deals.

Then I finally got the email response on what was already a nerve-wracking day. I was preparing to do an open mic; I made such a clown of myself at the last one that it took me a year to do another. I opened the email with my schedule book in hand. It was four quick sentences, thrown off with little care and what seemed like a cursory reading of the first five pages of my script. The carrot I'd been chasing for a year was rotten. My blood, sweat and tears had resulted in them thinking my best script was an offensive, pointless piece of crap. Or so it seemed. I wrote this poem:

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REJECTION SLIP

When the voice of the last artist is finally silenced, the world will end.
Without revelation or second chance.

Just the ash of a dead fire,
a line of smoke,
and the smell of burnt garbage.

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That's what I think about the importance of the artist.

I kicked ass at the open mic, by the way.

Artistry & Shopping Under the Influence

So I'm an artist. Never had the balls to introduce myself as such, face-to-face. But here, online, in this my first blog, I'm going for it.

Being an artist means a lot of things, of course. It means paying attention to life, even at its most banal and heart-breaking; for unbearable interactions make great material.

Being an artist means making a third what my wife makes (for now). Some days it means sleeping in while she readies for work, playing football video games until an hour before she gets home then writing my ass off until she does. Sometimes this hour is more productive than a normal day's work (I hardly ever do this, honey. I'm just throwing comedy with you).

Being an artist means means telling a dear friend about your new song and watching their eyes glaze over as though you'd just said, "Blah, blah, blah, Tony. Blah, blah, blah." They love ya, Artist Boy, but they really don't give a damn what you write.

Being an artist often means a fanatical love of other artists (You complete me, Bobby Dylan, especially when I can fade your songs out after 2.5 minutes). I have learned the hard way, though, not to combine iTunes-shopping and booze. Demon alcohol, you are so seductive; even buying Van Halen 'Black and Blue' seems like a good idea when I'm under your spell.

Being an artist means you have a ton in common with your fellow artists, even when it feels like you don't. What we do may look pretty damn different. It may sound different. But deep down it's the same thing, the same calling; becoming more and more ourselves, being co-creators with God.

I hope...

...you enjoy these posts.

...you comment often.

...you share them with others.

...you have the guts to call yourself an artist.

Peace Be With You All,

matt mintz