I wouldn’t call myself an artist. I’m not vainglorious enough for that, yet. I also don’t want to disrespect the title. I’m a working stiff, who has fleeting moments of artistry. Creative, seems more appropriate, however over-used the term has become post all Yeezus - era Kanye rants. In the last episode of the ATYG Podcast, Arto the Great posed a question to Q and I that was way more layered than I realized, “Isn’t life just better now though?” This was in response to my weekly complaining about the corporate espionage - like surveillance on civilians for the sole purpose of serving them more ads, to buy more shit, to incur more debt, and so on. Surveillance made possible by the diabolical advancement in technology over the last decade.
Ironically, it’s technology that allows me to create in a way that’s freeing beyond measure. Programs like Photoshop [which has been completely mainstreamed/bastardized by today’s meme culture, so Fuck you Instagram], Illustrator, and Fresh Paint, allow me, and other non-drawing, non-painting, non-classically trained art students, to be a part of today’s creative landscape. My mind is creative, “and I’d be lying to you, and myself,” if I said it wasn’t. Getting out my ideas is a necessity. It’s not optional. It’s a pressure release. If not this, I’d be sniffing coke off of strippers’ clavicles. I’m obviously not a genius, but you get it.
Now that I got all that insecurity shit is out the way, I present, Cilvia’s Neruda. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with the immensely talented, classically trained poet and spoken word artist Leah V on this piece, and have some interesting dialogue in the process. I wanted to create a mixed media piece using one of my favorite images of my brother Alex. Leah blessed me with a poem she wrote that I thought was perfect. The poem, To Find His Neruda, is a “plea” for men to investigate the idea of their own masculinity. As a grown ass man, I had a layered reaction to her words. My literary reaction was, “Yo, Leah has BARS!” My primal testicular reaction was, “Get outta here with that vulnerability shit,” while my ever present Rastafarian level consciousness said, “Bumboclat, she’s right.”
My Take on Masculinity: Men, on a primal level, are attracted to women with the widest hips and biggest breasts. Signs of fertility. Women want the biggest, strongest looking man to physically protect them. I'm talking cave people till about 2010.
“We are in a weird place now, where our biology hasn’t evolved with the new societal norm of masculinity. A man’s physical prowess plays a very small role in masculine functionality.”
His ability to make money, use his brain, and be in touch with his emotions is his new "muscle." None of these things have to do with dead lifts, wide grip pull ups, or Pelle Pelle jackets. This is terrifying to the newly endangered Man's man. So, we shell up and over compensate. Everything is Thug Life. Literally every man over 30.
The flip side to that issue, and this is all my personal theory, yet to be proved or propagated beyond my apartment, is that while the newly emotionally in touch man, is, in fact, able to provide security, safety, and companionship to the evolving woman of today, her biology still needs the original man. The man with a hairy chest, too much bass in his voice, and dirt under his fingernails like Pac in poetic justice. The guy who takes the “cancer” paper out of his black & mild because he thinks it’s saving his life. I believe the great Patrice O’neal called this ecological shift to "New" man, “Eating your food."
I have this argument with my girl every day. "You need to open up more. You need to be more sensitive, sweet and soft and nice." These are direct quotes. My retort is always..."Will you find that attractive more than once?" I'm not completely convinced that she will. That anyone will. Maybe it's possible. But, and this is my conditioning talking, there's nothing sexy about general insecurity/anxiety of a man. When it's tied to some artistic expression we can romanticize it. But the day to day of a man expressing everything he feels when he feels it? I'm not yet sold. But, what a freeing way it would be to live, right?
Leah responded.
“What about balance? Why does it have to be an ultimatum? Isn’t it possible to be both machismo and vulnerable? Sweet and nice and ‘man-handling’, all the same?”
By the time MAN evolved into this mythical creature, we’d have feet for hands, and eyelids in the back of our knees. I kid! I actually know some of these brothas. Loose variations of Ving Rhames' character in Baby Boy. They'll play Otis Reading and cook you breakfast, but they'll also choke your son. That's balance ain't it?
Thank you Leah!
Peace
“To Find His Neruda” - By Leah V
Cease fire for a moment of feminine frequency, won’t you?
Won’t you let the facade rest?
Recognize the redemption I offer you as I’m over you, under you, atop this eternal hustle-
jobs journeys justice art and a neglected heart--
& who’s hearing your heart?
who’s hissing at your aches?
I sense hunger, but never vulnerability
no tranquility, certainly no forbidden fragility
sensibility? yes- but sensitivity, no
Let me bare your bones/ Fuck these traditional zones
these zonings that tear two from you,
that tear tender tears from your work
won’t you let me feel you hurt?
Let your guard hang low the same way your boys throw those verbal blows - with force.
why is it that you fear a change is discussion?
what we need is that change in over-bearing percussion
it’s okay to express and humans feel in excess and you can still hold my interest without physical assistance
why is it that we as women wash ourselves away in hopes that men may enter sacred space yet, men blockade in hopes that unspoken thought may simply fade?
I crave caresses of your past but you push passed it, place that brave face on and fasten that fake ferocious exterior.
All I desire is to break through that deflection- that deception forcing mass disaffection
Let your tears fall and I’ll swallow them all
envelop your brawl when what you need is to crawl
memorize that silent squall
I promise you masculinity isn’t always so tall
Boy talk is no match for breath into breasts
Cheek against rib-cage and skin-like-sage
seeping through third eyes, satisfying untouched feelings as we decalcify
because I can unlace your kicks and unlace society’s dictation
release your fists and media’s unfitting persuasion
you don’t need brash calls to address each occasion
your voice can be small and still create an abrasion
be conscious of tone there’s no need for invasion &
Competitive nature does not nurse necessary salvation. Let me state that again:
Competitive nature does not nurse necessary salvation.
Enough with the volatile violence, the volume and harsh vehemence
the victorious obsession and perpetual aggression
Lay in comfort beside me./ Let go of that pride for me / time to confide in me / Love verified by me- no ulterior motives or motifs supplied by me
& with salt water eyes beside me your machismo-ism is still testified by ME
But I’m pleading for you to listen to yourself.
Neruda wrote:
Yo te encontre despues de la tormenta
Which means
I found you after the storm
And I wrote
Y aqui, permanecemos
Which means And here, we
remain.