Byline: How To Handle a Heat Wave

Buford Youthward
stockcap@hotmail.com

At a bare minimum make it look good.

Then step around the decoration and look for the substance.

Fifteen minutes of a drug is fifteen minutes too long or too short. And fame finds its way through twenty-first century clutter.

We make it past the mid mark mildly. Only so many shopping seasons left and so little time. Shoplifters long for lost love.

I loot local libraries looking for the goods. Non-fiction masquerades as fiction, novels lie about their novelty.

I spot some inspiration, search for my notebook and secure sentences with blue ink dispensed from a medium point pen.

Neither good nor bad, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. I make a note to myself from the underground.

But life isn't simply the choice of choosing between being a hero or an insect. At least not all the time.

In a world where one must invent a life in order to live, I keep my dreams delusional, my senses surreal and my social life sensational.

Some lessons are obvious. Some less so. But life experience is a matter of fleshing out the insides.

To two-step between public good and private greed involves too much dexterity. Egos are built to win. To each his own outline.

Handling heat waves is hot occupation. I hock my goods and hawk my commerce like my art depended on it.

And so it does. In grand graffiti daydreams, I gravitate toward dope droppings and deal in day to day outtakes. But I'm making headway. So there.

Read more in Byline

Art Crimes Front Page