January 2010 update - Dance While You Can

Today it' extremely hot with an almost white light baking the pavement and sand here in Rio de Janeiro. Due to heavy rain the beaches are posted with warnings not to enter the water because of pollutants. It's going on three weeks now, and it's not too great for the typical tourist who can only stay one or two weeks.

A five months stay allows me to relax. When I'm inside my guy has my attention and when I'm outside the Brazilian images flooding my senses block out most thinking. But emails, especially the ones that give unexpected input, encourage a little introspection and have caused me to do some more work on this site.

Emails from others support and reinforce an idea that seduced me in Carlos Castaneda's writings - that the less importance I give to the idea of 'me', the better off I am. But even that last sentence needed three personal pronouns:-) Maybe we'd all be better off if the 'I's' and the me's, my's and mine's graphed lower and lower in daily usage. On spaceship earth be just one more tourist-nobody cares what your name is, unless you pay with a credit card. With cash you're whoever you want to be. In anonymity one navigates without the cumbersome baggage of one's ego and the expectations of others. One's past, one's reputation; one's progress or regression is not the point. For me it's just about being out in the world, interacting with the people, the place, and the time. It's about creating and enjoying and sharing one's physicality, one's intelligence and experience and labor as well as one's money. It's about dancing to the music and paying the piper. Now, more than before, there's thunder on the mountain and it's best to be out of monetary and emotional debt.

Emails from a young Chilean in Texas humble me. He's a challenge to be better, know more, do more, risk more. His metaphors and historical references dazzle, and are a reminder that the depth of intelligence, hunger and energy of the world at large is veiled by a pervasive and controlling dumbing-down media, and the sins of country and forefathers left unsaid. But it an unsustainable ignorant bliss if one travels and sees the world unfiltered. Most Internet surfers live on an unmerited inheritance. There is always room to fail because there is food always in the fridge. While for the great majority failure means destitution. Drum-tight abdominal walls and muscular backs have gained something special from poverty that gym rats can't duplicate. There's an ingrown rhythm and joy that flowers in harsh conditions.

If you like the way these guys look and move, email me and I'll send you links to others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR-wxI0Fwhg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSYrjSjdozk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Q8xWDhrFQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgukAHbsbSQ

In reality there's more fat than you're led to expect on the poor as well as the chic Brazilian beaches. Like the half-ton of trash left on the beaches everyday here in Rio, the excess pounds on the beach-goers is in contrast to the mythical Copacabana and Ipanema perfection that the foreign media spawns. That said, Brazil is a type of fun and folly few other countries know. The 'I', the ego, is not so rigidly or easily guarded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOVyyKRuvOs&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEJx9FHmu_s

Once I was invited to the home of a family I knew to be poor by first-world standards and was shocked at how cluttered the house was, every wall every table covered with bric-a-brac. Without thinking, I heard myself saying that I'd always thought poor people lived more simply. I could have been left with egg on my face and an awkward silence, but a sharp mother of 7 trumped me, saying "We shop at the Dollar Store." She won and saved me from losing. It was a good laugh for everyone. I love this place. recommended author: Edwardo Galeano

A French collector of gay art emails me saying the nicest things in the nicest way about my art and website. It is a welcome support and gives me the desire to stay on the dance floor. Links to other of his favorite artists were included and those artists had links to their favorites. We're all connected ; the butterfly effect is in full force. Hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, aids, age, the new day, whatever. Nothing that was will be the way it was. Everything changes. Life is ephemeral and it's one's choice how much one trades of the time one has to joke around, dance, play cards, fly a kite, whatever and instead concentrate 'seriously' on one's profession and bank account. Carlos, and perhaps countless others, said that we lose by default - meaning we live unaware of life's options. And no matter how much I wish I could feel my body as it used to be as it moved to the music of my times and places, or keep these guys forever in these fun youthful moments, it's not to be. And yet...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdQf1M3vDjI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMkZtE0YMhw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvN0hwBTlkg

Perhaps I should just let my art speak for me, and rid myself completely of personal pronouns. And perhaps I should be more reclusive and guarded than I am comfortable being. But nevermind whether it's self-indulgent or therapeutic or folly to add intimate details of my past, I've just put up a lot of new info on my 'about his work' page. It's the most complete summation of my illustration career to date.

http://www.tomjonesmen.com/htm/about/work.htm

January 20, 2010