the “of course” effect

i like bad things in life, when the "bad taste" buds start firing off i'm instantly happy. it's a pension i've developed over the course of my life for one reason or another. but the worse it is, the more i love it. the more flat synthesisers and lyrics about being a nelly, the more i like it. the worse it's filmed, the better. the audacity higher, the finest. it's part of why i don't really get mad easily, i think, because i love how utterly fun these kitsch, camp, or over the top things are. if the film burns while a film is playing, it's funny! of course it would happen, you never want it to happen but naturally with your luck it would, and so therein lies what's so funny about it. that "of course" factor.

of course the drip pans on your stove refuse to heat up the one day of the year you decide to invite every peter, paul, & mary over for dinner. of course the cats threw up all over your newly polished floors. of course you accidentally threw away a piece of antique furniture worth thousands. why? because of course you did. it's that little touch of fairy dust that makes it all go wrong, the irony. and that little drop makes me laugh, it adds some brevity to the situation. it gives you a reason to laugh, it was such the perfect fuck up that it makes it bearable. and usually, it makes for a good story, too.

i think we push too far back against accidents and flaws in life, often missing the inherent silliness of it. as camus once said: "yes, it is true, life is very simple. it is people who complicate things." and i do believe he's right, we can chose how to react to the things in our life in whichever way we chose, it just takes some distance from the situation to get a grip on how we want to act. most things are completely out of our control, there's nothing you can do about it, so don't even think of or worry about fixing it. now all that matters is how you react to it. which, typically, for me is: "of-fucking-course." and then i pout or sigh or groan and move on with my mostly stupid day. it isn't diminishing your problems or emotions, just regulating them.

of course, it very well could be that my ability to laugh or shrug or find something ironic in my life is a quality i've obtained from the experience of being a queer man in a violent world. gay people are incredibly well known for our ability to sensationalise and glamorise their material and social conditions as a means of survival. if you don't laugh at yourself, then why is everyone laughing? it's lonely. you have to join in the laughter, even if it may be at your own expense, and lift the weight off of the situation at hand. so what everyone is laughing at you? laugh back! and be sure that the next time you see them, you really give them something to laugh about.

you're an actor in your own life.

you can say and be and act as anything, and for the most part, no one will question you. so much of life is about lying, about anything, to anyone. i used to tell the doormen at expensive hotels and apartments lies about who i was, and with my shoulders back and head tilted up, i was often believed. exploration of elegance and free drinks ensue. and if they catch you, who cares? none of them will remember you and odds are, you can do it again. you can delude yourself into many things quite harmlessly if you can learn how to focus on the state of being enough.

i did this recently, kinda. my doctor had theorised that i may have disassociative identity disorder, a severe case, and the thought of it consumed me endlessly. it was horrifying to me and after around a week of breakdowns, panicking about who it is i "truly am" and all that mess, i woke up and thought: "actually, no i don't. i don't have DID." and proceeded without thought to it for the remainder of the week and still now. i decided to undiagnose myself. ipso facto, i am now fine. as fine as anyone who was potentially diagnosed with DID can be, at least. but it worked for me.

in way of taste, as in what i like artistically, it's very much the same. i adore all that is amateaur, that is flawed, perhaps even outright unwatchable. i love the people in the tiny places; people who live in the cracks in our walls. like dwayne, a house-less man living in the motel by my work, dying of cancer in that small and barren room with only two requests: beer and john wayne. he is a person from between the floorboards, someone you only encounter a handful of times but are the most beautiful people you'll ever meet. you have to trust in the ugly; it's one of the only things telling you the truth.

Andy Warhol's 1968 film, "Empire."

it's kind of connected in a way to my perspectives on idleness or the conceptualist art i like to toss around in my hands like a stress ball. one of the things i enjoy the most in life is watching andy warhol's films, the ones he personally made as opposed to the higher budget paul more issey ones. they're so tantitaling, capturing so well the feeling of waiting. "sleep" in particular immerses me in the feeling of waiting for a lover to awake, observing every crevice as shadows fall upon their body. if you stare long enough, nothing looks the way it did before. the way bodies bend at joints connect flesh to flesh by sweat, and the natural form of the body becomes mutated into some kind of amporphous filigre of shadow and light. you begin to breathe in time with his films, which are filmed at 24 frames per second -- slowing the pace of the imagery so as to put the viewer in a place where they are suspended in their absorption of the piece. breath hitches slower, bodies extend longer, shadows fall further. it's immersive, and you're waiting. most people consider warhol's films to be awful, to be bad, which means they're right up my alley. transmutation through patience, and now, why would you sit and watch 8hrs of the empire state building in delay? because of course you would. see?

and as a last thought about the works of wonder conducted with patience, about the way we trick ourselves and how funny people are. look at the above photograph taken by edward weston in 1930. what does it look like to you?