The non-meme (Influences)

I'm not really one for the meme thing. (For those few of you not in the loop here, memes are basically user driven information blasts about topics like 7 favorite things or 10 things you didn't know about me, that are generally passed via the "Tag your it" process and refer back to some original posting.) Anyway, as I was saying, I've never been really a big "memer". per se. They always have requirments like tag five others and leave a link back here to this post and I guess seem just a little too self promoting to me. So this is the non meme. Partially because I'm the non memer extrordinaire, and partially because I only know one other person with a similar themed blog, Phelan, whom I could even direct this too.

So anyway what's all the blathering about? Influences, that's what. I've posted a few writings here so far, and a few paintings. I thought I'd share a couple of my influences.

1. Bob Dylan - I remember listening to him as far back as possible. My dad's "Bob Dylans Greatest Hits" album was played an replayed, not so much for the music, which was/is great, but for the writing. It just hit something in me. "How many times must a man look up, Before he can see the sky? Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have, Before he can hear people cry? ~ Dylan" I remember when I started really trying to write, I think the folky, preachy thing kind of came through.

2. Jim Morrison - Later, in High School, I found "The Doors". Of course I liked their favorites, Light my fire, Break on through, you know the classic rock station standbys. But the magic happened for me when I found "The Lords and the new Creatures: Poems by Jim Morrison." In it I found a new way of looking at writing. One that let me out of the trap of iambic pentameter, and made me realize that I could write a thought as a feeling and a color as a fear. "I am a guide to the Labyrinth, Monarch of the protean towers, on this cool stone patio, above the iron mist, sunk in its own waste, breathing its own breath ~ Morrison". In the future you'll see my writings like this. They paint a picture in my head, a memory on paper.

3. My uncle Ted - The roaming uncle with the VW beetle, wrap around sunglasses, stories of rockhounding in the southwest and works of art that painted my childhood. He was the first "great artist" that I ever knew. I think a good deal of my curiousity and desire to learn how to create things were influenced by him. I wanted to paint, and draw, and learn to make silver jewerly like the octopus earings that he made that would seem to climb up the wearers ear. If your reading Ted, Thanks.

4. My Mom - Some time in High School, my mom and I were looking through some of her old papers and I saw a few of what I believed were my doodles but didn't recognize. As it turns out they were hers. The style, the way we sketched and played with the lines and shapes was uncannily similar. I obviously got a good portion of my ability from her.


Well, there you go, a little look inside my creative mind. Now I'm not tagging anyone, and I'm not requesting a link back, but I'd love to hear from you or have you post a link to where you talk about you influences. Thanks for reading.
Till later.
P~