Behind the Mask

Listen…

I’ve never been happy enough to embrace mediocrity. Happy, still, whatever. You put me in a cage and all I can do is focus on the bars—

This is all leading to something. This morning I’ve been listening to the Fall—(the band named after the Camus book, not the Camus book on tape)—and thinking about this thing called a Brand.

I have a brand centered around the art shit I do, but we all have brands, this image we present to the world, our best selves, the ideal Jane Smith or Bob Goldjunk or what the fuck ever…

It’s draining, isn’t it? Your inner Gollum all twitching and scabby or an angel hiding its silver wings in Banana Republic gear. Selfies at that hip restaurant or on vacation, all smiles.

Another Marvel film, another Starbucks line, another Costco Cowboy truck. Another mortgage on an oversized beige house that will falling apart in (*looks at watch*). Around lunchtime. I work to stay kinda sort of on topic, “The American Outback: Let’s lead a more sustainable life with less stress and more nature” right?

You have your brand, as well. You have your brand, you have an armor of harmless selfies and memes and timely quotes that are not offensive or dangerous.

Draining. Just fucking draining….

Do you ever get tired of all these reboots? Of all these films and series on your streaming services that are focus grouped to death?

Don’t you get tired of how your computer has seen you naked and vulnerable and longing and it vomits ad after ad at you? Are you tired of being a demographic? Being seen as a beige cog?

Fuck, if I going off brand, off my little reservation—

I have this project where I am a Jim Morrison impersonator, the Spy (named after one of their songs). The concept is that Jim has returned from Paris in 1972. The Doors have moved on. Jim intends to write a novel but lacks the patience and discipline…he also misses music. Jim wants to do the Blues but needs money so he starts doing Doors songs. The concept of the Spy is like a menu: You can have the polite, competent Jim who sings the hits you want to hear…or you can hire Jimbo, this raging, drunk asshole in leather trousers berating you and smashing shit up. The big ticket item would be a recreation of what went down at the Dinner Key Theater in Miami, 1969, the big riot/indecent exposure event that nearly got Jim sent to prison. Jim understood the psychology of crowds; you can construct a riot, the challenge is controlling it. But, this would be a theatric riot, all the thrill and electricity without the danger and consequences. An escape, at least for an hour or so, from all the traffic, and hecticness of life, and uncertainty, all the Starbucks lines and Costco Cowboy trucks riding your back bumper and the blandness of this “civilization.”

This blog will probably get eight views if that. I have no idea how to reach people. I need a manager who runs the marketing team including someone to shoot professional videos. I need someone or someones to be the sensible person who understands how to make everything S.E.O. and everything but I…

I am just Izaak. I am trying to be something I am not, an ideal. The me I feel the necessity to present to the world where indifference is an art form.

Maybe you feel the same, perhaps this is why you have read this far...