The morning after a whipping scene, I feel like some paleolithic guy who just discovered he could make fire. It's difficult to put a stopper on my ego. I want to fill up a blog entry with the likes of, "Look what I did! Damn, I'm good!" But, in a fundamental way, it's not about me. I have a policy of sorts about not dating actors or musicians. The actor thing is obvious, I hope. (Once I went home with a guy I cruised at the gym who turned out to be an actor. He made me a post-coital cup of coffee and asked how I wanted it. When I said 'black,' he replied, "Mmm. Balzac died from drinking black coffee." "Oh I'm so sorry," I said, "Were you very close?") But why the beef with musicians? It's like this. Most of the musically gifted that I've met are just so impressed with themselves, and get all fidgety when the attention in the room drifts away from them. Say, towards discussion of the coming war in Iraq or whtever. But often, they're sort of middle-of-the-road people, not particularly well-read or well-rounded as they spent all that time practicing. But, the experience of bringing a room full of strangers to heights of ecstasy leaves an impression on them. They think they did that. In a way they did, but in a way, they didn't. The music was Haydn's. The piano was a Steinway. The musician is just a sort of window through which we glimpse the Sublime. It helps if the window is more or less perfectly transparent, but that transparency leads the musician/window to think that it's all about them. Like Chantacleer thinking that he was the reason that the sun rose. (Musician-readers won't catch that allusion because they were practicing instead of reading Chaucer.)

So to with me. The bullwhip-signal whip hybrid I was using was made my Joe Wheeler, a master craftsman. It is a wonderful instrument, capable of turning a mediocre whipsman such as myself into a near virtuoso. My technique--at this point in my career--is wholly derivative. I've observed and studied every master and stolen... uh... appropriated liberally from them. I am but a vehicle. It's not about me.

But let's be clear... It was fucking fantastic! You should have seen that boys face! (And, if you happen by the Lure on New Years Eve, you might get your chance.)

Anyway. Gotta go move my car before I get a ticket.

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