“Brave is he who knows fear but conquers fear, who sees the abyss, but with pride. Who sees that abyss but with the eyes of an eagle; who grasps the abyss with the talons of an eagle—that man has courage.” —Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Artists like Neitzsche, right? You know, Friedrich Nietzsche the German philosopher who wrote Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil
and so forth and so on. I mean all really interesting people
post-Nietzsche love Nietzsche—you have the literary artists (Kafka,
Hesse, Gibran), musical artists (Strauss, Jim Morrison), artists of the
mind (Jung, Freud, Huey P. Newton) and many more. I’m not all that
fabulous but I happen to love Nietzsche, to me he is a soul-stirring
saint, a mystical sage, and a visionary prophet.
So, yes,
Nietzsche is an Artist for Artists and in one of his more obscure works
written when he was younger he told a story about the classic Greek
writer Diogenes. Do you know Diogenes? Hmm, well, it doesn’t matter
because I’ve just decided to steal Nietzsche’s story about Diogenes,
customize it, and make it into my story about Nietzsche. That’s what all
of the great Artists of history have done anyway: steal stuff. Even
gods and goddesses do it. Jesus shamelessly told the stories of Tammuz,
Osiris and Dionysus and all Venus did was straight up steal the stories
of Aphrodite, Ashtarte, Isis—so, I’m in good company.
Do
you know about the Viennese cafés? I have a wildly brilliant friend who
has lived in Vienna all of his life and he tells me about these places
and has even sent me pictures of them. And, interestingly, I just read a
book, Wittgenstein’s Nephew, by Thomas Bernhard, that speaks about the cafés. Bernhard admits that he has the Viennese Coffeehouse Disease.
The condition: obsessive frequenting of these cafés where various
artists, intellectuals, literati and musicians hang out discussing
intellectual artistry and musical literature and such things.
There
we find ourselves: rich dark wood paneling, plush ornately carved
furniture, tables filled with wine and drink resting in intricate
glasses, steins, bottles. Stacks of books piled next to them, ancient
looking scrolls and manuscripts. Four a.m., and only the most seriously
afflicted are still there engaging in debate. That bastard Descartes
leaps up from a table waving his terribly pretentious hat, spilling
champagne from the glass in his other hand and declares: “I know the
greatest modern thinker and artist and [insert blabbering dualistic
nonsense here]!”
From another table Plato nearly chokes on
his wine—spilling it all over his beard—to agree: “Yes! Such a good and
virtuous man whom I know as well and [insert pompous statist
authoritarian moralistic asinine rhetoric here]! A string quartet plays
some nice light music, soft, some slower Vivaldi. Schopenhauer casts a
distasteful glance toward a dark corner table that seems to be
overflowing with beautiful intelligent women—dressed in sultry long
gothic lace gowns—who are engaged in dialectical discussion. One man
sits with them, quiet, a brooding look across his brow…
I’m set to
be executed soon. Terrible, unfathomably terrible, I know, but my
people out there are letting battleaxes blaze to prevent this from
happening. I’ve thought that if I get out of here I’ll really be forced
to go to France if I was thinking of having an intimate relationship
with a woman. But then I’m constantly bombarded with tales (and
pictures!) of beautiful women from Germany. Well, of course I’m still
saving myself for Arundhati Roy, so…hell, I don’t know, but just imagine
an international contingent of beautiful, artistic Vampire chicks
(because Vampire chicks are hot) laughing, debating, drinking, and not
paying much attention to anyone but themselves and their male companion
at the corner table. And there he sits quietly whispering a few words
every so often. Glasses and bottles clink and clang as all others toast
to this great philosopher and artist who most everyone is so enamored
with.
“A good man!” someone declares with certainty.” “A
just man!” cried Hobbes with delight. Nods and exclamations of agreement
come from a table of “great masters.” This great artist-philosopher has
won all of the popular awards. Someone from a table marked “U.S.
Congressional delegation” remarks with boastful pride that our great man
was recently a keynote speaker at a White House luncheon…
Awhile
back I saw an interesting picture of the rapper L’il Wayne in a Hip Hop
magazine. In the picture he’s sitting in a chair with a very serious
brooding look on his face and he’s holding a HUGE Desert eagle
50-caliber pistol on his lap. These L’il Wayne lyrics came to mind: I’ve lost my mind/it’s somewhere out there stranded/I think you stand under me if you don’t understand it.
And it’s like, fuck, this is quite serious, terribly serious: It’s L’il
Wayne, the poet rapper with a gun, a really BIG gun and he’s just
sitting there staring, shit…
Back to our Viennese café:
“the greatest of great modern men! Such a moral man!—has arrived!”
declares a university professor with fanboy glee. The Vivaldi stops. A
second s-s-s-scratches and an orchestral version of the star spangled
banner plays as our good and just man enters the coffeehouse to a round
of grand applause from all around (except the table in the dark corner).
“Thank you! Thank you!” our great man triumphantly shouts. “Thank you!
Thank you! And [insert egomaniacal, self-absorbed narcissistic self
aggrandizing bombast here]!” S-s-s-scratch, the music stops and just as
our great man is about to launch into the conclusion of his speech—
With
lightning speed a scimitar blade slices through the air completely
severing his head. His body drips to the floor to reveal: naked, young,
beautiful, terrible—there stands Arundhati Roy, a live snake draped
around her neck and waist; a golden serpent with ruby eyes fastened
around her arm. She wears a necklace of skulls and in her right hand she
holds the Truth that is her sword, its hilt shaped as an eagle with
wings outstretched. Long black hair cascades down her body tracing the
outer lines of her swollen breasts. In her left hand she holds our great
man’s head that she has caught in mid air. A red diamond marks her
forehead, the same bright scarlet of her full sensual lips. And all eyes
go to those lips as her tongue slides across sharp fangs to part them.
She raises her sword and with a slow deliberate seduction she licks the
blood off of the blade from the hilt to the tip. And her penetrating
Kohl-dark eyes stare.
“But, but, he was our great artist,
our great philosopher, our great man,” whimpers a renowned critic of the
day…Silence…And suddenly the quiet is shattered by the harsh metallic
CLICK-CLACK of a weapon cocking—and all heads simultaneously jerk toward
the dark corner in the back of the room. A table lamp flares higher and
all else seems to go dark, only the figure sitting in the chair in
front of the table is illuminated. He’s leaning slightly to the side,
shoulders low, his head tilted forward. His right hand gripped tightly
around the handle of the huge chrome 5o-caliber Desert eagle resting on
the lap of his dark grey suit. Pin drop silence. Fuck. It’s
Nietzsche and he has a gun, a really BIG gun—and thus he speaks, his
voice low, deep and deadly serious: “A great philosopher and artist? But
how can he be great if he has yet to disturb anyone?”…
So this is my message for the modern Artist: Go out and disturb
someone. I do it all the time but I never really mean to. My Art
movement partner—yes, I do things like start Art movements here in this
little Orwellian Hell—calls this my “Barbarism,” but I tell him he’s
absolutely ridiculous and all I do is challenge norms and challenge
others to question, to think, to pursue, to create. So, yes, go out and disturb someone, many people actually, but the first person you should disturb? Yourself. (Then the rest will come naturally.)
IMPORTANT UPDATE
The
federal court has denied Rob Will’s motion on January 16, 2012. Rob’s
case is now headed to the Fifth Circuit. The clock is ticking! Rob needs
our help and support now more than ever. We’ll be posting
actions in the following days, please take part in them! Now is the time
for everyone to be fully engaged in calling, emailing, writing,
and doing whatever we can to get the word out about this ruling.
Drop a line to Robert and let him know he is not alone!
Thank you for your solidarity and support!
Find us at:
freerobwill@gmail.com
Vinny Van by Rob Will
