30 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 0 Comments

Engineering Love

“Most guys my age would have been dead a century ago, so nature’s in the throes of figuring out what to do with what appears to be a destabilization of the ecosystem…”

Question from reader:

“Dating is like low-level warfare. What’s an older single guy top do?”

Jay:

“Take a yoga class. They’re basically outpatient workshops for people with repressed rage. Of course, you’ll have to embrace their delusions or risk castration from extraterrestrials. Yoga women also tend to frequent places like museums, because they’re kind of like mental institutions without the Lithium, which means they can free-associate without being locked up.”

nuf’ said.

29 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 0 Comments

15 Days and Counting…

OMG!

December 15th is almost here!

24 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 3 Comments

Psychotic in a Trance

Free associating on the couch:

The door swings open bleeding a crimson luminescence into a vacant hallway.

It appears to carve a passageway onto the opposing wall that, from where I stand, appears to be a passageway into another dimension.

It seems like a place Dante would spend a lot of down time.

I’m in the company of three hookers and a circus seal.

I don’t know which is which because everyone is performing. The colors and shapes have merged. Everything is a kind of soupy cacophony.

Am I dreaming, or is this what’s left at mid-century?

I don’t know.

It appears that my job in life has taken on new dimensions.

Am I now steward of its inhabitants?

What else is there?

Who’s taking care of me?

An accountant, a broker, an assistant and a shrink?  And occasionally, one of the aforementioned hookers who don’t go by that professional title.

So why can’t I allow myself to enjoy all of this?

What’s wrong with me?

Why do I feel guilty about doing things for other people who keep taking and taking and taking because I keep giving and giving and giving, spending tens of thousands…and for what?

Affirmation?

Love?

For more encouragement to do more, which leads to giving more, which leads to even more affirmation, more encouragement, and more love?

There comes a point in time when life feels reductive, condensed down to a few useful pieces, rather than the universe of possibilities I carried with me as a young man. This is what you never fully get when you’re in that blessed place because everything is a projection into the future.

For those who get it all too soon, there is rehab.

You wait and wait and wait until it arrives, and then the rest is suddenly gone.

Most people who read a lot of Nietzsche label this an existential nightmare.

They’re right.

Agents, publicists, dealers, dopers, derelicts all — sucking the life out of the golden boy – now man – who deserves to be happy, particularly when he’s doing things for them.

Don’t sabotage that happiness by not handing it over.

What’s wrong with you, Jay?

Gimme. Gimme. Gimme.

There is always more. Everyone is strung out on the highs. The entitlement. The lust. You think I’m imagining these things? That my view of the world is jaundiced?

Perhaps my eyes are wide open and what I see is a running dialogue of life in the noonday sun, outside the framework of the insulated, the delusional and the dead.

This is a backstage look at what makes the performance what it appears to be to those who don’t care to know how, or why.

If you just want the performance, look elsewhere.

Go ahead and barricade yourselves from a world that’s always shoving in the opposite direction.

Arm yourselves to the teeth because you’ll need it.

I’ll still be here, broadcasting from out on the edges of sanity.

That’s my job…and that’s what’s left.

I feel like a psychotic in a trance.

Note: You can expect to pay a therapist $175.00 for 50 minutes of this. Then you can get back behind the wheel of a 6000-pound SUV.

xoxo

20 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 0 Comments

Missing Time [and, like, can I have it back?]

I have a book signing and photographic exhibition in two weeks.

The work is a culmination of a life-long struggle with existentialism and its obvious dead ends.

Just imagine heroin addiction without the highs, but all the lows.

And for better or worse my new work stands as a testament to survival through what seemed an impossible journey.

It is representative of the years spent in what I call “missing time.”

“Missing” because it was life from behind a veneer. Protected. Insulated. Fearful. As opposed to exposed, vulnerable and proud.

At one time, that was too much to ask of a man who’s entire life felt like someone else’s fantasy.

For those of you who have never put yourselves out like this, it’s like sprinting into the mouth of madness with your eyes closed.

Or like test-driving the hearts and minds of a thousand strangers with an ice pick, if that works better for you.

I have to be both vulnerable and shielded when the bullets fly, which I hope remains metaphoric.

Who am I?

What am I trying to accomplish?

And why do I care?

Three questions every artist will eventually have to answer.

My assistant, Yvonne, and the rest of the crew are my responsibility. I am friend, confident, dysfunctional parent and guardian all in one, and often at the same time.

The truth is I’m running a machine I don’t fully grasp. I grasp the vague notions and rough parameters, but the rest is still somewhat elusive.

Is it the honing in on a life in full bloom or something else?

I’ll probably never know for sure.

The people around me seem to feel more grounded about it than I do. I can only handle so much emotional compression, as I’m sure you’ve gleamed from all of this.

Sometimes I want to run away to some barren desert and sleep out under the stars with the mountain lions and Gila monsters, just to see if I have the mettle to make it out alive. Or maybe just to test their interest in such an alien form of life.

That’s the great thing about fantasy and one reason I do the thing’s I do.

So much time has passed and still I have no idea why I took this particular journey.

When people say you have endless choices, they need to realize that choices don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re the culmination of the unconscious; shaped and carved by the emotional forces of family and the genes they weave.

And that’s what this book – and the ones that will follow – are all about.

Making sense of missing time.

The time wasted in hiding – in fear, and in denial – which led to this moment in my life where everything is exposed and utterly raw.

So now that I’m free, God help me…and maybe you.

18 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 0 Comments

Winning Bar Design: A Look at Human Nature in the Context of Sex and Fantasy

If one were to remove sex and fantasy from the equation, the only people in bars would be alcoholics and fugitives from mental institutions.

With this in mind, bar owners must accept the fact that people frequent their establishments to interact with complete strangers in the hopes of copulating with them.

No bar owner should ever construe this negatively. It’s about survival in the world they’ve created, and it’s success hinges on efficacy of it’s design.

With this in mind, not everyone goes to a bar to get laid. But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like endorphins. So while they may enjoy a few drinks and some inane conversation, they’re always preoccupied with other objectives, which is what I mean by “survival” in the context of design.

With this in mind, the first thing any bar owner must do is design an environment that encourages social interaction.

This is an absolute must if making serious money is the objective.

Remember, the quality of the food and drink must be good, but the physical structure  – which includes soft, flattering lighting and sound – must always trump it.

If you can make them both good, you’ll make a killing. But if one of them is of lesser value, make damn sure it’s not the design.

Here are two immutable facts of life:

#1: If given the opportunity women will isolate themselves from men, even when it’s contrary to their true objectives.

#2: Bar owners must force social interaction through intelligent design. Women expect this, but will never admit it.

Women should never be afforded the opportunity to insulate, isolate, defend and/or barricade themselves from the rest of the population because if they can, they will.

This is an unmitigated disaster for affluent older men who won’t demean themselves like the ubiquitous packs of young males who run targeted raids on tables of attractive women the way sociopaths conduct raids on their victims before going home to their families.

The idea is to enable people to appraise one another discretely, without any pressure or annoyance.

Here are a few basic guidelines:

1] Never design a bar where patrons’ backs face the entrance, because they will inevitably seek out some vantage point where they can observe the entire room even if it means building a temporary environment of their own [usually in the middle of a walkway.]

2] Circular bars are guaranteed cash cows. In fact, any bar that wants to quadruple its gross, without spending a dime on inventory upgrades, should construct one immediately.

I know of one wine bar in town that did exactly that with unbelievable results, while quadrupling the price of the wine! This notwithstanding, the endorphins won!

Remember and never, ever forget: people are at your establishment to meet new people. They’re chasing fantasies, dreams. Think of yourself as the fucking Wizard of Oz if you want.

3] Always maintain soft, indirect lighting, peppered with table spots so people can read the menu and sign the check without exposing their physical flaws, including veneers and swelling from Botox injections.

See, people over the age of 21 have flaws, and since they can’t get in, do the rest of us a favor.

4] If other seating is part of the mix, it should be in close proximity to the aforementioned circular bar. Soft leather banquets  – preferably in blood red – are always a winner. They make it easy for people to connect visually, which is why you’ll notice them occupied night after night. Banquets also afford women the opportunity to showcase their legs and expensive footwear, which is something most people fail to mention in spite of the fact that it’s true.

In fact, most people deliberately avoid the truth because it’s bad business when you’re chasing fantasies, including your own.

“I’m not really showing off my beautiful legs and footwear. I’m just having a conversation with a friend. Any suggestions to the contrary are pure conjecture…”

Yea, whatever. Just keep coming back.

In reality, bar owners should think of themselves as glorified dating services, with additional amenities.

I spend a lot of time in wine bars, specifically, which are not as much about wine as they are about attracting a certain clientele, while repelling another. Slicing and dicing the demographic is the objective, which is fine as long as your good customers have a decent shot at walking away with more than an expensive bottle of Pinot Noir.

Ignore what I just said and you’re dead.

11 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 0 Comments

Momentary Lapse of Reason

Jackasses to the left of me, hookers to the right.

I’m under siege.

Everybody’s an idiot. I’m drowning in idiocy. I need a morphine drip. I can’t look at anything anymore because I don’t want to see what people assume they’re hiding.

No wonder they run when they see me coming.

Not the hookers, but everyone not on the payroll.

Ahem…

What the hell is this place, anyway?

And who are these morons on cable television, telling me how to live my life as though they have the slightest idea what it feels like toying with things from inside this criminal ecosystem.

No wonder they make up their own reality and hope other people buy into their delusions. It reminds me of those things called “heads of state” who fight over nuclear fuel like children playing with animal crackers.

We’re screwed.

Where the hell do these people come from?

Where are their mothers?

And why do they bore me to death?

This place is like an intergalactic zoo. I fondle the animals, pull some weeds, and incinerate the trash.

Now what?

I’m calling my mother. I have to figure out what happened the moment I was born.

Was I dropped?

Back then it was just the baby and the bathwater.

Maybe that’s the problem.

Maybe that’s why I’m so bored.

A psychiatrist said something to this effect when I was in high school:

“You are a very bright and deranged young man. Would this time next week work for you?”

No wonder I spend so much time in my head.

I guess that’s why I write, and then leave the rest for you to decipher.

So stop asking me what everything you read here means because I have no idea.

11 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 1 Comments

The Perfect Wife

Just for the hell of it, I Googled “the perfect wife,” and this is the first image that appeared under image search.

I only bring this up for the sake of irony, as this remains our post-feminist model of perfection, both physically – and presumably – psychologically.

I also liked the cold steel backdrop, which appears designed to separate the inanimate from the model. I’m not sure it worked.

xoxo

08 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 2 Comments

Gay Media Queries Me on My December Book Release and Exhibit

Box cover for my new book.

Gay Media:

Are you gay?

Me:

I identify as Heterosexual, if that answers your question.

So, you’ve never dated a man?

Forget it. I’ll be whatever works for you.

[laughter]

You talk a lot about masks. Could you elaborate?

Examples of masks appear on the news everyday.

“Oh, he was such a wonderful person. What could possibly have possessed him to blow up that church with all those people in it? Or copulate with a goat? Or commit aggravated assault over an ice cream cone?”

The fact is who we really are seems to be a central theme these days. We’re obsessed with what lies beneath an otherwise respectable veneer.

What do you mean by repression?

Repression as it relates to dysfunction — as in, it’s dysfunctional.

What prompted you to do this exhibition and book?

I could tell you about a broken romance, but in truth it started when I was an adolescent suffering with depression. Clinical depression, actually. But back in those days you didn’t talk about it, much less understand what was happening.  And it wasn’t like everyone’s bookshelf included a copy of the DSM IV.

So I learned to cope through sports, which I soon learned had everything to do with endorphins — something I never seemed to get enough of.

I swam a mile a day – everyday – for four straight years.

The illness haunted every facet of my life, including my relationships. I was unable to connect with anyone because I always felt like an outsider, even to myself.

I finally reached a point where I was able to overcome it, partly through acceptance and understanding, and the rest through therapy.

So now I’m a kind of messenger, a voice for people who can’t be heard because they’re afraid to express themselves. These voices show up in my photographs and my writing. Some of them take on sexual tones, while others are more obscure.

But sex is a persistent metaphor if only because it’s a cheap, but indispensible, high for anyone who struggles. And then there’s Heroine, but it tends to be more expensive and less reliable in the context of mortality.

Anyway, as time passed my work became the escape through which everything was siphoned – both photographic and literary. It took on colorful manifestations of this internal life. Audacious metaphors, if you will. Cross dressers, role-play of every description. I turned it all into a celebration rather than a crucible.

So here I am, celebrating an internal world that threatened to end mine forever.

At the end of the day, what this is all about is affirmation. Life is complicated enough without having to wait for Halloween to act out.

[end]

08 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 1 Comments

My Cell Phone Ate My Life.

Last night I shot my iphone with a Beretta 9mm pistol, sending its obliterated components into the bark of an oak tree across the street.

Just kidding.

I actually just turned it off, which kind of had the same effect.

I decided to shut out the rest of the world, to let life take its course without my intrusion into it. It’s amazing how deeply imbedded these devices have become.

Soon they’ll show up in our DNA.

“Yea, he’s with Verizon…”

Anyway, I’m finally at peace.

Whatever happens outside stays there. My gates are locked. The alarm is engaged. The world is gone.

That world.

This one belongs solely to me.

All of the emotional ties are temporarily disengaged. The drawbridge is jammed securely against the burnt umber stucco and steel that separate me from emotional Armageddon.

I see it as a kind of détente; a standoff that can last for days or longer, if necessary.

When you can’t feel anything you no longer care.

Just ask any homicidal sociopath.

Other people just practice yoga, including – I would assume – homicidal sociopaths.

Nonetheless, to simply not care [disconnect] is surprisingly peaceful. It’s how I imagine death; an eternal rest for frayed nerves otherwise on constant edge, absorbing and struggling to decipher the solid stream of code that beats the living into submission.

Cellular phones tie us to every aspect of life, overloading our senses and connecting us to everything and everyone. They are today’s heroin: the texting, chatting, signaling, mingling in and out of life, both public and private; cluttering it with broken signals and splintered thoughts, because they’re always splintered in two dimensions.

I keep preaching this like a psychotic on a street corner with a sign, but people pay less and less attention as two-dimensions absorbs three.

But I don’t have to worry about any of this because my phone is off and I am free.

I think I’ll order Chinese and spend the day living back in the 50’s, a time before all of this took control of the earth and we along with it.

07 Nov 2009, Posted by jay rusovich , 0 Comments

Where Feminism Lost It’s Groove

Loose notes from an industrial trash bin:

I’m a woman.

What am I?

See, it’s what – not who – because that’s what it feels like: a metallic pellet in a giant machine that rules the earth with indifference, and sometimes, disdain.

But I no longer care. I’ve forgotten that feels like.

I merely survive, and of course, feed when I can, commensurate with my performance and design.

I am bolted shut.

Soldered at the seams.

Separated from light and sound.

Without oxygen, now back in open space where it belongs.

In here there is no life. There is only form. It makes me what I am, what I’ve become.

You appraise me, running your hands up and down my spine like a Persian cat, just one little bump after the next in a long line of little bumps.

I like the way it feels, the way it makes me feel. I like the attention, being noticed, because my physical beauty has earned me this right and this affirmation is satisfying in a curious way.

Feeling anything at all.

Enjoying what I am, what I’ve become.

My skin is tough, repellent. Go ahead. Rain down on my veneer. Test the mettle of my circuitry. Think you can obliterate my nerves? Short-circuit what’s left of my neurons?

Go ahead.

Maybe then I can rest.

But you can’t.

It’s too late.

What you see are replacement parts. The rest of me is gone. You can’t find me because there is nothing to find but what you see. I have earned my place here and now I am lost in the mechanics of life.

For some reason, though, I still feel residual pain. Where is it coming from?

I’m dead.

Gone, yet vaguely raw and exposed.

How can my life hang in this nether region between these two dimensions?

Maybe that’s it.

Two dimensions.

Were there not three at some point? I can still feel something, but it’s very elusive; like a lingering echo in a canyon from beyond the last ice age.

And my sleep is no loner black and dreamless.

It’s fracturing.

Something is wrong.

Stay away from me!

Leave me alone!

I’m finally where I want to be!

I’m secure!

I’m happy!

I’m home! I swear to God I’m home!

Fuck it. Even the morphine eventually runs its course…