Transitions

So I’ve always had this illusion, right? A fantasy that I've found myself caught up in. I had this very naïve preoccupation with the idea of the struggling, fucked up artist. In a way, I guess I felt like in order to be creative you had to live on the edge of madness and self-destruction. My heroes may have been great artists, but they were almost all tormented people. Charles Bukowski died an alcoholic. William Burroughs shot heroin for more than fifty years. Donald Goines was shot to death in a drug deal gone wrong. Yukio Mishima had himself ritually beheaded in the center of Tokyo.
Maybe the person I admired most was a young author named J.T. Leroy. J.T. was born just two years before me, in 1980, and he began publishing stories at sixteen. He had basically the most fucked up life imaginable. He was raped and beaten and mutilated and worked as a truck stop prostitute when he was still a child. He was a heroin addict and tweaker and he was HIV positive. He was also an amazing writer. His books, Sarah, and, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, inspired me about the power of art to heal and communicate. Stupidly, I guess, I felt like I had to live this crazy life like that in order to be a great artist.
So when I was homeless and shooting drugs and starting to turn tricks, I thought about J.T. Leroy. It helped me justify what I was doing, if that makes any sense.
But when I was in my last rehab in Santa Fe, well, one morning I woke up and stumbled into the main lodge to drink coffee and read the paper. On the front page of The New York Times art section was an article about J.T. Leroy. Reading it my eyes went fucking wide as hell. I learned that he was actually entirely fictitious—a scam—a character created by a middle aged woman who had lied to everyone. This idol of mine had been a complete fantasy. I was emulating a made up character. It was shocking to me, but also fitting somehow. Of course I would model my life around someone that was a lie. It really made me start to question everything that I’d always valued in terms of writing and music and everything.
What had attracted me had always been darkness and destruction and desperation. That seemed like the only truth, you know? But finding out J.T. Leroy was the creation of a middle-aged woman began to change all that.
At that same treatment center, there was a guitar someone had left behind and a few song books. Most of them were way too complicated for me, having never really played. But the one book of simple chords I could sort of negotiate was called, John Lennon: the Solo Years. Lennon’s songs were so passionate and open and real. His messages were entirely positive—about love and self-acceptance and truth. I found myself becoming more and more inspired by the hope and beauty he was expressing. That was what I craved and what I wanted to give back.
And, as I went through the process of starting to heal at that rehab, I realized I wasn’t just recovering from drug addiction, I was having to learn how to, you know, love myself and care about myself. I was having to learn how to live in the beauty of the world and allow myself to experience goodness and light and not shy away from success and happiness.
I started to embrace the positive—not be fixated on this stupid ass fantasy of the fucked up artist.
Of course, I still get caught up in it.
But what I respect and admire in people has begun to change.
And I guess it’s given me something to work toward.
Sometimes.