Bleeding Heart Capitalist

I’m an Artist. 

My income relies on my ability to

acquire raw materials, add value, and sell my products at a profit. That makes me a Capitalist. My choice of professions tells most people that I am a hopeless, bleeding-heart Liberal. My modest success in the field, however, aside from being an extremely rare phenomenon, means that I know something about business - a condition that implies that I must be a Conservative. 

Oh, and I used to be a Doctor, so I have at least a basic understanding of the healthcare industry.

There. Now that we have the labels in place, let me say a bit more about what I do: I make art. Not food, not clothing, not shelter. My products are not essential. I know my place in the system. That said, most of the goods and services exchanged in our national marketplace are not essential, either. We don't have to have big, shiny cars, or soft drinks, or cell phones or hair gel to survive. We do have to have all of these things and more, though, to maintain a thriving economy.

I also know something of my potential in this economy. Each year I sell thousands of pictures to happy customers all across the country. My customers are all knowledgeable, relatively healthy people with a certain amount of disposable income. They have to be. If they weren’t all of these things, they wouldn’t understand my drawings, much less appreciate them. Nor would they have the means to purchase my artwork. To keep my business going, therefore (and to keep myself supplied with food, and clothing, and shelter), I need a growing pool of potential customers who fit these three criteria. And because I’m Selfish, I want to do everything I can to make more people smart, and healthy, and rich.

I keep trying to imagine how much more successful I could be, (and how much better every American business could be) if everyone in the United States had a quality education, were gainfully employed, and had reliable access to healthcare. Throughout my lifetime, I’ve noticed that one political party has worked toward these goals, while the other has consistently supported legislation that serves, on a very practical level (regardless of its stated intent), to make people sicker, and stupider, and poorer.

And that’s just bad for business.

It seems pretty simple to me: Sick people can’t go to work, and they can’t succeed in school. That means they can’t make money, and they don't get smarter. They certainly can’t buy designer shoes, or Big Macs, or my artwork. They also can't keep up with their mortgages, or contribute to retirement plans. In fact, health issues are the number one reason people lose their homes, and among the top reasons workers lose their jobs. Job loss leads then to even more health issues, higher drop-out rates, and more difficulty becoming re-employed. It also contributes to higher crime rates, drug abuse, and ever greater demands on inadequate social safety nets. 

“But there aren't enough jobs!” I hear people say. “We need more jobs!”

Yes, we do. But under the present system, we’re not likely to get very many. People who have no money cannot buy the things that companies make. Fewer sales lead to decreased production, and that means more layoffs, 
not more jobs.

I wonder what would happen if everyone else in the country suddenly became as selfish as I am. I try and imagine a society where people are healthy enough to go to work, have stable homes, have time and money and motivation to finish school. A social structure where fewer people fall through the cracks, and when they do, there is someone there to catch them. Then I imagine how many more homes, and Big Macs, and pieces of art that these healthy, informed, productive people might be able to buy. And how many more people would have to go to work to make that happen.

I imagine how my business might function if I were suddenly selling tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of pictures. Frankly it couldn’t. Not now. Not without more people working for me.

Isn’t it time for us to make being well a part of the definition of being American? I’d be happy to work a little harder and pay a little more in taxes to make that happen.

But maybe I’m just being selfish.

www.DSArt.com

Watch Your Language.

I loved Red Skelton – even had the privilege to meet him once – and I completely understand his choice to eschew the use of profanity. For Mr. Skelton, it was an absolute rule: “If you can’t be funny without profanity,” he told me (me, and about 10,000 others in attendance that evening),  “Chances are you aren't very funny to begin with.”

Dirty Mind

He could be right, but I sure do laugh at a colorful turn of phrase every now and then. Naughty is naughty, whether it’s George Carlin’s list of The Words You Can't Say on TV, or Red’s Mean Widdle Kid - and in the hands of gifted performers, the entire spectrum of naughty can be darned funny indeed.

Clem Kadiddlehopper’s gentle tenet notwithstanding, I confess to my own occasional indulgence in expletive expression, and confirm my unwillingness to remove an entire phalanx of communication from my creative armamentarium, either visually or verbally.

I may choose to limit what I lift from my personal lexicon, just as my wife chooses colors from her palette of paints – but I do so to enhance my work, not because I feel like I'm getting away with anything.

Not everything people do is clean and pretty. Redd Foxx used to say, "There's a reason why I use words like $%*#, and %^@&. . . People do." Such functional activities can certainly be described in non-profane terms, appropriately and to great effect. I applaud anyone creative enough, talented enough, or even virtuous enough to do that. I also applaud those who are creative enough, talented enough, and virtuous enough use scatological terms effectively, unvarnished and (sic) un-adulterated.

There's a reason why I use such language, and occasionally such imagery. These words reside in their own area of the brain, apart from our regular vocabulary. (I find that special anatomical treatment noteworthy, and endlessly intriguing.) Employed thoughtfully, they add to the content, the depth, the meaning, the clarity, and the humor of my work, as well as my daily conversation.

Children understand profanity and its appropriate use before they're two years old. They even know to modify their language among differing social groups, absorbing cues from their social environment, and directly the admonitions of parents and teachers.

After a half century of such training, even I am beginning to catch on. When I speak to church groups, elementary students, a barroom full of Marines, or even a motley group of writers or artists, I find I am quite capable of adjusting the content of my presentation accordingly. 

By the time they could speak in sentences, both of my sons understood that the word ‘dam’ meant a wall of rocks and mud that held back water in the creek, and something people say sometimes when they are upset. Their preschool teacher once pulled me aside to report that one of the boys said ‘dammit’ out loud in her class that day. She assured me that it wasn’t something he had learned in daycare, since none of her teachers spoke that way to the children, and she hoped the incident wouldn't reflect poorly on the school.

“Don't worry,” I told her. “He learned it from me.”

Her relief melted into shocked amusement. “I’ve been teaching little ones for 16 years, and you're the first parent who has ever admitted that!”

Why wouldn't I? I want my kids to be functionally literate as they navigate their way through life. Profanity, from the vulgar to the refined, will permeate their experience in society, in popular media, in literature, in their business and personal interactions.

Ignorance is seldom an asset in the real world.

When my kids were a little older, around 6 or 7, they wanted to see a Jackie Chan movie (which I was assured would be ‘family friendly’), to celebrate their advancement to yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do.  Chan was as jovial and entertaining as ever, though his partner relied more on verbal assaults to subdue bad guys than his martial arts skills.

On the way back to the car, my seven year old asked the obvious question: “Dad, why do grown-ups say ‘bullshit’ so much?” – a query that instantly brought back the taste of the ivory soap that my grandmother used to wash out my mouth, the first and only time I uttered that word in her presence. Must’ve been just about his age…

“Dad?”

“What, son?”

“Why do grown-ups say ‘bullshit’ so much? That guy sure said it a lot in the movie.”

I tried not to laugh at his innocent question, or his earnest sincerity - grateful that his great-grandmother was nowhere within earshot. Couldn't help smiling, though.

“Well, that’s kind of an adult word for nonsense, son. Grown-ups say that whenever they think of something that it worthless. I guess they could say ‘Big piles of marshmallow crème!’, but that stuff is too tasty. See what I mean?”

His little brother giggled and mimicked: “Big piles of marshmallow creeeme!”

The older boy thought for a minute, furrowing his brow as he climbed into the car, and buckled his seatbelt.

Sunflowers

“That’s silly,” he said, finally. “That stuff is not either worthless. People could put it in their compost pile. Then it would grow yummy vegetables.”

That it would, my boy. 
That it would.

Empty Nest

I have heard the admonition many times over the years from family, friends and well-meaning clients:

“Sure, it was fine for you to leave medical school to run off and become an artist, but it will be different when your kid tries to do something like that. You just wait and see...”

Well, I believe I have an answer for them.

We just said good-bye to our nineteen-year old son, the baby, recently home for the holidays, now back on his own in New York City, building a career for himself in the modeling industry.

This is our math genius, the one who does calculus in his head, the one whose participation on the high school Physics team helped them sweep the state in his senior year. The one who said, ‘No thanks’ to college, in favor of a business plan that was high-risk, reward-rich, and time-sensitive. Eighteen months into his adventure of personal discovery, he has secured food, shelter, and gainful employment, is enjoying an advancing business career, and is looking forward to taking college courses for the spring term.

And he has signed with a major modeling agency, too.

His brother is ahead of him chronologically and academically, a junior in a fairly prestigious local college where he is excelling in business and leadership pursuits. He threatens to be a successful entrepreneur when school is finally done with him, and he with it. For now he is content with the academic path.

Suffice it to say that I am immensely proud of both of my boys, and happy beyond words that they have flown the coop, and are now out on their own.

As one of the perqs of my medical history, I had the distinct privilege of delivering both of these humans, though to be truthful I was just there to make the catch. (Their mother had far more to do with every aspect of the delivery than I, or the attendant medical staff, for that matter.) Once each of our boys was clearly pulling in oxygen on his own, the nurses whisked them away for clean-up and swaddling, then placed them in a deep-dish Plexiglas tray beneath the glowing lamps of a french fry warmer for presentation to the world.

Their world, for the next few moments at least, was me.

“Hello, there,” I said to them, the first in 1991, the other one two years later. What followed was a recitation that had been forming in my mind for some time, as I watched my friends marry and become parents, as I thought about the way I had been raised, and wondered what I would do differently if ever I became a dad.

“Welcome to the land of the air breathers,” I told them. “I’m your father. It’s my job to get you the hell out of my house. And the sooner the better.”

Better to be honest, I thought, right from the get-go.

“The sooner I can give you the tools you need to make it on your own in the world, young man, the better it will be for everyone. I plan to do everything I can to provide you with enough groceries, warm clothes, bubble baths, swing sets and hugs to get you through your teen-age years at least. I will try to download all the education, information, rules and regulations that will allow you to get along well with others, and I will be the painted lines, guide posts, bumpers and guard rails it will take to keep you on the road of your life, and out of the ditches.

“There is no doubt that I will screw this up. But I will do the best that I can, and that’s all you can expect of anyone, and the only thing of value that you can offer in return. We’ll learn together, and if we're careful things might just turn out all right.

“You are welcome here. You are loved. There’s a great big world out there waiting for you, and I am honored to be one of the people who gets to show it to you.

“I’m very glad to meet you – and I suspect that this is going to be a whole lot of fun. If you need anything, just holler.

“Oh, and one more thing: I want you to know ahead of time that I will probably start to get real stupid around the time you turn fifteen. I apologize in advance. If you bear with me, I promise I’ll start to get smarter by the time you’re twenty. Now let’s go see your mom.”

Or something to that effect. Of course it was silly to speak to newborn babies as if they were adults, but I didn't want my kids to go through life without ever having heard a supportive word from their dad. My mother was taken from me at an early age for both of us, and there was no guarantee that I wouldn't fall off the planet before my sons and I had any real chance to get to know one another. And who knows – maybe somewhere in their soft little heads the feeling, if not the specific meaning of my words was already sinking in. Better said than not.

This introduction also set the tone for the rest of my interactions with my boys. I treated them like adults from day one, expecting just a little more than they were able to achieve at the moment, until they were old enough to start expecting that from themselves. And we had some fun along the way.

So, what will I say if my kid wants to run off and do something creative, rather than fit the expected molds of career track and adult behavior? I’d say that if I did my job well, they will be breaking those molds for the rest of their lives.

At our house, the boys’ room is empty now. I couldn't be happier.