WARNING LABEL

FROM TALK at YAVAPAI COLLEGE

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Early on (a few weeks ago in fact) I thought perhaps I would write an all inclusive speech that would encompass the history of art, mankind, and the universe as we know it. This talk would be the basis for a trilogy that I have planned to write for some time and that will be a bestseller and this will allow me to continue to live in the style to which have become accustomed .

Later I changed my mind and thought I could possibly get a short but decent book out of these ideas.

Still later I have at times thought this talk would be the basis of a children’s book,  a low budget movie script, a reality TV show and a self help book for the artistically deluded. My ideas have continued their metamorphoses until as I sit writing this perhaps this talk will best be what you might call “a collection of random thoughts,”

I suppose the main point I want to get across to students at this point in my life is that as an artist I am to be pitied and not scorned. Yes, I have chosen this life, but I did it when I was young and innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and in addition I want to plead insanity.

Like some of you I thought being an artist was a noble, maybe a sort of romantic endeavor. I assumed it would be full of hardships but those hardships would all be surmountable. So at the age of 54, with my life spent in the pursuit of art. I find I missed the warning label.

Let me spell it out:

Art can be hazardous to your health.

LAWYERS AND OTHER DAMN STUFF

LAWYERS  (From A TALK AT YAVAPAI COLLEGE)

......But I do want to talk about Lawyers however.

I think I am at last emerging from a “midlife crises” which has griped me this past year. I assume most of you are young, and you may not yet understand the relationship between Lawyers and a “mid life crises”, but let me assure you there is a definite relationship.

I will not go into all the cultural myths of those in the throws of mid-life.

Most of you assume it has something to do with red sports cars, Viagra and women and you may be right, but my ”mid life crises”  has been about art, money and lawyers.

For my fifty third year I hired a lawyer…an art lawyer in fact.

It all has something to do with the city of Albuquerque, a large commission, the Army Corps of Engineers, the city council, a Zoo director, a woman and her husband who went to Tibet, a man with some money.  4 years of my life, Prozac, water, trees, imagination,indigestion,  Zen and God.

I cussed a lot more than usual during this last year. I confessed to my friends that I haven’t been so mad since I had to deal with my ex wife.

It has affected my artwork drastically and I am now working on a series I call “Letters to my Lawyer”

In fact I am still mad and don’t want to talk about it…. but since I brought it up let me say this: If you are considering a life in the arts, hire a lawyer before you start.

Lawyers get lots of money.

You will want to learn to do their jobs for them so that you can save your money.

It’s not really all that hard.

First learn to type.

CUT AND PASTE (THE SOCRATIC METHOD)

I  (the 2011 Ed Haddaway) AM ENTERING  THE TALK AT THIS POINT AND NOT THE BEGINNING NOT ONLY TO MAKE AN OBSCURE LITERARY POINT, BUT TO TRY TO KEEP FROM BORING THE AUDIENCE

THIS IS FROM A TALK AT NORTHERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY

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I wrote the above paragraph  [DELETED FOR THIS POST] or rather the one I just read, or however I should say it, about a year ago …Another show….. another talk....another time. It was in Arizona, on a rainy  rainy day ....I think

I haven’t learned much since then so I will still use some of it and a bunch of the old stuff in this talk..

I have improved my typing skills (which are minimal) and I am better at this cut and paste stuff on the computer,

so I plan to essentially edit the hell out of this talk and make it sound better and more meaningful.

Laziness is the mother of invention

Here goes:

[Im cutting this paragraph as you may have already read it in another post]

Ok. Truthfully, it (a life in the arts ) is not that bad….It’s just that to elicit pity it’s necessary to recount all the hardships and then some and then to dwell on them. Endlessly

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The August 2005 Ed Haddaway will here delete the next sentence or two and say honestly I don’t have a clue what is truthful anymore ….Art IS bad for your health for all I know …...Its killing me and …I feel old …My feet hurt….My teeth hurt ……..etc….. etc….etc

I am however, a believer in the art as therapy school of thought. We are all sick and need help (so they say)

Art holds out the promise of a cure but it rarely delivers.

[More Perfectly Good Material Here on the Chopping Block]

Wow That sounds pretty good…… kind of deep and meaningful ….. I guess it stays in

But I’ll cut this……….

and this …….

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I do want to talk about Lawyers however.

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No I don’t want to talk about lawyers.  At least not now….. maybe later

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Shit! right here in real time  I just realized I am typing into the original document…I don’t have a copy on the computer of the old talk ….I need to stop and start over on this thing before I really screw it up. I need to cut and paste

I’m a bit nervous this thing wont work

(That’s one of those double meaning deals….)

I am unsure of the computer and unsure if the talk will work.