I do a lot of different things. I never knew what to call myself. Composer/ songwriter/ lyricist/ musician except I don’t know how to play/ artist/ interactive artist/ writer/ director/ producer/ party captain/ social planner/ technologist/ collector. By most standards totally different hats. By my standards the road to being a totally integrated, self realized individual. By entertainment industry standards a liability until the Internet finally pounded into their thick heads that someone who was self sufficient and capable in more areas than the one they signed a contract in was an attractive pet to have in the stable. With two notable exceptions my music publishers never got why I had the urge to paint, the art gallery owners viewed me as a songwriter who sometimes paints and very few of them ever got that my real artform was the Party, where all my pursuits sloshed together in one interactive swirl of social interaction and finely honed environment.

But now, 17 years after I jumped onto at that time the slow chugging train known as the Internet, the day has finally arrived where you can be whatever you want to be, with as many different talents and interests smashed together as you can manage. You can emerge as a revolutionary force if you just have the balls to offer something different. The tools, information and distribution channels are all there and the former keepers of the castle no longer hold the keys.

1992. I told you so:

So, the big realiziation is that it’s not the song, it’s not the painting, it’s not the new wall color, it’s YOU who’s the artform. Your hair, clothes, front yard, job, relationship, house, car, friends – they’re all physical manifestations of you. Your life in cyberspace, be it an accurate reflection and extension of your real self or a complete fabrication, is you splatted out on a vast neverending canvas of infinite time and space. You can exist as a little pea in a great big vast black hole or you can fill it with color, shapes, spirit and new friends and push yourself to places you could never dream of going when held to the confines of physical space and laws of the former universe and gatekeepers.

So be bold with the new extended YOU. Only decorate and inspire it with what makes you feel passionate about yourSELF. On physical and virtual planes alike cut out the crap that weighs you down, makes you feel bad, guilty, ugly, fat, jealous, angry and otherwise depressed. You may think that every decision you make is about the thing you’re making the decision about. But it’s always about you – how much you think you deserve, how worthy a person you think you are, what you think your potential is. I’ve always been good about cutting off from dysfunctional collaborators, not taking jobs for money but for the creative high or freedom they will bring. I flip careers like cooks do pancakes. But it’s never been to actually change what I’m doing but rather to evolve into whatever I think I want to be.

The entertainment industry is self destructing from arrogance and greed. They thought the Internet was a place for dorks. They thought no one but highly paid creatives, lawyers and businessmen could create content fit for mass consumption. They missed what the whole revolution was about – empowering individuals with the ability to express themselves. And what spilled out naturally and honestly – cats playing piano, homemade music videos of songs recorded by any means necessary, exploding vegetables, whatever – inflamed the imagination of the worldwide public more than any scripted by committee property ever could.

So, be yourSELF. You’re the canvas. Paint like a motherfucker. Now’s the time.

8 Responses to “You As Art”

  1. Booey

    Things I have thought about after just one visit to Allee World!

    Penguins sing pretty funky.

    Purple goes with Orange nicely.

    Obama Party rhymes with pajama party, which is ok with me.

    My spell checker does not yet recognize the word Obama.

    Jennifer Aniston is even cuter than I thought.

    Spacesuits should have flared trousers (that’s English for pants. Pants should never be flared).

    I’d like to live in a pink house. No, really.

    Boogie Wonderland is not available on Google Earth.

    It’s OK not to have paid attention in clarinet lessons.

    The internet is, as we say here in the UK, “the dog’s bollocks”.

    keep dreaming,

    Booey x

    Reply
  2. Troy

    Right on — cheers to your unstoppable Imaginimanifestation.

    Yeah. I know. Not a word, and yet the only one that seems to apply.

    Reply
  3. AM

    This is like a manifesto for the creative soul. Thank you – I am greatly heartened.

    Reply
  4. Allee

    Love the concept of Imaginimanifestation. Thought it should drop a syllable to sing great but the more I mumble it the more it seems like it would drop into a groove. Imagine. Manifest. Live!

    Reply
  5. Samantha Murphy

    Hi Allee.

    I’m painting like a motherfucker! Getting ready to edit the piece we filmed together. It will air in early October.

    Peace and happiness to you!

    Samantha xo

    Reply
  6. Carolyn Slone

    Alleeeeeee! You, honey are my new hero. I am now reinspired to write that comic strip and get through my son’s bar mitzvah. We might have to do it Allee style and make a video!!!!

    Reply
  7. lynndelmerico

    Hello..im an old friend of Jerry Thill and enjoyed her vidio and also reading your interesting comments about life etc. I wondered if I ever met you in L,A when I was playing trumpet with groups and stuff???Lived there in the 50s then back to Ny and other musical ventures…yadiyy yad…so am now in San Diego…retired and missing all my friends in L.A ..do you remember Betty Ohara..Kellie Green(maybe you could do a thing on her life as a pianist..unfortunonatly had a auto accident and is now paralized and bed ridden…..Kellie was a great talant…and Betty also…im sure you met plenty of those female chicks who were the best???Hope to hear from youAilee..keep up the interesting work..maybe Ill meet you in L.A when I visit Jerry soon…the best Lynn

    Reply
  8. chat roulette

    Thanks so much People cannot go wrong, if you don’t let them. They cannot go right, unless you let them. ~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

    Reply