I see ghosts, I speak to spirits, I can
sense other people’s experience and truths. I
can see parts of the future. I don’t see these things all
the time, but sometimes I can get it very clearly.
I don’t try to understand this, because it’s
beyond my comprehension. I just struggle with
accepting it. I don’t like knowing people’s secrets because I
can get overwhelmed . I don’t like
hearing powerful spiritual voices because I get afraid
and want to run away.
Well, I don’t run away.
I’ve been given a
difficult spiritual directive
to create a
blog
about sex, death and rebirth.
I told them I see things. They thought I was nuts. I said that I speak to spirits and I do what they tell me to do. That’s what makes me a good therapist, I listen. Years later when I was doing yoga, I saw God. After that, I could draw. After that, I could work a computer. I’m building this website to reach out to you. Spirits are telling me to do this. Last fall, when I was in Venice I saw the ghost of Max Ernst and he put these pictures in my head and he won’t leave me alone until I produce them and post them up onto the internet.
(Max, Max, I’m doing it. I’m going as fast as I can. Relax and let me type this out.)
I’m frightened by the power of these pictures and Max just laughs at me. He was controversial in 1939 when he could get killed by Nazis for his art . What am I going to lose? Am I afraid that somebody’s going to say I’m a weirdo? Dr S., a big shot psychiatrist and his whole Washington staff spent two years telling me that. I heard them, I heard every one of you guys, and people have been saying that about me my whole life, so I might as well just get on with it and keep taking these photographs and not go to therapy everyday as you told me to Dr. S. . Are you satisfied now, Max? Of course he’s not satisfied, he’s never satisfied. To hell with you, Max, and to hell with you, Dr. S. I have a lot of dangerous artistic work to do right now, thanks to you both.
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At first Max told me to began photographing, Slim, a skeleton I bought from China on Ebay. I threw Slim in swamps and photographed him with a Hasselblad 500c camera. Max said that was okay, but there was much more to do.
He told me to use Auction Sniper on the internet to bid on and win, anatomically accurate baby dolls, Anthony and Evan, cover them in mud and chain them to Slim in slimy water and lily pads.
Then he told me to take photographs of dolls, put them underwater and photograph them in Blue water.
Okay, okay, so far so good. I’m putting together some pretty disconcerting imagery. It’s out there, but not super way out there. Skeletons with wings. A Doll in slime. Babies in swamps. All this is dramatic, but it isn’t that scary, is it, Max? He says it’s okay. He did more radical things in 1920. He likes the color.
Okay, Max, I’m trusting you here. He just laughs. He says he doesn’t care if I trust him or not.
He does care, but he puts on this crusty mask and is insecure letting on that he is sensitive and haunted. Max, I know.
Max, thanks a lot for bothering me more than ever.
About six weeks ago Max wouldn’t let my dreams alone, and kept telling me I had to start to work with live models with the skeletons and dolls in swamps. Nude, I asked. He just walked away. Of course nude.
I was already driving around with skeletons and dolls and chains, dragging them into the woods. Max said from the other room that he didn’t really care what I did, but you do care, Max. I know you do. I care too. That’s why I’m doing this and talking to you, and to any of you people who are seeing this now on the internet.
This is the place where everything gets serious. Before I was just playing. Now that I’m working with you on the internet, and people in the photographs, this is real. At the time I didn’t know how real it was going to be, but I had a pretty good inkling because I was plenty scared that night, and because I’m psychic.
Modeling agents just got me off the phone so I began posting these want ads at
a university and some coffee shops around. They wouldn’t let me put it up at the post office. They wouldn’t let me put it up at a bar at the college. Of course I was going to get a hard time about doing this.
Nothing happened for about a week, and I thought that the ad just frightened
everybody away figuring whoever took the picture was some psycho. My wife, who is very level headed and very grounded said that people would call, it would just take a little time. She is understanding.
I used to be very fit. Now I’m more sedentary, talking to dead people.
When I first saw her at my door for our first photo shoot I was frightened
that she was beautiful. Right away I sensed a tremendous sexual charge from her
that was tempered by a visceral, dull sadness. She was depressed.
Now depressed women do something for me. I’ll spare you the analysis.
Right away I was aroused, which scared me because I don’t cheat. I just hoped
she didn’t see, because I wanted her to be comfortable. I wanted to heal her.
I also wanted to take nude photographs of her.
Sex and boundaries are the theme.
Yes I have a sixth sense. Yes it’s difficult to deal with. But I’m not going to
betray anybody. I’m not going to hurt anybody. I’m going to struggle to make an
artistic product that is an answer, an alternative, a balance to all the porn
around us.
Did I get that one right, Max? Is this what we’re about?
Sex and boundaries are the theme.
Yes I have a sixth sense. Yes it’s difficult to deal with. But I’m not going to
betray anybody. I’m not going to hurt anybody. I’m going to struggle to make an
artistic product that is an answer, an alternative, a balance to all the porn
around us.
What, Max, I’m supposed to feel guilty? You know I’m way exposed here with all this. I’m the vulnerable guy. I’m in flesh and blood. What are people going to think, that I’m a dirty old man, that I think about sex all the time? I’m in three dimensions here. Maybe you forgot what that’s all about.
Max and I can argue.
Sure, Max, a lot of people are looking at internet porn. Of course I know that. Of course I know that pornography has to be addressed through art. You’re obnoxious, Max!
Ok, okay, Max. I’ll get back to her. Of course when she came over, my wife was at the gym. On the phone I told her I was married, and other personal things about myself and that I was channeling Max Ernst. I didn’t want her to run away, but I wanted to be up front with her. Man, she just took it all in stride. She even showed up. The big house, the computer systems, my wife not being home, this weird old guy, was scary for her. I could feel it so readily, that anxiety that electrified our bodies as she moved up the stairs like a dancer.
She just graduated . She’s back with her mom now trying to find the way that might be lost to her. She hasn’t smoked a joint in three weeks and I can feel a drug haze lift from her as we sit together in my office checking each other out, looking at my spooky photographs.
In my mind’s eye, I could see her attractive smiling father. I could see her anxious distant mother. No, no, more selfish. I could sense the divorce that hurt everyone . I could see her with two young men, playful and loving. The psychic read is confused though. I don’t see her brother, but he’s there. There’s another family, a dual focus. Secrets in Secrets. I can barely see them fleetingly and can’t grasp.
I feel guilty to do this. I feel like I invade people. But I can’t help it, Max. It just is. He waves me away dismissively. I’m entitled to be neurotic, Max. Max is so impatient with this, he just leaves. He doesn’t want to hear any of this from me. He’ll be back. He comes right back and smiles. He’s mellowed out in a hundred years.
I met Max when he was alive. In fact he kicked us off his son’s property in 1969. He was mad at my friend for dating his granddaughter in 1966. ‘That was Max Ernst ?’, I asked my friend. ‘Sure,’ he told me, ‘that weird old German guy.
Max wants me to stay focused and get on with the artwork.
He says his granddaughter is just fine. He’s worried about our model.
What about me, Max? I’m plenty scared. I’ve been feeling way too exposed blogging this onto the internet. Max says there’s a fear in America that’s hard to understand.
What if I get sued for using your paintings? He says he owns them. Max, you don’t own anything. He just snorts. He’s not listening.
This is Max’s painting called ‘The Fireside Angel’.
She just graduated . She’s back with her mom now trying to find the way that might be lost to her. She hasn’t smoked a joint in three weeks and I can feel a drug haze lift from her as we sit together in my office checking each other out, looking at my spooky photographs.
Max, you’re dead, how can you fall in love with anybody?
Max asks if he’s so dead then why are we having this conversation at all?
I say to him, “Yeah, why are we having this conversation?”
Max says he still has work to do and he’s going to create this web site.
I tell him I’m creating the web site.
Max says that I don’t have the talent. He’s sorry he said that. He admits to being such an egotist that it really got in his way when he was alive and he really wants to get this behind him now that he’s dead. He says that I’m pretty good, and that I can really hear the spirits. I’m glad I can hear him. He sits beside me at my computer. Okay Max, I’m here with you now. Let’s get this work done. Max can hardly hear me, he’s already focused on the software.
This is Max’s painting called ‘Celebes’.
This is her first picture. It was spring after a lot of rain. The Lake was full. We threw Slim into the water. She held Anthony while we talked about anti-depressants.
She just graduated . She’s back with her mom now trying to find the way that might be lost to her. She hasn’t smoked a joint in three weeks and I can feel a drug haze lift from her as we sit together in my office checking each other out, looking at my spooky photographs.
She just graduated . She’s back with her mom now trying to find the way that might be lost to her. She hasn’t smoked a joint in three weeks and I can feel a drug haze lift from her as we sit together in my office checking each other out, looking at my spooky photographs.
What’s your point, Max?
Max wants to know what my point is.
Well, hell Max, I’m telling the story.
He tells me to get real, that I was concerned that she looked dead and necrophillacs would get off looking at the web site. I was afraid I wasn’t being good for her. I was afraid my wife would be jealous. He asks if I want him to go on.
No, Max, you made your point.
Well, he asks.
Well, what?
Say it, he says.
Why should I, you said it so well.
Max gives me the silent treatment.
Max, you were the one who cheated. I don’t.
He says that I never met Peggy Guggenheim and she was a pain.
Well, you’re the pain, Max. And I did meet her, in Venice, when I met you, remember?
Well, I never lived with her, he grumbles.
Of course not, she’s dead.
He gives me this sarcastic look and gets back to the web site.
Max, when I saw you in Venice I nearly passed out. You put
these pictures in my head and walked away. But you always come back.
You were there that night when we took these pictures. All the lights in the
house flickered. Was that the ghost of my father? That’s his uniform.
He was a pedophile. He molested me. Are you there, Max?
Did you hear what I said?
I see you and then you go away. Is that what you did to your wives?
Which one died in the concentration camp? You left her behind. Peggy
Guggenheim saved you. You left her too. You left your wife, you left
your lover in Germany. Your lover escaped and fell apart but you never
went back to her.
She waited for you in Mexico. She’s still alive. A
lot of her art is about being molested. Is that what we are
about? My abuse? Guilt? Your Betrayals? Your last wife
is still alive, Max. Why aren’t you with her?
You visited our model in her bedroom, she told me.
You stay away from her. She’s not for you and she’s
not for me. Are you listening, Max?
Max sighs and leans back from the computers. He’s so
detached. But I can see in his eyes that I hurt him.
He looks right at me and tells me again what we’re doing
We’re creating an art form, a story in a story,
about how we’re creating Nonpornography.
Yes, he admits that he betrayed people and hurt people.
Max, are you the ghost of my pedophile, suicide father?
“ I’m not evil and I’m not your father.”
He’s telling me the truth.
