The artist is always an outsider in whatever culture
he belongs to. That's
his job, his raison d'être.
He sees things from a slightly different angle.
He
can see things from his perspective that
most of his age-mates don't see from
theirs.
He witnesses. He testifies. He rubs their noses
in it. For this,
he is not deified, he is reviled,
by the establishment, and the suckasses who
want
to join it. This is the normal process.
You ain't special. You ain't the Lone
Ranger.
All my mail art friends are scuffling after
all these years. Still
scuffling. All my
small press friends. I'm doing better than
some and as
good as most.
I'm not special.
I'm ordinary.
This comes
with the turf.
Colin
Wilson wrote The Outsider.
George Orwell wrote Down and Out
in Paris
and London. Henry Miller wrote
Tropic of Cancer. They didn't sit
at the feet of
Gertrude Stein while their wife chatted with
Alice B. Toklas.
Hemingway thought he was
an outsider. He thought he was rejected by pecksniffs
and
ticketpunchers. Apparatchiks. He was. One is.
Get over it. Don't be seduced
by the glamour. The romance.
"Psychiatric and Cultural Pitfalls in the Business
of Getting a Living."