my favorite magazine Black Webmaster

was considering putting me in the Black Webmaster Hall of Fame but there was great controversy on their editorial board because some were arguing that i dont have the html and php and blahblahblah skillz that theyd like to see for such an honor.

somehow the conversation got shifted to creativity.

someone on the conference call asked me how i get my Soul to the creative Place.

i said thats none of her business but there is a Place and it does take a little searching around to find it and sometimes you have to do some questionable things to get there but it’s like breaking through any sort of zone, comfort zone, 3-4 zone, prevent defense, virgin zone, its gonna take something different to get there otherwise its not a zone at all.

they were all huh?

i said you have to concentrate. sandy koufax said that pitching is relaxation and concentration, and so is creatitivity. id say that its relaxation and so much concentration that youre not even concentrating any more, youre just being the conduit, the pipeline, the highway, the route. your assignment is simply to get the fuck out of the way.

they asked, do you have to take drugs to get to your Place.

i said, no. i do my best stuff in the early mornings before anyone has come into the office. the xbi doesnt mind if you pop pills or smoke or drink, all they want you to do is think fast and not do anything stupid so if drugs can get you into that mindset then go for it, but if youre a doper and you fuck up you will get your ass kicked by about a dozen marines who dont play that shit. no i dont need drugs to get to my place, i just need to zone out. or zone-in as dr leary might say.

the mornings are good for me because symbolically the daytime is the blank slate that one sometimes needs to allow for Anything to happen.

i was getting blank stares through the speakerphone. these people were tech heads and i wasnt. but i was sure that even in science and engineering there was room for creatitivity and imagination and making a possibility out of an impossibility, and i asked them, isnt that so? they said yeah, sorta. and i was all, what about the dude who cloned Dolly? that was science and imagination all in one but it started with an idea then it took root with a theory based on that first idea and the rest was just mechanics. the same goes for art of any sort. picasso says i want to do cubism and once he figures out the framework and the subject matter the rest is just fill in the blanks. color by numbers.

someone said, why should we consider you for the hall of fame? i said you shouldnt. i dont want to be in any hall of fame. hall of fames are for old people and even though im 111 and old at heart im young in mind and thats where i will be for a long long time, if you put me in the hall of fame then i have nowhere to go.

and thats how i got my nomination for the black webmaster hall of fame.

reverse psychology even works on smart people.

especially once you dazzle them with bullshit.

amy + steve + stereogum

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