Patriarch

My Granddad is the patriarch. A Godfather type aura surrounds him. He’s so dignified, so proper; he’s modern day nobility.

I’m the airport chauffeur. It was his turn this morning. So I woke up early and fought the morning traffic down to the south side of Atlanta.

I haven’t figured out how far off of normal I am yet. I communicate differently than others. I don’t have the standard inner filter that most are born with, so there’s nothing to keep me from talking about the most random things. On the other hand, I think I can make people feel a little awkward because I don’t mind silence. Everybody moves so fast; conversations can’t have silence. I like it a little bit. I like people that I can share that with.

So I’m on the way to the airport with the Godfather.

"How’s that nice young lady your brother was spending time with?"

"Actually," I had to decide very quickly how much of the information I should make known, "they aren’t really seeing each other anymore."

"Was that something she decided or he decided?"

"He did."

The buzz of his electric shaver snapped on once it was clear my answer would be brief, and I listened to it consuming stubble. It snapped off after ten seconds.

"It’s really starting to look like a nice day," he said.

I look as though I’m participating in the conversation but no words come out. Maybe some sound, but no words.

Snap. The buzzing consumes all the faint sounds outside of the car for another ten seconds. Snap.

Artist...

Artists should not be trusted. If an artist is not deceitful every so often in the cause of his art, then he is a poor artist. No one will listen to what you have to say unless they are convinced you have mastered it. Only one who has mastered a tradition has a right to attempt to add to it or rebel against it. As an artist, you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except to yourself and the truth as you see it… an artist is responsible to his art.

The artist should have a powerful will. He should be powerfully possessed by one idea. He should be intoxicated with the idea of the thing he wants to express. Every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a "universal" without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.