Artists are kindred spirits. Well, mostly they are... like that group in the summer of '58 on Cape Cod. There was the piano player, the sketcher, the painter, poets and beatniks... and the girl drummer. That group... they were kindred spirits living the artist life.
The artist life is quick writing, fast painting, sand in your shoes... sunburn and drink, moonburn and smoke... it is Daniels Jack and Stevens Jack... Jacque, Jacque, Jacque! It's all those things. Panatelas, the Freshmen, and saxophone players.
There is this guy I know and he said and he is probably right, "...just say you are an artist and by God you are an artist!"
But there is a way to tell an artist. They don't complain. They don't complain about litterbugs or bad drivers... theirs is a more important journey than the petty sniffles and hisses of complaining. For me that is how you know an artist is an artist... he (she) don't complain.
But back to that group in 1958: Bob the piano player, Peter the sketcher, "so and so" the painter (cannot remember her name but she painted about chess and she painted heavy - in oils), poets and beatniks Kerouac Jack and the Artiste du Jazz... and Jean the drummer.
When writing about 49 years ago, there are things you can't remember and things you don't want to remember - all quite neat - fact checking, the hell with that! Take the kinship of Kerouac Jack and the Artiste du Jazz; Kerouac closer to du Jazz than to Neal Cassady! Check that fact!
Kerouac Jack in his poem "Goofball Blues" gets off to an undecorative start and does the old dead thing at the end, When I am old I'll yawn / In the Flannel Grave,. The Artiste du Jazz sort of doing the same thing a few years later in "Milo Hewes," There on the stand / Died Milo Hewes, 'Jazzman of the Year.' Like sure, sure... young writers have this thing about death... like how glamorous... and of course more glamorous if it is because of drugs and/or speed (as in automobiles and planes).
Peter the sketcher put art in that show in 1958 in Marion, Massachusetts, the first annual show (the first annual of one). Bob the piano player noodles in the background "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "Bye Bye Blackbird" and "Bye Bye Blackbird." Jean on drums filling. And then she breaks into and belts out her favorite Steve Allen song (he wrote 10,000 songs you know): You're walkin' along the street / Or you're at a party / Or else you're alone and then you suddenly dig / You're lookin' in someone's eyes / You suddenly realize / This could be the start of something big. And Bob is smoking and drinking and playing "Bye Bye Blackbird." I'll arrive late tonight / Blackbird, bye bye. And Kerouac Jack and the Artiste du Jazz did arrive late, very late. They brought with them the chess painter heavy painter in oils and she brought two of her canvases called "Chess" and "Chess." They were displayed along with the sketches of Peter the sketcher, and Bob played, and Jean drummed and sang. And Kerouac and du Jazz read their poetry, puffing in unison, And the sun came up on Buzzards Bay. All quite heavy.
The End.
Footnote: Peter the sketcher had 19 sketches in that show in 1958; one sketch is said to still exist but nobody knows where it is...
Post Script: Another way to tell an artist is an artist: a real artist living the artist life will sit at the corner of a bar and drink black coffee and look out at the water and do whatever necessary to avoid painting or writing.
The End Again.
Note: Written in 2007.