Eight years in the City

Hey.

The present in the past is like a servant who treads besides you, steps so softly you'd barely know where they'd progressed.  Their desires, what they take from you, what minute rearranging has occurred by their steady watch - this body, the room and its set pieces, the real estate of your heart.

They even take a screwdriver to your temples as you lie asleep, sifting out the old shadows, the prior half-stitched narratives, spooning new ones in their stead.

So, rather than recount the prior year in detail (which included a wonderful wedding, visits to California, and the gift of a stubborn, wickedly clever black pug), I thought I'd repost my 40 goals for the next 40 years.  They're broken down into four categories - Silly, Career Goals, Goals to Invite and Help Others, and Self-Care goals.

Love and thanks to you,

Jara

1) I will learn the supernatural ability to read people’s thoughts, and only when I wish to do so. I will be able to influence others and myself with only my thoughts, and only for the positive gain of both each person’s living path and the collective peace of the universe. An example - I won’t make anyone billionaires, and I’ll gently but effectively persuade the rich to balance the scales. (Silly #1)

2)I will campaign to ensure people know who I am and what I do. (Career #1)

3)I will accept in the marrow of my bones that there is always enough time for everything. I alone control what’s important , how much work I accept into my life, how much sleep, how much room for love, for family, for friends. (Self #1)

4)I will return to the blank resources and commit myself to make shitty first steps. They are not the complete journey, but the only path towards creation. (Career #2)

5)I will begin the lost practice of letter writing . My penmanship, while earthy and imperfect, will guide me to write letters of substance and only continue a letter correspondence with other earnest lives. (Others #1)

6)I will be the first person to play mumble-de-peg in space and win. (Silly #2)

7)I will return to books, to reading with the same voracious appetite as my youth. All subjects, all sizes. I will put down a book when it no longer satisfies me rather than slog through the tedious, the half-written, the smug and vacuous. (Self #2)

8)I will be the mentor for others that I do desperately wish for myself. (Others #2)

9)I will actually say what I goddamn want and need, or what I’d like, rather than couch it in stammers and surprise passive-aggressive behavior. (Self #3)

10)I will check in on one new person a day, by email, by phone, etc. to be humble and curious about their lives and what’s living in their heart. (Others #3)

11) I will form a professional relationship with Paul F Tompkins as fascinating and convergent as Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla. I will create a project in which we directly work together and he is lauded by the mainstream and given greater career prosperity. (Silly #3)

12)I will ask for professional favors. I will let go of the fear that I’m weak to do so or bothering people and accept that people want to help one another (Career #3)

13)I will be kinder to my body and recognize that it is good and beautiful right now, scars and weight and imperfect. I will give myself exercise and healthier foods not out of punishment, but as a gift (Self #4)

14)I will make Barbara Sher’s living goodness of a manual. Wishcraft, a kinetic practice in my life. I will create and maintain a series of periodic barnstorming sessions , where others can help one another with the skills they have (Others #4)

15)I will submit to poetry and play contests/publishers once a month. Career #4)

16)I will write, record, and perform the best country song ever. (Silly #4)

17)I will become a master of self-hypnosis, and utilize the plasticity of the mind to settle and enrich myself. (Self #5)

18)I will admit to myself that I have deep knowledge of several subjects and offer my time and expertise to share this with others.(Others #5)

19)I will make yearly pragmatic career goals and cultivate a malleable business plan and creative team (Career #5)

20)I will live my life so that the mention of my name becomes a word in the dictionary for a positive effect ( Silly #5) 

21)I will embrace new clothing for my age/body type and purchase/replace clothing more often. (Self #6)

22)I will return to volunteering - it doesn’t have to be grand. It can be once every three months. (Others #6)

23)I will write down three new ideas a day without judgement. (Career #6)

24)I will create a one man show which will require me to throw a tomahawk across the room and hit a target with and non-career related purposes. (Silly #6)

25)I will learn one fun, non-creative skill a year.(Self #7)

26) I will give the future children I may have a safe, honest, and empowering space to share their feelings about mental health, dreams, and love. (Others #7)

27)I will continually update my tools. (Career #7)

28)For my future children, the first word I will teach them will be mama. The first phrase i teach them will be “mama is cool”  Silly #7)

29)I will meticulously archive songs , stories in an accessible place (chord tabs, drafts) so others can use and build upon them after I’m gone. (Self #8)

30)I will give my friends and loved ones surprise gifts. No celebration required. (Others #8)

31)I will take classes to further develop myself as an artist and a business. I will examine the fear I hold as being a mediocre student and a fraud, of skewing my focus towards wanting to please instructors and fellow students rather than delve into the holy mess of growth. (Career #8)

32)I will eat at ALL the Thai restaurants in NYC, and I will pull off Thai cooking as good as what I made in Chiangmai (Silly #8)

33)I will buy quality items that cost more rather than cheaper items I constantly have to replace. I will stop living in a scarcity mindset .(Self # 9)

34)I will pass on the tales of my father and my mother, both masterful storytellers in their own way. (Others #9)

35)I will remain current and informed on all recent trends in theatre and voice over - new tools, new artists, new styles within each medium. (Career #9)

36)I will surround myself with more magic in my life - literally. I will reopen’s Phil Flad’s dear college graduation gift to me and resume the childhood joy I once had in learning and executing magic tricks. I will remind myself that sometimes magic exists in this world, that I don’t have to know everything, and that’s ok. (Silly #9)

37)I will reach financial solvency, pay my debts, and save enough for my family expenses and my older years. (Self #10)

38)I will start and endow a college scholarship and post-college award to those foolish and brave enough to want to make things all their lives. One yearly will be awarded to upcoming freshman majoring in the arts and be based on income level, a submission/audition, and an interview. The second will apply to artists post-college, just starting out and will award them funds to make the bumpy road just a touch easier. (Others #10)

39)I will transform the dreaded practice of networking into a more honest, inspiring ideal- to cultivate relationships with mutual admiration and intention. (Career #10)

40) I will finally learn how to correctly throw a goddamn boomerang. (Silly #10)

Photogenic Failure

Hey.

I have grown so goddamn sick and tired of keeping this barbed wire coat of failure wrapped tight for more than two years now.

I'm not ok.  I need help out.  I don't know how that comes.  A mentor or booking a gig or taking one of my shows out of the closet and giving it life again, maybe.

Researching this essay, I wanted to start off with a quote.  A footprint from someone or something in poetry or literature which did more than your typical "turned my failure into cobblestones for success" pablum.  Somebody who really knelt down, took the punches, coughed the blood. Shivered in the silence. And was left there with nothing but their thoughts.  For ages.

Couldn't find that.  So I guess I'll write that.

The story starts November 2015.  King of the Hobos , the result of three year's workshopping, brainstorming, and obsession, was now a three week run in Brooklyn.  I formed a production company. Got a real grown up publicist.  Went over budget, but felt optimistic that I could turn a corner, make this work.

By November's end, it was a terrible, terrible bomb.  77 people attended in total those 11 shows.  I got hit hard with debt.  Nobody bought the music.  

I remembered the flat, cold in my father's eyes after his second bankruptcy, when his bike shops closed.  He was so damn proud that one Christmas he got a front-page spread in the local paper, having us deliver bikes to the even more disenfranchised (which until that day, I thought wasn't even possible)  And now, it was over.  He kept trying, one get-rich quick scheme after another, but he never swung with the full strength ever again.  Fear sat on his chest, held his throat.  Made a quiet man even more taciturn.

Same with me.  I couldn't bear to look people in the face after being such a failure as a producer, as a performer.  Starting refusing invitations to see folks.  I'd creep into social media less and less, each time in disbelief over those who still had the gumption and the spirit to hawk themselves so ardently -see my work - read my twitter - buy my stuff -  Didn't they understand?  I thought, tears coming to my face.   Didn't they know somehow in the root of their bones that we're so horribly broken and withered up and nobody wants what we're selling?

I couldn't make work anymore.  Every song attempt make me flash forward to the ramifications of production costs and audience accessibility  - is the subject matter going to be too goddamn weird?  And I'd stop before I'd even plunked out a draft.

I auditioned heavily in the vise of failure, but it felt so useless.  I'm sure I wore it on me like a bad cologne.  A blunt, weary focus.  Fifty auditions in 2017 alone and nothing - no callback, no work.

I am so, so sorry for being cold and distant to everyone.  I'm sorry for not being more open as a friend these past few years. I'm sorry for not seeing your shows, for not being as supportive and kind and welcoming as I should have been.   I'm sorry I haven't been able to talk about this oppressive weight.  It still makes me fall apart when I think about it.

I want to get better.  I want to be free from this failure.  I want to be able to make things again, just enjoy making them.   I hope making this public opens a door to that growth.

Love,

Jara

What's Going on - and Why You Should Join My Patreon

Hey.

Wishing everyone a warm and loving holiday!

Been a bit deliciously occupied with matters of the heart, and I just wanted to make a pitch to everyone as to why you should spend pennies a day to become a patron on my Patreon account:

1) As of this writing, there's FIVE HUNDRED EIGHTY FIVE pieces of artistic content.  (songs, poems, plays, essays, videos, and more)
2) ONE HUNDRED SIXTY SIX of these odes and nonsense are FREE!  Right now.  I'm serious.
Check out some playwriting, hear a song, enjoy some nonsense.
3) There's NINETY ONE essays (Patreon Diary Entries)  covering a raw, unfiltered look into my mental health, my artistic mind, my obsessions, my rivulets of hope. My small joys and the grateful love I've received this year.

Here are the topics:

3/18/15 – Making Art out of Hobo

3/25/15 – Showing Up

4/1/15 – Taking Time, Getting the Card

4/8/15 – A Diet of Expectation

4/15/15 – The Shakespeare Marathon

4/22/15 – What’s Next?

4/29/15 – Every Day’s a Gram of Failure

5/6/15 – Self-Care

5/13/15 - Art

5/20/15 – Self-Promotion

5/27/15 – The Unanswered Question

6/3/15 – Scratching Out Hobo Edits

6/10/15 – The Reading

6/17/15 – Prison of Self

6/24/15 – Dudes Writing Romantic Comedies

7/1/15 - Need

7/8/15 – The Tub

7/15/15 – Why Games Matter

7/29/15 – The Chest of Drawers

8/5/15 – August

8/12/15 – Hypnosis

8/19/15 –The Heat

8/26/15 - Lessons

9/2/15 – Where’s the Fire?

9/9/15 –Testing, Testing

9/16/15 –Dating

9/23/15 –Gambling

9/30/15 – The Absurd

10/7/15 – I Need Help

10/14/15 – Being Favored

10/21/15 – Hey, Remember the Time We Pretended We Ain’t Got No Arms So We Could Get Free Muffins?

10/28/15 – This Weathered Old Guitar, and a Homely Face to Tell My Tale

11/4/15 – Every Heart Got a Song to Sing

11/11/15 – 20 Answers

11/18/15 – If You Ain’t Scared, You’ve Got No Skin In the Game

11/25/15 – Waiting For the Other Shoe to Drop

12/2/15 –Doubling Down

12/9/15- Wiping Your Feet

12/16/15 – Re-Entry

12/23/15 – Todo Tiene Solucion, Menos la Muerte

12/30/15 – One of Three

1/6/16 - Nicknames

1/13/16 – Go To Hoboken, Go To the Temple

1/20/16 - Butterflies

1/27/16 – Muscle Memory

2/3/16 – Seasonal Affective Disorder

2/10/16 - Mood

2/17/16 –The Ouija Board

2/24/16 –Square One

3/2/16 – The Boomerang

3/9/16 - Immersion

3/16/16 – Well’s Dry

3/23/16 – Criterion Velocity

3/30/16 –Hold Music

4/6/16 – All You Need is the Cage

4/13/16 – Scissor Sisters

4/20/16 - Sometimes

4/27/16 – Changes

5/4/16 – Cattle Call

5/11/16 – A Mirror is Glass + Motion + Time

5/18/16 – Love-Apples

5/25/16 –Picture Puzzles

6/1/16 – Twenty Unasked Questions to Twenty Different People

6/8/16 – Finding a Mentor

6/15/16 – Making Room

6/22/16 – All it Takes is a Phone Call or Email

6/29/16 – Sin Eaters

7/6/16 – Guests in This Hotel

7/13/16 – A Song I Didn’t Write

7/20/16 – The Woman in the Blue Dress

7/27/16 – I Am a Pretty, Pretty Princess

8/3/16 – It’s Just Business

8/10/16 – Looking for Spiders

8/17/16 – Run in the Rain and Get Soaked Faster

8/24/16 – A Suspecting Model

9/7/16 - Body

9/14/16 – The Voice

9/21/16 – Reading For Fun

9/28/16 – Catalog

10/5/16 –Swallowing Fire

10/12/16 – The Chocolate Factory

10/19/16 – Ain’t No Pockets in a Board Overcoat

 10/26/16- The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

11/2/16 – Typing Passwords in the Dark

11/9/16 –What Can Be Done?  Maybe That’s It.

11/16/16 – Pulling Out the Smoke Alarm

11/23/16 - Reclaimed

12/7/16 –Mani-Pedi

12/14/16 – Keep Your Head Up

12/21/16 – Completing the Circuit

12/28/16 - Honk

Give yourself a gift for the upcoming year and become a patron today!

Love,

Jara

New Poem - Hoodoo - and some housekeeping

(peeks at website)
(grabs a broom and sweeps up the cobwebs)

Hey.

Been a busy time.    The Patreon site and my official website have been posting continuous updates on the past few months, creatively.

Here's some updates -

The Pirate Song - I recorded a high quality version and it's available to stream on this site or you may purchase it on Bandcamp!

A new poem - (again, new for non - Patreon folk)  At this point, you're a fool if you don't snatch up the chance to view over 500 pieces of creative content PENNIES a day. Do it now!


HOODOO


Where your

bottle trees?


You bring your

maw-maw

all the way

up this here parish

and it's like you're holding

a yard sale

for wickedness.


You got trees. Get them bottles.


String em up, face em east.

Sun'll burn those demons out like

skeeters.



What that?


Ain't no demons

in your lil camelback shack?


Aww.

You're cute.


Lucky you -

I've got my book

'o spells:


We ain't gonna

pass by your sister's

'til we read together

some Psalm one-o-one.

New Poem - Wet Cement

Hey.

Here's another poem based on a Patreon donor prompt.  There's hundreds of hours of weird, wonderful content on the site; all yours for pennies a day!  

WET CEMENT

Clinker:

The raw, inert 

guts

poured into a bucket.

Activated 

with common water.

(too little

and the end result

cracks)

Hands steady.

We pour.   Somewhere,

A clock's heart throbs.

One day, two (maybe) -

And it's set.

Tending to the surface.

Smoothing out 

the anxious bubbles.

Imprinting our descendant's skin

which preserves for 

half a century, long after

we mere carpenters

surrender our trowels,

our gauge rakes, our 

artisan paddles.

Night.  A shift concluded.

We sleep.

That tabula rasa 

stares expectantly

at the moon, its godmother.

Lovers, vandals, the 

hulk of anonymous

men,

starving for any 

lasting impression,

they too may leave

a mark; scratch out their 

initials, scar this

constructed child

with a careless 

tire print.

We prepare.

We cordon off.

We erect warnings.

We compound with quality materials.

We broker faith in our neighbors.

We fret.  Too many pock-marked

progenitors

littered with selfish influence.

It's just concrete, you say.

We bow our heads,

casting concern upon 

the  trodden, rough-shod ground

while others amble, cock their chins,

eyes skyward.

IT'S ALIVE - Jara's Brand-Spanking-New Website!

Hey.

I've connected all the acting, music, Patreon, and writing (both here and on other forums) to my official site:  www.jarajones.com  !  Give it a spin; let me know what you think...

Love,

Jara

New Poem - Oneironaut

Hey.

Here's a new poem (but super cool Patreon folk got to see it first - you should totally be one of them)

ONEIRONAUT

You.  You till

That fertile lie:

What you, sensate,

Clarify as your self-sure

Surroundings,

Is binding. True. 

Persistent.

There are ghosts

Suffering

Between the minute

Atoms

Of your unswept floor.

The screen

To which you fixate

In hazy surrender

Is not static;

Rather, its canvas

Tears draft upon draft

In rapid succession

Yet the eye

Betrays witness.

The night is a malleable clay.

The day, likewise.

I have seen

Plastic drinking straws

Pierce the hide

Of a brutish white birch tree.

I have crept, silent and custodial, into my mother's dreams.

I straighten the dream-table.

I discard the dream-waste.

I launder the dream-garments.  Hang them to dry on the dream-patio.

And

In my own

Frequent confrontations

With the wizened

Night-Incubus,

I act as script supervisor.

Surely,

I challenge,

you've realized

This character,

My father,

Has expired. 

My skin

is not wire-shackled;

An airplane

Cannot guest

A serpent,

Three-headed, rapt

With hunger.

I rub my hands together.

Cradle the dream-beasts.

Mash their form into

A microphone

Or a talk show

Or a bookstore

Or a soundstage

Or a theatre.

I do not accept their false face.

Rather,

I craft another,

Shadow following shadow.