They asked me what I wanted to do for a living.

When they initially made me First, some lady asked me what I wanted to do for a living. I said fine arts. Ok, great. So I go all out to master drawing in starbucks stores, get the show up, and nobody buys anything. And before that I get a show of oils at Truman College and nobody buys anything there. Why the hell did they ask me what field I was going into if it makes no difference to them that they know that, and they don't immediately back me up with encouraging crowd control when I make some progress? Ok, so you say, that's two shows. you cant expect results from just two shows. Yeah, two shows. These are the beachhead. You don't get a whole lot of these things. And when you don't get monetary rewards, you are not a success. You cant get married. You don't make a mark. What possibly could I have done better? And then there's this issue of my signature. I get this psychic-mentor insistence that I work on a slow handed signature as if my signature isn't ok the way it is. Why the hell waste the contact time, such as those things are, on an issue that to me is unnecessary. My signature is fine. Slow fast, its all the same. I worked on my signature intensely when i was doing oils. I have a dynamite signature. What the hell is going on with this guy telling me to work on my signature. Why not use the contact time to advise me on my asking price? That's what i really need. That, they let go completely, ignoring it, consigning me to no sales. So here I am penniless, turning 58 soon, and without a love relationship. It tell you it stinks.

Nobody wants me to succeed.

I remember sitting in a Starbucks working on a drawing of the interior and being aware of an overwhelming feeling that nobody cared what I was doing, didn't want me to learn anything about drawing, wasn't going to follow up on anything I did, and in general found the notion that I was doing my best to be a good artist totally ludicrous. I couldn't maintain my focus. And this wasn't a temporary feeling. It was with me constantly. How the hell am I supposed to be a success when this kind of nonsense is going on. Sorry, but I don't accept the Mafia's pronouncement that I haven't done my part. I got the show at a different Starbucks, despite all this opposition, and then nobody bought anything. I dont know. Seems like they're not backing me up when I do make an advance. What the hell is wrong with them?

being First

As the part 8 video in the sidebar comments on, I became First in Chicago in 1992.

What does a first person do?

Well, first, he stops trying to become first. He begins finally to make good on all his lifelong promises. So my interpretation of being First was to begin writing a journal. My intent was to cure myself of mental illness. As a result of this, in about 2003, I no longer exhibited symptoms of manic depression, one of my two diagnoses, the other being schizophrenic. The doctor took me off of my medication, Depakote. I continued to take Zyprexa for schizophrenia. Another sign I was done with manic depression was that my blood levels of Depakote were significantly reduced, indicating my system was not using it any more.

This development gave me a much wider sphere of activities, since I no longer had to be collapsing my work schedule because of attacks, my planning could be more comprehensive.

I would never have attempted such a program of self treatment if I had not had the sense of confidence that I had the authority to take on anything I desired.

This is not the end of my mental illness problem. The fact of having a history of being manic depressive is equivalent in the world of employment to the fact of being manic depressive. So i stand a better chance as a freelancer than I do as an employment seeker.

Furthermore, I am still schizophrenic, and that is a much more difficult problem than manic depression. Fortunately, my theory of mental illness gives me an advantage. (See obelisk in the sidebar).

I have a small income as a consultant. I also work as a judge of election. In this way I afford a couple of credit cards.

The plans of any monarch depend on his war chest. He must be time-effective. There are many ways to make money but most of them are fraught with time demands and self-denigration. As a monarch, I prefer to be my own boss.

Being multitalented, I can devote effort to a sequence of things, giving each my full attention.

I was a candidate for public office--Illinois state representative--at the request of the Republican Party, which I have now forsaken in favor of the Democrats. The Republicans didn't thank me when the election was over. I got 2000 votes to my opponent's 20,000, but while the norm in politics is to spend $1 for every one vote one gets, I spent only ten cents.

I began a business as an artist. I decided to learn to do portraits in public of unknowing customers at Starbucks. This I succeeded at--Starbucks held a show of the drawings I did in their store. However, though there was a flood of complimentary remarks on the show, nothing sold, so, after another few months of drawing at other Starbucks locations, I discarded all my work. They weren't commercially valuable.

Now I am developing my pinion of the world economy. It succeeded because I am ecologically situated in greater stability than Homo sapiens, as a result of having been homeless for eight years and finding other ecology units than my own species were able to commerce with me intellectually. While mankind pictures ecology as two tone, man and not-man, I picture it more diversely, and man is not the highest point on the chart. The key is that ranking intensity varies much more than Homo sapiens views it to.

Let's take a break.