Jumped the Shark

The Fonz

Happy Days was a great show that I watched every week as a kid.  In one episode the Fonz jumped a shark while water skiing.  Many felt the show went down hill after that.  From that episode, a new term in TV was invented, jumping the shark.

Jumping the shark is the episode when a tv series turns from being great toward its grave.  We all see it and recognize it either when it happens or reflecting back after the series has ended.  These downturns can include cast changes, stupid plot lines, gimmicks, old jokes, clip shows, or many other lousy tricks.

I am a big Battlestar Galactica fan (the new series).  Even with that great series, which I feel was always good and ended at the right time, it jumped a shark.  For those BSG fans, the moment came for me during the first episode of the third season.  For many reasons, that episode dimmed the show's greatness and never recovered.

With all that said, I've been rereading my old posts and reflecting on them.  I am not sure if this old boat named The Sensual Seven Seconds, has passed its glory days.  As of late, I've felt it has lost its edge, edginess, grit, purpose, and way.

After rereading all of my posts, the only recent articles I believe have merit are the Proust Questionnaires and my Rome travelogues.  These hold up well due to the gift of others who share a bit of their life with the readers and me or because Rome felt fresh and new to me and gave me a kick in the ass.  My last post that I feel pride about was titled, Yeah, You Have One, But Do You Own it.  It had an energy and punch that I liked and don't see much of in my recent posts. 

In the book, Art and Fear by David Boyles and Ted Orland, they write:

"In essence, art lies embedded in the conceptual leap between pieces, not in the pieces themselves.  And simply put, there's a greater conceptual jump from one work of art to the next than from one work of craft to the next.  The net result is that art is less polished - but more innovative - than craft."

"... yet curiously, the progression of most artist's work over time is a progression from art toward craft"

"At any point along that path, your job as an artist is to push the craft to the limit - without being trapped by it.  The trap is perfection: unless your work continually generates new and unresolved issues, there's no reason for your next work to be any different from the last."

"For you, the artist, craft is the vehicle for expressing your vision.  Craft is the visible edge of art."

I see my problems with my blog come from three areas, complacency, cowardice, and indecisiveness.

Complacency
I've written over three hundred posts.   I have it down to a craft.  I know what usually gets good comments and write those things.  I show the occasional nude photos from my few sessions with models.  I include a music video and then maybe a photo note.  What a great recipe or crafted item.

In the beginning, I didn't know where this blog was going.  Everyday I went after a new shiny object to write about and explore.  Some were bad, some were good, and some were my best.  I explored many topics: suicide,  sleep, Shakespeare, multiple areas of sensuality and sex, and movies.  It was fun and new.  I had a whole world to write about and see what I liked.

"As the Zen proverb suggests, for the beginner there are many paths, for the advanced, few." 

The blog is a relationship between me, my writing art and craft, and my audience that makes an interesting menage a troi.  Like any erotic, sensual, and/or passionate relationship, the members become complacent and assume the other will always be there.  The passionate spark during the intercourse of writing and photographing (me) and the reading and consuming my posts (you) dims over time.  I began to expect your comments on my posts and you knew what type of mood I was in, how my work and home life was going, my limited number of models I worked with, and most of my sexual/sensual tastes.  That spark is probably dimming for you and I don't feel it much either for what I write and publish.  I've become complacent in my posts.

Indecisiveness

What am I going to do with my life?  What should I photograph?  Do I dare go there?  What will they think?  Should I follow my passions deeply and completely or safely from the edge while I earn a good salary?? (which leads to)

Cowardice

All of my readers who share comments are fellow bloggers.  Most of you are following your deep passions completely.  I am not, I am playing with them, teasing them, but not committing to them.

I had a failed business.  One of the reasons it failed was that I could not go balls deep.  That is my crude way of saying that I was not all in and committed to it.  I didn't make that commitment for two reasons, I didn't love or care about the business I was in and also I was a coward and afraid to make a commitment to make it work.

I am afraid to make the big leap.  I am afraid to put my true self out there out of fear of rejection or even worse, nobody even noticing or caring.

I am embarrassed by my cowardice in that I haven't photographed a nude model since July 2, 2009 because I am too afraid to do it.  While local support for my photographing nudes has been grudgingly given, the nuisance and extreme effort and toll of doing it does not feel worth it.  I miss doing it.

I am afraid of taking this blog into something new that may alienate my small audience and lose the friends I have here.  On the other hand, I think I am going to lose you all due to the weakness of the content I produce.

After the harvest, almost time to go

Whatcha Going to do About it Big Boy??

Here are my options -

1. End this blog with a simple good bye and thanks, archive it for future book or essays I can pull out quickly and then don't look back.  Maybe blogging was a needed phase for me and now I need to move into other outlets.
   
2. #1 but also start a new blog.  Get rid of this habitual form of craft and find a new venue that is not burdened by the old.
   
3. Think of this blog as a building in need of a restoration and new interior.  Reinvent it, evolve it, and find new inspirations.  Try to find my passion and artistic reason to change it from a craft back to art.

I am not sure which way I am going to go.  I know I need to choose soon though.  I can feel the need to do something about this in my bones.



Pretty good song summing it up.