SolazuleLunanegro

A green writer quits his day job in the Northwest and moves to New Orleans to master blues guitar. He falls in love with a Voodoo Queen, tells her about his vision of becoming an immortally gifted guitar master. Early one morning while bathing with her in an old claw foot tub, under the bloom of a banana tree and the smell of cyprus in the air he notices he bath water has taken a pinkish hue. She sits across from him in the water and smiles. Her deep brown african eyes become deep, her lovely brown breasts are full, her chocolate nipples erect and visible just above the water. Her full lips do not move move but he hears her voice from inside his head- "Child, you should know better than to bath in my moon blood. A spell cast, a wish granted..." The morning becomes noon and he falls asleep. two weeks later with a case of Cat Scratch Fever, he returns to Seattle reluctantly but very ill.

His recovery is slow but he overcomes the illness. In bed for six months he plays his guitar and sleeps. Then one grey day he becomes his destiny; His right hand fingers dance to long lost west african poly-rhythms, his left glides up and down the old guitar's neck with both glass and beef bone. His voice howls at the moon and sweetens with the morning dew. For months he ascends his former child self into a man of the deepest azule. He performs and shows no surprise at the response, he knows he is only just begun.

Things become hyper-excited, he see's both present and future simultaneously. He quits his job at the "experimental" involuntary psyche ward in preparation for transcendence.

The studio calls him into record for the first time. He prepares by practicing the night before lost in a familiar trance until a sudden pain stops him. His left thumb is immobile, throbbing and locked. He goes to the emergency room the next day to find a severely ruptured tendon. Surgery is suggested and he agrees. 7 days later the is clearly infected, stitches are ripped and yellow puss is squeezed out until only blood remains; it runs for hours. Recovery stretches from days to months, his hand will not work as is did before, his only consolation is that he can still play slide. , which he does with with a fevered passion of never before.

He sings until his voice becomes a croaking scream until one day pain finds his throat, his voice is gone. He can neither sing or talk and the only prescription his doctor can give him is to rest. He does not, instead he finds a singer and a drummer. He plays along, frustrated with their lack of skill, touch, and time. He cannot even hear the voice of his slide play above them. A war has been started: A War Of Noise is declared.

His amplifiers become larger as they multiply until one day a few week after another rock was thrown through the window a sharp pain spikes into his right ear that eclipses the loud ringing he has been ignoring for months. More doctors, HYPERACUSIS, TINNITUS... He ignores them and puts in earplugs, then construction headphones, then finally a helmet. Nothing stops the sound as the pain and ringing in his ears increases. He throws away his guitar and amplifier only to buy another, and another and another. He becomes obsessed with buying guitars. He needs money to buy them. He knows that if he can only find the right one...
He needs money, he spends his time working in mental institutions as an orderly and trades guitars in Cadillacs, bus stations and alleys. where is this guitar? His search becomes desperate and overly obsessive. His house is filled with guitars until he does not even play them anymore, instead he either yells at them or trys to ignore their presence. His ears hurt so bad he cannot work, he cannot buy food. He is constantly tormented by pain in his ears.

He finds himself at another crossroads and the shadow of death calls to him from his left. He makes a step until he notices something, someone to his right. He turns to find an ancient old man, Imaginal and Archetypal. He runs to him, he listens, he increase his learning in both mind and spirit. Five years later he goes south to gain more of this energy that he cannot deny contains illumination.

A year later he travels north to see the ancient man. He is so happy during the reunion the he fails to notice the new grey in his face, the crust. The next day The ancient man is passed on

He runs south again but this time he does not stop until he finds the equator. Exhausted and broken he ends up face down an a dark room, hands and legs bound with the hot barrel of a pistol jammed into the back of his head.

How did he escape that? was this a new chance at life? No, He is ready to die. Het tries once like a coward, the next time he gets closer, he finds himself drawn to it. It is magnetic, it is gravity. In his last moments he screams and runs. He travels far across the Pacific ocean to an island that cradles a volcano,. He stares deep into it, he stares deep into the ocean, then the sun, the moon , the stars. How long did it take for him to smile again? He is smiling now and tomorrow he will still be smiling.

How could this ever be so true?
Deamon please tell me your name?
How?
"Purusha Man-Tra."
No I'm not some inflated ego-gentrified narcissistic creep. I just enjoy myth and have seen and done a few things that have inspired my art. The above story is very much true.
My work may not be "deviant" but it is also not for the light-hearted. My guitars are not just functional but have the vintage tone of a mic'd curb-stomp run through an infinite delay pedal. The pickups have a cloned miniature Tom Waits trapped inside.
I have imagination but really I'm just a guy who liked a cheeseburger and a beer before acute noise induced hearing damage made sound hurt, damming my musical neural-pathways and sent me on a journey of both extreme trial and bliss.Now I try to find peace in the center through artistic expression. Writing, photography, playing music, customizing guitars and building cigar box guitars.
*Before moving here I had little interest in photography. Living on an island that has 11 of the 13 climate zones on earth, it becomes hard not to take photos. As my interest began to grow I began to check out the work of others and fell in love with the photogravure nudes of the early 20th century by photographers such as HEINRICH KÜHN, WALTER BIRD and JOHN EVERARD.
I use mostly vintage 600 polaroids, I love the random distortions that these old cameras can provide due to their age. From there I experiment with the original. Sometimes I take a digital photo and and further distort it into extreme surrealistic realms.Sometimes I will take a needle or nail and trace/make a design on it before running a sharpie over it and using a finger to brush the still wet ink over it before photographing it. I experiment with other techniques as well. I take my process seriously but still always try to be loose and fun with anything I do. I have had some significant professional training in portrait photography, I just have no interest in it at this point in my life. I feel and believe through my experience that life is too short and at times too fragile not to honor whatever direction your psyche takes you artistically.
S