Notes from the Field: Field of Dreams

It's been quiet around here and over a month and half has gone by since I finished work on THE OVERMAN. But in that time life reared its ugly head and tapped me on the shoulder with the force of a 9 lb. hammer. Glad it all waited for me to get my head out of fantasy land.


As I get each box of my contributor copies I realize that there was a time when all I could think about was finishing the book in my hands. Each page sparks a memory of struggle with time management and my waking life. Yet each page unfolds like a filmic dream drawing together a mass of great ideas and beautiful landscapes. It was amazing how important it was for me to complete at the time. Nothing could hold a candle to it.


I think now, that I have a little better perspective, I can see how unimportant and insignificant ideas can be if there is no audience for them. I'm glad THE OVERMAN has found its audience.


It reminds me of a heavy metal band that I was really into in the 80s-90s. Manowar, were the godfathers of what they called, "true metal", think Nordic mythology, Carmina Barana, and the Conan the Barberian soundtrack put to heavy metal riffs and lyrics. At first glance yeah, you'd think they were off their nut. But their belief in the work they did and committment in delivering it was solid.


Once hailed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Loudest band on earth. I was in the crowd of one of there shows with no more than 150 people on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. They rocked like they were in a stadium. The wall of familiar sound threatened to tear down the building from its base. It was the best concert I'd ever seen. They were beyond committment, they lived a warriors code...as much as you can while touring I guess. Their sincerity rose them above ridiculousness to a point of reverie.


Why does this relate? For starters anyone with a solid original idea and the committment to make that idea happen will find an audience. No matter if it's one, or 100,000 the gratitude to have that audience doesn't change either. It's because of our belief in THE OVERMAN that nothing is insignificant about what we did nor the few loyal fans we have. And some of those cats are crazed let me tell you.


But like many of the people who sit on the sidelines and shake their head as to why there is such devotion, it's because they choose a more commonly tread path. A mushy path of sameness and familiarity that leads only to inaneness and boredom.


Our culture is so hellbent on being individually different that we all shop at the different stores, and buy the different music only to end up really the same. That to me is boredom. I'd rather be "original" than waste cycles being different for different sake.


THE OVERMAN is original, not different as much as oddly familiar.


=s=