New Reason New Way: How My Skepticism Changed My Art

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Chapters:

1. A Short Prologue

2. My Childhood: As Briefly as I Dare

3. My First Music

4. A Short Digression on Jessica Eppler

5. A Recording Artist

6. Backstage with the Legends

7. A Short Digression on Music as an Art Form

8. Insanity? Perhaps. Another Beer? Absolutely.

9. The Big Change

10. New Motivations

11. The Functionality of Creativity

12. A Few Other Perspectives

13. The No Voice

14. Pattern Seeking and Shifting

15. Categories of Art

16. Art Business

17. This Book

Art Philosophy:

"The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure. He has, as Frost said, a lover's quarrel with the world. In pursuing his perceptions of reality, he must often sail against the currents of his time. This is not a popular role. If Robert Frost was much honored in his lifetime, it was because a good many preferred to ignore his darker truths. Yet in retrospect, we see how the artist's fidelity has strengthened the fiber of our national life.

If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. And as Mr. MacLeish once remarked of poets, there is nothing worse for our trade than to be in style. In free society art is not a weapon and it does not belong to the spheres of polemic and ideology. Artists are not engineers of the soul. It may be different elsewhere. But democratic society--in it, the highest duty of the writer, the composer, the artist is to remain true to himself and to let the chips fall where they may. In serving his vision of the truth, the artist best serves his nation. And the nation which disdains the mission of art invites the fate of Robert Frost's hired man, the fate of having ‘nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.’"

-President John F. Kennedy on October 26, 1963 at Amherst College in Massachusetts, in honor of the great poet Robert Frost.

1. A Short Prologue:

As I wrapped my penis around each knob and fader on the famous mixing board once used by Buddy Holly and Waylon Jennings I imagined the energy of their admirable creativity flowing into me and I smiled my biggest smile. I didn’t really think I was being imbued with special powers or anything but I did feel like I had made a special connection with my musical ancestors. I quickly walked out to the front of the historic KDAV radio station where the DJ and our mutual friend were just beginning to light their cigarettes. When they had gotten up after our interview to go out for a smoke break we walked right past the famous Buddy and Waylon board and I had hung back for thirty or so seconds in order to make my special connection with Lubbock, Texas music history.

I think the guys kind of thought I was just lagging behind because I had gotten a little stoned before our interview and so they didn’t even ask what had held me up. They were idly chatting as they began to suck down their cigarettes and I stood on the curb in front of the radio station in the Depot District of Lubbock, Texas thinking about my connection to the city and my small place in its strange story. The city has produced more than its share of great artists over the years and there has always been a distinct heritage, which is recalled like bloodlines by the local lore keepers. When I first started out making my art in Lubbock one of my fondest hopes was to someday rise to the ranks of the legendary artists whom everyone in the city seemed to respect.

I was hungry for approval back then. The special middle child in a busy family, I had developed a need for attention and approval that was probably unhealthy. I had to leave to be able to clear that from my mind as much as I have now, but I still want to be connected to those legends in some way unique to my own experience. This is why I had decided in that moment of walking by the mixing board to stop and let my hosts walk on ahead. I had molested the knobs on the board out of respect and seeing as I generally have a high standard for my personal hygiene, I figure no harm was really done to the equipment. Perhaps some folks would disagree. If anything, the knobs might have held a faint body wash scent for a few hours. Hell, I probably cleaned them off a bit. From everything I know about Buddy and Waylon, I think they would have laughed along with me, though perhaps not as maniacally.

The winter wind was moving at a slow but decidedly steady pace through the neon drenched block and a half of clubs and bars which themselves seemed to be huddled together for warmth. I watched as the cold breeze rolled a paper cup down the nearly empty Buddy Holly Avenue. It tumbled around the few parked cars which were lined up next to the entrances of their owner’s favorite bars and then the little piece of trash rolled out into the middle of the street. It danced down the double yellow line until it was smashed by a passing sports car, which carried a cell phone chatting college chick. For some reason (probably the weed) this scene was internalized and I felt a connection to that little paper cup rolling down Buddy Holly Avenue late at night dancing in the wind, riding the breeze down the open road only to be unintentionally crushed like the unimportant trash it was.

A few seconds later the breeze picked up again and the frigid waves of it lifted the flattened cup high into the glowing amber streetlights and curls of neon signage. It then gently dropped it into the bike rack on the roof of a nearby van. The adventure continued after all. Somehow I am that trash being tossed in the wind. I have no idea where I’m going. All I can do is learn to ride the breeze.

Unlike the beer and pot induced haze of that night in the Depot District, these last few years have brought into sharp focus my view of what I do. Some very fundamental things have come to light and changed my life. I want to try and explain how I developed my view of the world, my newfound perspective on art and what I have learned about being creative, making purposeful work and living happily while working furiously. I am still young and I know that I don’t know everything, but I am living a wonderful, happy life full of art, and I can only hope that artists who run across this book will find it encouraging, freeing and relatable. I hope this work inspires people to be creative and to live thoughtful and purposeful lives.

2. My Childhood as Briefly

as I Dare:

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. — Pablo Picasso

When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years

–Mark Twain

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

– Mark Twain

Iwas born in the summer of 1985 in Lubbock, Texas to David and Colleen Eppler. My mother and I almost died from complications during pregnancy and she was bed ridden for quite some time after my traumatic birth. She had to take time off from her work at our local church where she had been helping them with their choir and musical ministry. The whole thing was a pretty horrific ordeal and my mother still cries when she talks about it. I was their second son. My brother James and I would be joined by our sister, Betsy, four short years later. In general we were a happy family. We all shared a naturally upbeat personality type and rarely did anyone really fight or yell.

In the early years, my father was selling high-end menswear at one of the only really nice stores in the area. My grandfather, Jim Eppler, had also sold designer clothing and worked in that field his whole life, loving it even to the end. I think he had kind of expected my father to do the same but when I was still very young, maybe second grade, dad quit the clothing sales business and became a pastor at the same local church my mother was working at. His sense for fashion was overridden by his innate love for people. He felt called to the ministry by God. I should explain for folks who aren’t familiar with how big churches work that my dad wasn’t the guy standing on stage on Sunday with a message from God. My father was one of maybe a dozen or so pastors who do things like lead men’s groups or take charge of the homeless ministry or teach Sunday school classes or run the mission work.

My dad’s actual job changed a lot while he worked there. When he started he was the pastor in charge of the janitors and the print shop. Yes, they have that. Mom went back to her work at the same church and got her old job back that she had to give up when she fell ill with me three years before. She was treated as most women were treated in the patriarchal society that was West Texas Christianity back then (and probably today in most places in that state). She was essentially hired to do the jobs of three men and got paid less than one man would have made. We were poor. Not Dickens novel poor but still pretty poor.

I remember thinking that it seemed like we ate either egg sandwiches or hamburger gravy over mash or toast at every meal. I still love this kind of food. It was the flavor of my childhood, canned vegetables and deep fried meat meant to keep you on your feet and fill you up as cheaply as possible. My favorite was chicken fried steak, which my mother mastered easily enough having grown up on similar stuff in her own childhood up in the state of Washington. There was salt, lard, steak, buttered potatoes mashed into