Complicated Genius: Anthony Leonard's Life and Family Adventures (and other Symbolic gestures)

I am a genius.  This hurts to say.  But it is true.  It feels like a piece of bacon sizzling in the pan and I am touching this bacon as it sizzles.  It's going to taste good, this bacon.  It smells so carnal!  the whiffs of tangy, salty meat with just enough buttered fat.  But this is the bacon of my genius.  Let me explain.  My genius sets fire to the bush, it rolls out of mountains and proclaims itself self-evident.  My genius lights up the san francisco skyline, each lighted sky scraper window a flame of self-evident genius.  Do you see all the lighted windows as you scan the san francisco skyline in the dark--you who sit on the street?  My genius is compatible, it strokes felines and festooned farmhouses.  My genius carries with it a caller id, so when I go out to eat at the restaurant, the elephante' man in charge of sitting tells me "I feel it in my belly, your genius.  It is a lamp, in my belly.  I know this lamp as your genius.  Would you like to sit next to the fire."  Ah yes, in fact, I would.

So I go to the fire with this man's lamp.  And the brilliance accorded to 47 carat diamonds refracts intuition and emotional self-knowledge.  For it is the emotional self-knowledge, the ability to connect and shape seahorses out of pretzels, it is this that startles your anxious face.  I light up and open up and let my water buffalo wander into your garden and munch on the leaves of your deciduous trees.  It is August and my water buffalo is munching, saying hello, "Do you like the fog? Do you like the hot dogs (italics mine)?"  We are bonding through my water, we touch, you are touched, saving face, crawling into the belly again, your own belly where now through my genius you feel safe and alive.  My buffalo led you into this open, eight-fold and not stopping there path.

The ninth fold, another term for my genius--used colloquially by my friends of lesser stature, friends failing in a hierarchy of fools, these miserable fiends formally fucked.  but that is okay! that too will come to pass.  Haven't you heard, "the ship that sets sail never stops."  Okay whatever, whatever!!! Shit Okay, so things are hard.  Yeah!  and what the fuck. i get that.  you can't all be the genius, or maybe...just maybe...if you open up your pants by zipping down the zipper, ALONE Asshole!  I'm not talking about anything social-relational-sexual-clairvoyant here, I'm just talking about taking off your pants alone in your room after work, that is all, so fucking innocent.  Leave it there on the floor the unzipped zipper (Symbols) crash!  a loud sound from another room! ahhhhh here it is my brilliance again coming into being in another room in my same house.  setting sail.

But if you were to ask my Mother about my genius, what would she say?  Hmm, now I am crawling to the couch to be opened and cut with sheers breast plate bone to belly button, some good ole abreaction.  what do you see in there mom?  stinking, smoky intestines falling out into liquid symphonies and symbolism, strands of human sausage connected.  she would say no.  no, tony, you are not a genius.  the tower is falling, beginning to crack and yes, crumbling violently. ah but i've been holding it up in the brilliant golden architecture of my mind, holding it up with precision, holding court with the debutantes and the blistered romps.  colliding with the falling particles, my mother, god of all inception, denies this existence.  denies my honest passions and sequesters the truth.  in the name of groundedness.

again, with love,
Anthony

ps - Andrew Bird, American Singer Songwriter, is much like me only not quite as good at music.  I don't recommend going to iTunes and listening to his song "Tenuousness" on his album "Noble Beast" released January 20th, 2009.

or watch this video, which really isn't fair.  this happened.

Tenuousness

Stornoway

If you haven't listened to Stornoway,
I think it might be a good idea to listen to them.
Just thirty seconds.
If it doesn't immediately register as real,
turn it off and never listen to Stornoway again.


I Saw You Blink


with love,
Anthony