Bud Smith

Uno Kudo Volume 4 Bud Smith

Being alive is the most time consuming thing you'll do all day. Stick with it. Even when you lie down. Cannonballers. Scuba divers. Sidewalkers and drag racers all agree. There's a picture hanging on the hallway where I do my writing. It's of an artist named Niki de Saint Phalle who used to make plaster casts (sometimes of people), fill them with paint and shoot them with her shotgun. In the photo I have on my wall, she is on a ladder, leaning out precariously, gun extended. And man, is she aiming ever carefully-just about to open fire. Paint is sprayed everywhere from previous shotgun blasts, from previous ladders. You can see the other ladders leaning against a pile of rubble. I want to shoot paint at things too. Mostly, the infinite brick wall. You get it. I know you do. You do the same thing. You've got these two machines called your hands and they're hooked up to all these other machines that make up your big wet body and you probably go clunk clunk clunk on some keyboard machine to tell a little story. Or you play the cello. Or you are a dog walking expert. Or a mountain climber. All hail the mountain climbers. No matter what it is you're trying to do, you're like me and you're like Niki de Saint Phalle, trying to occupy yourself, comfort yourself, keep busy during this time-consuming business of being alive. There are great lulls. Big spaces, mutant in scope, and plenty of days that slip down through the crack between your bed and wall and are never seen again. Dust bunnies eat wasted time. That misplaced sock that vanished in the laundry-it's eating your wasted time too. Me, I bath tub like the wind; I yell at songbirds that aren't singing in the trees outside my window; I load up my shotgun and I aim it anywhere but in my own direction. Paint gets on everything. Be more alive.