Do it yourself

There are very few things I feel really strongly about, but one of them is this: the division between artists/performers and those who don't do creative things is an artificial one. Or, to put it another way: anybody can be a creative person if they want to be.

I have reached A Certain Age, so I am old enough to remember the first wave of punk rockers (the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and so on). Before they arrived, music was complicated and fancy, and took years to learn how to play; think Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. But the punk rockers showed up and said, in effect, "We're doing simple stuff - you can do it too, if you want to." One British punk music fanzine published pictures of three chords with the message, "Now start a band." (My friends and I actually did, though we never performed anywhere but in my parents' basement. I was the rhythm guitarist. I wasn't particularly good, but I was loud.)

By the way: punk, as originally conceived, wasn't about the look, nor did it originally have anything to do with violence. That all came later. (The Sex Pistols wore safety pins in their clothes because they couldn't afford clothes that weren't patched together with safety pins.) At first, it was about doing your own thing.

Without punk musicians to serve as an example, it would never have occurred to me that I could do creative things myself. (To this day, sometimes I'm still not quite sure, but that's a common fear shared by many people who write, sing or perform: what if, in reality, I'm no damn good?)

When I first started performing, I would regularly run into people who couldn't imagine themselves on stage. I would tell them: I couldn't either, until I started doing it. And it was the same thing with photography: I basically just went out, bought a camera, and started taking pictures. I don't pretend to be good at it - I have very little formal training in photography - but I figure that I'm better than all of the people who aren't taking pictures.

Picture me grabbing you by the lapel as I say this: Listen to me - if I can do it, you can do it. I don't have discernible musical or visual talent, and I'm very shy. If I can go up on stage, or play a guitar, or take a picture of something interesting, you can do it too.