I have been a starving artist (and writer) for the past fifteen years, and in my garret I asked myself constantly:

'am I the only one? Are there no other fools out there I can look up and share my sorrows?' I'm sure there are; Vancouver is the kind of place where you can't throw a brick without hitting an artsy, and tempting though that may be for all kinds of reasons, it's not likely they would, or could, talk to you after doing that.

So instead, I've decided to add this section to my website to see who is really out there, and hear what remarkable adventures they must surely have had so far. What story do you have starving in the name of art?

Not just being poor...although that is a world of interest in itself. But being stone poor in the cause--or as a consequence--of the Great Opus, Great Novel, or Opera, or whatever you've turned your hand or genius to. How do you eat. Do you eat? How do you pay the rent? The bills? Do for materials? What brought you to this sorry pass in the first place? I want to know, and I'm sure others would like to as well.

For myself, I can trace everything back to the age of twelve, when I tried out for goaltender on my local hockey team. (Note the self-destructive artsy instinct to prefer goal, by the way). I failed miserably. Nerves, stupefaction, self-consciousness in the bulky gear, whatever...I flubbed. Had I another chance...well, who knows what might have happened. A million dollars a year for eight or nine years is my guess, and the last twenty living off the interrest and endorsements with all the summers Under the Tuscan Sun a person could stand. But it's not healthy to get bitter so young. Save it for old age, is my motto.

Since then, it's just been the usual downhill path to oblivion. A love for creating surpassing the instinct for survival. Never learning a trade...not working enough...letting this thing go, and that thing slide, one after another...and then one day you're living in a warehouse over top a mushroom farm where they sneak in a cow on the weekends to lay down the very best in sh--