"Art is that which demands to be manifested."

I said that to one of the artists at the gallery at which I briefly worked last year. He and I and some others were having a debate about which artists we might showcase. Some of our resident artists argued that computer generated works did not constitute art. It had to be pigment smeared on an animal skin with horse hair brushes, I suppose.

The conversation became a debate about what, precisely, constitutes art.

Art is that which demands to be manifested. Its origins are elsewhere, conducted into this world by the artist. The artist has no talent of his own. He is a stenographer. He faithfully reproduces what he sees, what he is commanded to see by forces larger than himself, by some collective human unconscious, or perhaps by the architect of this world --and maybe even that architect's opposer.

The artist serves one function, and that is to turn off his own ego as he hammers and shapes into a form suited for display in this limited realm that which he sees in that higher realm. Judged sublime though it may be by critics here, it is still only a dim shadow of its original form, defiled and muddied by its display in this substandard gallery we call the material world.

I first embarked upon this path nine years ago. (It seems like a lifetime.) It was June of 2003. A consciousness imposed itself and spoke to me. Maybe I'd smoked too much of the Lord's Herb that day. Or maybe it was God Himself. Who knows. Is there a difference?

The voice said, "Christopher, son of Hollis and King. Will you speak for me?"

"Yes," I answered.

"Then have no fear. I will provide all that you need along your path. Go into stand-up comedy. That is your carrier wave. By that means will you penetrate disparate compartments and unify nascent allies. If you do nothing, this world is doomed."

And that was it. I haven't looked back since. Nor, like the proper artist that I am, have I ever questioned or censored that which had demanded to be manifested in this world.

I claim only to be a speaker of words. And I pledged that I would be so. That was my calling. What am I to do on my deathbed, remain satisfied at the fine work I performed as a handyman? Few people in this world are blessed to receive a calling. I will not squander the gift. I will not throw away the tools I've been given.

It is true that I am an impetuous child. I have a short temper. And what comes in my head comes out my mouth. I pledge to you, my audience, that I will do my best to temper my tirades and my bedroom-door slamming and my sulking.

I will do my best to remain in good humor, though my speech henceforth won't necessarily be straight stand-up. My show is not conceived as a nonstop laugh riot. People sometimes say, "You're not funny," to which I reply without missing a beat, "If I need you to laugh, you'll be the first to know. Not everything I say is a joke. I've only written close to a million words over the course of seven years. There is room there for reflection and meditation."

I fully expect to remain a target of the eager beaver legal eagles in the Justice Department. They are forever grasping at straws, even perking up and smoothing their hair and clearing their throats at the chance to re-indict me, for a second occurrence of the very same offense, when I quoted myself. I had to stop the show for a moment and come down off the stage and pat my private prosecutor's hand and sing the Conjunction Junction song and diagram some sentences and explain the rudiments of English language punctuation. I whispered in his ear, loudly enough for everyone to bust a gut over, "Babydoll, they're called quotation marks because that's what we use when we quote people. They can be used for other things too, but chiefly they're used to denote attribution. Did you indict all the journalists who quoted me? Of course not. Why? It's because they were attributing the utterance to its original speaker, as was I. I can't quote myself now? Not to mention that I've already cut off my own arm, stupid."

Because I will remain a target of the Justice Department, I fully expect to have to respond to legal inquiries. I will not work with the District of Vermont Public Defenders Office. Hearts of gold one and all, make no mistake about it. But if having a heart of gold were all that were necessary in this world, we'd all be Wal-Mart greeters.

A defense attorney is a warrior. To argue one's case before the sovereign is a sublimation of one's natural war-making powers. We put down the spear and we pick up the briefcase. But the tactics and the temperament remain. The defense attorney has one function and that is to smear blood on his face, stalk his prey, and gut the prosecution.

I will argue my own positions before the court. If the Justice Department has a question, they may call me directly. They have no alternative: I have no money to hire competent counsel, and it is not possible to receive adequate representation from someone who plays psychiatrist and dismisses as the ravings of a madman things that sound kooky to him, things that are arguably germane to his client's defense.

Like the sand lot game of baseball, where the kids grab the bat and, hand over hand, work their way up to see who caps it off and gets to bat first, my private prosecutor can call me at home and inform me of how he intends to argue a thing. I will then inform him of how I intend to ridicule him right out of the courtroom. There are defense attorneys who would absolutely kill to have my powers of ridicule.

If necessary, I will ask someone on my legal staff in Washington to come up with law words and law forms that I can use. I suggest My Number One Fan, whose considerable talents far exceed the small demands of such a task.

Henceforth, any legal defense will be conducted solely by me and my legal staff in Washington. End of discussion.

I am going to try to have a personal life. Do I watch you have relations with your wife? Do I pull up a chair and say, "Don't mind me. Pretend I'm not here. Agent So and So, I don't understand; you're pretty well hung; what's the strap-on for? You don't need to u-- --oh wait, never mind. I didn't know you were into that. I'll just sit here quietly while you try to get it on with your wife while creeps like me are surveilling you and your full-body latex routine and getting pegged. ...Oh, and by the way, your outfit got set up with that hooker scandal. You know that, right? It was a complete put-up job. It's standard operating procedure in politics. The Secret Service is now completely politically neutered and it might as well not even exist as a law enforcement agency. In the minds of the world, you guys are Goofball Central. You couldn't remove President Null and Void now even if you wanted to. You might consider setting up the setters-up in the future. It's a delightfully uproarious reverse half nelson."

I want everyone out of my personal life.

There is nothing on me, there has never been anything on me, and there never will be anything on me. In cop parlance, I'm as pure as the driven snow and I defy anyone to demonstrate otherwise. You only waste your time by investigating me --more so, even, when I'm watching you investigate me. Just stop it. I'm the good guy here and the investigations cramp my style.

And not everyone gets a Cointelpro operation. I must be pretty hot stuff. Thanks for the intel. No one has ever spoken a word to me and still did I manage to determine my entire environment merely by sitting quietly and observing.

Buy your tickets, please. I need to eat.

Thank you for permitting me to propagate within your surveillance channels. Don't worry, we all benefit by my appropriation of them. This is how we save your pensions.

What greater canvas on which to paint than consciousness itself?

I hereby start my new show. I call it "I'm in Charge Now."