The Tribulations of Being a Trust Fund Baby.

To be blunt, I have squandered plenty of money friends and family have given to me. In fact most of us have. But there is a special twist of the knife that comes with spending other people’s money on anything but the most necessary of things. Two hundred dollar pillow cases, another crate ofVeuve Clicquot, another long weekend away to Paris, or perhaps the rendering of other unconscionables that I wont belabor on this page. But that’s not also to say I haven’t squandered plenty of money that I in fact made myself. I hardly discriminate as to who’s money I am using when the mood sets in.

The edit of a trust fund baby which I have been on and off for most of my life at the severediscretion of my parents comes with a special kind of peril. Whether you realize it or not (and I do) you are being watched every step of the way and at some point if you do not bear fruit you can be expect to have your largesse tempered or even cut off. This to be sure creates a great degree of unease as one is aware that sooner or later they must show results or risk capitulation.

Contrary to popular opinion living at the behest of a family stipend can be quite torturous (as I have already intimated). Yet on the other hand it can be quite pleasant, at least in the very immediate for obvious reasons. One is spared having to apply for positions that might interfere with their artistic sensibilities, their work ethic or being forced to grovel up to people they wouldn’t look twice at on the street. It also affords you the time to achieve what really means the world to you on your terms. Although I have to say after many years of having to actually earn my own keep and at times having the benediction of my family that sometimes being forced to do miserable work affords you a wonderful appreciation of how so many people different people live.

In fact I once had a stint as a cater waiter ( I kid you not before I was immediately fired) and to this day I always have the highest regard for those fine chaps who serve me flutes of champagne every time I turn up to the many society events as publisher and dilettante at large I get to attend. Which is to say, every experience one has is valuable and sometimes what may seem on the surface as unpleasant so often helps make one the very thing that they aspire to be ( ie- a starving writer/artist is only that much more believable and enjoyable because they actually had to suffer before they arrived at that sweet spot we all call genius).

But to be sure, if I can avoid being forced to live in the ghetto, work as a second hand hack for some ghastly journal like the NY Trash Post (never Rupert Murdoch in your life would I waste my talents on you) and be allowed the proximity to focus on my own affairs and the building of my own projects I would always a hundred times pursue that. After all, pursuing ones own projects in a public domain (such as this publication you are reading) forces one to reckon with ones lot so much more immediately than shlepping it for some second rate shop. Of course there are some good outlets out there too and within time I will consider offering my talents there too- after that is I have built my little masterpiece. But that’s me being very fortunate that I have parents who still subscribe to their son’s passion. A luxury that not many individuals are necessarily blessed with.