Despite the name, my porn-star gorgeous friend Patrick Short is about ten feet tall.  Everything about him is big.  Like, really, really big.  Which makes sense, him being from Texas and all. So when he came up with Guerilla Arts, an art space with an attitude in a dilapidated building in a dodgy part of Dallas that used to house a Vietnam Veteran’s biker gang, with its mission "to make Texas the leader in the contemporary art world"*, I was not surprised. 

Patrick is all of, like, 23, but I remember being immediately impressed right off the bat by his intelligence, energy, audacious ambition, and... well, other things that are impressive about him.  And while thankfully there are also many ways in which he's more or less a typical 23 year-old, I've rarely met anyone as together in certain respects at such a tender age.

What I especially like about Patrick is that when he had a little setback last fall, he picked himself up, dusted himself off, commandeered a building and started a non-profit art space with the goal of taking over the world.  I mean, most mornings it's a chore for me to trudge downstairs and make a pot of coffee, much less take over the world.

Patrick is what you'd call a "manifester."  I don't mean this in a flaky, new agey Oprah way, I mean it in the Guy Ritchie talking about Madonna in GQ way, without the "retarded" part.  Patrick is just one of those people who can make things happen.  And despite what Oprah tells you, not everyone can do that.

I mean, take Boston.  I get so sick of the whinging and whining about a coffee shop closing here or a bookstore folding there.  If you want coffee shops and bookstores, open them.  No one owes you a scene.  You want one, make one.  Don't have a bazillion dollars?  Use the materials at hand.  Make it happen.  See what I'm saying?

If you're not a manifester like Madonna or Patrick, you can help make things happen by throwing your support behind the manifester of your choice (I would personally rather it was Patrick than Madonna at this point). 

I'm pretty excited for Guerilla Arts.  I have a feeling it's gonna be big.
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*Read more here.