What do Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent van Gogh, and Stevie Ray Vaughan have in common? Aside from their three-piece names and the fact that they were all human beings... not much, right?

In my life, however, they are elaborately and irreparably tangled together, contributing members of the complex mosaic that is me. While there are a nearly infinite number of other influences - most notably God, my parents, my wife, my family and my close friends - this trio of unlikely amigos has had a uniquely powerful and enduring impact on who I am and what I do.

(Editor’s note: I would include Miles Davis, William Faulkner, Monet and a host of others. But the list just gets long and clumsy. I’ll hit on those important figures another time.)

If we were playing seven degrees of separation, the connection point for Poe, van Gogh, and Stevie Ray would be simple. The nexus is me. Not in meeting them or starring in a movie with them (as in the Kevin Bacon game), but in being steered, pushed forward, and inspired by their work and passion. They influenced my life in peculiar ways.

“You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded.”

-Edgar Allan Poe, *The Tell-Tale Heart*

Let’s start with Poe. Good old Edgar - rather dour and slightly unhinged Edgar - is the first writer I can remember really enjoying in high school. Aside from reading comic books as a kid and blitzing through the Hardy Boys mysteries, I wasn’t a huge reader. By the time high school came around, I was too busy with girls and sports and girls and band and girls and... girls to crack many books. But I do remember an awakening of sorts when I read “The Tell Tale Heart.” Soon I was zooming through “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Murders at the Rue Morgue,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Wow!

In retrospect, I think what drew me in was their length (as short stories, they were easily digestible), their subject matter (dark, scary, full of guilt and terror), and the fact that they were well written and accessible. You didn’t have to do an in-depth, CliffsNotes-assisted research paper on them to discern their meaning.

And then, along came an assignment in English that required us to rewrite a familiar fairy tale in the style of our favorite author. I retold “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” Poe-ish-ly, complete with a creepy narrator and gruesome twists. It was singled out by the teacher as a success. That was my first close encounter with fiction writing and most certainly played a role in motivating the creation of my own short stories and novels.

On to van Gogh. I’m sure he’ll show up in other blogs. He is, after all, the man, the myth, the legend. The dude is my art hero. But I didn’t really know anything about him - except the ear incident - until I was married with children. We were visiting family, it was raining cats and dogs, and I had finished the only book I had thought to bring with us. Desperate for something to read, I discovered a National Geographic in the bathroom and devoured it cover to cover. One of the articles happened to be about van Gogh. I was struck. Energized. Hypnotized. I was immediately curious to know more and, here’s the part, suddenly anxious to try my hand at painting. I don’t know why, but that article was the spark that set the blaze burning. As soon as we got home, I borrowed my daughter’s crayons and started attempting landscapes. Which, by the way, were terrible.

“The way people come into your life when you need them, it’s wonderful and it happens in so many ways.”

-Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan, if you don’t already know, was a blues guitarist from Texas. He burst onto the national scene in the 1980s. I had been playing guitar - poorly and irregularly - since the I was about 12 or so. Nothing had really grabbed my attention until I heard Stevie Ray. That was a sound that excited me, a sound I wanted to learn to replicate. Fueled by his machine-gun-style blues, I eventually got a Stratocaster and began refining my own sound, something that has been described as “two cats fighting in a chimney.”

The crazy thing about life is that you never know who or what is going to influence you, be that spark, or set you on a course you never expected and couldn’t have found on your own.

I’m not a wealthy, successful, world-renown writer, painter, or musician. However, I have fun in all of those pursuits. And I often wonder if I would be writing novels today (my ninth is slated for release next year!), producing crazy amounts of pastel and acrylic art, and stumbling my way through “Pride and Joy” and Lenny” on otherwise quiet afternoons, if it hadn’t been for those three guys. Doubtful.

The crazy thing about life is that you never know who or what is going to influence you, be that spark, or set you on a course you never expected and couldn’t have found on your own. For that matter, there are plenty of events - good, bad, and otherwise - that take us on journeys we might not have chosen ourselves (see the last two blogs for more on that subject). I think the key to not only surviving but, as the folks at Kaiser Permanente would say, thriving, is being flexible, patient, and watching for opportunities to go in new directions.

With that in mind, I leave you with this encouragement from Vincent: “Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”

Post Script: Speaking of influencers... As I mentioned in a previous installment, while sequestered in my second-floor office doing the stay-at-home shuffle, staring out at our leafless maple tree, watching the neighborhood squirrel inexplicably squirm his way to the top, I happened upon a great podcast: The Lonely Palette. Not just happened upon, started binge listening. The great thing is that, like Poe’s stories, the podcasts are short and easily digestible. The other great thing is that they are fascinating and filled with information! Host Tamar Avishai is an art historian who worked at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The tagline is: The podcast that returns art history to the masses, one object at a time. Whether you’re an art fan or not, you’ll learn about important pieces of art, understand how and why certain artists and movements were significant, and appreciate the role they played in the art we see today. I highly recommend it. Start binging today.