This is a post I've been meaning to do for awhile. Given that I'm starting it at about midnight (by the way--my new power cord works! my compy is back! huzzah!), it counts as both Monday and Tuesday.
At work, there is a computer upstairs which has a large playlist of songs on permanent shuffle. Most of these songs are pleasant enough. There are just a few, however, which stick in my craw. The one I have mentioned most often is a song by the band Simple Plan called "Welcome to My Life." For those of you not curious enough, or too wise, to follow the link to the full lyrics, here's the first verse and chorus:
---
Do you ever feel like breaking down?
Do you ever feel out of place?
Like somehow you just don't belong
And no one understands you
Do you ever wanna runaway?
Do you lock yourself in your room?
With the radio on turned up so loud
That no one hears you screaming
No you don't know what it's like
When nothing feels all right
You don't know what it's like
To be like me
To be hurt
To feel lost
To be left out in the dark
To be kicked when you're down
To feel like you've been pushed around
To be on the edge of breaking down
And no one's there to save you
No you don't know what it's like
Welcome to my life
---
Awhile ago Amber explained to me the true definition of "scandal". In Catholic parlance, a scandal is something which encourages others to sin.
This particular set of lyrics is scandalous, to me, in the extreme. It encourages people to feel self-pity and resentment, and to cut themselves off from others. It promotes a bitter state of mind in which a person makes the whole world their enemy because they are feeling lonely and depressed.
It asserts that when you're feeling lonely and depressed, the solution is to isolate yourself from others and sulk among your many possessions. Also, the best way to make others like and respect you more is to angrily inform them they cannot possibly relate to the emotional pain you are experiencing. Oh, without leaving any room for the possibility that others might also experience emotional pain.
For goodness' sake, the speaker in this song has a room of his own with a door that locks. He has a radio which he can turn up to scream-drowning-out volume, presumably without adverse consequences. How many of the listeners who hear--and we may assume, empathize with--these selfish assertions lack those same comforts?
That's really the irony, though. That this song whose main message is, "wah, wah, you don't understand me and I'm all alone and will wallow in my misery" is popular because people empathize with it. In other words, many, many people can understand precisely "what it's like" because they share the same feelings of isolation and loneliness. Thus the fact that the song is popular enough to make it onto my store's iTunes refutes its main premise.
Here is another song, also on the playlist at work, which approaches almost the same set of feelings but does so in a way which is much more positive. It is "Story of my Life" by Smashmouth.
---
I get to the party, but I'm too late
And I got stood up on my very first date
I listen to country and everybody goes rock
I get to the dance floor, that's when the music stops
It doesn't matter what I do, I just can't seem to win
But here I go again
And I say
Hey that's the story of my life
I had a good plan but it didn't go right
Oh no I'm overdrawn
I check my account and the money's all gone
Why me I don't know what to think
I finally get aboard and the whole boat sinks
Seems to be the story of my life
---
Here the speaker takes an almost amused attitude towards his misfortunes. He doesn't accuse others of not being able to understand his misfortunes; rather, he describes them and implicitly invites others to share in his frustration. This is reinforced by the fact that multiple voices chime in to sing the chorus, mimicking the internal voices of listeners who see their own stories reflected in the words to the song.
There's really not much in the way of instruction or even encouragement in this song--not in so many words. Instead it comforts those who are experiencing frustration and loneliness with the message that they are not alone, that their frustration is universal. Also, I like to think there's a certain amount of self-aware irony here. "Sure, I've got troubles just like these," the listener is meant to think. "Yet the guy who wrote this is a famous musician who probably has lots of money and a hot girlfriend, so maybe things won't stay this bad!"
Which is what pop music is supposed to be all about. It doesn't make you think very hard, doesn't shake up your mind or wring out your deepest emotions. It just makes you feel a little better and a little more able to face the frustrations of the day.
Showing posts with label musical mondays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musical mondays. Show all posts
a moratorium on musical moratoriums
I'm backdating this so it will be a proper Musical Monday, but in reality this is Tuesday, a little after noon. I'm at the local library near work, reveling in how nice it is to have a keyboard with a functioning letter "n" and "b"! This morning I had an appointment at my local Department of Human Services to apply for food stamps--successfully, this time. Last year when I was on unemployment I'd also applied, only to be rejected because my benefit amount was too large. Odd, really, since it wasn't all that much more than my current weekly paycheck, and at the old apartment the rent was much higher and I had all the utilities.
Ah, well.
I want to say a few things about music. This is, in part, inspired by Gin & Tacos' recent post, and the comments that flowed after it. By the by, I adored the OK Go video, and also Pachelbel's Canon in D transposed into the key of J was really delightfully creepy.
People do get attached to the music we liked as teenagers. For all that I've been out of my teens just less than a decade, this much I've found to be true of people who are in their 90s as much as those in their 40s. Anton LaVey called it "erotic crystallization inertia", which seems to me one too many adjectives. Though the phrase does conjure up the image of the personality as a kind of Freudian chemical experiment, which reaches a state of dynamic equilibrium and hovers around it thereafter. I prefer either mechanical or biological images for the personality myself, though metaphors, like music, are largely a matter of taste. I digress! One way or another, even though fond (or dismal) associations mean that time alone can never rob one's adolescent favorites of their appeal, over time one does develop a discerning ear.
'This band, this singer, this song that I enjoyed back in my day,' we'll say to ourselves, 'they were really just a re-hashing of the great so-and-so from a previous decade!' There's a certain exasperation that often comes with that thought, a feeling of having been cheated. 'How dare someone trick me into liking them, when all they were doing is something somebody else already did better?' To say nothing of the upstarts who have the temerity to continue composing, or at least performing, new material, long after one's own musical preferences are set. And as often as not, doing what seems to the educated ear to be a half-baked imitation of other musicians, perhaps from one's own preferred time period--who were themselves imitations. "A copy, of a copy, of a copy," as the fellow said in Fight Club.
The general consensus seems to be that all the really good songs have already been written. Not once, not twice, but many times, the most moving melodies revisited and scrubbed smooth and frictionless like a stone staircase made treacherously slick by the passage of many thousands of climbers. Various persons pointed out a couple of extremely cogent facts. There are, for example, a finite number of notes in the scale. And the scale we use, as evidenced by the weirdness of the "Canon in J", seems to be the one human ears are able to appreciate, through some emergent quirk in the mystical relationship between mathematics and biology. There are, furthermore, among the finite but enormous possible combinations, a still-large but much more limited number of melodies which are pleasing to the human ear and capable therefore of carrying the emotional weight of a song.
All of these melodies have been used many times, will be used many more times, and all of them are what patent lawyers call "known in the art" though they are not yet codified as such. Before the era of recorded music it would have been impossible ever to become acquainted with this fact as an individual, however obvious it is to the deductive mind. People before recorded music had to make do with whatever music-makers presented themselves, live and in person. Our enrichment in this respect is also our impoverishment. We now have the luxury to demand that every performer and composer present to us, not just the best that can be had in a given region, but the best there ever was in all the world.
Someone in G&T's comment thread mentioned a bit of trivia of which I had not been aware. Apparently at one point Bob Dylan (jokingly or not, I've no idea) proposed a moratorium on new songs. Seems a bit mean-spirited to me; "I've already withdrawn my money, so let the bank close now--screw everyone else." I didn't comment over there, partly because the conversation had wandered into television, where I'm not really fit to contribute, and partly because this is an issue I take very personally.
A moratorium on new songs might be a perfectly fine thing for a listener, who knows they have all the recorded musics of the world to explore. In that vast library of sound one could explore for several lifetimes and still find new things to appreciate. Such a moratorium would just about kill me, though. If that well ran dry, if I went looking for music in that secret place where all else falls away and could never find it again, knew that it was gone, it would be worse than losing a limb, my eyes, my ears. If I lost my ears I could still make music--likely not as well as Beethoven did when he went deaf, and not anymore with my own pipes. If I lost my eyes I would do almost nothing else. Eyes and ears and hands and feet and all, though, are means to an end. As Leonard Cohen put it, "magic is no instrument; magic is the end." Music is far from the only part of life which is magical, which is an end in itself to those who love it. Any one small life has room for only a few such. A person is fortunate who can lean on more than one, though one alone is just enough to sustain self and sanity in perilous times.
Melodically I know my limits; I catch myself echoing my own stuff now and then even after only fifteen years of working at it. Lyrically I'm on a more solid footing. Even though writers of lyrics have essentially the same kinds of things to say in every place and time, the evolution of language and culture ensure that those same human experiences will need to be described anew, those same truths must be evoked from slightly different angles of view. (I'm grateful to Amber, by the way, for quoting Kipling at me at great length and assuring me that even though it's not fashionable here and now, the world is not going to stop needing good poetry.) But even if I'd reached the limits of my competence and discovered my skill as a maker of songs to be barely mediocre, I would not stop. I would not consider it for a moment. I might, on the advice of trusted allies and my own conscience, decide to take my dim, flickering little work and "hide it under a bushel". By choice, I mean, and not by this stupid lack of the ready means to do otherwise.
But I would not be bullied out of making music by the mere weight of musical history. That sentiment is, frankly, more stupid and tawdry and designed to lead astray the innocent than the lyrics to A Simple Plan's Welcome To My Life. Music is not like chemistry, or math, where once a thing is discovered it may (must!) be done just the same way every time to achieve the desired result. Music is like cooking, like storytelling; we need at least a little of it to get through every day of our lives, whether we're aware of it or not, whether we participate in it actively or passively.
There are a finite number of tunes, of course. There are a finite number of edible foods, too. And certainly every possible combination of foodstuffs has been tried, whether by a world-famous chef or a curious and enterprising three-year-old. I despise the way the word "artist" gets overused these days, slathered liberally over everything that touches music. In much the same way, come to think of it, that bad lyricists harp on the word "love" when the four-letter word they really mean to use would get their silly song taken off the radio. But every really good creator of anything is an artist, any really good sandwich-maker or porch-builder or room-arranger, even if, like a janitor, all you create is order and cleanliness where once was refuse and filth. Love, skill and attention make the difference.
One's art is one's passion is one's life, the love that binds us to reality and to the world and everything and everyone with whom we share it. The finished product itself might not be of very much to use to anyone but the maker. But whether it's "therapy poetry" or a spotless room needlessly re-cleaned to calm its inhabitant's nerves, it's worth the doing. It may be the act that prevents another act, one of needless destruction rather than needless creation. Or it may be practice, a taste of things to come, the first stumbling steps down a road that leads somewhere, anywhere, so long as it is a place better than here.
To be angry at someone for despoiling something you love is natural and, within limits, just. To be willing to destroy something you love because it has been despoiled is an act of cowardice. So let the people who are bad at making music keep trying, I say. And if they are not really trying but are merely content to be bad, then perhaps one day I will get ahold of them, and shake them by their lapels and roar at them until they think twice about casually misusing what gifts they may possess.
At work, they've got a computer upstairs with a lengthy playlist, a mixture of songs new and old. Some in each category, the new and the old (but especially the new!), annoy me to the point of baring my teeth at the speakers in the ceiling, and complaining of the songwriters' faults to any and all who will listen. (Welcome To My Life is naturally at the top of the list in the teeth-gnashingly awful category. Though I admit, to my shame, to having seen Simple Plan in person, I got almost no pleasure out of it and was glad I had a place to sit down.) I've thought very often of reinstating Musical Mondays as a place to voice my complaints in text. Apart from the lack of free time, one of the things that has stopped me is the thought that somewhere out there, there's a kid who doesn't know any better, for whom this song I consider third-rate and exasperating helped them in some way. Teased a kernel of truth out from between the floorboards in their mind, and helped them lift it up and carry it off to where it could usefully be planted.
Having an excuse to think it over in a different way, though, has been good for me. This is the internet, for dog's sake. If perfectly intelligent and forthright people can go around saying music's dead and we should shut off the rat faucet already, then by great Marilyn's bra strap I ought to have the gumption to scold the songwriters of today for being lazy, and for not upholding what I consider to be a sacred trust.
Ah, well.
I want to say a few things about music. This is, in part, inspired by Gin & Tacos' recent post, and the comments that flowed after it. By the by, I adored the OK Go video, and also Pachelbel's Canon in D transposed into the key of J was really delightfully creepy.
People do get attached to the music we liked as teenagers. For all that I've been out of my teens just less than a decade, this much I've found to be true of people who are in their 90s as much as those in their 40s. Anton LaVey called it "erotic crystallization inertia", which seems to me one too many adjectives. Though the phrase does conjure up the image of the personality as a kind of Freudian chemical experiment, which reaches a state of dynamic equilibrium and hovers around it thereafter. I prefer either mechanical or biological images for the personality myself, though metaphors, like music, are largely a matter of taste. I digress! One way or another, even though fond (or dismal) associations mean that time alone can never rob one's adolescent favorites of their appeal, over time one does develop a discerning ear.
'This band, this singer, this song that I enjoyed back in my day,' we'll say to ourselves, 'they were really just a re-hashing of the great so-and-so from a previous decade!' There's a certain exasperation that often comes with that thought, a feeling of having been cheated. 'How dare someone trick me into liking them, when all they were doing is something somebody else already did better?' To say nothing of the upstarts who have the temerity to continue composing, or at least performing, new material, long after one's own musical preferences are set. And as often as not, doing what seems to the educated ear to be a half-baked imitation of other musicians, perhaps from one's own preferred time period--who were themselves imitations. "A copy, of a copy, of a copy," as the fellow said in Fight Club.
The general consensus seems to be that all the really good songs have already been written. Not once, not twice, but many times, the most moving melodies revisited and scrubbed smooth and frictionless like a stone staircase made treacherously slick by the passage of many thousands of climbers. Various persons pointed out a couple of extremely cogent facts. There are, for example, a finite number of notes in the scale. And the scale we use, as evidenced by the weirdness of the "Canon in J", seems to be the one human ears are able to appreciate, through some emergent quirk in the mystical relationship between mathematics and biology. There are, furthermore, among the finite but enormous possible combinations, a still-large but much more limited number of melodies which are pleasing to the human ear and capable therefore of carrying the emotional weight of a song.
All of these melodies have been used many times, will be used many more times, and all of them are what patent lawyers call "known in the art" though they are not yet codified as such. Before the era of recorded music it would have been impossible ever to become acquainted with this fact as an individual, however obvious it is to the deductive mind. People before recorded music had to make do with whatever music-makers presented themselves, live and in person. Our enrichment in this respect is also our impoverishment. We now have the luxury to demand that every performer and composer present to us, not just the best that can be had in a given region, but the best there ever was in all the world.
Someone in G&T's comment thread mentioned a bit of trivia of which I had not been aware. Apparently at one point Bob Dylan (jokingly or not, I've no idea) proposed a moratorium on new songs. Seems a bit mean-spirited to me; "I've already withdrawn my money, so let the bank close now--screw everyone else." I didn't comment over there, partly because the conversation had wandered into television, where I'm not really fit to contribute, and partly because this is an issue I take very personally.
A moratorium on new songs might be a perfectly fine thing for a listener, who knows they have all the recorded musics of the world to explore. In that vast library of sound one could explore for several lifetimes and still find new things to appreciate. Such a moratorium would just about kill me, though. If that well ran dry, if I went looking for music in that secret place where all else falls away and could never find it again, knew that it was gone, it would be worse than losing a limb, my eyes, my ears. If I lost my ears I could still make music--likely not as well as Beethoven did when he went deaf, and not anymore with my own pipes. If I lost my eyes I would do almost nothing else. Eyes and ears and hands and feet and all, though, are means to an end. As Leonard Cohen put it, "magic is no instrument; magic is the end." Music is far from the only part of life which is magical, which is an end in itself to those who love it. Any one small life has room for only a few such. A person is fortunate who can lean on more than one, though one alone is just enough to sustain self and sanity in perilous times.
Melodically I know my limits; I catch myself echoing my own stuff now and then even after only fifteen years of working at it. Lyrically I'm on a more solid footing. Even though writers of lyrics have essentially the same kinds of things to say in every place and time, the evolution of language and culture ensure that those same human experiences will need to be described anew, those same truths must be evoked from slightly different angles of view. (I'm grateful to Amber, by the way, for quoting Kipling at me at great length and assuring me that even though it's not fashionable here and now, the world is not going to stop needing good poetry.) But even if I'd reached the limits of my competence and discovered my skill as a maker of songs to be barely mediocre, I would not stop. I would not consider it for a moment. I might, on the advice of trusted allies and my own conscience, decide to take my dim, flickering little work and "hide it under a bushel". By choice, I mean, and not by this stupid lack of the ready means to do otherwise.
But I would not be bullied out of making music by the mere weight of musical history. That sentiment is, frankly, more stupid and tawdry and designed to lead astray the innocent than the lyrics to A Simple Plan's Welcome To My Life. Music is not like chemistry, or math, where once a thing is discovered it may (must!) be done just the same way every time to achieve the desired result. Music is like cooking, like storytelling; we need at least a little of it to get through every day of our lives, whether we're aware of it or not, whether we participate in it actively or passively.
There are a finite number of tunes, of course. There are a finite number of edible foods, too. And certainly every possible combination of foodstuffs has been tried, whether by a world-famous chef or a curious and enterprising three-year-old. I despise the way the word "artist" gets overused these days, slathered liberally over everything that touches music. In much the same way, come to think of it, that bad lyricists harp on the word "love" when the four-letter word they really mean to use would get their silly song taken off the radio. But every really good creator of anything is an artist, any really good sandwich-maker or porch-builder or room-arranger, even if, like a janitor, all you create is order and cleanliness where once was refuse and filth. Love, skill and attention make the difference.
One's art is one's passion is one's life, the love that binds us to reality and to the world and everything and everyone with whom we share it. The finished product itself might not be of very much to use to anyone but the maker. But whether it's "therapy poetry" or a spotless room needlessly re-cleaned to calm its inhabitant's nerves, it's worth the doing. It may be the act that prevents another act, one of needless destruction rather than needless creation. Or it may be practice, a taste of things to come, the first stumbling steps down a road that leads somewhere, anywhere, so long as it is a place better than here.
To be angry at someone for despoiling something you love is natural and, within limits, just. To be willing to destroy something you love because it has been despoiled is an act of cowardice. So let the people who are bad at making music keep trying, I say. And if they are not really trying but are merely content to be bad, then perhaps one day I will get ahold of them, and shake them by their lapels and roar at them until they think twice about casually misusing what gifts they may possess.
At work, they've got a computer upstairs with a lengthy playlist, a mixture of songs new and old. Some in each category, the new and the old (but especially the new!), annoy me to the point of baring my teeth at the speakers in the ceiling, and complaining of the songwriters' faults to any and all who will listen. (Welcome To My Life is naturally at the top of the list in the teeth-gnashingly awful category. Though I admit, to my shame, to having seen Simple Plan in person, I got almost no pleasure out of it and was glad I had a place to sit down.) I've thought very often of reinstating Musical Mondays as a place to voice my complaints in text. Apart from the lack of free time, one of the things that has stopped me is the thought that somewhere out there, there's a kid who doesn't know any better, for whom this song I consider third-rate and exasperating helped them in some way. Teased a kernel of truth out from between the floorboards in their mind, and helped them lift it up and carry it off to where it could usefully be planted.
Having an excuse to think it over in a different way, though, has been good for me. This is the internet, for dog's sake. If perfectly intelligent and forthright people can go around saying music's dead and we should shut off the rat faucet already, then by great Marilyn's bra strap I ought to have the gumption to scold the songwriters of today for being lazy, and for not upholding what I consider to be a sacred trust.
Musical Monday vol. 11: ALA conference = good times
My internet just came back online today, after having been briefly cut off due to some foolish business about "payment" and a "seriously overdue balance" or some such thing. Pah. Yesterday I took care of that little issue, although it will mean delaying some other, equally important things, but right now I am in far too good a mood to be upset about that.
You see, over the weekend and through tomorrow, I have had a temp job that takes me to the American Library Association's yearly conference at McCormick place. When I first arrived on Saturday, I had no idea what the nature of the assignment would be; I'd assumed it would involve sitting in a booth and attempting to convince librarians to "use this product or service rather than some other, equally useful product or service".
Instead, I get to hand out the free ALA Conference newspaper, which is called "Cognotes." This paper has been the vehicle of ALA news at these conferences for years, so between the fact that the papers are familiar to attendees and the fact that they are free, I have the distinct good fortune to be handing out pieces of literature to people who actually want them and are happy to receive them.
In part because of this, it's a pretty fun job, and has provided me with great amusement. On Saturday, for instance, there was a large robot roaming my designated hallway advertising something or other. I assume, by the quality of its banter, that it was being directed and voiced by remote control, because when I walked up to it and made as if to hand it a newspaper, it got the joke, and rolled around for awhile calling "Paper, paper! Get your paper here!", with me following close on its treads waving a copy of said paper in the air. On Sunday I saw a couple of guys dressed as the Blues Brothers; they were apparently performing that afternoon. Today's newspaper even featured of photo of the winners of the ALA Book Cart Drill Team championship, the Oak Park Library Vikings. If I remember to bring home a copy of yesterday's paper later, I will scan it in and post it, so you can share my joy in having a clear mental picture of Viking librarians riding book carts.
However, the principal cause of my joy in this temp gig has been because I realized Saturday afternoon that there was no reason for me not to sing. So long as I sing as a means of letting people know that I would give them free Cognotes if they wish to have one, I have carte blanche to be a complete ham, and walk around in public showing off my meloodious pipes and my ability to improvise new lyrics to familiar melodies. I can stand at the top of the escalator and serenade people in a mellow fashion. I can walk up and down the hall singing at the top of my lungs. I can stroll past the crowd standing in line waiting for the exhibition hall in the morning and sing to them. As I remarked to one of the security guards, with whom I've had some very pleasant chats, "There are many things I love in this world. Coffee, chocolate, kittens, surprises...but one thing every member of my family dearly loves, is a captive audience."
Here are some of my favorite selections:
To the tune of "Midnight Special":
Come and get your Cognotes
Issue Three today
Get your new free Cognotes
The newspaper of the ALA
To the tune of "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog":
If you haven't got a Cognotes
You got to let me know
If you'd like to have a Cognotes
Come on and let it show
Cognotes will tell you all you need to know
If you don't have a Cognotes
I can help you out
If you would like a Cognotes
Just give me a shout
I'm here to give you free Cognotes
Of that there is no doubt
To the tune of the "Ode to Joy":
Cognotes is a free newspaper
Published by the ALA
If you don't yet have a Cognotes
I'm here to give them away
To the tune of the chorus of "Greensleeves":
Cognotes lets you know what's happening at the ALA conference
Cognotes will keep you informed about all events of consequence
Other tunes included Bridge Over Troubled Waters, the "I hate Flanders" song from the Simpsons, the Simpsons theme, Freebird, D'yer Mak'er, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Piña Colada Song, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, What a Wonderful World, the theme from Flipper, and Friends In Low Places. Oh, and Cabaret, but that was mostly for people standing in line at the entrance to the exhibition hall or at Starucks:
What good is standing
Alone in a line
With nothing at all to read?
Come get a free Cognotes, my friends
It might be what you need
At Dave's suggestion, I also did "Bring it on down to Cognotes-ville", a la Justin Timberlake's dancing advertisement sketches on Saturday Night Live.
Late this morning, I found a couple of ladies holding up signs announcing the ALA Members' Meeting. Of course I couldn't let them just stand there and hold up their signs all by themselves--especially since they were right next to my favorite escalator. So I stood next to them and mixed it up a bit by making up combination Cognotes/meeting jingles.
Afterwards, shortly before it was time to leave for the day, one of the sign-holding ladies came up to me, thanked me for helping them out, and told me I was a Twitter celebrity at the conference. Apparently a singing newspaper girl was enough of a novelty that people felt they needed to Tweet about it. Given that this is the first time my life has connected with the existence of Twitter in any way, I am delighted.
All in all, it's been a pretty good few days. I have an interview at another temp agency tomorrow afternoon, and after an interview last Thursday and a drug test Sunday, I anticipate being employed as a cashier at Dominick's by the end of the month. My financial situation is still pretty desperate, but nonetheless, things are looking up in Fiatville.
You see, over the weekend and through tomorrow, I have had a temp job that takes me to the American Library Association's yearly conference at McCormick place. When I first arrived on Saturday, I had no idea what the nature of the assignment would be; I'd assumed it would involve sitting in a booth and attempting to convince librarians to "use this product or service rather than some other, equally useful product or service".
Instead, I get to hand out the free ALA Conference newspaper, which is called "Cognotes." This paper has been the vehicle of ALA news at these conferences for years, so between the fact that the papers are familiar to attendees and the fact that they are free, I have the distinct good fortune to be handing out pieces of literature to people who actually want them and are happy to receive them.
In part because of this, it's a pretty fun job, and has provided me with great amusement. On Saturday, for instance, there was a large robot roaming my designated hallway advertising something or other. I assume, by the quality of its banter, that it was being directed and voiced by remote control, because when I walked up to it and made as if to hand it a newspaper, it got the joke, and rolled around for awhile calling "Paper, paper! Get your paper here!", with me following close on its treads waving a copy of said paper in the air. On Sunday I saw a couple of guys dressed as the Blues Brothers; they were apparently performing that afternoon. Today's newspaper even featured of photo of the winners of the ALA Book Cart Drill Team championship, the Oak Park Library Vikings. If I remember to bring home a copy of yesterday's paper later, I will scan it in and post it, so you can share my joy in having a clear mental picture of Viking librarians riding book carts.
However, the principal cause of my joy in this temp gig has been because I realized Saturday afternoon that there was no reason for me not to sing. So long as I sing as a means of letting people know that I would give them free Cognotes if they wish to have one, I have carte blanche to be a complete ham, and walk around in public showing off my meloodious pipes and my ability to improvise new lyrics to familiar melodies. I can stand at the top of the escalator and serenade people in a mellow fashion. I can walk up and down the hall singing at the top of my lungs. I can stroll past the crowd standing in line waiting for the exhibition hall in the morning and sing to them. As I remarked to one of the security guards, with whom I've had some very pleasant chats, "There are many things I love in this world. Coffee, chocolate, kittens, surprises...but one thing every member of my family dearly loves, is a captive audience."
Here are some of my favorite selections:
To the tune of "Midnight Special":
Come and get your Cognotes
Issue Three today
Get your new free Cognotes
The newspaper of the ALA
To the tune of "You Ain't Nothin' But A Hound Dog":
If you haven't got a Cognotes
You got to let me know
If you'd like to have a Cognotes
Come on and let it show
Cognotes will tell you all you need to know
If you don't have a Cognotes
I can help you out
If you would like a Cognotes
Just give me a shout
I'm here to give you free Cognotes
Of that there is no doubt
To the tune of the "Ode to Joy":
Cognotes is a free newspaper
Published by the ALA
If you don't yet have a Cognotes
I'm here to give them away
To the tune of the chorus of "Greensleeves":
Cognotes lets you know what's happening at the ALA conference
Cognotes will keep you informed about all events of consequence
Other tunes included Bridge Over Troubled Waters, the "I hate Flanders" song from the Simpsons, the Simpsons theme, Freebird, D'yer Mak'er, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Piña Colada Song, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, What a Wonderful World, the theme from Flipper, and Friends In Low Places. Oh, and Cabaret, but that was mostly for people standing in line at the entrance to the exhibition hall or at Starucks:
What good is standing
Alone in a line
With nothing at all to read?
Come get a free Cognotes, my friends
It might be what you need
At Dave's suggestion, I also did "Bring it on down to Cognotes-ville", a la Justin Timberlake's dancing advertisement sketches on Saturday Night Live.
Late this morning, I found a couple of ladies holding up signs announcing the ALA Members' Meeting. Of course I couldn't let them just stand there and hold up their signs all by themselves--especially since they were right next to my favorite escalator. So I stood next to them and mixed it up a bit by making up combination Cognotes/meeting jingles.
Afterwards, shortly before it was time to leave for the day, one of the sign-holding ladies came up to me, thanked me for helping them out, and told me I was a Twitter celebrity at the conference. Apparently a singing newspaper girl was enough of a novelty that people felt they needed to Tweet about it. Given that this is the first time my life has connected with the existence of Twitter in any way, I am delighted.
All in all, it's been a pretty good few days. I have an interview at another temp agency tomorrow afternoon, and after an interview last Thursday and a drug test Sunday, I anticipate being employed as a cashier at Dominick's by the end of the month. My financial situation is still pretty desperate, but nonetheless, things are looking up in Fiatville.
Musical Monday vol. 10: two days early! with content! (Lullabye)
I had a marvelous birthday on Friday! Me and Dave went downtown and got, respectively, a library card and a current state ID. Then, in the evening, Mom and sisters came in from the suburbs, bearing good cheer and birthday cards. Also Dave and sisters and I were treated with a ride to and tickets for--courtesy of Mom--the Babes With Blades production of Macbeth, which kicked all kinds of behind. (And front, too, in some of the excellent fight scenes.)
For all that, the thing I'm most excited about from my birthday is the following song. I may have gotten the energy and verve to compose it from my good birthday excitement, but its direct inspiration comes from a much more quotable source. Namely, The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, a book about 20th century classical music:
I resolved to write a poem about it, copied it down in my notebook, even read the passage aloud to everyone in the car on the way back from the play. They agreed it was a very poetic image. But instead, it came out as a song! This is the first thing I've ever written in 6/8 time and I'm pretty excited about it, for that and a number of other reasons. (Little note: the accent on "double" is on the first syllable, and also on the first syllable in "piano." This is to preserve the triplet, and the lines kinda sound weird if you put them in the normal spot. But trust me, it sounds good when sung. Oh, and "generals" is pronounced "gen'rals" so it's only two syllables. Gack, I know, it's cheating. XD So sue me.)
Enough intro. Here's the lyrics! :)
[Ravel at the war (Lullabye)] 5/29/09
the road is staccato and rubble
it rains flame and trouble
bent double I struggle to steer
even far from the front lines
my feet beat double time
down hot empty streets where there's no one to hear
but I'll play you
a lullabye, lullabye, lullabye
your streets can't weep
but my instrument, instrument, instrument
knows how to cry
the prophets of frenzy
have bombed this town empty
soon generals will send me to where they've moved on
this abandoned château
with its lone piano
wakes something in my soul I was certain was gone
so I'll play you
a lullabye, lullabye, lullabye
they betrayed you
but I brought you some music
I don't think it knows how to lie
these notes seem so small and pathetic
when tyrranous rhetoric's
backed up by poison and shells
may the fallen sleep sweet
may we always defeat
those who'd burn down the world when it's too soon to tell
don't call it weak
a lullabye, lullabye, lullabye
the dead can't speak
but my instrument can
and while it's in my hands, so can I
so can I
so can I
For all that, the thing I'm most excited about from my birthday is the following song. I may have gotten the energy and verve to compose it from my good birthday excitement, but its direct inspiration comes from a much more quotable source. Namely, The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross, a book about 20th century classical music:
"Maurice Ravel nearly died around the same time. The tiny-framed composer should have been barred from military service, but, enraged by the bombing of Reims, he enlisted as a truck driver. By the spring of 1916 Ravel was deployed just behind the front lines and witnessed the ghastly aftermath of the Battle of Verdun. He often had to weave back and forth on pockmarked roads as shells fell all around him. Once he found himself in an abandoned town on a sunny day, walking through the empty, silent streets. 'I don't believe I will ever experience a more profound or stranger emotion than this sort of mute terror,' he wrote. Another time he entered an abandoned château, found a fine Erard piano, and sat down to play some Chopin." ~ p. 102
I resolved to write a poem about it, copied it down in my notebook, even read the passage aloud to everyone in the car on the way back from the play. They agreed it was a very poetic image. But instead, it came out as a song! This is the first thing I've ever written in 6/8 time and I'm pretty excited about it, for that and a number of other reasons. (Little note: the accent on "double" is on the first syllable, and also on the first syllable in "piano." This is to preserve the triplet, and the lines kinda sound weird if you put them in the normal spot. But trust me, it sounds good when sung. Oh, and "generals" is pronounced "gen'rals" so it's only two syllables. Gack, I know, it's cheating. XD So sue me.)
Enough intro. Here's the lyrics! :)
[Ravel at the war (Lullabye)] 5/29/09
the road is staccato and rubble
it rains flame and trouble
bent double I struggle to steer
even far from the front lines
my feet beat double time
down hot empty streets where there's no one to hear
but I'll play you
a lullabye, lullabye, lullabye
your streets can't weep
but my instrument, instrument, instrument
knows how to cry
the prophets of frenzy
have bombed this town empty
soon generals will send me to where they've moved on
this abandoned château
with its lone piano
wakes something in my soul I was certain was gone
so I'll play you
a lullabye, lullabye, lullabye
they betrayed you
but I brought you some music
I don't think it knows how to lie
these notes seem so small and pathetic
when tyrranous rhetoric's
backed up by poison and shells
may the fallen sleep sweet
may we always defeat
those who'd burn down the world when it's too soon to tell
don't call it weak
a lullabye, lullabye, lullabye
the dead can't speak
but my instrument can
and while it's in my hands, so can I
so can I
so can I
Musical Monday vol. 9: Musical taste vs friendship
Exchanging forms of entertainment is a sign of true friendship. We all do it. We'll see commercials for a movie--or more likely fast-forward through them thanks to DVR--and say "meh". But once a trusted person says "Hey, you really need to check this movie out," we'll seriously consider watching it. In a way we never would have considered it based on the merits of the commercial.
For instance, if it hadn't been for Amber, I never would have gotten into the Liaden Universe. (Link is on the sidebar.) If it hadn't been for Geds, I never would have listened to The Waterboys. If it hadn't been for Myke, I never would have watched Mirror Mask.
But it occurred to me recently that I myself don't actually go out and read, watch, or listen to things in order to recommend them to people. I'm almost exclusively a second audience rather than a first. The only cool song I've heard recently that my peeps aren't already into is Bo Burnham's Love Is. (You should go watch it. It's awesome. A couple of off-color jokes, but nothing that'll throw your conscience for too much of a loop, I think. One of the more egregious examples is: "I need you like New Orleans needs a drought / Like Hitler's father needed to learn to pull out.")
Makes me wonder about the responsibilities of friendship. When you're a friend, do you have a responsiblity to your friends to serve as a test audience for those types of media which fall most directly in your areas of interest? Or is that one of those side benefits of friendship that gives one bonus friend points but is not necessarily required?
It's a topic that's been on my mind lately, because I haven't been so good at keeping friends. Making them, no problem. But when it comes to keeping them over a long period of time, one of two things tends to happen. Thing #1: I get freaked out because my friend is unreasonably fixated on me and break it off. (This happened with Myke.) Thing #2: I get all low self-esteemy because I feel I have nothing to contribute to the friendship and stop contacting them. The Thing #1 situation, as far as I can tell, tends to be the result of mutual dysfunctionality which I can prevent by changing my behavior. In other words, not trying to get self-esteem by indulging in emotionally unequal relationships where I set myself up as an ersatz therapist to someone who would benefit more from seeing a real therapist. To avoid Thing #2 I have got to get over my feeling that I'm an innately inferior person and hence, unworthy of being befriended by somebody cool enough for me to want as a friend. And in order to do that, it's important that I come to understand what characteristics and behaviors emotionally healthy people expect from friends.
Interpersonal bonds of intermediate strength have always been a problem for me. What seems instinctive for other people is totally counterintuitive for me. I feel like I'm trying to reconstitute from scratch something everyone else is born already knowing. Which is certainly untrue in practice. On an intellectual level I try to see things in as many shades of grey as I can resolve, but emotionally I am always fighting the fear of something I know I don't undertsand. A person expects reasonable variations on what they've seen in previous relationships. If I can infer their expectations from their own actions plus those of their relationships I have been able to witness, then I can glean some knowledge about the limits of behavior to which I am expected to conform. The less of that information I've had access to, the more uncertain and easily scared off I've become. On the flip side, if I know a lot about a person's relationship history, it's difficult for me to envision myself living up to an imaginary, inferred standard. Kind of a Catch-22.
Which is what has resulted in Thing #1 for me above in the past. If someone is desperate for a confidante and convinced no one wants to be their friend, they'll be willing to spill all their hopes and fears to the first person who offers a handy shoulder on which to cry. So all the things a relatively healthy person would hold back in the interests of personal privacy, an emotionally vulnerable person will offer as their "show cards" in hopes of convincing a potential friend of their sincerity. If my fear of potential rejection is so overwhelming that I won't commit to a friendship unless the other party puts more on the line than any rational person would, then I condemn myself to unequal friendships with people who are more needy than I'm able to handle.
So if I want to be a better friend, or at least, develop a sense of identity in which I feel I'm worthy to befriend people who have something to offer beyond dysfunction, I too need to have something to offer beyond dysfunction. I've got to be interested in things that I think are exciting and cool enough to recommend to others who haven't heard of those things. And I need to think well enough of the things. I care about that I'm not embarrassed to recommend them.
Hooray self-esteem.
For instance, if it hadn't been for Amber, I never would have gotten into the Liaden Universe. (Link is on the sidebar.) If it hadn't been for Geds, I never would have listened to The Waterboys. If it hadn't been for Myke, I never would have watched Mirror Mask.
But it occurred to me recently that I myself don't actually go out and read, watch, or listen to things in order to recommend them to people. I'm almost exclusively a second audience rather than a first. The only cool song I've heard recently that my peeps aren't already into is Bo Burnham's Love Is. (You should go watch it. It's awesome. A couple of off-color jokes, but nothing that'll throw your conscience for too much of a loop, I think. One of the more egregious examples is: "I need you like New Orleans needs a drought / Like Hitler's father needed to learn to pull out.")
Makes me wonder about the responsibilities of friendship. When you're a friend, do you have a responsiblity to your friends to serve as a test audience for those types of media which fall most directly in your areas of interest? Or is that one of those side benefits of friendship that gives one bonus friend points but is not necessarily required?
It's a topic that's been on my mind lately, because I haven't been so good at keeping friends. Making them, no problem. But when it comes to keeping them over a long period of time, one of two things tends to happen. Thing #1: I get freaked out because my friend is unreasonably fixated on me and break it off. (This happened with Myke.) Thing #2: I get all low self-esteemy because I feel I have nothing to contribute to the friendship and stop contacting them. The Thing #1 situation, as far as I can tell, tends to be the result of mutual dysfunctionality which I can prevent by changing my behavior. In other words, not trying to get self-esteem by indulging in emotionally unequal relationships where I set myself up as an ersatz therapist to someone who would benefit more from seeing a real therapist. To avoid Thing #2 I have got to get over my feeling that I'm an innately inferior person and hence, unworthy of being befriended by somebody cool enough for me to want as a friend. And in order to do that, it's important that I come to understand what characteristics and behaviors emotionally healthy people expect from friends.
Interpersonal bonds of intermediate strength have always been a problem for me. What seems instinctive for other people is totally counterintuitive for me. I feel like I'm trying to reconstitute from scratch something everyone else is born already knowing. Which is certainly untrue in practice. On an intellectual level I try to see things in as many shades of grey as I can resolve, but emotionally I am always fighting the fear of something I know I don't undertsand. A person expects reasonable variations on what they've seen in previous relationships. If I can infer their expectations from their own actions plus those of their relationships I have been able to witness, then I can glean some knowledge about the limits of behavior to which I am expected to conform. The less of that information I've had access to, the more uncertain and easily scared off I've become. On the flip side, if I know a lot about a person's relationship history, it's difficult for me to envision myself living up to an imaginary, inferred standard. Kind of a Catch-22.
Which is what has resulted in Thing #1 for me above in the past. If someone is desperate for a confidante and convinced no one wants to be their friend, they'll be willing to spill all their hopes and fears to the first person who offers a handy shoulder on which to cry. So all the things a relatively healthy person would hold back in the interests of personal privacy, an emotionally vulnerable person will offer as their "show cards" in hopes of convincing a potential friend of their sincerity. If my fear of potential rejection is so overwhelming that I won't commit to a friendship unless the other party puts more on the line than any rational person would, then I condemn myself to unequal friendships with people who are more needy than I'm able to handle.
So if I want to be a better friend, or at least, develop a sense of identity in which I feel I'm worthy to befriend people who have something to offer beyond dysfunction, I too need to have something to offer beyond dysfunction. I've got to be interested in things that I think are exciting and cool enough to recommend to others who haven't heard of those things. And I need to think well enough of the things. I care about that I'm not embarrassed to recommend them.
Hooray self-esteem.
Musical Monday vol. 8
I apologize about the lack of a sports post on Friday. But I can explain!
Football is actually easier to write about than baseball, I'm realizing, in part for the many reasons I disliked it so much for so long. It's heavily commercialized. Every game has a whole week to get hyped up into a Clash Between the Gods and the Titans All Over Again, and This Time It's Personal. All the strategy and tactics of the game are sliced up into little sound bytes, then the sound bytes are sorted out by TV pundits. Who, like prospectors panning for gold, will take one or two shiny nuggets of awkwardness or poorly-phrased cliche, and on the basis of such, attempt to stake out a claim on a probably-nonexistent story.
Baseball, by contrast, is a much slower and more elegant game. It has just as much commercial penetration and is just as swarmed by pundits aiming for a scoop, true. But there are literally more than ten times as many baseball games than football games in each sport's regular season--162 to 16. And once the season starts, games occur on almost a daily basis, so there's less time to build up a crazy story around any particular game. Baseball is more about numbers, the history of various players as they travel to one franchise to another, statistical averages over time. In other words, things that take a significant knowledge base to write about intelligently. Which an extremely casual, possibly ADD-having quasi-fan such as myself has trouble carrying around in her brain!
(Of course, I still know how to make a monkey wrench or which combat items to use when I'm fighting Spam Witches in the Valley of Rof L'm Fao in KoL. But those are things I do almost every day! And it tells me funny jokes all the time!)
Going to open mic night with my little sister was way more in my comfort zone, and about as far removed from the glitzy world of professional athletics as one can get. This is a little cafe, not too far a drive from Elgin, where young people get up on stage in front of one another and attempt to amuse with comedy or entertain with music.
For many it was only an attempt. There was some silly show on mute in the background, and more than one person ended up just providing an awkward soundtrack while we all learned, for example, that if you're up in front of a firing squad and they all intentionally miss because they think the charges against you are stupid, you can still die of a heart attack because you believe you've been shot. I'll keep it in mind if it ever comes up! And wait to be killed by actual bullets. Cheery thought.
We ended up getting to sing almost dead last, because everyone seemed to have a reason they needed to get home early. Understandable, and an unfortunate side effect of scheduling open mic on Sunday nights. Why they don't do it on Friday nights, when most people are likeliest to be free the next day, I do not know. But it's been going on long enough that I suppose it's a tradition now, in other words a habit agreed upon by many people. And if one person's habit is hard to break, trying to get thirty to fifty people to all break a habit at once has got to be bad for business.
Still, it made me a bit wistful to see one group after another get up and leave. The more Americal Idol I watch, the less appeal the world of massively commercialized music has for me. But it still hasn't killed my craving for audiences. I want to get to has. I want to earn by being not lame. I want to singy my shiny sounds for more than fifteen people someday! Very much yes!
*does dance of impatience*
(which bears an embarrassing resemblance to dance of needing bathroom)
(which comparison would probably have the late Dr. Freud penciling me in twice weekly)
Anyway, along with a couple old favorites like [but the ghost] and [static], I got to play one of my new songs. Very, very new. Like *checks practice grid* written on Friday. It's been my tradition on Musical Monday to include the lyrics of a new song if I've got one, and this is one. But I am still nervous about this one because of the nature of it. Y'all know I recently said some stupid things and had a fight with my big sister Amber. That being the biggest thing on my emotional horizon, it is what I wrote about. Moral of the story of the song is: my misperception and impulsiveness caused you pain. Recognizing this fact is also painful. I employ some hyperbole, but I hope not too much.
[missing]
I hit a sour note
stepped on a sidewalk crack
bus barreled down the road
driver did not look back
reached underneath my coat
for what controls the sound
my fingers turned the volume down
my voice it would have shook
I pressed the keys instead
what I wrote must have looked
different than what you read
I guess I lost my chance
to tell you what I mean
when tears wiped my words off your screen
I know I earned this blame
my sin has found me out
I went and called you names
after you'd come to doubt
I'd want you in my life
because we disagree
about a man from Galilee
I have a bottle here
that says it's not impressed
neither are you, my dear
I beg you, be my guest
come take a look around
before we blow this joint
you'll see somehow I missed the point
cause I jumped up
and bit you
all you fed me is what you consume
I did not mean
to hit you
saw you standing in another room
if I'd just thought
to listen
if I can't see you that doesn't mean you're
missing, missing, missing
Football is actually easier to write about than baseball, I'm realizing, in part for the many reasons I disliked it so much for so long. It's heavily commercialized. Every game has a whole week to get hyped up into a Clash Between the Gods and the Titans All Over Again, and This Time It's Personal. All the strategy and tactics of the game are sliced up into little sound bytes, then the sound bytes are sorted out by TV pundits. Who, like prospectors panning for gold, will take one or two shiny nuggets of awkwardness or poorly-phrased cliche, and on the basis of such, attempt to stake out a claim on a probably-nonexistent story.
Baseball, by contrast, is a much slower and more elegant game. It has just as much commercial penetration and is just as swarmed by pundits aiming for a scoop, true. But there are literally more than ten times as many baseball games than football games in each sport's regular season--162 to 16. And once the season starts, games occur on almost a daily basis, so there's less time to build up a crazy story around any particular game. Baseball is more about numbers, the history of various players as they travel to one franchise to another, statistical averages over time. In other words, things that take a significant knowledge base to write about intelligently. Which an extremely casual, possibly ADD-having quasi-fan such as myself has trouble carrying around in her brain!
(Of course, I still know how to make a monkey wrench or which combat items to use when I'm fighting Spam Witches in the Valley of Rof L'm Fao in KoL. But those are things I do almost every day! And it tells me funny jokes all the time!)
Going to open mic night with my little sister was way more in my comfort zone, and about as far removed from the glitzy world of professional athletics as one can get. This is a little cafe, not too far a drive from Elgin, where young people get up on stage in front of one another and attempt to amuse with comedy or entertain with music.
For many it was only an attempt. There was some silly show on mute in the background, and more than one person ended up just providing an awkward soundtrack while we all learned, for example, that if you're up in front of a firing squad and they all intentionally miss because they think the charges against you are stupid, you can still die of a heart attack because you believe you've been shot. I'll keep it in mind if it ever comes up! And wait to be killed by actual bullets. Cheery thought.
We ended up getting to sing almost dead last, because everyone seemed to have a reason they needed to get home early. Understandable, and an unfortunate side effect of scheduling open mic on Sunday nights. Why they don't do it on Friday nights, when most people are likeliest to be free the next day, I do not know. But it's been going on long enough that I suppose it's a tradition now, in other words a habit agreed upon by many people. And if one person's habit is hard to break, trying to get thirty to fifty people to all break a habit at once has got to be bad for business.
Still, it made me a bit wistful to see one group after another get up and leave. The more Americal Idol I watch, the less appeal the world of massively commercialized music has for me. But it still hasn't killed my craving for audiences. I want to get to has. I want to earn by being not lame. I want to singy my shiny sounds for more than fifteen people someday! Very much yes!
*does dance of impatience*
(which bears an embarrassing resemblance to dance of needing bathroom)
(which comparison would probably have the late Dr. Freud penciling me in twice weekly)
Anyway, along with a couple old favorites like [but the ghost] and [static], I got to play one of my new songs. Very, very new. Like *checks practice grid* written on Friday. It's been my tradition on Musical Monday to include the lyrics of a new song if I've got one, and this is one. But I am still nervous about this one because of the nature of it. Y'all know I recently said some stupid things and had a fight with my big sister Amber. That being the biggest thing on my emotional horizon, it is what I wrote about. Moral of the story of the song is: my misperception and impulsiveness caused you pain. Recognizing this fact is also painful. I employ some hyperbole, but I hope not too much.
[missing]
I hit a sour note
stepped on a sidewalk crack
bus barreled down the road
driver did not look back
reached underneath my coat
for what controls the sound
my fingers turned the volume down
my voice it would have shook
I pressed the keys instead
what I wrote must have looked
different than what you read
I guess I lost my chance
to tell you what I mean
when tears wiped my words off your screen
I know I earned this blame
my sin has found me out
I went and called you names
after you'd come to doubt
I'd want you in my life
because we disagree
about a man from Galilee
I have a bottle here
that says it's not impressed
neither are you, my dear
I beg you, be my guest
come take a look around
before we blow this joint
you'll see somehow I missed the point
cause I jumped up
and bit you
all you fed me is what you consume
I did not mean
to hit you
saw you standing in another room
if I'd just thought
to listen
if I can't see you that doesn't mean you're
missing, missing, missing
Musical Monday vol. 7
Back after a week without internet. The joy! The delight!
Well, not so much with the joy. The things that amuse me have all become less amusing. The things I take pride in all make me feel less proud. I have, how do you say, gone stir crazy. Am rethinking all over again just what I want to do with my life. In terms of what I think it may be possible to do. And it is frustrating.
But I have been taking great comfort in playing the guitar and singing, making shiny sounds. I did write a new song last week, so I'll post it up here. It being Musical Monday and all.
[leave it to you]
the window is closed but the cold gets in anyway
I've stopped waiting for the day it finally melts
my coffee cup's empty but I've sucked down plenty
god said, "call me when you get over yourself"
Jesus, I swear I've been paying attention
paying attention is all I can do
Jesus I care, but I have no intention
I have no intention to leave it to you
I just thought of something to write on my resume
ten thousand hours in the fantasy war
boss lady will pay me but then she will say to me
"I never thought you could handle much more"
lady, I swear, I've been paying attention
paying attention is all I can do
you may get there without my intervention
but I've no intention to leave it to you
you shrug and tell me what's happened inside your head
month sober and you're dead under the skin
dressed up or naked I've never been faking it
but that ain't the reason we're living in sin
baby, I swear I've been paying attention
but paying attention ain't all I will do
if you can't bear what your cold hands are clenching
I have no intention to leave it to you
Well, not so much with the joy. The things that amuse me have all become less amusing. The things I take pride in all make me feel less proud. I have, how do you say, gone stir crazy. Am rethinking all over again just what I want to do with my life. In terms of what I think it may be possible to do. And it is frustrating.
But I have been taking great comfort in playing the guitar and singing, making shiny sounds. I did write a new song last week, so I'll post it up here. It being Musical Monday and all.
[leave it to you]
the window is closed but the cold gets in anyway
I've stopped waiting for the day it finally melts
my coffee cup's empty but I've sucked down plenty
god said, "call me when you get over yourself"
Jesus, I swear I've been paying attention
paying attention is all I can do
Jesus I care, but I have no intention
I have no intention to leave it to you
I just thought of something to write on my resume
ten thousand hours in the fantasy war
boss lady will pay me but then she will say to me
"I never thought you could handle much more"
lady, I swear, I've been paying attention
paying attention is all I can do
you may get there without my intervention
but I've no intention to leave it to you
you shrug and tell me what's happened inside your head
month sober and you're dead under the skin
dressed up or naked I've never been faking it
but that ain't the reason we're living in sin
baby, I swear I've been paying attention
but paying attention ain't all I will do
if you can't bear what your cold hands are clenching
I have no intention to leave it to you
Musical Monday vol. 6
An actual song for a change!
I suspect this thing has bluesy chords or bar chords that I don't know. Haven't tried to arrange it yet.
Every month or so I have a couple nervous days where I'm not 100% sure. We're reasonably careful, and biology, alas, is on our side. Strange things happen all the time, though. And as that guy said in Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way." Life is stubborn and relentless and I don't entirely trust it not to happen. So instead of getting all freaked out (I'm not even overdue yet!), I wrote this song.
[babies on the brain]
oh, lately I got babies on the brain
so open wide, here comes the aeroplane
I see moms in the street or on TV
with babies, I go "hey! that could be me"
wah, wah, wah wah
goo, g-goo goo goo
wah, wah, wah wah
dog, what can I do
I wake up nauseated cause I'm sick
though I do not regret your sweet companionship
we ain't got what it takes to do this yet
I get the shakes, I light a cigarette
wah, wah, wah wah
goo, g-goo goo goo
wah, wah, wah wah
dog, what can I do
our small apartment's filled with pointy things
with gadgets, papers, little bits of string
my pay can't quite tread water with our bills
but I don't find myself disposed to kill
I pray it happens later
when we've pulled ourselves together
cause diamonds are for bank accounts
but babies are forever
we're young and poor and comfortable
in our filthy little nest
but you don't want to grow up yet
and I do not know best
wah, wah, wah wah
wah, wah, wah wah
so let be just be scared and sick and dumb
I pray for blood, oh quickly let it come
one of these times I swear to dog I will
get on the pill
wah, wah, wah wah
goo, g-goo goo goo
wah, wah, wah wah
dog, what can we do
I suspect this thing has bluesy chords or bar chords that I don't know. Haven't tried to arrange it yet.
Every month or so I have a couple nervous days where I'm not 100% sure. We're reasonably careful, and biology, alas, is on our side. Strange things happen all the time, though. And as that guy said in Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way." Life is stubborn and relentless and I don't entirely trust it not to happen. So instead of getting all freaked out (I'm not even overdue yet!), I wrote this song.
[babies on the brain]
oh, lately I got babies on the brain
so open wide, here comes the aeroplane
I see moms in the street or on TV
with babies, I go "hey! that could be me"
wah, wah, wah wah
goo, g-goo goo goo
wah, wah, wah wah
dog, what can I do
I wake up nauseated cause I'm sick
though I do not regret your sweet companionship
we ain't got what it takes to do this yet
I get the shakes, I light a cigarette
wah, wah, wah wah
goo, g-goo goo goo
wah, wah, wah wah
dog, what can I do
our small apartment's filled with pointy things
with gadgets, papers, little bits of string
my pay can't quite tread water with our bills
but I don't find myself disposed to kill
I pray it happens later
when we've pulled ourselves together
cause diamonds are for bank accounts
but babies are forever
we're young and poor and comfortable
in our filthy little nest
but you don't want to grow up yet
and I do not know best
wah, wah, wah wah
wah, wah, wah wah
so let be just be scared and sick and dumb
I pray for blood, oh quickly let it come
one of these times I swear to dog I will
get on the pill
wah, wah, wah wah
goo, g-goo goo goo
wah, wah, wah wah
dog, what can we do
Musical Monday vol 5: envy
And oh, as I fade away
They'll all look at me and say
they'll say, "Hey look at him--
I'll never live that way
But that's okay
He's just afraid to change"
~Blind Melon
If you love a mirror build a statue.
Your friends will admire you.
If you love a statue build a mirror.
Make room for new friends.
~Richard Brautigan
I started coming up with words to go along with music when I was five. I know, because there is proof! Mom very likely still has a tape somewhere, with my reedy little voice belting out something jubilant and garbly. Maybe sometime I will ask her to look with me through old boxes of stuff from when we were kids. It would be something positive to bond over. Even if we don't find the tape, I can still remember it: toddler me singing a song about how much I liked horses, making it up as I went along. Song for the sheer joy of it. It was adorable, but I still get embarrassed every time I think about it. I could sense dimly that it wasn't up to the musical craft level of the other songs I knew, but at the time I didn't care. Just being able to do it was too much fun to let anything get in the way. Let alone something as silly as comparing my song to those of other people.
But now? Lately I care, even about what I did when I was five, as much as if I'd done it yesterday. I am embarrassed that five-year-old me didn't write with the same grace and power as twenty-six-year-old me, even though I know that's totally irrational. I still think it's silly to compare--but I also can't stop doing it. Comparing what I hear to my own stuff has become an inseparable part of my listening experience. I hear the beat, the melody, the internal harmonies, the words, with an ear half appreciative and half analytical. Critical. Are mine better than his? hers? theirs? Is my version of this immortal musical template more effective than this classic rendition? Worse? Does it do something different? And the last, hastily suppressed, underlying question: Am I better? As good?
Here is the emotional logic of the thing. You see, the musicians of today and ages past have worth as people because of their music. They brought it into the world, refined it, and got it out there for people to hear. Audiences heard, and judged, and did not find wanting. Therefore, the joy those people have in their ability to bring music into the world is valid. Allowable. Real.
Something in me changed, between five and twenty-six: I changed for the worse, in this way at least. Where I once had a source of pure joy, I am now hampered by envy.
Envy is not like shyness. Shyness comes from a fear rooted in uncertainty: They might like or dislike me. I hope they like me. Oh, if they dislike and shun me it will hurt! I don't want to be hurt and shunned. Perhaps I can hide and not have to find out? But envy is rooted in a kind of certainty. No amount of encouragement, praise, or positive feedback will effectively counter it. The certainty that someone else has something you cannot obtain, that some flaw in you prevents you from truly enjoying it even if you were to possess it. Even if I had a dozen albums go platinum, even if I packed stadiums with audiences as big as Pearl Jam's or had a lasting impact on lyricism and culture like Bob Dylan, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. As long as I envied, I would still feel inferior, still feel cheated of that joy I had in music as a child.
What makes envy toxic, then, is that it is a form of despair.
Dad had a great speech on the subject of despair. Although he'd come at it the other way around, from an argument about apostasy, also called blasphemy against the holy spirit. Apostasy, in Christian lingo, is the only sin that actually does get people damned to hell. All other sins are either gateway sins leading up to it, or symptoms following from it. And what, he would ask Socratically, is the essence of apostasy? What makes it that which it is, and without which it would not be? To become apostate is to reject god, to turn away from him, all he offers and all he represents. What sin is most primal, then--which is the act of turning away itself, and not its forerunners or results? Arrogance, viciousness, cowardice, gluttony--and envy too--are all the spiritual equivalent of shouting insults or sniveling excuses into your personal phone line to god. But despair is the certainty, the absolute certainty, that one cannot be redeemed. That no matter what hope whispers at the bottom of your soul, it too must be a lie. It is hanging up the phone on god.
Envy, like all the rest of the seven deadly sins, comes one step after that.* To envy is to say, I can never deserve or truly possess this good thing. All hope is lost, so it will never be mine, even if I appear to possess it. But I want to keep it near me anyway, so that I can more vividly remember the hope that I have lost. While that is ridiculous from a logical standpoint, it can make perfect and horrible sense on an emotional level. Emotions are more like chemistry than like math. You can't convince or prove your way out of an emotional assumption, any more than you can add +1 to N indefinitely to make the scent of oranges. You have to replace it with a different assumption.
Because the thing, whatever it is, isn't the actual target of the envy. Rather it is the happiness you associate with possession of the thing. The ability to experience happiness is the prerogative of the hopeful, not necessarily the skilled or the wealthy or the talented or the strong. Those things can all provide different and exciting ways to be happy, provided the person who has them is also filled with hope.
So what is it, this magical assumption that can replace the belief in despair, and pull a person back from the brink of unforgivable sin?
The best way I know to answer is this: To believe that you are loved.
What news will shine at just the right angle into the dim and frightened corners of your soul? What evidence will you find yourself able to actually believe? That I can't tell you.
Maybe it's a little gesture by another person. Say they notice something that's making you sad, offer to help you fix it, and when it works, their happiness at seeing you feel better is as big as your happiness for having a source of sadness removed. (Thanks for the awesome Xmas present, dave!) Or maybe you read or hear something that resonates in some empty place inside you, lets you realize that somebody out there understands and accepts the way you feel, even if you and they may never meet. It could be a matter of happenstance; maybe the wind blows an ad against your foot that says "never say never!" when you were just ranting in your head that things would never change. It's silly and sometimes--to logical analysis--nonsensical. But as long as it works to get you through the emotional transformation from despair back into hope, I say it's legit!
Here's a song fragment. May finish it, may not, but I thought it up while writing this post, so it gets written down here.
there's a hole in the ceiling of my soul
lets in the light, lets in the cold
I pray that it may never close
*There are those who say pride actually comes before despair. And in terms of logic their arguments make sense. But not in terms of emotional states. Search your own remembrance, you who have known the worst moments a living being may know! Does not the false and sneering pride come only after one relinquishes hope? Is it not a mere form of resistance to one's desperate urge to take up hope again?
They'll all look at me and say
they'll say, "Hey look at him--
I'll never live that way
But that's okay
He's just afraid to change"
~Blind Melon
If you love a mirror build a statue.
Your friends will admire you.
If you love a statue build a mirror.
Make room for new friends.
~Richard Brautigan
I started coming up with words to go along with music when I was five. I know, because there is proof! Mom very likely still has a tape somewhere, with my reedy little voice belting out something jubilant and garbly. Maybe sometime I will ask her to look with me through old boxes of stuff from when we were kids. It would be something positive to bond over. Even if we don't find the tape, I can still remember it: toddler me singing a song about how much I liked horses, making it up as I went along. Song for the sheer joy of it. It was adorable, but I still get embarrassed every time I think about it. I could sense dimly that it wasn't up to the musical craft level of the other songs I knew, but at the time I didn't care. Just being able to do it was too much fun to let anything get in the way. Let alone something as silly as comparing my song to those of other people.
But now? Lately I care, even about what I did when I was five, as much as if I'd done it yesterday. I am embarrassed that five-year-old me didn't write with the same grace and power as twenty-six-year-old me, even though I know that's totally irrational. I still think it's silly to compare--but I also can't stop doing it. Comparing what I hear to my own stuff has become an inseparable part of my listening experience. I hear the beat, the melody, the internal harmonies, the words, with an ear half appreciative and half analytical. Critical. Are mine better than his? hers? theirs? Is my version of this immortal musical template more effective than this classic rendition? Worse? Does it do something different? And the last, hastily suppressed, underlying question: Am I better? As good?
Here is the emotional logic of the thing. You see, the musicians of today and ages past have worth as people because of their music. They brought it into the world, refined it, and got it out there for people to hear. Audiences heard, and judged, and did not find wanting. Therefore, the joy those people have in their ability to bring music into the world is valid. Allowable. Real.
Something in me changed, between five and twenty-six: I changed for the worse, in this way at least. Where I once had a source of pure joy, I am now hampered by envy.
Envy is not like shyness. Shyness comes from a fear rooted in uncertainty: They might like or dislike me. I hope they like me. Oh, if they dislike and shun me it will hurt! I don't want to be hurt and shunned. Perhaps I can hide and not have to find out? But envy is rooted in a kind of certainty. No amount of encouragement, praise, or positive feedback will effectively counter it. The certainty that someone else has something you cannot obtain, that some flaw in you prevents you from truly enjoying it even if you were to possess it. Even if I had a dozen albums go platinum, even if I packed stadiums with audiences as big as Pearl Jam's or had a lasting impact on lyricism and culture like Bob Dylan, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. As long as I envied, I would still feel inferior, still feel cheated of that joy I had in music as a child.
What makes envy toxic, then, is that it is a form of despair.
Dad had a great speech on the subject of despair. Although he'd come at it the other way around, from an argument about apostasy, also called blasphemy against the holy spirit. Apostasy, in Christian lingo, is the only sin that actually does get people damned to hell. All other sins are either gateway sins leading up to it, or symptoms following from it. And what, he would ask Socratically, is the essence of apostasy? What makes it that which it is, and without which it would not be? To become apostate is to reject god, to turn away from him, all he offers and all he represents. What sin is most primal, then--which is the act of turning away itself, and not its forerunners or results? Arrogance, viciousness, cowardice, gluttony--and envy too--are all the spiritual equivalent of shouting insults or sniveling excuses into your personal phone line to god. But despair is the certainty, the absolute certainty, that one cannot be redeemed. That no matter what hope whispers at the bottom of your soul, it too must be a lie. It is hanging up the phone on god.
Envy, like all the rest of the seven deadly sins, comes one step after that.* To envy is to say, I can never deserve or truly possess this good thing. All hope is lost, so it will never be mine, even if I appear to possess it. But I want to keep it near me anyway, so that I can more vividly remember the hope that I have lost. While that is ridiculous from a logical standpoint, it can make perfect and horrible sense on an emotional level. Emotions are more like chemistry than like math. You can't convince or prove your way out of an emotional assumption, any more than you can add +1 to N indefinitely to make the scent of oranges. You have to replace it with a different assumption.
Because the thing, whatever it is, isn't the actual target of the envy. Rather it is the happiness you associate with possession of the thing. The ability to experience happiness is the prerogative of the hopeful, not necessarily the skilled or the wealthy or the talented or the strong. Those things can all provide different and exciting ways to be happy, provided the person who has them is also filled with hope.
So what is it, this magical assumption that can replace the belief in despair, and pull a person back from the brink of unforgivable sin?
The best way I know to answer is this: To believe that you are loved.
What news will shine at just the right angle into the dim and frightened corners of your soul? What evidence will you find yourself able to actually believe? That I can't tell you.
Maybe it's a little gesture by another person. Say they notice something that's making you sad, offer to help you fix it, and when it works, their happiness at seeing you feel better is as big as your happiness for having a source of sadness removed. (Thanks for the awesome Xmas present, dave!) Or maybe you read or hear something that resonates in some empty place inside you, lets you realize that somebody out there understands and accepts the way you feel, even if you and they may never meet. It could be a matter of happenstance; maybe the wind blows an ad against your foot that says "never say never!" when you were just ranting in your head that things would never change. It's silly and sometimes--to logical analysis--nonsensical. But as long as it works to get you through the emotional transformation from despair back into hope, I say it's legit!
Here's a song fragment. May finish it, may not, but I thought it up while writing this post, so it gets written down here.
there's a hole in the ceiling of my soul
lets in the light, lets in the cold
I pray that it may never close
*There are those who say pride actually comes before despair. And in terms of logic their arguments make sense. But not in terms of emotional states. Search your own remembrance, you who have known the worst moments a living being may know! Does not the false and sneering pride come only after one relinquishes hope? Is it not a mere form of resistance to one's desperate urge to take up hope again?
Musical Monday vol 4.: the sound of the streets
Yesterday was an unseasonably beautiful day, so it was with a light heart that I took the bus down to State street. My goal was to get all my major gift shopping (which consists of books, books and more books) done in one fell swoop. The shopping for minor gifts I can take care of a little closer to the holiday. Me, actually buying gifts to give to other people for a change! Parts of turning slowly into a grownup are kind of fun. :)
Of course, I was not the only one who had that idea. State street is a tourist destination even for locals, as landmark businesses put up gaudy Xmas-themed display windows so that people from out of town or parents with children in tow can have something shiny to photograph one another standing in front of. In theory I suppose the displays also entice people into the stores to buy things, but I've never been so enticed myself, so I can't be sure.
Let's face it. Holiday shopping can be fun to do, but it is extremely boring to read about someone else's holiday shopping. Or even read about somebody else watching yet a third party's holiday shopping. So instead, I'm going to write about the people who provide the real sounds of the season--sounds that last all winter and all summer too, if you're in a place where they can be heard. People who need gifts as much as or more than anybody, but for whom we are all unlikely to get them. Because however many we bought, it would never ever ever be enough.
Much more interesting than the shoppers down on State street were the street people. Whether slurring the same sentence over and over to ask for money, making beautiful music to ask for money, or anything in between, downtown Chicago has a sound as distinctive as its skyline, in part because of them. Many more than you'd usually see even on a weekday, these folks were there to get what they could from the shoppers the same way the shoppers were there to get what they could of the sights and stores. Firstly, there were the drum kids. These are four or five young men with drumsticks and upturned buckets who usually perform on the sidewalk near the Art Institute in summer. They are awesome at drumming, and I did regret not having any cash to give them. There was also a guy with a trumpet playing carols. Who had been replaced, by the time I left the store, by a guy singing them in a surprisingly classical-sounding tenor. Another man, on a different corner, tried his hand at Xmas music with a saxophone but wasn't quite as good. Then there were four or five people begging, either sitting cross-legged on the ground or sitting in lawn chairs with blankets wrapped around their legs. They would hold up signs bearing crudely-written messages like "JUST HUNGRY" or "please help - God bless", or by calling out their message repeatedly; "please help me out with a couple dollars, I got no place to stay, please help..."
Normally, downtown on a winter weekday during business rush hours, you'll find one person begging per two-to-three square block area. Street performers, that is, those who play instruments, sing, or drum on upturned buckets, are less common. They occur maybe once in a six-to-seven square block area, and are most likely to be found on the east side of the river--basically where someone coming from the financial distract would have to cross a bridge in order to get to the Metra station. In fact, the heaviest concentration of street people is always between the most populous office buildings and the major mass transit stations. I assume that people who take Metra (the trains that go out to the suburbs) have looser pockets than people who take the CTA (which stays inside the city limits). This could be because people who live in the suburbs, on average, make more money than whose who live within the city limits, or maybe that street people simply think they do. Then again, if a significant portion of your living comes from begging, you probably can't afford to have illusions about that sort of thing.
My favorite of all of them is a man me and Dave call "bridge guy". (I'm not counting Bernie, since he's not a performer; he's more like a kind of a friend I don't see very often anymore cause I don't work in his neighborhood. Man, I hope he's okay. Weather is evil today and he's not getting any younger.) Bridge Guy works the Madison street bridge by the Lyric Opera center like it's his regular job. Over the years, working at different places and passing the bridge at different times, I'm pretty sure he sits on the bridge Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, morning and evening rush. Doubtless he's got another gig somewhere else in the city on the other days. Weekends I think he may follow other events around the city. The first time we saw Pearl Jam at the United Center, he was outside with his drums, going ba-ba-badadada-dum "Pearl Jam!" Alas, I didn't see him on State street. Who knows, maybe he was there Saturday, and I missed him.
The concentration is higher overall in the summer, but the ratio changes too. That is, in the summer, you're more likely to see a guy playing a tamborine or a saxophone, or just calling something loud and repetitive to get your attention. The "pay to make the guy go away" principle is used differently by different people, but in the summer everyone is a little more casual and more innovative because they don't have quite as much to lose. Whereas in the winter, you're more likely to see a lady all bundled up against the cold, holding an equally bundled-up toddler, calling out loudly in front of a retail location from which people are likely to emerge holding change or small bills. There, the presence of the child is supposed to guilt you into giving, because who wants to see a child have to be cold or hungry?
It's an ecological thing, when you think about it. There's a certain amount of money that people are willing or able to part with on sight. There's a greater number of people who desperately need that money in order to obtain food and shelter. And a much, much greater number who don't necessarily need it to keep from starving or freezing, but would be able to reduce the hardship of their situation slightly if they had it. The people who need it less desperately are able to ask for it more convincingly, and so get a greater proportion of the total charity dollars available at street level. But the thing to keep in mind when you're out on the sidewalk in winter (or summer) is that you, the non-street-person, really have no way of knowing who is which.
When I first started coming downtown on a regular basis, back in the day, I couldn't say no to anyone. Couldn't bear to. How could I possibly hold back something somebody else obviously needs, when it won't make my life all that much worse not to have it? What kind of a horrible person could say no? What if I was in their situation, and I had to watch me say no to me over and over?
Those feelings never really go away. They just get shoved backwards, covered over.
First by distrust. Say you give some money to a lady who says she needs it for the bus, then she drags the kid a few steps further along the street to have her ask the next person the exact same thing. And the one after that, and the one after that too. Then you think about it, and you think, "well, if she'd asked me for $80 to take him to the doctor, I wouldn't have had it, and maybe she's got to lie in order to get people to believe her." Or maybe she's already got a job and just goes around begging for extra money for booze or whatever. Eventually you realize that no matter how creepy somebody looks, they could very easily be using their begging income for totally legit purposes. And no matter how honestly distressed they look, they could be using that money for something you'd disapproave of. So you can't use your preferred ways for them to spend the money as a reason to give or not give, not really. Because you're only human, not omniscient, and you have no way of knowing. If your conscience won't let you allow the possibility of them spending it on something you'd rather they not have, but also won't let you do nothing, you get them food. A lot of people do this. Me, I like giving 'em money, when I give. Because I figure a person needs a lot more things than food in life, and if I'm giving them enough of the benefit of the doubt to give anything, I'd rather let them choose and hope for the best.
Second by habituation. You get used to seeing street people around, until you stop really seeing them. They become part of the landscape, as much as the cars on the street or the trains on the tracks. So you don't feel them tugging on your conscience because you don't see people, just stationary objects to be avoided. A certain amount of this is unavoidable. But at the same time it is the most dehumanizing for everybody. It's bad enough when you're part of a stream of people all heading from one place to another, ignoring one another out of politeness. Day after day of that and it does make you kind of lonely, just another face in the crowd. But in that situation, if two people bump into each other, they both apologize and smile at each other before moving on. Or if someone drops a glove, three people will say, "hey, sir/ma'am, you dropped this!" and pick it up for them. But a street person in the middle of a crowd of commuters might as well be invisible. Which, if any of my much milder experiences with social invisibility are a baseline, is probably fun for about the first three minutes, ironic for the next seven, relentlessly soul-crushing for the following eight to twelve hours. After which the soul-crushing continues but you are too angry or numb or exhausted to notice. And yet, if you, me, the non-beggar individual in question were to give money or food or something to everyone who asked for it, we'd be broke very quickly. Maybe not to the point where we were out on the street begging ourselves. But definitely to the point where we or the people for whom we have accepted responsibility would be deprived of things we actually did need.
All of which to say, if you're in a situation where you think you can strike up a conversation with a street person but also have a reasonable way to end it when it gets uncomfortable, do it. It is important to be alert, though, even though it's a rare beggar who will actually do something crazy. Just like it's a very rare regular commuter who will actually do something dangerous. I think the proportions aren't as far off as people seem to think.
Beggars are generally pretty lonely people. Lonely and very proud, in a brittle sort of way. It takes an immense pride or a grudge, somewhere in there, to be able to ask strangers for money every day and not crumble under their mass mute rejection. Add to that the hope buried deep in the mind of every human being that every person we see who seems better off than ourselves is secretly a super-rich benefactor who will shower us with wealth and take away all our problems if only we can ask in the right way. You see how this can make for some extremely sticky situations if you haven't planned your conversation exit strategy in advance.
A dollar or two bucks or whatever is good for a start; it normalizes the situation so that they're not left hanging thinking you're going to give them something when you actually aren't. So do start the conversation off with some money, or a sandwich or whatever your conscience lets you give. Unless they're your local neighborhood bum and you and they both know that you see them all the time and you're totally going to hook them up next time, in which case it's not as rude. (Provided you actually DO hook them up next time.) Because even if somebody makes their living begging on the street, it's important to occasionally be able to talk to someone who looks you in the eye and treats you like a human.
As for when you should give, conversation or no conversation, that I can't tell you. Everybody's got their own strategy. When I worked in Bernie's neighborhood I'd give him a dollar or so every time I saw him and had it on me, and didn't give other people squat. Now I work in a neighborhood where we don't so much have a regular guy, so I give more haphazardly, to whomever's around and catches my eye when I happen to have an extra buck on me. Or not. I figure if I behave randomly I'm not altering the economic homeostasis too much. That is, I by myself am not driving out anyone who was there already, nor am I drawing in anybody who wasn't going to be coming in anyway. All I can do is keep an even keel, be nice to people when I get the chance to do so, and hope the tiny amounts of assistance I provide go where they are most needed.
But man, sometimes Xmas is depressing.
Of course, I was not the only one who had that idea. State street is a tourist destination even for locals, as landmark businesses put up gaudy Xmas-themed display windows so that people from out of town or parents with children in tow can have something shiny to photograph one another standing in front of. In theory I suppose the displays also entice people into the stores to buy things, but I've never been so enticed myself, so I can't be sure.
Let's face it. Holiday shopping can be fun to do, but it is extremely boring to read about someone else's holiday shopping. Or even read about somebody else watching yet a third party's holiday shopping. So instead, I'm going to write about the people who provide the real sounds of the season--sounds that last all winter and all summer too, if you're in a place where they can be heard. People who need gifts as much as or more than anybody, but for whom we are all unlikely to get them. Because however many we bought, it would never ever ever be enough.
Much more interesting than the shoppers down on State street were the street people. Whether slurring the same sentence over and over to ask for money, making beautiful music to ask for money, or anything in between, downtown Chicago has a sound as distinctive as its skyline, in part because of them. Many more than you'd usually see even on a weekday, these folks were there to get what they could from the shoppers the same way the shoppers were there to get what they could of the sights and stores. Firstly, there were the drum kids. These are four or five young men with drumsticks and upturned buckets who usually perform on the sidewalk near the Art Institute in summer. They are awesome at drumming, and I did regret not having any cash to give them. There was also a guy with a trumpet playing carols. Who had been replaced, by the time I left the store, by a guy singing them in a surprisingly classical-sounding tenor. Another man, on a different corner, tried his hand at Xmas music with a saxophone but wasn't quite as good. Then there were four or five people begging, either sitting cross-legged on the ground or sitting in lawn chairs with blankets wrapped around their legs. They would hold up signs bearing crudely-written messages like "JUST HUNGRY" or "please help - God bless", or by calling out their message repeatedly; "please help me out with a couple dollars, I got no place to stay, please help..."
Normally, downtown on a winter weekday during business rush hours, you'll find one person begging per two-to-three square block area. Street performers, that is, those who play instruments, sing, or drum on upturned buckets, are less common. They occur maybe once in a six-to-seven square block area, and are most likely to be found on the east side of the river--basically where someone coming from the financial distract would have to cross a bridge in order to get to the Metra station. In fact, the heaviest concentration of street people is always between the most populous office buildings and the major mass transit stations. I assume that people who take Metra (the trains that go out to the suburbs) have looser pockets than people who take the CTA (which stays inside the city limits). This could be because people who live in the suburbs, on average, make more money than whose who live within the city limits, or maybe that street people simply think they do. Then again, if a significant portion of your living comes from begging, you probably can't afford to have illusions about that sort of thing.
My favorite of all of them is a man me and Dave call "bridge guy". (I'm not counting Bernie, since he's not a performer; he's more like a kind of a friend I don't see very often anymore cause I don't work in his neighborhood. Man, I hope he's okay. Weather is evil today and he's not getting any younger.) Bridge Guy works the Madison street bridge by the Lyric Opera center like it's his regular job. Over the years, working at different places and passing the bridge at different times, I'm pretty sure he sits on the bridge Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, morning and evening rush. Doubtless he's got another gig somewhere else in the city on the other days. Weekends I think he may follow other events around the city. The first time we saw Pearl Jam at the United Center, he was outside with his drums, going ba-ba-badadada-dum "Pearl Jam!" Alas, I didn't see him on State street. Who knows, maybe he was there Saturday, and I missed him.
The concentration is higher overall in the summer, but the ratio changes too. That is, in the summer, you're more likely to see a guy playing a tamborine or a saxophone, or just calling something loud and repetitive to get your attention. The "pay to make the guy go away" principle is used differently by different people, but in the summer everyone is a little more casual and more innovative because they don't have quite as much to lose. Whereas in the winter, you're more likely to see a lady all bundled up against the cold, holding an equally bundled-up toddler, calling out loudly in front of a retail location from which people are likely to emerge holding change or small bills. There, the presence of the child is supposed to guilt you into giving, because who wants to see a child have to be cold or hungry?
It's an ecological thing, when you think about it. There's a certain amount of money that people are willing or able to part with on sight. There's a greater number of people who desperately need that money in order to obtain food and shelter. And a much, much greater number who don't necessarily need it to keep from starving or freezing, but would be able to reduce the hardship of their situation slightly if they had it. The people who need it less desperately are able to ask for it more convincingly, and so get a greater proportion of the total charity dollars available at street level. But the thing to keep in mind when you're out on the sidewalk in winter (or summer) is that you, the non-street-person, really have no way of knowing who is which.
When I first started coming downtown on a regular basis, back in the day, I couldn't say no to anyone. Couldn't bear to. How could I possibly hold back something somebody else obviously needs, when it won't make my life all that much worse not to have it? What kind of a horrible person could say no? What if I was in their situation, and I had to watch me say no to me over and over?
Those feelings never really go away. They just get shoved backwards, covered over.
First by distrust. Say you give some money to a lady who says she needs it for the bus, then she drags the kid a few steps further along the street to have her ask the next person the exact same thing. And the one after that, and the one after that too. Then you think about it, and you think, "well, if she'd asked me for $80 to take him to the doctor, I wouldn't have had it, and maybe she's got to lie in order to get people to believe her." Or maybe she's already got a job and just goes around begging for extra money for booze or whatever. Eventually you realize that no matter how creepy somebody looks, they could very easily be using their begging income for totally legit purposes. And no matter how honestly distressed they look, they could be using that money for something you'd disapproave of. So you can't use your preferred ways for them to spend the money as a reason to give or not give, not really. Because you're only human, not omniscient, and you have no way of knowing. If your conscience won't let you allow the possibility of them spending it on something you'd rather they not have, but also won't let you do nothing, you get them food. A lot of people do this. Me, I like giving 'em money, when I give. Because I figure a person needs a lot more things than food in life, and if I'm giving them enough of the benefit of the doubt to give anything, I'd rather let them choose and hope for the best.
Second by habituation. You get used to seeing street people around, until you stop really seeing them. They become part of the landscape, as much as the cars on the street or the trains on the tracks. So you don't feel them tugging on your conscience because you don't see people, just stationary objects to be avoided. A certain amount of this is unavoidable. But at the same time it is the most dehumanizing for everybody. It's bad enough when you're part of a stream of people all heading from one place to another, ignoring one another out of politeness. Day after day of that and it does make you kind of lonely, just another face in the crowd. But in that situation, if two people bump into each other, they both apologize and smile at each other before moving on. Or if someone drops a glove, three people will say, "hey, sir/ma'am, you dropped this!" and pick it up for them. But a street person in the middle of a crowd of commuters might as well be invisible. Which, if any of my much milder experiences with social invisibility are a baseline, is probably fun for about the first three minutes, ironic for the next seven, relentlessly soul-crushing for the following eight to twelve hours. After which the soul-crushing continues but you are too angry or numb or exhausted to notice. And yet, if you, me, the non-beggar individual in question were to give money or food or something to everyone who asked for it, we'd be broke very quickly. Maybe not to the point where we were out on the street begging ourselves. But definitely to the point where we or the people for whom we have accepted responsibility would be deprived of things we actually did need.
All of which to say, if you're in a situation where you think you can strike up a conversation with a street person but also have a reasonable way to end it when it gets uncomfortable, do it. It is important to be alert, though, even though it's a rare beggar who will actually do something crazy. Just like it's a very rare regular commuter who will actually do something dangerous. I think the proportions aren't as far off as people seem to think.
Beggars are generally pretty lonely people. Lonely and very proud, in a brittle sort of way. It takes an immense pride or a grudge, somewhere in there, to be able to ask strangers for money every day and not crumble under their mass mute rejection. Add to that the hope buried deep in the mind of every human being that every person we see who seems better off than ourselves is secretly a super-rich benefactor who will shower us with wealth and take away all our problems if only we can ask in the right way. You see how this can make for some extremely sticky situations if you haven't planned your conversation exit strategy in advance.
A dollar or two bucks or whatever is good for a start; it normalizes the situation so that they're not left hanging thinking you're going to give them something when you actually aren't. So do start the conversation off with some money, or a sandwich or whatever your conscience lets you give. Unless they're your local neighborhood bum and you and they both know that you see them all the time and you're totally going to hook them up next time, in which case it's not as rude. (Provided you actually DO hook them up next time.) Because even if somebody makes their living begging on the street, it's important to occasionally be able to talk to someone who looks you in the eye and treats you like a human.
As for when you should give, conversation or no conversation, that I can't tell you. Everybody's got their own strategy. When I worked in Bernie's neighborhood I'd give him a dollar or so every time I saw him and had it on me, and didn't give other people squat. Now I work in a neighborhood where we don't so much have a regular guy, so I give more haphazardly, to whomever's around and catches my eye when I happen to have an extra buck on me. Or not. I figure if I behave randomly I'm not altering the economic homeostasis too much. That is, I by myself am not driving out anyone who was there already, nor am I drawing in anybody who wasn't going to be coming in anyway. All I can do is keep an even keel, be nice to people when I get the chance to do so, and hope the tiny amounts of assistance I provide go where they are most needed.
But man, sometimes Xmas is depressing.
Musical Monday vol 3.
A busy and good Thanksgiving weekend!
(Song/poem at end for those who wish to skip diary entry part.)
Got to go to family T-day on Thursday, which was fun. I like our relatives, truly. They are nice people and pleasant to be around. Jamie and Joel made is down from far Wisconsinonia and JP stopped in for a bit, so we got to see all the Joe & Rosie cousins, as well as having me, Mom & sisters all there. Practically a family quorum!
I am adjusting myself to the idea of representing a permanent minority worldview within my biological group. So what if their groupthink contains mores and standards of propriety I find limiting or occasionally non-life-affirming? Let them be happy in the ways that seem best to them. I can set up the Venn diagrams of mental states in myself to minimize the pangs of cognitive dissonance. Perhaps I can hope that finally, slowly I have grown mature enough to not try to convince people who truly do not wish to change their minds. It's not bothersome what the rules are, in particular; every such groupthink has slightly different ones. It's the manner in which rules are decided upon and enforced, and the emotional tenor of the disapproval earned by those who deivate too far from standard. Pity and fear, ja. Pity, that the deviant has bought for themselves inevitable misery and possible damnation should they not see the error of their ways. Fear, that such a one will not see the error of their ways, or will influence others to follow their polluted ideas and behaviors.
How much of this is me projecting memories of others onto my relatives? I'm not sure. Some, no doubt. And different individuals manifest their participation in the family groupthink differently. But I no less than anyone else am hesitant to generate controversy about it. Because while the resulting arguments could certainly help many people understand one another better, others would end up understanding each other worse. Or end up suffering emotional hurts they would not have the tools to mend. Hell, I'm not even thinking of any specific things between people--it's one of those inevitable things. Reminds me of the 30 Rock where Jack and his mom (who openly loathe one another) teamed up to prod Liz's nicey-nice and super-supportive family until all the hidden resentments poured out. It only took them one afternoon, and sure enough, the Lemons were screaming bloody muder at one another, Xmas or no Xmas. However nice we are, even if we are all genuinely sweet and friendly people, just being close over a period of decades is going to give any humans reasons to scream at each other.
I got to play some music for the fam, though, which was fun and they did enjoy. :) Where home is and road don't go, and Twisting (the TMBG cover), can't remember what else. I am becoming bolder with each instance! Aunt Rosie gave me a Diana Krall CD to listen to, said my voice reminded her of Krall. She's good; croonier than my style, and a smoother voice than me by far. Not a smoker, this Diana Krall character.
Saturday me and Dave hung out with Paula and did Thanksgiving 2. This also was pleasant and fun; there was no stringy thing there, so alas, no playing for me. We had food, had good hanging out and talking time--and then all ended up crashing way early because of food coma. Mmm, food coma. Sunday morning (with all the obligatory Dave vs. Paula snarkage, which indignity both bear with their own version of noblesse oblige) we loaded up into Paula's car all of me and Dave's stuff that was still in her place, and drove it back to Chi-town so that we can figure out where the hell to put it.
Then Sunday afternoon me, Dave & Pearl went out to Kyle & his girlfriend Amanda's place for Thanksgiving 3. Delicious food, numerous jello shots, and I got to drink mead for the first time! Amanda's mom Judy was there, and also her daughter Brittany. Brittany was cool, as cool as the only ten-year-old at a party can be, indeed. Amanda had made her a bunch of non-alcoholic jello shots, and she herself had sneakily filled an empty wine bottle with vitamin water in order to give Kyle a heart attack. (Almost worked, too, and we all got a good chortle.) So Dave got a hilarious cameraphone pic of this feisty kid, to all appearances getting terribly drunkened. But actually not. Twas good times all around. Meg had a heckuva time driving tired in the sleety snow all the way back to the city, but she made it with no mishaps. Kudos to her. Oh yes! While we were there I played teeth of the storm and destination please.
I came to wonder if the turkey part of my tower/turkey dream could be read to reveal my feelings about Thanksgiving. Though I've met people who've had dreams whose events happened in real life, for them it always seems to be more direct. I doubt either my brain or the windows in it would do things in any such straightforward way.
On Friday night, I had a dream. Instead of transcribing it here, since I was on the train Saturday morning, I wrote it out as a poem-song sort of thing. In my mind I heard it sounding a little bit like Bob Dylan's 115th Dream, even imagined Dylan singing it. (This helped me not mind so much when I didn't keep regular meter.) So here's my song for the week, even though it's not the one I thought I was going to have by now:
[the Pentecostal basement dream] 11/29/08
we walked past some construction
maybe twenty stories down
and fifteen more of scaffolding
away beneath the ground
we knew we were pursued but I
just didn't like the fall
she leapt off of the sidewalk
like it mattered not at all
I watched her plummet,
saw the puff of dust when she struck wood
and thought, "I hope she is all right;
I'd never land that good"
I made it to the bottom floor
my entourage in tow
there's something we were looking for
(where she went, I don't know)
we walked along a cell
with chain-link bars and handcuff locks
all hanging loose but hip to grab
a seeker who just knocked
I told the crew to wait outside
and slipped into the place
got some idea it noticed me
so I picked up the pace
there at the front
sat a skinny little book all bound in red
I did not wish to touch it
for I knew just what it said
I shoved it underneath the fence
with scissors that I had
then dropped them and got out
with my whole skin and was right glad
but when I reached the hall
my entourage had picked it up
it filled them with judgmentalism
disguised as Jesus' love
they lectured me for stealing it
and said I'd pay the price
I shook my head and smiled at them
and would not hear it twice
I took the book, its message flowed
I chuckled at the end,
"the Pentecostal Holy Ghost--
it's only this again!"
The last part of the dream
was a confusion and a rout
two newlyweds both found
that they were gay-when they came out
the disapproving citizens
glared till they could not speak
then the house filled up with water
like the ocean sprang a leak
(Song/poem at end for those who wish to skip diary entry part.)
Got to go to family T-day on Thursday, which was fun. I like our relatives, truly. They are nice people and pleasant to be around. Jamie and Joel made is down from far Wisconsinonia and JP stopped in for a bit, so we got to see all the Joe & Rosie cousins, as well as having me, Mom & sisters all there. Practically a family quorum!
I am adjusting myself to the idea of representing a permanent minority worldview within my biological group. So what if their groupthink contains mores and standards of propriety I find limiting or occasionally non-life-affirming? Let them be happy in the ways that seem best to them. I can set up the Venn diagrams of mental states in myself to minimize the pangs of cognitive dissonance. Perhaps I can hope that finally, slowly I have grown mature enough to not try to convince people who truly do not wish to change their minds. It's not bothersome what the rules are, in particular; every such groupthink has slightly different ones. It's the manner in which rules are decided upon and enforced, and the emotional tenor of the disapproval earned by those who deivate too far from standard. Pity and fear, ja. Pity, that the deviant has bought for themselves inevitable misery and possible damnation should they not see the error of their ways. Fear, that such a one will not see the error of their ways, or will influence others to follow their polluted ideas and behaviors.
How much of this is me projecting memories of others onto my relatives? I'm not sure. Some, no doubt. And different individuals manifest their participation in the family groupthink differently. But I no less than anyone else am hesitant to generate controversy about it. Because while the resulting arguments could certainly help many people understand one another better, others would end up understanding each other worse. Or end up suffering emotional hurts they would not have the tools to mend. Hell, I'm not even thinking of any specific things between people--it's one of those inevitable things. Reminds me of the 30 Rock where Jack and his mom (who openly loathe one another) teamed up to prod Liz's nicey-nice and super-supportive family until all the hidden resentments poured out. It only took them one afternoon, and sure enough, the Lemons were screaming bloody muder at one another, Xmas or no Xmas. However nice we are, even if we are all genuinely sweet and friendly people, just being close over a period of decades is going to give any humans reasons to scream at each other.
I got to play some music for the fam, though, which was fun and they did enjoy. :) Where home is and road don't go, and Twisting (the TMBG cover), can't remember what else. I am becoming bolder with each instance! Aunt Rosie gave me a Diana Krall CD to listen to, said my voice reminded her of Krall. She's good; croonier than my style, and a smoother voice than me by far. Not a smoker, this Diana Krall character.
Saturday me and Dave hung out with Paula and did Thanksgiving 2. This also was pleasant and fun; there was no stringy thing there, so alas, no playing for me. We had food, had good hanging out and talking time--and then all ended up crashing way early because of food coma. Mmm, food coma. Sunday morning (with all the obligatory Dave vs. Paula snarkage, which indignity both bear with their own version of noblesse oblige) we loaded up into Paula's car all of me and Dave's stuff that was still in her place, and drove it back to Chi-town so that we can figure out where the hell to put it.
Then Sunday afternoon me, Dave & Pearl went out to Kyle & his girlfriend Amanda's place for Thanksgiving 3. Delicious food, numerous jello shots, and I got to drink mead for the first time! Amanda's mom Judy was there, and also her daughter Brittany. Brittany was cool, as cool as the only ten-year-old at a party can be, indeed. Amanda had made her a bunch of non-alcoholic jello shots, and she herself had sneakily filled an empty wine bottle with vitamin water in order to give Kyle a heart attack. (Almost worked, too, and we all got a good chortle.) So Dave got a hilarious cameraphone pic of this feisty kid, to all appearances getting terribly drunkened. But actually not. Twas good times all around. Meg had a heckuva time driving tired in the sleety snow all the way back to the city, but she made it with no mishaps. Kudos to her. Oh yes! While we were there I played teeth of the storm and destination please.
I came to wonder if the turkey part of my tower/turkey dream could be read to reveal my feelings about Thanksgiving. Though I've met people who've had dreams whose events happened in real life, for them it always seems to be more direct. I doubt either my brain or the windows in it would do things in any such straightforward way.
On Friday night, I had a dream. Instead of transcribing it here, since I was on the train Saturday morning, I wrote it out as a poem-song sort of thing. In my mind I heard it sounding a little bit like Bob Dylan's 115th Dream, even imagined Dylan singing it. (This helped me not mind so much when I didn't keep regular meter.) So here's my song for the week, even though it's not the one I thought I was going to have by now:
[the Pentecostal basement dream] 11/29/08
we walked past some construction
maybe twenty stories down
and fifteen more of scaffolding
away beneath the ground
we knew we were pursued but I
just didn't like the fall
she leapt off of the sidewalk
like it mattered not at all
I watched her plummet,
saw the puff of dust when she struck wood
and thought, "I hope she is all right;
I'd never land that good"
I made it to the bottom floor
my entourage in tow
there's something we were looking for
(where she went, I don't know)
we walked along a cell
with chain-link bars and handcuff locks
all hanging loose but hip to grab
a seeker who just knocked
I told the crew to wait outside
and slipped into the place
got some idea it noticed me
so I picked up the pace
there at the front
sat a skinny little book all bound in red
I did not wish to touch it
for I knew just what it said
I shoved it underneath the fence
with scissors that I had
then dropped them and got out
with my whole skin and was right glad
but when I reached the hall
my entourage had picked it up
it filled them with judgmentalism
disguised as Jesus' love
they lectured me for stealing it
and said I'd pay the price
I shook my head and smiled at them
and would not hear it twice
I took the book, its message flowed
I chuckled at the end,
"the Pentecostal Holy Ghost--
it's only this again!"
The last part of the dream
was a confusion and a rout
two newlyweds both found
that they were gay-when they came out
the disapproving citizens
glared till they could not speak
then the house filled up with water
like the ocean sprang a leak
Musical Monday vol 2.
This weekend I sent Mom the setlist and lyrics for [moving all the same]. Yep, I have enough songs for an album now! Twelve guitar-arranged songs--unless you count emptiness / the only road as two songs, in which case it's thirteen. Check it out:
1. but the ghost
2. emptiness / the only road
3. distance
4. road don’t go
5. that bitch
6. give the people what they want
7. static
8. promise to keep
9. Morningstar
10. teeth of the storm
11. where home is
12. destination please
I love all these songs, and think they will make a wonderful album. Thematically sound, ordered in a way I like, covering all my bases: some of the very first songs I wrote right along with some of the most recent. Now all I have to do is practice them more...and record them...and play them in front of non family members. XD Not necessarily in that order.
This morning I have a song stuck in my head that I haven't written yet. Haven't finished writing anyway. I know generally what it ought to sound like and I have the chorus, but the rest hasn't shown up yet. This is exactly what happened with [teeth of the storm]--I was carrying that chorus around in my head for two years before I got the rest of the song. It goes (with G, C, F, Am on each line):
the phone repairman
ain't been there, man
and I'm calling, I'm calling
and I can't get get get get get get get
through
Every time I sit down to play I'll run through that a couple times, then experiment with possible chord sequences for the verses, then bitch poutingly about how I don't have the rest. Then Dave will snort and smile and shake his head at me, and I'll sigh and blow myself a raspberry and play something else.
Yesterday, it was [mama winter]. Wanted to play that and [teeth] back to back in honor of the year's first snowfall, which I did. I figured out the chords for [mw] on the keyboard, then looked them up in my handy-dandy guitar chord chart. (Dm C Bb, FYI.) I will need to work on finger-picking a lot more before I can make it sound close to how it's supposed to, though. [mw] is an aria, so I always imagined it with just a few drifty violins in the background. This is possible to recreate on an acoustic guitar, but will take practice. The song was demanding enough vocally all by itself, and the smoking and the pharyngitis do not help! :) But I will master it. Gotta have something to do till I can lay ahold of the rest of the phone repairman song!
Now I want to write about the thing I'd thought about writing last Monday.
Me, Mom, sisters and Dave had gone to see some Olympic gymnasts perform that weekend, Amber's treat. It was a wonderful show, full of highly talented and trained people who made dazzling feats of athleticism look easy and fun.
The band, however--the band stuck in my craw. Not because they are other than what they're supposed to be, but because I'm still immature and filled with envy. They got have the stage, see, and they got to accompany the awesome gymnasts and exhort the crowd (unsuccessfully) to go crazy. I got to sit in the audience and eat my liver. They are called KSM and are a Disney recording group. One of their songs, Permission to Fly, was actually quite good. It helped that the song was accompaniment to some of those acrobat ladies who suspend themselves from two long silk banners and swing and twirl and look awesome doing it. The acrobats started out the song wrapping one banner around themselves, holding out the other like a wing, and being lifted up into the air to swing out over the crowd.
But I was jealous of the band even before they ever came on stage, to the point where it detracted somewhat from my enjoyment of the show. Right at the beginning, when everyone was being announced, the lights went down and some people carrying glow-in-the dark dragons (the kind they have in parades) danced all around the performance area. Which I should have been deeply stirred by, especially considering how much Miller & Lee I've been reading lately. But there were two things fighting each other in the middle of me: the crying-cause-it's-pretty feeling versus the scowling-cause-I-feel-stupid feeling. Stupid, sadly, was not eradicated, and kept getting in the way when I wasn't forcibly shoving it out of the way. I still was able to be awed by things and moved to good tears or near them once or twice. I don't see live shows that often and this one had a lot going for it. Wrestling with my insecurities, however, is a dumb, dumb reason to stint on emotional impact from a show.
Not too long into it, it occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of thing my tower/turkey dream was telling me about. The turkey, in this reading, would represent emotional satisfaction, the recharging of the spiritual self which takes place when you allow yourself to be moved and awed by beauty. I deny myself spiritual nutrition when I let envy get in the way like that. The rich dreampeople I was mad at would represent people like KSM--people who have the audiences and the visibility I crave, but whom I feel I can outdo musically. The fact that I didn't have a ticket in the dream translates to me not feeling I have the right or don't deserve to have that kind of power. Or maybe that I don't have the actual right to count myself among them, since I am not a performing musician. So they are richer than me, even spiritually, in that specific way. Because what they have, they share with everyone who hears. And the storm is--gotta think on what the storm is. The emotional energy swirling around in a concert hall? The unconscious spiritual life of music-listening people? Something like that.
But I should cut this entry off now. Some of my co-workers want to hear me sing Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You again, and I have to brush up on the lyrics.
Thanks, universe. (And coworkers.) That really does make me feel better. :D
1. but the ghost
2. emptiness / the only road
3. distance
4. road don’t go
5. that bitch
6. give the people what they want
7. static
8. promise to keep
9. Morningstar
10. teeth of the storm
11. where home is
12. destination please
I love all these songs, and think they will make a wonderful album. Thematically sound, ordered in a way I like, covering all my bases: some of the very first songs I wrote right along with some of the most recent. Now all I have to do is practice them more...and record them...and play them in front of non family members. XD Not necessarily in that order.
This morning I have a song stuck in my head that I haven't written yet. Haven't finished writing anyway. I know generally what it ought to sound like and I have the chorus, but the rest hasn't shown up yet. This is exactly what happened with [teeth of the storm]--I was carrying that chorus around in my head for two years before I got the rest of the song. It goes (with G, C, F, Am on each line):
the phone repairman
ain't been there, man
and I'm calling, I'm calling
and I can't get get get get get get get
through
Every time I sit down to play I'll run through that a couple times, then experiment with possible chord sequences for the verses, then bitch poutingly about how I don't have the rest. Then Dave will snort and smile and shake his head at me, and I'll sigh and blow myself a raspberry and play something else.
Yesterday, it was [mama winter]. Wanted to play that and [teeth] back to back in honor of the year's first snowfall, which I did. I figured out the chords for [mw] on the keyboard, then looked them up in my handy-dandy guitar chord chart. (Dm C Bb, FYI.) I will need to work on finger-picking a lot more before I can make it sound close to how it's supposed to, though. [mw] is an aria, so I always imagined it with just a few drifty violins in the background. This is possible to recreate on an acoustic guitar, but will take practice. The song was demanding enough vocally all by itself, and the smoking and the pharyngitis do not help! :) But I will master it. Gotta have something to do till I can lay ahold of the rest of the phone repairman song!
Now I want to write about the thing I'd thought about writing last Monday.
Me, Mom, sisters and Dave had gone to see some Olympic gymnasts perform that weekend, Amber's treat. It was a wonderful show, full of highly talented and trained people who made dazzling feats of athleticism look easy and fun.
The band, however--the band stuck in my craw. Not because they are other than what they're supposed to be, but because I'm still immature and filled with envy. They got have the stage, see, and they got to accompany the awesome gymnasts and exhort the crowd (unsuccessfully) to go crazy. I got to sit in the audience and eat my liver. They are called KSM and are a Disney recording group. One of their songs, Permission to Fly, was actually quite good. It helped that the song was accompaniment to some of those acrobat ladies who suspend themselves from two long silk banners and swing and twirl and look awesome doing it. The acrobats started out the song wrapping one banner around themselves, holding out the other like a wing, and being lifted up into the air to swing out over the crowd.
But I was jealous of the band even before they ever came on stage, to the point where it detracted somewhat from my enjoyment of the show. Right at the beginning, when everyone was being announced, the lights went down and some people carrying glow-in-the dark dragons (the kind they have in parades) danced all around the performance area. Which I should have been deeply stirred by, especially considering how much Miller & Lee I've been reading lately. But there were two things fighting each other in the middle of me: the crying-cause-it's-pretty feeling versus the scowling-cause-I-feel-stupid feeling. Stupid, sadly, was not eradicated, and kept getting in the way when I wasn't forcibly shoving it out of the way. I still was able to be awed by things and moved to good tears or near them once or twice. I don't see live shows that often and this one had a lot going for it. Wrestling with my insecurities, however, is a dumb, dumb reason to stint on emotional impact from a show.
Not too long into it, it occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of thing my tower/turkey dream was telling me about. The turkey, in this reading, would represent emotional satisfaction, the recharging of the spiritual self which takes place when you allow yourself to be moved and awed by beauty. I deny myself spiritual nutrition when I let envy get in the way like that. The rich dreampeople I was mad at would represent people like KSM--people who have the audiences and the visibility I crave, but whom I feel I can outdo musically. The fact that I didn't have a ticket in the dream translates to me not feeling I have the right or don't deserve to have that kind of power. Or maybe that I don't have the actual right to count myself among them, since I am not a performing musician. So they are richer than me, even spiritually, in that specific way. Because what they have, they share with everyone who hears. And the storm is--gotta think on what the storm is. The emotional energy swirling around in a concert hall? The unconscious spiritual life of music-listening people? Something like that.
But I should cut this entry off now. Some of my co-workers want to hear me sing Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You again, and I have to brush up on the lyrics.
Thanks, universe. (And coworkers.) That really does make me feel better. :D
musical mondays
Last night was my live debut!
Sounds impressive, to put it that way. Really me and Dave went with Pearl to her favorite hookah bar, which has open mic on Sunday nights. So I got to play stringy thing and my own songs in front of a crowd of strangers for the first time evar. Unless you count that now-closed coffee shop which had a poetry open mic or two--but I don't think I played guitar there.
Me and Pearl started off with Greensleeves/What Child Is This, which we always sound good doing. A brief attempt to practice in the car had confirmed I got to do the What Child Is This lyrics while she did the Greensleeves ones, because she remembered Greensleeves better. Then these, with Pearl singing along sometimes: "but the ghost", "emptiness/the only road", "where home is" (dropped a few chords but kept momentum), "destination please" (and got the high note okay!), and closed with a cappella "all-consuming." Me and Pearl need to practice together more so we can work out harmonies and stuff. I kept looking over at Dave, asking what song I should do next, but as much so I could reassure myself that he was there. Just like at home; made me feel much better. :) Bantered with the crowd some, too. It was the big fun! I must do it again, maybe other places, maybe same place.
Also, Pearl found a song I'd written earlier this year, on a tiny folded slip of paper I'd been using as a bookmark while reading War Before Civilization. She found the slip of paper when I returned the book and said, "Is this your notes about the book?" Because it was a slightly oversize Post-It covered on both sides with extremely tiny writing. I held it up and squinted and was like, "nope, this is a song." And sang her the first verse and first chorus, as the tune came back to me.
[repetition]
repetition - of the act
it gets easier, easier cause of it
repetition - just like that
it gets harder and harder to fuck with it
I closed my heart
cause I felt afraid
you opened your arms to me
anyway, anyway, anyway
repetition - knock on wood
turn the ares and the ises into the shoulds
repetition - hold on tight
what was nothing will soon be the only right
can I behave if you tell me true
need to be brave when I
talk to you talk to you talk to you
repetition - paves a way
superstition built on how it is today
repetition - of a step
cross the distance until there's no distance left
holding me back
from your loving eyes
I'll be fool for you fool for you fool
until I get wise
here's my heart you deserve it
love practice makes permanent
heart you deserve it
love practice makes permanent
practice makes permanent
*****
So this is my idea. Divide up the days I normally post, and if I post on a day, make it thematic. Might be fun. Keep Tuesday and Wednesday how they are. Monday can be music, Thursday maybe fiction, Friday...I could take a page from You are Dumb and make it Spastic Topic Monkey Friday. We'll see.
Might be taking tomorrow off to go get this lump at the back of my throat checked out. It's become quite painful.
Sounds impressive, to put it that way. Really me and Dave went with Pearl to her favorite hookah bar, which has open mic on Sunday nights. So I got to play stringy thing and my own songs in front of a crowd of strangers for the first time evar. Unless you count that now-closed coffee shop which had a poetry open mic or two--but I don't think I played guitar there.
Me and Pearl started off with Greensleeves/What Child Is This, which we always sound good doing. A brief attempt to practice in the car had confirmed I got to do the What Child Is This lyrics while she did the Greensleeves ones, because she remembered Greensleeves better. Then these, with Pearl singing along sometimes: "but the ghost", "emptiness/the only road", "where home is" (dropped a few chords but kept momentum), "destination please" (and got the high note okay!), and closed with a cappella "all-consuming." Me and Pearl need to practice together more so we can work out harmonies and stuff. I kept looking over at Dave, asking what song I should do next, but as much so I could reassure myself that he was there. Just like at home; made me feel much better. :) Bantered with the crowd some, too. It was the big fun! I must do it again, maybe other places, maybe same place.
Also, Pearl found a song I'd written earlier this year, on a tiny folded slip of paper I'd been using as a bookmark while reading War Before Civilization. She found the slip of paper when I returned the book and said, "Is this your notes about the book?" Because it was a slightly oversize Post-It covered on both sides with extremely tiny writing. I held it up and squinted and was like, "nope, this is a song." And sang her the first verse and first chorus, as the tune came back to me.
[repetition]
repetition - of the act
it gets easier, easier cause of it
repetition - just like that
it gets harder and harder to fuck with it
I closed my heart
cause I felt afraid
you opened your arms to me
anyway, anyway, anyway
repetition - knock on wood
turn the ares and the ises into the shoulds
repetition - hold on tight
what was nothing will soon be the only right
can I behave if you tell me true
need to be brave when I
talk to you talk to you talk to you
repetition - paves a way
superstition built on how it is today
repetition - of a step
cross the distance until there's no distance left
holding me back
from your loving eyes
I'll be fool for you fool for you fool
until I get wise
here's my heart you deserve it
love practice makes permanent
heart you deserve it
love practice makes permanent
practice makes permanent
*****
So this is my idea. Divide up the days I normally post, and if I post on a day, make it thematic. Might be fun. Keep Tuesday and Wednesday how they are. Monday can be music, Thursday maybe fiction, Friday...I could take a page from You are Dumb and make it Spastic Topic Monkey Friday. We'll see.
Might be taking tomorrow off to go get this lump at the back of my throat checked out. It's become quite painful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
