Jazz – Pop Vocalist | StoryTeller | Poet | Writer
For the past two years, he has steadfastly remained at my side. I hope I did not offend when I told him he had come too late.
“I died many years ago,” I said playing with the handkerchief I held in my hand.
He looked at me, and put a smirk on his face,
“Yes, I know. I hear your silence. I cannot kill, what is already dead.”
“So why do you stay?”
“To keep you company.”
Our silence, once again, returned.
Her decision had been made.
She snuck in, past the guards, during the very early hours of the morning. Having found his cell, she stopped and stared at him. In the darkness, she could see his swollen face, beaten so badly, she thought him nearly unrecognisable. This, she had not expected. She made the journey because she convinced herself that she needed to see him one last time. To tell him she was sorry, that everything was going to be ok, and he would back in his home soon, surrounded by his family. But now here, those words would not come. She was too afraid, and even more ashamed to call-out to him. She stood motionless for 15 minutes (maybe more). Still no words came. As she left, she heard him mutter – but she did not stop. She kept her eyes forward, carefully slipping past the guards once more, never looking back.
If I won’t be remembered for my songs,
I want to be remembered for your words.
Never stop talking my love.
Never stop.
The other day I wondered, who you spent Valentine’s Day with?
Was it a him?
Was it a her?
I wondered the other day, was that look for me, or was that look at me?
Did I mis-judge your smile?
Your stare. That stare, was it in my mind?
The other day I wondered, if you knew, I once stared (and stared),
and stared, at the back of your neck, waiting to ask if you needed a seat.
I lie, I just wanted to know if you needed my seat. Instead, I sat.
And I sat. And I sat, eyes closed, listening, listening, listening.
I listened to your voice.
I watched. I watched as you found another, a seat that is.
Gone.
My first of, what I now know, many chances, gone.
I wondered the other day what it would be like to lay next to you. No I lie, I wondered what it would be like to lay with you, entangled, enveloped; to look in your eyes; to kiss your lips, your neck; to touch your skin;
To…
To…
To…
The other day I wondered,
do you even know,
I exist?
She was alone.
That’s how she started each day, and ended each evening. An empty spot at the dinner table, the empty space in bed, those were her stark reminders. Mother, as she called her, had died some time ago. And, while she desperately tried to hold onto the memories – her childhood, her adulthood – they soon faded. The fading memories making her loneliness even greater. Nothing to cling to, but the present.
Mother had told her to live her life, to be her own woman, and never rely on a man to provide anything to and for her. ‘The only thing you need from a man,‘ Mother would say, ‘is his seed.’ ‘He plants the seed, but you feed it, you nourish it, you protect it. You are the one who gives it life. In your belly.’
She did need him at one point. That’s why she called.
She first saw him on the train platform. Tall, with skin so dark, so dark chocolate brown, it shown a blue tint. His auburn eyes. Standing upright, standing so proud. She stared, he ignored. That moment gone. Sometime later, she saw him again, on the same train platform. She stared. He smiled. He talked. She listened. She talked. He listened. Six months later, the seed was planted. Four months later, she left, having decicded that she wanted to tend to the garden on her own. Mother was happy she, her only daughter, had wisely heeded her advice.
Mother could not prepare her for what would happen next.
She was preparing for life, not death. You don’t nourish, tend and protect with the intention that your garden will die. Her grief, beyond her explanation, beyond her expression. Silence. Mother too – swallowing her grief (and disappointment) – stayed quiet. What advice can one give on death, yet on the death of a baby? It would take a year before their silence was fully broken.
Mother was gone three years later. Loneliness descended into her life. ‘Mr Wolf,’ she cried out.
She saw him again on a train platform. Still tall, still so dark, with skin so chocolate, so dark brown, it had a blue tint. His auburn eyes. He stood upright. He stood so proud. She stared. He saw, he ignored. He stood proud. She stared. He looked. She smiled. He stood proud. She talked. He listened. She talked more. He listened. Months later, the seed was planted.
She thought the time had passed for new life to grow in her belly. Yet, something did. It started as a low, low hum. A warmth. A glow. When he held her in his arms, when he kissed her, when they made love, when he talked, when he listened, when he argued. When he touched her. When she longed for him to touch. She felt a new life growing inside her.
She was reborn
She had called for him. ‘Mr Wolf,’ she cried out, but she never thought he would come.
Have you noticed with some films, no matter how uninterested you are in the story or the characters, if it has the right music, and a good soundtrack, you will be humming the tune in the shower, pub, or, God forbid, at the local Karaoke pit-stop? Take for instance, The Wizard of Oz and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Officially, these two films were box office bombs and didn’t make money until well after they left the theatres. Yet ‘Over the Rainbow’ and the ‘Time-Warp’ have etched their way into the history of ‘classic’ songs.
Realising that I had to write something remotely interesting in this week’s blog, I thought the blending of the visual with the audio might do the trick.
‘A PAINTER PAINTS HIS PICTURES ON CANVAS, BUT MUSICIANS PAINT THEIR PICTURES ON SILENCE’ – Leopold Stokowski
It all started with the era of silent film.
While it would be a nice to think that in combining music with film, the early directors and producers in Tinsel Town were forward thinking with artistic endeavours, in fact music was used to drown-out the noise of the very loud projector and a talkative audience. However, the accompaniment of music began to play a larger role in the presentation and entertainment value of the film. Unlike today, there were no sounds affects, meaning the music had to be used to further a story’s plot, pace and energy (which is the function music continues to play in films). As a result, the music that accompanied a film could either make or break it, insomuch that it could either vastly improve the quality and enjoyability, or completely shipwreck it.
As the industry moved from the usage of a solitarily pianist pounding away on the black and white keys, to a full blown orchestra, and eventually, to recorded sound affects and music, the relationship between film and music was guaranteed, and moving images cemented its status as the most important audio-visual medium of our time.
YOU CAN CALL ME AL
The Jazz Singer, which marked the first time dialogue and music were synchronised, began the very quick decline of the silent film era.
What’s interesting, is the film was based on the play; the play was based on the legendary Al Jolson’s life; and the star of the movie was – wait for it – Al Jolson. Even more interesting was that the early Hollywood moguls at Warner Brothers chose a pseudo-musical as the first film to introduce synchronised sound to film. In doing so, they created a new need for music – sheet music. This new need led to movie studios buying music publishing companies, gaining both catalogues of music and experienced composers.
Not only did the music in films lead to an increase in the sales of sheet music, but with the introduction of the gramophone, songs used in films could also see a dramatic increase in sales. For example, “Sonny Boy” a song featured in the second Al Jolson movie, The Singing Fool, led to 2 million records being sold and 1.25 million sales of the sheet music for the song.
DO I MAKE YOU HORNY BABY?
Even poorly constructed films, with bad acting and unbelievable story lines can use music to have the same affect.
Take the porn industry for instance –
I know you’re thinking, “how very dare you! I have not, nor will I ever watch anything so disgusting.” I beseech thee, do give me a couple minutes to make my point.
While I would never dream of insinuating that any of you fine, upstanding, worldly citizens would watch anything so unnatural, the porn industry does generate around $13+ billion in the USA alone; Hollywood generates $20+ billion. If we do the maths that means, while none of you are watching something so nasty and immoral, at least half the American population are. And those nasty, immoral degenerates are reaching deep in their wallets to get their … ummm… juices … flowing.
Have you ever tried getting ‘busy’ with your better half without making a sound? I mean NO sound. No sighs, no grunting, no shouting ‘you’re the daddy’ while daintingly swinging from the chandelier? It would be pretty boring. From what I have been told, the same is true for pornographic films. I wouldn’t know, but from what I have been told, sound and music play a major role in the cinematic enjoyment of pornographic films. While porn groove (term used to describe the music in porn), won’t make or break the film, it could change the aesthetics of the film (so I have been told).
TO TRAIN OR NOT TO TRAIN? THAT IS THE QUESTION
For the past week, I have been having several interesting conversations about creative artists with some friends who asked the question ‘is formal education needed to become a creative artist?’ While my initial, knee-jerk reaction was to say, absolutely not, I think it is important that a difference is made between formal education and training. There are many well known, and unknown, artists who have had no formal education. However, you would be hard pressed to name many artists who have not had any training whatsoever- be it with an independent teacher, on the job training or an apprenticeship. I readily admit that there are some artists that are so naturally talented, they did not require any formal education or training (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ella Fitzgerald). However, these artists are the exception, and not the rule.
Igor Stravinsky said, ‘Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.’ I believe this to be very true. An artist’s raison d’etre is to express themselves through their artistic output. Without the basic tools of their craft they will be limited in their self-expression. When you borrow something, it is, and will never be, yours. When you steal something, you make it yours. An artist receiving training is borrowing the techniques and rules. They will never be able to call these their own. Once an artist has had training, they are able to use those techniques and rules to create something in their own voice (that’s the stealing bit, just in case you didn’t realise). Don’t get me wrong, I don’t subscribe to the ‘one-size-fits-all brigade’ (although as an aside, I do subscribe to the ‘shut your face, you silly dumbarse brigade’ – they’re a fun group). I do think that one shouldn’t be a creative artist if one doesn’t have respect and a desire to learn the foundation of their craft.
Some believe there is an argument that a creative artist can develop without being informed or constrained by the classic forms; that passion and talent is enough. I clearly don’t hold this view, and would demand that anyone with such base ideas be summarily shot at dawn (harsh, I know – that’s how much I care). Why? That kind of thinking doesn’t take into account that the foundation of the creative arts – be it film, street dance, hip-hop, etc – is built on the history (classic forms) that came before it. We wouldn’t dream of disregarding what we learned from the great masters and allow a skyscraper, no matter how passionate or talented the builders are, to be built without tried and tested building techniques being used, so why would we not accept the same for the creative arts?
So going back to the original question – ‘is formal education needed for those wishing to enter the creative arts?’ No, it’s not needed. But having it, along with passion, talent, and hard work, wouldn’t hurt.
Every time I watched Fame and heard Debbie Allen encouragingly tell her pupils, week after week, “You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying … in sweat.” My first thought was – mind your friggin’ business! a) I don’t want fame, and b) only the morbidly obese sweat.’
I know that in her heart, Debbie was trying her best to offer inspiration, guidance and a good kick up the arse for her United Colors of Benetton band of misfits. However, one thing Ms Debbie never did was to tell her students that they were crap (although in hindsight, someone should have laid down that truth on those songwriters – have you listened to ‘High Fidelity’ and ‘Mannequin’ lately)?. In this, Ms Debbie was living up to the age-old adage….
DON’T PROVIDE A CRITIQUE UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN INVITED TO DO SO
Never, ever critique someone’s work unless you are asked. If you start a sentence with, ‘if you want my opinion’, you are asking to loose friends, family members, or your job. If you are absolutely dying to critique something, or give advice, the best way to do this is to ask pertinent questions to allow the person on the receiving end of your meddling to find solutions for themselves. Doing it this way will also allow you to seem less patronising, giving the illusion that you don’t have all the answers (which of course you do).
You should frame the questions around the five Ws: what, when, why, who, and how (yes, I know, but ‘how’ ends in a w). Your W questions stand the best chance of being effective if they are specific. For example:
REMEMBER YOU’RE CRITIQUING THE PIECE OF WORK, NOT THE PERSON
The following is true story that I made up for this blog.
Back in 1980, when I was auditioning to get into New York School for Performing Arts, I met my current BFFs Doris, Coco, Bruno and Danny. Of course, I got into the school and from that point onwards, my high school experience was one big dance number. One minute we’d be eating our lunch in the canteen, and the next, from out of nowhere, a pianist would start banging out an unknown tune, to which Coco would start singing, flawlessly making up the words as she went along, while the rest of the school would join in with an unrehearsed, impromptu dance number.
In my senior year, I had been offered a spot in the Alvin Ailey dance company. In order for my acceptance to be final, I needed to graduate – which was not looking good as I had found out that Mrs Robinson, my English teacher had failed my final essay, ‘Spiderman: Fact or Fiction’ and I would not be graduating. Looking to confront Mrs Robinson, I miraculously found her at a local hospital where her husband’s was recovering from a heart attack. One thing led to another and several hours later, we found ourselves in my bed exhausted from our love-making (it was fortuitous that I had turned 18 two days beforehand). Falling into my arms Mrs Robinson, proclaimed, ‘That was out of this world! For that you get an A+, I looked lovingly into her eyes and replied, ‘But I didn’t think you even liked me’. Smiling, Mrs Robinson said, ‘I was talking about your performance during the shag. For that you get an A+….. outside that, I still think you’re a prick.’
DON’T BE VAGUE WHEN MAKING SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
I don’t want to be too harsh on Mrs Robinson. In her defence, she did what any good critiquer should do – she used positive language, started her critique on the strengths, and then addressed the weak and/or problems areas. But, looking back, I think that Mrs Robinson could have given a clearer indication on how on I could improve. Wouldn’t it have been better if Mrs Robinson gave me comments that didn’t leave me guessing on what she was trying to convey? Instead, I’m left with the fact that I don’t know the scale of her criticism.
To this day, I still don’t whether am I a big prick, or a little prick? I guess only time will tell.
FACEBOOK (verb and noun): Facebooking (present), Facebooked (past), Facebooker (noun)
TWITTER (verb and noun): Tweeting (present), Tweeted (past), Twatter (noun)
As most of you well know, I’m a huge fan (some would say obsessed) of Facebook and Twitter. These sites allow me to keep in touch with both my disparate group of friends in London, and those farther afield. Gone are the old skool days where I would have to send out a group email or text my friends and family to let them know of the good news going on in my life (I just pooped) ; the bad news (I didn’t poop) ; the important news (I pooped again) and the not so important news (I hope to poop today) – this would be tedious for all involved. With Facebook and Twitter I can, within in minutes, update the world on my movements (bowel or otherwise) with the click of a button. In addition, these sites allow me to keep updated with the friends that I grew up with – who’s gotten fat, divorced or is in prison (no, I’m not bitter that I didn’t go to my high school prom), and rekindle relationships with people I have not seen in a very long time.
That said, while the social networking sites continue to hold my favour, the dating website have left me frustrated and exhausted.
WRITE IT TO SELL IT
You spend hours, upon hours setting up a profile, trying to write something that will illicit a response from your future ex-partner. If you’re a straight male, the idea is to be witty, but not too witty as to come across as gay. And if you’re gay, the idea is to be witty, but not too witty as to come across as uber gay. Men want to give the impression that they are macho, but not too macho; confident, but not cocky; desperate, but not too desperate, rich, and well, rich. Women need to come across as being sexy without being trampy; girlie, but not needy; understand the offside rule; and most important of all, have major boobage (a profile pic showing-off her major boobage would help immensely).
To give you a taster, here are some real profiles that my in-depth, ‘journalistic’ research uncovered:
SMILE FOR THE CAMERA
The next task that will take you hours is choosing a good profile pic. Trawling through hundreds upon hundreds of profiles, I noticed a couple of things:
# 1 – Unless you’re Tyson Beckford, do not include a picture of yourself without your shirt on. I mean look at that loser below, all that flab hanging about. I wouldn’t give him the time of day. Geez dude, put your shirt back on and try hitting the gym.
# 2 – Never trust anyone that smiles in their profile pic. It means they’re either up to no good, or psychotic – or both. And defintely never trust anyone that smiles with their shirt off.
# 3 – If you’re a straight male and you don’t want to look gay, put up a pic with you wearing sunglasses. This trick will help put the ‘cho’ back into your macho.
# 4 – Ladies, there is no such thing as too much make up. When in doubt, put more on.
WAITING FOR GODOT
Now that your profile is complete and you’ve sent out some messages to potentials, all you need to do is sit back and wait for all that love interest to come flooding back. So you wait… And you wait… And you wait some more… Some advice – if you’re going to do internet dating, you will need to be thick-skinned. Rejection is going to be your new drinking buddy. You may have the perfect profile, but that doesn’t mean the responses will come rolling in. In fact, most of your messages won’t be responded to. And with those that do respond, you will have to weed out the ones that want to chat forever and never meet you; the ones that want to know what you’re into (and they don’t mean your hobbies), or how big you are (and they don’t mean your personality); the ones that want to ‘swap pics’; the married ones; the ones who want to know if you believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour and died for our sins (at least let’s have a shag before asking that question).
HOW DID GRINDR CHANGED MY LIFE?
Grindr didn’t change my life, I did. Last week I took the bull-by-the-horns and decided to leave the virtual dating world and close all my dating accounts. One by one, with a glass of wine at the ready, summoning all the inner force I could, on each account I clicked ‘delete account’ ending years and years of addictive behaviour. With seven profiles closed and one last one to go, I get a message from a 33 year hottie, living very far away, saying, ‘very sexy’. I sat back, looked at the message and thought for a while. Knowing I had no choice, I replied, ‘Blush’. And like any addict I told myself, ‘tomorrow is the day you quit for sure.’