Bleeding Arts

If there is anyone out there who noticed the gap, it is not lack of desire or urgency but simply a crippling malwaritis of the keyboard which is not just annoying and hesitant but manifests itself like some form of Gutenberg Tourette's. Of course the $52 royalty check last month wasn't quite enough for a new machine, so even though it is a little funny and Masson-esque, and who would sue an anonymous blogger for a misstatement or obscenity... I was in self-imposed exile.

That said, a month of unexpressed mental entries have stained my brain like dark espresso and I am ornery as an old scribe with no ink. This is the sound of one finger typing. Several times on each key.

For Christmas, my next-door neighbors (our apartments are unfortunately contiguous along the entire length so there is little escape) have bought their pubescent Eric Clapton (Clapped-on?) only-child an entire drum kit with which to enhance his in-house little music heaven. All mothers know teen passions are oh-so-brief so I'm giving the little dork a month in which to disrespect his parents by rejecting the whole music thing altogether. I can even hear that it is one of those Best-Buy specials, not something you actually select at a percussion store. It sounds cheap and designed for cover-music only. The mother has given me a few sympathetic head-tilts in the mailroom, somewhere between apology and revenge, and I contain the urge to blurt out--- "It is nothing compared to your husband's rendition of Miles' All Blues---" over and over on their digital piano. Any seasoned musician prefers the sound of garbage trucks and sirens to the practice sessions of someone who has no musical aptitude whatsoever and even less ability to perceive this.
Guitar Center makes a major fortune from this population which is massive, daunting, and some are of course on the airwaves, banking piles, winning American Idol, Grammies, etc.

To cap it off, a 'painting' has been hung in my hallway, opposite the elevator, so there is no way to avoid seeing it when the door opens. It is actually a large square canvas slathered with shades of blue and green which would be otherwise inoffensive but something about the 'composition' and the technique... well, it makes the Miles Davis man seem almost talented.

I have finally put my finger on what really bothers me about Beyonce. I was in the gym, watching a screen of one of her group-dance videos, without the headphones--- and it was like these Amazon Victoria's Secret models--- but in overdrive. Sped up, jerking like they were poked. Remember the shimmy? That subtle thing Marilyn did, That little sexy move the Raylettes had--- Tina Turner was awesome, but she did move like she was on crack. Beyonce, though, takes it to another level. It's not a move, it's like a weapon. She's a pretty girl-- but it's all just so over-the-top, it makes me yawn. Absolutely zero on the sensuality for all the pelvic thrusts and booty-shakes. It's some crazy wonder-woman cartoon for Tae-bo, a calorie-burnfest, or the thing they put astronauts through before the launch....but no sex. Did you ever sleep with one of those guys who think women like a warrior-thrust in double-time on top of them? Go for it, JayZee.

Last night we had yet another 10-year old music prodigy sitting in, making the Stevie face, stringing the licks together in a 12-bar E blues, the parents cellphoning footage (I'd like to keep a face-bag on stage for these occasions), the tourists getting autographs from the little guys...while we on stage just plod along, trying to scrape some dignity from the beer-stained stage carpet which has borne its share of volume without complaint, unlike myself. These kids--- like the Idol contestants-- could fill a stadium--- 1000 stadiums. And their parents could fill another 5,000.

I remember a Christmas in the 1960's when I bought myself a Candy-Apple-red strat with my babysitting money--- $150. And my mother found it under my bed and made me take it back. 'This is for boys', she said, in that tone which you didn't mess with. It's my money, I wanted to say. I'm going to have a band and I'm going to be someone. I'm going to pierce my nose and get a tattoo and wear 1/4-inch black liner on my eyes and tight black pants to school. But I took the thing back and contented myself with the classical guitar and the flute and the Chopin and the new pink toeshoes and Hendrix on my little plastic record player. I burned and bled. Do I remind her that guitar now sells for $35,000? I do not.

What will happen to these kids and their stage parents, their wanted-to-be-Clapton fathers and wanted-to-be-Mrs.Clapton mothers? Will their kids learn to bleed and burn, not that it helps, not that it feels good to be middle-aged with 300 songs in some kind of tin can and one review from some UK paper saying it was brilliant? How pathetic am I, sitting in Starbucks with my tattered Roberto Bolano and listening to my indie-horror music, and the one finger ticking away precious minutes, wondering how I will ever find the means to help my dead friend's daughter make her fake-blood film, how I will ever record my blood and coffee-stained songs, how I will even e-mail-ask how much I can get in bartered studio time with a broken keyboard?

Jimi, you picked a good time to die. Dime store artists and musicians are as plentiful as tweets; the real ones are misplaced, overdosing, shivering...dying of dread. Bleeding. While the whole bloody culture eats itself to death here...doughnuts and Beyonce, burgers and fries, Michael Buble and the X Factor. Sarah Mclaughlin selling animal pathos while people beat their kids to death, disappointed TV contestants getting more public sympathy than a million earthquake victims.... Wall Street is rocking, bonuses are flowing like American sewage water.

Welcome to the future... the hangover of 2011.

All Abored

It's hard for me to commit to 2009. The inauguration helped. Then I watched All About Eve last night at 2 AM...a film that is older than I am, with a script which makes today's Hollywood sound even more pathetic, and it got me thinking about all of us aging artists.

Not to mention at my Times Square subway platform, there was a fresh face-- a young Eve, with her case open, an innocent delivery and self-conscious announcements of an 'original' song called, and I quote... 'When Will I be Loved'. Sound familiar to those of us who remember Bette Davis before that obnoxious 80's song?

So did I cringe? I did, and I do...even though she had passable talent, even though she could marginally play her Takamine lame guitar undoubtedly purchased by supportive and loving parents who pay her LES rent and pray every night their little girl will be the next Sara Bareilles or whatever her name is.

Am I jealous? Because her open case contained more lovingly rendered bills than mine ever could? Because she was cute and solicitous and Eve-esque, and I have that old rocker chick vibe with the jagged edges and even my case looks tentative and half-closed? Because I curse the act of subway beggary and refuse to be logged in among the new breed of busking musicians?

Here's what I resent: like everything else New York, we now have the gentrification of the subway platform musician. Few and far between are the down-and-out soul singers who do their Otis and Ray for a cheap pint. Gone are the aged never-have-been Lynnyrd Skynnyrd clones, and even the seriously talented but unmarketable poets. We are in the era of Asian muzak-creators and break-dancing in the cars. Drums beating everywhere and in the spaces, the Dave Matthews, the Fallout Boys, the endless K. T. Tunstalls and student jazz bands. And since fully 90% of platform population is equipped with an ipod, it takes serious eye candy or a weapon to get their earspace. Bring back the crude and un-photogenic. The underpaid and overtalented who are being forced out of even the subway underground in 2009.

Maybe it's the competitive and claustrophobic vibe that's beginning to get to me. I long for the white noise of trains without the overpopulation of mediocre performers. Watching the film reassured me it's okay to be a bitch. In fact, the sweet young mediocre newcomer was finally the talentless villain. Edge won out. Relieved was I, as I went to bed by dawn. At least until my next subway ride this morning, with the cool-jah percussionists riding my car, the jacked-up young rock drummer slamming on his kit so loud I couldn't hear the guy with the cheap Casio around his neck who looked like he was improvising some possibly hip stuff. Whatever. he probably won't make it into the new Zagat guide to subway performers, for those of you who are sick to death of Success-by-Myspace.

While we're on the subject of All About Me, I've been noticing the traits of middle age taking their toll. I returned a pretzel to one of my favorite vendors because it was so steeped in kerosene fumes that my band members whined. Did I need the refund or did I truly want to protect his customers? I'm not sure what he thought but I walked away feeling petty. And hungry.

I also managed to stop into Best Buy to let them know that in case anyone had believed in Santa Claus and received a gift from their store, the spirit of Christmas was forever gone. My son's shiny new computer with the newly cracked screen will cost $700 to repair-- not under warranty, as the salesman had led Santa to believe. Merry Christmas, Best Buy. I hope Tim Geithner refuses you a bailout package, you pathetic greedy robbing gremlins. The Geek Squad was muscular and well-tattooed and listening to TI when I dropped off my damaged goods. Besides the loss, I will get the additional gift of a pricey roundtrip shipping bill if I refuse the repair, which I did. And a $39.95 charge for recycling the thing, the whole of which originally cost those bastards 50% of the estimated repair. Without tax.

Well, in the Best Buy line of reasoning, it certainly takes more time to piece Humpty Dumpty together than to lay an egg.

Happy Year of the Ox.