Playback is a Bitch

Last night in East Harlem a woman was sitting in her automated wheelchair, outside of a Duane Reade.  It was hard not to look-- she was beautiful-- ageless and drawn from illness.  She was breathing from a mouth device that looked at first glance like a sort of kazoo.  I hesitated, but had to ask... she motioned her head with difficulty, toward the door... so weak, thin as a young child, she could barely manage the armrest controls.  I held the door... it was an ordeal for her to just enter. She thanked me, barely speaking...  using the mouthpiece... absolutely no breath of self-pity or bitterness, she went forward... 

Me, the useless sympathy-soaked sponge of human compassion... Jesus, I asked, what sort of punishment is this for a human being-- what payback? As though there is any rationale for suffering-- for the homeless veterans, for the woman incinerated in a chocolate factory, for the souls crushed in last week's tornadoes, for my friend whose brain tumor has stripped her of her postural dignity, her grace. 

People used to console me when my sister repeatedly forged and narrated to our disadvantage... don't worry, she'll get her payback. But she doesn't.  Life doesn't work this way... childhood cancers, neuro-muscular diseases... they continue to ravage the good and the bad.  Beloved wives are hit by drunk drivers,  children fall from cliffs and brave men drown in cold seas.  

I find myself struggling often with the occupational annoyances of most career musicians-- tinnitus, compromised audio issues.  Few of us trust ourselves completely in the studio, mixing.  Many bravely step out on stage and turn their amplifiers up without consideration. It's not intentional, but there's a certain competitive performance headspace volume which comes with the territory, despite the advice of sound engineers.  

Last night I watched Woodstock: The Director's Cut... a longer version of the original which I had not seen for at least 40 years?  It's become sort of a cliché to my generation... a landmark, a cultural monument to a time that seems further and further away than ever.  I keep thinking the way I heard music back then was different from the way it sounds now.  I play vinyl records occasionally... my headphones only underscore the sense that my ears are not created equal.  Not that I would have done things differently...

Alvin Lee was incredible.  I forgot how great... having had the opportunity to travel with him in the early 80's... I could only remember how privileged I was to sit in his dressing room while he messed around on his red Gibson 335, casually churning out jaw-dropping ideas and phrases.  He was fairly quiet otherwise.  And Hendrix, of course-- that improvisational ending of Purple Haze as though he gave up on his band and just played.  You feel him move from 'stage-guitarist' into inspiration and truth.  

But the innocence-- the vibe, of course... and most of all-- the lack of branding... no corporate sponsorship or signage except messages on T-shirts and flags.  At the end of the film there's a reeling-off of musicians who have passed... and then of words-- things that have since lost their meaning-- integrity, compassion, kindness, etc... equality... 

I have friends that work at the recently fallen banks.  In the Woodstock days financial CEOs made a reasonable salary.  Greed was not the religion of corporate culture.  There was economic inequality but nothing like that of today.  There's a website that lists the payment received by each artist at the festival.  It's staggeringly modest. 

No performers at Woodstock had earpieces or pitch correction; some of the bands were awful.  Something musicians know-- the audience is often hearing something completely different.  Stage volume is deceptive.  If you played in dive bars, you never heard yourself sing. Someone had to play it back-- and it was rare that anyone recorded live performances.  It required equipment and planning, like these festivals.  Stephen Stills... in those days-- well, he was just so damn good, no matter what he became. 

The pandemic musical intermission encouraged me to rethink musical priorities.  Recently I rediscovered a singer I'd heard almost by accident in a Washington, D.C. club long ago-- Eva Cassidy.  Yes, she was doing covers, but her guitar playing was excellent, and her voice-- well, up there with anyone.  I was riveted.  It was reassuring to listen to her performance which was so fortunately captured with little fanfare and alteration by some angel in 1996.  It's humbling-- nearly perfect.  Eva passed away just months after the recording. Unfortunately, there's now a pop-up message on every YouTube video reminding the listener that a new album has been released adding strings and orchestration to these magical tracks.  Schmaltz it up, why don't you?  Okay... it's a real orchestra, but doubtful she would have approved; unfortunately, we can't speak for the dead.  Legacies and family members sell these people out.  The likes of me cannot save them.  Most often there is no Director's cut. 

I am a huge Clifford Brown fan.  He, too, died way too young; I have most all of his recorded material and among them my least favorite is the one with strings. I'm opinionated and stubborn, but why, I ask? And who will profit from this girl's brilliantly pristine performances now?  I don't know.  Current engineers can create nearly anything out of sound waves and a computer; they can even fool a dog or a whale. For the rest of us, playback, when we actually get to hear it, can be a bitch. 

Eyes on the Prize

During a week of prize-giving-- not the Olympics or Grammies, but the Pulitzers… I begin to think about what it is writers do, about what sort of literary cream rises to the top in this era of digital hocus-pocus.  Undoubtedly there is traditional wonderful work being done.  This is the first time I actually knew one of the winners; he seemed to be sort of a peer, and yet now he is crowned-- he has risen, perhaps never to return.

But which comes first: the poet or the poem?  Does everything that leaves the designated poet's pen become a poem?  Is mediocrity the inevitable by-product of awards?  So often the precious stereotype of the starving, desperate artist, awash in inspiration, drowning in passion-- it begins to peel away, to shrink beneath the satin robes of achievement.  

I've been playing blues for years.  For so long I had no deep respect for the tradition; I didn't 'get' it.  The first time I stood beside John Lee Hooker, some epiphany came through me like a sword… the music began to rise, it told its own story-- it wrapped around and inside and quietly shook me where I stood.  It was familiar, and new, and it took me with it like a train.  I've sat on the laps of Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, I've stood beside them and felt something real and important-- some undeniable true cry of life listened to words that rhyme with heartbeats.   Does this merit a Pulitzer prize?

Last night I found myself in a neighborhood I don't often visit-- midtown east.  It was flush with tourists, bus-groups and wandering families buying Starbucks and souvenirs, looking up at office buildings and passing Duane Reades and bank lobbies on wide, lit streets.  Is this New York,  I asked myself?  Please, I wanted to urge the visitors-- this is nothing-- -these are convenience stores and real estate-- there is no city here.  There is no warp and weft and living tapestry; there is no music and no poetry-- no grit and color and shouting and history.

I grew up in the myth of my city.  I created my own legends, absorbed the atmosphere of the artists and writers and composers I sought out, breathed their breath and inhaled their message.  I grew up wanting to create my own language and a voice with which to speak.  I needed to have something to say, and I tried to dissect moments as I lived them so their content became my raw materials.

Recently I published a book of poetry.  It is a nostalgic collection of memories through which I'd hoped to honor the dream of my first serious love affair, and the first person through whom I began to see a version of life that was visionary and spiritual.  Of course, it could have been the psychedelics and other drugs, but there was music and original songs-- passion and a voice I will never forget.  He died so young, and I recently found a cache of letters he'd written and I'd never received. I felt compelled to write-- or maybe the poems wrote themselves.  I could have gone on, but I made a book… it has some truth for me, a fairly uncontrived recovery of the moments as they were revealed to me-- with some hindsight, but not too much.

I've had it on my mind to reach out to his family whom I knew very little, so long ago.  Today I managed to find a brother via Facebook, explained in a message who I was, asked if I could send a book.  He replied with coldness that he'd rather just 'leave it as it is'.  I was not just shocked but hurt, devastated-- cried for hours… knew I'd picked the wrong brother, that he'd never convey anything to the more sensitive sisters, or anyone else…  it was a dead end; I felt he'd sliced off my outstretched hand.

I often wander the city… listening to my own voice which feels sometimes like the crying woman in that Picasso mural who to me is the human 'star'.  I see so many broken people and these are the ones that enter me-- the ones I take home, the ones who tell their story at night through my fingers at the keyboard, or who sing to me as I pick up my guitar.

The man who won the prize-- he'd shared some poems before the book came.  They were large poems-- they had a purpose and a subject… but most of all, I realized, they were larger than the room in my apartment where he read them; they were podium poems-- a sort of speech or declaration… an 'address'.  Maybe that is the secret.  They were made to be heard.  To be spoken.  They were already famous.  He is a professional.

It's taken me 35 years to call myself a musician and even there I feel unworthy.  This is my work, my job.  Poetry is a calling--  a process-- a verb.  To call myself a poet seems premature and pretentious-- it presumes everything I write I consider some kind of 'art'.  My poems-- well, they are my poems; they are voices or songs or whispers.  They are as they arrive-- in their naked, broken awkward intimacy.. part of a process that weaves listening and coaxing voices from inside things.   They are not sure of themselves… they are being born, they are quiet and not famous-- not podium fare or poster-ready.   'Keep your eyes on the prize' is a famous American gospel lyric.  My poet friend certainly knows these words and they certainly guided him to some winning.  As for me, I guess I am too busy looking down-- listening.  I'm afraid I wouldn't know a prize if it hit me in the head, and I'm in some fine company here.  Amen.

24 Carrot Old

New York City absorbs summer like parched soil getting the first rain in months.  There's always a quick premature teaser--- and within a mere few days, we've got hoards of tourists in shorts and  outdoor concerts in every square, air conditioner exhaust, that sweet garbage smell… people letting it hang out.  Girls and boys baring skin… some of it pretty, some of it not.

On the upper east side women with hats, designer sunglasses, umbrellas to protect their dermatologist's hard work… and on the subways… you get it all.  Scars, bug bites, rashes.  A guy sitting across from me today on the C train-- some hideous disfiguring skin disorder everywhere… and he's just letting all his secrets out.  Contagious?  Who the fuck knows?  In a way, you have to admire the guy.  It's a kind of dare-- just the way these 2 giggling 19-year olds are giving me way more visual information about their their butts and waxing habits than I want.  And the way you see these guys with the quarter-sized holes in their ears, covered with tattoos and piercings, and bumps underneath that give me shivers… after all, once you have covered virtually all of your skin… what's next? Do they envy the natural amputees and the genetic oozers?

When you travel in poor countries you see plenty of disabilities and weeping sores.  Here in New York City the homeless occasionally flaunt their deformities.  People are sometimes more generous when you are a true untouchable.  Then again, some just cross the street and keep their nose in their phone.  There's plenty of hideous stuff going on underneath our clothing-- just some can afford plastic surgeons and some can't.  Some are just lucky.  In my day, beauty used to be a random event-- the luck of the draw-- look back through your old high school yearbook--- everyone looks a little funky-- 1 or 2 genetically fortunate-- the obvious king and queen of the prom.  Look through your kids' yearbook--- or even their Facebook pages… and everyone is airbrushed, altered, hair treated, nose fixed, teeth white and straight--- who are these people? 

People used to tell me I had perfect skin.  I had no idea what that meant.  As a teenager I actually wanted acne; I thought it would make me look older.   My hair was naturally long and smooth.  There was no cure for frizzy hair then.  No Pro-activ.  No one advertised anything on TV but aspirin or cough medicine and food and cars and cigarettes.  Soap and shampoo.  It's so complicated now.

My son lost his job.  Yes, one of those internet startups that dangle the carrot of phantom stock options and the prospect of a Facebook-scale payout at the end of a rainbow which is really a tunnel of 15-hour workdays without overtime, an occasional perk in the form of celebrity investor/visitors; but mostly they are sweatshops which squeeze the new-college-grad spirit and goodness until the next crop comes in, desperate for work, offering free time for the privilege of resume-affiliation with a 'cool' company.  And then there is the carrot, again--- this year's model.  Anyway, at some point, during one of those private pep-talks the well-paid bosses give the kids, one-on-one, to let them think they are special, that they are being taken into the inner inner circle--- my son met the boss's toddler boy, who loved trains.  Do not fall for this, I warn… he is just trying to get a 17-hour day for under-minimum wage.  This is a snake in Comme des Garcons T-shirt.  But my son boxed up our vintage, hand-made Brio set… the bridges and the tunnels and the switchers and the locomotives… collected over generations--- one by one, lovingly cleaned and drooled on and slept with-- for generations… and delivered to the executive office-- -the black room with the buffed matte $50,000 stainless steel desk… and nothing on it but an always-open macbook air.  I cried.

I want my trains back.  I am thinking about going up to his perfect office with all the beautiful 25 and under-year-olds at their perfect matte tables, with their noses in their phones and computers… and the circles under their eyes barely visible because they have perfect skin and the boys all have that unshaven look which is compulsory… and me, in my funky thrift shop jeans with a guitar strapped on..  

with my former perfect skin and my rock and roll ravaged dyed-black hair wearing all of the wounds and realtime life of generations, letting him know exactly what I think of this airbrushed sweatshop of perfect educated kids-- mostly rich, because who else can afford to work 80 hour weeks and weekends for this pittance-- so he can go home to his 20 million dollar condo with his trophy wife who may or not be a genetically natural beauty-- and tell his private sushi chef exactly what exotica his personal trainer will have for dinner.  

I am not buying.  Not their 'brand; not their bullshit.  I want the million hours back that enabled my son to incur more debt than he had before, and duped him into pouring his life and his heart and his unspoiled ambition and belief, like a slave with the prospect of freedom-- into this asshole with a phantom internet company concept--- an app, a hocus-pocus-- a spin artist of the heinous 21st century Wall Street variety who parties with rappers and has a bodyguard because he's weak.  Because this is what the American dream has become.  Not even a company that makes something you can drive or build your house with.  Another swindle.  Another IPO.  Another Nasdaq listing at $20 that gets pushed up by his 'boys' to $40 so he can cash out his options.  Maybe even a buyout.  

But I will look him in the eye because I am not afraid of this guy who is an asshole and I could take him on with my rock and roll energy.  I am going to forget about the cool Hess firetruck I let go for the toddler brat's birthday present.  But I am going to look him right in his eye and say 'Give me my trains'. 

Mybe I should make him deliver them.  But no---I might take a couple of Duane Reade bags in there and load them up.  I'm going to make a lot of noise.  Maybe I can get the guy with the hideous skin disease to come in with me and touch things.  In his boss's office.  Send him a few articles about those laid-off postal workers who come in with guns.  Anthrax envelopes.  I know for a fact the guy is a total germophobe.  He'll surely have his bodyguards remove me.   Besides, I'm not a vengeful person.  I write.  I want my trains.  4 words.  And the shopping bags.  Maybe one of the club bouncers--- the kind with the gold bulldog around their neck and the quarter-sized holes in their ears.  Go ghetto on him.

As for my son, he will not be willing to share my dinner of white rice and black coffee.  Regrettably at 24  he will have learned the harsh lesson that no one has your back.  Trains or no trains.  No one wants your pathetic sentimentality these days.  It's a disease.  Hopefully it's not genetic.  Hopefully he'll nip it in the bud because I don't see him staying up nights writing poems and channeling melodies from dreams.  He has near-perfect skin and just the right hair.  He'll get another job.  He'll learn to hate carrots.  He already does.  He knows now in the new version of Aesop.com the hare is always on top and there is no finish line.  It gets moved to wherever the hare is.  That is the new game, the new 'fair', the new internet-startup black.