MC5,000,000

Some nights I lie awake and wonder when it it was that everything seemed to change... was it post 9/11? At some point around the millennium the culture shifted. The cult of mediocrity took hold of what was edgy and original.  Jagged corners began to be filed and rounded.  People's faces began to be cosmetically genericized. And while fashion continued to push boundaries of sexuality, it, too, lost a bit of its iconic style and elegance. 

Popularity trumps quality.  Celebrity and social media far outweigh what is original and good.  One can no longer even trust criticism because a good review could be an arrangement-- payment for a favor, an advertising contract.  The old tried-and-true publications are suddenly rife with errors and less-than-stellar writing. As the concept of pronouns expanded, their usage in journalism and language is sadly battered and incorrect. Does no one learn grammar these days?  Is not the Manual of Style part of an AI editing app? 

I read today that the average radiologist cannot distinguish between a clinical X-ray and one generated by AI.  What does this do to the science and credibility of diagnostics? The fact that  artificially generated music sounds passable is not as much a credit to the technology as an alarming critique of what is being actually humanly released. It's depressing.. .like a large muddy pond with few sparkles and waves and dull slow fish swimming close to the bottom.

Three AM last night-- a variety of musical programs on various PBS stations.. one after another.. I could not name a single artist today-- nothing seemed compelling or passionate... the live audience was startlingly receptive and happy and the sound systems were excellent.. but the material? Forgettable.  Boring. Much ado.

We old souls send each other video footage and YouTube clips of exciting bands from our teenage years-- the MC5, early James Brown.. .today it was the 1966 Blues Magoos. The visuals are rough and generally black and white... the audio is flawed... but what is perfectly clear is the originality-- the break-through sense that these bands were doing something new and exciting.  Even now this comes shining through.

In 2001, I was super fortunate to attend the annual R & B award ceremony with John Lee Hooker's manager who was accepting a posthumous honor on his behalf.  On the heels of 9/11, it was a modest under-attended event hosted by the legendary Ossie Davis and Dionne Warwick.  Neither performed but got down to the business at hand. Today, I barely recognize half the names called at the recent Grammy awards-- music and songs less so; regrettably it's a chore to watch even a few minutes of the show.  I feel silly.  But back in the day, every single artist was someone I knew well... someone for whom I had massive reverence. Icons. Winners.

After the program we all sat for a meal at a few simple tables upstairs at the Beacon Theatre, I think we were. I was at a table with Sly and the Family Stone.  Sly himself was not able to attend, but his mother was there accepting the award on his behalf, and I sat next to the amazing Larry Graham who was polite and a little more subdued than I would have thought.  Prince was alone-- shockingly tiny even in heels-- impeccable, with a true aura as one imagines.  Anyway, all of these people had at some point shaken my world, caused a minor musical earthquake, came onstage with a presence and a concept and a solid performance the likes of which had not been seen or heard before. But the ceremony?  It was simple, unassuming, inexpensive.  No one performed or put on a huge spectacle. The stars were the award recipients.  It was enough... we could sing their songs in our heads.

Today-- we have spectacle... masses and masses of product... choices in galactic numbers that garnish billions of live-streams and instagram looks.  Overwhelming choices. A virtual ocean of brands. Everyone clamoring to create a brand but really less mattering product than ever. And the ones among us who remember... we share a certain nostalgia for what once mattered. The recent extraordinary prices at Christie's for Jim Irsay's collected guitars and things is monetary proof of this nostalgia.  But one thing I am sure of-- whoever paid $14 million  for Dave Gilmour's guitar is not going to be making the kind of music that made it covetable in the first place.

In the current urban Trump-world I find myself disqualified for the health plan I relied on.  As a musican/writer I have slightly more money than a welfare recipient but less than an average teacher.  So what do I do?  I go online to find literally hundreds of choices---all of which are similar but indistinctly different and obviously profiting anyone besides the patient and doctor.  I also learned that one MUST have a prescription drug plan which covers very little until one has paid in close to a fortune to purchase medicines that cost a tiny fraction of what we are charged.  It's a kind of medical blackmail here... and hidden costs and the freedom to change these figures at any time while we the poor subscribers have our banks and social security checks auto-deducted for the privilege of this false security.

I keep reading the phrase 'Original Medicare'. There is nothing original about these plans which dance around the core concept which most of us suckers paid in for our entire lifetime to find we are utterly out in some medical winter.  What is affordable for the likes of me who walks everywhere and has yet to buy a plastic bottle of water?  Am I untreatable? 

So I listened yesterday to the Morphine album Cure for Pain.  May Mark Sandman rest in peace... at least he belonged to a time when music genuinely made us less or more morose, as we chose... when the choices were not overwhelming and the pickings were fewer and fatter. Now every expensive vapid television segment comes with boutique drug marketing of emotional stability in a bottle and unfortunately we Americans are sicker and less happy than ever. The morphing of medicine is beginning to parallel the streaming platforms for music... the thinning quality, the lack of originality and analogue diagnosis.  Even the healthplan names and the insurance companies are designed to entice and deceive the end user. And back I must go diving into this quagmire or I may lose my home if God forbid I should need a prescription. Excuse me while I mutter an 'Ah, humanity'.

Pity the Poor Immigrant

I walk the streets with a running monologue in my head; sometimes it's a poetic kind of voice, other times it's a soliloquy-- a kind of rant or commentary.  The barraging urban incidentals feed this, redirect and influence... sometimes it is chastising and harsh, otherwise gushing and passionate. Most of it evaporates... one cannot document or note everything, and inspirations are corrupted like a warping digital file.  It's a wrap, I think, occasionally, as I invent a short story... and then it is lost in the ever-washing tide of temporary memory. Aging brains have less capacity to compartmentalize these things.  One fails to make notes, and then there is nothing... like a dream which disintegrates as one wakes.

It occurs that as one ages, one is shaped by what one forgets, as much as what one selectively recalls. I texted a friend yesterday that my life is defined more by what I have not done than what I have-- the way I consistently avoided opportunities of success or even a kind of minor celebrity... how I felt compromised by this kind of thing, and adhered to this stringent discipline of seeking my true voice rather than an audience. It probably has not served me, I note, as frothy influencers collect more than my annual income for a shallow momentary display of 'meme-dom'.

We musicians circulate periodic youtube fragments of odd under-known geniuses-- gypsy guitarists, random Eastern European instrumentalists whose personal style has developed unaffected by trends and online platforms.  Some take one's breath away... one discovery from last week, on further research, had died several years ago; fortunately he survived into the mobile phone culture enough to have had dazzled witnesses capture a few performance moments for us. It's humbling.

Fast forward to my regular life-- the email, the constant stream of notifications and requests... it's mind boggling, the number of attachments that accumulate-- the statistical impressiveness these marketing tools provide... the spread of mediocrity like bad mayonnaise on packaged white bread which affects not just taste buds but critical faculties.  We are intellectually worn like smooth stones by the incessant traffic.  I feel like variety has suffered... for every celebrity there are easily 5-10 others who look alike.  With cosmetic procedures, each of these changes facially with every appearance.  Maybe I'm just old and losing visual acuity-- but everything seems to be leveling off. The dumbing down of America which produced the current state of affairs... the rounding of corners...the filing of edges, the general whitewashing disguised as red-white-and-bluewashing.

Since I rarely consult a cellphone, I am inclined to talk to human beings like a crazy person.  It's interesting. Many of those willing and anxious to speak are from other countries.  Their trajectory, even in a five-minute conversation-- is often adventurous, and their take on America reminds me of what I used to believe in.  The drum circle on the North end of the park is comforting somehow-- the camaraderie and the colors... the warmth.  My young Senegalese friend who took me to the hospital after my accident last year--  still struggles but his huge smile and sheer ability to find joy are contagious.  

The Philippine farm workers who come weekly to my neighborhood and sell great vegetables for less than half of the pricey city Greenmarkets... I look forward to their Sunday stand, although they speak little English.  And then in East Harlem-- a new grocer-- with piles of exotic rice sacks and slightly damaged produce that is affordable.  On my block they sell Honeydew melons for $13.99.  Not even spelled right.  But here... they were $3.  I asked a very thin Middle eastern worker to help me pick a ripe one; he offered to cut it... if it is not good, he said, you don't have to buy.  So he disappeared and returned with a knife-master's slice... it was heavenly.  Then he wrapped the two halves in plastic.  Where are you from, I asked? I am Palestinian, he replied. Images of emaciated children and clamoring crowds of hungry desperate parents.. I was overcome with tears... we pray, he assured me.  I am the lucky ones... but fear for my family here.

Outside the 96th Street Mosque a man sells fruit from cartons on the sidewalk.  A blind man with a beautiful face and pale eyes sits in a portable chair for long hours.  If one has no money, one can take something.  These small human dioramas comfort me.  The diversity often disguises a kind of goodness... the hidden geniuses in quiet rooms and the generous gifts of the poor who give not for the deduction or reward but because it is inherent.  

Now that the whole city is being sued... one wonders... where is the sanctuary? I am quick to apologize to these people that the American Dream they sought has let us all down lately.  How many amazing souls are being deported with the bathwater?  Encroaching tides from both sides-- it overwhelms.  Like the general pool, a few from desperation turn to crime as a quick fix, but we in our cracking and chipped glass houses, may we see via our hearts' vision.

Instagram Coffee

When I first went to college I signed up for a minimal meal plan, to save money for tuition.  There were no cooking facilities or even refrigerators in dormitories back then... I had one of those cheap little electric kettles and I bought myself packets of instant cream of wheat-- a relatively new product.  The previous years I'd gone to high-school in a morning session (over-crowded school-scheduling) which required a 5 AM wake-up to walk dogs and put together a sustaining breakfast.  I cooked myself a pot of hot porridge or wheat cereal-- this took some twenty minutes-- with butter, cream (yes-- my indulgent mother) and brown sugar,  cafe-au-lait-- which had to get me through six long break-less hours until lunch. Even the memory of it is hearty and good.  My first homesick dormitory morning of instant mush was horrifying.  It tasted like paper--was either pasty or soupy-- gritty and awful.  Coffee was no better.

I've never been able to drink instant coffee.  As low-maintenance and minimal as my eating habits have become, by necessity, fast food has never been my thing.  I like brewed coffee-- pour-over, fresh-steeped.  In my son's well-designed office there are several varieties of machines which produce a perfect cup in seconds; individual servings with endless combinations of roasts and flavors... lattes, espresso, cappuccino-- all pre-measured, packaged in a disposable clean pod... all tasting, to me, suspiciously like airport coffee.  I've noticed many, many new chains of dedicated boutiques, all featuring some brewing or roasting specialty-- the craft of coffee, the process-- some at a premium that rivals the price of a good pound of fresh beans.  They all seem to have a following.  It seems even the post-millennials know the difference between office-brew and high-test.  My son goes out to Starbucks for his caffeine fix.  Manhattan is packed with chefs and food choices.  While McDonald's and Burger King don't seem to suffer, restaurants of all varieties,-- take-out trucks and stores offer seriously decent dishes for every meal.  Sommeliers have never been as sought-after; cheese experts, pastry chefs are in high career-demand.

So what happened to music?  Why do we get this variety of instant shake-and-bake beats and lyrics that pass as records?  Where are the writers and the inspired, tormented poets-with-guitars?  Out in a tent on a backroad in Mississippi?  Sleeping with the gypsies in a caravan in Croatia?

I've been playing in bands for 40 years or so, and consider myself a second-tier musician.  I sympathize with the geniuses of my circle who surpassed their curriculum before they even entered music school-- who could not only show their teachers a few things but can play their proverbial asses off.  Many of them live in low-income or subsidized housing projects.   Some of them are dead, having indulged their souls and bodies in the process of challenging their own talents... or tormenting themselves in the self-doubting ritual of most brilliant artists who see the light and cannot quite get there every night.  Few of them receive the acknowledgment they are due; they must turn on award shows and watch the endless accolades of achievement doled out to the mediocre and uninspired.
It is like watching a cup of instant coffee win the taste award year after year.  It's a depressing sentence.

On another level, I co-host a weekly jam in a New York City club whose name bears tribute to one of the great figures in American music.  Many of our friends and wonderfully talented colleagues join us in celebrating our community here, in perpetuating a certain tradition.  But nearly every week we are joined by someone who gives themselves a list of credits-- who gets up onstage and displays the musical flavor-profile of a water-cooler-style instant coffee.  Do they get this?  Are they listening?  I don't know.  Some of it is simple skill and practice.  Some of it is 'ear'-- the ability to discern what is good from what is merely adequate.  But much of it is simple failure to listen.  Can these people distinguish a freshly-grilled burger from a fast-food filler-patty?  I would think so.   But here they are, offering up the audio version of plastic food choices, sometimes via instruments which belonged to celebrities before them, which cost a small fortune, but sound cheap and misused.

Or is it that we are not just deaf but blind?  In this world of a billion pairs of fashion eyeglasses, people do not see themselves.  We have Beyonce-unlikes who flaunt themselves on the street-- women of age with enhanced lips and injected faces who choose to dress and behave like their own daughters.  I remember becoming 40-ish... I could see in the mirror I was turning like a late-summer leaf-- from a youngish woman to a mature one.  At first I was panicky and loathed myself-- discovered tricks of hair-color and make-up.  But then I began to realize it's not so bad-- I don't have to be beautiful all my life; it's time to focus on content.  I've been loved; I can still continue to love.  So I have left behind my girlhood; there is still the memory and the experience.  And now, I have long left behind my 40's and in photographs quite see the beauty I did not understand at the time.

Recently I had an accident on the subway steps; it wasn't too serious but I noticed my knee had somehow kept the memory of some old injury and was stubbornly refusing to heal itself.  It was reminding me of my past-- fiercely holding on to some long-forgotten fear and stress of pain-- maybe from my ballet days.   A friend of mine has had a cancer recurrence.. like a message from his body-- a voice-- a scar which was untended.

Late Monday night, after my gig, I watched St. Louis Blues on some free non-cable network.  This is the story of the great W.C. Handy-- his struggle with music.  Even the actors playing these roles-- Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt--- Ruby Dee... had a kind of genius and exquisite talent we rarely see in our time.  The voice of Eartha Kitt-- unadorned, unadulterated-- those eyes-- I could not take my eyes from the screen.  The temporary blindness of W. C. Handy-- the depth of his musical nature-- how he nurtured and groomed this as he matured.  I think of my fellow musicians here--- even myself, with my handicaps and mediocrities-- how many thousands of nights we stood trying to understand ourselves onstage-- learning to listen and find our place in the music; how we suffer and starve-- me, the Princeton summa cum laude girl with the scholarships and accolades-- struggling to just be-- to let go of being loved, admired-- to be sometimes misjudged or slighted, hit on by club-owners and horn players--- chided, praised, cheated, marginalized and drowned out-- just for these moments of musical truth-- for my tiny contribution to something larger.  I am no genius; I am a cog, but I think I am finally a listening, genuine cog.

W.C. Handy had his retribution: parental forgiveness, restoration of sight-- great lifetime acknowledgment.  Not so for me-- I have my old scars, like the pain in my knee which will heal, telling my story, somehow inserting themselves into the music-- the experience, the joy, the sweat and truth we try so hard to convey, with tedious long years and words-- 2-track soundbites and voices ringing like old bells in the face of the Instagram wall that stands before us with ever more facile digital brickwork, every day.  And yet, I wouldn't trade a single analogue minute, old and scarred as I am, me and my vintage guitars, my scraps of paper and my dreams.

Amateur Our

Every winter  I interview prospective freshman for my alma mater.  It's a rewarding task; it enables me to pay back a little for the really stellar education I received, and it allows me to connect with these amazing young women who are eager for knowledge and skills to change the world, to solve problems, to heal the wounds of humanity and make a contribution.  Most of them come from poorer families and need financial aid.  They are prepared and bright; they are enthusiastic and compassionate.  Few of them will win admission, but most of them deserve this, and all of them will go on to have productive lives, I am quite sure.

To support the mission of diversity, many of these girls are from immigrant families.  For some of them,  they are recent immigrants, and English is a second language; they have overcome challenges and have seen things most American kids can only imagine.  This week several of them happen to be from countries on the new 'banned' list.  While I am a kind of ambassador for my alma mater, we are now confronted with confusing issues and worries I cannot wholly facilitate.  Politics is not a subject on the interview agenda, but this year we cannot help but acknowledge current events.  I feel apologetic and ashamed of my country.  The real irony is, 18-year-olds whose native language is Farsi and Arabic have been studying government and American history-- requirements to embark on a higher education program.  All of them are better versed in constitutionality and American justice than our current president.  What kind of world is this?

My friend is tall and statuesque, and looks like a model.   She loves music.  She is even married to sort of a rockstar.  She sings; she gets up on amateur stages and wails.  She has all the great moves and gestures, but she is truly a terrible singer.  So she got it in her head to try her fortune at the Apollo Theatre.  I have to give her points for guts; she stepped out on the stage with all confidence, and every man and woman in the place was taken with her appearance.  But then she opened her mouth.  The audience, in reaction, opened their mouths in disbelief.  It took about 45 seconds before she was booed off the stage.  Democracy.  Did she learn something?  She is still making recordings, taking lessons from people who are quite willing to take her money, trying to jump onstage with people.  In her favor, she is hurting no one; fooling no one.

Night after night, I play alongside other bands of all varieties.  Some have great ideas and lack the musical skill to execute; some are well-practiced and derivative.  And some have absolutely no clue what music might be.  A classical orchestra requires auditions, a level of achievement and a competitive field of music students who are ready to make the leap to professionalism.  But re: rock and roll and pop-- it seems all bets are off.  Last night a combination of people took the stage who seemed to have no common thread except an umbrella band name.  No one played their instrument with any competence; the songs were formless and the performance was not even comical.  Technical issues and lack of experience kept them onstage far longer than their allotted slot.  No one booed, no one turned the power off.  I guess they had some friends in the house… but it was a true 'Little Miss Sunshine' moment.  I've witnessed altogether too many recently.  What happened to the 'hook' by which I mean not the song, but the stage removal device?

I have recently been to a few young art galleries.  At one, the director started a conversation with me about abstract expressionism, the New York School, etc.  She consistently mispronounced names and
misstated facts.  She seemed to have no frame of reference or context, no sense of art history or even contemporary culture… yet was exhibiting at art fairs alongside established, experienced gallerists, selling student-ish derivative paintings for $20-50,000.  P.S…. she is very attractive and well dressed.  But who are her buyers?  Her next show is 'pre-sold', she bragged.  I couldn't help thinking this was the kind of smoke-and-mirror game we used to play when some guy called us and we claimed we were busy, night after night… until he finally swore eternal allegiance in exchange for one dinner.

Next week is the Superbowl--- an American institution, an athletic contest with a huge audience and the significance of a kind of annual war-game.  Plenty of athletes may not have leadership qualities, but they are fierce and well-trained.  No one suits up for pro football who has not spent thousands and thousands of hours in drills and scrimmages and grueling exercise.  The game itself has a certain number of variables, but either team has hard-earned the opportunity to compete.

Maybe the best man doesn't always win the American presidency, but never before has the reality-show culture usurped our politics.  This is a serious job, with serious repercussions.  It is a position of leadership and power.  Kings and queens in history have on occasion inherited an office for which they were unsuited, but never has the collective consensus of a nation been so willingly corralled into idiocy.  I have had enough.  A week's worth of incompetence, blatant inexperience and bad decision-making has awakened even the most soporific of dreamers and optimists into a reality check.  The inauguration felt to me like a kind of funeral and after 9 days of mourning, I'm sick to death of the cult of mediocrity and amateurism.  I refuse to sell out my fellow countrymen to what is not a compromise but a dangerous regime of lunacy.  One man's hyper-extended fantasy of narcissism and abuse of office is not going to deflate and sicken the platform of civil rights and humanitarian ethics that has defined much of my generation's decency.   I've never been a patriot, but it's damned unAmerican and way past time for the proverbial 'hook'.  Time for the sound of one hand clapping… and as the emcee says, 'NEXT...'

iQuality

My teenage son is home from his first college year and told me last night that every single parent of every single person he knows has acknowledged I am a loser and a lowlife pathetic failure of an excuse for a parent. This was just the prologue. The meltdown went on and on to dis my religion, my total 3 loser dysfunctional friends, the fact that I have never paid for one single thing in his life (translation: I have paid for EVERY single thing in his life except his iphone), and that all of his friends hate me. Three of them were witnessing this tirade, the same three that seem to endure sleeping in my loser apartment every night because they don’t dare go home. One of them even lives in a mansion on Fifth Avenue and is not allowed to have friends over but chimed in for the chorus.

So was this just a decoy to make his horrid report card seem less heinous? A belated Mother’s Day gift? The effect of his self-medication or failure to medicate or overmedicate? Bad sports-gambling debts which are mounting geometrically? He is the drama queen of the house, but this endless speech made 50 lashes seem quaint.

I went out for a margarita with friends who egged me on to throw the ungrateful wretch out. I came home slightly ‘tempered’ only to face accusations of being a drunk, and a belligerent drunk. Trust me, not only is my annual alcohol consumption less than one average teenage weekend binge, but I no longer have the passion for anger. I am anesthetized by not just the toxic fumes from voluminous media product- garbage, but from the slow ooze of cultural mediocrity. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a Starbucks conspiracy? Our caffeine consumption has risen to offset the malaise, but it will take a high-magnitude earthquake to wake us up to our own sloth. I summon all my genetic bitchery, order all kids out, and no one moves. Even wrath is diluted... impotent.

Tonight I had dinner with a former rockstar who has the musical genius to compose a shattering soundtrack, but lacks the technology and equipment. Instead we are forced to turn on our sets to inadequate shows with not just derivative but inferior music by craftsmen who have all the technology but no creative depth or maturity. Is it their fault? Maybe not.

Wednesday I turned down an invite to attend the annual induction ceremony at the Academy of Arts and Letters. It seems they are running out of eligible people, because the list was as exciting as summer reality-TV reruns. Even the notion of sitting through these speeches was painful. Dull pain.

Last week an elderly former fashion designer complained to me that he attended an Anna Wintour lecture and all the women looked the same. Everyone has the same flowing hair, the same botoxed face, the same makeup and colors, the same shoes and gestures. Come to one of my shows, I teased him… you will at least see the marginally and mainstream hideous. He laughed. Said my soul was showing unfashionably. Sticking out.

As if I hadn't had enough abuse, the edgy indie director for whom I am writing film music kicked my lagging butt. He also threatened to put my unfinished music up on a myspace site, one by one, as punishment for my personal brand of sloppy perfectionism. Forget your brilliant NYTimes cd review and your poetry. The only books we will soon see in Barnes and Noble are Dan Brown, Harry Potter, and endless teenage vampire chronicles. Aside from that, publishers will take a risk on Paris Hilton's cookbook and Michelle Obama's workout routine. No more literature. Put that in the Academy pipe and smoke it.

Then the Chinese Restaurant we play at on Saturdays cancelled us. Apparently no one is eating this holiday weekend and if they are, they are doing it in front of their TV and saving the service charge. So they certainly do not require musical accompaniment.

My son got an ‘A’ in Business Law. Mostly because one of his teammates loaned him the assignments. He managed a mediocrity ‘B’ in Writing for the Media for which an ‘A’ might not be marketable. Ditto World Politics. But he never showed up for Psychology (surprise!), and had an ‘F’ in a course called ‘Equality’. I queried…perhaps you thought they meant ‘e-Quality’? Secretly I gave him a point.

This morning I emailed one of the young but wise songwriter-poets I consider my spritual offspring. He has lost everything in a fire, the blessing of which he is remarkably able to appreciate. The rest of us have simply lost everything but are still encumbered with rent and storage fees, dustmites and debris, molted skin and unusable lyrics. I told him how depressing the Academy list was, and that I was beginning to crust and crinkle at the edges with the smolder of blackened nasty. So just now, coming in from a Manhattan summer-doldrums-preview night out, I received his 4-word post-conflagration reply which soothed a few stinging maternal wounds and stilled the ache of mediocrity like Amazing Grace: ‘I see a light’, he said. Full stop.

Maybe it will be okay.