Stumbling on a boob-craving dwarf and liking it

Here’s the problem:  I can’t convince someone that I’m worth anything without being on a stage with my guitars.  I walk into a bar or lounge or anyplace that books gigs, and I tell some booking agent what I do, and the booking agent writes me down to be considered for an audition.  So far, that’s been the end of the process.  I never hear back from them, and I move on to the next place.  These places already have a relationship with hundreds, if not thousands, of artists, and they really don’t need anyone new.  They have seen it all, so there’s no reason to ‘discover’ anyone.  The music business is an overflowing toilet of artists.

Today, I got a call.  A little bar-slash-burlesque theatre on the Lower East Side wants me to come and play one of my songs for their general manager, and probably a bunch of other people, to add some new faces to their line-up as they prepare for their obligatory holiday shows.  This is what I’ve been waiting for.  A chance to let my music speak for itself is exactly what I need, because I have an extremely hard time speaking for it on my own.  I tend to ramble, and at the same time, I try not to say too much.  I don’t want to give anything away.

So now I’m faced with a new problem:  What song do I play?  Most of my music is a little too dramatic for a night club.  This place tends to focus on the weird, the sexy, the funny, and the weird but sexy and funny side of entertainment.  Dwarves chasing around topless dancers, homosexual acrobatics, and beat-boxing hobos are just a small slice of what I saw on my first visit.  I could go strictly instrumental in the hopes that my musicianship alone will get me the gig, or I could try to write something ironic.  My manager isn’t answering his cellphone, and I haven’t seen him in a week.  I refuse to ask my roommate for advice on this, since he always seems so disinterested in everything I do.

The audition is in two days.  That’s enough time for me, as long as I lock myself in my room and just write.  I might have to turn off the computer though.  I just got Stumble, and have reached a level of addiction I never dreamed possible.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Suicide Bomber

Some of the trains in this city are filled with ghosts.  This isn’t as literary or literal as it sounds, but when I get on certain trains, I feel a separate energy from that of the living.  I’ve never seen a ghost, but that doesn’t mean I’ve never felt or heard one trying to tell me something important, and they are definitely riding the trains here and talking up a storm.

I was a little overwhelmed yesterday.  I was going to another job interview, which, by the way, makes ten interviews and no job, and I was riding uptown on the second-to-last car on the train.  I never get on the very last car, probably for the same reasons that I never wanted to be last in line.  There’s some inherent fear telling me that I will be left behind, that the rest of the line or the train or whatever will keep moving along without a problem, and I’ll be lost, alone in the darkness.

Anyway, as I was saying, I was overwhelmed on my commute, and I think most of the credit has to go to the ghosts of the subway.  I had the feeling that I was going to die.  It was no more than a whisper, but something was telling me that I was as good as dead.  Actually, it was saying that I was going to die at the trembling hands of a suicide bomber.  This was a very specific feeling telling me the bomber was standing behind me; I knew he was there, and I started to feel my skin melt.  The slow motion feeling of being blown to bits on a cramped subway car became my personal meditation.  I felt the back of my skull pushed forward and out of my eye sockets, and I felt my feet lift off the floor as the blast took me away from this world and into the land of the dead.  My fingertips unraveled and my legs broke.

Of course, this didn’t actually happen.  I made it to my stop in time to be rejected by yet another interviewer, and I lived the rest of the day and today without any militants blowing up beside me.  But in the time I spent on that next-to-last car, I never looked back to see whether a scary bomb-strapped individual was waiting with some kind of remote or button, waiting to derail the lives of at least two hundred people.  I never looked back because, as much as I can say I am not afraid of death, I don’t want to look it in the face.  If I died with just that feeling of foreboding, I would have been happy.  But to look back and see it with my own eyes, to know, to completely comprehend the cause and effect is too terrifying, even for the split-second of consciousness I had left.  I just kept looking forward blankly.

I blame the recent media coverage of ‘possible’ terror threats in the city.  I need to think about music and art.  Let Homeland Security worry about terrorists.  If I see something, I’ll say something.

Oh, and stop taking applications and scheduling interviews if you aren’t really going to hire anyone.  I’m sick of getting on the train, peeing my pants with fear, and being turned down.

A Predestined Conversation With a Guy About to Jerk Off

People don’t like to talk.  I know, I know, this sounds like the inner monologue of some Werther’s Original commercial grandfather, that is, “When I was growing up, all we had was conversation, now you can’t get a fellow to give you the time of day,” and I’m okay with sounding like an old fart.  I hate feeling like I’m a burden on someone just because I feel like I might have something interesting to say.  Everyone is so wrapped up in their time-consuming affairs that one minute of idle conversation seems to throw off their entire day.  I know, this is a city in which time equals money, but there’s got to be a better way of telling someone you don’t have time to talk to them.

I’m subletting with a friend of my manager.  He’s some kind of engineer, but he composes music in his free time.  He’s a very interesting guy, and get him on the subject of a project he’s working on, you couldn’t shut him up.  But when I have something strange happen to me, and I want to share it with him, he’s so quick to give me sighs and grumbles to let me know he doesn’t care.  He stopped me in the middle of a story once and said, “Okay, okay, I get it, just get to the point.”

I guess I talk to much or make it too flowery, because I seem to get this a lot.  Or maybe, its just that everyone is so uninterested in what I have to say that it causes them physical pain to listen.  I was at a bar, trying to book a gig, and the owner of the bar came in while I was talking with the talent coordinator.  He looked me over for an awkward second, so I introduced myself.  The mere thought of having to continue conversation with someone he didn’t know caused him to simply blurt out his first name and make his way out the door as fast as possible.

I wonder if I do this.  I wonder if I rush people through whatever they’re saying so that I can stop listening and get on with my life.  I hope that, if I am guilty of this, I can start to become aware of it and change it, you know, do unto others.

I wanted to tell my roommate about something interesting that happened to me on my way to Times Square, but he couldn’t be bothered.  I had just transferred to a local, and I suddenly realized that I left my résumés in a folder on the express train.  I was on my way to find a job, and I set the folder behind me on the seat, so, when I got up to leave, I guess I just went straight out without thinking.  When I realized what I’d done, for some stupid reason I jumped off my local train three stops early, as if I’d be able to find my now long gone express train.  I decided to stay away from the subway for a few hours.

So I’m walking uptown, and this small Asian man approaches me like he knows me.  He just smiles for a minute, and we’re waiting at the crosswalk, so I assume this is just one of those obligatory awkward stranger moments.  However, when we begin to walk again, he starts talking to me.  He wants to know where I’m going and what I do and where I’m from and where I work and whether I smoke cigarettes.  He asks me a lot of questions, and I’m starting to think he’s a little crazy until we get halfway up one block, and he stops me; he literally grabs me and stops me from walking.

“Wait here, okay?  Just one second, I promise,” he says.  Then he turns around to go into what I assume was some kind of apartment building, but he stops, turns back to me and holds out his hand.  “I’m Edward.”

I tell him my name, and then he’s gone.  It really doesn’t take him long, and he returns with a black leather instrument case.

“This is for you.  I don’t think I need it, but I know you need it, so take it.  This man gave it to me because he owed me money, but I don’t need this.  You seem like you could use it.”

I’m stunned, and I wonder if there is some lurking catch, but we keep walking.  We get a few blocks down, I’m getting close to my destination and he wants to stop again.  I’m holding the instrument now–I don’t even know what it is, and, even though I didn’t ask for it, I feel like I kind of owe it to him to stop and wait, only this time, he wants me to come with him.

I tell him I have to get to work (which is only a semi-untruth).

“Don’t you want to come first?”

“What?  I’m sorry, what?” I ask, and then I realize he’s walking into a sex shop.

“Do you wanna come first?” he asks again.

What the fuck is in this case?  I smile, laugh and say, “No, um, not in there,” and I keep walking, and Edward is gone, and I have his mystery case.

What is it?  ‘If you see something, say something?’  Well, I’m too curious to say something and I stop on the next corner beside a street vendor, and I open the case.  Inside is a beautiful, probably antique, mandolin.  It’s like getting what you want from Santa Claus, except you never thought Santa was also a pervert.  This saves me anywhere from a hundred fifty to four hundred dollars easy.  It’s perfectly tuned, polished, and ready to play.

Fate smiled on me, seriously, there couldn’t have been a more random meeting, a complete stranger, and he gave me something I’ve been needing for years.  How did that happen?  How in the world can that be explained?

I think Marvin, my roommate, would have found that story interesting, if only he had the time in his busy life for mindless chatter and personal narrative.

Muse Drives Me Mad

I have material now.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that.  I think my songwriting fell off when I realized that I had never experienced true pain or loss.  Until the arm incident, I had never even been to the hospital.  I was always very healthy, and so were the members of my family.  I was never hungry.  I may have had no money, but I always had something to eat.  I’ve always been a calm, easy-going, happy person.  Then everything flipped.

Still, I was never really worried.  I started booking music gigs, and, even though I look like something out of a circus, I was making some friends.  Things had changed, but they really weren’t all that different.

Then I moved here.  Here I have no money.  Here I have no health insurance (of course, I lost my health insurance before I moved here, but it’s still a fact of my life right now, whether I can blame New York or not).  Here I have no family, no friends, and no job.  But, somehow, I have a muse.

I feel compelled to write.  That feels great, but I can’t get anything down on paper.  I can hardly pluck out something that doesn’t sound played out.

I’m listening to a lot of Kevin Barnes’s amazing of Montreal albums, including the newest one which was released on CD, vinyl, T-shirt, tote bag, and several other items.  Skeletal Lamping is very sexy.  I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed listening to sexy music, but I’m really enjoying this, and there’s no denying it:  the new of Montreal album in ‘boneriffic.’  But face it, Barnes’s entire discography is completely jaw-dropping, and of Montreal has evolved over the years in a way that hardly any band besides the Beatles has ever been able to evolve.

How do I do that?  How do I translate this new muse into something timely?  Honestly, I feel like a complete idiot.  I always considered myself a smart, progressive musician, but I don’t know if I can really cut it.  Now that I’m up here, I don’t know if I can create something with the potential to really shake up the industry.  I could go back to Baton Rouge, or go somewhere where the price of living is even cheaper, but if I’m here, I’m in the blood stream of it.  I want to do something amazing.  If I didn’t want to do something amazing, I could have stayed in the South.

Until I get started on some new songs, I guess I’ll have to be kept company by the genius of others.

You don’t have to love ‘Booty’ or ‘Dope smoke’ to write music, but it sure doesn’t hurt

I owe the street performers of this city a lot, but I can’t afford to give them anything.  I am making scraps, just barely, and I would like to keep myself off the street if at all possible.  They should appreciate that; I’m unwelcome competition.  But I love to listen, and I love to see these people give themselves painfully to the cold, uninterested population.

I think you have to have a gimmick.  You have to be willing to sit for hours and bang on a plastic bucket, chanting about ‘Booty’ or ‘Dope smoke.’  You have to transcend the cardboard signs that say, ‘Need money for booze and hookers.’  You have to have character.  I saw a man with one leg, dressed in military fatigues, playing guitar in the most gut wrenching melancholy way.  I made eye contact with him, and suddenly I became aware of the way the crowd divided around him as they pushed on, like the Red Sea.  Opposites detract it seems.

I think the iPod is a harbinger of death for the street performer.  I mean, I guess I don’t want to blame Apple alone, really any mini-music player could be considered the greatest threat to transient musicians.  People don’t give themselves a chance to be drawn into an act on the subway anymore because they can’t hear anything but the Girl Talk blasting through their ear buds.  I can’t do that.  Number one, I’m too afraid I won’t hear the guy sneaking up on me with a knife, or the bike messenger barreling toward me at seventy miles per hour.  Number two, I can’t even afford a Walkman.  But I’m mostly worried that I will miss that one specific sidewalk act that’s going to give me some insight into my own problem.

I don’t stick out like a sore thumb here.  That was the goal.  I came here with the hope that I could develop my art more easily without having to worry about defending myself from awkward glances or being called a freak.  My manager thought it was hilarious that I wanted to stay in the South.  I thought he just didn’t get it, I mean, I wasn’t living in Selma, Alabama.  Baton Rouge is a city of weirdos, which I thought meant it was a city of open-mindedness.  My first two weeks in New York have completely turned me around.  You can’t pay people to point and stare in this town.

The man with one leg wanted me to believe he was a veteran.  I don’t know if he was old enough for Vietnam, and he was too old for Iraq.  It’s possible he could have been in one of those wars in between.  Talk about a bad break.  Of course, he’s probably just wearing camouflage.  It’s a gimmick.  Even having one leg is a gimmick.  Everyone’s got to have a gimmick.

I haven’t played my guitars yet.  I’m living off Baton Rouge money, and I’m afraid it will be a long time before I see any New York money.  Don’t people need music, even in a recession?  Should I be afraid?  Because, somehow, no matter how bad things seem to be getting, I feel this optimistic warmth coming from, I don’t know, nowhere and everywhere.  Besides, I’m cheap, and there are plenty of bars in this town.

House Party Clown loves Electro Chicks and Selling Out

I met these electro chicks last night and they helped me understand a few things about being an artist in today’s world.  I’ll see if I can remember a few of their helpful tips, because as stoned and optimistic as these synth-riding pixies might have been, they had a pretty interesting philosophy.  One of them, Elise, was dressed like an ad for American Apparel, and she was very confident in her genre.

“The entire industry can turn around in one night.  And that affects us whether we like or not, whether we’re willing to adapt or not, and whether we even know it or not.  That’s what happened to electro.  All the kids who were tired of their indie-rock not being indie enough for them were drinking and they heard some Justice or some MGMT and they shit their pants.  And it’s good stuff, I mean, it speaks for itself the first time around, and its got the hook, you know?  Suddenly we’re making music that our friends actually want to listen to.”

Like I said, their brains were scattered, and my quote might not be 100% accurate, but I think they understand something about the kids today.  I’m not talking about the kids that have been at my shows.  I play for a bunch of football watching fraternity boys and their girlfriends, and they would much rather listen to some Dave Matthews or Coldplay than listen to me pick at guitars.  The kids these girls were talking about don’t have much of a showing at the bar scene, because bars around here don’t cater to them at all.  

Bars in the southern states are just like everything else in the southern states; scared to death of change.  A bar down here would rather have five redneck patrons and make no money than bring in a nu-rave band and make a killing.  

That’s the South.  I wish these two girls were running for president, because they know how to roll with change.  The other girl, short and blonde, called herself Huck.

“We were writing Irish drinking songs and angry-girl stuff, I mean, we still do write that stuff, but we write it for the right people.  I think that’s one of the main problems.  Bands don’t know their audience at all.  If you know your audience, you can write a song for them and they will love you forever.”

“And maybe you’ll get rich,” Elise said.  “Nobody cares about selling out, we’re in the biggest sell-out country in the world.  America is everybody’s whore, so nobody notices now when an artist says, ‘Hey, I should be making money.’  And it’s cool, because we’re almost past the need for upper management.  DIgital music is, like, the New Testament of Music… If I call sell my songs on the Internet, why should I bother sucking off the corporate tit?”

I must admit, I walked away from the conversation confused, but the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to understand.  I think we’re locked up by the values of the generation before us.  We’re still wanting someone to tell us that it’s okay to be different, but should we even care if it’s okay?  What if it’s not?  I’m different, and maybe its wrong, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

I learned a lot.  I learned that musicians today have to be willing to leave their comfort zones.  I learned that some people will look past my physical appearance and just talk to me.  I learned that I’m attracted to girls who play synthesizers.  

Huck and Elise played later at a house party three blocks away from campus, but I decided not to go.  I’m still a little awkward about going out.  I can get onstage in front of people, fine, but I don’t feel like I belong at parties.  Parties are for friends who want to get crazy together.  I would feel like a birthday clown.

Hippies and Rock and Roll and College Girls

It’s really weird.  These days, you just can’t shock people.  I guess it should be expected.  I always thought my parents had strict morals, and I guess the rest of the world must have thought the same thing about their parents.  I mean, this isn’t really an issue of morals, but I guess I thought that they were really close-minded.  They would not like the fact that I’ve been playing guitar in smoke filled bars.  But people have responded well to my set.  I guess the success of these first couple of shows might be partly because of the novelty of it all.  I thought I would gross people out, or scare them, but I guess I underestimated today’s kids.

I’ve been living with this ‘disability’ for about fourteen months now.  I’ve always been a guitarist, and I was afraid early-on about the effects my condition might have on my music.  Surprisingly, I’ve been able to use all of it to my advantage, and my manager says I could be on my way to stardom.  I would say that he probably says that to everyone, but he’s never managed a musician before.  I met him when I was at rock bottom, and he told me to embrace the challenge of being different.  He doesn’t really make any money from me, but I think he has other sticks in the fire.

Last night’s show was sort of ridiculous.  Apparently some professors from the local college were attending a convention in Tallahassee, and they cancelled their classes, giving their students the freedom to stay out late.  Needless to say, the bar scene was heavy, and the bar I was playing at had to start keeping people outside.  I was essentially playing for a packed house, even though most of them were playing pool and getting their fraternity pledges drunk.  

The people that did watch me play weren’t as focused on the music as they were on me, but my manager thinks that kind of thing will pass once people get used to it.  There was a group of obviously drunk girls who were cheering a lot, even when there was nothing to cheer about.  One of them came up to the stage and asked me to meet her after the show.  I think it was a joke, not necessarily at my expense, but I think she asked mostly for her own enjoyment.  The drunk girls’ boyfriends came out of the pool room and watched for a while.  They were kind of in to it, but, when one guy’s credit card got declined, and they all had to fork in some cash to pay his tab, they all left.

After the set, this hippy guy who looked kind of like my manager came up to me as I was packing my stuff into the trailer and told me that I was doing some “amazing stuff.”  That makes two hippy-looking-guys who believe in me.  I guess I’ve found my fan base:  Hippies.  I suppose that’s okay for now.