My original plan was to write a post about what happened on the 36 bus the other night. Two women – myself and one other – were simultaneously harassed by two different men on the same bus at the same time. The story is important and speaks to the ongoing problem that women everywhere experience on a daily basis. Unfortunately, however, there isn’t anything new about the narrative. The theme is the same. Only the women, the place and the men are different. On my…
Last week, a local organization announced the finalists for an annual vocal competition that it hosts. These finalists will sing at Jazz Alley for a shot at winning a trip to Japan. Throughout the afternoon after the announcement was made, I received emails and texts from a handful of vocalists, friends who did not make the cut. Their reactions ran the gamut from perplexed to downright miserable. (I should add that all of these women are great singers.) We talked about a lot of…
My good pal Jason Parker recently posted a link on his Facebook page to an article about musicians and depression. It was from the blog "Behind the Music." The post was about a list complied by Health.com of the top ten professions with the highest rate of depression. Artists ranked fifth on the list. Further, artists who have a secondary job as a source of income, such as waiting tables or mopping floors, rank second on the list. It seems that plenty of musicians, writers…