Since the inauguration, I’ve been experiencing an uncharacteristic inertia. A malaise has insinuated itself into my psyche, and my days are often void of the requisite energy to write or practice. As such, my productivity has tanked to a troubling low. This feels different than depression. Still, I’m not exactly sure what’s up. I’m curious if other artists are experiencing this too. Reality has flipped on its ear. Every fucking day is weirder than the one before it. Lying is the new norm. Corruption and…
" or play with stupid apps on my phone" It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. The last thing I put up was in July and was about my young nomad taking off again. Prior to that, I wrote a post about a Yayoi Kusama exhibit I’d recently seen in Houston. That was back in June. The “Out to Lunch” sign has been hanging on the blog for a couple of months now. Obviously, this is unlike me. While…
I recently came across a post by Jennifer Garam entitled “How to Keep Writing When No One Gives a Shit.” She begins the piece with an unflinching overview of the current state of her writing career: “…no publisher is wooing me with six figure advances…nothing I’ve written has gone viral…no one is compulsively refreshing my website, checking for my next blog post to be published.” She goes on to discuss other cruel metrics−sluggish web traffic, low engagement on social media, etc.− that seem to confirm…
I’m losing my ambition. This is probably something that a person shouldn’t admit, especially out loud on a blog post. In our culture, we place a high value on ambition, even celebrate it. Ambition is equated with forward motion, something fresh-scrubbed and enthusiastic. “Lack of ambition,” on the other hand, conjures up the image of a bleary-eyed, vapid stoner wasting his/her days away, playing X-Box in some dim living room. The unambitious are typically presumed to be slackers. Losers even. But is that really…
Today’s post is about an unfortunate encounter that I recently had with a musician out on the scene. I’m not going to say where this happened and for the sake of this person’s band mates, I’m not going to out the group. But because I’m lazy, I’m also not going to dance around a bunch of pronouns to neutralize gender for the purpose of protecting this person's identity. The musician in question is a guy, but it does't matter anyway. This is a cautionary tale for all…
My brain has been sitting across the room from me with its arms folded. It’s not given up anything: a workable idea, an intriguing metaphor or even a cool word. I’ve tried cajoling, bribing and even a few threats. But it continues to hold out on me. The standoff started a few days ago. I’m crazy excited about a new project and have been trying to grab every spare moment to write. Things were firing along nicely; the idea engine was cranking and the language had…
Friday evening. It’s sweltering out. My apartment is a sauna. I should be practicing but all I feel like doing is lying in front of the fan and watching Netflix. At the very least, I should be writing. Yeah, I know, I’m writing now. What I mean to say is that I should be writing something inspired. But at present, this is all I’ve got: She wanted to feel dizzy in his presence. She wanted explosions, shooting stars and hyperventilation. She craved the experience of…
Assholes. Every creative community has a few. They slime around the scene, inflicting varying degrees of unpleasantness and leaving an acrid aftertaste in their wake. Ugh. Assholes aren’t a particularly upbeat thing to write about; neither are cockroaches or plumbing problems. But we all encounter them from time to time, right? It’s good to think about how we might be more skilled at dealing with them. Here are six ideas: 1. Ascertain the degree of assholery you’re dealing with. Not all assholes are created equal. They…
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…
A month or so ago, I made the decision to take a brief hiatus from music. For the most part, it was a purely practical move. I’ve been slamming on a couple of big writing projects. I’ve also been putting in extra muscle on this beautiful new website. Both of these have exacted an inordinate amount of time. Throw in practice, gigs and the daily demands of parenting and what you have is one frazzled chick. There are only so many hours in a day…
