Here's the link to my website with a little bit more info:
http://ericsternevents.com/eric-stern-presents/
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Artist to Artist: Interview with Natacha Atlas
I made my way back up to Seattle yesterday to interview Natacha Atlas before her show at the Triple Door.
I'll have an extended profile of the whole experience soon but for now enjoy my interview with her:
Here's the link to my website with a little bit more info:
http://ericsternevents.com/eric-stern-presents/
Here's the link to my website with a little bit more info:
http://ericsternevents.com/eric-stern-presents/
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Oh Canada! The Moustache Unfurls.
Backstage. Ashia (dressed as catwoman) paints an acrylic portrait of Jason french kissing two belly dancers, while Robin sniffs a pound of cocaine. Xander fires his gun at my accordion again and he's too drunk to hit it, as usual.
Mark? He's fashioned a kind of gamelon out of beer bottles and broken ashtrays and he throws bowling pins into the machine's guts while chain smoking Gauloises. The Elvis Costello glasses suit him. He employs an arcane and byzantine method to determine what rhythms he'll play that night—he consults the I Ching after each hit and a Tarot deck that is rumored to have come from the Medici family. Skip's moonlights as a bookie and he's dealing a shady poker game while collecting on the horse races. Or he's just breaking somebody's legs behind the alley. We're all drunk beyond belief and onstage in 5 minutes.
Really? Nope. But I find that most people believe some version of this about my band (Vagabond Opera) or about me: That we're wild or insane or some rarefied combination on stage AND off. I'll dispel the myth now: When the curtain goes up I'm an accordion opera-driven machine what jumps off stage and dances the hora. I leap, I bound, I sing a high “C”, and try to sing it like it was the last note sung by the last man on the last day of earth as the black night is falling. I give everything.
Beyond the curtain I'm rather unexciting.
Now you know.
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| The Wise Hall Vancouver BC |
Two weeks ago we played in Vancouver BC at the Wise Hall . Here's my journal entry from before the show:
Backstage at the WISE Hall (Wales Ireland Scotland England). Feel a little sick. Hmm. Tired. Have a show tonight. Must pull it together. Took a nice walk. Back alleys. We're ...um what was I saying? Not quiet enough here or too distracting. Backstage. Want to sleep. I think I'm jet lagged. Yes, jet lagged. And a little hungry. I have some food here; I should be all right. Wooden floors here. Line out front. Looks like mostly older folks. Opening band is called Maria in the Shower. They keep asking questions of Robin.
Xander just brought back a whole bunch of beer.. I'm a little achy. Can I pull this together tonight? Oh please don't take your guitar out Jason. Shit he is.
Oh well, gotta look past the usual stuff that annoys me, gotta get out of that mind set and remember all of the people I meet who say that they wish that they did what I do. I sometimes wish I worked in an office! A routine, an apartment, security for my old age. Turn my brain off at the end of the day.
______, please be quiet.
Gosh I'm a little bitch tonight.
We got through the border all right.
Walked around the alleyways here just a little. I've been around my boy so much that I'm missing him right now. Suddenly cut off. It's okay until I see a kid and then I start to miss him.
First band called Maria in the Shower. I think I mentioned that. There was a little boy on a balcony. Made me miss Jascha. I miss Jill too. It's a little weird because I can't call here without using long distance. But it's nice to be alone too. Did I not mention that?
I'll have a little food.
Some people maintain their persona off stage and nothing changes. I'm not like that. When I go to my local coffee shop with my son in Portland my moustache is undone and my jeans are on. Sometimes in social situations, I can barely manage a sentence.
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| Photo: Courtesy Adrian Derbyshire |
And when I'm on tour—a different bed every night, a different meal time every day—I crave routine:
September 2010
Staying at a house here after five hours on the road. I'm in a teenager's room with Xander, Robin and Ashia. Slept some in the van but it's hard to sleep in a sitting position. Late, probably past 1 am. Looking forward to sleep and was questioning this life in the van as we crept minute by minute to two hours after my bedtime.
Bedtime? Am I five? Still it always disrupts routine and it takes a bit to get used to the transition. Of course this time I'll have gotten used to it and then I'll be home. Short tour, four gigs.
Robin is exhausted from his March Fourth tour in Germany. He hasn't adjusted to the time change.
But now I'm happy. Where we are staying is a real home and everyone has a bed somehow. That's better than a hotel.
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| Todd Biffard |
Here then is a travelogue of Vagabond Opera's latest tour told from a very unbohemian perspective:
The band had a choice of home stays after the WISE Hall gig. As soon as our show was over I buttonholed Todd, father of two, and told him I wanted to stay with him. He's got a four year-old and I think a two-year old and I knew that I'd feel better surrounded by art projects, toy trays and a family.
The band had a choice of home stays after the WISE Hall gig. As soon as our show was over I buttonholed Todd, father of two, and told him I wanted to stay with him. He's got a four year-old and I think a two-year old and I knew that I'd feel better surrounded by art projects, toy trays and a family.
We had crossed the border easily enough earlier that day and arrived with two hours to spare.
The WISE hall is in East Vancouver and I took a walk nearby on Commercial Drive. I love my richly diverse Portland restaurant and food cart scene but Vancouver rivals it: in the space of a few blocks I saw Sushi restaurants, Greek Tavernas, Indian food, Pho, and The Controversial Kitchen that serves only free-range, grass-fed meat, from local farmers.
And food co-ops. An abundance. I can think of two off the top of my head in Portland, but here they were clustered up all in a few blocks. Who knows how many more there were in other neighborhoods?
Canada's like that. It kind of looks the same, but soon you realize you're in a parallel universe.
Todd is 35 and lives in a large house in East Vancouver. Like me he's a touring musician with a family so we had a lot in common
I got dropped off at a little before 2 am. Robert, the show's promoter drove me there. Todd's house was everything I wanted. A bed, finger paint art hanging up, and his wife had even made lasagne. We sat in the dining room and ate it and drank red wine.
Todd told me that Robert was able to make a living bringing musical acts to Canada because he got a grant from the government. Even if he didn't make money on a show, as long as Robert broke even things were OK. That seemed plausible; I think Robert's organization was a non-profit. But when Todd told me that Maria in the Shower had gotten a grant to tour I felt reality's facade cracking.
A band getting a grant to tour? Really?
The next morning I jotted down in my journal:
Is it internalized artistic oppression? I wanted to ask him how the government justifies making grants to bands. I mean I'm in a band and do believe that a good society supports cultural...um...what? I don't know because I'm not sure I really believe it and in fact am used to my role as professional musician as being almost an adversarial role or a “I make it despite the fact...”
Todd's view is that musicians are heroes. I don't know if I agree. He said that because people don't sing anymore musicians have a special role. Again I don't know if I agree. This is the sort of thing I used to think and I remember in my early twenties I wrote an email to my brother saying how musicians used to be shamans in ancient societies. I now am more apt to equate my profession with “The Hitch Hiker's Guide To the Galaxy's” definition of our planet: Mostly Harmless. At best I could perhaps say that we are keepers of a flame of sorts.
The next morning Todd casually mentions that he has a lamb in his basement freezer and I proudly tell him of the cow in ours but soon enough I feel a little deflated. Not only is he part of a farm share and a meat share but he says matter-of-factly, that most people are. In fact he acts as if it were no big deal and the conversation moves on. Portland suddenly feels provincial.
Another journal note from that morning:
Before bed Todd mentioned that he liked having people stay at his house. That in fact he thought of himself as a “co-op” kind of person.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked him.
“Well you know I'm a member of a bike co-op and I've been involved in lots of housing co-ops over the years, and that sort of thing.”
I told him that in some circles that kind of talk in the states would get him branded a Marxist.
I didn't get to meet Todd's family but he sat with me while I ate my breakfast.
Todd thinks that Americans have more of a singing tradition than Canadians (with the exception of the Quebecois). The only song Canadian people might all sing together was some hockey song. I told him that the only songs most of us sing together are Queen songs at sporting events. Still he might have had a point. Recently my father-in-law Neal taught my son a song. He called him over and sang to him out of the blue, and pretty soon the whole family was singing the pig song in an elevator in a hotel in Conshocken Pennsylvania.
I asked Todd to elaborate on what he meant about musicians being heroes. He said that song had vanished in modern society—people used to sing as they worked and used to sing together for pleasure after work—and that now musicians were the ones keeping song alive.
I agree to some extent—I've been saying the same thing about music's historical function for years now. But I blanch at calling musicians—myself—heroic. And maybe if I did I would be one of those people who sported his burning man apparel every waking moment. But the truth is I'm doing this all out of compulsion. My fingers seek an accordion too often (ask my wife), and for two years I preferred sitting in my office composing an opera to sticking my face in the rain and my feet in the Portland forests.
I don't mean to be self-deprecating but that kind of behavior strikes me as more of a sickness rather than the Hero's Journey.
Todd's house is a work in progress and we talked about wiring and painting and window installation. I'm no hero. At best I'm a cartoon super hero (Moustache Man!) who's also very attached to his secret identity of a lower-middle-class Portland food snob, cafe junkie, and parent.
2
And yet...
And yet when I read my journal entry from two days later the idea of the heroic has penetrated it. Perhaps Todd got me thinking along those lines? We crossed the border back into the states uneventfully and drove to Northern Washington where we had a showcase.
Those industry showcases: Abandon all Romantic notions of the Musician's Life ye who enter here! Here's how it works: two or three times a year our booking agent signs us up to “showcase” our band. We perform for fifteen minutes for presenters from all over North America and other parts of the globe too. Usually a Hilton is rented out for this and we play in a carpeted room in a basement. If you exit our showcase you will see a corridor with other rooms just like ours and other bands are in those rooms showcasing their work.
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| View from the "Stage" |
I kind of like the challenge of compressing our show into fifteen minutes. And we only do these three times a year, at most. In the long-term they're lucrative for us, but I often see a look of desperation in the eyes of a lot of the musicians attending.
As soon as our sound check was finished we went to the dressing room. We had a few hours. What did we do? Practice? Jam?
I wish I had taken a picture. I'll give you a portrait here instead: a large dressing room with a long counter and chairs in front of the counter. Above the counter is a mirror encircled by light bulbs and by each chair is an electrical outlet.
The members of Vagabond Opera took out our respective laptops, plugged them into the outlets and sat down for almost two hours catching up on emails and updating websites. We went out to eat Mexican after wards.
A day off in Seattle and then a show at the Triple door finished it all up. Here's that journal entry I spoke of.
Seattle WA
I went sailing yesterday with the band (sans Jason), the boat piloted by Robin's cousin. We went out Puget sound, passed cormorants on a rocky pier with an iron ghost and dragon and into the wide water. Robin's cousin (I forget his name. Is it Chris?) is a man who is fifty-four today, a lawyer with a moustache, and he told us that sailing, especially nights, he gets to feel “Skinless”. He diffuses into the air, he says.
I've come to sailing late in life but, yes, you do diffuse and it is wonderful and exquisite. Coming home I made my way near the prow and stood there the whole time, alone at first and then joined by Skip. It occurred to me as I became diffuse that one of my problems is generated by too much damned thinking.
And at the same time I thought, but what about this? Writing? This is self-reflection and draws from a deeper well, I think. If I am awake thinking and worrying it is calming to do something, and writing, even, is doing something.
I am sitting here, now, in B's bed. I slept on a futon on the floor next to Robin but I made my way in here now as I know this typing would wake Robin up.
Nothing can seem more pathetic than a single man, but I suppose I say this as a man rescued. Rescued from what? Rescued from discomfort. If this room were spartan I might admire it but it, and the house, is instead...how shall I say? Frugal? No, I have no beef with frugality. Miserly and non-abundant.
It's cold here for one thing. But that's not it. It's just the home of a single guy—every cereal box is almost empty, there are no vegetables in the vegetable drawer, all the books on the book shelf are leaning to one side, there's a pair of used socks on the bed and five hard-backed books strewn on it too on the left side. It's cold and uninviting and you know the first thing a girlfriend would do is clean, straighten up and get new curtains, then new furniture. Shit, I would do that too, at this point in my life.
But this isn't, even if it sounds like it, in judgment against the man. He has two kids from a previous marriage, he's an instrumentalist for orchestra, the property itself is beautiful and you can see he has a yard he keeps well and that he's interested in cooking (lots of books on it and lots of good spices).
And of course it's a rather nasty thing to go into these people's houses and poke around, then write about them!
I am almost forty and somehow not famous, as I thought I would be, and not embedded as an icon of Western art. It's good, actually. Once you give up that shit and it falls away the real work begins and you realize that your life is heroic and perhaps being an icon would just confuse the matter anyway.
Good I am getting to something deeper here, a deeper source, I just felt it and don't know if I can articulate it but it reminds me of the usefulness of this process. The deeper thing? I can feel my life resonating like a dark bell, the overtones of my childhood ring out and beneath them is this deep sounding something too. It feels profoundly spiritual and holy in this moment looking out the window at that shimmering tree.
I was in Philly last week, with my family, and passed the house I spent my first eight years in and I think I had a dream about it or just thought about it later, how my grandfather planted an apple tree in the backyard there and how it was flourishing when I was a child.
You can get so distracted by the outside so it's good to feel, right now, that I am inside of this ringing bell of my life. I think the distraction in this moment comes from thinking about Vagabond Opera always as where we are going but you might miss where you are if you think along those lines too. I am in Seattle with people I love. I work with them, I play with them. I really shouldn't worry about how far we advance. To be alive with them and moving through life with them at this moment is such a gift.
And it's all been a gift, my grandparents, my childhood, what a gift! Who do I thank? WHO DO I THANK? I don't rightly know. It's shabbat and that's a good starting point for me to reflect on all of this.
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| Lily Verlaine |
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| The Fresh Pot Cafe |
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Prison Follow-Up
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| Johnny Stallings |
If you've been reading this blog you know I've had a little bit of involvement in teaching incarcerated men a song for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Director, Johnny Stallings is a friend of mine and he is the Executive Director of Open hearts Open Minds, an organization that "helps prisoners make positive changes in their lives." He's got lots of links to media coverage of the event and other material of interest at his site.
On October 2nd my wife and I drove out to Two Rivers to see the play. There was no curtain, no auditorium. The performance was in a large room lit by florescent lights. But when it began the cell blocks burned away and we were all in Athens.
I've been to modern-day Athens. I was jet lagged when I arrived so I arose very early in the morning and ascended the hill that goes to the temple at the top. And all around me there was mist and rain and foliage and stray dogs and a quiet ghostly atmosphere. There's a very old feeling there. Older than Bottom and Titania, but there was something of Puck in that morning air.
At Two Rivers that night I didn't see prisoners. I saw men whose craft reaches back past the Bard and across time and seas to that Attic theater in Athens and like all good actors they melted the divisions.
I and thou? There was no separation. They achieved good theater, transcended the boundaries, and all walls became rubble.
I know these men aren't political prisoners. And that some have done things which might repel me if I knew the details but when it all began the questions of what was their crime dissolved, and I'm sure that part of me is still interested but now not nearly as much as before.
As a performing artist it was important for me to see this. I perform for a living, all year 'round, all over the world. And sometimes I wonder what the hell I am doing? “Is this important, in any way, to society, does this help anything or anybody?” I ask. I don't know if my art helps anyone, but this experience reminded me that art itself does.
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| Photo Jennifer Colton Hermiston Herald |
In a discussion afterward many of the inmates mentioned how precious those discussion and rehearsal sessions were with Johnny and how learning their part, and coming together with the other men transformed their experience in prison. They became more open, more compassionate in a place that is inimical to anything approaching openness and compassion. It's affirming to me to know that art can transform. No—more than affirming—it helps me go on doing what I do. The ripple emanating from their work rejuvenates and uplifts me.
My deepest thanks to the cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
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| Photo Jennifer Colton Hermiston Herald |
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Celebrity Encounters
I've got fourteen minutes of fame left. I used up my first minute in Brooklyn at the Dark Circus Party this past July. I don't know if Vagabond Opera was genuinely famous that night, but I got a sense of what fame feels like.
And then there's Celebrity. Consider this encounter: My father-in-law, Neal, was in Portland and wanted to buy a basic guitar book for his grand-daughter. I took him to Artichoke music; it's where all the pickers and old-timey musicians go, and Neal is the real deal having grown up on a rural Tennessee farm. I knew he'd appreciate the store.
It was a weekday afternoon and the place was dead. I sat on a chair while Neal browsed. Out of nowhere one of the workers handed me a banjo. "Here. Try it!"
At first, I protested; I had never played one in my life, but since there was no one there I decided to give it a whirl. I got a decent sound out if it and pretty soon I was smugly telling myself, "This isn't that hard. It's not like the accordion."
A couple came into the shop. They were in a hurry and soon the clerk began to help the man. The woman came toward me. Pity the poor insecure musician! It was all too much. A beautiful stranger, an instrument I didn't know how to play, an audience of four people.
Don't I tell my students that wherever you are on the instrument is a fine place to be? Don't I tell them not to be embarrassed, that just picking up your axe is an affirmation?
She asked me about that banjo, the make or something, I don't know. I quickly asserted that I knew nothing about it, and furthermore that I was an accordion player. Somehow I would have loved to have added that I sang, led a six-piece ensemble and had composed an opera. You can't rush these things when you want to impress someone though; you have to let them casually slip out.
Wow. Denying that instead of playing the banjo you play the accordion. Rock star move.
Now don't get me wrong--I have a beautiful wife who I love with a passion hotter than a thousand flaming suns, but when there's a stunningly gorgeous woman in front of you the primal urge to let loose your yawp kicks in, and here I was without my yawp machine. She was very giving and told me a little about playing banjo, explained claw-hammer style and sat with me and tried to teach me.
I came to my senses; there would clearly be no time (or purpose) to advertise myself, so why not learn something? I tried the claw-hammer thing. It was fun.
But I still had to say something asinine as she left, loud enough for her and her friend to hear.
"Well it still seems kind of a limited instrument."
Now I know that's not true. I grew up listening to all kinds of folk and bluegrass music. What on earth prompted me to say that? After all these years of being a successful musician what the hell did I need to prove to anyone? You'd think it would be OK to come off as a beginner; to have someone be unaware that you're a minor Portland celebrity.
"Do you know who that was?" The clerk was star-struck.
The woman's name was Abigail Washburn.
She's well-known in the folk and bluegrass world. But it wasn't her photo I was searching for online later that night to confirm the clerk's assertion. Because he wasn't talking about her.
I found a photo. Yup. That was the man who was with Abigail all right.
For a moment the worst banjo player in the world and the best one were together in one room.
Sorry that I was such an ass, Bela Fleck.
Bloody awful.
New York, Saturday night, we were the last to go on (our start time was 4 AM). We had just come from Kingsborough Community College where we played an outdoor show to what seemed to be the entire Jewish septuagenarian (and up) population of Brooklyn. I think they liked what they heard (although one woman complained to us that Marlene Dietrich was a collaborator--I've heard that before and I've heard the opposite too. For now, the Marlene song stays).
We got in our van, went back to the hotel and changed (you can't wear the same outfit twice in one night, can you?), and 'round Midnight pulled up in some alley near some club where we were playing the Dark Circus Party (the details elude one after being on tour with its vicissitudes of diet and sleep habits).
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| With friends after the Dark Circus show. |
I am very thankful that I make my living as a performing artist and always try to remember that I have no right to bitch when there are guys standing outside of open-mic night with their guitar, hoping to play one song.
And there are other people digging ditches.
But I do have the right to sleep, don't I? That's all I wanted to do--sleep back stage, maybe from midnight until 2 AM, and it looked like it could happen. There was a little futon, a little fan blowing air on the futon. Picture me, mustache curled, wide-striped pants, suspenders off my undershirt, bottle in my hand as I lay face-up, in deep slumber.
You don't have to picture me! After about twenty minutes some little twerp from Time Out New York (the little twerp's name is Sean Ellingson and you can find him at http://seanellingson.com/contact.html) thought he'd loom his camera near my face and snap the flash. I sat bolt upright and began to reel off a combination of the Black mass and every choice word in a sailor's lexicon. He ran off quick but his words trailed behind him: “But it was such a great shot.” Damn him, the artist in me was vaguely OK with that answer, and now I was fully awake.
So that's what it feels like? We were the hot item for one Brooklyn minute and I can't even complain about it without coming off like a privileged wanker. Sounds like a working definition of celebrity to me.
(2)
And then there's Celebrity. Consider this encounter: My father-in-law, Neal, was in Portland and wanted to buy a basic guitar book for his grand-daughter. I took him to Artichoke music; it's where all the pickers and old-timey musicians go, and Neal is the real deal having grown up on a rural Tennessee farm. I knew he'd appreciate the store.
It was a weekday afternoon and the place was dead. I sat on a chair while Neal browsed. Out of nowhere one of the workers handed me a banjo. "Here. Try it!"
At first, I protested; I had never played one in my life, but since there was no one there I decided to give it a whirl. I got a decent sound out if it and pretty soon I was smugly telling myself, "This isn't that hard. It's not like the accordion."
A couple came into the shop. They were in a hurry and soon the clerk began to help the man. The woman came toward me. Pity the poor insecure musician! It was all too much. A beautiful stranger, an instrument I didn't know how to play, an audience of four people.
Don't I tell my students that wherever you are on the instrument is a fine place to be? Don't I tell them not to be embarrassed, that just picking up your axe is an affirmation?
She asked me about that banjo, the make or something, I don't know. I quickly asserted that I knew nothing about it, and furthermore that I was an accordion player. Somehow I would have loved to have added that I sang, led a six-piece ensemble and had composed an opera. You can't rush these things when you want to impress someone though; you have to let them casually slip out.
Wow. Denying that instead of playing the banjo you play the accordion. Rock star move.
Now don't get me wrong--I have a beautiful wife who I love with a passion hotter than a thousand flaming suns, but when there's a stunningly gorgeous woman in front of you the primal urge to let loose your yawp kicks in, and here I was without my yawp machine. She was very giving and told me a little about playing banjo, explained claw-hammer style and sat with me and tried to teach me.
I came to my senses; there would clearly be no time (or purpose) to advertise myself, so why not learn something? I tried the claw-hammer thing. It was fun.
But I still had to say something asinine as she left, loud enough for her and her friend to hear.
"Well it still seems kind of a limited instrument."
Now I know that's not true. I grew up listening to all kinds of folk and bluegrass music. What on earth prompted me to say that? After all these years of being a successful musician what the hell did I need to prove to anyone? You'd think it would be OK to come off as a beginner; to have someone be unaware that you're a minor Portland celebrity.
"Do you know who that was?" The clerk was star-struck.
The woman's name was Abigail Washburn.
I found a photo. Yup. That was the man who was with Abigail all right.
For a moment the worst banjo player in the world and the best one were together in one room.
Sorry that I was such an ass, Bela Fleck.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Puck's not a Neo-Nazi.
The first thing I notice about Puck is his eloquent delivery of Shakespeare's lines. The second thing I notice is the large swastika tattooed on his hand, faded by time, or laser surgery. After a three hour drive with the mighty Columbia at my left (I make a point to look up when I return whether the rock was carved out over time by the water or by a receding glacier), a quick coffee, arrival at the Two Rivers Correctional facility in Umatilla, and working with the men, I am now sitting here as Puck looks into my eyes, and I am thoroughly riveted by his acting. He's not an inmate. He's not a Neo-Nazi. He's Puck.
A Midsummer's Night Dream in Prison is what Johnny Stallings business card says. And that's just what it is. Johnny does Shakespeare productions in prison, and the inmates act in the plays. My old friend called me a few weeks ago to see if I'd write music for one of Shakespeare's songs so he could teach it to the inmates (see archive: A Midsummer's Night Dream in Prison), and somehow, with a few more phone conversations Johnny convinced me to make the three hour drive and work with the men on the song. The Fairy Chorus (Peas Blossom, Cobweb, and the rest) consists of Jacob, Teri, Rex, Christopher, and John (names have been changed). Jacob and Teri are two Out tranny black men; Christopher is a short white man with recent sutures on the back of his neck. Rex is a tall black Muslim (he excused himself from the second hour as it was Ramadan) and former hair-dresser, and John, the leader of the chorus, is a nervous man with longish black curly hair.
When I arrived at Two Rivers I was met by Johnny and his wife Nancy and by Lavon the volunteer coordinator. Lavon and I are attached by an invisible thread until I leave. She must be with me at all times and I with her. And so after assenting to a disclaimer by the guard at the entrance that I understood all sorts of things, including the fact that I might be taken hostage, and leaving all possessions behind in a locker but my notebook, pen, and text of the song, I stepped through the metal detector, met Johnny and Nancy on the other side (they had come through a separate volunteer entrance), and the four of us walked through a series of metal doors (I felt rather like Maxwell Smart), a high-gated enclosure with barbed wire at the top, through a field, and then into the medium security area proper.
Prison, at least Two Rivers, is not like any movies I've seen. It is like a lot of high schools I've seen. Walls made of large concrete blocks painted white, shiny buffed resin flooring, and blue jeans everywhere. Blue Jeans with the red TRCI (Two Rivers Correctional Institution) emblazoned over the right thigh, and then blue shirt, and whatever shoes the inmate has are standard issue . As a volunteer you're not to wear any blue clothing lest you switch outfits to aid escape or infiltrate the population.
This was my first time this far inside a prison. I had a friend who I'd visited before (once talking to her on a phone through a glass wall, and once at a more spacious visiting area) but I was in the bowels now. The corridors were wide and inmates walked about. They appeared to be in groups and I suppose each group had a prison guard escort but I don't recall. Some men were sweeping with push brooms, others were on their way somewhere. No one appeared to be in a hurry. More doors took us to an office room with many cubicles where some of the prison staff worked and we prepared to go through the final two doors that would lead us to the classroom..
I shouldn't have had coffee beforehand. It exacerbated my nervousness. I didn't take the hostage threat seriously, nor was I worried about violence, but I did feel like what I imagine a substitute teacher must sometimes: the mortal dread of being in front of new students. Would they respond well? Would I make a huge faux pas ("Anybody want to go out for a beer after class?")?
My mind reels. Is this really happening? Are men in prison playing all the roles--male and female--in a Midsummer's Night Dream, and are people really volunteering to be in the Fairy Chorus? The Fairy Chorus? In prison? I have so many questions. From my vague cultural knowledge I know...No. I know nothing, really nothing about this. I come to this experience with many pre-conceived notions, based on virtually nothing factual. Here's the list of my assumptions:
1. Men in prison have to join a group or a gang and usually things break down along color lines.
2. Men in prison have tattoos and gold teeth.
3. Men in prison don't eat well.
4. Men in prison toss feces at the guards.
5. Men in prison rape each other in the showers.
6. Men in prison know how to sing really well and sometimes enact fully choreographed musical routines: .
Courtesy: http://www.shorpy.com/jailhouse-rock
Well a fella can dream can't he? Seriously, number six would have helped a lot as I soon discovered. The plan was to start off with me, working with the Fairy Chorus, and then I would watch the rest of the rehearsal. Johnny had a little surprise for me too as I later found out. I looked about the classroom. I think it was mainly used to teach parenting. There were lots of signs with maxims (Take this class as a parent not as a convict) and on the board someone had written in chalk: 10% of what we encounter we can control. 90% is in how we respond to things outside our control. There was scroll with a list of agreements including, No snitching adorned with signatures. One sign stated: Read. It's what smart people do. It made me feel smart to read it.
A guard peeked his head in and said that the men would be a little late as they were coming from a special steak dinner (well, so much for Number 3). For a moment I had the wishful thinking that I'd had on the day of a test in school: What if something happened and they didn't come? What a relief! "Well Johnny I guess it didn't work out this time. Oh, please don't apologize, how were you to know there'd be a riot in the cafeteria because the steak wasn't grass-fed? Well better luck next time." And off I'd go.
Robert was the first man to come into the room. I introduced myself and shook his hand. Then Teri, then Christopher, and then I lost track. There were twenty men there, at least. The eldest was maybe fifty, but many were under thirty. Some were posturing, most weren't. But there was something about them...ah yes! They were perfectly and completely ordinary. It was just a room full of men. Some you'd see on the bus, some you'd see at the library, some you'd see at the grocery store. But there was no one there who looked like a psycho-tattooed-bad-ass-motherfucka. That always puts me at ease.
Of course you wouldn't see these men in those places. They were all here, stuck in Two Rivers. Before I came Johnny had said that the inmates had been taking his class for quite some time, and that they'd be appreciative of my presence; It means something when somebody comes that far. He was mostly right, but I learned later that he had made an error. He realized after our night there, that the class was still open to all, so that even at this late date there were new people. The new guys hadn't been part of the whole process--Johnny starts months in advance and leads a discussion group relating to the play--but I didn't know that at the time and took it all, the occasional wise crack, the murmur of some cross-talk, at face value as how things usually went.Believe me it was calm, and a far cry from the 6th grader's behavior who I used to teach at a synagogue.
We got right to it. I've got a lot of experience teaching and had many examples from first grade through high school of what not to do. My fear and nervousness melted away as we got to the task at hand and the real work began. I did what I always do with singers first. I commend them for taking the risk of singing. In the United States, while there are many singing artists, the fact of just anybody singing in their daily life with their work or their play or their socializing is near extinction. So I always make a quick note of it and begin. My five men in the chorus and I stood in front of the others as we practiced. Not ideal, but workable. Normally I would have people do a few exercises just to warm up the chords, but it felt like pushing it in this situation. Johnny had made cd's of the song I wrote (there's no internet access in prison) and so I had the men give it a go. I started them off with a simple do-wop progression to back the lead singer and right off the bat Teri said, "Hey wait a minute, isn't that Duke of Earl?"
I couldn't tell if Teri was challenging me or not; there seemed to be a hint of playful mockery in his voice. I didn't mind. Unless there's a crystal clear sign of disrespect my strategy is to always take a student at face-value. It's a good strategy because someone might be genuinely asking a question, and if not it often disarms people when you reply to them with utmost sincerity. And humour. So I told him, that indeed, you can sing a lot of songs to that same do-wop figure.
Jacob, very soon into the process said, "Hey man. I'm kind of falling asleep here, know what I'm sayin'? It's like there's no harmony here. Let's get with the harmony!"
"Okay everybody, " I replied, "We don't want Jacob to fall asleep. But Jacob...you gotta crawl before you can walk. Let's do it again."
And later from Teri:
"So do you come back again to do this with us?"
"No guys, but you never know what's gonna happen. Maybe I'll get busted and we can work together on these songs on the inside."
This is the kind of verbal jujitsu I enjoy and the challenge is to maintain the student's interest, respect, and to be light but firm, and funny.
The advantage here was that I was on the men's side. I hated school and all the bullshit that came with it, and to me this situation looked just like school, but much worse. More teachers, and you can never go home at the end of the day. I completely sympathized with any rebellious behavior, held it in check, but somehow managed to give a nod and a wink every once in awhile to acknowledge the men's plight and to give a small release valve. That was my general intention anyway, and I think I succeeded.
I also think, as I write this, that probably the best thing to do is foster a relationship over time with inmates. It's easy to go in once in a blaze of glory, but I'm sure it's more meaningful to keep showing up.
How did they sound?
We had a lot of work to do. A lot. And if my interactions with these men was not a challenge, the actual work was. Five men were singing in three-five different keys. At once. Everybody's rhythm was decent but I didn't quite know what to do with the fact that the guys weren't maintaining pitch, or even if they did, as soon as they got to the bridge, some would go off into a different key.
The first challenge was to start the song. What note do you start a song if you have no piano, no harmonica, no nuthin'? I figured we'd just have one person start and go for broke. I couldn't begin to think whether it would be a good key for the lead singer or not, but this was problematic. I had Teri begin by just giving a note than a count off. Pretty soon Jacob, who turned out to be the most advanced singer suggested that he and Teri start together. I was OK with that, and interestingly enough they always started in tune with each-other (I suppose the human ear makes split-second adjustments, but I found it most surprising).
Johnny suggested I sing with them at first, and so I did and progress was incremental. But I think there was some.
Pretty early on I noticed that I had some fine-tuning to do myself. Racism comes in all forms and my own never fails to surprise me. I think the story I had in my head was that these would be five black men and that they would sound like all the do-wop groups I used to hear on the radio in Philly, or see occasionally on the street corner. So I was a little disappointed when I saw that the leader was a white man. And I just assumed that the three black men in the chorus would be able to sing magnificent harmonies. And the tall guy? Well he wasn't even a bass! Isn't the tall guy always a bass? And I was virtually ignoring Christopher, the short white-working class guy in the chorus. I posted the photos of guys playing music in jail above with my tongue in my cheek, but I think there are pictures in my head that on some level I believe. And how about the music I wrote--wasn't I enacting a stereotype? The very well-known one of the middle-class Jewish composer writing songs for do-wop and mo-town?!
I tried to clean up my shit as soon as I observed it. Racism comes in all sorts of weird forms, and in this one I was not favoring the white guys. And I was assuming that the men of color could all sing well, rather than helping them.
So with all of that I did the best I could. We went over the song many times, we added a few things here and there, Rex stepping out and singing a line by himself, Teri echoing the melody, that sort of thing. There's not a whole lot you can teach people about music in thirty minutes but I made sure they listened to each other, and I decided that rather than continue it would be better to stop there and come back and work again after the theater portion. It's good to give your mind a break when you're learning something new, and sure enough when we went over it at the end it sounded better.
But in just the time it took for the theater rehearsal and the bathroom break, Christopher had decided he'd rather "stick to acting", Rex had left for Ramadan and a new guy, Jamie, joined the group! And after it was all over, Johnny told me that he might have to let Jacob and Teri go, as they, and others hadn't been with the group from the start, and that the new people were being disruptive (they were, a bit). So what was the point of all that? Certainly not to stroke my ego. I didn't get to be Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver or Maria in The Sound of Music. I didn't take a rag-tag group of lousy singers and turn them into a crack team of Do-Wop superstars. But that was never my expectation. I came to the project with little expectation and more curiosity than anything. What's it like to teach a song to men in prison? I feel like I'm just finding out, and I want to learn more. What seemed important was that I showed up, and they showed up, and we sang, and it was fun.
Johnny's guess about Puck was that he had gotten the swastika a long time ago. We talked about it afterward at Shari's (the restaurant choices are limited at 9:30 PM near Umatilla). He had told Johnny that he was a pagan and that he had the swastika because it was an ancient Indian and Aztec symbol. I wonder what he tells people when they ask him about the Iron Cross. But I don't care. Johnny was right about one thing: These men have been working on this play for quite some time and he has taken a rag-tag group and transformed them into a gem. I was mesmerized from scene 1. I had expected to have a patronizing attitude: "Oh isn't it great what Johnny's doing with these guys. They're all making such an effort." It is great what he's doing, and they're at a point where it seems effortless. All of the characters stood before me. There was Bottom, and there was Oberon, fair Hermia, Lysander, Egeus.
Hermia was noteworthy. She was played by a transgendered man with corn rows and time, language, gender, and prison fell away when she spoke.
I am curious about the state of homosexuality in prison. At least three of these men were completely out. Were they also out in the larger population? I've certainly heard that sex between men is a practice in prison, but how about just gayness itself? Is there a gay clique, a gay gang? Has prison, like the outside society made some strides toward actual acceptance?
Back in the classroom I had to use the bathroom and had to be escorted there by Lavon. The classroom was a throwback to my high school days in another way too. We were in a room and there were no cell phones, Blackberry's, or iphones. No one was staring into a screen as their thumbs danced. And I couldn't send Jill a quick text in the bathroom as I might ordinarily in these situations.
Another volunteer accosted Lavon and asked if she could take him to the Chaplain's office to get an uplifting movie. As we stood in the office I had the sudden impulse to steal something! What a coup that would be, to be able to commit theft, undetected, in prison! The thought suddenly passed as rationality broke through, and Lavon, I, and Jose, returned to our respective classrooms. As we went down the hallway I noticed on the left that someone was teaching a meditation class. The men were sitting on the floor, in semi-darkness, in lotus and half-lotus poses.
On the bathroom break I spoke with Christopher (the one with the sutures on the back of his neck). He had a twitchy (or tweaky) manner and ended most of his sentences with, "but iss cool, you know what I'm sayin' man?" He had just gotten news that his father wasn't permitted to have custody of his son, and that neither would he when he got out in 18 months; the state had ruled to put his child in foster care. I, of course, didn't know any details of his case and whether I would agree with the ruling, but before me was a man devastated, contemplating his son's loss. I couldn't blame him if he didn't feel like singing when we did round two at the end.
I performed for the men, twice. It was a surprise. Johnny had tried to have me do a show in conjunction with all of this, but he had put in the request too late. He asked me, instead, out of the blue to sing. What do you sing? Folsom prison? I chose Jacque Brel's "Amsterdam", in English. When he asked me again, later, I sang "La Mattinata" by Leoncavallo.
I was a little worried that Mattinata wouldn't appeal to the inmates. It's in another language (Italian), very operatic. I was wrong--it was a hit! Why do I ever doubt the visceral power of the naked human operatic voice? I do try to walk the walk that opera is for everyone, but sometimes I doubt it.
The rehearsal proceeded, we worked the song once more before we left (marginal improvement) and many of the men made it a point to shake my hand and thanked me for coming. Teri did too and said that we could make millions together someday.
Lavon walked me back out through all the doors, through all the hallways--I even caught site of Lysander in the hallway and we waved goodbye to each other--out across the field, through the barbed wire enclosure, and past the metal detector to get my things (the guard found that a praying mantis had alighted on my back and removed it gently and gave it to Lavon).
Johnny, Nancy, and I went to Shari's to fuel up our stomachs for the ride home (I bet the Two Rivers steak dinner tasted better) and we hugged goodbye at the gas station.
The road before me is long--three hours long with plenty of time for AM radio that buzzed in an out, and even to pick up a hitch-hiker. Normally I don't do that these days, but there were lots of road crews working, and with his reflective jacket, helmet, and lunchbox, standing next to his broken-down car, he appeared truly stranded and truly legitamate. We chatted. He was from Montana and worked on bridges through-out the west. his company would fly him out and he'd be gone from his family--a wife and twins--two months at a time or more.
He asked me if it was creepy being at the prison, and I told him that it wasn't at all. It was like being in high school. Same walls, same halls, same bullshit.
But the analogy only goes so far. At the end of the day in high school I could go home. Prison is home for the inmates. And I'm sure as anything that if I go more deeply into the experience--return, volunteer--that the analogy becomes just a surface one. This is serious business, after all.
And these are serious criminals. At least one in the room was a lifer. This is all new to me, and thinking in any meaningful way about prison is new to me too. There's lots of questions I want answers to and I'm completely aware that some of these men are serving time and should be, some may have gotten a poor deal, some maybe are getting a better deal than they should, and perhaps some are innocent all together. At this point I can't pretend to have an educated or experiential opinion.
I always wished I had started a band journal when I began Vagabond Opera. I'm thinking that this is just the beginning for me volunteering in prison. It will be interesting to see what I discover and I'll write and post about it.
I'm driving home from Umatilla, listening to Coast to Coast on the AM, and thinking about the upcoming few days. I have a rehearsal with my friend the cellist, Ashia Grzesik, and then later next week my wife and child return from Memphis. The days in between are amorphous. Perhaps I'll see a movie, or get together with a friend and have a drink. Or maybe I'll stay home and cook.
I suddenly appreciate, very very deeply, the amount of choice I have.
To see Johnny's work and donate to the foundation that supports it go to:
http://www.openheartsopenminds.net/
To volunteer at a prison in Oregon (I've decided to):
http://www.oregon.gov/DOC/TRANS/religious_services/rs_vision02.shtml
Follow-up note: The volunteer coordinator wanted to be sure that readers knew the inmates steak dinners were paid for by the inmates themselves. It was part of a fund-raiser for obtaining activities equipment. In other words those boys weren't eating cow meat on anybody's dime but their own.
A Midsummer's Night Dream in Prison is what Johnny Stallings business card says. And that's just what it is. Johnny does Shakespeare productions in prison, and the inmates act in the plays. My old friend called me a few weeks ago to see if I'd write music for one of Shakespeare's songs so he could teach it to the inmates (see archive: A Midsummer's Night Dream in Prison), and somehow, with a few more phone conversations Johnny convinced me to make the three hour drive and work with the men on the song. The Fairy Chorus (Peas Blossom, Cobweb, and the rest) consists of Jacob, Teri, Rex, Christopher, and John (names have been changed). Jacob and Teri are two Out tranny black men; Christopher is a short white man with recent sutures on the back of his neck. Rex is a tall black Muslim (he excused himself from the second hour as it was Ramadan) and former hair-dresser, and John, the leader of the chorus, is a nervous man with longish black curly hair.
When I arrived at Two Rivers I was met by Johnny and his wife Nancy and by Lavon the volunteer coordinator. Lavon and I are attached by an invisible thread until I leave. She must be with me at all times and I with her. And so after assenting to a disclaimer by the guard at the entrance that I understood all sorts of things, including the fact that I might be taken hostage, and leaving all possessions behind in a locker but my notebook, pen, and text of the song, I stepped through the metal detector, met Johnny and Nancy on the other side (they had come through a separate volunteer entrance), and the four of us walked through a series of metal doors (I felt rather like Maxwell Smart), a high-gated enclosure with barbed wire at the top, through a field, and then into the medium security area proper.
Prison, at least Two Rivers, is not like any movies I've seen. It is like a lot of high schools I've seen. Walls made of large concrete blocks painted white, shiny buffed resin flooring, and blue jeans everywhere. Blue Jeans with the red TRCI (Two Rivers Correctional Institution) emblazoned over the right thigh, and then blue shirt, and whatever shoes the inmate has are standard issue . As a volunteer you're not to wear any blue clothing lest you switch outfits to aid escape or infiltrate the population.
This was my first time this far inside a prison. I had a friend who I'd visited before (once talking to her on a phone through a glass wall, and once at a more spacious visiting area) but I was in the bowels now. The corridors were wide and inmates walked about. They appeared to be in groups and I suppose each group had a prison guard escort but I don't recall. Some men were sweeping with push brooms, others were on their way somewhere. No one appeared to be in a hurry. More doors took us to an office room with many cubicles where some of the prison staff worked and we prepared to go through the final two doors that would lead us to the classroom..
I shouldn't have had coffee beforehand. It exacerbated my nervousness. I didn't take the hostage threat seriously, nor was I worried about violence, but I did feel like what I imagine a substitute teacher must sometimes: the mortal dread of being in front of new students. Would they respond well? Would I make a huge faux pas ("Anybody want to go out for a beer after class?")?
My mind reels. Is this really happening? Are men in prison playing all the roles--male and female--in a Midsummer's Night Dream, and are people really volunteering to be in the Fairy Chorus? The Fairy Chorus? In prison? I have so many questions. From my vague cultural knowledge I know...No. I know nothing, really nothing about this. I come to this experience with many pre-conceived notions, based on virtually nothing factual. Here's the list of my assumptions:
1. Men in prison have to join a group or a gang and usually things break down along color lines.
2. Men in prison have tattoos and gold teeth.
3. Men in prison don't eat well.
4. Men in prison toss feces at the guards.
5. Men in prison rape each other in the showers.
6. Men in prison know how to sing really well and sometimes enact fully choreographed musical routines: .
Courtesy: http://www.shorpy.com/jailhouse-rock
Well a fella can dream can't he? Seriously, number six would have helped a lot as I soon discovered. The plan was to start off with me, working with the Fairy Chorus, and then I would watch the rest of the rehearsal. Johnny had a little surprise for me too as I later found out. I looked about the classroom. I think it was mainly used to teach parenting. There were lots of signs with maxims (Take this class as a parent not as a convict) and on the board someone had written in chalk: 10% of what we encounter we can control. 90% is in how we respond to things outside our control. There was scroll with a list of agreements including, No snitching adorned with signatures. One sign stated: Read. It's what smart people do. It made me feel smart to read it.
A guard peeked his head in and said that the men would be a little late as they were coming from a special steak dinner (well, so much for Number 3). For a moment I had the wishful thinking that I'd had on the day of a test in school: What if something happened and they didn't come? What a relief! "Well Johnny I guess it didn't work out this time. Oh, please don't apologize, how were you to know there'd be a riot in the cafeteria because the steak wasn't grass-fed? Well better luck next time." And off I'd go.
Robert was the first man to come into the room. I introduced myself and shook his hand. Then Teri, then Christopher, and then I lost track. There were twenty men there, at least. The eldest was maybe fifty, but many were under thirty. Some were posturing, most weren't. But there was something about them...ah yes! They were perfectly and completely ordinary. It was just a room full of men. Some you'd see on the bus, some you'd see at the library, some you'd see at the grocery store. But there was no one there who looked like a psycho-tattooed-bad-ass-motherfucka. That always puts me at ease.
Of course you wouldn't see these men in those places. They were all here, stuck in Two Rivers. Before I came Johnny had said that the inmates had been taking his class for quite some time, and that they'd be appreciative of my presence; It means something when somebody comes that far. He was mostly right, but I learned later that he had made an error. He realized after our night there, that the class was still open to all, so that even at this late date there were new people. The new guys hadn't been part of the whole process--Johnny starts months in advance and leads a discussion group relating to the play--but I didn't know that at the time and took it all, the occasional wise crack, the murmur of some cross-talk, at face value as how things usually went.Believe me it was calm, and a far cry from the 6th grader's behavior who I used to teach at a synagogue.
We got right to it. I've got a lot of experience teaching and had many examples from first grade through high school of what not to do. My fear and nervousness melted away as we got to the task at hand and the real work began. I did what I always do with singers first. I commend them for taking the risk of singing. In the United States, while there are many singing artists, the fact of just anybody singing in their daily life with their work or their play or their socializing is near extinction. So I always make a quick note of it and begin. My five men in the chorus and I stood in front of the others as we practiced. Not ideal, but workable. Normally I would have people do a few exercises just to warm up the chords, but it felt like pushing it in this situation. Johnny had made cd's of the song I wrote (there's no internet access in prison) and so I had the men give it a go. I started them off with a simple do-wop progression to back the lead singer and right off the bat Teri said, "Hey wait a minute, isn't that Duke of Earl?"
I couldn't tell if Teri was challenging me or not; there seemed to be a hint of playful mockery in his voice. I didn't mind. Unless there's a crystal clear sign of disrespect my strategy is to always take a student at face-value. It's a good strategy because someone might be genuinely asking a question, and if not it often disarms people when you reply to them with utmost sincerity. And humour. So I told him, that indeed, you can sing a lot of songs to that same do-wop figure.
Jacob, very soon into the process said, "Hey man. I'm kind of falling asleep here, know what I'm sayin'? It's like there's no harmony here. Let's get with the harmony!"
"Okay everybody, " I replied, "We don't want Jacob to fall asleep. But Jacob...you gotta crawl before you can walk. Let's do it again."
And later from Teri:
"So do you come back again to do this with us?"
"No guys, but you never know what's gonna happen. Maybe I'll get busted and we can work together on these songs on the inside."
This is the kind of verbal jujitsu I enjoy and the challenge is to maintain the student's interest, respect, and to be light but firm, and funny.
The advantage here was that I was on the men's side. I hated school and all the bullshit that came with it, and to me this situation looked just like school, but much worse. More teachers, and you can never go home at the end of the day. I completely sympathized with any rebellious behavior, held it in check, but somehow managed to give a nod and a wink every once in awhile to acknowledge the men's plight and to give a small release valve. That was my general intention anyway, and I think I succeeded.
I also think, as I write this, that probably the best thing to do is foster a relationship over time with inmates. It's easy to go in once in a blaze of glory, but I'm sure it's more meaningful to keep showing up.
How did they sound?
We had a lot of work to do. A lot. And if my interactions with these men was not a challenge, the actual work was. Five men were singing in three-five different keys. At once. Everybody's rhythm was decent but I didn't quite know what to do with the fact that the guys weren't maintaining pitch, or even if they did, as soon as they got to the bridge, some would go off into a different key.
The first challenge was to start the song. What note do you start a song if you have no piano, no harmonica, no nuthin'? I figured we'd just have one person start and go for broke. I couldn't begin to think whether it would be a good key for the lead singer or not, but this was problematic. I had Teri begin by just giving a note than a count off. Pretty soon Jacob, who turned out to be the most advanced singer suggested that he and Teri start together. I was OK with that, and interestingly enough they always started in tune with each-other (I suppose the human ear makes split-second adjustments, but I found it most surprising).
Johnny suggested I sing with them at first, and so I did and progress was incremental. But I think there was some.
Pretty early on I noticed that I had some fine-tuning to do myself. Racism comes in all forms and my own never fails to surprise me. I think the story I had in my head was that these would be five black men and that they would sound like all the do-wop groups I used to hear on the radio in Philly, or see occasionally on the street corner. So I was a little disappointed when I saw that the leader was a white man. And I just assumed that the three black men in the chorus would be able to sing magnificent harmonies. And the tall guy? Well he wasn't even a bass! Isn't the tall guy always a bass? And I was virtually ignoring Christopher, the short white-working class guy in the chorus. I posted the photos of guys playing music in jail above with my tongue in my cheek, but I think there are pictures in my head that on some level I believe. And how about the music I wrote--wasn't I enacting a stereotype? The very well-known one of the middle-class Jewish composer writing songs for do-wop and mo-town?!
 | ||||||
| Michael Masser Mo-Town composer |
I tried to clean up my shit as soon as I observed it. Racism comes in all sorts of weird forms, and in this one I was not favoring the white guys. And I was assuming that the men of color could all sing well, rather than helping them.
So with all of that I did the best I could. We went over the song many times, we added a few things here and there, Rex stepping out and singing a line by himself, Teri echoing the melody, that sort of thing. There's not a whole lot you can teach people about music in thirty minutes but I made sure they listened to each other, and I decided that rather than continue it would be better to stop there and come back and work again after the theater portion. It's good to give your mind a break when you're learning something new, and sure enough when we went over it at the end it sounded better.
But in just the time it took for the theater rehearsal and the bathroom break, Christopher had decided he'd rather "stick to acting", Rex had left for Ramadan and a new guy, Jamie, joined the group! And after it was all over, Johnny told me that he might have to let Jacob and Teri go, as they, and others hadn't been with the group from the start, and that the new people were being disruptive (they were, a bit). So what was the point of all that? Certainly not to stroke my ego. I didn't get to be Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver or Maria in The Sound of Music. I didn't take a rag-tag group of lousy singers and turn them into a crack team of Do-Wop superstars. But that was never my expectation. I came to the project with little expectation and more curiosity than anything. What's it like to teach a song to men in prison? I feel like I'm just finding out, and I want to learn more. What seemed important was that I showed up, and they showed up, and we sang, and it was fun.
2
Hermia was noteworthy. She was played by a transgendered man with corn rows and time, language, gender, and prison fell away when she spoke.
I am curious about the state of homosexuality in prison. At least three of these men were completely out. Were they also out in the larger population? I've certainly heard that sex between men is a practice in prison, but how about just gayness itself? Is there a gay clique, a gay gang? Has prison, like the outside society made some strides toward actual acceptance?
Back in the classroom I had to use the bathroom and had to be escorted there by Lavon. The classroom was a throwback to my high school days in another way too. We were in a room and there were no cell phones, Blackberry's, or iphones. No one was staring into a screen as their thumbs danced. And I couldn't send Jill a quick text in the bathroom as I might ordinarily in these situations.
Another volunteer accosted Lavon and asked if she could take him to the Chaplain's office to get an uplifting movie. As we stood in the office I had the sudden impulse to steal something! What a coup that would be, to be able to commit theft, undetected, in prison! The thought suddenly passed as rationality broke through, and Lavon, I, and Jose, returned to our respective classrooms. As we went down the hallway I noticed on the left that someone was teaching a meditation class. The men were sitting on the floor, in semi-darkness, in lotus and half-lotus poses.
On the bathroom break I spoke with Christopher (the one with the sutures on the back of his neck). He had a twitchy (or tweaky) manner and ended most of his sentences with, "but iss cool, you know what I'm sayin' man?" He had just gotten news that his father wasn't permitted to have custody of his son, and that neither would he when he got out in 18 months; the state had ruled to put his child in foster care. I, of course, didn't know any details of his case and whether I would agree with the ruling, but before me was a man devastated, contemplating his son's loss. I couldn't blame him if he didn't feel like singing when we did round two at the end.
I performed for the men, twice. It was a surprise. Johnny had tried to have me do a show in conjunction with all of this, but he had put in the request too late. He asked me, instead, out of the blue to sing. What do you sing? Folsom prison? I chose Jacque Brel's "Amsterdam", in English. When he asked me again, later, I sang "La Mattinata" by Leoncavallo.
I was a little worried that Mattinata wouldn't appeal to the inmates. It's in another language (Italian), very operatic. I was wrong--it was a hit! Why do I ever doubt the visceral power of the naked human operatic voice? I do try to walk the walk that opera is for everyone, but sometimes I doubt it.
The rehearsal proceeded, we worked the song once more before we left (marginal improvement) and many of the men made it a point to shake my hand and thanked me for coming. Teri did too and said that we could make millions together someday.
Lavon walked me back out through all the doors, through all the hallways--I even caught site of Lysander in the hallway and we waved goodbye to each other--out across the field, through the barbed wire enclosure, and past the metal detector to get my things (the guard found that a praying mantis had alighted on my back and removed it gently and gave it to Lavon).
The road before me is long--three hours long with plenty of time for AM radio that buzzed in an out, and even to pick up a hitch-hiker. Normally I don't do that these days, but there were lots of road crews working, and with his reflective jacket, helmet, and lunchbox, standing next to his broken-down car, he appeared truly stranded and truly legitamate. We chatted. He was from Montana and worked on bridges through-out the west. his company would fly him out and he'd be gone from his family--a wife and twins--two months at a time or more.
He asked me if it was creepy being at the prison, and I told him that it wasn't at all. It was like being in high school. Same walls, same halls, same bullshit.
But the analogy only goes so far. At the end of the day in high school I could go home. Prison is home for the inmates. And I'm sure as anything that if I go more deeply into the experience--return, volunteer--that the analogy becomes just a surface one. This is serious business, after all.
And these are serious criminals. At least one in the room was a lifer. This is all new to me, and thinking in any meaningful way about prison is new to me too. There's lots of questions I want answers to and I'm completely aware that some of these men are serving time and should be, some may have gotten a poor deal, some maybe are getting a better deal than they should, and perhaps some are innocent all together. At this point I can't pretend to have an educated or experiential opinion.
I always wished I had started a band journal when I began Vagabond Opera. I'm thinking that this is just the beginning for me volunteering in prison. It will be interesting to see what I discover and I'll write and post about it.
I'm driving home from Umatilla, listening to Coast to Coast on the AM, and thinking about the upcoming few days. I have a rehearsal with my friend the cellist, Ashia Grzesik, and then later next week my wife and child return from Memphis. The days in between are amorphous. Perhaps I'll see a movie, or get together with a friend and have a drink. Or maybe I'll stay home and cook.
I suddenly appreciate, very very deeply, the amount of choice I have.
To see Johnny's work and donate to the foundation that supports it go to:
http://www.openheartsopenminds.net/
To volunteer at a prison in Oregon (I've decided to):
http://www.oregon.gov/DOC/TRANS/religious_services/rs_vision02.shtml
Follow-up note: The volunteer coordinator wanted to be sure that readers knew the inmates steak dinners were paid for by the inmates themselves. It was part of a fund-raiser for obtaining activities equipment. In other words those boys weren't eating cow meat on anybody's dime but their own.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Beethoven Landed on Me
At the age of fifteen I played the third movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for a piano recital. The first movement is the one most people know. But the third movement? It's in C# Minor. It's fast--no scratch that, it's like white lightening under your fingers, and complex, and monstrous. It was a pivotal moment in my life as a musician and one I grapple with to this day; it's why I still practice Beethoven. You can learn a lot from your failures.
I understand why I endeavored to learn it. It's an extraordinary piece of music and at that age, and even beyond, I wanted the end results, the Van Cliburn patina, but didn't know how to go about the work that it took to begin to approach the final, crafted result.
But what was my teacher thinking? Did it sound decent in the studio? I can't imagine that it did. Was he gambling that by pushing me in this I would actually achieve the Third Movement? Or that I'd learn so much along the way that any so-called success or failure in public would outweigh the benefits of learned skills?
I did have affection for my teacher. When my friend Ben first told me about Dennis Fortune, the piano teacher, I imagined a flashy Brit, who would wear suits and proffer funny anecdotes about his all-nighters with Leonard Bernstein, and who would bedazzle me every second of every lesson.
The actual Dennis Fortune was a large black man, somewhat melancholic, who, at least a couple of times, had trouble finding child care and so toted along his 3-year old daughter to lessons. A working musician, in other words, someone I can relate to now as a musician and father myself.
I was a mediocre student, mostly, but I had my moments. And I think the third movement was one of those moments. I practiced it. A lot. At home, playing our Baldwin Acrosonic I'd close my eyes and have daydreams. I think half my motivation was the actual beauty and challenge of the work, the other half was the daydreams. I'd picture myself on a stage with a grand piano, my eyes would be half-closed and misty as I played, I would distill and emanate the essence of all the great artists--Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff-- their best work flowing through me. The world would take note of such genius.
Or the other fantasy. I'd just be myself, at a party. Dara Rossman would be there. And there'd be a piano and someone would ask if anyone played and after a while I'd casually mention that I played a little, and I'd sit down. And play it. And life would never be the same. All those guys with their collars turned up and their Ocean Pacific shorts would experience transcendence. Dara and I would leave the party and walk under the magnolia blossoms and talk about Gone with the Wind (I was an odd fifteen-year old).
In any case I wasn't prepared for the recital. I remember the morning of it wondering if I should warm up at all. As someone who's been a professional musician for years now, this seems like a no-brainer. Yes! At least practice your scales. Then do the hard passages. Then play through the whole thing. Twice. I remember thinking that perhaps something just takes over, God, or something and that I would just sit down and play it and Beethoven or the Force would be at the helm.
It was a Saturday, the recital was in an auditorium. I remember wooden seats, and a grand piano. There were other students too. And my turn came. I was supposedly one of the advanced students so I was near the end.
The rest is rather an awful blur. I bungled my way through it, the voice of Obi-Wan did not speak to me when I sat down, nor at any time during the movement. In fact mostly it was my own voice saying things in my mind like, "Oh shit here comes that really hard part", and then, "Wow I really fucked that hard part up!" I'll never know how badly I mangled it but when I looked up at him at the end, Dennis, who was turning the pages, quickly looked away. Betrayed.
And that's when my real work of learning Beethoven began--when all my fantasies were shattered. I wasn't a prodigy or a genius. I had a choice then whether to keep going with music or not. After some time, once the trauma had settled I decided to look at other works and something had changed. The daydreams were still there but I couldn't take them seriously. But I could take the work seriously. And I started to slow my practicing down, I started to really listen and to really look at the dynamic markings, the tempo markings. This was the beginning of actually building a relationship with the work itself. Me, the piano, and Beethoven.
And I still practice Beethoven now. I did today. Here's part of my practice session, mistakes and all. The work humbles me. And the beauty of having been at this so long is that now I can be my own teacher. "Wait, Eric, stop rushing. Play that half a measure over and over, slowly. Use the 4th finger there". At some point as an artist you humble yourself or are humbled and then the real work begins. I made a choice to continue Beethoven, piano, music. And that choice to continue emerges often. You can't let humiliation and the end of fantasies stop you. Sometimes that's where it all begins.
I'll tell you one thing though..I'm not touching that Third Movement with a ten-foot Steinway any time soon.
I understand why I endeavored to learn it. It's an extraordinary piece of music and at that age, and even beyond, I wanted the end results, the Van Cliburn patina, but didn't know how to go about the work that it took to begin to approach the final, crafted result.
But what was my teacher thinking? Did it sound decent in the studio? I can't imagine that it did. Was he gambling that by pushing me in this I would actually achieve the Third Movement? Or that I'd learn so much along the way that any so-called success or failure in public would outweigh the benefits of learned skills?
I did have affection for my teacher. When my friend Ben first told me about Dennis Fortune, the piano teacher, I imagined a flashy Brit, who would wear suits and proffer funny anecdotes about his all-nighters with Leonard Bernstein, and who would bedazzle me every second of every lesson.
The actual Dennis Fortune was a large black man, somewhat melancholic, who, at least a couple of times, had trouble finding child care and so toted along his 3-year old daughter to lessons. A working musician, in other words, someone I can relate to now as a musician and father myself.
 |
| Dennis is the one on the far left. |
I was a mediocre student, mostly, but I had my moments. And I think the third movement was one of those moments. I practiced it. A lot. At home, playing our Baldwin Acrosonic I'd close my eyes and have daydreams. I think half my motivation was the actual beauty and challenge of the work, the other half was the daydreams. I'd picture myself on a stage with a grand piano, my eyes would be half-closed and misty as I played, I would distill and emanate the essence of all the great artists--Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff-- their best work flowing through me. The world would take note of such genius.
Or the other fantasy. I'd just be myself, at a party. Dara Rossman would be there. And there'd be a piano and someone would ask if anyone played and after a while I'd casually mention that I played a little, and I'd sit down. And play it. And life would never be the same. All those guys with their collars turned up and their Ocean Pacific shorts would experience transcendence. Dara and I would leave the party and walk under the magnolia blossoms and talk about Gone with the Wind (I was an odd fifteen-year old).
In any case I wasn't prepared for the recital. I remember the morning of it wondering if I should warm up at all. As someone who's been a professional musician for years now, this seems like a no-brainer. Yes! At least practice your scales. Then do the hard passages. Then play through the whole thing. Twice. I remember thinking that perhaps something just takes over, God, or something and that I would just sit down and play it and Beethoven or the Force would be at the helm.
It was a Saturday, the recital was in an auditorium. I remember wooden seats, and a grand piano. There were other students too. And my turn came. I was supposedly one of the advanced students so I was near the end.
The rest is rather an awful blur. I bungled my way through it, the voice of Obi-Wan did not speak to me when I sat down, nor at any time during the movement. In fact mostly it was my own voice saying things in my mind like, "Oh shit here comes that really hard part", and then, "Wow I really fucked that hard part up!" I'll never know how badly I mangled it but when I looked up at him at the end, Dennis, who was turning the pages, quickly looked away. Betrayed.
And that's when my real work of learning Beethoven began--when all my fantasies were shattered. I wasn't a prodigy or a genius. I had a choice then whether to keep going with music or not. After some time, once the trauma had settled I decided to look at other works and something had changed. The daydreams were still there but I couldn't take them seriously. But I could take the work seriously. And I started to slow my practicing down, I started to really listen and to really look at the dynamic markings, the tempo markings. This was the beginning of actually building a relationship with the work itself. Me, the piano, and Beethoven.
And I still practice Beethoven now. I did today. Here's part of my practice session, mistakes and all. The work humbles me. And the beauty of having been at this so long is that now I can be my own teacher. "Wait, Eric, stop rushing. Play that half a measure over and over, slowly. Use the 4th finger there". At some point as an artist you humble yourself or are humbled and then the real work begins. I made a choice to continue Beethoven, piano, music. And that choice to continue emerges often. You can't let humiliation and the end of fantasies stop you. Sometimes that's where it all begins.
I'll tell you one thing though..I'm not touching that Third Movement with a ten-foot Steinway any time soon.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A Midsummer Night's Dream in Prison
It sounds like the old joke about suffixing "in bed" to a fortune cookie's prediction. An old friend called last week and asked if I wanted to be involved in a Shakespeare production he's directing at Two Rivers Prison in Umatilla Oregon. Johnny even has cards that say, "A Midsummer Night's Dream in Prison." All I had to do was come up with some ideas for one of the songs in the play:
You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy Queen!
Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, Lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm
Nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh:
So, Good Night, with lullaby.
Johnny also said it would be helpful to GO to the prison with him and work with the inmates. This prospect intrigues me but given the amount of time I'm away from my family anyway as a touring musician I've opted not to go, for now (it's a three-hour drive to get there).
I decided to go with two different directions with the music, a do-wop one, and one more gospel-like. It feels magnificent to be a part of, even in a small way. Johnny tells me that when they start working all the outside roles slough off and they're just a bunch of guys rehearsing a play.
Here's a link to the musical ideas:
Lullaby Do-Wop
Lullaby Gospel
Here's the website for Open Hearts, Open Minds, the organization that facilitates the performance:
http://www.openheartsopenminds.net/
You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms do no wrong,
Come not near our fairy Queen!
Philomel, with melody
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby, Lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm
Nor spell nor charm
Come our lovely lady nigh:
So, Good Night, with lullaby.
Johnny also said it would be helpful to GO to the prison with him and work with the inmates. This prospect intrigues me but given the amount of time I'm away from my family anyway as a touring musician I've opted not to go, for now (it's a three-hour drive to get there).
I decided to go with two different directions with the music, a do-wop one, and one more gospel-like. It feels magnificent to be a part of, even in a small way. Johnny tells me that when they start working all the outside roles slough off and they're just a bunch of guys rehearsing a play.
Here's a link to the musical ideas:
Lullaby Do-Wop
Lullaby Gospel
Here's the website for Open Hearts, Open Minds, the organization that facilitates the performance:
http://www.openheartsopenminds.net/
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