Tag Archives: starving artist

Tuesday Tuneup Nine

Q. Do you know who I am?

A. Yes.

Q. Why have you summoned me?

A. Because it’s Wednesday.

Q. Uh – isn’t the Tuesday Tuneup supposed to take place on Tuesday?   And haven’t we been here before?

A. You asked me two questions at once.

Q. What’s wrong with that?

A. And now there are three unanswered questions!   Really, sir, you overload me.  And I’m already overloaded.

Q. Why so overloaded?

A. Perhaps you haven’t heard. 

(Takes a deep breath.)

when_opportunity_knocksI’m engaged in this huge process of getting all these singers and musicians to learn my music, so as to record three songs from my musical Eden in Babylon and have the long-awaited demo recording finished by Sunday night.  It isn’t often that a decent sound engineer offers me free studio services and resources, and his availability will not last forever.   

Q. Do you mean to tell me that you are actually working to a deadline?

A. (sighs) Much as I despise the concept, ’tis true.  

Q. Now why do I find that so hard to believe?

A. Probably because I am noted for espousing wild philosophies I picked up after years of living on the streets.  I’ve even gone so far as to say that no human being should ever be required to show up a specific place at a specific time.

Q. But don’t you work better when you don’t have a deadline?

A. I do, yes.  Others do not.  But the point is that my own work as the composer-playwright of Eden in Babylon is already complete.  It’s only a matter of getting a finite number of people to respond accordingly.  It may well be that these people work well to deadlines.

Q. And when is this deadline?

A. Four days from today.

Q. Have you — er — succeeded in getting the money together to pay these singers and musicians?

A. Almost.  I am prepared to pay the remaining $150 out of pocket the at this stage.  But I would have to wait till the beginning of the month, which might inconvenience a couple of the singers who are strapped.  And of course, I am also strapped.  I have made myself strapped in order to succeed in this venture, as any other devoted Artist would do.

Q. Won’t you become even more strapped after contributing $150 from your fixed income?

A. Of course.  And I’d prefer the $150 come from somebody who can actually afford it.  Still, the joy of seeing this leg of the project finally coming together after all these years is certainly worth a lot more than $150 to me.

Q. But – but – won’t you starve?

A. I prefer the word “fast,” thank you.

Q. Are you not parsing words?

A. Not at all, sir.  When a starving artist decides to fast in order to produce a work of Art he believes in, it is no longer a matter of health.  It is a matter of Spirit.  For Art is a spiritual matter.  It is a matter of the Heart.

The Questioner is silent.

Please donate to Eden in Babylon.
Anything Helps – God Bless!

 

Respect

Things have not been good.  Until yesterday, I didn’t gain any confidence I could even begin a routine such I described in the previous entry, one that would actually facilitate my construction of this piano-vocal score within the next five months.   Since the previous entry, I’ve succeeded only in notating the initial underscore, which is 24 measures of slow nothingness.   Even that was left unfinished because I couldn’t remember how to insert text into a Finale score (cues, etc.) even though I clearly knew how to do it the last time I created a score, back in 2008.

I finally wrote to tech support, being as Finale has discontinued their phone support, and got a lecture in return.  Whoever answered the request objected that it was not a “technical request” – I suppose that means the software wasn’t crashing, or whatever.   I don’t know what other kind of issue it was supposed to be.  All I knew was that I woke up depressed and unmotivated as usual, and that when I saw his impertinent, impetuous response, my depression transformed rapidly into a livid rage.   I won’t quote my first reply, but here is my second:

John –

I apologize for the foul language.  I am an old guy and we do not “flex” as easily as the younger people in this world.   I had somehow expected a direct answer — not a lecture.

Somehow, years ago, when I wrote the score represented on the link below, I knew how to do what I had requested.  Now I *still* don’t know.   Finale, like every other program, keeps changing all its names of commands, and a guy like me just cannot keep *up* with all that.

The Burden of Eden: Full Piano-Vocal Score

As you can see, in those days I knew how to do this.  I did not abuse your support service.  I contact you people as infrequently as possible out of respect for you.  To be treated in turn with total disrespect is what enraged me.

You could have answered my question directly, like you guys would have done when you still had phone support.  You could have shown me some respect.  Now I have to weave my way through a bunch of tutorials until I happen upon the answer that I’d have gotten in five minutes from phone support?  I am not a musical nit-wit, but what I’m telling you is that I am getting old and I have a deadline to meet.   It’s called DEATH and I am trying to get my life’s work done.

If you could please kindly tell where this “expression tool” is to be found on the toolbar, that would be a wonderful start.  After that, please answer my politely well-worded questions, directly.   I repeat, I did not need a lecture, young man — any more than I needed your D— R——— to squeeze $350 out of me on a technicality when I was practically starving to death on the streets.

Composing and arranging music is important to me.  Notating all the music I’ve “written in my head” is important to me, so that other musicians can play it after I die.   I can’t even *think straight” after being blown off the way you just blew me off – much less wrap my mind around finding all these damned new commands for something I could have done on Finale 2008 back in 2008.

Please show some respect next time.  At this rate, I will DIE before I get this musical score notated.   Show some respect for the elderly, and for lifelong dedication to Music, if you please.

Sincerely,

A.P.

Anyway, so that’s where it is,  and here’s my crassly placed request for financial assistance once again: please help if possible.   Damn – I want to get my work done!   Tired of being so broke I can’t think straight!!

But it’s all my fault.  I should never have quit that church gig.  I blew off 33% of my income because I couldn’t handle the disrespect I was getting from those finicky Choir ladies.  It’s some thing I acquired post-50’s in my life.  It comes from having landed on the streets where I had to desensitize myself to the constant flow of disrespect I was receiving from practically everybody in my midst.   Then suddenly, I get a job and a new place to live in a different part of the world, and I’m overjoyed to finally be treated with normal, human respect and dignity.  I got so much work done between July 27, 2016 and March 4, 2017 it isn’t funny.

But since then?  I just can’t get with it, and it’s killing me.  I don’t know if I should even try for the rest of this day.  I should just say, okay, the week failed, I didn’t get it together, I let all the obstacles overwhelm me.  But – daylight’s burning, I’m not going to live forever, I’m an old man, I brought up a daughter and a stepdaughter — or at least tried to.  I just wish I could somehow come to learn from my mistakes, and do the right things in life, but since I can’t — at least, dear Lord, please let me get my work done before I die.

My Choice

I’ve never written a novel before.  All I’ve written so far are a number of plays, some of them musicals, numerous short stories that I lost in a storage unit (unless the English department at U.C.Davis happens to have kept a hold of them, which I doubt), thousands of blog posts and diary entries (for whatever that’s worth), the couple handfuls of poems posted on this web site, and zillions of songs, complete with lyrics everybody seems to rave about and music that nobody likes at all.   Oh – and I also wrote a couple “rock operas” when I was younger, two movements of a flute sonata, and scattered piano preludes.  No first symphony, as of yet.  Typical story of a lifelong burned out starving artist. 

That said, I read the first paragraph of my new novel to the other members of the Palouse Writers Guild this morning.  All of them agreed that if those were the first words that befell their eyes, they would keep on reading without hesitation.   One guy I showed it to later even said he’d probably buy the book right off the bat.   But the problem with all of that is, of course, that there’s no book to buy.  Will there ever be?  Am I capable of writing an entire novel, just because I happened to get off to a good start?

I’ve been advised to barrel out 10,000 words as rapidly as possible, just the way I churned out the first five pages.  But I don’t know that I can.  Or even want to.

nothing-in-the-world-is-worth-havingOr even should.  Since feeling the worst impacts of all the demons that have come storming down my stairwell ever since I finished the script to Eden in Babylon, I wonder what my next course really ought to be.  It is clear that for lack of a definite, disciplined project I have practically let myself be devoured by all the local wolves, and whatever strange poltergeists inhabit my creepy confines in the dead of night, full of trickery and tripe.  But should I really dive head-first into an entire novel, just to hide my head from all the hunger, the hysteria, and the hurt?

Why not just notate my piano-vocal score like a good little musical comedy composer?  It would seem the thing to do, if anyone other than myself is ever to attempt to play such bizarre tunes.

There’s also this third idea hovering over my head, haunting me.  It has to do with the themes that were left hanging when I suddenly dropped the Berkeley project some months ago and dove head-first into my musical script.   Not that this was a bad thing to do, for I did, after all, finish the script.  But as I took from the Berkeley music those songs that seemed most to fit the Eden in Babylon style — the showiest, the most “musical theatre” of them all — I find that what is left is an intriguing set of strains.  The remains seem much less show-tune, less schmaltzy, more seriously operatic in nature, and somewhat other-worldly.

But this causes me to recall the neuro-physiological conditions under which I placed myself in order to conceive of such music; specifically, highly altered states of consciousness.  Somehow I just “heard” the music in those unnatural states of mind.  It fascinated me so much that I promised myself I would orchestrate it all once I “came down” (and once I had regained access to a laptop and a regular power outlet in which to plug it).   So I did that until the thrill wore off.   Yet, on examining the music of Sirens of Hope, and of The Royal Rhapsody, I must admit that the thrill returns. 

So – if I went by what others think I should do, I’d have to say that the other Writers in the guild probably would like to see me follow through with the novel, especially seeing as I got off to such a surprisingly good start.  That would probably also be the easiest and most absorbing thing to do – at least, in terms of generating a very rough, rough draft.  Who wants me to write music?   A bunch of stoners in a flop house who won’t even listen to it anyway.  Nobody ever listens to my music.  It makes me feel like all the huge effort I put into writing it is all for nought.

Now, the arduous task of painstakingly notating my piano-vocal score is something I’ve been avoiding for a good month or more.  Obviously, it’s what I’m supposed to do.  Otherwise, I won’t be able to live with myself.  There it would be, even should I die before my time: a complete piano-vocal score that conceivably some conductor could pick up on, some group of singer-actors sing and act from, and some pianist, other than myself, actually play.  How gratifying.  Worth its weight in gold.

The first chapter of the novel looks good, but knowing me, it would degenerate into mindless pornography before Chapter Three.  I’ve made my choice.  And you know what?  I’ll start tomorrow.  Today’s the Lord’s day and I’ll do my best to rejoice in it — even if it means putting on my headphones and rocking out to the music that no one else will ever hear.

Starving Artists

Just to keep you guys in the loop, I’m a bit behind on my goal stated earlier.  I’d wanted to get two of my songs done by tomorrow, and then take them down to the open mike at the Green Frog.  It’s looking as though only one of them will be done.  I’m basically done with “The Very Same World.”  It’s all scored.  I just have to format it.

It may seem that I set my goals too high.  Often this is the case.  But in this case, something happened that interfered with the progress.  I lost a good five days.  It’s not so important what happened.  The important thing is that I’m back on track.

Also, it’s important for me to remember that, no matter how reasonable my goals may seem to be in the ideal state, there’s this annoying nuisance called “life” that will occasionally get in the way of those goals.  Suffice it to say that life was in the way for about five days, and that it’s no longer in the way.

Starving_Artist_by_EbonyLaceI also take solace in the fact that I’m not the only starving artist in this world.  I do what I can to put food on the table and pay my rent.  But I have to admit it can be depressing when it all hits you at once.   You work hard on a project for a five years and you can’t even come up with $85 to register it with the United States Copyright Office.  You can’t buy a couple books you were eager to buy — including and especially the book called The War of Art.   It was recommended to me by this writer, and I’ve been dying to read it.  I’ve even recommended it to my daughter and to other writers.  I can’t buy a couple other books I wanted, just because life once again got in the way.

Does it sound like the Poor Boy is whining?   Well – get a load of this:

You can’t find your headphones you lost two weeks ago.   Your mouse broke and you hassled yourself for days over whether it was worth $15 to buy another one, or whether you were going to continue to stress your nerves to shreds trying to use the touch pad.  As if that wasn’t enough, you spilled coffee all over your computer keyboard.  Now you’re using an external keyboard that’s about five times as loud in public places, and getting dirty looks because you learned how to type on an Olivetti manual typewriter back in 1966 and never did quite get the hang of these modern keyboards.   All this is aggravating your class issues, and to make matters worse, people who have never been poor start laying loads of unsolicited advice on you, as if they have any idea how to maneuver the various details of abject poverty.  You seethe internally.  Your anger toward people in the privileged classes only increases, at a time when you’re trying to learn how to love them. 

As I write these words though, I curse myself inwardly.  What can I do in the month of April to keep life from getting in the way?   Here I sit in the local pub once again, indulging in a cup of coffee and a muffin.  How many external cups of coffee, how many scones and muffins, do I have each month?   But then again, if I stay inside my room and write, I run dry.   I need to see people – outside of church and work — I need to see smiling faces during the course of the day.  I can just hole myself up in my room all month.

Not to mention, I’m an Old Guy.  I worked hard all my life.  True – I made the unwise error of never saving up for any kind of retirement – I just worked, worked, worked until I had a total nervous breakdown.   Then they put me on this awful thing we have in America called Social Security Disability Income, which primarily robs people of their self-esteem.

But it put food on the table before I got around to realizing I could probably still work, despite what “they” said.  Anyway, if nothing else, during the ten years that I have been on disability, one thing I have done is what I always wanted to do — and what I never found the time to do, when I was working full time.   I’m only working part-time now, but at least I’m holding down my job.   Why I ever allowed the United States Government to be the entity deciding whether or not I was able to work is beyond me.  IF only I had known then what I know now!

Nobody can call me lazy.  One thing I have done in the past ten years — is write.  And I’ll keep writing.   I’ll see my Day if I keep at it.  But it never ceases to annoy me how the wealthy in this world have everything, and yet don’t know what to do with it.  I’m a guy who has nothing — but at least I know what to do with it.

I almost wish it were the other way around.   Ah well — back to work.

The Love of God in Art

Recently, as I was trying to get a handle on the concept of the “love of money” being the “root of all evil,” I naturally turned to these Scriptures:

For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. – 1 Timothy 6:7-10

As I was pondering how common it is for people to be lured into money worship in our society, and to place the love of money before the love of God, it suddenly dawned on me that I know plenty of “starving Artists” who place the love of Art before the love of God, and even before the love of money — otherwise they wouldn’t be starving.  This bothered me for a bit.  Where in the Bible is this dynamic addressed?  On the one hand, it seems rather noble to let yourself starve for the sake of something you love.  On the other hand, one doesn’t generally accomplish great things on an empty stomach; and no having starved to death accomplishes anything at all. 

Then it dawned on me that the Bible does indeed address this dynamic.  For the Artist intent on creating some great work of Art is in essence no different  from an architect building a house, or a homemaker creating a home, or any other person trying to achieve the completion of a project through which one hopes to find fulfillment in life. 

By wisdom a house is built,
    and through understanding it is established;
 through knowledge its rooms are filled
    with rare and beautiful treasures. 
– Proverbs 24:3-4

There is a right way and a wrong way to go about anything.  The right way is the wise way; and it is not wise to prioritize the creation over the basic needs of the person attempting to create it.  In Art, this would be true of a piece of any content, whether its purpose is to glorify God or not.  If the Artist intends to glorify God, then it is also unwise to prioritize the creation over the Creator.

Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. – Psalm 127:1

Whatever it is that I am personally trying to accomplish, I would be wise to hearken to the words of Jesus:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. – Matthew 7:24-27

Why build my house on the shifting sand, only to watch it collapse come rainfall?  Far better to build my house on the Rock — and the Rock is Christ.