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This issue was a bit of a struggle to get out because my sisters and my niece and nephew came to visit at the beginning of this week, and I couldn't get any writing done when I had to play Pogs with them! This week we have a Music Spotlight, and several Musings. Enjoy!
Music Spotlight On..........Jewel
This last month I've been really into Bob Dylan, but the artist I've heard the most is Jewel Kilcher. I'm running a tape tree on the Jewel mailing list, which has required me to make ten copies of the two tape set we are distributing. So I feel at the moment that I am especially familiar with Jewel's music.
Jewel is an 'up and coming' singer/songwriter. She is typically described as a folksinger, basically because she plays solo with a guitar. I wouldn't think of her music as folk though. She doesn't really follow any folk traditions, and she doesn't cover or rewrite classic folk songs. In fact she's only done two covers that any of us know of: "Behind the Wall" by Tracy Chapman, and "Love Is A Rose" by Neil Young. She has only one album out, but luckily for us fans she has written and performed literally hundreds of songs.
Until I found the mailing list I didn't know about any of these songs, except for a few that were on a promo CD I found. But Jewel is an incredibly prolific writer. She often writes new songs right before a show and then goes out and performs them. And a lot of these songs she soon forgets. She always takes requests at her shows, and it seems that there is always a song that she doesn't remember how to play. That's why it's good that there are people taping her shows, otherwise we would have lost a lot of songs forever. The people who have been taping her since the very beginning have compiled two sets of unreleased songs and are working on more. They sent the first set to Jewel, and she was very happy to have it, because she had forgotten some of the songs. One of them she didn't remember ever playing, but when she heard it she decided to learn it again. The second set is the one I am treeing, and this weekend I'll be mailing Jewel her copy. In all, just these two sets have 50 songs that can't be found anywhere else, so I think everyone is happy to have them, Jewel included. That's as good an argument for taping concerts as I can find.
One of the highlights of Jewel's performances is her amazing voice, which ranges from a little girl's, or a deep tone, to a beautiful melody. You need to hear it to appreciate it. Or her sense of humor, in songs like Catch A Cold With Me, and My Own Private God's Gift To Women. The stories she tells in concert are legendary among fans. She almost always tells one during her song "Pieces of You" which was written for a girl that Jewel hated. During it she tells about her dream of someday playing the song in a stadium in front of thousands of people. And during the part where she sings "Faggot, Faggot" Dolores O'Riordan from the cranberries would come out with her cute belly button ring, and Keanu Reeves would come out too, to prove that he's not gay, and they would sing along. She then does a perfect imitation of Dolores singing Jewel's song. It's hilarious, even though I like the cranberries. The highlight of Jewel's concerts is often her yodeling song, where she shows off her distinctive yodeling skills. Yeah, it's goofy, but every crowd goes quiet when she shows how amazingly fast she can make her voice go.
I picked up Jewel's CD, Pieces Of You, on a whim, but I was hooked. The sound and atmosphere is amazing. Beyond the fact that I love her music, this CD itself was masterfully done, and just has a great sound. Many of the recordings are live, and many of them are a departure from the solo sound of her shows. She plays with one of Neil Young's backup bands on a couple of the songs, not to mention that she recorded it at Neil's ranch.
I fell in love with Jewel, but I didn't expect that anyone else would have heard of her. She is only 21, and has only been playing guitar for a few years. She's at the very beginning of her career, and it's exciting to not know where she's going to go from here. She reminds me of a young Bob Dylan, when he was in his folkie phase. He soon broke away from being classified, but during this time he wrote a lot of quirky, humorous songs, and some classic ones. Looking back now we can see that he was just at the beginning of his musical evolution, and has become a very different kind of musician. Jewel writes the same kind of quirky songs, and I feel she's written some classics too. She seems to have an interest in working with bands in the future (she's talked about projects with the Rugburns, and maybe the Counting Crows). This might lead her in the same direction as Dylan went, getting into the band-driven world of rock'n'roll. She has already mentioned writing her new songs on electric guitar. It's so exciting to be in on the beginning of her career. When I get old I can be one of those old fart experts who's followed her from the beginning. Just like everybody who has been following my favorite musicians, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, for all these years. Anyone who's interested in her can write me and I'll get you a tape somehow. Me, I'll be eagerly anticipating her next album.
I think that one of the chief goals as an adult is to fuse my imagination with my life. I've always had a vivid imagination, but now that I'm an adult I seem unsure of how to use it. What is the best way for me to express the ideas that come through my mind?
It's my theory that the motivation behind all artists is an attempt to bring what is inside their head into physical reality. Whether your head is filled with music, or pictures, or stories, the challenge is to convey that to other people. And the frustration is that what you create can never match it's mental vision. All artists struggle to come close to that vision, but I doubt that anyone has ever completely succeeded.
When I was a kid, I acted out my imagination. I would run all through the house and woods pretending I was the superheroes I invented, or acting out adventures with my Star Wars figures. Later on, I started playing roleplaying games, which gave me a framework to bring my images into reality. I considered other ways to realize my visions: writing comic books, and writing stories. Most of all those days were a constant case of acting out my ideas. Everything I did, no matter how ordinary it looked was in my mind being lived out as one of my adventure stories. Even the toilet actually became the command chair for my supervillain's house. My life was filled more with imagination than with reality. I had to force myself to think about real things. Eventually I got older, and during my teenage years I don't think I imagined as much, probably too taken by puberty to worry about other stuff.
After high school my imagination started to come back to me. At this point I could sit for an entire day just creating stories, places, and characters in my head. Except for one thing. This gnawing certainty that arises whenever I imagine, that these images should be expressed. That I need to find a way to express them. So I try to adjust my ideas into a form that can be expressed: a story, or a character, an adventure or a world. Once again I am enthused with roleplaying games and writing. These seem to me the most viable avenues for my thoughts. But I struggle to fit my creations into these frameworks, and sometimes when I'm lazy, I don't know if I can, or if I should find some new avenue.
Perhaps I don't even need to find an outlet for my imagination. Maybe that's just the old American work ethic telling me I should be accomplishing something. But I feel that it's probably healthy to express what goes on in your mind. Otherwise, why would I bother writing this newsletter. The problem is deciding where to put my energy, into writing or roleplaying games. Each has its good and bad points. However, I have a hard time getting started on either. I'm often put off by the limitations of bringing my ideas into reality. The visions in my head are so vivid and perfect, writing them down or realizing them in any way can only highlight the imperfection of the translation process. But I suppose that is the challenge that the artist takes on; to perfect their talent, so that their visions will be as fully realized as possible. They can never completely succeed, but they can measure their success by how close they come.
Humankind's greatest blessing and curse is their ability to predict the future and plan ahead. That is what separates us from animals that rely on instincts. We can use reason to decide what will be the results of our actions, or how we can cause certain results to occur. And due to our language abilities we can draw from the experience of the entire human race rather than just our own, allowing us to transcend the generations before us.
But thinking ahead is also the force that casts so many of us into meaningless lives. We sacrifice the life we lead in the present for the life that we imagine we'll lead in the future. Many great men and women have taught us that the only way to be happy is to live life the way you want to, right now not ten years in the future. It's easy to leave things in charge of your future self, and imagine that he or she will be able to do things that you can't. But it's also stupid. That was one reason that I left college. It was easy to say that in four years I'd start in on the type of life that I wanted to live, that I'd wait until I was out of school for this and that. But I knew that the farther in the future I pushed my goals, the easier it is to slip away from them. If in the future I was going to educate myself why couldn't I do it then? We should live our ideal life in the present, and leave the future open. Now I can see that it was possible to live the kind of life I want at Marlboro. But it was coming home and doing my own thing that clarified exactly what kind of life I want.
My point is that it can be dangerous to postpone our lives to the future, because there is a chance you'll never get to them. But sometimes it's necessary, there is work that needs to be done to prepare for a life. So there is a balance you have to keep, between sacrificing for the future, and living in the present. Right now I face four months that are going to be filled with big bills that I'm not prepared to pay. So my life needs to be restructured to make money. The question is, is it right to make your life less healthy, happy and holistic in order to prepare for your future. I'm not too worried about these four months because we have a set number of expenses that we can meet and then stop worrying about. After the wedding we'll start anew.
But that's when it can get tricky, because we have open-ended goals. Make enough money so that we can get away from the career life: well, how much is that? It's easy to say that you'll get into the career and back out again. But we could stuck, always waiting to meet a goal that keeps out of reach. I feel like it's riding the rapids, you have to hope you can stay away from all the currents that want to pull you under, or stop you, or send you over the waterfalls. We have to maintain the vision so that we know when we need to get out the lifestyle, and the strength to break away despite the safety we lose, and despite our fears.
Is it worth it to sacrifice the happy life you could have in the present in order to ensure it in the future? In this world it has to be I guess. Thank god we can see far enough ahead to arrange for our lives to be good ones. But why couldn't we live in a world that allowed us to be happy without such danger, worrying and planning.
I want to encourage everyone to not pay for anything on the Internet. I don't mean if you buy something over the Net, but rather paying for the privilege of accessing a Internet site. I just read how Bill Gates and all his clones want to set up services on the Web that you have to pay extra to access. He feels that there is no way businesses are going to set up shop for free.
I don't know whether he is right about that or not, but I will never pay for anything on the Internet. That would be undermining the very foundations that make the Internet valuable to us all. What is great about it is that for a relatively low amount of money a month you have access to the resources of the world. With competitions driving prices down and technology making access easier (we might soon connect through our cable jacks), there is hope that at least most first world citizens could become members of the Internet. When business start staking out their domain however, the cost will skyrocket. I'd rather participate in the sharing part of the Internet. Web pages provide links to others on the same subject, they don't compete (as they would if they had sponsors). Programs are available as shareware, freeware and donationware. People alternately receive help from newsgroups, and provide for others. Isn't that a better world than one where you have to subscribe to your favorite web page, and pay hundreds for your software?
What scares big business about the Internet is that it could change the way we do business. Anyone could start a business and make it accessible on the Web. Making web pages doesn't take money like conventional advertising does. Therefore I could start a business on the Web and be on an equal footing with any corporation. They own all the other media markets with their cash, but as it is now their money does nothing for them on the Internet. Anyone can reach a worldwide audience that is rapidly growing, all they need is a Internet account and some skill. Try competing on Tv or in magazines with the same assets. If we can keep this system intact, despite the advances of the Bill Gates mob, it may break the grip that corporations have over business. And that's something I wouldn't mind doing.
The End