There’s a certain special affinity I held for audiences that came to our shows all throughout our 2 Jews Beat Poets Tour 2007 earlier this month; they were all strangers.I get along easier with strangers. God only knows it’s harder for me to get my friends to come to any of my shows and when they do come it’s a total surprise.
As in unexpected.
Planning for this tour was a challenge; a challenge I was up for and succeeded at with flying momentum.
But when it came to friends coming out to a show; well, that was virtually harder than taking candy away from a baby and giving it to Jesus Christ.
Lots of people promised they’d come out to support me, but…always that big but; they couldn’t. Something about having to work late into the night and getting up the next morning and then were the promises of co-workers who said they would come and didn’t bother to show up.
I quit asking co-workers a long time ago wherever I worked; just would mention it sort of off-the-cuff to closer co-workers than others. Enough had seen me to know what they wouldn’t be getting; something atypical of what they’re used to seeing.
So, when it came to this tour, I sheepishly and perhaps foolishly blabbed about it a little too much to co-workers. Enough people knew about it, but hell! Only two people showed up; my bass player came to two gigs, other than the pre-tour Sunday show at the Chicago Cultural Center in downtown Chicago during the John Cage festival, amidst the overheated runners from the annual Chicago Marathon, that became national news due to the death of a runner from Michigan and mismanaged plans.
Then there was the man I’ll refer to as “Dizzy Diz.” He’s the man that pushed me to try a class at the Peoples Music School in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago this past summer.
Dizzy Diz came to the Green Mill show the night of October 7 and had his socks knocked off; raved about the show as far as I remembered; he was impressed. A music man himself, one of the few men I can talk to at the spit sink almost daily about music in any form and he understands where I’m coming from.
Because I took up trumpet at the Peoples Music School, he calls me “Miles” or “Mr. Yiddish,” which other people refer to me as.
They see my work on YouTube and seem to get enthused, but to make it to a show?
Impossible.
Something always comes up. Excuses like, “I had to wash the cat” or “I saw you & Mykel (Board) performing, but I just didn’t bother to come in.”
I’m not saying friends or co-workers show up; they do, but it’s a more often scenario that some won’t come for one reason or another. I am guessing that the individual, who doesn’t show, probably believes it’s all the same; the doldrums of poetry; their inability to comprehend it or even grasp something that is not conventional or bad memories from their educational careers, perhaps.
Maybe it’s professional jealousy. I’ve run across that before and it’s a main reason I don’t mention it to certain colleagues I’ve befriended in the past. They seem to want to support you, but not really; words might soothe and stroke the ego, but in making it a known presence, actions count and by not showing up, the presence statement is almost louder than mere words alone.
My favorite among these folks, is the newly-self-styled film-maker with a Sony camera purchased from Best Buy, whose original use for the camera was for baby films, but has since graduated to fantasy baseball league documentaries and whose new film I’m in; the story based on his life (ugh!) and he had the nerve to tell me, “I’d love to support you, but I have to get up early and go to work.”
Like I don’t daily?
Still, he expects me to be part of his film, while taking off from my regular 9 to 5, cutting into my schedule and work for free.
I don’t think so.
It’s because of that school of thought, that I rely heavily on the kindness on strangers. It’s a way to build-up audiences. Try out new material; see what works and what doesn’t work. I can be myself in front of strangers, which is why I greatly enjoy performing outside my home territory.
They won’t know my work and will most likely be hungry for something innovative and different.
And that’s what I tend to work for, whether it’s an art party in Seattle, Washington, an open mic in New York City, a featured performance in my hometown of Chicago or a couple choruses of throatsinging amongst the silent cactuses and howling coyotes in the deserts of Arizona.
They will listen; listen with intent and curiosity, willingly and hoping to come away with something they haven’t heard before and apply it to their own lives.
That’s my intention. Expect the unexpected. Only then will one learn what is brought to the table and eat.
Eat heartily, that is.
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