Let's Hear It!

I just remembered why I get melancholy when autumn comes, even though I never have to go to school again. It’s because October 2nd is the birthday of my dear friend and gifted singer Linda Cotton, who died four years ago on Thanksgiving Day, right in front of me.

For her birthday I buy a big pot of bright-colored chrysanthemums and drive up to the grave site. I always think I’m going to update her on what’s been going on in my life, but I usually just sit and stare at the Sandia Mountains in complete silence. Ironically, visiting her marker at the cemetery is the only time I get to do nothing for longer than five seconds. Leaving is always the hardest part. I then come home to my arsenal of coping with grief material (besides the Vodka and Kahlua, of course.)

Jogging with Ke$ha and ‘70s Disco
Girlfriend would be turning over in her grave if she knew this. Gospel, soul, R&B, jazz, and blues were her loves. Pop and disco were not, to understate it. I can just imagine her caustic and hilarious quips about the matter right now. But it’s poppy, peppy, and about dancing and partying, and sometimes that’s all I really need.

The Magic Hour: Wynton Marsalis Quartet
My friend is responsible for me going to my first Wynton Marsalis concert at the KiMo in 2004, where I bought The Magic Hour CD and promptly became hooked. I now chill, read, write, eat, and sleep to Wynton’s music. And soothe myself when feeling a bit low.

Veronica Mars: The Complete First Season
Following heroine Veronica Mars on her quest to find her best friend’s killer, while haunted by memories of the bosom buddy, playful laughter, and wicked fun that she’s lost forever, is 100% cathartic.

Dorrie and the Wizard’s Spell
Ah, Dorrie the Little Witch books. Back to childhood and the innocence of at least half believing in magic, and being blissfully ignorant of the notion that we grow up, possibly don’t find what we’re looking for, and then die.

A Good Cry
Ain’t no other way to put it. Losing your best friend sucks.

Maybe I’ll Just Go Home
Girlfriend number one was in Phoenix. Girlfriend number two was sleeping off a trip to Vegas. I had just called girlfriend number three from my car, and she was telling me that she wasn’t feeling so great and didn’t think she was going to make it after all. I was on my own. This wasn’t going to be any fun at all. But it was Summerfest in Nob Hill with a great musical line-up as part of the New Mexico Jazz Festival, one of my Facebook friends was performing with his band Baracutanga that I had received invites to see for the last year, and I had been planning to go to this event for the last three weeks. Besides, I had showered, dressed, and actually found parking.

I’ll just go for an hour. I can stand it for an hour. That got me out of the car and on my way down the hill towards the festivities. It was a beautiful evening. The sun broke through the clouds that had cooled the air to the perfect temperature, and I found a spot with a decent view of the stage.

Are These Bitches Really Going to Stand Right in Front of Me?
Yep. They are. Okay. I needed to move around more anyway. The seven member Latin American Baracutanga was playing music to move to. Vocals, guitar, drums, xylophone! I wanted to be on the beaches of Brazil. Instead, I was shifting spots on the concrete to see past all the duos and trios of buddies who kept blocking me, oblivious of the girl standing alone. But Baracutanga was a great band that I would totally see again, by myself, even.

Will the Next Band Finish Setting Up Before the End of Bob Marley’s Legend?
The African Roots of Jazz Project was ready before the end of “I Shot the Sheriff,” just a little more than halfway through the CD. I quickly forgave when I saw that the group consisted of a singer, a bass player, a guitarist, and four drummers. There was some staff to coordinate and equipment to set up. Sina Soul started singing “Summertime” and I was up off the curb where I had been sitting and waiting, watching people walk by and reading emails on my Blackberry. Chris Rodriguez was like Herbie Hancock and Dizzy Gillespie on guitar. I suddenly wanted to be in the impromptu dance area right in front of the stage, and in front of everybody else, including those sitting in all the white folding chairs. Yet, did I really want to be up front and center among all the crazy solo dancers? You know who I’m talking about. Those people who go up and dance all by themselves, dramatic and spastic and all over the place, not giving a damn what anybody else thinks, and it’s a good thing, because all the rest of us are sitting on our asses and laughing at them.

Someone stepped right in front of me. A tall man with a child perched on his shoulders. Oh, hell, no. I’m getting in front of this dude. Once I started moving, I couldn’t stop. Next thing I knew, I was right up there with the crazy solo dancers. It was sweet up there. I could see the faces and expressions of all the musicians. Sure, I was in the same company as the hat-wearing hippie dude who hopped all around, and the migrant farm-worker looking dude who danced like he was stoned—way too slow and with absolutely no connection to the beat, and the back-porch sitting old dude, who was parked at the foot of the stage hollering field chants, but I breathed a sigh of relief and just laughed. I belonged up here after all.

Then the Odigbo Adama African dancers came on stage, resplendent in all white dresses and head wraps. Score! I didn’t know there were going to be dancers! I now had the best “seat” in the house, and even more of a reason to dance like the crazy solo dancers. Because how are you going to keep still when there’s African drumming and dancing going on? That’s crazy.

I Want to Walk on My Side of the Street
Well, look who’s here! Girlfriend number three got her second wind and came on down with her new boyfriend. I’m not alone after all. I realized I had never really been alone. I had me, and the music, and the performers, and all those people around me, even the ones who had gotten on my last nerve. After the African Roots project finished, we started walking down to the other end of Nob Hill to catch the last act of the night, Los Pleneros de la 21. I was full of energy and kept walking ahead and winding up on the opposite side of the street as my companions.

“Look at you,” GF3 commented. “You stayed down here all by yourself. You’ve become a free spirit.”

Guess I have. Free to be me.

“Let your motto be resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE!” Those were the words spoken by clergyman and abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet in 1843, and that is the theme of the photo exhibit on display through August 7th at the African American Performing Arts Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The sixty-nine photographs in the show capture the strength, grace, and beauty of African American icons ranging from civil rights activists to sports heroes to powerhouse performers. Resistance takes many forms, whether it be refusing to give up your seat on a bus, graduating magna cum laude from Dartmouth during a time when members of your race were getting lynched, or singing so beautifully that nobody cares what color you are.

The two depictions of the most famous civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., were strikingly similar yet chillingly opposite. In the first picture (shown), King is Kennedy-esque, surrounded by family, smiling and alive. In the second picture, he is surrounded by family, and dead.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Yolanda Denise King: from African American Portraits Exhibit.

On a cheerier note, a photo that brought a broad smile to my face was one of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Stokely Carmichael, two men who represented two different generations and two different approaches to the achievement of racial justice, and here they are standing face-to-face in a Congressional hallway, having a belly laugh together.

A 1936 photo of track star Jesse Owens leaping over a hurdle nearly made me cheer out loud. He won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Berlin, dashing Hitler’s hopes of proving Aryan supremacy. Sweet!

For me, there is no “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” except Sarah Vaughan’s. A co-worker who re-discovered his love of playing the saxophone a few years ago told me that he didn’t appreciate Sarah Vaughan (pictured) until he heard me playing her CD at work, over and over. When I recounted a story to him about singing karaoke with a large group, only to discover halfway through the song that my peeps had dropped out to let me belt it out alone, he said, “Well, not everyone listens to Sarah Vaughan.”

Down Beat magazine named Sarah Vaughan top female singer for six consecutive years: from African American Portraits Exhibit.

I wish I could take home the print of Josephine Baker doing the Charleston (pictured.)

Josephine Baker: from African American Portraits Exhibit.

I dressed as the exotic dancer, banana skirt and all, at a Halloween party one year, and everyone thought I was Dorothy Dandridge, because Halle Berry had played her on an HBO special. I saw a photo of Dorothy, the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, at the exhibit. Okay, so Josephine Baker and Dorothy Dandridge are both black and very pretty. But, come on. Anyway, what a lot of people probably didn’t know is that Josephine Baker was also a supporter of the Allied troops during WWII and a vocal civil rights proponent after the war.

I can’t close without mentioning my musical hero Wynton Marsalis. I own more CDs by Wynton than any other musician. He has won nine Grammy Awards and is the artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Wynton’s photo, along with those of many other well-known and remarkable reformers—Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, athletes—Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, artists—Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and musicians—Duke Ellington, Diana Ross and the Supremes, just to name a few, are on display, along with placards that give brief and illuminating details on their lives and accomplishments.

“Let Resistance Be Our Motto” is a gem of an exhibit. Take an hour to visit the Center and listen to great music—songs of the musicians in the exhibit play in the background—look at gorgeous photographs of some extraordinary individuals, and get inspired by the achievements and shining light of humanity.

The show is free, y’all. What a gift.

“Let Resistance Be Our Motto Art Exhibition” is at the African American Performing Arts Center through August 7th, 2010.

I am still bummed that I was not in my seat but standing in line to answer the call of nature when Ke$ha opened with my second favorite hit of hers, “Blah Blah Blah.” Note to self: take care of that business the minute you arrive, not after you can’t hold it any longer. Although, if I hadn’t made the trek to the restroom at that moment, I wouldn’t have run into a couple of my friends that I hadn’t seen in awhile, and I wouldn’t have stood in line behind two fifteen-year-old girls who were wearing white cut-up T-shirts with hot pink hand-painted graffiti-esque “Ke$ha” and “Rihanna” whimsically angled across the front and back and sprinkled with glitter—homemade T-shirts worthy of retail sale.

Temperatures that day reached just under 100 degrees. An hour before the Pavilion gates opened, a cloud cover rolled over the mesa and a gentle breeze kicked up. Summertime, outdoor concert, perfect.

My friend and I made it back to our seats in time for Ke$ha’s latest top ten hit, “Your Love Is My Drug.” “You know the words,” Ke$ha said to the crowd. Yes, we did.

Ke$ha’s set consisted of a backdrop of like a thousand worn T-shirts strung together in a stage floor-to-roof curtain, and rectangular columns covered with vanity bulbs, reminiscent of both a basement disco party and a beauty pageant dressing room, and only partially concealing the backup dancers changing costumes behind them. Ke$ha and her troupe’s dancing has picked up game since the critically-derided SNL performances, but I could be biased because the blonde-maned star was flanked by two male dancers in cut-offs and T-shirts (just how I like my young male dancers to dress), who took their flannel shirts off for, you know, “Take It Off.”

I know I’m pretty much alone on this, but Ke$ha’s low-tech production that has so unimpressed critics and fans alike is exactly what I found appealing. I realize that her performance probably didn’t project to the lawn seats and although I had a decent seat, I only got to see her chain mail tights and blue glitter mask painted over her eyes from the Facebook photos posted by a fan who won front row seats. Ke$ha seems like someone that any regular girl with talent, creativity, and drive can aspire to. Her outfits, any teenage girl could put together.  Her past gaffes on national television, all part of her charm of the young woman trying her own thing, finding her way, with toughness and confidence. To me, the “amateurish” concert performance was like watching your super talented and ambitious buddies putting on a show. Nothing stood between Ke$ha and her audience but her singing and her music and how it made us feel. Judging from the exuberance with which we all jumped out of our seats and danced and sang at the top of our lungs to her closing number, “Tik Tok,” that was pretty damn good.

As for Rihanna, her deal was definitely high-tech: floating stages, ten-foot tall stilt-walking monsters (Disturbia) and girls in electrical tape costumes dangling from gigantic assault rifles (Te Amo).  An ongoing rapid fire audio/visual assault designed to distract us during her costume changes, which took ten times longer than Ke$ha’s, just made me impatient for the red mop-topped diva to re-emerge from behind the screen and start singing again. But the costumes were fantastic—a pale pink glittery plunging v-neck body suit, a shiny black futuristic dominatrix body thong, and an asymmetrical ensemble that looked like she was wrapped in white tape and nothing else.

Her opening song, “Russian Roulette,” did not receive much airplay when it was released as a single last November—the first time I heard it I was slightly disturbed, then realized “Oh, it’s Rihanna, post-Chris Brown,” then couldn’t wait to hear it again. It got played like, two more times and that was it. As soon as Rihanna sang the first line, “Take a breath,” at the concert, she was met with fervent cheers. A song too disturbing for radio was perfectly dramatic for a live show. She floated magnificently on a raised stage, and the long black dress she wore served as a backdrop for a red droplet light show, representing dripping blood, while the image of a beating heart getting crushed and oozing through a closed fist displayed on the screen behind her. That was all just background for her riveting voice.

This intensity was soon followed by the fun boastful romp and chant of “I-I-I-I’m so hard, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m so hard” (yes, it is one of my ringtones). I got a real kick out of Rihanna straddling a pink phallic tank at the song’s conclusion.

Rihanna is a pop star, but she rocks. She has a seriously rockin’ live band that features guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, formerly of Extreme (“More Than Words”). The intro to the crowd-pleasing “Rude Boy” was Nuno on stage by himself wailing on the guitar. At one point Rihanna herself beat the hell out of a drum set that was set down on the stage just for her. She banged heads along with her two guitarists for “Rockstar 101” and we all jumped up and danced to “Don’t Stop the Music” and flamenco-flavored “Te Amo.” Her live band laid down a new level of power and drive to her already beat-savvy songs.

Just as powerful were the numbers that spotlighted a piano and Rihanna’s voice: “Hate That I Love You,” “Unfaithful,” and, my emotional climax, “Take A Bow.” The teenage girl next to me said to her father, “I’ve been waiting for this song.” She wasn’t the only one. “This one is for the ladies,” Rihanna announced and was met with a swell of female cheers. That was when I was the most thankful for the jumbo video screens displaying close-ups of her face because I could see the sass in her eyes and smile as she sang the ultimate getting-out-of-a-deceptive-relationship anthem and we sang our hearts out with her, because we knew you haven’t lived much if you haven’t been taken in at least once by a lying, cheating fool.

The Ke$ha /  Rihanna concert did not sell out, which really surprised me. It’s been years since I had this much fun at a concert. When the Barbados-born Rihanna said that this was her first major U.S. tour and thanked us, the audience, for making it possible, I felt a twinge of sadness that the show hadn’t sold out (which it should have). While dancing in the club and jamming to the iPod is great stuff, there is no comparison to the vibrancy and power of a live performance and the collective energy of being surrounded by an amphitheater filled with like-adoring fans. The next time I cringe and start to pace after being met with the ridiculous Ticketmaster/Live Nation/whatever service charges and realize how much I’m about to plunk down for a concert ticket, I’m going to remember, hard economic times or no, my mind, body, and soul need the exhilaration and just plain fun of seeing my favorite bands live.

I don’t watch reality shows. Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I sometimes catch What Not to Wear, because I love clothes, particularly as worn by regular people, and I enjoy Antiques Roadshow, because I, too, harbor the whimsical fancy that a valuable treasure is hiding beneath the pile of junk in my garage. For the most part, though, reality shows are about some seriously messed up people, and I watch TV to escape or enhance my reality, not to view somebody else’s dysfunctional daily nonsense. It came as a pleasant surprise to find that my friend, singer-songwriter Cathryn McGill, is auditioning for her own reality show on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), and that her idea for a show is one I really want to see happen.

Cathy admitted she has her own ambivalent feelings about reality shows, but that when she heard about the opportunity on Oprah, she decided this could be the first step toward realizing a life long desire. Her desire? “I used to love to watch The Tonight Show,” Cathy said. “I wanted to be Johnny Carson.” Today, she wants  to connect with people and provide a national platform to showcase the great work that they are doing. “Plugged In is an imagery,” Cathy said, “of those people who have found their own personal power and are using it to make a difference in the world.”

In a three-minute audition video, posted on the Oprah contest website, Cathy gives us a glimpse of what Plugged In With Cathryn McGill would look like. “Local Flames” would tell the stories of unsung heroes, right in their own hometowns, and “Power Tips” would provide information on how we can empower our lives from a financial, physical, emotional, and spiritual perspective. The approach for “Artist Spotlight” is the opposite of American Idol; Cathy and the crew would hit the road to find the visual and performing artists we don’t know about, but should, á la Alan Lomax traveling through Mississippi and finding the blues great Muddy Waters. In her opening monologue, Cathy talks about the dreams that get away from us as life happens, quoting one of her songs: “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

The decision to pursue a dream fueled the audition process. “If I had listened to my rational mind, I’d have talked myself out of it,” Cathy told me. Instead, she allowed herself to believe “what I say I believe, which is that everything is possible and available to me. When I approach things from that standpoint, then all these beautiful things start happening.”  She needed a band for the theme song, a place to record it, a video camera, someone who knew how to operate the video camera, and an Oprah Winfrey stand-in. She called everybody she knew who could fit the bill, and they all said yes. She paid them in guacamole, Chinese food, and gin and tonic. “It really is verification that once you make a decision that you want to do something, no matter what it is, that it’s possible.”

The result is a clever, witty, and inspiring three-minute pitch. Take a look at Cathy’s audition, and if you like what you see, cast your vote. Voting ends July 3rd.

Plugged In With Cathryn McGill would be a reality show about everyday people and their talent, good works, and dreams, without the drama queens and the snarky judges. Let me sit up on my couch and watch that.