This one is from about 3 weeks ago:
"Is that all for you?"
"Yeah"... "wait, where's my wallet!?"
"Did you.. leave it in the bathroom?"
"Um.. no..", I say patting my pockets half-nervously.
"I have to retrace my steps", I tell the girl working the cash register at the Holiday (gas station). I had to run back to the Blue Nile to see if I left my wallet by the ATM; Nope. I wondered if I'd been pickpocketed? Turns out I dropped it by the bar because I had ordered a lemonade but... the bartender tells me the Blue Nile only takes cash or else a $10 minimum on credit. And I kinda already knew my card wasnt going to work but I figured I had at least 14 bucks left on it...
So I run back to Holiday to grab my cappachino..
"Found it?", she asks.
"Yah."
There's a guy in front of me. She grabs my cappachino which I had left on the counter and just hands it to me...
"Oh... I didnt pay for this yet"..
"Yeah, its ok"
"Oh.. thanks"
I look back at her ass and then walk out the door trying to decipher why I just got a free cappuccino... while Im crossing the street Im wondering "Am I supposed to... flirt with her? Did I just get flirted with?"
I kind of.. find a seat away from the bar where my $3 glass of lemonade is still sitting; untouched, and I get ready to write the bartender an I.O.U with my contact information but...
"couldnt find any cash?"
"yeah, I was just about to help you with..."
"Here you go man, on the house.."
"...um thanks man!"
So now I'm sitting down with my City Pages trying to decipher why Im staring at a free glass of lemonade. "Did they drug it?"
Am I just a cool looking guy? Is this what the world is really like? Do people just do cool things for strangers or was this just random? Or was this just unique to me? Guess I could shut the fuck up and read this paper and sip this free cappuccino though...
I'll be honest, I dont really know how...hmm... I never really have a plan for what Im going to perform, or how Im going to perform it... I just kind of recite the bars in my mind one or two times and let the rest take its natural course of events... Sometimes I'll fantasize the scene through my minds-eye once and then go back to thinking about whatever I was thinking about while I watch the city pass me by through those big bus windows.. Then I get there and just..
Its funny, your actually reading this while Im in the Blue Nile writing it. Well, its probably typed up on cyberspace by the time you read it but, im currently writing his in ink in my notebook...at the blue nile. Im waiting for Desdamona to get here; I havent performed yet. Got here a bit early...
....
After I got home I just fed my cat and took a shower. Exercised a little then fell asleep. The performance - MY performance was wack. No I didnt mess up or... the crowd didnt boo me or anything. Everyone clapped and stuff but... to me the performance was wack.
I did a musical piece and an acapella and it was appreciated. But I watched the performance of the two people after me (I signed up for first slot) and I enjoyed their performance more than my own. A friend I made at the Voice Mergin Banquet named Chris got up there and just freestyled with the live band that the Blue Nile is so famous for. And then there was this traveling singer and her band from New Orleans.... Magic.
She made me realize that there is a big difference between being a recording artist and being a performing artist... With her band she was able to improvise already written songs as she saw fit for the evening. They could go to the bridge and dance for a while, then return to the chorus and repeat the verse. Also the Intrumentalists had their own solo's as well...bringing even more dimension to the overall performance.
Once home in bed, staring up at the ceiling I tried to decipher what I could do to match the power of an entire band...
I did notice that when I was performing my musical piece with the live band, they... practically... drowned me out. Thats why I went acapella to do what I did to the Fifth element the week before.. But I dont want to be AGAINST the band. I want harmony... And I think that if they are improvising music...To become a performing artist I have to be improvisational as well. Either that or magnificently prepared...
Because really I was just reciting some "hot 16's" I had written in my rhymebook a couple months ago to the sound of their drums, bass and keyboardist.. I was spitting something that is really better heard through headphones. To be a live emcee most definitely must take more finesse...more creativity...
Maybe I should... nah...
Maybe I should take an oath to only do freestyles when performing at a place like the Blue Nile; A dim lit, Sexy-Grown-Up bar and restaurant where women come to look good and men come to get em'. Because freestyling (the styling of freedom through words) is the only thing I can think of in the emcee's arsenal that has the same innovative magic and genius as a live band.
Cool, I always thought recording artists where suit-and-tie emcee's anyway.... The journey of becoming a performance-emcee will definitely be a new step in my evolution. I'll have to reinvent the way I write songs... The way I think in freestyling will have to be strengthened. In fact, I should twist my mind into only using songs to fill-in when I slip on a freestyle and NOT freestyling when I slip on a song!...
Maybe I'll also have to watch my fashion as well...There is a woman - a singer named Brittany Bosco that I think is one of my musical influences... It was about 3 years ago that I stumbled upon a related-video of her on Youtube while I was watching Tea Leaf Dancers by Flying Lotus. I guess I kind of fell in love with her sound and absorbed it into my 17 year old brain at the time. I ripped the videos from her Youtube page and started studying her journey.. Now 3 years later everything is kind of coming full circle...
Fashion definitly has to do with being a performance artist. Its not only your self-expression but it is the visual that is left in the onlookers mind. In this Brittany Bosco's performances she looks like she had become her song...? I dont know if that makes sense... But its much like the New Orleans singer and her band... They seemed like they were their songs.... kind of... "transcendent" looking... I want to get to that level as an emcee; the level where I become "me".
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