Right Where I Need To Be
Lately, I've been spending a great deal of time and energy on MySpace. When I signed up little more than a month ago, the banner proclaimed that MySpace had 71 million members. This morning, that number was up to 82 million, and still climbing fast.Through MySpace poetry blogging, I've met some truly wonderful, talented and helpful people. I'm feeling very confident about pulling off a full-blown Spoken Word expo in Rochester (a weekend to start with, but maybe a full week in 2008) by next summer. I was also hoping, perhaps, to meet a noble damsel who wouldn't mind occasionally rescuing a Knight in distress, na'ah mean?
On MySpace, I met Jay, a Toronto resident, who is already making plans to get some of his folks down to my open mic and have us (Rochesterians) return the visit. I met Aleki, a Nigerian who asked me for permission to post one of my poems on her wall. Suna is a French composition instructor who wanted to use my "Arguments" piece in her class. Mindstorm is going International and SWORD is coming with me.
Then, there are my domestic friends: John, Jennifer, David, Jane, Cloda, Big Ed... the list is practically endless (LOL! 82 million strong, actually!) Sometimes I have to almost physically pull myself away from that MySpace portal and force myself to do other things. Not that MySpace blogging and networking doesn't bring its own rewards; in addition to personal relationships, I've used MySpace for incredible promotion of my open mic activities. But the people give me almost TOO MUCH love... I get complimented on my prose as if I were the 2nd coming of Virgil. (Or maybe the 3rd, if you count Dante's dalliance, I dunno - I'm a poet, not an historian.)
Mark has been begging me to go to Houston. "Yo, bruh - if you haven't been produced in audio yet, you need to holla at your boy!" And indeed, I've heard his own audio productions, which aren't bad by a long shot, but I didn't think I should have to travel so far. Rochester has more than her share of sound engineers.
And then Mike D. contacts me. I had the pleasure of hosting Mike when we had open mics at SPoT Coffee last year, and he is absolutely phenomenal with a guitar, and with a mixing board. In short, Mike produces the cleanest frigging audio in this whole town (click on the pic above to hit his site). He's been busy as hell, giving guitar lessons to other local pros (a statement right there about his own superiority), performing studio services for a lot of other clients and engineering sound for short video clips (PSAs, etc.)
Mike and I had discussed working together as far back as November, when I wanted this dynamic vocalist named Chantel to lay background for some of my spoken word. Well, I think Chantel disappeared in a haze of rehab, Mike had to finish up his studies at Oneida and I moved on to other things than SPoT. But Mike and I resumed talks about a joint project after I located him on Myspace. I got a quote from him and two days later (this morning) we were in his studio, doing the damn thing.
I haven't heard myself in 3 years, since I used to go to Hold Your Head studio every morning, only to have my work disappear in a cloud of cannabis every afternoon. So naturally, the first thing Mike and I did was to check levels, and I spit something (might have been freeestyle) just to warm it up.
When I heard myself, I was stunned. My first thought: Damn! I GOTTA get this dude down to my open mic! Of course my second thought was an inward chuckle: Shit! I already have him, under LIFETIME contract! There's been significant improvement in my delivery in three years, and I wasn't bad then. But man, I rocked some shit today!
To make a long story short, we completed an entire CD (18 tracks!) in three short hours. The tentative title is Ballistic Balance, but that's extremely fluid. I've been listening to myself all day (per Mike's suggestion) but no corrective edits are needed. Oh sure, I'll change the arrangement, add sound effects and maybe throw in a few skits, but the vocal part is done and the results are far beyond my expectations.
As for noble damsels; yeah, there are a lot of really cool femmes on 'Space and I've had some interesting exchanges, but nothing that would impact this poet's life more than casually. No need to go international for that, though. As spring increases her caress on this temperate paradise, more than lilacs and roses do bloom.
(Shit. I missed making that call to Curtis K again on the Drum & Bugle Corps story again today! I gotta pick up the pace on that one, Carolyn said about... time is depending on me for that story [plus maybe another] this month and I've already got so much shit on my plate I can barely see the frigging table. Also heard that Jim lost his father, and that was a bummer. Jim and I haven't vibed as well since he got old and cantankerous, but I still love him like a godfather.)
Overall, despite some of the damnedest twists and turns one could imagine, life is good -very good - and now I'm certain that I'm right where I need to be.
Mark, I'll check you out in H-Town some other time, bruh. For the moment, I got work to do.
Hotep!
posted by JahStorm @ 7:54 PM
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