Jazz Poet NAMAYA'S Gig in Kuala Lampur

21 April 2007

SHOW TIME! Kuala Lumpur: No Black Tie

Show time and the “dead time” before a show. Though I love the show and the creative process, it’s such a huge time drain getting ready for a show and performance. For a two hour show, I prepare constantly, rehearse, select the right material for the venue, getting my music, slide and materials together, and constantly pushing myself to the next level of performance. But it really isn’t about pushing to the “next level” it is about discovering who the true performer is, what is my authentic voice.
At my soul I’m a poet and a story teller, and I am best where I can get into a space where I can be totally relaxed as if we are sitting across from a table in the café.

Before the show at NO BLACK TIE, Jon, Roslyn, and Joe had the place all set up, the stage was ready, there were ready for a sound check before I got there, and they had everything there. The slide show projector helped and they were fabulous about getting the show going. The equipment in place, the lighting perfect, the acoustics warm and well balanced, and they were fabulous about asking the audience to not smoke. Roslyn, Joe, Gi, Kamal, Jon, Shem, and Evelyn made me feel very welcomed and did a great job in bringing the crowds in. I wish I could have this much support in all the venues I perform in.

Then Evelyn, Jon and I sat down for dinner… beautiful vegetarian food, great company, and Evelyn the owner was a fabulous host! Same with the staff, they were all eager to help with the show and set up. Staff was terrific at the club! Evelyn was superb! Her boyfriend, the sound engineer Jon, was amazing. Evelyn and No Black Tie thank you for spoiling me! Reminds me of Erling at Café Teatret in Denmark and what a terrific host he was as well.
It was a good show and well received. Need to do far more and take the show to the next level, but I want to be writing more. I see the direction for the show in larger performance art venues, working more with the multimedia, working more effectively with the sound tracks. It would be nice to have a couple of backup musicians, but it’s fabulous not having to deal with other people's personalities before a show, just my own issues
I want to consistently get to the next level of performance spaces, small black box theaters, 100 to 300 seating, no bar noise or coffee machines, and the audience ripe. In (free) Ireland each county has a performance venue that is suitable for this. In England, it is a bit hit and miss, with some smaller club venues to theaters, so you can't always figure out what is the best set for an audience. Sometimes, you get hip hop slam crowds, others a theater crowd. Scandinavia, Berlin, there are good venues there for me.
I've been trying to organize also more of the Canadian shows which are actually fairly easy; Toronto, Vancouver, Ontario and I've just not put attention to that. As I am getting the show up to a truly 100% solid professional production I can easily do that, plus I have a fair number of contacts.
The audience was also very gracious. I often struggle with having a show where I can perform stories without having to worry about the entertainment value. Part of what I do is the poetry with the stand up comedy. It is a more fetching style, but there is another part that wants to have a show where I can have the freedom to weave a story without worrying if I'm going to mak the audience laugh. Always the challenge of art and performance, trusting that your performance will speak to people.
One of the things I keep discovering and appreciating about myself is that I am a very good improvisational performer, about 1/2 of the show I made up on the spot last night, taking certain themes, but freely improvising off of that. I need to continue developing that. This was amazing considering most of the audience were non native English speakers. the Malaya girls liked the story “Men of Enron: If Men Swore on their Dicks instead of the Bible.” One American who works for Siemens thought I should portray a more positive image of GW. Hmmm, I wish he would give me something that I can be positive about. At least we had a drink together. We toasted to our differences. As is often the case, US Americans, even ostensibly well educated ones are very ignorant of their history. Sure, they may know the basic facts, but they don’t really understand the role of the US as a colonial power everywhere from the Philippines to the Middle East. Though all Empires behave similarly, as a citizen of the Empire I do object and raise my voice in opposition to the empire.
I want to keep taking the show to the next level. As we speak, hopefully, my support staff is working on my sound tracks, and the CD of Amerike Uber Alles is under production. Anyway, rambling thoughts which I need to post to my log. Z liked the show and rated it as an A, I rate it as a solid B, and I’m looking forward to taking this to up the next level.
As I’m looking forward to Fall 2007 and booking for Europe in late October and early November – want to see if I can head up to Sweden, Norway, Germany, Holland, Denmark in Aaarhus, and then south again. I don’t mind traveling as long as I can perform, even though the show and the production, both before and during require great demands on my time. If I can get a solid week of shows I'd like to bring a sound/ tech person and hire a couple of musicians as backup for the tour. Though the sound tracks are fine and the slides good, I prefer live musicians, mixed in with the show. Even thinking of a different show that I started in December 2006, LOVE FIRE REDEMPTION.
It is good to experience the most gracious hospitality of KL and its people, the opportunity to gig here, but I’m more than ready to head back to Vermont. Looking forward to the Spring in Vermont, writing, starting on Luscious wet Kisses, and finishing Blue Heron Pond. I would like to see if I can get some bites on it. I miss tea time in Vermont and there is nothing more sublime.

Friday, 20 April 2007 Show Time and God Sex Politics
Last night with Evelyn and John from No Black Tie eating at this terrific Indian vegetarian restaurant chock filled with Indians, Sikhs, and all these other variations of Indians. When we walked in it was filled, but then it slowly cleared out. Fun. Exhausted. Enjoyed being out. A bit of anxiety about the show, but this is normal.
In the morning to Royal Selangor pewter factory about 45 minutes from downtown and appreciated the ease of being able to jump in a taxi and chat with the driver. Some of my better conversations in life are with cab drivers, the pulse and feel of the man on the streets. Of course, there is the polite loathing for US foreign policy, at least polite on the surface. The Royal Selangor Pewter factory with its production facilities and show rooms of pewter was worthwhile to see. Mining, processing, and production of time and from this coarse metal for these exquisite creations. My inspiration for creative work grows as I am there and see these large slabs of metal and think this would be brilliant for outdoor slabs of poetry. A garden of poems.
My long term goal is to create more of this fusion of art, poetry, and music. I’m inspired as I see different ways to express a poem. I could even see this as an installation project at the Vermont state capital; poems of Vermont and of the natural landscape scattered throughout the capital and welcome centers. In particular, I’m interested in the tall video screens of Art and poetry. Or I was seeing an unusual display of lights the other night I had this vision of hundreds of hands reaching up through the hands were reaching up and there was a fountain below, it was a vision of water fountains, and the hands were coming up and swirling about. This vision was very prominent – a sea of hands some 5 to 15 meters high reaching upwards and swirling. The idea of hands reaching to heaven. A quiet day today. Nice and easy. Getting ready for the show tonight. Looking forward to it.

Yesterday, at the Islamic Museum and tremendously enjoyed the exhibits. But the museum is far too difficult to digest in afternoon ore even a week. I spoke with the driver and he said, “You need a couple of hours to go through it.”
“No, you need at least a month to really go through it.” When I think I know something or I’m well acquainted with a subject then I hit a museum like this and I realize how little I really do know. The most astonishing work was the Chinese Islamic calligraphy and the best fusion of Chinese brushwork and Islamic writing from the mid 1500’s to the l8th Century. I have a few photos. There was the broad brush stroke of the Chinese style of calligraphy with Islamic characters. It’s always refreshing to see how in a very obvious way how to cultures converge and complement one another. It isn’t necessary that one supersedes the other, but finds the marriage of two disparate ideas and brings them together.
The other remarkable object is the covering for the Kaaba in Mecca some 30 meters in length with the rich brocade and embroidery with Suras from the Koran. It is quite moving to be actually reading a cloth from the Kaaba, though I can only read the most basic of scriptures, but even in reading and pronouncing the words there is great power. So much of the spiritual energy projected here and of course it is the word of the prophets.
I’m feeling renewed energy to lecture a about Islam, not from the perspective of a scholar, but “A personal journey through the Art and Architecture of Islam.” Westerner intellectuals have demonized Islam, it is unfortunate. Also, fault must be laid at the feet of the Muslims or theists of all stripes, who take their interpretation of religion as an infallible truth. I hold immense respect for the spiritual one who doesn’t wear his/her religion solely on their sleeve but holds it close in their heart. Though my writings are spiritual in nature, they are pantheistic and try to avoid pandering to a particular theism. My spirituality is most closely viewed in my pagan roots, my veneration for trees, forests, creatures of the woods, not as an icon of spirit, but for their spiritual presence

Everything settles down. Feel like the caged bird. Need to get out and walk around. Need to stretch my feet and soul. The focus for today is tonight. One of the few reasons why the shows are stressful, you prepare and prepare, and it takes up all of your creative juices.

Consumerism in KL
Outside of the downtown hotel room, I see the range of the short history of KL with a small tin shack in one corner, a home from the 1800’s, a more contemporary apartment from the l950’s and now the office towers looming above. How can you not admire the resilience of the early settlers, 84 Chinese tin miners came here, and only 17 survived. In this climate of humidity, malaria, and monsoons there is a hardiness that is needed. Afternoon before the show walked around Patronus Towers, what they call the Twin Towers. I am not a mall rat, but I was intrigued by this strange cross cultural experience. In Tokyo, for example, you will find international brands, but largely in the downtown malls it's all Japanese brands and stores, with hardly any English. In KL at Patronus Towers it can be virtually any mall in the US. I’d like to say in Europe as well, but as I don’t usually make the mall scene, it’s hard to judge. Six floor of shopping from Dunkin Donuts to Armani, Bos, Calvin Klein, and every major international brand. Looking at the prices, a shírt for 400 to 600 RM, about $100 to $150 dollars! Or at another store, an ill fitting shirt for $50? Where do people get the money for these products? Is this the consequence or benefit of global commerce?
Walking through the malls, the people watching is superb. Beautiful long legged Chinese girls in the latest fashions and high heels, boys looking generally sloppy in jeans and shirts, Muslim girls in the Malay talong (hejab) or headscarves. It is odd that I found the scarves and the robes to be attractive, none of the deadly drab black robes like you see in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, women were dressed in purples, orange, blues, and other vibrant colours. Though the West and I have demonized the head coverings as a repressive part of Islam, I can see both parts of the discussions, if a woman freely chooses to dress with a head covering: What is the harm? If this is an expression of her true desires for modest and covenant: Who are we to judge it as regressive. And in France and Europe they are trying to make the argument that Europe is secular and so therefore head coverings (hejab) should be banned. This is a very long discussion which I will defer to later, but I’ve found attractiveness in the charming dresses of the traditional Malay clothing, not sexy, but rather elegant, though it is seems in this climate one would want to have as few coverings as possible.
Thursday, 19 April 2007

KUALA LAMPUR THE NEXT STOP

Diligence and the discipline of writing, sometimes you sit down at your allotted hour and there is no inclination to write, but the discipline is to put in your time and hope that something positive comes out. Driving yesterday afternoon from Melaka to KL, I was surprised by the cleanliness, and modernity along the way. There is a part of me that is expecting all of 3rd worlds to be grimy, reeking of poverty and hopelessness, with vast environmental degradation. There is a mind set that I get into that looks at life outside of the west through the lens of “White male western traveler,” though I have a far broader experience as a cross cultural traveler than most, I am aware of that filter. The only true thing one needs for cross cultural literacy is to understand your own filters and biases, your values and how they influence your thinking.
News of the US American- Korean man who shot the students. Odd, how CNN states the person was Korean though he lived fifteen of his twenty three years in the US. Are they trying to distance themselves from this terribly ill person? But why would you put out his message? Why broadcast this pain to the world? What is the merit in this? Why give another excuse for a sad twisted person to explode in the hopes of being heard? How much pain must that young man have been in to have committed such a heinous deed? Though we must admit, there is more of him in us than many would care to recognize. By seeing his pain filled soul as being more akin to ourselves than different -- can we truly see his pain? The more important question is: How many in our communities and neighborhoods are in the same degree of pain and waiting to explode?

Yesterday, arriving at Hotel Maya, a very fancy place in downtown KL. Surprised by the lack of obvious poverty, for some reason I expected this to be a poorer city, though I had no reason to support that contention one way or another. Surprised by the Patronus towers and like much architecture in life you assume one skyscraper is the same as the next, but this building is truly a work of art. It appears, oddly enough like the architecture at Angkor Watt or other Hindu sites, the towers rise up like a stack, but part of that is creation of a series of 8 pointed stars, reminiscent of a modern Islamic architecture. The abundance of gardens, forests, and greenery in the heart of the city is a blessing and the Malaysians should be lauded for this. In so many countries the imperative is to take over inch for habitation, but human habitation on the planet is completely dependent on how we preserve and nurture the eco-system, a very obvious take. At the same time, there is a continual loss of important forest preserves in Malaysia, and its subsequent damage to the entire ecosystem.

Enjoying KL and the people of Malaysia very much