Neighborhood Wisdom on Miley Cyrus at the VMAs

So after reading the hubbub on the net about Miley Cyrus's performance and looking at it after the fact, I stopped three male youths ambling past me in the darkening twilight, one with earbuds, as I was walking my dog in my working-class/middle-class Oaktown nabe. I asked if if they'd seen the VMA show and what they thought of her act. I'd guess they were high school sophomores, two black, one Asian. 

Two said it was stupid and one said it was funny. The first two then launched into a rather impassioned speech together: "We all know what the music industry does, how corrupt it is and how they try to brainwash you." I asked, "So you saw her performance as an example of music industry corruption?" They said, "Yes!" Then they cogently pointed out that it had nothing to do with her actual video for the song, which had a lot of medieval things in it and had to do with Satanism (they said), and also that obviously she was trying to get rid of her Hannah Montana innocent image. One kid looked pleased as punch that I was asking his opinion, smiling very sweetly. We talked a bit more about the songs and other artists, and the neighborhood. I was impressed by them. Very cute.

I posted the text above on my personal Facebook page a few days ago. Here is the ensuing discussion (with their permission) among writer Lisa Motherwell, music critic Jordan Richardson, and sax player Michael Eaton, with a few other comments thrown in.

Lisa Motherwell And did one mention that MALE singer who participated? (My new rant....) Why is just she being excoriated?

Jordan Richardson ^^^ What she said. Miley was just dressed in the garb for "Blurred Lines" anyway, yet some people were actually tweeting about her audacity to "grind" on a "married man." Funny ol' world.

Lisa B Lisa Bernstein Lisa Motherwell, agreed. I just commented on a post by Doug Ferrari about this related to the fact that she kept talking about Molly (Ecstacy). I think she's being excoriated partly b/c she so pushed the current envelope in pop culture about what white female pop singers can do with their sexual self-presentation. She wasn't just slutty, she was outrageous and aggressive with it, even using her big finger prop like a dildo at one point. What bothers me is that she seemed to be high; that partly pressed people's buttons. But, aside from the fact that Lady Gaga is a vastly superior singer, I didn't think the dance/theatre part of Gaga's act was way cooler. In fact, it was less interesting. The other part is that Cyrus appropriated a lot of stuff that black hiphop artists are doing, especially the males. Nothing new in white pop but not from the innocent Hannah Montana simultaneously consciously tilting her image with teddy bears and onesies.

Lisa Motherwell Oh, agreed that there were many manipulations and layers of bad meaning with everything. I don't personally care for Miley Cyrus (though I admire her bravery) but the sexism, considering who sets the tone, and who we talk about at these awards, seemed a bit tilted this year.

Jordan Richardson What interests (and repulses) me is how certain segments of society, beyond political lines it appears, want to effectively "punish" Miley for what she did. I've seen tweets and FB posts about "cutting her tongue out" or otherwise ruining her for "behaving like a slut," and some of these have come from card-carrying liberals. It all turns my stomach.

Lisa Motherwell No kidding! It's my liberal friends who are trashing her (I'm a Socialist). It's disconcerting.

Jordan Richardson There's also another component here that, I think, misses the idea of performance. People got upset about Miley mentioning that people did lines in the bathroom at the party, for instance, and they got upset that she was twerking and grinding on Robin Thicke's stripes. It seems like it was all taken very literally, like there were no storytelling elements to speak of or analyze. Makes me wonder what the same crowd would've done hearing gangsta rap, for instance, and wondering how many people Biggie Smalls shot while lounging in his bathtub full of cocaine.

Lisa B Lisa Bernstein Yes. And btw, I don't have a problem with her appropriating black hiphop gestures esp. given that she does it so extremely that she's showing us she's doing it.

Michael Eaton I've seen photos, but not the performance. A woman has a right to be sexual as she pleases and present herself as she wants, so to me the sexuality of it wasn't a problem. If anything, I think it was de riguer as a pop star for her to present herself that way. The jarring quality came about from how relatively dissonant her presentation was compared to her squeaky clean Disney past, but to me that's all theater. I think it was kind of tasteless, but that's my opinion.

What I would find offensive is if she were exploited, and that's precisely where my question is. I'd like to see a feminist analysis, because my question has to do with whether she voluntarily went along, and to what degree she was a victim of sexism in the industry (or wasn't). Did the record company or whoever force her to do it? I don't see her as being working or middle class (her net worth is around $120 million), so it's hard for me to see her as not having command over her own work, or having the ability to back out.

Jordan Richardson Was Robin Thicke exploited or is that a question we're only prepared to think of in terms of young women? I'm not asking to be cheeky or rude; it's a serious question because I've heard this before but never directed toward male artists.

The music business is almost necessarily exploitative because it is a business and in that regard almost all participants in it are victimized to an extent, whether by what singles they have to promote or by what image they have to put out there. Miley's image could be a complete fabrication, but that really wouldn't be any different than suggesting that Taylor Swift's "demure" iconography is similarly fabricated and similarly a matter of exploitation. What it really comes down to, what drives the questions, is the content of the image. 

In other words, we don't ask Taylor Swift (or even Selena Gomez) if she's being exploited because it doesn't "seem" like she is. But Miley's performance and imagery does beg the question and I think we think that because it doesn't "seem" like any self-respecting woman would behave "that way." I saw people posting about how she has a good future in porn or how she could've been replaced by a stripper or how she was acting like a slut, so there's certainly something in the content that people are reacting to: namely what it means to be a woman or HOW a woman should "behave." We don't ask "well-behaved" women if someone was exploiting them to put on a prom dress, do up their hair like Marilyn and sit properly at an awards show, but we DO ask the one who's twerking, beating off a foam finger and bending over in front of a randy Canadian. I just wonder why that is.

Lisa B Lisa Bernstein So Michael Eaton your comment reminds me that I was really wishing I had followed up with the young guys on the sidewalk about what exactly was corrupt about her act. Was it the overt sexuality that they found corrupt? That is, did they think SHE was brainwashed? Or was it that the ultra-theatricality of it all seemed very "music industry" to them and an example of we the consumers being brainwashed? I think they definitely viewed her performance as being very calculated. And they were right. So they was more insightful than some of these patriarchal/paternalistic critics of her.

• Megan O'Neill Great story Lisa. Wonderful of you to engage in these youths and interesting opinions!
• Daria Jazz Lisa B, Reporter at Large! Great story!

Lisa B Lisa Bernstein Actually, I've thought more critically about some of her appropriation of some black hiphop aesthetic elements, thanks to this excellent blog post shared by Vicki Randle. http://battymamzelle.blogspot.com/2013/08/Solidarity-Is-For-Miley-Cyrus.html?m=1

BattyMamzelle: Solidarity Is For Miley Cyrus: The Racial Implications of Her VMA Performance

battymamzelle.blogspot.com.au

Musical Heat and Light When the Days Grow Dark: Pictures from My December 2012 Holiday Concert

Creating light and heat through song for the winter holidays

Ben Flint, Fred Randolph, Lisa B (Lisa Bernstein), and Alan Hall

Great fun at my December 2012 holiday concert at Musically Minded Academy in Oakland, Calif. I love communicating with the audience through fun and meaningful holiday songs from various traditions — and adding my own spoken-sung originals. 

Our set ranged from "Let It Snow" to "Hine Ma Tov," from "My Favorite Things" to my original "Holiday in Oakland," from Matisyahu's "Miracle" about Chanukah to a magical reimagining of "Night and Day" for the winter solstice.

The band was creative, energized, and in synch with me and each other. I love that feeling! It's like riding an amazing conveyance with an alert crew, who are not only navigating the landscape but bringing it into being. 

Ben Flint always looks strikingly relaxed while powering jazz, soul, folk and rock grooves, harmonic depth, and emotional exploration aplenty on piano.

Fred Randolph on bass and Alan Hall on drums generated  mighty rhythmic underpinnings (even when soft) with just the right balance of energy and empathy.

Stage directions are crucial with improvisation

An attentive crowd shows up even on a Sat. night in December

Fred Randolph and Ben Flint striking a mature gangsta pose

Anna Orias, right, runs Musically Minded Academy

Our set ranged from "Let It Snow" to "Hine Ma Tov," from "My Favorite Things" to my original "Holiday in Oakland," from Matisyahu's "Miracle" about Chanukah to a magical reimagining of "Night and Day" for the winter solstice

"The New War" in current issue of "War, Literature and the Arts"

Here's the new issue of War, Literature and the Arts including one of my poems. I'm really enjoying it, especially the nonfiction. The journal is published by the U.S. Air Force Academy, interestingly.

http://wlajournal.com/24_1/24__index.html

My poem in this issue, called "The New War," was written as an epilogue to my poem sequence "Persephone Post-War." It's reprinted below. Go to the magazine for the evocative work filling the rest of the magazine, many of it by soldiers and veterans. 

L i s a  B e r n s t e i n  (L i s a  B)

The New War

The new war has started.

Photos of caskets

disappear the next day from the newspapers.

The new wounded come home

with nano-reels of film curled

in their cells, inscriptions

for their children,

genetic messages for the living world.

The civilians recall their airtight homes

as one frame appears on the news

and another:

the man with the hood over his head

and wires strung from his extended arms,

the man crouched naked before the dogs…

The new war has started.

The new wounded come home

with hidden inscriptions for their children…

Do you hear the singing far below us, the stirring

in the soft dirt?

I won’t walk again on that darkening ground.

I can still taste the rotten fruit

where the dead keep turning

and the sweet honey I found near it.

Let the fruit fall here in the open light

where we can see it and eat it.

But the veterans will go down again, Persephones,

every winter,

and if they’re lucky, only then.

The new war goes on.

The soldiers send messages, digital snapshots

like bright, strange apples fallen to earth—

the red blood, the randomly arranged bodies.

Sickening fruit—may it fall

into the light

and be seen by the world.

copyright © 2013 Lisa Bernstein

Covered California - New Info on California's Health Exchange Under Affordable Care Act

Covered California! The basics are now online about California's health exchange (or marketplace) for 2014 under the Affordable Care Act. http://www.coveredca.com/

They look good. Premiums and health providers are not settled or provided yet, but the cost calculator's results look promising. This insurance is for folks not covered under a group or employer plan. It will sure make my life easier and lower my costs dramatically as a diabetic. And it will do the same for many others, as preexisting conditions will no longer be a factor. Yay!

Of course, this health insurance option will be crucial for the many artists, musicians, and writers who are self-employed and struggling to pay for health care, not to mention all the others in the same position.

By the way, I was interviewed in my home by a nice young market research team a few months back. I didn't know their client but figured it was some health insurance company. I was surprised when they videotaped some interesting but off-topic jazz collages I had on the wall. Afterward, they confessed they were working on this very website.

Glad to help Obamacare, however unwittingly.

A Surprising Audition

Anyone else have a story about an audition that didn't go the way you'd hoped it would?

I recently decided to test the waters of the indie band scene and spent a few days learning three songs by a mid-40s bandleader who had not yet released any records but had done some gigs in divey to good venues. The sound was (intentionally, I thought) rough but creative, a mixture of what he called jazz, psychedelic lounge, and R&B, and the tunes intriguing musically and periodically inspired lyrically. I had answered his ad for a new singer (the last one had moved away) with links to my press kit and website, and he had invited me to audition.

I reduced the 22-page chart he sent for one tune to 1-1/2 pp. so I could figure out the form. He sent me extensive emails on his band history and hopes, about which I commiserated. I soon noticed, though, that he never made a single comment or reply about my own experiences, which I'd offered in camaraderie, or even about any of my various recordings. He said he really wanted someone to sing most of his (often quirky) tunes note for note. I was game. Then a few days later he wrote that he was also open to someone who was a Sade clone and/or a "beat poetry/gospel" poet, as his band could accommodate all three different leads in one show. That was confusing, but given my cross-genre background as a singer — along with my writing and performances as a poet, and then as a singer integrating spoken word into tunes — it seemed I could fulfill at least one if not more of these roles to our mutual satisfaction – especially given the original influences he cited, spanning Sarah Vaughn, Chrissie Hynde, and Astrud Gilberto. He had referred to previous singers who were undisciplined or needed help developing or had shifting life goals, so I was pretty sure he’d dig my work ethic and stability. I was excited.

His band rehearsed twice a week, which seemed like a lot for what appeared to be a slim repertoire. Oh well, it could be fun. The rehearsal studio turned out to be near one of the worst corners in San Francisco. In the dark, I made it through a nightmarish tableau of darting drug addicts and salespersons, and insane shouters, then walked down a scary alley, hanging behind a couple of questionable characters ahead of me. I picked my way around a huge backhoe blocking the rest of the street. 

Beyond it, the door to the rehearsal building was locked. I heard the loud careening clacks of skateboarders just inside the lobby, who then let me in.

The bandleader came down. He brought me up into a dark, dusty, large room filled with randomly placed furniture – and pot smoke. I wondered where the band typically played amid the clutter. After his voluble emails, in person he could barely say much. He seemed nice but distant. I chalked that up to shyness. The room was lit mainly by one bright bulb over his head. After our shadowy entrance, I had to shield the bulb's glare with my hand to look at him. I never even completely saw his face.

A super-loud rock band was playing and singing next door — with no sound separation between the two rehearsal rooms. Still, I felt optimistic as he gave me some headphones, placed me in front of a mic with stand, and started finding the first track on his laptop. Oddly, my voice was doubled in the headphones. He said he couldn't hear that, that maybe he was just used to it. Okay. The music and headphones didn't block out the terrible shrieking rock band a few feet away and it was hard to hear myself, but I started singing the first tune with enthusiasm. He immediately began swiping his phone, which he continued the whole time I was singing. I tried to stay in the spirit of the emotional song and thought I did pretty well. For the second tune, which had a number of key changes, he brought up a track with just drums and a faint bassline. In the counterpoint din of the rock band, I asked for something with a chord or two. He found another track for the song, but it was at half-tempo. He went back to playing with his phone while I sang it. Then he suggested we stop, as the whole band would be arriving for rehearsal. I wasn't even going to be able to sing the third song.

I had worked for hours learning the tunes the last few nights and sounded pretty good on my home tape the night before. How did I sound here in the noise and disregard and gloom? Of course I didn't ask. No comment from him beyond "thanks for coming down." I had acted upbeat throughout but was glad to flee. 

I pressed through the street action, which now seemed like a raucous extension of the rehearsal studio's haze and disarray, fearing for my safety and thinking, You've got to be kidding. When I got over the bridge and to my busy Oakland Trader Joe's, I felt delivered to a place of sanity and light as I wheeled my cart in semi-shock down the reassuring aisles.

I got an email from him the next day saying, "I have extended the range at which I could envision working with you as a singer for this group and have concluded that it would not be a good match." Did that mean that even though he broadened his boundaries, I still wouldn't fit into them? (Had I just been insulted?) Was my sound that night really so different from my tunes online and in my press kit, and what about the poetry/spoken-word elements — or had he even listened to them?

Well, I couldn't have gone back there. But I was still hoping for something from this person whose musical universe I had entered and responded to with empathy and interest — some acknowledgement as a fellow musician. Suddenly, all my many years of rehearsal and recording experiences seemed like trips to a luxury hotel, or at least a cozy bed and breakfast, in the company of wonderful players, producers, and engineers, who were not only among the best in the Bay Area, but respectful to me and sweethearts to boot. How lucky I had been.

copyright © 2013 Lisa Bernstein

Savoring the Golden Apple

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could." - Louise Erdrich

I fell for fiction-writer Louise Erdrich after reading her wonderful novel “Love Medicine” and have since gobbled up her short stories in The New Yorker. I’m overdue to read another novel by her. I’m not sure where this quote came from; I found it in the Facebook post of a good friend today.

I love the imagery of eating and food Erdrich gives us. After bluntly stating that “life will break you,” she reminds us that the reason we are here is to be swallowed up by life, even to the point of being broken and bruised. Next she calls us to notice that the earth’s bounty also often experiences the same cycle, the same falls, the apples “wasting their sweetness.” We are like that bounty. And as we become witnesses to the apples in both their deliciousness and their sad fates, it makes our own suffering somehow more natural and bearable, even lovelier. We have companions in the sweetness “in heaps” all around us.

Finally there’s another turn: we’re not only like the apples, but we get to taste them – taste each other. So the thought comes full circle — we taste, and we are tasted, and it’s this experience that swallows us up. Life is the grand eater and we are its food; and at the same time, we are grand eaters of life.

As a diabetic I love being told to engage with sweetness — to listen to it, to notice its natural source, to tell myself about it, and to taste as much of it as I can.

Of course the apple means knowledge too, knowledge that is both sacred and inextricably involved with the body. No perversion of the story of the Garden of Eden can erase that. The golden apple shines in the stories of many cultures, promising divine information and immortality. How tantalizing that timelessness is offered in such a savory, physical package, one so transitory as it is devoured.

Diabetes gives me similar tantalizing knowledge — glimpses of the precious gold of the present moment in all its physicality, and of the spirit (that is, me) who chooses to savor that moment, over and over.

Taste the day, and enjoy.

copyright © 2013 Lisa Bernstein

The Power of Being Amused

Your most important spiritual tool is probably not what you think it is... Warning: may involve Charlie Chaplin. See http://lisabintuitive.com/blog/your_most_important_spiritual_tool_its_probably_not_what_you_think/

Mayan Dawn / Winter Solstice

Isn't it fun to be at a moment when so many of us are looking at the world ending and not ending and continuing and re-turning? Exciting! A good correction to the narrow (though scary) "fiscal cliff" frame. Wealth is here for all of us in so many ways would we only lay our collective hands on it. 

Somehow this makes me envision a sea of French toast and getting one's fingers all sticky with maple syrup!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~