November 27th, 2018.

So, I joined Facebook to advertise the band and have held out for YEARS on just scrolling through my feed. I’ve fallen into this seduction relatively recently and find myself going down a dark rabbit hole of nastiness. It clings to the fur like you wouldn’t believe.

Today’s instructive turn-off point came as I was reading a post from a friend who just switched from being a sole-proprietor to being an LLC as a self-employed musician. This is something I’ve thought about and frankly have meant to get done for literally YEARS and so I was of course interested…

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Above – A Lovely open mic night at Teavolve – cause that’s how we roll. Unfortunately the web stream got cut off by copyright issues with someone’s tracks.

But reading through the comments (I know, I know – NEVER read the comments) I’m once again reminded about nastiness. Sticking to the fur.

People who don’t know what the terminology means bringing baggage about consumerism and government to it. Someone referring to it as Trump terminology…I imagine this post was put out there mostly as an “fyi” and “this is what I’ve been doing with my time” and maybe even as a way to garner just a bit of attention (because we’re ALWAYS brand-building!) but instead received sarcasm about what it means, obnoxious political grandstanding… it seems that all the initial replies are pretty ignorant, and it takes about seven hours before intelligent responses (similar stories and tax thoughts) start percolating into the feed.

I guess that could also show some form of evidence that people who are bitter and whiny are constantly checking their feeds and weigh in sans-intelligence, and it takes a little more time to be seen by and garner responses from people with anything intelligent to add.

Ugh – but more importantly, it reminds me not to read the comments.

I’m worried that I’m not in the right headspace for today. I’m running the last of my Takoma Park Busboys and Poets : LIVE events tonight and hopefully it’ll be a good one to go out on. This is only the fourth one but…well, after an initially very positive meeting the first open mic was really UNpleasant, the second one was great but poorly populated, the third one was screwed up because they wrote “last Tuesdays” on their calendar after we’d negotiated for “fourth Tuesdays” (and I’d advertised “fourth Tuesdays” for MONTHS) – Heather took the rescheduled date and guest-hosted it and it sounded both sparse AND unpleasant.

Well, here’s hoping tonight will be the last possible variation:

We’ve had POPULATED UNPLEASANT, we’ve had SPARSE PLEASANT, we’ve has SPARSE UNPLEASANT – so surely tonight will be POPULATED PLEASANT!!!???

Right?

Positive thinking! And don’t read the comments!

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I have a substantial ego attached to what I do. I don’t think it’s particularly possible to be a performing musician for almost two decades (!) and NOT have one. However, my most heated altercations with venues have had nothing to do with MY music or how I’M treated – they’re about the open mics, and specifically about my having a stable enough environment that the place that I’m inviting OTHER performers into can be everything that I’ve promised. 

Sure, I get pissed off when I show up and something is other than what I’ve expected – but what I really have no patience for is when I show up and something is other than what I expected for the people that are MY guests. Because now it’s not that you’re breaking promises – and contracted, written statements – to ME – it’s that you’ve put me in a position that I’m breaking promises and what I view as contracted, written statements to OTHERS.

I think the first time I was made aware of this was when venues treated our fans poorly. Places with an egregious wait on food, or uncomfortable spaces.

In other working situations, again – that’s been the deal breaker: when you’ve made a statement on behalf of your boss, or passed along their words and then THAT person doubles back – well, you can do whatever you want with YOUR reputation and your business image and frankly (not to make it high and mighty but) your HONOUR – but when you’re tarnishing mine along with it? That’s really not something I can allow to have happen twice.

Fingers crossed.

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Last night’s open mic had a moment … a long series of moments… where I kind of wanted to explain myself and my community to another artist, but found that – well – you show, not tell, and there wasn’t much to show last night other than making them welcome.

A new-to-us artist, a gay, black woman freshly returned from Living outside the U.S. did a set of comedy and spoken word and made a point of discussing white privilege and how she was so deeply minoritized that she got a lot of hate mail from her performances and efforts to help people understand “not being a racist”. And I worried that as she performed to a room full of almost entirely white faces (it was NOT one of those nights where Teavolve was showing off our community’s diversity) she was just lumping us in along with it – that she was lumping us all along with that ignorance. (this could of course, just be me being cynical)

I mean Hell, ever since Trump started throwing his little tantrums and threw his MAGA hat in the ring as a candidate for the highest office in the land, I’ve worried that because I’m a white male, EVERYONE assumes I’m just like him. Which – yes – is just as obnoxious as anyone assuming ANYTHING about ANYONE based entirely on a snap judgment based on sex and age and race – but I try not to let it piss me off. I really try to just Live the antithesis of Trumpism and walk the antithesis of anti-intellectualism and be as open and as inviting as possible.

I probably should’ve gone out of my way to back up her sentiments – specifically that privilege and racism can crop up in subtle and surprising, insidious ways.

I could’ve pointed out that ilyAIMY was having trouble getting security clearance for a particular gig, and that that trouble went away mysteriously once I informed them that “Sharif” wasn’t able to attend that show. I could’ve talked about how over Thanksgiving dinner I was saddened, but not entirely surprised, that Ashraf Dawoud was thinking about legally changing his name because he thinks he’s not getting through the first round of job interview selections because of that Arabic name of his… that I worry about my drummer speeding because he really shouldn’t be any more afraid of a cop than I am, but speeding while black is WAY different than speeding while white… and even IF the percentages don’t quite reflect that as strongly in Maryland (I have no numbers to back that up) as it does in Missouri, the fear is real…

And so I could’ve said any of those things, but I also really hate listening to Social Justice Warriors (not said with any malice) who actually just throw anecdotes and shade rather than anything more concrete – and so continue in my own SJWish way of just trying to say “you – you are welcome here – I don’t care who you sleep with, where you’re from, or what you look like – WE are welcoming YOU HERE”. In return I only ask that you try not to look for anything hidden behind that. I have no agenda beyond that. I ask that you not bring the baggage of what other white males have done unto thee before this day… and that even if you do, that this night can help a LITTLE in unpacking it.

Here in this space, we are welcoming you in the hopes that all of us can take a little bit of that with us and remember how we can and should be treated.