Fall Colors

 

"In Season", ©Jeff Glovsky

Happy Feedback

In the slice knife that is A.M., I cut through to get my things done ...

Mornings out and up with tea ...

In New York ... before loud hordes shatter each day, and in Munich, before tourists pour onto the canvas ...

I pour my breakfast loads in ...

 Mornings

My Old Lady

As we head into the holiday season, warmth and good cheer shrink and shrivel like leaves in me.  Misanthropy takes root and hold ...

I was taking a bus the other night, an overnight trip of about five hours.  As I'm climbing aboard, struggling with "carry-ons" that should have been checked and stowed underneath, a young couple is trying to sit together.

I dive for the only remaining bank of two empty seats and throw myself and my sad baggage into it ... then start flexing and hoisting, and shoving and spinning, and trying in vain to get at least one of my bags to fit into an overhead luggage bin.

It's not happening, and after several long, frustrated moments of grunting and carrying on in the bus aisle like Curly from the Three Stooges, I give up and resignedly take my bag -- which had become wedged in the luggage bin, half in and half out, so I couldn't pull it out without the help of an old lady whose foot I'd stepped on -- off the bus to check it below (which, again, I know, I should have done in the first place!).

I get back on-board, and the young couple trying to sit together, is now sitting together in my bank of seats!  Not only, but they've slid my duffel bag off the window seat I'd planned to use and sleep in during the overnight trip, and put it on the floor ... and then, ever so subtly, with their four feet, slid it out into the aisle for me!

"Man, would you mind -- it's just me and my girlfriend, this is a five hour trip.  Do you mind if we sit together?  There's an empty seat ... "  He gestures toward the old lady - alternately scowling and beaming at me, and quietly singing hymns to herself.

"No," I say.  Just like that, just the one syllable.  "No."

Well, that one syllable was enough to drive the packed bus into emotion!  A chorus of "Why?" and "C'mon man!" and "...wrong with you?" split the night bus, and I ended up sleeping beside the old lady.

“Ahole”, ©Jeff Glovsky

Elegy ...

"Elegiac", ©Jeff Glovsky

Deep Autumn

So I've figured out how this all works ... This "social media" nonsense, and the keeping of accounts and pages ...

It's like this:  nobody gives a shit about what you post.  Nobody's reading.  Nobody's watching or "following" you, and if they are, what for?  People are told what -- and who -- to read, watch and follow -- and "like" -- by recently posted ("freshly pressed") feeds, and under the same rules of engagement as back in high school:  the prom kings and queens with already large followings migrate their real worlds online ... and beyond this, they all bring their real world je ne sais quois with them too - which lead to advantages, always have.

I only bring baggage.  I'm damaged goods, in personal name and reputation.  Those who know and matter -- my own real worlds -- know better; those who don't yet, but might like to ... Might "like", or be looking, to follow or "friend" ... might initially be scared off or stopped in their tracks.

I know for a fact this has been the case on many occasions since 2010 -- and at this point, it's tiresome.  But the damage is done, the damn damage inflicted ... Goddamn you for damaging me ...

Damaged goods.

But where was I?

Oh, right.  Social media ...

So if I did believe anyone was reading, and delusional enough to think they cared, I'd be like, "Sorry for being out of touch on my blog for a couple of weeks.  Lots of new posts coming soon!"

This would be ridiculous.  I'd be talking to myself.  Suffice it to say, the offline world is much more interesting - always has been to me, always will.

Still, I do enjoy 'putting things out there'.  Read it, don't read it.  "Follow", don't follow me.  Don't waste (my) time, though, trying to weigh in:  my peanut galleries will always be closed.  No offense, but I'm not looking for "friends" here.

I'm only here for the SEO ...

I Can Dance!

I don't make music.

I can write and take pictures (I can bitch slap shade throwers) ... I can mix sounds and voices and instruments live.  I find comfort and meaning and rhythm in words, and can lyricize random poetix with ease.

Oh, I can compose things ...

I can even plink and tinkle a little.

I know what sounds right, I'm not tone deaf and I know what's 'in key' (though I'll never be there!).  I'm not an aggregator of esoteric crap on an i-pod ... There is nothing more curious, or annoying, to me, than knowing that for some reason, you've collected more than 5,000 songs (are there even 5,000 songs??), with a healthy dose of Inuit, bagpipe or "chakra music" in your song library.

Now I can appreciate some sexy throat singing every now and then ... Get down to a little Achy Breaky Mani Padme Hum on a Friday before last call.  But to walk around with that shit in my earbuds for any stretch of time is beyond my capacity ... and yours too, if you're going to be honest!  You don't need to be streaming it - and I certainly don't need you showing me that you're hip enough to 'get' or "like" it.

Anyway ... I'm not a musician.

I'm musical, and music has informed my life ... but a creator of music (or a designer of sound), is something I'm not.  I also can't draw, but that's a whole other post.

So whenever I find time to hang out on SoundCloud, I'm generally wondering why I'm there.  Why would I, not being a musician or creator of "sounds", sign up there?

Why would most people? then, becomes the question.

Whenever I bang around on SoundCloud, I'm praying it won't algorithmically single me out ... like, "Jeff Glovsky plays Barry Manilow on SoundCloud" ... That would be mortifying.

Because that's all I do there -- that's all I CAN do -- is listen to ("play") music, and then repost ("share") it.  I suppose I could put a couple playlists together ... and those would be, like, my "sounds", right?  Isn't that how it works?

Or maybe I'll record myself reading my writing - the ultimate self-absorption ... a maximum masturbation session!

"Amsterdam Avenue, holy midnight", I'll intone enigmatically ... my deep yet keening voice, preening dramatically.

"...on my knees...like Romeo!  Verona, in my pantaloons!  Elizabethan trappings, Al Pacino in delivery...Like, "Attica, oh Attica!  Oh, wherefore art thou...ATTICA!?

"I'm screaming.  No one hears me.

"But now give it out how I'm a writer...Writing!  No more shitty gigs...No odd job mental patient lot, no theater, theayter...NOT!  I'm never gonna work again!"

Yeah, I could read that.  My overwrought and written words pouring out inconceivably:  me reading and recording them!  See, reading a prose piece or poetry live, at an open mic. -- or better, by invitation -- is one thing.  But taking the time to record and promote something ... that's not what I do.

... Yet.  Like working up the nerve to dance ... 'cause that's also something I don't do.  I might bop to the beat like a tactile transducer, or stamp my foot up and down like a farmer ... or maybe even twerk a little.

But I don't dance, and I don't write or play music.

I can only share my own sounds.

Fall Forward

“October”, ©Jeff Glovsky