Bon(ed) Soir

"a musical wasteland of endless bass solos and fart-like runs ... "

 This was all I could muster after seeing Wycliffe.

I don't know if the music was lacking, it was the overall vibe of the Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors crowd (most of them there to see Randy Newman this night) ... younger now, but no less pretentious and trying-too-hard-seeming as when I used to live across the street and (barely) attended auld FU.

Or, have I finally stopped trying too hard to dig jazz?

When I used to immerse in the scene, in the clubs, eating cheeseburgers ... waitresses (swimming in sax!) ... with the crowing, old voices of jazz legends nightly, and Wryly Sardonix demanding I leave ... which I did one night, mid-set, when he yelled from the stage that he sounded "like shit" and the cause of that mess fell on my deaf ears ... WHAT!?

I stormed offstage that night before he did!  There's only one King, bitch, and I left the building!!!

... Where was I?

Oh, right.  So Wycliffe Gordon ...

I went to see James Brown once, back in the day when we lived in America ... and shuffling around the stage at Radio City Music Hall at one point with an RK-100, he launched into a noodling rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" ...

Now don't ever let anyone try and tell you that James Brown, 'the Godfather', was NOT a show-stopper!  He stopped that show dead ... ground to a halt, as he strutted and poked on his shoulder-slung Korg, an eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth verse.  Of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

Really.

"The hell is he doing?" a guy behind me asked his date.  Something large and thrown fell just short of the stage ... A chorus of "boos" began, like an imagined cliché scene, and rose in cresecendo until filling the theater.

James Brown stripped to his undershorts and started kicking Rockette-like, as the curtain came down and there wasn't an encore.

Just kidding!  Nobody really threw anything.

But I remember that night well ... I hooked up with a girl who thought she had tickets to see Jethro Tull ... and experienced something like it last night seeing Wycliffe.

Or maybe I wasn't in the mood.

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About Jeff Glovsky
on ...

LinkedIn (DE)

Dividing his time between München and New York City, Jeff Glovsky is a dedicated business owner / entrepreneur with an ear for writing and an eye for photography; and a multimedia / presentation support specialist with a background in live music and years of hands-on experience in touring, club, festival, hotel, university and Tier 1 financial settings.

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XING

Jeff Glovsky offers corporate event services, AV / production support and renewable (solar) energy consultation to an established private client database. He is a photographer / "raw" image content provider and a published writer of exaggerated non-fiction ("faction") short stories and prose poetry.

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Viadeo

Jeff Glovsky is a corporate event services and executive travel consultant, as well as a boating enthusiast and yacht and private jet charter partner. He has been a jazz and world music booking agent, and currently works with the non-profit Global Music Project® as a regional events director.

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Music2Deal

As a live 'Tonmensch' (sound engineer), Jeff Glovsky has mixed sound at the Blue Note, Jazz Standard and Birdland jazz clubs in New York City, and for Sue Mingus and the Mingus Big Band / Mingus Orchestra.

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AVglov (Jeff Glovsky)

[ ... is an Audio-Visual technician / operator with a corporate event services skill set and background in live music and sound mixing.  He is a regional events director with Global Music Project®, and a freelance photographer and raw image / content provider.  His portfolio of idiosyncratic Photo(s) by Jglo can be seen on Behance, and across the ongoing "Lo-Fi Project" on Tumblr and WordPress. ]

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LinkedIn (U.S.)

Dividing his time between New York City and Munich, Germany, J(eff) Glovsky is a corporate event services and executive travel consultant, as well as a boating enthusiast and yacht and private jet charter partner.

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Mickey Mouse Thinking

So far, over the course of my life, I've been known to put my foot in it ...

When I was very young, my mom gave me a watch ... a Mickey Mouse watch with a pleather red band ... and I didn't like it.  I made some face, or remark, of displeasure upon receiving the gift and my mom was disappointed.  Her face fell.

I immediately wished I'd applied a filter ... and spent the rest of my childhood asking my mom, at random, inappropriate hours and often apropos of nothing, "Do you believe I like the watch?" - I sensed she was hurt that I didn't like it, quickly told her that I did ... then spent the next ten years or so trying to convince us both!

In high school, against all odds at the time in northern Wisconsin, I had a friend who was black.  I'd cart her around town, to and from school, we'd drink bottomless cups of coffee (or beer) together ... We danced the Cha-Cha one night in my white tuxedo!

So "Micki", as I'll call her here, and I had Spanish class together.  One day, during another interminable lesson by Señora Lulu, we started fighting over a pluma ...

I like to keep a pen behind both ears.  That's just how I roll!  So I can whip one out in a hurry when inspiration strikes ... or stave off attackers ... and Micki took one of them this day and started using it.  Blatantly reached behind my ear and nicked my Bic!!

We started tussling ... Micki took her shirt off, and was starting to pummel me with both fists when I blurted out something that ended, unfortunately, with the word "black" as a compound noun.  Like, "Oww!  Stop hitting me, Micki!  You black ... "

And then she REALLY hit me.

“What Did I Say??”, ©Jeff Glovsky

Years later, I was working on this show with the lovely actress Leila Martin.  She and her husband, or collaborator (writer/director), John, I think, were doing this cabaret tribute to Gertrude Lawrence ... and already disillusioned with the strange, internecine theater world I had gone to school to be a part of, I began recounting one day all the diva nutjobs I had thus far worked with (and/or dated or was lucky (or drunk) enough to 'get with' ;) ...

There was Luba, who lost a glove and burst into tears; Mary Kate, who lost a goldfish and burst into tears ... Scott and Debra, who used to call me "Biff" (don't ask) ... and all these people prancing around, overfull of themselves, obnoxiously so ... and this was well before our present day world of selfie whores, delusional "Idols" and narcissistic self-absorption.

Today, all the world really is a stage ... but this was just theater folk back then.

And I started opining to Leila Martin that every diva "has their little favorite" ... their little celeb célèbre that they celebrate ... imitating ... or in worse-case scenarios, becoming (or trying) ... backstage one day, while she was putting on make-up, at work at 'becoming' Gertrude Lawrence.

Completely clueless, yet compelled, I went on ... trashing the "conceit" of theater in general, theater people especially -- and most especially, "diva nutjobs" -- while indirectly trashing the performer who was paying me!  Neither Leila Martin nor John (Meyer) ever thanked me for my work on their lovingly crafted and reverent tribute ... nor spoke to me again during the run of that show.

It's in this spirit of occasionally speaking too much or too loudly, of saying wrong things at worst possible moments, and eventually regretting (or not) what you realize too late you may have been stupid in saying ... that I throw my support into the ring for Donald Trump in 2016.

Like him or not, Trump gets things done - and says things, unscripted, which he doesn't regret.  There are few more "presidential" traits I can think of, that would actually seem to be requirements for the job of president of the United States, than track record, accomplishment and a firm sense of commitment ... which is exactly the trait which spurs accomplishment and creates track record ... On and on.

(And Mom:  I really did like the watch :)

My Baggage Thanks You

I'm always amazed when individuals "in charge" -- those wearing clothing emblazoned with company logos ... In uniform, running the shows, ostensibly, and holding down forts in exchange for their paychecks -- engage that representative power to help ...

You'd think this is something that should go without saying ... and in Europe, across much of the airline, food service, banking, car rental, hotel and other hospitality sectors, it does.

There is pride in a uniform "over there", still ... A sense of contributing to the common goals of a shared community as much as an overriding ... if not desire, than at least, obligation, to represent their company logos appropriately, and make an effort -- in a pleasant way -- to provide assistance, if and as needed, to other human beings.

In the States, this is often sorely lacking.  There is laziness.  Indolence.  Pushback.  Sore attitude.

All of the above being preferable, arguably, to stark indifference:  the apathetic numbness shown by employees too bored to give a shit.

Thus, happily, did I arrive to depart recently at one of New York's better known "third world" airports ...

For some reason, my flight was being "operated by" another airline - not the airline whose website I visited, and which collected my payment.

A different airline.

... Ergo, a different airport terminal than the one in front of which a taxi deposited me and my baggage.

To my further dismay, I realized I was already about 45 minutes from my scheduled departure; and walking (or running!) between hugely spaced, unconnected terminals at this particular third world airport would not be an option.

So I flailed around trying to find a ride for a minute ... then fumed as I heard a harried shuttle driver bark into a dispatcher's radio, "Ten minutes!  Be there in five to ten minutes!"

I waited.  I fumed.  A shuttle finally arrived, and I climbed aboard with a pilot or two ... a baggage handler ... and sped off toward the correct terminal ... which again, for some reason, did not belong to the airline I was supposedly flying!

Praying this wasn't some sort of mistake (or a sick prank ... Deceived again!) ... I climbed over the pilots, the baggage handler ... Did a lap dance with an elderly couple ... and leapt from the shuttle van.  Ran into the airport and up to the kiosk ... Swiped this, and entered that ...

NO!

My flight, by this point departing in only thirty minutes, was already closed.  As instructed on-screen, I went to 'see attendant' ..

To make a long story medium-length, this lovely lady loved her job.   Respected the uniform she wore, and the corporate logo she represented, and skillfully, helpfully, whisked me to the front of the security line ... Rock star-like bypassing the holiday throngs, with a hastily printed standby ticket for any random later flight (This lovely lady knew things! ;) ... so I was able to get to the gate and catch my flight.  Against the clock, and against all odds.

I'm on that flight now ... and as the sun sets above the clouds, it dawns:

We Americans ... Hectic, obnoxious, harried, demanding, rude, preferring to be left alone; inconveniencing others when we're inconvenienced (often through nobody's fault but our own) ...

Or I, in any case; ME, American ... get the service and treatment too often deserved.

"Freedom, Struggle", ©Jeff Glovsky