Metro Musings

Near my job, there is a Starbucks Coffe Shop, and this one happens to be right above a Metro Station in Southwest DC. I was waiting for the PGA to end today, so I jetted down to 'bucks to get a brew. To my surprise, no one was sitting in the large chairs next to the window that look out over the escalators that lead down to the Metro station. It gave me a great perch from which to people watch.

There was this guy standing at the top of the escalators, wearing a blue Washington Nationals monogram cap, a white t-shirt, and jeans. He was skinny - not just skinny, but "I-just-got-out-of-a-Chinese-reeducation-camp-in-Xinjiang" skinny. And this dude was begging people for money. Not the shake-the-cup-and-play-on-people kind of begging. Just putting out his hand, and asking for money as people went down the escalator.

Most people ignored him. Some gave him money. Some looked nervous and glanced away as they walked by and shook their heads. He lit a smoke and kept begging. He was there the whole time I was.

About 10 feet away was a guy selling flowers - roses and mixed bouquets for $4 and $6 respectively. Every now and then he would call out "Don't forget your flowers," or "don't forget your roses."

A pretty brunette in black pants and a blue-and-white striped top stopped and bought a half dozen red roses. She also gave the beggar some change when she went down the escalator.

Then there was the family of tourists - they might as well have been wearing "WERE NOT FROM HERE" on their shirts.

The mom and the daughter came into Starbucks to use the bathroom while the rest of the group waited out by the escalators. Mom and the daughter emerged a few minutes later, but only after mom had looked at a water bottle that Starbucks wanted $10 for.

I don't know if she really wanted the bottle or whether she was just trying to assuage her guilt. Either way, she and the daughter left and went down the escalator to the Metro with the rest of their troop.

A pretty, auburn-haired girl came in an ordered a Venti Vanilla Latté and sat by the window and talked on her cell phone. A large fat, bald guy in a pink shirt and brown pants passed the beggar and went down the escalator. He looked like a man who didn't want to be bothered.

People came and went, passing this guy begging and the flower guy and me in my perch behind the glass.

There was one girl who looked like she had Cerebral Palsy. She was making her way from the Health and Human Serives Building to the Metro. It took her a long time to get across the street

She made it though. She passed the guy begging for money, and as she did it looked like she aimed her body at the escalator, just trying to make sure she could grasp the rail and get down the stairs. As it carried her down towards the trains, she looked at me. I smiled, but I don't know if she saw me. She was probably the bravest person on the street.

A large, muscular Metro bus driver came in and bought coffee. He was a black dude with a pigtail hanging out from under his "Metro" baseball cap. The pretty girl at the window talked on her cellphone, the beggar lit another smoke, the flower guy kept calling out.

Outside people were making their way home, or coming into the city for whatever adventures they were on. And the PGA still wasn't finished.

B.S.U.R. . . U.C.I.M!

This is an updated version of my earlier post featuring some of Doug Pettway's photos from the clinic Click here to see more on Doug's site. Also, check out some of his handiwork - the man is a luthier of the first order!) I had a unique opportunity today - I got to attend a bass seminar with none other than Victor Wooten of Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and the Victor Wooten Band.

I had the chance to videotape most of the seminar for Victor and my bass teacher Anthony Wellington, Victor's former bass tech and a member of the Victor Wooten band (and a fine player in his own right).

Victor started by talking a little and then he just started to play. The brother played for 15 minutes of non-stop, I-just-made-this-up-in-my-head thumping. What a masterpiece. But he also had some really cool - and thought-provoking - things to say.

I couldn't stay for the whole seminar, but for what I could attend, Mr. Wooten laid some heavy stuff on us all. There were about 50 people there - all of them players and I believe all of them were - like me - Anthony's students.

After he blew us all away with this improvised piece, Victor answered a question about playing and I thought his answer was profound.

"We're not really concerned about playing," he said. "We're concerned about what people will think about the way we play. We don't seem to be afraid to play well in front of people. We lose it when we make mistakes."

"But whether I am a good player or a good musician does not depend on you," he said. "I can speak whether you like what I say or not, but my value, and my ability to speak is not determined by what you think of me," he added.

Good stuff, huh. I like how he also related playing music to speaking - it's a voice.

"We don't all speak English the same way," he said. "You don't talk like me, I don't talk like you. Don't expect to play like me when you play bass."

"You can't do what Marcus (Miller) or Stanley (Clarke) or any of those guys do, but that's because you're not them. You are you, and you need to speak the way you talk," Vic said.

I thought that was way cool, because often times we aspire to be like other musicians, but what he was saying was that we don't have to do that. You can be you. And you can express yourself through your instrument, and you don't have to worry about expressing someone else. And when you express what's in your heart, you will not sound the same way as someone else.

But Wooten reminded us that there is always pressure to conform.
"There's not much reward for individualism," he said. "Society doesn't like it, religion doesn't like it, and often we feel we are supposed to play music exactly the way it has always been. But that's not really being true to who you are." Especially if you have the talent and 39 years experience like Victor!

I asked Vic about a statement that Carlos Santana made in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning - he said that he is in the business of putting people in a trance. Vic agreed, noting that Carlos sometimes refused to play indoors and to wear shoes because he wanted to be in contact with the universe.

And he also mentioned talking to your instrument - literally having a conversation with the bass - like "why are you fighting with me!" He told the story of one player - a famous player he did not identify - who sat down and talked to his bassandd thanked it for being what it was. The strings, the tuning heads, the pickups, etc. And when he went to pick up the bass, it almost felt like it jumped on his shoulder. A little cosmic, I know, but there is something to the fact that the created order was made by words - but that's for another post.

Another goody Victor laid on us is when he said that we need to realize that we are all musical, otherwise we would not know what we considered good music. Playing (or singing) is only part of being musical.

In response to another question, Victor said that sometimes it's good to walk away from the instrument. Someone had asked why do players burnout. Vic's answer?

"Have you ever been in a relationship? You have a relationship with the instrument and like all relationships, it can get stale. So sometimes its best to walk away and then when you do come back, you have that fire, that passion."

Wooten said that if he could - if he could support his family another way - he would walk away from the bass for a couple years, simply because he is missing parts of his children's lives that he would like to be there for.

Victor also passed on some practical wisdom about just playing - we often want to play things that are patterns - scales, arpeggios, etc. But we get anxious about making mistakes and when we do, we lose the ability to play the rest of the tune because we are so upset. Vic's advice?

"I sometimes just play wrong notes on purpose," he said. "Sometimes, I will just sit down with the bass and play random things, no pattern, no scale, just jumping around on the fretboard." He illustrated that by doing just that while he was talking.

"If you can get that random thing clean, when you go back to your patterns or scales, they will be really clear," he said. It was great.

Victor also did not seem to care what other kids thought about his playing growing up. He had his brothers, and their input was far more important than his peer group. And his parents also had a big influence on the whole family.

"And they're not even musicians, but they are musical," Wooten said.

Vic was more than willing to answer any and all questions. The seminar was in the Prince Frederick Public Library, and the room was pretty much packed out with players. I don't know what will become of the video tape. I would love to sit down with Vic and a crew and do a seminar like that. Kind of like James Lipton and Inside the Actor's Studio, or like Dr. Billy Taylor used to do on Live From the Kennedy Center

As I said, I had to leave early. But my heart stayed there and will probably be gleaning from this brush with the master for a while. Who knows what will become of it.

Credit Where Credit's Due ...

I recently did something that was pretty painful. The thing itself was necessary (ending a longstanding, but toxic relationship), it was just the way I did it that I sometimes wish I had handled differently.

It made me look at why I do things the way I do, and come to find out - NEWSFLASH - it has something to do with the way I was reared. But thanks be to God, even though my childhood sucked pretty much, I can start over.

I have noticed a pattern in my life - I tend to get into situations where people are emotionally unavailable and abusive - in a kind of velvet glove kind of way. They don't hit me or anything like that - no their abuse is much more subtle. It tends to come off as dismissive - you know, "oh isn't that nice, now get the F*** out of here."

Oh they wouldn't have the fortitude to actually say that. No, it's more nice than that. It usually sounds like "oh, okay, thanks," and then they go and do what they want to and my input is discarded like so much trash. And I guess that's what people do, but where I get hung up is that I try to get approval from these abusers! And why is that?

You got it, mommy and daddy.

Now I don't want to be like the car commercial where the guy with the megaphone is yelling "because daddy never loved me." My parents did the best they could; they just didn't have anything to draw from. So they passed on what they knew - which was toxic waste. And that's why I want to get healed. Because see the insidious thing about abuse is that if you don't get well, you pass it on even if you don't mean to. Even if you say within yourself "I'll never do that !" you end up doing exactly the same thing.

So that's what I am about now. Getting healed. It ain't easy. I find the monster in every corner of my life - situations where I have been acting the same way I learned how to as a kid, but where those reactions don't work any more. It's like the old story of the Tar Baby. The more you hit it, the more you get stuck. But now it's time to get unstuck. Now it's time to be free. And free is much more pleasant than stuck.

I read something one time that said no tyrant ever surrenders territory unless one stronger than him forces him to. Sounds like my life. Sounds like the battle ahead. And I have a role to play in it. But thanks be to God, I am not in this alone. My Liberator is with me, and He will bring it to pass.

When sorrows come ...

they come not single spies, but in battalions. William Shakespeare, Hamlet.

I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately, and I don't really like all that I find. There is a lot of crap inside that goes back many years. But like a tree that has been struck by lightning, even though stuff grows over top of the wound, the damage is still there.

Right now I am dealing with the feelings of neglect. See my family was the poster children for dysfunction. Not to weep a puddle in the middle of the floor, but I find that the toxic crap that went on there affects me now.

Many of the survival techniques I learned as a child, I kept. Albeit they no longer work, but old habits are hard to break. Like a bad golf swing. You have to concentrate on doing the new thing, and let the old thing fade away. But changing your thought life is not as easy as changing your five iron. Thoughts - memories, habits, pains - come unbidden and often at the least opportune time.

And when the current situation mirrors the painful one from the past, I often employ the same strategy. Maybe I get angry and threatening, maybe I run away, maybe I feel depressed. Maybe I lash out. But none of that is what I know I am supposed to do.

So I am having to learn. I'm in therapy, and I am reading a lot of books. And I am having to learn new habits. That's not an excuse, it's just what is.