I love electronic music. I love making it, listening to it and dancing to it. A big part of that attraction is that technology is to the point that any resourceful person can make music on their cheap computers for virtually no investment. They can do it legally with open source freeware apps, they can code their own synthesis machines with some know how and a free programming language, they can do it illegally by pirating any number of DAW's or they can spend $400 to have capabilities that $20,000 would have bought you 15 years ago. It's incredible what technology has done for us, and it inspires me tremendously.
But that bedroom spirit, that late at night creation with no money spirit is also strong in the poet. A pencil or pen and a piece of garbage scrap of paper something is all they need. Homeless? Doesn't matter. If you have something to say and a flair for articulation pick up a pen and lay it down.
So I went to see my friend and associate Ty Gorton give a spoken word performance at Augie's tonight. First of all, there were some impressive performances, most notably from John Staedler and some cat from Louisiana named Larry. I have recordings of them if anybody wants them. Larry's ending up in a track though and hopefully I'll see him again to make sure it's okay but it has to be done either way!
Ty spoke about the American Dream. It was an excellent poem that rang true, carried weight and possessed wisdom that can only be expressed if you've lived long enough to be abandoned by the false expectations our culture tends to instill in us. He sang the praises of the beauty that can be found in the dream. He mourned it's ultimate failure. The audience loved it and it ended with a punch in the gut.
There were judges because poetry slams are stupid although poetry is great. Anyway, one of the judges was Father Hansen, the priest who started Augie's and the minister of St. Augustine's Anglican Church.
Disclaimer: I go to church from time to time, believe in God, and love Jesus.
Anyway, this Priest gives Ty a 6.66 score to make some kind of statement that nobody really understood. A Priest insinuated that Ty's poem was somehow marked by the Devil. How totally inappropriate and unfitting of a minister! I was totally blown away and offended by this guy. Was it a political thing because Ty made a Bush remark? Was it because this particular man of the cloth thinks that America is actually fulfilling our dreams? Either way, what Priest does that? Ty was pissed.
A Priest carries moral weight, right or wrong, and a priest casually throwing around 6.66 on a scorecard at a poetry slam struck me as incredibly insensitive.
Anyway Father, guess what, Ty spoke of something that is 100% true for him and probably a lot of other people. We do live in a society with backwards priorities that make people sick and depressed. George Bush does speak in single- syllable-appease-the-fearful-masses transparent rhetoric. I was so floored that he threw up the 6.66. It was an incredible insult to Ty's insightful poem and to yourself.
So, there's that, it's said. I also think that people are born gay and women can be ministers. Call me a heretic. Here's Ty's poem for you to listen to or download. Pass your own "judgment".
| tygorton_americandreams.mp3 |
| File Size: | 3196 kb |
| File Type: | mp3 |
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