"If I Walk Away"

I've been thinking about why it is that Josh seems to still like some fans who have been very critical of him -- and even acknowledged a twitter thread that included an online post with a reference to the notorious Gaby Dunn.

Dunn has been publicly blasting a former lover who is widely believed to be Josh, see e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/03/f--kboy-definition-take-that-haters_n_7471142.html.

Other women connected with Josh have sometimes said negative things as well. I talked about some of this gossip in a previous blog. I have no knowledge about the truth or falsity of any of the allegations, so I just listed some questions, and did not even mention his name.

Many of us had just been hoping that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" and maybe it was just "sour grapes" that made these women so bitter -- hoping it would just blow over.

He had been giving the appearance of studiously ignoring the kerfuffle on twitter and Instagram. He tweeted furiously in a rather detached, professional way about tour dates and public appearances.  I suspected he was scared, though.

Then he put out those tweets that seemed to acknowledge, screen shot below.

This was unexpected. I thought he would just continue furiously tweeting -- giving the appearance of ignoring it all. I inferred from what he said that he hoped people would realize that things were probably not so clear as some of these women were implying.

But why acknowledge it -- and why acknowledge one of his most public critics?

Then I remembered his song "If I Walk Away." I and some commentators had originally assumed that this song was written as some kind of love song; but Josh, in at least one interview, said that this was a song he wrote to his family -- and inner circle of friends -- asking them to let him know if he was letting celebrity go to his head.

He had his brother film him -- walking away -- apparently lost in his own thoughts -- apparently detached from the world around him.  The film seemed to show a performer who was turning on the charm to create an act on stage, while staying a normal, lonely man at other times.

The critical posters have been implying otherwise -- that he was using his celebrity status to sexually exploit adoring women.  I wonder if his family even knew about all this, or dared discuss it with him.

I wonder if, in some sense, those critical posters -- though not his family or inner circle, and therefore not the people he really trusts -- were doing exactly what he was asking in the song.  I wonder if he noticed that.  Even if the allegations are distorted, he might appreciate that people are trying to keep him on track.

The acknowledged tweet was citing this article http://www.papermag.com/2015/08/introducing_our_beta_bro_hall.php

Kali's Song for Josh

My friend, Kali, who also goes by @UltraGrobanite on twitter, is autistic.

She wrote a song about Josh.  She posted the lyrics.

I asked her if she were going to make a YouTube video of herself singing this song. She said she couldn't sing.  I made a chirbit of myself singing this song. 

Chirbit of Kali's song

It would be nice if someone would add instrumentals.  I might do that when I get back to a piano.

Addendum: with the assistance of @maf11, Marie Freitas, there is now a YouTube video

World Hip Hop Competition -- and the Quixotic Quest

I recently learned of the existence of the World Hip Hop Dance Competition. 

http://hiphopinternational.com/

I read an article about this in today’s Wall Street Journal (8/11/15).  The article said that teams were participating from all over the world.  Asian teams have become increasingly competitive apparently, having learned how to do this art Form by watching YouTube. These teams have done bake sales and borrowed money to go to the contests.

My Quixotic Quest for the World Anthem was inspired by Michael Jackson’s “Cry” video, but in fact MJ thought there were three things that would heal the world: Music, Dance, and Children.

After MJ’s death there was a trend, via YouTube, to share videos of dancing flash mobs, dancing to Michael Jackson music, as a memorial to him.  This was one of the things that inspired me on this quest.  

Flash Mob America is a company that started based on these videos, and also inspired by the flash mobs and  Michael Jackson’s hope that Music, Dance, and Children could save the world.  Flash Mob America also uses YouTube to spread visual messages regarding its project.

The “Cry” video posits a single event where a song would be spread, and that has been my concept; but YouTube offers another concept: the spread of art between individuals in a locally small way, but a globally huge way.  

MJ would have been very excited about these Hip Hop contests.  I had a link here to one of his dances, but the link is now broken -- will have to look

So, it’s not exactly the world anthem or the day when the whole world sings it together, but it’s a kind of progress in that direction — and surely having these people participate in dance contests is a peaceful diversion of the kind of energy that might otherwise result in violence

Review: Hedwig and the Angry Inch 8/8/15

I went to see this show this weekend, because I hoped to see Darren Criss. Darren recently appeared with Josh Groban on a bootleg YouTube video of a free Josh concert. After I saw that video, I looked around for other videos on YouTube and found one with Darren being interviewed by Kelly Ripa (don't remember if Michael was there or not).  During this interview, I found out that Darren was doing Hedwig. Darren was also in Glee, which I watched a few episodes of, after learning that Josh and Charice had appeared there. Darren talked about being a straight actor playing a gay man, which made me curious.

Normally, I think it isn't P.C. any more for a white actor to play a person of color. Is it o.k. for a straight actor to play a gay man? In any case, I wanted to see it.

Criss also played a gay man/boy in Glee.

It turned out that Darren had already left, so I got the new guy, Taye Diggs. I'm not sure if he's the first African American playing this role. He certainly made a lot of comments/jokes about being black.

It was also interesting that the person playing the jealous sidekick/husband was a woman playing a man. I actually liked her singing better than his.

Hewig is a hugely demanding role. They have to keep changing actor playing the lead, because people's voices keep wearing out.

This was not the show I expected in other ways.

It said on the poster that it was a comedy. Actually, it's mostly sad, with some sad/bitter jokes, though it ends with an inspirational song.

Also, I found the show quite hard to follow, which was frustrating. I went with a friend who had seen it off Broadway, years ago. He said it was much easier to understand before, because it was less glitzy and overdone.

Another thing I had expected was that this character would have a high voice and be effeminate. Wrong. He was very masculine and had a low, baritone voice, maybe even bass baritone, certainly no falsetto.  It was a bit difficult to buy him as a gay character, because he was so masculine.

The keyboard artist did have a fine falsetto, tho.

Another thing I expected was a high energy, angsty show. In fact, a lot of it was low energy and melancholy.

It was frequently loud, which wasn't entirely surprising, but it was often quiet, so I was constantly putting the ear plugs in and pulling them out, which was also frustrating.

I expected exquisite belting. The guy had a nice voice, but not spectacular.

This particular performer had some strong points. He was great when doing accents and voices. He gave a very good performance of the angry inch song itself. Also, I liked the part where he was stuck in Kansas, watching the world on a TV screen. I thought he did that very well.

However, I felt that a lot of the time he wasn't really in it, i.e. his acting sometimes lacked authenticity. He seemed to get into it more as the show went on.  He seemed to warm up.

There were some intriguing special effects near the beginning where they put down what looked like a net screen.  They projected cartoons/drawings on the screen, which I hadn't seen before.  In other words, the screen was transparent and in front of Hedwig.  You could see Hedwig singing through it, while the cartoons were projected around him.

As I said, this was an intriguing special effect, allowing addition of CG to a stage performance, but I'm not sure it really fit in this show. It seemed more like the kind of thing you'd want to put in a children's show.

They tried to create drama in several places by having the guitar play a really loud chord to start a song. I happen not to like the sound of strummed guitars, especially not loudly strummed guitars, so this did not work for me.

The theater was very cold. I was wearing a sort sleeved, mid calf length tee shirt dress and a light windbreaker, it being August. This wasn't enough.

They also had that mist stuff in the air that they do for Josh Groban's concerts. That stuff makes me nervous. I think it's just water, but I'm not sure.  I don’t think it really adds anything.  I wonder why they use it.

There were some places where they flashed the lights on and off a lot.  This also bothered my friend, and was one of the reasons he walked out.  I sat there wondering if I would find out if I were the sort of person who gets seizures from flashing lights -- at least not this time, it turned out.

They announced at the beginning that the show had adult content, but there were kids in there. I would say that the content was adult, not only because it was sexual, but because it was complex, melancholy, and intellectual -- also sometimes bitter and disturbing. There were long monologues without much else happening. Even if there were no sexual content, I don't think most children would like it.

My friend walked out early because of the noise. He encountered at least one family that left because of the content. I think they should alert parents with small children on the way in, and offer them a refund if they bought the tickets online.

On the whole, I didn't care for the show. Nevertheless, it got a standing ovation. This is the sort of thing that makes me feel like a space alien. I often find this with music, that I have trouble with stuff that other people like.

warning; do not sit front row center at this show or you may get spat upon

On why I choose to look away

In 2012, I went to the Americans for the Arts Awards.  Josh was receiving an award.  I paid $1,000 to attend this event.

There were six of us who were Grobies who knew each other who were there.

The event was held at the Cipriani, across from Grand Central Station.  This facility was essentially one large room that had been a bank at one time, with very high ceilings -- maybe 30 feet high?

In the center of the room was the dining area, which had fancy, carved, wooden partitions separating it from the rest of the room. The partitions were only about six feet tall, not nearly to the ceiling at all.

To the west of the dining area was the area reserved for the people getting awards and performing.

At the entry (north of the dining area), there was a velvet cord across the path to the reserved area.  I was able to talk to Josh's parents and a couple of his high school teachers briefly over the velvet cord.

One of the teachers remarked to me that Josh had always been a wonderful person and had not changed. I did not say anything in response. I truly doubt that being adored by crowds of fans can fail to change a young man.  Still, I suppose he knows how not to appear changed, if he chooses to.

To the east of the dining area was the area for the people who had paid to come to attend this event.

In both side areas, east and west of the dining area, people were served hors d'oeuvres and drinks before dinner.

Then we went in to the central dining area.  The podium/stage was to the south.

Grobies were seated in the northwest corner of the dining area near a sort of window/opening in the partition, which allowed us to see into the area where Josh was.

Gayle, Josh's manager, was standing on the other side of the partition, on Josh's side, right near our table.

Looking through the window, I saw Josh, looking as pale as a ghost, and surrounded by a circle of admiring young women.  I later learned that they were part of a "young artists" group that performed during the awards ceremony.  Josh looked like he was being polite and tolerant.

It seemed to me at the time that this intense circle was an example of something that would change Josh's life.  No really nice person would be able to push through and get near Josh. A nice person would hang back and let rude, aggressive people push forward.  Josh would never be able to meet nice people.

Just outside the circle of admirers was China Chow, in a revealing and stunning green velvet dress. Her expression was inscrutable.  She made herself riveting.  I wondered if she was there as Josh's date.

After a while, my eyes wandered southward, to the left, and I saw a very short woman with dark hair standing at a distance, and smiling broadly at Josh.  Later it was pointed out to me that this short woman may have been Rachel. I can't say whether it was or not.

As soon as my eyes found the short woman, Gayle shouted angrily at me, and perhaps the others, to stop staring.

Someone later pointed out to me that perhaps Gayle had been instructed to prevent us from seeing Rachel.

I reflexively obeyed and went and sat down

Our table was one of the farthest from the stage. I suppose the closer guests had paid more? I made the minimum donation to get in there. I think there was an option to pay more.

Later someone pointed out to me a photo that one of the other Grobies had taken of Josh speaking in front and accepting the award he was given.  In between us and Josh was a table that Gayle was sitting at. At the table with Gayle was the back of a head, a woman facing away from us. The person who pointed out the photo to me felt that this back of head  was probably Rachel.

At the time, I didn't notice that other table -- and I could never say for sure if I saw Rachel before, tho it seems probable that it was she.

After dinner we waited for Josh to come out.  We went back out into the east area and stood and waited for an hour.  Eventually he came out, looking truly ill, and was very nice to us and posed with us for a picture.

I noticed, farther to our east, a line of young women, standing in a raised area that one had to go up a few steps to get to -- so they were above us.  There were at least four of them, maybe more.  One of them was China Chow, facing us and using all her modeling skills to attract our attention to her.  The others were apparently white, and had their backs to us.  They stood in a line, all looking nearly identical and beautiful, and mysterious. It was like that shell game that con artists sometimes play on the streets.  You couldn't tell where the real girl was, if she was even in that lineup at all, which she probably wasn't.

Later, it occurred to me that Josh had hired these people to distract us from figuring out who he was really with.

It was at that point that I stopped trying to figure out who he was with.  I didn't have the motivation to try to penetrate all this subterfuge. I had no clue why he was so very secretive, but I figured it was not worth it to me to find out.

More recently the persistent tweet and Instagram miners have been figuring out some things that might explain his secretiveness. I'm not going to talk about that, because I haven't read all that stuff, and don't care to, tho I read some of it.

i read enough to change my opinion of Josh, for sure, enough to focus back on the music, which is what brought me to Josh in the first place -- and away from the person, a person who I might after all rather not know too well.

******

Tonight, I was remembering something else -- another story. This other story is not directly connected with Josh.  It just came to me tonight, as I was having an extended discussion with someone on twitter about the rumors.

At the college I went to, there was a professor who committed suicide, about 20 years after I graduated.  It turned out that he was a pedophile and all of the stuff he had been trying to hide was about to be revealed.  It was a very sad situation.  He was in some ways a brilliant man with some very good characteristics.

If I recall correctly, this professor had adopted a child who turned out to have fetal alcohol syndrome, and the professor was working with great energy to try to help victims of this condition.

He was an excellent author as well.

I found one of his books later in a bookstore, after he died. It was a book for young teens -- a coming of age book. It was a stunningly good book. I loved it.  It made me sad that the author of this excellent book had died under such tragic circumstances, surrounded by scandal.  I read the book to my kids.

Here's a link:
Sees Behind Trees

I recommend this book. It's excellent.

I don't condone pedophilia at all, but it was certainly connected with some excellent art.

The point -- of my bringing up this story of this other artist -- is that looking at the person behind the art can be fascinating or shocking, but the art is the point, not the artist.  Few people's private lives could stand up to intense public scrutiny.

If intense public scrutiny could destroy the artist, should we be so curious?

Suggestion to Emily Bear

Dear Emily,

I was very taken by your Liquid Sky video.

The song of the hermit thrush is something that has always fascinated me.  

I recorded some of this song in New Hampshire, link below.  Now the sound in this video is not quite accurate, because I had to edit out some background noise — namely my parrot, who kept interjecting his two cents — so the timing is not right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7in2ehhhbU

Here’s a better video, tho it is rather short compared with what these birds really do in the wild.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9vHS6JdHog

Here’s a video with the bird sounds slowed down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvisH_Ix2hc

Here are two piano composition about the hermit thrush

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYFmsmhduWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNkiywugVmY

Here’s another composition about the hermit thrush song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwjmqs4PLZ0 

Another composition that sounds like the hermit thrush 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9qxxc6A8GM (also at 15:40 in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFy0TqDzHII)

Anyway, I thought these things might inspire you.

Pre-sale issues

This was my presale experience.  This was for Josh Groban's Stages tour.

Two days before I made sure that I knew where my presale code was and that my ticketmaster.com password was working.  I made sure it was the presale code and not the fan club store code.  I do know the difference and I checked carefully.

The night before I double checked the website and found rather ambiguous instructions as to how to access the pre-sale.

Even though I am a night owl and generally don't get to bed before the wee hours of the morning, I set my alarm at 8 a.m. to participate in the presale.

I got to my computer 15 minutes before the sale.

I checked the bulletin board about the presale and found that someone had posted a link to a page with links to purchase tickets for all the concerts.

I got everything started.  I copied my pre-sale code into my clipboard and manually onto my paper calendar.  I took out my credit card and set it on my desk.  I opened several windows on my computer. One with my FOJG profile, one with the buy links to all the concerts, and one with the Live Nation page for my preferred concert in Wallingford, CT.

I made sure my phone was working.

I waited patiently until precisely 10 a.m.  Then I pressed refresh.  I tried entering my code where the code was asked for.  The site did not recognize it.  I tried several times.  I tried cutting and pasting.  I tried entering manually.  My code was all digits.  There were no letters that might mistakenly be capitalized or not capitalized.  The site did not recognize my code

I sent an e-mail to the customer service link on the website.

I went on twitter and contacted @audiotaco, who I think is the FOJG representative for Warner Music.  I also contacted @MAF11, who is always right on top of everything in the fan club.  She reads everything and is very attentive and helpful.

Other fans were also having trouble.

After about half an hour, another fan said her code had started working.  So I hit refresh on my Live Nation page and the site did take my code.

By that time, I could not get 2 tickets at my preferred venue.

I wanted 2 tickets at Wallingford, CT in the balcony.  I couldn't find 2 seats together at all.

I could not find two seats in Albany either.

I ended up with one seat in the orchestra at the Beacon Theater in NYC.  

I hate the Beacon Theater: even though it's closer to my house.  Both times I've been there the concerts were over-amplified and I had to wear ear plugs.  

One of these concerts was an Il Divo concert, which you wouldn't expect to be loud at all, but it was deafening.   I have another blog about that experience.  It wasn't just me and my sensitive ears.  My friend who was with me, who is not an Aspie, was having the same problem.

Another concert I went to at the Beacon was the Cindy Lauper "Home for the Holidays" concert that Josh was in.  Josh premiered "Hidden Away" at that concert.  I took the ear plugs out for Josh, because he was a bit quieter than the other acts.  Josh's words were completely incomprehensible, because the sound system was so crappy.  

I'm really disappointed that Josh chose that theater for his concert.

I really wanted cheaper seats, also. I was hoping to spend about $100, not over $200.

There were other participants in this presale, not just FOJG.  I have to conclude that the other participants were given preference at the presale, shutting out FOJG members from the best seats.

I should say that I am using a mac with the Yosemite operating system and Chrome browser.  In the past, Chrome was the most successful browser in dealing with presale issues, but perhaps I should have tried a different browser.  I don't know, but, as I said, the code did start working after half an hour, so it was clearly not entirely the browser.

I am hoping that cheaper seats may become available later.  Possibly they only put the more expensive seats into the presale.  

Addendum
==========

The idea, tho, that they tried to squeeze fans into the more expensive seats during the presale is not an attractive one.  Josh knows or should know that a large portion of his fans are older women of limited means.  Our society is structured so that older women are often at or near poverty.  Josh should not be trying to squeeze such people for expensive tickets.