Everything is Beautiful, and Nothing Hurts: No Woman, Yes Cry

Saturday, April 24, 2010

No Woman, Yes Cry

As a once-and-future hipster whose concert-going days have been overtaken by parenthood, I don't get out much. Let's see now--last time I saw a live band was...a year ago. Too long! That's why I am excited to attend the third annual Norman Music Festival with the whole family tomorrow. But I've redubbed it the No-Women Music Festival, and now I must figure out how to explain to my daughter the conspicuous lack of female singers among the fifty gazillion bands in the lineup.

Option #1: "Well, Cora, I guess girls don't make music."

Option #2: "Well, Cora, I guess the Norman Music Festival organizers don't like girls."

Option #3: "Well, Cora, I guess girls don't like the Norman Music Festival."

Tough choice. At least there's Sherree Chamberlain (of Stillwater, Oklahoma, I believe) on the Brewhouse State, Sunday at six. My wife--who deserves credit and/or blame for first noticing the lack of female artists--fell in love with Chamberlain's music last year:

But what's up with all the testosterone, NMF?

2 contributions to the conversation:

AxtonApr 26, 2010 06:46 PM
I guess you missed Those Darlins. They were one of my favorites on Sunday.

On Saturday at Guestroom's garage music showcase there was Indian Jewelry. I don't think the recordings on their myspace do them justice. They were pretty great live and got the crowd grooving.
ReplyDelete
Eric BosseApr 26, 2010 07:01 PM
Actually Those Darlins were my favorite act of the day. (We took the kids home around six, so...) They were awesome.
ReplyDelete

Add comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Everything is Published, and Nothing Is Read

My Short, Happy Life as an Auteur

I am a filmmaker. Or, at any rate, I once was. Between 1999 and 2002, I made several short films, starting with "My Mother Received a Wound"--which showed at a few film festivals and is still featured in the Moondance Festival's annual "best of" restrospective. The zenith (or nadir, perhaps) of my moviemaking was surely MOCK, a 47-minute mockumentary film about a filmmaker who makes mockumentary films. You can watch MOCK and other projects on my Youtube channel if you click here. Enjoy! (By the way, another filmmaker with my name lives in San Antonio. He spells Erik with a k, and his movies are a good deal more accomplished than mine. I'm quite sure he wouldn't want anyone mistaking my work for his.)

What I Have

a. I have indulged in more passions, hobbies, vocations, and interests than anyone I know.

b. I have acted in more than fifty plays, skits, and movies.

c. I have written songs, played guitar, and sung in four rock bands—though I use the term “rock” loosely in one case. Come to think of it, calling what I did “singing” stretches the definition of that word, too.

d. I have worked for years as a music DJ on public radio, hosting freeform, new-release, and international music shows.

e. I have created, designed, edited and published one excellent literary journal.

f. I have edited two other literary journals and a newspaper.

g. I have published hundreds of newspaper articles, columns, and reviews.

h. I have conducted dozens of interviews with artists and public figures I admire. My favorite was a long, dreamy conversation with Lisa Gerrard. She was on tour in Germany at the time, and I was the last person she spoke to that night before she fell asleep.

i. I have blogged about politics, satire, culture, and life.

j. I have co-edited a once-popular political website that is no longer.

k. I have created several journalistic satires of the Bush administration's war in Iraq, and these online satires were viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. (Here is an echo.)

l. I have written, directed, shot, and edited several short movies. Some have shown at minor film festivals in the U.S. and Italy.

m. I have cofounded and codirected a regional film festival (The Pikes Peak Passion Film Festival).

n. I have written about 100 short and short-short stories.

o. I have completed the first draft of a novel that I’m afraid to go back and read. It sits untouched on my hard drive since 2003.

p. I have made significant progress on—but ultimately abandoned—three other novels.

q. I’m developing two or three other novel ideas, and I will hopefully bang out a first draft of one of these eventually.

r. I also have two new short story collections demanding to be written.

s. I have narrated a documentary that showed nationally on PBS.

t. I have traveled to Europe four times (visiting Italy, France, Spain, Poland, and the Czech Republic), Canada several times, and Mexico once.

u. I have taught elementary school students with emotional disabilities.

v. I have taught writing at the university level since 2004.

w. Sometimes, when I’ve looked at my wife and my kids, I have actually felt guilty for being so fortunate.

x. I, like you, have less money than I wish I had. This mitigates the guild I mention above.

y. I have doubts about the wisdom of blogging, and I fear that I may someday regret this. How? I don't know. When? I'm not sure. Why? Because my thoughts here are both publicly exposed and sloppily composed.

z. I have a thing for lists.