The art of the lip sync...embodying the role and the sacred art of not upstaging oneself

As you know, we are in rehearsals for our Daylight and Friends New Years Eve Celebration; and practice makes perfect. I am so blessed to have the family I have; the one I was born into for sure!!! And the one I gave birth to most definitely!! I really appreciate how hard they are willing to work! Just today, I started my day rehearsing with 3 different people. The first rehearsal was for the opening of act 2, don't want to give it away, so I will just say it is in Italian (wink).

So, for the last several weeks I have been letting the music seep into my being. I am faced with a few challenges: well, I'm not an opera singer for starters. The piece goes from deep fond longing love to the decision to commit suicide in order to provide the others a greater chance at happiness. There is a certain vulnerability that has to be reached and waded through to make it to that point. For myself, I have lost way too many friends to suicide and I have compassion for people who get to that edge of everything and it seems like the only option. I have stood on that edge with several people encouraging them through the pain to be able to stay with us in the living world. We can only encourage we can never enforce.

I have been taking all of those memories and breathing with those friends as I work on this role. The trick is to not allow it to take hold of me. Sometimes, it can get a bit too inner woven with the fibers of my own being and I have to remind myself of that. The heaviness is so intense. Especially coupled with the intensity of where I have been this past year, this is a highly therapeutic piece for me to be working on... Am I sharing too much? I don't think so. It's like a fart, better out than in.

The other aspect for this particular piece is to learn the meaning of each word I lip sync. What is it she is singing here? I can feel it in the music, but to express it well, it must be understood and embodied.  The song becomes my world. I see the smoke rising, I watch him climb the hill to me as I hide to tease and out of fear of dying at first sight of him. I breathe into the floor and out of the top of my head as I allow the memories of my friends past to surge through me giving me the understanding I need to lip sync my way through to the end.

It is also a challenge rehearsing out of costume. I find it a strong tool. I work to find the honesty of the tale from the inside out. So what if I have a beard right now, I did just shave it off...but still, I must allow the flight and passion of the voice I am embodying to lead me through the range of emotions just craving to be expressed. 

I battle with this a lot. Especially, during rehearsals, Marco will be out chilling with his friends and all of a sudden here she is!!!! Daylight just takes over. It is usually in the shift of a position or maybe a song or attitude that gets turned on.  Makes me giggle every time; this is all part of the show, the masterpiece of life. I work hard at keeping my two worlds separate. When I am Daylight, I do my best to be fully realized, Marco is in third person. And now that I have had such a run, Marco has the pleasure of speaking of me in third person when he is discussing our shows.

I mean, right now, he is leading the rehearsals, so it has been interesting watching the show develop from a bystander perspective. That all changes this week. It is all part of the gout game. Sometimes he is just too physically in pain to allow me stage time, so I sit it out while he wrestles through it all, trying to gain strength so that I, Daylight Cums, can always be fully charged when I take to the stage. He really is so thoughtful. Bless.

Anyway(sssss), what was I even talking about? Oh right. The art of the lip sync. So, the piece I am working on is stunning, just dripping in emotion and finality. The problem is, this particular singer, and I am really trying not to give too much away, really butchers the piece. Don't get me wrong, it is gorgeous, it lifts and carries the listener; that is what she is incredible at; her diction is just not all that. So, I'm learning how to say it all so that I may let it all go and fall into the spaces in between the notes so that I can live in the moment of the music.

This right here is what I love most about rehearsing. We only get to perform it once, but we dedicate hours upon hours in rehearsals to get it right. Learning from our mistakes, picking up our cues each time we run a piece. Learning every subtle nuance of whatever it may be that we are working on so that we can give you the best time you could have ever hoped for. 

That is what I love about my life. I love practicing so that I can get it right. I love the joy I get from every mistake I make in rehearsals; I always try to hold onto that so I can be a part of the final product. And by product I mean performance and by performance I mean life.

We are all in rehearsals together figuring out this silly game of life. We get multiple roles in our lives to help inform as we audition for the next role. Always searching out the challenging roles because they always bring the most growth.

Ah, the theatre. Have to love it!!!

It's that time of year....the art of letting go...or, if your panties are in a bunch, take them off

It's that time of year when I usually start with my writing up my things about my life and myself that I need to let go of or work on. For many many years, Sari and I would take the time out and write our 'intentions' down and we would go some place in nature, usually near running water and we would say them out loud as we burnt each one. We did this as a means of letting go of this or that. Over the years, we have shared this tradition with other close people in our lives. It really is such an incredible experience. 

I usually have the same 10 or 15 strips of paper and maybe another 10 of new things I want to rid myself of.. An always evolving list.  This year, I have just realize that I have let go of almost all of my issues that I burn every year. I'm serious. This year has pushed me to the edge of everything I have ever known and I had to keep letting go of my issues so that I could have the strength to hold myself together as I went through this transformation.

Now, don't get me wrong, I've still got my stuff to work on. However, I can't begin to express how freeing it is to recognize that I am done with this and that.

Most of what I have had to let go of have been my cravings; I have ALWAYS been insatiable, I just can't ever get enough. This rings true specifically to food, candy and alcohol. Three of my absolute favorite things!! My death row meal would be chicken strips with blue cheese dressing and honey mustard dressing, a double whiskey ginger or 3 a peanut butter hot fudge sundae with extra toppings and a pack of sour patch kids. Or, and peanut m and m's, starbursts, a bowl of tiramisu, a Caesar salad and a rare fillet mignon.Having been forced to remove them from my equation of life; has given me so much freedom. I didn't recognize that until this very moment when I was gathering my list of things to write.

My entire life has revolved around food and the service industry. Every aspect of it. So, I've felt a bit like a tourist discovering a whole new world (cue the Aladin soundtrack). It has been almost a year of discovering how to navigate through this new territory; and I'm starting to get the hang of it. I'm not as nervous as I was, the bucked teeth and feathered hair only pop into focus every now and again. I know you've seen it;)

I'm kind of excited, I've been so focused on the pain and frustration that I didn't recognize the sweet feel of the wind on me as I sat relaxed taking in the moment. There are two to add to my list: let go of the pain, especially the phantom pain. Allow the frustration to be there, get to know it so that it is no longer a frustration, but an understanding. I'm going to add shame to the list, it is one that has been on there from the beginning. The shame of being me. All those years of yells, attacks, church, fears and jeers need to roll of of me as water as I allow myself to be carried by the currents of my life. I'm going to find my bouyancy so that I can be one with the water and rise and fall with the tide, my boarders always changing as I roll on, just like the Columbia rolls on.

I am not trying to sound sappy, I am really just blown away by this sense of freedom I feel right now. I feel like I've won, even though I've lost so much.  And... Add the fact that we have been in rehearsals for our New Years eve celebration and creating and rehearsing and taking ideas from the head and placing them on my body and the bodies of my family of performers; first being awkward and unsure and them, bam, there it is girl!! Work! YAAS queens YAAS!!! I'm being challenged for this show too; I'm learning a few new numbers, and pushing myself to express in ways I don't normally do. Feels good!!

I'm I know it is still like a month away, but I am so excited for this NYE!!! Having us all together in the Columbian Theater, us performing for you, you cheering us on, giving us the life force we all require. That ebb and flow of emotions and bodies dancing through the space. Each time, my favorite moment is being surrounded by all of that love and positivity. We've got each other. That feeling of all our hearts pulsing in that room, fills me in ways I can't even begin to express. But it carries me on and on and on and when I feel down or beat up; I just place myself in that circle of light on the stage and I feel you all deep inside of me and all around me and I know I've got this. I hope that you feel the same. Because I send it out to you all on the daily. Really I do. Our community is one of my greatest purposes and pleasures in life! Couldn't ask for a better town to love on!!! 

As we move forward, as the days darken and the pressures surround us; let's us all remember how lucky we really are to have found our place and our heart beat and may we continue to look out for and love one another!! 

You have mine,

Daylight

Breaking the fear barrier....or how I choose the good over the bad..or#bitchgetoffmypole

This time of year always brings me deeper inside. I guess there is less daylight to have me wandering around with my head in the clouds and the flowers; and it it gives me the opportunity to look within and sort out this shit I call life (wink).

I suppose it all began the other evening while I was finally able to assume the position at the altar and take it all in. The candles were lit, the lava lamp flowing, incense in the air and my heart open to the moment and what each breath would reveal. I kept hearing a teachers voice,"Just stay. You want to move, just stay. You think you are done, just stay a bit longer, one more breath." I hear another," lift up through your (the sandscrit phrase goes here) abdomanals and feel your root chakra opening to the space you are sitting on, breathe with the earth." 

I have to call Nicholas. I want to move; just stay. A multitude of reasons to move get in my space and with every breath, I stay. I have had a hard time sitting in my silence, in my head and heart; there has been so much this year from every angle, tempo and dimension. The first thing that pops up is the negative. Why? Why do I always first see the negative? The inner dialogue began," you can't even do what you were going to do this year. Can't  even keep your promise to take the year off from doing stuff. Remember you were going to rest and heal. Yeah, but the moments were right and I had suspended moments in time where I was able to do, and I did and I loved it. Yeah, but you have been a total fucking hot mess all year. Come on, you have been living in sweats for almost a year. Sure, they are cute and fashionable. However, they are bloody sweats!!! Enough already." 

I stayed, I let that tape run without holding onto it or judging it; just letting it run itself out. Next, I saw fluttering of all the wonderful moments of this past year jump in and out of focus as I allowed my vision to melt into the golden glow of the lava lamp, it's slow motion ooze up and down and around, reminding me of my quest of the slug method. Taking it easy and just doing what I can do.

And I did just do that!! I took it easy and I got to be a part of countless incredible heart melting and magical moments. I had been afraid that I would miss out on life if I slowed down to take care of my life. What I have found is that I am living my life fully and completely. I exist within the highs and lows, I have become water and I shift with the tides as the moon and sun tilt us through this dance of life.

I flash to the day I drove myself to parking lot A, and I took 30 minutes to be able to climb up that dune and down to the beach so I could put my frail and inflamed body in the soothing crisp roll of the ocean. I stood there, wanting to be curled into a ball of misery on the sand, I stood on both legs and allowed my breath to flow through me and into the soft sand supporting me; the sun poked through and showered its warmth and beauty upon me, Marco being showered in Daylight. I heard the voices," how can you expect your body to support you when all you do is fill it with fear, hatred and frustration? " from that moment on, to the best of my abilities, I fill myself with only love and kindness. Don't get me wrong, I push and challenge myself, but I don't judge myself or play the negative tapes any more. Those have been discarded. Sure they want to pop up, just like at the beginning of this meditation, but I do not hold on to them or give them power over me in my life.

I do the same with actions, words or intentions towards me. That it your shit not mine. I'm not going to beat myself up because you don't like me, or think I'm too tacky, to loud, to honest or gay. No. Ann, those are your fears not mine.

I lived in fear of myself most of my life. Afraid to shine. As Zora Backdoora says in'Daylight Savings Time'," Daylight, I get it. You are Daylight and its your time to shine." Amen sister! I mean daughter.

Then the words of Nelson Mandela dance across my soul," why should we make ourselves small to make others feel more comfortable." Why indeed.

I like living at my full potency. Right now, my full potential is taking it slow, being more honest and open in my life and taking to the stage as often as I can. I breathe.

I stay.

Her name was something like Claudette Beatrice Bernadette Shutthedoor...or memory triggers from CentralPark and beyond...or, truth is, I'm just afraid

While visiting my brother, Ken, in New York, I kept having the funniest and awkward flashes to my days of living in that city in the mid 90's. Smells are strong triggers for me. My first one came when I was crossing the street at 56 and 9th Ave and I saw the ghost of me dragging 2 rolling suit cases and a military bag filled with laundry to the corner laundry where I would drink my coffee blonde and sweet and eat a bagel with cream cheese, smoke many cigarettes and watch the laundry and the world go by one load at a time. The laundromat is now a bank, whatever.

9th Ave has changed so much! It is a hot spot to be, not the frightening dark place it used to feel like; and there are more buildings now??? Anyway(sss)...

We stopped in the Salloon to see his friend bar tending. This is one of the spots Ken would go with his friend for their happy hour drinks. While there I realized that was the spot where I met up with the boy that I made out with on my birthday at Monster; who lived with his grandma in Queens and had the super straight pubes. That booth in the back was where we met up to go at it again. What is it with me and public making out? Those were the days.

I've always picked them young. I've been teased about it for years. I think my favorite was when I first started working at Cafe Mozart on 96 and Columbus, it was a very interesting restaurant. It was Mafia run for sure, super sexy owners and managers with thick accents and thighs and eyelashes and lips for days. The most dreamy men. But they needed people on the books, you know, who payed taxes..by the end of my first week I was made a manager and we just had too much fun! We were a crazy group of kids who LOVED to party and that is what we did. I made my best club connections there; we were on many guest lists to the clubs so we didn't have to wait in the long lines.

One day, I was slicing a piece of cheese cake when the general manager, so damn hot, told me I would be training a new barista. Funny story, when I first started working there the way they made espresso drinks was the most frightening and uncivil way to respect the beverage. There was a hose from the machine that was placed in a gallon jug and you turned the knob and it would 'froth ' the milk but it just looked like how my milk would look when I would use my straw and fill it with big bubbles. I could not take it. This is New York City right? We should be serving the best, not the worst espresso. Since I had such great training from the first espresso machine Astoria ever had at the Columbian cafe, I trained everyone how to do it right. All it took was for me to make one for the owner and let him taste my milky goodness in his mouth. He was mine!!

So, my new barista arrived and I had to sit down for a second because he was the most gorgeous creature I had ever seen; he turned me on in ways I had never known. His English was pretty good, he learned it all from Madonna. Seriously, he knew all of her songs by heart and at the end of his first shift after spending hours looking into his huge gorgeous eyes that were hedged with the most luscious lashes and sharing multiple cigarettes, he started singing Madonna to me while we closed and I knew I was his.

He came home with me that night. My rule had always been to hook up on the first night so at least I would get laid before the person realized how big a freak I was and ran the other way. My room situation was interesting because I shared it with another fella and it was divided by a simple curtain of faux red velvet, not the best for sound control. I had a boom box and Madonna, it's all good. This is New York City right? ( it was our catch phrase for like 6 months or a year). So we are on my half of the room, my bed was a piece of 2 inch foam I had gotten on a dumpster diving adventure, it was how we furnished the place, until I got my first credit card and then it was all 1-800-MATTRESS!! But for this dream boat of a young man, it was the foam pad on the floor. 

We started with him doing the whole erotica album while we chain smoked and made out and then we got it on. His words made my mind numb, his eyes had me so gagaed out and his body.. And then he finished and rolled off to sleep and left me to fend for myself. I hate that. Help a dude out man. He WAS 18, I could teach him. Our pattern was like this: work, home, sing, sex and sleep. And party party party.  After about a month, I finally got him to let me go to his place on the upper west side. 

He lived with this old woman, Claudette Beatrice Bernadette Shutthedoor, who rented the place and then rented her rooms out to people for high rent. The place was frightening! And I've seen some scary places in my time, but this was the absolute worst place I had ever been and I found it fascinating.

Her living room was at one time nice, same furniture for like 20 years, never moved. I could tell by the mound of dirt and cigarette ash that surrounded everything, including the TV trays. She had huge ashtrays on each arm of her chair and she only drank rum out of the little individual bottles which were over the entire surface of the what I could only hope was carpet.

The kitchen, I can't even relive that moment. I throw up just thinking of the nasty smell of the fridge. Cockroaches not even hiding, they were hanging out watching us make out over a pile of pizza boxes and take out menus.

His room was worse. He slept on a single camping cot and had mounds of clothes and garbage every where; I now understand why he always wants to stay with me. The only good part was that he introduced me to his favors singer from Israel, Rita. Amazing voice and he translated while she sang and it made me so horney. That bed. I already had weight issues and I felt like the two of us on there were going to break it, the cockroaches would have a good laugh for sure. As I am getting ready to do a perfect 10 dismount, he stops me by grabbing my gut and telling me I need to get rid of this for him.

Well, I never.. Actually, I always... Thank goodness for Coke. That got the weight off fast and I got so much done and just partied partied partied. It kept him around for awhile. At like 4 months I find out that even though he had been living with me because I couldn't stand him being there with that frightening woman; he had 4 other guys he was fucking, excuse me? Yeah, I do t play like that. He loved the convenience of me and all the fun we had, but he wanted to be with other men too. He was just sleeping his way to fame. Bitch get off my pole. 

I gave him an ultimatum which he didn't hold to and came back to find all his shit in plastic garbage bags outside the door with the deadbolt latched so he couldn't get in. It took all my strength to resist his pleas and batting eyes, but I was strong and sent him packing and fired his ass too. They always say,'don't shit where you eat' true true.

As frustrating as it was, he really was such a fun moment in my wheel of time. 

Why do the negative words and actions linger longer than the positive ones? What is it easier to hold on to 'you should really get rid of that' instead of 'you have the most beautiful hair'? Why do I give my power away to be accepted? Why do I choose not to react? I think I got so used to being beaten down that to find the path to my own being has made me very afraid. And so I do things like make it bigger, not my gut, my personality and I lift my rib cage higher and I assume the gait of confidence and grace but always on guard for the comment to make me shrink. That shell keeping me protected but also separate from my true being and my true feelings. 

I like to think I'm smarter now; in many ways I am. But that fear still follows me around no matter how strong and connected I become to myself, it still picks at me just under the surface, I choose to look at it as encouragement to keep going. I work hard each and every day to make my fear my friend and most days we go to bed in each other's arms and other days it's like a parking boot has been attached to my gut and everyone knows what that means...

These memories are always such great tools; reminders to not hold on, but to go free without a care in the world as to what anyone thinks. I like that they all make me laugh, I see no shame in any of it and THAT is a good thing for sure. I recognize that I need to get over myself before I can see the beauty and vastness of the skies beyond my borders and I am so excited to venture on and see where I land..