Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

thoughts

Now with more Asian action?

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A few weeks ago I took an epic phone survey on SEPTA, prompted by a hilarious older gentleman on the other side of the phone.

I know that most people dread these calls, but I delight in them. They are a chance to register my opinion, and to observe a company’s communications in action. This one covered everything – schedules, drivers, cleanliness, safety, advertising – just about every aspect of what SEPTA does as an organization.

My prompter was stunned as I rattled off the litany of routes that I ride in an average month. “Are you a transit inspector,” he asked in awe. “No,” I replied, “just a yuppy musician without a car.”

From there we established strong rapport, and as a result merrily progressed through the dearth of questions with hardly a pause.

After thirty minutes of grueling survey, we got down to the final section – some basic demographic information. Zip code. Household income.

We arrived at ethnicity and I declined to answer, as I have since second grade. Except, my prompter gravely explained, I was not allowed to skip this question – my entire survey would be invalidated. All of our hard work down the drain.

Without thinking, I said, “Fine, then put Asian.”

Elise and her sister were in the next room, and chuckled at my flippancy.

Except, I wasn’t being flippant. Not entirely, anyway. The section was about our household, and as an engaged pair of dependents we’re not just “Caucasian.” Elise and her sister wouldn’t say that. Our eventual, hypothetical children won’t. I’m just the single, white, outlier in an otherwise ethnic household. As a microcosm of the melting pot, Asian is the thing that still sticks out about us.

So, in the context of the survey the “ethnic status that most accurately identifies [me]” was Asian.

That innocuous question made me take note of ways that I’ve become subtly attuned to an Asian perspective in my daily life. I’m noticeably more critical of stereotypical Asian characters in the media. I even reflexively flagged a casting call for Chinese actors, later sending it to Elise and her brother when I realized that I couldn’t attend.

Suddenly “diversity” is a lot more than just a buzz word to me. I respond to diverse advertising more than I used to, and I’m turned off by ad campaigns that make a point of showing diversity just in black and white.

Most interesting was that – though I don’t tolerate any kind of ethnic slur – upon recently hearing a common piece of slang for Chinese I became not only enraged, but viscerally offended.

I usually delight in phone surveys because I feel like I usually learn more about the company than they do about me, but this time I wound up learning about myself.

Living Marginally

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As I’ve alluded to in recent posts, an interesting confluence of events has lead Elise and I to begin searching for our first house a full six months before we intended to undertake such a project.

As we both combed through our finances in anticipation of applying for pre-approval for a mortgage, a certain fact about the two of us became abundantly clear: we are living marginally.

That’s not the same as “living on the margins,” a phrase you might use to describe the forgotten Americans our politicians are currently busy vying over. We are hardly teetering the precipice of hopelessness and debt. Thank goodness.

Instead, what I mean to say is that our lives just don’t cost very much to live, and by extension we have assets but not much equity.

The cost of being us is marginal. We began our adult lives by leaving college with a manageable amount of personal debt. We haven’t owned a car in years, and don’t own our own home. We don’t have any children or pets, or other family members to support. We consume uncomplicated food, and not much of it. We have a finite collection of housewares and consumer electronics that we don’t frequently expand. I quite adamantly dislike vacations, and neither of us participate in a particularly costly hobby or habit aside from music, which is at times a second career.

Essentially, in any given month after rent, food, utilities, and student loans we’re in the clear.

If it sounds like a charmed existence, well, it is. We’re living risk-free. But, that comes with a downside that’s subtly dangerous: we’re naive about how much life costs, and we’re reticent to find out. We have no concept of car insurance or property taxes, or even of paying for parking or needing a lawnmower, and it would be easy to stay this way

Yet, we can’t stay this way if we want to become upwardly mobile adults. No risk, no reward.

Therein lies the thin line between living marginally and living in the margins. You must make the leap into adulthood just right or else you become a forgotten American. You wind up making an effort to make ends meet, and tying up your entire livelihood in the upkeep one major asset – your home – living in fear that its value might drop out from under you. And if the bottom falls out from under your life you don’t just become forgotten – you disappear completely.

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We had to be cajoled into applying for our pre-approval, because we assumed we would be laughed out of the realitor’s office. We read the news – we knew about how bottom fell out of the mortgage industry, taking thousands of forgotten Americans with it. We didn’t think we had a hope.

Well, owing to living marginally, we did; though we don’t have any equity, we don’t have any bad credit either. In the mind of a reeling industry we still represent a good risk – a possible reward.

For a few weeks the potential mortgage check in my pocket made me feel immune to any financial woes. But, now that the euphoria has worn off the sticker shock is settling in.

Can we afford the homeowner’s life? Are we equipped to go from marginal to mobile without falling into the margins?

While I don’t think we will become invisible or disappear completely, both outcomes now loom tangibly, if remotely, over our house hunting. I’ve been invisible before, when I was a child visiting the corner store with a fist full of food stamps. The prospect of returning there – no matter how incredibly remote and unlikely, sets my stomach to roiling.

Life without risk may not be rewarding, but at least it’s comfortable.

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I got so used to my early mornings the past two weeks that waking up after seven makes the day seem short and hollow.

That said, I had to abandon my earlier rise, because the particular alarm clock function that roused me early was at the same time a form sleep deprivation torture for Elise.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2008/07/3350/

Humbling Critique v. Humble Critic

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It seems that my attendance of concerts varies inversely with my enjoyment, and as I become more ubiquitous at local open mics and active in the local music scene I am increasingly unable to enjoy the music of anyone else unless they are completely flawless.

(Recently, Ani DiFranco, but locally Alexandra Day.)

Other than those bastions of perfection, everything is open to critique – whether I’m trying to be critical or not.

Last month I saw an indie musician who could not get his physical and vocal tics under control long enough to simply sing one of his strong songs. A few weeks ago we saw Regina Spektor open for Ani DiFranco, and I criticized her enunciation and her poor setlist compilation abilities.

Last week at an open mic I rolled my eyes at a hapless guy who played three songs all in the same position. Last night we saw a local band, and I didn’t think anything was in the right key for the singer, and their bassist was useless.

I was a critic to begin with, but now that I’ve been playing more actively I’m all-too-cognizant of all the ways a performer can go wrong, and as soon as I spot one I can’t help but be cruelly unforgiving of its performer.

Critiquing Regina is one thing – she’s a major label hit that ought to know how to open for an audience of strangers by now. It’s the other examples that are more dangerous. If I can’t appreciate and complement other independent and local performers then I am always going to be that asshole with the ego, and people will judge me even harsher for it.

I know I’m not perfect – I’m brutally cognizant of my many flaws as a performer, and they’re the primary reason I don’t perform or record more often. I suppose I just expect every artist that have the same ruthless urge to self-censor until improvements can be made. And, when I do it on their behalf it makes it hard to make connections or friends, and you need both to get noticed as a local musician.

If I was Regina I would have started with one of my crunchy pop hits and followed it with something alliterate and obscure to catch the less mainstream Ani fans. But, maybe that’s not how she’s gotten this far, so who am I to correct her?

But, if I was an indie on my first tour, grasping for new audience members, I’d play in the mirror more often. If I was that hapless guy I would have found a different position to play my song in, or played something in a different key for my middle song. And, if I was the lead singer last night I would have taken voice lessons, tuned down a few of my songs, and backed off the mic.

I have shared all of those flaws, and because I am me I have enacted each of those solutions – because I am ruthlessly eliminating anything anyone could dislike about me until the until reason left to dislike me is me myself.

But, I can’t afford to be so ruthless towards everybody else, or I’ll never have any one receptive in an audience to appreciate all my betterment, and to spread the words to their friends.

Or, via the Larry Sanders Show:

What have we learned here? When you’re vulnerable and humble, people like you. When you act like an asshole, people tend to think of you as an asshole.

Independence Day, redux

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It used to be that I spent every Fourth of July thinking I should record “Independence Day,” but thanks to a rare independence motivation last year now I can spend a few enjoying my performance of it – at least until I think I can do better.