my friends the artists; on prodigies, perseverers, & poseurs; more blablabla

-> last night b & i went to a local coffee house to support friend david nigel lloyd as he performed, celebrating his new record "rivers, kings, & curses" being named in the top 15 celtic albums of '08. we walked in & there was his beautiful daughter ursula doing sound for her dad & his amazing wife gita sitting at one of the crowded tables, papermacheing this ENORMOUS HEAD for an upcoming festival!, & there was greg goodsell, slurping it all up like an enormous cat while he posted on his horror/sci-fi sites. we were yakking away, tho i tried to keep it down, watching david & thinking, in another duhhhh moment, sh*t, he is such a PICKER, & not a flashy, show-off one like some i've known, but a technical adept suffused w/heart.
-> i found myself continuously moved, so leaned over to lisa lobasso to state so, & she turned to me w/these tender tears in her big blues. my words would've been gratuitous at that pt; we already were too much like max cady, anyhow, me, b & greg, braying away while david played out his soul, so i shut up... looking at the lloyds in their various spots around the joint, i thought what a crappier place this bakersfield would be w/o them & people like them, & dang i wish there were more. i don't know jack about the role of the artist or really even what an artist IS (i mean, i have my opinions, but the heck do i KNOW??)... but i know it's them.
-> gita, the most remarkable painter/artist i've ever met, one time spooked me when i told her how talented she is. normally laid-back, she turned & looked at me very soberly: "it's NOT talent. it's yrs & yrs of hard work & study." and she went on to say how even offensive it is when people just presume she walked into this world w/the considerable ability that she now has: "oh, you're so LUCKY. i wish EYE could do that": - that kinda thing. in other words, talent is EFFORT, tenacity, altho, tho gita didn't say it, one must also have that flame, be it a smolder or inferno, that creativity & vision, that inspiration (as in "in the spirit"!) that makes the difference between a blake, a bukowski, a bizet & a... (no need to name names. every community has its poseurs).
-> there was a NYer article about types of genius, the born kind & the learned kind basically was what it boiled down to, so what gita was saying, i think, is the artist most often is that learning kind, the one who works, tries, perseveres, processes, sweats, bleeds, cries, realizes, adjusts & adapts, until the muses start to sing.
-> then david was calling me up to sing w/him on his "country" (yeah, what DOES that mean, anyhow??) tune "cúchulainn in bakersfield." it's been about 2 yrs since i'd last sung that w/him, when i did my tiny pt on his record, so ego said stay in your seat, but my gut said your friends the lloyds would like you to go do it, stupid, so go do it, so long story short, i did. david introduced me like i'm wanda jackson, which was very embarrassing, so i said, of COURSE i came up: you were stalling! or were you storytelling? "i was stallytelling," he quipped. we sang it & i don't know how well i did, that wasn't the important pt. the important pt was, i hope it made my friends & the audience happy. and now i need to go play the piano for a while.
www.davidnigellloyd.com and www.gitalloyd.com