Songs for the Struggling Artist
By Songs for the StrugglingArtist
*In each episode, I read a post from my Songs for the Struggling Artist blog and play a song at the end.
Gen X Podcasts
On the Gen X subreddit, someone wrote a post titled “Anyone else hate podcasts?” and asked if anyone else felt like they were the wrong generation for podcasts. The OP (on Reddit, the person who posts is called OP for Original Poster) says they can’t stand all the chatting by Millennials on podcasts, so they hate podcasts. They received a lot of support for this post. It has over four thousand upvotes and the comments are full of my generational peers piling on about how much they hate podcasts and how dumb they are and how full of annoying younger people they are.
To keep reading Gen X Podcasts visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 451
Song: Soft Serve
Image of my podcast stats for The Dragoning from a few years ago.
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
An Obdurate Donkey
Recently, it occurred to me that part of the reason that I remain in the arts, despite very little obvious success is that I am really just a stubborn cuss. I will not give up, no matter how much it would make sense to. I will not yield. I will not surrender. It’s not that I won’t face reality; I am well aware of how bootless this seems, how steep the odds are. I just refuse to give up. I hear all the stories about the old timers plugging away and, in my youth, I remember laughing at them, thinking, “Wow, they just can’t get a clue, huh?” And now that I am an old timer, I know I have a lot of clues – and I am just choosing to ignore them. Stubborn-ness is maybe necessary in this field.
To keep reading An Obdurate Donkey visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 450
Song: Donkey
Image by Dawn Tree via Unsplash
To support this podcast:
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Twenty Smiles a Day
A doctor I heard on a podcast said he prescribes all his patients to smile twenty times a day. It sounded very convincing on the podcast and I thought, I can do that! Then I hesitated. For women, it can be a little loaded to be told to smile more. I don’t LOVE this for that reason but I do understand the benefits and the rationale. Smiling is good for you! And then I thought about how dramatically my relationship with smiling has changed over the years. As a girl, and then as a young woman, I smiled ALL THE TIME.
To keep reading Twenty Smiles a Day visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 449
Song: Sara Smile
Image by Kacey Anisa Stamats of Emily Rainbow Davis and Emily Hartford in Messenger Theatre Company's As We Like It
To support this podcast:
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
John Proctor Is the Villain Made Me Cry
I have this idea that I don’t cry in the theatre. Movies, yes, all the time. TV, yep. But I think I don’t really cry at plays. It’s not true, though. It just doesn’t happen very often. And pretty much every time it does, it’s such a remarkable piece of theatre that I feel like I have to write about it. It happened at Indecent. And at One Night Only. I have noticed that I only write about a show when it has either really made me mad or made me cry.
I don’t know what I want to tell you about John Proctor Is the Villain aside from how hard it made me cry and how it got me when I was least expecting it.
I don’t get to see a lot of explicitly feminist shows on Broadway (that’s because generally there aren’t any) so I felt it was absolutely my responsibility to go see this show.
To keep reading John Proctor Is the Villain visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 448
Song: Green Light
Image by Cornellrocky via Wikicommons
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Yes Of Course I Feel Bad About the NEA Stuff
It’s very possible I’m just becoming numb to the relentless cruelty and bad decisions happening in our country but the news about the National Endowment for the Arts didn’t bother me nearly as much as I would have thought. Maybe if it had happened first? Like, before USAID and before all the “deportations” that are really kidnappings and before all the privacy violations and before all the flagrant attacks on the First Amendment, maybe I’d be more upset. But when the news broke about the National Endowment for the Arts (The NEA) revoking funding it had previously granted, I didn’t feel nearly as bad as I felt I should. It is awful, of course. Many arts organizations were counting on that funding to do their shows, implement their programs, pay their artists, continue their missions. It is genuinely terrible, of course! That’s money the Federal government promised them and then pulled away like a governmental Lucy, yanking the football out from under Charlie Brown. There is nothing good about it.
To keep reading Yes, Of Course I Feel Bad About the NEA visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 447
Song: Party in the USA
To support this podcast:
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
This Forwardness Makes Our Hopes Fair
I think a lot about this dinner I had with my clown teacher many years ago. I was in my late 20s and I was recounting my plans to put on a show. I don’t think it was far enough along yet to have been a plan for starting the theatre company – but it could have been, because that is what it ultimately became. This was the show that led to the company. In any case, I enthusiastically laid out my many hopes and dreams and plans to this beloved teacher of mine and she smiled and said something rueful about the gifts of being young and having such faith in our plans. I don’t remember the words – just the sense of it.
To keep reading This Forwardness Makes Our Hopes Fair visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 446
Song: Love Is a Battlefield
Image of me, Emily Rainbow Davis, directing The Golden Apple many years ago.
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Tell a friend!
Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Kill Your First Born
If you’ve spent time in writing circles or writing workshops or writing advice threads, at some point you will have run into the concept of killing your darlings. This is the idea that sometimes you have to cut the parts of your text that you love for the greater good of your piece. Some people take this idea so seriously that they cut their darlings unilaterally – just “Do I love it? It’s got to go.” Personally, I think this is going too far. It’s possible your darling is the heart of your piece. You’ve got to evaluate it as a whole to really know if that particular darling needs to be killed.
I recently realized, though, that one of the darlings I often have to kill is the first one.
To keep reading Kill Your First Born visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 445
Song: First Born
Image by Jen Theodore via Unsplash
To support this podcast:
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Tell a friend!
Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
I'm Worried About the Coffee
And here’s the thing that’s really freaking me out. It’s set in Marseille in France in 1940. The US hasn’t even entered the war yet. And everywhere they go, there is only terrible coffee. Over and over, the main character drinks undrinkable coffee or brown water standing in for coffee. And I know this is not nearly as bad as the bombings and the arrests and the people being ripped from their families but even the rich people in this book have to drink terrible coffee.
To keep reading I'm Worried About the Coffee visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 444
Song: Java Jive
Image by Nathan Dumlao via Unsplash
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Tell a friend!
Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Arts and Charity
In the last handful of years, NYC has been doing something called Participatory Budgeting, which allows us to vote for which projects we’d like to see funded in our district. It’s mostly small budget proposals for schools or parks or community groups. It’s a nice idea, though I’m not sure how well it works in getting things funded. I got an email for this round of projects recently and in looking at the choices, I noticed there were some arts projects included this time. And I also noticed that my first inclination was not to vote for them. But if I don’t vote for kids to have a theatre program, who will?
To keep reading Arts and Charity visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 443
Song: Brother Can You Spare a Dime?
Image by Jocelyn Wu via Unsplash
To support this podcast:
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Federal Arts Funding
In the midst of all the chaos and my friends losing (or preparing to lose) their federal jobs, several of them have asked, “But what about you? Are you losing funding?” And it’s so sweet. It’s so kind of them to check on me and I am grateful that people in such despair are thinking of me too but a part of me laughs very hard at the notion of my tiny theatre company losing federal funds. I don’t think I even know anyone who has ever had any federal funds.
The fact is, we have virtually no federal support of the arts at all in this country and have not had it in most of my lifetime.
To keep reading Federal Arts Funding visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 442
Song: Federal Funding
Image by Diliara Garifullina via Unsplash
To support this podcast:
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Choreography for Kids
Recently, I went to see a middle schools’ production of a musical. It was one of the Broadway JR series shows – where they do an edited version of a Broadway show and sing along to pre-recorded tracks. I used to teach for a program helping to implement these shows so I am pretty familiar with what the deal is. They’ve become very popular and the program has succeeded in getting a lot more kids into musicals. That’s pretty cool.
When I asked a kid in this production about the dances, she told me that the choreographer had just taught them dances from videos posted on YouTube from another school’s production. She noted that this “choreographer” got mad wherever anyone had any questions. I found myself troubled by this news. In the program, this person is listed as choreographer, despite, it sounds like, having stolen the choreography from another school. What a terrible example to set for the students.
To keep reading Choreography for Kids visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 441
Song: Dance With Me
Image by Yan Berthemy via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Forgetting Feminist History
During the Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable for documentary filmmakers, the woman who made a doc about Frida Kahlo said, “There’s a whole universe of people who are incredibly invested in Frida. We heard from a few, making sure that we didn’t call her a “feminist,” because that word didn’t exist when Frida was alive.”
I don’t doubt that a lot of people are invested in Frida Kahlo and I don’t doubt that her feminism is contentious – but “feminist” was absolutely a word in Frida’s lifetime. It had been for many years by the time she might claim or not claim it. It’s possible it was not yet popular in Mexico but at least here in the states it was well known enough to appear in newspapers as early as the 1910s. They dedicated a lot of space to the subject. There were debates here in New York City.
To keep reading Forgetting Feminist History visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 440
Song: Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone
Image of Members of the 19th Airlift Wing & the U.S. Air Force ‘Wings of Blue’ Parachute Team, which was just deleted from the U.S. Air Force website. (I lifted this from the Mighty Girl Facebook page. No photo credit given.)
To support this podcast:
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Wave Him Through
As I stood on the corner, waiting for a walk signal, a tall man in a long coat came to stand next to me. When the light changed, I started to go but then noticed that this man next to me was waving a car to go ahead of him into the street before us. The car hesitated. I suspect the car could see that there were two of us waiting to cross, only one of whom was waving, and pedestrians have the right away. The tall man was insistent, however, and the car drove through the crosswalk, down the street. The tall man strode on ahead, clearly pleased with his magnanimity and I crossed the street, behind him, absolutely furious, glaring all the way.
To keep reading Wave Him Through visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 439
Song: Walk On By
Image by Possessed Photography via Unsplash
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Tell a friend!
Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Not Into Politics
In the days before the election, my friend made a LOT of phone calls on behalf of the Harris campaign. He spoke to quite a few people who were truly undecided. They really exist! He told me about someone who said, “I just don’t know anything about the candidates.” And I was so jealous of them! How is it possible to avoid knowing about these people? I do not TRY to learn a lot about these folks – but it feels like it’s just in the air. Are these folks not breathing the same air as me?
But, really, though, it must be nice to be wholly unaffected by American politics. I know people around the world who know tiny details about our political mess – but meanwhile there are people who live here who do not know what’s going on. They go on about their lives with no thought for what’s happening in our government. “Must be nice,“ I think.
To keep reading Not Into Politics visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 438
Song: The Fox
Image by Tomas Malik via Unsplash
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
My Computer's New Nickname
When I first got a computer, I gave it a name. I don’t remember which one came first, Bertram or Mr. Finkelstein. I believe I named my hard drive in college; It was the Stinky Cheese Drive. I don’t know when I stopped naming my computers but I think it’s been a few years at least.
Then the other day, I told my friend I was going to go check in with my digital world and he said, “Oh, are you going to go look at your Good News Machine?”
To keep reading My Computer's New Nickname visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 437
Song: Don't Nobody Bring Me No Bad News
Image - Smiley pic by chaitanya pillala and Laptop pic by Devin Pickell via Unsplash
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
I Went to See a Play About a Quilt
The main reason I wanted to see The Blood Quilt was because it was about a family making a quilt together and having made some quilts with my family, I was interested. I don’t see a lot of plays about stuff I know about so I was curious. Would I gain some insight into my own experience? Discover some hidden metaphor in my family’s crafting? Would I learn something about crafting – or maybe the craft of playwriting?
To keep reading I Went to See a Play About a Quilt visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 436
Song: Names
Image of the quilt I made, with my family, for my friend's baby
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Tips for Structuring a Creative Life
When I graduated from college, I went straight into my first acting job which was a six month Shakespeare tour that was pretty intense. It was very full time. But then, when I wasn’t re-hired there, which had been my plan, I was suddenly out of work and out of a structure for my time. It threw me for a big loop. I began, then, the process of hustling to get more acting jobs, but also the process of making sure I continued to create things. This second thing is the most significant in how I build my life today.
Part of the reason I suspect people get so curious about “how I spend my days” is that unstructured time is sometimes a challenge for the busy person. They think, “I don’t know what to do with my Sunday, what would I do if I didn’t have that job?” and they wonder what I’m doing with a life full of Sundays.
To keep reading Tips for Structuring a Creative Life visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 435
Song: Everyday
Image of Margot Zemach's artwork for It Could Always Be Worse
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Listen to The Dragoning here and The Defense here. You can support them via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany
As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
The Song That Broke the Dam
I don’t know if I hadn’t cried yet about therapist-in-chief being elected again or if I’m just forgetting all the other times I’ve cried before, but I do have a sensation of not really dealing with or processing this reality thus far. I’ve been pretty numb and disassociated. I know that much. I didn’t even mention the forthcoming transition of power in therapy a few days before. Oh, Trump? Is that happening? La di da.
Anyway – a crack in the dam appeared when someone postedLily Allen’s cover of Rufus Wainwright’s song, “Going to a Town,” recorded at a march in England, the last time we did this.
To keep readingThe Song That Broke the Damvisit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 434
Song: Going to a Town
Image byConstante Lim via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Monologue from a 1913 Suffrage Meeting
Just a little extra this week.
This is a monologue written by Marie Jenney Howe for a 1913 Women's Suffrage meeting.
I found it while doing some research for a project about a women's secret society and couldn't resist recording it for you. Some things will feel familiar even now, over a hundred years later.
This is a Bonus Episode
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Will This Residency Be Kind?
This residency opportunity popped up in my feed. It sounded amazing. A week in a castle with artists from many disciplines on an island off the coast of England? A collaborative exploration in conversation with international artists and the tidal patterns? Yes, please. I could use the magic of a castle and a group process by the water. How do I apply?
I was all ready to hit the application button when I noticed the specification that artists be “reasonably fit” and prepared to be outdoors in all weather. This gave me pause.
To keep reading Will This Residency Be Kind? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 433
Song: Castle
Image of the Jersey castle via Wikicommons
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Sh*t Bag Shelf
I confess that when the news started to come out about Neil Gaiman’s terrible behavior, I did not dig deep on it. I really did not want to know. As a fan of his work, and maybe even a student of it, this particular dark turn was one I did not want to be true. I assumed it was true and I assumed it was bad and yet I sort of sang to myself, with my hands over my ears, hoping it would go away.
But at the same time, as a public feminist, I felt like it was probably my duty not to turn away from my favorite author’s comeuppance. So I listened to the podcast that investigated and explored the allegations.
To keep reading Sh*t Bag Shelf visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 432
Song: King of Anything
Image of the beginnings of the Sh*t Bag Shelf by yours truly.
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Discoverability Is the Issue
While talking with a friend about the ups and downs of making money from writing on the internet, it occurred to me that almost all the support I receive is from people who know me in real life. There are exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of support comes from friends, family and friends of friends and family. As I told my friend, I have found that my only successful marketing strategy has ever been to make friends with people. And truth be told, I tend to think of any supporters I haven’t met in real life as friends, too. So…I don’t feel like there’s anyone there who isn’t a friend.
To keep reading Discoverability Is the Issue visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 431
Song: Cherry Tree
Image by Annie Spratt via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
What Should We Do With All This Bad Art?
The dance piece was genuinely terrible. The dancer couldn’t really dance. The choreographer seemed to have a four movement/gesture vocabulary and the “concept” was cringe-inducing. I could tell you more about it, and I’m tempted to, because talking about terrible art can be very fun, but I think any further details would start to be hurtful and maybe mean. These artists have no real power yet. They don’t deserve a take-down.
I spent about a third of the piece trying to imagine what jobs these people would have in the future where they would tell their co-workers, “I used to be a dancer!” And they’ll say, “Really? How wild!” And then they’ll all go see the latest Nutcracker together.
If it isn’t already obvious, these artists were young. They had not yet acquired any skill or vision or discernment. They were given an audience and a platform they were not ready for and it was hard to watch. Was I jealous? Absolutely. I’d love for someone to gift me a stage and an audience. I do not take such things for granted. But I also don’t blame these young artists for their wretched show.
To keep reading What Should We Do With All This Bad Art? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 430
Song: All This Useless Beauty
Image by Tania Malréchauffé via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
America Hates Women a Lot More than I Realized - Or, Thoughts from the First Week, Post-Election
When I spent my junior year of college in Italy, I found myself not particularly bothered by the catcalling there. While there was a lot more of it, it always seemed kind of good natured. When I walked down the street, men shouted, “Bella! Ti amo!” (“Beautiful, I love you!”) And you know, I didn’t mind because I felt no implied threat behind it. It just felt like a kind of sweet spontaneous expression of appreciation.
When I got catcalled in the US, my home country, there was always something kind of dark and aggressive behind the catcalls. Someone telling me to smile suggested that they’d give me something to frown about if I didn’t comply. Also, “Nice tits,” isn’t quite as pleasant an interaction as being told you’re beautiful and loved. No one in America would ever shout “I love you!”
To keep reading America Hates Women a Lot More than I Realized, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 429
Song: Cose Della Vita
Image by one of my friends (Probably Rachel?)
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
The Little Sister Effect
My jaw hit the floor when Catherine O’Hara, comedic genius, said she used to tell her ideas to Dave Thomas so he could pitch them to their SCTV group instead of her. Catherine O’Hara?! One of the most innovative performers we have, had as much trouble getting ideas out in a meeting as a lot women have?! She was ona podcast, telling this to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a similarly remarkable comedic mind, who then shared that she, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, still, after decades of comedic accomplishments, has to push herself to pitch her ideas. These are two of the greats. Both of them came up in groups where they were often one of two women in groups of men and surprise, surprise, experienced the same sort of difficulties many women have encountered. In these ensembles where the competition was for the funniest bit, the most effective laugh, they managed to succeed but it sounds like it was not easy. It sounds like they experienced a lot of something I’ve come to call The Little Sister Effect.
To keep readingThe Little Sister Effect,visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 428
Song: Sister Golden Hair
Image byKyle Nieber via Unsplash.
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Trying to Write the Day After the Election
It’s the day after election day. It was a rough night and I’m here at a café on the Upper East Side to write through this difficult moment. It’s 75 degrees in New York City in November (Nothing to worry about! No global warming to see here! Good thing no one’s declared a climate emergency yet!) so the patio is more full than usual. The man at the table next to me turns his body to directly face me, away from his table. It is a full body stare.
To keep reading Trying to Write the Day After the Election, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 427
Song: Every Breath You Take
Image of a staring man by Jordan Koons via Unsplash.
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
The Canon Is Stuck
My library finally re-opened post-pandemic and I went in for a celebratory look around. Though it supposedly had been re-modeled, it seemed to look exactly the same. (Except now there seemed to be no way to access the card catalogue? WTF?) I took a look at the theatre section because, you know, Theatre Nerd, and was struck by how much the selection of plays resembled the selection of plays that were in the library when I was growing up. It struck me that the accepted literary canon of theatrical greatness has not really been updated since the 1950s. When I was growing up, the theatre section looked like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. And today, the theatre section looks like mostly Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. This doesn’t mean that theatre folk only read Miller and Williams but I think it does mean that the culture as a whole still only considers Miller and Williams worth keeping in the collection. There may be a scattered addition from a contemporary writer – maybe if it’s a library that’s really trying to expand, you’ll see some August Wilson or Suzan Lori Parks or an Anna Deavere Smith. My library had an Annie Baker, even. But for the most part, in libraries and bookstores across America, the bulk of a theatre section will be Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams – maybe, on occasion, some Mamet, Albee, Simon or Durang – but most shelves will be the Miller and Williams collection. I’m curious about this.
To keep reading The Canon Is Stuck visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 426
Song: Love Me Tender
Image of the Queens Public Library play shelf by me, Emily Rainbow Davis
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Something I Was Thinking About On Election Day 2024
Trigger Warning: I don’t think this piece is any more triggering than just living in the world at the moment but if you’re not feeling like reading the words r*pe and r*pist a bunch, just skip this one, my friends.
*
It’s Election Day in New York City. Astoria, particularly.
I see a guy in a Trump baseball hat. We don’t see a lot of those around here and I hope we never will again but watching him make his jaunty way up the sidewalk playing his air piano, I started to think about how he’s marked himself as someone dangerous, someone to avoid.
To keep reading Something I Was Thinking About On Election Day 2024 visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 425
Song: Step Off
Image by Bernd Dittrich via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
An Ode to Professor Bobo
A video I saw on BlueSky of a guy playing a cigar box guitar, while wearing a tin can helmet/mask, made me think of a teacher I had many years ago. That teacher told us to call him Professor Bobo (his name was Bobby Hansson) and he wore loud Hawaiian shirts with even louder wide neck ties. He had a big white and grey beard and his straight gray hair was cut a bit below his ears. He had the look of a 70s Santa on vacation. I adored him.
I took a workshop with him at Penland School of Crafts at the suggestion of a friend who was a full time student there. Even though I didn’t have any particular interest in his subject matter at the time, she knew I would be inspired by his style. The class was Tin Can Artwork and today I’m even gladder that I took it than I was at the time.
To keep reading An Ode to Professor Bobo or to see the image better, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 424
Song: The Tin Can Man
Image by Bobby Hansson
Video about Bobby Hansson here.
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
The Resistance Will Be Recycled
A few days after the election, I received a piece of writing in my email inbox about art and fascism. It was a thoughtful piece and good advice but I also thought, “Yeah, I wrote almost the same piece in 2016. This lady’s is a newsletter, mine was a blog but the content is almost exactly the same.” Did this lady copy me from 8 years ago? No. Not a chance. She’s a big shot. I’m sure she’s never seen my blog.
I think what we’re seeing is that there’s not much to say this time that we didn’t say the last time our country elected an authoritarian fascist. (The same one!)
To keep reading The Resistance Will Be Recycled visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 423
Song: Here Comes the Rain Again
Image by Andrea Huls Pareja via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Please Don't Start Your Play Like This
It had been a long time since I’d seen a play, so I was kind of excited when the lights went down. When they came up, one of the three women on stage said, “Where should we begin?” and my head just sank into my hand in disappointment. I instantly knew the play I was going to spend the next couple of hours with, would not be great.
To keep reading Please Don't Start Your Play Like This visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 422
Song: Start With the Ending
Image by Markus Spiske via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
What Can I Say to Keep You from Putting Your Finger in that Socket?
As I rounded the block of my polling place, I saw a couple bent over one of the VOTE HERE arrows on the sidewalk, filming a video. They were wrapping up, saying something about saving our country. Then they noticed me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the look they gave me when they looked up and saw me approaching. It was a kind of chagrin, I think – but also a lot like the look a child will give you when you catch them doing something you’ve expressly told them not to do. “No hitting!” you’ve said and then, you round the corner and they give you this look. You know what they were doing.
Based solely on this look I received, I assumed those two had just voted for Trump and it made me wonder, “Do they know they’re being assholes? Is that why they look so guilty? Do they know they’re doing a destructive thing and is that maybe why they’re doing it?”
To keep reading What Can I Say to Keep You from Putting Your Finger in that Socket? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 421
Song: Houston We Got a Problem
Image by Parzeus via Wikicommons
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
I Am Not Compliant
My doctor had a trainee with him so he kept telling her things about my treatment and the way he viewed what has happened to me. He heaped praise on me, saying how he wished all his patients were so compliant, how I did everything he told me to do, what a good patient I have been. I wanted to puke.
To keep reading I Am Not Compliant visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 420
Song: Need a Little Time Off for Bad Behavior
Image by Jonathan Pielmayer via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
My Laptop Is in Memphis
My guitar tuner ran out of battery recently so I ordered a new one, popped out the old one and replaced it. It took no time at all and cost me a couple of bucks.
The battery in my laptop started to fail so I took it to the Apple store, as recommended, and had them look at it. Yep, needs a new battery, they said. $249. But Apple devices are not designed for us to pop out the batteries and replace them. They designed these things so that they, and only they, can change them out. It’s annoying, but okay. I expected to hand them my computer for an hour (maybe two), pay them the $249 and take home my device, newly empowered.
Let me tell you. It did not turn out that way.
To keep reading My Laptop Is in Memphis visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 419
Song: Houston Dubai
Image by Patrick Konior via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
What We Store, What We Delete
My laptop’s battery has been behaving badly so I made an appointment to have it looked at. The confirmation message said I should update my software before my appointment so I set about making that happen. Unfortunately, I did not have enough storage space to update my operating system, so I had to set about clearing some stuff out.
To keep reading What We Store, What We Delete visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 418
Song: 7:30 by Bright Red Boots
Image by Ula Kuzma via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Apple Seems to Be Getting into My Business
When Chase bank charged me $15 for not having enough money in my account, I switched to USAA bank. I felt very strongly that people (and especially me) should not be penalized for being insolvent. I went with USAA because when my friends would put down their cards after a meal and discovered they all had USAA, they would all commence to talk about how much they loved their bank. I had literally never heard of anyone loving their bank before so when Chase let me down with that $15 charge, I signed up for USAA. Twenty two years later, I still have the same bank but I’m considering making a change and I suspect general enshittification and the rot economy are to blame but also, very plausibly, Apple.
To keep reading Apple Seems to Be Getting into My Business visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 417.
Song: One Bad Apple
Image by Rayson Tan via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
"Can You Make a Living Doing That?"
An artist friend of mine is about to meet a lot of new people and is dreading the conversations that will include the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?”. She knows when she tells them she’s an artist, they’re going to ask, “Can you make a living doing that?” and it’s going to make her feel bad.
I don’t know why people feel like this is a socially acceptable question to ask artists but I, too, have been confronted with these sorts of responses when conversing with civilians. When I was an actor, people used to say, “Oh, really? You’re an actor? What restaurant do you wait tables at?” Har, har, har. I think they meant to express some secret knowledge they felt they had about the difficulties of being an actor but it was always such an uncomfortable moment. For me, my answers were: “No, actually, I’m working as an actor.” “No, actually, my day job is teaching.” “No, actually, I’m temping.” For my friends who did work in restaurants, sometimes they felt they had to play along, laugh at the joke (which was their life) and name the restaurant they worked in.
To keep reading "Can You Make a Living Doing That?" visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 416
Song: Make a Life, Not a Living
Image by Amauri Mejia via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
I Let You Down SInéad
The loss of Sinéad O’Connor hit me harder than I would have expected. I hadn’t been much of a fan in her glory days and while I respected her, I hadn’t paid her much mind in the intervening years. I suppose I’d imagined she’d always be here and I looked forward to seeing what an old lady version of Sinéad might get up to and then suddenly she was gone. In the outpouring of press in the wake of her death, I learned a lot about her and saw many clips and I started to feel embarrassed about my previous disinterest. The film about her was made available on the anniversary of her death so I watched it. I felt I owed it to her.
To keep reading I Let You Down Sinéad, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is episode 415
Song: Mandinka
Image of Sinéad O'Connor by Bryan Ledgard via Wikicommons
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Missing Writing Practice
One of the things about maintaining a pretty regular practice over the years, is that one really does start to depend on it. In recent years, I’ve hardly ever missed a day of writing. I fight like hell for it and mostly I succeed. It is the anchor in my day, wherever I am and whatever else I’m doing. This is largely possible because I don’t tend to have a lot of other people around me. Other people have needs and the more of them there are, the harder it is to get your own into the mix. This is why so many artists go away for residencies.
To read more of Missing Writing Practice, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 414
Song: You Had Time
Image from my residency at Mudhouse in Crete
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
A Goggle Story
When I pulled out my goggles for the first time in a while, I started laughing, remembering when a friend of mine asked me if I’d pulled them out of the pool’s lost and found. I said, “No, these are mine.” He thought they were a child’s goggles because they are a colorful green with a bubblegum pink strap. “Nope,” I explained, “I bought them.”
“By accident?”
“Nope. Entirely on purpose.”
“Why?”
To keep reading A Goggle Story visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 413
Song: Do My Thing (Estelle with Janelle Monae)
Image of my goggles by yours truly, Emily Rainbow Davis
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
I Finally Saw Purple Rain
When Purple Rain came out, I was approaching my eleventh birthday. I wasn’t allowed to go see it but I did have the album. I also saw the videos, though I’m not sure how, as I don’t think we had a TV yet.
Forty years have somehow gone by since I didn’t see Purple Rain so I went to an anniversary screening in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I found myself both moved and troubled by the experience. The crowd was amazing. From the opening number of the film, almost everyone was up on their feet, ready to go crazy. About half the crowd could not resist doing “The Bird” even as they remained seated on their blankets. Lighters and cell phones were raised during “Purple Rain.” And when Prince hit Apollonia in the face so hard she spun and fell into a dresser, the crowd made an audible sound of disapproval.
The violence was what I was not prepared for. Having spent my youth in a kind of complicated double bind of being both a feminist and a fan of Prince’s music, I was familiar with the confusion of all the objectifying images of women, coupled with sex positive grooves.
To keep reading I Finally Saw Purple Rain, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 412
Song: Purple Rain
Image from a video by Brooklyn Magazine.
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Tips for the Rejected from Someone Oft Rejected
A friend of mine was recently rejected for a job and it stung a bit. They’re someone who hadn’t often had the experience of rejection, having mostly done their own thing where they needed no one’s approval but their own. Honestly, I think this person is better off without this job they were applying for but I sympathize with the pain of rejection, particularly when it’s for the first time, really.
As someone who has been rejected hundreds, if not thousands of times, I thought I might help ease the sting a little.
1) It’s not you. It’s them. When I was a young actor, doing a lot of auditioning, I kept trying to imagine what the auditors wanted and tried to provide it as best I could. I imagined they wanted a particular kind of Juliet so I would try to BE that kind of Juliet for them. If I didn’t get the job, I’d assume it was because I did not do a sufficient job giving them what they wanted.
To keep reading Tips for the Rejected from Someone Oft Rejected visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 411
Song: Pick Yourself Up
Image by Nacho Dominguez Argenta via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Female Opt Out
Now that I have an expensive piece of medical tech installed in my arm, I can no longer go through the body scan when I go through airport security. I flew out of JFK, which, as usual, was an absolute zoo, and when I finally got to the scanning portion of the proceedings, I tried to explain the issue. When they understood, the man shouted “Opt out” and called for “female agent.” The pat down I then received was so thorough, it felt punitive. Like, was it really necessary to run your hand between my waistband and my skin? Do you really have to get right up in the inseam? How well did you really need to feel my underwires?
But, you know, it was my first time going through airport security with my new medical condition so I was just glad they didn’t destroy my device.
To keep reading Female Opt Out visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 410
Song: Pat Down by Faybee
Image of the Munich Airport in 2009 by Politikaner via Wikicommons
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Writing in a Beautiful Place
I’m currently seated on a deck that looks out over the Pacific Ocean, on Bowen Island in British Columbia. I can smell the saltwater from here and hear the lap of the waves. When I look up, I see the mountains and little islands across the bay. Wildflowers dot the hillside. I have an iced coffee and pen and paper. I’m not sure how this scenario could be more idyllic.
To read more of Writing in a Beautiful Place visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 409
Song: No Distraction
Image of the scene on Bowen Island taken by me, Emily Rainbow Davis
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
A Day at the End of May
The nurse turned pale when she read the glucometer. The whole office kicked into emergency mode and when the doc came in, he let me know I was going to be there a while. My blood sugar was super high and had been super high every time I’d been tested over the last five months but now that I was in this endocrinology office, it was suddenly an emergency. A young man came in to give me an insulin shot and asked me if it was Type One or Type Two and I gave him the biggest shrug I have ever shrugged. No one had diagnosed me yet. Diagnosis: I have Type-I-Don’t-Know-Man-I-Guess-I-Have-Diabetes. Maybe ask the doctor whose office you work in?
To keep reading A Day at the End of May visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 408
It's about #diabetes
Song: Sugar on My Tongue
Image by smallbox via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
A Different Measure of Success
The little black velvet notebook reappeared and I thumbed through it. I had called it The Adventure Book and at the top of each page, there was an idea I’d written there at some point. I don’t remember why I decided to do that or why I stopped but I assume it was meant to encourage the development of each idea.
In re-reading these ideas from I don’t know how long ago, I was struck by how many of them I’d actually made happen.
To keep reading A Different Measure of Success visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 407
Song: The Champion
Image of my Adventure Book by me, Emily Rainbow Davis
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Print This for Extra Comprehension
A patron of mine sent me a message about receiving my zine, explaining that her husband found it easier to read the paper version because he didn’t really read so much on the computer. I said I understood and felt similarly – that I much preferred paper to reading on-line. Which is funny, really, because I publish most of my stuff on the internet.
This exchange made me think of a moment of transition that happened at one of my jobs years ago. It started like this: I’d been working at BAM as a teaching artist where one of my main gigs was doing pre-show prep workshops. Whenever we’d get assigned a show, we’d receive a packet of information about the show, information about the school, our contracts, and if it was available, a videotape of the show we were going to teach. It had gone like this for quite a few years when the program manager (maybe the third one I’d worked with at that point) started to email us PDFs of show information instead. And this is the moment of transition.
To keep reading Print This for Extra Comprehension visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 406
Song: Screens
Image by Nguyen Thu Hoai via Unsplash
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Something Familiar About this Russian Show
Folks over on the Period Drama subreddit recommended the Russian series, Detective Anna, and as previously established, I am a particular fan of period workplace dramas about women, so this seemed right up my street.
Anna is not really a detective, though. She has visions of dead people who then help her solve their murders. It’s a ghost detective show, I guess. Like a Pulling Daisies or The Ghost Whisperer or Medium. (There’s a genre now, it seems.)
Detective Anna takes place in the late 1800s in a small Russian town called Zadonsk so it has a pleasing amount of period overcoats and hoods and hats and such. I’m enjoying it for the most part.
There’s something about it, though, that feels very familiar and a little uncomfortable. The titular character, Anna (not a detective), is a young woman who has a talent, surrounded by men who do not acknowledge it.
To keep reading Something Familiar About this Russian Show visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 405
Song: Nobody Takes Me Seriously Anyway
Image lifted from Detective Anna TV show
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Signature Strengths Seem Neat But Confusing
Because I get my Feldenkrais liability insurance through a massage therapy umbrella, they send me Massage Therapy Journal, which I read, even though I am not a massage therapist. I figure I might learn something. What the heck?
In the issue I just finished, they talked a lot about how to avoid burnout and take care of one’s self at work. Much of the content involved identifying one’s top strengths and leaning into them.
Now, about a decade ago, I got really into the Strengths Movement which was focused on a similar idea. I thought it was interesting for both work and education. I identified stuff I was good at and figured out how to lean in to those things. Then I promptly forgot about it and now I can’t even tell you what I determined my strengths were back then.
The burnout article suggested using the VIA strength finder to determine your top five strengths and values. This sounded familiar to me. I thought I probably had taken this test before so I searched for it on my computer. Yes, yes, I had – about a year ago. And I found that my top five strengths were: Humor, Perceptiveness, Creativity, Social Intelligence and Love of Learning.
To keep reading Signature Strengths Seems Neat But Confusing visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 404
Song: Strength, Courage and Wisdom
Image of a pineapple in sunglasses by Elena Cordery via Unsplash
To take the Via Strengths Finder quiz, go here. I'm sorry you have to register.
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis
Boxed Up Knowledge
The other night, I found myself watching an interview with a theatre practitioner I admire a great deal. He’s an amazing performer, director, teacher and thoughtful analyst of his craft. I found myself taking notes – adding them to previous documents I’d created, filled with his tips and tricks.
But as I was taking notes, full of enthusiasm and excitement, I felt an undercurrent of “Why?” Why was I furiously writing down his clown exercises or his recipe for comic developments? I haven’t put on a clown show since 2009. I haven’t had need to exercise my physical comedy chops in ages. I know a fair amount about these things. I care about them. I still have curiosity about them. If any of my beloved teachers gave a workshop here, I’d sign up for it. But not because I have any use for it. I don’t have a life for which any of this knowledge is necessary, which somehow makes me very sad. There’s something about having spent decades growing my knowledge about things that I now never get a chance to exercise that feels so wasteful somehow.
To keep reading Boxed Up Knowledge, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.
This is Episode 403
Song: Black Socks
Image of John Wright from Mask Workshop
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As ever, I am yours,
Emily Rainbow Davis