This was a prompt in my emails today - I tried this online therapy site, which was useless, but the emails still pop up. 🤳 I’m lazy. I’m really, really lazy. My ideal day is pretty much the movie marathon I'm cooking up for my birthday (though it'd be more fun if it was someone else's movies!) - one of my all-time favourite teenage memories is watching the last 3 seasons of the Wire over a weekend where my parents were away, so we could use the big TV. I love binging on movies. I started binging years before it went mainstream, as a nerd who has pirated media since as far back as I can remember. Morpheus, Limewire, Torrents and even Usenet (my oldest bro Phil set most of those up).
It’d be cool to get some kind of physical activity thing too, like cricket, but if I took a trip - which would definitely be part of my ideal day - I’d end up walking around Lindale. May the 4th was another great marathon day; Star Wars isn’t my raison d’etre or anything, but the enthusiasm was infectious. - And no, I’m not rearranging Pan for a jazz band. I want real strings on the sound. It’s one of those things that I’d let other people do after the premiere. I’m surprised at how much of my late twenties has been taken up with saying no to people who don’t understand what I’m trying to do... I take that as a sign I'm on the right track. Including John Psathas, who told us that we shouldn’t listen to what anyone thinks about our music. 🤣👋
The main reason: I’m a Broadway fan - I’ve been hearing strings swing since I was a teenager, and I want to hear the NZSO swing.
I reckon if I’d had Umar on bass for Knight on my Couch it would have swung. Or Simon, they both have groove. - I’m guessing that Don McGlashan probably hated music school too. Though being in the APO as a teenager must have been fun.
But yeah, the rocker thing is way more fun. I don’t have to be perfect as a rock star, and I’ve got attitude to burn. It’s true of show music too, but that’s too showy for me lol.
That’s why I’m proud of Portrait of a Knight: NZers get it, and the emotional range suits the laid-back vibe of Kiwis. It's funny, I remember Astrid being shocked when Phillip sang the climax of 'Tis You ('he's so loud!'). - To clarify: I’m not particularly keen on sex reassignment surgery. I find Georgina inspiring, but I’m fine with being third gender rather than a seamless woman. I’m probably more like Carmen, though Dana is the obvious analogy. Dave says Dana was scary tall, like 6ft 7in or something…
While as a trans person, I obviously find their books relate to my troubles, I’m lucky to be alive in the 21st Century, and have gotten my degree, plus notched up some life experience, before transitioning...
That’s where my anger about the conservatory comes from: I had to suck it up and stay in the closet because I knew coming out would kill my career (and it did 👩). -
At least the underground scene didn’t give a fuck how I looked so long as I played well. Many people dug the look too!
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No, Barbara. No, I’m not interested in doing a cabaret show with you either. 😀
I simply don’t want to. It’s not interesting to me, and I hate rehearsing. Why would I be a composer otherwise?
If I didn’t despise being a performer, then I’d be one. But I hate the classical world, and I’m not particularly in love with musicals people either.
See: my lady friends all enjoy the spotlight. I fucking hate it.
- that's why I make them look good instead. 🤝👍🥝
- I'm getting sick of being stalked by powerful institutions who have it in for me. I post publicly because I figured 'why not?' once the heat was on with the Daktory, and I believe in transparency. But if the uni wants to deal with me, they should write to me. The way I see it, they may be salty, but I doubt anything I said about the NZSM was genuinely defamatory. ... I'm ticked off that my musical didn't get me an advanced degree, and that was worth kicking up a stink about. Particularly once I realised that my films are inadvertently great ads for the NZSM (if misleading ones .. B wasn't a student when she sang my score, and most of the POAK orchestra were pros). I also definitely think my brother records guitars better than Dave Lisik. The real tragedy of our twenties is that Stephen hasn't gotten hired to produce more music for people: he's outrageously good at it, which is why our stuff sounds great. .... Why was it worth kicking up a stink -- because it reflects the elitism of the institution: if I'd written and staged a legit opera with a similar use of their resources, they'd have given me a PhD. But because I took the mickey out of opera with a movie, it's 'light entertainment' ... as if! I don't like the place they've made for me at the table, so I'm refusing to join. I don't want tenure, but there's nothing that says students can't take private lessons while majoring at the school; if the NZSM wants to point people in my direction for advice on the musicals thing, that'd be fine. I studied with Michael Bell privately, and to see someone putting a movie musical together in NZ made a huge difference to my ambitions.
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