Give It A Try

We made our return to the UB campus in the cold, empty and dazzling Gaborone dawn. You could just see the sun beginning to peak over the horizon, as if making a careful check of the landscape before pulling itself into the sky. It was 5:45 and with the help of Will's battered, but functional car, we had just made the rounds around the city dropping people off. Pat, Will and I dragged ourselves over to Pat's room. It had been Pat's last night in Gabs and now was his last morning and throughout the night at the studio it was hard for everyone to keep that fact out of their minds. I went through the horrible ordeal of the goodbye, and made my way upstairs and was asleep in seconds.

I've dealt with my fair share of goodbyes, some harder than others, but in general - they all suck. I've only known Pat for about 3 weeks and in the midst of group hugs, laughter, and what would have become mass tearfall if we had stuck around longer, it was beautiful. Pat's an amazing man, a creative and inspired artist, and I know if he sticks with his music and his ideas when he gets back to Salt Lake City it will really take him places. He just needed an awakening to shake him and tell him that he can do whatever he wants - even something as audacious as songwriting! I think Botswana was that awakening. I plan to keep in close contact with him and maybe get him to hit Penn for Spring Fling and play a few shows with me. His music is Green/Quad material for sure.

Hours at the studio tend to bleed into each other, fuse and blend until suddenly you look at your watch and realize you've been there for about twelve hours. I was boiling some water to cook up some Maggi noodles when I got a call from Pat telling me he was heading to the studio. I poured out the water, made a hasty (but delicious) peanut butter and jelly sandwich and hopped into a cab with Pat. It was about 5 pm, on Saturday. For the first time I brought my own sticks and my brushes. Some of my playing has been a little shaky at times lately, and it scares me so I am blaming it on the sticks Mex has at the studio that I'm not used to. It was much better last night, so maybe there is some merit to my excuse. We drove through the now familiar, and often confusing, sprawl of Gaborone, dust and sun filling the streets, and I munched on my sandwich and enjoyed the dry, cool breeze against my face. We stopped for fat cakes (a round, warm, delicious dougnuty bread without the sugar or the hole) and then walked the rest of the way to studio. On the way I had an interesting conversation with Pat about - surprise! - music. We were discussing his plans for when he returned and talked about how easy it is to do things, especially in the world of music, half-assed these days. It's so easy to record a couple of tracks that you're mildly satisfied with on GarageBand and have them up on your MySpace the next day. Then you record some more a few weeks later and add them up. One day you realize you have eleven decent tracks, burn them onto a blank, sprawl "Pat's Stuff" with permanent marker on the CD and give them (maybe sell them for five bucks) to your friends and family. He talked about how if he wanted to put all his heart into making music, he had to just drive straight ahead and fast, working hard, making sure every little guitar pluck and vocal croon is flawless, and then release it all together with a sexy design and even sexier production. Maybe it's something that applies to a lot of things, not only music. It's definitely one of those patience-testers, to be able to hold back creation, ideas, whatever until you really are ready to share. To be sure of something before you do it. To not just put it out there and then try and convince yourself it was the perfect thing to do. Interpret it any way you want, but I think it's worth thinking about and seeing where the thoughts eventually take you. Logic trains are fun, so hop on.

We reached the studio and after waiting outside for an elusive Mex, the door finally opened and we were greeted by an excited Mex and an even more excited Mexy (Mex's hyper-active mutt). Mex had been listening to his solo-house album that he says is near completion and it was great to see the pride on his face. Of course, to me house music sounds like its made by pistons and programs; I imagine this giant machine, somewhere in Northern Europe, churning out house music all day and all night - uhn tis uhn tis uhn tis uhn tis. But even with my dislike, it was refreshing to see Mex so excited about what he was creating. Khwezi, Shorty, Ngozi, Daniel, Ilana, as well as two fellow exchange students, Brianna and Walter, hadn't arrived yet so Mex decided to focus on the drums, get the right sound and maybe record something with Pat for a future track. While we knew it was Pat's last night and had to live it up, we also knew it was Pat's last night and had to get as much guitar recorded as possible! After some oodling and doodling and the arrival of some more of the crew Pat and I were recording the Intro and Outro to a new song, leaving a blank canvas in the middle for a funk-groove that could turn into more cascading verses and skipping rhymes courtesy of Khwezi and Shorty. Ngozi, accompanied by two other girls - Thato and S___ (names, especially of the Botswana variety, are difficult for me to retain sometimes), recorded some vocals for the Pat-inspired "Love Anthem," which is definitely one of the shining stars of the album. My jaw dropped and hung suspended for the hour of takes as the three girls' voices sent waves through the room that caressed and calmed, wowed and humbled. These people have so much talent and imagination, I am still in a state of stunned shock.

One of the highlights of the night came when Pat and I realized it was our last chance to jam and so we assembled outside, guitar and djembe, played some of the old favorites and launched into some blues accompanied once again by Daniel on the tin sandwich fitting perfectly into the pocket. We played for about thirty minutes, with impromptu backing vocals by Ngozi, Thato and S___. The night reached epic proportions when during a break, I received a text message from Anna who was away for the weekend telling us to look up. Questions of divine intervention inevitably surface when music, friendship, and carefree fun come together with a lunar eclipse! Could Pat have asked for a better last night in GC when to say goodbye, the Moon ducked behind Earth's shadow to really show him how wondrous the Gaborone sky could be. The stars seemed to wink mischievously as the shadow crossed over the moon as if waving. With the usual fine line between work and play, the night passed and people slowly made their way home until it was five in the morning and we realized we were, in fact, exhausted. It was myself, Mex, Lebo, Ngozi, Shorty, Khwezi, Will and Pat left over as morning made its first appearance. Goodbyes and logistics took about 45 minutes of group hugs, and procrastinating conversation. I know Pat had a profound effect on P. O. R. N. (the name of the band), and vice-versa and it's hard to believe in coincidences when witnessing people like this coming together. I know that Pat has had quite the effect on me, and I hope its reciprocated at least a little bit, even if its just him realizing he needs to get a drummer when he gets back to Salt Lake City.

Paradigm-changing events seem to keep leaping out of the shadows and slapping me in the face. I never really thought of music as a means for small-scale positive change, as a route to at least temporary happiness for the listeners. On Friday afternoon, Ilana, Ebony, Pat and I went to the Holy Cross Hospice, where Pat has been doing his social work, for a performance. We walked through the small converted house, and ended up in the back patio where the patients were sitting, waiting for lunch. Pat and I played a few songs accompanied by claps and dance, and then were joined by two of Pat's friends, Bearman and RB. Let me make a brief interruption to clarify that a lot of Batswana use the English translations of their given names - hence the people you meet named Pretty, Justice, Will (his name is actually God's Will), Dog Tail, and of course Bearman. With RB and Bearman's extra guitars, and the bonus of Bearman's harmonica playing and singing, we launched into some music I've never played before. It was hard to get a hold of the syncopated, non-linear, African rhythms, but once I got a hold of it, it was smooth-sailing through Pat's stunning guitar solos and Bearman's haunting call and response vocals. Once again my heart was reduced to wax to see the hospice patients, struggle to stand up and then dance, clap, yell and sing.

playing at Holy Cross Hospice with (from right: RB, Pat, myself, Bearman, spectator)

Music is so closely connected to emotion, to expression, to sharing, that it truly is beautiful when you get to see the effects of that in reality. To witness the emotion of the musician as much as the emotion of the listener and to create these connections that supersede language, culture, race, beliefs. Whoever you are, you can take in music in whatever way you want to, create or destroy any sort of connection you want, all with the tap of a drum, breath of a voice, or pluck of a guitar. It's as mysterious as it is awesome, and I apologize if I write about music too much, but right now the making of it, the sharing of it, the hearing of it, is helping me lift spirits and soar.

I'll make an effort to shift from musical jargon. Classes are going really well. I'm glad I'm taking courses here that I really couldn't take at Penn. It can be frustrating sometimes, to be in a different system where so much depends on note-taking, recitation and copying, and where some classes are far too large to have any sort of interaction with professors. Or at least that's what they told us during orientation. I'm noticing, however, that in many of my classes, Mfecane for instance, or South African Politics, the professors put a lot of stress on interactions. Class presentations play a big role in the class and the professors are constantly asking questions, not afraid to veer off topic to ask the class what they think about Botswana's president, Ian Khama, boycotting the SADC meeting because of Mugabe's presence or asking Ilana and I about the American electoral system. I haven't been this excited to learn for a while, mostly because everything is brand new (I didn't even know how to pronounce 'Mfecane' before taking the class - there's a click in it). So in the spirit of blank slates, dry sponges and no expectations, I'm ready to soak in as much as I can.

Despite being surrounded by beautiful people, and having moved around a lot in my life, always away from someone I care about, I've never really felt distance and the feeling of missing like I do here. Perhaps geographical distance plays a part in it. To think of friends in Philly, Texas, Canada, Indonesia and family in SF, DC, India, and Bali is to think of people really really far away. If I wanted to hop over to one of them, it would take me at least a day and it's both scary and exciting to feel so isolated in this land-locked desert country. Maybe its something beyond geography too, related more to the intangibility of experience. There's no way, no matter what I write or how I write it, that I could properly express what I've been experiencing since arriving here. There are things I don't want to write, there are things I can't write and there are things I wish I could write. The mind and heart, even when in tandem, work in strange ways creating clutter and incomprehensibility, and so to try and spit that out into words seems and is actually impossible. But I just hope I can come close and let my family, friends, and those in between know that I miss them, love them, and am alive as well as living.


***


Reading:
just finished You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers
God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane

Listening:
Opeth - Watershed
Thievery Corporation - The Richest Man In Babylon
Sonic Youth - A Thousand Leaves
Steve Reich - Six Pianos: Variations for Winds, Strings, and Keyboards