in march, there was a new york magazine article on the last one hundred years of new york pop music. chronologically, jody rosen gave short blurbs on the city's greatest legends. he quoted downbeat magazine on billie holiday:
i saved this article on my nightstand because while i've always known there's something magical and simply beautiful about billie holiday's voice - i love her humble beginnings.
my dad always said, "if you don't know something, you'd better know someone." i guess the ideal human would be someone who knows lots of things and isn't afraid to show the right someone what they know. maybe billie was the prime example of this life motto.
there are things i know about myself to be true. but it's taken some years and mistakes and good decisions to figure those things out. when i was 17 and working in the sandwich shop that earned me money all through high school, i shook a regular customer's hand and said, "i think you should hire me." he owned an investment firm and i thought i'd give admin work a chance. he thought he'd give me a chance. it took me about three pay checks to realize sitting at a desk from 9-5 could never be apart of my life.
every place i went got me to the next place i'd be. and each place led me to here. new york city, land of love. it's hard to live here sometimes. i don't understand why people who don't like it here stay. it's like being a teacher and not loving your job - what's the point? you get shit money - go do something else if you don't love it!
i've got ten family members living in seattle (another three almost to colombia via LA and then two more around the corner from me). i'm about five months out from getting married and my feyonce is an EMT with laser focus intent on being a fire fighter. he's nowhere near the top on FDNY waiting lists and even once he is close - the pay is all crap. meanwhile we look at what he could be making outside of the city and it almost doubles. so we're stuck having the conversation everybody who's in a certain tax bracket here is having: "can we have kids here and actually still spend time with them?"
we had dramatically different childhoods and i think both of us would say we want our kids to have a different experience than we had. i don't want my kids to have the typical suburbs life (though i daresay my upbringing was anything but typical). he doesn't want his kids stuck in the struggle.
it's hard to know where to adjust your dreams and when you should hold firmly to them. at least if we get really hungry, we can walk down 7th avenue dancing and singing until someone likes it.
This is the truth. Mother and I were starving. It was cold. Father had left us and remarried when I was 10. Mother was a housemaid and couldn’t find work. I tried scrubbing floors, too, but I just couldn’t do it.
“We lived on 145th Street near Seventh Avenue. One day we were so hungry we could barely breathe. I started out the door. It was cold as all-hell and I walked from 145th to 133rd down Seventh Avenue, going in every joint trying to find work. Finally, I got so desperate I stopped in the Log Cabin Club, run by Jerry Preston. I told him I wanted a drink. I didn’t have a dime. But I ordered gin (it was my first drink—I didn’t know gin from wine) and gulped it down. I asked Preston for a job…told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing. Over in the corner was an old guy playing a piano. He struck ‘Travelin’’ and I sang. The customers stopped drinking. They turned around and watched. The pianist, Dick Wilson, swung into ‘Body and Soul.’ Jeez, you should have seen those people—all of them started crying. Preston came over, shook his head and said ‘Kid, you win.’ That’s how I got my start.
i saved this article on my nightstand because while i've always known there's something magical and simply beautiful about billie holiday's voice - i love her humble beginnings.
my dad always said, "if you don't know something, you'd better know someone." i guess the ideal human would be someone who knows lots of things and isn't afraid to show the right someone what they know. maybe billie was the prime example of this life motto.
there are things i know about myself to be true. but it's taken some years and mistakes and good decisions to figure those things out. when i was 17 and working in the sandwich shop that earned me money all through high school, i shook a regular customer's hand and said, "i think you should hire me." he owned an investment firm and i thought i'd give admin work a chance. he thought he'd give me a chance. it took me about three pay checks to realize sitting at a desk from 9-5 could never be apart of my life.
every place i went got me to the next place i'd be. and each place led me to here. new york city, land of love. it's hard to live here sometimes. i don't understand why people who don't like it here stay. it's like being a teacher and not loving your job - what's the point? you get shit money - go do something else if you don't love it!
i've got ten family members living in seattle (another three almost to colombia via LA and then two more around the corner from me). i'm about five months out from getting married and my feyonce is an EMT with laser focus intent on being a fire fighter. he's nowhere near the top on FDNY waiting lists and even once he is close - the pay is all crap. meanwhile we look at what he could be making outside of the city and it almost doubles. so we're stuck having the conversation everybody who's in a certain tax bracket here is having: "can we have kids here and actually still spend time with them?"
we had dramatically different childhoods and i think both of us would say we want our kids to have a different experience than we had. i don't want my kids to have the typical suburbs life (though i daresay my upbringing was anything but typical). he doesn't want his kids stuck in the struggle.
it's hard to know where to adjust your dreams and when you should hold firmly to them. at least if we get really hungry, we can walk down 7th avenue dancing and singing until someone likes it.
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