You know that thing you do when you’re little? Imagining some Kodak Moment™ of yourself, surrounded by test tubes, curing cancer? Or pirouetting in yards of tulle before a sold-out crowd? Or addressing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dressed in tulle, while curing cancer?

In just over three weeks, I’m going to be standing up in front of 200 people and talking about talking. I never imagined anything this weird.

I’m guessing that Nina Hartley, famed star of the adult entertainment world, registered nurse and Berkeley-born offspring of practicing Buddhists never at any point in her life up to now imagined she’d wind up in front of a group of people with her clothes on, reading a personal essay that neatly and elegantly made a universal point about connectedness and self-actualization via a vividly detailed description of an explicit sex act involving her hand and someone else’s ladyparts.

Compared to Ms. Hartley? I’m a piker in more than one way.

I told almost no one about this particular gig. And not for the obvious reason—that it was a sex-ay affair. (Come on—it was held on the back patio of a sex-toys shop, fer criminy.)

No, I kept mum because, as with most gigs I might advertise, I was concerned about quality.

Perform bit roles in enough shitty nickel theater that you drag your family and friends to and eventually, when the stars fall from your eyes, you get it: everyone has his breaking point, and you don’t want your devoted fan base to hit theirs before the event you really need them to turn out for. An evening of erotic anything (barring the one-on-one variety, natch) is not generally what leaps to mind when I think “wildly entertaining”, and a slate of writers whom I’d never read and never heard perform doing erotica? Uh…uh-uh.

I’ll admit, I’m not widely read in the stuff. I’ll also admit that at least part of my trepidation stems from my Midwestern roots. Although thanks to my beloved paternal grandfather, a crazy, arts-lovin’ liberal atheist who became more and not less so with age, I did have exposure to a modest variety of printed adult matter, albeit furtively. (At least, I’m pretty sure I kept my tracks covered.)

My favorites were Playboy (when you’re 9, you really do like the comics) and R. Crumb comix, something I never really thought about until recently. Neither was for the truly squeamish, but both were artfully conceived and executed, and I’d argue that the Crumb stuff was written in as authentic a voice as can be. I remember the shock of recognition I had watching Crumb, the Terry Zwigoff documentary, for the first time. It was like I stumbled into some wormhole and was living in 1971 and 1994 simultaneously, the likeness was so compelling.

Compare that to the awful stylings—nay, overstylings of most adult entertainment and to me, the source of cringe-inducement becomes wildly obvious: forget the feminist POV; it’s just embarrassingly derivative, stagey or stiff, you’ll pardon the pun.

Your voice is your voice is your voice; once you know and trust it, it can accompany you anywhere, from tea with the Queen to bottle swigs on the Bowery (the pre-gussied Bowery) and everywhere in between. You can write a memo or a eulogy or a potty-mouthed song (my choice) and it will be you. Should you sing your potty-mouthed song at Windsor Castle? Probably not without being asked. Neither should you hunker down on your middle-aged haunches and start coo-woo-wooing at a toddler just because you’ve got 45 laps around the planet on the shorty. They’re people, people: as The Youngster used to say, “Short, ignorant people.” (The BF adds, “who don’t pay rent.”) And they have bullshit detectors whose calibration has not gone off-kilter from years of smoke being blown around various bits. Never forget that it was a child who pointed out the buck-nekkidness of El Jefe.

I would never have thought that getting up in front of 35 strangers and singing a song about dirty keyword searches would leave me feeling so much better prepared to stand up in front of 200 and talk about Authentic Communication. But of course it did—of course, of course. More than most of my Toastmasters speeches, although they were helpful in their own way.

There was no governor up last Thursday night, and it worked: me, trusting what I had to say—er, sing—and putting it out there.

What are you afraid of? What would happen if you did it anyway?

Or maybe the question is, “What will happen if you don’t?”

xxx
c

LINK to my performance of “The Dirty Keywords Search Song” at In The Flesh: LA on YouTube (WARNING: Contains language which may be offensive and/or NSFW.)

Image by Mr. Mo-Fo via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: authentic communication, communication, fear.

We are an always-on, go-get-’em kind of people these days. Most of us, anyway.

Especially those of us stateside, who lack the perspective that thousands of years of history gives one. We’re a restless bunch, we Yanks: kind of sharklike in that always-moving-forward kinda way.

Sometimes, it’s good to move forward. As the panel of wildly (at least, by my terms) successful entrepreneurs on the panel at the alumni event I attended tonight largely agreed, in many cases there’s no such thing as moving fast enough.

That’s true. It’s as ridiculous to say “never go at breakneck speed” as it is to have “whoa, Nelly” as your default mode. For the 4000th time since I first noticed it, I’ll repeat: everything in moderation, moderation inclusive. I’m glad I did myself damage on a scale that would prohibit my run for the presidency, and not just because I think it’s one of the crappiest jobs around. I like that I lived the Debauched Life, however briefly my delicate constitution allowed for it. What’s the old saw? Better to ask forgiveness than permission? That in our advanced years, we mostly regret the sins of omission, not commission?

The older I get, the more experiences I have under my belt, the more I realize that the real value—the true skill or gift—lies in a state of relaxed readiness. A lack of attachment to outcome. A goal or a vision that can remain intact even as the game plan shifts. Improvising.

Tonight, I went out to meet a bunch of new people, and ended up speaking mostly to one good friend (you know who you are.) It was heaven, and not just because we were doing it in beautiful surroundings with great snacks and two of my favorite red wines (hello, Cambria Pinot! hello, La Crema!)

It was heaven because it fed my soul. New acquaintances are wonderful, and I hope to meet many more of you in the extremely-not-too-distant future. But old friends are touchstones: important reminders of where we’ve been, how we’ve grown and what’s involved in getting from one end to the other.

Almost incidentally, as I was walking out of the incredibly posh venue, I realized that the last time I’d been there was with my father, probably five years ago, when he was still alive and while he was still traveling. It’s a place that for so many reasons I’d been dreading a return to, and when I did? Nothing but silk.

From one planner (just ask The BF) to maybe a bunch of others (there’s a reason you’re here, right?), keep your plan. Just keep it loosely.

There is beauty in full-steam-ahead. There is beauty in floating adrift.

There is peace in knowing when to do what…

xxx
c

UPDATE: My friend, Evelyn Rodriguez, points to a great story about attachment (and the importance of discarding it) involving Krishnamurti.

Image by Ryan Yam via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

TOPICS: 21 day salutes, communication, Stop! Sucking!.

Like most of you, the communicatrix has an agenda. Don’t know what yours are, but mine is to share certain hard-won truths. Well, really, a bunch of petty, not-so-hard-won truths—best thinking-man’s hoochie site, kick-ass theater, worst phone ever—and one Big Fat Mama Truth—the Truth, if you will.

I have some tools in my communicatrix arsenal already—relentless enthusiasm, reasonable facility with language, considerable experience shilling…er…communicating my message to others—but I’m still not really conversant. I still can’t talk to anyone and have it land.

No, really—that’s huge. That’s everything, really. Imagine the possibilities: speak to a n y o n e…and have it land. I guess it would be easy if you had a really, really good weapon in your arsenal, like a burning bush or thunderbolts or some other groovy, god-like accessory, but I don’t. I don’t even have Vocal Amplitude. (Seriously. Tiny ribcage = no vocal amplitude.)

The secret for mere mortals, I think, is listening. Simple, right? Easy? Um…no.

Really listening requires a detachment from ego I’m generally reluctant to muster. I don’t think I’m alone, here, either, based on the number of conversations I’ve had where I actually catch overtalking happening in mid-sentence. Not the end-of-sentence, I-had-that-idea-too overtalking: full-on, hands-over-ears, I CAN’T HEAR YOU LALALALALALA!!! overtalking.

And this sometimes happens with really good friends who really care about me, not just garden-variety buggers in sales calls and ad agency pitch meetings (ad agencies are notorious hotbeds of overtalking, trust me).

I won’t even get into the red vs. blue histrionics that have been flying fast & furious from both sides of late except to say that they’re largely a catalyst for me getting off my bony ass and fixing my own nasty little listening problem.

My new-favorite pundit, Evelyn Rodriguez, who’s all about the critical importance (and true power) of real communication, has written a couple of great posts recently about what happens when we stop listening and the magic that can happen when we start. She posits a really wise theory on the root of it all:

Being unheard, unappreciated and unlistened to is intimately linked with unwantedness. The isolation is overpowering. We can move away from the separation by remaining open-ended rather than closed meme-attractors ourselves.

Every relationship advice source worth its salt says that if you’re looking for something in others, first find that thing in yourself. (Hell, even Dorothy figured out that if you’re looking for happiness, check the backyard before you go running off on some poppy-induced, yellow-brick road to nowhere.)

More than anything in the world right now, I want to be heard. So I’m gonna start listening.

Anyone with me?

xxx
c

TOPICS: change, communicating, communication, communicatrix, personal growth, self-development.