In my waves of creativity, I write stories, paint a little, create my own lessons for students, write on this blog and now do podcasts and Swellcasts on the app Swell. It all began at Swell for me because the app is simple and you post 5-minute recordings off your phone into a community of listeners who responded in kind, audibly.
Being an artist of any kind is a crap shoot as far as getting a following. While I do have some fans of my writing, my most vocal fans are my Swellcast followers. I have one person who is even now an online “audible pen pal”, he calls it. We communicate regularly now one to one. I started with a focus on bringing some sanity back to the mess that is in the LGBTQ community with some topics but it has also branched out into some “FML””s (If you don’t know what that is, look it up. There is a whole amusing website devoted to it). Now, I’ve branched into Transformation Through Music. It just came to me one day as I thought about the divisive times and down times we were living in, to do something uplifting and unifying. So, I came up with the idea of having people share songs (starting with myself) that have transformed their lives or mean something to them. I named the Swellcast HomoSanity and this has given birth to something to new.
When I did my first three, I didn’t do much research on them, except for The Color Purple Soundtrack. I do it everytime for a guest since I often don’t know the music. I was surprised in doing my own how emotional it was, and how good it felt to share the story behind the song was for me. I really knew then that I wanted to give this experience to other people. It had the power to unify us under a language and words that were soul music. It would provide the spirit and truth people were hungering for which no one could argue against because it was personal, nor say it was “rigged” or conduct a lawsuit.
My first guest was a dear friend Chris. We met through a gay men’s choir where we shared our love for music. We weren’t super high caliber singers (descent, singing just wasn’t our main gigs), so we stuck in there a few good years until I think we both got tired of the divas and drama. Chris really was the one who got me back into buying vinyl records and I even bought a record player. I got some really good ones. One was so good, like an episode out of the show Lotus, a gay man, and his partner ended up “borrowing it” and ultimately stealing it as it mysteriously vanished. No matter how hard I tried, like other items, I couldn’t get it back. At least I wasn’t murdered.
When Chris said an empathetic “Yes!” to this concept, I was elated because I knew his passion for music and the arts. He chose “Watching the Wheels” by John Lennon, a song I heard the rhythm to but not the words. I’m honestly not a guy who does cartwheels over John Lennon like a lot of people do, but what I feel or don’t feel about a particular thing doesn’t damper my interest in wanting to get to know what someone else feels about something and why. Exploring this song and what Chris felt about it was not only intriguing but seemed to create this powerful moment on the podcast I wasn’t expecting where insight came to light for artists, gays and the world at large. It gave me tears and goosebumps.
‘Watching The Wheels’ was an answer to the critics who questioned why Lennon had retreated from the music industry. In the 1970s it was common for artists to release an album each year, and then take time away from the public eye being considered unusual. Lennon had grown tired of the routine and, burnt by the excesses of the Lost Weekend and committed to raising his young son Sean, he had retreated to a life of domesticity.
The wheels in this song were partly literal – the vehicles that Lennon could see from his sixth-floor vantage point at the Dakota. They were also partly figurative in the idea of passively observing cogs turning in a machine. The same theme going right back to ‘Nowhere Man’ on The Beatles’ 1965 album Rubber Soul.
I like this quote by Lennon about this song too that also posed to Chris on the podcast:
“Watching the wheels? The whole universe is a wheel, right? Wheels go round and round. They’re my own wheels, mainly. But, you know, watching myself is like watching everybody else. And I watch meself through my child, too.”
Chris and I talked about the implications of the lyrics on artists and how artists are treated–as these lazy people, wasting time, and waiting for a breakthrough that is never going to happen. Just “watching the wheels”. We engage in this inner critic self-talk also, “What the hell are you doing?” ‘You are wasting your time!” What is interesting to me is Chris is a relatively quiet man in regards to social media and his craft. He isn’t posting pics of himself every hour on the hour. He isn’t showcasing a huge band of friend gatherings or all the events he attends or the food he has eaten. But then this happened.
The picture you see here of the face won a big art prize in his local hometown. Art like his was spread along city blocks and friends flocked in for miles to see his. However, the company awarding the prize money could have cared less in truly honoring the winners (there was no announcement of who won what) or paying them in a timely way (nothing came to Chris well over a month and a half later with no follow through on his attempts to find out if he was getting anything). For Chris, this was a crippling punch in the gut.
I was reminded when I was trying to self-publish my first book. It was a tall task that I was teaching myself with no one’s help. In the final stages of editing the book, I had a few people that I had to take a look at it for editing purposes. I chose people I knew, close to me that I felt I could trust. I was super excited to get this out there. However, big problems arose in both cases personally and professionally around the editing that severely damaged those relationships for a good while. I was forced to publish the book without the complete editing I would have liked and I couldn’t afford to pay for. It is still a book I’m not entirely happy with. I’m too preachy, it’s too long and needs editing, and it is why I have recently done a re-telling on Kindle Vella.
Both Chris and I carry on despite these setbacks in our crafts. Part of the craft of art is watching the wheels–we determined this that evening on that podcast. You watch life, you are inspired by it, and create–that happens in the still quiet of contemplation not noise. You may feel you are wasting your time, days, or even years but you are not. One day the check comes in or your book is published but it isn’t even about that. It’s in your blood. You have to do it. It’s just nice to be seen somewhere.
This was then transitioned to our LGBT experience. The idea that we are told that we are not born gay and can and should change it. Who are you to be acting this way? You are wasting your life. You should be making babies. Chris asked humorously, “What am I, a cow?” Am I livestock, he questioned. There is this idea that even comes up in my own mind–what about my legacy? Am I wasting my time (watching the wheels) by being gay and not having children of my own? I think what it comes down to is that there are other ways to leave a legacy than merely society’s standard to just have babies. Adopting is still an option for me also. Nevertheless, in thinking of terms of a man like Chris, he will have a legacy of artwork and the students he impacts and probably more things I can’t even think of.
There were rumors that Lennon also had same-sex partners. It wouldn’t surprise me if this were true. He was the most iconic hippie. I’m of the belief, having met so many men, that sexuality is on a spectrum just as Kinsey and now others confirm. No surprise there for me. The only real sad or even bad thing about that is our society won’t accept it. So, there is this cloud and shadow over sexuality in this country veiled in secrecy where people can’t be who they truly are. John Lennon says in this song “Watching the Wheels”, he’s done playing the game and that he had to”let it go”. We can’t get caught up in what others think or say. The games the world systems play.
In closing, as I say in the podcast, I am a spiritual person. A Christian but not one steeped nor sitting on the stoop of organized religion. I do like my spiritual components so I add it in closing, such as that the wheel does represent symbolically a seat where spirit sits in relation to the throne of God. I see that spirit as the centerpiece of the wheel. The cog. It remains constant as does the being of who I am (a mysterious force). A center place I can go back to. The moving parts of the wheel touch this earth and at times spiritual realms carrying that spirit where it goes. This gives “Watching the Wheels” and even greater multi-dimensional meaning to me. Other times, I scratch my head and fart and wonder if any of this stuff is real but then comes a mystical wind at some other point carrying m back again into a presence I’ve known for ages and I’m sure I’m on the right path embracing such revelations. And so the wheel turns….
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