My dearest friends, clowns, lovers and strangers,
Life brings the changes which it chooses to bring and there’s no control over these things. I’ve been going through several changes in the past couple years. I went from Nashville to Cairo to NYC to London and back to NYC where I’ve remained to this point. Astrology tells us of a strange thing that hits us at a certain point in transition called the Saturn Return. Upon completion (survival) of my Saturn Return, I’ve emerged with several songs of dreamy quality. Songs more earthy and folky than I’ve imagined myself doing.
These songs were all penned in spontaneity and recorded in my Manhattan apartment. Mostly they were born under relapses into insomnia. And mostly the lyrics were written while the tape was rolling. There is something so honest and raw about it all, to just allow yourself to go wherever the music leads instinctually without much thought, but with much feeling. The point was to capture a moment and an emotion, not so much a perfect execution or sound.
There’s not much to say except that I will be releasing these songs soon. Feel free to sign my mailing list, the box is on my profile (myspace.com/CharleneAva) and you will be the first to know when the songs are available to you digitally.
I’m happy to share these raw moments at the drawing board with you.
-C
Yell at those who yell at you
It’s OK to step on someone as long as it gets you ahead
Go ahead and indulge, everyone is doing it
They say anything goes, but if you are a black sheep you will stick out
Niceness isn’t to be trusted
It isn’t necessary to be nice
It’s OK to curse at people (and cars)
Road rage doesn’t disappear just cause you’re not driving, it becomes pedestrian rage
Image is everything, even if you’re just looking for a restaurant job
Looks are more important than character
Very few people are wise here
Everyone is trying to make it
Friends are interchangeable
You can change lovers like you change your socks
Your talent can mean absolutely nothing
Some women are very yang, some men can be very yin
If you’re not tough, you will get stepped on
Spirituality, learning, growing, being smart are packaged into a feel good “yogi” kinda fad that people latch onto for looks, not for truth
You can talk to yourself on the street and no one will give you a second look
Every homeless person and person in need starts to look like a fraud after a while
Most things and encounters are short lived here
You can love and hate this place at the same time
Today I missed my uncle a lot. Probably due to dreams I had last night.
I am holding a few of his dice in my hands. We used to play games with these when I was little. I’m still getting over the memory of packing up his things and folding his clothes at his apartment.
Death is too tricky a thing to ponder because it is sobering. And sobriety doesn’t belong in the jungle of New York City. There isn’t time for these sort of thoughts here. There is only time for yourself, to focus on yourself, to make it big, to get somewhere. These days I question my dreams more and more. It used to be the one thing I lived for. Now I’m not so sure that it is right. I’m not so sure that life is as light as we make it. I’m not so sure that life is as heavy as we make it. I’m not so sure what life is. But I’m sure that we’re not sure of anything.
I look at the dice, two brown, two yellow, three red, six white. Some of them with my uncle’s handwriting on them. He wrote the numbers on the white ones with red marker. I’m reminded that nothing is certain and you roll some number in life and you get something. You can’t force anything. You can’t know your path. You can’t choose your family, yes, but falling in love is chance too, it is also something you cannot help. Careers never happen the way you think. And they never may be what you think. It is all so meaningless. And all of us, we humans, we hold onto it so tightly, we have to have it.
The creative process is not so far off. The more I “disengage”, the more I tap into something greater. The more I hold onto things too tightly and try to force them, the more the art isn’t art anymore. It’s just this fluff used for stuffing a pillow. Used for stuffing many pillows to produce and mass distribute. If only we can journey every time a pen is in hand or a song is begun or a script is performed. If only I can unwind my tight fists and find a different path each time and go a different way.
“Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life.”
-Epictetus
MUSIC: www.myspace.com/CharleneAva
ACTING: www.imdb.com/name/nm2030211/resume
Music work I do: www.reallygoodvocals.com (listen to reels here and read resume)
TWITTER: www.twitter.com/CharleneAva
YOUTUBE: www.youtube.com/CharleneAva
Photo by Ninelle Efremova
This is my favorite street performer in NYC!
If I die an old maid, would it not be better for the sake of creating art? Shouldn’t one always wonder about those old loves who got away? Speculating and musing make for great sparks in the imagination. Unfulfilled destiny gives way to great acting! You live through your characters everything you don’t achieve in reality. Maybe I will become a monk. Crucify myself for art making. If only I found discipline though. It’s a beast I can’t tame. I prefer thinking to doing. Not a great quality at times. Really a terrible quality. A killer.
It could be a bad idea to live for art.
“If you were in a burning house and there was a cat and a Rembrandt, what would you save? The cat…you would save the cat, because the cat is alive. The art is dead. It’s just paint on a canvas, ink on a page. To live for art is to deny life. It’s just to destroy life.”
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely 1992
In the Great Lull I find my eye balls moving furiously under my closed lids. And I drift as if my back was against the wet of the sea and I hear the depth of it rumbling and groaning below me in terrifying yet alluring sounds. And the waves barely lift, they just hum back and forth carrying me on. Carrying us all on in a slow way. Slowly we go to the destination. You can barely see it when you’re lying down. You can’t lift your head when you are doing the back float. If you lift it, your limbs go under and then you have to tread furiously to keep yourself up. So keep on drifting, dreamer. Drift and dream. And go on lifeless, loveless, drinkless, sexless. Cause in the Great Lull you are like a nun. You just breathe and stare at the sky humbly. You write words in it with your eyes. It can seem like a bad state to be in. But its a state of nothingness and nothingness can lead to wherever you want. So let it be good. And write your dreams in the sky even though your dreams are dreams and not life. No boats pass by, no music to inspire. But nothingness is a key to deeper things. It’s a key to a new song. You will see. You will know it.
“Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like a violin.”
I’ve been in a great lull lately. I haven’t written music in a while. I thought that would drive me crazy, but it’s actually been a good thing. I don’t know what this means, but I know that I used to be such a control freak when it comes to goals and dreams. Now I just don’t care that much. It’s a nice space to be in.
I actually found something new to work on. It seemed like a tangent at the time or a distraction. But now I’m realizing it’s the main road I am on. Well, the main road for now. Cause I would like to get back to my band. But somewhere in the middle of the witching hour between my dreams and my insomnia (which is pleasantly fading), I found a script for a short film. I really did find it at 4:00 AM. I woke up from an insane dream, I literally woke myself up to pull myself out of the the unsettling dream. And the idea came to me, I saw the characters, I saw frames of it. I typed it up into my phone with my eyelids at half mast. I really wanted to sink back into my bed, but the more I typed, the more ideas came spinning out of me. I’m really excited to see how it writes itself. It’s coming together slowly. There’s not much I can say here about it. But hopefully in the next year I will be getting it together.
:-)
All good ideas arrive by chance.
Max Erns
Nighttime is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.
Catherine O’Hara
Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.
Howard Aiken
There is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can’t get a good story out of it.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Sweet, sweet insomnia. I’m so delusional. But not anymore I decided I will snap out of it. I’m gonna magically come out of it (I know that’s not possible, just allow me to sink further into delusion please). I’m addiction prone to the night. I’m not even trying to write a song. But I did find something at the piano today. I sang it into my old school tape recorder.
I sit at home and eat from a can
Knowing that I’ll never see you again
I’m finding a new energy in me right now. A bit of a resolve. A “fuck you world”. I don’t know what I’m talking about. How do you not know what your own insides are? I don’t. I think a witch doctor could explain me to me best. A gypsy woman once told me I have psychic abilities. She also told me I’m a good, honest person who doesn’t cause troubles, but trouble always comes to me. Sounded like a gospel song. I gotta write that song…hmm. Oh, but it would be so much more interesting if she told me I was a mischievous rebel excommunicated from my hometown. In some ways that is true though. I guess I would believe anything she told me. She could tell me I’m light and it would be true and she could tell me I’m dark and that is true too. I can be either or. I like to be extremes. It’s the actor in me I guess. I dive too deep into characters all the time and I’m not even playing any of these anywhere. I guess I need to start booking more acting jobs soon. I’ve been on hold in that area.
“Seeing Stars”
Everyday I wake up
It’s the same I wake up
With stars in my eyes
And I’m going blind
You can tell me something
But your eyes say nothing
Looking so unkind
I’m losing my mind
It’s your fault
It’s your fault that I’m in love