Yellow

02020-02-04 | Uncategorized

I sometimes wear yellow pants on stage for the same reason that I created an upbeat album, called FETE. We live in turbulent times where discourse has either withered or is drowned out by social media.

Our parents taught us how to speak to strangers, how to ask what time it was or how to get directions, but nobody taught us how to use social media and perhaps that is why it became such a mess.

I myself am a lurker. From time to time I check Insta or Twitter, but I rarely post anything. I don’t like the tribalism and the bifurcation. Social media is apparently capable of, and perhaps was intentionally geared towards, bringing out the worst in us. And how could it not? Where blogging tended to be longer in form, Twitter and Instagram limit the length; therefore, most content becomes slogans and shouting and posturing and chest beating.

Here is a genuine problem that needs to be addressed: on one hand anonymity enables people to express themselves in areas where they might be attacked for their opinion, whether they be political dissenters or minorities, or people who are LGBT. Let’s not forget that being gay can mean prison, or worse, in some places. On the other hand anonymity allows people to say hurtful things that they would NEVER say if people knew who they were.

We live in turbulent times and I was tempted to record an album of sad, sad music and wear only black clothes. But I remembered a study that found that most people WILL feel happier after they smile. So I made an album that’s upbeat and which makes me smile every time I listen to it. And so I am wearing color, like these yellow pants, because they make me smile. And because most people wear dark colors in turbulent times these pants were on sale for only $25. So I got my smile for cheap.