Jonathan Weiser

Part three in my blog series about New York City Subway Musicians.  I present to you: Jonathan Weiser, a 17 year old musician who I found on his first day playing his guitar in New York’s subway tunnels.  Enjoy!

Freedom Tickler

My second installment with the lovely Freedom Tickler Band, whom I met at the 1st Ave. stop along the L Train route in New York City.  The lovely Meriam and the mighty Cody comprise the band.  Take a look into their lives, their dreams, their disappointments and their love of music.

They can be reached at http://www.myspace.com/freedomticklerband

Zack Heru: A Conversation with a Subway Musician

Beautiful Painting of a Subway Musician

This painting was done by Jane Rosenberg. Visit her site at http://www.janerosenbergart.com

Beautiful painting that really captures the essence of a subway musicians daily life

A Portrait of an Underground Musician

A great video about the life of a subway musician

more about “A Great Portrait of an Underground Mu…“, posted with vodpod

 

 

Ray Gerber Profile

A Story of a Musician Coming Home from Iraq

Ray Gerber is sitting on his couch in his living room with a smirk as he introduces his song, “Let me go”, to the camera on his Youtube video.  The lights are dim and he appears comfortable with either the camera recording his performance or with the person holding it.  Before he begins playing, he describes, “Let me go”, as “a song about being scared in the middle of the night in Iraq.”
Every day and night for the first eight months of 2005, Ray Gerber heard at least 3 massive explosions near and around the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  Ray was working in the military unit of the prison serving as a medical nurse treating civilians, military personnel, soldiers as well as insurgents for wounds suffered in the fighting.  Although Abu Ghraib was now a model of operational efficiency since the international scandal, violence continued in the surrounding areas.  During some of the fiercest assaults on the facility, Iraqi insurgents fired mortars incessantly from the backs of trucks from nearby roads.  Mortars fell and exploded within the facility indiscriminately at any hour, and without warning.

In this unsure present, his thoughts would drift constantly to his home and the future.

“You survive,” said Ray, “During those incredibly stressful times, a lot of my only comfort was thinking about the future and getting back home.”

His song, “Let me go”, reflects those stressful times.  The simple song is a straightforward frightened plea to God to save him:

“Dear God let me get through this
So I can go home again
Let me go home
Just beyond my way
Let me not die here
So far away
Let me go home
This I pray”

Many Iraqi veterans can relate to these feelings of fear and despair.  Home represents comfort, acceptance, stability and love, precisely what war is not.  The return home is both a culmination of a seemingly endless wait but also a realization that although home looks the same, it feels different.  So many Iraqi veterans come back angry and bitter from their experiences.  The nervous system, pounded by the stresses and fears that accompany war, never recovers, rendering home a forever foreign and frightening place.  But some have found ways to transition to this familiar-yet-new environment.

Ray reflects on his time in the military is a much more cathartic way.  The military, even through its many hardships, has enabled him to think about his life, to find a new appreciation for it and to gain a sense of urgency that he never had before.

“I think Abu Ghraib was an incredibly necessary part of my life,” he said, “because I got an idea of how fast your life can end.”

Ray admits that he never considered himself a “soldier’s soldier”.  The circumstances of his life, more than desire, have been responsible for his 17-year career in the military.  In all that time, his life was dictated by his changing circumstances without a clear understanding of his life’s direction.

“Some people are very much there, uh, they’re soldiers 24 hours a day, that’s what they do, that’s what they want, that’s what they trained for. Other people are there because circumstances bring them there.  And I guess my circumstances have been bringing me to the army for like 17 years now,” he said.

Ray’s music has afforded him the ability to look back on his experience in a more positive way.  It is apparent that all the fear and dread he experienced has been locked away in a dark region of his psyche.  He cites his music for helping him endure the stresses that have affected many other veterans after returning home.

When asked about where his negative feelings go when writing his music, he goes silent.  He thinks deeply.

“Who am I?” he asked, “I feel the negative emotions, I definitely do, it doesn’t seem to be my place to convey all of those negative emotions and make an artistic expression of negativity.”

I met Ray in a busy restaurant near Times Square on a rain-soaked evening.  He was seated at the bar making small talk with the bartender as he casually sat next to his guitar case.  I met him to talk about his involvement with a concert put on by the List Project, a U.S. non-profit, founded in 2007 to help resettle Iraqis who are imperiled due to their affiliation with the US, on September 11th, 2008.  I wanted to know how he felt about fighting Iraqis then in Iraq and how he felt about playing music to save Iraqis now.

“I don’t separate people like that,” he said, “I live in Brooklyn.  There are people in Brooklyn that would blow me up if the mood hits them right.”

Many of Ray’s answers conveyed the message that he was just glad to be here, inconspicuously, and positively in the moment.  It’s not surprising that when you spend an entire year in a place where your only thoughts are of home, just being there is enough.  Luckily for Ray, his music has allowed him to return to a home that, for the most part, resembles the home that longed for so long.

Ray’s songs are generally happy ones.  Whether this is due to his desire to make intentional positive expressions of art, like he says, or whether this is due to his general positive outlook on life after Iraq is unclear, however, the fact that he can make a choice to be positive, in spite of his trauma, is testament to how much music has saved him.

One such positive song is titled “If I knew you” reveal musings of a world where enough time, interaction and strength could create a more loving world, one person at a time.  The song encapsulates the soul of a man who was lost when he had enough time, but now regrets the lack of time, now that he found himself.

Ray doesn’t do anything that he doesn’t absolutely enjoy doing.  After Iraq, he sees more clearly than ever.

“I have a very functional knowledge of myself now,” he said, “I don’t have any tolerance for wasting my time.”

When asked about the war, he replied after some quiet recollection.

“I’m not in control of it, he whispered, “Too global.  Too much.”

His life and his music are now under his control.  In a life filled with hard and painful decisions, he’s happy to be the entertainer that he always knew he could be.

Ray’s website is http://www.raygmusic.com.  A DVD is coming out shortly by Dan Cashin entitled “Everybody knows a song”, which chronicles Dan’s return from Iraq.