Gaga

I had planned another discussion of the woes and whees of moving house, but then I stumbled upon this little nugget ("nugget" because he is both small in stature and akin to gold).



This is what inspires me today.

My friend Tress shared this on Facebook yesterday. When I watched it this morning, the video had less than 20,000 views. Now there have been 1,532,234. Wait -- I forgot to hit "refresh." Make that 2,137,217. When I opened my browser to write this blog, Yahoo! had a front page story displayed about him, Greyson Michael Chance, or "Little Lord Gaga," as their music blogger called him.

But it's not the trajectory of this tyke that impresses me most. It's his gosh-given talent and the charisma with which he was able to hold the attention of all those girls (though at least one was able to keep a pretty good Pokerface throughout the performance) and the other 2 million of us. And Lady Gaga is only a gateway for the boy (though she is listed first when he lists his two main musical influences); the two other videos on his YouTube channel are for songs Chance wrote himself. "Broken Hearts" is really more powerful than it has any right to be (to whomever broke this precious popple's heart: thanks. Sucker). "Stars" is a touch repetitive, but it's no fun to critique a 13-year-old negatively.

I want to be jealous of his astounding voice and his ivory tickling and his overnight success (and I am jealous of the ivory tickling), but the real achievement is that he is using his talent. He is writing songs, and learning the art of performance, and posting a showcase of the art he deems complete enough to share (even though he admits that "it needs a lot of work"). And yeah, he has had genetic and/or economical advantages over others -- the voice is worth noting, his house looks to be several tiers above hovel, and he's got the looks those Tiger Beat tweens go mad for. And it's clear from the "Paparazzi" video that he goes to some fancy all-girls school and really had no choice but to cultivate the skills necessary to woo them all.

But really, he's doing it. I'm just proud of him, is all. It is really a shame that he has to achieve celebrity before he hits puberty, though. This means the whole world will witness his balls drop. It will be like New Year's Eve. Hope you're ready, Greyson.

Bloggers and YouTube commenters alike have been making comparisons between Little Lord Gaga and Justin Bieber. But I don't know Justin Bieber. Instead, Chance reminds me of this artist.



Local treasure, oh dorian.

The comparison may seem like a bit of a jump to you, but whatever, kids. Both have voices that would melt polar bears (and you know how high melting point is for polar bears), both play piano with style. And I'd wager both are younger than me -- even Lady Gaga her majestic self is younger than me. Greyson Michael Chance and oh dorian -- and Lady Gaga, too, for that matter -- write original songs and perform them with a quality that is at once haunting and darling.

And I find myself in awe. Greyson Michael Chance is going to be on Ellen. Lady Gaga went to Tisch and supposedly taught herself piano at age 4. Even that guy Matt works with goes to open-mic night at Mellow Mushroom and sings '90s songs in front of people.
I taught myself guitar at 15 and haven't improved since then. I played flute in middle school; I can still play my favorite Australian aboriginal folk song, but nothing else. I took chorus for 13 years.
And I am blogging about other people's art.