Today, I wanted to do something a little different. This guest entry was written by the wonderful Alee Schwarz:
At the beginning of 2008, I was halfway through my senior year of high school and an editor (and writer and photographer—we were a little understaffed) of the school newspaper. One day as the eight of us on staff sat discussing story ideas for our March issue, someone mentioned Rock the Difference: a small concert and documentary screening to be held on campus, the proceeds of which were to go to the Invisible Children fund.
I called dibs on that story right away—it would be a great chance to inform the student body about a great cause. It would also be a great excuse to skip out on an evening study-group for Academic Decathlon scheduled for the same night, but that wasn’t my main motive. Really. I promise.
The night of the concert, I paid for my ticket and stepped into the school gym, camera in hand and notebook and pens ready to go. I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I was going to get an awesome article and photos out of it.
The first act—a garage band made up of students from our school and the next one over—took the stage, and I started snapping pictures, moving from one place to the next in search of a better shot. I did the same during the second act, falling into that bad photographer zone where capturing the moment correctly overrides experiencing it.
Then came act number three.
I heard a name announced, and through the camera lens I saw a guy bringing a guitar onstage. I got a couple pictures of him as he sat down at the keyboard that had been set up. Then he started playing and opened his mouth to sing, and that was it. I put my camera down, and I watched him, and I listened.
This was Jakob Martin, and he did something completely different than the other two performances, which had both boiled down to “get onstage, play a few songs, get offstage”. He took the time to make a connection: talked with the audience, told stories between songs—I remember him offering a preemptive apology before going into “Ten Thousand People in White”, laughing that a guy from southern California had no business singing about snow. I had no idea who he was, and I couldn’t help but laugh with him.
Oh, and I should probably mention that he could sing. (Go listen to some of the music on his site if you don’t believe me.)
Jakob ended the concert on—and I apologize for the pun—a high note; the Invisible Children documentary played, and when that was over I got started on the other half of my assignment. I approached the members of the garage band, asking if they had a few minutes for an interview with the school paper. It was getting late, they said, and they had to get home, but I could talk to the guitarist at school next week; I barely got their names written down before they and their equipment were out the doors. My luck with the second performer wasn’t any better: when I asked him for an interview, all the response I got was a scowl before he turned on his heel and walked away. When I approached Jakob, I had given up and resigned myself to doing a photo essay. Asking him for a few minutes of his time was just a formality.
I was more than a little surprised when he smiled, sat down on the bleachers, and asked me what I’d like to know.
I ended up with an entire page of notes, and at some point the interview turned into a friendly chat, mostly about music. He was just that easy to talk to—I’d known him all of fifteen minutes, but I honestly felt like I was talking to a good friend. When I had to leave, he got up and handed me a copy of Matches, his CD, because I had mentioned I liked his music but didn’t have the money on me to buy it. He signed it and everything, with a short message encouraging me to follow my dreams.
There has been a lot of talk about money on this blog—no surprise, with just over a week to go and thousands of dollars left to be raised. But the heart of this campaign is Jakob, a good guy following a dream and inspiring others to follow theirs. And that’s as great a cause as any.
Contact Alee
cas0319@yahoo.com
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