The Expressionist’s Podcast Ep. 1- Doctor Ocular

Finally!

This podcast has been something I have wanted to have running for a long time now. I’m incredibly excited to have Johnson City’s Doctor Ocular as my first guest. These guys have been killing the local jam scene and have been hitting the road a ton after their debut 5-track EP, “Hippocratic Toast”

I hope you enjoy this conversation, covering inspirations, life on the road, and philosophizing expression itself.

 

Podcast Episode:

The Expressionist’s Podcast Ep.1- Doctor Ocular

For tour dates, tunes, and info on Doctor Ocular:

doctorocularband.com

Ink

I have always been obsessed with word play and rhyme scheme. The more obscure and cryptic the metaphor, the better. This is why poetry and lyricism captures and stimulates my attention. Anything is possible.

It’s odd. Sometimes I enjoy trying to confuse myself by trying to connect non-sense with non-sense in hopes of context arising. I love having an avant-garde creative process. I can only produce pure content and expression in certain and rare frames of mind. When I reach that certain consciousness is when the words seem to flow, sometimes to the point where I am but merely a channel projecting that of something larger.

Frequently, I find out what I’m talking about only once the piece is finished.

Here’s one of my favorites…

 

When you’re too close for comfort,

But an inch away from worth,

I’ll stumble past last,

With my Eyes buried beneath the dirt,

Wondering, “how long?”

Staggering mental capacities

Laying where I belong

Nuzzling within the cavities

Tandem vagrants belated non complacent to the normalcy

Having the last laugh as long as you hold the appleseed

Well, if the current state of affaires

Is garbed in a camo skin suit

I can’t be too concerned

On not witnessing all the bad news

The shoes that choose to wrap the feet of the misguided

Are perpetually navigating these plains in ‘auto-pilot’

Big ups to the ones continually shape shipfting

Depicting an image while it lasts

Quality grasps

Alas, trash painted gold sold to the highest bidder

Selling water by the river, expecting a tip for convenience.

 

A Still Moment

We are so privileged to exist in a world where we can capture an instance, a second in time, in a displayable format. Photography, next to the written word, can be one of the most powerful tools in expression.

To take a photo is to show the world through ones own unique perspective. Once honed, photography can tell a story that words alone could never quite explain. You can really see what inspires a great photographer through their work. You can see what is important enough, in their eyes, to capture and display to the world.

Here are some of my favorite shots I have taken.

Also, attached is a link to my website which contains a more extensive photo gallery, as well as more of my articles and video projects. gabrieljosephperez.weebly.com

Flower pots ascending up a flight of stairs in downtown Jonesborough, Tennessee. Photo: Gabe Perez

The sun rising over the Folly Beach shorline. Photo by: Gabe Perez

Stand-Up Guys

One of my favorite artistic expressions to hone is the art of stand-up comedy. I see it as being pure perspectivism, coupled with the art of delivery.

Making a joke “work” can be just as exhilarating as it is frustrating. As a general glance of the process I’ve come to love, it means taking an observation or a thought, transposing it into a deliverable package, and placing it in the right spot in a set, utilizing transitions between each jokes is a labor of love.

One of the most fascinating elements of stand-up comedy is that the only way to practice jokes, bits, and routines is to actually perform. With others, such as music, there are rehearsals, solo practices, and just general honing of skills outside of the audience’s eye. With comedy, you can write and prepare all you want, but the only way to see whether or not a joke works is by taking it to the stage, which requires a slew of different skills all together.

As this is practiced, you start to develop style. You begin finding your unique voice that should be very specific. I see it as a physical and auditory reflection of your perspective, rather than the perspective itself. Progression and evolution of one’s skill set and style is so apparent and almost tangible. It’s especially exciting when you come up with someone else at more or less the same level. You grow together, sharing perspective and tips.

Here is a 45 minute conversation between legends Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Louis CK, and Ricky Gervais about these very topics, along with so much more, I always go back to it,

 

Expressions

What is art?

A question that may never have a subsequent answer, while simultaneously being subsequently answered with every response.

I’d like to begin this chapter, this excursion into the realm of artistic expression with what I have come to understand for myself, if anything at all.

I guess, I find myself agreeing with the concept of an ultimate muse, made up of a plethora of different sides, shades, angles, etc. People do not create from nothing with their bare hands. We are merely projectors, expressing whatever side or angle of this muse we have access of.

To know one’s self and to organically express artistically is to have some sort of understanding to what one has access.

Some are musically inclined, others feel more comfortable communicating visually. Some are writers, actors, photographers, expressing perspective unique to the individual.

Here is an interview about this very concept with a personal musical hero of mine, with words that I hold dearly…