Cracked Pot Meditations – Your Voice

Meditation for March 24^th, 2016

Your Voice

We all have a unique voice. It isn’t just how the voice sounds, but the words we use, our phrases and slang, the accent and tone and the volume we use. You can tell that someone you know is on the other side of the supermarket aisle just by that person’s voice. We can be attracted to voices, turned away by voices or even presume what the person is really feeling by the voice.

You should hear how you sound before you go on with your life. You should record a conversation you have with someone and listen to how you talk. Most of the time you will find that you sound awful. You should quit talking all together. In fact, the number one reason you piss people off is because you are not in control of your own voice.

Usually if someone upsets you your voice goes up an octave and even gets a whiney squeaking effect as you exclaim your emotions. Your voice is doing this because you are trying to fend off an attacker. This is like an audible skunk spray. You usually grate out a question like, “Why are you doing this to me?” and the arched pitch makes the assailant cringe.

Your voice also gets slow and molassess-y when you are sad and lonely. You might even say that everything is fine, but you sigh three times while saying the word fine. This starts at a lower pitch than everyday conversation and drops down at the end of the word. This vocal affliction is to make the person confused between turning away from you or to buy you a coffee and ask what is really going on.

Think before you do a comedian’s bit or pretend you are a gangsta rapper or surfer dude. You sound idiotic when you say, “I’m Rick James, bitch!” or anything that was already written and performed by someone not you. If someone laughs it is because they are remembering the original bit and not you doing it. This goes with doing any kind of hip-hop slang or surfer-skater lingo. You sound ridiculous. It might be funny for a second, but it just makes you sound tired, old and white.

Only a few and the proud can pull of the snarky sarcastic voice. Most of us though, especially now that TV has adopted gay men to be judges of the rest of our culture and fashion, just shouldn’t even try. Sarcasm is a psychological disorder according to the Psychology Harem of America, so this isn’t something to be light about because it means you are absolutely unable to connect with another human being.

Learn your own voice. See what happens when you get angry, sad, frustrated or even happy. Listen to your voice and see how most of the time when you are reacting to an emotion you are probably sounding either like a drowning dolphin or a Disney Australian sea turtle.

Prayer

Milil,

You are the Goddess of song,

I pray to you every dawn,

but yet I sound like a dying pig whose throat is on fire.

Please help me to sound different.

My voice is ugly and I have to make it up with an excellent personality.

My good looks can only go so far.

When I sing I sound like Gordon Gano and Black Francis’s baby who has a cold.

When I laugh, I sound like a banshee sucking helium.

Please help me to sound better.

People keep thinking I’m more upset than I am.

People keep thinking I’m more needy than I am.

People keep thinking I’m more emotional than I am.

People think I’m a crybaby.

People think I need to lighten up.

All of those assumptions are from the tone of my voice.

Pleas help me.

Gelos,

I see you laughing at me.

I see that I make you laugh.

Especially when I’m like,

sup duh?

You like grinding some gnar gnar pow pow?

or when I do this:

Yyyyyyeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

Wwwwwwhhhhhhuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttt!!!!!!!

Oooooooookkkkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!

or when I’m all like,

What’s up playah?

You be trippin on my tip?

schnizzle my frizzle my nigizzle!

I also do great rehashing C.K. Louis stand-up.

Every line from all the Austin Power movies.

My impersonation of Wayne from Wayne’s world is uncanny.

I sometimes speak in movie quote jokes,

And find that a lot of people can’t keep up.

Keep making me funny.

Have you seen Anchorman 2?

“By the hymen of Olivia Newton John!”

Hahahahahahahahaha!

I bet that is as funny when I say it as Will Ferrell does it in the movie.

Amen.

Craft

Record yourself with your phone or a recorder as you go about your day. Pay close attention to when you are having an extreme emotional reaction to something and listen to it later when you are calm.

You might find that you don’t want to sound like that anymore.

Goal

Sometimes when you are talking about your emotions you are sounding really terrible. Maybe we should try to keep the voice calm and steady instead of letting it run the gambit all over the tonal scales and even hitting tones humans can’t even hear.

When you do comedic voices especially ones that already exist, you sound unoriginal and not as good as the original. Stop doing gangster speech because you are being racist and stop doing surf talk because it isn’t 1978 anymore. The actors and comedians do the best at what they do so leave it to the professionals and maybe try some original jokes.

Put down the Austin Powers impersonation and go back to trying to cover Hotel California on your ukulele.