13 Questions: Raul Midon
- From: "BlindNews Mailing List" <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <BlindNews@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:16:50 -0400
BBC Ouch! (UK)
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
13 Questions: Raul Midon
Raul Midon is a blind singer songwriter from New Mexico. Having plied his trade
in Miami, singing backing vocals for names such as Julio Iglesias and Shakira,
he took his unique vocal, guitar playing, and mouth trumpet styles to New York.
Now Midon is a fully fledged solo artist, and has just released his second
album, A World Within A World. With a successful first CD, and performances on
David Letterman and Jay Leno under his belt, the natural next step is,
obviously, to answer Ouch's 13 Questions.
Uppermost in my mind today is ...
Two things. I'm very focused on my work, and I'm always thinking a lot about
what kind of world we are leaving for the next generation in terms of values
and the environment.
People think I'm ...
Optimistic, when that's not necessarily true. I get less so by the day.
I want to ban ...
Bad singing on TV. American Idol is god awful. There are people who sing a lot
better who should be there. It lowers standards and makes it all about
celebrity. I don't think a disabled person would even get on to one of those
shows, but in terms of the business, blindness is probably the easiest
disability to have. If you have something to offer, the audience will be
amenable, but people in show business are such cowards. They don't want to do
anything which might offend.
Not a lot of people know that I ...
Like to ski. You start out with the guide in front of you. As you get better,
the guide skis behind you, just making sure you stay on course. I always wear a
bib which says blind skier. I used to hate having to do that, but now I think
it's just sensible.
The best piece of advice I would pass on is ...
Always be yourself, and the trick is not to get what you want but to know what
you want. I believe that it's possible to achieve anything, but the thing is to
be careful what you wish for.
I struggle with ...
Balancing this job and the rest of my life. It takes up so much of your time
and energy that you miss out on the other things, like family and
relationships. It consumes you.
I excel at ...
Morse code. It's one of those things I learned as a ham radio operator. This is
a hobby where you talk to people all over the world on the radio. Until
recently, you had to learn Morse before you could get your licence, but that
requirement is gone now.
My ideal dinner guest is ...
Randy Newman. He's very dry, witty and intelligent. I think we would have
really interesting conversations about a lot of things. Most musos are narrow,
only able to discuss music or sport, but he has something to say about every
subject. He wrote one of the most unlikely songs to become a hit. Short People
was written as a dig at his producer, who was a small guy.
If I didn't live in the US, I'd live in ...
France. I feel a certain connection with the country, because I think that,
historically, the French have a certain bias for people of African American
descent. I have entertained the idea of moving out of the US very recently, for
political reasons. People seem to like me more in other places.
Where do you spend most of your time?
On the road. I like meeting different people, but travelling, and particularly
flying, are not so much fun. I have an assistant, who helps me with things like
packing. I used to do my own, but didn't like it. I have a Milestone MP3
player. It's amazing. I put stuff from the computer on to it and use the voice
recorder a lot when travelling. I love the Audible website for books as well.
My first job was ...
The blind school I went to paid me to use a piece of equipment called an
Optacon, which was a way to read printed letters through your fingers, using a
camera. I would transcribe menus into Braille for the school, and then use
something called a thermoform machine to make copies.
When I come home in the evenings, I ...
Play on the computer or listen to the radio. On the road, I like to listen to
sports. In Europe it's BBC Radio 5 Live.
My favourite food is ...
At the moment I'm really into wine sauces like masala. But I haven't cooked at
all since I got married in 1999, and on the road you don't even make a
sandwich. I do the dishes, take out the garbage and all that though. I'm fairly
domesticated.
For more information on everything to do with Raul Midon, check out
raulmidon.com
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/closeup/13questions/raul_midon.shtml
BlindNews Mailing List
Subscribe: BlindNews-Request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" as subject
Unsubscribe: BlindNews-Request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe" as subject
Moderator: BlindNews-Moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Archive: http://GeoffAndWen.com/blind
RSS: http://GeoffAndWen.com/BlindNewsRSS.asp
More information about RSS feeds will be published shortly.
Other related posts:
- » 13 Questions: Raul Midon
