Kim McKee

Cyber Stew

2011-08-25T21:09:00.000-06:00

It has been brought to my attention, that there are actual humans out there reading this blog! I’ve not written since November 2010! With dizzying schedules, the constant attention to website management, and now the more prominent social networks… booking, scheduling, family communications, accounting and other ‘online’ endeavors have kept me everywhere but ‘blogging’.
I really didn’t think there to be but one or two who even read here, but a recent post from a ‘follower’ made me dig deeper… after some toggling and clicking, I see that I actually have had readers from all over the world! I wonder how they find this tiny place, this tiny voice. I think on how I would ever find a mysterious writer living a small life and take the time to read what that human had to say? Maybe I need to spend more time surfing the perimeters of cyber existence to see what’s out there? Perhaps there is a ‘word soul mate’ just waiting to be read? Maybe there is a new friendship or connection that could alter two states of mind and thought? This invisible world of internet means you don’t have to see the face of ideas, or hear the voice of dreamers, you can just click, un-click, re-click, zip from China (I have several readers there), to Russia (more there), Belarus (hello to Belarus readers), and other exotic countries and landscapes that I can only dare to dream about…
Currently there is enough static in the world. So much white noise, hell raising, judging, disrespect, religion flaunting, flag saluting, pundit barking, news altering, deception. How does one’s whisper alter the conscience of humanity? How does one song, one note of music, one dragonfly wing flutter make the world different? I’m too small to even contemplate such thoughts.
I love and hate this internet world. I yearn for a hug from those who sit staring at a screen typing symbols to me: I want to feel your heartbeat against my chest. I crave the inflection of voice, the blink of eyelids, the shifting in chair, of a human being telling a story: I want to ‘be’ in your story. I pull from memory the heaving chest of one who is laughing heartily in front of me, not typing ‘lol’: milk spewing through nostrils would bring great joy! I want to collect the salt tears of the one who, one letter at a time gives me news of pain from their fingers to my eyes: here… I’m wearing my old ‘round the house shirt’ and it awaits a damp face pressed against it. I hate seeing your digital photos, I want to breathe the same air with you, stale or fresh…
And yet… without this internet… how would I know you were there at all? Someone in Belarus wouldn’t even know I exist. Weeks or months, if at all… would be the wait to hear from my great friends in Scotland as they swim in competitions, play bagpipes for ceilidh’s, spin wool for weaving, sing songs. Photos of children and grandchildren would be delayed instead of instant. The news of spirits coming and going, of joys and sorrows, work and rest, might not reach this heart until it was too late to respond... Too late... Too late…
So I celebrate those who participate with this modern carrier pigeon. I’m grateful for the invention, the advantage of having the technology, and the irritation of continually learning the skills to use it. It steals my life one day, but gives me everyone’s life the next day…
Thank you to those who are reading here. Those who remember to drop me a note, who send photos and messages via Facebook, our regular email, and even those who just read silently… we are all in this cyber stew together… but don’t forget to hug those in the room with you, this virtual world is not the human reality… we need each other in flesh and bone…

A poem: Mining

I wanted to make people cry
With a song
Kenny wanted to make people laugh
But laughter is an easy response
Even when it is not appropriate
Laughter can arrive

A sigh and a tear
Now that is buried deeper
And the skill
To bring them to the surface
Requires patience and darkness

Crawling down the shaft of possibility
Again and again
Thru the black damp
And the white damp
Of emotions

No matter what dredges up
In the slag
Keep digging the seam
Fault lines and fissures
Will bring you to the core

Only when you can mine
The sigh and the tear
For yourself
Can you mine it in others

I wanted to make people cry
With a song

Mining terms: Black damp: carbon dioxide White damp: carbon monoxide

Censorship and driftwood

2010-11-09T18:20:00.000-07:00

Well, after much soul searching, I decided to return the blog to the website.
There had been a fiasco with a blog post I made. Apparently there was offense taken, so I self censored and took the blog off totally.

Now, hopefully with wounds healed, and my voice back, I will write. Not often, but when I do it will be my truth, and in this freest of countries, without censorship. A blog really isn’t for any other purpose except to pen outwardly your inner voice. For the most part, no one else cares what your inner voice has to say. It would be lovely if blogs really did change minds and alter belief systems. But maybe not… then we’d all be the same and what would be the point of the inner voice or the blog at all? The exercise in typing words to page in the off chance that someone else will read it is just that. An exercise.
And maybe, the person reading will connect and maybe not. You can’t please everyone all the time and everyone should NOT be or think just like you do! So opinions, beliefs, thoughts, memories, and voicing any of them should be mostly kept to oneself, and if allowed outside the confines of the mind, then others can chose to read, or not, chose to agree or not. In this cyber age, all one has to do is to ‘back out’ of the page and go someplace else. And that is the risk of the writer and the responsibility of the reader…

We have been in the loveliest of landscapes, and meeting the most wonderful people on this tour. We always love our job, but somehow this past month has been more vivid and fulfilling than ever. The paying of bills is at the bottom of the list of why we do this.
And while we have often thought over the years that our work was not that essential to the world, and that it takes us away from family and community, there are other gifts we receive that give us a different perspective.

Here is the short list of wonderful diverse people we’ve met in the past few weeks: a world champion sea kayaker, an explosives expert for the movies, a psycho therapist, a music teacher, someone born in a Japanese internment camp, an old cowboy, an Indian, a painter, a dancer, a titanium engineer, a medical engineer, a lawyer, an arts advocate, a classical pianist, a hairstylist, a postman, a balloon pilot, a traditional Mexican ‘chef’, a theater/drama teacher, an English teacher, a choir teacher, an expert on sea chanteys, lots of school children of all races, nationalities, sizes, shapes, level of education and income… What other job could be so infused with humanity? What other job could prove to me that I am but a fair-skinned drop in a universe brewed to perfection? What other job looks back at the ancestors for stories and learning, while performing for the immediate audience, while teaching the next generation? What other job teaches me more with every experience, than I could ever possibly bring to it?

At our advancing age, we discuss the future… how long can we keep up the road life? How many more ‘bags of finger food’ can we consume? How many more cheap motels, or expensive motels, or gas stations, or weather delays, or… How many concerts will people be willing to pay for when they stare at wrinkles and gray hair? How many students will be willing to participate with ‘grandparent’ types? What is the smallest amount of money we can make and still be viable? How can we keep our music skills honed and our creative juices flowing in the face of a world with deeper problems than our tiny efforts can effect?

Constant questions that we have carried in our back pocket, since we started this insane lifestyle. Questions that seem to have no answer, either internally or externally.
We keep going, while we can. We can’t think of an alternative, nor can we imagine not doing this. It will need to be reckoned with at some point, but I feel like Scarlet…
‘I’ll think about it tomorrow’….

A poem:

Driftwood
The definition of adventure
Once grounded in earth and air
Now
Plump and heavy
Stuck here
Rushed there
Soaring on wings of water
To other possibilities
Casting away bark
And exterior hardness
In order to allow
A different kind of life
To absorb deeper
Into the grain

It seems happiest
When afloat
Dark, soft, slimy
And oh so free
In creek, river, sea
High centered on land
Causes a skeletal gray
Atrophied limb waiting for rain
To re-plump cells
And maybe
Just maybe
Raise the tide enough
To carry it away

Driftwood
Is the definition
Of adventure

2010-08-17T19:52:00.001-06:00

There is a dangerous journey
That is not to lofty granite peaks
But inward to the core of self
The perils are not raging oceans
But silent springs bubbling up from below
The threat of exposure
Is not an arctic blizzard
But in the arms of the beloved
Death of the known world is not when eyes close
But when eyes open

Today I journeyed to my center – my nucleus of being. The raw unfiltered emotion of pure love rushed over me unexpectedly and caught me unprepared, three times! I used to feel this often, but it has been years and my greatest fear was that I had lost the ability to feel it… that it might never come to me again.

The first wave of clarity came at the sight and meeting with Bud. My teacher. My spirit tutor. My mentor in the natural world. My friend and adopted father. How I have missed him. How I feared coming back in his presence lightly. The separation of the white world and the Indian world is palpable, and I find it difficult to move back and forth between them. I am only a ‘guest’ there. And yet when I arrive, I am at home there too. While there is a hesitance to return, the spirit voice tells me always “when you enter this place, never take the ‘outside’ world in, but always take this place back with you”. Tossing my heart into the Indian presence I regained my own truth. I located my true north and felt all that he has ever taught me re-enter my psyche and inhabit my cells. Thank you Grandfathers!

The second wave came at the bend in the river. My sacred holy of holies. The keeper of my truest love and healer of my deepest wounds. Every sense peaked at this reunion – I was transformed again to the vivid dreams this place offers me. I hear again with my spirit ears, see again with my spirit eyes and come alive from the waking numbness. This place saved my life once. It saves me again: sounds, smells, colors, chickadee, ponderosa, buzzing insects, jumping fish, crying hawk, dragonfly… all greet me as ‘friend’. I did not forget them, and they did not forget me! Thank you Grandfathers!

The third journey to the core of my being – my time with my beloved teacher and friend, Charlotte. Her grace, wit, compassion and beauty, elevates my intellect and infuses me with wisdom. The hunger to learn – to accept others – to bless all – delicate and fierce at the same time. She is my feminine hero.

And so it is that I’m exhausted. The intensity is not describable with language. The complete submission to the truest of loves consumes – then re-kindles to consume again. And the hunger to return, for there is no joy like this joy, no pain like this pain… means I am alive again!
Thank you Grandfathers!

Concert of Reckoning

2010-07-02T19:50:00.001-06:00

So there is a time in every performers life, when you give all the passion your heart can give and the audience remains in another orbit of another star in another galaxy. No matter what you do, you can’t win them over. You study the experience instantaneously as it is happening, trying to gauge what they are thinking. Why they are not reacting like other audiences. What are you doing wrong. How can you do it differently right this second to make it better for them. And when the lights go off, and they go home you beat yourself up over why you failed them and yourself and the music gods.
It has only happened a couple of times in 20 years, but it happened recently and it makes for a messy autopsy of the heart! The second guessing of the career choice. The dismal crushing of any self esteem that may have been lingering in the corners of the mind. “I quit”! I resound! “I’d rather sweep the floor at the mall” I decide. Anything but put heart and soul out in front of people to have it be disrespected.
And then I remember my mantra… ‘a bad day as a musician is better than a good day as a __________(fill in the blank with a desk job, a filthy job, a mindless job, no job)’.
And then it happens… the following day… 90 teenagers we taught dance to, all applaud and tear up when the final dance class is over… I guess I’ll keep going a bit longer…

The Accordion and the Applause

It’s bad enough
Flaunting her under bright lights
Stretching her to her limits
Deflating her in front of gawkers
Allowing my inadequate skills
To blurb obnoxious notes publicly
When she is capable
Of so much more

But the worst sin of all
Exposing her to the glares
Of an unappreciative audience
To torture her with mediocre applause
To put her in her case
Still warm from my hands
Without a single adoring fan

Sheltering her from my reality
I try to carry the weight of it
I analyze and agonize
Theorize and reprise
The slow slicing with rusty blade
Of my own jugular vein
To spare her the bleeding
Always smiling in her presence
So as not to tarnish her pure existence

I dissect their small brains
Put shock paddles to my heart
Give mouth to mouth to my limp musical soul
Take the tourniquet off my nearly amputated
Career
Say the rosary, turn three circles anti-clockwise
Curse Zeus and Batman
And just before I latch the latches
Whisper to her that it’s not her fault
And it will be better
Next time

graduation

2010-03-15T14:24:00.001-06:00

This was written three weeks ago... I delayed getting it posted...
Harry has indeed graduated, throw your cap dear one, throw your cap!

“Make some music, drink a toast, he’s about to graduate” she said.
I love the metaphor of graduation. Our culture calls it death, or passing away. Solemn and sad words for such a joyous life and brilliant man.

The definition of a graduate is a person who has received an academic degree or diploma. Not only does Harry have several of those physical items to prove his intelligence and achievements, he truly is going to graduate.
He does not believe in heaven or hell, he does not buy into any dogma that tells him what comes next. But those of us who know him and love him, know that he is about to receive a degree in higher education. He wouldn’t settle for anything less than another learning experience.

This is a man who challenged his religion, his government, his family. He went to Cuba to work side by side with farm laborers. He worked in the inner circle with Martin Luther King Jr. He traveled to Spain not to learn Spanish, but to become bi-lingual. South America and Russia were part of his journeys of inquiry and learning. He never stopped learning and writing and teaching… never. Not even in the face of his cancer and his paralysis did he ever stop learning, and teaching. So how could anyone say the word ‘die’ in the same sentence with his name?

Weepie when we heard the fast decline, then celebratory that we shared with him a deeper heart than most.
Our true ‘anam cara’. So many people only dream of such a rich connection to another soul, we are grateful for the opportunity to experience that with Harry. He understood passion, and commitment, creativity and the muse. He spoke in terms of truth and love, and while always trying to change the world with words, he was willing to hold the placard and march. A hero in the true sense of the word, because there are few who put their deeds where their mouths are. Few who are brave enough to take on the status quo and fear not. Few whose mind and intellect could outwit with love the way he could.

And so the final weeks of this tour, we will sing for him. We will raise a glass for him. We will burn sweetgrass and celebrate his graduation. We are not beside his bed, but we walk the halls of learning that he created for us. We will engage our minds and hearts as he showed us how to do. We will question and work and teach and create in his honor… and that is where he would have us be.

House of Memory

2010-01-06T19:40:00.002-07:00

A new year, a new decade, an older person…
I love Colorado weather. Today we ate sandwiches on the deck in the warm sunshine. Ok, we had coats on too, but it was oh so pleasant for January 6. By 3:30 the fog and frozen mist rolled in from the east, along with the first flurries of a storm. The fickle moods of this place we call home, the planet, the continent, the state, the county, the tiny acreage in the woods… all narrow down to a pinpoint and move me to ponderings.

I really dislike looking backwards and we humans insist on doing it at New Year’s time. There is a melancholy surrounding memory. Whether real or imagined, the memory is not reliable.
I could start with ‘it was the best year EVER’, or I could start with ‘it was the hardest year EVER’ and both would be correct. Every blooming year is also decay so why do we spend time and energy with the re-tilling of already tilled soil? Because we cannot deny the house of memory which encases us in the illusion that it was not all for naught.

When I swoon over my memories, I do not do the present justice. When I relive experiences through the lens of a past memory and then double the correction with a lens of the present, I alter the clarity of both vistas. And yet I look back. Especially when I see what is in front of me disappearing.

Bedside watch for someone who fights the solo fight to stay alive is a very humbling experience. It makes the memory and the heart race at the same pace. Your own soul amps up its courage in a helpless situation. Your breath matches the breath of the warrior before you, and you hold a frail hand with all the tenderness you can muster. When the countdown is not for midnight cheer, but for an unknown number of days or weeks, there is no glowing ball or confetti. There is a second by second contemplation and hesitation… don’t leave… don’t stay… don’t worry… don’t cry… don’t hurt…

The deathbed vigil…
“you’re beautiful”: repeated to everyone who comes in the room
“thank you”: repeated to everyone who comes in the room
“I love you”: repeated to everyone who comes in the room

Fear – pain – fear – anger – fear – frustration – fear – morphine – more fear

And yet he never stops saying…
“you’re beautiful”
“thank you”
“I love you”

When my skin is so thin, that my soul shows through…
What kind of soul will be exposed?
When my existence is reduced to a few breaths per minute…
What words will I whisper?

Music Awards

2009-11-25T13:00:00.003-07:00

Two blogs in the same week... I can't help it. Other people use blogs to blow off steam, so I will try it to see if it helps.
We don't have cable or satellite, so the only information we get while off the road is through the internet. Of course the headline grabbed my attention right away... disasters at the AMA's! Well, I don't follow pop or country or top 40 anything, but I had to read about disasters and music, after all, no matter the genre, we musicians are all kindred spirits of sorts?
But the news clip made it blatantly clear that we are in NO way related! I could not believe my eyes and ears and what our modern culture accepts as entertainment and music.

JLo (however you spell that), falls down. Any other time I'd think tragedy! But she was parading around stepping on men, and who could concentrate on singing with all that leather strapped on? It didn't seem so tragic after all, sorry music Gods, she is not one of my tribe. Music? I thought not... shock value. Then Lady GaGa (however you spell that, I always associated that sound with babies) in a skin colored outfit with little Christmas lights and an octopus on her head... ok, interesting. Until she started breaking bottles and setting a piano on fire! Music? I thought not... shock value. Again, not of my tribe.
Then the Adam Lambert show. I'm not a prude. I don't care about anyone's sexual orientation. But dragging around a girl by the ankles? Miming oral sex? Deep throat kissing a band member? S&M on prime time television? Music? I thought not... more shock value. Certainly not of my tribe.

I don't appreciate Michael Jackson's addiction to his crotch while singing. But I do appreciate his musicality. I can't tell you if I appreciate the musicality of those mentioned above, because I simply can't remember anything but the shock value. Pole dancing, sexual miming, little or no clothing, outrageous movements and gymnastics... what about music? Lyric? Delivery? Connection? Am I the only one to want those items in my auditory experience? What does the rest of my species find entertaining about pretend sex, LED lights, destruction and shock?
What can be the next greatest shock value trick? I'm not sure I want to know. Maybe some new performer will really be unique and shock everyone with the simple beauty of music?
oh to find one of my tribe in mainstream music...
oh how outdated I am...

Meanderings in California

2009-11-24T16:35:00.002-07:00

Touring in California… so like fish out of water…
We have spent so many years touring in rural America, sticking to the tiny two lane roads, working with students in schools so small that some of them really did only have two rooms. Performing concerts in every type of structure from county fairgrounds, Quonset huts, and middle-school cafeterias to high school gyms. Theaters old and failing, jury seats in city halls, corners of libraries, upstairs from the newspaper, downstairs from the Catholic Church. Oh there were the high tech and state of the art theaters, but you wouldn’t need both hands and feet to count them, they don’t exist in rural America, they are simply not a priority.

So when we find ourselves driving on 12 lane highways with millions of people, breathing toxins, acting aggressively to stay alive, never seeing a dark night sky or finding jello on the menu… we start feeling a bit squirmy!

The experiences of the metropolis give us a different perspective on humanity. While all is not rosy in the hinterlands of rural America, the ugly side of our species is more apparent in the city. The young woman with a baby, newly thrown out of her house and crying through the streets with no place to go… the thief in the night who resorted to cutting our fuel line to siphon our gas because our gas tank is anti siphon… the lack of patience at any level or in any public place… all began to grind on our souls before the end of our second tour to California this fall.

Our final performance was a private house concert, a fundraiser for the Merola Opera in San Francisco. It drove home to us, the incredible gap between the haves and the have-nots.

The opulence, the decadence, the opportunity of beauty, health, wealth, education and sheer excess might not have seemed so dramatic had we not just experienced a desperate Mom and a desperate gas thief. Two people with simple needs on the surface: shelter and transportation. But I think the needs run deeper. A chance to get an education. Opportunity to be safe. Health and safety. Shall I say it??? A society that cares about those less fortunate.

In that ubber wealthy home, the people were very kind and considerate. In our consumptive culture, we think that money will solve all our woes, but they were not necessarily happier. They were more beautiful. They were more educated. They did have life experiences that the average human will never have. But they were not happier, just a bit more secure maybe? And yet this past year has shown us how secure financial webbing can be… your flotation device just might be flawed.

It was a sobering trip to be sure. At the end of 2009, I find that our business has actually profited more money than the year before the recession. A fact that bears light on a humanity that still needs music, and soulful experiences. Getting paid is only the smallest part of why we do this crazy job. And while there are wealthy people ready and willing to pay more, the benefits for us in rural America outweigh the paycheck. I do love opening the ears of anyone who’ll listen to our music. A wheat farmer in North Dakota or a Corporate Realtor in San Francisco. They both can benefit from a night with Willson & McKee. But our hearts are deep seated in those closer to the earth, closer to a culture of community rather than corporation, closer to a society that looks after each other because that’s how you survive in the hinterlands.

We will be off to the Dakota’s, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota and parts northward starting in January. And though I second guess the timing based on past experiences with frigid winters in those states… However, I eagerly anticipate the heart and soul of rural folk. I need their simple lifestyle and generous living to cleanse my palette from the experiences in California…

Frozen tundra, insulated boots, hats and gloves, goosebumps, loading and unloading in subzero temps, jello on the menu…
Here we come!!!

A Poem for the gas thief:

I can picture him in my mind
Hispanic youth – angry clad
Nothing else to do but stalk
A parking lot
For a vulnerable enemy
White – middle-class – face-less
An anti-siphon gas tank
Adding only slight frustration
To his nocturnal maneuvers
For he is a warrior
With blade in hand – expert at anatomy
Clever and fearless
He deftly wields his weapon
On the jugular vein
And while not a fatal blow
They will limp, wounded
In the gray morning light
While he smiles at this small victory
And gas enough to raid another night

Vegas and Beyond

2009-10-10T14:03:00.001-06:00

Las Vegas, Nevada, the center of the artificial universe.
We really enjoy working in the schools here; there is such a bouquet of cultures and students of color! They are eager to hear music and to participate and even though there are some language barriers, we have a great time with them. We also enjoy our concerts here; proving that there are small clusters of thinking people who live here and enjoy acoustic music.

But last night, as we walked the strip, it was amazing to witness humanity’s craziness in all its glory. The hawking of pornography (we counted 17 card pushers on one corner alone), the glitz of flashing lights and loud music, rent a Ferrari, rent a tuxedo, rent a wedding chapel, rent a girl, see an overproduced and over priced show, eat overly expensive food that was trucked in from someplace else, and above all… watch the glazed eyes staring into blinking, noise making machines.

It was simply an out of body experience. Ken suggested a ‘folk club’, a place where folks could relax in a quieter atmosphere and hear good acoustic music, as a relief from all the over stimulation. I suggested that it would not make the casinos any money, and might in fact have the opposite effect of causing the stunned humans to awaken from the stupor and come to their senses! Neither of those outcomes is in the best interest of the casinos, so it would never happen.

The absurdity of the use of electricity and the use of water in a desert, all for the sake of entertainment, gave me pause. For we (Willson & McKee) are also in the ‘entertainment biz’. We don’t like to think of it in those terms, we imagine our work as more soulful than that. Educational, meaningful, thought provoking, perhaps even life altering somehow. But the reality is, that people flock to this circus of extremes, and leave thousands of dollars to be ‘entertained’. While at the same time the live performance of acoustic or folk music hovers over the abyss, with little or no visibility.

In a culture, which is always after the next big stimulation, our type of music and those like us will never enjoy mainstream popularity. I wonder about how far the boundaries can be stretched in order to accommodate the ‘extreme entertainment’ that so many seek. I also wonder what is says about a society who feels the need to fulfill every desire and beyond, even to the point of ‘renting’ the fun and the appearance of fun. Where does such opulence and indulgence end?

No sour grapes here, we understand the many faces of entertainment and showbiz.
We are happy to perform tonight for a handful of people who live here and crave a different experience. No tigers, no magicians, no stand-up comics, no free alcohol, no scantily clad babes, no flames, no ‘player cards’ to add gambling money to if they attend… just a few songs and tunes from a couple of ‘aging folkies’…
How… low key…
Can’t wait!!!!

July 09

2009-07-30T11:48:00.003-06:00

July 23, 2009

Blogging… a silly endeavor after a life altering experience!
After months and months of travel, and the most spectacular 6 weeks in Scotland, we are finally home. Facing mountains of mail, fix and repair of abandonment at the ‘ranch’, communication and bookings to catch up on, oddities of America… it’s all very surreal.
With non-stop summer guests, starting 24 hours after we landed, the trip itself is now awash in hosting those who come to vacation in Colorado. There will be no time to truly reflect until late August when we return from Montana.

Loving to write, I took great notes along the way. However there is a huge difference between documentary writing (to grasp points and not forget details), and creative writing. So along the way, my pencil was scribbling as fast as possible, but poems, stories and songs will have to come later.

I look at the lovely journal full, and wonder how I will work with those experiences?
How have those experiences changed me, and how can I change my small circle of existence now that I have dreamed in the pale summer nights of Scotland?

The biggest gift Scotland gave to us were the people! They have made such an impact on my heart… full-blown graciousness and hospitality. Friendships formed as easily as breathing. Teaching us with every sentence and gesture, sharing music and dance and laughter and history. The landscape and antiquities all swirl into marks on pages and I hope I can do them justice when I finally get quiet time to reflect on it all.

A human being goes halfway round the world, to discover that the sun is the same, except it stays up longer. The moon is the same, except it shines with an accent. The birds sing different tunes and the cows vocalize in Doric. The rain is different; it dampens heather rather than sage. The wind is unique; it carries gull’s cries and sea mist instead of pinion pollen and hunting nighthawks. Humans in Scotland look like humans here… they dance and sing and cry and burn dinner. They run errands and pay bills and clean the toilets. So magical, to discover… we really ARE of the same family!

In the meantime, I flit through the smudged pages when given a few minutes. I click on the hundreds of digital photos trying not to forget. I close my eyes and hear the voices of those who now… half a world away… are sleeping and unknowingly they, and Scotland, grace my days and nights… thank you.

May 09

2009-07-30T11:48:00.001-06:00

Blog: May

Anticipation is a double-edged blade of despair and elation. Over the past few weeks I have developed to a love hate relationship with its fickle moods. Being in the midst of our busy season, we work diligently to have focus and right intent during our time with students and in concerts. But there are nagging butterflies in the belly for the upcoming trip to Scotland and England! How can they invade, in the middle of singing “The big ship sails down the alley alley-o” with 50 kindergartners! Flitting thru my mind while dancing a ceili dance with 6th graders! Bringing on a bathroom break in the middle of telling the ‘horses ears’ story! Not fare!

We visualize and wonder, we theorize and smile. The electrification of dreams and animation of fantasy take control over the daily business, and we have to pull the plug and ground ourselves to the task before us at this minute!

When not working, we discuss which instruments will go, and which will stay. Who will carry what, what to give our hosts as thank you gifts, and who will remember where we put the important things like passports (it takes both our brains to remember things these days). We weigh the weighty decisions of weather and moisture and which clothes will be the perfect weight. We pour over maps and read books and watch as the fine folks in the UK fill our schedule with the most amazing experiences and opportunities.

The despair creeps in; when… I realize that it is only 10 days away, instead of 2 months away. I know, we are supposed to be excited that it’s closer now than it was. But I was the child who’s tears welled up at the balloon lying lifeless on the floor the morning after the circus. I was the blubbering one cradling the limp lilacs that I picked the day before. Endings are very hard for me! The ‘ending’ of the anticipation comes with a bit of sadness. The trip will be here before I know it, and then the anticipation turns to experience, which in the blink of an eye will be a memory.

And it is the way of each day of life… anticipation… experience… memory.

My current companion: anticipation.
My next companion, experience.
My last companion, memory.

Mar 09

2009-07-30T11:47:00.001-06:00

I’m a reluctant participant of the 'latest', 'greatest', 'trendy', 'bendy' sites like facebook/myspace/twitter/youtube/and any other new fangled 'must be seen' place!

Give me a landline, a letter with a stamp, and yup... the good old fashioned .com email! :))))) (can you tell I just spent 30 minutes attending to all the other sites except JIGHEADS.COM??? eeeeesh.)

I understand the current culture, I really do. I’m not trying to become a tottering elder who doesn’t like change. Although I remember my outright refusal, hands firmly placed on hips, with regard to our first computer! Why of course I’d rather do bookings with a phone (insert a curly cord that is always tangled) clenched between my ear and my shoulder. And of course it’s better to sit with an open atlas, a calendar, a calculator, and a spiral notebook, to conduct business. And who wouldn’t want to have dozens of spiral notebooks and three ring binders (one per state) at hand to have to look for contact information? I was proud of the balancing act, the instant problem solving, and the clenching of the gut at every phone call and calculation.

Yessiree… things have certainly changed for the better over the many years I’ve been working the business end of this music world! But the ‘black hole’ of gizmos, and the ‘abyss’ of time attached to said gizmos seem to gulp precious life.

Technology is a tool that makes me jitterier than a chainsaw. I know, it’s my generation; the young ones feel just the opposite. More visibility, more buzz, more communication super highways, more ‘inboxes’, more ‘friends’ and more ‘friends of friends’. For me it is simply more options for time suck-age. How much more can I be connected? How much more do I need to know, or think I need to know? If data is in the world and I’m not connected, is there still data in the world? What am I missing if I turn off the cell phone? How does the world go on, if I’m not on line every day? If I’m on line, but forget to check one of the sites will I miss a fan? A friend? A booking? How will they find me amid the cyber masses?

Technology even tries to creep into our physical traveling, there are those who have told us we need a GPS. “You’ll never get lost”. Well, we’ve never been lost! And I love maps… the colors, the searching of interesting town names, and places of interest while we are finding road numbers. There is something so very magical about maps. I certainly don’t want a robotic voice telling me where to go, I have enough voices in my head as it is! Let me navigate and take my chances… let me have one piece of my world that is NOT digital… It’s not always about going from point A to point B without side trips or unforeseen detours. That’s what makes life… well, LIFE! (see my poem below).

And yet…
Here I sit, writing this blog on computer number five (since the refusal of computer number one)! Everything I ever knew, everyone I ever knew and everything I need to know is in this little black box. Maybe YOU are reading this blog of words; maybe no one is reading it… so here are MY things to ponder:
Am I more satisfied with my work time? At times…
More savvy? Somewhat…
Am I more marketable? Nope…
More famous? Definitely nope…
More grounded in my relationships? Only time will tell…

The Atlas

The atlas lies lifeless on my lap
My fingers run over the smooth page
But paper is not what I feel
Its colorful lines are brail to my soul

My memory sees the roads I’ve traveled
My imagination sees the ones I have not
The dots with names of towns
Become the faces of the people who live there

The implied landscape
From barren, to lush
From flat, to lofty
Rivers, lakes, mountains
Leap into my heart

And the most important of all…

Those gaps of white
With no ink
Where the map
And the un-initiated
Assume there is nothing

To that empty fullness
The heart of a traveler
Is drawn

Feb. 09

2009-07-30T11:46:00.000-06:00

Language of the next generation:
A ‘blog’? Kenny has challenged me to write a ‘blog’?
It’s not a word that smoothly glides over the curves of the ear and into the swirls of synapses to create a picturesque moment in language…

And yet it is the new catchword for something to say, running off at the mouth, diarrhea of thought, rambling of intellect (or lack of it), opinions with or without merit, and commentary on commentary. I’m not sure there are many people who have something to say that should actually be written, or read, or remembered these days, including myself. Mostly there is too much ‘verbiage’ out in the universe with too little content, just a white noise to add to the existing white noise.

HOWEVER! Since I LOVE to write, and in my own head (like everyone else), I think I have to speak for the voices that dwell there, and since Kenny challenged me… why not?

So here goes the first ‘blog’ of my life:
HI!! I am a musician just home from a wonderful tour. We froze to death in North and South Dakota, but loved working with the kids in the schools and had great concerts. We finished up in Evanston, Wyoming at a wee Celtic festival where we were honored to teach, perform, sit in sessions and make memories with local musicians and the amazing and iconic band Dervish! Lucky US!!

The world is in spasm. But the events, schools, workshops and activities we have been involved with over the past 7 weeks, have been more soulful, more memorable and more needed than ever in our 18 years of this business.

My opinion is that this 'crisis' is exactly what the soul of the world needed to rehabilitate the addiction to money and consumerism for the sake of consumerism. Perhaps it is the universe itself saying: “without each other, without quality experiences, without loving relationships (which take time investment not money investment), without compassion, giving, creativity and reintroduction to each other, your species can be eliminated”... just my little theory.

Although 'arts' money is disappearing before our eyes, bloodletting of programs, schools are digging foxholes and climbing in, communities are frozen, sponsorships have been ‘beamed up’ to other planets, and media reminds us minute by minute how bad things are... The whole reason we do this thing we do is for the soulful exchange of humanity at the point of hearing music, laughing, engaging with each other and us. So perhaps there will be those who still need to do that, and maybe take lessons to do it for themselves, and maybe school kids will be moved to carry the torch of the arts and the human experience despite the politics and the economy...

Well, I’ve done it… I’ve ‘blogged’.
Spewing forth the written word for no other reason than to hear myself type.
It is therapeutic, but I’d rather do it face to face with all our family, friends, fans and mystery people. The world of cell phones, texting, email, myspace, facebook, websites, call forwarding, answering machines, blackberry’s, laptops, and other techno mania, has left me feeling more isolated than ever. Hand writing letters, licking stamps dropping envelopes into the abyss of the mail box, reaching into the mailbox to find a treasure there from a friend, hearing a voice on the phone to laugh immediately with, looking into the face of an elder while they tell a story, holding the hand of a child while they recount a dream, whispering into the ear of a loved one during a hug… ‘I Love You’…

There isn’t a blog in the world that can do that…