Attention Will Be Paid

Or... more considerations about a weekend thoughtfully lived.

Apparently, this minor public self-flagellation in the form of confessional blog is all I've needed to do to get some writing done.

One set of lyrics done and ready for other ears; still assessing regular vs. open tuning on it. More songs in greater stages of development. Played a few hours of surprisingly musical piano last night as well, accomplished by putting all the books away and trusting my fingers and ears.

Goofed off as well, taking in that 3-hour summation of "Lost" before this week's return to the series. Caught up with my mom, with my friend Stef. Did some clean up in the garden til the allergies started taking over again.

Must get back to it. Only the doing does it. Only a day and a half left in this wonderful long weekend.

Procrastination, Part Deux

Or... how the first 24 hours went...

Since yesterday’s post, all kinds of opportunities have arisen for me to procrastinate on devoting the weekend to writing.

I’ve succumbed to some, rejected others, but the noteworthy part is that I’m cognizant of each as a choice. Posting this blog, for instance, is a choice.

Out of yesterday’s list of possibilities, I:

• Made a list and went to market


• Did the laundry


• Cleaned my ring


• Researched some feng shui thoughts around the upcoming Year of the Ox. [Adrienne, check out these links: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/home/user-post-10-feng-shui-tips-for-having-the-best-year-yet-chinese-new-year-is-here-january-26-348919/ as well as http://www.fengshuidiva.com/chinesenewyear.htm]
  

I also went to the doctor and successfully scored a prescription for Allegra to conquer these allergies. I chose a simple evening with Charles catching up on rebroadcast episodes of West Wing hanging around in the DVR.

I rejected the three-hour broadcast of Lost from this past week (also on DVR), but may succumb later tonight while Charles is gigging out of town. I did not write yesterday. But I thought about it non-stop and went to sleep with the intention of waking up brilliant.

I didn't wake up brilliant, but I woke up motivated and ready to work, and I've managed to scrape one excellent verse together before 10:00 am. Victory is mine!

I am walking away from this song, cause I’m stuck on where to go after the first chorus. After this post, I’ll procrastinate (or percolate?) some more while running errands: get that Allegra scrip filled, get that overdue oil change.

After that, we’ll see.

The Art of Procrastination

Or… the artful steps we’re willing to take to avoid our calling.

A great teacher has said: “The size of your writer’s block is in direct proportion to the distance between your ass and your chair.”

I’ve got 15 or so new songs at various stages of construction. I really like every single idea in them. I’m having completion issues.

So I’m taking the day off from work, a pre-planned effort to refocus myself on music over a 4-day weekend (Monday being a Federal holiday and all). This is gonna be great! All I have to do now is come up with enough other things to keep me distracted from my intended objectives. If I can rationalize why I’m not getting to my writing and composing, then I can complain about, gosh, all kindsa things. Whatta payoff!

Let’s see…

The first thing I did when we mosied out of bed this morning was start cleaning the house. Who can create art with a dirty bathroom? I know I sure can’t. So the bathroom and kitchen are clean and the rest of the house is already in pretty good shape. Cross that off the list.

We scheduled the piano tuner for this morning, he’s here now, fixing those really scary flats. I can hear dogs howling in the distance with every stretch of a string. It’s wonderful to find people who love their work—he does—and wonderful to have them in your home. Plus, I can rationally tell myself that he is a contributing factor to my weekend of art; certainly I shall be able to play much better with a tuned piano. Maybe he’ll tell us when he’s done that we have to let the piano sit for a day or two to let the tuning “take” (what the hell do I know?). That’d be swell! A legit reason for not practicing my cycle of fifths.

And while Steve the Piano Guy is here, I can’t be plucking on the guitar. No competing notes in the house, so that’s a few hours where I can procrastinate a bit more.

While I’m blogging to the sounds of strings and dogs, I think I’ll come up with a few other ways to keep from finishing one or two of those new songs. Off the top of my head I could:

• Call Adrienne and Stef and see they're both doing (actually, I really do want to do this)


• Respond to the dozen or so emails from friends that deserve a thoughtful response (this is also true)


• Watch the Senate’s confirmation hearings for Eric Holder on C-Span.


• Check Facebook and MySpace. I could tweet a lot more, too.


• Clean my ring—those stones are looking dull.


• Water the plants.


• Make a grocery list for a trip to market later today.


• Look up a new recipe for chard or kale or a good winter soup. Add those ingredients to my market list.


• Straighten up the linen closet.


• Change the sheets.


• Do the laundry.


• Text Charles, who’s sitting in the next room.


• Research some feng shui ideas for Chinese New Year


• Pay bills.


• Research stocks we’d buy if we were so inclined.


• Explore refinancing on the house.

OK. That list took all of one minute to construct. How come I can’t write lyrics that fast?

HEY! ADRIENNE JUST CALLED! Bless her… she’s just given me 22 minutes of fun distraction on the phone. And I’ve promised to send her all my research on the feng shui for Chinese New Year (which, btw, is the Year of the Ox and is celebrated on January 26th). THANKS, ADRIENNE!

What else can I do in the next four days? Write one good line in one for one of those fifteen new ideas. What a payoff that would be!

Remembering Vic Heyman

I have been thinking of Vic Heyman this week. Vic passed away earlier this week, leaving his astounding wife and best friend of decades, Reba, and their children.

Vic was more than a friend to me, and more than a friend to dozens (hundreds) of independent musicians, mostly from the folk world. He was a benevolent patriarch I suppose, since an entire musical subculture from coast-to-coast saw him as the kindest of father figures in our own little way.

He was a genuine patron to those of us who created art in his preferred medium. He supported talent and grit and perserverance and good people. Needed help to fix your car to get to a gig? Cover your touring costs? Get a laptop to do business? Vic supported dozens of us, if not more, through our leanest times. I'd bet he and Reba's names are thanked more times in the liner notes of more indie artist CDs than just about any other names in the world.

My parents aside, Vic was my first benefactor. We met at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1995, my virgin trip to Texas. We kept in touch, because he and Reba have always been fine correspondents that way.

A few years later, having relocated to Austin to become good at this thing I do, Vic heard fear in my voice; he heard the same fear he’s heard from hundreds of us – that there was no money to support our habit for music. And he sent me a check which I happily cashed—but not without first making a copy of it and framing it.

In the years since, Vic provided contacts for me, booked me actual real-live gigs back east, got me on back on stage at Kerrville in 2004, and housed and fed me when I traveled their way. And I was not alone. We had dinner just about every year when he and Reba came to Austin. Dinner was always at Roy’s downtown. I think it’s Reba’s favorite.

We musicians have these lists of fans (some casual, some rabid), but I’d venture to guess that the most memorable of all is Our First True Fan—that first person who believes in us and what we do with sheer force of will before anyone else ever does. Vic was that guy.

I’m thinking a lot about Reba this week, too. About the depth of their love, illustrated by generosity towards each other and the world, made more challenging by the Parkinson’s that consumed Vic’s body a bit more each year. I’m imagining what it’s like to lose your dearest friend, your partner of so many years, your constant companion. So I’m thinking of Reba, thinking of my mother, too, and thinking how much I love my husband.

But mostly, I’m thinking of Vic, and raising my glass to a truly one-in-a-million soul.

Vince Guaraldi, Hard Times, Craig's List and Gratitude

Or... We Got a Piano and it Rocks.

A few weeks ago, we were watching TV at night and Charles said, apropos of nothing in particular, "Wouldn't it be great if we had a piano?"

Yes, I said, it would.

We jumped into conversation: wouldn't it be fun? How could we afford it? Where the hell would we put it in our tiny, tiny home? Wasn't this crazy? Wasn't this the sanest thought either one of us had had in awhile? Can we afford it? Can we afford not to?

These are incredibly tough times for millions of Americans. This past week's labor report was not only the worst in 30 years, but when we factor in those unemployed Americans who have become too discouraged to continue seeking work, or those who have taken part-time work because they could not find a full-time job, the unemployment rate is hovering around 12%.

Twelve percent.

I'm trying to visualize it this way: how many people who would likely be in the current eligible workforce live on your block? There are about three dozen homes on our block. I figure that all of them have at least one person for who expects to work. I figure about half those homes choose to have a second person out there working, too. So we're talking about 54 people who want to be gainfully employed, using their skills, making some money. Which means that if my block follows the national average, at least six souls are out of work and at least four households are affected.

But... Our block probably isn't representative of the national average. We live in Austin, TX. Earlier this year, Forbes listed Austin as one of the nation's Top 10 Most Recession-Proof Cities. Our unemployment rate hovers around 4%, I believe. I mentioned this to my mom on the phone yesterday, and I swear I heard an audible sigh of relief from her.

And... We're doing just fine with the income thing. Charles plays plenty of gigs. I've got a great day job that covers more than the basics, and this year I'm amazed to realize I'll have made more as a musician than any year before. Charles actually has a theory that musicians do better during times of recession. I'm still wrapping my head around it, but I'm also taking him on faith cause he's really rarely wrong when he opines about such stuff.

Plus... Our family and friends are hanging in there. Some are more scared than others, and they've got reason to be based on their industry and geography. But so far, our families are heading into the holidays okay.

So there are three things to be enormously grateful for.

Back to the piano.

We didn't speak about the idea much for a couple of weeks, but I couldn't get it out of my head. We have a couple of small and occasionally troubled keyboards here at home. I occasionally use one to compose if I'm feeling stuck on the guitar. But a piano is different. A piano is substantive. A piano adds depth and gravitas to any note that's played. A piano literally charges a room with vibration and raises the energy in it for the better.

I have carted around all of the piano music I collected from my lessons as a girl, carted them between 17 residences in 6 states as part of my most important personal possessions. About two weeks ago, I pulled them out of a box and picked through a few melodies on the keyboard in my office.

It was incredibly unsatisfying. It was bad sex. It was an annoying telemarketer on the phone. It was a Twinkie--no, worse than a Twinkie--it was a Little Debbie.

And that night I went on to Craig's List and found a piano.

Truthfully, there were about 40 pianos posted--which suggested to us that maybe people really are starting to feel the recession in this town--but there was only one posting that caught my eye: an upright Baldwin from the 1950s. Price: $300. Location: South Austin.

Funny how the impossible idea is made easy the second we decide it's not only possible, but inevitable.

Fourteen hours after finding the ad, I bought the piano. Two days later, the day after Thanksgiving, our piano arrived. We found the cash, we found the mover, we found the perfect place for it.

We've spent a lot of time and energy and money in the past year improving the house--floors, walls, rooms, appliances, textiles, furniture--but this piano has turned our kind, small house into a home. I said this to Charles a few nights ago; I think he thought I was being weird.

He touches the keys and finds improvised melodies and harmonies with an immediacy that makes me giddy and astonished. Conversely, I open the yellowed collection of Chopin waltzes, preludes and mazurkas and happily labor for hours at a time over re-learning to read two clefs simultaneously. This, it strikes me, is in line with our preferred styles of creativity (my own "theory," must blog about it another night!), and it's thoroughly right.

Charles dug up some old sheet music for Vince Guaraldi's "Christmastime is Here" which has these bad-to-the-bone suspended chords. The guy clearly had HUGE HANDS with an incredible reach, and I'm having to modify some of those voicings, but what the hell.

Christmastime is here.

Happiest of Election Days to You.

It’s Election Day in the United States, we’re electing a president for those who may’ve been living in a cave, and we’re at the end of two years of vivid campaigning. We’re also at the end of a process that has engaged more voters than I ever thought I’d see in my lifetime. I’m a Democrat, and I voted early for Barack Obama.

If you haven’t voted yet, you’ve only got a few more hours… A friend sent me this video—don’t let this be you:



Here are a few thoughts about the last two years. Along the way, I participated, for the first time in the Texas Two-Step; in addition to casting a vote on primary day, voters can return in the evening to participate in a caucus, from which delegates to the county conventions are chosen.

From this simple participation, I was most honored to be chosen to represent my district at the county convention, and then the state convention.

I was thinking about the primary race last night. While I’ve never wavered in my support for Obama, I know that Senator Hillary Clinton was an able and certainly worthy opponent. That race was a passionate one. It wove its way in to the fabric of Dem families nationwide, including mine.

Many months ago, I wrote the text below to my niece, Emily, who was getting ready to cast her very first ballot as a young woman in Pennsylvania. How she voted is nobody’s business; that she voted at her first opportunity makes me prouder than I can say, and I can only imagine how proud her parents are of her. Some of my arguments to her seem old, old, old, but they remind me of how terrifically important this entire process has been—and how all of us knew it from the outset.

I argued, for instance, that Senator Clinton could not win a general election. Given our current economic crisis, hard to imagine any Republican winning today's general (knock on wood). But at the time she and Bill were running the kind of "old machine politics" that, frankly, most of us in this country have had-it-up-to-here-with. So maybe I was wrong, maybe not. It's all speculation anyway.

But the big reason I've looked forward to this day is that I get to vote my hopes far more than my fears. And from the looks of things on CNN and MSNBC, I may not be alone. Other countries have rightly been aghast at our historically low voter participation. Happily, the sea’s changing today.

I'm rather fond of that video above. This has also been a campaign with some great videos, no? Here’s another one of the best as you set off to the polls:



Yes, we can.

AUS to DCA, 9/16/08

I travel a fair amount. And I used to talk about traveling as getting from city to city. Then there came a day when I could name the airports in those cities: “Oh, I’m flying into Hartsfield today.”

But the day I realized I could claim status as a seasoned traveler was not the day I went Platinum in AA’s awards program (I still haven’t), but the day I went from knowing the airports to knowing their three-letter codes. Today is AUS to DCA.

Frankly, I’d still have a stellar life if I’d never been blessed with this knowledge. This information clutters the mental inbox, and I’d rather have the space for some other piece of more meaningful information. I’m thinking I could use that space to remember family birthdays better.

I and my fellow travelers are on the tarmac in Charlotte, NC (that’s CLT, guys). There’s a mechanical problem with the plane, and frankly, I’m glad they’ve it discovered prior to takeoff. I’ll take a delay on the ground rather than a panic in the air any ol’ day, and as much as some folks might be inconvenienced, I bet they’d agree.

Easy for me to say this, though, cause I don’t have any more connections to make today, no meetings tonight. When I get to DC is when I get to DC. I’ll find my hotel have a nice meal, call my husband then call it a day. It’d be swell if they brought the beverage cart around right about now, but those days are gone, I guess.

Anyway, back to the tarmac.

In my ongoing efforts to effectively use my time, I’ve pulled out the laptop to do a little blog draft for later posting. I’ve been reading more and more blogs of late – what are people writing about? I always thought of myself as really comfortable with the written word, a friend of language, but it’s harder than I thought it would be, and I expect it has something to do with some sort of subterranean expectations I’ve somehow set up for myself around this simple l’il online joural. Wah? Crazy.

Anyway, I really like my sister’s blog. It’s personal, it’s elegantly written, and it does a beautiful job of providing meaningful context to her work as a textile artist.

I read a lot of political blogs, but it’s been a long slog through the political landscape in the past 18 months, hasn’t it?

I read a number of blogs on web 2.0/new media and its impact on the future of music. Much fun.

I’m waiting for more long-distance friends to begin blogging. Kind of the open email thrown out there for reply in the public arena.

The cockpit microphone is hissing: It sounds like our mechanical problem is about to be fixed. So I leave this post with two things before powering down:

First, I always miss home when I travel. I really like home and the creatures who inhabit it. I already miss my husband’s cheeky optimism and our dog’s unmatched capacity for affection.

Second, Sarah Palin scares the hell out of me (so does John McCain). The list of lies that have poured from that campaign of late are so very staggering that… well, hell, even Karl Rove called them out on it. BUT…

… there’s something I’ve noticed around the line of questioning to Sarah Barracuda that really, really troubles me. I’m speaking of the question about her capacity to serve as Veep when she’s got five kids.

Here’s the thing.

I’m not bothered by her answer any more than I’m bothered by any of her answers to any of the questions she’s asked (Bush doctrine, anyone?). Personally, I’m astounded by the varied capacities of individuals to take on any number of tasks simultaneously and successfully. Her capacity to effectively mother while working in the West Wing is a nutty way to look at it. She’s gonna be a wacky mother no matter where she’s rearing those kids, but there are lots of wacky moms out there (not mine, though!).

What bothers me is that no one bats an eyelash when asking this question of her, but we never seem to ask it of all those women enlisted the U.S. Armed Forces before we send them overseas to fight.

Our military has no problem sending parents for 2, 3 or 4 tours of duty, but we never seem particularly concerned about the effect on those children, do we? So why the hell would we ask Sarah Palin – or any mother for that matter – if we won’t ask it of our military moms?

It’s a very troubling double standard, and I’ve not heard anyone note this. Anyway, it seems like another excellent reason to bring our troops home, if you ask me.