OLD Whidbey Life Magazine

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Play that Song Again || It’s Money I Love: How To (Not) Write A Hit Song

By Erik Christensen
June 29, 2016

There are unwritten rules for writing pop music. If you want airplay, if you want people to listen, it’s gotta be this way—c’mon kid: make sure that song is catchy, about three minutes long, and make it about something anybody can relate to.

And, like most rules, these are complete nonsense. Most of us don’t like being told what to do.

Care to stroll through some great songs that aren’t typical? Want to mess with the status quo? Welcome to the All-Time, Top Five Ways To (Not) Write A Hit Song.

Rule #1:
Don’t start with the chorus.
Build up to it so people can sing along.

Well…no. How about The Beatles “She Loves You” as a template? Boom, immediately to the chorus, which grabs you ’round the neck and doesn’t let go. Is there any song more instantly exciting, more recognizable? I missed the Beatles originally; I was a fat little kid with a baseball mitt by the time they broke up in the late ‘60s. But, as I grew up, I went through all their records, saw all the movies, and cherish these songs like no others.

(Side note: every succeeding generation seems to do this—my children can quote “Hard Day’s Night” and “Help” almost verbatim, and a good friend’s elementary-school-aged son absolutely fell in love with the “Number 1” compilation a few years ago. Every young person goes through a discovering-the-Beatles phase, and that’s a good thing.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoF-7VMMihA

Rule #2:
Get all ethnic up in here.

It absolutely warms my heart to know that music messes with color lines. In the late ’50s, young white kids danced to Chuck Berry and Little Richard, much to their parent’s horror. Paul Simon reportedly went to Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to record “Kodachrome” and wanted “those same black musicians who played on ‘I’ll Take You There’ and all the Aretha Franklin songs.” Little did he know the studio house band was the Swampers, a motley collection of pasty-white good ol’ boys. That’s right, Paul—all those greasy licks on Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, and Etta James records were made by these guys:

It also warms my heart to know that Paul Simon championed South African and Brazilian music later for his Graceland and Rhythm of the Saints albums. In both cases, he collaborated with indigenous musicians and created some brilliant music.

Rule #3:
Keep it short.

Go ahead, pick any lengthy Bob Dylan song—“Masters of War,” “Desolation Row,” “Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall,” or “Brownsville Girl.” I wouldn’t trade these for any two-and-a-half-minute pop song written in the last 20 years.

Sure, just because a song is long doesn’t make it good—“In-a-Gadda Da Vida,” anyone?—but why be so constricted by a format? There’s a great story about Dylan in the early Folk City/hoedown days not being able to fit two songs in to the “10 minutes per performer” limit—“each of my songs are way over five minutes!”

Dylan (left) with Tom Petty

And what about the iconic classic radio dinosaur “Freebird”? After refusing to cut the piano intro (played by roadie Billy Powell who, no one knew, was a brilliant classically-trained piano player for years) or the three-guitar blowout at the end, they decided to just send it in to the record company and the radio stations without telling them it clocked in at almost seven minutes long. Love it or hate it, there’s no bigger hit at that length.

Rule #4:
Stick to the
verse/chorus/verse format.

How amazing are the epic story songs of Roy Orbison? How lucky was I to see him play live a handful of times before he passed away in 1998? Usually starting with a soft-spoken, evocative first line—“a candy-colored clown they call the sandman/tiptoes to my room every night”—and building to an operatic pop symphony by the end. Uber-bass guitar genius Garry Tallent has said that “Running Scared” almost put him off of music completely. How could one do it any better?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPqZs7Vl_xg

Rule #5:
Say what you mean.

Ladies and gentlemen: Randy Newman. Long before his “You’ve Got A Friend In Me”-style songwriting for cinema, Randy was the king of the cynical, ironic character song.

Talk about missing the point—he received hate mail for “Short People,” but no, he didn’t really feel that “short people got no reason to live”—it was a joke. And, irony of ironies, “I Love LA,” which many saw as satire, was really true—Randy was really singing So Cal’s praises, not criticizing the shallow, self-interested vibe of Los Angeles. Both songs were misinterpreted. And is there any more joyful video than this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtDhtadoeUk

Mr. Newman is genius at picking out a deplorable character to tell the story—and that’s the point: the speaker in the song is a jerk, not the songwriter. There are many, many others in his catalogue who do this—“It’s Money I Love,” “Rednecks,” “My Life Is Good,” and so on. This is a captivating technique; I wish more songwriters would do this, much like an actor playing a role. Do people think Daniel Day-Lewis or Michael Fiennes are really like the terrible characters they play in film?

Maybe it’s the last vestige of teenage rebellion—rock and roll has always been young people’s music: a lonely wolf howl of freedom, independence and making your own sense of the world. And even for someone like myself—pushing 50, or pulling it, if truth be told—there’s still a joy in not doing what I’m supposed to. Turn up the music.

Erik Christensen teaches English at Oak Harbor High School, writes songs and poetry, and still thinks Vin Scully is the best baseball announcer ever.

Erik Christensen band is doing a short tour of Oregon and California in July, then plays the Penn Cove Brewery Taproom in Coupeville on August 12.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

June 29, 2016
Sirithiri || LOVE 4 Ever

By Siri Bardarson
June 22, 2016

It started two months ago with a phone call from my sister.

“Have you seen the wild blackberry blossoms?”

There was a hint of challenge in her voice, she—the middle child, me—the oldest sister: the beginning of the seasonal contest of wild blackberry picking.

I had seen the tiny white blossoms. They covered vines everywhere I drove and walked on South Whidbey.

“It’s the earliest I have ever seen them,” she said and I agreed.

Two months ago, most Whidbey Island residents stood at the shoreline and squinted into the distance for a chance sighting of the gray whales and orcas. My sisters and I have been occupied otherwise. We’ve slowed our cars, scoured the ditches, gauged the sun and mentally calculated the time of year. We’ve secretly prayed about rain (we are not the praying kind). We hoped for the right balance, not too much to wreck the pollination or mold the flowers but enough to encourage plump fruit. The two hot days last month held the key.

The phone rang.

“The wild blackberries are out. I have never seen so many red berries!”

A blackberry pie in time for the Fourth of July is rare and a pie in June is unheard of.

These Pacific Northwest days—the days immediately after school lets out—the weather is gray and damp in the morning and the afternoon is clear and warm. The blackberries love the hothouse steam of the tall grass and the heat of the afternoon filtered by the nettles poised like bayonets over the growing fruit.

* * *

On cue with the blackberries, my family—minus our working father—would load up the station wagon in Seattle, prepared for the summer. It was stuffed to the rafters with my mom, five girls, flannel sleeping bags, the cat basket that could not contain the cat, the Coleman cooler, groceries, library books and suitcases with shorts, t-shirts and swimsuits and beach towels.

There was no I-5. We drove a meandering route up the east side of Lake Washington, Issaquah and Bothell and finally down the tree-lined road to the Mukilteo ferry landing. When we saw Puget Sound, we sang the “Doxology” at the tops of our lungs. (We are the singing kind.)

We ferried over on the new boats—the Rhododendron or the Olympic—and drove up the island on the old highway to Freeland, then ducking down Cameron Road to the cabin on the edge of Holmes Harbor. With luck, the yard had been mowed but most likely not. We hauled the gear into the cabin, through the large wooden door without a frame or lock—only a long worm-eaten board with the name of the cabin, “Wit’s End,” rendered in red paint.

Unloading the car in the tall wet grass was the beginning of summer dampness: tennis shoes that never quite dried out, swimsuits that were clammy and rimey with salt, sleeping bags full of sand and pillows that absorbed saltwater from still-wet hair.

We hurried over the plywood floors, staking out our bunk beds. My favorite was the upper bunk across from the open doorway into the living space. From that spot I could see the flicker and shadowy light of the fireplace and the kerosene lamps. Out of sight, at the picnic table, my mother would sit tackling a volume of Dickens that she wouldn’t finish. I’d hear the strike of a match and she would smoke one Pall Mall. Below me, my little sisters slept end to end under old sheets and army blankets and breathed sweet open-mouthed noises.

In a few weeks, when the weather warmed up, we went blackberry picking. It’s tough going—the picking gig. In my family, there’s a moral subtext to picking that has something to do with courage, dumb fortitude and no whining. After a brief discussion about containers (the Revere Ware quart saucepan had a great handle, the Pyrex pitcher, too), we would give small metal cups to the little girls and get into the car.

It took a good two hours to pick the minimum two to three cups necessary for a pie. The berries were the size of your little fingernail and the vines had tiny, mean stickers. Vines trailed over fallen logs and camouflaged holes in the ground that you stepped into with a crash. The nettles were fresh and fiery, the snakes always a horrible surprise and the first berry made an insubstantial “plink” going into the container.

It’s a demoralizing sound: you must not look into the bottom of the cup until you’ve picked the first layer and the plinking stops.

There was the thrill of consolidating into our mom’s larger container with the hope that she would call it good—enough for a pie—and we’d struggle out of the brush and load back into the car. We’d lick our wounds but not complain too much —our forearms scratched and full of tiny stickers, our ankles burning with nettle stings, our fingernails dyed purple and black, and streaks of berry juice on our skin like sailor tattoos.

My mom would fire up the Great Majestic woodstove stove and we’d go swimming. After dinner we’d have pie, always with whipping cream because we never had a refrigerator. My mom would discuss the quality of the crust and we’d bob our heads and peep our praise and make our first tentative remarks about crusts that were too short, too thick or underdone, and filling that was too sweet or not sweet enough.

Siri’s blackberry pie, early this year! (photo by Siri Bardarson)

My sisters and I are all terrific pie makers because we learned from the best. But the real reason we care so much is that we know that blackberry pie means, “LOVE 4 Ever.”

I’ll close with a horrible poem I wrote in 1973 in pencil on a piece of ripped grocery bag. I had picked the berries and baked a pie in the Great Majestic all on my own. It hung on a nail in the cabin forever.

Ode to the Blackberry

I shall now praise the rare prize,
The finest fruit in Paradise,
Who in the sunny field doth dwell
And under summer’s sunny spell
Bursts forth in bounteous multitude
A rare jewel worthy of platitude.

Amongst garter snake and nettle high
You attempt to thwart the avid picker
With prickly claw and stickly sticker.
But in the end must resigned be
To clever hand in pastery.
Forever with the God’s fare to vie,
Your true realization, the blackberry pie.

A Northwest native, Siri Bardarson is a writer with an emotional hotline to the vibrant natural beauty of Puget Sound. When not writing about the importance of the wild blackberry, daisies and natural time, she practices her cello a lot and sings at the same time. She loves her Whidbey Island home.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

June 22, 2016
Rock Bottom Line || A Modest Proposal to Disarm a Dangerous Moment

BY HARRY ANDERSON
June 15, 2016

So I wonder. The Orlando massacre. Could four-dozen people be mowed down in five minutes by a deranged, hate-inspired individual with a military assault rifle on Whidbey? Here, on this peaceful, blissful, beautiful, slow-paced, placid, agreeable, mild-mannered Rock where arguments are usually resolved over a cup of coffee?

I’ve been wrestling with that since I awoke Sunday to news of the slaughter at a crowded Florida gay bar at closing time. The too-easy answer to my question is, “No, of course not!” We’re too small, too far away from crazy troublemakers. And besides, we don’t have crowded gay bars and we go to bed long before last call for alcohol. We also don’t have deranged, hate-filled individuals running around with assault rifles . . . do we.

But take a read of the crime reports in our three island newspapers. Murder. Assault. Threats of violence. Robbery. Alcohol and drug-induced rage. Meth labs in the woods. Semi-automatic gun practice near homes where children play. Then take a look at the online comments sections in those papers or on social media. People write scary, sometimes threatening things with strong and nasty words they’d never say out loud in public.

People who don’t like Navy jet noise are called traitors and told to shut up and get the hell out. Navy supporters are branded as warmongers who want to militarize the entire island. Conservationists are job killers; foresters are habitat destroyers.

There are other worrisome things. A Bernie Sanders sign at Highway 20 at Arnold Road is defaced with angry symbols not once but twice. A portrait of President Obama doctored to make him look like Hitler is proudly displayed by political protesters on a sidewalk by the Coupeville Post Office. Gun advocates bring their weapons to an Oak Harbor city council meeting to demand the right to carry those guns in public parks and playgrounds, all in order to “protect” themselves and us from somebody, anybody else.

Are we really as polite and peaceful as we think we are on this Rock? Judging by the evidence, I’d say no. We kid ourselves if we pretend otherwise. The bumper-sticker, 140-character Twitter universe in which our entire planet now exists has infected even sweet, bucolic Whidbey. It has truncated and coarsened our public dialogue. Even our local churches are at odds and won’t even talk with each other about gay marriage and women priests, among other things.

All this threatens one of our most precious attributes on Whidbey: our sense of community. It really is much easier here than in a big to city to cocoon ourselves, withdraw among our tall trees and gardens, talk only to those we like and tune out what we don’t agree with. Before tweets, posts and online comments overtook us, we trusted a few resources to tell us the truth. But now we don’t know whom to trust, so we don’t trust anybody.

This is no way to live in our beautiful place, so I will make a modest proposal. Starting tomorrow, each of us will pledge to ignore or not send an angry tweet, snarky remark on Facebook or nasty online comment. Instead, each of us will call someone and ask them to have coffee and talk about something controversial or difficult. Let there be peace on Whidbey, and let it begin with me!

Once upon a time, Harry Anderson made an honest living as a reporter, editor and columnist at the Los Angeles Times. He now lives in central Whidbey, where he spends his time gardening and ruminating on things that interest him.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

June 15, 2016
Pigment, Perspectives and Pandas || Busy, Busy, Busy

BY ANNE BELOV
June 15, 2016

You hear it everywhere you go: I’m so busy; I’m too busy; my children have a packed schedule; Lunch? Let me look at my calendar… I think I have a Tuesday next August. Does that work for you?

I thought, when I moved to Whidbey Island 27 years ago, my life would become calm and serene and, more importantly, far less busy. At first that seemed to be the case, since I only knew a couple of people and had little disposable cash to go to many things. WICA did not yet exist and The Clyde Theater only showed two movies a week.

Street Work; Anne Belov; Oil on Linen (c) the artist

While in college and graduate school, I always had part- or full-time jobs, so I learned to juggle class work with making a living and even (occasionally) having a little fun. This learned ability to multi-task allowed me to keep a roof over my head and continue to make paintings when I left school.

When I finally hit the tipping point of being able to make a living with only my artwork, the juggling didn’t stop. If you think making a living in art consists solely of staring at the lovely landscape till inspiration strikes, and then you create a masterpiece that instantly sells—well, I’ve got news for you. There’s the paperwork and record-keeping and making sure you have supplies. And then there’s framing and scheduling and transporting the work. Oh yeah, and then there is doing the work itself.

Eventually, in order to have money coming in more regularly, I added printmaking with a small company that sold etchings around the US and in Canada. This worked great for a while, until it didn’t.

Eight years ago I started drawing cartoons, and, shortly after that, decided to dip my toes in the waters of children’s illustrating and writing. Boy, do I know how to find (non) lucrative, time-intensive pursuits or what?

Pandamorphosis by Anne Belov

What works for me is having several creative irons in the fire all the time. While scheduling all these different aspects of my creative life can be challenging, it’s not impossible and—truth to tell—I kind of like it. I must have a short attention span or something, because working at different activities throughout the day keeps me mentally engaged.

When all I did was paint, I would sometimes find myself doing stupid things late in the day because my attention had wandered off somewhere. Breaking up my day into one to three hour segments allows me to keep all the balls in the air, only occasionally dropping one on my head. I keep a calendar (mostly…Oh, yeah, I need to go write this week’s schedule in the calendar!) with notes about what I’m working on in each of those varied projects. And, oh, let’s not forget gardening, yoga, and hanging out with friends.

Add blogging and website maintenance and keeping up with fans of my panda cartoons to the mix and you have a very busy life.

There is a vast online community of writers in every genre you can think of, and I’m lucky to have connected with the KidLit writing community, mostly through SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). Unlike the Seattle folks who can get together regularly in person, since I prefer not to “go to America” as we islanders call it, I’m more active online. This has led to creeping internet obsession, and I finally had to take myself in hand to cut down the amount of time I was hanging out online.

There’s an App for that…

Fortunately there is a Facebook group for that. Yes, I belong to a Facebook group, whose goal is to stay off the internet until we have completed at least one hour of creative work each day. Started by Bay Area children’s writer Deborah Underwood, this group keeps us accountable so that our day’s productive potential does not get consumed by watching panda videos or trading witty dialog for photos of pandas, or…well, you get the picture.

Because, in this group, we are all swimming in the KidLit pool, we have interests and challenges in common. It is an accountability group, for sure. But it has also become a support group, as we navigate the turbulent waters of children’s publishing.

It was a liberating revelation to realize that I don’t want to get rid of “busy,” since I finally realized that it’s what drives me ever forward. The best I can do is to keep “busy” under some amount of control. And isn’t that the best we all, in this busy world, can hope for?

Doesn’t everyone feel like this some days?

Anne Belov is a painter, printmaker, cartoonist and writer living on Whidbey Island. You can find her paintings at The Rob Schouten Gallery at Greenbank Farm and The Fountainhead Gallery on Queen Anne in Seattle. Her pandas hang out at Panda Chronicles. You can find the six-book Panda Chronicles collection at Moonraker Books in Langley or at the Whidbey Writer’s Network booths at the Bayview, Coupeville, and Oak Harbor farmer’s markets. She is working on a graphic novel starring pandas. Don’t miss seeing her work, along with a baker’s dozen of other painters, printmakers and sculptors at this year’s Froggwell Biennale, Friday through Sunday, August 5-7.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

June 15, 2016
The Chief Milkmaid || 20/20 Perfection Escapes Me

BY VICKY BROWN
June 8, 2016

It seems appropriate that I am writing this on the day my husband goes in for his eye exam, but that isn’t the “20/20” I have been dwelling on lately.

I have lost 20 pounds so far this year. This makes my weight the lowest it has been since we started our dairy. It seems being focused on the farm 24/7 didn’t allow us a lot of time to focus on our needs. Although I was stronger two years ago than I am today, I can say with certainty I am healthier today.

Twenty pounds lost seems like a lot and it isn’t insignificant for any reason. Other people are now noticing and telling me I look like I’ve lost weight, and it is nice to hear. The weight isn’t coming off by itself; I am working for it. I’ve been more active and eating smaller portions of more nutrient dense food (Yay! CSA/farmers’ market season!) and it turns out there is no magic bullet. I am proud of my success.

This mark on the scale has thrown me for a loop, though. At my peak weight I was 294 pounds. Now I’ve lost 20 and the scale reads 274. However, instead of rejoicing in my 274, I cautiously tell myself I have 24 pounds to go until my first big milestone. That is, until I remember how this 20 pounds has already changed my life.

I walk with my dogs a lot more and see some of my neighbors (ones I really enjoy) more regularly, because I’m out walking.

I recently went to Japan, and then Minnesota, in plane seats—notoriously cramped, but my butt fit. There was no need to “suck it in” to fasten my seat belt; there was no concern of my hip taking over the seat next to me.

Vicky (left/center) with sisters Jane (left), Ruth (right) and mother, Carol (right/center) in Minnesota last week.

When I was 20 pounds less than I am today—at 254 pounds—I completed the Honolulu Marathon with my tenacious best friend. Yes, I completed a marathon at 254 pounds. All the training for the marathon didn’t help me lose weight as I’d hoped (I actually gained weight). It felt so good to cross that line, it ended up not being about the weight, but I still remember exactly what I weighed.

Vicky (front/center) with her medal and fellow marathoners, including Bette Cooper (lower right), the best friend that gets her into these crazy things. Just hours prior they completed 26.2 miles!

Vicky’s Finisher medal with the magnet sent to supporters of the fundraising endeavor in 2002. Her statement to those supporters still rings true.

Twenty pounds before that: 234 pounds, I was discharged from the hospital after a near-death experience that resulted in a scary and frustrating long hospital stay, a surgery, and a diagnosis of an autoimmune disease to last me a lifetime. It’s also what I weighed when I got married. Neither time was weight an issue, yet I still remember exactly what the scale read.

Wedding day, with her daughter, Christine Maifeld, by her side. July 15, 2001

The interesting part to me is that I remember my weight during all these significant markers. I don’t remember the year (unless I look it up, or am prompted—um, except my anniversary—of course I always remember that).

I remember my weight. That needs to stop.

I am a confident person. I am comfortable in my skin, strong and more healthy than many of my friends, quite a few of whom are literally half my size. Yet I am tuned into my weight as a primary marker in my life. It seems I could have 20/20 vision, as long as my view isn’t obscured by a scale.

It isn’t just about weight. Excess weight is easy enough for others to see. But some people struggle with how they think others perceive their hair, teeth, eyes, wrinkles, skin spots, feet, hands, chin(s), etc. Is it possible to remember that after you part ways with someone, they are likely not recounting any physical appearance but, rather, how you left them feeling? Did your interaction make them smile from their heart? Did it cause them stress? Did it make them angry?

I still will lose weight and will still use a scale to mark it, but I will no longer use those pounds to mark my life.

I need to lose weight for my health, so I can play with my granddaughter and not tire so easily, and be around when she blossoms into the person she will become. I want to lose weight so I can pursue things that, for safety’s sake, require I weigh less.

I also need to care less about the number. It isn’t a magic number, no more than 20/20 vision is. Do you even know anyone with 20/20 vision (especially over the age of 50)? I know very few people who don’t wear some sort of corrective lens to assist. Why is not having 20/20 vision okay, but having a scale report back a number I don’t like is not okay? How about we embrace our imperfections and love ourselves with them instead of in spite of them?

20/20 is a plan, not my vision. I will work on losing another 20 pounds, and hopefully another 20 or so after that. But what I weigh when my granddaughter is born? I simply don’t care. It will no longer be the milestone marker of my life.

To be honest, this post almost didn’t make it. After writing, editing, editing some more, and dropping a few tears I almost trashed it, because “it’s just about me being fat.” Then the light went on and I realized that is exactly why I need to share it. I know I’m not the only one who has ever discounted themselves like that.

Maybe some people will be embarrassed for me as I huff and puff and pedal my voluminous backside to town, or because I shared my real weight number out to the world… But, I think, not the folks in this community.

Thank you for noticing I look “healthier” instead of “thinner” and telling me I look “happier,” not “skinnier,” and for your encouragement. We’re doing this community thing right. Regardless of today’s number, I am happier and healthier because I am here, in this community.

For more related reading, this writer delves into a few related issues in her blog How to Talk to Little Girls.

It provides excellent ideas for those of us who have been programmed to communicate based upon appearance (including clothes, hair, etc.). Sometimes I forget and I need a crash course. Have I told you I’m going to be a GRANDMA? It’s time to make this the best world it can be…and time for me to finally understand why so many activists are grandparents.

Grandma-to-be Vicky Brown, Chief Milkmaid (mostly retired) at the Little Brown Farm, puts her passions on the page writing about food, agriculture and the tender web of community.

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CLICK HERE to read more WLM stories and blogs. Have a great story idea? Let us know at info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

June 8, 2016
Minding the Sky || In the Vortext of Women’s Voices

BY JUDITH WALCUTT
May 25, 2015

Vortext is a gathering for women writers held annually at Whidbey Institute, created and hosted by Hedgebrook. It took place May 19-22, 2016. The following are excerpts of this writer’s notes and reflections on the experience.

May 19, 2016 is the day that Vortext begins its process this year, unfurling and finding its way into being, like any piece of writing—there is a place where it must begin and this is it. I’m picking up writers from the shuttle, waiting with my friends Evie and Harolynne to see who the voices in the whirl will be this year. They come to the island from all over, from as near as Freeland and as far as New Zealand, South Africa, and even Miami! Literally, from the other side of the world and also right next-door, mutually drawn to the core, the white heat at the center of this vortex spiralling out from Hedgebrook, irrepressibly connecting the dots of women’s voices rising worldwide.

They came from all over—writing women walking the walk!   (photo by Catherine Willis Cleveland)

What is the purpose of such a convocation of women writers, young and old, new and seasoned, all hues and flavors, together alone with themselves and each other for three intense days of good words, good work, good food, and good walks?

Oh so many reasons to join the whirling mass!

It is not a competitive environment, I tell my van of writing women coming from afar. I explain that Vortext has proven to be an opportunity to refresh, to take refuge in, and remember the reasons—and the feelings––hard, hidden, hopeful––all which made us want to write in the first place.

This will be the fourth year for me, volunteering to help in whatever ways that I can—picking up and dropping off, shuttling from here to there, and all the while absorbing new information, new stories, new voices finding their way to the table. Also, after lunch and before the afternoon session, I set up mics and slip in a little voice coaching, for those who want to prep themselves to read at the open mics. It is my joy and privilege to do so—to help in anyway that I can this vibrant institution that has its local and global priorities clear.

By providing opportunity and encouragement for the voices of women to be heard, sometimes for the very first time, Hedgebrook nourishes the interconnection between all women’s voices. I am so pleased to be part of something as vital and important as the spiral that covers the points of infinity.

Vortext 2016: A convocation of women writers, talking the talk too!   (photo by Catherine Willis Cleveland)

Each of the years that I have been here, I have heard stories that made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. And stories that brought tears to the corners of my eyes and down my face, as when hearts crinkle up and burst their seams with something deeply sad, but true and so beautiful in its sadness.

To inspire, to open the place in the heart, in the mind, where we remember suddenly all at once like a flash of lighting, or gradually like the slow opening of a densely petaled rose, these are the purposes of the real vortex we swirl in. We collectively remember why we wanted to write, felt the urge to write, and even couldn’t help ourselves and so had to write—in the first place—for all the reasons you can imagine. We come here to this beautiful place on the Chinook lands, floating on the jewel that is Whidbey, and we rest our minds in this time and place—in that opening in the field where we can breathe in all that is sweet and sour and poignant and rich in our own fertile grounds, and remember: why we live to tell the story.

So today, I’ll be picking up the writers coming from all over, and tomorrow, we begin the practice!

Tools of the writing trade!   (photo and drawing by the author, feather by Hannah)

The next day begins for me making a mad dash to get to the Chinook land early enough to shuttle writers from the bottom parking lot to Thomas Berry Hall at the top. A general buzz of interest, excitement, a wondering of what to expect, and perhaps a little nervousness pervades the short rides up and down the hill. Once there, the attendees get their bags and name tags which we are really glad to have—because there are just too many new names to remember them all—and who doesn’t want a nice bag?

With breakfast, the first wave of Hedgebrook’s now legendary radical hospitality awaits us–a gentle landing of homemade granola, fresh raspberries, locally sourced sheep’s yogurt, bagels as good as any found in Brooklyn, and plenty for all with and without gluten, dairy, or whatever the dietary need.

At 9:30 a.m. of Day 1, the group assembles in the Hall for the Keynote addresses. Amy Wheeler, Executive Director of Hedgebrook, opens the gathering with words which invite all to be fully present as the writers, the unique and singular voice which each woman in the room is, reminding us that by choosing to be here, at Vortext, we have already begun the important work of showing up for ourselves as writers.

2016 Mentoring authors (right to left)—Hannah Tinti, Kate Gray, Laurie Frankel, Dani Shapiro, Ruth Ozeki, Natalie Braszile (photo by the author)

The first day’s keynote presenter is Ruth Ozeki. I am a huge fan of her novel, “A Tale For the Time Being,” which tells a great story and bends the laws of physics. She speaks to many issues surrounding a woman writer’s life, including the ongoing predicament that pervades life for most women who write––that she is seldom ever just a writer and almost always that and something else (a mother, a teacher, a bookstore worker, house cleaner, a cook, a payer of bills, a million and one things!). Her words somehow set the stage for each one of us to come to terms with the struggles we each encounter to get there, to get to work, to stick to it, to evolve practicing the craft, wrestling angels and demons to the ground and even to the death!

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto came next and through the means of reading the ancient symbols embedded in a tarot deck, she gave the entire gathering at Vortext a reading. Tarot, she says, is simply a method of working with the images inherent in our unconscious mind which allow a person to discover what she already knows to be true. This is a paraphrase, but I knew what she meant.

Somehow, in the cards she laid out for all of us there, she did reveal to us what we all knew deeply to be true—we saw the process, the feminine hero’s journey, to move from the hidden side of the moon through that forest from the trees, driven on a chariot propelled by urgency, healing the wounds by transformation from lead to gold, and finally manifesting justice by simply standing in the sun, in the light of the sun, for all to see.

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto reads the signs and shares the vision. (photo by the author)

Again—these remarks are only paraphrases, my making of meaning from the words filling the room—and every morning, we had stories of writers, women writers, who have made it to the other side—they have done their work, held their ground—waited eleven or more years from manuscript to manifestation, staying true to the truth of their words or else leaving the necessarily unfinished one behind, in the car wreck she escaped from with her life. Wow! What stories! And what a lesson—when to leave it behind and move ahead with something new…

The writer’s life, riddled with obstacles and then the over-coming of obstacles—we heard about it every which way from Ruth and Reiko, but also Natalie Braszile, Kate Gray, Laurie Frankel, Dani Shapiro, and Hannah Tinti and each one of them had the heart and courage to tell us deep and important and painful and true and uplifting, and deeply personal confessions of their writing lives.

Natalie Braszile tells the harrowing tale of her novel’s 11 years at sea before landing on the shore of a major breakout, soon-to-be TV series, “Queen Sugar.” (photo by the author)

As a crowd we groaned and gasped out loud together! We felt hurt with them and also redeemed by their courage and jumped to our feet to applaud their fortitude in over-coming the “no’s” of interior and exterior voices, the trials of the cruel business of books, and the strength to just keep writing, no matter what.

Dani Shapiro stirs the cauldron with her lyric keynote. (photo by Catherine Willis Cleveland)

After the keynotes did their jobs—of warming us up with stirred-up emotions and evocative imagery—the way a good book does—we, the writers in attendance, broke out into separate sessions with the mentors, the sensei of the words and actions, the ones who have crossed into the fabled lands of deckled edges and elegant frontispieces in print.

I can’t and won’t tell you what happened in each session, because truth be told, I don’t know how to describe it. Each session was unlike any other, made up of the one-time only combinations of women in the room and the skillful means by which the teachers freed us to speak, write, remember, imagine.

The days which followed the first, repeated this schedule—breakfasts of splendid foods followed by the morning keynotes, presented by the visiting authors who lead the sessions with the attendees. A splendid lunch with much writerly chatter transitions into quiet time for private thinking, or walkabouts, or rehearsing for the scheduled open mic times.

Later, the sages return for questions and answers among writers and every day ends with more rigorously radical hospitality—more good food, good wine, good suss, before breaking for the day.

Questions and answers in the afternoon with (left to right) Ruth Ozeki, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Dani Shapiro, and Hannah Tinti   (photo by Catherine Willis Cleveland)

I could tell you a list of exercises the teachers taught or a certain way of working they encouraged, to evoke writing from the compost heap of a writer’s mind as well as drill into the forgotten diamond mines found deep in buried, long-forgotten feelings. I could try to tell you how Hannah Tinti showed me how to free myself up mentally by using a hand-cut, quill pen—or how Ruth Ozeki unlocked the old oak bureau hidden in the attic of my unconscious Victorian brownstone and released the scent of burnt sugar, or how Dani Shapiro made me remember the tip of the ice pond of things I had forgotten to remember before—vanilla ice cream cones with sprinkles, the smell of the smoking car on the Erie Lackawanna train from Short Hills to Hoboken, the glistening frozen trees of fairyland winters. I could try to tell you—but the words could never cover the mojo—the magic—that made things happen in my mind, in my journal, with my words, and among my secret voices, when I became a dot on the spiral unwinding from Vortext.

Hannah Tinti sings a song ‘bout a’ trying and a’trying…to write!   (photo by the author)

I cannot tell you it all, because like the sweet dream that vanishes with the twittering noisy dawn, I can’t bring it all back to the speakable, effable world. Some things must remain hidden, for future excavations of time and place—but I hope you have had a glimmer of it, from what I’ve written here, have tempted you to come out, come out from wherever you are, and join the outward-blossoming beauty of Hedgebrook’s offerings.

Vortext 2016 writing women, fortified by radical hospitality and each other, come together in the Long House on the Hedgebrook land for final words and dedication renewed. (photo by the author)

On the final day, the convocation of women writers returned to the land where Hedgebrook lives and breathes, and fosters the voices that already have and will continue to birth the change we want to hear and speak–locally, globally, voice by voice, women’s voices rising!

And my-oh-my! How that garden grows to the sky!

Hedgebrook garden at work—growing sustainable opportunities for women writers…   (photo by the author)

There are many ways to join the community that Hedgebrook holds in its conception and manifestation. Schedules for future master classes, salons, and residency programs can be discovered by exploring the website: http://www.hedgebrook.org. The next event on the Hedgebrook land is the Summer Salon on June 18. To find out more about it all, how you can join in, how you can help—email hedgebrook@hedgebrook.org or subscribe to the Hedgebrook email newsletter here http://eepurl.com/bceX7T.

…and armfuls of beauty over time   (photo by the author)

Judith Walcutt, a grateful Hedgebrook alum, is a writer in her 28^th year on Whidbey Island. Recently, she was named the 2016 winner of the Norman Corwin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Audio Theatre by the National Audio Theatre Festivals. Her novel, “Memoirs of a Modern She-noodle,” is forthcoming SOON from NeoPoiesis Press.

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WLM stories and blogs are copyrighted and all rights are reserved. Linking is permitted. To request permission to use or reprint content from this site, email info@whidbeylifemagazine.org.

May 25, 2016
Magically Real || Make yourself at home. Or don’t.

BY STEPHANIE BARBÉ HAMMER
May 18, 2016

It’s an interesting expression isn’t it? “Make yourself at home” is an invitation, but it’s also a sort of command.

Behave in this strange place as though it were your place. And transform yourself too, while you’re at it. As though you could create an internal mechanism where you—the stranger, the visitor—would, through an act of will, metamorphose into someone who actually is at home. So, when you make yourself at home, you are necessarily remaking yourself.

But there’s a further implication. “Make yourself at home” also implies that you will have to make yourself a home out of the material that is in front of you. That material is foreign to you and it may not belong to you, but you’ll have to take possession of it all the same, and then re-form it according to your needs.

Making yourself at home presents an interesting challenge here on Whidbey Island.

When I first started working on this blog post, I was feeling melancholy about the closure of the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program—of which I am a graduate, and which is the reason I came to Whidbey Island in the second place. I say the “second place” because the first time I came to Whidbey Island I was five years old.

Author (right) at the beach on Whidbey in 1959 with cousins Mary (left) and Anne (center) Froberg (photo by Leonard Hammer)

I’m at the beach on Whidbey (above) with my cousins Anne and Mary Froberg. My dad was born in Seattle and, although we lived in Manhattan, we used to spend summers out here.

Anyhow, when I came to Whidbey Island this second time, I fell in love with the place, as many visitors do. My husband and I moved here, in large part, to be close to the twice-a-year MFA residencies. I taught occasionally for the program after I graduated, so that was another reason to stay involved.

With the death of the MFA program and its biannual communal meetings, the place I’ve moved to doesn’t feel so much like home anymore.

I was going to write something properly sad about this.

But then I went to the Island County Historical Society Museum in Coupeville.

In a new part of the museum, you can see an impressive exhibit of artifacts and canoes belonging to the folks who lived in this area long before you and I and other non-Native people came and made ourselves at home here.

“Making ourselves at home” is, from a historical perspective, a pretty kind way of putting it.

I looked at the plaques in the museum that told about Native Americans who lived here, and I recognized a name.

Chief Snakelum.

I live a couple of streets up from Snakelum Point.

Chief Snakelum is buried up the hill from my house.

A section of one of the displays at the museum with photo of Chief Snakelum on the left. (photo by author)

As a Jewish person, I am moved and challenged by the idea of displacement and by the reality of the remnant of a people, dispossessed by other people who were deeply determined as well as technically advanced in the ways of forcibly making themselves at home.

I walk around our neighborhood and I realize there’s a lot I don’t know about the people whose home really was here. For thousands of years.

Snakelum Point Road sign at Snakelum Point in Coupeville (photo by the author)

I am curious about them. I want to know my neighbors, and indeed—from a certain point of view—I want to get to know my hosts. Because if anyone is a guest here, I am.

So maybe it’s ok that I haven’t made myself at home on Whidbey Island. Maybe I can’t, and maybe I shouldn’t. And anyway, home for tribal people often isn’t stationary. We’re talking homelands rather than homesteads. Places where we roam and camp and circle back to, rather than houses with garages and patios.

I wrote a poem a couple of years ago about how in the 21st Century we are all nomads to some degree. Recently, I remember reading that author Rabbi David Wolpe, when he was selling his house, explained to some prospective buyers that he was— like them—just “passing through.”

That works. I, too, am passing through.

Snakelum canoe in the Island County Historical Society Museum (photo by the author)

To learn about the Lower Skagit Tribe, click here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Skagit_tribe.

For a little information about Chief Snakelum, along with variations on the spelling of his name, click here: http://www.gsswi.org/cemetery/Snakelum.php.

A portion of the front door of the Island County Historical Society Museum (photo by the author)

To visit the website of the Island County Historical Society Museum in Coupeville, click here: https://coupevillehistoricwaterfront.com/community-partners/island-county-historical-society-museum/.

Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry. She is the author of a poetry chapbook “Sex with Buildings” (dancing girl press 2012), a full-length poetry collection “How Formal?” (Spout Hill Press, 2014), and a comic magical realist novel “The Puppet Turners of Narrow Interior” (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2015). You can follow her on twitter (stephabulist) or read her blog “Magically Real” as she tries to read “100 Years of Solitude” in less than 100 years at http://www.stephaniebarbehammer.net.

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May 18, 2016
In Search of Truth and Beauty || The Ephemeral Dance of Spring

BY JONI TAKANIKOS
May 11, 2016

Spring is the perfect backdrop to practice seeing and experiencing change in every moment. It’s on the ground—we can practically watch the grass growing from hour to hour and, certainly, day to day.

Lilac Skies (photo by Gina Simpson)

The plants are blooming voraciously and dying back with the same fierce leave-taking. We witness the delicate new shoot transforming to leaf to bud to bloom in the space of a few passing days.

The sky provides the light for this grand and dramatic show of constant change. We have clouds forming and turning mountainous as they climb ever higher into the blue firmament, followed by a strong wind that sweeps it away in mere minutes.

And then what? A hard rain drumming on the rooftop for a few brief minutes, followed by a silent stillness that flows into birdsong. The birds must study all winter for the release of their spring songs.

The cosmos in an allium (photo by Gina Simpson)

This symphony of spring has a simple mantra—change, change, change. This is a change both constant and certain. We would be wise to carry this spring mantra into the long days of summer and the stillness of winter. Spring is the season within all seasons—practicing its dance of renewal through constant change. Pema Chödrön shares with us her words of wisdom, “You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.”

This inherent changing rhythm brings me to the doorway of dance. I love dance in all its forms and it has been my lifesaving companion throughout my journey. In the last 20 years I have been fortunate to study with two very gifted teachers, Deborah Hay and Christine Tasseff, right here on Whidbey Island. Deborah Hay, who is based in Austin, Texas, teaches, choreographs and performs internationally. Deborah is also an author, brilliantly using words to translate her experiences from the fields she inhabits. I am currently rereading her book, “My Body, the Buddhist,” replenishing my cup in Deborah’s well of profound wisdom. Her latest book, “Using the Sky: a Dance” was published in 2015. I studied with Deborah the first couple of times here on Whidbey when she brought her Solo Commissioning Project to WICA for five consecutive summers beginning in 1998.

Christine Tasseff, circa 1996. (Cover of “Island Independent” by Bill Ruth)

Christine Tasseff, who has lived on Whidbey for 30 years, has also taught her popular classes and workshops here, as well as in Seattle, NYC and Nashville. Many of you may know Christine through the gardens she shapes with her landscaping team, Roots. I know her as a gardener of the moving body, stewarding all the many shapes that arise and fall on the dance floor.

Christine, like Deborah, is a keen observer of the body, the space around it and its relationship to the other moving bodies in the field. She studied for 26 years with Gabrielle Roth, dancer, author and founder of the Five Rhythms practice and brings Gabrielle’s legacy to brilliant life every Sunday morning at Bayview Hall from 10 a.m. to noon. The class is by donation and is aptly named Prayerbody.

Prayerbody in motion (photo by Joni Takanikos)

Christine creates an environment in which a body may gently explore the rise and fall of its own individual rhythms and shapes. With her gentle guidance there is no wrong or right way—just the practiced attention to your own movements and your relationship to the movements of others. Christine describes one of the many aspects of her teaching by saying, “Dance is translated not only through our bodies, but also through our heart and soul as we weave community on the floor.” Through this process you may find yourself stepping through a transformational gate.

In my 20 years of this practice with Christine, I—along with her many students—have had the opportunity to work with some incredible local and visiting musicians. The core group of musicians who currently are creating the soundscape for Prayerbody include Joseph Sanchez, Nick Toombs and Ashley Eriksson. Christine draws musicians who share her keen awareness of the palette held by dance and the music assumes the presence of another limb, shaping each dancer individually and collectively. This dynamic orchestration creates limitless opportunities to explore new rooms in the body.

I often bring my journal to jot down thoughts during class. Here are some from Easter Sunday:

Bred in the Bone
Easter 2016

Eat this bread
It is my body
So holy, so holy, so made
for eating—with every sense
held—withheld
Cornucopia of Strange Beauty
Drink this wine
It is my blood
sour and sweet, all the holy
rivers of longing—forever
tied to the tree, the rocks
the sky—this holy body
of trailing tears
Eat and Drink from this well
It does not belong
to me—It belongs
to the estuary moving
towards the sea.

Growth (photo by Joni Takanikos)

So in the spirit of this moving and enchanting spring field, I encourage all of us to dance however we can: from our chairs, our beds, our lawns, roadsides or to simply be witness to the profoundly beautiful choreography of spring.

For more information about Prayerbody and to contact Christine Tasseff, go to prayerbody.com. Dance opportunities abound on Whidbey Island. Check out classes and performance schedules at Whidbey Dance Theatre: widtonline.org.

I highly recommend these two acclaimed documentaries. The 2011 film about the legendary choreographer Pina Bausch, “Pina,” and the 2013 film, “Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil LeClercq,” the life of the acclaimed ballerina.

Joni Takanikos is a perennial student of the miraculous nature of the body and the fields it inhabits. She teaches yoga at Half Moon Yoga Studio in Langley.

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May 11, 2016
Sue the Screenwriter || How to Make ’em Laff: Free-Falling into Funny!

BY SUZANNE KELMAN
May 4, 201

I actually didn’t set out to write comedy; I kind of fell into it one day as I was writing something serious and I’ve been trying to find my way out of the canyon of craziness ever since. What I’ve learned since traversing the humor terrain is that writing funny stuff is no laughing matter.

Here are some tips if you are thinking of falling into funny yourself.

Don’t read books on writing funny stuff. What I’ve noticed is people who write comedy don’t tend to write books about writing comedy very well. It’s like trying to explain a joke after the moment has passed; it kind of gets there but the spontaneity is lost along the way. There are many books out there that claim to help people write hilarious stuff but, I have to tell you, the ones I’ve read, have been as entertaining as re-mortgaging a house. So. trust your gut rather than another writer’s process, even mine.

Don’t force it. Forcing is like forcing someone to love you. Before you know it you’re boiling their bunny. The more obsessive you become over the comedy, the harder it becomes to work. This is not good. I once met a very straight-laced, old school teacher-type who looked me dead in the eye over her half-rimmed glasses as she handed me her manuscript and said in one long monotone, “I can write funny.” After reading it, I hadn’t the heart to tell her SHE was funny; her saying it that way WAS funny but, alas, her writing wasn’t.

You see, she approached it in a very rigid and controlled way. She read a bunch of books, commanded all her words to sit up straight in their chairs and line up quietly in very grammatically correct order. Then she slaved over the perfectly crafted punchline, but it fell flat.

Comedy for me isn’t like that. It’s just not rigid; it’s more like a form of free-falling. I jump in naked. I run with the wild bulls of the adjectives. I dance with my hair on fire. My first drafts are a mess.

It’s just a raucous can-can with the dancing red squiggly lines and me.

I just have fun with words. We hang out together like two old friends laughing at the bar. I type something funny and then I answer myself in a kind of schizophrenic double act. So try free-falling, and don’t edit that first draft.

I do is look for visual extremes to take along on my word journey, such as “run naked,” or “hair on fire.” The funnier you can make the visual for the reader, the more fun they’re going to have reading it. You can always pull back if your editors rolls their grammatical eyes. You can tell they are doing that when they send you back little bubbles in the “Track-Change” function accompanied by the tut-tut-tut of the three-question-mark disapproval—“???” This is editor talk for: “What the heck was that?

(because I can’t think of any more tips), I allow my mind to go on a constant party or Mardi Gras. Enjoy everything around me, especially characters that I meet. I’m always eavesdropping other people’s conversations too. Firstly, because it’s fun but mostly because I often hear nuggets that will take my mind into a million comical directions. Like the result of someone shouting “FIRE!” at a clown convention. Did I tell you I like writing in extreme visuals?

So, there you are—my process—read from the back of a postage stamp. If you want to make them laugh, I encourage you to find your own voice in it. Because, at the end of the day, you should enjoy it; after all, it’s comedy. And if you meet the tut-tut-tut of the bubble of doom, at least you had a blast of a time while you were free-falling.

Suzanne Kelman is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright and also the author of the international bestselling book “The Rejected Writers’ Book Club” Her accolades include The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences – Nicholl Fellowship Finalist, Best Comedy Feature Script – L.A. International Film Festival and Gold Award Winner – California Film Awards.

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May 4, 2016
Play That Song Again || It’s Only Funny ‘Cause It’s True

BY ERIK CHRISTENSEN
April 27, 2016

What gets you through the day? Where do you turn when feeling down? I, for one, like a funny, sing-along song to pick me up. And I’m not talking Weird Al parody or Flight of the Conchords-type comedy groups. Not even “Baby Got Back” by local legend Sir Mix-a-lot. Nope, give me a song that’s a little understated, a little wry rather than laugh-out-loud silly. Even better, I love it when a “serious” songwriter decides to change gears and be a little goofy. For your approval, I would now like to submit the All-Time, Top Five Funny (but not really) Songs.

Number five:
“Don’t Sit On My Jimmy Shands”
by Richard Thompson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FH7Kj_V6-c

From someone considered to be the world’s best guitarist, and the purveyor of some of the most depressing folk-death ballads, Richard Thompson can lay out some funny stuff. From songs about how dying increases your viability in the music industry (“now that I am dead/my agent finally said/he wanted to have lunch with me…now that I’m deceased/my record sales increased/my video’s on MTV…”) to Super Bowl wardrobe malfunctions, (“Dear Janet Jackson…”), no target is safe.

But probably his best is a gentle poke at record collectors and music fetishists. Yup, these are my people and the truth hurts sometimes. The protagonist is a record collector who is nervous about bringing precious vinyl 78s to a party where they might be damaged by a wayward drunk enjoying the polka music:

When the party hit full swing, I saw you come reeling in
You had that six-pack in a stranglehold
Now you stagger, now you sway, why don’t you fall the other way?
‘Cause I’ve got something here worth more than gold
I said, don’t sit on my Jimmy Shands, don’t sit on my Jimmy Shands
They don’t mend with sticky tape and glue
Don’t sit on my Jimmy Shands, don’t sit on my Jimmy Shands
And that’s my very best advice to you

In addition to the fun of a polka song in the middle of a rock and roll album, it’s great that he brings up the old forms of music—Strathspeys, reels, and the immortal Mr. Shands himself.

Number four:
“I Like Being Left Alone”
by Robbie Fulks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWPHHgbWAzc

As one gets older, one can relate to the need for peace and quiet. On the excellent “Revenge” live album, Mr. Fulks mentions running out of things to write about as you approach your 40s and 50s…he used to write songs about things he liked: girls, cars, cigarettes and partying. So what does a 50-year-old like now?

I like being left alone
I like chocolate pie, clear blue sky, and a glass of Cotes de Rhone
I like summer and I like fall, I like music but most of all….
I like being left alone

And, as a harried middle-aged person, the intrusions come from all over:

Talkin’ bout sales reps
Talkin’ bout the government
Talkin’ bout the children
And I’m talkin’ bout you.
My time is like a sweet plum
Everybody wants some

And, before it tips over into cranky old man territory, there’s a sweet resignation and comfort in the choice:

What’s the harm of sit and think some?
At worst a little wisdom
You can paint the town crimson; I’ll just stay blue

Number three:
“Osama in Obamaland”
by Dan Bern

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ-9a1LL81g

Written before Osama bin Laden was killed, this song imagines the circus a trial would bring if Osama was captured alive. Naturally, Osama escapes while awaiting trial and meets up with someone who can help him:

He headed for the only friendly place he could think of
In the whole United States, and off he pushed
Caught a Greyhound bus to Houston, in Texas
And he made it to the family ranch of George W. Bush

Hey, it could happen, folks. W. coaches him up on acting “American” and Osama next heads to an LA Dodgers baseball game, and plays music with ZZ Top, since he already looks the part. Eventually, he is recaptured, his Jewish lawyer (!) gets him released and it results in “a thousand years of peace” in the Middle East. Phew!

Number two:
“Dear Abby”
by John Prine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qbOfnbeH84

Another master of both the heartfelt and the funny song, this one is a litany of Dear Abby questions, and her subsequent answer, which is almost always some version of “get over it.”

Dear Abby, Dear Abby…
My fountain pen leaks
My wife hollers at me and my kids are all freaks
Every side I get up on is the wrong side of bed
If it weren’t so expensive I’d wish I were dead.
Signed, Unhappy

As with all her readers, the advice is the pep talk we can all use:

Unhappy, Unhappy:
You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up Buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood.

Quit complaining, get up and get on with your life—and this includes the writer who tells Abby he was caught with his girlfriend in the backseat of the car by her parents, and he signs the letter “Just Married.”

I got an early morning Facebook message last month; it was from an old friend from the east coast, talking about his toddler son:

Woke up this morning and heard singing from Nick’s room. He was in bed singing, “Dear Abby, Dear Abby, you have no complaint. You are what you are and you ain’t what you ain’t.”

No words can explain how happy this makes me. There’s a kid who’s going to go far in life.

And now, the number one, all time,
Top Funny song:
“Play Some Skynyrd”
by John Eddie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV5AQ72KZuo

I play this one at my shows frequently—the running joke is some drunk always wants to hear a classic rock song when you’re trying to play original work. Try this: ask any musician who’s played in public frequently—has anyone ever yelled out “Freebird” while you were playing? Then, sit back and wait for the story.

Mr. Eddie juxtaposes the oh-so-sensitive songwriter, with the audience that is perhaps not ready to hear such deep material:

Here’s a song about my daddy
Here’s a song about my past
Here’s the line where I open up my heart
Here’s the part where I tear off my mask

But then a voice in the back
Stops me in my tracks
Sends me crashing back, when they say:
Play some Skynyrd, play some Petty
Play some Seeger, play some Dead….

Like I said, EVERY musician I know can relate to this. The real joke is the singer receives a visit from God, who gives him the meaning of life, and tells him to “go out tonight/and spread my paradise.” As expected, it does not go well:

But then the drunks start to chant
“Play some Ronnie Van Zandt”
Oh Lord, I just can’t, when they say,

Play some Skynryd, play some Petty
Play some Seeger, play some Dead….

We all need some levity—and not over the top, smarmy jokes, but warm, heartfelt emotions that pick us up and get us through the day. And, some mornings, when I wake up to find that Syria is still a mess, jobs are disappearing and Donald Trump still hasn’t been eaten by wolves, I just do what young Nick does and sing to myself: “you have no complaint/you are what you are/and you ain’t what you ain’t….”

Erik Christensen teaches at Oak Harbor High School, writes songs and poetry and does enjoy a nice Cote du Rhone on occasion.

Erik Christensen Band plays at Holland Happening in Oak Harbor on April 30, the Freeland Cafe on June 11 and Bloom’s Winery on June 19.

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April 27, 2016