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Everybody asks me what I’m going to do.

I.  Have.  No.  Clue.

Actually, that’s not 100% true.  I know what I’m planning to do.

Drive.

I’m not supporting myself finanially very well here.  My teaching roster has severely dwindled down, and I haven’t been getting many new students.

At this point in life, I don’t have much patience left to do anything I don’t want to do.  I’ve tried starting up a few businesses (see earlier posts) and have done enough stupid business things to write “the stupid book.”

There’s nothing I want to do now except sing, play the piano and write songs, so I’m going to go on the road and do it.  Learn to live by serendipity and instinct.   My car gets 50 mpg.

Hence….(love that word!) I’m blogging again.  I figure,  this could be kind of like an “Eat Love Pray” thing, without the book advance, international travel, good food or meditation.

I haven’t booked any shows out of town yet, so once the house sells, I may just park at a friend’s for a few months, get my bearings, and then take off.  I just want to get out from under the burden of the bills of this house first.  As long as we’re stuck here, we both need to do everything we possibly can to keep the creditors happy until we can sell.

The value of our house has gone down almost 50%, but unlike those unlucky 1 in 4 underwaters, we still have some equity – not a lot – but what there is, we want to get out.  So we’re doing the best we can to stay until we sell.

Anyway, those be my plans for now.  I reserve the right to change at any point.

Wish me luck.

 

Booking my first tour

I’m booking my first out-of-state tour.  In March I’m going to go up the coast of California, and then back down again.  That’s my plan.  I have 2 good dates in Southern California, 2 weeks apart, and I’m now preparing to fill the rest in.

I went to a music conference last week and met a lot of great people who gave me suggestions of places to look into and I’m following up on them all.  I’m loving my new contact management program, “Indie Band Manager”.  What a great investment! (I’m patting myself on the back here)

There’s an old musician joke that goes something like “What will the musician do if he wins the lottery”?  Answer:  “Keep working till he runs out of money.”  Implying that being a musician is a money pit, and many musicians work for less than free.  It’s 100% true when you’re first starting out.  

(btw, I heard a great musician’s joke last week that I’ve been sharing with everybody:  What do you call a girl on the arm of a banjo player?  A tattoo.)

Anyway, If I just went in & out of CA for those good gigs that are 2 weeks apart, I’d clear a slight profit.  But I’m feeling, if this is what I believe I want to do,  I need to put myself out there, start building an audience, letting people know who I am and what I do. The title of my last CD was “Visible.”  Well, it’s time. 

Today I booked a “songwriter showcase” gig there (i.e. – good exposure/no-pay) and may end up booking a few more.  

I figure I can live on about $100/day.  If I can stay with friends or fellow musicians anywhere along the way, sell some CDs & t-shirts, get at least a few more ok paying gigs during those two weeks, I won’t go too far down the hole and will hopefully a) set the stage for stronger follow-up tours and b) get a clearer idea if this is something I want to do, or not. 

You gotta try.  And I keep reminding myself, if not now, then when?

 

Freedom Precious Freedom

I just got back from a great weekend. I was invited to perform at a house concert/party on Saturday night in northern California where I will be doing some touring in the near future, so it was great to get out there and connect with new people.

I made plans to come into town early Friday, and then leave late on Sunday, with the intention of hooking up with friends. But after I had made all my non-refundable plans, I learned that everyone I knew was either out of town or unavailable that weekend, so I decided take a mini-vacation for myself.

I went online to Hotwire.com and got a room in a cutesy little art gallery/Bentley-infested beach town for $79.00 a night. Cool!

The first day, after I finally got there, I was a little tired from all the traveling (only got lost 2x though & new IPhone GPS was a big help!), so even though I managed to get in a little beach time, I shortly retired to my room with a take-out from the downstairs chop house (kobe beef & gruyere cheese on thinly sliced chip-style potatoes – yum!) and watched the debates. It was actually pretty great. The beef, cheese & chips combination I mean.

The next morning I got up around 7 and had to walk outside in order to get to the hotel lobby where the free coffee was, and the air was incredible. Cool and sea-breezy. So I got my coffee and just kept walking. For about a mile,  down the relatively deserted streets, past all the cute houses and shops and purple flowers everywhere, humming the Joni Mitchell song “When morning comes to Morgantown.”

I kept walking, all the way down to the beach, where I passed a few fisherman and people walking their dogs. It was a perfect morning.

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A few hours later when I was preparing to check out and leave for the place where the concert was going to be (about an hour away), I decided to pick up some flowers to bring to my hosts. I drove to a nearby (very cute!) market and there was a very nice looking man holding a motorcycle helmet standing in line in front of me. He said “Are you buying those flowers for me?” I said “Yes. Thank you for last night.”

We spoke briefly outside as I admired his Harley, and exchanged #s. He had a wonderful, Armenian accent and he said “I’m going to call you when I get back to… but it might not be a few days till.. etc. etc.” He said he was just trying to reassure me that he wasn’t a “typical guy” who said he would call and then not.” I reassured him. I said “That’s ok. I don’t care.”

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Then I drove to my hosts’ house where the party would be. It was an amazing house – the second to the last one, high up on a hill. There was only one house higher, but you couldn’t see it from the road because it had it’s own little entry gate and road to get to it. I asked my host if that other house was fancier than his, and he said oh yes – it was about double the size! Which was something – because the guestroom I was staying in was already bigger than my first house.

The concert/party went wonderful. A lot of great music, and I made a lot of great, new connections with wonderful people.

Then the next morning I hung out with a fellow singer/songwriter/philosopher who had also spent the night there. We sat on the veranda (as someone had clarified for me – this was not a “patio”, or a “deck”, but a “veranda” – seats around 60-80 pretty comfortably) overlooking the valley, as we sipped our coffee amidst more purple flowers.

He’s been divorced a long time and we got to talking about how people sometimes move right into new relationships, too quickly, and end up with a clone of the previous one.

I get it. I get lonely.  Sometimes a little scared. It would’ve been nice to have someone to hold hands with on the beach the day before, or to eat cheese and chips with (although they would’ve had to order their own:). And then, so many of these not-quite-right but-sort-of-ok men or work opportunities have come along, and I can almost see those little birdcages with their doors open calling to me: “come in! come in!” Ready to whisk this  hayseed out of the sky and lock the door tight behind me.

But this precious freedom right now… Lock yourself in the wrong birdcage and there is no romantic beach to walk on, even if you do catch the bird.

 

Cactus Tree

MJ was over tonight and cracking up about my love life. I’m not “dating”, but I seem to be going out quite a bit for the non-dater that I am. I keep thinking of that Joni Mitchell song “Cactus Tree” about all the men whom she loved and they loved her but she just flitted from one to the next:

“She will love them when she sees them

They will lose her if they follow

And she only means to please them

And her heart is full and hollow

Like a cactus tree

And she’s so busy being free”

I love that song, and it’s been running through my mind lately. But there are several key differences. One, the song is a bit melancholy and I’m not feeling melancholy about any of this. I’m having a nice time, just enjoying the company and being taken out to dinner.

And two, the song sounds to me like some lovin’ was exchanged between Joni & her subject matter. And in my life at this time, no one is getting any loving. Myself included. It’s ok.

Guess who’s taking me out to dinner on Sunday? The pastor of a church I sang at last weekend. He’s a great guy. Sweet, funny, and his favorite song on my CD is “Buy the Bitch a Cadillac”, although he doesn’t think I should sing it in his church.

When he called to ask me out I told him I’d love to have dinner, but, just so he knows,  I’m not “dating.” He was fine. We’re still going to go out and it’ll be fun. And then I’ll go back home and watch a movie or something with my ex.

 

Excuses excuses excuses

Yesterday I had a photoshoot. The photographer is also a musician. He plays guitar. He said to me “I love the way you play the piano. Do you play guitar too?”

I said, you know, I play a little, and I’ve been tempted to learn because I love it and I’m around so many people that play the guitar it would be nice to be able to pick it up and play one myself, but there’s only so much practice time available in the day, so I choose to work at getting better and better at what I already do.

He said “I’m glad to hear you say that. That makes a lot of sense – to focus like that!”

But then I added, “You know, I’m always in these raffles and contests and things where the prize is a beautiful guitar, and one of these days I’m going to win one, and then I’m going to learn to play.

Then he generously offered, “I have 3 great guitars, and they’re not getting a lot of use. I’d be very happy to lend you one of mine.”

I said to him (“kidding” of course), “that wouldn’t work, because then I wouldn’t have any excuses, and then I’d have to learn to play it!”

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I thought I was doing awesome in my pragmatic resolve of temporary abstinence, and I am, in my actions. But emotionally, sometimes it’s rough.

I’ve been out with a couple of men (as friends), and just the slightest sweet touch, or the right kind of hug or something – I just want to melt into them and go away on a vacation with them or something.

I’m thinking Martha’s Vineyard – holding hands and walking through the cute shops. We would stay in a romantic little bed and breakfast and wake up with the ocean air coming in through the open window.

Even the photographer yesterday. A good looking guy. Kept coming over to adjust my arm. Or my leg. Or move some hair off my eyes. Very gently and sweetly. It felt like ice melting.

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So I’m living in this house with my ex and telling myself: “This is good. This is ok.” That it’s stabilizing for now. That it will be good to be here till I have all my tools ready to move out on my own: marketing tools , a new CD, technology of my own, a buncha things.

It’s true I’ve chipping away at making things happen. But now I’m wondering if some of my “needs” haven’t  also become excuses for me, to not move through the necessary changes I need to move through, and the sooner the better.

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Yesterday evening a relative whom I don’t know that well called to ask a favor. She was scared and freaked out and needed a ride to the hospital this week for some tests. She’s not much older than I am, and things are not looking good for her.

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There’s so much I want. I want a new life. I want a man.

I’ve got to to get my projects done and my life in (relative) order, NOW.  No excuses or distractions.

Gotta Bust outta this joint.

 

Watching myself on video

I’ve been video editing all day with my ex.

I had a two-week run last month at a theater downtown of an original show that I wrote, and my ex was in videotaping it for me.

Usually I’ll do an entire show from behind the piano, but this time it was a full theatrical production so I was doing some stand-up, and I moved around quite a bit on-stage between different keyboard & prop stations.

Watching the video was pretty enlightening. During the parts where I was performing my songs, I liked what I saw. But in the “in-between-the-songs-parts” when I was moving from one station to the next, it was like a whole different person. My posture changed – it was not the same person who had been doing the singing. It was more shuffly-like, self-conscious, almost apologetic. As I was watching, I kept thinking “Who are those 2 people!” But of course, both of them were me.

The next day, the day after the videoshoot show day, the producer said to me “That was great – you’ve made a lot of changes since yesterday! You must’ve watched the video!”

But no, at that time, I hadn’t seen the video yet. (Didn’t watch it till 2 days ago actually!)

I don’t know why the show had changed so dramatically from one day to the next. Whether it was self-consciousness on the video day because my ex was there filming, or was it because I was aware in general that a video was being shot so I wasn’t fully “myself”, or, am I always like that!?

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Last night I had a long talk with JM. We talked a bit about what I’m going to do when my ex and I finally sell this house and truly move on. I told her about my plans to go on the road.

She said “So playing music is going to be ‘it’ for you , then? This is what’s in your blood and this is what you’re going to do?”

I said I believe so. But it’s not that I’m “closing the door” on anything else – I intend to keep my mind and my options open, to see where I best find my way.

Because really, it really doesn’t matter what I “do”. I just want to be, all the time, that confident person that I liked in the video. The one on stage doing the singing. Not the other, “in-between” one.

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btw – the video came out great. We edited out all the parts I didn’t like.

 

Sideline wives

Old energy

I was one of those smiley sideline wives, where you sit there and smile at everyone else’s accomplishments. Usually it’s at a table with other wives looking up adoringly at our husbands. I don’t know if we’re still out there as much among the ranks of young women today, but that was definitely a thing of my generation that I fell into. And I played the part well.

Last night my ex was playing with a band for a benefit concert with a singer, who’s a local celebrity. She invited me to come out to the gig with my ex and do a few songs, so I did. I’ve sung behind her before, but she’s never hired me as a back-up. I’ve been there more of as the wife of someone in her band who happens to be at the gig anyway.

For the 3 hours I wasn’t on stage, I milled around through the crowd of people I didn’t know, pretending to belong and care for the cause. When she called me up on stage, there wasn’t time to set up my gear – so I ended playing up on my ex’s gear, with none of the monitors set for me (couldn’t hear my vocals) and weird pedal settings that at least 3 times I thought I was going for the sustain and then all of the sound would disappear. And because I was using his keyboards, he was wasn’t able to be on stage the same time as me, which was too bad because he was the only musician up there who did know my material.

The guitar player got about 50% of the chords right. And the other 50% of the time it was probably ok because I had temporarily cut off most of the sound with one of the mystery pedals anyway.

Then somehow I ended up on stage singing backgrounds to “Grapevine,” and trust me, if you know anything about me as an artist, this is one song you surely don’t associate with me. So there I was dancing around up there like a deer in the headlights thinking “What am I doing here?”

I know what I was doing there. Being the one in the picture behind the celebrity that David Letterman points to and says “Who’s that guy?” I’ve done it for years and it’s got to stop.

I don’t know how big my own world really is, or can be. But I will discover that now. And whatever it is, it’s got to be better than being a barnacle on somebody’s else’s.

 

House selling, music marketing and roommates

It’s been a tumultuous and emotional few weeks. We just got all the papers in and will probably be divorced by May 1.

We haven’t sold our house, even though we had dropped the price to the best value for the money, location, etc.

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In 1997, when I was running my own record label, cassettes were selling for $9.95, and we released a children’s cassette for $7.95, thinking of it as a brilliant marketing move; people would be attracted to ours because it was $2.00 cheaper.

I don’t think we sold any more than we would’ve sold at $9.95, but every time someone bought one, we made $2.00 less.

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So I called my realtor today and said “Hey nobody’s even walking through our house anyway so let’s put it back up to $9.95 so that when they do come through, we’ll get that extra $2.00.”

He thought that was a pretty good idea, but proposed an even better one.

——————–

So we’re taking the house off the market for awhile. My future ex and I have been getting along fine. We eat the same foods and like a lot of the same movies, which actually has been a pretty good reason to stay married longer than we should’ve. But it’s ok. Most of the drama has now passed.

We’ll be good roommates for awhile.

 

Cher without Sonny

My future ex and I have been rehearsing for an upcoming show & it’s sounding great. Better than ever. People have been asking us if we’re going to still play together after…. Probably. Marriage is one thing. A good band is another.

It’s weird, rehearsing so perfectly in the mornings, then going through the divorce paperwork in the afternoons. It’s so musically tight when you work with someone whom you’ve lived with for 30 years.

You hear about all these family bands that sound so great on stage and then you hear all these side stories about them not getting along.  But their blend is incredible!  When I was younger, I used to think, Huh!!? But now I understand. You don’t want to give that up.

I guess it’ll be like Cher without Sonny. Or Stevie Nicks without whats-his-face. Or was that Christi McVie?

 

Rocky Road

Earlier in the day, we had another session with our accountant.  What can I say. Things are a tangled web.  He’s the best – and has been working diligently to unravel the mess we’ve been able to create over so many years.  He said “You’re going to have to come back for one more session.”

I said “I’m getting a little concerned. What’s all this going to be costing?”

He answered “More than you’ll want to pay.”

So now there’s the mediators fees, the house which seems to be losing equity by the minute, the accountant’s fees, taxes ….

I was starting to get a little freaked again (“starting” – hah!) and just found myself telling myself (over & over!) – “let it go.  It’s going to be ok.  This is reality.  Maybe you’re not going to walk out of this with money, but you’re going to walk out clean.”  And that’s something I’ve been craving for years.

I used to be a painter, and fondly remember that powerful feeling of pure potential, every time I approached a clean, newly stretched canvas. 

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I performed last night at a concert for non-violence.  My future ex performed with me.  It went fantastic.  My favorite times are had on stage. 

A friend of mine’s band played after us.  They go by the name “Rocky Road”.  They do a lot of “Peter Paul & Mary” type stuff and (I think?) named themselves after a Peter Paul & Mary song.  They did some joking on stage about how they came up with their name.

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I woke up this morning thinking about Rocky Road.  So what is it?  A great song.  A road full of rocks.  Or fantastic ice cream full of nuts and chocolate?