Improbably Popular, So Maybe Not Impossible

A number of years ago, when I had a studio in Anaheim, California, I write a song I called AMERICAN DREAM. It was a result of being bombarded with ads and news coverage of the Miss America pageant. I wasn't a fan and so, wrote a tribute to women who didn't fit in the mold—women who didn't wear their hair right; women who used their heads for thinking. (Meaning no disrespect to the women in the pageant who do think... it was just that at the time, that didn't seem to be what won over the judges.)

I arranged it and recorded it as a rock song. As with so many songs recorded by independents, not just my songs, it went nowhere.

In more recent times, when my friend Harper John came to visit me in New Mexico. Harper John and I had formed a band in Hong Kong (The Lapsap Blues Band) and even after we went our ways, we collaborated. He went to The Philippines and I was in the Caribbean, almost exactly on opposite sides of the world. Then, when I was in New Mexico, USA, we decided to record an album called WORLDS APART. I came across this song again, and I asked him to sing it. He did and, as he does, he began messing with the lyrics. Soon the song had left the borders of the US and expanded into IMPOSSIBLE DREAM. Indiekline, our new band name, wasn't a rock band, but alternative, sort of folk rock, so the new arrangement was softer, more expressive.

Still, not much happened with the song (or the album). But Harper John went to Canada and continued to perform it. Eventually his version became a staple in his repertoire. Because he still riffs on it (happily) and writing down the lyrics would be a waste of time. Happily, it gets requested at his performances a surprising number of times. That pleases us both, because it is a song we both like. And his changes, his way of adapting everything he sings to current events and the current mood, keeps it alive.

Here is a video of him jamming on the song with some friends in Canada. it's as rough as Harper John's attitude. I hope you enjoy it.






Breaking News: Harper John has just entered a very unusual song of his Kyrie Eleison, Hallelu (an anthem to the universal common soldier)  in the prestigious SEARCHLIGHT 2019 music contest up in Canada    http://www.cbcmusicsearchlight.ca/ 

If you'd like to vote, public voting begins on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019, at 3 p.m. ET until Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019, at 2:59 p.m. ET. The public can vote once per Posted Song per day during the Opening Round Voting Period.

Regrouping

Our plan to sell our house and to see a boat we liked very much down in Panama hit a little snag. That being that we don't seem to be selling the house. We had some people take a very serious look at our ancient adobe and decide it wasn't right for them. They looked long and hard. The house has some sort of magic about it that makes a certain kind of person fall in love with it, and it's rather inexpensive as houses go in this day and age, but it also needs some work.

For years now, we've invested heavily in our art making. It's been our priority since, oh since forever. That means using whatever spare money we could generate on art supplies or trying to sell art. So we haven't done much with the house other that remove a few non load bearing walls to create space for Dagny to work. As a result, there is a fair amount of comestic work that needs doing. This is an obstacle for anyone wanting a house they can move into and just unpack. It's also one reason the house is priced below market.

So, we accept that it isn't pristine, and that frustrates immediate sales. And we have little patience for waiting for that perfect buyer to show up on our doorstep. So what do you do?
In our case, we regroup, rethink. Maybe even take a moment to listen to what the universe is telling us. A wise person doesn't push against the universe. It isn't healthy or fun. If the message is that it isn't the moment to go sailing, well okay. What then?

Well, seeing as plan A failed, we move to plan C (plan B is always "jump over the side" but in New Mexico it's not as functional as it was when we formed it during our boating days.). And what is plan C? We fix up the house. If we had money, that would be simple. But in our case, it means taking the house off the market, get a home equity loan of some sort, use part ot pay off the van and the rest to get the work done.

Then we... well, we aren't sure what happens next. The future is a fuzzy place. Maybe we rent it out and join the carnival... Well, probably not a carnival, but its all part of some circus. Anyway, we do something. Something fun and interesting. Maybe we put it back on the market. Hell, we don't even know how long it will take to do the things we need/want to do.

But that's okay. Not knowing is a good thing. After all, it's all just part of an adventure. Like the rest of life--you have to make it up as you go along.

Road Trips

While waiting for the house to sell, I've kept busy with writing and also with road trips. Some old friends from Portland Oregon needed help moving to New Mexico and when I volunteered to help, they flew me up so I could drive one of the UHaul trucks down for them.

Flights of fancy

When you live in Silver City, going to the airport means driving to Tucson or El Paso. It's a tossup, but the weather was getting nice so the day before my flight, Dagny and I went to Tucson, and we camped that night at Colossal Caves. It was great and in the morning, as we sat in our chairs eating breakfast, we got a visit from several cardinals--two males and a female. We'd never seen cardinals in the wild before and they were gorgeous. They knew it too, and they posed in the trees and came within a few feet to give us a good look.

Being able to camp out on February 9th is one of the attractions of the Southwest.

On the road again

Portland has grown a lot since the last time I was there. I was actually going to Gresham, and it felt like Gresham was bigger than the Portland I remembered.

We finished loading and two days later, headed out in a convoy of three trucks and a car. As road trips go, this isn't the ideal strategy, partly because the nature of the vehicles and the weather dictated that we get on major freeways, point our noses south, and just drive to LA, turn left (harder than it sounds) onto I-10 and drive to Lordsburg, NM, where you head back up into the mountains. On the other hand, the roads were predictable, except that I-5 and parts of I-10 were in terrible shape. We were bounced around. I've seen better roads in Cambodia. It was hard to believe that a place that is so dependent on cars doesn't make the roads a priority. Arizona does much better.

But we did it. We and the stuff survived, so we called it a success.

Preparation for getting underway

 Now we are home, but Dagny and I are making a trip to Phoenix early next month. She's been modifying the van, tweaking it to be better suited for our on-the-road lifestyle, and we'll camp at Lake Roosevelt for a couple of nights (coming and going to Phoenix) and see how well it all works and give her ideas for more mods.

We've camped at Lake Roosevelt before and it's a lovely place.

We are evolving toward heading out the door, not waiting for the house to sell in that respect. Already we've gotten rid of stuff, and even at home, we are starting to winnow down our cooking utensils to the things we can fit in the van.

Fitting things into the van and still being able to cook, sleep, work... It's a challenge.

I've pretty much worked out my idea of a minimal office. I'll upgrade my computer before we hit the road, but ditch a lot of the "clever" gadgets that I thought might make things easier and me more productive. As it turns out, I'm better off taking a step backward, getting back to just writing on paper and then using a computer as a typewriter for a second draft. There's a lot involved in that decision, but what it comes down to is that I need to focus on the writing and not the tools. I love working in Scrivener, and I love my Mac Book Pro, but anything else is window dressing that will require maintenance. I'll get a newer Mac Book Pro because they don't have hard disks, and living on the road is hard on mechanical things. When we get a boat, salt water is always an issue. I went through a lot of computers the last time we lived on a boat and the most common failure was the hard drive.

So onward and upward.

Dreams and hopes

In learning to produce my own books I've done a lot to try an improve the covers. Part of the learning process has involved finding the kinds of images that resonate with me. In the process I've discovered (probably tangentially) that I have a fascination with old buildings. The ones that have been abandoned, left to weather and entropy, are the most interesting.

I've decided I'm drawn to these buildings as symbols of dreams. Sometime in the past, someone built these places, or had them built, and they must've had a vision of a life in them, or perhaps a dream of a prosperous business. Now they look like failed dreams, but I'm not sure they are. Perhaps the dreamers lived a long and happy life, enjoying the building and it was later inhabitants who let the buildings go. Or perhaps tragedy struck.

I've decided that the attraction of these places is the way they function as symbols of the hopes and dreams of people I'll never know. Sometime in the past, someone built these places, or had them built, and they must've had a vision of a life in them, or perhaps a dream of a prosperous business. Now they look like failed dreams, but I'm not sure they are. Perhaps the dreamers lived a long and happy life, enjoying the building and it was later inhabitants who let the buildings go. Or perhaps tragedy struck.

As a writer, I can't help but imagine the stories. Of course, the stories I hear in my head aren't the real stories, but ones I am making up. But that's what a writer does--make shit up. 

I took this set of photos in rural New Mexico. Several are from small mining towns in the Silver City area, where the Santa Rita and Tyrone mines have a long history of being driving forces in the local economy. Unfortunately, mining is a boom and bust proposition, which likely means more dreams and more failures than in other places. The boom and bust provide the attraction and the potential for tragedy/ The dreams had to be phenomenal...of wealth, of even better buildings for growing families. And a bust time meant few had the money to take over properties that had been abandoned. By the time the next boom arrived, brought on by a rise in copper prices, it was time for new buildings and new dreams. The old ones aren't fixed. Why live in the shell of a ruined life when the future beckons?

So my interest isn't nostalgic. I don't want to repair these dreams and move in, but to feel them, they way their dreamers manifested them in wood and concrete.

Hey, everyone needs a hobby.

A weekend at a writing festival

This weekend is the Southwest Festival of the Written Word here in Silver City, NM. It is the first time this has been tried and I returned just in time. I hope it becomes a regular event. It is still on, but already I have had a chance to hear, and talk with, people in the business of getting words sold. Peter Riva, a literary agent, gave an information-packed talk on the state of the market. I wish he had been given twice the time, as he had much to say. Mark Medoff talked about screen and play writing from both conceptual and lifestyle perspectives. His talk was both entertaining and informative.

I also spent some valuable time with Diana and Jaime Andrade, the owners of Brook Forest Voices in Colorado, who make audio books and enhanced ebooks. You can learn a great deal online, but it is more fun when you can interact, asking questions and watching body language. Besides, they are likeable people and it was an enjoyable talk. Like most of the people I've been encountering, they seem to get excited about what they do. 

As I look at the things I want to accomplish this year and into the next, all this information provides food for thought, as well as ballpark ideas for the cost of doing things. And it is fun to see the other authors who are at the festival trying to do exactly what I want to do -- sell books.

The organizers have done a great job with this inaugural event and my hat is off to them.