My Pretend Interview with Barbra Streisand

(This has been lovingly moved from my website over here to my blog, where it will live on in perpetuity. . . in my opinion, everyone should sit down with Barbra in their mind and let her ask you questions.)

A pretend interview wherin Barbra Streisand asks Ginger Hendrix Oprah-esque questions about her music, her life, her self.

Pretend Barbra: Ginger, are you surprised by the sudden success of Macaroni Boy Eats at Chez Shooby Doo?

Ginger: I don’t want to sound immodest, Barbra, but I’m really not. We’re hungry for real music—music that tells the truth and doesn’t shy away from words like (if you’ll excuse me) “potty” and “stinky.” We want to sing what we know to be real. All this singing about rainbows and unicorns has left us with a gaping inner space that is crying to be filled.

PB: Yes. I know what you mean. I felt that way when I filmed Yentl. Before we get ahead of ourselves, how did you get started on this journey, if you will, to music?

G: Interestingly to me, it was a path I happened upon, stumbled upon if you will. I was at home with my kids (and I mean that in a life-style sort of a way as opposed to just a “here’s what was going on on a particular day” sort of way), not having, well, the BEST time of my life and I accepted a friend’s invitation to a parent participation class. I’d tried them before, but they all seemed to be filled with women whose children would sit nicely and play with a single puzzle piece. My kids, um, didn’t play that way.

PB: Um hmmm. Um hmmmm.

G: I arrived really needing encouragement and some glimmer of hope that my boys were merely, well, “active” and I got it. It was a huge relief. I’d found a landing place.

PB: I’m so interested in you, but what does this have to do with your music?

G: I play the guitar, so I offered to do the music time for our class. I was desperate for a way to offer something in thanks for the realness of the class.

PB: Desperate?

G: I really was.

PB: Hmmmmm.

G: Before I showed up the first day, a song came to me, so I shared it. The kids loved it. The next week I wrote another. And so on, and so on.

PB: So, you say that music, essentially APPEARED to you like a beckoning apparition?

G: Yes, Barbra, but less ghost-like than your metaphor would imply. I’d been studying and writing poetry [you could click here for a link to my writing group’s website, but they don’t have one] for many years and so lyric-writing was a natural extension of that experience.

PB: Before I forget to ask, what is your favorite movie?

G: Yentl.

PB: Good. Good. Now, why children’s music, and not, say, Broadway-style-soul-revealing-cabaret-without-the-deep-lightness -of-self-that-requires sort of music?

G: It was really a matter of available audience (a group of my sons’ friends) mixed with the desire to be goofy.

PB: I don’t really know what you mean, but I’m so interested. How would you describe your music?

G: I think you could say that my music sounds like a less-talented Etta James meets Johnny Cash when he’s in a good mood meets the Artist Formerly Known as Marie Osmond meets Stanley if he were a girl and his fish were a dog who played the guitar.

PB: Mmmmmmmmmmm.

G: Barbra, could I offer you a copy of my CD before you are whisked off to your next heartfelt experience?

PB: No, Ginger, please don’t. I already have a copy of my own, and you should know that I’m considering singing “Rocking My Cat to Sleep” in my next show—a “thrio,” possibly, with Dan Zanes and Gillian Welch.

G: Thank you, Barbra, thank you. That would be a dream come true.