Reading Cookbooks

In an effort to avoid writing--which, as a writer by trade, hobby and temperament, is my prerogative a good part of the time--I have been reading cookbooks lately. I'm also waiting on the set up of my little home studio and have had to do something to keep myself busy while I obsess over having to wait so long to work on recording my songs.

You can't imagine the meal I made last night: sweet chili-crusted pork tenderloin with homemade mango salsa. Come on. It was delicious.

If you're killing time or maybe just putting off doing what you're meant to do, take a look at Pam Anderson's (um, yes, unfortunate name for a cookbook author who's trying hard not to be imagind by readers in a bikini) How to Cook Without a Book and CookSmart. I'm telling you, they've been absolutely wonderful. They read like novels and take away the mystery of adding flame to meat (something I've always been stumped by.)

I'll let you know when we're back to frozen pizzas and more new songs.

I'm Not Finished Being Inspired

I'm not finished chewing on what I read last week in this NYT article about Jonathon Coulton. And then today I found this--Coulton's own play-by-play of his accidental (well, not really accidental--just not exactly perfectly planned out) rise to success. He figured out a way to dump his software job (always a good idea) and dive full on into songwriting. And playing. And troubadouring. (A very good life choice in my opinion.)

And I love his honesty that he didn’t have some Dr. Evilish Master Plan that deployed him right over to where he is now.

Here’s the part I’m still thinking about: he makes a terrific case for releasing music for free. And the reason that I'm still chewing on this and thinking about actually doing something about it is because I've been bothered by the idea of selling my own music for a long time. WAIT! I know what you're going to say. Yes, an artist has a right to sell what they make. It's real. It's worth something. And yes we assign dollar amounts to things in our culture to deem them legit. And (not at all a small detail)—how else am I going to fund my next project unless I sell some of these CDs I’ve got? I financed my first project with money from my dear mother-in-law. That money’s not around now for the next one, so I’ve got to make it back with sales if I want to do the next project—and I really want to do the next project. This is all legit. Selling the music, I mean, is legit.

Here's the rub, though: I couldn't have afforded to buy what I'm selling back when it would have been really nice to buy it.

And I don't know if it's more true that I wouldn't have afforded it than that I couldn't have afforded it, but either way, I wouldn't have forked over the 14 or 15 bucks to myself for my CD. Not because I wouldn't have wanted it--I really would have, if you must know--but because I didn't have any extra cash in those days—all that diaper-ish money was just flying out the door and I was working hard to make sure we had enough for groceries. (In fact, there were days I was standing hopefully at the Coinstar maching during the last week of the month.) Don't start playing violins or anything--my husband and I made a choice to one-income it for a while so I could be home with our guys. And it was a good choice for a while (though I was, at that time, the proud recipient of two facial ticks and a surly demeanor). And it meant that things were tight. Really tight. (I didn't make that thing up about the Coinstar.)

And so during those years, musically speaking, I was square in the spot to have only the kids music that other people gave to me--hence the onslaught of bad kid choirs and electric synthesizers that drove me to my own guitar to try to get myself and my children out of the music-less pickle that we were in.

And this might make me different from the general Alterndad-ish community of my Gen X-ish generation. Maybe everybody else has plenty of cash for music. Maybe our generation thinks of music as a “staple” category and not an “extra”—maybe nobody else hesitates to drop 10 bucks or 30 on music every month. But I notice that even now when the belt’s been loosened a bit, I’m still not Mrs. Got Cash or anything, and I still don’t have a lot of music money. And maybe, I’m thinking, I’m not alone in this way.

So what I'm saying here is that I'm thinking about sharing my new stuff this summer. I've got all my songs written for the next CD and these really terrific plans to record them in a shiny studio--but only God's Uncle Bob knows when I'll be able to pull off the right convergence of cash and back up bands and chutspah to really do it.

So I’m going to post the tracks that I make on my own souped-up Garage Band set up. Because wouldn't I have liked to be able to download songs that I could sing with my kids in the car--for free?

Yeah, I would have really liked that.

Come back and check soon for free songs. They’ll be really terrific homegrown versions of the stuff I’ll record in the Big Kid Studio some one of these days. And I’ll sell those when they’re ready—I really will—for the next project and maybe for fancy t-shirts or something.

For now, though, let’s sing in the car together this summer.

Song Help

I'm an only child, so it doesn't cross my mind much to ask for help from friends, but I just read this article about Jonathon Coulton and his ten bazillion web friends, and it made me think about those of you who hang out with me here. We're having a nice time, aren't we? Yes.

I'm working on a song right now called "Out of Town Grandma"--I've got some stuff I really like, but would love some more quirky routines that any of you have going in your families (don't worry, I've already covered she-buys-them-a-ton-of-candy). Anybody want to give me some really good tiny little strange details about the routines of life with an out of town grandma? I'm open. Hit me.

Let's write a song.

Generation Stoic

Okay, I don't really actually know what they call this particular generation of whipper snappers, but I teach college--as in:

And I'm telling you they all walk around with ipods in their heads. This, of course, does not bother me a bit. I've started doing it myself. Here's the weird part: they have COMPLETELY straight faces: all of them. Not one of them is AIR BANDING. I mean--no Karaoke-light; no smidge-of-lips-saying-the-lyrics; no occasional power chord on the book bag. Nothing. Total serious faces.

Personally, I can barely keep myself together when I walk from the parking lot to my class, listening to Toto (yes, Toto). There I am in the Campus Market buying over-priced, over-cooked coffee straining like crazy to keep from busting out "99--woo-oooo" and all around me are people managing to pull that off quite nicely.

I am amazed (and a little creeped out). What will all this self-possession do to their generation? I think they're all going to grow up and have mental lapses at 60 just from the sheer pressure of all that self-control.

Maybe they're all listening to NPR. Do they not listen to Journey? Does no one know of Chaka Khan? Prince? Yes?

Tragedy. Pure generation-wide tragedy.

I think I may seriously consider re-aligning our culture's current perspective on airbanding in public. I'll get back to you on this. In the meantime, I'm feeling very thankful for my solid, 80's power-chord-loud-trap-set-with-the-occasional-sentimental-synthesizer roots.

Big Carny Money

Does anybody know of any Alfalfa-look-alike contests? I'm seriously thinking that maybe we can travel around with my son and make money at carnivals or something and eat funnel cake all the time. Then we could make friends with carnies. And we could meet somebody named Tough Harvey or something and he could tell us stories of growing up setting up carnival tents. And we could get good tips. And eat more funnel cake.

C'mon. Tell me you know somebody who looks more like Alfalfa than my son Will.



Didn't think so.

It's always good to have several dreams available for the family in case one of them doesn't work out.

I'm thinking this might be a solid PLAN B for us.

I'm still thinking about song writing

I've been posting lately about what makes a good kid song--really because I'm working on the songs for my next project, and I'm (honestly) trying to figure it out.

I've hit some how-to-make-em-interesting points so far (hand-clapping, guitar strum, back-up singers . . .)

But now I'm asking the BIG question: WHAT MAKES A GOOD LYRIC? Click on over to The Lovely Mrs. Davis Tell You What to Think to check out my guest blog about this. . .

Cool Things I Noticed in a Song #3

Some people, I hear, always dreamed of being back-up singers. The Supremes for Diana. The Pips for Gladys. You know, that sort of thing. I won't lie. I think I only ever dreamed of being Diana and Gladys--but there's a special spot for really good back up.

And that's today's amazing insight into writing really terific kids' music. (And remember, I think about this sort of thing because I want to figure out how to do it really, life-changingly well).

#1 Best Use of a Righteous Back Up Band








"John the Rabbit": Elizabeth Mitchell, YOU ARE MY FLOWER

I love this song for the regular-guy-ness of it. Maybe she should have been Elizabeth Mitchell & the Yes Ma'ams . . . well, I mean, for that song at least. And try to imagine the song where Elizabeth just says those words for herself. Right. TOTALLY not the same.

A well-placed back-up can make a good song really terrific.

I think I'm going to put an ad up on Craigslist so that I can have a righteous back up band for my next CD:

WANTED: Regular people to say context-appropriate words over and over in order to aid impact of children's song. Call 1-800-BEMYRIGHTEOUSBACKUPBAND

I'll let you know if anyboy calls.

Cool Things I Noticed in a Song #2

Part 2 in an infinite series about the minutae of song writing for kids. Click here for Part 1. Or, um, scroll down to the post before this one.

Okay, so today's totally insightful insight about songwriting is all about chord strum. And I'm not going to leave you hanging with a bunch of cluttering personal sharing before I just get right to it and tell you this:

#1 Best use of dramatic chord strum:

(This is so easy to pick. I didn't even, like, think about it--I just KNEW the answer. . . .)

"I Want a Dog": Lunch Money, SILLY REFLECTIONS



Okay, now to the cluttering person sharing.

I chose this song because of its ability to make me wish I were playing it. Don't you just want to set up the microphone stand you have lying around your house and belt that soulful truth-telling line:

"I want a [DRAMATIC, SOULFUL CHORD STRUM WITH A HOLD] Daaaaaaaahhhhhg.
I want a [DRAMATIC, SOULFUL CHORD STRUM WITH A HOLD] Daahhhhh-ah-ah-ah-ah-g . . .
I would name him Al- [DRAMATIC, SOULFUL CHORD STRUM WITH A HOLD WHILE SAYING THE NEXT WORD} Fraaydo."

Not kidding. I want to sing that song everytime I hear it. Love it.

Plus, I think there ought to be more songs that address the reality of the hamster. But more on the insight of the lyrics later . . .

Cool Things I Noticed in a Song

The (always) Lovely Mrs. Davis has posted a fabulously-specific and believable list of kids albums for parents who want to break into listenable kids music (and break out of the primary colored t-shirt thing). I've broken into and out of it all myself, but I'm still going to buy some of the albums she lists.

And she's inspired me. See, I've been listening to kids music in a strangely specific way myself these days. Since a good handful of my earliest songs can all be traced back to single melody that was the theme song for a show starring someone named Uncle Jed, I've been paying really close attention to how other artists add interest to their songs. Really cool lyrics, I get. That to me is the real fun of song writing. But how do you make your guitar and the rest of the stuff sitting around your house turn the song into something even better than just the lyrics could make it. (A real stretch for me as a poet by training.)

So, here's the first in my list of Cool Things I Noticed in A Song.

#1 Best use of non-irritating hand clapping:

"Oh Well": Scribblemonster, CHOCOLATE MILK



Click for a listen to see what I mean. There just aren't that many hand-clapping songs out there that actually make me want to clap. I always practically wreck my car when this song comes on.

Stay tuned for more scintillating insights on the minutiae of song-making.

Nifty New Show

We just booked with WEEKEND RECESS in L.A. for August (8/18). Mark your calendars, all you L.A.-ish people. (I think I know three of you.)

Weekend Recess is a once-a-month kiddie-music frenzy with games (there's even kid karaoke. C'mon.). They've been doing this event monthly at Hollywood's Knitting Factory and have just found a new venue. Pretty cool thing they're pulling off for kidlets in southern California.

We're excited. It sounds like a hoot--which is the standard for our travelling out of town to sing. "Will it be a hoot?"; "Um, yes, Maam, it promises to be a hoot."; "Okay, we'll go."

While We're Waiting Patiently

I can hear that Jeopardy music in the background--you know, the song they play while everyone's writing their answer. While
Mrs. Davis and Bill the Rocker rest up from their Brooklyn Escapade (that fantastic everybody-was-there concert in Brooklyn Saturday), I thought I would keep us occupied so that we don't become cranky with them and tell them to drink some coke and hurry up and tell us what happened. So, while we wait, let me tell you about some nifty blogs I've been watching. They have nothing to do with kids music, but they are cool (And hey, I'm the girl out here on the stage juggling while the real show sets up behind the curtain . . .)

First, go check out Puttermeister ("I write. I knit. I teach. I putter.")


My friend Amy writes all kinda crazy smart stuff about knitting . . and movies . . . and literature . . . . and moving her furniture around for the carpet cleaning guy. If you like pictures of creative process and the weird/true insights of a mega-brain mixed with coffee talk, take a blog stroll on over there.

If knitting's not your thing, but you like Egypt or travelling with small children [now THERE'S a transition], go see my friends' blog about their family trip.


Well, it's actually a geologic/historical sabbatical study mixed with kids climbing pharaoh statues. They're going all over the place--Egypt, Greece, Italy, England, France . . . WITH THEIR THREE CHILDREN (did I already mention that?) If you left your early history education with nothing more than the phrase THE CODE OF HAMMURABI like I did--or you want to see a family completely go for it with their life--check it out.

I'm here for you while you wait.

Our gigs are coming together

We're not completely booked for the Spring and Summer, but here are some fun shows coming up:

MORRO BAY LIBRARY
Thursday, April 12th

SAN LUIS OBISPO LIBRARY
Saturday, April 21st

BREAKFAST WITH ENZO
(We get to sit in and sing with the SF Kid-Music-King)
Saturday, June 23rd

PASO ROBLES LIBRARY
Thursday, July 5th

For all the details, click here.

And if you're looking for something super terrific to check out, be watching Spare the Rock for reports about tomorrow's super-concert in Brooklyn of everybody that's anybody with their own guitar who's ever paid their own money to record anything that's ever been recorded for kids that is cool.

"What's with the perfunctory blog entries?"

Okay, now that hurts. It cuts to the quick. I won't lie.

"I posted that picture of those love boat people."

"Yeah, but you didn't say anything about it."

"Yeah, but it was funny--c'mon. It was GOPHER."

"Okay, Well, I mean . . .if it was supposed to be funny . . ."

So, she's right--my officemate, I mean. (She can't help it--she tells it like it is.) My posts have been lame lately, so I thought I'd just come right out and say it: Hi. My name is Ginger. And I'm a lame blogger (lately).

Thing thing is . . .we're selling our house (as part of an evil family plot of ours to live in more than 1000 square feet). And I've been working like a manic june cleaver freak for about two weeks. Here's my kitchen on 1950's steroids:



Here's my kitchen today:



We, um, found a buyer. Sure, it's good news because we wanted to sell our house--but the real news here is that I can put down the mop and get back to blogging.

Guy.

Today Is the Day I Wish I Lived in Brooklyn.

The coolest radio guy in independent kids music is organizing the coolest live show of independent kids artists. The show's gonna be in Brooklyn. And the list of artists is over-the-top wonderful. Really, everybody doing nifty independent kids music is going to be there. Click here to find out why you wish you lived in Brooklyn too.

I'm Just Saying.

Herman Ripp

Why would I lie about a name like that? He was my 6th grade teacher, and he used to sing.

I'm not talking about cool, early musical influence, or admitting to any sort of early musical dorkiness here. I'm just saying Mr. Herman Ripp, my 6th grade teacher who wore corduroys and had a mustache, used to sing. No guitar. No piano. No tiny little wooden recorder. Just hardbound song books and tunes like Streets of Laredo--sad cowboy songs where men died alone in the middle of the desert.

Here's a verse:

Then beat the drum slowly, play the fife lowly.
Play the death march as you carry me along.
Take me to the green valley, lay the sod o'er me,
I am a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong.

Good times. Mr. Ripp would stand in the front of our classroom and warble those songs like he was about to cry. Then we'd all put the books away and go back to math.

And I even thought to mention it because I was listen to REK's latest studio album,what i really mean, and one of the songs sounded a lot like those old cowboy songs.

And I remembered Mr. Ripp and was struck by how sometimes our early influences aren't so much inspirational as they are, well, influences.

Old Banana Freedom

Important Old Banana Update: I thought you would be so glad to hear that in an act of bold kindness to me, my husband ate a banana that was turning brown. I mean, there I was, asking myself the question "Will I REALLY be able to throw that away and not freeze it?" Everything in me was, well, clenched. And then there was the peel, emptied of my need to decide.

I'm watching the five that are currently yellowing in my kitchen and telling myself, "You can do it, Ginger. You know you can."

I put my dukes up to whatever god is in charge of banana bread-on-the-fly and threw out all the old bananas in my freezer. There were 24. I had 24 old bananas in my freezer. Because someday I might make banana bread.

It was like risking the wrath of some meaner, more survivalist-oriented version of the pillsbury dough boy.

And now I have no backup plan, no means of pulling off a homemade baked good on the spur of the moment. I am embracing the bakery. I am saying yes to the high skill level of others. I am eschewing homemade.

Who knows what will happen to me at Christmastime (which is in like 11 months). I don't know what will happen. This is a crazy I-don't-have-any-way-to-make-banana-bread sort of a ride. Hold on tight--no! Don't hold on tight. Let go. Put your hands in the air. Feel that feeling like you might fall off.

Yes.
I have no bananas.

But what if you need to make banana bread, Ginger? What will you DO?

I don't know. I really, honestly, don't know. I'm shaking my head as I write this. I just don't know.

But when I peer into my freezer and see the vacated place that those bananas held, I have a feeling that seems like . . . freedom.

Standing next to the boat

I've been thinking about the way we lose them, our children, I mean --about the way some days I go into my son's room, and there is another boy there, someone more lank, who can--as if the skill snuck into him in the night--read words and share with his brother, someone who refuses to eat carrots. And I have this sad longing for the other boy, a sort of cocktail of regret and relief: so glad he's learned this next thing, so sorry I wasn't kinder to him before he did--longing, I think, for the chance to be with him in his other state like I could be now that I see it really will have an end.

It's something like that thing of slogging across the river in order to get to the boat you needed to get yourself across the river.

But I can't seem to see the end of these stretches of not-getting-there that he passes through--until he's on the other side, and I have, just by waiting for the hard thing to pass, missed something. Missed the chance to be the one who would be sturdy and kind enough to love him real well while he wasn't anywhere he needed to be yet.

And maybe that's why I like to sing--to celebrate those other moments behind me, those other boys behind me.

Like standing there next to the boat, pants wet and all, and singing back across the river to him--singing loud so hear can hear me.

A Really Nice Big Brother

Okay--so there's the issue of Nate's niceness to his mother for dressing up in this MACARONI & CHEESE costume in the first place. (Check.) Then, there's the issue of his extra niceness, for holding up one of our postcards (his sister Coral really loves our CD). (Check.) Then, there's the grand finale of high school guy niceness that he didn't lose his, well, macaroni, when his mother emailed me this picture. (Check. Check.)

We think Nate is great.

Because I Prefer to Enter a Conversation Once Everyone's Left the Room

I'm conflict avoidant. I can't talk about it. Really, I am.

Everyone's been talking about Laurie Berkner. Okay, not everyone, but still--people I think are important are talking about her. (That was who *I* think; not, who I *think* . . .)

I haven't thrown my indie kid music hat into the ring yet because 1. (See opening line) and 2. I've been chewing on the whole thing. There's something in the conversation that I'm not sure we ever got to (maybe because it sort of heated up ever so slightly, and I might not be the only person who tends to ditch the kitchen when the stove's on high).

I think Mrs. Davis kicked off an interesting conversation about artistic legitimacy, actually.

Her bent--as this reader understands it--is not that Laurie Berkner is crummy (which seems to be how most reader's interpreted what Mrs. Davis said) but that her not-crummyness is shared by others, while her get-paid-to-do-that-all-the-time is not.

Here's a story. (As far as you know, it has to do with what we're talking about.) When I was in graduate school studying poetry, these published poets used to come to our workshops and read their work and then we'd have a Q & A and within the first three minutes somebody would ask, "How do you get published?" The published poet then inevitably launched into a sort of there-must-be-beer-in-the-air-I'm-so-relaxed kind of discussion about how it's not really *about* getting published, man.

And I always wanted to get up and yell BUT YOU'RE PUBLISHED.

I didn't, of course. I just set out to get published . . . like we all did. And it was really hard. And by the time the three years of that two-year program were over, I’d written scads more than I’d ever published. Was I a poet if I wasn’t published much? I really wanted to keep writing poetry.

Ten years later, I’m still writing poetry. I haven’t published much at all since those years in grad school. Here’s what I’ve done, though: I’ve decided that it’s okay for me to write poetry. And in my life I’m trying to point myself toward the sign that reads YOU GET TO SAY WHAT YOU'RE GOOD ENOUGH TO DO and away from the sign that says IF YOU GET A CHECK, THEN THAT MUST MEAN YOU WERE GOOD ENOUGH TO DO IT AFTER ALL.

I give an absolute high five to Laurie Berkner for going for it in her wildly goofy kids music. But the cash she's made isn't what inspires me or makes me think she's great. It's the "chops" she showed for just recording her songs in the first place.

May we all have chops. May we all record our own goofy songs. May we all not wait for our bank accounts to tell us we're good enough. Amen.