Resolutionless

I'm not a resolutions fan. I resolved not to make any resolutions. I guess I'm really not a December 31-January 1 fan, honestly.

I like to celebrate the winter Solstice. It makes a lot of sense. It's an astrological event that happens every year; it's rich in mythology, and is a handy "odometer" marker for the planet on it's trip around the sun. My family celebrates the Longest Night, the night before the Sun is born. We put up a little tree and put lights and ornaments on it; buy little bits of several really, really decadent and stinky cheeses and some of the expensive crackers from Italy; we cut up some fruit and veggies, lay out some chocolate and whatever sweet junk food we have inherited; I make up a batch of wassail; we light a bunch of candles, turn off all the lights and tell one of the stories of the rebirth of the Sun. Then we give each other presents, and wish each other a safe journey through the Longest Night. I'd like to tell you that I stay up all night to greet the newborn Sun when it rises, but I don't (me and sleep deprivation are a bad combination). But somebody usually gets up and watches the sunrise, and somebody else lights another candle at the moment of the Solstice, and everybody takes a pause to reflect in their own way.

And then we're done, and we move forward from that point, and it's all very peaceful and nice and very natural. You can almost hear the Celestial Odometer click over. So all y'all can go ahead on out and wait for a man-made shiny ball to drop down a cheesy pole. I'm way ahead of ya, already well into the new year.

So much for blogging every day, huh? I got real busy, and it got away from me. Not much better today -I can type a few words and then the phone rings or somebody needs something. Argh.

So from the sublime musings last week we did a header back into the real world... work work work. Which is good, because work = money, though it's rarely enough. Ah, grind stone is calling once again. See what I mean? Argh!

A newly planted garden

Last night I attended the inaugural meeting of the Paul Engle Center Writer's Group, a group of individuals that come together for inspiration, creative support and incentive to write more. People who love to write, songwriters, poets, people who write reviews and columns, memoir writers, graphic novelists, and even a photojournalist, got together and agreed to be a support team for each other. It is a rather wonderful idea, and I am excited to be part of it.

One of the members, Dean Rathje, talked about Paul Engle, Grant Wood, Marvin Cone and Jay Sigmund and the relationship they had with each other, how they all inspired and influenced each other, even though two were writers and two were painters. There used to be a wonderful Community of Artists, centered in this very place. We all took a breath and realized that we could be that for each other.

So now, words are flying through my mind like wild notes; ideas vie for my attention like children; I am ravenous for my work like it's a long separated lover. I don't know what will come of this association, but I am thirsty for this creative brew!

A whack on the top of the haid

While loading my laptop and lunch into my car yesterday, the wind somehow caught the rear door of my station wagon and whacked it down on my head - the sharp cornery part of the latch housing dug into the top of my skull. It was so cold outside that the tears froze on my face in the bitter, bitter wind.

Commence tiny violin solo.

Interestingly, it set off a frenzy of creativity. I spent a lot of time yesterday thinking about the awful holiday music we're force fed at this time of the year, and started hatching a bit of a scheme to do something to fight the pablum. So the question to me is, WHY do most people write sappy, stupid, awful holiday music? Why does it have to have saccharine melody and ridiculously cheery harmony, and what is UP with the jinglie bells? Bad and wrong people.

Let's dig into some holiday history, shall we? Celebration of the winter solstice has been going on since some observant early early early humans noticed that the sun moves in the sky every day. One morning you wake up and step out of the cave and the sun is over there, and a few days later you wake up and it's over there. Well, surely, the Sun is a God, and hey! God! Where are you going? Why's it so cold? Build fires to get His attention! Do something! Oh look! It's working! He stopped! Hey! Let's party!

That's the impulse that sends a little shiver down my spine at the first sight of snowflakes, the first whiff of evergreen, the first touch of bitter wind that reaches down from the North to freeze heart and soul. But I can think of very, very few holiday songs that celebrate that - truly embrace that older, wilder side of the season. The life-or-death drive to survive it, to stay warm enough and have enough food laid by just to keep waking up every day until winter loses it's grip and things start to thaw. That's some powerful and (seemingly) completely untapped mojo that our modern world could use about now.

We have been feeling that a bit here in the Midwest lately. Damn it's cold. Ten below overnight with raging, howling winds that take your breath right away. During the long nights we feed the fire and pile on the blankets. Going out is exhausting. Staying in is little better. We tread lightly over the ice that now covers much of our daily Universe, braced against the wind that threatens to knock us right off our feet.

So why don't we embrace the fact that we DO it every year? Most of us don't tell the tale we live to tell. Especially not in song. I think maybe it's time to change that.

What don't I love?

I don't like to hate things... I don't like to be a whiner or complain endlessly about stuff, so hopefully I can do a brief, logical inventory of stuff I am not good at, don't like to do and never want to do again.

sales or telemarketing
customer service
answering any sort of "hotline"
reporting numbers and data
tracking things like the effectiveness of marketing plans or ad campaigns
attending sales meetings
looking for needles in haystacks

I know that I am an impatient person, cannot spend hours and hours looking through records or files or compiling data or whatever; my attention starts to wander quickly, I get surly and actually start to experience light-headedness, nausea, headache or severe hunger. It can utterly blow the rest of a day. Well-meaning folks have sometimes complained (ahem) about this particular personality trait, and all I can say is, I have never had any control over it. It's not that I want to "get my way," or that something has to be entirely about me and what I like... I just am not the kind of person who can DO that. Even with things I do like. Dyslexics often say they feel physically ill when confronted with a page of music notation, or even in severe cases just a page full of words, so I can't imagine that my "affliction" is an indication of a major character flaw; it's just an honest brain quirk.

Another quirk (let's be generous) is that if I have a job, it has to be meaningful to somebody or I become increasingly despondent, unengaged and utterly lose interest. It doesn't even have to be relevant to my situation personally. If I can contribute to somebody's quality of life, I'm good. It makes my time mean something. If it's just sales of something completely irrelevant to that basic quality of life, fuhgedaboudit. For example, being a relay operator for the deaf - that's hugely relevant to major quality of life issues for a poorly served population, so I'm incredibly happy doing that. Additionally, writing for Premier Guitar combines my two major passions, so I love that as much as I love breathing. Being able to write for Premier Guitar while between relay phone calls is perfection. On the other hand, selling consulting services to institutions that contribute enormously to the debt load of a population just getting a start in life, no thanks... couldn't do it no matter how hard I tried.

The other thing I'd like to work my way around is the whole making-megabucks-for-somebody-else-and-getting-paid-squat-to-do-it thing. That sucks and I don't ever want to do it again. I think I would be okay with making megabucks for me, but would need to try it to find out for sure.

So, what do I love?

playing guitar
writing
writing songs
writing poetry
creativity-based counseling/mentoring
cooking
walking
sewing

Alright, so the theme, excepting walking, is creating stuff, whether it's music or poems or articles or meals or clothes or whatever else I dream up that I want to create. I have to be engaged in some kind of creative act or I'm not happy. No wonder I sucked at every job I ever had, save this last one, where I get to use my brain for whatever I want about half the time I'm there - and I get paid no less for using it.

So far I have managed to combine some of these loves quite nicely. Song-writing, for example. And writing about guitars. Poetry sometimes turns into lyrics, though not all that often. The mentoring part is cool; I get to help other people create their own stuff. Gotta love that.

Cooking is often compared to music - you lay down a groove, and play with ingredients and seasonings like they're notes or phrases. A stew becomes an edible jam session. A casserole is an ensemble piece. The dough rises like a saxophone solo. The colors in a soup become individual melodic lines. In the summer, we used to make Garden Soup. Fresh veggies, right out of the garden: green beans, peas, corn, onion, broccoli and cauliflower in a veggie or chicken stock, cooked until JUST tender, and then at the very end add a little red cabbage and a chopped up tomato, and the broth turns magenta, and all the colors sing like angels.

Sewing is also sort of a jam session; texture, color, pattern, detailing. There's a structure to a jacket, and very strict rules to follow so that it drapes a body properly, accentuating the curves of the body, drawing or deflecting attention at will, but the detailing is all about expression. I have fabric love. I love interesting textures and woven patterns. I love the way certain fabrics drape sensuously, while other fabrics freakin' testify. It's a marvel to me how it's all done, how the warp and weft of simple threads can result in such dramatically different looks and feels.

Walking, on the other hand, is like a spiritual thing. In my mind, Nature and God cannot be separated or distinguished, so walking out in the woods becomes very prayerful and meditative for me. I once stayed at a hermitage out in the woods for an entire week where there was a "labyrinth" that could be walked as a meditation. I must have walked that thing 100 times. It was bliss.

There are other things that I love, but these are the biggies, the ones I could be happy doing for the rest of my life. Okay, brain needs to settle a bit now.

Clear, like mud

So it's time for me to take an inventory, or several is more likely. What am I good at? What do I love to do? What are the things that I really hate doing, and how can I avoid having to do them ever again? What assets do I have? Which of those assets are useful in doing what I love and am good at, or avoiding what I hate to do?

I must confess, when I was a child, and friends wanted to play "house," I didn't want to be "the mommy." I wanted to be "the guitar player." My friends had no comprehension of what my role would be in these makeshift families (which seems to be the case for a lot of guitar players finding their way in the grown-up version of "house"), but that didn't dim my desire to play that roll. I've compromised the purity of that desire a bit in my life. I have been "mommy" and "bread winner" and "business partner" and "wife" and any number of other things. Lately, "writer" has kind of eclipsed "guitar player" and that's been okay. It seems to keep my Muses satisfied, though I do miss playing in front of an audience. Okay, in front of an appreciative audience that "gets" it. I don't miss playing in most bars and restaurants.

I suppose I still have an audience: the readers of Premier Guitar Magazine, and the few who read this blog. And people do write in or comment on the web site, and most of the time they're terrifically supportive and appreciative, and that's very nice, and the pay is comparable to gigging. Being able to hang out at home on the couch and turn my thoughts into revenue is just about the most wonderful thing I can imagine.

So writing goes into the "love" column, and hopefully it is high enough on the "good-at" scale for me to give it so grand of a place in my life.

Now I have to ask myself, how do I really feel about being "the guitar player?" Is it still the central fire around which my heart and soul turn? That, dear reader, requires some mulling.

Inspiration

I watched the movie "Julia and Julie" a couple nights ago. That's a really, really good movie, especially if you like cooking, eating and writing, which I do. Julie decides to work her way through Julia Child's famous cookbook and blog about it, gets a huge following and a book deal and eventually gets her book made into a movie (yes, this very movie, a self-referential autobiographical film, gotta love that).

The movie made me want to cook (with butter) and eat (stuff made with butter) and write (hold the butter) and think, which is even more important. My thoughts are scattered and struggling to organize, but they're generally about reinvention. I just turned 45, which is probably just about mid-life for me (most of the women in my family live into their 90s) so it's time I got this puzzle put together, got this life figured out, sorted my ambitions and my drives and my loves and my needs into a workable, flexible, creatively-driven matrix that I can live and work in happily.

If I figure out how to do that, I'll write a damn book. In the meantime, I will continue to think and write, and will try not to eat so much butter that I explode.

Winter is here

So much for the weather folks predicting a mild winter. NOT. It's been snowing on and off all day, we've probably got eight inches now and it hasn't even kicked into blizzard-mode yet. Supposed to get REALLY nasty tonight. Great. I've asked a friend with 4 wheel drive to get me to work tomorrow.

I'm trying to introduce a new word into the culture - "snomance." Say it with me, "snomance." As in "This snomance is SO OVER." Work with me people. If "staycation" and "frenemies" can make it into the dictionary, "snomance" has got to be next. Then on to "guitargasmic."

I haven't finished any of those songs I started - just dealing with life, the universe and everything. It'll happen. It's not like I have any gigs to play any songs at anyway. Gotta do something about that.

Creative phase has kicked into gear I guess...

So, I got a little riff for another sort of schmaltzy song last night, don't ask me how... it's pretty entertaining though. Well, no, it's sort of dark and strangely pretty... we'll see how it goes.

The other song I've got in the oven is kind of stuck at the moment, though I'm trying to push it through. I got a consult on it yesterday from a fellow songwriter. I'm trying to decide if it needs a bridge, and if so, where the hell does it take you, and do you really want to go there, and how do you get back from there if you don't like it? The song is about lovers who are crazy about each other, and the way everybody can see it even when they're on opposite sides of a room, and how they are so connected that each knows when the other is thinking of them. Gooey romantic stuff, yes... but that's what the song wanted and I must obey. My muses must be in love. So my confusion was with the idea that a bridge is often a contrast or a resolution, or some kind of other perspective that reveals something the listener maybe didn't know, and with this song, there's not much of a need for resolution or contrast. My songwriting counselor suggested I play the chords with different voicings, even above the 12th fret, for the needed musical contrast (the chords are very rich and there are lots of common tones, melody wanders a bit, too) and skip the bridgey bit. I'll try that tonight and see how it works.

There's a meeting of the National League of American Pen Women tomorrow, and I really want to go, but I have a sore throat, so I may have to stay home and be pathetic. Sigh.

Guitary news

Yes, the Taylor 8-string baritone is quite a remarkable beastie! Lovely.

The Martin OMC-LJ Pro Laurence Juber Custom Artist is... incredible. Just amazing. It's everything you want and it's pretty, and it smells so nice. I have been playing it every day for lengths of time that my family is finding rather annoying, and honestly I don't care. They can all bite me. This guitar is just awesome.

So I've stolen a couple songs out of it. Actually, that's not entirely true. I had ideas of them both in my mind, and this guitar gave me the creative juice to develop them. And the desire to sit and play with the ideas for hours in order to do that.

Okay, must clean house, people showing up tomorrow and yikes, it looks like creative people live here. Horrors.

Boy, time flies

Okay, update... I left my full time position as Managing Editor of Premier Guitar for the much more flexible and much less stressful Acoustic Editor position, which Joe and I invented. It's a better gig, I can work from home and I'm a much happier person.

Still working at playing the Telecaster, but it's slow going. Lots of stuff going on in the personal life, some good, some hard, some weird, some frustrating... many long tales to tell that I won't trouble you with here. Suffice to say, life is interesting. I have written 2 songs on it, and I like them. So that's good. One is kind of a bluesy rocker, one is sort of a ballady thing.

Reviewing a Taylor 8-string baritone guitar, and expecting a Martin LJ-Pro to come tomorrow for review. I have Pat Smith's Lowden baritone to play with while he's away this month, and I am liking it quite a bit.

Change is good

I haven't played hardly a note on any guitar lately except yesterday at Brueggers... so I have nothing to report on the whole acoustic-girl-plugs-in front... except damn, that Telecaster sure is shiny and blue.

CD is out and ready on CDBaby

Here's the link: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/GaylaDrakePaul - it's called Eating From the Tree.

Already sold one, so that's an auspicious start!

Spent some time with the Telecaster today, and I'm really starting to get the hang of this. I can make it sound like car horns honking, which may seem like the opposite of an accomplishment - in fact, the opposite of desirable at all... but I WANT it to sound like that for one song, and I sorted out how to get that, so I'm excited.

The thing about distortion is, you have to be in charge to make it work. I never knew I had the option to be in charge... but that's the key. You don't let it run loose like a poorly trained dog, you keep it on a leash. The volume control on the guitar is an amazing device... I must sound like a total innocent! But I am like a child discovering a whole new world.

Tele good

Telecasters really are the king of electric guitars. I went from spanky, snarky blues to angry growling rock to smooth and jazzy with the flip of a switch...

Ricky Skaggs said that tone is in the hands - he's totally right. I'm going to sound like ME no matter what, acoustic or electric. My hands are not like anybody elses...

Shiny and Blue

After a long conversation with the inimitable Dean Farley, I started trying out Telecasters. And who knew? (Well, Dean knew...) I'm bonding. So I bought a very nice shiny blue Mexi Standard Tele to play with so I can see whether this is gonna take. So far I've got 2 new songs in the hopper, but that doesn't mean anything. Trust me.

I played until my hands hurt. It needs a set up - it's not bad, but I put .010s on it instead of .009s and the neck came up a little bit. I'll take it to Dr. Tom Monday and let him work his magic.

Thanks, Dean...

Done deal... mostly

So yeah, we recorded and it went okay, and I have only listened to hear mistakes and problems and not to see whether I LIKE it... stay tuned... or not...

More interesting to me at the moment is that I have decided to learn to play electric guitar, really play it, not just play AT it. If I would have started playing electric when I was 10 I'd probably be having a pretty good time with it by now. But starting to seriously learn it at 44... well, that's different. But I'm determined to get there, because I've had a hankering to for years.

Most guitary stuff comes pretty naturally to me, so having to struggle with something is very new. So I'm bringing books and DVDs home that I can work with - got a new one from Hal Leonard, At A Glance Blues Guitar with DVD, which seems like a good thing to start with. I know scales and stuff, but I don't practice that way. I think this fall and winter I will do some serious woodshedding.

For any fellow guitar nerds reading this - I borrowed a Taylor Solid Body Classic, which is a really nice guitar, with 2 mini-humbuckers and a 5-pos switch, one volume, one tone, and I'm playing through a Peavey Bandit 112. So far I'm keeping it clean, because I just don't know how to do dirty... being an acoustic guitarist, I tend to want to hear THE GUITAR and not so much the amp - the less I notice the amp, the happier I get. But electrics, wow, you gotta play the amp as much as you play the guitar, and that's the thing I'm really struggling with.

Is there anybody who can actually articulate an explanation/answer for what I'm not getting? More than, "Well, you just... do it, it's a feel thing. You'll know it when you feel it." Well, no shit, Sherlock, that's real helpful. Roadmap, anyone?

Well, whaddayaknow?

I recorded yesterday... didn't mean to, nor did I really want to, but the man talked me into it. Cajoled and manipulated is more like. And the tracks turned out really well. I played as well as I ever do, and everything seems real solid. We recorded guitar and vocals separately for the first time in my entire recording history, and much as I hate to admit it, it really worked. Shock and surprise. Now there are some other technical difficulties plaguing the project, and if I have to record it all again I will hurt somebody.

Long quiet

It may seem as though I have been quiet a long time, and while I have not blogged for months, I have been anything BUT quiet. It's perhaps too long a tale to tell.

The CD I was so dedicated to recording is still in limbo. Many reasons. But I have decided that I need to get it done by the end of the summer, so... by September 21. No later. That's it. I am playing better than I have in a very long time, and will continue to keep playing and working on my chops several times a week, so when I am finally ready - really ready - it will be much easier.

I hope.

Recording is not relaxing or pleasant for me. Always too stressful. But it's gotta be done.

Disaster

Apparently, my dynamic range is so out of control that I can't be digitally contained. So everything we recorded yesterday is useless and nobody is quite sure what to do about it.

So yes, I'm bummed beyond comprehension.

Everything's on hold for now.

Fits and starts and procrastination

NO, the new record isn't done yet. Bite me. I'm working on it.

Ever so slowly.

I have my reasons.