Goldfish And Clowns

Taking a few minutes away from transcribing an interview to talk about something that's been on my heart for a while.

In talking to the different artists, I've come to realize how few of them are aware of their own vitality.  They see their music days as being on a shelf in the memory closet.  Frankly, some of them come perilously close to seeing themselves as playing not another song but rather playing out the string, going through the motions of living with the best public smile they can muster while inside believing they dwell in growing shadows, invisible and irrelevant.

Bull.

Perhaps I'm too naive for my own good; perhaps I'm not willing to comprehend how years of bad business deals and broken promises while living on a rattletrap bus and sleeping on the floor of whoever offered some room in their house after the show drains the life right out of people just as surely as the lust, the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life.  Perhaps.  But when I see these people, talk to these people, and most important listen to these people, what most impresses me is how they're far more alive than many of them give themselves credit for.

I believe these artists have nearly incalculable wealth to share, not only in telling the stories of their lives but also in how they harbor new great music ready to stand alongside the great old music.  Some will scoff, including not a few of the artists themselves.  You can't recreate the past, they say.  We've changed; we've moved on.  Our lives are completely different now.  They've broken up that old gang of mine.  You're crazy to think we can make the magic happen once more.

BULL.

Name the reasons why it won't work.  I'll list why these are in fact positives:

• No record contract?  Perfect.  No know-nothing A&R people demanding replicants of whatever's currently en vogue.  No one scamming you; no one making their living off the sweat from your brow while you're lucky to catch a few crumbs.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for the people who will be enriched and blessed.  Do it for the One who saved you.  When you stick with The Man, inevitably you'll come to a place where you're sticking it to the man, and that's a beautiful thing.
• No budget for a fancy recording studio?  Sweet.  Who needs one these days?  Modern technology is a terrific tool.  You can have equipment in your home right now that any engineer or producer would have cheerfully killed for only a few years ago, and at a reasonable price to boot.  Besides, telecommuting is the thing these days.  That's what you're doing.  You're working at home.  Only difference is you're working with wood and strings and synths and voices instead of a VPN to the office.  A much better deal.
• People aren't living in the same area anymore, making it much harder to get together?  Awesome.  You'll now appreciate the time you spend together more, giving you cause to work that much harder when you are together, thus producing better art.  There's inspiration in perspiration.
• No way you'll get anything you make on the radio or in the stores?  Exactly what you want.  Try listening to the radio lately?  Not much there.  Been to a store selling music recently?  Not much there either.  So why even bother thinking about them?  We're now blessed to live in a world where artists can take their music directly to the people, announcing it to the people most likely to pick up on it — those who actively seek new music — via the channels they frequent: iTunes, right here on MySpace, and other such sites.  You no longer have to spend a fortune to be heard.  Take advantage of it.  Show the kiddies running around out there how the pros do it.

There is new, fresh, vital, living art and ministry inside each of these people.  Some of them don't know it or try to deny it, but it's there nonetheless.  No one is done here.  No one is leaving the room, and don't even bother looking for the light switch to click off on your way out.  This isn't a fan's dewy-eyed pipe dream of what can never be, or some nostalgia-fueled longing for a vain attempt to recreate what one was.  This is today, here and now; new music and ministry more than deserving to be let out and shared with all.

It's.  Not.  Over.

Not even close.

I'm back from a most amazing weekend, one that in spite of the late hour and a press of job projects facing me first thing in the morning (sometimes it doesn't pay to check your messages at the office) I have to talk about.

I did five interviews in two days for the book, names available somewhere down the line after interviews are transcribed by me and by hand (time consuming in the extreme, but it's the only way I can do it) and the stories take written form.  Hopefully no one out there thinks I'm being cutesy or coy by not yet mentioning the artists who will be in the book, as that is not my intent.  Simply put, I don't want to list names until I'm further along.  When the work reaches an appropriate moment I promise I will provide some details.

The interviews were amazing, each and every one.  Even those people I talked to who thought they did a terrible job or babbled too much.  They didn't, and I am not saying that out of a sense I should be polite.  The depth of insight each person provided as they reached into themselves, their past good and bad, and their present… to them all praise belongs.  It was my humbling honor to play my small part in sparking conversation by beautiful, gifted, spiritual people who blessed so many then and now, even if they ofttimes are unaware of how many they touched, and how profound an impact they had on not just personal events here in the lives of people, but on eternal lives and destinations.  It was more than humbling to have these people place their trust in me to tell their stories faithfully, and I pledge to do my best in this.

Speaking of unaware moments, I had one myself when a member of a band noted something later confirmed by another: sales of one of their records skyrocketed due to my giving it the rave review it deserved during my tenure as a writer for the now defunct Pulse! magazine published by Tower Records.  My only possible reply was I'll take your word for it, as I have absolutely no memory of writing said review!  One of these days I'll dig out the old columns and refresh my graying gray matter.

I freely confess there were at least a couple of moments this morning when I came perilously close to suffering from (ahem) sinus troubles as the car was being packed and aimed toward the highway heading home.  The blessed honor I have been given… it leaves me nearly speechless.  The book will be more than the stories of these artists's lives, faith, and work, although these beautiful things cannot be discounted.  It will be a prayer giving thanks, dedicated to people loved very, very much.

God bless you all.

Let's see here: two phone interviews done; transcribing one already (I'd forgotten how much work that is!  Oh well, it's got to be done); preparing questions for this weekend when I'll be doing four interviews in person while down in SoCal and hopefully out of the rain!  Two on Friday, two more on Saturday.

‘Restrictor Plate THIS!: An Unapologetic Look At Stock Car Racing,’ the new book by the author of this blog, is now available.  Click this link for ordering information!

This is also posted on my NASCAR blog.

Maybe it’s the rain, a seemingly endless parade of storm after storm that drenched the Bay Area most every day last month and have carried through to this month.  More likely it’s the growing workload, both in the office and at home.  The former is accepted as part of the turf; the latter joyfully embraced as I get further into working on the new book, working out questions and carefully transcribing the words with which I have been entrusted by those who made the music and ministry real, next to mold without changing these beloved pioneers’ memories of then and observations of now into the compelling stories they are.  Two interviews are already done, four are scheduled for this weekend, and many more to follow.

The gist of it all has been a recent growing disinterest in sports, particularly NASCAR as I find myself staring at races more than watching them.  Take as an example yesterday’s Martinsville mash.  It was obvious from shortly after the green flag’s wave Tony Stewart was the class of the field, and barring misfortune the race was his.  So now we were expected to spend four plus hours of our lives waiting for the inevitable, occasionally noting whoever the latest wreck might be.  Not the stuff of which memories are made, y’know?

I don’t believe this is a lasting disenfranchisement with sports in general or racing in particular.  It’s true I have grown progressively less patient with the fluff constantly swirling around NASCAR.  The meaningless garbage PR puff pieces, be they directly from some promotional hack or channeled through some willingly subservient pseudo-journalist.  The other end of this perverse rainbow where self-satiated gloryhounds who believe they are the story spin fantastic yarns bearing no resemblance to truth.  Drivers gone either Hollywood or down the ego-drenched, 24/7 spotlight trail where “you” don’t understand why “I” reign above all.  Who needs any of this?

We as fans yearn for something real, some tangible reason why we should follow a given sport and the people in it.  This is why as time passes I’m growing in appreciation for Earnhardt the younger, who despite every reason not to shoots straight; ditto for Robby Gordon and Stewart whose media snapbacks are a welcome retort to the aforementioned excesses.  No, I’m not abandoning my unabashed Jeff Gordon fandom; just spreading it about a bit.

Above all, I’m just not that into NASCAR right now.  I’d rather pursue a reawakened faith and its fruit as will be presented in the next book.  No doubt somewhere along the line the fan juices will kick in, and it’s not like I’ve stopped caring or following what’s going on in the land of driving fast and turning left.  But it’s not topping the list.

Which is as it should be.