"Ghost on the Car Radio" - Slaid Cleaves

I first heard Slaid Cleves on a local PBS station a number of years ago.  It was a song called "Quick as Dreams," a beautiful story of horses, friendship, loss, sadness and, perhaps, salvation.  I just remember the song ending and me saying to myself, I gotta learn that song.  Stop by the porch anytime the light's on, and I'll play it for you.


(I've been staring at this screen now for ten minutes, I even went up for a fresh cup of coffee, and I can't figure how to proceed - which is unlike me.  I usually just let the words and ideas take me where they will but, today my mind is taking me somewhere I don't really want to go, a place, a situation - I don't really understand - something I'd rather not admit.)

Here goes.

I listen to a lot of music these days.  I take nostalgic trips back to old tunes that shaped me and shake my head at some of the songs I thought were good realizing, well, otherwise.  I hear tunes, new and old, that I've not known.  I've been heavy into Bluegrass, Newgrass, Americana and Roots music.  I give some of the current pop stars a chance, to mixed results.  And, truth is, I do it all on Spotify.  There, I've said it.

We've got a paid subscription, and I think it's wonderful.  It rarely fails to come up with the song I want to hear, especially all my old favorites, and, through algorithms and computery-magic-computation stuff it gives me stations - pop country from the seventies, western swing, one based on the music of Guy Clark - and new music and hot hits and all that.  I come upon some great things I've never encountered, tunes and albums I would never hear otherwise.   I'd be lying if I didn't give the credit to Spotify for this renaissance I've been experiencing.

I know, I know... listening to music on Spotify is not how most artists want their music listened to.  A recent article in the Washington Post states that an artist gets seven dollars for every 1,000 plays - that's a lot of plays.

Oh, and it gets worse, and I'm going to help that along.  You see, I also listen to a lot of music on YouTube - or do I view it?  I like to take a look at the artist, get the vibe, see the instruments, and, confession time again, try to crib the chords from live performances.  And for every 1,000 plays on YouTube the artist - or performer or ham or scammer - gets exactly... a buck.

So, just to be clear, I'm using the least profitable platforms to listen to, share, and steal music from artists I very much like.

I'm an awful person, so, I'm going to link to YouTube videos in this post and direct you to Spotify (link) and generally do what most musicians probably hate... bother.


Well, now that that intro-interruptus has been endured, I'll continue my previously scheduled introduction.


After I learned that first song, I delved a little deeper into his music.  I listened to his older tunes, he's been at this a long time, and really got a taste for his style and all that.  And then, as will happen, I sort of set him aside and found new places to go.  But then, a few months back, I heard a new track of his on one of those personalized Spotify playlists, "Your Release Radar," I think it's called, and remembered what a profound singer-songwriter he is.

Folks recommend music to each other all the time, but what Ive noticed is that they don't always say why.  They'll say, This is the greatest Such-n-Such album ever!  And, I'll think well, I like Such-n-Such or I've never heard of Such-n-Such, I should give it a listen, but I'm never quite sure what I am listening for.

Also, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.  I'm not a musicologist.  Style confuses me,  terminology escapes me, and, honestly, I have trouble figuring out what the time signature is in most songs. I do know words and stories and that is what Slaid Cleaves does best for me.

Here's a link (I think it's the official one, but I like this one better) to the first song on the album - am I still allowed to say it that - 'album'?  It's called "Already Gone" (here, also, is a link to the lyrics of all the songs from his official site), and it's a perfect introduction to the melodic roads we are about to...

You know what?  I don't know how to do this... just bear with, if you don't mind.

The chorus to "Already Gone" is:

Time's running out and you can't help believing but
Here you are now at the end of the song
Down fall the tears when you hear the silence
When you finally know that you're already gone

I often feel I'm at the end of my song..  I'd guess we all do, sometimes.  In one of the verses he says ...May not have gotten all that I dreamed of / Pretty sure I got what I deserved.  Life's like that.  

I've driven across the country six or eight times in my life.  In later years, as I did it alone, this very thing happened:

Heard an old ghost on the car radio
Under a diamond sky
Sang along as the wheels beneath me rolled
Cast my troubles out into the night

He finishes the verse with Feel the weight lift up off my shoulders / Feel some kind of mercy in the wind.

He opens the song with Young love breaks like a wave on the shoreline / A rolling crash and it's gone  and ends with mercy in the wind, I can't think of a prettier pair of metaphors to bracket the span of adulthood. 

In "Drunken Barber's Hand" he says:

I don't need to read the papers
Or the tea leaves to understand
That this world's been shaved
By a drunken barber's hand

I kinda feel like that's all I really know about this song.  I suspect a few other things, but, as with all good poetry, my notion of a world shaved by a drunken barber's hand may be a lot different than yours.  I suppose it could be about environmental issues or some such thing, but, for me, it just means this world is a pretty messed up place and yet, here we are.

I rode ten thousand miles
On a carousel horse of wood
We end up where we started
Get right back on if we could

I know I would.

 

I thought "If I Had A Heart" was a really good song, but I was wrong... it's damn near perfect.  You see, I initially under judged it.  I didn't go where the song, I think, ultimately wants to lead me.  I thought the song was a love song, perhaps one about unrequited love between an older man and a young girl (maybe it is, I dunno, or, maybe worse, I'm the only one who thought that) but, after several listenings I finally got it.  It's not a love song, it is the love song - a song to a child, to a son.

Then you come around
With your soft young skin
With no idea what you're about to step in

And in these times you remind me
Of the man I used to be
If I had a heart, you'd be breaking it now

It's a song explaining the implicit difficulties and juxtapositions, the twists and turns of this thing we call life.  He starts the song with:

The more I see, the less I understand
The harder I work, the poorer I feel
The deeper the faith, the more I'm broken
The more I hear, the less it all seems real

And later sings:

You'll see truth, turned into lies
Light turned to dark, hearts broke in two
Just one thing, before I die
I want to make one lie come true

"... make one lie come true."  Man, ain't that the truth.

One of my favorite things about Slaid is his willingness to take me along with him, and here, in sort of the center of the album, he does just that. I feel like he's just driving me, us, around in an old seventy-four Pontiac and meeting some of the crowd.

In "Little Guys" we meet Butch and Evelyn's boy.  He's a nice guy, a good son, and he knows the truth about what he's seeing as his little town gets too big for it's britches.

Stop lights we had one, now there's four
And you can't see the shop from Main street anymore
There's a new H.E.B. 'cross town
But over here things are slowing down
As I turn out the lights, lock up my front door

Mom and pops like us don' t have a place in the world today
The little guy shops don' t stand a chance when the big guys start to play

He knows it ain't right.

But he also knows a deeper truth, I truth that he owns here:

Oil and grime in the pores of my skin
Think of all the brake dust I've been breathin' in
I got a stack of new regulations
And high tech specifications
I can't keep up, too old to go to school again

He speaks of joining the old men mornings at the coffee shop after he closes his own.  He pipe-dreams, Or I could set up the navigation / Head out and see the nation, but we all know he'll be turning wrenches at B & E Auto until he dies - that's what "little guys" do.


Now, we're leaning against that old Pontiac '74, painted "Primer Gray" with a new alternator and stock drivetrain.  Specifically, somebody's dad is telling us about his old car.  But, truly, it's every dad, lamenting, perhaps lost times and races, or, simply, the passage of time.  But, the passage of time yields wisdom and Everydad drops some.

'Cause you don't need that flash and shine
You just need to be hard off the line
So keep your lacquer chrome and flames
I'll paint mine primer gray

He knows me.  He says I know the things men hold inside, I understand what he means by that.  He knows I am, or was, one of the Kids today, they all want something more.  I'm the guy talking to his buddies down at Dickie's - I pulled the engine with a block and chain ? Got the oil pump in just before the rain - a triumph we all can dig.  I'm the boy under a ramped rear-end, marveling as his dad explains the mysteries of a clutch and transmission.  I am that dad, later, desperately trying to explain a lesson that takes so long to understand.

The final couplet of the song is:

It's what you do, not what you say
I'll paint mine primer gray

You know, I can only guess at what a songwriter means or where he found inspiration.  The process is emotional, fraught with errors and misunderstandings, and so very personal at both ends - the artist and the audience.  But, I wanna say that just the other day as I got ready to shave and was taking myself in, I saw my beard and my hair, my mustache and my eyebrows, and said aloud to mirror, "I guess I'll paint mine primer gray."


I've been neglecting the musicality of these songs, so far it seems like I'm talking about stories or poems.  As I said earlier I don't think I'd be good at that, talking music, but it doesn't mean I leave unexplored the melody and rhythm and key and such...

That's a lie, I totally leave it all alone, I don't notice it until I try to think about it.  "Primer Gray" made me feel melancholy, nostalgic, haunted.  I later noticed that it's also in "E", one of the most round and open and honest of keys, lending itself well to sevenths and minors and wispy slide guitar solos and...

I'm sorry, I don't seem to have the right nomenclature.

Or maybe I do.

The song "Hickory" did the same to me, the music waited in my periphery as I focused on the words.  But later, when I considered the chords and melody, phrasing and tonality (basically, when I was cribbing the song from videos so I could play it), I was flummoxed by the grace and beauty of the melody.  A melody simple, familiar, and true. Those beautiful whole and soft G, D, and C acoustic chords make the story so listenable.

In less polished hands "Hickory" could be sappy or sentimental, it is not.  It's a familiar story: a beautiful thing brought down in the sadness that is time and progress and the waiting for - and, perhaps, trusting in - redemption.  It wafts in on the wind, as though from across a parking lot, and compels you to lean into it.  It is confessional and private.  There is a moment in the song - a moment I will let you discover - that truly is breath-taking.  A moment you forgot to expect, that moment where the story tells itself.

Just take a look at this stanza:

Heard saws on the mountain, saw the trucks rumble by
Filing past like a funeral line
Those big iron trailers were piled up high
With hickory, walnut and pine

You can hear those saws, abrasive and raw; you can see them old diesel trucks, round and belching black exhaust, lumbering and growling on dirt roads and switchbacks; you can reach out and touch the bark of a newly felled tree, warm and moist from sun and sap, and then run your hand down the rusty, cold, and dry iron.

Really, give this song a listen, or stop by the porch when the light's on and I'll sing it for ya, hell, I can even play it in the dark.

I can't seem to shake my imaginary scene here in the parking lot of Dickie's Place.  Another guy - a friend of Butch's boy's, I imagine they played football together back in the day - opens his story, "Take Home Pay," with a couple solid electric chords and a quick bass riff that both floats and drives and these words:

Been hanging rock for twenty-odd years now
Six days a week and I can't keep up
My shoulder burns like a grinding gear box
These young crews are too fast and tough

I never hung sheet-rock, but my shoulders sure do burn from thirty-plus years of throwing boxes, trays of food, baby boys, and an occasional friend or foe on mine.  I've rarely been in "fast and tough" situations, but I've been passed up for younger folks.  I know not being able to keep up.

This is why I find his songwriting so rich and captivating.  In spelling out small details, using first person, shaping a particular scene, manipulating my senses, he paints universal themes.

That's what storytellers do.  He's telling us that in this chorus:

Schemers scheme around the edges
Dreamers dream of better days
Everyone knows what the catch is
It's all about the take home pay

The take home pay is what we get in the end, severance for our pain; sometimes it is money, sometimes it's just getting through another damn day - and sometimes it's poetry and magic.

Well, you know what, we've been standing in this parking lot for a while now, let's go have one last round inside with "The Old Guard".

Dickie's Place is a tavern where I often go
Like tonight when this heart of mine is achin' low
Through swinging doors I hear the voice of old George Jones
I find myself a bar stool and I'm right at home

Damn, I'm pretty sure I've been here before.  In fact, I may have tended bar here.  Familiar faces, old friends, lots of beer, memories, stories...

The old guard down at Dickie's drinks up all night long
Every face, lined and weary, hides a country song
Ruined lives, broken dreams, countless cold regrets
On the jukebox, their stories told in silhouette

Cheatin' Hearts, Crazy Arms, now it's Crying Time
Heartbreak goes down easier with beer and rhyme
Every night we get together to be with our own
And the old guard feels a little less alone

The songwriting is so clever here.  The sound and mix echoes out of the seventies country scene, with a little western swing and catchy guitar hook that makes you smile every time.

I was dozens of times into listening to this song before I actually looked at the lyrics, and then I saw it.  I was so mesmerized by the ease of the lyrics, the poetry of them, I didn't hear it at first, didn't make the connection.  The line right after, Heartbreak goes down easier with beer and rhyme, so captured my attention with its insight and universality that I missed the specifics.

"Cheating Hearts" and "Crazy Arms" and Crying Time" are all titles of songs from the era he's hankering back to, the titles of the songs on the jukebox.  Just brilliant.

In the song, the Old Guard sit and shoot the shit and listen to some old George Jones, or maybe some Dolly or Waylon or Price.  A younger crowd, the Young Guard perhaps, comes in. Then some kids they start playin' their fast modern tunes / And the floor bounces when they dance around the room.  But one of the old dudes says he's had enough and 

He starts punching in the numbers of the ones we feel
Those old heart-breakin' melodies with cryin' steel
The young ones start leaving, it's too slow and hard
But they'll be back when it's their turn to join the guard

Circles.

Seasons.

 "... a carousel of horse and wood."

It's time to get going, time to leave my new, old friends.  Slaid has something else to tell me, but it's personal, not the stuff for crowds.


Sometimes it's the shape of a song, the structure of the thing, that captures my attention.  "So Good to Me" has verses, what appears to be a chorus, and what seems like a couple of bridges.  It's starts all jangly and open, and then it saddens,  The harmonies are different, the mood changes... and then it comes back around and then somehow mixes the two and fades.

This song sounds to me like the wedding renewal vows of a really cool dude to his extraordinary wife.

With the world so cold outside
You'd be always on my side
If I stumbled blindly you could make me see

Through thick and thin you stayed
All through my darkest days
How could you possibly be so good to me

A long relationship is often a cyclical and seasonal, and he lays that out so honestly, heart wide open.

Times were tough but we were tougher
Slings and arrows we did suffer
Scars, we've got a few, but who has not

Words of love and words of anger
Times of peace and times of danger
Never take for granted what we've got

Yeah, that about covers it, doesn't it?


Men - well, the kind of men I like and respect - apologize in whispers and love quietly.  Slaid does that in "To Be Held."  It's a private song with haunting harmonies and floating guitar, and it is aimed directly at not me.  But there it is, on an album, it must be for me as well.  And... it is.  Why?

You're not asking for diamonds
You don't want furs
You don't dream of silver and gold
All you're asking is to be cherished
To be held and to hold

I needed to hear that.

And this.

I walk around blindly
I bumble along
In my heart I know that I'm wrong

It's a cold consolation:
I'm sorry again
One more time the same story told
And all that you want is a chance to get closer
To be held and to hold

It is easy to let this all fall into an apologetic hug, but I think it is more.  I hold my sons and my wife and my family inside me.  When you hold someone, even those miles or lifetimes away, you regard them, you honor them, you raise them up and show them about in wonder and thanksgiving.  And, of course, the inverse is true.  When we know we are being held, we feel lifted, sacred.  Sunsets are prettier, stars are brighter, greens greener, happiness, well, happier.

Holding is the hard work love asks of us.  It is Hope.

To be held is Hope's reward.  It is Grace.


I suspect there is more to "Still Be Mine" than I know.  I'm cool with that, I'm not sure what most of the music in the seventies was about.  Sometimes a mood or phrase or piano riff can be enough.  Perhaps a certain phrase wallops you upside the head, say, like...

I won't ask more questions
I'm old enough to know there is no remedy
Could I ask one favor:
Would you try to hold on to what's left of me?
Forget the rest of me, and all you thought I'd be

Am I sure what this means?  No, not at all, but I know what it's like to hope that someone is willing to "try to hold on to what's left of me."  We all need and deserve that.


"Junkyard" is just a simple song, a plaintive fingered guitar, an easy melody, but it equals, somehow, the whole of the rest of the album.  He's opened the album with upbeat waves breaking like young love on the shoreline and closes it with one last trip to the junkyard.  It's been a journey, but it ain't over, it'll circle back.

I choked back a sob the first time I heard this tune.  Not just because it hurt me, but because it lifted me.

Oh, I'm headed out to the junkyard
On the lonely side of town
This time it's a one way trip boys
I won't be coming back round

And it's one last time to the junkyard
I've swapped out my share of parts
From fenders and alternators
To shoulders, knees and hearts

The doctors and the mechanics
Have done all they can do
With hammer, wrench and scalpel
Ball joint, valve and screw

It's time to throw in the towel
Some breakdowns you cannot mend
Like all that have come before us
We all must face the end

So I'm limping back to the junkyard
In cloud of smoke and dust
I won't be driving out this time
Gonna lay me down to rust

Gonna leave this old shell behind now
Set our spirits free
Gonna walk on out to glory
Sun setting down on me

I've pulled my own parts at the junkyard on the lonely side of town... it's still there, way out in Cleves, which is a nice poetic twist, I think.  I've had scalpels cut me wide.  I've felt like I'm "Gonna lay me down to rust" and "walk on out to glory."  Truly, sometimes it's hard not to feel done...  especially as you feel that dust and rust and wear and tear of age.  Man, I get what he's laying down here.

And, that's what lifts me, knowing another human, another man, another brother, a dude I like and respect, feels the same way... it helps.  I think Slaid knows that, I think he's known it all along.  So many of the songs in this collection could seem sad, even bitter, but they don't.  Everyone's gonna be alright; endings will begin; beginnings always end.

All through this album I've felt spun, gently, as in a quiet eddy.  I've started here, gone way over there, and ended back here.  I walked a timeline that seems to constantly fall into itself.  I've loved through heartbreak, hoped through through breakdown, I've celebrated through sorrow.

And... that's a good thing.

It's impossible to fathom how many kinds of wrong I probably am in my assessment of this album.  And yet, I'm gonna plow on.  Themes of passing time, long relationships, bittersweet memories, aging and restoration run through it all, but...  am I allowed to even do that, tell you his themes?  Maybe not, and maybe that makes things easier.

I can tell you that I heard those themes.  I can tell you that this album lingered and echoed in my head long after my little Bose speaker ran out of juice.  I can tell you that I needed to meet these people, hear their songs, celebrate their stories.  I can tell you I needed to think about time and seasons and circles and such.

Finally, I needed to think about redemption.  I used the word restoration a bit ago because I thought it was clever and hearkened back to old '74's and junkyards and shoulders - but, I meant redemption.  Redemption is restorative.  I said once in this post that "It is not the “redeemed one” that’s important, it’s that there is a redemption song."

I want to thank Slaid Cleves for singing his to me.


And (if in my mind only), that circles me back to where I started - you remember, feeling guilty about how I behave as a music listener.  I feel like I don't support my favorite artists in a way that leads to their financial success.  He doesn't tour close to here in the near future.  I suppose I could buy a shirt or something, or just send him a twenty.  But I don't need an album or a CD or a digital download - although I would, actually, really dig a shirt.  I like listening to him on Spotify.  It's easy and simple and affordable.  I'm glad there are videos of him on YouTube and the like.

So, what's a guy to do?  Well, I wrote this exceedingly long post in a way to offer my support in another way.  I want him to know he touched me, and I want you to know why.  I suspect he already does.  You don't write songs like these and not know you're going to move folks.  I wanted him to know that he reminded me what a great medium that old-fashioned, set aside, album/record/LP was... is.  He brought back old friends and good times and broken hearts and bright yesterdays.  I want him to know that he did, for me, what an artist is supposed to do.

I owe ya, dude.

You know, when I was a kid we'd actually carry albums around.  You might take the newest Stones or John Denver over to you friends house or carry a stack of good dance music or rock-n-roll to a party over off Court street.  Your girl, or that glam rocker from second period math, might make you suffer through something you didn't like.  We'd all poor over the liner notes and cover art like it was scripture.  We were compelled to both share it with others and hold it in our own hands...  that's what I've tried to do here.

To be held and to hold...


Thanks for staying around.  It was fun.  Stop by when you can, I'm learnin' a couple more...

Peace.



(I don't usually add anything to a post after I've published it, short of a blatant spelling or grammatical errors, I usually just leave it, but something happened that I think merits attention.)

I wrote above of the artist/audience relationship and said:  "I want him to know that he did, for me, what an artist is supposed to do."

I wrote a note to Slaid on his website, he's got an "Ask Slaid"  widget and just told him a wrote about his album.  Well he took the time to do two things, first he responded positively to what I laid down, which I thought was damn decent of him,  

"Goddamn, Bill, that might be my favorite review of all time. Nail on the head. You do a lovely job expressing the effect the music has on you; no need to apologize for lack of professional training or anything like that. (And you'd be surprised how many published reviews misquote the lyrics.) Thanks for letting me know that I'm doing the job I set out to do."

... the job he set out to do, that really touched me because he got what I was trying to do.

He also did what I think any of the characters in his songs would do, made sure to thank and acknowledge the folks that made this all happen.

"One caveat: I had a lot of help in writing and producing this album. Co-writers Rod Picott, Nathan Hamilton, Karen Poston, Mike Morgan, Jeff Elliott, Graham Weber, with Scrappy Jud Newcomb producing."

Seems like just the thing Butch and Evelyn's boy would do... 

Slaid Cleaves is the real deal, friends; he's honest and real and earthy and decent and right.  I wish he lived next door, and had a nice porch...

Peace, again.

"Hands Free Life"

In more than one image around here - usually of me holding something up - you might notice a thin, leather wristband twisted three times above my left hand.  If you look carefully enough you'll see that it's a few buckled bracelets which say "live hands free."  This is not by accident, these pictures; I have wanted to make sure that I have an image of them etched somewhere into this digital archive of memory, hope and love I erroneously call a blog.

Here's one from a post called A "Sowrd" and a Wand.

You may wonder why I want to remember them.  You see, as I write this, a new digital age is done dawning, no, it is upon us.  I, personally, neither like nor trust this new epoch.  But, I'll tell you what, it is certainly mesmerizing.  It temps us with a siren song that it is almost painful to ignore and indeed is beautiful and its tone hints at usefulness and necessity.  We want this stuff in out hands or at least accessible at all times.  I hear that siren song, I really do...

Fortunately, a dear woman taught me - in both word and action - that if I have something in my hands, they are no longer free to embrace a trembling child; to squish a face and smush it all around as laughter peals; to caress a forehead or scratch a back as a favorite baseball team loses once again.  They are not free to spin the spinner or roll the dice or throw the ball or put on a coat on that first, fresh, cool day of fall. Those three words, "live hands free," remind me when my hands are full to put down the thing and look for something different, warmer, better to hold - to hold a thought, a dream, a hope, a prayer, a future, all in the guise of a child, spouse or loved one.

These worn and weathered leather bracelets are my talismans and touchstones.

Here is another picture of the bracelets:

And, yes, that is the book in which I read the stories that led to the realization which led to the bracelets that led to a little bit better me.  The dear woman is Rachel Macy Stafford and she has written another book. I talked about her first in a post called Hands Free Mama.   In a review on GoodReads and Amazon, I wrote this of her newest book, Hands Free Life:

"Rachel Macy Stafford has written another important book here.  With practical advice and tool after tool to help you drag your eyes up from the device in front of you and out and into the eyes of those that truly matter - kids, spouses, clerks, teachers, garbage men - this book will help you through that difficult but transforming process.  It shows you what actions you can take, not just principles and jargon, but real, implementable tasks that can help you change your life. 

But that's not what I want to tell you about her book.  No... Rachel is a poet and a storyteller.  She is empathetic and so very loving.  Her stories will stay with you because of their detail and honesty.  She pauses often in these stories and her prose passes to poetry with a meter and tone that is simply unforgettable. 

Hands Free Life can, and will, help you overcome distraction in this crazy digital world, but, more-so, it can illuminate a life of "living better and loving more," mostly because you know the lovely author does.  Sometimes books shimmer and this one does, because Rachel does.  It is a hug from an encouraging and loving friend.

I really can't say much more than that... but I will.

I believe in Rachel Stafford.  I believe in her hope.  I believe in her kindness and in her charity.   I believe in her books, books steeped in love and decency and the deep well that is storytelling, which is song, which is poetry, which is prayer, which is Hope.

I would encourage you to get a copy of this book.  If you can't buy one right now, get your library to acquire some copies, I do all the time and they library is delighted.  She's a New York Times best-selling author, they will.

Ya'll know I am not a consumerist, in my heart I believe Rachel is not either.  What she did, what she does, changed her life... and what she shares is her delight and gratitude in that.  That's as good as it gets.

Peace to you all and thanks for coming 'round, and, if you get a chance wish Rachel godspeed and peace as well.

Oh, I wanted to show you this as well:

It is the pre-release package I got from her publisher.  Thanks for thinking of me, Rachel, every gesture you make is gracious and elegant and loving.

Mostly though, thanks for the wristband, mine's wearing down...

Peace.

(Rachel's book is at Amazon, here.) 

Andy and Me... and Pie

I don't watch much television during the day.  If I do it's usually when I am sitting down with something to eat.  Actually, I watch when I am sitting down with something good to eat, or something messy.  More often than not I just stand in the kitchen and look off into the yard and watch the maples grow as I eat a salami and mustard sandwich - true story.

Sometimes I watch - and laugh - at the news channels headlining a football controversy or a super-blizzard fixing to pummel the East Coast and neglecting the real news.  Oh, I know, these things are important to folks and push ratings, I get all that.  But, I usually just change the channel.

The Andy Griffith show is on often in the mornings on some station or another.  I land on it and sigh in relief as I see Aunt Bee loading Barney's plate with mashed potatoes as Sheriff Taylor loads on cobs of corn near the perfect pot roast.  You see, they need to fatten him up so he'll pass the deputyin' requirements so he can continue to work in Mayberry.  They've even hatched a hair-brained scheme to stretch him taller.  It all works out in the end.

"It all works out in the end."

Nick told me that about a book he really liked the other day.  Let me go on record as saying a lot books for kids these day are full of dragons and demons and wizards and spells and, well, stuff that's sort of scary.  I blame Ms. Rowling.  And it's fine, for the most part.

But not for every kid.

I read - at Nick's request - the book he was talking about.  It is called Pie and is by Sarah Weeks.  It's not perfect, it's not important, it's not allegorical or deep.  It is, in fact, a rather ordinary story.  But, it is sweet and tender and full of wholesome and good people and, and, it has a happy ending.

A lot of characters die in many books for kids these days, I guess that's always been the case, Disney and all.  Movies abound in which a parent is gone, or lost, or absent.  Pets die, fortunes are lost, people suffer.  Nick doesn't want any of that.  I've mentioned before in this post and again in this one, that Nick used to run out of the room when the plot got scary or the music got ominous or the parents went on a trip.  He used to say "I only like the endings!" by which he meant the happily-ever-after part.

I am the same way.

Could there be a happy endings gene?  Perhaps it is the same gene that compels us to wear things on our heads as silly hats.  Is it the same gene that makes our hearts beat fast when the brothers reunite or the main characters fight?

There is a scene in Pie where the main character insults her sidekick, an ordinary boy with a heart of gold, for not being smart.  She hurts the boys' feelings and he lets her know that.  She later apologizes and they make up.

When Nick suggested I read this book he told me there were a couple of spots that weren't too nice.  That was one of the scenes he was talking about, the other was when they spy on teacher they suspect catnapped the cat that has the pie-crust recipe.

It's funny, some folks just gloss over or don't notice or understand it is just fictional characters doing fictional things and don't take the tensions and heartbreaks and joys and sorrows good prose can offer into their hearts.

And then there are people like me and Nick.

He also told me to be sure to read the epilogue.  "It's really the best part."  In it the girl grows up and keeps the pie shoppe open, the sidekick boy marries the other girl but they all live happily ever after, friends forever, the legacy of Polly the piemaker continues.

That's just fine by me.

Which brings me back to Andy.  I feel certain that many of you, Nick and Zack included, may not know who Sheriff Taylor was, is - I never know which way to go with that - but you'd recognize him I'd bet.  He is firm and kind and good and true.  He's a widower and is raising a boy and lives with his Aunt and is the law in a small town in a Carolina in the early sixties.  He does the right thing, almost always, and when he doesn't, he makes it right.  Nearly every episode of the show is a morality tale and ends just as you think it should.

I often find myself as a parent thinking "what would Andy do?"  I guess that's not the whole truth, I think I try to treat everyone as Andy might've.  In fact, the storytelling voice I've chosen, the aw-shucks attitude, the non-controversial stance I use here is influenced by Andy.  I admired Andy.  I loved Andy.

Truly, I want to be Andy.

I could go on and on about Mayberry and Andy and Opie and Goober and Gomer and Barney.  I'll stop for now.  I will say this though, it is important to let your kids know that you have heroes, role models, mentors, man-crushes.  Boys - I know boys - need to look up, and they need to see you looking up and if they see Andy looking back down at all of us, they'll know they're safe and that everything is gonna be alright.


(I don't know if you get weary of the 'but wait, there's more to every story' thing I do around here.  I am sorry if you are.  Sometimes in the middle of things I don't want to stop and tell something different but I still want to say that thing and one thing reminds me of another and.... well, I have trouble ending things.  I'm going to go ahead now and do that, well... now.)


There's more to the story about the book.  Nick really related to the boy who was the main character's friend, the sidekick, Charlie.  He's a sidekick kinda guy, Nick, he's loyal and faithful and a bit bumbling, hopelessly romantic and painfully devoted.  Interestingly, there was a bit of grocery list Charlie had written:

Yes, misspellings, just as Nick would have.  Perfect imperfection, I think.  I am positive Nick would spell dozen as "duzzin" if he tried.

Also, Ms. Weeks, used an incredibly clever device to open each chapter, she includes a pie recipe, several actually.  These simple recipes become somehow a character in the book.  They are interesting pies, pies familiar and strange, pies you imagine smelling and tasting and sharing with a friend or loved one.

About halfway through the book Nick came out of his bed to ask me if we could make the chocolate pie recipe.  We did.  Nick did most of the work.  He seperated the eggs, by hand, which is really the only way, and truly the funnest; he measured and spooned and stirred.  He tasted cocoa powder for the first time - for the record I told him he didn't want to do that; he experienced the curious squeaky texture on cornstarch.  The pie turned out a little soupy, we weren't patient enough cooking it over the stove, but it was damned tasty and, well, pretty unforgettable as well.

If you have a second, read that bit opposite the recipe.  I'll wait.

That is exactly the kind of thing I want my sons to be reading.  I want them to feel emotions for themselves.  I want them to empathize with others deeply, respectfully.  And, mostly, I want them to know they are cherished.

It all works out in the end...


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."

Dad: "No wrestling, please."

Boys: "I was just giving him a hug."

*yea, right*


One last thing, if your child wants you to read a book they loved, do it.  Marci and I always try to and it means the world to them.

I am glad you came by.  Oh, I almost forgot.  This is the cover of Pie:

 ...and you can get it at Amazon here.

Whit Honea, The Poet Revealed

You may not see a hat that says "Poet" on his head. You may not see her in a long black dress or with flowers in her hair. You may not see him in a cloistered classroom, in a tie and hard shoes. You may not see her words in a beautifully crafted book of verse or in a fancy literary magazine. You may not see him garrisoned away in a tower of ivory, quill in hand, nor in a Starbucks nose-deep in a laptop.

But, you do see them. Everyday. You will recognize them by the wrinkles around their eyes, the slight smile on their lips, the easy ear with which they listen, the light touch of their hand on your hand, the dream that hangs over them, the hope that rolls over you when you meet. They are essential to you and you, you are why they are who they are.

They are the poets.

I know one. His name is Whit and I don't know that he would ever call himself a poet, like that matters, but, he speaks to my heart as only a poet can. Poetry is not the words, but the place between them. It is not the metaphor or the imagery or the message or device - it is where those elements hit you.

The Parents' Phrase Book: Hundreds of Easy, Useful Phrases, Scripts, and Techniques for Every Situation is all it says it is... and more. In it Whit Honea offers advice, with humor and tenderness, on a wide range of topics relating to the everyday dealings we all have with our children.

I just sighed and shrugged my shoulders, I don't know how to get to what I want to tell you about Whit's book. It's wonderful and clever, to be sure. It is helpful and decent and good-hearted. My copy is dog-eared and marked up and stuffed with folded pages and notes because I knew I wanted to tell you about it, but, but...

In a simple, beautifully sculpted story called "The Stars upon Thars" he tells me about a boy who collects stars for other kids in a classroom so they will have some on their own charts. He writes this to end the quiet two-page story, "Stars may be given, taken, or thrown away, and they may twinkle, shoot, or fall, but when stretched forever by small, warm hands, they shine bright on all of us. His smile did that, too."

It is not a story to tell you how to be a parent, it is a story to remind you that you were once a child. I wondered if this were really the place he was coming from with all of this. Underneath all the great advice, between the well thought lines, behind the straight talk and beside the tenderly crafted stories, was he gently reminding me that to be a great dad I should simply remember that I was once a boy? I was thinking maybe it was. I am glad for that.

I had occasion to have a brief chat with Whit on the innerwebs a couple of days ago. We crossed paths in a cyber hallway and we had a nice conversation about him and his book.

I wrote: I really have enjoyed it.  Besides being a great resource, I find great poetry in it and also, somehow, a nostalgia for my own past.  It reminds me that I was a kid once.

Whit answered: I was just typing that! I really wanted parents to remember what it was like when they were kids. The publisher wanted a book on how to talk to kids, but my theory is we already speak kid, we just forgot it along the way.

Me: Yes, an empathy for childhood which somewhere became exhausted but is rekindled in you... why?

Whit: I think this is my midlife crisis. Other guys need models and sports cars, I need innocence and wonder.

Me: Damn, that's nice. I "need innocence and wonder" as well. Nicely put.

Whit: I thought you might.

Me: Well, obviously, I am working on a writeup about your book. Remembering childhood through the door you opened for me was the angle I was planning on... for now.

Whit: Honestly, I didn't write the book for parents, or I should say "only" parents. I wrote it for anyone that has been a child and has an ounce of hope for a better tomorrow. Corny as hell, I know, but that's what I really hoped for, was that people would try to understand and respect each other more while also learning to better value themselves.

I went on a bit more about how much I enjoyed the poetry in his book and his website, The Honea Express, and I asked him a little about himself and his hippie sensibilities.

Whit:  Ha. I'm 43, and I grew up in a rural, Harper Lee-ish sort of town, but with more shag carpet. I didn't embrace my inner liberal until college. I didn't even know I had one, but the Beatles collection and late night poetry should have been a clue.

We spoke of other things, kids and editing and mowing and writing and wisdom and waffles. I was struck by his gentleness, humor and grace. We follow each other on the web and I know his life has been sad at times, and I know he has known great joy. He is a dear father to two beautiful sons and a loving husband who seems to understand love in his very soul. What more could you ask for in a poet?

A little later, as we were finishing up, I said: You are wise before your time Whit, that is a very beautiful character trait, hard-fought, I know, but it serves you well. My very best to you and your fine family. Peace.

Whit:  Ha! Thank you, Bill. And thank you for that last bit about the character trait being hard-fought, it really is a bloody, winding path isn't it?

Me:  Yes it is, less taken, slinged and arrowed, and beautiful and hopeful, long and winding.  Yes.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Whit:  And there's the closing to your post.

I wrote this not to hawk Whit's book.  It would make a great Father's Day gift, to be sure, but, I can't say that is why I did this.  His book is a great guide for parents, but, it is so much more. He is so much more. No, more than anything I wanted him to know that he spoke to me, he touched me, he made me look inward.  He turned his life, his wisdom, his experience, his love and his hope into something I needed to hear, needed to know.  He made me better.

Yes, what more could you ask for in a poet?

Go visit Whit at his blog, The HoneaExpress. (Honea rhymes with pony.)  And, you can purchase his book on Amazon here.

Thanks for stopping by today. There are so many voices in the world - the songwriters, the bloggers, the essayists, the memoirists and diarists, the waitress, the cashier, the homeless man, the CEO, everyone really - listen to them, listen for the poetry that surrounds you in the Spirit Wind that blows through us all.

Hands Free Mama and The Journey to Joy

I don't really advocate for much. I do not champion causes. I don't really like to be pushy or boastful, I don't want to endorse or rant around here, I just want to show you some silly kid things and tell you what I've been thinking, that's all.

So, when a blogger I know, Rachel Macy Stafford, asked if I could take a look at her then soon-to-be-published book, I didn't know what to say.

I just looked up the word champion: transitive verb : to fight or speak publicly in support of (a person, belief, cause, etc.)

Well, you know what, I will champion her cause. I like transitive verbs. And, I believe in her. So, what can I do to help here, maybe something like this...

Rachel's book Hands Free Mama is subtitled with this perfect distillation of her message: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters. She advocates making ourselves more available to our children, and each other, by freeing our hands of the devices - and our minds of the distractions - of everyday life in this frenetic twenty-first century. She does this with a gentleness that is both healing and redemptive. She leads you to look in on yourself, on your actions, with purpose, and then she teaches you to reach out with grace.

No, that's too heavy handed... Let's see.

A couple of stories? Yes, that would help.

I am standing at a bar with friend of mine, a younger, hip, connected kind of guy with a career in the computer world. We are talking about something important, hops I think, and he notices a couple of leather bracelets I wear with burnt letters spelling, curiously, “live hands free.”

"What's up with those," he asks, and picks up his iPhone which has just done that curious spinning move phones do when only set to vibrate, and begins to fiddle, with both hands, furiously, deftly, practicedly – mindlessly, in truth – as I try to keep his attention.

I try to explain that a blogger I know has a site and a new book coming out about the distractions and devices we put between us and our kids... or friends. She is trying to show overly distracted people how, with actual plans of action and real tangible tools and exercises, to achieve the goal to 'live hands free.'

He looks over his phone at me for a moment and says: "So, that's even a thing...?" He trails off and goes back to his text.

Another time I was coaching first base, a boy I'll call Jon was up to bat, he hadn't connected all year and it was the second to last game of the season, and, he knew it. Finally, after a few foul tips he punches one right up the line at me, I duck and when I came up I saw him beaming and running at me like the colt he had become. The boys on the team went nuts, our coaches went nuts, the other teams coaches, sensing the moment, cheered. In fact everyone went nuts.... everyone except Jon's Dad. No, he had wandered off, his back to the game, phone to his ear, just as he'd done at all the previous games. I watched Jon's eyes dart to where his Dad had been seated, I saw the instant of heartbreak, I saw that boy lessen, get smaller.

No, no, no... that doesn't really help champion her cause, that just simply shows the problem. The problem that sits like an elephant on the dining-room table, no, sits like a giant 1950's computer whirring and spinning and clicking and clacking precursing the tiny devices of today, still whirring and spinning and clicking and clacking and getting in the middle of everything. You know the problem, you've seen it, I know you have. It is as plain and as obvious as the noses on the faces buried in the laptops and phones and tablets everywhere you look... uh, if you could see them.

Well, this is harder than I thought it would be. Mostly, and here is where I don't want to sound smug, I really don't suffer from full hands. I am a pretty “hands-free” guy. When I first encountered Rachel’s blog I was struck by something else, something beyond her deep and important mission, something beyond the heroic stance she had taken and advocates.

Her words.

Poetry. Storytelling.

In the introduction of Hands Free Mama she tells the story of her distracted, harried self seeing the beautiful loneliness in her daughter, sitting down with her and, in an emotional scene, her daughter lifts up Rachel’s hand and kisses her palm. The first of so many stories, deep, heartfelt, important stories, that Rachel tells as she guides us along a path that she has blazed herself, bravely and without regret.

Twelve chapters - each with a sub-head - some are below:

Acknowledge the cost of your distraction / Awareness

Choose what matters / Deliberateness

Recognize the gift of today / Presentness

See through undistracted eyes / Clarity

Seize the callings of your heart / Compassion

Remember life is precious / Gratefulness

You see what she's done there, presented an action statement using a strong, stalwart verb and then softened that with what is essentially the state to which that action will take you. Simple, essential, perfect. In fact the whole damn table of contents reads like a poem.

Truth be told, I am not the demographic that I am sure the fine folks at Zondervan hope will love Rachel's book – and they will. I am fifty-plus years old, I read philosophy, I pray daily, I play guitar and sing regularly, I drink scotch late into the night and dream into the fireplace. I find the time to do these things. I am very connected to the boys – I know them. What I am trying not to say here is that her “hands-free” message is not what initially drew me to her.  Again, I tell you,  it was her words, words which she lined up to tell the story of her distracted self, in a car, at a stop light, and the moment that changed everything. I was mesmerized – still am.

There is a section in each chapter that really shows the rich control and the depth of understanding it takes to write from the heart, as Rachel does so well, called the “Hands Free Reflection.” Each one a poem, metered or not, capable of shining alone, but focused on each chapters goal. In Chapter Ten, Let go / Forgiveness, it is a beautiful piece called “Free from the Heavy” and in the last half of it she writes:

We show up.

And we keep showing up.

Because we know someone is counting on us

And when that someone sees us showing up, it means more than we

even know.

Then one day, maybe sooner than we think, every sacrifice we ever

made and every tear we ever cried will be exchanged for something

wondrous.

Maybe it will be a tender word, an apologetic embrace, an expression

of joy – whatever it is, we will know because it is the moment we have

been waiting for, perhaps praying for.

In that moment we will shine at the one we love and the one we love

will shine back at us.

And every past mistake that once weighed heavily on our soul will be

overshadowed by the light of a beautiful moment in time.

And at last we will be free from the heavy.

Three words echo back to me from this, tender, joyful, embrace.

That is how Rachel's words make me feel.

So, it occurs to me, sort of late into this I'll admit, that I am not exactly sure what I am championing here. Honestly, I get fired up about everyone’s face in a device. I have seen it lead to unprecedented heights of distraction and, sadly, it can keep us from our kids. I know that. You know that. Rachel knows that as well. But, she goes so beyond showing us that obvious problem. She wants to take you on a journey towards joy. Only a fool wouldn't see the validity of her mission.

That being said, and, honestly, beyond all that, Rachel has a voice that absolutely soars. She tells stories of great sadness, stories we need to hear, stories longing to be told, and then she finds the redemption in them. With a tenderness beyond definition she shows you how to forgive yourself, not for the devices in your hand for they are merely silly props, but for not seeing the good that surrounds us, each and everyone. She makes this so much easier because we understand that she forgave herself.

Hands Free Mama is story-telling at its finest and fine stories always find a way to be heard. Rachel may think that her stories serve her cause, softening the edges of what is a controversial subject, helping her find the courage to voice the pain and ultimate escape from the distractions of a full-on life. But, I think it might be the other way around. I think the depth and tenderness and beauty of these essential stories simply needed a way to be told.

Her words shine brighter than the worthiness of her cause. I can't imagine how anyone other than Rachel Macy Stafford could have pulled that off.

Well, you've stayed this long, perhaps you'll listen to one last story. I had on the same bracelets which, by now, I hope you have realized, are Hands Free Mama bracelets, at the school the other day and a Mom I was volunteering with noticed them and asked me about them. Now, how to put this delicately, this is a Mom who might, benefit, shall we say, from the message of Hands Free Mama, so, I was eager to give her the blog info. We were standing in the foyer of the school so I went rooting around my pockets for a pen and piece of paper. I wrote down the web address of Rachel's site quickly and, as I handed it to her, I realized what I'd written it down on … the back of one of my own blog cards.

“Oh, uh, don't worry about my blog, but do head on over to Hands Free Mama , it's much better.” I heard myself say. True story.

Thanks for stopping by today. All the info to order Rachel's book and become a part of her thriving, joyful community is here:

Rachel Macy Stafford

blog: www.handsfreemama.com 

book: http://www.amazon.com/Hands-Free-Mama-Putting-Perfection/dp/0310338131

community: https://www.facebook.com/TheHandsFreeRevolution

Oh, and I'd get a hard copy if I were you, those paper pages absorb tears so much better...