I Just Wanna Thank You. Thank You.

I know you've got a lot going on, but I just had to drop in and say thanks.
So much about you has made me unbelievably happy lately.
It's fall too, that helps with the General Cheer Factor.
But, seriously - you are amazing and awesome.

Thanks for thinking of me - ever. That shit goes a long ways towards keeping me balanced and happy.

Thanks for sending me random, unsolicited compliments. For. REAL. That probably weighs as much as a back tickle on the Emotional Bliss Scale. Every compliment you squeeze my way undoes about 10 unpleasant strangers on the phone.

Thanks for holding me (and you) to standards that extend past mouth-breathing and knuckle-dragging. I expect a lot out of me and you. Thanks for helping keep my disappointment at bay. You do great work.

Thanks for the hugs. These hugs mean business. Life is so freaking short. Find me ANYone who couldn't use more hugs. These hugs are making my time here a lot more real and meaningful. You so rock.

Thanks for jacking with me and testing the true limits of my gullibility. I can completely lose track of the time-space continuum when I'm in a project - I will believe most anything. I'm glad you know that and can mess with me relentlessly. You wouldn't really be able to jack with me if you didn't care, right?

Thanks for not telling me things that would be destructive to the delicate Ph balance known as my Sense of Self. You'll never know how cool it is that you don't agree with me when I tell you I'm having a horrible awful bad hair day. Please never agree. Apparently I may never outgrow this flaw in my fabric. I appreciate your devotion to the cause. I know I can be high-maintenance, and it makes me sigh.
But, I think I've proven your ROI is good.
I'm better because you care enough to help me be better.
We're all high-maintenance and I'm just thankful you like me enough to hang. Thanks for that too.
later.
copyright2009

I Am Your Grandmother

When I was little, my grandmother (Momo. They were ALL Momos) was a highly revered, sometimes feared and always respected woman of a strong presence.

I am now a grandmother and I don't feel like what I thought my Momo felt like. She was so old, even then.
She was like Jackie Kennedy's mom old.
She was old. Ferrreal.

She lived through the depression. She grew up in the Strawberry Hill section of Kansas City, KS, the daughter of an insurance salesman and a full-time, old-school saint of a mother.
They were Turbo Catholics, but almost everybody in the neighborhood was too.

She was the youngest of 13 children. She played piano by ear. I remember humming the tune from "The Poseidon Adventure" and she banged it out on an old upright in an amazingly tight arrangement. She played that song, that one ragtime song, from "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" perfectly. Seriously. Flawless.

Her hair was always washed and done up on Wednesdays and she really never drank a drop till Papa Leo died.

I'm pretty sure she saved my little life a time or two, but everyone who could validate this has already moved along.
Now I am a Grandma. A Momo.
Wow. I so really did not think I'd live this long.
There's this deal about being a musician. When you're playing live, you don't ever want to follow somebody who is way way better than you.
The deal about being a Momo is that ....
...well. Damn.
The bar is set so high.
The Momos before me have set precedent.
I know I can Represent.
I'm pretty sure I can.
I'll Google it.

Trouble Makers Rock

I am a Trouble Maker.
I wake up every morning and I am a Trouble Maker.
I have not always been a Trouble Maker.
But I'm a quick study and I like the process. I have references. I'm on Linked In. I'm not proud and I've got operators standing by.
It's been a while since I've really been called upon to make any real, appreciable trouble.
Lucky for you - I've had this one concept rattling around like a beebee in a boxcar for the last week or two, and I need to write for real (as opposed to this: For Recreation Writing) so I'm going to share.
I have been a loyal and resourceful advocate for the reform of Marijuana laws for a very, very long time. It's one of my Super Powers.
While not a particularly religious person, I believe God gave us this weed in a perfect form to help us digest the otherwise imperfect and often confounding universe He spun up.
It's like a consolation prize.
It's an "Also Played" trophy.
(Insert something about infinite wisdom here...)
Y'know. I'm pretty much good with anything anymore. I really am. And, I still have a little problem about the fact that we supposedly spend, like $9.4 billion (BILLION?!?) a year to incarcerate about a half million marijuana offenders.
I get that we have some genetic obligation to cling to the old ways. I'm cool with that. But, dude. Lawrence, Mexico and all the cool kids are doing it.
Decriminalize. For.Real.
Or, lets level the playing field - tax all the sins the same.
Sloth: No health insurance. $100 fine. 150 hours community service and time served.
Bang the gavel. Next.
Okay. Greed? Greed? Greed you're up.
Please approach the bench.
(Oh yea, and Gluttony? OMG. Gluttony. Here. Now. You have so embarrassed all the other Seven Deadly Sins with your total lack of decorum.... uh, you have Twinkies on your chin. Who dresses you anyways?)
So, suppose the playing field is all evened out in all directions.
You know what I'll do? Just to make it more attractive to you?
Well, I'll do this: I'll tax this pleasure to within an inch of it's life.
One ince. Of. It's.Life.
You want this? Cool. Taxes will be 36% with revenues benefiting the education of your offspring. Maybe we'll bring your hospital staffs up to speed.
You are going to get rich. You can build new schools and repave roads. You can spend more money on your fire department.
Play your cards right and some of your farmers can get a leg up on this mess that Regan started and Bush walked away from (snickering. He was a snicker-er.)
Riddle me this: have you ever had to settle a dispute for, work against gravity with or find the keys of a very very drunk person? For real? What about the walk of shame away from the holding tank at the county jail with a brother or sister or best friend? That one walk where they are carrying their shoe laces and their shoes are flopping on their feet? God how that rocks.
And, with how many weed smokers have you been through this same varied and admittedly awesome array of life moments?
I try and spare you. I do.
I know you're life is busy and there's only so much you can think about. If it weren't important I wouldn't have mentioned it.
I'm just sayin.... I'm somebody's Momo. I have an obligation.
C'mon. I have some duct tape and velcro!
We can build a Club House!
Seriously. My parents won't be home till seven.
COPYRIGHT 2009

NO sale. No Sale.

One time a long time ago, I was with Bryanmasters (that's just what we always called him) and we went into Zelmans (I think it is, there on Douglas by what used to be Panama Reds.)
It was before a job at Reds and we were just killing time. We were both talking about how we'd never actually seen anyone shop at that store and admiring the attention to detail that had been paid to the front windows. In 1956. Picked over and thinned out by people we'd never seen buying things we couldn't imagine anybody actually using.
Mrs. Zelman walked up as we were admiring and we asked if we could go in. She looked at us like we had parrots on our heads and said, "Ynevah buy anything," as she was reaching for her key and unlocking the front door.
Mrs. Zelman is as much a Wichita institution as Century II (or she used to be, I haven't been there much in 10 years or so.) The story I've been told is that she and Mr. Zelman were captives in one of the Nazi camps and she always carried a bar of that soap. She never drove and always took the bus and walked EVERY where.
For real.
She had to be 83 the night she shadowed us in her store.
She followed us for a good 15 minutes muttering, "Ynevah gonna buy anything..." Then we'd move on to another item and she'd kinda bark "NO SALE! no sale."
She was relentless. She said "NO sale" like, 36 times in a handful of minutes. This happened for the duration of our visit.
We didn't buy anything simply because we just couldn't justify buying anything (probably.) And we probably had a house full of kids and no money.
Well, that AND she kept saying "NO SALE." I still feel kinda bad about not stimulating her economy.
So, if you're in Wichita and anywhere near downtown AND by some miracle of feistiness Mrs. Zelman is still alive and torturing shoppers - you must go in and buy something.
Then scoot down to the Donut Whole and have a maple-bacon donut or two.
Both of these things will make me feel better.
Go me.

Bluegrass Calendar: Monarchs

Up here in the NE corner of the state, it's full-on autumn.
It's gotten down in to the 40s on some nights. And, it's still (really) just the first of September. Down south (Winfield way) it's about time to start seeing the first of the Monarchs that come through as the Fall harbingers.
Blankets. Big orange moons. North breezes.
That smell (what is that smell? I've always imagined it's a special Kansas thing that is the combination of clovers and smooshed grains and soybeans and ripe humans wearing patchoulil and just a hint of skunk. Mmmm skunk.)
One of my first mass-monacrhings came on an adventure down to the Bluegrass Festival, it was probably early September (and yea, probably half a million years ago). I had my first VW bus (the '71 tan and white one with big letters all over it). John Byers (To this day the best and only VW mechanic any human should ever pick for their team) and about 8 other friends in three other VWs were in one caravan headed south for Winfield.
Somebody's car messed up. I can't remember the details which tells me it was probably mine. We all pulled over and a few hundred yards down on a dirt road lined with over-ripe something (it had started to go brown) we stopped and all got out and mingled.
These occasions of cars breaking down when you're in caravan are seen more as social bonding opportunities more than traveling frustrations. We were deciding what to do next, and probably knee-deep in a Safety Meeting when about 38 bazillion Monarchs descended upon us.
I used to have a picture of John Byers, just about two feet away from me, with butterflies on the rims of his glasses and his baseball cap and shoulders.
The world behind him was mostly orange.
You could hear all their bazillions of wings flapping and making a sound that was like a weak, but very healthy, teeny weeny generator...
For real.
I swear this happened.
It's always made me think that this particular time of year means that soon I'll smell camp-fires. I'll sleep where I fall and wake to strangers bringing me coffee and aspirin.
Don't know that I'll be there in person for this year's fiesta, but I know that the Monarchs up here are just starting to come through and it smells fantastic.

The Bluegrass Festival Calendar

The moon has come up off of the horizon like a big ol bowl of neon orange oatmeal lately. The monarchs are somewhere down south packing their bags for the pending trip north. Every shorty I know has a backpack full of cool new #2 pencils and Elmers glue.
The sweet corn has come and gone and the avocados are no longer sweet. The days have gotten shorter. The mornings have the first blush of a nip. For real. Step outside about 5am sometime this week.
I love it when there's a season just right around the corner.
I get this nutty fine clean energy. Almost spring is so green and electric. Then it's almost time to open the pools or jump in the rivers. I love it when it's time to build fires. I love not being able to sleep because they said we were "gonna get a foot of snow."
Seriously.
Way more cool than I can do justice to.
It's almost autumn here. Almost Bluegrass. My personal calendar has been set to "Bluegrass" for just about 30 years.
Just for the record: I suck as guitarists go, and I'm A-OK with that, I will readily admit it and I'm sorry. I am, however, probably the most underpaid Cheerleader ever (IN THE HISTORY OF TIME!) (That gross exaggeration tossed in for my kids: To keep it fresh.) I know a million songs and I can fake my way through about another million (IF I haven't indulged in fruity girl drinks prior to playing).
That alone does not a good guitar player make.
All things being equal and that being said yada yada yada. Who'd a thunk it? It's the coolest place I've ever been in my life and it's, like, a half hour outta Ta-town. yea.
Not Germany or France or Ireland or Scotland. Nope Kansas.
It's an amazing thing to see and experience...
Ooohhh, the things you will see...
The people telling stories to friends they haven't seen in ages. The fire pits dug half way down to China. Food. Oh.my.god. The food seriously defies description.
First off: There is Everything (I shit you not. I have seen bear, whole pigs, goat, gohpers, snake, fish of every make and model, vegan feasts, psychotropic appetizers. You name it - it's there.)
Second: There is way way more than every one in camp could eat in one night.
Third: Never forget the Karma thang - do unto others, blah blah blah...wash your own eating utensils...
I know you know what I mean. Bring presents. Represent.
I've got some serious freakin callouses on my left fingers, and my timing only sucks half as much as it used to. And, I do know the entire John Prine library... I'm jus'sayin.
I feel it coming, I smell fires built of pecan and walnut. And eggs.mmmmm....eggs.....
Aaaahhhh.....
Too many stories, and you kids need to get to bed before your father gets home.
Run along now. I'll tell you more tomorrow... I have some fine stories and I'll bet you do too.

Belonging

I have fully developed my most recent theory,
Theory Number 1503:
Belonging and Why People Are Happier When They're Hanging With Their Posse (or their country or state or band or class or family.)
I've found myself being all proud and patriotic today, since it's Independence day and whatnot. I'm glad to be an American. I believe in the possibilities that come with living here. In other countries I was called "That American Girl" or "America" and I completely dug it. I was part of something much bigger than just me.
Safety in numbers.
And, yea, I know - I smack talked our elected leaders for the better part of 10 years, but I'm over it. I'm being the Change.
Dial that down a notch, and all over America (as some point in the last few years) people who hadn't quite remembered my name would call me "Kansas." I'm fine with that. Kansas is big and generally nice and chill. Sadly, also a little judged by the whole uptight, haaaaard right conservative way it shows up on the radar. I'm okay with that only because I know that is no real indication of my team.
(Kansas being that team - in case I lost you.)
Look even closer and I'm a musician, an artist and a writer. Oh yea. This could be one of my most favorite places to belong, seriously. This is one huge and constantly growing group of good, alive, diverse, stimulating, over-caffeinated and outside the box people.
In spite of having probably taken them for granted for a bit now, I really need my love bunch. I am related by blood to some of them, and by honor and love to others, but without them I lose my definition. My edges get all blurry and I don't make much eye contact or offer quality hugs. Without this part of who I am, I cease to be who it is that I am.
At the Solstice Party in Kansas City a couple weeks ago I hung with a bunch of people I had never met. Even though I wasn't a due-paying member of their posse, I caught the vibe and had a blast. I belonged there just long enough to remember what it was that I needed.
Then I realized that I've got it.
It's a good day to be me.