2011 Colestine Camp Out

Dear Friends,

The 17th Colestine Camp Out is scheduled for June 10-12, 2011.

The first camp out was in June 1995. I remember that the Lovills, the Feltzs, the Smiths, the McBennets, the Conniffs, Lowell & Joanne, Greg & Noah were in attendance. Lord, who else? It has been 16 years now and my memory is shot to hell. Sky was a toddler, Ruthe had just found out that she was pregnant with Lauren and Elaine may have been pregnant with Claire. I think Arly Sue was in 3rd grade and Kiva was in 6th. I remember that Arly was hugely proud of the fact that she jumped off the rock into the freezing cold creek 49 times.











Kiva has been out on her own for almost 10 years now and Arly is in law school, for god's sake. Sky's at Cal, Sierra Conniff's at Temple, Lauren, Claire and Sierra Sullivan are all in high school. Who knows where the time goes?

I am so remarkably blessed by all of you. I so look forward to gathering together once again.

Peace Like a River

Ah, peace like a river ran through the city
Long past the midnight curfew
We sat starry-eyed
Ooh, oh,we were satisfied
O-o-oh, when I remember
Misinformation followed us like a plague
Nobody knew from time to time
If the plans were changed
Oh, oh, oh, if the plans were changed.

You can beat us with wires
You can beat us with chains
You can run out your rules
But you know you can't outrun the history train
I seen a glorious day, aiee------

Ah, four in the morning
I woke up from out of my dreams
Nowhere to go but back to sleep
But I'm reconciled
Oh, oh, oh, I'm going to be up for a while
Oh, oh, oh, I'm going to be up for a while
Oh, oh, oh, I'm going to be up for a while

...in a circular motion

Time moves inexorably forward, but sometimes it feels like Sequoia and I are going backwards; maybe it all just runs in a circular motion. The hot tub saga is a good illustration. Sequoia and I are both fans of hot water; we had our first conversation in a hot tub. When his dad bought a new tub, Sequoia hauled his old wood tub here. He bought a second used wood tub off the back of a truck in the Shop N Kart parking lot and pieced the two together. He tried to install a salvaged propane water heater and pump as his heating system, but it never worked and the tub sat empty for a couple of years. One day, we found ourselves with a little extra cash and figured, what the hell, let's buy a genuine Snorkel hot tub wood stove. We have to generate solar power and haul gas from town, so an electric or gas stove was out of the question, but wood is abundant out here. He bought the stove, installed it in the salvaged tub, slapped together a bit of deck and we were good to go for several years - that is, until he started a fire with some hot ashes and burned the tub, half the deck and a big old fir. We were damn lucky the house didn't burn. Sequoia tried to repair the damage, but the tub never held water again. Last month, he finally caved and bought a new cedar tub from Snorkel. He spent the last two weeks setting it up and installing the stove. We took it on its maiden voyage last week and, Houston, we have lift off.

Most people would just bought a new hot tub and stove from Snorkel right off the bat. Most people would have put it on the Visa and paid someone to install it. That's not how my husband operates. He has to do things for himself and get there by his own path. I can't complain. In the middle of winter, in perfect silence, I float in hot water and gaze at the night sky. There are more stars than you can possibly imagine. Life is good.

Sunrise from the tub:

Snot the Unemployed Jester

This April, coming to an independent film festival near you, Laney's short animated film Snot the Unemployed Jester with music by Hamfist. We finished recording the score tonight. The film has been accepted into the "Locals Only" screening at the Ashland Independent Film Festival in April. This was our last chance to work on the soundscape before Laney submits the final version on Tuesday. Laney and I charted out the cueing then we recorded new opening sequence music with Jimmy, Joe & EZ. I chose Pachelbel's Canon for the opening, transposed to C and arranged as simple acoustic strings overlaid with accordion. There was some skepticism about my vision, but I think everyone was quite pleased with the end result.

This was our second recording session. The first session was a bit chaotic. I asserted more of my vision this time, took ownership, assumed responsibility. I'm always a little nervous about taking on that role. As a former bossy older sister, I walk a very fine line. The minute I start evincing any kind of Lucy Van Pelt vibe, people turn off. And yet, being an artist means advocating for your vision, convincing others to sign on. It's only the start of the process; you have to remain open to collaboration and reinterpretation, but someone has to drive the bus.

I drove the bus tonight. It felt like the right choice, but the end product will tell the tale. Process is well and good, but I'm a results kind of gal.

Dream Time

Last night was the end of Hamfist's Winter Tour of Downtown Ashland, our four-week circumnavigation of a six block radius. We closed the "tour" at Caldera and packed the place. Admittedly, it only takes 30-40 people to pack the place, but we knew less than half the people in the room. It's good to know we can draw a crowd of people who are NOT our friends. It was a strong, tight show and I had a blast - well, except for a couple of times when I thought I was about to pass out onstage, but that's another story.

We played every weekend during the month of January and February brings a much-needed break. We will continue working on the soundtrack for Laney's short animated film, but other than that, February is dream time. We can learn new songs, re-arrange the old ones, throw some ideas around. We may even finally record the long-awaited Hamfist Christmas album.

We're at an interesting place musically. I fear that our varied interests may pull us in separate directions. My fascination with early jazz and blues is taking me further away from the cornpone vibe. The deep, old mountain tunes that haunt my mind are about as close as I come to "country" any more. I'm writing some songs of my own, but they aren't really Hamfist material. I don't know what they are, but I probably won't break them out with the band. Our shows are definitely not about people sitting quietly and listening intently. We play music that makes people move. I love that, I love whipping a crowd into a frenzy. It is a powerful feeling. I'm hooked.

But then the crowd thins out, Jesse and I start noodling, he launches into Paul Simon's America and we sing it note for note, word for word. My voice swells, the harmonies vibrate perfectly and a feeling washes through me that is indescribable. Balance and clarity and grace course through my veins. Everybody in the room stops and listens and, for one moment, I hold them all in the palm of my hand. For a few seconds, I hypnotize them with my voice.

Those moments complete me. They make me whole.

Scapegoat

The insomnia has me by the balls tonight, the result, no doubt, of a day of spent as the world's karmic whore. That appellation paraphrases something I read on Rob Brezny site freewillastrology.com, one of my regular stopping places online. His advice this week for those of us who identify as Capricorns was to become a "karma whore," i.e. "someone who performs an abundant number of favors and acts of kindness in the hope of accumulating extra good karma." I tried to act out the role as a karma whore, but ended up as a karmic whore, someone who endures unearned slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as atonement for past sins. I took a hit for the team today, let them use me as their whipping boy for things that 1) I didn't do and 2)were way beyond my pay grade. I saw the shit storm coming all week and couldn't do a thing to stop it. Shit rolls down hill and guess who's desk is at the bottom? However, I had a bit of a breakthough: For the first time , I took it all in stride with a modicum of grace. Rather than stand up for myself and contend with the injustice, as I have done in the past, I allowed the bullshit to roll off of me without a word protest.

And this, friends, is the best that I can hope for in my career: numbness. My great ambition is to not care, to let none of it touch me. It's a good day when I can insulate myself from the insanity, keep my head down and my mouth shut. That's what it has come down to.

Leviticus tells us that, on the Day of Atonement, one must pay for her sins and sin is atoned for by the blood of the sacrificial victim. The high priest, after becoming ritually pure, offered a bull for his sins and the sins of his household. Then two goats were set aside. Lots were cast, and one goat was chosen to be the scapegoat or "Azazel." The High Priest slaughtered the other goat to atone for the sins of Israel and brought the blood into the temple. The scapegoat was sent away to be lost in the desert after the High Priest laid both hands on its head and confessed the sins of Israel. In this way, the sins of the nation were symbolically carried off into the desert.

It feel like the sins of the organization were ritually laid upon head today and I was sent off to be lost in the desert. And I let it happen without a word of protest.

I sweat blood at my job, I work like a field hand, but I get no more support or respect than those who do as little as humanly possible. My ridiculous work ethic earns me more resentment than respect; the slackers suffer in comparison and they don't appreciate it. Since some of my so-called superiors are among them, it makes for a tricky situation.

Look, I get it: I'm not allowed to complain about work. I am employed (peripherally) in a field I love, doing work I respect with people I like. They've even begun to let me work from home part-time. But the pettiness, the back biting, the paranoia, the snobbery, the ruthlessness, the rigid hierarchies, the smug self-satisfaction - it all becomes too much sometimes. My first conscious thought in the morning is one of dread at another work day. The uselessness of it, the years of wasted effort, it wears me down.

Psychologist Albert Ellis identified one of the scripts that runs in a neurotic mind : "I absolutely must, under practically all conditions and at all times, perform well (or outstandingly well) and win the approval (or complete love) of significant others. If I fail in these important -- and sacred -- respects, that is awful and I am a bad, incompetent, unworthy person, who will probably always fail and deserves to suffer." There have been times when I've struggled with that brand of neurosis. I have to remind myself daily that, despite my flaws, I'm a worthy person who does not deserve to suffer. Working for an organization that suffers from the same delusion doesn't help.

And yet, I endure; they haven't chased me away yet. Mama used to say, "don't let 'em beat you, baby. Don't let them beat you." Bloodied but unbowed, I stand my ground. But damn, I'm tired of the fight. Is this really how we are meant to live our lives, toiling pointlessly in quiet desperation?

Words Fly Up

Scout said, "Neighbors bring food with death, flowers with sickness, and little things in between." In the course of one day, I wrote a comforting note to a friend who has cancer, wrote another comforting note to a friend locked in an ugly custody battle, received notice of an upcoming funeral and sent a photo of a long-deceased friend to his widow. An incurable problem-solver, there are some problems that I cannot solve. All I can do is send my love and support. All I can do visualize healing, peace, resolution, and hope for the best.

It was the photo that sent my thoughts down this track today. I received a Facebook message from my old friend Sue (Facebook - it's a brave new world.) She lost all of her photo albums in a robbery and wrote to ask if I had any pictures of her deceased husband, my long-ago former partner, Toby. I didn't have any photos of Toby (he was notoriously camera shy) but, strangely enough, Sequoia did. Sequoia has been digitizing his father's collection of slides and found some photos of our wedding, including one with Toby in the background. He zoomed in and managed to capture a striking photo of Toby, the only remaining image of him left in this world.

Typical that this photo would surface exactly when needed. Toby had that effect.

Some day I'll write about Toby, but not yet. He's been dead now for, what, seven, eight years? I don't even know. I hadn't seen him in more than a decade when I heard the news. I always expected to run into him at some hippie gathering or Dead show. I was certain I'd turn a corner and there he'd be, waiting for me.

Maybe he's waiting for me "on the other side," but I don't really believe that. I'd pray for him and all the others if I could, but as Claudius said so well, "my words fly up, my thoughts remain below." It's difficult for an agnostic to pray with a straight face. Who do I think I'm fooling? I've long believed that, when the oil is spent, the light goes out. Prayer cannot reignite the flame.

I have no faith, but I still have hope. Maybe that's all prayer is: hope coupled with magical thinking.