G.W. Zouck …expressions from a pure stream

Lately I’ve had an old Dylan tune in my head called “It’s a Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.” I used to listen to that song over and over as a kid and I never understood what is was all supposed to mean. It was a bunch of images that got meshed into a color in my mind. Grey…a deep forbodding grey.

I think that’s what’s going on today. We’re all walking around with negative words spinning in our heads, most from the news and politics. Other words come from people who just want to burn our arms with their verbal cigars, like they have the answer and it’s all someone else’s fault.

So we run for cover because a hard rain’s a-gonna fall. But a hard rain doesn’t have to be bad. It can cleanse us…cool us off, make us laugh. Being soaking wet can be fun. We see each other as vulnerable. We realize that rain falls on all of us, whether we’re getting poorer or getting richer.

I’m pretty damn thankful for the friends I’ve made over the past year…when the rain kept falling like it would never, ever end. Rain can allow us to make a lot of new friends, if we just change the color of the words in our heads.

Writer’s Rule #2 (after write what you know) – Never Forget the Power of Simple Stories, or as the saying goes; show, don’t tell

When I was a kid my grandfather told me stories. He told me about a snake that rolled itself up into a hoop and chased him across a meadow. The image sticks in my head—a black, slimy hoop with snaky green eyes. And when he heard a fire truck, he’d say, “Here comes the fire diddy!” I never asked what that meant and I never cared. I just loved the excitement in his eyes. And he told me of this German guy named Old Slagenwiess who smashed open a shed door with an ax when the Confederates were charging. The Rebs had stored their ammo there. Old Slagenweiss carried that ax all the way home from Shiloh or Gettysburg or wherever. He carried that ax to his grave.

The point of all this is that I didn’t have to tell you much about my grandfather other than those stories. I didn’t need to say he was skinny, had horned-rimmed glasses, blue eyes and hair parted down the middle. You probably came up with your own picture. I knew him as imaginative. A bit of an exaggerator. He was playful and loved silly words, especially those that would light up a child’s eyes. And most of all, he understood that simple stories are actually very big stories. Fifty men may have died so that Old Slagenweiss could carry his ax around. They died and Slagenweiss became bigger than life—maybe as big as the whole universe.

Writers live in their heads. I had always known this, even as a kid. And for a lot of years I questioned whether that odd little voice manifested outwardly. By this I mean, was I as weird to others as I seemed to myself?  I remember playing kid games far too long when other boys were jumping banana-seated, sting ray bikes and shooting birds with BB guns. I remember puzzling over girls as mysterious wonders with a unique, semi-understandable language when other dudes just marked their transition from flat-chested tomboys to a curiously new type of fruit.  That was their world, mine was mine.

Then recently I read Ray Bradbury’s “Zen in the art of Writing” and I realized – finally – that I wasn’t that odd after all. Writers are a special group. We don’t give up the child, ever. In fact, as Bradbury so perfectly describes it, we should nurture every one of those deeply introspective and perceived oddities of our childhood and weave them into our own brand of writing.  Every misfit experience we had becomes the motivation of characters. When I was finally persuaded to shoot that bird, leaving my cherished plastic soldiers behind, I can capture the dread of seeing that falling bird and throwing my brother’s Daisy Winchester down, running back to my room—that character could become the twisted mind of a killer. And that love-struck little boy in baggy, multi-zippered pants who loved Rhonda Jackson in 7th grade could become the character of a suicidal rock star.

So my message here for aspiring writers (c/o the late, great Mr. Bradbury) is to never abandon that awkward little boy or girl—that long-ago, picked upon, skinny, shaggy-headed little you.  She or he could be the best thing that ever happened to your career.

Frederick Douglass as a young man

This 4th of July has me thinking of equality in this country. It’s a great country. You work hard and it gives back. The Irish worked for it and probably earned their place scaling up a bloody hill at Fredericksburg in 1862. The Chinese worked it building railroads. The Germans with farms and brewing. The Italians opened restaurants and checked their new stature with a bit of organized muscle. Even the Native Americans found their place; a few hundred thousand acres of arid land just ten paces from the barrel of a U.S. Cavalry carbine.

But what of a woman or man from Africa? Aside from building a solid portion of our colonial infrastructure, we didn’t give them a lot of opportunities to find their place. In fact, we made it damn near impossible for about 100 years after Emancipation. So just as Frederick Douglass wrote: “What is the Fourth of July to the Slave,” I also wonder what this celebration really means for all of us, new immigrants included.

The African could only give their hopes and a whole lot of patience when the Day of Jubilee sent them walking with a shirt tied to the end of a stick. Considering what they were up against, their experience trumps even that of the glorious Irish Brigade. They pulled together with the likes of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Andrew Young and now a president who’s looking up at the  rocket’s glare right along with the rest of us.

So this week I promised myself that any time I lean towards judgment of another culture’s placement in this great mix, I remind myself that everyone’s earning it, and we all have to KEEP earning it…

So on that note! I’d like to use this podium to say that if  you buy a copy of “Frederick Douglass, My Life as a Slave” from the Zouck website at any point during 4th of July week, we’ll give 100% of proceeds to the Frederick Douglass-Issac Myers Museum down in Baltimore.

So go on out and enjoy the potato salad and jello molds…and if you’re drinking beer, remember that Pabst gives the most to the arts! Plus, it has a red, white and blue can!

NOTE: Picture of Frederick Douglass courtesy of Chloe Probst who did the inside cover illustration of the Zouck edition

I Don’t want a holiday in the sun…

Before I start, please forgive this post. It may be kind of scattered and grumpy. It’s another 98 degree, record-breaking day and GW Zouck Publishing has no air conditioning. That’s the way ol’ Mr. Zouck would have liked it, I suppose…work that’s simple, sweaty and sacrificial.

Anyway, here’s what’s in my head this morning.  I’m starting to think we have to return to basics when it comes to expectations. I mean, look what’s going on in the world. The Arab Spring of great expectations is in lift-off mode.  China and India are all about super high expectations. But for the US and Great Britain , we’ve been cranking the expectation meter nonstop since the dawn of the industrial revolution and what do we really have?  Do we have happiness? We sit in traffic jams and wonder how we can maintain a standard of living based on having lots of stuff while also having time—any time—within a 60-hour corporate week to play with that stuff.

Is that what happens when rising expectation hits a pinnacle mark in society? We expect that we can all live like the rich at reasonably affordable prices?  It does when creativity and culture have been devalued and replaced with diversionary meaningless fluff. Post-industrial companies, looking at the ominous statistics of this rising American and English underclass have three choices. They can lower costs of products under the guise of it being good for us (which actually translates to more lay-offs and lessened wages). They can screw the 25% and keep selling to the other 75% at profits that unsure investors a  partially filthy-rich retirement. Or they can reconsider their profit allocation and reinvest in supporting our culture, our cities, and the worker. To me, it looks like our corporate leaders have chosen the greedy, short-sighted goal of supporting only options one and two.

So what does this mean for us…the grumpy Yanks and Brits who have been hoodwinked  into thinking more of nothing is better?  It may mean that the underpaid 25% of us have to start valuing more soulful pleasures.  We have to take back our culture and our creativity.  We can value playing and listening to music that we create. Growing our own food and restoring or building a house that’s just big enough. I’m hopeful that as corporate greed underpays us down to where everything glitzy is beyond our reach, that we’ll retaliate and force a more egalitarian definition of glitz; one that will make the other 75% actually envious. Maybe we can appreciate glitz with our hands wrapped around a cool glass of sweet tea in the park on a Sunday… and not from the steering wheel of a Cadillac Escalade.

But…until that sublime, gentle day in the park, I’m thinking this song still explains the mood of our post-industrial working-class expectations, even after 30 years. Thank you Sid and Johnny—couldn’t have said it better myself. PS – Does anyone think the drummer looks like Kevin Bacon? Dag…that guy is everywhere!

Remember, o pioneer… that only you know the meaning of your journey.  Other people may think of you and remember the practical intention of your actions. Or they might say, there is a person who can tear down walls. They might say you’re optimistic, hopeful and energetic. Some might say you’re just out there having fun. If you’re lucky, they’ll say you’re trying to make a difference in the world. But the real story is that you had a need to search, and the courage to follow through with it. I hope you always have the freedom to start new journeys. What you’re doing is more than just a reaction to circumstances, which is the way the majority of people are drawn to action. It’s a wonderfully defiant act—the act of following your soul. And it will define how you approach all of life’s challenges going forward.

God bless the young pioneers….

_______________________________________________________________

Now just a quick follow up on last week’s post about procrastination. It dawns on me that some folks may think I make this stuff up–floating boats in frog ponds–come on. So to prove at least one part of my procrastination OCD, I’ve included a live arrangement of “Ein Niderlendisch Tentzlein” on the Ukulele. Note… my blank expression is just my attempt to study the vast complexity of the sheet music. It’s not my normal look…. I think?

masterful ukulele technique

writer's block

THE THINGS WRITERS DO TO AVOID WRITING

Today’s post is for commiserating with those of you who actually choose to write, either for money or as a hobby or simply as a way to inflict deep psychological wounds upon yourself.  I thought I’d give you an example of one day’s worth of procrastination techniques employed before an article I had to write yesterday. The following is an actual list of pre-writing activities (in chronological order):

1. Stare out window
2. Retreat immediately to Facebook. View profile page of old friend not seen in 15 years and notice she does stand-up comedy. View every YouTube post she’s ever created
3. Go to kitchen to make smoothie
4. Listen to rousing classical music song and decide I must join a classical music “Meetup” group. Research and find a local one, then look at every person’s picture and decide they’re all weirdos and decide not to join.
5. Inspired by classical music, start playing Ukulele…decide to master the Baroque piece “Ein Niderlendisch Tentzlein” and decide I really am wasting time…
6. Stare out window again
7. Decide that my 7 year-old Frye Boots need polishing, start to do so until I find that work boots look really stupid polished. Feel slightly embarrassed about wearing them now.
8. Check stats for my previous blog post and feel depressed.
9. Notice an old wooden ship-model on garage shelf that’s dusty and broken. Decide that it might look really cool half-sunken in the fish pond in my garden. Run outside and place in pond and find it doesn’t sink. Looks more like a piece of floating trash.
10. Finally sit down, take a deep breath, and write my first line.

Ah yes…. and they wonder why writers drink….    Til next time — EJP

Sometimes I wonder why we put so much effort into things. To write a short one-page article may take me three days. I’ll write a first draft with a face like I’m turning an imaginary vice into my head, then tweak it and walk away. I’ll come back later that night with a glass of fine Merlot and check it again (Why is my Merlot always “fine?” I’ll explain later), then the next day I’ll re-write, touch up and tweak again and on the third day, it rises to published eternity. All of this for a few hundred bucks?

Well, the way I see it, we put so much of our soul into what we do because in between all the crappy comments people make and struggling paychecks, there are times when we absolutely love what we do. The success of being an artist is knowing that you live in a different world in your head and celebrating it…actually getting down to it. Like doing some filthy dub beat thing–(I had no idea what dub beat was until yesterday…thank you 19 year-old daughter.) My point is that sometimes you just have to dance in front of the pig. Celebrate your dream, no matter how crazy.

Speaking of crazy, yes—the “fine” Merlot thing. A few years back while sitting on a bench in Baltimore, hurriedly eating my bagged lunch because I was a copywriter and time was money chop-chop; an older gentleman came over and sat next me and politely offered a sip of his fine Merlot, which was also in a bag. He told me I looked like a nice fellow and because of that, I could even take the first sip. I told him I was a “beer man” but thanked him all the same. He just smiled unaffected and looked up at the sky and said, “Yes sir…it sure is a fine, fine day.” I stopped for second, fingering the other half of my peanut butter sandwich, and thought…yeah, it is a fine day. And that—sir, is a fine wine. And time isn’t just money. It’s just…time.

This is my all-time favorite movie scene. Hey Chloe, is this like dub dancing? Please watch, it’ll make you happy, I promise… Plus, it’ll make the title of this post make sense.

http://videosift.com/video/The-farmer-sings-to-Babe-favorite-scene

***

This message was inspired by “Big Daddy” Merlot. This blogger’s choice for when you have all the time in the world, and no job… and no job prospects. (Actually it’s quite good. It has a woodsy after-bite with hints of patchouli, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and my favorite Jack Purcell sneakers that I lost at a Dead show in 1983.)

I had a discussion with a close friend about money and business the other day. She said she felt like people took advantage of her. She said, “Maybe I attract it? Could that be so?” We sat in silence for a few minutes, both thinking of our own lives. I looked down at my scruffy black clogs and brown corduroy coat and thought about what confidence actually means. It surely can’t be attached to just looks and material stuff. What I came up with is that confidence is simply a strong sense of self-worth. It doesn’t have to involve ego at all, really. It just means you place value on your time because what you do, or even what wish you could do, makes a difference. It’s a good thing. A necessary thing; if you want to make any kind of impact.

But artists get lost in the whole deceptive world of relating to everyone. Yes, I want to write a song that makes the whole world sing and yes, by the very essence of that it shows my obsessive need to connect. But this doesn’t mean that because I don’t come across as guarded that somehow all work is fun or easy— not worthy of the higher buck. I envy those who can fix pipes all day at $60 an hour and then relax next to a smoking Webber at night. Creative people are never off. It may take me two hours to write some advertising copy, but I thought about it for two days—or maybe twenty years.

So to successfully live the creative life, it’s important to value confidence. With confidence comes respect and higher pay. Think of that money as a tool to do great things in the world. Maybe help a lot of people. If you deny yourself that, or if let others deny that path to you, you may think you’re being humble, but you’re really being ungrateful for the gifts you have, and worse, self-serving and against the needs of those you love. Think about it…it’s true.

********************************************************************************

Okay, on a lighter note, some of you know about my ever-growing love affair with the ukulele. This week I found out that the ukulele is actually tuned exactly like a lute!  The instrument was brought to Hawaii by Spanish sailors in the 18^th century, so it probably is a direct ancestor of the medieval instrument. This makes it perfect for playing Renaissance court music… which is so much fun to play and beautiful. Who’d of thought!  Check this out. The song’s called: Galliarde ” I’m learning it now… but don’t have it down like this Renaissance groove cat!

The age of philosophy is dead. We live in the age of opinion. No one wants to hear about the layers between whether something is right or wrong. Say it and defend it.

Why has this happened? First, modern society has a limited attention span. They want the “How will this affect you” line right up front and center on the nightly news. Secondly, there are just too many people on the fence. But not on the fence as in waiting to agree or disagree. No, no, no…this is a far more insidious fence. It’s the fence where people just pick an “ideology” and stay with it, no matter what their side ends up doing, or not doing. Most people are sold on a broad label like liberal or conservative and they leave it at that; letting those whose job it is to carry out the “agenda” either fix the world or screw it up.

Remember, an ideology is different than a philosophy. According to my Webster (and I still use my paper one, thank you) – an “Ideology” is a “…body of ideas characteristic of a particular group.”  A philosophy is a “…critical study of fundamental beliefs and the grounds for them…” Big difference!

So if we’re stuck in the age of ideologyland (which is not far from Disneyland)… then what do artists and writers do? We can yell back? Put crucifixes in urine and burn flags and all that headlining crap. Or we can tell it or show it as we see it—on a human level. We can show a child trying to play in a playground with armed gunman walking nonchalantly behind her. We can show a boy dreaming of walking a tightrope over a destroyed city. It’s all about visuals, poignant images representing those human emotions none of us can argue with.

As long as artists can write or paint what they see, unfettered by media or governments, maybe we have a chance to reach people. But we’d better do it soon because a fence is just a fence. It wasn’t built to hold all this weight.

Palestine art

The inspiration this week came something I stumbled on from a friend in Jordan. It’s called “Palestine: The Graphic Novel.”  Their motto is “Unbound Your Creativity.” This is a project where artists have come together, mainly through Facebook, to get their message out through art. I truly believe that social media is only just starting to change the world. In this case, change may come through visual understanding and hopefully, discussion—not revolution. CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE and check out the Facebook and glance through the pictures by clicking the photo bar.