Going back to school

The other day after work I was in the tavern, talking to a guy in the band playing that night. I told him I had applied to go back to school–that I planned to do a double major in Liberal Studies and Theatre, my Master’s in Liberal Studies, and then, hopefully, eventually, a PhD in Theatre History, though that one is more just a feather-in-my-cap-“That’s-Dr.-Church-To-You”-Fuck-You-Degree.” But still, it would help, and I want it.

“Do you want my advice?”

“No, but go ahead.”

“It’s all too general. You aren’t telling me anything specific. Liberal Studies? That’s all over the place.”

“That’s the name of the degree, but you choose or create an emphasis. If I were getting a Master’s in “Business” with a concentration in “Innovation,” it probably wouldn’t be met with “That’s all over the place,” but the title is just as general. It would be an MA in Liberal Studies with a concentration in humanities, specifically arts and community building.”

“But what do you want? You should find out specifically what you want–”

“I want, specifically, to convert a Victorian mansion in Kansas City, MO into a nonprofit coffee shop/community center and performance space for adults. The coffee is a revenue stream, and a cafe atmosphere in the traditional sense is what I’m aiming for, but the emphasis cannot be on high turnover of customers, since the point is to foster the building of community, so a nonprofit model is best. I want to achieve community building three ways: Be a common meeting place for people to get to know their neighbors in a face to face environment; provide the space and means for adults to be able to create, whether that’s writing painting, crafting or performing; create live, intimate theatre events that provide jumping off points of conversation and promote empathy–”

“Why Kansas City?”

“Because it’s mixed politically, in the middle of the country, has enough culture to be welcoming to a space like this, but is not so overflowing with it that there’s no need.  They have beautiful real estate for cheap, Missouri is one of the top ten states for starting a business, based on the percentage of new businesses that succeed–”

“You know what your problem is?”

“We only just met, but go ahead. What is my problem?”

“You’re just not focused. You’re working here, you want to go to school, you want to start a nonprofit–will those degrees even help with that? You just seem like you don’t really know what you want.”

Which is when it became obvious that there were three possible things happening with this conversation, and possibly all of them at once: 1) He was not following what I was saying or seeing how one point connected to each other. He was only hearing “School!” “Liberal Arts!” “Coffee Shop!” “Victorian Mansion!” “Kansas City!” and was glazing over the connective parts. Therefore I was “all over the place.” 2) Like most people, he needs other people to be small for him to feel big, and so a plan large in scope needs to be dismissed immediately 3) He wanted to make me unsure of myself, so he could tell me the right answers…and then later tell me to take off my pants. Whenever a man is pissing me off/being condescending/playing devil’s advocate/”teaching” me something, it seems, invariably, that this is his idiotic plan.

These days, we are not very good at relating to each other, we are not very good at thinking, and we find good works and ambitious ideas suspect rather than inspiring. We never have been particularly good at these things as a whole, because we’re human animals, but they’ve been goals in the past, and we’ve often met them, in spite of our baser selves. At this particular time in history, when everything is designed to poke at the basest, worst parts of us, I believe it’s imperative to create spaces where those goals are at the forefront. Without them, our communities are weak, and when our communities are weak, our country fails. There is no doubt, engagement in the arts is crucial in strengthening our communities.

Here’s the thing, though: I have no idea if the  specific non-profit I want to start will come to fruition, or if it can look like what I envision. There are about a thousand moving parts and variables to an idea like that, and when you factor in the time it takes to move through the preliminary steps, then answers to questions like “Is it needed?” “Is it possible?” “Is it welcome?” can change. But the preliminary steps must begin, anyway. I always said I would go back to school when it became necessary to go back to school. And here we are. The first step in all of this is to get the credentials to be taken seriously.

The first phase of my working life was about the artist as an individual, and exploring how much you could create out of nothing–it was a kind of artistic doomsday prep. Part of this was an insistence on work speaking for itself, without reliance on any sort of “club” to validate it (whether it was academic, a nonprofit, any sort of institution): Good work, from any individual source, regardless of social and economic circumstance, dictated by talent, resourcefulness and will.

And so I learned where that had boundaries and where that was limitless. But continuing to look ahead, both at what is next for me and what will be needed from the arts in the years to come, the next phase necessitates community building, which has entirely different rules and requirements. To lead in any capacity in a community requires credentials–a marker that you have been vouched for and that yes, you know what you’re talking about, and the reasoning for this is not arbitrary: Because your ideas involve other people, not just yourself.

But this is where some seeming contradictions can come into play if you aren’t careful. What should be one idea growing out of another can seem like two ideas that are diametrically opposed. But, essentially, we’re talking about both a cultural and artistic life and evolution cycle that are running parallel to one another (and for me, the hope is for the artistic cycle to outpace the cultural one ever so slightly in order for one to affect the other). The point being: a multi-celled organism is not antithetical to a single-celled organism. It’s just another step–it’s what happens when you build upon that idea.

And the idea is to bring together many different individuals, put them in a space where they are encouraged to be individuals, and have that form a community.

This is obviously nothing new. It’s a timeless part of the art/culture life cycle. But we’re at a particular tipping point where we either pointedly do this, or allow for further descent into a dark age. The trend as of late, in large part due to the internet, in part due to the high cost of college and a cultural backlash on them emphasis of its importance–too many factors to list coherently–has not been individual thinkers with varying points of view, but tribalism and anti-intellectualism, which is why our art is homogenized and not challenging, and why, if ever you meet a stranger these days, you’ve never heard of any band they listen to: We experience things in tribes, and are made uncomfortable by the outside world. In order to slow the violent swing one way and then the other, the best parts can (and have in the past) be taken from both (for a time, before it’s inevitably spoiled. You deal with the next thing when you see it coming): Community, not tribalism; intellectualism, not snobbery. Town squares, salons, coffee houses: These, in the past, have been meccas for that idea, and they can be again–if we actively foster communication in these places, rather than avoidance with screens. We have to relearn some things.

Going back to the idea of evolution, we would be wise to remember that all things in the natural universe seem to cycle the same way. Just as inbreeding produces very bad results, and yet, you can only get so far away from each other DNA wise before there’s no result at all, a community has the same requirements: Too much of the same creates a weak society. A wide scope of people and ideas who share common ground creates a strong community. Once we lack common ground, there is no community. We can’t afford snobbery or tribalism that run too deep. It’s as simple as that.

Which finally brings me to Thomas Edison State University and why I chose that online degree program to get started with. (Can I digress, or what?)

A few years ago, I was thinking about the question of affordable college and our higher level education system and what were the holes and what were the things we weren’t thinking about, etc. Yada yada yada, I had some ideas for how to make things better, I googled to see if my ideas already existed, and they did: At TESU. It’s accessible, it’s affordable, it’s accredited, they cater to non-traditional students and adults, allowing many different paths for getting a degree, including online courses, on campus courses, CLEP, even proof of mastery of skills through your jobs and life experience and unlimited transfer credits from other accredited colleges. The pacing is your own. It is, essentially, a do-it-yourself University, which jibes very well with my anti-clubhouse stance (but, if student reviews are to be believed, the work is as difficult as any other college). By all accounts, the professional results later for students seem to be unexpectedly good for a school that is so under-the-radar. It’s a school I’ve been looking at for years, and it sounds like a good fit. I think perhaps the biggest mistake in our college system is the insistence that a college experience should look a certain way to be valid. I also think it’s a mistake to insist that you load up only the first third of your life with schooling and then leave it forever. Standards are good. Homogenization is not. I like their mission and I want to support it. Here’s a NYT article about it.

So that is every high-filutin’ idea I have in my brain, but at the end of the day, you don’t need to be this convoluted, because the idea is simple: coffee, theatre, meeting people-it feels good for you; it IS good for you. It’s the Icelandic idea of hygge, it’s mindfulness, it’s self-care, it’s whatever bullshit new word for “feeling good” we’ve got–but if it keeps popping up, it’s because it’s desperately needed. You don’t need studies to tell you it’s needed and good. You only need studies to prove you should get funds to make it happen.

Personally? Why now and this way? It would be lovely if all of my decisions were entirely, utterly tied to only my intellectual pursuits, and had nothing to do with baggage, various chips on my shoulders, frustrations, things to prove, things to fix, etc, but ha. Hahaha. I have too much pride to let those things overrule me–I need a rational reason that benefits the public good and jibes with my philosophies, because that is where my pride is, and my pride is the most motivating thing in me. But damned if these other things don’t find ways to hitch a ride on my nobler reasons…

I’m sick of explaining myself to people. It’s tedious, boring and insulting. Higher education is nonstop explaining yourself to people and defending your ideas. But at the end of it, you’ve got the piece of paper to show for it–and no matter the parts of the process that seem arbitrary, it means something to people. It perhaps seems false that I hate explaining myself, given my long windedness, but my long windedness is much more a product of feeling misunderstood (see the conversation that opens this blog post). Most conversations (*cough* with men *cough*) begin and end with, “Let me tell you why I’m smarter than you, Ms. Church.”

I would like to end that conversation with, “That’s Dr. Church to you, asshole.”

I just would like to. And quite frankly…I think that in and of itself is a good enough reason.

 

 

Harvey Weinstein (Tell It To The Wind)

I wrote this song when the Harvey Weinstein scandal first broke, but unfortunately (though unsurprisingly), it remains relevant, and I would guess, it will for a very long time.

I wanted to create something a little witchy and ephemeral–the idea was women as apparitions, hauntings, a howling wind. I’ve been toying with the idea lately that perhaps it’s possible that women and men exist on different planes. Perhaps it feels as though we aren’t seen because we almost literally aren’t.  And when we are, too often men react as though they’d found some wild exotic creature that now “belongs” to them. They trap us and put us in jars: show us off, torture us, rip off our wings, make us suffocate.  It’s a theme that’s popping up in a lot of my writing.

This song is also purposefully done utilizing only vocals and percussion. My greatest hope would be that it could become a battle cry for women that they can sing together. I’d love to hear a chorus of women chanting, “Resist…resist…resist…”

I hope you enjoy.

Elysian Fields: A Play in Three Acts

Below you’ll find a link to an early play I wrote.

Elysian_Fields

One Woman Band

I had a birthday recently, and for the first time in many birthdays, I got exactly what I wanted: A lap steel guitar.  I spent the whole day noodling around on it, and was so excited about how many great sounds you can get out of it, even on the fairly low-end kind I got, the Rogue RLS-1.  It’s a perfect starter lap steel, and will do the trick accompanying me and my banjo.  Like the banjo, it’s in open tuning and is usually played in a three-finger picking style.  Playing an instrument that lays down flat will also make it easy to switch between instruments when playing live, without having to take off my banjo to strap on a guitar.

I also have my eye on the Boss RC-30 Loop Station.  I know first hand what an excellent machine it is–I used to have one before I stupidly sold it in a fit of poverty (Never, ever, sell your music gear.  You will always regret it).  But at the time, I wasn’t quite ready for it, anyway.  But now, I have ideas for a new, fuller sound, and once I have the Boss in my clutches, I’ll be hitting the ground running with it.

I knew at some point I’d eventually want a bigger, fuller band sound (while still doing my best to keep things stripped down–I’m a big believer in simplicity.  To my mind, you should only add on when what you have is not enough and not before.), but have always been skeptical of having a band.  I still am, for a few reasons:  I worry about keeping people motivated when they aren’t being paid for rehearsals.  I worry about how most backing musicians who are any good are in 15 different bands.  I don’t want my songs to come apart should a band come apart.  But mostly, if I’m being honest, I’m worried about the notion of other people trying to change and take credit for my songs.  I’m worried about others assuming the (most likely) male musicians in the band are the ones who truly wrote the songs, and that I am just a “good singer.”  Is it paranoid?  I’m sure some people would think so.  But I’ve had enough experiences even as a solo performer to make me think otherwise.  I’d rather play all of my own instruments poorly and take the blame than create something great and receive none of the credit.  To that end, I’ve decided it’s time to expand my sound, and to do it myself.  My music education is going to continue on both the musicianship and production front:  I’m hoping my next album will be one I produce entirely on my own.

Truth be told, I’m not so mad to take on extra work and multiple roles.  The world needs more women who can play and produce.  I’m happy to take on extra work to be one of them because whenever a woman takes on something new, it gives permission to other women to do the same.  And then perhaps, one day, we can all relax a little bit and not HAVE to do everything, because there will be enough of us doing something.

Going Home to a Foreign Land

I’m currently just outside of Groveland, CA, at Rush Creek Lodge, approximately one mile from Yosemete National Park.  I’ve been hired to play here for the summer, in large part thanks to my mother, who works here at reception (Oh, the nepotism!  Those hotel receptionists call all of the shots!  In truth, she was playing my music in the lobby, and the owner asked her who she was listening to, and that’s how I got this lovely gig, playing three times weekly poolside at a lovely resort in the most beautiful part of the country.  It’s a living.).

I’m rooming with my mother, which many of my friends were worried about.  “Are you going to be okay being roommates with your mom?” they’d ask, eyebrows all-the-way-cocked.  It’s a huge relief to me, honestly.  The family motto may as well be “All or nothing.”  We approach our time together much like everything else:  We either have an entire nation between us, or we’re bunking together in the wilderness for months on end.  Of the two, I prefer bunking together.  Being thrown together with people who know you too deeply can be feel claustrophobic if it happens all of the time.  But in my case, every time I see my family, I remember who I am.  It’s nice to see your own reflection every once in a while.

My mother is so very much herself at all times, the small studio where they have us feels like home, even if this part of California is unfamiliar to me.  Having thrown everything I’ve owned away so many times in my life, it’s nice to be surrounded by familiar items–books and pictures and knick knacks and an endless supply of cheesy Christmas movies that I grew up loving because my mom loved them.

I could go on and on about playing here at Rush Creek Lodge–and I’m sure I will in future posts.  But in the meantime, I’ll just leave you with a song.