Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    


Hi <betty>, long time no see!
  

    
Hi, Betty!
  

    
How can we keep Betty around here, huh? Bring out the beet salad and the 
tofu burgers!

Cyn, send me an email that I can forward to Sarah at Chronicle, and let's 
see what she can cook up. Do you know of any appropriate bookstores there?
  

    

I have kind of a wild idea for you.  Some sort of honky tonk fest at
Cyn's friend's ranch.  you know how there are all these "re-enactment"
scenes going?  Hold a festival, charge money, get publicity, sell books,
have a bunch of people enact the characters of the book, play music, etc.
  

    
    > So Kathi, where is <pk> in this mix?

I'm the second cousin who makes the model pedal steel for the top of the 
cake. 

Actually there is a real "Aunt Perle." Not really an aunt but a close friend
of the family since before me and kkg were born. Some of Perle's character is
in the Aunt Perle character in the book - although she's anything but a
nutrition nazi.
  

    
Kathi, are there any plans for a Rock Bottom Remainders tour in the near
future?
  

    
Yes, there are! We'll be doing two (free and open to the public) gigs in 
Miami this November: Friday the 22nd, at Scotty's Landing in Coconut 
Grove, and Saturday the 23rd, at Bayside Marketplace in Miami as part of 
the book festival. Don't know the exact times, but our shows usually start 
on the early side, at 7 or so.

Then next year, we're doing a West Coast tour in April. I don't know any 
of the details about venues, and these will be expensive tickets, as they 
are benefits for a wonderful group called America Scores (they run 
afterschool writing and sports programs for inner-city kids), but I 
believe the dates are:
April 22, 2003: Seattle
April 24, 2003: San Francisco (possibly at the Great American Music Hall)
April 26, 2003: Los Angeles Book Festival

That's all we have planned at the moment. And that's actually a lot, for 
us.
  

    
Hey, y'all, I'm back from crazy ol' Texas. Thanks for keeping the ball
rolling in my absence. 

I'm so happy to see (betty) dropped by! I think all authors ought to
have their moms at their readings. The moms could give little pep talks
on how they encouraged their child to love reading and writing and
grow up to become such an imaginative and creative genius. Plus, in
some cases, it might, you know, explain a lot of things.


Anyway, having just come back from a polka festival, my next question
is about ridicule. Why do so many people have such violent scorn for
certain types of music? 

Polka of course is a musical outcast, but country music falls into
this category too. Most of my friends are way to cool to listen to any
kind of country music. They just roll their eyes, and don't even
mention polka. What's that about? Do they perceive it as
unsophisticated? Is it because they associate it with old people, or
working class people, or people whose politics they don't like? 

Some people only seem to listen to country music that's been
"filtered" through somebody contemporary; that is, they'll listen to
Emmylou Harris or Lyle Lovett but not George Jones or Lefty Frizell.
They'll listen to Brave Combo but not the Praha Brothers. Other times
it seems like people need some kind of permission to listen to outcast
music, like a major hit soundtrack or an endorsement from somebody they
admire. Then suddenly they'll check it out. 

What do you think is at the root of this sort of musical snobbery?
  

    

Probably this comes from the very human need to fit in, and be accepted, 
don't you think? In the days when radio DJs were allowed to choose the 
music they played, at least people could hear new (or old) and unusual 
music on some renegade's midnight show. Now radio is so commercialized and 
controlled that there's very little opportunity for exposure to music 
that's different from the mainstream. It's amazing to me--Glamorous 
Accordion Princess Big Lou often plays at Shroeders, a German restaurant 
around the corner from my office. A lot of the ultra-cool 30-ish people 
who work here wouldn't be caught dead...but once they see her, they 
can't wait to go back.

I also think that it takes awhile to come back around to music your 
parents like. I remember having huge arguments with my dad over who was a 
better singer, Fabian or Nat King Cole. It took me a long time to see his 
point of view. So, in the normal rebellion of growing up and finding your 
own music, I think young people turn away from good music just cause it 
reminds them of the old folks. 

I notice when I go to Texas, kids are allowed in most places where people 
play live music, which is another thing. Here, you often have to be over 
21. So children can't go to gigs with their musician parents, or enjoy the 
same bands. It increases the sens of separateness, the feeling that there 
is music for "us" and "them".
  

    
because so many people are followers, i think. 
a real shame. that's why, as you implied about betty, it's so
important to turn your kids onto as many different types of _anything_
as possible. many types of music, dance, movies, books, etc. 

i'm so fortunate my folks liked jelly roll morton as much as glenn
gould and elvis as much as casals. 

so that way, even if kids don't get turned on to _every_ little thing
in life, they have open minds and know there's a lot out there. 

oops, slipped by kathi with good points. yes, about not being able to
get into clubs, also, as a kid. my parents took us to shelley's manhole
in l.a. to hear the jazz greats, but they weren't allowed to bring us
into most other clubs. 
  

    
i meant mannehole, of course
  

    
I took my son to hear music from the time he was an infant -- now he's a 
disk jockey and musician and yesterday he was telling me how he thinks it 
MADE NO DIFFERENCE that I exposed him to great music as a child! 

I reminded him that he seemed to be listening and enjoying the music, at 
the time, but he says it had no influence on his life. grrr!
  

    
kids!
  

    
Ah, he'll get over it. 
  

    
The law in Texas says that minors may enter a place where drinks are
served as long as a) they're identified as minors (usually with a
different hand-stamp) in such a way that a bartender cannot serve them;
b) they're with parents or an adult bearing a note from each minor's
actual parent giving that adult in loco parenti status. Minors may also
drink if they're with their parents. Believe it or not. Very
enlightened for a state run by Baptists. 
  

    
I dragged my kids to see music that was so totally dorky it fell over
the edge into hip, but usually at outdoor festivals rather than clubs.
Finnie used to wear an autographed Dick Contino t-shirt he got at the
Cotati Accordion Festival. It was a serious hit at Berkeley High, and
the next year I had something like 10 fifteen-year-olds trying to fit
into my van. 

And I agree about the generational rebellion thing too. I suspect a
lot of our generation grew up hating accordions because we associated
them with Lawrence Welk smiling so idiotically in front of his bubble
machine right after we'd just seen all the body bags on the 6:00 news.

Kathi, do you worry that country music's unsavory reputation among
certain literary types could possibly affect reviews or even book
sales? Folks reading this now: are any of you wrinkling your nose and
having second thoughts about buying the book because you think you hate
country music?
  

    

> Why do so many people have such violent scorn for certain types of music?

Steve Silberman is fond of quoting Joni Mitchell on this: "The vittue of your
istyle inscribed on your contempt for mine."
  

    

This is from Dave Jess, via email:

> Hi Kathy, Congratulations !   I can't believe how much time has passed
> since I've seen you and that steel player......  I've been working in a
> jazz/r&b  thing for the last 10 yrs and don't get to play " both kinds"
> with anyone anymore.    :(     Since I'm not a WELL member I've been
> vicariously following this thread and had to respond ... it's great to read
> about  local musicians making something outta this usta-be San Francisco
> music scene ....  I'm hoping to get down to Cody's so you can maybe sign my
> book ...  love, Dave Jess
  

    
Hey, Dave Jess! A wonderful local musician checks in. 

When I went to NY to meet with the Grace Magazine book group ("Shoes" is 
their holiday issue pick) a couple of the women confided that they'd had 
misgivings because they weren't country music fans, but then said they 
ended up liking the book. Reviews have been mostly positive, but a couple 
of reviewers have criticized "shapeless plot" or "not much happening 
beyond the songs"; I think maybe some folks were expecting me to come 
up with something a little more literary or serious...but one nice thing 
is that I get more credit than I probably 
deserve for knowing about music. I mean, I've been in bands for years and 
years, but anyone who's ever been on the bandstand with me will tell you 
that I wouldn't know that walk-down to the extra chord in "Silver Wings" 
if it reached out and grabbed my ankle, for example.

My son, who is a singer-songwriter of "Dementia" or comedy music (a la Dr. 
Demento's syndicated radio show, Weird Al, etc.) has taught me a lot about 
being your musical self and not giving a shit about what other people 
think of your taste. He is uncompromising and hilarious.
  

    

What a great attitude. My secret dream is to someday write a polka novel but
hardly anybody takes polka seriously or has much interest in it.

So is the kid Oats in the book modeled after your son? I think you mentioned
your son was 19 and in college now? Which must be a typo; the last time I
saw him he was about 12 and surely time doesn't fly THAT fast, does it?
Anyway, how does he like the book? What does he think of seeing his adorable
little toddler self in print?
  

    
Otis Ray turned out to really be himself, but certain characteristics are 
absolutely based on Tony who is, indeed, 19 and about to leave for college 
in Chicago. Otis Ray is brilliant at numbers--for Tony it was the 
alphabet. He could literally read before he could talk, and used to spell 
out words with alphabet blocks to communicate when we couldn't understand 
what he was trying to say verbally. Instead of imaginary friends, Tony had 
imaginary bands, and an imaginary record label--Kamen Brothers Records. 
Some of his artists were the Goldmark Brothers (Saddie, the lead singer, 
kept dying, though...), the Old French People (my favorite--8 23-year-old 
women), Roy and Tanya Orbison (the OTHER Roy Orbison and his wife), and 
the Three Little Pig People (these guys kept breaking up and getting back 
together, needing new song compilation tapes made so they would not forget 
the set list). Like Otis Ray, Tony loved soul music as a toddler, and the 
little plot line about the song heard in utero, "Soul Man", really did 
happen with him, only in real life it was "My Girl" by the Temptations. I 
once made Otis Williams cry on a book tour, telling him about that. I used 
Soul Man in the book because we really have a recording of Tony singing it 
at a very young age, backed by a great band, and I thought if there ever 
was a companion CD for real, I would use that track.

Polka novels would be so much fun, and I bet there are some! I've been 
trying to talk Big Lou into coming up with a serious of mysteries with 
herself as the Accordion Princess Detective who solves the crimes.

Hey, guess what? Chronicle Books has my fabulous web page up and running. 
Check it out! Just go to www.chroniclebooks.com and follow the prompts. 
They have five or six songs up there, a chapter exerpt, and some other fun 
stuff. It is totally adorable, because the little guitar-player girl on 
the book cover wiggles around and they used her as the "next page" icon.
  

    
>>Kathi, do you worry that country music's unsavory reputation among
 certain literary types could possibly affect reviews or even book
 sales?<<

Did I answer this? I think it might affect reviews a bit. But don't forget 
that country music is a guilty pleasure for a lot of people, and writing 
country music lyrics looks way easier than it is. Chronicle is having a 
lyric writing contest for booksellers (first prize is me coming to your 
store for a reading; second prize is two readings?) and they asked me 
to ask the Remainders if any of them wanted to be celebrity judges. A couple of 
them refused because they said they WANTED TO ENTER THE CONTEST instead!
And they don't even own bookstores...

Even my agent has started writing country music lyrics, and just sent me a 
half-written song. People can make fun of country music all they want, but 
I've seen a literary type or two do the two-step and love it. Who 
cares if they think of it as slumming?
  

    
Feeling a little tired and blue this morning; logged onto the
Chronicle site and heard Kath's voice. Feeling much better now,
thankee.
  

    

Kathi, what advice would you give to somebody who wants to write country
music lyrics? Are there any rules of thumb or definitie no-nos or special
techniques?
  

    
it amuses me for some reason that amazon has your book paired with "The 
Nanny Diaries."