This second self-recording is of Ian Tyson's "Someday Soon," which became part of my folk repertoire after hearing Judy Collins cover it back in the late '60s. I've revised Tyson's lyrics a tad, however, so I could still sing it with some authenticity, albeit it with much sarcasm. It's no rodeo now. That young girl of the original is several years down the pike and clearly has some serious self-esteem issues still mooning over her abusive loser of a man.

Hearing it through headphones, I can hear our home's ambient birdsong at beginning and end drifting from outside in. That first blues, this second REAPER-rendered tune and any still to come can be heard here also: http://soundcloud.com/kat330

This seemed like a fun idea in the middle of the night, which means it probably should never be heard in the light of day. One great advantage to getting older, however, is no longer giving a damn what others may think of one's foolishness. At least less of a damn as time goes by.

The file below represents my first attempt ever at trying to "sound engineer," period, and was done on software I'd never used. I'm sure there's a manual I could have browsed, if not studied, but I tend to dive headfirst into any new soft- or hardware, hoping it will be intuitive to the extent at least I won't do any harm through trial and error.

Besides working blindly and self-recording the tracks, these were all first takes, no re-do's. So my guitar/vocal, percussion, harmony, and melodica --- all four tracks -- are very rough and raw, flubs and all. The main point of posting it at Under a Bushel and SoundCloud.com/kat330 is hopefully to see some progression from this point A to point B and beyond in coming months/years. Ever the optimist!

The piece is an abbreviated version of Furry Lewis' East St. Louis Blues as I recall hearing John Hammond perform it on his 1963 eponymous album.

I spent two years in South Woodbury, Vermont, in the attic of a big century-old house that had once served as a general store, the empty gas pumps still standing in front. During this stretch of time, Roger attended Goddard College while I variously sang with music groups, performed plays at the College's Haybarn Theater and worked in Montpelier for a tax accountant. Also during these two years, we spent six months traveling through Europe after an initial six weeks at the Jung Institute in Zurich, so it was actually only 18 months living within that barely finished garret. I fondly recall the kitchen area, which came completely wall-papered -- including the ceiling -- with full-page magazine glamor shots of Hollywood stars from the 1930s and 1940s. These made for entertaining dinner conversation. A red-painted, claw-footed bathtub, commode and sink were anchored into the open living room space and was afforded rudimentary privacy with plywood walls to cordon off the bath area.

Our landlords were exiles from urban life who inhabited the main floor in a healthy, DIY country lifestyle with their babe and toddler. The husband was a carpenter by trade (thus, our kinda finished attic space) and his wife, Pat, was an aspiring photographer. At one point in the throes of that first full-on Vermont winter, she asked if I would pose for her in some outdoor shots. Below are several results from proof sheets of that shivering session, me clad in a recycled Salvation Army coat and hat. I was 22 here and these rolls were taken a few weeks after portraying a wild-maned lion in the Goddard holiday pageant Play of Daniel and a few before improvising with a young William H. Macy for David Mamet in his early work-in-progress, The Poet and the Rent. You can probably see the winter's bone-cold creeping into my face in some later shots.

One of the more peculiar things spoken to JT and me by someone here in Knob Knee (and that's a mighty long list of weirdness to sit atop) was said by an otherwise bright woman regarding her young son: "I've fulfilled my societal duty," she said of him with perhaps a hint of resentment. Not religious duty, note, but a social duty. That was a new one on me, and the reasoning flummoxed us, especially as our planet is groaning under the weight of a human population that has grown exponentially in recent centuries. While it's more important than ever for truly loving, nurturing people to bring precious babies into the world for all the right and responsible reasons, it's also more important than ever for people to first examine and eliminate all irrational, ignorant or selfish motives that might be involved in the monumental decision to parent or to not.

Excluding unintentional procreation by accident or rape -- huge problems that require unflagging, widespread education and rights for all women in order to greatly reduce if never eliminate -- my list below details some of the worst yet all too common reasons people decide or agree to start a family. Perhaps something will ring true for you while reading down the list.

Peer pressure: "Friends and family all did / are doing it. I'm way more comfortable conforming to what's expected of me, and I like the attention."

Partner pressure: Correlative to the first, "I don't really want to be a parent," "the time isn't right," etc., "but my partner is pressuring for a family. I don't want to disappoint or possibly lose him/her, so I'll just go along to keep the peace."

Religion: "The good book commands me to be fruitful and to multiply!" (notwithstanding the world pop. when this was expounded thousands of years ago!).

Selfishness: "I need helping hands for my domestic / farm / family business tasks. Much easier when I ready-make 'em into forced labor."

Selfishness2: "I need children to take care of me in old age, and besides, do the math: We gotta grow new numbers to preserve my Social Security safety net."

Narcissism: "I want to reproduce a 'mini-me' to mold in my image and to become an extension of my distorted self-importance."

Narcissism2: "I must pass on my superior DNA for all humankind's sake. After all I'm sure it is my genius progeny who will fix Earth's ills."

Ethnocentrism-Racism: "It's Us vs. Them, so we must reproduce in greater numbers than they do. Our armies must have more young blood to fight Them and to die for Us!"

Mercenariness: Trading one's offspring for money, goods or some other material gain. [Too horrible to believe this is common, but it is happening.]

People who foster or adopt orphaned children are thankfully not adding to the planet's overpopulation and may be doing such a world of good in this decision. However, some of the same terrible reasons above for choosing to procreate can be found in adoptive and foster families, too. Simply put, if prior to planning a family everyone would honestly reflect on all the wrong reasons, including any I've neglected to list, and first eliminate them item by item as possible motivations deep within oneself, what a happier and saner society the planet would enjoy in just a couple of generations! Hey, a world citizen can always dream....

In honor of Earth Day, I picked these pics with trees and flora. I attended the very first Earth Day celebration back in 1970, either on-campus in Providence or at a gathering up in Boston. Can't recall which venue for certain, but my commitment to preserving our natural resources and wildlife was cemented on that day.

(L) One of the earlier treehugging pics I found was this one at Dale Hollow Lake on a camping trip @14 with a friend and her family.   (R) HS honey, Roger, snapped this of me @17 in my fave "sunflower" dress embracing a knotty old tree.

(L) Same sunny dress and behind a frondly veil of ferns    (R) This one propped atop a tree trunk, as well as those below in white gloves and formal, were all taken by Chase Studios as a Junior Miss prize package.

It was a nice bonus that Mr. Chase selected a lovely outdoor venue for the shoot. In all four (L) and (R) treehuggers above, I'm either embracing a branch or touching a trunk.

And speaking of trunks: In celebration of Earth Day of 2007, JT and I visited the Louisville Zoo expressly to see the month-old baby elephant, Scotty. In taking some video of the adorable one, we caught this stumble and posted it right away on YouTube. Have your audio on first and then click here:

JT and I think globally, and we act locally, but Knob Knee's leaders have proven a great disappointment when it comes to fostering honest and lasting resource conservation. Logical, common sense arguments are presented and straightforward facts are handed to city leaders over and over again, and yet simple reasoning resulting in progressive change remains beyond the grasp of far too many self-serving, closed minds. Pleading and cajoling has no effect, and shaming them in the media for ignorantly wasteful behavior only provokes ugly and baseless bullying by shameless cadres of clueless cronies.

To wit [lessness]: There's New Albany's Sewer Board perpetuating fee rates that disincentivize resource conservation by double-charging only those who conserve the very most; then there are Jerry Finn + Joe Larocca irrigating -- even flooding -- the Y's concrete areas with a poorly calibrated watering system; and then there is the flagrant flouting of our city tax dollars by Mickey Thompson's Street Department, which routinely wastes personnel and machine resources while at the same time elevating noise and air pollution through years of their recorded shenanigans. [For e.g.: An extremely loud sweeping machine made seven tight loops within the single block where we live during a time it is never authorized (January), a stunt done purely as thuggish and childish retaliation for our calls to City Hall about witnessed waste and pollution.]

All of the above and so much more make acting locally far more difficult here than it should be, and certainly way worse than it was everywhere else I've lived. Shame on you, leaders of New Albany, Indiana, for your anti-environmental actions to date and even moreso for your unsupportable inaction. And yet as indefatigable and passionate stewards of our fair planet, JT and I will persevere. I've made my feelings abundantly clear about the sacrifices we all must make, and a sample of that can be found earlier at Under a Bushel:

http://kat330.posterous.com/getting-real

Please, people, join us as part of the solution and don't stubbornly remain a part of the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This little one determined to spring full-grown from my forehead this morning, like Athena from Zeus:

Sadly I never could afford any decent theatrical headshots. These below represent the paltry lot.

(L) @20 taken by a Knob Knee "pro." Believe it or not, this was his best one (yikes).    (R) @24 publicity Heddashot as imperious Ms. Gabler in Cambridge, MA, production. ["HeathKliff, it's me, Kathy!"]

(L)  &  (R) @26 before heading off to Los Angeles. These were the two I selected from the proofsheets of a Boston photographer. Why I had plucked my brows nearly to oblivion escapes current memory.

JT had some good fun turning several others from those proofsheets into "talking head" animations above. Click any image to enjoy!

These six below were all snapped when I was seventeen. It was a very good year indeed.

The three above formed a spread in Louisville's Courier-Journal newspaper in re my "reign" as a Junior Miss (a good cf. is the 1975 Bruce Dern film Smile :). The L. and C. nicely time-capture some of my teen sensibilities as reflected in my bedroom "wall art" of that era.

This second set of three were snapped by HS honey, Roger, to accompany him his freshman year of college away: (L.) Taking a Katnap; (C.) Wildflower w/Wildflowers; (R.) You Know What I Mean (which was used by JT for a book cover he did of The Unicorn Girl as seen here:  http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Unicorn_Girl.html?id=enKWdqyzXMAC)

Heavy Metal: Was surprised to find so many photos of me with cars, especially since I'm unable to identify most models on the road (or below).

Above L @ 15-17 mos: Stepping onto the Green Carpet from Grandpa's "Cherry" Limo (?)          Above R @ about 5: Atop our De Soto Seville in Salem (same day as an earlier photo post w/kitten).

Baby, You Can Drive My Car

Above L @ 20: Behind the wheel of first car I owned, a decade-old '62 Plymouth Valiant.            Above R @ 26: Behind the wheel of family friend's antique ? [same as C. auto below]

Classic Chassis

Forced photos w/antique autos.  Above L: On the Road-ster ? [Junk on the Trunk/Booty on the Boot]    Above C: A Bumper Crop of Long Locks     Above R: Creamy auburn propped at running board of creamy Auburn

En route to Hollywood from Cambridge, I stopped back in Knob Knee for a few days. A family friend dropped by Mom's house and requested this driveway "modeling" session. I demurred, but Queen MAB coaxed. She prevailed (per usual :). In these frames of reference, I am Meisner-trained and Nautilus-trained, at the top of my game and never better prepared to take on Hollyweird (even if too old already at 26). I am fresh from performing Shakespeare and Ibsen on the Boston stage as well as radio theater aired on Robert Desiderio's "Hour of the Wolf" (WCOZ). I am about the most fit and certainly the most tan I would ever be again, pumped and primed for opportunity to knock and for that one lucky break in Tinseltown. [to be cont. in future posts]