Lovely friends, I am pleased to say that I noticed my stationary agitation and adjusted, by giving myself a weeklong tour-cation. Sometimes I need a change of scenery to provoke the muse and/or keep myself from losing the small shred of sanity to which I still cling.

Life in Detroit (well okay, near Detroit) has been bustling, ripening, getting a little bigger. I played a lot of local gigs in October and will have even more in December.

This week, though, I traveled south-east.

First, I approached the glorious land of Pittsburgh. Just typing the word Pittsburgh delivers me with good feelings. This is because it’s beautiful there and the people are exceptionally warm and welcoming. At least, that was my experience. Sitting around a table of new friends, I asked them to describe Pittsburgh in one word. The response I liked most was “Bridges”.

Lessons learned:

• Kelly Clarkston songs can sound pretty good when stripped down acoustically and sung by a man.
• When offered a couple different couches on which to rest your sleepy head, always choose the house that promises the most barn-like atmosphere, and as the chickens wake you in the dawn with implications of homemade kombucha, accept with alacrity and be on your way.

Further, I descended south to the p.t.c. of America, Washington DC. (ptc stands for power trip capitol. That’s an acronym I just coined:) In all seriousness though, I had an amazing experience! Roaming the streets with Wilfred (my ukulele), singing out loud to the passerbys whose eyes were fixed to their blackberries, but their hearts were very much singing along. I spent an evening full of laughter and yum with long time friend Natalia and her lovely roommate, Shannon. I’m talking thai food, red wine, ben&jerrys, an in-house concert, comfy pillows, and a hot shower. Basically a traveling musician’s dream come true. I roamed around both occupies (that’s right there’s two), sang a little for the protestors in exchange for some radical statements, and maybe even took a DC occupier with southern dreams down to occupy Norfolk.

Best quote of the trip so far: “There’s something about your personality that reminds me of string cheese”

My most southern and last stop was Norfolk, Va, where I’m cheerfully writing from today. Here, I put on a little show at the most wonderfully hippy-dippy artsy vegan friendly place ever, the Path on 35. An incredible singer and being, Mr.B opened for me with astounding acapella. My gratitude for this experience is still kind of overwhelming. Also I visited the A.R.E. for my second time (and certainly not my last). The A.R.E. is a spiritual haven/non profit org. founded by Edgar Cayce, the sleeping profit. With me was my soulishious comrade, Michael. We took part in an e.s.p. demo there. He did better than I and I’m kind of bitter about that. I could spend all of eternity in their metaphysical library, soaking up all the esoterica a curious little new-ager can handle.

I will take this moment now to apologize to Michael’s ears for enduring my non-stop ukulele playing.

Huge life realizations:

• I want to spend every morning in a bathtub learning new vocabulary words.

and

• Eating cake for breakfast is totally acceptable, but only if it’s super chronic yellow cake, and if one has forgone hopes of maintaining an abstemious lifestyle.

For now I will leave you with photos that invoke tremendous inspiration and or little smiles. Thank you for following and sending your well wishes for my journey home!

A small town in Missouri called Chandler is where I picked up this beautiful creature. We ate together on sidewalks and pissed where we damn well felt like it, slept in cheap motel beds and explored the tall grasses.

He was stranded at a gas station, and I needed gas and good company. Thank you for a week of cuddles, Chandler. Best of luck at your new place of residence, and see you soon, darling.

I decided to come home a few weeks early. I had no shows booked for the tail end of the tour. (so no one is mad at me, except for people who were already were:)

It was a hell of a trip, with successes and challenges. I am excited to see my friends back home. I am also excited to get home so I can locally promote the new album and take showers whenever I want to.

I didn’t know where I was exactly. I had been driving for the entire day on I44. I saw an exit coming up soon, and really had to pee, plus the sun was setting, and I was getting pretty tired. Practically every motel on the first drag had no vacancy… I couldn’t believe it.  Then I drove further into town and saw the damage. My itty bitty brain put two and two together and I realized I had landed myself in Joplin, Missouri, where the deadliest tornado to hit North America in 60 years occurred this May. Why the world put me there on that night, I am not fully sure, but my eyes were meant to see it. Everything material in this life is so very fragile, and I forget that sometimes.

(it is encouraged to stay clear of the damage sites, because it can be dangerous with all the workers there and plus how irritating it must be to have a ton of gawkers taking photos of what used to be your home. So be nice, and don’t do what I did.)

I got the last hotel room left in town.

The Hispanic man in 265 gave me a plastic bottle of Holy Water and told me it would heal me.

I fed it to a stray dog.

And I cried.

Help Joplin: http://ozarksfirst.com/fulltext?nxd_id=459747

“Only thing could harm you on this campground are these two horny toads” said Dave, taking a swig of his Budweiser in it’s blue foam drink-jacket. The seasoned Texas native, whose traveled all 48 states and came right on back where he belongs, was referring to Doc, sixteen, sitting to my left and Eli, twenty, across the picnic table. He left out the youngest one, Morgan of thirteen, with messy blond hair and glasses, who drinks his coca-cola from the side of his mouth. They all speak with a pick-up truck Texan accent, and I can’t help but pick it up a bit myself. “Naw, I think a saw a wild hog sniffing round our tent last night” said Doc, sneeringly (as an image of a large chocolate brown boar cuddling with me begins to appear in my mind). “And there’s always tarantulas” pointed out in Eli (moments after I devalued details of my rampant arachnophobia).

So there we are, four real Texans, and one fake Texan, sitting at the bottom of Palo Dura canyon.

It all began, as the sun was setting last night, during which my poor flashlight was suffocating under the rotten whims of a battery acid leak. I managed to get my tent set up as the sunlight waned, but still needed to find a spot for digestive relief. I will not give up fried okra, no matter what the consequences are, by the way. That’s when I approached Doc at the campground next to mine, and asked if he knew where the restrooms were. As he was explaining in rather verbose detail (down the street, up the hill that swings to the right, then the left, you’ll see alight light…) Morgan and Eli surfaced from behind a big white van, and they all agreed to walk me there. It was obvious this pack had been running together for years. They all drank root beer and laughed the same. Harmless but tough, I had found my camping friends. They tried to fix my flashlight, but without success, and offered me water and local ghost tales instead. On their eleven-mile hike earlier that day they had run across some Pennsylvanian hikers who were parched and really struggling. The boys went back to their camp and brought them water. I could tell these were the type of people who really got something from giving. Especially when it came to hydration. They were like hydration angels.

Walking back, Eli, the eldest with gaga bleached hair and permanent swimming trunks on, spoke of his excitement to finally leave his great state this fall, to enter the military. I then found out that all three of the boys had plans to join the military.

“So what do you like to do other than play music and travel the country by yourself?” Asked Doc, who seemed the most interested in my existence. “Umm, I like to read, I guess.” “Is that a tattoo of a broomstick on your leg?” “Yes” I answered bluntly, making it obvious that I would not be giving much more information. (What seems like a harmless camping trip in the panhandle of Texas could easily turn into some Salem witchcraft trial reenactment, it’s best to stay low-key sometimes. Though I could have thought of that when I got a broomstick tattooed on my calf)

“Well it’s not every day that a pretty girl comes to our camp site,” says Doc, underhandedly letting me know he thought I was pretty. (Really… I am not sure his eyes were working correctly; I had been driving all day and got maybe 3 hours of sleep the night prior, due to my spending the night in a very low budget New Mexican motel, where I got up every hour to make sure my car was still there)

Back at the picnic table, amidst the buzzing rattlesnakes and sweltering temperature, I sang them some old country songs. Morgan, the thirteen year old, (who was my favorite) (sorry, everyone has to have a favorite) said quietly to me, after singing an Emmylou Harris song, “That’s amazing”.

I had passed as a Texan! Maybe I even got a B plus!

Eli was now talking about his detestation for Starbucks. He claimed that the owner of Starbucks does not support any type of American military. Doc, a frequent Starbucks attendee said,  “Maybe he’s anti-war, what’s so bad about that?”

Eli: “A country cannot exist without military”

And that’s when the proverbial duct tape got ripped from my mouth.

“What if countries didn’t exist at all?” I asked. “What if we all stopped pretending to be separate from everyone else, and erased these invisible lines?” I may have even backed that up with a sassy “What then?!”

I sweetly smiled, and took a sip of water. And then I changed the topic to candy bars.

They had hydrated me, assisted me to the bathroom, and I had returned their compassion and kindness with musical entertainment. We were practicing world peace in the bottom of that canyon, I tell you. The invisible lines were getting erased on their own.

That night in my tent I heard what sounded like snorting. Something was sniffing at my tent! My heart began to thud so hard I could swear that bastard hog could hear it and was probably thinking of marinating it in teriyaki. I tried to balance my chakras. I tried to count to one hundred. I tried to remember the words to a Jill Sobule song that I loved in high school. But that hog wouldn’t quit and neither would my anxiety. What the hell was a hog doing at the bottom of a canyon anyways?

After about 45 minutes of snorting, I realized the noise really did resemble a man’s snoring.

And then it hit me. That… it was a man snoring. And it was coming from the campground adjacent to mine.

If I weren’t so tired, I could possibly feel embarrassed.

As the sun rose in the morning, I stumbled like an adult drunk (adult drunk is a term coined by my friend Rob, meaning one who gets drunk before 11 a.m.) to my new friend’s camp. Doc reached in his backpack and handed Morgan a candy bar. “Go give that to Emily.” “And grab her a water” chimed in Dave. (They have a way of making the youngest ones do all the work)

“That granola bar has been in your backpack for at least three days” said Eli, leaning farther back into his lawn chair.

“Chocolate is chocolate”

I smiled. And ate the granola bar. It was good.

And now, for Rosy’s southwest restaurant recommendations!

If you ever happen to be driving through Dolan Springs, Arizona (3.5 hours west of the Grand Canyon, between Las Vegas and Phoenix) you must stop at the incredibly charming, and very healthy, Mystic Munchies. With organic everything, smoothies, fresh juices, vegetarian food. Incredible. Even a little book shelf with ‘make you think’ material on it. Rebecca Soaring Eagle, the owner and chef is downright lovely. Thank you for getting me prepared for a long day of driving with apples beets and carrots!

Annnnd, if you ever find yourself in Canyon, Texas (south of Amarillo) you should go to the Ranch House and request Chris as your server. Both him and the food will make you feel at home

And the canyon:

Someone once told me that I have a habit of doing exactly the opposite of what I am told to. Well no one specifically (besides large billboards and the tainted media in general) told me to have a super sexy, party-time experience in Las Vegas, but I acted as though they did. Meaning I stopped wearing make-up, started feeding strays, and mostly kept to myself besides the good company of local poets. Why add to the stereotype when you can recklessly abandon it?

With abounding gratitude to the (activist:) founder and keepers of the Goddess Temple, and to the Goddess Herself, I slept under the stars last night, upon a tall and sturdy outdoor bunk. I watched the cosmos from within the cosmos while the longest day of the year, turned to night and then day again. Waking to a rooster’s crow and a sun rising behind a desert mountain. I ask myself, how the hell do I get this lucky?

There is a detailed herstory of Sehkmet, Protectress of the Gods, that you will research if you feel that pull. What I will say is that honoring the feminine aspect of the life force, helps me stay in tune and at peace.

I’ve begun painting my gig bag. Posted is a picture of what I’ve done so far, as well as some photos from the Solstice, and one of Jerusalum (the stray cat that I did not let inside the condo, no matter what it looks like. It’s just a hologram of a cat drinking water from outside the condo:)

A slave to breaking plans, my compass may be pointing me in new directions. I’ll stay verbal.

With luck on my side (here meaning a disinterest in gambling) I discovered the flourishing Las Vegas underground poetry scene. Holy shit, am I glad about this. Not that I couldn’t spend days in hypnotic oblivion based on visual stimulation alone (the sky here is purple) (and covered in sequins) It’s just nice to find a niche where I feel that I fit in.

So my advice to the man in white shoes, sitting on his suitcase, crying into his telephone at the casino is this. Get some fresh air, write down your feelings, and see what else this city has to offer.

Left to Right: Miss Joy, Kasey Bean, Tony, and James a.k.a The Machine. click pics to enlarge

Was my experience in Denver heart-changing  and momentous? Yes, it was.

Because a mountain-top sunset brought me to tears . It was too real to try and capture. (okay fine, I regretfully forgot my camera for that hike)

Because of some enchanting company (exhibit a: Colorado Creature Kylie, owning the most adorable face that ever was)

And because I dug my fingers into something radical.

The benefit concert I played was in efforts to purchase a bass guitar for a man named Michael Davis Africa.

Michael Davis Africa of the MOVE 9 is a political prisoner who has been serving time in Philadelphia since 1978. The prison system allows him to play an instrument that he owns, and he has hopes to start a band from within the prison walls.

MOVE is group of revolutionaries founded by the late John Africa. The government of self (natural law) is an esteemed principle by which this group exists, meaning that man-made laws are essentially not laws, because they do not serve everyone equally and need extreme enforcement to be carried through. It was an honor to be a part of this undertaking, and I hope that Michael Davis Africa gets the satisfaction and liberation I myself feel on a daily basis from playing music.

Something else I did that was quite kick ass was helping cook for Food Not Bombs. Food Not Bombs is an organization active in over 1000 cities around the world, serving vegan and vegetarian food to hungry people and promoting peace for all of mother earth’s inhabitants.

I was elbow deep in sweet potatoes and zuccinni chopping all day, and got to serve people in downtown Denver, who were hungry and grateful for healthy and yummy food. I recommend everyone who may be interested to get involved and find out where the nearest FNB is by you. (FoodNotBombs.net)

I was inspired when I heard the songwriting of Doo Crowder at The Mercury Café. I had a show there on Thursday evening and sat in as the guest palmist the night prior, which was a lot of fun. The Mercury was great all around.

Huge thanks to great friends Cat and Jim for sharing their home; it feels so nice to be a part of your beautiful life!

click the little pictures to make them get bigger!

Photos from the run

When news came in that my South Dakota gig got the plug pulled, I redirected itinerary and headed to the cornfield capitol of America: Lincoln, Nebraska- known for it’s mid-western diversity and football.
I played an open mic at a sidewalk happy coffeehouse called the Meadowlark. It must’ve been my lucky night because I ended up selling something like five cds and meeting a terrific group of people (a couple of whom are fabulous musicians in a group called Gravy and the Stamp) who showed me a night on the town followed by an impromptu house show.

You can click on the little pictures to enlarge them.  It looks like I may be re-re-directing itinerary, as I’ve just gotten word of a camping event happening nearby. I plan to write again soon.

The hospitality I was shown in Madison Wisconsin was remarkable!  I not only treasure that warmth, I understand it was much needed, as I started to come down with a cold about 6 hours in to the trip.  The show went great though, thanks to the awesome vibes from baristas, Andrew and Nina- real gems, I tell you.

While playing on state street, I met some locals who personally updated me on the latest political happenings in Madison. On a long hilly walk, there were signs of protest everywhere. It was a freaking inspiration watching people actually do something about what is directly affecting them and what they feel is right.

Hell yes, Madison. Can’t wait to return.

Do you know what’s been going on in Madison? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_protests.

quote from title: Clifton Fadiman