"Some of us come out to enjoy ourselves and not be confronted with political talk or music! Be ecumenical." Elizabeth (hand-written note left in my tip jar one night recently)

This is a topic I've thought a lot about over the last 6 or 7 years. It sounds like she's talking about being an "entertainer" and not expressing my views about anything. To that I say "get over it." If that's what she means, the old "entertainers should keep their mouths shut and not express their views" idea, then I'm not really interested in even giving what she says any thought. To that I say "grow up."

If she's speaking more about being more "universal" as opposed to openly "political," that is an idea I think about all the time. I try to not be preachy. I try very hard to walk the line between speaking the truth and offending people who maybe could stand to hear a little bit of truth, or at least hear something REAL to get them thinking and feeling a bit. To remind them they are human and alive and going to die, and not alone on this planet in the meantime, and that others are suffering even if they themselves are not. The fact that she uses the word "confronted" is what makes me interested in writing about what she said. Just in a basic sense, confronting people is sort of an artist's job. Making them think. Helping them feel. I'm going to confront people with SOMETHING in my work, or else stop doing it because I don't see the point in doing it otherwise. We get numbed every day by corporate-owned media in an effort to keep us consuming and supporting the industrial machine, and therefore their own profits. We have no real free, mass-media, untarnished by commercial considerations or out-right manipulation by vast, greed-driven corporations. So this brings me to the question of confronting people specifically with "political" ideas, in quotes because what is political and what isn't is an extremely gray area seemingly. A bunch of years ago I learned about deregulation of the media and the profit-motivated bias which comes with it, and I made a decision that if I was taking up any space in the media, no matter how underground, I was a form of "alternative media." Lately I've toned it down some because now more people in my audience are hurting due to outside circumstances. I've really tried to be universal and talk about how we are all in this together and we can make it if we just work together. But I'm not going to stop telling the stories of veterans, drug addicts, homeless folks, and others who's stories don't get told so much, just so some comfortable person can remain comfortable and never have to look at anything. She says "some of us" in her note. She has the audacity to speak for others but doesn't want me to speak for others. That I find interesting. My good friend Monty Delaney is a right-wing folk singer. He has some pretty "political" material, some of which I disagree with, and he says stuff at his shows which I disagree with. But he also touches humanity and remind me I am human, and that we're all in the same boat. The stuff I disagree with makes me think and the rest makes me feel. Usually I realize that we don't really disagree on the important stuff. So I love going to hear him. I think if you stick around for 6 or 7 of my songs you'll get the same thing. And I'll probably say something you disagree with. I think you can't get much more ecumenical than Sing Sing Sing, but I suppose that some people would disagree. If you disagree, I hope you will still come to my shows because there's a lot you can get out of the parts you don't disagree with. If you think I suck and don't come to my shows, that's totally cool but if you're not coming because either you disagree with me or you don't want to hear anything "political" than I guess I kind of feel bad for you because you must have quite a bubble of denial set up for yourself. I get the idea of escapist entertainment and sometimes it can be a good, fun, and helpful thing, but I think you're in the wrong place for it if you're at a local coffeehouse.... The coffeehouse has always been a place where people exchange real ideas. They do serve coffee, a stimulant!!!

Sunday, July 18th 2010