Ruth Parker owned over two dozen dolls, and she knew them all.
“This is Snagglepants,” she’d say, holding up a Raggedy Andy with a torn pocket. She called her big Raggedy Ann doll Phyllis and the little one she took everywhere Roo-roo.
Ruth and Roo-roo were best friends. They had three tea sets between them, and if the other dolls were nice, Ruth and Roo-roo would have them for milk and cookies. “But you can’t have any peanuts because Roo’s allergic,” Ruth would remind them. Ruth lived with her parents in a big house on a wooded street.
Aside from Roo-roo, her best friend was the housekeeper, Lena. Lena was tall and her cheeks were very full. As she cooked and cleaned, she sang songs and made cookies for Ruth and Roo-roo’s tea parties, but she always told them she wasn’t supposed to. It was Lena who told her about Mr. Lilyfoot.
Mr. Lilyfoot lived under a tree at the end of the path in the garden behind Ruth’s home. He had a green cap, red overalls and a long white beard. He always smiled. On nice spring days, Lena would sit in the swing with something to occupy her hands while she watched Ruth play in the yard. When she had to go inside to answer the phone or change a load of laundry, she’d tell Ruth Mr. Lilyfoot would watch after her.
At first Ruth didn’t like Mr. Lilyfoot; he was stiff, not soft like her dolls. She’d hold her little Raggedy Ann up to Mr. Lilyfoot’s smiling face and say, “Roo-roo doesn’t like you!” But Ruth was a sweet child, and when she saw that Mr. Lilyfoot’s face was dirty, she asked Lena for a napkin so she could wipe it off because Mr. Lilyfoot’s arms were always behind him.
Lena laughed at her one windy afternoon when Ruth tied one of her father’s socks around Ms. Lilyfoot’s neck and took care to hide the other one.
***
“Mommie, it’s cold outside. Can Mr. Lilyfoot come sleep in my room?” Janet Parker brushed her daughter’s dark hair. “Sweetie, who is Mr. Lilyfoot?’ “He’s in the garden,” Ruth said. “He’s wearing a hat, but I know he’s cold” “Oh, honey, I don’t want that nasty thing in your room,” Janet said. “He’s not nasty.” “Ruth, he lives outside. He’s an outdoor doll.” “He’s not a doll.” “Well, not like your other dolls, but he’s still a doll.” “Roo-roo says he isn’t. Roo-roo knows everything.” Janet cocked an eyebrow at her petulant daughter. “And what does Mommie know?” “I love you, Mommie!” Ruth launched herself into her mother’s arms and looked into the back yard through the window.
***
When Ruth awakened that afternoon, Mr. Lilyfoot, scrubbed by the ever-patient Lena and bright as a new penny, was smiling at her from the corner of her room. She and Roo-roo immediately arranged a high tea with hot chocolate and frosted cookies.
When Janet looked in on her later she found that Ruth had arranged her favorite dolls around the little table, with Mr. Lilyfoot at its head.
“Mr. Lilyfoot’s warmer now, Mommie. But Roo-roo’s tired,” she said, holding up the little rag doll. “Well, let’s put her to sleep,” Janet said. She gathered her daughter in her arms, made sure her doll was with her, and put her to bed. She glanced at Mr. Lilyfoot smiling from the corner, lowered the shutters and closed the door. When Janet brought Ruth’s tray upstairs that night, she heard her daughter laughing from the hallway. She found Ruth sitting up in her bed, clutching Roo-roo, and smiling. “What’s so funny?” Janet asked. “Mommie, me and Mr. Lilyfoot took Roo-roo to Magicland, and she had tea with the King!”
Janet tucked a bib under her daughter’s so very thin neck and began feeding her with a spoon. “Did Roo have a good time?” “She was scared at first because the king was so high up and her legs are really short. But then the king asked her to dance, so she didn’t have to go so far up.” “Did you dance?” Janet asked. “No, Mommie,” Ruth said. “I had to help Mr. Lilyfoot make the band play. I’m tired.” Janet tucked her daughter under the covers, kissed her, climbed onto the sagging cot next to Ruth’s bed and closed her sad eyes.
***
Ruth and Mr. Lilyfoot, with Roo-roo in tow, went everywhere.
The tea parties became a thing of the past. Instead, they took buckets to the beach where they collected shells. Another time they sailed the seas on a boat made of glass and rigged with silver, and once they found a mountain made of chocolate and topped with ice cream. The following morning they went to the moon and found big gold rocks that glittered under the smiling sun. That afternoon Mr. Lilyfoot rearranged the stars, and later they all skated on swirls of light through a sparkling tunnel into a warm, black night.
“Don’t be scared, Roo-roo,” Ruth said. “Mr. Lilyfoot will get us home.”
***
Ruth’s dreams ended. Lena boxed up the dolls for other little girls, and took Mr. Lilyfoot back under the tree at the end of the path.
Use a good dark chocolate, 60% cocoa or better; Hershey’s Special Dark will work, but Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet Chocolate Chips or Baking Bar is better. For white bark, use Ghirardelli White Melting Wafers. Simply melt the chocolate (slowly!) and spread more or less evenly on a very well-oiled surface, ideally a baking pan with oiled parchment paper, though I knew a girl who used a greasy pizza stone in a pinch. Sprinkle with chopped pecans while still hot, and another sprinkling when still sticky. Cool and break into pieces.
I had every intention to buy only one odd movie, but before leaving the internet shopping site I had purchased 151. The movies were cheap, less than 32 cents each; that was my enabler. Hello, my name is Mykki, and I am a schlockaholic.
Like any addict my biggest fear is running out of my addiction. I buy old movies in bulk, like a meth addict buys AA batteries and cold medicine. I once discovered a box of more than a hundred old horror movies with local commercials I recorded in the 80s from NYC and Philly television stations. Now I know how people in Mobile felt when bales of pot would wash ashore in the 70s.
Apparently one January night in 1989 I let my VCR record until it ran out of tape. On the tape, I discovered the second episode of Man from U.N.C.L E directed by Richard Donner and two episodes of The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, which is creepy today because Eddie’s father has the same Bill Bixby understanding and calmness of Bill Bixby’s alter ego to The Incredible Hulk. I pray Eddie doesn’t make him angry; as their housekeeper/nanny, Mrs. Livingston would say, “You wouldn’t like Mr. Eddie’s father when he’s angry.”
I’m so grateful I was raised on real Looney Tunes when Bugs was a smartass and Daffy got his beak blown off. I saw the modern day Looney Tunes; Bugs and Daffy were singing about being healthy cowboys, eating stir-fried vegetables and measuring portions. I found it too disturbing, so I went back to watching Psycho on TCM.
Anthony Newley
Last night I saw Anthony Newley in the role of Lt. Commander “Spider” Webb (great name, huh?) in X the Unknown (1956). When I was a kid in the 60s, I did a spot-on Anthony Newley impression, but by the 70s my impression was too obscure.
In 1969, I knew a 9th grader who had his yearbook photo listed as Myra Breckinridge. Kids were so sophisticated back then. 7-years later, I had my 11th grade yearbook photo listed as Gator McKluski, certain proof of society’s drastic decline. I remember when AMC was TCM, A&E was Ovation, Biography was History 2, BBC America was PBS and Fox was a walkie-talkie frequency.
My own past has had brushes with real historical celebrates, which I think is the correct term. My mother said her aunt and uncle by marriage (whatever that means) adopted a kid whose parents were killed in a car accident or something. It was rural Kentucky in the 1930s, so the parents may have been killed by Daniel Boone for all I know. Maybe it was Davy Crockett. I always get those two guys confused, so lets just say it was Fess Parker, the actor who played both men on television and in the movies.
So anyway, back to the story of that kid. His name was Harvey Lee Yeary, but with the emergence of Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, Barbara Stanwyck suggested Cousin Harvey change his name to Lee Majors and the rest is history. However, my grandmother denied any family relationship. I once had a brief conversation with Wayne Newton and he is convinced we are cousins because we have the same last name, and his family and my father’s family are from the same small area in Tennessee. However, for Wayne’s sake I deny any family relationship, and the rest is history. Along those same lines, I once wrote a letter to Bobby Goldsboro in hopes of discovering some answers.
“Dear Bobby Goldsboro, For much of my life I have been troubled by a few questions only you can answer. First, how did Honey die? You said she was young at heart, kind of dumb and kind of smart but what the heck. Was she hammering a nail with a loaded revolver that day when you were not at home and she was there and all alone and the angels came? Second, did you bury her next to the tree? You seem to want everyone to see the tree how big it’s grown, but admit it hasn’t been too long, it wasn’t big. What kind of fertilizer do you use? Is it Honey? Sincerely, Your Biggest Fan, Mykki”
My life can be summed up in the title of one movie… Cat Women on the Moon (1953). Holy Moly, this movie is deliciously bad. The cat women want to travel to Earth and have a Coke. That’s what one said…go on a date and have a coke. Once again, Coca-Cola’s marketing department rules the galaxy. This film proves what men have long suspected…all women in the universe can communicate telepathically. Cat-Women of the Moon also confirms a sci/fi B-movie rule of thumb…if there’s a woman on-board a flight to the moon, there’s always a giant spider waiting on her once she gets there.
I am a huge fan of Japanese kaiju films, more commonly know as giant monster movies although the Japanese to English translation in Godzilla Raids Again (1955) stumbles slightly on American slang.”Ah, shucks” = “Ah, banana horses.” At least that’s what it sounds like to me, so I have a new catch phrase. “AH, BANANA HORSES!”
I wonder if the Japanese make fun of Americans by laughing and screaming, “Ah! It’s Spiderman! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Spiderman…what a joke. WE HAVE GODZILLA!”
Spiderman is a good superhero if you are a 15-year old kid being bullied because you have bad acne, but Superman, now he is and always will be the ultimate superhero. He has all the great superpowers, including being totally unrecognizable by wearing only a pair of glasses.
Ironman? I respect him. He spent billions constructing a suit so he could be more like Superman. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Batman, on the other hand, needs constant surveillance and therapy. As a child, he witnessed his parent’s murder, which understandably cracked his mind and turned him into a demented, murderous Don Quixote. Personally, I prefer my superheroes to be more down-to-earth like I Will Help You Find Your Keys Man.
For me, a sci-fi/superhero loses screenwriting credibility when the jet pack flying, fedora wearing, scientist hero activates his cosmic mega powerful radio space alien communicator and says, “Calling Bob. Calling Bob.” I’m talking to you, Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952).
“He was always so keen on telling me about his experiments.” (Said every girlfriend of a scientist gone mad)
Lines I Hope I Never Have to Use in Real Life
5) “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” 4) “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” 3) “Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty apes.” 2) “Decepticons!” 1) “I see dead people.”
If there’s anything I know about motion pictures it’s that a crying woman driving a ’39 Chevy in the rain always ends badly. Movies have taught me never to trust anyone wearing a monocle. They are Nazi spies. That includes the Monopoly guy and Mr. Peanut. Well, maybe not Mr. Peanut but he is a giant peanut the size of a man and that in itself is just wrong. So I guess what I’m saying here is always avoid Nazi spies and horrifying genetically modified gigantic legumes. They are terrible people.
THINGS I HAVE LEARNED FROM B-MOVIES
1) Prior to 1961, the decision of who will be the first man in space and/or on the moon is always made 5-minutes before liftoff of the atomic rocket. Mission Control is actually only four people, one of whom is always the astronaut’s wife or girlfriend.The only sounds in space are that weird EEE-OUU-WEE-OUU theremin part of Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys, and the machine that goes “BING!”
2) Sometimes the actors are so terrible and the dialogue so awful, you root for the half man/half lizard creature to devour the entire town and emerge victorious over all mankind.
3) If your home is being attacked by a 60-foot spider, close your front door so it doesn’t come inside.
Earth vs. the Spider (1958)
Bullets are useless, so have your local scientist and/or professor ram the spider in the butt with a ’58 DeSoto to distract it. Giant atomically grown arachnids are attracted to giant car tailfins inspired by the jet age. Finally, have the scientist and/or professor build his failed experiment 50 times its normal size. For some reason the larger size makes the experiment function perfectly and that is always the only thing that can kill the monster.
4) The smartest people in town, i.e. professors and/or psychiatrists, have pipes they never smoke. They just like holding the pipe and occasionally placing it in their mouth. This is also the sign of an understanding father who believes the kids did see something out at the old Johnson place, Roy…maybe a spaceman, maybe a blob monster, but he’s sure his son and/or daughter is a good boy and/or girl who just wants to go to the big dance and/or gender reassignment surgery.
5) Vampires and mad scientists are totally unaware of the dangers of open flames. Inevitably, candles and/or Bunsen burns will tip over during a climatic moment, ignite curtains and/or demented and/or hunchback assistants. The flames spread quickly and the damage is not covered by most castle owner’s insurance. Thus, vampires and mad scientist cannot survive a fire.
6) If your dog or cat growls or hisses at your boyfriend or husband, he or she is a space alien or ghost or vampire or general member of the living dead. If this happens to you, breakup immediately or file for divorce or call NASA or Whoopie Goldberg or drive a stake through their heart or start screaming, “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!” If none of those things work, you may want to consider trading the dog or cat for a goldfish.
7) Every film and small town must contain the following characters:
Doug Martin Betty Morgan Gramps Kurt Gas Station Attendant Blond Stripper
8) Space women are ROCKIN’ HOT! Oh, you may find the occasional butterface due to too much radiation, but they always have smokin’ hot bods. Space men, on the other hand, are either total creeps, ambiguously gay or both. The gay ones are usually the BFF of the beautiful queen. That appears the case throughout the galaxy even on our own planet, so that my dear friends is why I welcome the coming space alien invasion.
Frankenstein meets the Space Monster (1965)
9) Only the greatest scientific minds have alligator habitats in their basements.
10) Prior to 1960, advanced alien life forms out to conquer Earth had no access to television and radio stations. Thus, they contacted the earthlings via public address systems at sporting events. Many of the world’s great scientists and military leaders were also hockey season ticket holders.
11) All low-budget movies about invisible creatures or humanoid space aliens have a costume/special effects department consisting solely of whenever the actors have in their own personal wardrobes.
12) In every pack of marauding zombies, there’s always a woman in a wedding dress. She’s not really a zombie, she just had too much champagne and Red Bull and got carried away in the conga line at the reception.
13) Selling islands to mad scientists interested in human/wild animal gene splicing experiments was a booming business for realtors in the first half of the 20th Century.
And just so you know, a crucifix does not work on Jewish vampires.
One morning Trudy Morgan found her bird feeder on the ground surrounded by the mutilated remains of two cardinals, three starlings, and a squirrel. She was prepared to blame her elderly tomcat Horace for this slaughter until she found his eviscerated body under the gardenia.
“Dogs,” she thought, saying it aloud. It must be stray dogs. She had seen them wandering the streets in packs, scavenging in the alleys. How they got into her fenced back yard was a puzzle, but they must have gotten in, somehow.
Trudy lived in an old neighborhood of the city, in the house her husband George had built after he returned from Vietnam. They’d spent many happy years together there, had watched the neighbors’ children grow up and move away. They had none of their own. Now George was gone and most of the neighbors they knew had moved away, leaving Trudy among strangers. She didn’t mind; she had her garden, her job at the library, her parakeets Bess and Harry, and poor Horace.
She heard the doorbell ring, a sound she’d not heard in many years. When she opened the door she saw nothing other than a shivering ripple beneath the shrubs. Trudy closed and locked the door quickly, thinking somehow a dog had thrown itself against the ringer. She buried the birds, the squirrel and poor Horace against the back fence and went to the library.
When she returned, the front door was open. She found the bird cage in a corner, and the only trace of Bess or Harry was a single speckled green feather on the sofa. Nothing else seemed disturbed, even the gold coins she’d had framed and foolishly kept on the wall in the hall. Trudy called the police. “It’s probably a raccoon,” they said, and gave her the number of an animal remover.
Before dawn, Trudy awakened and felt a weight upon her. She tried to shove it off and roll over on her side, but it was heavy. She opened her eyes and saw a bearded face with amber eyes looking back at her. Trudy was too scared to breathe, much less scream. She could feel his hardness against her gown. It licked its lips and began rubbing against her, kneading her breasts and twisting her nipples. Its movements and breath quickened; it grunted, and she felt wetness. It jumped off the bed and ran out into the hall before she could even think.
She waited, frozen, until the sun came into the room; once washed and dressed, she ran to her car and drove to the café near the supermarket. She ordered coffee. The waitress, a plump young blonde named Sylvia, said, “Miz Morgan, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”
“I don’t know what it was,” Trudy whispered, still dazed. Sylvia had ornate knotted tattoos on her arms and many rings in her ears. She looked at Trudy with lowered brows. “What do you mean?” Trudy told her about everything; the birds, poor Horace, Bess and Harry, the ripple in the hedges and, in a whispered rush, about the thing on her chest. She was still shaking, and held her coffee with both hands. Sylvia bit her lip. “Miz Morgan, you just sit for a minute. My shift will be over in a little bit. I can help you.”
“How?” Trudy asked.
Sylvia said nothing, but refilled her cup. When she returned, she had changed into a loose green blouse. She put her hand on Trudy’s and said, “You’ve got a yampus. They’re not really evil like a demon, just mean. It won’t hurt you, but it will kill everything you care for, more out of spite than anything. It will keep you and use you. I know these things. My granny was a voodoo lady. I follow a different tradition,” she said, glancing at the worsted tattoos on her arms, ”but a yampus is a yampus no matter how you look at it.”
Trudy just stared at her. She could still feel it kneading her breasts and smell its warm breath on her neck. “I can’t go home,” she said.
“Of course not,” Sylvia said. “You’re coming with me to my house, and we’ll deal with that yampus tonight. Now get your purse and follow me.”
Sylvia lived in a cottage near the divinity college not far from the library where Trudy worked. The house had a stone fireplace, a crowded library and handful of cats that took their time doing anything at all. Trudy bathed and changed into a housecoat while Sylvia made a light lunch and washed her clothes.
“You need to sleep, Miz Morgan,” Sylvia said, “So go to bed and don’t worry about anything while you’re here.” Despite the assurances, Trudy slept uneasily, but she did sleep, awakening when the sun was sinking. “Get dressed and let’s go,” Sylvia said.
Trudy looked at her, wide-eyed and questioning. Sylvia smiled. “I’ve done this before. Don’t worry.”
When they got to Trudy’s house, the door was still locked. Sylvia followed her in, carrying a brown valise. “I don’t have a stake and a hammer in here,” Sylvia said with a short smile. “Now show me to your kitchen, I’m going to make us some tea, and then I want you to get to bed.”
“I can’t!” Trudy said.
Sylvia took her hands. “Yes, you can. Listen to me. I know he scared you, but he won’t hurt you. He just wants to use you, and you know how he wants to use you. A yampus just wants one thing, and as a woman you ought to know what.”
“Oh, yes,” Trudy said, smiling thinly, remembering and growing warm with the memory. Sylvia looked at her, cocking a brow. “Well,” she said. “Let’s get ready. Dress for bed. I’m going to turn out the lights and sit in the spare bedroom. I’ll be able to hear him when he comes into the house. He’ll take no notice of me. I’m not the one he wants.”
Trudy went to her bedroom, undressed and went to her closet where she selected a silk nightgown and a satin negligee. She turned out the overhead light, folded back the bed and turned on the lamp atop her dresser. She sat, applied lipstick and blush, brushed her neck with perfume, and then climbed into bed. He came through the window, and the warm night air followed. She could hear him as he moved to the end of the bed.
Suddenly he was upon her, holding her, moving his head against her, his hands on her body, touching and probing. He parted her clothing and she felt his lips upon her nipples and his penis pressing upon her stomach.
She caught her breath as he entered her and began to move as he moved, as if she were telling him something. Suddenly he squeezed her with his arms, she gasped, and then she felt him finish and heard him whine as if he wanted more. Then he was gone, as suddenly as he had come, leaving nothing. As she lay there, she heard Sylvia’s voice. “I’ll be going now, Miz Morgan.”
“Yes,” Trudy said. “I’ll be in for coffee in the morning.”
My dad and my brother played guitar, but I didn’t start playing until I was a senior at Millsaps, when I was doing an honors thesis that was driving me crazy. I was a huge music fan, but I’d never played anything. I was also writing things like any silly English major in college taking creative writing classes. I’d always liked music as much as or more than I did literature, and songs are easier to write than novels.
I grew up in Mobile, where my oldest and best friend, Will Kimbrough was a professional player, an original song-writing guy from the age of 16 on, an unbelievable record freak. And he was touring! He was our conduit for stuff like The Clash and The Jam; not as much punk as sort of punkish rock-and-roll. Not that I’d call The Clash punk; to me they’re the greatest rock-and-roll band ever. We were lucky there because one guy could change the field.
I’d been in a punk band in Mobile, “Joe Strange”, and I wrote songs then. We weren’t bad; we were okay. But I started playing on stage again when I was in school in Oxford. Law school was so boring, and I was around people who were so incredibly different from me. I was seven years older than most of them, for one thing, and they were all a bunch of Republican yuppies, who with a few exceptions just bored the shit out of me. So I hung out with the quirkier people in Oxford, and I think I wound up there for a reason.
I started writing songs because I knew I was never going to be a hot-shot guitar player; I couldn’t play “Stairway to Heaven”. I knew I was never going to be in a band because I was a great this or that, and I wasn’t going to be just another white dude playing in a blues band, I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to play “Mustang Sally”. I didn’t want to be hustling money for playing stuff that I had no business playing, so I didn’t, and for better or worse, this is what I started doing.
When I turned 30 my good friend Eileen Wallace sent me a book she made: she’d made everything, the binding, the paper, the cover. I started writing things in that, and I’ve never stopped. And I’ll tell you, the voice memo function on an iPhone has changed the way I write songs. Now if I’m doing something else, something boring, just driving, or maybe watching a game, I can hit the voice memo, and mumble some stuff, and keep it to work on later. It helps. You know how this is as a writer; it comes, and you only catch a tiny portion of it in the net. My favorite songwriter, Richard Thompson, carries a notebook with him everywhere. It just ups the odds of not losing something important.
When I’m writing songs just for me, as opposed as to for a band or someone else, I always tell myself they have to be okay just to play on an acoustic in front of people. Maybe that’s folk music; I don’t know. If they work like that, it’s okay because a lot of the time when I’m playing, it’s solo. I like to perform; it’s thrilling to play solo, but it’s kind of scary. I mean, it’s just you out there on the tightrope. It’s easier for me to play in front of 100 people I’ve never met than in front of 10 people I know. Denny Burkes is the best musician I know, so if I’m playing in front of Denny, it’s different. It’s like reading some of your stuff at a writer’s workshop instead of reading to a bunch of students. But I like it.
I can’t sing too great, I’m an okay guitar player; nobody’s going to ask me to be a singer in their band. The reason I play and sing is so that I can do my songs. I think once you find the way you get stuff out, if you find it, whether it’s building model planes or whatever, you’re lucky. I’m lucky in that I can write for myself; I don’t have to please anybody else. I don’t have a record executive breathing down my neck, so I can write whatever I want whenever I want. I think music is moving more away from a business and more into an avocation because anyone can make a record now, and hardly anyone can make any money because it’s all free. In a weird way, it’s going back to what it was like for people in the early 20th century when on Saturday nights people played music and traded songs just for the art, for the fun of it. That’s why I do it; I’ve made hundreds of dollars!
I’ve put out two albums. Neilson Hubbard produced the first two; Will Kimbrough will produce the next one. When I get into conversations over what I’m going to do, I always have people who’ll tell me, ‘Well, you need to market yourself; you need to do this, you need to do that …’ and I keep thinking, ‘Okay, why? So I can do what?’ Right now it makes me incredibly happy that I have people covering my songs; I can’t get a bigger compliment. I’ve gotten weird reviews from places like Holland and Belgium, but I think most of that is people see you’re from Mississippi, and they’re like ‘Yeah, yeah, Mississippi!’
I have some songs I’ve been working on for years. “Her Grief is a Man” came easily, out of a difficult situation. Some songs are from personal experience, some are just flat-out, straight-up fiction. I don’t know how that happens. I’ll be on a run, say, and the cadence of the run determines the meter of the song; it just starts. A lot of them start on the guitar. Inspiration is fleeting, but you can up the odds by picking up the guitar and playing one every now and then. You’ve got to work a little bit. If someone covers one of my songs and sends me a bunch of money, great; I’ve had some calls about songs being placed on television, and that hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, it’s great. I do want to make records, and it’s driving me crazy that I’ve not put one out in five years. I love “Leaves of Tennessee” and I have a few more I like very much in this batch. By my standards, it’s going to be a very good record, but it costs money and takes time, and I’ve had things to happen in my life which have made finding the money and time to make a record a relatively low priority.
My daughter, who is the best critic I have. She’ll come in, and I’ll be playing something, and she’ll ask, ‘Is that yours?’ ‘Yes,’ I’ll say, and usually she’ll go something like, ‘Meh,’ but the other day, I’ve got a new one that I just finished, and I heard her humming the chorus. And that’s when you know that it’s a hit; a hit is a hit, whether it hits your house or hits the world. People respond to a good song. What I think is my best stuff, some people don’t. There’s a song of mine called “Levee” that I thought was pretty good; I was trying to write something different, a two-step, and I’ve heard a lot of people tell me that’s the best thing I’ve ever written.
What I hope that means is that the more I write, the higher the bar is raised and that my weaker songs in the next batch will be better on average. And that’s a great thing.
