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Songwriting Crisis Averted

Thu, 4 Feb 2010 14:32:03 -0700

Each year for the past 3 years I have performed at the West Mesa Student and Faculty Talent Show. Each time I write a new song for it. The first year the song was, “You Don’t Know How Hard it is to be Me”, last year it was, “When are We Ever Gonna Use This?” I have had such a hard time finishing songs this year that I didn’t know if I was going to make it. I didn’t know if I could do as well as the other years. The goal is to write a song that connects with students, parents and teachers in the audience. I finally had the idea to start writing a song that I had planned to write for a while, “The Year that I Taught Freddy Kreuger”. It would be a hit, I thought, if I could just get it written.

I thought of this song as a way to make light of “teacher nightmares”. I don’t know if all teachers have these but I do from time to time, especially when I was a new teacher. I remember my first year teaching high school. I was riding my bike to work everyday and I had a few freshman classes that were driving me insane. In one of my dreams, I got to class and took my bike apart, then started wielding the pieces as weapons to demolish my crazy freshmen. It was a violent dream and I don’t normally have those but it definitely indicated a high level of stress. I assumed that most teachers had experienced something similar to this.

When I was about 10 years old, I went to stay the night at a friends house and we watched “A Nightmare on Elm Street” on VHS (or was it BETA?). The movie freaked me out. The idea that you were even less safe in your head while sleeping terrified me. I don’t think I went to sleep again until I was about 12.

Combining these experiences, I decided that Freddy was the perfect character for a song about a first year teacher. I mean if you were going to have a nightmare of a student, a young Freddy Kreuger would be it. The problem was writing it. I took a poll of my students to see if they even knew who he was (in my song last year, Aaron Neville came to me in a dream and gave me a message and that was a pretty obscure reference for an audience of mostly hispanic teenagers). It turns out that all students know Freddy and are offended that you’d think otherwise. I then went to Wikipedia, where I do all my songwriting research. I learned all about Freddy, how he was conceived by 100 maniacs raping a nun in an insane asylum, how he died and how, to his creator, he represented all abandoned children.

I faced my childhood fears of Freddy and finally finished the song the night before the show. The song was a hit. People were rolling in the isles and I won the faculty portion of the event based on votes from the audience (this is the first time I won). I have yet to record the song but if you are interested, read the lyrics below:

The Year That I Taught Freddy Krueger

I was 23
My first teaching job
Hoped I’d have good students
Not this crazy mob
They were throwing things
Like Chinese stars
Bowling pins
Parts off stolen cars
Then a quiet one
Asked me, “are you new here?”
I said, “what’s your name?”
He said, “Freddy Krueger”
Oh no…

I fell asleep
While grading papers
Saw Freddy’s face
Rising from the vapors
He said, “hey teacher
You’re gonna give me an ‘A’
I make all the rules
When you’re not awake”
Oh no…

Late September, summer disappears
Boys and girls giving teachers nightmares
After school a student lingers
A brown fedora and knives for fingers
Don’t go to sleep, more caffeine and sugar
It was the year that I taught Freddy Krueger

Back at school
A dream deferred
There was Freddy
Nails on the chalkboard
He started to fight
Right there in class
With a goofy kid
In a hockey mask
Oh no…

Late September, summer disappears
Boys and girls giving teachers nightmares
After school a student lingers
A brown fedora and knives for fingers
Don’t go to sleep, more caffeine and sugar
The year that I taught Freddy Krueger

What's Next?

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:03:24 -0700

I don’t really know what to do with my music. Do I try to make money with it? It’s not that marketable. Do I go out and get more gigs? Its too much work right now and not enough fun. I want to have fun. Do I record a new Album? I could but I don’t have a really strong creative pull right now that tells me I would be making something great. Of course the last time I had such a pull, I recorded the album, “An Introduction to the Life and teaching of Guru Muru.” That album however, is not exactly flying off the shelves. Besides that, I released two full length albums in the year 2009 of all new material and I worked full time while doing it and we were about to have a baby. I should get a break right? If I were told by somebody, with a lot of money, to make a new album and I had to put it together quickly, the song titles would be something like this:

Super Heroes don’t Wear Helmets
When are we Ever Gonna Use this?
Teacher Bladder
Half Moon
Poor Monster
I’m Seein’ things that I’ve Never Seen Before
Colibri
All Your Embers Remain
Walkin’ With Crutches in the Rain
The Year that I taught Freddy Kruger

These are all songs that I have either written in the past year or started to write. I have a few more that I’m pretty sure shouldn’t go on for one reason or another and I would probably write a couple more once I had a general theme. I can hear you ask the following question, what’s the point? I mean, if your songs aren’t flying off the shelves, if you aren’t going to make money and if you aren’t having fun, why do it?

I have thought about this and have come up with different possibilities. One is that I think it will give me some kind of immortality. There will be something that I see as substantial left of me after I am gone. Another reason for doing all of these songs and albums is that it helps me catalogue my life in some way to help me understand it and have a better perspective to move forward. But also, there is still a small part of me that hopes I will actually reach an audience and people will talk about my stuff. They will say things like, “he was ahead of his time” or “he really did have some potential.”

I asked my spiritual advisor, Guru Muru what he thought about all of this and here is what he said:

Stop grousing and live your fucking life.

Well put Guru Muru, well put.

Where The Sidewalk Ends

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 20:03:22 -0700

I want to do a little bit of a rant today in support of my students but first, here is the text of Shel Silverstein’s great poem (it is sort-of relevant):

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Where does the sidewalk end in real life, in Albuquerque? West Mesa High School, where I teach. Channel 7 news will be there tomorrow where many of the kids are taking part in a letter writing campaign. The campaign is to petition the city to put in school zone signs, crosswalks, lights and sidewalks to make it safe to walk to work. This is taking place because a student was hit by a car a few weeks ago in front of the school. I am told he is doing reasonably well but it could have easily gone the other way. I was there that morning and it was very dark, too dark to see him. I sometimes take the bus and walk to work and have to walk in the mud when I get close to school in order to avoid traffic. There are many other teachers and students who do the same thing. I was also hit by a car near the school a few years ago while riding my bike. Its not only the fact that it is unsafe and dirty to walk to school, it is also demoralizing. If you drive by other high schools in town, they are lit up with signs, crosswalks, crossing guards and extra traffic lights. When our students don’t have those things, they feel like the city is ignoring them. I don’t know why the city chose to build sidewalks all the way up near the school and then discontinue them right before the campus and I don’t really care. I’m just tired of it being the way things are. Maybe when kids write letters, the new mayor, or someone else who can do something about it will listen. Maybe they will realize that kids are smart enough to know when they are ignored, either by their parents, teachers or city. Maybe they will read the last two lines of that poem a little differently and something will be done.

Creativity

Tue, 1 Dec 2009 17:06:46 -0700

I received a forwarded email from my mother-in-law (below) yesterday about people who are “early risers”. It was a follow up from a conversation that we had had about how much I hate having to get up at 5 a.m. for work. I understood the author’s point and appreciated it but found myself thinking that this was a person who had the luxury of being creative for a living. I read it after spending countless hours trying to catch up on my grading in school and realizing that with the new week, there would just be more to catch up on. I was feeling like I had a job where we were forced to act more like a cross between cattle and prison guard than actual teachers. Professional development is geared toward the weak teacher in an effort to raise them to some level of mediocrity and mediocrity, not creativity feels like the norm. Then I had a thought that the person writing the email must have struggled to come to a place where creativity was the work of each day. That living a creative life is not something handed to you by your job or your circumstances but you, in fact must literally create it. At the end of the day today, when I had more time to think about it, I understood that this is the path I have chosen for myself with song-writing, teaching, and my other goofy pursuits throughout the day. My struggle to remain creative as a teacher even though the education system doesn’t always reward or encourage that is a way to stay on that path. This made me feel better about the work I do and about all kinds of things in life in general. Here is the forwarded email (I especially like the comment about guilt-free naps):

In praise of early rising

December 1, 2009

Dear Kathleen,

I'm in my studio most mornings about five. As far as I can see, it has something to do with the idea that I might be able to fix the thing I was working on the day before. While it hasn't always been this way, lately it's been getting worse. Or better, depending on your point of view.

Studies by neuroscientist Dr Ying-Hui Fu of the University of California indicate early risers may be living with a mutated gene. I can handle that. Familial Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome (FASPS) is when people are early to bed and early to rise. They may also be healthy, wealthy and wise. Some FASPS folks like to get started in the middle of the night.

Mutant or not, I'm sure interested in the possible benefits. "When you set your mind on a problem," says the highly successful entrepreneurial mutant Dennis Parass, "you might set it aside at bedtime, but your brain will still be working on it. You go to bed with the problems on your mind and when you wake up your mind is more focused."

Fact is, it seems the solution is more often at hand when you enter the work area at a ridiculous hour. We mutants are in good company: Margaret Thatcher, Martha Stewart, Al Einstein, Ben Franklin, Pablo Picasso. Night-owling may be good too, but there's really something to be said for pre-dawn sorties. Wonderfully perverse is a day's work done before others have even negotiated the morning traffic. Here are a few thoughts for the mutant's ideal world:

You need to sleep until you wake up.

You need a good reason to wake up.

You need to take a guilt-free nap any time you need one.

As creativity and workmanship diminish with tiredness, you need think about coming to a full stop when you're overtired.

One of the greatest of all ploys is to simply leave something undone when you turn out the studio lights. This undone part may be a problematical area, or it may be one of those pleasurable passages where you know exactly what to do next. This alone primes the pump and propels the passion. Simple desire may be the key to early rising.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." (Richard Bach)

Esoterica: According to Fu, more than a dozen tightly intertwined genes control the human body clock. The clock controls a variety of physical and behavioral cycles including fluctuations in alertness, heart rate, blood pressure and the immune system. They also play a role in determining drive, passion and creativity. In degree, fully one-third of the population is not naturally tuned to the standard 24-hour night/day cycle.

Big Dumb World

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:47:52 -0700

Last week, I wrote an email to a friend who I work with about my frustrations with teaching at, what I called, a “big dumb public high school”. She pointed out that she and I and others we know are all products of “big dumb public high schools” and that we turned out just fine. The truth is, I chose to work at that kind of school because I wanted to make more of a difference. I knew that it was more challenging than a small private school or any small school period. It doesn’t mean I don’t get frustrated though. I love the students that I teach but sometimes the difficulties of the job and the larger problems of society weigh me down. I asked Guru Muru what he thought of this and he had this to share with me:

We all are frustrated at one time or another with the bigger problems in life, especially the ones that we have no control over and that feel completely insurmountable, like the ever rising price of beeswax, a blow to serious candle-makers everywhere. Candle-makers become angry at this situation and want to blame everything from the government to organized beekeeping to bees in general. They think that someone in charge is lacking in intelligence, that its just a big, dumb beeswax business at fault. They are either missing the point or too scared to blame the one who really should be blamed, God. God is the big dummy here. The fact that stupid things happen in the world can be traced to the time when God wanted to play a joke on the Universe and created “stupidity”. Does it mean that God is stupid? Of course! God is the essence of stupidity, beauty, joy, weakness, courage, sadness, love and neurosis. We are called to embrace the great stupidity in our lives, to bathe in it and eventually accept it in our own selves. We can then see ourselves and our own lives for the ridiculous jokes that they are. Do this and know that God and the Universe are laughing at you and with you.

Newbury

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:41:13 -0600

We have been staying with our old friends, Chris and Amy in Newbury, a small town outside of London. It has been fun and relaxing. We love Eddie, their 7 week old son. He was born with a full head of hair. We have been taking walks, eating and having fun. I have learned the following: a “prim” is a stroller and so is a “buggy”, if you are “pissed” you are drunk and there are a lot of really pissed people on the streets after the bars let out (we were not among them but could hear them from their “flat” which is their apartment), a “muppet” is not an awesome character from the 70’s/80’s Jim Henson series but a person regarded as having low intellectual capabilities, an “earner” is a dishonest laborer, a “snog” is a french kiss, a “nipper” is a small child, “ickle” means small, and other important things. Also, british t.v. (tele) seems funnier and the celebrities aren’t that big of celebrities. We are going to go to tea today and just hang out more. Tomorrow we take the long flight across the pond to that former colony which is our home.

Back to England

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:43:59 -0600

We are leaving France. Last night we had dinner with Ezra Bussmann. Ezra co-founded Hungry Mungry with me and helped to catapult me to stardom. You can hear his handiwork on the dobro in the ablum, “It Could Always be Worse” (see albums page above). Since he moved to France our record sales have dropped a bit but that is just the way things go in show-business. Anyway, it was a great dinner and great to see him again. Today we are headed out to England to see our friends Chris and Amy who just had a baby 2 months ago. We will miss the food and all of the beautiful, stylish people here but it is good to move on. One thing I have learned so far on this trip: giving your baby jet-lag and fancy foreign food to digest can be fun and rewarding if you are a nut-job.

ANOTHER DAY

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 02:56:07 -0600

G spent most of the day at her conference. She had her talk to give. It is a conference about materials in space. Yes, there are aliens at the conference. Some of them are Klingon and some are Tralfamordian. They all went on a boat together and had an amazing dinner somewhere on the coast. X and I were originally invited but we decided that the trip would not work with his or my nap schedule. So he and I took a long walk and then ordered room service instead. We did meet for lunch though an it was wonderful. X had his first French pastry, see above. I have developed a funny urge to start dressing fashionably and take up smoking.

What to Eat in France

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:30:55 -0600

We went out to our first real restaurant in France. In ancient Greece, I read somewhere that they would debate every topic both ways, while drunk and sober (yes, I read this in Ancient Greece, I didn’t read anything about ancient Greece). The same should probably not be said about blogging. For example, me. I have been blogging about our trip to France while completely sober but tonight, we went out to dinner at a place that served more than baguette and cheese and it was wonderful. The problem is that my wife ordered a bottle of wine and didn’t really bother to drink any herself, so here we are. The restaurant we ate at had a special wood grill that they cooked everything on (see the grill chef posing in the second picture above). I got a mixed grill of duck, rack of lamb, kidney and steak. G had a seafood mixed grill. She gave me her grilled tuna steak and the head of her giant shrimp, whose brains I completely sucked out (the soup of the gods). It was a wonderful meal but, as a new parent, I am much more excited to discuss X’s meals today. In the morning I fed him whole-multi-grain cereal along with greek yogurt and pear. I mixed the pear with the yogurt and we ate it all together. Greek yogurt, by the way, is freekin’ amazing. You should quit the other stuff and eat this shiznit instead. No jizzle. Anyway, I ate baby food with a baby and it was good. At the restaurant, we were given croutons and tapenade , which contained olives and anchovies. I gave him a spoonful of that right away. After that, I gave him a full slice of baguette which he turned into a mushy pulp and consumed quickly. I then gave him a crouton dipped in mayonnaise with herbes de provence (keep in mind there are still no teeth). The mayonnaise was house-made and G pointed out that it probably had raw egg in it and that he might get food poisoning. His crouton took him a while and we finally got to desert. He heartily consumed chocolate mouse and violet ice cream. His mom fed him that which is o.k. because I get to take care of him all day tomorrow until about midnight because she gets to go to an amazing dinner with all of the other people here from the space conference (I still am trying to figure out how this is different from a star trek convention). Anyway, is this too much for a kid who is only seven months old? Who cares? It was effin’ great.

X IN AIXE

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:58:14 -0600

Our plane landed in the Marseille airport and we thought we would save money by taking the bus. I can’t speak French and the woman selling tickets cannot speak English. I decided I would try French for the first time and asked for our tickets and paid for them. Everything seemed fine on the bus until we got to our destination and realized it was probably not our destination. The driver was kind enough to put us back on the bus to the airport but the lady behind the counter did not see G’s point when she explained to her that we needed to exchange our tickets for the correct bus. After G made her mad, we took a cab to Aixe and it has been great since we got here. We had a great lunch of sandwiches on amazing bread, took a nap and then went out on the town. This consisted of finding diapers, an amazing cookie shop for G who loves nothing more than cookies (see above photos), a glass of wine and no food. By the time we were ready to order, X made it clear that he was hungry and that we should go. We came home, fed him and ordered a plate of french cheese and bread for dinner. I also had some mint tea that I had brought and we dug into G’s cookies. Now G and X are asleep and I am watching the french version of Iron Chef. Looks yummy.