Cinder Bridge

Change

2012-01-16T00:05:00.006-07:00

A lot of my songs are about change. Specifically, about how change is scary, and what people will do to avoid it or put it off ...

... Which, when you think about it, speaks to what a sheltered life I've led.

Only people born to a life of relative privilege have the luxury of fearing change. Those treated less kindly by the status quo hope for it—or fight for it.

Have a good Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Music therapy

2012-01-08T00:01:00.003-07:00

One year ago in Tucson, a gunman killed six people and wounded thirteen at the Safeway plaza on Oracle and Ina. Among the wounded was congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Mistakenly declared dead in initial news reports after she took a bullet to the head, she has made amazing progress in her recovery. A contributing factor: music therapy.

Giffords still struggles to speak in sentences, but she has much less trouble singing. An important part of her therapy now involves singing songs she knew before the shooting.

The ability to speak is mainly controlled by two areas on the left side of the brain. But when we sing or listen to music, wide swaths of both sides of the brain become active. Doctors have learned putting words to melody stimulates memory and helps a damaged brain recover the ability to process language.

"And the idea is that can maybe be used as a proxy or as an alternative," said Dr. Michael Lemole, who was Giffords' neurosurgeon. "Just take away the music part and all of a sudden now you're stringing words together in a sentence.

Music, for me, has always been a powerful, magical force in itself. I don't love it because of its potential medicinal effects. I love it because it's music.

Still, the idea that singing can help people remember how to speak makes sense to me. Very simple phrases have a lot more emotional impact when they're set to music in just the right way. Singing marries thought and emotion. Songs help us feel what we're thinking and understand what we're feeling.

Everybody needs music therapy once in a while.

Happy Hanukkah from Cinder Bridge

2011-12-20T22:27:00.014-07:00

On Sunday, December 18, Cinder Bridge officially became part of the problem.

We participated in another multi-band holiday benefit that day. As I've mentioned before, I like doing benefits. And this one helped out the Community Food Bank, a great cause that's in dire need of the funds. So why "problem"?

Back when we were invited to this shindig, Ron the Drummer pointed out that they'd probably want us to play holiday songs at a holiday show. I sent a message to the organizer, Rik of Tucson Rock Alliance, and asked him.

Rik said they'd like everybody to learn at least one holiday cover.

And that is why, on December 18, even though I spend every holiday season complaining about holiday music being crammed down our throats, we played a rousing, jazzed up version of "Oh Hanukkah" and a highly abridged version of "The Linus and Lucy Theme" from A Charlie Brown Christmas.

That doesn't count as selling out, though, right? Supermarkets never play "Oh Hanukkah," Not even the Barenaked Ladies version.

And "Linus and Lucy" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio rocks no matter what holidays you celebrate or what music you like.

* * *

Happy Hanukkah, everybody. For those of you who have never celebrated it, it starts on the 25th day of Kislev in the Jewish calendar. This year, that's sundown tonight.

Get thee behind me, drummer

2011-12-11T20:50:00.023-07:00

When we play an event that features multiple bands, it's typical for the organizer or venue to provide the sound equipment. Speakers, for instance. Or microphones.

Last night's Gift of Love benefit did us one better, though. They had everybody use the same drum kit, which was on a raised platform at the back of the stage. This meant much quicker loading and unloading between sets—good for the audience and convenient for the bands. It also made things ... interesting for Ron and me.

For those of you just tuning in, Cinder Bridge is a duo. Ron plays drums. I sing and play keyboard. In general, we perform side by side. At first that was pretty much for aesthetic purposes. The standard setup in which the drummer sits behind everybody else looks kind of odd when "everybody else" is just me:

Ron the Drummer watches Susan's back

More importantly, though, communication becomes difficult when we're stacked that way.

Take the set list. If there's an original song we especially want people to pay attention to, we often put it after a cover that everybody already knows. In this case, we had our big message song, "Everybody Knows About Me," right after the Rolling Stones' "Miss You." But everyone at Gift of Love was really into "Miss You," and I felt weird about plunging them right into a very slow, very depressing tune.

Normally when this kind of thing happens, whoever wants to change the order glances over at the other person and says, "Let's play [name of song] next." Sneaking a look back at Ron, though, I realized there was no way to convey the information either quickly or inconspicuously. So I turned back around and went into "Everybody Knows About Me."

Then, during the first few measures of our fifth song, before I started singing, the guy who organized the event came over and told me they were running late, so this would be the last thing we played. There was no way Ron could hear him, and no way for me to tell him what was going on. Nothing to do but keep going.

None of this turned out to be a real problem. The audience applauded for "Everybody Knows About Me" longer than anything else—some people were actually slow-dancing to it. And the organizer came up immediately after our de facto last song, thanked us for coming, and announced the next performers.

Still, weird. How do larger bands deal with this? I felt like we should have walkie-talkies or something.

* * *

Thanks to Don Martin for taking the photo, and for letting us pilfer it.

Grown and sexy

2011-12-06T21:54:00.017-07:00

Cinder Bridge is doing a couple of benefits this month. The first one, on Saturday, December 10, is Gift of Love, a Christmas toy drive.

In addition to being a good cause, Gift of Love has introduced me to a term I wasn't familiar with. The print is probably too small for you to read here, but there's a note about the dress code on the poster:

This is an exclusive "grown and sexy" event
Dress to impress

I'd never encountered "grown and sexy" before. Maybe that's because I'm out of touch with the new and happening slang. Or, maybe it's because I've been living in Tucson, the capital of casual, for too long. At any rate, I made a mental note to dress up. And then it hit me ...

There's a reason I wear jeans and sensible shoes to gigs. I mean, besides the fact that I wear jeans and sensible shoes everywhere it's permissible to do so. Gigs aren't just sauntering onto the stage and playing. They involve much hauling of equipment. This is not something easily done in a dress and shoes that are designed to be worn with a dress.

I might be able to pull it off with slacks. But jeans are just better when it comes to manual labor. Before the fashion industry noticed that jeans existed, that's what jeans were for.

So, Ron and I look forward to seeing the audience decked out ... but we'll be dressed as the working class heroes we are.

* * *

Just in case you're in the vicinity and can't read any of the fine print on that poster, here's the relevant info for Gift of Love.

When: Saturday, Dec. 10, 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. (We play at 8)
Where: Whisky Tango, 140 S. Kolb Rd., Tucson, AZ
Why: Toys for kids who can't afford 'em!
Cover: Free if you bring a toy donation

Checking it twice

2011-12-05T00:28:00.004-07:00

For a while now I've had a theory that someone must like Christmas music. Well, I found him! Here he is!

On a related note, I have a request for Whole Foods, which seems to have gone from throwing a few Christmas songs into the playlist to doing all Christmas all the time. If you must torture those of us who aren't into this genre, could you at least ease up on "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"? Two versions of it in a row is a little excessive.

Blandification

2011-11-27T18:12:00.008-07:00

92.9 KWMT switched formats last week. Since the end of 2003, they had called themselves "The Mountain" and played AAA (adult album alternative) music, which included stuff on the fringes of mainstream pop/acoustic rock. But over the years their playlist became increasingly more bland, and now they've finally made the leap to hot AC (adult contemporary). Basically mainstream pop music from the 1980s on up. It's very bright and happy now, and even more bland.

Yeah, I know. You're probably not in Tucson and don't care. None of this would be worth mentioning except that a few years ago, I could imagine Cinder Bridge songs on the Mountain. Now, even if we managed to hit the big time and get on commercial radio, I don't see them touching our fringier or slower tunes.

Bah.

Oh well. At least KXCI Community Radio is still around.

Occupy the North Pole

2011-11-21T21:48:00.004-07:00

It has begun. I heard Christmas music in two different stores today. Three full days before Thanksgiving.

Hey, maybe the Occupy movement can add this to their list of demands.

A girl can dream ...

Sweat 'til you get wet

2011-11-14T00:07:00.001-07:00

Discovered a new open mic jam today. It's every Sunday at a place called Beau Brummel Club, less than two miles from where I live. I don't go to open mics much anymore, as I stash my keyboard at Ron the Drummer's house, but the guy who runs this one said there'd be a keyboard available to play. Sold.

I played a Cinder Bridge song by myself. I played another Cinder Bridge song with a couple other musicians jamming on it with me (they'd never heard it before). Instead of selecting another original for the finale, I decided it would be more fun to just jam out on something improvised. A whole bunch of other musicians took the stage, I asked somebody to pick a key, and off we went.

Here's the impressive part. One or two guys actually sang parts of the improvised piece.

I can't even imagine how you do that. Yeah, the lyrics were goofy, with a lot of repetition, but I still don't get it. When I jam on the keyboard, all I have to know is what chord I'm supposed to be playing. Because I have to stay within the parameters of that chord, I have some guidance. But lyrics could be anything at all.

The only words I remember from our jam (retroactively titled something like "Ladies Don't Like to Take Showers") were "Sweat 'til you get wet." Not profound, but pretty clever for being dreamed up on the spot.

This goes to 11

2011-11-11T21:37:00.008-07:00

Happy Veterans Day, veterans. Here's hoping the world treats you kindly today—and every day.

On a more lighthearted, yet much louder note, 11/11/11 is also Nigel Tufnel Day.

If you don't get it, you have to rent This Is Spinal Tap. Immediately.

Suspiciously sad

2011-11-06T20:59:00.013-07:00

Jerry strummed the first few chords of his next song. To his right was Mike, another guitar player. I sat behind him at Duncan Stitt's keyboard. We were sharing the stage at a songwriters' open mic.

"The songs Susan and Mike just played were pretty happy," said Jerry. "I'm going to play a sad song."

He did—a lovely, wistful breakup tune. When he finished, it was my turn again.

"Like the last song, mine is also a sad tale, filled with regret," I said, and launched into Quicksand.

* * *

It was a running theme. Every time one of the performers played something that wasn't cheerful, they would point it out. As if music is by default happy and upbeat, and anything that deviates from this requires an apology, or at least an explanation.

I'm not sure why. Songs are meant to convey a full range of emotions. Sadness is kind of an important one. And when I'm feeling down, the last thing I want to do is listen to music that tries to convince me all is right with the world. I seek out something that suits my mood. Only after a few sad or angry songs am I ready to consider anything more upbeat.

So why were we defensive about what we'd written?

Do some listeners conflate "sad" with "low energy" and "boring"?

Have we as a society bought into positive thinking to such a degree that we don't want to acknowledge negativity even in our art?

What do you think? Do you avoid sad songs? If yes, why?

Psychosomatic? Or just somatic?

2011-11-02T22:11:00.010-07:00

psy·cho·so·mat·ic [sahy-koh-suh-mat-ik, -soh-]
adjective
of or pertaining to a physical disorder that is caused by or notably influenced by emotional factors.
pertaining to or involving both the mind and the body.

Over the years, I've come to doubt the existence of psychosomatic illnesses. People like to believe in them. The idea that our mind can make our body sick is intriguing, and besides, it provides an easy explanation for all those inconvenient ailments that haven't yet been diagnosed, or even discovered. Problem is, nobody seems to have taken the trouble to prove that emotional stress can manifest as physical symptoms.

Every once in a while I get into a debate with somebody about this. While they allow for the possibility that "psychosomatic" is at times shorthand for "I don't know what's wrong with you and don't want to tell you that," they believe that psychologically induced illnesses can happen. They aren't experts in the field or anything; they just think it's intuitively obvious.

For those people, here's a quote on the subject from a licensed clinical psychologist who's been practicing for over 25 years:

Physicians have referred many people to me before they had a diagnosis, even doctors who don’t know what else to do for their patients. ALL of them eventually received a medical diagnosis. That’s right. ALL OF THEM.

(Full post here.)

My opinion on psychosomatic illness can be swayed by real evidence—evidence that amounts to more than "We've ruled out everything else we happen to know about." 'til then, true believers, the burden of proof is on you.

The ABCs of music sales

2011-10-25T03:43:00.001-07:00

A few months ago I decided to buy a certain album. It never happened. Either the CD skipped my mind when I was within range of a place to obtain it, or I didn't have time to stop in.

But I've been jonesing for new music after a long stretch of listening to the same tunes on the iPod. So this evening, as I walked past a hip little independent CD store on my way to grocery shopping, I decided to take the plunge.

I made my way to the Ms. Started scanning. And scanning. And scanning.

Ah yes. I'd forgotten.

The hip little independent CD store, like so many other CD stores, doesn't alphabetize its CDs. Or, rather, it does only to a point. All the Ma bands and artists are together, but within Ma it's a total free-for-all.

The result: It took much longer than it should have to discover that this store does not, in fact, carry anything by Barry Manilow.

* * *

I have a theory about why filing is so sloppy in these places. The longer customers have to flip through CDs to find what they're looking for, the more likely they'll be to stumble across something else they wanted, but hadn't been thinking about. While looking for Manilow, for instance, I saw the Dave Matthews Band and combed through their stuff for a song I liked.

It's a clever strategy, but one that ought to be retired. Music retailers, please take note ...

#1: There has been a tremendous drop in CD sales over the past 10 years. I don't need to tell you this. If you're managing to survive now, it's largely because so much of your competition has died.

#2: Gen-Xers (and people older than Gen-Xers) like CDs. We like digital downloads too, but we're more likely than Millennials to crave a product we can hold in our hands.

#3: One of the draws of digital music is that it takes no time at all to find what we're looking for. Enter your search term, hit return, and there it is.

#4: Traveling to a brick-and-mortar store, poking around to locate our selections, and then walking back to checkout is already a greater time commitment than we absolutely have to invest. It annoys customers to spend many minutes on top of that, attempting to dig through your inventory, simply because no one could bother to shelve it properly.

#5: Gen-Xers are grown-ups. Have been for quite a while. We've got obligations, responsibilities, places to be. We're going to be even more annoyed than your average high school student (who probably doesn't want your CDs anyway) if we're delayed for no good reason.

* * *

The above rant is mostly pointless. In 10 or 20 years, I'll reread this and get all nostalgic about how people were still actually buying CDs. But just for grins and giggles, give my words some thought. Maybe with enhanced alphabetization, you'll be one of the few retailers that survive long enough to occupy the coveted collector's-item niche.

Fight for Your Right (to Satire)

2011-10-23T22:04:00.010-07:00

A few years ago, we made it to the second round of Tucson's Acoustic Battle of the Bands. To make things interesting, everybody participating was tasked with learning a new cover song ...

... from the Beastie Boys.

Beastie Boys tunes performed by sensitive folk singers are about as hilarious as you'd expect them to be. We had fun with it. Our pick was "Fight for Your Right (to Party)." We added a vocal melody (so nobody had to suffer the trauma of hearing me rap) and inserted a piano riff that kinda sorta echoed the original guitar riff but didn't sound anything like it. To make the goof complete, we played it totally straight.

What we didn't realize was that the Beastie Boys themselves didn't take the song any more seriously than we did.

... the Beasties hated the whole rocker scene, feeling it was populated by obnoxious, testosterone-laden douchebags. They wanted to poke fun at mindless party anthems like "Smoking in the Boys Room," so they cut the lyrics to "Fight for Your Right" as an in-joke before going on tour ... Thinking the song's success was hilarious, the Beasties made what they assumed was an equally ridiculous video to go along with it.

Slowly, they began to realize that the whole "parody" part was lost on most of the listening public, and the majority of their newfound fan base was now made up of the same toolbags they were making fun of.

Beastie Boys: That is awesome. I would have liked your song a whole lot more—or, you know, at all—if I'd realized it was satire.

In case you were curious, here's our heartfelt version, live from Ron the Drummer's living room.

By what definition?

2011-10-07T00:20:00.004-07:00

Exciting development for people who have myalgic encephalomyelitis, known to most of the world as "chronic fatigue syndrome." The Journal of Internal Medicine has published Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria, which lays out a new case definition for the disease ...

Wait ... where are you going?

* * *

If you are not an ME sufferer, caregiver, or advocate, you're probably about to bail. The topic sounds dry and boring. It doesn't affect you directly. There are other things you'd rather do with your time.

Please bear with me. There's a reason you should know about this, and I'll try to make it as un-boring as possible.

Here goes ...

* * *

What's the International Consensus Criteria?

A set of criteria that physicians can use to diagnose myalgic encephalomyelitis.

I'm already bored.

It gets better. Humor me, OK?

Oh, all right. But what's the big deal? They couldn't diagnose ME before?

Not very well. Over the past few decades, several case definitions have proliferated. The worst ones are little more than a wastebasket diagnosis. Essentially, "If you're really really fatigued for at least six months and you've ruled out every other disease we can think of that might cause this, then maybe you have it."

The ICC is much more specific. For instance, to be diagnosed, you must have post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion, which is a fancy way of saying that you can't exert yourself without causing yourself even more pain and making your symptoms worse. Other diseases that cause fatigue (there are many) don't have that feature.

If you feel like learning about the details, go here. If not, just know that the ICC is much better at distinguishing ME from conditions that are not ME.

No offense, but explain to me again why I'm supposed to care about this? I don't have ME.

Do you like being manipulated? Lied to?

Eh? No ...

OK. If you read the news, you may occasionally encounter a story about how a particular kind of talk therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy) and a particular exercise program (graded exercise therapy) can help people with "chronic fatigue syndrome." Some brand new study proves it! Yay!

What's the problem with that? And what does it have to do with the ICC?

The case definition used in the study makes or breaks the study's validity. The bad ones, as mentioned above, are too broad. Subjects who meet the criteria for a bogus definition may not have ME at all. Maybe they have a different disease. Or maybe they have depression, which can be helped by talk therapy and exercise.

To complicate matters further, subjects who actually have ME are more likely to drop out of the study or not participate at all. Remember the bit about post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion? Exercise is dangerous for people who have it. If they push too hard, they can hurt themselves—sometimes permanently.

So with the ICC in place, these psychological researchers will realize they've been studying the wrong people? They'll start studying the right people?

Eh, probably not. Other ME scientists have been bringing up the sampling bias problem for years, and the psychological researchers have soundly ignored them.

Oh. What about the media, then? Will journalists call bad scientists on bad science because of the ICC?

Based on what's happened before, also doubtful. Most reporters won't know the ICC exists.

I can see why you'd find that annoying. But to be honest with you, I have my own problems right now. Bigger problems than exposure to shoddy journalism. How does any of this affect me?

Do you consider yourself a good person? A fair person?

See, the issue with these stories is that they imply something about the disease and the people who have it. If sufferers get better with a little talk therapy and exercise, then ME can't be that big of a deal, right? And when you hear about people who go on disability because of "chronic fatigue syndrome," you think they must be getting away with something. How dare they take taxpayer money when all they need to do is see a shrink and do some sit-ups?

When these news stories convince you that ME isn't a big deal, they turn you against your fellow human beings. They succeed in stealing your compassion.

That kind of sucks, when you put it that way.

It does. But now that you know ME means a lot more than "tired all the time"—and that it responds badly to exercise—you can't be played by a press release.

At some point, another story will be published about how talk therapy and exercise help people with ME. When you see it, you can ask, "By what definition of ME?"

Rainmakers

2011-09-25T17:31:00.009-07:00

The gig started out sunny and clear and hot. But by the time we finished our cover of "Miss You," a massive gray cloud had inched over the park. The cloud provided welcome shade. It also looked like it might make our day a little wetter before it moved on. Hard to tell.

"Our next song is 'Rain Dance,'" I told the Pet Rock audience. Glancing up at the sky, I added, "Which shouldn't be taken literally."

We played the song. Immediately thereafter it began to rain.

I looked up at the sky again. "I said not literally!"

Maybe we should forget about gigging and start hiring ourselves out to communities suffering from drought.

Pet Rock

2011-09-25T10:18:00.006-07:00

Busy busy busy. I haven't had any time to post about our upcoming gig (starting at 1 p.m. today), and I don't really have time to do it now, either. Fortunately, we have this flyer. Click to enlarge!

That pretty much covers it. The only thing I have to add is that "Pet Rock" is the coolest benefit name ever.

Mass hysteria?

2011-09-21T02:23:00.009-07:00

Over a thousand people have become sick while working in Cambodian shoe and garment factories. Stricken employees report dizziness, nausea, exhaustion, and shortness of breath; hundreds have required brief hospitalization.

With no concrete explanation for the symptoms, a few people with an interest in such things have leapt to the obvious conclusion:

It's been almost 50 years since girls at a boarding school in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) were struck by an illness whose symptoms — fainting, nausea and helpless laughter — soon spread to other communities. Or consider the Pokémon contagion in 1997, when 12,000 Japanese children experienced fits, nausea and shortness of breath after watching a television cartoon. Sufferers of World Trade Center syndrome, meanwhile, blamed proximity to Ground Zero for coughs and other respiratory problems long after airborne contaminants posed any health threat.

All these are examples of mass hysteria, a bizarre yet surprisingly common phenomenon that is increasingly recognized as a significant health and social problem. For centuries it has crossed cultures and religions, taking on different forms to keep pace with popular obsessions and fears. In our post-9/11 world, it thrives on the anxiety caused by terrorist attacks, nuclear radiation and environmental gloom.

More ...

It's an interesting theory. Far more interesting than the symptoms turning out to be real. Time won't sell any magazines with headlines like "Toxins are Toxic" or "Flu Virus Gives People Flu."

The problem is, hysteria doesn't have any real evidence behind it. Failing to discover a virus or toxin that's making people sick doesn't mean the virus or toxin doesn't exist. It may simply mean we haven't found it yet. Think how many people died of AIDS before anybody knew what HIV was.

Is hysteria a real thing? Do we have any way of finding out?

Here's my challenge to any researcher who backs the mass hysteria hypothesis:

Test it.

This should be relatively easy if you have access to facilities, grant money, and cheap graduate student labor. Bring subjects into an experiment that's ostensibly about something else. While everyone is answering survey questions on an unrelated topic, have numerous confederates (people pretending to be subjects, but who are in on the experiment) fake some kind of medical issue. Seizures, maybe, or fainting.

Then see if the one real subject in the room starts feeling and mimicking the "symptoms."

It took me five seconds to think up this experiment, and I'm not even a psychologist.

I hope some enterprising mental health professional takes up the challenge, because this isn't just a matter of scientific curiosity. Ask people with myalgic encephalomyelitis. When there was an outbreak of the disease in Incline Village, Nevada, back in 1984, the CDC declared it to be mass hysteria despite evidence of neurological problems. 27 years later, the victims haven't recovered ... and most of the scant funding that exists for their disease goes to psychological research.

If patients have to prove that their illnesses are real, then the scientific community should have to prove that mass hysteria is real. It's only fair.

All-request weekend

2011-09-18T20:55:00.008-07:00

KLPX had an all-request weekend this weekend. Which struck me as odd. How many people request songs on the radio anymore?

Requests were a big deal when I was 12 and discovering different kinds of music. I loved calling the station, actually getting through, talking to the DJ, and then waiting by the stereo, hand over the tape player's record button.

Sometimes my song would be played, sometimes not. Either way, I'd get the thrill of the chase.

When I was 12, the Internet as we know it didn't exist. You couldn't buy almost any song that had ever been recorded for chump change. You couldn't do a four-second YouTube search and, more likely than not, listen for free.

I realize, on an intellectual level, that there must still be people in this city who don't have Internet access. I guess I've been spoiled so well for so long, it's hard for me to fully comprehend.

Contains adult language

2011-09-16T00:31:00.001-07:00

I'm writing a song featuring a romantic partner with a mercurial personality. You may know the type. One minute, he (or she) is a joy to be with; the next minute, she (or he) turns on you. The character is fictional—I've never dated a psycho—but I've heard enough harrowing tales from friends that I think I can get the details right. I'm having a lot of fun with this.

Anyway, there's a line in the last chorus that I want to tweak:

Pile on the weight
'til I'm down on my knees

The problem is "weight." It sounds good, but it's not quite what I'm going for. "Weight" conveys angst, burden. The thing my character piles on is more like the emotional equivalent of manure, unpleasant and absurd at the same time. "Manure" is pretty good, actually, but too many syllables. Hmm. What means the same thing but only has one ...

(Insert moment of realization here.)

Awww, shit.

* * *

Walking down the corridors of Elm Place Middle School, I had an epiphany. I needed to learn how to swear.

Ever since kindergarten, I'd occupied the lowest rung on the social ladder. I was the kid it was OK to be mean to. I was the kid you couldn't be nice to even if you wanted to, because then everybody else would be mean to you too.

The most frustrating part was, when the abuse came, I couldn't do much but take it. Witty comebacks weren't my strong suit. If I'd known how to hold my own in a verbal duel, really hurt my tormenters, they probably would have left me alone in the first place.

Swearing would solve that problem. Anytime somebody started in on me, I could just curse at them. The strategy wasn't as good as improvising clever, cutting remarks, but it was better than nothing.

So I incorporated a few four-letter words into my vocabulary and let loose. And the results were amazing.

Don't get me wrong. My fellow seventh-graders didn't slink away with their tails between their legs. I was still their easiest prey. Regardless, it felt pretty good to have something to say when they singled me out. Even if "suck shit" (my stock phrase) wasn't particularly clever, it conveyed what I considered useful information:

I am a badass.
Your pathetic taunts don't bother me in the least, because I am a badass.
Also: suck shit.

* * *

Swearing didn't come naturally when I began my campaign. I was a total goody-two-shoes, very obedient, and hadn't indulged in the habit since I was four and my mother forbade me from repeating some of the more interesting words I'd picked up from older kids in the neighborhood. To say the S-word or the F-word at all, much less in front of other people, I had to push past a deep-seated sense of taboo.

But I kept at it. I conditioned myself to swear without internally flinching. And I made an unexpected discovery:

Curse words are fucking awesome.

Seriously. How had I gotten by without them before? They were like salt on scrambled eggs. They made everything better. And more emphatic. Now when I bitched about something, people would know I really fuckin' meant it.

As cool as it was to swear at my enemies, it was way cooler to swear alongside my friends. (Other kids could safely be my friends as long as they were in a different grade or went to a different school.) We were slick and tough and grownup, slipping profanity into as many utterances as we could while acting as nonchalant about it as possible.

One friend, Lisa, opined that people shouldn't make such a big deal about swearing. Words were just words. There was no logical reason that a select few should be placed in a different category than the rest. I agreed with her in principle, but not in practice. If "fuck" had no more power to shock than "darn," what would be the point of saying it? We had to collectively pretend it had magical offensive properties or it didn't work.

* * *

Walking down the corridors of Highland Park High School, I came to a realization. The whole swearing thing was kind of played.

My original reason for learning to do it had evaporated. High school kids were nicer. Most of them left me to my own devices. And while four-letter words were still great fun in their own right, they were also victims of their own success. What good were they for emphasis if I used them in every other sentence?

With a little sadness, I decided to dial it down. Keep it clean most of the time. That way, when I dropped the occasional F-bomb, people would know I was serious.

* * *

Here's the funny thing. Although I grew to love profanity in everyday life, I never cared for it in music.

My first exposure to explicit lyrics came courtesy of Billy Joel's The Nylon Curtain. Specifically from one of my favorite songs on the album, Laura:

Here I am
Feeling like a fucking fool
Do I react the way exactly
She intends me to?

Even though the album debuted in what was probably the early stages of my pottymouth phase, that caught me off guard. It's one thing for me to say "fucking" and entirely another for Billy Joel to sing it.

I understood why he wrote it that way, mind you. His narrator didn't feel like a freaking fool or a flipping fool or even a goddamn fool. The word he wanted was "fucking," and he wasn't about to weaken his point by sanitizing it. On reflection, I respected the choice.

And yet, I knew that if it had been me writing that song, I would have chosen something else.

The problem is, no matter how well a particular swear word works in terms of semantics and phonetics and rhythm, it tends not to flow seamlessly with the rest of the lyrics. A swear word calls attention to itself. That's its entire purpose. Drop one into your song, and instead of being carried along by the story, suddenly your listener is thinking, "Ooh, the F-word."

* * *

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that it took 66 songs before I encountered the "best word is a bad word" dilemma as a songwriter. But I still need to resolve it, so ...

Pile on the ______
'til I'm down on my knees

"Shit" really is perfect in terms of meaning and singability, but for all the reasons above, I'm just not going there.

"Crap" would fill in the blank, but it lacks something. It sounds too much like what I really want to say is "shit," but I'm censoring myself. Even if that's true, it's not what I want listeners to notice.

Looks like we're back to "weight." It's not absolutely, precisely what I want, but it doesn't stand out or sound wrong either. Sometimes you have to settle for good enough. In this case, doing so will make for a more balanced song as a whole.

The song, by the way, is almost finished. When we have an arrangement together and we have time to record it, I'll post it up here.

You'll like it. It's the shit.

* * *

Editor's note: I hope I haven't offended anybody with this piece. I try to keep this little blog family friendly most of the time, but the words are what they are, and I hate that asterisk bullsh*t. If you are not offended by such things and have ever wondered why certain words have the power to offend, read Why We Curse by psychologist Steven Pinker. Turns out Lisa and I were both wrong.

Viola surprise

2011-09-07T21:18:00.009-07:00

Today's rehearsal was a little different. A violist named Rose sat in and jammed with us. On viola.

Every now and again I'll be writing a song and think, "This would sound better on acoustic guitar than piano." Or, "We could really ramp this part up with bass." Less frequently I'll think organ, electric guitar, maybe even cello. I do my best to come up with a decent arrangement on keyboard for live performances, and I file away the arrangements I hear in my head for when we record and bring in some session players.

Up until a couple weeks ago, I'd never thought, "I wonder how that would sound with viola."

But Rose heard us at our last gig, liked us a bunch, and asked if we'd like to play on the album she's recording. She also said that if we had any songs we thought she could contribute to, she'd be happy to do it.

So, viola. Viola? OK. I pondered everything we've written and made a list of songs that could maybe ... possibly ... be enhanced by that particular instrument. Couldn't hurt to try.

We did. Wow.

Viola, it turns out, adds a beautiful, rich texture to piano and drums. I guess I knew that already from listening to other people's stuff, but I'd never thought it could work for ours.

The jam reminded me of how, once you write a song and release it to the world, it's not entirely yours anymore. It can do things you never thought about, go in directions you hadn't imagined.

Viola.

Wow.

Evil deeds and common ground

2011-09-05T01:17:00.002-07:00

The media is continuing to churn out articles about how a few beleaguered psychiatrists have received death threats from patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis. The psychiatrists, who claim they can treat ME with talk therapy and exercise, say these patients are angered by any assertion that their disease is psychological.

In response, Dr. Malcolm Hooper has written a letter offering more backstory and a reality check. It begins:

No right-minded person condones any campaign of vilification against psychiatrists but equally, no right-minded person can condone what psychiatrists like Wessely have done to the UK ME community over the last 25 years.

There's a lot of good stuff in that letter. Stuff about how ME—a neurological illness that attacks the immune system and leaves many sufferers completely incapacitated—is not in any way psychological. But the thing that stands out to me is that first sentence. Before he goes on the attack, he states in no uncertain terms that death threats are bad.

That's been the response I've seen everywhere in the ME blogosphere. While most patients and advocates suspect that these psychiatrists are exaggerating their claims, everyone has taken care to say that IF the threats are happening, they shouldn't be.

* * *

In related news, the public was recently treated to a first-person account by Simon Wessely, a primary target of the alleged death threats. I could spend several pages debating his main arguments, but I'll set them aside for now and focus on this statement:

Our critics have devoted much energy (irony intended) to denouncing us as pawns of the drug or insurance industries. I have been called a new Dr Mengele, the next Dr Shipman ... I am frequently accused of having thrown a CFS-suffering child into water to see if he would sink or swim.

Ah yes. The kid in the pool.

Dr. Wessely is referring to Ean Proctor. At age 12, Ean was taken from his parents and placed in an institution. Those responsible for his care believed his symptoms of near paralysis weren't real. To prove it, they threw him facedown into the deep end of a swimming pool. Their experiment failed, and they had to rescue him when he couldn't move his limbs to save himself.

Wessely almost certainly didn't pick up Ean Proctor with his own hands and toss him into the water. I've never seen anybody accuse him of doing so. What he is accused of—what is a matter of record—is his involvement in Ean's case. As a senior registrar in psychiatry, he declared Ean's disease to be psychological and recommended that the boy be removed from his family.

* * *

The "death threats" story, presented unquestioningly in article after article, has become a source of frustration for ME patients and advocates. As one sufferer noted in a comment to my last post on the subject,

The truth of the situation is that even if death threats have been sent, it is by a tiny minority of the hundreds of thousands of people with ME in this country - yet it's the whole community who is being attacked here. And of course, the whole story just increases people's belief that we're somehow psychologically unbalanced.

Which leads to an interesting question: How would psychiatrists react if the tables were turned?

ME advocates can cite a number of cases where children and adults with ME were forced into institutions for believing they were sick. Do all therapists think this is appropriate or helpful? Hopefully not. But what if a series of articles were published describing what happened to Ean Proctor, Sophia Mirza, Brian Nicholson, Ryan Baldwin, the child from Spain, and others in gory detail? What if these articles referred to "psychiatrists" who pushed for such measures without mentioning any of them by name?

Psychiatrists who do not agree with such measures might feel unfairly singled out.

* * *

In a 1994 lecture, Simon Wessely said, "I will argue that ME is simply a belief, the belief that one has an illness called ME." He and others in the "Wessely School" have since backed off of that proposition, arguing instead that ME is a genuine, serious disease with a psychological component.

The ME community still disagrees with this watered-down version of the psychiatric perspective. That said, the watering down has significant real-world implications. If ME is fully psychological, then you can make an argument for institutionalizing people whose "illness beliefs" have rendered them completely dysfunctional. If ME is a real disease with psychological factors thrown in, then forcing patients into a psych ward because they believe they have a real disease doesn't make a lot of sense.

So here's my proposal.

ME advocates will publicly oppose death threats, harassment, and abuse, as we have done from the beginning.

In return, psychiatrists will publicly oppose the involuntary commitment of ME patients into psychiatric units.

What do you think, psychiatrists? Do we have a deal?

Death threats

2011-08-28T11:53:00.001-07:00

If you've been following the news lately, you may have come across a story or two about a small group of psychiatrists who study myalgic encephalomyelitis, aka "chronic fatigue syndrome." The psychiatrists in question say they've received death threats from ME patients ... the very people they're trying to help! Gasp!

The reason for the threats, they claim, is that patients with ME—a disease that causes chronic pain, debilitating exhaustion, and worsening of symptoms after even minimal exertion—are opposed to research that implies their illness could be linked to psychological problems.

"I have moved my research interests to studies of Gulf war syndrome and other conditions linked to war zones," says Simon Wessely, one of the more famous (or infamous) ME psychiatrists. "That has taken me to Iraq and Afghanistan where quite frankly I feel a lot safer – and I don't mean that as a joke."

He argues that the threats are potentially as damaging to medical research as attacks made by animal rights activists.

The ME community has responded by collectively rolling its eyes.

Digging a bit deeper

Before you jump to any conclusions, rest assured that ME patients and advocates do NOT believe that death threats are a legitimate means of activism or self-expression. There's a lot of anger, yes, but assassination attempts are not on the table.

So why aren't they taking the threats seriously?

First of all, there's more than a little skepticism that the threats exist. From Hillary Johnson, author of Osler's Web:

In a BBC radio interview, [Wessely] also reportedly told a reporter that he and his mates have started taking precautions that animal researchers in their institution employ ... The reporter failed to ask Wessely to elaborate, unfortunately. The BBC cited a brief letter that ended with the phrase, "You will all pay." That's a death threat?

From Phoebe Snowden, a journalist whose career ended due to ME, in response to a brief on the subject from Times Higher Education:

I am horrified by your standards of journalism. Where is the evidence that any of these "threats" exist, and why are you people reporting this ludicrous story without questioning its validity?

Here's Angela Kennedy, a social sciences researcher and parent of someone with ME, poking one of the biggest holes in the story's credibility:

In 2007 I was once falsely accused of 'personally harassing' Professor Wessely by a Wikipedia administrator, claiming Professor Wessely had told him this himself. I publicly oppose and critique psychogenic explanations for ME/CFS, on both a political and academic level. I have NEVER harassed Professor Wessely or contacted him ... When I wrote to Professor Wessely's employers, asking that he clarify he had no part in the false claims made on Wikipedia in 2007, they refused to provide that clarification.

So, there's that.

Mind you, I have no trouble believing that there's been hate mail. A researcher quoted in The Guardian described a plausible example:

"I published a study which these extremists did not like and was subjected to a staggering volley of horrible abuse," said Professor Myra McClure, head of infectious diseases at Imperial College London. "One man wrote he was having pleasure imagining that he was watching me drown. He sent that every day for months."

Again, the ME community doesn't advocate harassment. But I'd guess that most would understand where the letter writer's anger comes from. That's because they understand the consequences of the psychiatric perspective.

For instance ...

In 1988, 12-year-old Ean Proctor had been sick for two years with ME, deteriorating to the point where he could no longer walk or speak. Simon Wessely (at the time a senior registrar in psychiatry, not yet famous enough to be getting death threats) made the case that Ean's symptoms were psychiatric, and that he needed to be removed from his home so he could escape the influence of his "overinvolved" parents.

They removed him, stuck him in a psychiatric ward, and severely restricted contact with his family. Treatment included not taking him to the bathroom so he'd be forced to go there unassisted. (Didn't work. He wet himself and sat for hours in soiled clothes.) Treatment also involved pushing Ean in his wheelchair very fast, then stopping abruptly to make him do something to prevent falling out. (Didn't work. He toppled onto the floor.)

And then there was this:

... the sick child was forcibly thrown into a hospital swimming pool with no floating aids because psychiatrists wanted to prove that he could use his limbs and that he would be forced to do so to save himself from drowning. He could not save himself and sank to the bottom of the pool.

On the bright side, they fished him out before he died. But the incident might explain that letter writer's oddly specific fantasy—why he imagined watching McClure drown instead of, say, being attacked by a swarm of killer bees.

And again

You may be thinking that what happened to Ean was an isolated incident. It's not.

In 2003, an ME sufferer named Sophia Mirza was sectioned in Britain—police broke down the door and took her to a psychiatric hospital. Two years later, she died from complications of the disease. Though Mirza only spent 13 days in the hospital, her mother has gone on record saying that the ordeal had a devastating effect on her already fragile condition. She had actually been improving until that point.

Just three weeks ago, a 12-year-old girl in Spain was taken by police to a local psychiatric ward. Although she's been diagnosed with severe ME by specialists, Social Services thought she should be attending school. They're forbidding the girl's mother (who also has ME) from seeing her.

Don't assume this kind of thing can't happen here. It has happened here.

Death threats

Most ME sufferers don't experience an involuntary trip to the pysch ward. Unfortunately, they also don't receive useful treatments. The lion's share of funding for ME goes to psychological research promoted by the aforementioned psychiatrists; as a result, the best many patients can get is cognitive behavioral therapy and graded exercise therapy. While this form of psychological intervention isn't quite as bad for desperately sick people as throwing them facedown into the deep end of a swimming pool, studies show it does more harm than good.

With no treatments that address the biological roots of their disease, ME sufferers tend to die earlier.

And then there are the extreme cases. Given what happened to Sophia Mirza, that kid in Spain has good reason to fear for her life.

On the flip side, not one psychiatrist has died at the hands of an ME patient.

Maybe the media is chasing the wrong story.

Ten years

2011-08-25T21:39:00.007-07:00

Ten years ago today, I bought my first keyboard. It was kind of a big deal.

I'd been toying with the idea for some time. While I already had a good upright piano to practice on, I wanted something a little more fun. A little more portable. I had this crazy notion that maybe one day I'd be in a band, and I couldn't do that with an instrument that didn't fit in a carrying case.

My cautious, prudent side was skeptical. Keyboards cost a lot of money. Yes, I could buy one and still make rent, but what if I lost my job somewhere down the line? Then that keyboard-sized hole in my savings might really mean something.

Eventually my cautious, prudent side was overruled. I decided to take the plunge.

And so, on Saturday, August 18, 2001, I went to Rainbow Guitars and tried out all the decent choices. It quickly came down to two different Rolands. One cost $1,600. The other cost $1,100. I didn't care so much about the extra voices the more expensive one offered—all I really needed was one good piano voice. But I did like its best piano voices just a little bit better.

I kept switching from one Roland to the other, trying to figure out how much I cared. Finally, I settled on the RD700, the more expensive of the two. I'd be living with the sound quality for a long time. If I was going to do this, I should do it right.

Then I stalled. Even though I'd been contemplating this for weeks, simply plunking down $1,600 (plus $400 for amp, keyboard stand, and bench) after spending less than an hour in the store seemed so impulsive. My cautious, prudent side warned me that I'd be second-guessing myself later if it felt like an impulse buy.

So I made a deal with Cautious and Prudent. I'd come back in a week, after giving the decision some time to settle, and I'd buy everything then.

Done and done. A week later, August 25, 2001, I was the proud owner of a really decent professional keyboard.

Now, on the tenth anniversary of that day, I think back to the logic that finally made me OK with the idea.

If I do this now and lose my job later, I'm not going to regret the lost savings. I'm going to be happy that I got my hands on a keyboard when I had the chance.

Today I'm a freelancer. Financial stability is elusive. Some weeks are better than others.

I don't regret the lost savings. I'm glad I got my hands on that keyboard when I had the chance.

Happy anniversary.

In praise (mostly) of technology

2011-08-24T23:31:00.010-07:00

My hard drive is officially dead. The guy I hired to try to fix it called me today and said his attempts had failed. He could try to recover the data, but that would cost at least $600. Eh, no.

There goes the Cinder Bridge mailing list. Poof.

And yet, I am not hating technology this week. Technology was my friend at Saturday's FireFest gig. Technology enabled a listener to record a couple of our songs with a small, presumably affordable camera; now the videos are on YouTube, Facebook, and the blog.

After we played, a new fan wanted to sign up for the mailing list. I didn't have pen and paper on me. He got onto Cinder Bridge's Facebook page from his smartphone and hit the "Like" button so he'd get updates that way.

He probably wouldn't have had the ability to do that just eight years ago, when the band was getting started.

So all in all, tech remains on my good side. For now.

On another note, if you were on our mailing list, or you would like to be on our mailing list, send me e-mail at susan (at) cinderbridge.com. We'll set you up.

Live from FireFest

2011-08-21T15:24:00.010-07:00

The awesome Frank Ramos likes to go to music events around Tucson and videorecord the performers. Here are a couple of songs he captured from last night's gig.

"The Line." You may appreciate this if you've ever spent a lot of time in the company of an addict, particularly one whose fortunes are tied to yours.

Our ME/CFS advocacy song. Frank was only able to get the last few words of my introductory spiel, so here's a caption:

I wrote this song about somebody living with myalgic encephalomyelitis, a disease that causes chronic pain, crushing exhaustion, and in many cases, early death. If you're wondering why you've never heard of myalgic encephalomyelitis, that's probably because it's more commonly known as "chronic fatigue syndrome," which is a stupid name for a serious disease. The song is called "Everybody Knows About Me."

Thanks, Frank!

The gig you may not have heard about

2011-08-19T22:35:00.010-07:00

My "work" computer's hard drive died a week and a half ago. Since then, I've been running around, dealing with the fallout. I got the drive diagnosed, bought a new computer, set up the new computer, and stumbled through Windows 7 after clinging for many years to XP, an older and much less annoying operating system.

Fortunately, I had all my freelance work backed up elsewhere.

Unfortunately, I hadn't thought to back up anything else. Like Cinder Bridge files.

Like the Cinder Bridge mailing list.

We have a gig tomorrow night. I've sent out invitations to local Facebook friends, and we've contacted a handful of people outside of Facebook, but there are quite a few fans whose contact information we don't have anywhere else.

Ugh.

There's still a chance the old hard drive can be saved. I'll find out one way or another next week. In the meantime, if you're on our mailing list and haven't heard from us, we're not ignoring you.

Oh, and if you're in the vicinity and would like to hear us Saturday night, here's the pertinent info:

What
FireFest

When
Saturday, August 20, 7 p.m., to Sunday, August 21, 2 a.m. Cinder Bridge plays from 9 to 10 p.m.

Where
People's Imports/Party to the People
276 S. Park Ave.
Tucson, AZ

Other info
Other bands include One Heartbeat, Lunasong, and 8 Minutes to Burn. In addition to live music, FireFest offers organic food, healthy drinks, and belly dancers. BYOB.

Hope to see you there. If you sign up for our mailing list, I'll try not to lose you this time.

Breaking news: People like music!

2011-08-13T09:50:00.011-07:00

A new medical study shows that music may have beneficial effects on cancer patients. For instance ...

The authors ... found evidence that music interventions may have a beneficial effect on several physiologic responses, including reducing heart and respiratory rates. These results are also consistent with findings from another Cochrane systematic review on the use of music with coronary heart disease patients, which also found a reduction in heart rate.

(Full Medscape article here. If you hit a registration wall, you can currently get around it by googling cancer music anxiety and clicking the first search result.)

This is interesting stuff, worth exploring further. The headline, though, is what caught my attention:

Music Lowers Anxiety and Boosts Mood in Cancer Patients

Really? Gosh, Medscape, that's fascinating! Who'd have thunk that people with cancer get the same emotional goodies out of music as everybody else?

When practice doesn't quite make perfect

2011-08-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I write a song that's hard for me to sing. I don't mean emotionally. I mean technically. Maybe part of it is out of my range, or there's a note I have to sustain for a long time without breathing.

"You're the writer," I hear you cry. "Why would you make it difficult for yourself?" Well, mostly I don't. If I can, I tailor my songs to my strengths. But every once in a while it just doesn't sound as good the easy way. So I write it the way I think it should sound, and then practice the hell out of it.

Hold Me in Your Arms is a good example. It's a love song, and it begins with me humming over a minimal piano accompaniment. The notes would be in my range if I were na-na-ing them, but they're uncomfortably low when hummed. To do the passage without cracking or sounding weak, I have to hold my face in a way that doesn't obstruct the airflow.

Practicing this has helped a lot, but I still haven't been able to count on hitting the notes consistently.

Yesterday at rehearsal, I sang the song for the first time in a while. And just before we started, a thought popped into my head. What if I just hummed louder?

Yep. That did it. I'd been humming softly for a more sultry effect, but going louder didn't change the feel. All I had to do was back off the mic a little.

Practice is good. But sometimes it helps to come to a sticky spot fresh.

Grocery story serenader, part 2

2011-07-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me

Making my way through Sunflower's frozen meat selections, I sing along with Supertramp. Softly, on and off. Just because I like singing in grocery stores doesn't mean anyone else wants to hear me.

There's so much that we need to share
So send a smile and show you care

The song isn't in my range. Even the people who've paid to hear me sing wouldn't listen now.

Now's the time that we need to share
So find yourself, we're on our way back home

I notice him in the produce section while scoping out cabbage and celery. He's a few feet away, shopping with his wife, also singing along. Quietly, surreptitiously.

See the man with the lonely eyes
Oh, take his hand, you'll be surprised

I sing a couple of lines to the guy, loudly this time, looking right at him. He smiles. Says something about it being a good song.

Another brief connection, made possible by music.

Shout-out from BScene Live

2011-07-13T14:46:00.005-07:00

Ooh, look! Don Martin and Courtney Ludwig did a write-up on the Concert to Aid Victims of the Southern Arizona Fires for BScene Live. Cinder Bridge gets a mention in the seventh paragraph:

Listening to and photographing Cinder Bridge, a two-piece band, which included the vocals and keyboards of Susan Wenger and the percussion of Ron Amistadi was very intriguing to me. Susan's voice had the sound of folk mixed in with the vocals of Melissa Etheridge. Ron’s kit was simple, yet with so many sounds were produced with the use of "Hot Rods" (the drumsticks he was using) which made for a lighter sound.

Full article, with pictures, here.

Neat. People often compare my vocals to Carole King's, sometimes to Janis Joplin's. That's the first time I've gotten Melissa Etheridge.

Also, kudos to Don and/or Courtney for knowing what hot rods are.

Songwriters in the round

2011-07-10T14:20:00.019-07:00

Image by Hugh MacLeod, Gapingvoid.com
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

I wasn't sure I wanted to go.

Duncan Stitt, a fellow songwriter and keyboardist, had invited me to something called "Songwriters in the Round." The format: A bunch of songwriters meet somewhere—this time at somebody's house. Three get up on stage at a time, taking turns performing their original songs. You can bring a set list if you want, but to really have fun with it, you're encouraged to decide what to play on the fly, based on what the performer before you sings.

I love everything about this kind of gathering. I love hearing other people's songs, finding out what inspired those songs, and sharing my own. It's just ... I was tired. I'd come home from rehearsal, cooked a meal, and felt like I was done for the night. The best going-out option I could imagine was to see a movie with friends. The only thing I'd be required to do is sit and stare at the screen.

I was more in the mood to consume than perform.

But gatherings like this don't happen often—especially ones in which somebody else brings the keyboard—so I sucked it up and dragged myself over. And within five minutes of arriving, I forgot about ever feeling tired or antisocial. Good times were upon us.

The experience of the small group varied widely, from a guy who'd never played in public before to professional songwriters who'd successfully sold their tunes in Nashville. But everybody was interesting and friendly and good to talk to. Everybody had songs that were worth listening to.

I'm glad I went. Passive entertainment will always be there if I want it. Collaborative entertainment is better for the soul.

* * *

If you're a songwriter who lives in or around Tucson, you can get in on the next Songwriters in the Round. Go to www.meetup.com/songwriters-tucson and join the Meetup group. Don't worry if you're not an experienced performer. The guy who'd never played in public before almost didn't show up due to nerves, but afterword said this was probably the most fun he'd ever had with his clothes on.

Manilow and me

2011-07-06T20:27:00.076-07:00

I tend to float through my days blissfully unaware of pop culture. Keeping up with music news isn't a big priority. Despite that, I found myself surprised to learn that Barry Manilow had debuted a new album in June—his first collection of new material in a decade—without me noticing. I was a huge fan of his back in the day, so ...

What? Why are you looking at me like that?

Anyway, the album, 15 Minutes, is apparently somewhat of a departure from his usual style, more guitar-driven than his previous work. I checked out a few clips on Amazon.com, and ...

What?

Shut up!

* * *

"At the Cooooopa ... Copacabaaaaaana ..."

"What are you singing?" I asked.

It seemed like a reasonable question to me, but my friend Tina could hardly believe it. I'd never heard "Copacabana"? I'd never heard of Barry Manilow? My awareness of pop culture at age nine wasn't much better than today, so yes on both counts.

Not long after that conversation, I caught "Copacabana" on the radio and listened carefully.

"It's a pretty stupid song," I told Tina the next day. "And you sing it better than he does."

But for some reason, "Copacabana" started to grow on me. Enough that I asked my mother to buy me the album when I was home sick. She brought me back a copy of Even Now, and I wore out my little kiddie record player's needle on "Copacabana." Every other song on the record was a keeper too. Soon I was spending countless hours in the living room, parked in front of the stereo, listening to Barry Manilow's Greatest Hits.

What wasn't to like? Catchy melodies, heartfelt lyrics, great piano arrangements—Barry Manilow had it all.

Alas, other members of the household didn't share this assessment. My mom mostly tried to ignore the music, if memory serves, but my dad was not one to suffer in silence. We had constant battles over the volume when he got home from work. I had no idea how funny this was at the time. I could have blasted Judas Priest at them. I could have spun Led Zepplin backwards, trying to find satanic messages. I'd say they didn't know how good they had it, except that they probably would have preferred the satanic messages.

Anyway. Somewhere around the age of 11, my musical tastes went in a different direction. I started listening to the "adult contemporary" station whose format would today be considered classic rock-ish. I discovered Chicago and the Eagles. A friend introduced me to "Hey Jude" and it blew my little mind.

Barry Manilow fell by the wayside. This wasn't a conscious decision on my part. I wasn't convinced by my parents and other naysayers to stop liking him—in fact, I never really stopped liking him. I just moved on.

* * *

Home alone one night, flipping through radio stations, I came across a Barry Manilow song—"Weekend in New England," I think—on Lite Rock 94.9. Yay! I was in my 30s at this point and hadn't heard him in ... I couldn't even remember how long.

I settled in to listen, and ...

Oh god.

He sounds like THAT?

All these years, I'd assumed everybody made fun of Manilow because he was sappy. But no. At long last, I heard what everybody else heard. The earnestness. The lack of any kind of edge combined with a dropping of the Gs ("yearnin'"). The highly produced arrangements, complete with violins and soft brass.

Bring them all together and you had a perfect storm of cheese.

After the first shockwave of realization, a discomfiting thought hit me: If there was a time when I could listen to this and not hear the cheese, it was because I hadn't been filtering it through a half-dozen layers of cynicism.

There was a time when those layers simply didn't exist.

So now what? Would I join the ranks of all the people who made fun of Barry Manilow's music? Chalk up my previous adoration to not knowing any better?

I didn't want to. I couldn't. Those songs were my friends when I didn't have a lot of friends. They made a long, rough patch of childhood a little more joyful. Who can ask any more from music than that?

Besides, love him or hate him, you couldn't doubt the man's sincerity. He meant every word he sang. He performed the way he did because he wanted to, not because people considered his sound cool at the time. Hell, even at the height of his popularity, Barry Manilow was never cool. He was just Barry Manilow.

Above all? I wanted to preserve that kid who hadn't yet grown all those layers of cynicism. Who could listen to the earnestness and the dropped Gs and the violins and just accept his music for what it was intended to be. This went far beyond nostalgia. If I treated Barry Manilow like a joke, those last vestiges of my innocence would dry up and blow away.

So I decided. And to this day, I still smile when I hear one of his songs.

And I'm buying his new album, dammit.

Recorded at the River's Edge

2011-06-29T22:23:00.011-07:00

Maybe you couldn't make it to our Breakfast Club gig at the River's Edge a couple weeks ago ...

And maybe you missed the live webcast of said gig ...

Good news! The webcast has been archived, and you can watch/listen to the entire thing at your convenience (with a few ads thrown in).

[UPDATE: Turns out these videos don't work in Internet Explorer. If all you see are black squares where the video is supposed to be, try viewing from another browser. Firefox and Chrome work.]

Here's our first set. If you do ME/CFS advocacy, check out 27:20, where we announce "Everybody Knows About Me."

Video streaming by Ustream

An 11-minute interview with Carolyn "Trouble" Cary.

Video streaming by Ustream

Our second set. Due to technical difficulties, the video stalls a lot during the first song and the beginning of the second, but everything works after that.

Video streaming by Ustream

Rock stars and surf dogs

2011-06-25T01:50:00.000-07:00

Ron and Susan at the Concert to Aid Victims
of the Southern Arizona Fires. Photo by Don Martin

Thursday's benefit for victims of the Southern Arizona fires went swimmingly. People came, made cash contributions, bought raffle tickets, donated tons of stuff, listened to live music, and generally had a good time.

As a member of one of the bands that provided entertainment, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. How could I not? I got to get up on stage with Ron the Drummer, sing a bunch of songs, and play rock star for an hour and change. For this we earned a mountain of gratitude—as if doing what we loved were some kind of sacrifice.

Later that night I talked with Amy Mason, one of the main organizers, about how impressed I was that she could pull off an event of this magnitude within a week. She has a knack for this sort of thing, though, and she loves to help people. As she put it, everybody has something to contribute.

The whole thing reminded me of this:

If you can't spare the five minutes to watch, here's a summary. After training extensively to become a service dog, Ricochet had to be dropped from the program because she wouldn't quit chasing birds. Her trainer was disappointed ... until she realized that Ricochet had a talent for, of all things, surfing. Now Ricochet surfs to raise money for charity, and she is much more joyful and focused.

The takeaway message: Critters of all species do better for themselves and for others when we let them be who they are.

Unfortunately, if you're a critter of the two-legged variety, life doesn't always work out this way. Last night I got to do what I love for a good cause. Today ... let's just say I spent a lot of time chasing birds. There is no benevolent master to tell me I'm exempt from all the stuff I'm not good at. No way to meet all my obligations by doing the one thing I happen to like doing.

So I'm grateful for the moments when I can be who I am. Especially grateful when everyone around me is cool with who that is.

Susan of Cinder Bridge, looking far too pleased with herself.
Photo by Don Martin.

Insta-Benefit

2011-06-20T19:50:00.011-07:00

So, we've got these fires raging in Arizona, and they're a pretty big deal. Over ten thousand people have had to evacuate their homes in Southern Arizona alone.

Last week, music scenesters Amy Mason, Carolyn Cary (who interviewed us on Saturday), and Dave Owens decided they would do something to help. They'd put together a couple of benefit concerts, complete with bands, raffles, a bake sale, and a place to drop off donation items.

The first benefit will be at the C-Note this Thursday. The Dave Owens band is headlining. Cinder Bridge is one of the other four "special guest" bands. There's no door charge, but donations are very, very much appreciated.

Color me blown away. You don't realize it when you go to one of these things, but putting a benefit together is hard. Really hard. It involves planning and hiring and making sure everything conforms to fire codes and just generally a lot of work. These guys put the Concert to Aid Victims of the Southern Arizona Fires together within days.

Ron and I have it easy. All we have to do is show up on time, play, get our stuff off the stage as quickly as possible, and hang back and listen to the other bands.

Anyway. If you live in Tucson, please come out and reward these fine people's efforts. Great cause, great party.

Date: Thursday, June 23

Time: 4-11:30 p.m.
The Bryan Dean Trio: 4–5
Cinder Bridge: 5:30–6:30
Savage Zoo: 7–8
Arizona Bay Outriders: 8:30–9:30
The Dave Owens Band: 10–11
Place: The C-Note, 1302 W. Roger Rd., Tucson AZ

Cover: Please donate!

More info at BSceneLive.

Amazing feats of memory

2011-06-18T22:15:00.008-07:00

Any time we play at a new venue, in front of new people, our goal is to exceed expectations. Whoever hires us is taking a gamble. We want them to win big.

Which brings us to today's River's Edge debut. The audience liked us a lot. The people who put everything together thought we were great. But the exceeding of expectations came from an unexpected place.

In between sets, the band did an interview with Carolyn "Trouble" Cary. One of her first questions was where we'd be playing next. She handed me the mic, and I responded:

"The Concert to Aid Victims of the Southern Arizona Fires. It's Thursday from 4 to 11:30 at the C-Note, and we'll be playing from 5:30 to 6:30."

Carolyn, familiar with the benefit, was so impressed that I could recite its entire name.

I had spent some time the previous night memorizing "Concert to Aid Victims of the Southern Arizona Fires." It's a mouthful. I didn't want to get it wrong.

I honestly didn't expect anybody to notice when I got it right.

* * *

Thanks to Carolyn and Gregg for setting everything up, and to the River's Edge for letting us play in their playground. We had a lot of fun.

Live from the River's Edge

2011-06-16T23:41:00.006-07:00

Gig Saturday! Specifically, a Breakfast Club Show at the River's Edge Lounge.

This will be our first time playing at River's Edge, so I'm psyched. Curious, too. Not too many bars open in the morning and serve steak and eggs along with Bloody Marys.

The folks behind the event are also webcasting it. If you're a little farther flung than Tucson, or if circumstances don't permit you to venture out that day, you'll be able to see us remotely.

The live performance:

Date: Saturday, June 18
Time: 11 a.m.–1 p.m. MST
Place: The River’s Edge Lounge, 4635 N. Flowing Wells Rd., Tucson, AZ
Directions: Over here
Cover: None

The webcast:

bscenelive.com/podcasts/rivers-edge

Sticking points

2011-06-14T23:17:00.018-07:00

I've finally gotten an air-conditioning unit installed in the tiny room that doubles as my office and practice space. Good news, as Tucson temperatures have climbed into triple digits. This means I can work all day without risking heatstroke. Even better, now that conditions don't violate OSHA regulations, I can finally get my piano tuner in there.

This needs to happen as soon as possible, as my piano has spent the past week or so committing acts of mutiny. First the B below middle C started sticking. Then D above middle C did the same thing. Then G below middle C wanted a piece of the action, deciding that sometimes it would play F# when pressed.

I'm doing the best I can to ignore all of this when I play, but ... You know how you sound when your dentist asks you a question, and you answer the best you can with both of her hands in your mouth?

Yeah. Like that.

Fun for all ages

2011-06-12T14:47:00.019-07:00

Do you ever see some new toy out on the market and wish you could be a kid again so you could play with it?

This happens to me now and again. I don't have much use for Wii games as an adult, but eight-year-old me would have been all over them. I hate texting, but the ability to surreptitiously pass notes to friends in different classes—or at different schools—would have been the height of entertainment in elementary school.

Last night's gig evoked a little of that feeling. A guy who works where Ron the Drummer gives drum lessons set up an open mic, inviting both students and teachers at the music school to perform. Cinder Bridge started things off with a half hour set, and then Ron and I sat back to watch the other performers. The youngest participant, karaokeing her way through "Hard Knock Life," looked to be around seven.

Man, why didn't anyone set up kid-friendly open mics when I was a kid? My piano teacher held a recital every year, but that was a serious, formal dress-up affair, and most of the students were kids. How fun would it have been to perform just because you felt like it that weekend? To share the stage with confident adults, and aspire to be as good as them someday?

The hitch, of course, would be the parents. They might enjoy driving their offspring to an open mic as a one-off. They might not want to hear showtunes performed by little kids every week.

Come to think of it, my parents probably wouldn't have bought us a Wii if they'd existed when I was in first grade. And no way would they have let me bring a cell phone to school.

A hard knock life indeed.

Seriously, though, it would be nice if kids could make their own entertainment this way. Actively participate in creative culture rather than just parking themselves in front of the TV and becoming passive consumers.

It would be nice if I could go back in time and do that.

Reverse engineering

2011-06-07T02:20:00.002-07:00

A few years ago I wrote about a song lyric whose meaning eludes many listeners: "the cross is in the ballpark." For the uninformed, this is an oft-repeated line in "The Obvious Child" by Paul Simon. It first appears here:

And in remembering a road sign
I am remembering a girl when I was young
And we said These songs are true
These days are ours
These tears are free
And hey
The cross is in the ballpark
The cross is in the ballpark

My mother had told me she'd heard in an interview that Paul Simon just liked the sound of that line. It didn't mean anything. I googled around to see if this was true, found nothing to either confirm or deny, and figured she had her facts straight. Then over the weekend, nearly three years later, an anonymous commenter contributed this quote, with a link to the original Time interview:

"It got me thinking when that first popped out," Paul Simon says " ... 'The cross is in the ball park.' "The first thing I thought of was Billy Graham, or the Pope, or evangelical gatherings. But I came to feel what that's really about is the cross that we bear. The burdens that we carry are doable, they're in the ball park."

So it does have a meaning Yay! But my mom wasn't entirely wrong. Simon didn't come up with those words to express an idea. The words came first, followed by thoughts about what the words might mean. In fact, he rejected his own first interpretation in favor of one he liked better.

Kind of like a line in "Hey Jude." Before Paul McCartney brought John Lennon in on that song, he'd written "The movement you need is on your shoulders." It didn't mean anything to McCartney—it was just a placeholder to be discarded as soon as he or Lennon thought of something better. But Lennon was having none of that. "Leave it in," he said. "I know what it means."

I wonder how often this happens to songwriters. I wonder if it happens more to certain kinds of songwriters than others.

For me, not much. My typical process involves stumbling upon an evocative way to express some idea I've been playing with. The idea comes first. But once or twice, I've been struck by phrases that stuck in my head because they sounded cool, even if I didn't know what they meant.

Back when Ron the Drummer and I were trying to figure out what to call the band, one possibility that leapt to mind was "Half Moon Halo." I don't remember how or why I thought of that. Most likely I was free associating alliterative words. Anyway, I loved the name, but couldn't bring myself to seriously consider it because it didn't mean anything. I couldn't even make up something plausible sounding, as I eventually did for "Cinder Bridge."

Four years later, I started writing a song that reflected my growing discomfort with the kind of person I was. I didn't think I was evil, but I didn't feel like I was very good either, and I wasn't sure where that left me:

There's a hell for all the sinners
There's a heaven for the saints
But there ain't no place for the people in between

A good start, but what next? Somehow "half moon halo" snuck back into my consciousness, and I found a home for it at last.

I am walking down an unpaved road
In the middle of a lonely night
Half moon halo shines down on the scene

Not quite an exact metaphor for anything, but the imagery pleased me.

Have you ever invented a phrase, then reverse-engineered the meaning? If so, what was the phrase, and how did the meaning evolve?

Poisoning the atmosphere

2011-06-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

About half an hour into our meal, the music changed.

Chris and I were eating at Applebee's, chosen for its close proximity to our ultimate destination, the movie theater. The restaurant's background music was fairly eclectic, jumping from UB40 to George Thorogood. Every now and again we'd comment on the playlist; largely we ignored it.

All was well until something came on that neither of us quite recognized. Some artist we had never heard before. Someone who ... wasn't very good, actually.

Realization dawned. It was karaoke night.

We did our best to resume the conversation, but we were thwarted at every turn. What the singers lacked in skill, they made up for in volume. Even the ones who weren't half bad managed to be annoying somehow.

We left without ordering dessert.

* * *

The uncomfortable part? As we griped about how we could hardly hear each other, I remembered all the people who have asked Cinder Bridge to turn down over the years. The coffeehouse goers who came to talk to each other and didn't care for live music enhancing the atmosphere.

In our defense, we don't go to these places intending to get in the patrons' faces. If somebody hires us to play, we assume they have a pretty good handle on what their customers like—they don't want people leaving before dessert or those last few cups of coffee. And in our defense, a lot of people at our atmosphere gigs have given positive feedback, left tips, bought CDs, or signed up for our mailing list.

That said, consider this an open apology to all those we've annoyed.

Tagging ourselves

2011-05-29T13:48:00.022-07:00

We've needed to update our business cards for a while now. This is the one we've been using for the past couple years:

The first problem? Check out the URL in the bottom left corner. Nobody uses Myspace anymore. Or at least we don't. I haven't felt the need to send people there since discovering how to put our songs on the sidebar of this blog.

Additionally, the tagline bugs me. It's accurate—a number of listeners who've seen us live have said they were surprised to hear such a big, full sound from just a keyboardist and a drummer. But if you've never heard us, is "little band, big sound" going to make you curious enough to try us out?

This time around, we went with one of my original ideas:

When I ran this past Ron the Drummer a few years ago, he had reservations. Why typecast ourselves as a coffeehouse band when we didn't want to limit ourselves to coffeehouses? I saw his point. But on reflection, "coffeehouse stadium rock" is a good description of our sound. We do singer-songwritery stuff that fits in well with the coffeehouse genre. We also play a lot louder than the typical singer-songwriter who brings herself and an acoustic guitar to a cafe. There's only so much you can turn down when drums are involved.

I haven't had a chance yet to hand one of these out to somebody who's unfamiliar with the band. However, I did get to give it to our producer yesterday when he visited Phoenix. He loved it. Thought it was hilarious. I'll take that as a good sign.

Here's hoping a lot of people ask for our cards in the near future.

Freelance fixation

2011-05-25T23:08:00.009-07:00

When I made the leap from full-time employee to freelancer, my biggest worry was that there wouldn't be enough work to pay the bills. Eight business days in, however, and I'm as busy as ever. So far, anyway. That is good news.

On the flip side, all that extra time I thought I'd have for musical adventures hasn't materialized. I haven't done more songwriting, haven't seen more live shows, and practicing ... that's actually suffered.

It's weird. On the surface, I'm doing pretty much the same job-related tasks as I did before—I'm just doing it from my little office at home. But somehow the work is more addictive now. It's always there, beckoning seductively.

People talk about how you have to try not to let work take over when you do it out of your house. That kind of makes sense. I expected the work-life lines to blur a little. What I didn't expect was experiencing withdrawal symptoms when it came time to break for dinner.

I'm not complaining. It will be a long while before I can predict how often I'll be this busy. Until then, the more the better.

Still, if work keeps pushing music to the sidelines, music is going to have to find a way to push back.

The ear of the beholder, part 2

2011-05-22T11:57:00.038-07:00

"I found out why that woman walked out on us at the Folk Festival," said Ron the Drummer at yesterday's rehearsal.

My ears perked up. The woman in question suffered from ME/CFS, and the song that drove her away was our ME/CFS advocacy song. I'd been curious as to why ever since I'd heard about it.

"She thought all of our songs were downers," Ron continued, "and 'Everybody Knows About Me' pushed her right over the edge."

Huh.

OK, "Everybody Knows About Me" is not a cheerful song. In fact, it's pretty over-the-top depressing. On the other hand, Ron and I tried to compensate by making sure every other song we played was energetic and upbeat. The first songs in the set list might have been a little angry in places, but not sad.

After about four seconds of mulling this over, I realized that arguing with the woman in my head was stupid. It's not like she can be wrong about her own emotional response. If the first two songs brought her down, they brought her down.

* * *

I thought about the fleeing woman today when our neighbors started playing mariachi music at top volume. I hate mariachi music. The accordion and bouncy brass and lack of a groove set my teeth on edge. And I can't grasp why anybody else likes it.

Kind of fascinating, really. I accept that musical tastes are subjective. I accept that I'm not right. I accept that the woman at the Folk Festival and my neighbors aren't wrong. I just wish I could figure out what it is that draws other people to things I find so annoying, and what turns them off of things I like.

I wish there were a way for me to hear what they hear.

Of course, if our species had developed that degree of empathy at any point in its evolution, we probably would have achieved world peace by now.

* * *

More on this topic: The ear of the beholder

After the layoff

2011-05-18T00:32:00.000-07:00

So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end

—Semisonic, "Closing Time"

On an ordinary day in February 2003, my boss IM'd me with a request to see him in his office. As I got up and exited my little cubicle, I mused about how it used to rattle me when I got those messages. See, for most of my three years at the company, the projects I worked on were finite. They had a beginning, middle, and end. My worry had always been that one day, they'd run out of work to give me.

But there had always been more. And after countless meetings with the boss passed without incident, I'd finally stopped worrying that THIS time, he was calling me in to tell me I was fired. So with confidence, I walked in, sat down, and the first words out of his mouth were

(of course)

"I'm going to have to let you go."

A few minutes later I was sitting outside where nobody could see me, cursing my fate and mourning the loss of the job. I loved this job!

Well, no. Not really. I used to, back when the projects were fun. In the past months, however, my primary mission had been to write and edit the promotional mailings our company sent out on a too-frequent basis. Not the most odious thing I'd ever been paid to do, but not interesting either, and an absolute conversation killer at parties. ("What do you do?" "Oh, I write spam." "...")

What I loved was the company itself. My coworkers were the kind of people I'd hang out with outside of work. The hours were flexible. Every day was frickin' "casual day." The perfect environment. I'd never find another place to work like that.

Still, even in those first moments of shock, I tried to look at the bright side. I'd have more time for music. Maybe I'd finally start my own band. You know, after I learned to sing.

* * *

Soon after the job ended, I agreed to back up a musician friend on keyboard for one of her gigs. I mentioned the layoff during our rehearsal together, and Amber suggested I look for work as a lounge pianist.

The idea intrigued me. I didn't know any standards, but I could improvise. The trick would be finding an affordable way to record a demo of myself doing that, something I could send to resorts. Wendy Adams, my vocal coach, recommended that I call Hank Childers at VGB Studio.

Done and done.

As we wrapped up the session, Hank asked me what my plans were.

"I'd like to find a guitarist and start a band eventually," I said. "Maybe in a few months. First I need to become a better singer."

"I know a drummer who's looking for a project," said Hank. "Would it be OK if I gave him your number?"

The rest was history.

* * *

If Cinder Bridge emerged as a result of the previous layoff, I wonder what this one will make possible.

The trick is to be prepared for anything.

At least I already know how to sing.

ME/CFS: Myths and facts

2011-05-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest with you. I normally hate awareness-raising campaigns. They tend to consist of:

Mentioning a disease or problem that everybody already knows is bad.
Saying that it's bad.
No, actually, that's it. We're all aware now. Yay us!

That said, ME/CFS Awareness Day is upon us, and I'm going to join in the awareness-raising festivities. Why? Because after so much time, most people have no idea what ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) is. They think they do, though. That's the problem.

Here are a few things you may believe about the disease, often referred to as "chronic fatigue syndrome," and what you should know.

Myth: "Chronic fatigue syndrome" means you're tired all the time

Fact: Though fatigue (read "crushing exhaustion unrelieved by rest") is one of the symptoms, there are many others. These include:

Chronic, debilitating pain

Post-exertional malaise—symptoms get worse after physical or mental exertion and require an extended recovery period

Greater susceptibility to fatal cancers and heart failure

Flu-like symptoms, such as joint and muscle pain

Cognitive impairment, including problems with short-term memory

Other common symptoms include cardiac arrhythmias, chemical sensitivities, food sensitivities, blurry vision, eye pain, irritable bowel syndrome, and a host of other conditions that are nasty in their own right

* * *

Myth: People with ME/CFS are slackers. They should soldier on, just like everybody else who gets tired.

Fact: Many people with this disease try to push through the pain and fatigue in the early stages; they attempt to continue working. Unfortunately, this tends to make them worse. A lot worse. (See "post-exertional malaise" above.)

* * *

Myth: They'd get better if they exercised.

Fact: Exercise is a wonderful thing ... for most people. It tends to make people with ME/CFS worse (see "post-exertional malaise" above). Additionally, if you don't always have enough energy to feed yourself or drag yourself to the bathroom, pushups are not going to be a high priority for you.

* * *

Myth: There's nothing I can do to help.

Fact: There's plenty. Start by treating the sufferer in your life with respect. Stay in touch, even if the person doesn't have the energy to contact you most of the time. Then, donate to this fine organization:

These guys are working furiously to find treatments, and they receive very little funding.

* * *

Happy May 12, everyone. Here's hoping the day comes when awareness campaigns for this disease are unnecessary. In the meantime, here's hoping that we can translate our awareness into action.

Will this wind be so mighty ...

2011-05-08T09:05:00.013-07:00

As I've mentioned before, the thing about outdoor gigs and singing is that you always end up with hair in your mouth.

Brushing hair out of my mouth between songs
at the 26th Annual Tucson Folk Festival
(Photo by Rick Johnson)

I came better prepared to yesterday's outdoor gig, in which we provided entertainment for a little neighborhood get-together. I tied my hair back. Barrettes only get part of the job done, though. Some stray and rebellious strands will always escape their clippy confines.

Good news: The wind consistently blew toward me, keeping those strands out of my face.

Bad news: Said wind also blew smoke from the ginormous barbecue grill directly in my face. Singing becomes more of a challenge when you're trying not to choke.

Win some, lose some.

Interview at BSceneLive

2011-05-04T22:31:00.011-07:00

The first time I met Don Martin online, I thought he was trying to sell me something.

Out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to do an interview. We hadn't gotten fully acquainted; the only thing I knew about him was that he liked music, and that we had some musician friends in common on Facebook. So if he wanted to interview me, there was likely some ulterior motive, right? That's what previous experience had taught me. Eventually he would mention that artists had to pay to be interviewed, something like that.

But no. Further probing revealed that he was a writer who'd stumbled on Cinder Bridge music one day and liked us. When he talked about our songs, it became obvious that he had actually listened to our songs.

My faith in humanity somewhat restored, I agreed to the interview. It's up at BSceneLive. Read on to learn about my thoughts on music, performing, and songwriting. There's tons of stuff there that I haven't already blogged about, promise!

Support from folks

2011-05-03T23:10:00.014-07:00

Remember how I said we got amazing support at the Tucson Folk Festival? We now have visuals to prove it. All photos were taken by Rick Johnson.

Our friend Neill played roadie and helped us get my keyboard onstage.

The sound quality was fantastic, and I realized after we got offstage that I completely forgot to thank the people who made that happen. So, thanks, Jamie the Sound Guy (above, left). Thanks, festival volunteers.

And, of course, there's no point to any of this without the people who come out to listen.

Making a disconnection

2011-05-02T22:29:00.001-07:00

Ever since writing "Everybody Knows About Me," our ME/CFS advocacy song, I've had this fantasy. We're playing at a coffeehouse. Someone with ME/CFS is in the audience, and she (or he, but I'm going to make her female because I hate writing "he or she") is there with friends. While her ME/CFS isn't severe (she couldn't leave the house if it were), the outing takes its toll. She wants to go home and collapse. Her friends, well-meaning but clueless, negotiate with her. Just another half hour, they say.

She doesn't want to argue, so she tries to hang in there. We finish whatever song we're playing, and I launch into an introduction:

"I wrote this next song about somebody living with myalgic encephalomyelitis, a disease that causes chronic pain, crushing exhaustion, and, in many cases, early death. If you've never heard of heard of myalgic encephalomyelitis, that's probably because it more commonly goes by the term 'chronic fatigue syndrome,' which is a stupid name for a serious disease. The song is called 'Everybody Knows About Me.'"

This grabs the attention of everyone at the table. Though they came to socialize, now they stop and listen to the words. The person with ME/CFS feels vindicated. The friends are chagrinned, realizing that on some level they had assumed she was being overly dramatic. Everyone goes home at the end of the song, and her friends take her more seriously from there on out.

That's the fantasy.

When we played "Everybody Knows About Me" at the Tucson Folk Festival this Sunday, I hoped we could make that kind of connection with the audience. That somebody listening would be happy that somebody else understood. Maybe that happened. I don't know. But the one story I heard ended differently.

Ron the Drummer found out that someone he knows went to see us play. With her was a friend who has ME/CFS. They left in the middle of our set because "Everybody Knows About Me" made the woman with ME/CFS uncomfortable.

I always assume that some, or even most reactions to our music will be lukewarm at best. It doesn't matter who you are: not everybody is going to be a fan. So if this particular woman had wanted to leave because she thought we sucked, I would have forgotten about it by now. But "uncomfortable" wasn't a response I expected. And unfortunately, the details above are the only details I know. Ron has no idea why she became uncomfortable.

I have a couple of theories. One is that she thought my little intro speech was over the top, what with the "in many cases, early death" part. The people I know with ME/CFS, the ones I talk to, are already aware of that statistic. They don't want it to be true, but it is, and they want the rest of the world to know about it.

Maybe our erstwhile listener hadn't heard this before. Maybe tossing it out so casually was insensitive.

The other theory is that she prefers to maintain a positive outlook, and she doesn't want songs like mine evoking pity on her behalf. A possibility that never occurred to me until today.

For the most part, feedback on "Everybody Knows About Me" from ME/CFS sufferers has been positive. I know it's impossible to please everyone. Still, it's disconcerting when one of my songs has the opposite of its intended effect. I wish I knew what happened to chase this listener away. For what it's worth, I hope the rest of the Folk Festival treated her better.

Good vibes at the TFF

2011-05-01T20:53:00.017-07:00

Our Tucson Folk Festival gig has come and gone, and I'm winding down, basking in the afterglow. Highlights:

With Tucson weather comes a different definition for "the good seats." The first audience members to arrive at the Plaza stage took chairs on the left or right. Only after those were all grabbed up did anyone sit in the middle. Why? The trees off to the sides. (You'll also find this principle at work in parking lots, where many drivers choose spots in the shade instead of closest to wherever they're going.)
The weather was amazing, with a high of 74. Perfect. Wind provided the only meterological annoyance; I performed every single song with hair in my mouth. One of these days I'll give in and tie my hair back for outdoor gigs.
Good crowd. They seemed to like us. But come to think of it, anyone who didn't like us would have simply wandered off to one of the other three stages. The Tucson Folk Festival is cool that way.
The support we got was just amazing. Friends came, and they brought friends who hadn't seen us play before. Fellow musician buddy Chet had brought his video equipment and offered to record us. New Facebook pal Don shot a bunch of pictures of us, confident that he could get good pics even after I warned him how unphotogenic I was.
One of my greatest fears before the show was that technical difficulties would prevent KXCI from broadcasting us. I promoted the hell out of that broadcast, promising we'd play our ME/CFS advocacy song, "Everybody Knows About Me." I felt like if we didn't go on the air, I'd be personally responsible for letting everyone down. But two people have confirmed that the broadcast went fine. I think it started around 15 minutes later than I said it would, though, so I hope distant listeners hung in there.
Got sunburned again. Oh well.
Saturday night, I dropped CDs off at the Tucson Kitchen Musician's Store. I figured I'd given them more than enough. Not so. Within a half hour after we played, one of my friends informed me that we'd sold out. We rushed over with more CDs. By the time we left that evening, at least some of those had also sold.
I sure hope they let us do this again.

Cinder Bridge: Broadcast from the Folk Festival

2011-04-28T22:45:00.019-07:00

So you're dying to experience Cinder Bridge's TFF show, but you simply can't make an appearance due to distance or illness? Fear not. We have options. KXCI is going to record all the performances from the Plaza stage and broadcast each one an hour or so after it happens. That means we'll go on the air Sunday, May 1, sometime between 2 and 2:30 p.m. MST and play until between 2:25 and 2:55 p.m. MST.

I'm psyched about this, not only because of the greater exposure for the band, but also the opportunity to get a soundbite out for ME/CFS advocacy. We're going to play "Everybody Knows About Me" in the middle of our set.

Here's how to tune in online:

Go to KXCI's "listen now" page at

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kxci/ppr/index.shtml
Click one of the two "play" options.

(Don't know which play option to choose? Just try one; if it doesn't work, try the other.)

If you've never listened to streaming radio before, I'd recommend that you try following the above instructions before the appointed time. These sorts of things are easier when you're not under any pressure.

Again, broadcast times are pretty loose, but they'll probably play us an hour to 90 minutes after we perform live, with our first song starting between ...

5 and 5:30 p.m. EDT
4 and 4:30 p.m. CDT
2 and 2:30 p.m. MST
2 and 2:30 p.m. PDT

If you're in Tucson and want to kick it old school, turn on your radio and tune it to 91.3 FM. But if you're in Tucson, we hope you can see us live and in person.

Cinder Bridge: Live at the Folk Festival

2011-04-28T22:28:00.009-07:00

The Tucson Folk Festival is upon us. This extravaganza of acoustic music will go all weekend; we play on Sunday.

If you're in Tucson, or if you're within traveling distance of Tucson, here are the pertinent details you need to see us:

Time: Sunday, May 1, 1–1:25 p.m.
Place: Plaza Stage in El Presidio Park, Tucson, AZ
Directions: Go here!
Cover: Nope

We hope you can make it. The TFF is a really good time, and you will enjoy yourself.

What's that? You live too far away? Travel is impossible? Read on ...

What draws us in

2011-04-27T01:20:00.001-07:00

"What sorts of things do you look for in deciding what music you like?" asked Facebook friend Don. "Technical ability? Lyrics? Etc.?"

An interesting question. The quick answer would be that all of those things are important. A more accurate answer is that it depends on the song.

For instance, back in 1995, a friend turned me onto "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette. I was putting together a mix tape of breakup songs. She informed me that "You Oughta Know" had to be on it. She quoted some lyrics:

And every time you speak her name
Does she know how you told me you'd hold me
Until you died, till you died
But you're still alive

Morissette's raw, angry lyrics expressed my raw, angry emotions perfectly. They pulled me in. The music? By itself, it was nothing much. The melody didn't do anything for me. Morissette hadn't quite mastered the art of singing yet. But that didn't matter. The music fit the words. And yes, she made it onto the mix tape.

On the other end of the spectrum are tunes like "Love Rollercoaster" by the Ohio Players. I was listening to this gem the other day in the car, singing along, and it suddenly occurred to me that most of the song only consists of two phrases. These are:

Rollercoaster ... of love
Rollercoaster ... ooh oooooh oooooh ooooooh

and ...

Your love is like
A roller coaster, baby, baby
I wanna ride

Without having to ask, I know that Don would hate this. His tastes run toward songs that tell stories and contain deep metaphors. He likes Bob Dylan and Paul Simon, and, yes, Cinder Bridge. Songs with inane lyrics over catchy melodies make him run screaming, hands over his ears. I can respect that.

On the other hand, could you even imagine "Love Rollercoaster" with profound, Dylanesque lyrics? Here—I'll make up something sensitive and thoughtful, and you sing the words to the "Rollercoaster ... of love" part of the melody:

There's a place in
My soul
Where I hide from
The world outside

Doesn't quite work, does it?

Which leads to a realization. It takes a special kind of talent to write mindless words that simply feel good to sing along to. That sounds sarcastic, but I don't intend it that way. For all the songs I've written, I'm not sure I'm capable of something like "Love Rollercoaster."

It might be worth trying someday. Challenges like that are a good way to avoid falling into a creative rut. The irony is that it would be ten times harder for me than writing something intelligent.

And for my trouble, Don and others like him would assume I'd gotten lazy.

Requiem for a day job

2011-04-23T09:22:00.027-07:00

"It feels better being an unemployed musician than an unemployed pipe fitter"
—Dean the Sax Player, The Commitments

Effective three weeks from now, the company I work for will no longer be doing its creative work in-house. My position will go away.

This didn't happen, I was assured, because they were unhappy with the quality of my work. If I want to become an independent contractor and take on my own clients, they'll feed me as many jobs as they have—as many as I can handle. But my days of full-time employment are, for the time being, over.

* * *

Three years ago, I wrote a wistful post about how the day job was sucking up all of my time. It got in the way of my ability to practice, to rehearse with the band, to gig ... But as an Adult With Responsibilities, I never seriously thought about giving it up. Aside from the fact that I quite liked my job, a steady income was nothing to sneeze at, especially in this economy.

Now that the choice is made for me, I'm caught between conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there's the sadness you'd expect to feel over the loss of a job, the fear of not being able to make ends meet. On the other hand, there's curiosity and excitement about what I might do with my newfound extra time and flexibility.

The band could tour.

Newfound extra time and flexibility don't guarantee we'll take our act on the road, of course. I have other responsibilities that make it difficult to leave Tucson. And maybe no one will want to hire us—that happens to misunderstood geniuses a lot.

But we could try. We could at least try.

Also, there will be more time for ME/CFS advocacy. I'd like to volunteer my services for the Whittemore Peterson Institute, though I'm not sure if I have any skills they need.

* * *

So, goodbye for now to routines, to the assurance of financial stability, to waking up around the same time every morning. Goodbye to daily face-to-face contact with coworkers, though I'll see old officemates now and again when I go back to pick up materials. Goodbye to work and home being two different places.

Hello to new possibilities, some of which I haven't yet imagined.

Intellectual Gagady

2011-04-21T22:10:00.022-07:00

The sequence of events occurred thusly:

Weird Al Yankovic had a great idea for a new parody song: "Perform This Way," riffing on Lady Gaga's "Born This Way." His people contacted Lady Gaga's people to ask permission. (Legally, he can record and sell any parody he likes, but he always asks.) Gaga's people said she'd need to hear the song before she said yea or nay.

He sent them lyrics. She still needed to hear the actual recording. He recorded the song and sent it. The verdict: no.

Annoyed that they'd let him waste all that recording time, Weird Al uploaded the song to YouTube. Which is how Lady Gaga came to actually hear "Perform This Way." She loved it. Her manager apologized for not sending her the song and for speaking on her behalf.

Here's the song:

Here's the long version of the story, in two parts, from Weird Al himself:

The Gaga Saga
Gaga Update!

Here's my question:

What was Gaga's manager thinking? That he had to protect his client from the bad publicity? That Gaga's fans would hear the song and go, "Gosh, I've enjoyed this woman's music a whole lot, but now that Weird Al points it out, her stage persona is rather outlandish. Funny how I never noticed that before. Perhaps I should spend my hard-earned money on a performer who doesn't wear meat."

Or, maybe the manager believed that the song would offend Gaga's delicate artistic sensibilities, and it was his job to protect her. Because a performer who calls herself "Lady Gaga" couldn't possibly have a sense of humor about herself.

Show business is weird.

Are you alive?

2011-04-16T12:26:00.030-07:00

A week or so ago in Songwriting Scene, Sharon Goldman talked about why she writes songs, and she invited her audience of songwriters to do the same. Responses included:

To emulate other great musicians.

To process and express emotions.

To heal.

To make people listen.

My answer was, To say things in a way I couldn’t in any other medium. To make connections. To make sense of things.

All true. All important. Yet, taken together they felt incomplete.

Today, while catching up on old blog posts, I ran across this from Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid.com:

Yeah.

When I write, I make something exist that didn't before. Noticing that a thought or idea could become a song, finding words and melodies and building on them, piece by tiny piece ... nothing else in the world feels like that feels.

Though I hadn't thought of it exactly this way before seeing Hugh's cartoon, bringing a song into being proves I'm alive.

What do you do to prove you're alive?

Perks of musicianhood, part 2

2011-04-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

Today I spent a little time at the Fourth Avenue Street Fair. A T-shirt artist by the name of Jodi was there, which made me happy because I'd bought one of her shirts the last time around and wanted more from her. We started chatting as I made my selections. She asked what I did for a living. I told her a little about my day job, and then mentioned that I was in a band. I dug through my purse, handed her a shrink-wrapped CD, and said, "This is us."

She proposed an exchange: our CD for a T-shirt. Done and done.

This is her website. Pretty cool, eh? Here's hoping she thinks our music is worthy of her art.

* * *

Note: Funnily enough, my other perks of musicianhood post also involved the Fourth Avenue Street Fair.

Miscellaneous rock star visuals

2011-03-23T23:26:00.016-07:00

My friend Neill managed to get a pretty good photo of our Green Valley gig. It may be the only snapshot we have in which my face isn't obscured by the mic. Yay instrumentals!

Courtesy of my friend Sally, here's that rock star business card I mentioned earlier.

Some background: I do book design by day, and every once in a while I make geeky posts on Facebook about fonts. Sally knows a fair bit about typefaces herself and often comments on those posts. So when she made up the card, she used Comic Sans and Brush Script. I told her that if she'd really wanted to be obnoxious, she would have thrown in Lucida Handwriting.

If you're a font geek, you know why this is funny.

Guilt-free donations to the WPI

2011-03-20T00:08:00.002-07:00

The problem with giving to charity—with any kind of do-gooding, really—is that it never feels like enough. No matter how much money, time, or effort you invested, you could have invested more. Just think of all the money, time, and effort you've put into things that only benefit you.

Charities like to take that guilt and build on it. You can't really blame them, but it's still annoying to get a ream of address labels attached to a heartfelt donation plea. Regardless of a cause's worthiness, who likes to be manipulated like that?

Though I don't officially represent any charity, I do occasionally try to persuade my readers to donate to the Whittemore Peterson Institute. Currently, WPI is the best hope for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis, fibromyalgia, Gulf War syndrome, and other neuroimmune diseases. These patients have been abandoned by just about everybody else. Not only do they suffer terribly, but many have little or no support. Friends, family, and physicians often don't take their suffering seriously.

So here's my proposition.

Click the donation button below and give some money to WPI. If you're a multibillionaire, then by all means, please feel free to donate one meeeeellion dollars. But if you're a person of slightly more modest means, give whatever you feel comfortable with. Then buy yourself that video game you wanted. I won't judge you. As far as I'm concerned, if you donate to WPI, you deserve to have nice things.

Green Valley surround sound

2011-03-19T17:24:00.007-07:00

We have returned from our Green Valley gig. All in all, things went very well. A few people came out to see us, and a bunch of passersby stuck around to listen too.

Due to the warm weather and lack of shade directly in front of us, we often had more of an audience than we could see. We'd end a song, and we'd hear clapping, and a lot of it would be coming from behind us, from folks hiding from the sunlight.

Applause is nice. Applause in surround sound is especially cool.

Green Valley bound

2011-03-18T22:31:00.003-07:00

On Saturday, Cinder Bridge will be trekking down to Green Valley to play the 47th Annual Spring Market. I love outdoor gigs this time of year. The temperature is supposed to get up to 74 degrees by the time we go on at noon.

Origin stories

2011-03-15T00:50:00.013-07:00

One week ago I posted the story of how I wrote my first song. It was a long, meandering tale, and I felt more than a little self-indulgent writing it. Nobody, I thought, could possibly be interested except for close friends and family.

But what the hell. If you can't be self-indulgent on your own blog every once in a while, where can you? Besides, I love origin stories. Spider-Man battling the Green Goblin is nowhere near as captivating as the series of events and choices that led Peter Parker to don a weird costume and fight crime in the first place.

You don't need to be a tights-clad comic book character to possess an intriguing narrative, either. Let's face it—sometimes you have to be a superhero just to make it through the day.

So now it's your turn. What is your origin story?

If you'd like to play, here are a few guidelines:

Post your origin story on your own blog. The idea isn't to write your entire life history ("I was born feet first ..."), but to share some pivotal happening that helped make you who you are. For instance ...
- Embarking for the first time on some creative endeavor, or learning the craft
- Discovering what you wanted to do with your life
- Overcoming some type of challenge or adversity
- Learning to live with some type of adversity (not all are overcomeable)
- Learning an important life lesson that's stood you in good stead
All of these are just offhand suggestions. If yours isn't on the list, that's fine!
Post a link to your story in the comments here.
Tag 10 other people who might have a good story to tell, and challenge them to tell it.

I'll start. Here are 10 bloggers whose stories I'd like to hear:

Billy and/or Bob, Bottom of the Glass
DeppityBob, Postcards from Scotsylvania
Fireblossom, Shay's Word Garden
Josh Hanagarne, World's Strongest Librarian
Pris, Songs to a Midnight Sky
Priscilla, Heaven in My Foot
Jeff Shattuck, Cerebellum Blues
Laurel, Dreams at Stake
RachelCreative, RachelCreative
Dave Rhodes, The RhodesTer Chronicles

There's no time limit on this, by the way. If circumstances don't allow you to write anything right now, feel free to put something up next week, or six months from now, or whenever. No stress. Just have fun.

I'm listening.

Susan Wenger, Rock Star

2011-03-13T11:08:00.009-07:00

I finally got around to seeing The Social Network a few days ago. In one scene, Mark Zuckerberg pulls out a business card that says "I'm CEO, Bitch." No idea if Zuckerberg has these business cards in real life, but that's pretty funny regardless.

The scene got me thinking. Though I have no desire to be CEO of anything, I'd love cards that say "I'm CEO, Bitch." No, forget that. I want cards that say "Rock Star."

* * *

Last night a bunch of friends and I went out to dinner to celebrate a belated milestone birthday: the big four-two. Yes, I'm the answer to life, the universe, and everything. (If you don't get the reference, drop everything you're doing and find a copy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy immediately.) My friends Sally and Kyle presented me with a gift: some business cards that say

Susan Wenger
Rock Star

Awesome. Now we just have to get similar cards for Ron the Drummer and we're on our way.

I've Been Waiting

2011-03-08T02:52:00.003-07:00

Have you been half asleep, and have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm supposed to be
—from "The Rainbow Connection"

I'm 16 years old, waiting for my turn with the guidance counselor. The agenda for our appointed meeting seems simple enough. I tell her my goals for college, and she tells me what classes I should take to prepare.

What are my goals for college?

Everybody assumes that I'm going to major in music. Why shouldn't they? I have a reputation as a really good pianist. I can play by ear and improvise. I have perfect pitch. On the flip side, I'm a mediocre student with no other special interests. What else would I do?

Here's the problem, though. I'm not as good as everyone thinks I am. I'm better than most kids my age. Most kids my age begged their parents to let them quit after two years of lessons. That doesn't make me Vladimir Horowitz.

My assessment isn't based on insecurity. I'm just good enough to have some idea of what good really is.

An internal debate ensues.

What if I worked harder?

I don't want to spend seven hours a day in a practice room. I would be miserable.

OK, but what if I developed some self-discipline and did it?

Well, I'd get to be a lot better than I am now. Still Not Vladimir Horowitz good, but maybe enough to play professionally in a lesser-known orchestra somewhere.

And what would happen if, after all that, I decided I didn't want to do it anymore?

I'd quit ... and thousands upon thousands of pianists would line up to take my place. Any one of them could play Brahms and Beethoven as well as I did.

The world doesn't need me to play Brahms and Beethoven.

When my turn comes, I take a seat in Mrs. Cannon's office and tell her I'll probably be majoring in liberal arts.

* * *

I'm hanging out in my dorm room, weighing my options. Graduation is a few months away. My plan is to go to graduate school, which will put me on track for a career in sociology.

I have reservations.

For one thing, I kind of feel like I'm done with school. My time at Indiana University has been good. Great, even. But I'm ready to move on.

A much bigger problem: I'm not at all sure I want to do sociology for the rest of my life. I love studying it. I love the way it helps me make sense of the world. I just don't know if I want to be a researcher.

My other option is to take a year off and get a job. I think I'd like that.

There's a catch, though. My bachelor's won't qualify me for anything in particular, and I have no idea what kinds of positions I would apply for. People tell me that the average college grad waits six months before finding anything. The most likely scenario is that I'll move back home, live with my parents, and take the same clerical job I worked over the summers.

That isn't exactly the growth experience I'm looking for.

If I choose grad school, I'll at least get funding as a research or teaching assistant, earning my own way.

* * *

Party at my house! Everyone seems to be having a good time. I stand apart from the scene for a moment, contemplating the guest list. The people I've invited are from my circle of computer geek friends. Woefully underrepresented are fellow University of Arizona grad students. I like them, and I don't think they dislike me. I simply don't know most of them very well.

Back during my first year, I'd felt the walls closing in. My entire life consisted of sociology classes, studying for sociology classes, doing research for a sociology professor, hanging out with people from the sociology department, and having conversations about sociology. If I didn't talk to somebody else about something else, I was going to suffocate. I went online, found some new friends, and gradually migrated my social life.

I didn't mean to detach so thoroughly. It just happened.

As much as I enjoy maintaining an identity outside of the department, I suddenly realize I'm courting danger. Graduate school isn't exclusively about learning a profession. It's about networking, making connections. Any one of my classmates could be in a position to help me get a job someday. But they won't, because they'll barely remember who I am.

Maybe I should try harder to talk to people in between classes. Forge some friendships, or at least acquaintanceships.

I find myself strangely unmotivated to do this. The truth is, after all this time, I still don't know if I want a career in this field.

So maybe I should admit that to myself and quit.

No, I'm not ready to do that either. Quit and do what?

At that moment I make a conscious decision: I'm not going to decide. For now, I'll continue to float with the currents and see where they take me.

* * *

The clock radio wakes me up at some ungodly hour of the morning. I lie on my back, trying to find any motivation at all to drag myself out of bed.

The temp job I've taken doesn't provide it. I'll be spending my day filing things, utilizing my extensive knowledge of the alphabet and the order in which it goes. If I'm lucky there might be typing.

Well, but at least it's only a temp job. It will be over soon. Except, no it won't. This one runs longer than most.

Okay, but the weekend is coming up, right? Nope. Still early in the week.

I'm 27 years old. The U of A stopped funding me a couple of semesters ago. I have less interest in the research I've been needing to do for my PhD than the temp work I'm dreading. My savings are running out.

Ten years from now, when you're still working the same crap jobs, will you be sorry you didn't just finish your dissertation?

Suddenly I am awake.

* * *

I lean against the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room, assessing my situation with a certain amount of satisfaction. I'm 30 years old, out of school for good, with a real, grown-up job at a tiny publishing company. For the first time I can remember, I feel like my life is on track.

Does this mean I've found my calling at last?

No. There are things about publishing I like, things I'm good at. But I stumbled into it somewhat randomly. It's not what I was born to do. I might end up finding something I like better. Or a series of somethings.

And that's OK.

All these years, I wanted my life to be like that verse from "The Rainbow Connection." Have you been half asleep, and have you heard voices? / I've heard them calling my name. I thought I should receive some sign from on high. This is what will make me happy. This is what I can contribute to the world.

In the absence of a clear sign, I was afraid to break free of what wasn't working. If I went off and experimented, I could end up in the wrong place, even further from my true destination!

But life doesn't work like that. The right thing won't come to you if you stand still and wait for it. You have to go out and find it. Every misstep is still a step forward. Every path you take teaches you a little more about where you really want to be.

I finally get it.

I think about the lessons I've learned, picturing an aerial view of a series of roads. I'm driving up one of them, exploring, willing to turn around if need be.

"Iiiiiiiiii've been waaaaiting."

The hell?

I haven't been thinking about singing. I haven't been thinking the words "I've been waiting." And yet, I just sang the words "I've been waiting." Out loud.

Part of me wordlessly ponders the strangeness of this, of momentarily turning into some ventriloquist's dummy. But another part is thinking, Hmmm, that's interesting. What could go next?

I sing again. On purpose, this time. "I've been waiting ... for something good to come along."

That's pretty good. How would the rest of the melody go?

I na-na out a melody. It comes easily, as if it's always existed, just like the little improvised pieces that used to flow through my fingers onto the piano keys.

Huh. That's kind of catchy. It could be a song.

That's dumb. I don't write songs.

OK. But if you don't, nobody else will.

* * *

I'm riding my bike home from work. Because my mind likes having something to occupy it, I say to myself, Hey, let's work on the song.

It's been a year since those first three words came to me. As is my wont, I never committed to seeing the song through to completion. I had no clue as to whether such a thing lay within my capabilities. But I figured out a basic structure, and every now and again I'd think about how to write this line or that. Bit by tiny bit. In no particular order.

Come to think of it, which part of the song should I work on right now? What's left to do?

I sing the lyrics to myself, looking for the holes. And slowly, realization dawns.

There's nothing left to write. No blanks left to fill.

At some point, I finished the song and I didn't even notice. When did this happen? What were the final words?

Where was I when I gave my first answer to a question that wasn't multiple choice?

As I contemplate these matters, there's no sign from above to tell me what my next steps should be, nothing to indicate what the future holds, nothing more to do for now except keep pedaling forward.

I've Been Waiting

lyrics by Susan Wenger
music by Cinder Bridge

I've been waiting for something good to come along
Blue skies and carpet rides to carry me away
One day I'll behold
The brightly shining streets of gold
And leave behind these thin walls painted
Endless shades of gray

'cause
Written in the stars far away and long ago were
Portents and promises I could not ignore
Someone said of me
Here's a child of destiny
With deeds heroic to perform
And worlds to explore

CHORUS
The time is right
So who will tell me
Where does the treasure lie
Where am I s'posed to go
Siren's voice
Keeps me awake at night

The years fly by
And I am patient
And I ignore them
And I ignore them in their flight

I've been waiting to wake up to that perfect day
The fates decide it's time to give me something else to do
I read my palms and trace the lines
Looking out for any signs
That I will get another chance
To learn what I once knew

Spent my whole life clocking in and marking time
God knows it can't be long 'til something starts to give
I'll flag me down some fairy wings
And move right on to better things
'cause any fool can plainly see
This ain't no way to live

CHORUS
The time is right
So who will tell me
Where does the treasure lie
Where am I s'posed to go
Siren's voice
Keeps me awake at night

The years fly by
And I am patient
And I ignore them
And I ignore them in their flight

I've been waiting for someone good to come along
See me for who I'll be
A diamond from the coal
Make me feel alive
And take me from this nine-to-five
Existence that exposes me
The ordinary soul

CHORUS
But when I call
No one hears me
When did the summer end
Where did the music go
Siren's voice
Is lulling me to sleep

The years flew by
And I can feel them
Did I have promises
Did I have promises to keep?

I've been waiting for something good to come along
I've been waiting forever it seems
Lately I think I've been wasting too much time
Floating on the currents of
These vague dreams

Dawn is breaking
I see my birthright clearly now
Highways and hiking shoes
Before me is the day
Go where the crossroads join
Cross my fingers, toss a coin
And pocket all the loose change
I find along the way

'cause

I've been waiting
I've been waiting
I've
been
waiting

---------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005 Cinder Bridge. All rights reserved.

* * *

Disclaimer #1: All of this stuff happened a long time ago. While I've tried to recount the events as accurately as possible, I'm sure I've misremembered a few details. You probably took that as a given, but I'm neurotic about such things.

Disclaimer #2: As it turned out, what I'd actually finished by that last scene was a first draft of "I've Been Waiting," not the final version posted here. About six months later I realized it needed something more and wrote verse 2. But that's a story for another time.

The power of delusional thinking

2011-03-05T09:50:00.056-07:00

Things have been going pretty well for Cinder Bridge lately. And yet, I feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction. I crave something bigger for us. Grander. Why have we not yet achieved major stardom?

A popular philosophy is that we attract things into our lives through our thoughts. Believe all sorts of goodies are coming our way, and they will. Doubt, and they won't.

This means I've been keeping the band down by not fully embracing the belief that we'll hit the big time. In fact, I've been keeping us down simply by saying things like "Why have we not achieved major stardom?" When you think about what you don't have, you attract not having it.

So it's time for me to utilize the power of positive thinking. Ready? Here we go!

I can achieve whatever my mind can conceive.

Cool. Hey, I'm visualizing myself flapping my arms and flying. Think that'll work?

People will pay tons of money for our CDs because the universe is full of abundance and wealth. There is more than enough to go around.

Yeah! Except for the poor people in third-world dictatorships who have to toil endlessly just to keep starvation at bay.

I am a rock star.

I am? Why are we not playing 15,000-seat arenas? Why do I not hear us on the radio?

I suck at affirmations.

Wow, I really do.

Lookit, I have no problem using optimistic statements to psych myself up. Thinking OK, I can do this before embarking on something scary is better than ruminating on all the ways I could screw it up. Where I get stuck is the idea that all you have to do is think certain thoughts, and the universe will rewrite the laws of physics so it can drop shiny things into your lap.

Do I strike you as overly cynical? Read Barbara Ehrenreich's Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America for a few insightful reality checks. A belief that you can't fail doesn't always lead to success. Sometimes it leads to the subprime mortgage fiasco. Oh, and it turns out that a positive attitude doesn't make you any more likely to survive breast cancer.

Still not convinced? Skim a few blogs written by people with ME/CFS, a neuroimmune disease that causes serious pain and crushing exhaustion. Most of these bloggers refused to believe that their lives could be permanently sidelined when they first got sick. So with pluck and a can-do spirit, they pushed through the pain and crushing exhaustion to achieve their goals ... and made themselves much worse.

I'm pretty sure these guys want to get better more than I want to be a rock star.

Which brings us back to the point. If the think-and-you-shall-have brand of positive thinking amounts to delusion, I'm going to invent a delusional affirmation that can't be contradicted by harsh reality.

My failure to become a rock star thus far has nothing to do with a lack of talent, stage presence, or ability to market myself. The reason I haven't become a rock star yet is because I am a MISUNDERSTOOD GENIUS.

Yes. I feel much better now.

Doing the Tucson Folk Festival (again)

2011-03-03T23:10:00.003-07:00

Cinder Bridge will be playing at the Tucson Folk Festival this year. The current powers that be must have decided we're folk enough for rock and roll.

We start at 1 p.m. on Sunday, May 1. More details when I have them.

Yay!

Reflected in your eyes

2011-02-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

Brian and Susan, December 2009

I met Brian in music camp, when I was 16 and he was 17. We both ended up at Indiana University and stayed in frequent touch after graduation, seeing each other through various crises.

For one reason or another, we mostly lost contact around the mid-'90s. I thought about him every now and again, telling myself I should try to find him.

Eventually he found me. He was going to be in Phoenix over Christmas. Would I be around? If yes, he'd drive the two or so hours to Tucson and we could catch up.

I was. We did.

Seeing Brian was something. As we filled each other in on the intervening 15 years, it felt as if we'd last hung out a week ago. He hadn't changed at all, except to become a more fully realized, confident version of himself.

The strange part, though, was the feeling that I hadn't changed.

After leaving graduate school and settling into what I'd consider my real, adult life, I'd faced unforeseen challenges. Challenges I failed again and again to overcome. By December 2009, when I reconnected with Brian, failure had inserted itself into my DNA. I'd gotten used to seeing myself as somebody less, somebody who always fell short.

But Brian saw the same person he knew in 1994. He liked me for who I am, not what I do or how well I do it.

I think I'd forgotten there was a difference.

Brian left town shortly after that visit, but the experience stayed with me. I finished the song it inspired a year ago today. It's called "Ten Years Later" because "Fifteen Years Later" didn't scan.

This little live-in-Ron's-living-room scratch recording goes out to Brian, and to all the other friends who've stuck by me through the years. Here I am, reflected in your eyes.

Ten Years Later

lyrics by Susan Wenger
music by Susan Wenger and Ron Amistadi

1

Heading home
Driving slow
Changing stations on the radio
Trying to find a song that understands me

Take in the scene
With fresher eyes
Oh, I've got every street sign memorized
And still I feel somehow I've lost my way

CHORUS
Once I stood before your camera
Gave a smile, struck a pose
Facing fearlessly the future
As the past drew to a close
But the choices that I made
Were not the ones I thought I chose

2

You called me up
Blew into town
It's been ten years since I've seen you around
And seeing you makes ten years feel like nothing

I filled you in
You reminisced
About a person who does not exist
But there I am reflected in your eyes

CHORUS
Once I stood before your camera
Gave a smile, struck a pose
Facing fearlessly the future
As the past drew to a close
But the choices that I made
Were not the ones I thought I chose

3

Heading home
Still I find
Our conversation looping through my mind
What I forgot and what I must remember

Find a groove
Or go astray
It will not matter to you either way
For we are more than just the roads we take

CHORUS
And I'll stand before your camera
Give a smile, strike a pose
Facing fearlessly the future
As the past draws to a close
And the choices that I'm making now
Well no one ever knows

---------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2010 Cinder Bridge. All rights reserved.

Spinal fluid, proteins, and differential diagnosis

2011-02-24T22:31:00.013-07:00

New ME/CFS study! From The Washington Post:

The new study analyzed spinal fluid from 25 of those chronic Lyme patients, 43 people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and 11 healthy people. Using a special high-powered technology, researchers detected more than 2,500 proteins in each group.

More important, they found clear sets of proteins - hundreds each - unique to each disease, said Dr. Steven Schutzer of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, who led the work.

In other words, if this study pans out, doctors will have an easy way to tell whether a patient has ME/CFS, Lyme, or neither of those diseases.

That's a big deal. ME/CFS shares a bunch of symptoms with chronic Lyme disease, leading physicians to frequently misdiagnose one for the other. Unfortunately, the treatment differs. People with chronic Lyme may benefit from industrial-strength antibiotics. However, said antibiotics can have nasty side-effects, so you really don't want to take them unless you actually do have Lyme.

Why I became an ME/CFS advocate

2011-02-21T00:34:00.001-07:00

Many years ago, it occurred to me to wonder how celebrities choose their causes. If I were famous, I'd want to use my fame to make positive changes in the world—of course I would—but how to prioritize?

AIDS was the big issue in those days. AIDS would be a great option. But was AIDS more important than child abuse? Was child abuse more important than people starving to death in third-world countries? What about political prisoners? How about Alzheimer's disease?

In the end, I came to the conclusion that the cause probably chooses you. Your sister or your best friend is diagnosed with breast cancer, and you make it your mission to raise funding for a cure so your sister or your best friend survives, and nobody else has to go through what she's going through.

The personal connection is a big part of how I got into advocacy for ME/CFS. Someone important to me had this disease. I wanted him not to. Pretty simple.

Pretty simple, but not the whole story.

* * *

The other day, a friend of mine e-mailed me a link to an article about ME/CFS research. An excerpt:

Patients struggling with chronic fatigue syndrome may be helped the most when standard treatment is coupled with cognitive behavior therapy or exercise therapy, new British research suggests.

The apparent promise of cognitive behavior therapy and "graded exercise therapy" offers considerable hope to patients combating the complex condition characterized by profound tiredness, impaired concentration, diminished memory, sleep difficulties and muscle and joint pain, the study authors said.

The findings also support the somewhat controversial notion that incremental adjustments in physical behavior and/or mental attitude can ultimately have a positive impact on the disorder, the authors said.

Full article here.

The friend who sent the link knew I was interested in ME/CFS and wanted to know what I thought. I wrote a fairly pointed response, explaining everything that was wrong with the study.

"What's the problem?" I hear you cry. "They found treatments that help ME/CFS patients. Isn't that a good thing?"

It would be, if they actually helped.

The truth is, there have been many such studies on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET). They are fatally flawed in the following ways:

1. The cohort problem

Myalgic encephalomyelitis is a neuroimmune disease characterized by chronic pain, crushing exhaustion, and post-exertional malaise (symptoms worsen with exertion, sometimes permanently). However, the definition for the disease called "chronic fatigue syndrome" has been broadened to include people who do not necessarily suffer from pain or post-exertional malaise—people who have some completely different disease that causes fatigue, or clinical depression.

So a study on this "chronic fatigue syndrome" patient population is going to have problems right out of the gate. It's like testing a hypothesis that chemotherapy can help diabetics, and including a bunch of subjects who have cancer instead of diabetes.

2. Sampling bias

Say you've got ME/CFS. You often have to decide whether to spend your tiny allotment of energy on a shower or making yourself something to eat. One day you hear about a study. If you become a subject, they'll require you to exercise. If you exercise, you won't have enough energy for the shower OR the food.

Do you participate?

Neither would I.

So it isn't simply that they've included subjects who don't have ME/CFS. They've actually set it up so that the real sufferers are less likely to be involved.

For more thoughts on the most recent CBT/GET nonsense, along with observations from a patient who participated, read CBT & GET: The Studies, the Science and the Pseudoscience.

* * *

Bogus studies like the one above? They are why I've become an ME/CFS advocate. For other medical causes, raising awareness means spreading accurate information. For denigrated diseases like ME/CFS, raising awareness means constantly fighting the entities doing their best to lower awareness. You have to explain over and over again how positive thinking doesn't help, exercise hurts, and the disease isn't just in people's heads.

The cause chose me.

The cause needs all the help it can get.

B-roll

2011-02-15T00:16:00.000-07:00

Between songs at Saturday's Paws in the Plaza gig, one of the friends who came to see us walked over and said that a camera guy for KOLD 13 had shot footage of us for B-roll. He set up his tripod while we were doing our cover of "Run-Around," then recorded "Everybody Knows About Me" in its entirety.

I missed it. I was absorbed in the music, and the guy wasn't in my line of sight. But apparently he liked us. My friend nodded to him when the recording was done, and he smiled and gave my friend the thumbs up.

They used a tiny snippet of our footage for their 5:30 newscast. Though I didn't see it (I don't have TV), I'm told that my vocals and Ron's drums could juuust barely be heard under the voiceover.

We're famous!

OK, maybe not yet. But two things please me.

1. The camera guy liked us.
2. The camera guy didn't think I looked too dorky to film.

Hold Me in Your Arms

2011-02-14T00:01:00.012-07:00

I usually don't write love songs. Though I have nothing against them in principle, I tend to be drawn more to conflict in my own work. It's hard for me to do anything interesting with "You're awesome" or "romance is cool."

Besides, with a gazillion love songs out there, I doubt I have anything new to say.

Among my few exceptions is "Hold Me in Your Arms," which I wrote in 2008. It holds the record for my most quickly written tune. I was able to crank it out in less than 24 hours because it's very simple, with lots of repetition. I like it, but I haven't considered it my best work.

When we did Paws in the Plaza this Saturday, we put "Hold Me in Your Arms" on the set list for the first time in a long while. And the people who were listening liked it. They seemed to like us in general, but they really liked this one. You know you're in when your audience is swaying.

Maybe I need to get over the idea that complex, hard-to-write songs are superior. Sometimes people just want to hear nice and simple.

So, in honor of Valentine's Day, here's a little scratch recording of "Hold Me in Your Arms," made in Ron the Drummer's living room. If you absolutely hate Valentine's Day, give it a chance anyway. It's not too sappy and I promise it won't tell you to buy stuff.

Hold Me in Your Arms

lyrics by Susan Wenger
music by Susan Wenger and Ron Amistadi

Light is fading
Sun going down
Won't you hold me in your arms
Nothing between us
No one else around
Won't you hold me in your arms

Put down your battle plans
Put down your ammunition
They will be here waiting
At the coming of the dawn
The world outside is no more real
Than what I offer you tonight

Moment lingers
Ours alone to claim
Will you sing to me your song
A melody to cut through
All the noise and all the pain
Will you sing to me your song

I'll put down my strategies
And blueprints for the future
They will be here waiting
At the coming of the dawn
The world outside is no more real
Than what I want from you tonight

Why don't you hold me in your arms

Moonlight streaming
Through the window above
Won't you hold me in your arms
The struggles that define us
They can't kill the things we love
When you hold me in your arms

Pick up our lost dreams
And our visions for a brighter day
We will surely need them
At the coming of the dawn
These are the gifts we give each other
To sustain us through the night

Why don't you hold me in your arms
Why don't you hold me in your arms
Why don't you hold me in your arms
Why don't you hold me

----------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2010 Cinder Bridge. All rights reserved.

Paws in the Plaza 2011

2011-02-11T22:41:00.005-07:00

Gig tomorrow! Paws in the Plaza is an event to raise money for the Humane Society and to find some good homes for some good dogs.

Date & time: Saturday, February 12, 12:30(ish) to 2:30(ish) p.m.
Place: Casas Adobes Plaza (southwest corner of Oracle & Ina)
Directions: Go here
Cover: Free, but the Humane Society will take donations if you are so inclined

Despite worries about freezing my fingers off during last week's cold snap, the predicted high is 74. The dogs, the people walking them, and the people listening to us will be happy about that. So will we.

Substance abuse, part III

2011-02-09T23:11:00.013-07:00

The bag of M&Ms in the bottom drawer was calling my name. I considered my schedule. In about an hour and a half I'd be leaving work for rehearsal. Chocolate would gunk up my throat.

Eh, the hell with it. It was a rehearsal, not a performance. I opened the bag and went to town.

The good news: Somehow I was spared the usual vocal effects. No coughing, no hacking. In fact, my throat was more well behaved than usual.

The bad news: I hadn't taken into account the non-singing effects of an M&M binge. Tonight's rehearsal found me a little wired. During the first few songs, I made weird mistakes I don't normally make, like singing the wrong syllables even though I knew exactly what sounds I was supposed to produce.

Y'know, I have to admire musicians who nurse serious addictions. If I can be derailed by a sugar rush, how on earth do people perform under the influence of drugs you can't buy in the candy aisle of the supermarket?

Lady Who?

2011-02-04T22:35:00.028-07:00

A friend of mine had an epiphany the other day: Cinder Bridge should cover "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. We've successfully put our special Cinder Bridge spin on other songs outside our genre, so "Poker Face" would be right up our alley.

The idea seemed good in principle, but it was hard for me to judge. I had never heard Lady Gaga.

Oh, I'd heard OF her. I haven't been trapped in a bomb shelter for the past two years. I knew she was really really famous. I just couldn't identify any of her songs in a lineup. And from what I'd heard, I didn't think I was missing out.

* * *

Coming up in the '80s, one of the great disappointments of my life was discovering that the music of my generation sucked. Boomers got the Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, the Stones, David Bowie. What did I get? The Gogos. Hall and Oates. Madonna.

So it's not like my dismissal of the trendy stuff is something that developed as I aged out of adolescence and early adulthood. I've always been at odds with it. The difference is in how distant it feels now. I mean, I may not have cared for early-'80s Madonna, but I knew Madonna. ("Holiday-eeee ... It would beeee sooooo nice") She was everywhere. I couldn't have gotten away from her if I tried, and I'm pretty sure I did try.

"Poker Face" was number one on the charts for months. I listen to the radio. How could I possibly have missed it?

* * *

At precisely 4 p.m. today, I queued up the "Poker Face" video on YouTube and lost my Gaga virginity.

I didn't like her. I didn't hate her. And about five minutes after listening, I couldn't have told you how the song went.

Am I as out of touch as I fear? Or are today's biggest hits just that forgettable?

Pushing through

2011-02-02T23:54:00.029-07:00

The temperature had dipped to around 30 degrees by the time I got to Ron's house. As we set up for rehearsal, Ron informed me that I should turn on my outdoor faucet when I got home. A constant drip would keep my poorly insulated Tucson pipes from freezing, or at least give them a fighting chance.

I hemmed and hawed. The idea of performing this responsible homeowner task made me nervous.

I don't like stumbling around in the dark, even with a flashlight.

What if I couldn't find the faucet? How lame would that be?

The neighbors dogs would bark at me really loudly from the other side of the fence while I stumbled around in the dark. Did I mention that I don't like stumbling around in the dark?

Ron was perplexed at my reaction. I stood to lose thousands of dollars if my pipes froze. What possible discomfort could be worse than that?

I couldn't explain it to him. I can't explain it to you. All I know is that certain mundane tasks inspire irrational fear in me. Others include ...

Paying bills
Tidying clutter
Pumping up my bicycle tires

After sucking it up and dealing with the faucet (which turned out to be easy even though it was dark and the dogs barked), something occurred to me. As a musician, I get up in front of live audiences and perform songs that I've written. I risk humiliation every time. Maybe I'll sound horrible. Maybe I'll forget the words. Maybe nobody will show up to the gig and we won't get hired back. If keeping down the clutter scares me, why doesn't that scare me?

I thought about it, and here's what I realized. It isn't that singing in public scares me less. I still get nervous sometimes. But I know that if I push through the fear—or better yet, harness its energy for a more passionate performance—I'll end up having a great time.

The fear is just another part of doing music, so I deal with it.

What fears do you overcome to do what you love?

Brrrrrr

2011-02-01T00:05:00.010-07:00

From down the hall, I could hear a coworker grumbling about the weather. I got a grin out of that. Yes, it was raining. Yes, the temperature had dropped considerably. But I grew up in a suburb of Chicago. As much as I prefer T-shirts to sweaters, I know better than to complain about a winter's day that only makes it down to 47 degrees.

If you complain about the cold in Tucson, Arizona, chances are you've lived here too long.

That said, I've been eyeing the forecasts warily. We've got a gig coming up on February 12, less than two weeks away, and it is outdoors.

I don't like playing when my fingers freeze.

Weather Underground predicts that it will get up to 59 by this Saturday. Fingers crossed for a continued upward trend.

The Cinder Bridge blog explained!

2011-01-27T00:24:00.009-07:00

If you're a casual reader here, you may wonder why you frequently find posts about seemingly obscure neuroimmune disorders on what you thought was a band blog. Or, you might wonder why I keep talking about music on an ME/CFS blog.

You're in luck: I've created permanent pages that explain everything.

Cinder Bridge FAQ
About ME/CFS

Both of these are in handy FAQ format. People seem to like reading those, and I have way too much fun making them. Enjoy!

XMRV: Frequently asked questions

2011-01-21T23:59:00.001-07:00

Every now and again, I write about XMRV research as it pertains to ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis, aka "chronic fatigue syndrome"). Readers who are part of the ME community understand why it's important, but others may wonder why I keep writing about the medical thingy with the funny name. If you're one of those people, this little FAQ is for you.

What is XMRV?

A retrovirus, similar to HIV. Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus was first discovered in 2006.

What's the connection to ME/CFS?

In October 2009, the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease and the Cleveland Clinic found that a significant majority of ME/CFS patients tested positive for XMRV, as compared to only 3.7 percent of healthy subjects. Another study by Alter and Lo found a link between this disease and MLVs—other retroviruses related to XMRV.

Does XMRV cause ME/CFS?

Unknown. It may be the cause, in the same way that HIV eventually leads to AIDS, or it may be one of many opportunistic infections that occur because ME/CFS patients' immune systems are already compromised. We'll need further research to tell cause from effect.

Why are you even writing about this? I read that recent studies showed there was no real link between XMRV and ME/CFS—that the positive results happened because of a lab contaminant.

Not exactly. Those four studies—by amazing coincidence all published on the same day—showed that it's possible to get false positives via contamination if you use a method of testing called PCR. They didn't disprove the studies that had previously been done.

OK, but don't the "contamination" studies at least cast doubt on the link between ME/CFS and XMRV?

Again, not exactly. The Whittemore Peterson Institute was keenly aware of the potential problems with PCR and used multiple methods to detect XMRV. Antibody testing, for instance, revealed that patients had antibody responses to XMRV. It isn't possible for a lab contaminant to cause antibody responses.

You can read a more in-depth explanation from a virologist here.

Has XMRV been linked to any other diseases, or just ME/CFS?

Some studies have found XMRV in patients with prostate cancer (where it was first discovered), chronic Lyme disease, and autism.

No offense, but I don't have any of those diseases. Why should I care?

Because it's infectious. There's a chance that you can contract XMRV the same ways you do HIV.

No problem. I always use condoms, and I don't shoot up with dirty needles.

That definitely helps! Unfortunately, there's a pretty good chance XMRV is also in the blood supply. Try not to need a transfusion.

If it's that big a problem, I'm sure there's already tons of grant money rolling in for XMRV research. We'll have treatments soon, right?

Remember how funding for AIDS didn't take off until it was a full-blown epidemic ...?

Yeah, but certainly we've learned from our mistakes.

It would appear not. As yet, the Whittemore Peterson Institute receives NO federal funding to study XMRV.

Gah! Do they take donations?

Thought you'd never ask!

One melody, slightly used

2011-01-19T23:12:00.015-07:00

The scene: I'm doing dishes, listening to music on my iPod.

[long piano and guitar intro begins]

That's odd. I don't recognize this song at all.

[Leon Russell starts singing]

Oh, "Prince of Peace." Cool. I haven't heard this in forever.

[fourth measure into the verse]

Crap. That part of the melody is very similar to something I just started writing. Crap.

* * *

It's salvageable. The vibe of "Prince of Peace" is very different from New Song, and I should be able to change up my melody enough that I don't get into trouble. Doing so means one more thing to think about, though, and I'm having enough trouble getting New Song off the ground.

I realize this happens to songwriters all the time. Still annoying.

Personality infringement

2011-01-15T20:27:00.036-07:00

Wendy Adams is an amazing musician who lives in Tucson. She used to gig all over town and give voice lessons; she was my first vocal coach. When health problems made it impossible for her to continue performing, she turned to art as a creative outlet.

Much of Wendy's art has a musical theme. Up until recently, her gallery featured a bunch of watercolor and pastel portraits of famous musicians. She's since taken those off the selling block. In Wendy's own words:

I finally got a little legal advice today (very concrete) about the workings of copyright, personality rights infringement and the use of celebrities likenesses in art not commissioned by the celebrities themselves. You can DO it. But you can't do it and sell them without permission. I have removed all art depicting celebrities from my studio.

I had known that if you took a photo of someone, you needed permission to sell that photo—a model release. Which makes perfect sense. A photograph is an exact visual representation. Selling it without the permission of everyone in it would be a violation of privacy.

But a painting?

The way I see it, when somebody draws or paints you, whatever ends up on canvas isn't you anymore. It's an image of you filtered through the artist's interpretation. The artist owns that, just as much as she owns her thoughts and feelings and beliefs.

Of course, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who isn't famous. I suppose if Cinder Bridge hits the big time, I might theoretically become irked that someone's making money off my likeness. I'm the one who spent all that sweat equity building my personal brand, right? If an artist profits from the celebrity I've worked so hard to earn, I want a cut!

Theoretically. In reality, I don't think any of that would occur to me. It would be a nice ego stroke, knowing people wanted paintings of me on their walls. Or, if I reached the point where I became too jaded to care, I'd probably be making so much of my own money as a famous person that I wouldn't need the extra cash.

At any rate, I'm kind of fascinated by the implications of such rules, and how they apply.

Does every portrait need to have a model release before it's sold, or only portraits of famous people?
If the latter, how famous do you have to be before you're entitled to copyright your face?
Comedians aren't sued for doing impersonations. Why is that different?
What if I write a song about a celebrity? Do I need his permission?

I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. Is it just me? Or does this little piece of copyright law strike anybody else as odd?

* * *

Note: Tom Petty's Halloween by Wendy Adams is used here with her permission. She tells me that it's legal for me to post the image as long as there's no money involved.

Secondary gains

2011-01-12T01:00:00.001-07:00

I had a good friend in college. Call her Liz.

Liz was an artistic type, very bright, with a flair for the dramatic. She made no secret of her emotional state, whatever it happened to be at the time. Happy events made her bounce off the walls with joy. Setbacks were cause for much handwringing and gnashing of teeth.

At some point during our freshman year, Liz developed an odd health problem. I don't remember all the details, but one of the symptoms involved numbness down one side of her body. Understandably concerned, she went to see a doctor.

After her appointment she reported the doctor's diagnosis: her symptoms were psychosomatic. She seemed content with this explanation. I accepted it as well, and life continued on as normal.

Fast-forward a month or so. My high school friend Larry visited, and he and Liz were hanging out in my dorm room. Liz made some mention of physical discomfort. Larry offered her a backrub. She said yes, and Larry went to work. After about a minute, Liz cheerfully informed him that she couldn't feel anything he was doing. Larry kneaded harder. No dice.

Later, after Liz had left the room, Larry turned to me, baffled.

"I should have been hurting her," he said.

For the first time, I gave some actual thought to Liz's diagnosis. I had a solid layman's understanding of what psychosomatic disorders were. I knew that the symptoms, though caused by emotional disturbances, were supposed to feel real—that the patients weren't faking. Still ... If Liz's "psychosomatic" numbness was so real that my big, very strong friend couldn't penetrate it, what did psychosomatic mean?

* * *

Lily Cooper recently wrote a very interesting article about the history of psychosomatic illnesses, aka somatoform disorders, aka conversion disorders, aka hysteria. If you have ever given credence to the idea that emotions can manifest as physical symptoms, give it a read. A couple of choice excerpts:

The idea that physical illnesses were manifestations of feelings and thoughts started with Charcot in the 1880's ... For instance, a man knocked unconscious for 5 days by a carriage was unable to speak, walk or remember the accident when he regained consciousness. Charcot diagnosed him as being hysterical because of the psychological trauma of the event.

and ...

After brain scans of patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome were shown to an expert scan reader in 1984, he said the punctate lesions he saw looked like the scans of AIDS patients. Months later the CDC issued its verdict. The town of Incline Village NV [where the epidemic had occurred] was suffering from mass hysteria.

From multiple sclerosis (once dismissed as "hysterical paralysis") to myalgic encephalomyelitis (still derisively referred to as "chronic fatigue syndrome"), the psychologizing of biomedical diseases has a long, if not exactly proud history. The question is why. In the absence of a mechanism—an explanation for how people can think themselves sick—where is the evidence?

* * *

Mental health professionals who believe psychosomatic illnesses exist make the case that patients benefit from secondary gains. Here's a rundown from Wendy Beall, who titles herself "Change Meister":

When you call in sick to work and escape the whole onerous day without being accused of deliberately shirking your duties, you are enjoying a secondary gain of illness ... When someone waits on you tenderly and takes care of all the chores as you languish in bed, you are enjoying a secondary gain. When a child escapes a day at school by claiming a stomachache or sore throat, this is a secondary gain—and often escalates to blatant manipulation when paired with an overly protective parent.

... if you are not getting well despite attempts to heal, you ought to consider how your symptoms benefit you. Remember, we all use illness to get what we believe we can't get comfortably by direct means.

So apparently if you have unexplained symptoms and benefit from them in any way, shape, or form, the conclusion is inescapable. Your disease must be all in your head.

How scientific.

* * *

Patients with psychologized chronic illnesses will tell you that the advantages of being sick are highly overrated. They miss their careers. They miss the financial stability work gave them. Rather than attracting sympathy, they discover that most of their friends disbelieve and disappear. This suggests that if we are to accept secondary gains as indirect evidence, we should consider the other side as well. What are the secondary gains of assigning a psychological diagnosis to a biomedical disease?

If patients are to blame for their own suffering ...

We don't have to feel sorry for them. We can give a knowing smile and say they need to get over themselves. Self-righteous indignation and condescending pity are far less distressing than compassion.
We don't have to entertain notions of an unjust universe, or be angry that sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Physicians who can't immediately identify a disease don't have to admit it. Instead they can tell their patients it doesn't really exist.
Insurance companies that don't cover mental illnesses can deny claims.

* * *

Why did I so readily accept my friend Liz's diagnosis all those years ago? As I mentioned, Liz was artistic, highly emotional, and dramatic. She had the requisite troubled childhood. On some level I'd assumed that Liz was the kind of person who would get a psychosomatic illness. The explanation made sense, and things that made sense made me happy.

Only years later did it occur to me to wonder. How long did Liz sit in that doctor's office before he made his assessment? Did he put any real time and effort into exploring other possibilities?

Or did it simply make his job easier to assume she was the type?

Let This Be a Bridge

2011-01-10T19:53:00.007-07:00

"When you don't know what to do, make art."
—Carolyn Anne Anderson

Let There Be a Bridge is the best response I've seen to Saturday's tragedy. It's by Carolyn Anne Anderson, whose gallery opening we played for a year and change ago.

If art ever needed a reason to exist, this would be it.

A bad day in Tucson

2011-01-08T23:15:00.014-07:00

I heard the news about Giffords and the other victims around noon. By the time various media were reporting that she wasn't dead after all, I had to pull myself away from the Google searches and Facebook updates. Rehearsal awaited.

The TV was on at Ron's house. We watched a little bit of the press conference as we set up. Not a lot that we hadn't heard already. The one bit of data I hadn't known before was that the shooting took place at the Safeway on Oracle, just north of Ina. I used to shop there all the time.

Ron turned the set off. I wished he hadn't done that, but wasn't sure why. They were repeating the same information at this point. If anything new surfaced, I could hear about it in a few hours. And after a bunch of rehearsals canceled due to illnesses and holidays, we really needed to play.

So, we played.

I asked Ron to turn the TV back on when we were done. Funny, that need to stay connected. It wasn't like I was going to rush out and DO something when I learned if Giffords was still alive, or the killer's name, or the exact death toll.

Practice makes ...

2011-01-07T22:49:00.005-07:00

As you may have noticed from my last post, I've been feeling kind of down about my lack of musical achievements of late. Also pessimistic about my ability to turn that around. Opportunities abound. Barriers to opportunities also abound. My motivation to find my way around the latter to get to the former have been low.

Today I practiced. It was the first time in a week or so that my fingers made contact with keys. When I finished, my outlook was a little better. Not so much for my ability to overcome the barriers, but for my worth as a human being. Music is something I can do. Okay, I haven't found a vast audience to hear us play. Music is still something I can do.

Fade to 2011

2010-12-31T23:22:00.007-07:00

As every December draws to a close, I try to think of a goal for the next year. Something challenging but doable. This year I can't think of a thing. There's the usual one, where I say I'll write at least four songs, but that's it.

I didn't even come close to achieving 2010's non-songwriting goal, which was to find Cinder Bridge's audience. I barely even tried. Little day-to-day tasks overwhelmed me. I've barely had time to practice, and I pushed any activities that didn't come with a clear roadmap off to the side, where they lay forgotten.

I haven't done anything to promote us. I haven't even been blogging regularly for the last four months.

Do I have nothing at all to show for 2010?

Feeling disheartened, I opened up GarageBand around 11 p.m. and loaded a song that Ron and I recorded in his living room. I've wanted to apply a fadeout to this song for some time, but kept procrastinating because I didn't know how to use the fadeout feature and GarageBand's help documentation looks like this:

To add a manual fade-in or fade-out:

Click the disclosure triangle in the track’s header, or, for the master track, choose Track > Show Master Track.

Choose the volume curve in the menu in the track’s header.

Add control points to the beginning of the volume curve for a fade-in, or to the end of the curve for a fade-out.

Move the control points to adjust the length and intensity of the fade-in or fade-out.

It doesn't look so hard until you actually try to do it, and then you discover that nothing in the interface looks like a disclosure triangle, and in fact you do not know what a disclosure triangle is, or why anybody would call something a disclosure triangle. Also, what is a volume curve, and how do you choose it? Who writes these things?

But I pressed on, because there was less than an hour left until midnight, and by god I was going to accomplish SOMETHING before 2010 was over.

One Google search for better directions later, followed by a little experimentation, and I had my fadeout.

So there you go, 2010. Don't say I never gave you anything.

Happy new year!

Soundtrack

2010-12-29T21:26:00.009-07:00

"Thursday" by Asobi Seksu just started playing on Last.fm. I have no idea who Asobi Seksu is; I'd never heard of this band before. But the song is making me feel like I'm in a movie. It has that soundtrack vibe.

I should be doing some emotionally relevant activity while this is on. Something to signify that things are finally turning around, or that I've taken decisive action. The montage.

As the song draws closer to its conclusion, it sounds as though my personal plot, whatever it is, has reached some kind of resolution. Now the credits are rolling.

After another song that doesn't fit my mood, Mason Jennings' "Moon Sailing on the Water" starts up. I picture myself on a dock somewhere, head tilted slightly to the side, staring ahead, contemplating whatever events have brought me to this point.

Funny how certain music can make everything seem more relevant, more significant, more imbued with drama.

What songs make you feel like your life is a story worth telling?

* * *

Update: Somebody more well versed in Japanese than I am has informed me the Asobi Seksu is a band name, not the singer's name. I have fixed.

Rain Dance: An experiment in free association

2010-12-26T11:34:00.054-07:00

Note: This post is a bit of an experiment in itself, offering a close and rather drawn-out look at what went into the writing of one song. I'm not sure how interesting it will be to anyone besides me and the person who inspired the post. Feel free to lightly skim all the lyrical drafts. They're not so much there to be scrutinized as to show how much they changed over time.

* * *

In my last post I talked about how my creative process doesn't involve a spontaneously dashed off first draft. I write slowly, editing as I go. By the time I've muscled my way through a full set of lyrics, it's very close to the final version.

This elicited the following comment from one of Cinder Bridge's biggest fans, whom I fondly refer to as "Dad":

I wonder if you should try an experiment: force yourself to write lyrics without editing, i.e. free associate, just to see where it gets you. If it results in junk, so be it. It will probably seem like jumping out of airplane in the dark without a parachute, except that you don't get hurt when you hit ground.

Well, Dad (and everybody else who's told me the same thing), I have tried this experiment before, with mixed results.

Nine years ago, I met somebody who always free-associated his first drafts. MJ referred to it as the projectile-vomiting method of songwriting. He would feel some feeling very deeply. In an effort to express his deep feeling, words would violently propel themselves from his head onto a piece of paper. Later, he would excavate the results to find a line or two that he wanted to keep.

I envied MJ's process. It was faster than mine and considerably less tortured.

Fast-forward to 2002. MJ threw a party at his place. Around 5 or 6 in the morning, after the crowd had thinned, MJ asked me, "Do you want to learn to write like I do?"

I was game. MJ sat me down at his computer and told me to write whatever. I stared at the screen. For inspiration, he typed in a nonsense line or two for me to follow up on. I stared at the screen.

"Just let it out," said MJ, standing over my shoulder. "Let it pour out."

"Um, you saying that makes me feel more inhibited, not less."

So the experiment seemed a dismal failure. But maybe a day or two later, while riding my bike home, words crept into my head as I thought about what MJ had said and the way he had said it. I went to my computer when I got inside and started typing. It wasn't exactly the projectile-vomiting method, but I was able to jot down some lines without worrying too much about whether they were good. They went like this:

Rain Dance (v1.0)

I don't know what to say to you
I don't know what you want from me
Anymore

I do not understand why you
Feel the need to make me
Just like you

Pour it out, pour it out
You're looking for the rain to fall
Bring it out, take it down
You're looking for a storm

I don't know how long it will be
Before you thnk it's time to just
Give up

I can't decide if I should try to
Run away and hide
Before you do

Pour it out, pour it out
You're looking for the rain to fall
Primal scream, mindless dream
You're waiting for the storm

I wait for you to speak to me
Instruct me on the way I
Need to be

So sure you're right the time is right
Someday soon I'm going to
Fall in line

Pour it out, pour it out
Impatiently look at the sky
Primal scream, mindless dream
You're waiting for the storm

Do your rain dance once again
Gesture towards the sky and then
Realize it's just not coming down

This was obviously not close to a finished project, and I didn't have a vocal melody yet, but it seemed like a good start. MJ liked it. Later on, I attempted a slightly expanded second draft. I'm pretty sure I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this one either.

Rain Dance (v1.1)

I don't know what to say to you
I don't know what you want from me
Anymore

I've tried to tell you how I feel
You won't believe it's real
Unless I cry

I do not understand why you
Feel the need to make me
Just like you

You want a grander gesture
Some proof that I will never
Say goodbye

CHORUS
You tell me
Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all hang down
You want the
Primal scream, fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

The lines on my face don't reveal
Whatever it is that you're
Looking for

[My words are not enough for you]
And you don't trust that I will
Tell you truth

CHORUS
I wait for you to speak to me
Instruct me on the way I
Need to be

So sure you're right the time is right
Someday soon I'm going to
Fall in line

If you don't understand by now
Then maybe you do not
Deserve to know

CHORUS
You beg me
Pour it out, pour it out
Impatiently look at the sky
Primal scream, fever dream
Still waiting on the storm

Do your rain dance once again
Gesture toward the sky and then
Realize it's just not coming down

Fast-forward to around 2005. Lying in bed one morning, I half dreamed, half daydreamed what I would write if I were in school and some teacher tried to make me write poetry (I suck at poetry) as a means of self-expression:

You say you want a better look
But do you know
But do you know
The time it took
To show you what you see

I wrote a second stanza to go along with that when I was fully awake, then forgot about it.

Maybe a year later, Ron the Drummer and I were fooling around with a piano riff I'd improvised. I liked it quite a lot, but had no idea what lyrics could go with it. Then I recalled my forgotten two stanzas.

I think this is also when I realized I could connect those stanzas to the "Rain Dance" chorus, though I may have figured that out back when I wrote them. At any rate, I finally started working seriously to put it all together.

I did not free associate. After scavenging what I could from "Rain Dance" v1.0 and v1.1, I went about my usual way of doing things—writing a line or two at a time, punctuated by long periods of no progress, editing all the while.

Here is a scratch recording of the finished song:

Rain Dance
lyrics by Susan Wenger
music by Susan Wenger & Ron Amistadi

You say you want a better look
But do you know
But do you know
The time it took
To show you what you see

My words alone don't satisfy
You wish to find
The place behind
A hazy sky
The deeper part of me

CHORUS
And you say
Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all come down
You want the primal scream
Fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

I speak to you a gentle breeze
Provided by
A butterfly
Whose subtleties
You fail to understand

My careful lines, they leave you cold
You do not get
The pace I let
The tale unfold
Hourglass and sand

CHORUS
And you say
Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all come down
You want the primal scream
Fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

I feel your fists upon the door
Demand your take
And try to break
Me open for
The mystery I contain

I won't allow your will be done
Give up the hunt
If you don't want
My sunshine
Then you don't deserve the rain

CHORUS
And you say
Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all come down
You want the primal scream
Fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all come down
You want the primal scream
Fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all come down
You want the primal scream
Fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

Pour it out, pour it out
Let it all come down
You want the primal scream
Fever dream
You're waiting on a storm

Do your rain dance once again
Gesture toward the sky and then
Realize it's just not coming down

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 Cinder Bridge. All rights reserved.

Assessment

On the one hand, this experiment proved that free associating doesn't help me write more quickly. Eventually I have to abandon careless jottings and revert back to ponderous, studied crafting.

On the other hand, I've noticed that "Rain Dance" is different from a lot of my other songs. It's more impressionistic, heavier on imagery—which, interestingly enough, describes much of MJ's work. I suspect that this has something to do with the way I got the initial ideas down.

Maybe I'll try again if I find myself stuck in a rut.

Adequacy

2010-12-23T23:44:00.015-07:00

Most people who dispense advice about songwriting—about any kind of writing, really—tell you to silence your inner critic while you create your first draft. Early criticism paralyzes you, they say. Get something down first. Edit later.

I don't work that way. I can't work that way. The Editor will not be repressed.

To be honest, I don't mind so much. It used to annoy me that I wrote more slowly than everyone else, but now I'm just thankful that the Editor exists. If I try out a terrible line, it jumps in to tell me how bad it is, keeping me from running down a dead end. If I I think up something innovative, something that expresses my idea perfectly, I hear it crow Yes! Bravo!

The Editor's nemesis is adequacy.

See, not every syllable can be brilliant. Sometimes you really do just need filler, a few words to get you from point A to point B. Don't get me wrong—even those words need to be held to a certain standard. My Editor will still protect me from producing work that isn't good enough. It only becomes confused when I present it with something that's ... good enough.

It rhymes, the Editor muses. It feels good to sing and listen to. It expresses the basic idea we're trying to get across. But is this really the best we can do?

That's where I stand with my latest. I've filled in all the blanks. I could sing it in public, and people wouldn't point and laugh. But there are one or two spots where I wonder, is this good, or just good enough?

I can't decide whether to declare it finished.

... before the dawn

2010-12-23T01:14:00.014-07:00

Two things made me happy today.

The first was a blog post from Vincent Racaniello. Dr. Racaniello was the virologist who told the Chicago Tribune that four new papers on XMRV were "probably the beginning of the end" of XMRV and ME/CFS." In other words, he believed the latest research showed that XMRV had nothing to do with ME/CFS. Bad news for anyone hoping that XMRV research could lead to treatment for an as-yet incurable disease that causes unimaginable suffering.

Anyway, he changed his mind. After reading the papers more carefully ...

My conclusion is that these four papers point out how identification of XMRV from human specimens can be complicated by contamination, but they do not mean that previous studies were compromised.

Will the media report Dr. Racaniello's retraction and apology as widely as they did his initial assessment? Probably not. But you'd better believe that people in the ME/CFS community will be quoting him when new articles about the papers are published.

The second thing to make me happy was an interview in Nevada Newsmakers with Annette Whittemore and Judy Mikovitz. Interviewer Sam Shad asked the right questions, and they gave intelligent, articulate replies. Moreover, their delivery was perfect. They managed to discuss all the politics around ME/CFS without coming off to the casual viewer as paranoid conspiracy theorists. Believe me, that's not easy to do.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone above. You all made Tuesday a much better day than Monday.

Onward!

Always darkest ...

2010-12-21T01:14:00.020-07:00

While idly scrolling through Facebook Monday morning, I encountered a number of links like this:

Study finds contamination in virus link to fatigue | Reuters

Scientists conclude mouse virus does not cause ME | Society |
The Guardian

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is not caused by XMRV |
Wellcome Trust Blog

This looked bad. The headlines implied that some new discovery had invalidated all research linking ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis, aka "chronic fatigue syndrome") to a retrovirus. That contamination in the laboratory had skewed the results. Was it time to throw up our hands and look elsewhere for answers and possible treatments?

Eh. Not exactly. Despite the definitive tone of those headlines, and despite the researchers' bold claims, the latest studies only show that contamination is possible with a particular kind of test. They didn't refute the positive studies, which used four different methods of detection.

From Amy Dockser Marcus of the Wall Street Journal:

Robert A. Smith, a research assistant professor at University of Washington in Seattle who wrote a commentary in Retrovirology summarizing the studies ... said he is unwilling to state that the reported link between XMRV and CFS or prostate cancer is no longer viable.

The papers focus on various problems associated with a specific kind of test used to detect XMRV but does not examine every method used to detect XMRV. Smith pointed out that some of the previous papers on prostate cancer found XMRV integrated into the patients’ DNA and "I can’t come up with a mechanism where there would be contamination there.”

(Full story here.)

In other news, today marks the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year.

After today, bit by bit, the days grow longer and lighter.

Window of critiquability

2010-12-12T00:24:00.000-07:00

"If you do bring a song, it would be more constructive to do one that's still in progress, as opposed to a song that's finished and set in stone."

So advised local singer/songwriter Duncan Stitt, who was hosting an open mic in which audience members critiqued the performers' original songs. I understood what he meant. It's difficult to tinker with a tune you finished ages ago. On the other hand, my latest song-in-progress contained long passages with lyrics yet unwritten. I'd have to sing "na na na" through half of it. It's one thing to ask your listeners for feedback on what's there, another to ask them what I should write.

The problem is, I'm not one of those songwriters who dashes off a first draft, then goes back and carefully edits. I rewrite as I go. If a word or a line doesn't sound right, I keep chipping away at it until it does. By the time I've filled in all the words, I've pretty much got the song the way I want it.

The optimal time for me to offer something up for critique is when it's just about finished, but I'm unsatisfied with one or two lines. That's not a very large window to work with.

I either need to change the way I write or become more open to messing with older songs.

Why holiday music doesn't have to suck, but usually will anyway

2010-12-08T00:02:00.001-07:00

OK. I wouldn't mind if they played this holiday song in supermarkets and shopping malls.

Too bad they never will.

Not so much because it's a Hanukkah song and not a Christmas song. I think the world is ready for a tiny bit of religious diversity. No, the main thing it has going against it is that it's new. Says Jerry McWreath, who works for the consulting company that first talked radio stations into changing to all-Christmas formats over the holidays:

"We have found that listeners tend to prefer a core of classics titles, such as 'Winter Wonderland,' 'Silver Bells' and 'Let It Snow,' performed by various artists, as opposed to going deeper with more titles. These songs take listeners back to their childhood and their own positive memories. (The chosen song titles) are based on the research that we see nationwide conducted among radio listeners."

(Full article at Observer-Reporter.com.)

So unless Matisyahu, the Hasidic reggae musician who wrote "Miracle," can go back and time and get airplay for the song around 1950, he's out of luck.

Oh, dreidel dreidel dreidel

2010-12-06T22:00:00.012-07:00

Just two weeks and five days before the Christmas music goes away.

Yeah, I know. A lot of people like it. They like it so much that they'll tune in to lite rock stations that play it 24 hours a day. I can change the station if I hear "Holly Jolly Christmas" on the radio, but there's no avoiding it when I venture into a supermarket or a shopping mall.

The one thing I'm eternally grateful for? That this hasn't happened with Hanukkah. While I have very fond memories of lighting the menorah with my family, adding the "The Dreidel Song" to the mix of holiday tunes would not improve matters. Trust me.

A lot of non-Christians grumble about how the whole Western world assumes everybody celebrates Christmas when December rolls around. I'm just happy that our relatively small numbers have kept us safe from the advertisers who would use our music to get us to buy their stuff.

* * *

Apologies to those of you who actually know "The Dreidel Song" and can't get it out of your head because of this post. If it's any consolation, it's stuck in mine now too.

ME/CFS and the Red Cross

2010-12-03T21:32:00.006-07:00

From a Red Cross press release:

At present, there are no specific federal recommendations regarding deferral of individuals with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) or other diseases that have been associated with Murine Leukemia Virus-related virus (XMRV) infection. Nevertheless, in the interest of patient and donor safety, the American Red Cross will defer indefinitely any donor who reveals during the donor interview that they have been diagnosed with CFS.

'bout time. Of course, people who know they have ME/CFS probably haven't been giving blood in droves. Even if they weren't worried about transmitting the disease, blood donation isn't going to be much of a priority for those who feel like crap all the time.

The big concern is the healthy 4–7 percent of the population infected with XMRV or other MLVs. The vast majority of them don't know they're infected, and the Red Cross isn't yet testing for MLVs the way they do for HIV.

That's the next step.

Famine bad. Snow good.

2010-12-01T22:08:00.019-07:00

Remember "Do They Know It's Christmas" by Band Aid? Written to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia? Big hit in 1984 and trotted out every year thereafter?

Turns out Bob Geldof—who cowrote the song with Midge Ure—absolutely hates it now.

From the Daily Telegraph:

"I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history," [Geldof] said.

"The other one is We Are The World. Any day soon, I will go to the supermarket, head to the meat counter and it will be playing. Every f ... ing Christmas."

I have to say, I liked "Do They Know It's Christmas" when it first came out, and not just because most other Christmas music sucked by comparison. The song was catchy, had a satisfying build-up, and was chock full of protesty goodness. What wasn't to like?

Then I started listening more closely to the lyrics. In particular:

And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life

Even at the tender age of 15, this struck me as odd. Yes, there was much evil afoot in Ethiopia. Hundreds of thousands starving due to scarcity, indifference, bad government. But ... snow? A great injustice was being perpetrated on the Ethiopian people because there wouldn't be snow in Africa?

Still catchy and all, but that pretty much did it for my ability to take the song seriously.

Music gone missing

2010-11-28T15:19:00.012-07:00

Last night, musing about approaches I could take with a new song, I sang an old one in my head. I wanted to make sure the new one didn't resemble the old one too closely.

All was well until I hit the end of the verse. I couldn't think the melody right. It sounded like part of the new song in my head, as if its melody had hijacked the old one. Repeated attempts yielded the same results.

Only later, when I'd not only stopped trying to remember but honestly forgot I'd forgotten, did the real melody float back to me.

* * *

This afternoon I read a short poem by Jannie Funster about finding her lucky hat. I found this amusing because, a few years ago, I wrote a whole song that was inspired by the real-life experience of losing a favorite hat and then finding it again. Apparently I'm not the only person who feels the deep emotional impact of such an event.

At any rate, I found I couldn't remember the words past the first line. No problem. All of my lyrics are stored and backed up. But then, after recovering the lyrics, I realized I couldn't recall the middle part of the instrumental break. That's a bigger problem. I never recorded the song or wrote the piano part down.

I won't panic. As happened last night, music tends to find its way back to you as long as you don't force it. Still, there's a lesson here. With 63 songs and counting, I really need to start recording all of our stuff.

Siren song

2010-11-24T17:29:00.007-07:00

One nice thing about visiting the parental homestead is that I've had a little more time to practice. They own a Steinway grand, inherited from my grandparents, and that serves my purposes very nicely.

Just one thing makes practicing feel awkward: the vocal warmups.

It's hard to explain without a sound sample, which I don't have and would prefer not to provide. What you're supposed to do is sing the vowel "E." You start as low as you can and go up—not singing a scale, but hitting every pitch there is in between the usual notes. You go as high as you can without tripping over your register break (the pitch between your chest voice and head voice), then go back down the same way. It sounds kind of like an ambulance siren going by.

eeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee

This is an excellent warmup. This is also not something I want other people, like, say, my parents, to hear.

So far I've been doing them just after my morning shower. The hair dryer drowns me out. I hope.

Junk unmolested so far

2010-11-21T15:00:00.007-07:00

Greetings from Highland Park, Illinois. I spent most of yesterday on a plane and am happy to report that nobody tried to see me nekkid or grope me. Tucson International isn't on the TSA's list of airports to get the scanners. Midway Airport in Chicago doesn't have them yet.

In celebration, I leave you with this (hat tip @New Research Findings Two):