Paying it Circularly.

In the 2000 movie “Pay it Forward” Haley Joel Osment played a boy, so desperate to detach from his world with his alcoholic mother played by Helen Hunt….

“Young Trevor McKinney, troubled by his mother's alcoholism and fears of his abusive but absent father, is caught up by an intriguing assignment from his new social studies teacher, Mr. Simonet. The assignment: think of something to change the world and put it into action. Trevor conjures the notion of paying a favor not back, but forward--repaying good deeds not with payback, but with new good deeds done to three new people. Trevor's efforts to make good on his idea bring a revolution not only in the lives of himself, his mother and his physically and emotionally scarred teacher, but in those of an ever-widening circle of people completely unknown to him.” Written by Jim Beaver

I was touched by this movie on a personal level as well as a larger sense that we have such a sense of euphoria when we help others without expecting anything in return. Scientist have indentified  a hormone called Oxytocin as being responsible for this feeling calling it “The Cuddle Hormone” because hugs actually increase the levels in our brains. Hmmmm the more we deconstruct the less we can answer but who put it there? For my years and years as a musician I’ve donated and given my time and talents to non-profits and causes to help raise money or exposure or bring some emotional, spiritual assistance that only music can do. It just always seemed the right thing to do.

Recently a fan, and subsequent friend, made my friend Wayne Crawford a beautiful blanket that was southwestern in design and soft as down. She knew from my posts and notes that he has lost so much weight from pancreatic cancer and chemotherapy that his own body couldn’t quite produce enough heat to keep him warm in the seven hours of chemo and cold winter nights.  She sent a gift of money as well for me to buy something for myself at our local coop. We were both touched deeply. Such is the case that when you give people a reason, a goal to behave unselfishly to help another human they usually do and we have both been overwhelmed by the outpouring. Care giving form Wayne has become a 24/7 deal meaning I’ve cancelled so many gigs and other income sources knowing it is just what you do for family or friends. My basic needs are met thankfully. Income comes in from my TV, radio, satellite distributions, royalties, internet  and CD sales and composing work but the big chunks of income from gigs and live CD sales is on hold—not that I am complaining. People have donated via PayPal, offered fund raisers, brought or made so many gifts, food or help that I am humbled. But there are others in much more need.

Recently folding laundry watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” I was moved at that last scene where everyone in town shows up to help Jimmy Stewart’s character. Just a coincidence that few days after my friend sent her loving gifts my door rang. A man, with his wife in the pick-up, asked if he could maybe have some of our Pecans to sell. He said they have five kids and his wife is pregnant with Triplets. Yikes. He said he lost his job two months ago and has no money for food or Christmas and that the food and keeping the heat on was more important than gifts. I said I was going to sell all the Pecans since the price is at almost an all-time high. The disappointment on his face was real and I said hey I do have some serious yard waste that needs to be taken to the dump would he be interested. He smiled so proud and asked if he could start now. I asked him to come back in two days when I would have a chance to help. He did and we worked over six hours raking, chopping, and hauling making three trips to the landfill. As we worked I got to know about him and him about me. I can’t help but take an interest in people being a songwriter. He asked if I was a college student and I thanked him for thinking me years younger than I am. When I told him I am musician he became excited and said how lucky I was and how lucky he was that he knocked on the door of a famous person. I assured him that wasn’t the case—that I was just a very hard-working guy cleaning up the yard so my friend can sell his home.

When we finished our final haul to the dump I gave him some money including the money my fan had sent. I “Paid it Forward” so to speak. He was elated and kept saying “God bless you.” I told him he already has. Tired, dusty, sore and exhausted I told Wayne all about it as I fixed dinner and he said, “That’s wonderful, I hope his family can have a good late Christmas.”  We have been asked how people can help and I’ve directed them to the Pay it Forward Foundation a non-profit that gives to a charity you designate. I’ve designated a New Mexico Cancer organization that helps people going through treatment who can’t afford other necessities of treatment, in Wayne’s name. So it is really the same concept as when, as a boy I stopped to help fix the chain on someone’s bike or now when I play a concert to raise money for CASA, etc. The Law of Circulation is a way of thinking that everything you give returns and recycles; I like the idea of recycling kindness.  Pay it circularly my friends.

RandyPay it Forward Foundation

Staying in the stillness.

Gilbert Granger Jr. flashing a Peace Sign

I had been working mentally on a blog about “Stillness” the qualities of peaceful people and music. The word Metastasis had been on my mind as I am helping my friend though pancreatic cancer and learning the lexicon of the diseases. It comes from the Greek words Meta and Stasis which essentially means “Beyond Stillness” which just blew my mind. See I was remembering how when I worked in the office my dad’s construction company my older brother Junie would come in and say he liked it when I was there because it always felt so peaceful. Later when I worked at a university drug treatment center people would congregate in my little office mostly for the coffee but also because, as they would say, they got a contact high off my presence. I, of course, don’t take credit for this but have always known of my calming effect on people. It transfers to my music

as well so I am glad, after years and years of suffering for my art it now suffers me and lets me earn a meager living.

I bring up my brother Junie because today, December 2, 2010 he passed away at a hospital in Lubbock, TX after an illness. I had made plans to visit him this weekend in fact. I even called him last night to talk to him but he wasn’t feeling well enough to talk. My mother called me this afternoon and said he had died. The sadness that hit me was deep, not for myself but for him, my older brother, my “Big” brother Junie, Junebug et al. His name is Gilbert Granger Jr. He was a 1980 graduate of Hobbs High School where he excelled in Gymnastics and sports. I blame him for my musical career in many ways. At Houston Jr. High he was a star on the track team and on two undefeated football teams. By the time I got to Jr. High I went out for sports only to find out I was the absolute slowest person on the track team so became the manager.  I had always been musically inclined and got paid for weddings as a singer for years, but this time I chose to join band instead of pursuing sports. My instrument was the drums and the rest is history so to speak.

Junie was a gifted musician, a natural talent on the piano and singing. On childhood vacations he and I sang “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” as a duet to entertain the family. Junie loved the Beatles and music in general. He would bang out Hey Jude, Yesterday and Let it Be on the piano at home and would go to sleep to the radio blaring and wouldn’t dream of taking a shower without music blasting and him singing along. He was my protector from the older students jealous of my musical gifts—the ones who sabotaged my music, instruments and performances throughout High School. A fighter who took no flak from anyone he also boxed as a teen with success. But it is his gentleness I remember. We shared a bed growing up as boys. To help each other sleep we would scratch each other’s back. We developed an entire modality of scratches from the “Angel Scratch” to the “Devil Scratch” all the while our tender, brotherly innocence helped against the ghosts and shades that haunted our home and the unhappy marriage of our parents.

Junie was a father, husband, son, cousin, brother and friend to many people and I remember his high school friends well. I looked up to him and my other brother Stanley. Junie loved music and I am grateful he exposed me to such a diversity of bands like Kiss, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young and many others. In the past two years or so I’ve lost a handful of relatives to the consequences of addiction whether it is drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. Junie battled his addiction demons and I’ve battled mine as well so can empathize. It really all comes back to finding the stillness within and latching onto it like a lifeboat in a stormy sea.

We will miss you Junebug.  

Gilbert Granger Jr.—1962-2010

  

Randy

Measuring the notes in a life's song

“In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.”
Abraham Lincoln 

As musicians we read music by notions of key, tempo, time signature, volume etc., and units called measures. In rehearsal we’ll say, “Let’s begin at measure 30 and take it to the coda,” and we understand each other. When you hear a song performed or in a recording it began as notes fit into measures to create a song with a beginning and end. Playing through the rests or breaths between those notes is the key to becoming a musician people want to hear, lean forward to listen to and stay with an entire song. But like the Lincoln quote above says it’s the life “in” your years given that counts. This sober reality is so much on my heart as I sat with my friend, my partner and collaborator Wayne Crawford in a Houston, TX cancer center as the words left the Dr’s mouth that he has inoperable, stage four pancreatic cancer and would be lucky to live a certain number of months. How the hell do you respond to that?

Sitting with him in his first round of chemotherapy other day he asked what I was writing. I told him it was a blog tying the metaphor of the measures in music and a terminal prognosis—another measure. “Don’t worry I won’t mention you by name,” I said, wanting to respect his privacy always. He said, “No it’s okay. You can use say it’s me, the people in my life closest to me already know, so might as well.” Wayne is an amazingly creative, intelligent and generous person who taught high school and college for decades in Illinois and his students still write to him telling him what an influence he was in their life. One student is a Pulitzer Prize winning photo journalist; another is a major, gifted and successful Cellist and so many others who his time and passion made a mark on. He is, unarguably, a driving force in the writing and poetry community of Las Cruces, NM. He ran and organized successful open mics at Stonehaven, The Bean, The Rio Grande Theatre. Organized tens and tens of poetry readings, events, contests. Is on the Executive Board of the Dona Ana Arts Council, editor of Sin Fronteras Journal, creator and editor of the hugely successful Lunarosity online poetry and prose journal, runs a very important literary arts listserv, is well known throughout the state as an innovative and expressive poet with literally hundreds and hundreds of published pieces in some very prestigious journals. For me where his influence has been so important is the bridging of generations as far as poetry is concerned. He regularly would read at the NMSU Open Room readings amidst the hip-hop and slam spoken word always inviting the students to come to the open mics. At first they were reluctant, but he made them feel so welcome and supported and said, hell yeah you can use profanity, if it is important to the poem why the hell not? We have hosted student readings in our west Las Cruces homes and numerous receptions filled with laughter, drink and amazing food. Living with Wayne has been like living with a teenager though. He loves loves loves music of all genres and periods. He would BLAST his music and have concerts where he would sing along to printed out lyrics by Green Day, Blind Pilot, the Beatles (his favorite) and even Snoop Dog. I learned to take long walks by the Rio Grande when he is cleaning up being the very quiet person I am. Wayne was a music critic for the Chicago Tribune early on and the people he interviewed met and heard live just blows me away. That he loves my music meant something special. When I finally turned him on the iPod so began a new stage of experimental playlists…..

We have lived together for over eight years and have been together through some events like unexpected paralysis after a terrible neck surgery, a heart bypass and a stroke, and the terribly sad deaths of our two Greyhounds. I am a born caregiver if there ever was one with the patience even a saint would be jealous of. So today as I’m mopping the sweat of pain from him and feeding him applesauce I know no awards, nominations or recognition is as meaningful as the honor of caring, unconditionally for another being. I went through it with my Dad, my dogs and my ex’s Dad. I have had to cancel gigs, cut my expenses to nothing, live on sheer stubbornness and delay promoting my music—to the delight of my enemies. (Oh yes, I have them) That is okay. You know when you hear God’s Whispers and I always have. I’ll be back, with even more compassion, more depth, more feeling and music with so much feeling as to be living. Going through the terminal illness of a loved one especially makes you intolerable of bullshit—not that I needed any help in that area of course; so I ask if you are going to comment on this blog have the balls to do so publicly. I get so many emails from people who “privately” like my stuff on facebook, my blog, my music etc., but unless you support me publicly I delete them. Sorry but when you get 400 emails a day like I do you have to be picky. A friend asked me recently what I would do If had a terminal diagnosis; would I choose treatment or not? I said without skipping a beat that I would give my gear away and have a party. Having no health insurance or savings (as so so many working musicians and artists do) I wouldn’t really have a choice.

Wayne will, hopefully, be around for a while by the benefit of chemo and all the love and prayers he gets from people. He is in too much pain to read his emails most weeks but you can find him through his website: www.zianet.com/lunarosity Please don’t send messages to me because I am honestly more busy than can be imagined trying to make him comfortable and still keep my head above water financially.

This Monday I will play at the Mesilla Valley Hospice’s annual “Light of Our Lives.” It is when people who have had loved ones in Hospice the previous year pay a collective tribute with pictures, momentos and candles during a ceremony with words from many faiths and me on Native American flute. I first played at one of these about 7 years ago which led me to volunteer my music for 6 years before I got too busy on the road. Many of my friends have gone through Hospice so it is an honor to return the favor.

This is a video from my album The Roswell Incident a Hugely popular album. Wayne wrote this poem which I based the song around. We had such a blast recording both the song and the video. Wayne also co-wrote and read on the title song of my new album “Pura Vida”

Enjoy.

DANCING AT THE TOTEM

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