How much service is enough?

I’ve been thinking about the concept of “service” lately. After six years of playing at Hospice every week I was in town I decided to move on for a variety of reasons including wanting to play for people who are healing. I do think that death is a form of healing but felt playing for people who are returning the serious challenge of recovering was important. I had a meeting with a local Volunteer Coordinator at a local hospital. Well truthfully one of the hospital chaplains wanted me to play in the sanctuary she had pushed to be built and wasn’t interested in my work with patients. When I met with the other hospital’s volunteer coordinator I had to bring a background check and letter of reference. I haven’t had a letter of reference in decades. As I sat across from her at the cafeteria table in a sport jacket no less I sensed some serious doubt. She asked what I would get out of it since they couldn’t pay me and there wouldn’t be an audience like I’m used to? I explained that the commitment to service is an important part of my life. I noticed a panicked look on her face and realized she was probably thinking I meant “community service” or something like it. Further I realized she was mistaking my ego for the unselfish idea of service I have which is doing something without any expectation of recognition or compensation. She did suggest that I could perform at some volunteer luncheons for free and drive patients around to their appointments.

It became clear there was no place for my music at this hospital when she said the director gave her a dirty look when she mentioned music. Hopefully I will meet an administrator through my work that will place my music beyond the red tape of it all. As I drove home I thought how else I can serve. I was probably depressed a little when I reflected on how so many musicians reached out to me when my music started to get such awesome airplay and I played more and more high profile venues. They all wanted to know point blank how I did it and how they could do it as well. Some were friends and others were people who hadn’t really spent more than a few minutes sharing the same air. Some sent email after email asking who? What? Where? How? How much? As usual I was generous with my self-learned information as I knew so many other flute players were downright hostile with theirs. One musician asked again and again how to accomplish what I did and I explained I hired a music promoter—the least expensive one I could find I should point out. I explained that there was one promoter who was way out of my price range but cold deliver the goods because he was so aggressive but that most programmers never played his clients again once the campaign was through. He asked me for his contact info. I told him to look it up. Seriously. It’s like someone asking you if you knew the best landscaper and you said yes but they charge $2million dollars and no one in this town can afford that and later you realize they hired “that” person for their middle class neighborhood.

Is that service? I have a video up on YouTube on learning to play the Native American flute. I get emails every day from people asking me where part two is. I play so many benefits that a radio interviewer asked me what I possibly got from it and why I play so many. I charge so little for performances that an Air Force Base who has hired me laughs every time I give them my fee saying “Do you know out of all the native American flute players we contacted you where the only one we could afford?” Schools and senior centers are on my regular performing “private” schedules which I do for free, etc., etc. When I did chair massage at Wild Oats in Albuquerque I would ask the employees to sit in the chair for a free massage when business was slow. I knew that gathering the energy going happened in both giving and receiving. I have logged over 1000 hours of hiv/aids educations in prisons, schools, hospitals and more because I knew there was a need.

Balancing the idea of service while still being able to eat and pay bills has never been exactly easy and I’m grateful for every check and .39 download I receive. Helping out other musicians who appear on the charts ahead of me whom I never hear from again is not quite what I had in mind and won’t be doing that type of free consulting any longer. Mother Teresa used to clean the sores of lepers in India much to the disproval of the church. I know the right service will present itself to me I just get a little discouraged in the meantime and should know better……

Randy

A New Day for Peace or Bored with Barack?

Maybe it is a new day for us in the U.S. I know many of MySpace friends are in other countries. Barack Obama was nominated as the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party at their convention tonight. It was the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” speech at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial in our capital. What is remarkable to me is that we had a woman and an African American vying for the nomination something that is historic and unprecedented. Maybe healing and the repairing of so much devisiveness can begin to take place in our country and with our friends with whom we share the planet. Keep us in your highest and best thoughts. We have some serious work to do.

This week while volunteering at Hospice, where I play my music regularly, a client had her two adult children listened as I played a familiar song for them. She began to cry and I kept playing. I’ve learned that the music helps in releasing the emotions. We talked a bit about where each of us was from and our stories. I realized what bound us was that we all had a story, family, sadness etc. I said I hoped I would seem them next week and the woman kind of chuckled and said that she hoped so too but that you never know here in Hospice. People go there when they are given six months or less to live and they come regardless of ability to pay. You can imagine I meet a wide range of people and here a lot of stories. Some days it is hard but I try to stay detached enough to get through my hour of music.

I am one of the 47 million Americans who do not have health insurance. Being a self-employed, entrepreneur musician I’ve been concentrating more on gas prices, CD sales, the cost of postage and booking more gigs than health. Call it optimistic denial if you will. I’m so grateful that in the over 8,000 miles I’ve driven touring since June of this year, that I’ve been safe. I’m hopeful that a dialog can continue on insuring all Americans affordably. After all, congress gets health coverage not to mention getting to vote on their own raises. Nice work if you can get it. (that’s my only rant, forgive me) I’ve never been inspired by politicians though I know what it must take to motivate millions of people. Seriously though, this new day could mean a return to empathy, compassion, equanimity and a fairer playing field than we’ve endured for eight difficult years. And possibly, when people are feeling more included and empowered—maybe a return to Peace—for everyone.

J. Krishnamurti wrote and spoke about getting to the root of things. And like Aristotle and many others, Krishnamurti called for deep questioning of everything. I’ve reflected on the Bush/Cheney years with constant angst. I remember when Bush was first appointed by the Supreme Court and the anger and violation so many people felt. A gay, retired postal worker friend of mine was despondent how this was the end of fairness and peace and the beginning of judgment, fear and an active aggressive silencing of disenfranchised voices. I paused and said it will be ok that their way was not the way of the universal laws and that we needed this to learn compassion and that a balance would return. He was right on many levels. Many people I know had their cars vandalized, death threats sent to their homes, conflict after conflict—I lost several friends and don’t speak politics around my family—all because of their openly opposing the military invasion of Iraq.

So I am wondering what is about the greed of the people who put Bush/Cheney in office that is driving our lives into an unaffordable way of living? What is it that some need to make so much more money than they ever need? What is it that allows our government to spin and lie openly about issues and rephrase them to scare and promote a fearful population? Studies have shown that if you phrase something in a negative way, i.e. that someone could happen to you if you don’t do this is so much more effective at motivating people. What is it about the top 5 percent of our world who have resources beyond the rest of so many people that they want even more and will do anything to get it? Our televangelists scare people into giving them money in exchange for redemption and so many end up indicted for tax evasion have adulterous affairs etc. My mom’s pastor did the same thing and ran off with the money. The church was soon after struck by lightening.

Greed must come for fear. It certainly doesn’t come from faith. Why are we so distracted by the slightest scandal? Are we that bored? I’m so busy earning enough money to keep my music business going I don’t even subscribe to newspapers. It is exhausting. Only a passion for moving people with my music keeps me going. Politicians have become an industry. Anyone who watched the made for TV DNC convention knows they’ve learned from the RNC. The method of pre chewing and digesting then telling what issues we should be thinking about is absurd. It didn’t help we had the major news channels giving hour after hour of what they thought the speakers might say, milking the Clinton thing like a calf, telling us what we should feel and think after the speech and all the while not showing non prime time speakers. If you are a politician you’ve had to make deals to get there. Nuff said.

The only government you need is the one between your scalp and your stomach.