STORYTELLING

ROCKY ROAD PEEP SHOW AND PAPERHANGERS’ DIRECTORY POINT-OF-PURCHASE DREAMS
How To Live A Creative Life
New Alliance Records, 1996
by Kathi Martin Flood



"The title of this CD is a tricked-out cluster of clues describing the effort and rewards of living a creative, expressive life. Rocky Road refers to the tribulations of breaking with tradition and inventing your own lifestyle. Peep Show, that old fashioned box you peek into, means that this project offers the listener an internal view of artistic motivations. Paperhangers’ Directory refers to taking risks; to hang paper is to write a check before your money is deposited into the bank. Point of Purchase is the place where you have made your decisions and you lay your money down, your reputation. Dreams refers to a caution that if we get too caught up in survival and comfort issues, our dreams can be put off, stale, and fade away unexplored. Even though it is a struggle in this culture to live in both the practical and creative worlds effectively, I want to cheerlead people to cherish their individualism and express themselves in any constructive way that satisfies them."

Excerpts from The Process:
1. Spread mystery pins around your workspace to restartle your smug, droning work rhythms. Play Swedish garage bands and sped-up piccolo jingles. Eat Sweet-tarts with dry pickles. Wear Halloween costumes fashioned for wimps. Wake yourself up to the point where nothing is based on fear, everything on curiosity and abandonment...

2. You must be patient. You must allow random meteors of goofy thoughts to interrupt your simple intentions. If you wonder about black jello or porcupine quills, you must sit very still and consider their place. Stay on the right side until you smell something burning.

3. You will itch to know if something works, darting your hand forward to clutch that test paper with scribbled red numbers. But like your defiant falling in love with Johnny-Be-Good or your passion for stale Good-N-Plentys, your approval comes from the last fourteen thousand, six hundred and first days of experience. Trust yourself.

4. Fight that urge to turn away from the body odor of those who hold wisdom. People who stride toward you with The Squeal of A Tired Pig are to be dodged. But trust those who empty ashtrays at carwashes and those who cornerclip indexes at libraries. These meetings will be rare, so don't ever forgive yourself for passing up a sparkling soul moment on this planet. Unpeel as you go, and thank them for life. Sidestepping them will turn you into a glazed, empty, apathetic, deadmarching, retard ghost of your top-favorite TV spokesmodel.


Excerpts from Polarity Polka
How To Embrace/How To Isolate

HOW TO EMBRACE
Lick all the glue off stamps and carry Introductory Offers around in your nightbag.

Match eye contact with those who hold questions, even if they squint and lack eyelashes.

Spread jellybeans on tables around your house in easy-to-reach piles. Never count them.

Let shoulder straps slip down and hair grow back in tough clumps.

Take Occupant letters to heart, and feel a blush of pride at your name in the phone book.

Fondle your wraparound telephone cord, holding back a motion sickness born of too many sweetvoices.

And, still waiting, swollen palms exposed, expect Rooftop Serenades.

HOW TO ISOLATE
Mumble that your callwaiting is on hold, that the twilight pudding is boiling over, and that you'll do-si-do when the holidays are over.

Glance over shoulders and purse your lips, hands on hips; become a Toetapping Stressball with an Overdue Deadline, Hot to Trot at the Paperhangers' Ball.

Crouch low behind glass doors, neverminding small muscle cramps, to spare yourself from future bruises along your What-Me-Worry Stakeout.

Cup your hands to the wind, offering yourself a solitary barbeque to welcome yourself back from being sent to the end of the line.

Pigeonhole the masses into heartfelt categories and set yourself up as an absentee understudy with a tardy excuse and a trapdoor escape route.

Generalize excuse-me's on sudden elevator rides, butt to butt against your neighbor, absorbed in a threadpulling trance.