Jeffrey Dean

Jeffrey Dean

September 2013

Walking Across America

The last time I saw Jeff Dean, he was saying goodbye as my daughter moved out of the Brooklyn apartment they shared. She was moving back to the country and he was staying in the city.

They were schoolfriends, two sweet kids who were part of a crowd at the arts charter school they attended in Hartford. They drifted apart, as high school friends often do. But Jeff suddenly reappeared. He'd left New York, he'd been staying with his parents, but he was now preparing to walk across the country. At first, he was going to be accompanied by another one of their mutual friends. But she's always been a volatile person, and she tried to blow up their plan just two days before their departure.

Jeff decided to go on alone.

The night I spoke with him, he'd been in Lambertville, NJ for four nights. He hadn't meant to go there, but someone told him he should.

“It's right on the Delaware River...and New Hope, Pennsylvania is right across the bridge. They're very interconnected. Everybody here has been so amazing. I was actually taken in by a group of girls who work at a place called Zanya Spa. They saw me on the street and one of them asked me what I was doing with the stick – I have this giant walking stick – and when I told her, she brought me over to meet the rest of her friends. So this will be my fourth night here.”

“Only a couple of miles is where George Washington crossed the Delaware River in that famous painting on Christmas Eve just before the Battle of Trenton. There are so many art galleries – and the people have made me feel so welcome. Two days ago the creative director at the salon invited me in and even gave me a hair cut.”

I asked him what had happened in his working life since I'd last seen him.

“The thing about waiting tables and tending bar in New York City, it's a cycle that sucks you in and it's hard to get out. You're making good money, making cash every night. You work til two or three ayem, go to get a couple of drinks after crazy twelve to fourteen hour shifts, and you get up and just do it again. And one day you wake up and realize you're not doing what you set out to do at all. And you're not getting any younger. So I made the decision to cut it off – just cut it off. I knew if I didn't do it very dramatically, it would be harder for me. So I left, went home to Connecticut for about seven months, regrouped, and I made the decision to go to California.”

But why walk there? What does he hope to find along the way?

“That's something I tried to figure out before I left, and I realized if I waited for the answer I would be waiting forever. So I decided to leave and let my thoughts sort themselves out while I'm walking. Let me tell you about this – I met a guy in Trenton who is an immigrants rights activist. He asked me why I didn't walk for a cause, that it would help people better identify with this walk. But here's what I came to after I thought about that for a couple of days – this walk is not for other people, this walk is for myself. I don't want this walk to have some kind of agenda. That would mean I couldn't focus on what I want to focus on. And I want to be very inclusive. And that's what's happening so far. A couple from Raleigh offered their couch when I come through North Carolina. A couple from Phoenix that I met offered the same thing. I'm getting so much positive feedback. And as I go farther into the South and the Midwest, I'll be meeting people with different beliefs, different viewpoints from the ones I grew up with. I want people to see that just because we may differ on political views or religious views or philosophical views, that doesn't mean that we don't have so much in common, because we do. I want to meet people and focus on the common ground that we share and what we do agree on.”

“I lost my optimism working in New York. The biggest reason was my own complacency. If you don't nurture your self, your soul, that promise that life gives you – if you don't nurture it every day, it dissipates, it fades away. You're working to survive. That's not a healthy way to live out your life. I left there feeling like I needed to not be stagnant anymore. I needed to find that optimism that high schoolers have – there's so much before you, it's stretching out before you. But as you get older you can forget that it's there. But I know that as long as you're alive, no matter how old you are, there's always promise. You just have to seek it.”

“I've heard about farms you can work on in exchange for shelter and food. I have my guitar with me. If I'm in a place where I can't walk because of weather and I have to stay for a few weeks, I'd do it. Everything is so open ended, I have no expectations. I mean, New Hope and Lambertville wasn't even on my itinerary. I backtracked north because someone said I should see it. It was a big decision, but I told myself to take the time to let it happen. The cool thing about walking is things aren't planned and anything can happen.”

I wondered about his safety.

“I stupidly put myself in a situation early in this walk. But it's a learning experience. I was walking through Newark from midnight to three ayem with my whistle in my mouth, bear mace in my hand and this enormous, Gandalf-stick. I was ready to fight for my life. It was a huge mistake and I will, in future, plan out things like that better.”

“Right now I'm having new experiences day after day and it's very early in this walk. I'm still organizing my thoughts. Even my itinerary is still changing. I know at some points I'll be in the desert – it'll just be me and my books and my journal and my guitar. It's hard to say how it's going to affect me. I've been touched by people's kindness. I mean not everybody has been kind – I've been accused of looking for handouts. I've made it clear I'm not looking for contributions. But some people have given me food, or water, or a place to sleep. I've been very touched by everything. Hopefully in the end I can get in touch with that optimistic spirit I once had.”

Once he reaches the West Coast, Jeff is meeting a friend and making a serious effort to be a full time musician.

“I want to dive into my music in a way I never did in New York. I never gave my music the respect that it deserves, that I could have. Toward my latter years in New York I had stopped playing and lost touch with music – and it's my heart and soul. Since then, I've been writing and writing and writing. And when I first started, in New Haven, this little girl was dancing to my music. I noted in my journal that children are the best critics. They are unabashed. They'll tell you if it's good or if they don't like it. When I get to LA, I want to put my music out there. I want people to hear my music.

If you want to follow Jeff Dean's walk, visit http://jeffdeanwalks.wordpress.com/

I want to be a writer, she said....

It feels like a gray morning by the sea lately...I can't see very far ahead and instead of seeing what's around me, I'm preoccupied by the fact that I'm uncomfortable.

Changes are ahead, that I know for certain. Our home base will be changing. We have unanswered questions about how we'll accommodate our unique and particular work needs to the new space. My life in the 9 to 5 world continues to change and I cannot see where it's going.

All the lifestyle coaches tell us we can't get where we want to go if we don't name the destination. I want to write. Full time.

I've got a book out in the electronic world, a book I haven't got time or energy to promote, which is akin to leaving a birthday cake out in the street. Chances are it's not going to be appreciated if it isn't delivered to the right people.

I've become "the writer" at my place of work, which means I'm often editing other people's work. And I don't mind - it feels like at least an imitation of what I'd like to be doing. I write articles and columns for a couple of websites and publications. That's not bad, either.

But I'm losing energy for things I usually enjoy - some work that's usually a joy has become a chore. I circle around writing that is fun like a suspicious dog...sniffing but keeping my distance.

It's a spell, I know. It will pass, as these moods do, and a new feeling will take its place. But I read too many fairy tales as a child. I'm waiting for my own personal fairy to appear, tap me on the shoulder with her twinkling silver wand, and poof! I'm living happily ever after. Somehow after all these years, part of me still thinks that should happen.

Left Brain/Right Brain, Do We Have To Choose?

I'm living in two worlds these days. At home, the world is sticky with creative juice. Breathe deep, run your finger across a tabletop, taste it, inhale it, it's inescapable, a tune you can't get out of your head, a taste on the tip of your tongue, colors that are deeper, sunsets that catch fire into Peter Maxx/Maxfield Parrish impossibilities.







It's a world where every building should look like the Dali Museum.




At work, all colors fade to shades of gray and black, with frantic crosshatching of detail.

It's work that needs doing, detail that matters, yet somehow the amount of angst that goes into its production seems so out of scale, so truly ridiculous, that a part of me is always sitting back in wonderment, transfixed by the hyperventilating victims of high blood pressure all around me.






I'm torn between the two worlds. The childish, desperate- to -please -and- excel perfectionist wants to be the best damned hamster on the wheel.

The inner rebel wants her solitude and freedom to express herself in whatever way she chooses in her own little world - paint vines on the doors, write fairy tales, take pictures of the world's most minute details.

Circumstance requires income; I continually remind myself to be grateful that my black and white job pays the bills with dollars to spare.

But I so miss the color - and wish I had more energy to spare for those precious hours when that's my world.

Singing My Life With His Words

I haven't had many deep thoughts lately. I've been busy. I'm preparing to start a new job, figuring out how to continue to do part of the old one on a part time basis. Shopping for career clothes, high heeled pumps, getting my aging car in shape for a new commute.

But weekends are for music around here. My guy works a vampire schedule all week; rising as late as he can, working til the wee hours. And I get up early, so I say goodnight just as he's getting revved up and fall asleep as he fine tunes the songs that apparently will begin to hit the radio this spring.

On weekends, I can push my bedtime back and sometimes I get a call from the studio down the path..."I need ears." That means he's done something new and needs a pair of ears to check it with.

I love being his "ears". I bounce down the bluestone path whose creation destroyed his knees and both our backs and sit down. I listen. Sometimes I have nothing to say beyond, "I love it." Sometimes I have a question. Sometimes, more often lately as I get more confident of my ears, I have a suggestion.

Last night I suggested a backwards calliope was the sound missing behind a verse.

"What are you, George Martin?" he laughed.

"Backwards flutes, then?"

He discovered that there was already a great part that filled the gap perfectly - it just needed to be a bit louder. That's the kind of fine tuning he does endlessly, relentlessly, before he's confident that a song is "done".

We sat and listened to some other music, music he said he thought might have a similar feel to this piece. And I asked about the lyrics.

To me, this song is, as so many of the songs on this album are, a conversation with the human race.

"But that's not what I meant," he said. "I can see how you'd take it that way, but that wasn't what I was thinking at all."

That interests me. I listen to a song and immediately personalize it; I think we all do. How strange it must be for the person to write it to speak with someone who feels like they "get" it.

"I understand exactly what you meant," the fan might say.

But it would soon become clear that they didn't understand at all.

And yet that connection, even if it's a misunderstanding, is exactly what makes a song important to us.

That, plus an unforgettable hook and a beat we can dance to.

Writer's Block? More Like Writer's Shutdown.

Remember when you had to write a paper for school, you knew what you were going to say but you just couldn't bring yourself to sit down and DO it? Welcome to my first non-fiction book's progress.

It started with an idea, which found an interested agent, who then proposed a different project first, a project that should have been pretty straightforward.

That's apparently not how I roll.

A simple collection of biographies has, instead, turned into a narrative in which I weave my own search for meaning into stories of people I've interviewed. They are people who inspire me, who challenge me; people whose stories hit a nerve, a nerve I sometimes didn't even recognize at the time.

My writer friends who've seen the initial rough drafts are encouraging; it's a compelling read when I'm strewn all over the pages. That's enough of a challenge for me right there to shut me down.

I'm fighting to remember that making myself the common thread that runs through these stories isn't a form of narcissism. All it does is give the reader someone to identify with, changing the book from a dry, objective textbook into a messy human story.

But every single time I even think about writing, I run up against a twelve foot tall Donna Reed sadly shaking her head over my unladylike willingness to talk about not only myself, but about my least shining moments.

She's so disappointed in me.




But come on, Donna! You felt trapped in that good girl role, too, didn't you? I've seen the studio photos. And when you put on a dark wig, you actually pulled it off.



Twelve foot tall Donna Reed does not concede the point. That, she informs me, was a job. But in real life, we're supposed to be perfect. Why would you parade your life in front of the world, trading the soft focus lens for harsh magnifier?

In practical terms, this is how it looks: I finish work for the day. KB, home from his two week southern sojourn, asks the usual question: what are you doing tonight?

"Oh," I mumble, "I don't know. Maybe I'll practice violin. Maybe I'll get my tax stuff together. Maybe I'll write."

The rest is unsaid: maybe I'll scan real estate ads. Maybe I'll look at dogs that need a new home. Maybe I'll read other peoples' blogs. Maybe I'll watch television. HGTV is pretty damned fascinating, you know.

I anticipate discomfort when I begin to write. It doesn't really happen; in fact, it's a pretty enjoyable undertaking. Once I start, I get sucked in pretty quickly.

But far too many days go by when I don't make myself start.

What, I wonder, is that all about?

Look at What I Did!

There are many reasons why I love my guy. One of them is that he doesn't take himself too seriously. This morning he'd barely stumbled out of bed but he couldn't wait for me to hear something he'd written in the wee hours of the morning.

Then he started laughing.

"It's a lot like when you're potty training a kid, isn't it? 'Look at what I made!' It's the basis of all of this, isn't it?"

And he's got a point. I think about all the creative people I know who are just dying to have you read their latest poem, hear their latest song, read their new novel. They're the kids who are just so damned proud of what they created all by themselves.

Then there are the ones like me - the ones who make stuff but aren't sure they really want anyone to know about it. We do things like this - blog in obscurity. God forbid we should stand on a stage and read what we've done. We could do it, but I don't think we'd be looking for that invitation.

Oh my, Sigmund, what would you make of this?

The Attic As A Metaphor

I'd like to think I'm a writer. I write every day. I've written news stories, shows, short stories. I've happily pounded out magazine articles. I've struggled with three novels and felt the incredible rush of emotion as I wrote those short, huge words, "The End", and meant it. But I never write as well as I'd like to. There's a touch of poetry necessary to truly write the way I'd like to and I fear I lack it.

Jenna Hammerich has it in abundance. I found her work through my work. Scrolling through a public radio website that allows freelancers to post their work, I stumbled on a piece she'd written about growing up as the child of flower children. It was perfect; hilarious, poignant and thought provoking. I not only used it in my show, I wrote her a fan letter.

She was very sweet, happy for the encouragement and immersed in her writing. She hasn't had time to put together any other shorter stories that I could use, despite my pleas. But she asked me to listen to a half hour piece she put together on the women who painted the poisonous radium dials on clocks in a small Illinois town. I did. I was floored.

Jenna has a talent for not only revealing herself, but revealing the story she's telling in a way that unfolds naturally, fully and inevitably. There is no artifice, no sign where she's placed the wires, where she's pulling the strings.

I was so in love with her work that I went looking for more. And I found it. She's written a moving tribute to Michael Jackson for Salon.

But this may be the one I like best of all so far - she wanders off to the attic of her childhood and takes us with her. She made me remember the attic in the house where my children grew up. It had a narrow, low-ceilinged stairway but opened into a high, dark space with a sunny, finished room in the front of the house. That room, with it's ancient sheet of 1930s linoleum, a small table with child-sized chairs and two shelves with doors where a child and several friends could climb in and hide, was the most magical place in a well-loved house, not only for my children but for me. I remember a few times when they were off somewhere else and I would climb those stairs and sit alone in the sunlight high above our tree-lined street, observing the world from a new and far more objective perspective.

I didn't grow up in a house with an attic. But I wandered many times into the cavernous, bat and squirrel-infested attic above my grandmother's bedrooms. There she kept boxes she never opened, the obscenely grinning teeth of piano keys without their case, steamer trunks pushed off into darkened corners that I never dared open.

That attic held a thrillingly spooky fascination for me, a feeling that our own home's unfinished attic area probably inspired in my children. It was an opportunity to test our courage with little real danger.

Ready to explore? Here's Jenna's essay about attics. Prepare to be delighted.

http://dailypalette.uiowa.edu/index.php?artwork=1734

Life With an Indie Musician

www.cdbaby.com/kevinbartlett2

www.myspace.com/kevinbartlettmusic


America is a very odd place. We love creative people - we admire them, we idolize them when they're famous, we envy them even when they're not. But we sure don't make it easy for them to be creative.

That starving artist in a garret is so romantic. It's one of the reasons we took "Rent" to our hearts...the bohemian rebels who would rather die than conform are the people we wish we could be. Until we get hungry, of course.

I've learned a lot from living with a man who has too much talent, too many ideas and will never have enough time to share all the music he hears in his head. It's a constant inner battle - does he choose security or does he choose to be true to the gift he's been given? Every CD is an open-handed offering of something intensely personal, something true, something beautiful, to the world. And every sale is not only a few dollars to help pay the bills, but a confirmation that those sounds in his head are as unique and worthwhile as he hopes they are.

Why does our country put our artists on a pedestal, but not support them as they do the work we admire? Where is the program that offers creativity the security that allows it to continue?

It's not just musicians. Painters, writers, poets, sculptors, artists of all kinds are forced every day to choose between doing what they know they are here to do and doing what they have to do to eat and pay the rent.

Go ahead - tell me it builds character. I don't buy it. If a child is gifted in math or science, we are thrilled, knowing those studies will lead to jobs that will give them comfortable lives. If a child is a gifted artist we worry.

"How will you make a living?" we ask.

And many, many of them give up the one thing that they truly love to do because it just can't be done in our nine to five world. The world is poorer because of it.

I recently interviewed the author of Furious Improvisation
It's a book about Hallie Flanagan and the WPA's theatre project during the Depression.
It got me thinking. A make-work project for artists launched the careers of Orson Welles, John Houseman and many others. The plays they put on were cutting edge; sometimes so cutting edge that they were considered subversive. They pushed at society's rules, integrating the casts, giving minorities lead roles, dramatizing the social and economic problems of the times. Eventually, the project was abandoned as the country's fear of communism built toward the blacklisting that would eventually rip through the performing arts and leave many careers ruined along the way.

The Depression (and will it still be capitalized once the new depression is upon us?) showed us the best and worst we could do for artists. The government put actors and playwrites to work at a desperate time. And the country's fear and narrow mindedness tried to restrict what those artists could do...finally shutting them down.

I want to live in a country that values creativity as highly as it values money. Does such a place exist?