Interview with Ellis Paul

August 7, 2000

Somerville, MA

"So, I think people have to remember that their life is a giant empty piece of fabric to paint on, you know? And that you can either have it done for you by what the society tells you - you have to paint over this box that way or you can go in and say, "Oh, you know what. For the next sixty years I just want to wear the color purple because that really makes me happy."

Ellis Paul is a singer-songwriter, visual artists and poet. He has been recording music since the the 1980s and his concerts are a blend of storytelling and song. Ellis was kind enough to meet me on a summer's day in at the Someday Cafe after a thunderstorm. We talked about storytelling, creativity, and being true to your art.

You can find out more about Ellis from his website. While you can get a sense of him here, the best way to appreciate him is to hear a concert live. (Photo by Doe Phillips)

 

L:You talk a lot about storytelling. Where does that come from and what does that mean to you?

E: Well, I guess I studied English in school so well I gravitated towards short or story writing and poetry and novels and that kind of thing and that's really my background that I bring into writing songs. That's kind of what I'm interested in. I also like the element of honesty and not writing fiction for fiction's sake but like writing non fiction stretching it in appropriate places where it can cross, but to write things that are really true and believable and have some grounding in what real life is all about. So basically all of the stories come out of that. Some of them stretch pretty far, but for the most part they're all real events that I either witness or you know in my own life or people I know really well. It's hard to just write a story based on a stranger because I have to kind of know where they're coming from. Know what their background is. who they are and why they think the way they do and that kind of thing.

L: How do you , how do you distill it? I mean that, you've made that comment - I saw your Turning Point show and saw you again at Makor - I think it was the comment that really struck me when I think you were telling the story about the John Lennon guy. And you said that you meet people and everybody's got that story and they're just sort of waiting for you.

E: Well that's what I found interesting about people is that we've all kind of got our condensed bio of who we are. You know our little calling card story that somehow sums up who we are in the big, in the big picture and we all carry them. I mean there might be - you might be living yours right now with this school that you're - this way out thing you do . It's going to shape and define you, all of those things that brought you into it are character traits and all the things that are given to you while you're in there are going to change your character further. You're going to go through this little, you know, hour glass, be sifted through this little story that 's going to change who you are and make you who you are and that's, those are the kinds of stories that I'm after. Like, a friend of mine when he was thirteen years old he went to a Yankees game and he sat next to Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe ended up taking him out into the park to get a hot dog and spent the whole afternoon with him, and from that point on he had sort of this attachment to Hollywood and fame and you know that kind of buzz thing, so he moved out to Los Angeles as an adult and you know he just got involved in trying to get close to that kind of energy. And I don't know if he knows that one story was the little nugget story I was looking for and he's probably got a bunch of little stories like that they've attached to him but that story really sums up who he is and why he does the things he does and so you know by putting it in a song I have to somehow tell that story and tell what it means in the picture of him -

L: So what's your one story?

E: Sometimes it's easier to have someone pull them out of you. Everyone's got so many. But probably you know I'm the youngest child, well I'm fourth in five. My youngest sister was an afterthought. My story was that I had somewhat of a difficult childhood and in order to get positive attention my parents I did things creatively. You know like I was an artist so I drew. I'm a sucker for creative attention.So...now I'm in front of a PA system singing in front of hundreds of people every night.

L: Does it feed that? (both laughing)

E: Yup, it sure does.

L: At least you get positive feedback.

E: At least I don't suck.

L: That's a good thing, it could be worse. It could be your vice and you could be bad at it.

E: Well you know that's the problem with a lot of artists is that they all suffer from some sort of thing you know in their lives that bring them to the creative process and you know what they're really after is being loved by others. Or being desired by others, whatever the artist is looking for and a lot of them go nuts because they don't end up having the talent to serve to keep the cycle going . Because you give out and you've got to get in , you've got to give out and you've got to get in and if the cycle's not flowing it's a really painful thing .

L: I spent a lot of time looking at the question of place. It really fascinates me. I think I came at it from literature, I read a lot and I travel a lot- both of those things hit me real hard. Why did I like certain writers? It was almost as if the places were as important as the people in their writing. I was looking at some of the books on your what you recommend and you seemed to be in similar camp at times, a lot of those books are really place oriented. It got me starting to ask questions about what 's our relationship to place and how does that all function. How is that for you? Are you very tied to where you're from or you travel an awful lot , you know, how do those pieces fit for you?

E: Well, it's interesting. I'm from Maine and I consider myself to be from Maine even though I've spent more time in Boston than I have been anywhere else in my life. And when I'm out on the road touring as a musician I feel like I have a dual mission as a Boston ambassador because this is such a song writing folk music mecca. And then there's also the element of being from Maine and being a small town kind of guy -

L: Where in Maine are you from?

E: Presque Isle. It's in the northern part of Maine.And so you know - place is a difficult thing for me because I'm uprooted all the time touring and you know I think my emotional connection to people is where I feel my place. You know, my sense of place and I'm not married to Boston and certainly not married to Maine because there are real problems with both of these places, you know. The fact is my closest friends are here and because of that it feels more like home than anywhere else. But because I travel so much - it's a little bit rootless. If I was married and with a family I'm sure I'd feel place around that group of people, but since I'm not, I don't really feel it that strongly.

L: Are there places that speak to your soul? From your travels?

E: Absolutely. (laughing) I'm going to spend - I'm flying out to Big Sur on Saturday, in California. I'm going to spend two weeks there so, I'm looking forward to it. Everybody's got a handful of places, even if they don't live there or spend time there again, they just speak to them.

L: Do you write outside of poetry and music?

E: I do those notes from the road and I write journals and I'm trying to keep my finger in every aspect of writing I can. I don't write novels. I don't really write short stories but I'll do journal entries, poetry and songwriting and that's enough. That's a lot of writing.

L: as you travel around do the stories come to you? How does the process come to you? You meet someone and three weeks later the story bubbles into something or is it an immediate kind of reaction in story?

E: Sometimes it varies. Sometimes I'll just read a book and you know I'll see some of element of the character that I can attach to the story. I'll just carry that until the moment so lyrics to the music develops. Sometimes I just sing gibberish and don't know what I'm singing about until I'm fairly far along in the song and the idea will come up that I can attach all that stuff to and I'll do that. I'll work backwards towards the story . It's like a rorshach test where the ink blot you look at - it's, it's my mother (laughing) . You know you do that kind of thing where you don't really know what you're talking about but it just reveals itself.

E: I don't really feel like I own my process as much as it owns me. It's, I feel like when I'm doing it right I'm invisible. Its just a conduit and I'm just tapping in somewhere that's flowing by, you know how it is. Anyone who's creative can understand that.

E: You definitely, in order to be creative, have to be married to your art. At least for a period of time when your art is under development and you're trying to find your own voice and then once you are in your own voice then pretty much everything you do is tainted by it and you can back off a little bit and make it breathe but I think you have to be driven to be successful in this art. It's hard on everyone around you...Well, it's weird. Sometimes you feel like you're in an alternate reality. Like the fact that I can meet you at 1:00 because I really don't have anything going on today.

L: That makes two of us-

E: (laughing) There's no canceling. I'm control of a lot of things that I wouldn't be in control of if I was working for the man or whatever. And you're sort of dreaming out loud, it's like you're creating this really unique niche for yourself in the world based around what your dreams are. Not many people do that. Most people don't dream out loud, they just live out loud and they don't commingle what they're thinking and wishing for in their heads with their reality but the people who do end up being the most happy. It can be somebody who just has the dream of being a housewife, and three kids and the right man, you know. Sometimes that's enough. Quite frequently people don't and they complain and bitch about their husbands and wives and kids and stresses and you know, what their job is.My mother was always stressed from her job and she wasn't very happy with it at all and as far as I could remember as a kid, you know. My grandfather was a farmer up in Maine and he loved it. He wasn't successful financially at it but it was something that he loved to do.

So, I think people have to remember that their life is a giant empty piece of fabric to paint on, you know? And that you can either have it done for you by what the society tells you - you have to paint over this box that way or you can go in and say, "oh, you know what. For the next sixty years I just want to wear the color purple because that really makes me happy." Paint the canvas purple or whatever.

So anyway, I've created this singing person from scratch and put him in this real world and a lot of my blueprints in how I've been told what I need to be continually trip me up because I'm so programmed that I have to have a 9-5 job , I have to make a good income, I have to be married by this age, I have to, you know, do this and do that. I have to dissemble all of that blueprinting and social sort of brainwashing and just, you know, be the person in the painting and paint from the painting out instead of being from out there in

. L: Is your family really supportive?

E: They are now, they weren't in the beginning. You know, now that I've been successful enough they're impressed by it and impressing strangers is a lot easier than impressing your parents. Your parents are going to have all of these fears attached to what their impressions are because they fear for you and if it was somebody else's kid singing songs they'd be you know, it'd impress them a lot earlier but you know for me it took making more money than they ever made to you know, and seeing my name in some national newspaper or something or having them bump into it unexpectedly in some way that at that point they can begin to, they might see me in some airplane magazine or something.(laughing)

L: Who are your, I mean, I know publicly who you say you're friends with but, who feeds your soul?

EP: It's hard to find like minded people. But, you develop a circle of friends who do what you do. I have some great musician friends that I learn a lot from. A lot of musicians. In every town in the country I have a certain collection of friends now that are artists and creative people. You know they're pretty countless. Don Cognoscenti, Vance Gilbert, my manager. We're all linked by sort of common goals and common canvasses.

L: Part of my theory on place is that once you get passed your self, you're kind of the center point since you're the only person who sees the world through your eyes and that language is about saying I'm here, you're there, let me bridge that gap. Music does it without language, which is one of my questions. What do you think the power of music is in terms of communication?

E: Well, music, there's something about music that enters people a little more emotionally than any other art form. Books take too long to read, paintings do it, but paintings aren't so direct either because paintings you kind of have to figure out what the intent was, songs sort of carry their intent and the message in what the music and the lyrics are. So, it's probably the most direct form of art, and it enters the bloodstream quicker. Words themselves are great but music is attached to lyrics and music has emotional impact that's almost hard to attach words to what music can do. When you just say I love you out loud and when you sing it the impact- when you're carrying context with music, I guess, you can say I love you out loud a million ways when you're speaking it, but when you're singing it you can say it a trillion different ways . Can be much more, you know, right-

L: Your poem "words" is very telling about the limitations of language.Because you have access to so many creative elements, as an artist, as a writer, as a musician, are there some flavors that work better and others that speak without words?

E: I find that music is just - sometimes like when I'm reciting a poem, sometimes, there's something, it's just another angle, sort of like a drier angle that's like pencil drawing instead of oil painting. You know a song. Sometimes a pencil drawing is a little more succinct and direct and it's less emotional, more informational kind of, so when it's with songs, it's just a little more of a bigger emotional impact when you hear them I think. You also have, you can. music can form a three dimensional picture in a great way. You know, like we're listening to Ani DiFranco right now and the drums sort of provide this urban vibe. So you sense the city and you sense struggle by the beat and all these things are there that the words aren't going to necessarily convey or can convey by themselves.

L: At what point did you decide that you were going to do this for real?

E: I'm still, trying to figure out if this is real (both laughing) Well you know it's one of these things where you never really you never really know whether you're going to continue to do it for ever and ever you just don't really know. But I also trust that I could. It's how much I'm married to what's missing in the canvas- like money and like how do I get the things that I want in life like I want to live creatively and be in a position where I can do those things a variety of ways. You know, I can write a variety of ways. I can be creative and just run my website and get fulfilled by that if I want to. So, you know, I decided that I want to be creative when I was about four or five when I started to realize that's the kind of genes that I had. And I always thought that I think growing up that I was going to be in some creative field. For a while I was an athlete and I thought I was going to do that with my life. That just wasn't fulfilling in the same way and so I became more and more attached to being a songwriter. And now I feel like you know I'm a writer and my medium is music. I really feel like I'm a writer .

L: With a capital W?

E: Yeah. Cause it's more about ideas and what it's saying than this sort of songwriter who just tries to get on the radio.

L: Is this the moment of irony that at the point when you say that that you're on the radio all the time now?

E: (Laughing) Yeah, yeah. It's like you said. If you do something, I'm constantly trying to realign myself to what I feel like is my own truth and the truth I see in the world and as long as I'm coming out of that place the success of it doesn't so much matter. You know? The flow happens around that idea. Giving out truth and getting it back. So, in my catalog of songs the ones that speak most truthfully show some wisdom attached to the truth and the ones that are most successful do. I'm learning a lot from my own process.

L: It's true for everybody it's the uncovering of the process for yourself that kind of makes it real.

E: Yeah. Well being a musician it's also like a popularity contest and what do people really want to hear and sort of lose yourself to that and you start writing songs for them instead of songs for you and you suffer. So, but I'm true to myself actually 99 percent of the time, but that one little percent takes a lot of focus (both laughing).

L: That must be hard to have that fed that constantly.

E: I'm trying to be fed constantly (laughing). That's the one percent -

L: The starving artist part? E: Yeah, the one that fears the starving artist part. The one that I don't want to be a starving artist really. I want sort of a comfortable life and family and all the things that need some kind of financial security. And so I'm trying to make adjustments to bring in more, more security without sacrificing the art.

E: So, I'm still learning, I'm still learning how to do all that, but. I know that ultimately I want to be known as someone who was an honest storyteller and you know, painted the world that he was living in at the time particularly and accurately and that they can look back at it and say this guy was doing his job in reporting what was happening.

L: What do you see as the underlying themes in a lot of your writing.

E: I think that the common characteristic in a lot of songs I write is people struggling with something. Because it's human. A lot of those people are at a crossroads trying to make a turning point and it's about that and people who are going through some changes and recognizing some things in themselves. And people who are trying to communicate with themselves about changing.

L: You seem to have a lot of empathy for your characters. One of the most appealing things about your art is that even when you write about yourself it's not your dirt, it's more something for everybody . A kind of sense of here's what I learned.

E: Well my last record (Translucent Soul) was the most first person kind of record that I've ever done. I don't want to do that every time. I'm really more interested in other people. I mean, I'm in all the stories, don't get me wrong, I'm the narrator most of the time. I mean when I'm not narrating it's still kind of my voice narrating through the body of some other person but I just want to write, you know? I don't want to share my pain so much, you know, I'd rather share someone else's (laughing) ...ButI'm talking to them. You know, that's there and I'm talking to 150, or 200 people. I don't know how many are there. I'm talking to them. So when I'm singing the songs I want to feel like you and I are feeling right now. Having a conversation. I don't listen back to the audience (laughing) so it's comfortable for me to do that. It used to be real awkward I guess, I don't know. I don't know what I look like from an audience perspective real well. But that's what I want to create, that's what I'm trying to create, I'm trying to do without looking like I'm being...

L: That's what amazed me, was that it came through so powerfully that by the end of the night you had created a community of people at both shows and that sort of, what's a folk singer? That is a folk singer who creates a community of people even if it's just for that one evening or that one moment, that one shared song,. Ray Wylie Hubbard was talking about it the other night, you got to Kerrville and you go to songwriting camp and they say make sure there's a sing along in there somewhere because that's where they bond, the audience bonds. He said, Well, maybe they do, maybe they don't, most of the time they just sing off key next to each other. (both laughing) He was really funny about it , but-What is the power of Woody Guthrie?I know you're connected to him.

E: Well,You know everyone's going to have a different bone in their body to go by someone. Like Woody to me was not a great musician

L: Play it in G?

E: Yeah but he was a great writer and he was a journalist. He did what I want to do and without trying too hard. Maybe here and there he tried too hard . I mean he wrote 5,000 lyrical pieces and there were moments that were trying too hard in there but a man said to me once, he wrote 5,000 things they all couldn't be good. You know it hit me that if you're a developed artist, everything that you do, everything that he did whether it was a napkin poem, was a Woody Guthrie piece. It's like if Picasso wrote on a napkin, it would be a Picasso and would carry and element of him and what he was all about, which would make that napkin priceless. Woody had that, Woody had that going on, Woody had that thing that none of his contemporaries had. Not even contemporaries like Peter Seeger and Leadbelly. He had an element of knowing how to cut right to the truth and present it without the angry That's what he did and that's what I get out of it. I don't sound like Woody Guthrie-

L: No. I wouldn't associate you but I know that -

E: But that hardball kind of honesty, I try and carry with me and I'm certainly not as prolific as he was and I'm probably not as relevant as he is and I have a lot more love songs than he does but that's all part of my own truth and who I am -

L: It's your view of the world, not his.

E: Yeah, I'm not a Communist (laughing) I'm not a fighter. You know I'm really not, I'm a lover not a fighter. So that's what I write about. I look to him every time I need my back aligned, by statement of purpose, my mission statement comes a lot from him. Right. I'm not sure that Woody wouldn't laugh at me as an artist, I don't know what his perspective on my music would be. My objective is really to be a link in the chain of acoustic folk musicians in the world and my link it's not, he's sort of the anchor to the whole chain and everyone that follows kind of pales in comparison .

L: There's a great cartoon, I don't know if you've seen, of Woody Guthrie. It's a class and Woody's in the front row and Dylan's cribbing off of him and Springsteen's cribbing of Dylan and you've got the whole line of people -

E: Exactly

L: So everybody's taking notes off the master, and he's oblivious to all of them cheating off each other. Are there other people who share your affinity or the way you see?

E: I think so. I think so. We all have different takes. There are a lot of people who feel about Woody the same way I do. Jimmy LaFave and Don Cognoscenti, you know Slaid-, Jackson Brown. He just flew out to do a festival in Woody's home town . I mean you never know. There a lot of people out there who are fans who you wouldn't think would be fans, you know, but that's cool. Every year there's this Woody Guthrie festival and we fly out to Okema and we don't get paid. We're just there to sort of get our backs in line, and we listen to his music and we all play his music and perform it and it gives us a sense of purpose and then we go back out and spend a year spreading the gospel and then come back

L: And refuel?

E: And get purified (laughing) Go out again and get kicked around. It's great.

L: It's a nice way to see things. I search a lot for the right image and I think a lot of this stuff around place started getting me interested in the idea that it's external and internal simultaneously and you as an individual and then the community you're in and that they're linked to each other. But how do you express that? And you just said it. It's exactly it, you need to feel the community and then you have to go out in the world and do your own work...He was definitely in touch with what work is all about. The center theme of all of his work is work-

And what we do for ourselves and for our work as a community and for our families and he also wrote some softer stuff-

L: A lot of that's been coming out lately

E: I haven't found that one thing. I don't have a work like he does in his art, or a major theme like that. But for me it's more about people recognizing that thing in themselves and becoming aware. Sort of self realization, both recognizing their strengths and their weaknesses and their emotions or whatever.

L: In a lot of your songs, the question of faith shows up.

E: Well, it's sort of a battle in me between church and faith. They're because a lot of problems are created by institutionalized religion. People struggling with what their religious identity and sexuality identity and at the same time. The problem with people or with religion, especially with dogmatic religion is you don't recognize that those elements commingle inside of people and there's not much that you can do about how they commingle and you can't control it. It's all part of this human makeup and it's different with every person who's involved with the church who is going to have this different DNA makeup and you have to be open to that. You can't really control how people feel and think and that's my problem with religion. Faith, however, is very important to me and it's frustrating when sometimes the package of faith comes dressed inside religion and church and dogma and you have to swallow it their way. And it certainly has for a lot of people, kept them away from church and all that it's. It's disappointing you know but it's hard to find an all inviting church you know. So faith and being aware of faith is very important. It's part of the human condition and recognizing yourself and for me it's an essential element of happiness but I can't force that idea on anybody either if they don't believe. But to me I believe in the higher power, energy, power calling .

I believe in sort of a collective unconscious. I feel like I tap into it and I'm a witness to it by being here every day and by being creative. And I feel like there's a bond between every human being that's a spiritual bond that people don't recognize.

L: Like a spider web.

E: That's a great analogy.

L: You always thing you're the one strand and the reality is that you're always on the web.

E: Yeah, yeah

L: And it's just a question of what view you're taking of it at the moment.

E: It's sort of like the internet that we don't see. (laughing) And hopefully the internet can be a segue into a very higher plane of consciousness which could help as as a unified being-

I think people think they don't have control over what happens in the future. I think all those things. If we're going to evolve as a people, we have to evolve spiritually and just quit infighting because progress is being delayed by stupidity, really. And people who are anchored to the past. I don't know. We're, as a country we're a leader and sort of a dictator to many things. I don't know but I hope our role in the future will be more of a passive example of what a country should be than sort of a policeman of what the world has to be. But I'm, I have a lot of hope. I'm not angry about where the world is at. I feel very fortunate to be able to make a living making music because I know in any other part of the world it would be impossible to do what I do. To be successful. Or nearly impossible. So, that's good. And I'd like to see people come together rather than come apart. That sort of thing. I don't know how to make that happen but through music. So, I'm just trying to hit people one by one with it.

It's not so much about changing all it's allowing the world to change you, and then to act accordingly. And as a musician I can affect bigger numbers of people so I'm hoping that if I can be true to my path and that success. You know I'd like to have just three songs that everybody knew. That everyone was just aware of be a soundtrack to people who don't even know they're being moved by it .

L: You were talking about spirituality before, where do you find space for yourself. You know in all this process you give out an awful lot. As a performer you give on a regular basis. Do you have things that take you back to conserving for yourself? Can you draw lines between public you and private you?

E: That's difficult and that frequently is getting blurred more and more as I do this. I get a charge. Doing shows is, you know, it's a really - Paul Mc Cartney said it best, "the love you give is equal to the love you take."So I feel that way at these shows. The feeling that I'm putting out and I'm getting back and out and back. I feel that way with my albums . So it's a sacrifice and it's a sacrifice of energy literally energy and then you get all this stuff back. I mean applause and fame and all that, and interviews (laughing)

So the spirituality thing is , it's partly creative, it's entering into the cycle of giving and receiving, and recognizing that I'm not. It's not all about me. It's like I tap in, an idea comes from some place, I play it, someone else can hear it you know and they do whatever they do to help me out in the process. It's a really simple thing. I'm just a cog in the wheel.

L: I always think that whatever that energy is, love, whatever, it flows like a river but we always seem to stick boulders in the way. Why I have no idea, but we spend a lot of time putting boulders in the way

E: We do L: Most of them are fear but I'm constantly amazed by how easy it is when you stop worrying about it. It's always nice to hear other people say the same. Whatever it is, it's not yours, it just flows through you.

E: Well trust and hope and those things are part of faith. Fear and all those other negative things, the things when you're relying on something other. I'm trying to clear the dam all the time it's natural, it's how we're blueprinted but it is true that the more I do this the more I just give in to letting this be and there it is.

L: I figured if you were writing songs with lyrics like live in the now, you have to be at least somewhat tapped into that. (both laughing)

E: I am but part of the reason that I had to write that song was to convince myself that that's what I needed to do. It was a way of like just creating this little three minute reality of a song that within that song I'm the one that's sort of looking at the future and all that I want or my desires and she's the one saying look at what we have. I'm like that, I'm always way ahead of myself and I live in fear of that kind of thing. My manager's family is living off me and I fear for them and that he's just going to give up on it and you know and all of this -

L: It's a lot of weight to carry.

E: It is (laughing). That's my life. But the thing is that music has also brought me this knowledge that yeah, you can just let it be. And just be true to yourself and be true to your work and everything will happen. And guide it as best you can but you're not really in control of it all. I'm trying to balance relaxation and trust with reality and making it every day.

: And what if you could make a difference in what the next century was instead of having history happen to you, you can make history happen. That's the part of the blueprint that you have a blueprint. That's the problem with it. That people think there is a blueprint and life has to be done as X,Y and Z and we're all stressed about that blueprint only to have it destroyed. Instead you could be saying this is my life . Yeah, that would be a nice underlying theme. I don't do it in every song, but it's coming up more and more as I think about it more and more.

L: You think that's a function of age at all? Just sort of how far you are in your path?

E: It's really believing in having lived in and knowing that that philosophy actually can work. The more I trust in it the more it's going to appear in my music I think.

It's funny, I started pretty much a normal human being (laughing both ) but I get more and more eccentric and more and more out on a limb the older I get. I'm in my mid thirties and I feel like I'm just starting to like tap into who I am. Not even who I'm going to be. I don't know who that is. But I went to college, got out of high school and went to college and got a job you know. Was just going to do my thing and recognized that being an artist was what I wanted to be and then it just went to hell from there (laughing). So I can't imagine what I'll be when I'm 60 or 70, this sort of philosophical, artistic trip. It's going to be a very weird place (both laughing) I'll probably be like Howard Hughs and have long nails and the beard, except I'll be the poor Howard Hughs.

It's hard to be authentic because you know, it's like everyone's got their own, everyone's role playing . It's sort of a giant game and we all have assigned roles and do it. And sometimes it works perfectly and sometimes it feels like every time I turn around we're playing charades. But, I'm thankful because I get to do what I get to do in the big play. I like the role that I have. I want to see how far I can take it within the context of what the world is and hit as many people as I can with it.

L: It shows up mostly in your notes from the road that sense of thankfulness. Did anything trigger that? The majority of people I know that treat life as a gift tend to have a close relationship with death which is why they treat life as a gift. So the handful of people I know who have the same sanctity for life have all lost someone close to them. I have lots of friends in their 60s, I think there's a gravitational pull of older people, but the handful of people our age that I tend to come across tend to have some relationship with that to make them thankful.

E: Yeah, I've had a couple of close calls. Yeah, the hard times have brought the realization of what the good times are. Yeah.

L: It seems that it's rare to find among people younger than older. That appreciation.

E: yeah, I think you're right. I think there are a lot of people out there who don't see it that way. It's lucky, it's lucky to be so positive. Some days are better than others. Last night was a negative night (laughing) today is a positive day, so who knows?