In an interview I did over the phone this afternoon I was asked "was the message of my music worth giving up commercial success?" It would have been easier to discuss my bowling game, but he did not ask me about that. This is how I did not answer that question but this is what is swimming in my head tonight.  Twenty years ago if you told me that in the summer of 2006 I would be one of the headliners at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and Kerrville Folk Festival and have 10 award winning CDs that have sold collectively platinum, two major publishing deals including the current one with Warner-Chappel, I would have been extremely happy.  If you told me that I would have sung numerous times with Peter, Paul and Mary, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, John Gorka, Janis Ian, Dar Williams and Billy Bragg in Winnipeg, Cris Williamson at Michigan, Sarah McLaughlin and Emmy Lou Harris at Lillith, Mary Gauthier at Philly Folk Festival, that some of the E Street Band know my name, and that I toured with the Indigo Girls back in the mid 90's, I would be delighted.  I tour from Fiji to Germany to Israel, to Canada to Australia. If you told me that I my music would be on TV and in movies and that Amy Grant wanted to hear more of my songs, and I would be on the cover of regional magazines and pose naked to benefit the ACLU for the Folk Calendar, I would be happily surprised.  I performed 'No Bomb is Smart' on Clear Channel owned radio stations.  If you told me I would be making a living as an artist in a country that does not respect the Arts (no ball) * and that I only nearly got arrested twice; once was at BWI airport for not emptying a plastic coffee container because I had made the perfect latte and I was bent on not paying $4 for what I already had after I went through security, I would be not surprised.  The other time I can't talk about but I only woke up with fleas a couple of times. I f you told me all of these things twenty years ago I would have thought this is pretty good 'commercial' success.

 

But has the price of doing it 'my way' been smart? Hell NO! I pay for my sophomoric cockiness in Spades, Hearts and Clubs. For me, the main objective has been to Love Out Loud.  That is the diamond and I won because that is who I am. The folks who love me are of all ages and religions and sizes and colors and sexual longings and shortenings. This love allows me to continue to evolve musically and artistically with enough chutzpah to get on the next flight. And little by little the SONiA tree grows every day.

 

Finally, I can be satisfied in the process of great failure. It is so in the perspective of the ant eye. Now I am willing to fail really big. This year we released a totally techno version of "No Bomb is Smart" and it still may chart higher in Billboard. Hold your breath, no don't.

 

So, am I commercially successful? For some it is exactly because of my politically based music that draws folks to me. Many would like me to be even less tolerant and more out spoken about the extinction of free press. But when your real heroes are Ghandi and Don Quixote you find mirrors everywhere.  My personal favorite songwriter is Phil Ochs and we all know what he did.  But I learn the game of wrapping these doubts and downers into a basketball and shooting them straight through the hoop. And we all love a Swoosh. (Ah the ball) *

 

My commercial success is based on who I am.  I am energy that tells your heart to boom again, I'm in your living room again, singing out of tune again. So, I told the interviewer none of this. I told him to have that kind of Steisand-Geffen-Winfrey kind of success you have to be a bit rude and that would mean that my management would not let me talk to this guy because he was not employed by Time or Entertainment Tonight and there was no guarantee of my face on the cover. I can be a jerk, but generally not rude -- only if you swipe my latte before noon.

 

Like our president says, "Laura and I" will continue to bless this planet the very best way we know how: in slapping skins and abusing our hands across steel in a star spangled clamor. Twenty years ago I might have looked at my Life today and said it screamed of commercial success.  Though really in the big picture of fame and fortune I am just a blip and today I blipped for you. Through each sliver of light that dawns our voices become a little clearer.  And I am singing through the man humming, "Me, Too" in his kitchen while he makes lasagna, and through the President of El Salvador's daughter singing, "Turtle Flowers," and you, my Local 1000 comrades, as we are singing in the reign. 

 

Of course there is always my bowling game but that would be rude.

 

*no ball-you know baseball, or basketball, or football: seems to be folks playing with balls get a lot of respect in America...