Muse and Whirled Retort 2017
THE MUSE AND WHIRLED RETORT June 2017
Monday, June 5, 2017
Chris Chandler's M.U.S.E. .A.N.D. .W.H.I.R.L.E.D. .R.E.T.O.RT. JUNE, 2017
T.H.E. .M.U.S.E. .A.N.D. .W.H.I.R.L.E.D. .R.E.T.O.R.T.JUNE 2017
SOMEWHERE IN THE AIR BETWEEN OAKLAND, AND KERRVILLE TX
All rise for the National Anthem...
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
to the New York island;
From the red wood forest
to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
I grew up on a dirt road.... As the deep south's only city Atlanta was expanding... Swallowing my little town,
leaving me feeling like Jonah
sitting in the belly of a leviathan known as Coca Cola...
The dirt road I grew up on saw encroaching subdivisions everywhere...
I remember walking through some of my sacred woods that Were now disappearing ...
with my brother Kevin...
and lo and behold... I saw something that I had never seen before...
It was a no trespassing sign... it read, "No Trespassing Violators Will Be Prosecuted"
and I thought, "What we have here is a failure to punctuate!"
And my brother Kevin replied with something for which I will forever be in his debt...
He sang me the "no trespassing" verse of our national anthem...
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
I knew from an early age that i wanted to be a folk singer...
So at the age old 16 I did what
Woody Guthrie woulda done if he had been born in the early 60s...
I dropped out of school and joined a punk rock band...
called The Weasels
Not as a band member but as the the Roadie..
And at an early age I got to see....
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
to the New York island;
From the red wood forest
to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
I got so into running lights
that even though I was a high school drop out...
... I still earned a scholarship top a prestigious university...
And as I said, "I come from a long line of trailer trash"
and in my family...
This was a big deal....
However, when I was in that prestigious university... I began writing these monologues... For plays...
And I wanted to try them out so I went out on street corners... Only people just looked at me like i was crazy a crazy guy talkin to him self - because the cell phone had not yet been invinted....
So, I done what Woody Guthrie woulda done...
I went down to the thrift store
and bought a cheap acoustic guitar...
Now I didn't even know how to play the guitar..
But I just held it...
as I told my little stories...
and that made me... A folk singer...
And I knew it would not be long before I would be walkin that ribbon of highway....
As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.
Now when I graduated from that prestigious university,
I had to go audition at theatres
around the country,
and the way I paid for that trip
was by being a street musician...
and that got me all the way to New York City,
and my friends, I am not makin this up!
I landed a job on Broadway
as an assistant lighting designer...
Now all I had to do was get back to Stone Mtn, GA,
get my stuff
and move to new York City...
but on the way back down...
my friends,
a miracle transpired...
I picked up a hitch hiker,
and he told me...
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
to the New York island;
From the red wood forest
to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Now that Hitch Hiker
also told me of an event in Philadelphia
called the People's Music Network...
a gathering of people who sang political folk songs...
So I went, and for what ever reason,
I landed a spot in their big concert - to sing one song...
I had never played in front of a big crowd before - and I was nervous! Gonna make it my last hoorah!
I carefully selected from my repertoire...
A song called "Watergate Generation."
And my friends I saw that pitch, and I swung hard... and my friends... another miracle transpired... I knocked it out of the park!
but that is not the miracle I am referring to.
Ya see, I had no idea at the time -
but Pete Seeger himself was in that audience...
and he came back stage just to tell me how much he liked my song...
and I told him all about my plans to give up being a folk singer and get a job on Broadway instead...
But he told me - and I am not making this up -
that I should turn down that job on Broadway
and keep being a street musician.
And I did. And I thought...
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
Also at that event,
was someone else that would forever change my life
- a woman named Anne Feeney -
and she told me all about a place called Kerrville, Texas
and my friends,
I roamed and I rambled,
and I followed my footsteps...
to the sparkling sands of her diamond desserts
and that is how I got to the Kerrville Folk Festival
This land is your land
This land is my land
From California
to the New York island;
From the red wood forest
to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
7 Wednesday
Kerrville, TX Sundown
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
Quiet Valley Ranch Threadgill Sundown Concert
10 Saturday
Kerrville, TX 1 PM
Hosting the 2017 Staff Concert
Kerrville Folk Festival
July, 2017
1 Saturday
Berkeley, CA 7:30
with The Legendary Anne Feeney
The Monkey House
7 Friday
Veneta, OR 3:00 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
Oregon Country Faire Shady Grove Stage
8 Saturday
Veneta, OR
Spontaneous Sightings
Oregon Country Faire
9 Sunday
Veneta, OR 1:40 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
Oregon Country Faire Blue Moon Stage
Veneta, OR 9:00 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
Oregon Country Faire The Library Show
11 Tuesday
Florence, OR 7:00 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
Class Act Theatre
12 Wednesday
Applegate, OR 7:00 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show and The Deer
The Applegate Lodge
13 Thursday
Portland, OR 8:00 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show and Anne Feeney
The Fremont Theatre
14 Friday
Sandy, OR 3:00 PM
Woody Guthrie's Birth Day, Bastille Day, with Anne Feeney and The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
TENTATIVE Mt Hood Farmers Market
TBA:
15 Saturday
Eugene, OR 8:00 PM
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show and The Deer
Tsunami Books
TBA: Bellingham, Olympia. Port Townsend, Vashon, WA!
21 Friday
Seattle, WA 7:00 Pm
The Chris Chandler and John Elliott Show
Egan's Ballard Jam House