Commerciality

I am rehearsing for my gigs, and Steve listens from his recording engineer stance, making suggestions. He can't help it, being a Virgo, but later he says he really likes the songs. "That's the kiss of death," he tells me, "The music I really like doesn't get played."

I hadn't even considered my CD from the point of view of mass market. I made it for people who already like my book and want to get the flavor of it through another sense. I got a lot of courage from living with Joe Gallivan, whose entire focus is on making a kind of music relatively few people relish--free jazz and avant-garde improvisation. The people who love that music really love his music. The gentle folk songs related to my book are not for everyone, either, but that does not make them any less worth recording.

What I really want is the process of creating, lots and lots of it, for the rest of my life, and that, somehow, in the process of making of all kinds of wonderful things, the bills get paid and there is cash left over for having fun and for sharing with earth-saving causes and people in need. But I am not as vague as I sound. When I was twenty and Living On The Earth was being published the first time, I wished I had a business partner, since I knew nothing entrepeneurial. Today, with eleven years of owning and running a small business behind me, I am captain of my own ship.