The Green Wave

I know I say this again and again, but I mean it: friends, keep the faith. Here’s a good example. About a year and a half ago, I took the advice of my true love and my friend Jim and sent off a copy of “Kate Chadbourne” to NPR’s program, “Cartalk.” Now, if you know me, you’re quite aware that I am not an automotive genius. I routinely fail Greg’s little tests about which muscle car is zooming past my Prius on Route 2. But I love those zany guys and their snorting laughter, and sometimes I learn something. Mainly I just listen and laugh. I sent off my CD with a good letter and in time forgot all about it. Any musician knows that you fling a certain number of CDs into the wind. That’s just the way it works.

A fortnight ago, coming home from a weekend of Irish music at ICONS, I was tuned in to Cartalk and heard this familiar bass-line and thought, “Hmm… What is that?” And KA-POW! I recognized my song, “Madcap Taxi Driver” – and I nearly went off the road with excitement! I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard myself on the radio, and it was so totally unexpected that my heart pounded and my hands shook.

In terms of the evolution of our species, the great seismic shifts of the earth, and the history of the universe, it was a tiny, tiny thing. But in terms of keeping faith with hopes large and small in my own life, it was gigantic! Any of you who make music or write poems or books or plays or do anything creative and risky know full well that sometimes people pay you no attention at all. Sometimes you can sing your heart out and nothing happens. Sometimes you can write something and no one reads it (or they read it in a century’s time and proclaim your genius, a la Emily D.). So this is not my way of saying that taking chances will always pay off or bring you the sense that someone, somewhere hears you and likes what you’re doing.

But here’s the thing: if you don’t send that CD, they never will hear you. If you don’t take a chance, you’ll never have that delicious sense of coming full-circle, of being heard, of having your faith repaid.

If you don’t take a chance, you’ll never hear Click and Clack telling jokes about Nerdistan as your song plays in the background and your cousin’s beautiful bass-lick underscores the melody.

Lately, I’ve noticed how seeds planted in the past come to fruition in their own time in the present. You chat with someone at a concert and end up being recommended for a lovely concert of your own. You work hard on a project and do your best for the sake of doing your best, and later, you realize that you actually know something useful. You spend a little time every day looking at proverbs and in a few years your mind supplies you with a proverb for nearly any occasion. All of these little seeds bear fruit in some way. The clinker is that you don’t know how or when. But they will.

So take your chance, send your CD, stand up and say your words, do your best. And above all: keep the faith.

PS – If you’d like to hear the show, it’s the 6 September 2008 program, and it’s available as a podcast from the Cartalk website. Here’s a link to the clip on my website: http://www.katechadbourne.com/kate.htm