And How Shall You Judge Us?
From Robert:

A few weeks ago, at Jack Erdie's Folk Off, I said something to the effect that my interest in folk music springs from a desire to find a "pure" source, like spring water, but I'm usually disappointed to learn that very little of the music that has survived can be said to have a pure source--almost all of it turns out to have been in some way created for the marketplace or survives because of the marketplace. (In my Christian/socialist/Utopian ideology, of course, the marketplace is almost always a corrupting influence, a source of evil.) Later that evening, Dave Larose said, "I know what you mean about looking for perfection and purity, but I've come to believe that it doesn't really exist. And as soon as you stop looking for perfection, you begin to see that many things are, already, in their own way, perfect."

This past weekend, members of JACK, Eve Goodman, a few audience-members and I were discussing the challenge of building our audience, of getting people who don't know us to come out to hear us and to get people who do know us to come out more than once or twice a year. Dave Larose once again rose to occasion with a perfect bit of wisdom, "If we want people to come out and hear us, the first thing we need to do is get better."

We DO need to be grateful for what we have and for who we are. Likewise, we DO need to get better.

I suggest that everybody find a copy of the Dave Van Ronk biography/autobiography, "The Mayor of McDougal Street."

I want to start a magazine/fanzine called Gardyloo in honor of the magazine that once reported on the life of the Greenwich Village scene.

My contribution to The Threepenny Opry for January through May will be a series of fictitious/fantasy Acoustic Challenge concerts in which Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, John Lennon, Carole King, Patti Smith, Tori Amos, John Denver, Steve Earle, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Joe Hill, Joni Mitchell, Michelle Shocked and Leadbelly square off against each other to win a case of Yuengling and a Cuban cigar. The contest will be totally rigged, of course.
I'll need volunteers to perform as the above artists.

I'll need volunteers to act as judges, as well. The artists (instead of musicianship, stage-presence, quality of material and industry potential) will be judged on Politeness, Etiquette and Grooming (the P.E.G. Principle popularized by Captain Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper in the world of professional wrestling.)