Category Archives: simple living
June 6, 2011 an old north knoxville utopia, the consumption, and why i grow tomatoes
My brother gave me a 55 gallon drum last summer. He made an excellent compost bin with one, it hangs sideways between two posts and spins so you don’t have to stir, then dumps right into a wheel barrel. I’m making a rain barrel out of mine. To do that, it took me a year to break down and install gutters. That’s what I did this past weekend. Today I’m building an outdoor kitchen sink to run from the back side of the barrel. It’s similar to what some friends have in Mexico.
So far this spring, my house projects have mostly involved twisting the monkey off my back: the utility company. We’ve put up a laundry line, built window screens, hung screen doors, and now we’ve got this waterworks system. The utility meter reader guy came by Friday while I was on the ladder. I said, “Suck it, man.”
No, of course I didn’t.
We’ve spent $551 since June of last year on utilities. It’s depressing how many CDs one has to sell to come up with that number (I don’t think I ever have). Cutting wastewater will help the cost. It’s really the ugliest one, tucked in there on top of the water bill. They charge you to bring it, charge you to take it. No matter if you drank some or poured it on a flower.
Last winter we were very cold, and in the summer we lit the house with lightning bugs. We’re working on improvements. On Grace Acres Farm in Virginia, transitioning from Harlem, every morning we opened the chicken coup, fed the goats, watered the cows, and tended the large garden. My in-laws were on a motorcycle trip cross-country and knew Ashley and I could use a farmhouse in our life. After the inner city lollypop adventure.
I found Rebekah’s copy of Thoreau’s Walden and came to his illustration of the Indian basket maker. It resonated. Thoreau says, and I paraphrase:
“the Indian basket maker, who believed that crafting beautiful baskets was his greatest life ambition, decided that if he could not sell enough baskets to make a living, he would busy himself by creating a different style of living that did not require he sell as many of them.”
In the basement of the house at Grace Acres I recorded “New York City Spanks Levon Walker.” It was very fresh on my mind. Maybe I’ve sold 100. It was on iTunes for a year and actually lost money. I was very disappointed with that.
There is always the problem of sustenance when you busy yourself with making something, and less with the selling. Songwriting is my craft, and I get a little sad when I have a new one and think forward to the people in a bar who I’m going to scream it into their collars.
If it made any sense, I’d live on this little piece of land and work the ground. In the evenings, I’d sing to it. In the mornings I’d write my blogs, or maybe a novel. Ashley could paint what she wants. Our kid could run around the yard and I’d have a camera nearby for when he/she did something astonishing.
To complete this utopia, I’d likely go away to work as a longshoreman in the South or on journalistic assignment to the U.S. border of Mexico. Then we’d have the cash on hand to pay for government deficit spending, student debt, insurance, and other pretty little baskets like Netflix.
I was finished there for the day, but now I’m not. My trouble with sales needs working out.
Trade can be a genuine exchange like buying tomatoes and eggs at the farmers market. Or it is like buying a product in its devised cycle from a manufacturer who has already planned a replacement, and buying it with a credit card to get the bonus points, and maybe tacking on a few more large ticket items to jump into a higher rebate category. I get the sweats about discussing my AT&T contract. The bank wants to start a “relationship.” They used to call consumption the “con” and it would kill you.
At one time I listened to Zig Ziglar incessantly. I was in financial services sales then and I needed a motivational talk for every appointment. Ziglar says, in so many words, that the salesman is the catalyst for the american way. He said this a long time ago, way before credit crisis was the american way, and he also talked as much about integrity as he did sales. I’m a Zig Ziglar fan, but somewhere I became extremely bitter towards selling. Probably all the stood up appointments, cancelled contracts, and pressure during the banking crisis to sell our way out of ruin (due to previous overselling). I starved in my suit and tie, it didn’t seem so scary to hang it up. I have tomatoes now, too.
I sold less than 100 CDs in a year because I feel so dumb asking for money for them. People have to insist, and insist at least twice. Am I fast talking someone’s inheritance into my IRA plan? No. Those CDs carry lifeblood. To say that they go for 5 bucks feels a little ridiculous, it’s more than a money issue. I’ve given away well over 1000. They are the manifestation of my gift, and a gift is not for sale. Well maybe it has to be, but I’m very bashful about it. It’s my paradox, and I’m going to start writing pop songs. Those can be for sale, but not very good at sales and that’s why I grow tomatoes.
That was my explanation behind the 2010 EP “Not sure how I’ll eat but I’m not picking peaches.” My new one is underway, “Hope for the things seen and unseen.” It has my best songs ever written and I’ll slip you one soon.
Tags: 55 gallon drum, american way, banking crisis, compost bin, con, consumption, credit crisis, hope for the seen and unseen, indian basket maker, installing rain gutters, kub, longshoreman, netflix, new york city spanks levon walker, not sure how Ill eat but im not picking peaches, rain barrel, thoreau, us border of mexico, utility meter reader, zig ziglar
May 30, 2011 used cars
“Now, mister, the day my numbers comes in I ain’t
ever gonna ride in no used car again”
Used Cars, the Nebraska Album, Bruce Springsteen
Tags: bruce springsteen, nebraska album, used cars
- Leave a comment
- Posted under simple living, Songwriting, sustainability, Work
May 26, 2011 getting it together
A month ago I was preaching about taxes and organization. (Our Qualified Joint Venture blog) Ashley and I have a very complicated tax situation, nobody wants me to drag it out and explain it, but I emphasize that it’s very complicated. Thats why I bought the army file cabinet and promised not to fill it with shoe boxes, but use folders rather, and intermittently affix staples and paper clips.
That’s not all it took. The local bank has been easy enough to let Ashley and I conduct our regular business through our alter-identities: those being the fake names Levon Walker and Ashley Addair. Truth is, there are no such legal persons. Maybe you know my real name, which indicates our relationship predates 2008 when I adopted the name Levon from the 1971 Elton John hit song “Levon” from the Madman Across the Water album.
(note: “Levon” like “Levi’s.” Say it: LEEEEEEE, not leVon. end of note).
As for Ashley, well, she took “Walker” back in the summer of 2004. Addair is maiden. Dawn is the given middle. We go to the local bank I where I used to work, nobody bothers us about it. I’m getting to my point, after this one.
An artist is a small business like any other self employed entity in the great city of Knoxville, the county of Knox, the state of Tennessee, and the U.S. of America where the artist may be regulated and taxed at each level by its respective authority. That being the case, and in the spirit of owning a large, green file cabinet, we finally decided to organize.
We opened a small business entitled “Ashley Dawn Addair and Levon Walker,” obtained the city and county business licenses, applied for the state sales tax I.D. number and finally opened a commercial bank account. Our fake names exist now as a legal entity, although the owners remain the mysterious Mr. and Mrs. R Walker.
All of this babble has not been coffee shop conversation. I thought it worth sharing in part because having just gone through it, I’d be glad to assist the steps of another fellow who needs to get it done.
Also, for the story begun in this blog, it’s important to note the full circle. I’m back to the days of walking away from the desk (actually several of them) and classifying it all as “that stuff.” ”That stuff” doesn’t go away just because you want to be a songwriter. True, if one stays broke they aren’t forced to look at much of it. Unfortunately, ignorance is prohibiting.
Business principles aren’t the first thing I think of when focusing creative energy. I think of Jack Donaghy. No seriously, when I’m squandering I don’t do good work, or at least I can’t get it to stick. It takes an organized effort.
Especially when taking the last, tender step away from part time jobs and trying to stay off them.
I’m going to be a dad soon, and at times I think about going back to what some would call security. What I’ve learned most clearly in the last couple rambling years is that security exists, but it has nothing to do with the external. You can be secure in yourself and that is all. Beyond that you need faith, and when you can’t find faith, look for hope.
When I worry about it, I remember what David Johnson told me recently, “If it’s good for you, it’s good for your kid.”
Ashley and I are going to do this. Life is going to change, oh yes. But it won’t change to anything that doesn’t align with where we are now. And, we have a file cabinet to tell us where that is.
Tags: 30 rock, bureaucracy, business license, david johnson, Elton John, identities, jack donaghy, Levon, Madman Across the Water, maiden name, sales tax, security, small business owner
- 5 comments
- Posted under Ashley, Economy, Elton John, Financial Literacy, having babies, home, how to, marriage, mason jar, Music, on tour, parenting, simple living, Songwriting, Uncertainty, Work
May 20, 2011 video blog: Levon gives a mason jar tour, plays a song, and talks about paintings
People, I got in trouble for making this video. The inclination came to make it and I just did, but didn’t clean the house or anything. Man, you got a warn a lady before you just walk through the place with a camera, especially if she’s in the state that Ashley is (and by that I mean nothing, dear). When she came home she said,
“Well…. it’s a little long, entertaining, but I can’t believe you’re going to show that.”
That means she doesn’t like it. But I think when you videoblog you’re only allowed one take. This ain’t cable.
Shoulder of the Road Revisited
I chased you down the road for an interstate goodbye
standing there on the shoulder with your head on mind
said, “Honey it won’t be long, don’t you worry, don’t you cry,”
then waved you down the road for another try
How could we wait for love, knowing right where it went?
I watched you drive away and said I wouldn’t again
We got married in the flood, we were then so young
had an early start just to mess it up
Those early days we won’t forget, fighting for our lives
coming home to walls we didn’t recognize
I learned that fighting you was something I could stand to lose
drag enough cold inside, what you gonna do?
So I learned to make a few men of myself, brought em all home to you
said, “Honey here’s the new me, and what I’m gonna do”
she said, “If you see my husband tell him I could use a hand,
these men keep coming over eating off his land.”
You took me once on a promise to be true
I been making good on that to you
One thing I didn’t know was who I was those years ago
All I knew is I was holding on to you
and the shoulder of the road
music available at http://levonwalker.bandcamp.com/
Tags: discmakers, dustin addair, dustinallenaddair, shoulder of the road
May 17, 2011 i must have got hit by a car this morning, or bit by a rabid dog last week
I waited until I heard the birds to get up. This is the part where I write out everything wrestling in my mind and then either hit publish or delete. On the file cabinet across the room is a completed packet to give DHS and sign up for Tenn Care. We’ve already met and are finely qualified. I wish we weren’t.
So before taking the family’s next step on welfare, I’m asking a good question: ”If I turn this in, what am I doing?”
It’s a complicated argument and a morning’s blog entry won’t get everything right. The DHS packet is already completed for a few reasons. For one, my child has never decided that struggling for an ideal is something they’re interested in. Secondly, health care is messed up and anyone trying to pay on their own can’t do it. Society’s problem, and mine too.
Two weeks ago we sold our car for principled reasons. If we didn’t do that “pre parent,” we never would try. Now there is some cash in the asset column and we could use it.
The DHS question becomes one of ethics and strategy. Options:
a. Take the welfare, invest the car money in business and work hard to get off the welfare. One day pay it back.
b. Pay some medical expenses in cash and borrow the rest. Remain independent from assistance. Cover future health care with our continued artist incomes as they are.
c. Seek an employer that provides benefits. Probably buy another car.
The options have complications, but lets not blog too far. Instead, I give you possible responses to my future child:
a. Honey, when we started out we needed some help. But one day Daddy made a hit record and Mommy sold a painting to MoMA. We started a trust fund for other starving artists who wanted families.
b. Well son, just as you came into this world, your mother and I decided to reduce our dependance on foreign oil with its dire toll on the environment, while at the same moment we proved that expensive social programs are unnecessary if everyone would take responsibility for themselves. And health care, don’t get me started on health care.
c.
We pause here because it started to rain. I looked up to see the umbrella and Ashley’s rain jacket lying by the door. Hopping on my bike and sprinting for Belle Morris Elementary on this foggy, rainy morning, I was reminded that some choices, like being intentionally car-less, require a fresh assertion of values.
And suddenly I was hit by a Honda Civic. It pulled out and didn’t see me. My handlebars wadded up and the chain was knocked loose. Otherwise, the front side panel is a bruise of a landing and not a bloody one. The umbrella was in the right lane of N. Broadway and I was sure it would be my only casualty. But I saved it. The guy felt awful. I told him I was trying to take my wife her umbrella where she was a crossing guard. He was near tears. I offered that he could drive me to the school and he’d be doing me a favor, we’d call it even.
“Are you sure? What about your bike?”
I inspected my bike and chained it to the stop sign (just before the antique shop by Fellini Kroger). I could fix it. My knee was sore but not bleeding. There was no need to play any cards this morning, I just needed the ride.
He had a car seat in the back and a Bible in the passenger seat. We sat there until he could dart the car back onto Broadway.
He said, “You know I always try to be careful and considerate. That’s what I get for being late… I just dropped off my kid and was rushing to work. I didn’t even see you.”
The irony of everything I’ve just been thinking about: children, work, not having a car, Ashley’s part time job, people needing to catch a break. An unfinished blog at home which I was supposed to finish so that I’d discover what to do.
I don’t know.
Another story about how dangerous it is for me that Ashley is a crossing guard…
Last Thursday I was walking with her to school in the afternoon when an elderly man was sitting on a porch and murmured to us about something. There are crazies around here and we didn’t understand a word he said. After walking on I asked myself, what was the hurry; he’d seemingly been on his own porch. I told Ashley I’d meet her later, we both thought I should go back and check on him. He mumbled that he couldn’t walk and that he needed his dog to be brought in.
A chihuahua was leashed to a chair in the lawn beside the house and I guessed it looked harmless. As I reached for the leash, it bit me twice on the wrist. Still, I brought the dog to the man and realized that my initial instinct had been correct. He was probably 80, but he was pissed drunk. Urine all over his jeans. He said he’d broken a rib and had been lying on the porch all morning. I breathed sadly, but knew I had to lift him, no matter how disgusting. By the time I’d helped him into his dark, vomitous house and moved enough greasy paper plates with stale chicken so that he could fall on the couch, I headed for the door. The chihuahua was still on the leash and I hung it from a pile of unmemorable junk sitting in my guess of what was a chair.
“He’s a mean little sucker.”
“Have a nice day.”
I’d forgotten about the biting until I walked out into the bright sun and it had already began to swell. Instead of walking to the school, I went to the CVS Pharmacy on the provincial nearby corner. I asked the pharmacist,
“What do you recommend for a dog bite?”
“Did you know the dog?”
“No, it was just over there.”
“Go to the doctor. Now.”
“I don’t have health insurance.”
“I’m sorry, but dog mouths are filthy and he could have rabies. Seriously, go to the doctor.”
I looked at the swelling and remembered the soiled house. I thought about our upcoming medical bills. Then I walked over to the antiseptic cream and she yelled after me that it wouldn’t do it any good. It would make me feel better, like I’d done something. Like give a guy a freakin’ break.
I was furious for the rest of the day. I kept the bite clean and maybe it’s fine, that was last week. Everybody gets a little jittery when they’re going to be parents. Right now, I feel like I must have got hit by a car this morning.
Tags: cvs pharmacy, dhs, foreign oil, health care, health insurance, honda civic, MoMA, pre parent, rabid dog, tenn care
May 16, 2011 trail magic, the mirage of max patch waffle house
Goodbye, honey. I’m going camping.
At Max Patch in North Carolina, the Appalachian trail crosses the gravel access road at about .8 mile from the top. We didn’t mean to be, but we became the Max Patch Waffle House for thru hikers. With our pop up tents, cast iron skillet, and water from a five gallon thermos, we supplied luxuries like bacon, cobbler, and even salad with strawberry shortcake.
Eventually we reached the .8 mile summit. There was a shortcut but we didn’t take it.
Then Knox did a rain dance.
For two days it rained. It’s still raining today.
I’m home. Honey?
Tags: appalachian trail, global seeds, max patch, trail days
- 3 comments
- Posted under on tour, simple living, sustainability, travel and adventure
May 13, 2011 i saw three hipsters on a bicycle
Documenting some more. It was Thursday midday, Knoxville Tennessee. One of the first real scorchers. Men were setting up the stage for a Better Than Ezra concert tonight (woa oh). Ice cream and hot dogs were everywhere. Alexander was busking on his alto sax by Cafe Four. I stopped in Bliss Home to reshoot Ashley’s work.
I’ve been taking Ashley to work on my bike (she frowns at the word “haul”). In the cool morning she walks, but at 1:30 she hops on the rack of my ox cart. A pregnant lady shouldn’t be walking these East TN hills in the heat of the day. She should be on a bicycle rack, clasping her responsible partner. The car is sold now, and that has been interesting. One more week of school and no more bike rides for the three of us. She already exceeds 50 lbs and we expect it to continue. And let me tell you, the hills are a bitch.
Tags: better than ezra in knoxville, bubble, busking, crossing guard, elementary school, global seeds, knox tenn rental, mint chocolate chip, old city
- 2 comments
- Posted under Ashley, busking, consumerism, having babies, home, interconnectedness, Life, marriage, mason jar, Music, painting, pictures i like, simple living, Songwriting, street art, Work
May 12, 2011 a pregnant crossing guard and a wildflower patch
I’m documenting. This is Ashley at 8 weeks pregnant. The wildflower patch is now 4 years old and getting very jungly, in a good way. You can see that the Mason Jar is now white on the inside. 95%, but you can’t see that. Well maybe.
My trusty Canon point and shoot finally died, and I convinced Ashley we needed a DSLR. Secretly, I’ve long pretended to be a pro with my little Powershot. We made every video in our history with it, reproduced every painting; it has served us well (Canon SD 780, I recommend).
Reproducing images of paintings is a technical endeavor. I’m working on redoing them all. You can always come by the studio, so email us for an appointment at noroomforhipsters@gmail.com. Otherwise, paintings are viewable at our store: HTTP://WWW.ETSY.COM/SHOP/ASHLEYADDAIR. Prints are available in all sizes at HTTP://ASHLEYDAWNADDAIR.SOCIETY6.COM/STORE.
Tags: canon powershot, canon sd 780, crossing guard, wildflower patch
- 1 comment
- Posted under an invitation, Ashley, home, marriage, mason jar, parenting, pictures i like, simple living
May 10, 2011 showing normal symptoms
From what we’ve read, normal signs at this stage of pregnancy are nausea, sleepiness, bloating, food aversions and cravings, and emotional instability. That sounds about right. Ashley wants to sleep all the time, can never eat, can’t stop eating, wants to throw up, and feels like she swallowed a tire. Watching nine episodes of Glee in the last couple days, another symptom has arisen: feelings of joy, elation, misgivings and fear.
With tears in her eyes, she slurps red pepper soup for breakfast and pets the cat. When people ask me how she’s doing I say, “Pretty normal, I guess.”
Tags: elation, glee, pregnancy symptoms
- 2 comments
- Posted under Ashley, having babies, home, marriage, mason jar, painting, parenting, pictures i like, simple living
April 29, 2011 the beginning of a long letter to my unborn child
There wasn’t a clear moment when I decided I was ready to be a parent, as if it were something I needed to do, and “today is the day.” Instead, it happened more like this: your mother and I (which feels weird to say considering we only passed a pregnancy test yesterday) had made a lot of trips to Tazewell, VA. (so far in 2011 due to Uncle Eddie being in the hospital, then passing away, then the baby shower of your cousin Pearl, and then when Dana passed away).
These seem like inconsistent reasons for considering parenthood, but family is most important and we were taking a hard look at ours. We’d just returned from our second winter trip to Mexico, precluded by a different story of driving to the US border and back in five days, the result of another family circumstance involving your grandfather. (who doesn’t know about you as I write this, but has said he wanted the hypothetical you to call him Groove Pa). Rearing children seemed like crazy talk, but we were making a lot of it.
Once you get to know your mother and I a little better, you will understand why the final decision to be “ready or not” came as an impulsive push through much back and forth deliberation. We’ve had long conversations, some of them selfish, some of them principled, all of them anticipatory. I suppose we never decided the timing was perfect, but we finally became ready to hand time over to biology and fate.
Apologies dear child, I’m having a hard getting to the bottom of a good explanation. (I ramble often, and start too many thoughts). I want you to know the world as it is for your mother and I, in the days that barely precede you. On an afternoon drive through the Virginia mountains with your Groove Pa, the subject of children came up.
Your Groove Pa was a wild, young pro motorcross racer and started working in the mines to support your infant mother. I asked him if it was hard to put his racing dreams to the side and he said, “No, it felt good. Like I was doing something for my baby girl.” There is a similar story on my side, about my father and the dream of a farm in Western Kentucky.
Child, as I write this I don’t have much figured out. My triumphs have been quiet ones and my resources don’t make fatherhood look rational. I have the feeling that your upbringing will be an interesting one, and it is my belief that you will be an extraordinary person.
All I know about you is a plus sign on a test strip. They say you’ll have heart beat in a week or so. As you’re developing to begin your story, I’m going to tell you mine. And the one about the rest of our folks, as far back as I’ve heard told. You’ll need to know that, too.
Google predicts you will be here on December 14. That’s good, I can work with a deadline.
end of letter
Blog readers:
I apologize for the period of silence. Ashley and I found out last week that we are pregnant. That becomes the only news, and there was nothing else I could get on here to say. I decided to share a piece of this letter to break the silence. I intend to make it a memoir of sorts, but really it’s just what you’ve read that exists.
Ashley and I are thrilled. Bewildered. I don’t know what else to say right now, except for baby names.
Tags: family, fatherhood, parenting, Tazewell
- 6 comments
- Posted under Ashley, having babies, home, Life, parenting, simple living, Uncertainty
