One thing about the coal industry:
Last night I watched the debate between Don Blankenship (CEO of Massey Energy) and Robert Kennedy about the future of the coal industry in Appalachia (WV in particular). Let me just say that it was excellent, and it is a shame that more people inside and outside of Appalachia didn't see it. I will refrain from stating any opinions except that it was the best debate I have ever seen, and possibly will be the debate of my lifetime.
Skills:
I recently learned how to use Adobe Audition, and have been doing sound editing on cds of concerts of the Cowan Creek Music School, a workshop that sounds sort of like Letcher County's Allegheny Echoes. I'm learning how to take out the "p pops," change sound levels and make the recordings into short radio programs. I get to listen to great concerts and all the banter, make them sound even better by removing annoying tongue clicks, raising soft voices, and cutting out people dropping things. My inner perfectionist is singing right now.
I have come to accept the fact that I probably won't finish getting meta-data for the entire music library. I am on Local Bluegrass right now, about halfway through the entire database, and have a week left. And you'd better believe I won't spend my last week at Appalshop wading through it. It is hard for me to not finish something I started though. I think this just means I will have to come back.
People:
I have made an effort not to talk about people or mention individuals in this blog. In a small town, people talk about other people enough without me adding to it. I have been made to feel very welcome to Whitesburg by many people. I like small towns, and I like this one partly because this is not my small town, and therefore, people don't know all of my business (well actually they do, but they don't have information about me from nearly two decades to compare it to, like the people in Pocahontas County do).
Fun:
Summit City Open Mic Night. Heck yes. So when I went this time, I got so caught up in talking that I forgot to play. I actually forgot to play. Although I did here some new jokes that some of the old timers told, which is an equally valid part of Appalachian culture. It's great meeting people who are closer to my age who care as much about Appalachian culture and music as I do, and want to talk about it as much as I do. I know a lot of other young people who feel similarly from previous music experiences (I almost typed my previous life... and that is sort of how it feels to me right now), but we didn't necessarily sit down and talk about it for hours.
I'm not trying to belittle anyone's religious experiences by this comparison, but I truly feel like I have made some kind of pilgrimage and Appalshop is Mecca. Steven Colbert's recent show talked about Mountain top removal and called Appalachians the one remaining group that everyone feels comfortable making fun of. And that is very true. I have met many people who could be poster children for political correctness, who would never make homophobic, racist or sexist comments, or misuse the word oppression, yet have no qualms about making hillbilly jokes.
I find myself wishing I had been born a couple years earlier, not so I could drink beer at Summit City while having these conversations, but so I could have met some of the older West Virginia musicians like Woody Simmons who are no longer with us. It seems like many of them were dying by the time I stopped thinking that old time music was lame. I will just have to spend as much time as possible with the ones who are still around.
School:
I also ended up talking to someone who had spent a good deal of time in Oberlin but not as a student about the school. We spent a long time talking about what a weird place it is. And I love Oberlin and the conversation made me miss it, but Oberlin is a really weird place. The Oberlin bubble really messes with your concept of the world, and the fact that the school is in the middle of what is actually a pretty impoverished area of small towns makes it even stranger.
I'm not going to lie, I am not looking forward to going back to college. And I definitely never thought that I would want to be one of those people. You know the ones. They leave college after a couple of semesters because they don't really feel like they are doing anything worthwhile for the world there. I have a couple of friends who did this, and it sounds like they are doing pretty well. I'm not going to leave school, because I know that for the kind of work that I think I want to do, a college education is incredibly valuable. So for the next 5 semesters (the fact that it is only 5 used to scare me, but I'm not so sure anymore), I am going to work on finishing my psychology major, get a radio show, take classes that will give me skills to be a kick-ass non-profit worker (in my mind that includes Econ, finishing statistics, more politics classes, and a few more paper-heavy classes), and if I have the time between that, finding a job or volunteer somewhere that will put me in contact with people who are not 18-22. I wish I could muster up more enthusiasm for returning to school. At this point, I am the most excited about seeing my friends again and not having to cook for myself all the time. But I think I will feel differently once I am back. I didn't want to go home, and I was fine there. I didn't want to go to Kentucky, and I'm having an amazing experience. If this pattern continues and I can adjust my attitude, this will be the best semester ever.
But at the moment, I don't really want to go back.
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