The Get Up Johns Transcript
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors Radio. And on the fourth segment of each show, we always feature a musician, an author of sound. And today I have the special pleasure of welcoming my friend, Josh Wenck from The Get Up Johns. Welcome to the show.
Joshua Wenck: Hi, Kent. Do I have to call you Dr. Kent now? I didn’t realize you had changed your name.
Kent Gustavson: No, you can call me Kent. How are you doing?
Joshua Wenck: I’m pretty well. How about you?
Kent Gustavson: Very good. Do you have any New Year’s resolutions this year, next year?
Joshua Wenck: None that I can say on the air.
Kent Gustavson: Very good. So let’s hear what you have to say about your album, ‘Trouble in Mind’. It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s a brothers-style duet. What do you feel about it? It’s been out for about two years, a year and a half.
Joshua Wenck: It’s been out for about a year and a half. We made it kind of quick and dirty. It was all recorded live. We were trying to reproduce the sound of the old radio programs that a lot of the early country musicians would do just to make ends meet.The Louvin Brothers had several different shows, in particular, that we listened to. There are a couple of recordings out there that have been re-released on CD of some of their radio material. And so that’s kind of the production quality that we were looking for, the instrumentation is pretty minimal and simple. It’s in the bluegrass genre, but without as much instrumentation, as most bluegrass music is.
Kent Gustavson: It’s kind of in the vein of Gillian Welch.
Joshua Wenck: More like Gillian Welch from ‘Time (The Revelator)’, it’s real stripped down. No bass. No banjo.
Kent Gustavson: You’ve been headlining with some pretty heavy folks, including ‘Spider’ John Koerner, who I love, and recently Ralph Stanley, right?
Joshua Wenck: Yeah, we opened for Ralph here in Minneapolis just about four weeks ago. That was an honor to be sure.
Kent Gustavson: And you’re not necessarily from the Appalachian Mountains. What’s your background? How’d you come to this music?
Joshua Wenck: I came to this music just sort of by accident; a church that I attended during college used the old country hymns for their service music. Through that I got to know the Stanley brothers, Hank Williams, the Louvin Brothers, and Johnny Cash, and just started going back into the catalogue, if you will, of Americana, roots music and Appalachian music, and really fell in love with it.I was trained in college as a classical tenor, but I didn’t end up pursuing that. I really fell in love with the way that Appalachian singers use their voice, particularly, Ralph Stanley and Roscoe Holcomb coming out of the primitive Baptist lining tradition. I just think it’s a really beautiful and haunting way to use a voice. My voice doesn’t have nearly as much of the color as their voices do, but it’s something that I really enjoy doing.
Kent Gustavson: Let’s listen to a little bit of the title track, ‘Trouble in Mind’.[music]
Kent Gustavson: That’s a beautiful track and it’s my favorite song on the album. How would you describe your feelings towards this music? The emotion in there is palpable, but how does it feel to sing that music?
Joshua Wenck: I don’t know, I’ve never thought about that. That kind of harmony is referred to as ‘high lonesome’ harmony. And I think for both my partner and I, the attachment to that kind of singing and that kind of music kind of comes out of a feeling of lonesomeness. So it’s like an aching, lonesomeness, but there’s sort of a beauty in that, I guess. I don’t know, Kent. You’re asking me to answer something that I haven’t really thought about that much.
Kent Gustavson: Instead of the hot, humid Southern porch, we’re talking about the long lonesomeness of the dark, cold Minnesota winter.
Joshua Wenck: That’s right, it is that.
Kent Gustavson: So where are you going to be for New Year’s this year?
Joshua Wenck: For New Year’s, I will be sitting on my couch watching football and drinking beer.
Kent Gustavson: Good American tradition. Let’s listen to one more track from the album, ‘Cluck Old Hen’. It’s a beautiful tune.[music]
Kent Gustavson: Yeah.
Joshua Wenck: That’s the way to ring in the New Year.
Kent Gustavson: That had some fire in it right there. Are you going to take over the world - The Get Up Johns - in 2008?
Joshua Wenck: Very likely not.
Kent Gustavson: What’s the plan?
Joshua Wenck: We’re going to release a new record, hopefully, by the end of the summer or early next fall.
Kent Gustavson: I’m looking forward to it, and we can find out more at www.GetUpJohns.com. Can you say a little bit about your name?
Joshua Wenck: Yeah, it’s a traditional song that a lot of early country artists have played. We don’t play it, but it’s a song about John the Revelator - or is it John the Baptist? It doesn’t really matter.
Kent Gustavson: It’s one of those Johns.
Joshua Wenck: One of those Johns, and we’re a couple of Johns ourselves, or so they say.
Kent Gustavson: The music is intense and fascinating, coming from a Minnesota duo. High harmonies. It sounds great. Have a great New Year, Josh. Visit The Get Up Johns online at www.GetUpJohns.com. It’s a great CD. Take it easy.
Joshua Wenck: Thanks, Kent.
Kent Gustavson: And thank you so much to my other guests, Lorie Conway, Lisa Marie Mercer, Sally Franz, and of course, The Get Up Johns. Let’s hear a little more of The Get Up Johns. Thank you to engineer Anthony Farabee, host guru, Sonia Darte, executive producer, Charlavan Hart, sound engineer, Reuben Columbe and Randy Jackson.Be safe and tune in next week for an election special, just before the primaries. Find out more about the guests and listen to podcast episodes at SoundAuthors.com. Good luck to everyone in 2008, and I’ll see you next week.
Lisa Marie Mercer Transcript
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to “Sound Authors.” Today is our holiday show, sitting between Christmas and New Years. My next guest is Lisa Marie Mercer, author of “Open Your Heart With Winter Fitness.” Welcome to the show.
Lisa Marie Mercer: Hi, how are you? Glad to be here.
Dr. Kent: Have you been skiing this year yet?
Lisa: Yes, I have. I’ve been skiing where I work at Copper Mountain, and in early September, I had the good fortune of teaching a ski fitness week out in Portillo, Chile. So, I sort of got a head start on everybody else.
Dr. Kent: Sounds like it. I grew up cross-country skiing. I was a competitive athlete up in Minnesota, in the cold. How did you start skiing?
Lisa: It was a very funny story. I met a man who loved to ski. I was a quintessential native New Yorker who thought that even a 40-degree day was in the Arctic zone, but I wanted to be with this guy. So he took me on a ski trip. At first I absolutely despised it, because I couldn’t stay up for one minute. Then about 10 years later I started doing all these balance exercises, working out on the stability ball, and I got up on the slopes and found out my balance was incredible. From there I just got hooked, left New York, moved to Colorado, and the rest is history.
Dr. Kent: So tell me a little bit about “Open Your Heart With Winter Fitness.” This is a book that’s not only about fitness. What’s it about?
Lisa: It is about the benefit of learning to ski or snowboard, or even snowshoe or cross-country as an adult. And I’m talking about the physical benefits, the psychological benefits, and even, for some people, the spiritual benefits. It talks a little bit about my journey into the world of snow sports.Then the second part of the book presents a very, very detailed ski or snowboard or snowshoe fitness plan. It has references to some of the best instructors in North America who specialize in teaching adult beginners. All in all, it’s a very comprehensive book. It’s basically everything you wanted to know about snow sports.
Dr. Kent: And what value does athletics and sports have in our lives, not just this time of year to work off those couple pounds, but for in our sedentary lifestyles where we’re staring at the computer all day, what’s the value of sports?
Lisa: There are many, many values. First of all, you’re getting outdoors. In the winter season, anybody who suffers from any kind of Seasonal Affective Disorder, you’re out there in the snow. There are social values. Let’s take an example of some of the Internet message forums, such as EpicSki.com; that message forum has over 16, 000 members from all parts of the globe. People go on that forum to talk about skiing, and sometimes they even meet up with each other at various parts of the world, so you have friends all over the place.Physically, snow sports are weight bearing, so they prevent the eventual onset of osteoporosis. They improve your balance, which is great just for general walking around. If there’s something on the ground that you normally would have tripped on, most snow sports participants would have enough core stability to kind of drag themselves back up and not fall down and get hurt. So, the possibilities are endless.
Dr. Kent: I know you also work with people one on one, why write a book? Why do that?
Lisa: Why write a book? Because when I first tried to learn to ski, I was what you would consider an extremely fit person. I was a marathon runner. I spent about two or three hours a day in the weight room, but I had no balance whatsoever. And my first day on the slopes was absolutely embarrassing. Then years later, after I did some balance training, I found out it was really natural.Now I work at Copper Mountain where I’m sitting right now. One day in this very spot where I’m sitting, there was a woman, very fit, very beautiful, looked like she worked hard, she was sitting in the cafeteria crying, and I went over to her. I asked her what was the matter, and she said “I always prided myself as being a very, very fit person, but I cannot stand up on these slopes.” And I spoke to her a little bit about the proper type of training, and as I walked away, I said “You know what? I need to write a book.”
Dr. Kent: So you feel that this book can reach out to people that are athletes and want to figure out how to do this winter sports thing. Does it also reach out to non-athletes?
Lisa: Oh absolutely, absolutely. A lot of people I know, especially a lot of people who take my classes out at Mountain Sport Fitness in Frisco, Colorado, they never got into any kind of physical exercise until they started skiing. And it was the skiing that motivates them to stay in shape.
Dr. Kent: And it’s because of the fun aspect? The view and the endorphins? What is it about skiing?
Lisa: There are a lot of things. It’s the social aspect of it, although for some people–for me I often like to ski by myself, the solitude. It’s the fresh air, the excitement, the view. Sometimes you use it as a way of just traveling around the world, seeing different parts of the world, but not seeing it through the point of view of a tour bus. You’re just out there on the mountains getting a view of the scenery, the different topography. It’s just a rather amazing thing to do.
Dr. Kent: Let’s talk a little bit about New Years; it’s coming up. Do you get a lot of people coming in saying, “It’s my New Year’s resolution to get in shape”? What do you tell those folks?
Lisa: I tell them that it should go beyond a New Year’s resolution, because resolutions often get broken. It should just be something that is going to become your way of life. Start to see yourself as an outdoor person, and that’s the way–if you make the total commitment that you’re an outdoor person and this is important to you–then it will be natural for you to want to stay in shape for your sport.
Dr. Kent: I can see several different personalities of athletes. My father and I tend to be very extreme athletes. We like to push the limits, but my mother, when she goes skiing, she’s thinking about the hot chocolate at the end of the hill. Do you get both types?
Lisa: Well, that’s a big part of it. I was talking beforehand about Portillo in South America. When we went the conditions were not really all that good, but the whole environment, it’s just a rather amazing place.It turns out that the same people will often book the same week every year so they can come back to see their friends. You’ve got a lot of the international ski teams going out there, and they just hobnob and socialize with everybody.Part of the day is just spent in the afternoon in the lounge having some cocoa, chatting with people. So, I always tell people don’t overlook the entire experience. For some people, it’s going to be about the thrill and the challenge, but for others there’s just something very wonderful and relaxing about the experience. It can be catered to each person’s preferences.
Dr. Kent: Where can we find out about your next project?
Lisa: You should check out my website which is mountainsport–no “s” at the end of sport–just sportfitness.com.
Dr. Kent: Mountainsportfitness.com?
Lisa: Dotcom.
Dr. Kent: Sally Franz’s book is called, “Stressing down for the…” Sorry, “Open Your Heart with Winter Fitness”. My next guest’s book is called, “Stressing down for the Holidays”.But, on that subject, stressing down for the holidays; how do you feel after doing the exercise of skiing? Is it the same as running or running a marathon, as you said you did before?
Lisa: It’s a little bit different. There is a similar type of thrill, but I would say it’s a little bit more mellow. You feel a little bit more relaxed at the end of a ski run, whereas in a marathon you’re often still a little bit hyper and you’re talking very, very quickly because you’re just moving very quickly. But, the skier’s high is a little bit more mellow.
Dr. Kent: Cool. What are some tips for winter fitness besides just skiing for us this winter? What if, like in my area, we don’t have much snow?
Lisa: OK. Balance training is extremely important for any kind of snow sport. You want to get yourself a stability ball which is very, very inexpensive nowadays. There are some great exercises that you can do on the ball, which I’ve covered in detail in my book.You also want to learn to keep your core muscles, your deeper abdominal muscles very active. And, that’s very simple to do. All you need to do is about 10 times a day draw your belly in and see if you can hold it tight for about 10 seconds; that’s all. Eventually, that will train the deeper core muscles to support you, and eventually you will find your balance will start to get better.
Dr. Kent: What’s the importance of physical balance in terms of our everyday lives?
Lisa: In terms of our everyday life, they keep us from getting injured. One of the biggest causes of injury in older adults is falling, but if you start training your balance at an earlier age you are less likely to fall.Out here in Colorado we have women and men in their late 80s who are still skiing. Although it’s intriguing to watch them ski, it’s equally fascinating to watch them walk across an icy village in their ski boots, carrying their skis and being totally balanced. But, that’s because they started training for it when they were younger.
Dr. Kent: How has athletics balanced your life?
Lisa: That’s an interesting question. It’s balanced it in a number of ways. It’s made me see that balance in the general aspects of my life, balancing work and play, balancing play and family time, balancing work and family time and spending more time with my pets.When we first started to learn to ski, we had just adopted a greyhound. It turned out our greyhound really, really loved the snow. So, we just started taking ski vacations with our greyhound. Eventually, she was part of the decision of moving us out to Colorado.
Dr. Kent: Do you put skis on her?
Lisa: No, we don’t put skis on her, but she absolutely loves to play in the snow. The other day we had some deep powder, and she decided to just jump into it to do her business. And, it was so funny because all you could see was her little smiling head sticking up with her mouth wide open and looking like she was laughing. I wished I’d brought a camera. It was really adorable.
Dr. Kent: That’s a great picture to leave us with. Thank you so much for being on the show, Lisa Marie Mercer. Her website, again, is…tell me again.
Lisa: Mountainsportfitness.com.
Dr. Kent: Mountainsportfitness.com and her book is, “Open Your Heart with Winter Fitness”. And we’ll all do our best to do that. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Lisa: Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day. Bye-bye.
Dr. Kent: You, too. Sally Franz is my next guest with “Stressing down for the Holidays”. Come on back.[music]
Sally Franz Transcript
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Kent Gustavson: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on this holiday show is Sally Franz. Did I pronounce that correctly?
Sally Franz: Yes. Hi, how are you?
Kent: Hi, very good. She’s come to talk to us about her new book, “Stressing Down for the Holidays: 25 Tips to Peel You Off the Ceiling”. Give me a little sound clip about that.
Sally: Well basically it’s looking at what our expectations are and what we can really do in this modern era to create family traditions that are not hard on us. A lot of the things that have been passed down generation-to-generation are just not possible with how we live our lives today.
Kent: And I noticed by looking through some of it that you deal with some issues that definitely pop up in my family, and I’m sure in many families. When you say ‘Grinches’, I tend to be Grinch sometimes, and I think all of us have certain aspects of this. Let’s start out by talking about the value of the holidays. New Year’s is coming up and we have resolutions coming up later, but this is the season of family gatherings. Tell me a little bit about how we can have healthy family gatherings.
Sally: First of all, let me just say that anyone listening can get this booklet - it’s actually an e-book - for free if they go to BabyBoomerTalkRadio.com. And when you go to the Boomer Boutique, which is our store, you just scroll down to the bottom, click on the PDF and you can actually be reading along with us as you’re listening, and it’s free. I think the most important thing is to understand what stress is. Stress is the difference between what we wanted and what we got.And if we were expecting ‘Uncle Booze Hound’ to be sober for one hour, and at the end of the holiday dinner, we’re in the kitchen and we’re throwing things in the sink saying, “Why couldn’t those two just stop talking politics for one hour?”, the answer is they would if they could, but they’re not going to. So how are you going to still have a lovely holiday, given that every family has its person that’s nuts?
Kent: Absolutely. So was your family trouble-free as a kid?
Sally: No. We had a mixed family - his, hers and theirs - way before people were doing that. We had a tradition where all five kids had to stand in front of the fireplace, posing as they hung their stocking. And every single picture for 20 years, somebody’s all puffy-eyed from crying - at least one of the kids is miserable Christmas Eve. So there was screaming and yelling, and then the aunts came, and the aunts were saying things like, “shush, quiet, quiet”, to five year olds. I had a twin brother; you can imagine the chaos.I think the key thing is to say, what do we love about the holidays? For instance, if you’re a homemaker, or better yet, you’re the holiday-maker - which could be man or woman - you’re the one in charge of the pageant.If you really love the idea of lit candles and beautiful flowers in the middle of the table and everyone’s sitting around, but you’re kind of fantasizing that it’s some other family; one of the things that you could do is have a buffet dinner, and then ask anyone who’d like to join you for dessert around the table. So it’s only limited to five or ten minutes and that way hopefully they can behave themselves for five or ten minutes, but they may not be able to. But at least you had your moment without actually ruining your dinner.
Kent: And it always seems that these family gatherings can get quite lengthy. What’s your take on… One of my fiance’s pet peeves is that when we visit with family, the women segregate themselves; it’s a societal thing. I’ve tried my hand at getting into the cooking and the dishwashing and do a bit of that, but I feel like an unwelcome participant. The men and women segregate, what do you have to say about that part of the holiday?
Sally: Well of course some of the fun is hanging out with either family, or like you said, all the women may be in the kitchen, and three may be sitting on stools at the kitchen bar, and the others are whipping something up, but it’s a fellowship thing. There was a guy that did a one-man show, ‘The Caveman’, Rob Becker. He talks about a very funny incident where he tries to join the women and he realizes he doesn’t have any of those skills because he’s a guy.The guys are all talking about potato chips, they get down to the last one, and the one guy goes, “You ate the last one; you have to get the next bag.”. And the next guy says, “No, I brought this bag!”. The other guys says, “It’s my house.”, so they argue about who’s going to do it. The women, as they get down low on chips, all walk together over to the chip bag and fill it together, and then walk back to where they were sitting. So when the guy comes in and gets down to the last chip, he goes, “I’m not going to fill it; I just filled the other one.”, and they all look at him like he’s crazy.So the question is if you really do want to participate and you also want the women to know that you don’t think it’s their share, you could make a declaration that after the meal, the men are going to do all the cleaning up, and the women can sit and watch anything they want on the television.
Kent: Exactly. They can turn the football on and fall asleep.
Sally: Yeah, like that’s going to happen. They’ll be watching Martha Stewart or something.
Kent: And then you talk about in the book some of the more difficult things. I’m always thinking on the holidays about certain friends of mine who are alone somewhere in the world on the holiday to people that might have lost their families or never had a family. Talk a little bit about that.
Sally: I think the real key here is how do you cure the ease of the malaise or the stress of the holiday. I think the number one thing - and if you’re not doing this, get going - is to start doing either random acts of kindness or join an organization that is helping people less fortunate.Every synagogue, every church, every curb right now is collecting toys, food and things for needy families. And if you don’t know how to do that just go directly to Salvation Army or directly to Social Services, and they have lists and lists of families that are not going to have a Christmas, that are not going to have a holiday at all, and start giving.I know lots of people, and I’ve done it myself, where I was alone on Thanksgiving, so I just went to the nearest soup kitchen and helped serve. And I could be around people and I could laugh, see smiling faces and I got fed.
Kent Gustavson: It’s true. I’ve done that also on Thanksgiving and it’s a very fun experience. Kind of on the other side of the spectrum, we’ve got families that definitely have each other and are grateful to have each other, but one person comes in and is a ‘Grinch’, and that’s the term you use. Tell me about the old grievances.
Sally: Again, you are not going to cure 30 years or 50 years of dysfunction just because you wish it so. God bless you, but get rid of your magical thinking. Then it’s like triage. What are we going to do to save the day? And one of the things you can do is say - if the Grinch is a political nit-picker - is anyone who wants to talk politics with ‘Uncle Grinch’ can go sit in that corner. The rest of use who want to eat pumpkin pie and go throw snowballs during that kind of climate, we’re going to go do that.I think the most important think is compartmentalizing both the day and the people. The other thing that’s really, really important for the pageant producer; please have other people who are coming - if you don’t have family and you’re single - assigned to these difficult people.So if you have the goth, whacked-out teenager who’s in a mood even before they get in the door, and you’ve got what I call the ‘free-range’ two-year-olds who’s parents say, “We never spank them or correct them; we never say the ‘no’ word.”, and they also never watch them and now it’s your house. So when you have those kinds of things, you say to your sister, “You’re in charge of the two-year-old.”, and your mother, “You’re in charge of the grandchildren.”. You assign them out. Now you did bring up an interesting question, what if you’re the Grinch?
Kent: Right.
Sally: I do sit down at Christmas time - Christmas is my holiday - and I say “At what point have we stopped giving and it now feels like extortion?”. And some years it’s not until the end that you find out that even though you finished with all your shopping in November, there actually are three more gifts. I just got an email from my ex-husband’s family, and they all said “Well you’re in the Christmas grab bag!”, and that was one of the things I was looking forward to getting out of. It’s just that now I got to go do that.
Kent: There’s a certain stigma attached to a lot of events. I guess we all have the required event and the events that we like. And it’s kind of like taking the sugar to help the medicine go down. Do you have your favorite events on Christmas or on New Year’s?
Sally: You really nailed it. There are some things you really look forward to. I lived in New York City for a while, up on the Upper Eastside, and there was a church - I don’t remember the name - and they would play their organ and bells, on the loudspeaker system, Christmas carols. And it was a tradition, everybody in the neighborhood - and I mean this is New York City and people are coming out of high rise buildings, I was on the 25th floor - all just started gathering and singing to the hymns, to the Christmas carols. And it’s just a magical thing, and nobody organizes it except the people that put the music on, and everybody just gathers. That was very cool.And then I lived in California and one of the big things was to go to sing ‘The Messiah’ with a full orchestra. The guy would hand you the entire ‘Messiah’ music, and I can read about every other note. The altos would sit there and somebody would lead you in singing almost the entire ‘Messiah’. It’s really cool.
Kent: I know for some people that would drive them nuts. My family is Swedish and my sister loves to make these cookies that are just solid butter and sugar, and I can understand how she likes them, but I can’t stand them. And so we always joke about it. She says, “Oh, I made these cookies.”. and I say, “Oh, I hate those cookies.”.
Sally: Are they like apple skivers?
Kent: No, they’re deep-fried. They’re pretty good.
Sally: It sounds wild. Well I think the big this is, again, everybody brings their favorite cookie, and everybody says you don’t have to eat those cookies, I hope. I think one of the most important things is to save the stuff you love. If your family absolutely loves making gingerbread men and decorating them, save that one; but don’t do the one where you have to go ice-skating at the mall or whatever it is. I used to love to carol as a kid. We got together gangs of kids and we’d go door-to-door, and we just loved Christmas carols; we did it for hours. We did it longer than we did trick-or-treating in the same neighborhood.The key thing is the family needs to sit down, or the single person needs to sit down, and make a list of all the things they love. Then, actually do like you do at a job, do a time frame. OK, making sure Christmas cookies that are decorated, and I have that in my book sort of as a joke. It takes like five hours usually and everybody eats them in two seconds, and they didn’t even notice that the little red hats made of hearts; they just chomped right into them. So cut corners, gift bags for gifts not wrapped, pre-made bows. Just make it easy on yourself.
Kent: And what about New Year’s? Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?
Sally: I sat down one day and I went I don’t keep any of these resolutions. They’re a joke and they’re embarrassing. And then I feel guilty and that’s no way to start the new year. So I like to make a list of New Year’s resolutions that are easy to keep. And actually when you look at it, it gives you so much joy that it would actually be easier to give up the drinking, the smoking, the weight gain, whatever you were trying to get rid of.What if you just made a resolution that you were going to watch a funny video or DVD every single week, at least one where you fell apart on the floor, something like “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” or whatever it is. And then maybe you make another resolution that you’re going to eat some kind of fantastic chocolate at least once a week. And making yourself happy actually makes you a person that has a lot more energy, and that energy you can use to feel better, and usually then you don’t have to go drug yourself.
Kent: Those sound like some pretty good resolutions to a lot of people, I’m sure.
Sally: And the other thing is if you’re not laughing out loud almost to the point where eggnog comes out of your nose, you are not doing the holidays right. Most people don’t laugh that hard, but it could be hysterical.
Kent: Sally Franz’s e-book is available online from her website, it’s called “Stressing Down for the Holidays: 25 Tips to Peel You Off the Ceiling”.
Lorie Conway Transcription
December 29, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors. Today is December 28. Today on Sound Authors we have a winter show planned. Sandwiched between holidays, we are still saturated from Christmas and getting our plans settled for New Years. On the show today, Lorie Conway brings us back to a different time with her documentary hard cover book about Ellis Island.We will also be chatting with Lisa Marie Mercer about getting in shape in the winter. Something we, of course, always think about during holidays. We’ll talk with Sallie Graham about our New Year’s resolutions. Our musical guests are the Get-Up Johns from cold, cold Minnesota.My first guest is Lorie Conway. Welcome to the show.
Lorie Conway: Yes, nice to be here. Thanks very much for asking me.
Dr. Kent: You are an independent producer and filmmaker. You’ve won some awards and your most recent project was called the Forgotten Ellis Island. We can find out more at ForgottenEllisIsland.com. Give me a little sound bite about the project.
Lorie Conway: Sure. Forgotten Ellis Island is the first film and book to be produced about the immigrant hospital that once stood on Ellis Island. It was one of the largest state of the art hospitals in the world at the turn of the century. It was built as over 12 million immigrants landed in New York seeking to become citizens. As you know, they were bringing their dreams and hopes, but they were also bringing contagious diseases, which were in the era before antibiotics. It was a very dangerous combination.
Dr. Kent: As we think about all of our families this holiday, we are all either home or thinking about home. How many people came through Ellis Island?
Lorie Conway: It was the largest port of entry during what we refer to as the great wave of immigration. Twelve million immigrants were coming through New York through Ellis Island. One hundred million Americans alive today, myself included, can trace our routes to those immigrants who came through Ellis Island. So it’s a third of the country that owes their roots to the immigrants who came through New York a century ago.
Dr. Kent: Before we start talking about the hospital itself and all that - my own relatives, my last name is Gustafson - they are all Swedish. We got our name from Ellis Island or somewhere near it. I’m not sure exactly what…our name was Parrison, and there were too many Parrisons that year, is what the legend says. Anyway, my great-grandfather said, “OK, we’ll just be Gustafson”. Do you hear similar stories all the time?
Lorie Conway: Yes, indeed. As I was going through many, many immigrations and medical files, I was finding stories like your grandfather’s, where people’s names were either abbreviated, changed altogether or just a different version was given. They didn’t have a choice. The immigrants were too frightened they were going to be told to be sent back. So they said, “Yes, whatever you want to call me, I will take it”.[laughs]
Dr. Kent: Of course, this journey was treacherous. A lot of people, I’m sure, died on the journey, especially in the early years. When was the hospital founded and why?
Lorie Conway: Sure. Second and third class immigrants were coming in steerage and that indeed was dangerous journey for them, not only physically and mentally. There wasn’t good hygiene on those steam ships, not very much fresh water or food and it was two or three weeks really in the bottom of the steam ship; very, very crowded. It was a big floating petri dish of germs potentially.In fact, I saw one photograph in the National Archives of exterminators with their gas masks on, on the steamship and they were all holding up buckets. One can only imagine the kinds of rodents that were in those buckets. That was the beginning of the immigrant journey was in the steamship. The bowels of these steamships were there was the potential to either catch a disease or perhaps incubate the disease and have a disease or an illness really show its symptoms by the time you were landing in Ellis Island.So, for the 12 million who were coming through, those contagious diseases were presenting a real threat to the rest of the nation. As a result of that, in 1902, this Ellis Island Immigrant Hospital, a public health service hospital, funded by the US Public Health Service, but not free to the immigrant patient. They had to pay their own hospital bill, which was very difficult for so many of them. So many came penniless or with just a few dollars to their names.But Immigrant Aid Societies did help many of the immigrants who were hospitalized as well as the Red Cross had a major facility out there and provided social work, clothing, food… You name it. They ran of school on Ellis Island. The hospital really did function for about three decades as 12 million people were coming through. Doctors were being confronted with an array of diseases. Like I said, in the era before antibiotics that was a pretty dangerous thing to have in front of you.
Dr. Kent: I’ve taken - there’s a fun tour if anyone’s ever in New York City. You can take a boat tour all the way around Manhattan. On that journey, of course, we saw Ellis Island. That was the first time I had ever seen it up close. It’s not the largest place in the world.
Lorie Conway: No, it is not. It’s an impressive place and if you are a penniless impoverished immigrant from Europe and you were to be floating up to it, it would look rather grandiose. But you’re right. It isn’t very large. It’s hard to believe that at times, five to 6, 000 immigrants were passing in front of these doctors as they were landing. Daily.
Dr. Kent: Wow!
Lorie Conway: The average was about 2, 500 but during peak immigration years, five to 6, 000 people were on Ellis Island. In fact, one of the quotes in the book says, “At any given day there could be up to 10, 000 people, given all the staff who were coming and going.” So, it was a small city unto itself, there floating in the New York harbor.
Dr. Kent: So, what inspired this film?
Lorie Conway: Well, I saw, or read a “New York Times” magazine article in 1998. It was titled “The Other Ellis Island.” I was riveted to think that a place as iconic as Ellis Island could have untold history. You’d think everything’s been told about Ellis Island. We’ve all seen immigration films. Certainly, we’ve seen the photographs or we’ve visited Ellis Island.But indeed, as I was to find out during the next day’s phone call with someone from the National Parks Service, not only had no one written a book about the Ellis Island Hospital, but there had never been a film produced about the history that was within this hospital. I was just fascinated. What an opportunity for somebody who loves producing historical documentaries as well as this affinity I feel as a granddaughter of somebody who came through Ellis Island.My grandfather wasn’t sick. But I feel like this is a place that belongs to all of us. If there is something untold about it…I just jumped in feet first and haven’t let go. It’s been nine years. [laughs] On and off of researching, filming, applying for grants. It’s been a very difficult challenge to put all the pieces together when there’s no other books written about this place.But I’ve had a wonderful group of advisors helping me piece the puzzle together. My husband’s a scholar and he’s been very helpful in formulating the script. I’ve worked with some really wonderful consultants along the way to create the film and the book. Which, after nine years, it seems like there couldn’t be a better time to tell this story, given…
Dr. Kent: Where can we…
Lorie Conway: …that we now, as a nation of immigrants, facing this issue again.
Dr. Kent: Where can we now expect to see the movie?
Lorie Conway: Well, the film was just premiered on Ellis Island, late October. Elliott Gould is the narrator. He was there. One of the immigrant patients who I interviewed at Ellis Island during one of my many shoots was also there, 85-years -old. We’re all hopeful. PBS is reviewing the film as well as other major cable stations. I’m hopeful that distribution and broadcasts will be sometime early to mid 2008.There are clips from the film, however, on ForgottenEllisIsland.com. There’s many clips, many photographs, never before published photographs of immigrants that I found at various institutions. What’s pretty fascinating is, many immigrants are unnamed in these photos. I’d love to see if people can begin to identify some of these immigrant patients and some of these immigrants in these images.Perhaps they’re your relatives. I don’t know. They were in public domain files in Washington and New York. I’d love to get some more stories from people about the people in these photographs.
Dr. Kent: What are the years the hospital was open?
Lorie Conway: It opened in 1902. Really, by the early 1930s, it was obsolete because by then, America had closed its gates to all but a favored few. Especially, the Italians, the Jews, the Slavs. After WWI, we had less tolerance for Southern and Eastern Europeans. As a result, the National Origins Act was in place. By the late 1920s, that great wave of immigration was slowed to a trickle.So really, the immigrants that the hospital was serving, no longer were allowed into America. As a result, only nine of the 22 buildings were left open. Over the course of the next several decades, after WWII, the Army, Air Force and Marines went there for convalescing. The GIs were there. Then the FBI had an office there on Ellis Island for awhile. But by 1954, the 22 hospital buildings were abandoned.By the time I got there in 1998, it was rather Titanic-like walking down those hallways. Empty. Yet, you felt the ghosts. You felt as though something significant had happened out there. These long hallways, these massive wards, and out these cracked windows at any given turn, there was the Statue of Liberty.I had seen so many photographs of the wards with patients in them. There are many, many photos are in the film, in the book. You can imagine the angst and the anxiety that people felt who were sick. They didn’t know the language and yet, out that window, so close, was that symbol of America. And they couldn’t reach it yet. Not until they were well again were they allowed out of that hospital.
Dr. Kent: In this holiday season, we’ll think about our relatives and check out your beautiful website,ForgottenEllisIsland.com. The book can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powell’s, just about anywhere. But go to the website first, ForgottenEllisIsland.com. Thank you so much for being on the show, Lori Conway.[music]
Lorie Conway: Thank you for having me.
The Get Up Johns | Lonesome
December 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Our final guest is musician JOSHUA WENCK of the Get Up Johns, the high-lonesome singing duet from chilly Minnesota.
Here is one of many reviews from their website www.getupjohns.com:
Fortunately The Get Up Johns hadn’t heard the “Old-time” music is no longer hip, because their debut album, “Trouble in Mind,” has been called the “hippest old-time act in town.” The band is actually gaining the attention of the younger set. Band members Josh Wenck (guitar) and Jake Hyer (fiddle, mandolin) will remind you of such early duos as the Blue Sky Boys or the Louvin Brothers. There’s even a touch of the Everly Brothers in their velvety vocals. They harmonize to perfection while keeping instrumentation to a minimum with simple guitar and mandolin or guitar with an occasional fiddle when appropriate.
Music on the CD consists of old standards with only one original. The album starts with the old time sound of the fiddle and guitar on “Cluck Old Hen,” which is followed by some high harmony on the classic, “Trouble in Mind.” Another highlight is the duo’s version of the old Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, Grand Ole Opry favorite, “Midnight Special.”
The Get Up Johns prove that old-time music is definitely alive and well. It doesn’t hurt that they are loaded with talent, which helps to explain their great appeal to younger audiences. This band has come a long way since they began back in 2004. Followers of old time music with a new twist will enjoy this CD.
-JP Bluegrass Now Magazine May 2007