Advice To Graduates
By Zayne Reeves

Carolyn Mark doesn't mean a thing to me! A plea to Gillian Welch.

Dear Gillian,

Before we go pole vaulting over moose turds, hear me out on this one.  If you are going to make major, life-altering decisions like taking me off your bi-monthly newsletter's mailing list, you need to consider all the facts.  I love you, Gillian Welch.  But, like freedom, love isn't tidy and sometimes people make mistakes.  I can see how you made the mistake of thinking I was unfaithful to you.  In all candor, I suppose I could have been more diplomatic in addressing your accusations.  Selling two thousand promo copies of Soul Journey to finance a weekend furlough in Atlantic City was an overreaction and it is understandable that you misinterpreted my actions as an admission of guilt.  I was merely overreacting to your overreaction and now you are overreacting to my overreaction of your overreaction.

Why would I betray you for the lesser Corn Sister?  Now, had it been Neko Case I could have at least argued that I was temporarily blinded by her rising star and therefore unable to think rationally.  But Carolyn Mark?  Carolyn Mark will never break out of the Canadian folkie ghetto!  When she sings that refrain about fame eluding those who deserve it the most, them's sour grapes.  Remove all the conjecture, half-truths and gossip mongering that your so-called friends traffic in and what we are left with here is a classic comedy of errors.  Yes, I neglected to pick you up from the airport for our interview and instead attended Carolyn's show.  On the surface, you would appear justified in going Caleb Meyer on me over this.  But, and I know you are capable of this; you have to see the bigger picture.  My editor doesn't exactly have his thumb on the pulse of the music scene.  If it's not Canadian or doesn't have Brian Wilson's name attached somewhere, it is an uphill battle to get it shoehorned in between dueling articles about the rise and rise of The Tragically Hip.  I had pushed tirelessly to do that feature on you for Being There but, at the very last minute, I was told that I would be doing a Carolyn Mark concert review instead.  However, as a concession, I did get Adam to green-light a twelve part series on your life and career that will make both of us household names.

So, you see, this alleged snub and "astoundingly unprofessional behavior" (how immature, Gillian) was really a clever bit of jockeying on my part to get you even more ink!  Well, only one of the twelve will have content related to you and the other eleven will focus on how Eric B. and Rakim are actually Canadian and that their landmark album Paid In Full was conceived in tribute to Canada's health care system.  It's part of an ambitious plan to appease my editor's Canuck-centric worldview so that I can attain leverage to one day write about the things that matter most to me.  Also, if you want to split hairs about this, I was not told to leave you stranded at the airport in so many words.  As I was walking out of the office, Adam mentioned in passing that he had considered taking his girlfriend out to Carolyn's show but had decided to rent a few movies and stay home instead.  Still, it was crystal clear what he was really saying to me. Sometimes it is all about the subtext.

My intentions were to double back and pick you up during intermission, but I was spotted by Carolyn's people before I could make my exit.  As you can imagine, being a staff writer for Being There makes it hard to preserve any semblance of anonymity.  I had no real desire to socialize but I felt obligated to do so on your behalf.  If I had begged off by telling them that I was several hours late picking you up at the airport, tongues would have been wagging before I even left the parking lot. Excuse me for saying this but some of your female peers are, well, somewhat catty.

In fairness to you, what transpired next could have been taken the wrong way by even the most alert of minds. Admittedly, I drank too much at the after bar party but you know perfectly well that Carolyn skirts functional alcoholism and people like that refuse to drink alone. Had you been there that night instead of cooling your heels at the airport Starbucks, it would have been obvious that my tongue was planted firmly in cheek when I said that Time (The Revelator) was the folk equivalent of Metal Machine Music.  Also, I cannot help but feel a twinge of disappointment in you for not seeing the intentional buffoonery of a statement like "Welch sings like a heroin soaked ba-ba black sheep tangled up in barbed wire." Do I have to remind you that copious amounts of booze were consumed all throughout the evening?  That would certainly put into context the incident where I stood up on a coffee table and chanted through a megaphone; "Carolyn Mark is Picasso and Gillian Welch is a finger painter!"

It is my hope that you will learn from this episode to talk these things over more thoroughly and consider every option before making a decision.  Think.  It doesn't make sense for me to jeopardize what we have for someone who couldn't even afford to spot me on the legal fees that would be the unfortunate consequence of settling accounts with you.  Out of love and devotion, I have saved every single letter that you wrote me while you were on the road.  Do you remember the one from 09/21/03? You wrote, I am quoting as I happen to have a copy in my hands, "If the scenario you just described to me were true, then you would have co-written nearly every song off my last two albums." It was a compliment that I will cherish for the rest of my days but there are opportunistic ambulance chasers out there who might see it as something else. It's the sort of thing I would never dream of bringing up so long as you keep communication channels between us open. I look forward to the day where we can sit across from each other at the dinner table and share a laugh over this whole unfortunate misunderstanding.

love,
Zayne  

 Click here to discuss this article on our new forum!