This is my favorite time of year. Not really because of Christmas, specifically. Christmas is but one of the human expressions of this part of the yearly human cycle. This time of year throughout the length of humanity, in myriad traditions and countless cultures has been about rebirth. The return of the light. Christmas is celebrated on Dec 25 (for we do not know the actual birthdate of Christ) because of the Nativity story's relevance to renewal and rebirth; the coming of the light. Yule is celebrated on Dec 21 (it marks the shift from the days getting shorter to the days getting longer) as the day light begins to increase each day. The harvest has been brought to store, the fields do not require our attention for the moment. Reflection and sharing time with family belongs to these fleeting days in our calendar.

In the Southern Hemisphere they are currently celebrating their Summer Solstice time where they are at the peak of their light as we arrive at our longest night. They will celebrate their Winter Solstice as we celebrate our Summer. They revere their shortest night on June 21 as a time of reflection, renewal, and rebirth as well.

In both hemispheres, be it December in the North or June in the the South, the Winter Solstice is a time of introspection and planning for the future.

All of these world cultures have renewal traditions at the Winter Solsticetime:

• Ancient Brazil
• Ancient Egypt
• Ancient Greece
• Ancient Rome
• Atheists
• Buddhists
• Christians
• Druids
• Incas
• Iranians
• Jews
• Native Americans
• Neopagans
• Neolithic Europeans
• and even Vampires.

[For more specific information about each of these traditions visit: http://www.religioustolerance.org/winter_solstice.htm]

I celebrate both Christmas as well as the Solstice. I take every opportunity I can to derive strength from the concept of Renewal and Rebirth. I take this time to forgive myself for my perceived "failings" and look toward who I am today, knowing that tomorrow will be better than yesterday.

The religion into which one is born is merely a first language. Christianity is my first spiritual language, but I have learned and studied others. My openness to understand the parallels of other faiths with Christianity has brought me to understand that we none of us are all that different from one another. The parallels are so many that it takes a concentrated campaign of fear to distract followers from the fact that our neighbor is just like us - even when they seem to think so differently. We spend so much time seeking our differences that we blind ourselves to our similarities. Our differences seem to grow before us. But it is all an illusion. And like all illusions, they, in time, are revealed always. I have faith that we cannot help but increasingly operate toward better understanding among men. But I don't need faith to show me that. The long timeline of humanity shows us that each generation becomes less warring and more interested in knowing one another. The Internet has been our best tool to date. Many would disagree, of course, and do, but there are many facts to support this. Including this video:

I speak Christianity more fluently than other faiths, but my curiosity about them has not diminished the value I continue to find in the faith of my forefathers. And so at this time of year I celebrate Christmas. I also light the Menorah for Hanukkah in celebration of achieving near-impossible goals. I sing the pagan songs and say prayers for the coming of the light at Yule to help me get through the long winter and encourage myself that the light and warmth is returning. And after yesterday's snowstorm, it's a welcome thought indeed. I also include New Year's Day as a part of that renewal. I allow this entire season of celebration to be a tilling of the old fields and of planting the seeds of the new year.

My Christianity teaches me to forgive myself. It is the hardest part; reliving the mistakes of the previous year and trying to make new choices for myself moving forward. Making new choices is admitting delusions about the old ones. Such a hard thing to do. Making change is giving in. Renewal is like running a system defrag your computer when it's all clogged with applications and deleted projects.

This time of year is a good time for a factory reinstall.

I can't tell you how inspired I feel about the Good-Wil Initiative lately! So many wonderful people have asked to participate. My greatest challenge is now to come up with an effective way to utilize this fantastic army of individuals. I am not very good at administrative things; I make lists and then lose them, for example. I guess I'm a true artist in that sense. Not that being a "true artist" makes me a GOOD artist, but a definitely a stereotypical one. Depressing thought being a stereotype.

For those of you who don't know about the Fitchburg-based Good-Wil Initiative, allow me to explain. It is a organization of a type called a Social Enterprise. A social enterprise is structured like a regular commercial business, but there is no shareholder. No owner gets a percentage. All proceeds of a social enterprise are donated to a cause or mission. In the case of The Good-Wil initiative, we produce cultural events and donate the ticket proceeds to an annual selection of local nonprofit organizations. It's a lot like Newman's Own Food Company. Paul Newman and his business partner founded a company over 25 years ago that produces a selection of food products, creates jobs, raises millions of dollars for their foundation and charities across the country, and sets a good example of alternative ways of doing business in the world.

I decided to partner with Good-Wil co-founders Corinne Farinelli and David Roth to create the Good-Wil Initiative in early 2008 and it's been an amazing ride ever since.

SO now we have a small army and a big mission: Save the world one hometown at a time. Starting with our own.

Exactly HOW do we do this? Well, I only have my own model to go by and that's the one we're working with to start. That model is based on seeking out, in our own communities, our most valuable human resources and then intentionally developing them for export. Sounds fancy, huh? Well it is a bit fancy, I am happy to report.

I'll just go ahead and say it. Yes, it's possible to have something wonderful that actually comes from your own backyard. Are you shocked? We so often discount things that come from our own neck of the woods as being something that's only good enough for the locals; not worthy of national attention. We think that if they're still here and haven't gone off to some big city, then they must not be worth very much.

Well, the world is getting much smaller thanx to the Internet. We're able to connect with each other in ways that even 20 years ago no one could have imagined. No one could have even imagined imagining it! But here we are with a global platform and only the merest hint at how we can save ourselves through the careful and strategic use of it. We can actually BE in our hometowns AND be national products who are known for just that. Of course I'm eluding to myself, but the frame is universal. And I want to apply it.

All the mentorship and guidance that I needed in order to pursue my passions and be productive with them I received right here in my community. Any talent, whether artistic, technical, medical, or entrepreneurial that comes from our community should be noticed, fostered and deliberately developed by the community. I want to recreate, for the youth of our community coming up behind me, the exceptional professional education & development that I received. I want to develop them so that they will one day represent us well in the world. And perhaps they might return the favor by remaining a part of our community or by creating new examples for other communities of what we teach them. Good-Wil ambassadors, if you will.

Human export is like any other export. It needs to successfully represent the manufacturer at the same time as turning a profit. Fitchburg and North Central Massachusetts are my manufacturer and I wish to represent that in the world. I also wish to turn a profit for my manufacturer and for myself. I want to be happy pursuing my dreams knowing that I have included my community in my business plan.

Perhaps it's a bit startling to hear me refer to myself in such objective and "meat-like" terms. Well I am a piece of meat, after all. I may be a fabulous piece of meat (lol), but meat nonetheless. It's important to me to use this objective language to help keep things in perspective. Especially being in the type of occupation where one could get a large head. And ultimately, if I wish to place myself within the context of a business model - as is the case with the Good-Wil Initiative - then a product I most certainly am. And it is as such that I can only hope to find the coolest opportunities to do my favorite thing: stand on a stage and sing.

What product is the Good-Wil Initiative is trying export? Passion. Talent. And not just performing arts talent either, though that's where we're starting. But all kinds of talent and passion. What do you like to do? What do you really, really like to do? How can you leverage that personal interest into not only making a living for yourself, but into making a difference in our community, our region, our state, our country, our world? How can your own little personal interest change the world?

Simple. We do it together.

See, if you know that the 12-year-old kid next door is a whiz at fixing things, why not find him an opportunity to develop that talent? Why not make a call about a scholarship to a summer technical program or perhaps use the Internet to create a little local campaign to raise the money for a new scholarship? What if you helped him develop a small business? It isn't that hard to do.

Everyone has interests and dreams - many shuttle them off to the side as being too fanciful or too "unrealistic." And I have to say, at the expense of being publicly offensive, that's total bullshit.

If you have a passion and a natural talent for something - anything - then it's my belief that those talents can be parlayed into something that actually DOES save the world. AND YOU in the process.

So, as I said before I only have my own model to go by and here it is:

I have always been interested in singing. It goes back to my earliest memories. Even in the memories within memories I can recall collecting songs in some mental list; evaluating songs for their potential to be performed in concert. Imagining myself standing on a stage and delivering their message. It has always been there even though it took many years to identify the constant througline of thought. The thought was so constant I couldn't see the forest through the trees. It wasn't until I was in my mid-30s before I could really identify it. I'd spent many years believing that acting was the path I was seeking - that would be what could satisfy my underlying passions. I was close, but no cigar. The desire to stand on a stage and communicate with many was there and understood, but I never really pursued acting. I never pounded the pavement and did what was really required to make it as an actor. I worked because I auditioned well - once I actually got around to auditioning for something, that is.

Once the Thayer Symphony Orchestra - my local professional orchestra - offered me my first headline appearance, I began to understand the difference between pretending to be someone else on stage and learning how to be myself. My mom always said that if I was just myself, people would like me. I don't know if she knew how right she was.

So here I am with this passion to sing in concert. What do I do with it? My first thought was to produce benefit concerts so that I could sing what I wanted and actually have people come. If they didn't know who I was, perhaps they would be drawn to the cause I was benefiting and then maybe they'd get to know me in the process? But the bottom line for me was: I could sing on stage and people would be there to hear it.

Since this was now my best option for being the type of performer I really wanted to be it seems so obvious to me now that my local community would naturally become my mentors and teachers. Those are the people to whom I would need to turn in order to make these types of events possible. If you're holding a benefit, you need sponsors and you need volunteers who believe in the same causes to help produce the events. You need to reach out to the community to get the support you need. And if they like your idea they'll not only help you, but they'll teach you how to do it better. They'll guide you and mold your philanthropic language. They'll eventually begin to ask you for your help as well. Before you know it you're in constant collaboration with your community and that's a network that can't be undone easily.

Choosing to make my way as a concert vocalist placed me squarely on a course that would involve the best elements of my very own backyard as my teachers, friends, and helpers. It would develop me as an individual, as an artist, as a philanthropist, and, in turn, into a teacher of those who would embark on this same course I came to understand as Social Enterprise.

So here I am an individual with a passion and an opportunity to express that passion. That's it. There it is. The rest is, and will continue to be, the natural result of the WAY I have chosen to express and live my passion. Any success that may come to me will have been because of the way I approached it. That's not to say that social enterprise is the only way anyone ever makes it in the world or finds as a method to express their passion successfully; in fact, we know many who have become successful in other ways. But this is the only one I, personally, could live with. And it is the one I am now choosing to teach to others as a way of, yes, furthering the opportunities to express my own passion: to sing.

So excited about the start of our new season next Friday. Everything is really coming together nicely now. I am both terrified and exhilarated about the idea of singing a solo a capella concert. But in seven days, that's exactly what I'm going to attempt. For a vocalist, that's like walking a highwire over the Grand Canyon with no net, no balance beam, and no little blue umbrella. My Naked Voice concert is going to be twice the highwire act as well since I'm going to be presenting all of the music for my Wild Archangel album, much of it for the first time.

Rosalind Russell once said that acting is like standing naked on a stage and turning around slowly. This is a bit like that.

And I'm sure everyone's curious about whether or not that will even be entertaining. I am a bit concerned about that myself. But that's mostly my own insecurities talking and I have to remember the fact that I have good pipes and I know how to use them pretty well. I have good pitch and my choir director from Rollstone Church Katherine Dodd is impressed, so that's good enough for me. So I'm going to take the leap.

I always have laid it all out there. That's always been my way, I think. I'll tell you everything about me, even the "bad" parts, and THEN we'll see if you still like me. Generally people do still like me. My "bad" parts are mostly in my head anyway. But I think I second guess people's sincerity in liking me if they don't know everything about me. As if I worry that since they only see the good parts, of course, they like me. But in order to trust it, I feel compelled to make sure that they know the parts that make me feel insecure, vulnerable. I procrastinate. I am lazy. I need a babysitter 40 hours a week to ensure production (boy there's an uncomfortable confession!), if I lived alone my house would probably descend into nothing but a storage facility with trails through the debris. I really am bad at things like filling out forms and mailing them in. I am constantly 5 minutes late and constantly saying to myself that this is the last time I'm ever going to be late for anything. I am forgetful. I forget so many names, but I always remember when I liked someone. I can look at them and know that I know them from somewhere and that I really like them, but no other details come to mind! I usually have to be honest about it.

So those are some of my bad things. Do you still like me? lol...

My concert next Friday night Naked Voice* *Clothing not optional is an exercise in acceptance. I want people to see me and hear me and understand exactly what message I hope to communicate in the world. And without fans to cover the dancer, what then? With no band, no special lights, nothing but the reaching beauty of the Christ Church cathedral and the acoustics it provides, will you still like me? I must know before I can go any farther.

So with all this exposure I have an opportunity to include my community in the development process of my Wild Archangel album. I am going to issue lyric booklets and a score sheet. Literally. I want them all to adjudicate their experience. The can score the lyrics, the melody, the vocal presentation, and make suggestions, comments, or let me know how it made them feel. I really want to know these things.

For the past five years I have been writing music. My first song was presented at my very first symphony appearance. On February 14, 2004 I headlined with the Thayer Symphony Orchestra. It was the first time I had the opportunity of singing my own song choices and singing them my own way. A concert vocalist can sing anything he wants! I'd been in musical theatre for years just so I could get paid to sing. That was true and it worked, but it took that appearance with the Thayer (right in my very own hometown) to realize how much I wanted to be a different kind of artist.

Please Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone was a song that I had heard snippets of in my head for several years. The title phrase and its melody were present since at least 1996. But it was not part of a full song until I was offered my first headline. The awareness of that upcoming appearance, along with added inspiration from theatre director & choreographer Russell Garrett who assisted with my preparations for the appearance, I finished writing the song.

It was to have been presented with the full orchestra. But the orchestrations I commissioned didn't come in on time. So I cut that song from the list. I was crushed, but it also gave me an easy out. I didn't know if I had any business writing songs and I was worried if it would be a big disappointment.

I had brought out every bell and whistle for this 60-minute appearance with a professional symphony orchestra. I rehearsed a 40-member choir who wore borrowed robes from Burlington High School, Russell Garrett choreographed 6 nine year old girls and me a touching softshoe for the song "Glory of Love," Cherie Ronayne and Tim Smith performed a beautiful pas de deux while I sang the heartbreaking "Where Have You Been?" A song I have never performed since. I brought several support vocalists with me as well bringing the total count of humans added to this one-man headline to somewhere around 50. And did I neglect to mention that I also flew in a 9-piece, several hundred square foot overlapping rendition of George Seurat's pointlist painting "Sunday on the Isle of La Grande Jatte"? And that was for my encore. I apparently assumed I'd get an encore. There's a confession! I get the shivers now thinking of the utter nerveless presumption one would require to design and build a set for an encore. It did come out beautifully, though, Mary Beth Makara and Ira W. Leighton III did the majority of the painting and I did the shadowing. It was very dramatic to have the large paintings descend one by one over the orchestra and chorus as we sang the moving finale to Steven Sondheim's Act I of Sunday in the Park with George. I'll post some pictures of it on my facebook page. Look for the album named "Thayer Symphony Valentines Day 2004."

So all of this leads me to the song. I had cut the song from the list and we did not rehearse it with the orchestra, of course. But on the day of the concert, I decided I just had to sing it. Even though the song was listed in the penultimate position of the song list - a crucial point in maintaining the audiences' attention during an evening - and I had no orchestrations, and the preceding song was some enormous number involving the choir and all, I knew I just had to sing that song.

I went to the Maestro's dressing room and spoke with both he and his companion Donna. I told them the story about the song and the real reason why I had to do it. A story I am not rendering here. They agreed that it must be performed and that their concert pianist Mr. Allen Mueller could sight read it. However, I cautioned them that I had written this piano part myself, with no experience in writing a piano part - I can barely play the thing - and I had written it in a free computer program I had downloaded off the internet that didn't allow you to compose key changes unless you bought the full program. So, for those of you who know something about music, Mr. Mueller played the whole thing transcribed in the key of C with accidentals written in to denote the FOUR modulations that occur in the piece. But they said that it was okay he usually arrives early and he can look it over and make notes. It would be alright and it was worth it.

However Mr. Mueller chose this night to arrive exactly 5 minutes before the downstroke. I ran along side of him as he came down the corridor from the parking lot explaining everything as we went backstage and right onto the stage with him as he put his music on the concert grand with the audience watching everything. He said he would do his best. I thanked him for his graciousness. And I think he was exceedingly gracious considering the circumstances. He still is exceedingly gracious each time I see him. I'd pinch me hard in the arm if I were him.

So the concert proceeded and it was finally time for my half of the concert to begin. We had a lot of technical problems with the sound. There was horrible feedback that startled the audience on a regular basis. It startled the performer too. But in spite of that it went very well and the girls did a beautiful job on "Glory of Love" and Cherie and Tim were breathtaking. The chorus seemed so happy to be involved. I had to musically direct them myself and so I fear I did them a disservice, but they were troopers. But now it was time to sing Please Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone for the first time. My first original song at my first symphony headline and after all the bombast of the previous song, I had to follow it with nothing but my voice and a sightread piano part written by an amateur. God bless Mr. Allen Mueller.

It was terrifying, but I didn't fall off the stage, didn't forget my lyrics, and my fly stayed up that whole time. (All things, by the way, that have occurred to me in my chronicle of stage experiences.)

When the song was over there was a spark of silence and then a rush of applause. It was sustained and carried on to the point where I found myself embarrassed by the praise of it. I suddenly felt embarrassed that we were wasting so much time applauding me when I should be busy getting back to entertaining them. But in a moment I recovered myself and allowed them to applaud. I needed to hear it.

Come see how the next chapter in my artistic exposure come out. And be honest.

I think things are best summarized by a facebook exchange I had with my friend Joe Karaman today.

"Wil,
...Looking forward to the Good-Wil rollout; been doing a lot of thinking about how/where to make my entry into Good-Wil's landscape. Will update as things unfold.

:-)

P.S. the new CD cover is great - honest and sensitive. You're lucky to know a really high quality photographer!"

My reply:

"Hello Joe,

I'm flattered that you're considering an entry into the Good-Wil "landscape," as it were! We'd be lucky to have you. Rollout has officially occurred. It all starts in 10 days. I finally secured the three venues TODAY for the opening weekend. And I had a 30 minute appearance on public access tonight announcing it all and singing two songs to boot. I performed during photography montages of photos from last season that I edited in the studio this afternoon, after finally securing the venue for the first brunch in a meeting with Leominster High School, after substitute teaching at Fitchburg High School, during the first period of which I spur-of-the-moment created the Fitchburg High School Social Enterprise Club in spontaneous focus group with the first period class. Six students from that class signed up to meet and collaborate to create the official agenda and mission of the club, but it has already been decided that they will operate their own storefront with merchandise that they will produce as a social enterprise business, the proceeds of which will be donated to our under-served public library whose hours have been drastically cut and their accreditation lost. Oh, and I also went into the Comcast office to beg them not to shut off my cable for just two more weeks. The personal touch always works like a charm. ;)

Wil

ps glad you like the cd cover! Ironically, I have no idea who took the photo. It was taken at a popular nude spot in Vermont and I handed the camera to the beach at large and told them all to take turns taking photos of me at that rock. There were about 50 shots taken by about 8 or so people. I only knew them in passing. To this day, have no idea who took that particular photo."

Finally it seems as though the Good-Wil Season 2 events are shaping up! Last season we managed to prove our concept that a cultural social enterprise could work in this region. People everywhere in the Fitchburg and Leominster areas know and recognize the Good-Wil brand (even if they don't yet know what it means), and I am regularly in the media.

We have convened the Season 2 Partnership Advisory Board and had our first regular meeting last week. It was very well attended and the board approved of nearly all my ideas about how to move the organization from its developmental 1st season into a great organization with nearly 20 new cultural events between now and June 2010. Brunches, fundraisers, concerts, street fair, swing ball, television series, new website, internet radio, and a new storefront!

We are still accepting new volunteers for the season as well as new members to the Partnership Advisory Board (PAB). There are currently about 35 members of the PAB, and if you think you'd like to contribute your ideas, please feel free to come to any meeting; they're open to all. Bring your own ideas or contribute your opinions to our discussions. Just come to one meeting if you can and enjoy the group.

The PAB is structured as follows: Every meeting is attended by members of the Exec Committee and a representative from each of the 5 nonprofits with whom we are partnering this season [Habitat for Humanity, The ROSE Project, MOC, Warmer Winters, & The Ryan Joubert Skatepark]. Our Community PAB members (local business persons, politicians, citizens, etc) are asked to attend a minimum of only 4 meetings during the season. They may come more often than that if they wish, but we only require 4. But if you just want to stop by and see what we're up to, feel free to drop on in!

The regular meeting schedule is as follows:

Oct 8 (extra meeting needed this month for opening weekend preparations)
Oct 15
Nov 12
Dec 10 (held one week earlier than usual due to the holidays)
Jan 14, 2010
Feb 18
Mar 18
Apr 15
May 13
June 17

The meetings take place in the Woodblock Conference Room, through the rear entrance of 14 Monument Square in Leominster. Meetings are at 6pm and we try to wrap them up within 90 minutes. It is a very well-functioning board with good energy and we have a great time. Hope to see you at the next meeting! The Good-Wil Season 2 events are likely to start on October 16 (official announcement coming soon).

Someone I knew casually from high school contacted me on Facebook recently. She looked at my profile and sent me a message, "Looks like you're performing. What kind of stuff?" I had to actually think for a moment about how to answer it. That very subject has been on my mind a lot lately. What am I musically? How do I describe myself? I sing jazz songs, but I'm definitely not a jazz singer. I have been told that what I do is unique. I'm glad for that, but I'm having trouble telling others what to expect. This was the answer I gave her. However, I'll definitely have to come up with a shorter answer. And I didn't even really describe the style of music!

My answer: "Lots of stuff, actually. I made a good dent toward public visibility in the local market over the past 2 years by performing classic standards (like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Louie Prima songs, etc) at Cafe Destare and the Monument Grill, but by doing them in a very different way than their originators. I didn't do it on purpose, but it was a very good entry, it turns out. I do things VERY different than most people who tackle this kind of material, apparently. I didn't really try to do it that way. I didn't really know any of these songs before, so I didn't have any limitations as far as style goes. And then I started introducing my original music into my sets - those got a terrific response. Often now, people tell me after my sets "I love hearing the standards, but your original music is even better." I find that very encouraging. Time will tell, but it's my hope that I can become a deliberate export of the Fitchburg area and be known nationally for that. Someone who was mentored and developed by his hometown to be a national product that gives back to his community."


I wish I had added that I like pretty much every style of music and they all find their way into my interpretations of the songs. So my sets are a mixture of jazz, gospel, rock, funk, folk, blues, musical theatre, and even country. Rarely do I sing any one song in purely one form. Usually, a song will have a combination of styles. It's not on purpose, it's more about how I want to interpret the lyrics.

I'm also not very musically educated. I played clarinet in high school and I sang in choirs and choruses all my life, so I can read and write music. But I don't know very many chords and I cannot often come up with my own chord structures for my original music. I hear chords in my head when I write music, but in order to get them on paper, I have to sit at the piano for hours and hours listening to each chord in my head, one at a time, separating each of the notes in my mind and then searching for them on the keyboard. I have done that for a few songs, but I don't love the process. I much prefer to collaborate with one of my band. A few of them are really good at hearing a melody and knowing good chord progressions for what I'm doing. Plus they actually have music educations! I am only doing what comes naturally to me at any given moment and have no idea of the music theory or style history behind my choices. The only reason I know that I style music after gospel, blues, jazz, rock, funk, folk, etc., is because people tell me I do. Isn't that terrible?

I feel like I should know more about this stuff actually. I feel like I should be going out to nightclubs and hearing other singers and see what they're doing. But I really don't like clubs at all. Its' very rare that I ever go out for a drink. I'm as much of a homebody as I can manage. I also rarely listen to music. My radio is all talk stations. I love NPR and WTKK, both. (One soothes me and one infuriates me; I'll let you decide which one.).

So where exactly does the music come from and what kind is it? Who the heck knows!

China has decided not to install censorship software in new computers. That's a pretty big sea change, I think. The New York Times today reports that China has a new attitude about business. Business comes before politics.

In Iran, President Ahmadinejad looks as though he's well positioned to become a lame duck in politics. The people want to look forward, not back. And they're not backing down. Pray for their courage.

Here in the U.S. we are leveraging the discussions on Health Care Reform to analogize our collective fears about the great shift in awareness that we are currently experiencing.

Chevy has announced mass production of a car that's expected to get 230 miles to the gallon.

Oil companies and car makers and financial institutions are being called to task in droves.

Is it any doubt that we're both excited and uncomfortable? These are big changes and they're happening at breakneck pace. So when you start to panic, just take it one change at a time and have faith that all will be well. No one's going to take your birthday away. Your cake is about to get a lot sweeter. That's all.

It is uncomfortable

I can't really account for it, but I feel particularly creative these past several weeks. The summer rejuvenates me, I do know that. Perhaps that's what it is. But I think it's more.

I am so freakin' excited about the Good-Wil Initiative! I know it reads like false enthusiasm, possibly. But there's a really good reason why it excites me. It's the first time that a mechanism has ever existed for me that actually has the capability to render true my far-flung and often idealistic ideas about how to make things better in the world.

It was only a year ago that the concept of the Initiative was even conceived. Until then, I just worked haphazardly trying this, trying that, learning a lot, but I know I was paddling upstream most of the time.

But once the Good-Wil Initiative began, every idea of mine suddenly had a place; even, and perhaps especially, my musical ones.

I have been toying with the idea of singing the Johnny Paycheck song "Take This Job and Shove It." I can't say for sure what made the refrain stick in my head one day, but it seemed like a fun idea.

It's probably worth it to mention that I don't start singing a song lightly. The words of a song must reflect my own feelings. It's true that I occasionally sing old classics that are more traditional than lyric driven; those don't seem to bother me to sing. I don't really feel like I'm trying to represent myself when I sing those.

But if I'm going to sing an autobiographical song like "Take This Job and Shove It" it's gotta come from somewhere in your own experience or else it's just karaoke.

The original lyrics of the song speak of a man whose woman has left him and now he's telling his boss to shove it, too. That's not really my direct experience, but I understand the frustration sure enough. In my version, I have retained the original frustration, but changed the story to reflect my own experience. I have also revised parts of the melody and changed the style from the original country western to... something I don't know what just yet. Time will tell once the band get working on it.

These are my own version of the lyrics:

Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more.
My courage left and took all the reasons I was working for.
So, you better not try to stand in my way as I'm a walking out the door.
I'm gonna take this job and shove it for I ain't working here no more.

Ive been beatin this here horse for more than fifteen years.
All this time I watched my courage drowning in a pool of fears.
And I've seen a lot of good folk die who had their bills to pay.
I'd have given the shirt right off of my back if I just had the nerve to say:

Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more.
My courage left and took all the reasons I was working for.
So, you better not try to stand in my way as I'm a walking out the door.
I'm gonna take this job and shove it for I ain't working here no more.

Doing things that I can instead of things I want.
Living life a working hell; a shingle that I flaunt.
One of these days I'm gonna blow my top and though I'm a grateful man,
I will sing my song at the top of my lungs until my lesson is gone and spent.

Instrumental

Take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more.
My courage left and took all the reasons I was working for.
So, you better not try to stand in my way as I'm a walking out the door.
I'm gonna take this job and shove it for I ain't working here no more.

You gotta take your job and love it.
And I won't leave home no more.


Now this to me says it all about where I am today, right this minute. I've been working all this time and I want to stop doing that. "Working," to me, is doing anything that you don't completely love for an occupation. "Working" is passionless and is nothing more than a means to an end. I want to love my occupation so much that it doesn't feel like work. It want to make agreat effort, but definitely not work. Work is too much work.

So here it is. The Good-Wil blog. I was asked recently just what I hoped to accomplish with a blog and the answer is simple. I just want to spread good news. I want to encourage people and lift them up. I want to sift through the events going on around us and give a positive take on them where possible. I want to hear about good things people are doing in our community and the world and share them. I want to learn and I want to teach. I want to let everyone know that we're really not doing so bad. The sky is not falling, we're carrying it. The mountains are moving and we are pushing them together. There really is a lot of good new out there and we should start sharing it. So I'm going to blog as regularly as possible, as often as I am inspired. I hope you'll chime in and give your two cents worth. We'll talk about what's going on with the Good-Wil Initiative of course, but the real focus here is the state of goodwill in the world and what we can do to leverage that goodwill toward even greater evolutions of community sustainability and growth. Everyone has ideas about how to make the world a better place. Let's share them here.

best, Wil