Spirit in Action
Changing the World With a Guitar
Peter Alsop is a singer/songwriter/worldchanger whose songs can be deep and moving, but frequently use humor to invite us to look at something new and life-altering. Violence, Food, Risk-taking, Societal Privilege and many more issues are in his non-violent sights!
- Broadcast on:
- 25 Dec 2010
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today for Song of the Soul, I welcome back one of my favorite musicians, Peter Alsop, while Peter has some of the deepest moving songs I know, he also often makes his points through humor, inviting people to take a look at challenging thoughts while laughing a bit. Peter is an educational psychologist and has been doing primarily subversive children's albums, you know, educating parents through the music their children play. But just recently, Peter released his first adult album in 25 years, "Disciples of Perfection." Peter Alsop joins us today from his home in California. Peter, welcome back, it's good to have you here for a spirit in action. - It's great to be back with you. - As you know, Peter, I've been a fan of yours for 30 years or so now. You've done such wonderful music all over the spectrum. You've had so many years working primarily with kids. How did you end up doing music for kids? I mean, you were a weird folk singer out there. How did you go that way? - It's obviously not gonna be a simple path that I'm going to have to describe to you here. I'm 64 years old. And I think that a lot of my early stuff, when I was playing, even just playing guitar and wanting to be in bands had to do with wanting to meet girls. That's mostly what I think was going on for me. I saw, wow, look, they're screaming at those guys that they were guitars and reaching out to them. And I want to be on stage, you know? So there's a combination of that and probably wanting attention and being witnessed and being able to be seen by people which all kids want, you know? They just want to be seen. Who are we and what's going on? And am I really here? And if you work with kids at all, you see that happening time and time again. So there's a combination of that stuff. And writing songs, I had a feminist girlfriend and just out of college. And she was constantly busting me on things I did. And I went, oh, oh yeah, you're right. And then I thought, well, maybe I can write a funny song about that because, say, some other poor schmoe from growing through the same difficulty, you can hear the songs, oh, maybe I better not do that. And here's why and what I learned. And so I would start doing that. That actually worked really well. I was playing at a lot of colleges and people were liking my songs. I was one of the few, you know, male feminist out there just really taking a look at some of the male female interactions and reading from this literature going, whoa, I never even realized this. How can we don't teach this in schools? And then I got married and had kids. And then the kids would start doing stuff and I would go, that's interesting. We learn about ourselves a lot, I think, as parents. And these little flags would go up and I go, ooh, yeah, I guess I just did that, isn't that interesting? It's something that maybe I'll write a song about it. So that was what happened. The kids would keep doing things and I kept writing songs and putting out albums. And here we are 35 years later. And so whenever I got any kind of clarity about something from some interaction with my family or my loved ones, I would try and put it down on paper and write a song, usually with a sense of humor, to help people take a look at that. And I guess that's kind of the show of your spirit and action is kind of what has to do. My intent is to say, look, if I think I'm here on the planet, to learn how to live my life as well as possible and not just get locked into lockstep with what I learned from my parents and take a look at that and evaluate it, is that something that I want to pass on or is that something that I want to not be doing? Because I don't want to pass that to my children. So kids were a big factor in making sure I took action to change myself and the things I was doing in ways that would be helpful not only to them, but to the communities we live in. - You just released an adult album after 25 years of not releasing specifically aimed at adult albums. Talk about how that came about. There must be some kind of something that's percolating up in you. Is this like a mid-life, late-life crisis or something? - I hope it's not a crisis. It's all crisis, actually. (laughs) I've been writing songs for adults consistently. But what happens is that in order to market these and sell them, you have to do a certain kind of music. So it gets on the bluegrass station or it gets on the jazz station or it gets on the rock and roll station. And I like all those kinds of music. I like classical, I like folk. I like reggae stuff, world beat. So sometimes I was writing songs that were particularly germane to what a kid's experience is. And because I was using humor, a lot of it, probably 85% of my kids quote kids albums are really covert parenting information for parents. Parents that buy and use my stuff for the kids 'cause the parents are the ones that buy it, basically. Tell me, boy, it's great listening to your stuff 'cause there's a lot of stuff that the kids don't get but I laugh at, you know? And I can listen to bears, I'll repeat it listening. So I'm listening to some of the other kids artists sometimes. Boy, it just makes me nuts. It just didn't sip it, you know? And I can't all listen to it more than once or twice. So a lot of my stuff has been for adults. The reason that disciples of perfection is an adult album is because I'm dealing with stuff and that doesn't have kids singing with me necessarily. There's a whole range of different musical styles which makes it sometimes difficult to mail out to folk stations and then they hear drums and background singing and bass and organ or something in the room. This isn't a folk album. There's almost stuff, sounds real country. There's some stuff that's just pure, simple guitar playing and stuff. What happened for me was that I've been thinking for a long time about how can I, when I did a song like "My Body's Nobody's Body But Mine" and one of my earlier kids records, people told me that I've actually saved some kids' lives, which is quite wonderful. But it's a one-issue song. It's about child sexual abuse prevention and taking a look at that and also making sure that adults get that the kid needs to be able to sit boundaries and we need to listen to them when they tell us that. They don't like the way grandma's touching them, pinching their cheek and says, "Oh dear, don't worry about it. "It's fine, she doesn't mean anything, "but she's gonna die soon, honey. "It's okay." What we're really teaching the kids is, if you don't like the way it feels when the grown-ups touching you, your feelings aren't important. And that's not what we want to be teaching kids. So it's a one-issue song. And I wrote this song and lots of people grew up on it. As time's gone on through the '80s and the '90s and the first part of the tens, everything seems so interrelated that I couldn't write one song that would fix everything. And I think that I finally worked on "Disciples of Perfection" and came up with that song, which for me clarifies a lot of the kinds of things that are going on in society. In "Disciples of Perfection," I think we played that on "Song of the Soul" last time you interviewed me. One of the things for me is that it's about the way male brains can conceive of some perfect system. This is the way it's supposed to be. And we might be right. The problem is not that we can conceive of that stuff 'cause that makes for a lot of wonderful inventions and things that go on. The problem is when men predominantly try and force real life to fit that version and the damage is done as they do that. And it's about how one goes about trying to achieve what they see as. And that's what religious extremism is. That's what the militarism is that we see. That's what capitalism is that we see. That's what communism is that we see when there's been problems with people, mostly men, trying to force real life into fitting this mold without having some kind of latitude and doing it in a way that's more organic. That again, women's brains tend to embrace that more easily than men's brains with the local brain research people I've been telling us. And it seems to make sense from that with my experience. So a lot of times when people out there trying to help move in some way that's caring and taking a look at how we do stuff rather than just where we're headed 'cause we need both of them. There's a lot of collateral damage. And there's a song called "The Guitar," which is about that collateral damage that can happen to people that speak out. Maybe you'd like to play that one. (gentle music) ♪ Once I had a fine guitar ♪ ♪ She taught me to play ♪ ♪ Her rosewood fingerboard ♪ ♪ Had little birds of pearl and lame ♪ ♪ Her simple voice was clear ♪ ♪ It had the ring of youth ♪ ♪ She had heartwood deep inside ♪ ♪ So she always sang the truth ♪ ♪ And the days that I spent holding her ♪ ♪ Were full of life for me ♪ ♪ She saw people clearly ♪ ♪ And she sang what she would see ♪ ♪ Insecurities of lovers ♪ ♪ Trying hard to hold their pose ♪ ♪ The clash of children's colors ♪ ♪ When they pick out their own clothes ♪ ♪ The heartbeats lost forever ♪ ♪ Inside those afraid to touch ♪ ♪ And the reasons people give explaining ♪ ♪ Why they own too much ♪ ♪ When she sang with honest beauty ♪ ♪ Of the love we might achieve ♪ ♪ Then the people flock to hear her ♪ ♪ Guess they wanted to believe ♪ ♪ But when she sang about our problems ♪ ♪ They would say that she was wrong ♪ ♪ They told her she was crazy ♪ ♪ They said sing the pretty songs ♪ ♪ Sing the pretty songs ♪ ♪ But she didn't stop her songs ♪ ♪ That people had to know ♪ ♪ She only sang them louder ♪ ♪ 'Cause she loved the people so ♪ ♪ When the comforts of the wealthy ♪ ♪ Are worth more than healthy kids ♪ ♪ When our trusted leaders lie ♪ ♪ And give us broken promises ♪ ♪ When the lives of all the creatures ♪ ♪ On the earth are on the line ♪ ♪ Then it's time for better answers ♪ ♪ Now we'd better find some time ♪ ♪ But the people wouldn't listen ♪ ♪ Even though she screamed and cried ♪ ♪ And the strain from all her trying ♪ ♪ Cracked her hardwood deep inside ♪ ♪ Her strings flew loose and wild ♪ ♪ And so everyone assumed ♪ ♪ She was just an instrument to finally tune ♪ ♪ To finally tune ♪ ♪ To finally tune for an audience of backs ♪ ♪ To finally tune with her hardwood full of cracks ♪ ♪ To finally tune to close her mouth and shut her eyes ♪ ♪ To finally tune to sing them eyes ♪ (gentle music) ♪ Once I had a fine guitar ♪ ♪ She taught me to play ♪ ♪ Her rosewood fingerboard ♪ ♪ Her little birds of pearl in lane ♪ ♪ Her simple voice was clear ♪ ♪ It had the ring of youth ♪ ♪ She had hardwood deep inside ♪ ♪ So she always sang the truth ♪ ♪ And the days that I spent holding her ♪ ♪ Are full of life for me ♪ ♪ She sees people clearly ♪ ♪ And we need that desperately ♪ ♪ She sees people clearly ♪ ♪ And we need that desperately ♪ (gentle music) - That was "The Guitar" by Peter Alsopi's with us here today for our spirit and action. Peter has been changing the world. His focus has been to work through connections with children for the past 25 years. I ran into him in the early '80s and he helped change me. And I wanna congratulate you, Peter, for some of the incredible men's sexual, all those issues, orientation, what are our roles and all that? You did, you brought an immense gift in my life. In the song "The Guitar" though, it sounds like, assuming you wrote that as your firsthand experience, it sounds like you felt frustrated by the world not hearing you about all of these important things that you're not having the impact maybe that you wanna have. Can you say a little bit more about that? - Well, I mean, I did write this song. I was actually part of a musical called "Pie in the Sky", which was about, I took the pie at Piper myth. My wife, Ellen Geer, was a wonderful actress and the daughter of Will Geer, who played grandpa on the Walton, some of your listeners might remember that, the Walton's out there. She was in Harold and Maude. She runs the theater here in Topanga and we did something called "Pie in the Sky", which was the pie at Piper myth, where the kids in the village, and it was based on the stuff that, the meltdown that happened to Three Mile Island, looking at all the nuclear stuff that was going on and how the parents weren't listening and wouldn't pay attention. And the kids were nervous about it and scared and the local custodian, his name was "Pie" once I played in the play, ends up taking the kids away from the people and going away because the grownups wouldn't listen to the kids and they ended up without their kids, like the pie at Piper family. And it was a musical and we wrote this song because there was a crazy lady in town who just kept telling people what was going on, and Ellen would listen to her. And actually, there is some frustration writing things and hoping people can kind of get it that you're not always just singing to the choir. I'm not just singing to people who say, "Well, I really like his songs 'cause I understand what he's saying and I feel the same way. I'm interested in having some songs out there that people go, "I never thought of that. "That's really interesting." Yeah, I wonder why that isn't more important to me or whatever lesson they may learn from it. There's also a line in there talking about, she was just an instrument too finely tuned and a lot of my work has been in mental health with not only kids, but grownups too. And people who seem too finely tuned for our society 'cause they get bounced around and knocked out. So my wife and in the theater, how many times do you hear, "Well, "you can't take the heat, get out of the frying pan. "People that wanna be actors have to deal "with rejection consistently." And when do you listen to someone and say, "That's a really good critique. "I need to work in that area more." Or, "When does it become an attack on someone's person?" Which is certainly one of the things that we see these days in terms of the defamation of character, kinds of strategies that particularly, it's not just one party. It's predominantly one party as far as I'm concerned, but I've seen left people defame somebody else without sticking to the issues too, which is upsetting to me. It doesn't, let's talk about the verbs. Tell me what someone's doing. Don't call them names. Because what happens is you feel like I can't even bring anything up because I'm gonna get labeled. I can't bring stuff up 'cause someone's gonna label me as being unpatriotic or that I don't care about the country. No, unpatriotic's a label, but to say that I don't care, maybe I am depending on how you're defining patriotic. If patriotic means blind obedience, I'm unpatriotic. I don't wanna do blind obedience. I wanna look at what behavior's going on and take a look at it and say, "You know, this part of it's kind of good." I get your nobility of purpose. I understand why you're doing it, but here's what's going on when you do it that way. Let's look at another way we could do it. Give me an example. One of the songs that's on this is getting the most airplay on my disciples, a perfection album is a song called "I'm Lucky and You're Not," which I wrote, of course, "Tongue and Cheek," but it's getting a lot of airplay. And I kind of am hoping (laughs) I'm sure there's some people out there listening who aren't sure whether I'm doing it tongue and cheek or not. Maybe we should play that for the folks. It's "I'm Lucky." It's by Peter Alsop. It's off his new album, "Disciples of Perfection." (upbeat music) ♪ Well, I'm lucky and you're not ♪ ♪ I enjoy all the stuff I got ♪ ♪ That's tough to do 'cause your pain keeps making me blue ♪ ♪ I got privileges you don't ♪ ♪ I get things the way you won't ♪ ♪ God just loves me a lot more and he loves you ♪ ♪ Well, I'm lucky and you're not ♪ ♪ I work hard to get what I got ♪ ♪ And I ain't throwing it out for some lofty ID ♪ ♪ Well, maybe you had a string of bad luck ♪ ♪ Well, you stood up for something when you should've ducked ♪ ♪ You got more guts than sense is how that feels ♪ ♪ Call it fate, call it fortune, call it whatever you like ♪ ♪ I was born in America ♪ ♪ I'm straight and male and white ♪ ♪ So, I'm lucky and you're not ♪ ♪ I'm staying out of that hot seat spot ♪ ♪ I'm staying out of the big guy's line of view ♪ ♪ Why love you ♪ ♪ Some big bully starts acting mean ♪ ♪ Well, I don't want to be heard or seen ♪ ♪ I get split on doing the things I'm supposed to do ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Show ahead ♪ ♪ Pray for salvation ♪ ♪ Pray for equality ♪ ♪ Maybe if you wait for reincarnation ♪ ♪ Hey, well, you can come back as me ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm lucky and you're not ♪ ♪ You don't make waves when you got it yuck ♪ ♪ Keep your mouth shut, look the other way ♪ ♪ The other way ♪ ♪ If your other foot wasn't wearing my shoe ♪ ♪ You'd be walking away from me too ♪ ♪ Sweet things are just the way I want to stay ♪ ♪ Yeah, the way things are just the way I want to stay ♪ - Another gem from Peter Alsop. I'm lucky and subtext is you're not, of course. Have you had people come to you and say, oh yeah, you really nailed that 'cause I'm lucky. I do know some people, unfortunately, who don't see the hidden trap in that way of thinking that they're lucky, that I'm the privileged white male or whatever, and you're not. And that's because you're not worthy or something. They accept the subtext of you're not worthy. - Or I don't have to worry. I'm not part of your community. So you guys, you gotta have to deal with yourself. If I was an outsider, then you could screw me. But at this point, I'm not gonna worry about you because I pulled myself up by my bootstraps. When you grow up with privilege, you don't understand that not having privilege. I mean, it's the water one swims in. It's hard for us to be considerate and feel like we're part of a community with the other people, that all of us on the planet, as the planet seems to shrink with a number of humans on it and with dwindling resources. I mean, when we say it's not sustainable, it means it can't go on this way. And so we're starting to see some of the plugs getting pulled on some of the kinds of systems that we've put in place. When that happens, we need to take a look at, and hopefully not before it's too late, how we're being in the world and what we're doing, our verbs, without passing judgments on people and saying, you know, that's not okay. I mean, that's again the disciples of perfection mentality who says no birth control. You only can have sex if you want to have children. What did I just hear that the Pope just said something about that gay men can use birth control because they're not having sex to have children, but that heterosexual couples can't. That sounds to me like a concept, a male, predominantly male rule, that says this is the way it's supposed to be, and let's force real life into that regardless of what one's particularly living life's situation or circumstances are. That's not something I'm gonna support. And it's not that I don't like Catholics or Christians. I'm, it's not about liking and it's not about the labels. - I have a question there about how you deal with us. We have this word in the English language, judgment and we have judgmentalism. We have discrimination and can we discriminate between this and that versus can we apply a prejudgment, right? Prejudice and make these kind of decisions. It's very clear to me that to be able to discriminate between this thing and that thing to be able to see the difference between them is helpful. It's important to me to make good judgments in my life, but then I don't want to go to judgmentalism. And I think sometimes it's easy to throw the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, that, okay, so I don't want to be judgmental, so therefore I have no opinion about killing or polluting or whatever. I just don't want to have an opinion. Talk about how you relate to that. 'Cause I think Peter, you're trying to be a force for improvement of the world to help people have insights and so that we can choose a better future together. How do you deal with those issues of discrimination and judgment and so on? - Well, again, for me, it becomes really simple. It's about verbs and nouns. So being judgmental, hmm, am I judgmental? I don't like broccoli with balsamic vinegar at it, okay? I like broccoli balsamic and I like balsamic but not again. I don't like to, is that being judgmental? Yeah, is it being discriminating? Yes, I'm gonna, this broccoli with balsamic vinegar, I'm not going to eat that, but I'll have some of this over here with some holiday sauce or something, you know? For me, it's like looking at the verbs. There's nothing wrong with doing verbs in an informed way. It's when we label stuff and dismiss things and we don't look any deeper than just the labels that for me, it becomes a problem. I think that we need to be discriminating. We need variety, you know? Look at all the stuff that's going on with our food sources where we kind of food that is presented to us in our supermarkets is the kind that has the biggest kernel type of corn that will last the best when we're transporting it from far away and as that kind of food takes over instead of having 437 varieties of corn, now we only have 18 because all the rest of this stuff is not available anymore. Well, that's fine perhaps for a system where people are buying corn as a commodity and using it for a bunch of different stuff, but what happens if we have a blight of some sort where there's some sort of a virus that it gets? And now instead of having 400 kinds and 200 kinds of them are wiped out like the Irish potato famine, 200 kinds are wiped out. We still have another 237 kinds, but when you only have 17 kinds of varieties, you're cutting down your chances of survival when there's some kind of adverse situation that comes up. It's the same thing with people. When everybody, I mean, this is one of the issues about speaking English in the US, I think that people should learn other languages. I think it's kind of, it's great. I'm constantly encouraging my Spanish-speaking friends here in Los Angeles to learn English. I teach them English as much as I can. I'm buying them presents and books and things that help them learn English. But part of the deal is, is that I also want, my English-speaking friends to learn Spanish and French and learn some other languages because you have to think about the world differently and see the world through some other classes when you do that. So it's not about just learning English, it's about I want to learn Spanish too. Having that sense of the fact that there's a more diverse way of being in the world is really critical through our survival. So it isn't a consternation for me to feel like I'm being discriminating. What I have to make sure is I'm not, it's okay to discriminate, but am I writing somebody off because I see them as part of a group? I discriminate, this food group is being something that I don't like, but it's maybe something in that food group that I do like. Again, I guess it's from a user doing kids stuff or being a compulsive educator that, we can talk about food stuffs that way and nobody takes offense, but if you talk about people groups, everybody's got issues and defenses and little bombs go off and there's little landmines so it has to be careful of. So I'm a big fan of taking an analogy and pushing it and taking a look at it over here and seeing if we can learn something from that and then pulling it back into what's germane in our real life. And actually we were talking about taking chances and doing this and trying to educate. There's a song called Jesus Had a Gun on Disciples of Perfection where I take the concept of Jesus having a gun and I try to make it something that people will look at and even laugh at even though it's a little bit dangerous 'cause people are going, what is he doing? Where's he going with this? But in order to make a point so that people can pull it back into their life and take a look at some of the kinds of things and behaviors that we've done. As supposedly when I hear a Christian country, predominantly, yeah, what about some of this stuff? Do you think that's something we can listen to? - I'm so disagreeable. Of course I'd say yes. If Jesus had a gun, Peter Elsa. If Jesus had a gun, he would not abuse it. He would keep it handy in case he had to use it. If Jesus had a gun, he would not abuse it. He would keep it handy in case he had to use it. Now if some tough guys pushed him down or maybe they disrespected Mary, you know Jesus was her, baby. If Jesus had a gun, he wouldn't need to fight. He'd just pull it out and show 'em. See, you better be polite. What if he'd rob a Joe? You know Jesus was her dad. Or he could use his gun to save 'em. Now that wouldn't be so bad, but he'd never shoot somebody. 'Cause he knows it's really bad to know Jesus wouldn't hurt me. Unless he really had to. If Jesus had a gun, he would not abuse it. He would keep it handy in case he had to use it. If Jesus had a gun, he would not abuse it. He would keep it handy in case he had to use it. If some mean guy abused a little kid, Jesus wouldn't get mad. He wouldn't look like what that guy did. If Jesus couldn't make him pray, or he couldn't find the cop, well, he might take out his gun. Just to get the guy to stop. If people were starving, he could shoot a gold ram. I don't think he'd shoot a pig. 'Cause he didn't like him. In Jerusalem, they'd holler. They'd say, "Jesus, you're the boss." And if Jesus had a gun, they'd never put him on a cross. If Jesus had a gun, they'd never put him on a cross. If Jesus had a gun, he would not abuse it. He would keep it handy in case he had to use it. If Jesus had a gun, he would not abuse it. He would keep it handy in case he had to use it. Jesus was God's kid and probably fast with his gun. He probably knew the best way to get things done. But if he didn't put him on the cross, then the story's not the same. Jesus had a gun, would he use it in God's name, say it, turn your other cheek, and love your fellow man. What part of doubt shall not kill is hard to understand. Now it's God's law, and all you people know it too. Your behavior's tempting me to use my gun on you. I think Moses and Mohammed lived with Jesus' back then. And they probably didn't have guns, they were probably friends. I think Moses and Mohammed lived with Jesus' back then. And they probably didn't have guns, they were probably friends. And Jesus had a gun, I think he'd throw that gun away, because he knows he might be tempted if he had a bad day. Yeah, if Jesus had a gun, he'd throw that gun away. He would never use it. He would find another way. If Jesus had a gun, he'd throw that gun away. He would never use it if he'd find another way. If Jesus had a gun, I'm pretty sure that he would find another way. Another hilarious and thought-provoking song by Peter Alsop if Jesus had a gun. Peter is with us today for Spirit in Action, and this is a Northern Spirit radio production website, northernspiritradio.org. I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet, broadcasting to you from Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley. My home station is W-H-Y-S-L-P Eau Claire. My guest today is singer-songwriter, world-changer Peter Alsop, and his site is PeterAlsop.com, or get there by a NorthernSpiritRadio.org. I have to believe, Peter, that you get a lot of explosive reactions to a song like "If Jesus Had a Gun." Well, it's a new enough song that I haven't played it a lot, and interestingly enough, I just mailed out a couple hundred CDs to folk from stations, mostly. I have had a couple of reactions to that one, but it wasn't getting any airplane at first, and now it's starting to get some airplane from different places. When I first wrote the song, I took it over to the local elementary school during recess and played it for the kids during lunchtime, and the principal said, "Yeah, you can go have and try that if you want." And I was talking to the fifth and sixth graders, and they were one kid came over and said, "You're my mom's singing your album, you're Peter Alsop, aren't you?" 'Cause I don't want to have kids at age anymore, so I was sort of test-driving my songs. And we did that one, and I said, "What do you guys think?" And he said, "Oh, I think it's good, you know." And I said, "Well, what about for the little kids get my albums?" And I said, "No, that's okay, they'll get the idea about, you know, Jesus wouldn't ever use a gun, he'd throw it away, you know, stuff like that." And there's guns out there, so I said, "Okay, I'm not going to make up my mind whether I'm going to put on the adult album or the kid album." And about two hours later, I get an irate phone call from the principal. "What are you singing to the kids?" "What's the matter?" Evidently, there was a fourth grader kind of walking by this group, this informal group that had gotten together near the edge of the playground on the leaning up against the anchor fence that went down after lunch and told his teacher, "Hey, there's some old guy up there like singing songs about Jesus shooting people." And so she, of course, called the principal, who wanted to know what I was doing, so I had to send him a copy of the song and the lyrics, so because he was afraid that the kids are going to go tell their parents and the parents are going to crawl in, it was, you know, a tempest in a teapot, but I sort of realized, "Ooh, yeah, maybe." So, therefore, it is on the adult album. I do get a reaction to it. I actually just heard that Fox News played it in Los Angeles last week. And I went, "Wow, how would they put that in a news program?" And somebody else came up, somebody told me I haven't heard it, but I realized one of the little girls who sang with me on the little kids album, his father works for Fox News in L.A., and I, when I give a free CD back to the kids for who were on it, I sent them both of the CDs, and he must have heard it and thought it was worthwhile. I got to give him a call and find out what's going on with that. And again, I'm delighted that you're doing what you're doing. I think spirit and action is a really important thing for me. A lot of the last 15 years have been, "How do we get people to take action when there's the threat of having your character defamed, or people saying that you're, you know, there's something essentially wrong with you if you think that way, or if you do that behavior, there's something wrong with you, which is different." One of the things they teach my audience is a difference between shame and guilt, and there's a lot of shame messages out there. Shame is about who you are, and I do not accept any shame messages about myself anymore. Guilt is about what you do, and I don't mind having a little bit of guilt, because I do do things, sometimes maybe I can go, "Hmm, yeah, maybe I should have thought that through better." But guilt is something that you can change, you can change your behavior. This can be empowering to realize, "Hmm, I'm not going to do that. I'm tempted to do that again, but I'm not going to do it." It gives me some power, I can change what I do. If I accept shame messages and something about who I am, that there's something essentially wrong with me, then there's nothing I can do, so who cares? I've worked a lot of kids who felt so ashamed of themselves, that they were just bad, that they weren't going to change their behaviors, because who cares? They're bad anyway. So, for me, that's an important distinction, and that's why I do songs like when I'm the grown-at-home album, I did a song called, "I'm going to stick my neck out," which is about taking a chance. You know, you got to stick your neck out sometimes if you're going to have any action at all that has any impact in the communities we live in in our lives. Amy the giraffe stuck her neck up so high, she saw hungry lions hiding in a bush nearby. But Amy didn't tell her friends, she turned and ran away. Now she feels awful, 'cause she acted that way, so Amy made a promise to speak up for little guys. Even if it's scary for someone her size, so an Amy spots a carnivore, she does her thing, she sticks her neck out and starts to sing. Go to stick my neck out before it's too late. Go to stick my neck out, go, go, go, communicate. Go to stick my neck out when my friends are in a bind. Go to stick my neck out and say what's on my mind. Come on, kids. Go to stick my neck out before it's too late. Go to stick my neck out, go, go, go, go, communicate. Go to stick my neck out when my friends are in a bind. Go to stick my neck out and say what's on my mind. We're all animals and we all need some help. We can sing out for the little ones who can't sing out for themselves, so instead of eating others, let's share this world with them. Stick your neck out just like maybe if they're too teary in. Go to stick my neck out to help a little friend. Go to stick my neck out be a vegetarian. Live your carnivore today. For tomorrow, that might end. Go to stick my neck out if I'm gonna help a friend. Now every kid knows when something doesn't feel right. We've been taught to keep our mouths shut and to keep out of sight. Sure, it's scary to speak up when you're the only one. But if we all sing together, we can get something dumb. Go to stick my neck out when something feels wrong. Go to stick my neck out gotta raise my voice and so on. Go to stick my neck out not hanging in a bind. Go to stick my neck out get the violence to end. Go to stick my neck out there's injustice in the land. Go to stick my neck out it's time to take a stay. Go to stick my neck out not all Christ of the girl. Go to stick my neck out if we're gonna save the world. If we stick our necks out all together then we can see the world. A song to encourage those of us to consider whether maybe we do want to stick our neck out. Of course you know Peter a lot of people do stick their necks out and they get them chopped off too. That's why this kind of turtle behavior of people you know pull inside your shell happens. I pretty much take it you're a fan of non turtle behavior. I would say yes I guess non turtle behavior. I mean there are turtles as you say to get their necks cut off so if you have a shell then I suggest you look outside and you say well you know I can stay in here because I'm safe because I'm lucky and you're not you don't have a shell or I can say how do I do this. Maybe if I can get maybe I'm not gonna stick my neck way out and shout and make a lot of noise but maybe I'll go get some other turtles and we can all who kind of feel the same way I do and talk to them about it so now there's a committee or now there's a bunch of us. Now it's a movement and we can affect some change that way because I'm not into self-destructive behavior. That doesn't make any sense but how do you participate in order to try to make the world a better place for all of us. What kind of stories do we tell ourselves that we feel like well I have to grab everything I can get for myself which is basically a fear based way of working in the world and it doesn't mean there's not I think there's things to be afraid of out there too. So there's not going to be a simple answer to that that's going to be situational depending on what the situation you're in is depending on what your responsibilities are. Do I have kids to take care of here that I got to worry about? I mean how many times have you people in the listening audience out there or you Mark even gone into a supermarket seeing some kid getting smacked around or hit by the adult or yelled at screamed at which is abusive too. And go on to yourself I'd like to do something to intervene but I don't know what to do. How do I what do I do if I say something maybe the parent will stop now or whoever this grown up is but the kid will get it twice as bad when they get home you know how do I intervene here what do I do. And if we don't think about some of those things and get some support and talk to other friends who've had the same situation or what would you do what would I do if we don't have some of those tools in our toolbox next time it comes up we're going to be just as baffled as we were before. I think I'm going to stick my neck out and let you critique an action that I took I was in a grocery store and there was a kid who was clearly working on embarrassing his mother so she'd give him something. So I walked over to the kid and I first I said to his mother I said you know this is for him this is not for you I have to worry about this. I said to the kid you're yelling and making a scene right now is bothering me and I'd prefer that you stop it and the kid was taken aback as I don't think he. I guess he figured that all of the discomfort would be directed at his mother and so he could do this. So educational psychologists that you are do you want to have me committed? Not at all and will tell me about the behavior what was the behavior of the child. Well he got very quiet he had not expected this the unfortunate side effect that I saw was his mother did feel embarrassed I had hoped that she wouldn't by the experience. Was she embarrassed before you intervened? Well she was she was embarrassed clearly but she was also embarrassed I think from my behavior unfortunately. Okay and so how what else since all this stuff is all stuff in process it's about verbs it's about what else could you have done now that in retrospect because I think that was brilliant and what you felt that you didn't know you were going to feel was oh goodness she's still embarrassed and I rather that I hope I didn't cause that embarrassment but maybe I did because I drew attention to her child's behavior and maybe she's feeling some shame as a parent because her child shouldn't feel that way what else could I have done. And so in retrospect have you thought about that? Sure if I had to do it again today and I've done variations since then I'd go up to the kid and I'd say hi my name is Mark I like candy bars too but you know I've usually don't make much noise about it here what kind of candy bars do you like best? And I'd enter him into a discussion with him where he was relating to me probably not being as intimidated by me but I think he would stop his needling of his mother and I think she wouldn't feel as uncomfortable about that discussion so less clearly shaming of anyone but more clearly intervening. That sounds great one of the things kids learn is not to talk to strangers even if mom's right there so you know you might not have gotten a response or you might have there's no right answers to this there's just a bunch of alternatives another thing is to go into them to the mom and say wow when I was a kid like your son's age here you know he really wants a candy bar and I've had that feeling myself a lot enough so the kid can hear but I'm talking to the parent now but you know what when I used to scream at my mom like that it would embarrass her and stuff like that and so I learned that if I just like set it up before I get to the supermarket you know hey by the way you might want to try this with your mom too and I'm talking to the mom the whole time saying so you know and I have or I have kids and they've done that to me so what we do is I say look here's the deal before we go in everything cool and we make an agreement so we don't have to do this because my kid used to do this with me I mean there's a bunch of different things I'm not opposed to lying actually to make them story you know because the stories are what we live by and you might be able to give her a little tip and just a quick throw off and the kid hears you intervening in some way or other like that may or may not stop them it's not my job to stop the kid from doing that because the mom's got to learn how to set boundaries to the kid but if I can give mom some input there there's another alternative you know I don't believe there's wrong ways to do this you intervene and something else happens and then you'll learn something and hopefully you don't do something gets the child killed when they go home but talking about it with other friends when you're not in the heated situation I think it's really important to do what happens is when it's not heated we go okay I don't want to deal with this and then it comes up again it comes up again it comes up again I know that you and I both as well as your listeners have had certain situations come up again and come up again because we haven't talked about it or figured out how what are some other alternative ways behaviors what are some verbs that I can use to either short circuit this so it doesn't happen or when I get into it I have some better ideas of other tools in my toolbox that I can try well in terms of being effective in the world and getting those tools out there you've been doing workshops you do workshops for adults for educators for administrators you do all of that kind of thing right I do this frequently if I can get someone to pay me for it and sometimes even for free so you're out there trying to I think influence the world in a positive direction that's why I have you here for a spirit in action because I think your music does that it certainly does it for me the song the guitar which we started with leads me to think that at times you don't feel like you're reaching the potential you want to reach you have collections about addiction and recovery and depression grief loss all of these things you've got collections on and sometimes they're just very funny songs from my point of view but they've always got this kernel of change in the world why aren't we getting the change why why isn't the world the way that you and I wanted to be yet there's a lot of people that are really glad I'm not in charge you know I think it's a process that goes on you know I used to think how come all the people that are out there running head start programs and who really care about kids how come they're always struggling in the car that doesn't quite run and are holding it together with duct tape and these other people that are very wealthy are doing things that are that I think are a lot of death times detrimental to life on the planet have new Lexuses and have huge bank accounts and stuff I think maybe it goes with the territory you know one of the things that we see and again I don't consider myself a Christian I was raised in Christian churches and stuff but there's so many things that have been done in Jesus' name that I think Jesus would be very upset about that I don't like the label and I think to myself that there was a lot of poverty that happened I mean Jesus did not have a new Lexus some of that happens about when you talk about the Sparrow gets up in the morning and doesn't have a bank account the Sparrow is going to figure out what do I need to do today to survive where do I get some seeds where do I can find a worm not a good day for the worm if the Sparrow finds the worm you know but you know maybe the worm had his own good days it's about having some faith in the fact that we'll figure out ways to provide for ourselves and our behaviors don't have to be detrimental to other people in order for us to survive that there's ways that we as humans and being communal animals can work communally to help each other and also rely on other people for help when we need it is it always going to be perfect no it's not or as my song disciples perfection talks about it's the lightness shines through our cracks it's one of life's most simple facts part of our perfection is our flaws it's true it's the cracks in your perfection and let your light shine through so maybe the flaws that we have it is a perfect situation one of the things that really lifted my heart during a lot of the nuclear stuff when we were worried about the Cuban Missile Crisis and getting blown up by nukes one of the things that they did I saw study on kids whose parents did something to try to stop the nuclear proliferation because it's very dangerous stuff the nuclear waste material not to mention the bombs themselves and and what we found was in the study was that the kids whose parents were doing something whether it was effective or not scored much lower on stress levels than kids whose parents did nothing but it was astonishing to me because I operate from the point of view that if you're going to do something has to be effective or what's the point of but kids didn't seem to care kids felt the registry has having less stress in their lives less anxiety because the parents were doing something whether it was handing out leaflets or or having meetings or going to rallies or whatever it was that they were doing that that said something about we need to stop this as opposed to parents that were dealing with it at all and that said a lot to me about the way the system works but one of the wonderful things you just told me on this during this interview was that you hearing my songs thirty years ago made a difference for you in your life and we don't know how far that stuff goes you know maybe somebody hearing this today or hearing one of your other interviews of somebody else that's really interesting I never thought of that yeah wow because the fruit falls from the tree when it's ripe you know when the students ready to teach or appear so there are people out there listening who are going to go this is a good thing to hear I needed to hear this right now it's going to help me with my life and those little kind of things are why we do what we do not because we're going to necessarily fix everything because I don't think the world's going to get fixed there's so many things out there that we could work on to try to make the world a better place that can be really overwhelming it sounds like you're suffering from decision-making anxiety Peter can't you just resolve where you're going yeah but it's only moment to moment when that happens actually yeah I asked my daughter about that because she sort of I know her big thing is animal welfare rights animal rights what we do with the farms farmed animals and the way we treat animals on the planet and of course there's environmental components to that they said Megan how do you seem so balanced honey how do you do that? she goes well dad it's simple you're going to make yourself crazy with all the stuff you're thinking about you just ought to pick one and do that and I said huh pick one what a great idea for a song so I wrote something called pick one which is the last cut and disabled of perfection training out today and I'm stuck inside got the TV channel changer but I can't be signed all the great programs on TV flipping through the channels then mom says to me she says pick one pick one you're making me crazy pick one pick one your eyes are getting hazy pick one channel trying for a while you can always pick another if it's not your style but just Well, it couldn't stand a blabbing, so it went for a walk. Down to the library, no one there can talk. Books by the thousand, which one to read. Then the librarian whispered to me, she said, "Pick one, pick one, you make yourself crazy. Pick one, pick one, your eyes are getting hazy. Pick one book. Try it for a while. You can always pick another if it's not your style, but just pick one." I looked down at my shoes. I couldn't seem to choose. So I went home, turned the radio on. There we talked about war and the nuclear bomb. Offshore drilling, sex abuse and killing, polluting the environment, and effective government. Oil-barons, cancer, lots of drugs, healthcare, welfare, and Wall Street. The financial collapse, crowded schools, and population. There is a vigilante's emigration. Then I want to save the world before it's blown away. I was overwhelmed and I heard myself say, "Pick one, pick one, you make yourself crazy. Pick one, pick one, your eyes are getting hazy. Pick one cause. Try it for a while. You can always pick another if it's not your style, but just pick one." Pick one, pick one, maybe not the best. Pick one, pick one or you're gonna get depressed. Sitting in your stall doing nothing at all. Pick one, pick one. This is not a test. Pick one, pick one, make your work for you. Pick one, pick one. There's lots of we can do. Try to think small cause you can't do it all. To get a lot of done, you gotta start with one. So just pick one, pick one. Pick one. Peter Alsop, pick one. Great way to end up this spirit and action interview, Peter. Well, I'm glad that your process has been moving the world in a direction that I certainly perceive as being helpful for the world. People should go back and check out your older adult albums, your children albums. I love them myself. The two latest ones, Disciples of Perfection and Grow It at Home. Out to PeterAlsop.com, you'll find them. If you don't know how to spell Peter or Alsop, come via NorthernSpiritRadio.org and you'll find the way to his site too. Peter, thanks so much for coming back. Thanks for keeping up the wonderful creative energy that you put into your music. And thanks for joining me for Spirit and Action. Thanks for having me on, Mark. And thanks for the work you do too. And in recognition of the Christmas season, we'll send you off with a snippet of one more of Peter Alsop's songs, If Jesus Was a Kid. Christmas isn't about shopping, it's about the way we care. It's thinking what would that kid Jesus do if he was here. So if some kid you know, messes up something they did. Remember Jesus was a human too when he was a kid. Acting like a kid at Christmas should not be a sin. Remember when we do it, probably acting just like him. So this Christmas let's just be nice to each other, don't you see? When Jesus was a kid, he was a love like you and me. When Jesus was a kid, he needed love like you and me. [music] The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. This Spirit in Action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along, and our lives will feel the echo of our healing. You