Spirit in Action
Peter Alsop - Humor and Song as tools for growth, change and insight - Part 2
Peter Alsop does many types of work. He's an educational psychologist, a motivational speaker, recipient of 7 Best Children's Album awards, a trainer of therapists, counselors, teachers, parents and kids. He mixes humor and insight in profound, amusing and healing ways.
- Broadcast on:
- 29 Mar 2009
- Audio Format:
- other
I have no hands but yours to tempt my sheep. No handkerchief but yours to dry the eyes of those who weep. I have no arms but yours with which to hold. The ones grown weary from the struggle and weak from growing old. I have no voice but yours with which to see. To let my children know that I am out and out is everything. I have no way to feed the hungry souls. No clothes to give or nick in, the ragged and the morn. So be my heart, my hand, my tongue. Through you I will be done. Fingers have I none to help and die. The tangled knots and twisted chains that strangle fearful minds. Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeet. 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. Above all, I'll seek out light, love and helping hands, being shared between our many neighbors on this planet, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred fruit in your own life. I have no way to open people's eyes. Except that you will show them how to trust the inner mind. This is the second part of my Spirit in Action visit with Peter Alsop. Peter has such a rich array of songs that he's created over the past three plus decades. And the work he's done and is doing covers so many topics that there was no way to fit it into a single program. Peter has been and still is a father, a musician, teacher and an educational psychologist. He's provided workshops for the cross section of those dealing with the education and welfare of our kids, not to mention concerts for the kids themselves. He's received seven Best Children's Album Awards, not to mention the adult recordings he's done. Part of what Peter spoke about in our last visit included his work in facing gender issues, stereotypes and limits, aspects of child abuse and new solutions to long-standing problems. The last song we listened to was "you ain't been doing nothing if they haven't called you gay." But we ran out of time before we could comment much on it. So let's start out with some follow-up on that song and the issues it brings up. Peter, as I listened to the song, I was keenly aware of how it feels to be put on the spot called names and shunned by a group. They didn't use the word gay so much when I was in my adolescence. They used the word queer, "year queer," and I can remember how my natural impulse was to say, "No, I'm not!" Even though I didn't know what it was, because I didn't want to feel myself pushed outside the acceptable "in circle." I think a lot of us wrestle with just how we can equip our children to not be dragged onto the anti-gay bandwagon in order to avoid being shunned. Is that one of the things that you do in the workshops that you lead, try and give kids tools to stand up to that kind of pressure? For me, it's about putting everything up on the table so people can talk about it and see what's going on. And then there's going to be a lot of people in a lot of different personal places with the different issues that we bring up. One of the things that I do a bullying sculpt, and I show what it's like to deal with families and kids, and there's bullying going on, and I say, "Well, if this works, if we're looking at this and we see the way that the bully is in relationship to the victim here, and there's the bystander over there, let's just move this up the ladder here." And instead of thinking, "This is a family, this is a individual, I think this is an organization, who could this be?" And I put my hand over the bully's head, and they go, "That's the boss!" And I go, "Okay, and who's this a victim of? That's the worker!" And I go, "Okay, what else could it be?" I put my hand over the head of the bully, and they say, "That's the union!" And I go, "Okay, and who's this?" And they go, "That's small businesses over the victim's head!" You know, it's like, there's a lot of different versions of the reality depending on what your experience is and where people are. You know, it's not that there's wrong versions of just like, "How do we work this stuff out? Where are the tensions?" And the sculpting for me helps lend clarity so we can deal with what the feelings are. They're driving a lot of the out-of-balance behaviors that we run into. And speaking of out-of-balance behaviors, I wanted to mention that that song you ain't been doing nothing if they haven't called you gay is just one of the song gems that's part of your Ebenezer's makeover. Which, you know, for our audience is a kind of, well, what is it? A musical, a rock opera, something like that, and it deals with Ebenezer's out-of-balance behaviors and attitudes and how the three ghosts come and take him face to face with his past, present, and future, and his homophobia and his violence and abuse, all those things. The music by you, Peter, and really a lot of other wonderful musicians, Holly Neer, Jeff Morgan's Others, is really powerful in the context of the story. It's a great way to highlight and witness, if you will, the forces surrounding this typical man who's now the curmudgeonly dean of students of a college and, you know, not so tiny Tim, the basketball player, great name, by the way. It's just really a great story with some great music to highlight the issues involved. So, Peter, I also just wanted to thank you for releasing an album. You've done a lot of them, you know, got all those seven best children's album of the year award kind of things. You've done all those children's albums, and it's really nice that you release that album, Ebenezer's makeover, which is targeted towards the adult market, because we can't get enough of you either. Yeah, you're welcome. It was nice to sort of re-release a lot of the songs from the feminist men's and women's movement people, and get them on to, you know, what kind of a CBS radio mystery theater kind of a story line thing. It was great fun doing that. Yeah, so the only place you can get is on my website at peteroffsop.com, so I'll do my pitch because I want people to hear it because I think it's wonderful, but it's not available on stores. Well, they probably know how to spell Peter, but maybe you'd better teach him how to spell Alsop. It's Peter, the L-S-O-P.com, yeah, then click on a little shopping card icon and you'll get the whole range of stuff, and you can check the lyrics out there, and you can listen to snippets of songs and things. And of course, you can always find the link to Peter Alsop's site from my website, which is northernspiritradio.org. You are listening to a spirit and action interview with Peter Alsop, a musician, educational psychologist, father, and just great all-round, insightful person. So, Peter, where do we go from here? One of the most difficult songs I ever wrote was one called "Mr. D," and it's about death, actually. One of the things that, for me, is it's really important. I mean, one of the things that stops us, I mean, we thought we were just been talking about courage and standing up, and people go, "I could get hurt. I could get kills doing that. I'm not doing that." And I really think that death is our friend in some ways. I've thought about death. A lot of people have accused me of being morbid at times. You know, I try not to bring it up and spread that around, but if we live forever, then how we behave doesn't make any difference, because you always come back to it. "Oh, I'm sorry. I did that 40,000 years ago or hour long. You know, he didn't mean it. I was only kidding." But if death exists, then we only have a limited time than how we live. So it's very important what the kind of choices we make. Carlos Castaneda and his book, "Teaches Gone One," talks about how the human that can really see and just look off your left shoulder and death is standing there. And all death has to do to reach out and touch when you're gone. It could happen anytime to any of us right now. "Well, we're listening to spirit and action, even. And is that morbid? I don't think it's morbid. I think for me it means how do I want to spend my time. If I'm really not enjoying this program, I should definitely listen to another program." And they'd miss some really important thoughts and some great music, too. "Well, but that's our sense of good, and they may be, if you think I'm going to die, I've got limited news. I just don't want to be listening to this. These dudes talking to each other. I want some boogie music. Who knows? So I tried to write a rock and roll a song about Mr. D. And one of the reasons it was the hardest song to write was because I realized why a lot of rock and roll songs don't have, like, really deep lyrics. It's because when you're moving and grooving and the beach really getting here, it's hard for your brain to work at the same time to really think about deep stuff. And I'm hearing this is a fairly arcane concept of death as our friends. Nobody says that, really. So it took me a long time to write it and simplify the words enough so that you can get these images that were concrete and visionable while you're bonded to the beat. I don't know how. I think it was successful, but maybe you need to play it. Let people decide for themselves if it's called Mr. D. I am Mr. D. What I say is true. Everything changes constantly, so do best you can do. Cat a pillar crawl into her cool goodbye. Everything changes yesterday. Now she's a butterfly. This is number one. And it changes under the sun to make some chances have some fun to the best you can do. Stick your hand in a cookie jar. Take a big handful and you get stuck, and feel like you won't get one. You'll be proud of love. This is number two. Don't hold on today. Sometimes you gotta let go just to make it through this life. I am Mr. D. What I say is true. Everything changes constantly, so do best you can do. You can do. Some folks think I'm scary. Think of me and Harry. Life is temporary. My message is clear. Check it out for you to check out of me. Let's suppose that no one died. No one worried and no one cried. Then there wouldn't be no reason to try to do best you can do. This is number three. It's not how long you can survive. It's how you live. When you're alive, so do best you can do. I am Mr. D. What I say is true. Everything changes constantly, so do best you can do. Meet me and drain those in, 'cause your life will love my friend. We'll all will never end it the best we can do. We love the best we can do. We love the best we can do. We love the best we can do. We love the best. We love the best we can do. We love the best we can do. We love the best we can do. I really love that song, but I have to admit that I feel a little bit like a fool. I've listened to that song for maybe a couple of decades now. I loved it. I loved the lessons in it, but I didn't know who Mr. D was. I thought maybe over in California you have some kind of disc jockey or something like there's the Wolfman. Well, maybe there's Mr. D on the radio or something like that, but I did not know that Mr. D was death, and so thanks for clarifying that. And I feel so much wiser now than I did just five minutes ago. Yeah, I did, but I have to say that knowing that you were writing about death, it deepened my sense of respect that you could write about it that in a way that was sensitive in the way that you did that didn't sound lugubrious didn't sound preachy. It just sounds like, wow, here's someone who's taking a deep breath and looking at it square in the eye. Thanks. I mean, that's a tough issue to deal with. I have another song that I did for kids, which also deals with some very hard stuff. It's called "No one Knows for Sure." But it's really about hope, because when you talk about death, and I used to do a conference called "The Healing Car of Black" or a play, and there's a man named Ashley Montagu, who's one of the presenters. He's a renowned anthropologist, worked and forgot to go to a university and talk like he had hooked much to his mouth, and didn't talk to both his cheeks. He seemed to be a fan of my music, which I really thought he was in his 80s, and it was years ago. And he was talking about the way we used language, and we really don't know for sure what's going to happen. The doctors will sometimes say, you know, a tea bobby only got three months to live, and the doctors don't really know for sure what's going to happen. So maybe looking at statistics or something, there's another man I'd worked with called Bernie Siegel, who's done a lot of work with cancer patients, and Bernie used to have me to call up the Siegel fund. And I'd say, if your doctor ever told you that you only had three months to live, he would take money from the Siegel fund and bet your doctor his own personal money, make the doctor personal money. $10,000 that he was inaccurate with his prognosis, and he never had a doctor take the bet, which says a lot to the patient, which means well maybe the doctor's not right. Because when you put an end here, when you tighten it up and say, you only have this much time to live, that's what our brain does, and people will sometimes, they sort of fade away, knowing that there's doctor, this expert told me who must live, and they start preparing to die, and then they wither and die. And some of it might have been from their disease, but some of it might also have been from ingesting the doctors in view of life. So I guess the moral of the story is that no one knows for sure, which is why you wrote this song. There's a camel in the desert who could really use a drink. Her hump is all dried up, and her name's Irene, I think. If she doesn't get some water or some juice or soda soon, I don't think she'll last much longer. I don't think she'll last till noon, and the sun is burning brightly, and the desert's sand so hot, and Irene's so awfully thirsty, she might die right on the spot. But no one knows for sure, something might come along, that could save the day and help her out and fix whatever's wrong, cause no one knows for sure. We've still got time to hope, and Irene might see a giant milkshake over the next slope, while she might, cause no one knows for sure, no one knows for sure. There's a monkey named McCaffrey, who's lived a long, long time, and he's got a broken tail that makes it pretty hard to climb, so he's careful in the jungle. When he climbs where monkeys go, but he missed a vine, and fell into the river down below, and the crocodile surround him, and McCaffrey he can't swim, and he's drifting toward the waterfall, guess that's a last we'll see of him. But no one knows for sure, something might come along, that could save the day and help him out and fix whatever's wrong, cause no one knows for sure. We've still got time to hope, and McCaffrey might see Wonder Woman, until she might have her rope, cause she usually carries it with her, and no one knows for sure, no one knows for sure. There's a kid I know named Evelyn, one of my favorite friends, and they put her in the hospital for testing once again, and the doctors and the grown-ups, they were sad when they were through, they told her she was very sick, no one knew what to do to make her feel better, so that she could run and play. When Evelyn knew that she might die, but she'd look at me and say, no one knows for sure, something might come along, that could save the day and help me out and fix whatever's wrong, cause no one knows for sure. We've still got time to hope, and maybe doctor Susan Ewald, that's a super duper kind of soap, and I'd wash behind my ears even cause no one knows for sure, no one knows for sure, no one knows for sure. That was no one knows for sure, it's by my guest for today's spirit and action, his name is Peter Alsop, he's an educational psychologist, he does workshops for educators and people who care for our kids, and he does concerts for kids and adults and families, and I'm very pleased to have him on today's spirit and action. Peter, that song sounds like you've been close to death, have you had to deal with the death of a close loved one, close relative friend or otherwise? Oh, let's see, there hasn't been anybody that I've been immediately close to, thank goodness, not on wood, but I certainly do work a lot in hospitals and at college, where it's like going to play for kids, where it's not looking real positive. We don't use the word terminal illness anymore, because that's one of those things that sounds like it's a terminal, you know, just the language like that, it's really important to use the word catastrophic, someone's got a catastrophic illness, cause at least it's open enough for the possibility that they could pull through. It's frustrating for kids and families when they walk into a situation and they kind of are channeled that this is what you have to do and this is the way things are. And everyone's busy trying to do the best we can out here, knocking around, so I actually wrote a song called "Argue" which is for little kids who are trying to be perfect, and a lot of us are trying to be perfect, and life is perfect the way it is, even with all its imperfection. You might want to play "Argue" and we can talk about it, it's one of the ways I involve the people to have it, the chorus, it's a scream along. So if you're out there listening and you want to scream along on the chorus, please feel free, go wild. I am always good as gold, I do exactly what I'm told, I do what the grown-ups say, I don't complain, cause it's okay. I don't talk back, I don't get mad, I don't upset my mom and dad, I don't get sick, I comb my hair, I wear clean socks and underwear. I fold my clothes, pick up my room, my dust and sweep and back you while my clean up mud and dirt and grime, I always go too bad on time. But sometimes when I'm all alone, I have to sing this little song, it really helps me feel better if you want to sing along. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's do it again, okay, come on. That doesn't have to feel better, I don't make noise or laugh or cry, I don't stick out my tongue or lie, I don't fidget, I sit still when I have soup, I never spill. I watch dishes every night, I do my homework, I don't fight, I follow rules, I don't chew gum, I never even suck my thumb. I never watch the TV set, at school I am, the teacher's pet, I have the best grades on the list, someday I'll be a therapist. Your parents probably wanted you to be a perfect kid like me, but maybe that's a little crazy, sing along if you agree. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Let's do it again, okay, come on. There, doesn't that feel better? Do teachers hate it, Peter, when you teach their kids to scream, "Argh!" Well, that's been a big move, in the pirate movement, isn't it, "Argh!" But it was more, I didn't know how to spell screaming, so I wrote "A-A-A-R-G-H" as the title of the song. Well, I really was wondering if teachers, other folks like that, do get upset with you for kind of egging the kids on, getting them to be a little bit too noisy, when a lot of our school system and a lot of our efforts are towards getting kids to be still and sit in place and raise their hands. Right, you know, one of the neat things about my songs is that there's notes on each of them, and now that they're on CDs, teachers don't have to play something if they don't want to play it. And you can just push a different number and you get a different song, and I have notes and stuff, so the teachers can take a look at things like, there's so many things that you can get addressed with songs. You know, I mean, there might be a teacher who doesn't want to play the "Argh!" song, but they're upset about the rampant consumerism, because all the kids have iPods, or all the kids are, you know, listening to other music or doing Game Boys in their room or something, and they want to talk about consumerism, or if there's articles in it, somebody writes a story for English, and it's all about wanting to have more things, and the teacher wants to address that. Well, here she can play a song off my Christmas holidays album called "Buy Me Something," which addresses that in some way that's sort of funny and fun, but a kid that compulsively has to buy stuff all the time. I actually mark it as interesting, because I don't listen to myself all the time, I put it out, and then sometimes a year ago I'll buy before I listen to it again. I just listened to this song recently, and it went, "Wow, Peter, I can't believe you get away with this. It is really a bizarre tune." But it does bring up about consumerism and people that just feel compulsively like they have to buy stuff. Well, I did feel so eager that I did buy the album with it on, so I'm going to play it for our audience here. It's called "Buy Me Something," and it's from Peter Elsa's "Christmas Holidays" album. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] My parents really hate it. They have to count to ten. They say they'll never, ever, ever buy me things again. I've really got a problem. My mouth just loves a shop. Maybe you could find me something that might make it stop. Well, you think it's worth a try. You could probably save a cute little kid from getting killed by a mangy parent. Look, it's not my fault if my mouth has some kind of rare shopping compulsion, is it? You could just put it on your charge card and then you wouldn't have to pay right away. You'd buy me something, something, something, something, something, something, find me something, find me something, find me, find me, find me, find me, find me. I'm going crazy. I can't spend this, please don't make me leave the store and be handed. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Don't be a cheapskate, or I'll get mad at you. By me, things of great value, stuff to save. I want giant collection of everything ever made. You know, Peter, my orientation is definitely in the spiritual realm. And by that, I don't mean something that's not embodied, but I'm aware of how in our country, things like fear of death or buying things, all this kind of stuff. It's so related to the fact that we don't have a sense of something that's beyond, something that exists or that unites us or that sustains us. I have a feeling that a lot of us are much more afraid of death because we are very much doubting that there's something bigger of which we are a part. I don't know if that resonates for you at all, but I think that somehow you're talking about those things that transcend what you could buy at the store or, you know, just what you're afraid of because it's embodied. It's embodied in some bigger learning, I guess you'd say. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how do you see that core thing that transcends the material stuff that you're talking about in "Buy Me Something"? Thanks, a really gentle, interesting way to put the question. I appreciate that, Mark. Let me take it from the specific and go to the general, which is that there's a lot of how to balance behaviors in the world that I look at. Why are they doing that? It doesn't seem right, what they're doing to other people or to themselves. Why are people doing that? A bit compulsive shot, but you have to, "Wow, what do you need more stuff for?" As we were talking earlier about moving it up a ladder, like we're looking at the bully's cup, you buy things that you need for yourself, but then organizationally people go ahead and do things that they think, "Well, I'm not really in this business, but my competitor is doing it, so we're going to start doing that, too." And societally we're going, "God, we need oil to rent things. Let's get oil from other people if we have to just get it now because we can't do it out of it. There's a fear and a greediness that has to do with not being mean greedy, but it's just a fear." I mean, greedy, but just being afraid that you're not going to have enough so you want to come pile in as much as you can if things. So my questions are more like, "Where does that come from? Where does that come from? Where does that out of balance and behavior?" And a lot of times you're driven by feelings, okay? I'm going to tie it back into spiritual stuff because I think that feelings are really important. When you have painful feelings, which all of us do, every human being has painful feelings, some point or other, when you have painful feelings, a lot of times we don't want to have the pain, so we find something to medicate it. Or we know how to deal with it. And a lot of times we grew up in fellows' roots. We didn't work human skills about how to deal with it. Like, when I'm afraid I need to go talk to somebody, I need to get a hug. I need to move away from what it is that makes me afraid so I can consider it. I see if I can get some control over it so I don't feel so hard to control. Like, I'm just being done to me. When I'm sad, I need to do some crying. I need to talk to people about it. And I said, "Just keeping it to myself. Talk to safe people about it." When I'm angry, I need to speak up. Instead of boundary, I say, "That's not okay." Or if I'm angry and sometimes I have to look at it and say, "Well, gee, it's not that somebody else or too so I'm just angry because somebody won't do what I want. That's my stuff." And I bet that I need to change what it is my expectations or something. So when you have painful feelings, and if you're not sure how to deal with them in a healthy way, what we learn to do is medicate them and stuff them down. Because pain is exactly that. We don't want to deal with it. And so people learn to have all these medicators. And some people use alcohol and other substances, nicotine, sugar. Some people use behaviors like work, television, exercise, listening to music all the time, focusing on sex all the time, or romance. There's a bunch of things that people do and there's nothing wrong with food. There's nothing wrong with television or exercise, but if you're doing stuff obsessively and compulsively to avoid dealing with painful feelings, then a little flag needs to go and see what's going on here. What's feelings are kind of circus that I'm trying to stuff down. And all of that stuffing of feelings, what you're describing is my interest, is not to say, "Well, there's a spirituality that you need to get to because I don't tell people what they need to do." I think people kind of into it that. And I also don't believe that I know what that spirituality is for somebody else. What I do know is that I need to find that more for myself, that quiet place. And I know that if I have a lot of painful feelings trying to surface and I'm busy trying to medicate them, I don't have a very healthy feelings vocabulary. And if some of you out there want to know what your medicators are, just quietly for a minute. Try not to do anything, take three minutes and sit there. You'll find your painful feelings will start to surface. That's one of the gifts we have for being alive. Whether it's sadness or whether it's anger, it starts to surface. And the first thing you think of as your medicator, you're going to sit there and say, "Okay, I'm being quiet now. I'm being quiet. Peter said to be quiet, I'll give it a try. He's an expert in this area. Being quiet, I'm just trying to be letting whatever. I'm really hungry. Maybe I get something to eat or something. There's some fudge in the refrigerator or you'll say, "I got a lot of work on my desk. I'll get that done first, and then I'll do this exercise." Your medicators will surface and you'll know what they are. I have some understanding about that so that we can take a look at what the painful feelings are that are trying to surface and finding some safe places to let those feelings come out so that we can, if we're angry, express anger in some way that doesn't. Not abusive to ourselves or someone else. But once you've expressed it, then you find out a lot that's anger, man. Some sadness that was under there. You might need to do some crying about something. You never got to cry about it. You didn't have the feelings because you looked at those feelings. We're okay to have that there were bad feelings. And that stuff starts to surface and as you get more comfortable then you can be around someone else who's sad. You never express around sadness and you're going to want to shut down someone else who feels sad. "Come on, be a big boy. Don't cry. Be a big girl." Instead of allowing them to cry too and as you do that, you're able to sit quietly and as some of the feelings come up, you feel the feelings and they go away. But I think that God doesn't speak in our lives in some kind of a big, loud voice with electric science. I think God is a small, quiet voice. And if you want to know what this higher power or spirituality for you, what God has for you, you need to be able to sit quietly without all that cacophony of medicators and painful feelings and all of that stuff. You need to be able to sit quietly and listen and say, "Well, a big guy, a woman to do what you want, do your will, but I don't know what it is." And so give me a sign. That's really hard to do if you have a lot of this other stuff going on. I'm a little surprised, Peter. You actually just did a reasonably good description there of what a Quaker meeting for worship is like. Have you been to one? Sure have, yeah. And so from my experience, and I know that you have a whole lot more experience than I've been to a couple of them, but everybody sits there quietly and no one's supposed to speak unless they feel moved by the spirit to say something. And so it's quiet, a lot of them have been there. But when someone speaks, you really listen because you figured they're feeling this and they feel like that was really important to say. So they either need to say it or I might need to hear this, so I'm going to listen. That was my experience. I don't know. Tell me about your experience in a Quaker meeting. Well, this is your spirit and action interview, so I don't want to impose myself too much. But I will say this, there have been times over the past 25 plus years I've been Quaker where I've just knotted off to sleep in the silence of a Quaker meeting. Though that has become less and less common for me. And I definitely have had the experience of the Medicators that you talked about that as soon as I sat in the silence, my mind would jump to the list of things I had to do to get organized, to get done. But if I sit past those distractions and the call of those Medicators, if I can last long enough, I do, I have found a place where I find a lot more clearness, centeredness, clarity about where I really want to be headed instead of the things, you know, the Medicators ruling me. But I do find that it takes some sitting on my hands to get past those distractions. I've never done the drinking drugs type of medicating, but I've definitely done that with food and with busyness. There are definitely habitual distractions for me from my center and sex. I think that sex has been a significant Medicator for me. That's also been one of mine as well. I mean, growing up male in our culture, it's hard not to have that because it's something that's pleasant and pleasurable. I survived my family portion by talking a lot, as you can tell. I'm good at that, so if I get in a therapeutic situation, so I'm just going to sit down and talk. I go, "Great," because I feel right at home doing that. I can defend myself and stay guarded. But with sex, the first time I actually had sex, with my girlfriends or something like that, I went, "This is wonderful," and it wasn't a lot of talking, and I felt cared about, and it was really visceral. And I want to do this as much as possible. Something that is a survival technique, it's a self-suiting technique, but it might sometimes become the only tool in one's toolbox. You don't learn other ways to self-soothe when you're feeling upset and scared, and you just think of sex. And so that's something that a lot of times isn't talked about. Masturbation is not something that's talked about openly. You had just mentioned, I was thinking of this when you were talking about Mr. D, the son that we did earlier, how you hadn't known that it's a bit about death. Jackson Brown is a wonderful song called Rosie, that was a hit, which is about masturbation. If you look and go back and read the words, you know, and I was going, "Jackson, go for it." I mean, nobody writes songs about masturbation, because they're not rock stars, you know. Rosie, it's me and you again tonight, you know, kind of thing. Rosie, you wear my ring. It was just when you started with someone told you and you went back and listened to the words, you went, "That's what that's about." But it was veiled in the song, but an important stuff, because we don't talk about that, and we do veil it. As a part of the unveiling, how about we play one of your many songs on the subject? I can think of a couple options that would be very much on topic for this. For instance, your song "Give Yourself a Hand" is clearly a not very veiled song. Ha ha ha, guess not. Or there's another one that you've done called "Don't Put Your Hand in My Pants." Which one would you like to play to give the audience some idea of what you're talking about? We're going to do this one or the other thing again. Or you tell me? Well, why don't we play them back-to-back? We'll have a little sex little thing here going on where "Give Yourself a Hand" was really about realizing that it's easy to go out and wait fingers at other people that are doing something wrong. It came about because a friend of mine had been part of a multi-million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit that was brought against her for naming this guy at Clark University. She was teaching and he was expecting sexual favors from other staff, female staff members and graduate students. And when they blew the whistle on him, the university got together with him and dropped charges because he was the head of the teacher's union. He said, "If you bring charges against me, I'm going to just claim that you guys are just trying to get rid of me because I'm head of the teacher's union, you're trying to get rid of me." So they got to get their national labor relations court and they struck a deal and they dropped the charges against him. They sued his women for a defamation of characters, so I went to do some money by doing a concert for them. I wrote this song realizing that I could point at him because he has his union stuff together, doesn't mean he has his gender stuff together. And there before they made some "God Go With I" I said, "Give Yourself a Hand" and then I thought, "Well, we need to take a look at this for teenagers too." So we'll put that together with "Don't Put Your Hand" into my pants. That's a great idea. Thanks, Mark. Give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. You say it's not your fault, so it's got to be your glance. So give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give us all a break and give yourself a hand. You know you act like you've been deserted on an island, all alone for years, with no one there to scratch your back or rub behind your ears. So you act like you're in heat, drowning in testosterone, and every conversation takes on sexual overtones on your fingers and just greatly with no conscience of their own. Go creeping here and there, acting quite unsheper own. You're starving, leering, lechie eyes pursue her every move, drooling, searching for her thighs, or the bouts of her bassume. It's so tedious, exhausting, unnecessary and easily cured in remedy this plague of modern men. Just give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. You say you're at the mercy of your bodily demands, so give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give us all a break and give yourself a hand. Oh, that's what we're singing about. So you won the big election, but it's not your macho crap. It's your work, not your erect shun that put you on the map. You're the chairman, Captain Chief. Your title's on your card. Success once bought relief, but now that's not the way things are. As your mother ever mentioned, suffering gross and dignitize from big men with bent intentions. Do you think that she'd be pleased? Come on and join the rest of us, we're trying hard to change. The selfish and injurious, ways that we've been trained. If you're insecure, scared, you can ask me for support. If you're lonely, we can talk, but if you're horny, be a sport and... Give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. You say you're only comfortable when you're in command, so give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give us all a break and give yourself a hand. This common health phenomenon, some marriages has saved. They don't do it down in Washington, which is why they're so depraved. It's fun and full of rhythm. You can play to beat the band, so do yourself a favor. It's something you will savor. Do yourself a favor and give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. You say you've no control when your private parts expand. So give yourself a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give us all a break and give yourself a hand. We know that writing on your range makes a cowpoke real tough and see me snelly strange and all that other manly stuff. Just like football, motorcycle grease, soldiers, guns and beer. You're out to prove that you're okay but boy you're acting weird and you got a big obsession. Afraid that you might die if your sexual aggression won't make some sweet young thing sigh and offer you hips and heart and mind and soul. Do you have to have a power fix to make you feel whole? No one else should have to suffer cause you happen to be strong. Grow up and be responsible for knowing right from wrong and give yourself a hand. We will all applaud you when you try hard as you can so give yourself a hand. Give us all a hand. Give us all a break and we'll give you a hand. Give yourself a hand. Give us all a hand. Give us all a break and we'll give you a hand. Don't put your hand in my pants just cause we're in love. Don't put your hand in my pants. I just want to be hard. Please hold my hand when we kiss. I'm so tired of tugging your wrist so don't put your hand in my pants just cause we're in love. Now you're all going to sing it now when it comes around to get right good. The night is full of stars. My heart is full of love. But romance starts to fade when you grab and grope and tug. Like boy scouts on parade like the army marching band. Your fingers think their crusaders heading for the holy land. Don't put your hand in my pants good just cause we're in love. Don't put your hand in my pants. I just want to be hard. When I asked if you knew how I felt I meant in my heart not under my belt. Don't put your hand in my pants just cause we're in love. I just want to snuggle. You just want to play. Your one hand's on my zipper and your other hand is hey. I say no but you won't stop. You feel in love you say. Well I feel that you're not listening so feel your own okay. Don't put your hand in my pants just cause we're in love. If you've got icy fingers by yourself a glow. As you gaze deeply into my eyes your fingers keep creeping up on my thighs. So don't put your hand in my pants just cause we're in love. Bells are ringing. Birds are singing. It must be spring. You're after my thing. So don't put your hand in my pants just cause we're in love. [Applause] Those were two of Peter Alsop's songs. The first one was called Give Yourself a Hand and the second one was called Don't Put Your Hands in My Pants. You're listening to a spirit and action interview with Peter Alsop. An educator, an educational psychologist, a musician and a person who has no fear to go and talk about the things that so many other people shirk from. You know Peter I think you get away with talking about sex in your songs better than anyone else I know. You know sex, money, death, all those taboo subjects you seem completely unabashed in dealing with them and even though you get a nervous Twitter out of many of us as you actually say what everyone's thinking you do it in such a healthy and helpful direction with such a healthy, helpful goal. Still I recognize that many people just might not distinguish between talking about sex for a healthy reason and just general trash sex talk. Do you end up having people coming up to you and telling you hey you can't talk about that? I think I don't hear from those people. You know I think that the people I hear from the ones who are going boy am I glad someone is talking about this stuff. I guess the other ones that they feel like you know they're kind of like whatever if they're nervous about it they're not going to probably get in touch with me and I rarely get stuff for people that aren't feeling negative about stuff and when I do I actually enjoy having a dialogue with them because I don't feel that there's any bad people out there I feel like they have that attitude because of whatever life experiences they've had and that's why they're bringing it up. Well let's continue on to the last song that you've picked out to share with our audience. All the crowd listening to this program and in true Peter Alsop fashion it's going to take us into thoughtful and challenging territory. You go all out in this song and you use the P word. You actually say poop. Isn't it ungodly to say the word poop? I mean who invented it? God could have arranged a different system I'd say for your own body. He must have had a in this case of my God I think God's more likely to be a he when we're talking about poop. And under five years old. Oh and under five years old exactly. So I don't know there's a woman named Emma Goldman the turn of the century who said if they're not dancing with this revolution I'm not coming. I like the quote because it's about being playful and having fun and that there's so much stuff going on in the world that's so serious and so scary that we a lot of times lose some of the humor and the lightness of our experience as we're going through it. You know and it doesn't mean that we're making fun of the serious stuff. It just means that it brings stuff up that is important for us no matter our age of life. One of the last kids record I had I put out called uh oh and it was for kids in preschool so I talked to lots of preschool teachers. So what do you want me to address? I got my own list but add to it here and help me out. And then the bunch of them said something about toilet training so they said well I suppose I could write a song about toilet training if not me then who you know. So I wrote poop goes the weasel which is number one I kid sex him radio for like six months. I had a wonderful search home mom called me from her cell phone. She was upset. I'm really sorry man what's the problem. She said well I got my five year old in the car with his friend and that came on the radio poop goes the wheel but he laughs so hard he wet his pants. I'm now taking him home to get some dry pants so we can go back to school. So great great. Can I use that for my promo? Poop goes the weasel it's pretty funny song. Well what's it about? It's toilet training song and you've heard pop goes the weasel probably so we just I guess what the way we should do is you should go out and let the people sing along to this if they want to. I want to thank you for having me on this show. I appreciate it very much and the work you're doing out there seems wonderful creating a forum for this kind of stuff and I sure appreciate your support of my music and just let him know Peteroffup.com is the place to come and you can find it. You can hire me whatever you want. I'm available. Well thanks to you Peter you know I think this music you've been creating has just been the most enjoyable way for me to learn to grow over the decades that I've been listening to you and I think it's just wonderful. All of the children that you've influenced that you've given options to that you've inspired and it's not ideas so much. It's the spirit that's behind all of your music that makes it fun and deep and touching all at the same time. So thanks again for your music, for learning and growing you inspire. We're going out with Puke Goes the Weasel and its buyer guest Peter Elsa. Thanks again Peter. Bye Mike thank you. All around the toilet bowl Big Monkey chased the weasel but weasel has the diapers on. Goes the weasel. Big Monkey takes the diapers off wipes the weasel's bottom puts clean diapers on and then. Goes the weasel. Puke goes down the toilet bowl Big Monkey tells the weasel so weasel takes the diapers off. Weasel climbs up on the hole but weasel doesn't have to go. Well maybe weasel has to go. Then weasel gets the feeling. And weasel knows it's time to go. Goes the weasel. In the water down the hole that is where the poop goes weasel knows the feeling now. Goes the weasel flush the toilet down the bowl. Goes the weasel. That was poop goes the weasel. And that's all the music that Peter picked out but he allowed me to pick one more out for you. So we're going to listen to a final song by my guest Peter Elsa. This one is called When Jesus Was a Kid. It's Christmas time again and the mall is really weird. Everyone gets stressed out Christmas shopping every year. I have to stop and wonder looking at my Christmas list. When Jesus was a kid would he be doing this? I know he was a baby but did he ever cry? Did Jesus wear his diapers or were they always dry? Did he use a bottle before he used a cup? Did Jesus throw things on the floor for Mary to pick up? Did Mary ever spank you? Death the Bible say? Did Jesus scream in holler when things didn't go his way? I know he was a baby but I wonder what he did when he was about my age when Jesus was a kid? Did he have birthday parties? I'd like to think he might but then I have to wonder well like could he invite? Were there other kids in bad throats who play tag the way we do? Was he bummed out when his birthday gives said Merry Christmas to? Did Jesus put on sunscreen or did he wear a floppy hat? Living in a desert you can sunburn just like that? And he probably hated eating camel milk with mushy peas or can saviors just get out of eating gross things when they please? And probably hoped his dad would let him have a BB gun. I mean his father Joseph, you know, not the other one. It's not like it's a war tour, Jesus wouldn't hurt a flea. And he'd never warn it anyone, he'd be as safe as me. And if his mother found it, she wouldn't make a scene. She'd never hide it in the attic, no, she was not that mean. He wanted peace on earth and good willed to kids. I mean he was a kid himself so I'm sure he really did. We fight towards and we spill oil. We mess up the stands. A bad kid like Jesus probably wouldn't understand. He'd see us Christmas shoppers trying hard to close our eyes. We're the homeless people sleeping near expenses that we buy. I might be wrong, but I might get too so I might be right. If we ask that kid Jesus is all this stuff all right, can we buy Christmas spirit? If we spend lots of dough, well I think that kid Jesus would just say no. 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 must 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. That was when Jesus was a kid and it was by my guest for today's spirit and action interview Peter Alsop. You can find more about him on his website PeterAlsop.com. But you can also find the link to his site from mine which is NorthernSpiritRadio.org. You can also hear on that site. This program again, other programs find other helpful links. The theme music for spirit and action is "I Have No Hands But Yours" by Carol Johnson. Thank you for listening. I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. You can email me at helpsmeet@usa.net. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is spirit and action. I have no higher call for you than this to love and serve your neighbor. Enjoying selflessness. To love and serve your neighbor. Enjoying selflessness. [Music]