<![CDATA[<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<h2 align="left">Utah's 1995 Heart letter-</h2>
<h2 align="left"><font size="-1"> </font><font size="-1">Utah Phillips and Joanna
Robinson <br>
Post Office Box 1235 <br>
Nevada City, CA 95959 <br>
October 6, 1995 </font></h2>
<p align="left"><font size="-1"> Dear Friends, <br>
This is U. Utah Phillips, a.k.a. Bruce, talking to you from the home front.
The simple story is this: Several years ago I was to have my left hand operated
on for Dupetryn's contracture. A pre-operative electrocardiogram revealed that
my heart was in serious trouble. Echocardiograms, angiograms, and angioplasts
followed. I was told (in fact, shown) that a good part of my heart doesn't work
anymore. Apparently I had had a heart attack some time ago (unknown to me) and
a bunch of muscles died. I said to the cardiologist, "It must have been some
lousy day, to miss a heart attack." Well, there it is: congestive heart failure.
In early September, my friend and doctor Brad Miller examined me just before
I was to leave town on tour. Brad's examination revealed a very slow heartbeat
and very low blood pressure. So I canceled the tour -- and the next, because
we were unable, through shuffling medication to arrest the major symptoms. Now
I know that there are any number of alternative therapies besides "western"
medicine out there. But remember, I live in Nevada City, California, the new
age capital of the western world. There are so many healers here that it makes
me sick. So don't think for an instant that I lack therapeutic advice. I get
it all, from mushroom tea to channeling Rudolf Steiner. For now, I'll stick
with basics - sound consistent, well monitored program of medication, exercise
(mostly walking), stress reduction, and diet (I'm well into Dr. Dean Ornish's
regimen and find it more than adequate). I am clear about this. The coronary
damage can't be undone. In my risk category, 50% of the people who have this
condition live past five years. 50% don't. The idea, then, is longevity -- getting
into the 50% who do. After talking a lot with the doctor, the cardiologist,
and most of all with my wife, Joanna Robinson, I have decided to stop touring
and to reduce performing to a minimum. </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="-1">I know that this is a chore and a trial for those
who have put so much effort into producing upcoming shows, especially for my
old friends and comrades at Fleming, Tamulevich & Associates who do the booking.
I despise canceling. But I'm at a place where very difficult choices have to
be made. So I'm making them. Joanna and I will have to figure out another way
to make a living. Prospects? Well, there's the song book which, with the help
of the Rex Foundation, is nearing completion. Also, recording projects, one
with Ani DiFranco, another with Rosalie Sorrels, and hundreds of hours of live
performance tapes (currently being reviewed and indexed by Mark Ross in Butte,
Montana) that might be boiled down to self-produced recordings. How about a
syndicated radio show of interviews, ruminations, live recording excerpts, and
rational politics? (By the way, this would be a good time to ask that live recordings
of past performances be sent to me here at home.) Also, how about just plain
storytelling? I'd like to engage that world, find out what's going on, and add
my two bits. In any case, there's more than enough to do. And a lot to get done
that I need to see to before it can't get done anymore. </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="-1">I'm leaving a trade which I love very much. When
I left Utah over 45 years ago, I had only a slim hold on what folk music was,
$75 in my pocket, a head full of songs and stories, and no prospects. When I
landed at Cafe Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York, I found gradually that I
had stumbled into a family that was in fact transcontinental. I found great
numbers of people who, as part of their pattern of social responsibility, were
committed to the task of making sure that folk music existed in their communities.
I found singer-circles, camp-outs, picnics, concert programs, festivals great
and small, celebrating a common heritage of song. And I found my community,
singers and makers of songs, plying the axis from San Diego Folk Heritage to
the Denver Folklore Center to the Ark in Ann Arbor to Lena's and beyond, eking
out a bare living sharing what we had together, but, most of all, in each other's
company. A family behaving like a family -- good, bad, every shade in between.
But mostly of all a community of sentiment in which people substantially cared
for each other. Listen. For 25 years now I have been part of a family which
has given me a living -- not a killing, but a living -- a trade without bosses
where I felt partners with those working in organized folk music, a trade in
which I could own what I do, make all of the creative decisions, be free to
say and sing whatever I chose to, courting criticism from peers and loving friends.
Front porch, kitchen, back yard, drunk and sober, young and old, coast-to-coast
folk music, a world in which I discovered that I don't need power, wealth, or
fame. I need friends. And that's what I found and still find. You folkies out
there! Comrades! We've created together a whole small world of song, story,
travel, love and food, face to face, in every corner of the land, mutually supportive
and happening at a sub-industrial level, below the level of media notice. Hooray
for us! Who needs the "entertainment" industry? Who needs mass media? Small
is beautiful! To hell with the mainstream. It's polluted. What purifies the
mainstream? The little tributaries up in the wilderness where the pure water
flows. Better to be lost in the tributaries known to a few than mired in the
mainstream, consumed with self-love and the absurdity of greed. Please. Don't
give our world up. It needs to grow, yes -- but subtly, out, through, under,
quietly, like water eroding stone, subversive, alive, happy. </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="-1">There are many places I want to be that I will
miss. Many people. Many an odd, quirky story waiting to be found, sung, told
as the road unfolds. I've been there. Now it'll have to come here. I'll keep
most of the irons in the fire, writing, talking. You younger ones who want to
take your song over the road, let's talk. Anyone who wants to be in touch, I'm
at P.O. Box 1235, Nevadea City, Calif. 95959. I don't have an "e-mail" whatever,
but maybe someone here abouts does. If so, have them pass missives along to
me when they see me on the street. </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="-1">Love, U. Utah Phillips </font></p>
<p align="center"><a href="why.html">[Why]</a> <a href="guestbook.html">[Guestbook]</a>
<a href="loafersglory.html">[Loafer's Glory]</a> <a href="index.html">[Home]</a>
<a href="tapecd.html">[Tapes & CDs]</a> <a href="utah.html">[Utah Phillips]</a>
<a href="contact.html">[Contact]</a></p>
</body>]]>