March 27, 2007: The Gods Of Travel

It seems the travel gods have been angry in the last month. A journey that usually takes a couple hours takes twelve, a bag that has been with you since you were in another life suddenly disappears, flights get cancelled, delayed and rerouted, the rental car is in a spot about a quarter mile from the desk where you picked up your keys, the roads are closed, the tolls are heavy, the seat doesn’t recline, the attendants are surly, and security procedures are lessons in tedium and humiliation. But someone’s got to do it. It might as well be me. Recently, in a line for security at an airport I don’t recall, a woman was staring at me as I did the circular weave and flow to get to the front to earn the privilege of taking off my shoes while being bleated at to take my laptop out of its bag. She finally leaned over and said to me, "Aren’t you Rosanne Cash?" I said yes, and she said "I thought it was you but I kept looking around for your entourage, and when I didn’t see one, I thought it just couldn’t be you." I looked around and pointed to my husband, John Leventhal (aka Mr. L), in another line, and my manager, Danny Kahn, in a third line. (We try to lose each other in airports sometimes just to liven it up. It’s always exciting to see who will make it to the gate on time, and who will come heaving and sweating onboard just before the doors close with a Starbucks and a sour expression.) "There they are," I said. "My entourage."   

Was it Maya Angelou who said you could tell a person’s character by how they reacted to lost luggage and rain? If so, the characters of my entourage of two are impeccable, beyond criticism, nearly godlike in their utter unflappability. I really don’t know what I would do without these two men. They are bossy, opinionated, urgent, argumentative, smarter than anyone else in the room (unless Kurt Andersen is in the room), and the two pillars of my entire life.

So, friends, raise a glass to Mr. L and Mr. K, without whom I would be an errant messenger girl on the hard highways of music and life.

As some of you may know, Capitol Records underwent a massive re-structuring and I am changing labels. I loved my friends at Capitol very much, and it’s always sad to end professional relationships that were productive and inspiring. I was there for eleven years, and I learned a lot and had a lot of fun making three records for them: "Ten Song Demo", "Rules of Travel" and "Black Cadillac". I am moving to another label within the EMI group, under the leadership of Bruce Lundvall, a gentleman I have known my entire adult life. In a way, it’s like coming home. Bruce was at Columbia when I signed my first contract with them in 1979. I respect him tremendously. I will be under the direct guidance of the wonderful Ian Ralfini, who heads the Manhattan label, my new home. I am very excited about this move, and have made new friends and re-connected with old friends over at Manhattan. It’s a very exciting time. New label, new friends, new record on the horizon. I feel like a beginner, which is the best of feelings.

I am reminded, in my own season of new beginnings, that it is the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I look back at these four years in horror and grief. This war, and the violence that will reverberate for generations, is a mockery of what I hold to be noble about America, and Americans. It is heartbreaking to contemplate the lies, the hidden agendas, the compromise of ideals, the death, destruction and manifest destiny run amuck. I am simplifying my world view and personal philosophy to a legend on a bumper sticker, which I see more and more often of late: "God bless the whole world. No exceptions." Nothing else has worked, so why not try radical love, and relentless acceptance?

Happy Spring, new beginnnings, relentless love, radical acceptance, etc. See you in the security line, or the free-fall zone.

Love from
     
Mrs L
   

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