i left a plate by the porch light
i will not wait up
there are no signs of you coming
time has left dust
on the line that connects your
throat to my shore
i left a plate by the porch light
and am shutting the door

i am mending the fence now
and painting it red
in the place where you tore it
when we thought you were dead
but before we could touch you
and fill out our reports
you escaped all our questions
through a hole in the floor

CHORUS
come to me
as you please
you take the sun as your shelter
and the road as your priest
come to me
as you please
drink from this water
and cure your disease

i know what is out there past the outlines of trees
how it is crucial to your becoming to change scenery
but i will not suffer from the marking of time
i put a plate by the porch light and the tapes on unwind

come to me
as you please
you take the sun as your shelter
and the road as your priest
come to me
as you please
drink from this water
and cure your disease

the truth is an anchor that pierces my hand
i won't hold you hostage with calendar plans
no hashmarks or pacing or rants against war
i left a plate by the porch light and am shutting the door

Hello Friends.
So I have been compiling lists of contacts, getting linked on digital calendars, designing stickers, prayer flags and t-shirts, composing NEW songs, hosting touring musicians and playing shows in the Florida and Georgia area. Athens rocked my world this past week. Gainesville is always good to me. Orlando has revealed its sweet side. St. Augustine has given me her orange icing sunsets and handmade chocolates. . . .


I will be touring Florida for March and heading up through Georgia and North Carolina for April.

IMPORTANT: I am using
ReverbNation to manage emails. Please accept my invite to this or you
will lose contact. Enter your zip code and you will receive local show
information.

I continue to build songs for my new album Food, Shelter, Water. Monica of Paleface has introduced me to the wonders of the Pay Pal button and My Book can now be ordered online off of my profile!

http://www.myspace.com/..ChelseaLynnLaBate

Other online merch is coming soon too. Drawings and pendants and flags and match boxes. All of these treasures will help my mission. Many of you have been asking where "I live" and where "I am from". I have quit all side jobs and am making the road my home. Living out of a car/tip jar - off merch sales - and the open doors
and meals of hosts who are kind enough to take us in while on the road.
US meaning Jessica and I. The amazing and ever supportive co-pilot Jessica Ruth Behmer.


I have met more and more people who are freshly out of work. While
the news and the economic predictions are not helping in their efforts
to clear the gloom, I am a firm believer that pain and hard times are the foundation for beauty and compassion.
Art is a gift. Music carries us. This is our collective movement to
simplify and down scale. It's a great time to look at our lives and
evaluate was has been working and what has been excessive. Do all that
you can to stay STEADY through it. ART - EXERCISE- PRAYER CIRCLES -
GARDENING - DANCING. I am finding that my needs are quite simple : Food, Water, Shelter, songs and community.


We are all in this together.
I'll see you out there on the GREAT ROAD.
Chelsea Lynn La Bate
 


A New Song. . . . .

MARCO POLO

where is my wife
where is my home
i've lost my work i'm all alone
the pipes of my life are frozen,
my will to live overthrown

where is our water where is our food
the dirt is starving births no wood
the rice we planted is no good
we have collapsed where we once stood

marco . . .. 
...... ...  ..  ...polo (audience response)


where is my country
where is my psalm
though shall not kill is camouflaged
in the sand paper plains abroad
for the rich mans oil
i gave my son

marco . . .. 
...... ...  ..  ...polo

we've called on the angels for relief
with fingerless hands we've watched them weep
their heads are heavy, eyes deep
silently they share defeat

are you out there, are you far
if i can find the stage, i can find your heart
this roads been heavy, it's been hard
where ther's death, there's a start

marco . . .. 
...... ...  ..  ...polo


Purchase Albums
www.cdbaby.com/seasong

We've set out for Georgia. I haven't been, well, yes of course I've been to Georgia, but not really. Only as a teen, in the mini van, under the walkman, parents getting stoned in the front seat. We were always on our way to somewhere else.

Highway 16 takes us into the heart of Savannah. Moss and red brick. Tennis courts and street parking. Now I have a woman's body. Mascara. We collect free newspapers. We find the hippie granola organic food store then sit for four hours in Sentient Bean, a fantastic coffee shop Lauris Vidal plays at. Wood beamed beauty. Paintings on the wall by Will Penny of plywood lambs, ice cream cones and clouds with faces.  I want to by the lamb. The big white one. Oh the lamb! No Chelsea. That is your food money. I want the lamb!  You can't, what would you do with it? Oh it's little feet! Sit in a place where you can't see it. You can't have the lamb.

The New Familiars are playing in an underground Jazz Club. It's a paying gig, that is the point. We stand on the red carpet and dance through our knees. People are speaking loudly. Glasses are chinking. Everyone is older than us. We don't know where to stand. The bathrooms are real nice.

Our host for the night is missing. We are kindly taken in by Marcus of The Train Wrecks. We tear the cushions of the couch and make a huge raft in the living room. I pop in my ear plugs and spend the whole night trying to keep my legs at the same level as my shoulders.

Eric-Scott speaks fluent French and drives a Miata. His eyes are sparkly. He tells me I should take my busted lap top parts before my warranty is up. He spends two hours in the kitchen feeding the musical army. There is lots of bacon which keeps me in the living room. He cooks my eggs separately. I devour them after jumping rope. Jump roping. Sweet southern air. Happy lungs.

In Athens we talk to artists in the parking lot of Grit. Someone tells me to go to Chicago in the summer time.

I need a tour vehicle. I don't like the idea of having a hatchback where all of my gear is exposed.  I want a trunk - a huge Cadillac trunk attached to two front seats. Yes, a two seater with a huge mafia, lockable trunk.

Why are we still driving gas cars? The cell phone shrunk from a brick to a fingernail in 5 years and we are still driving these war machines around.

In Athens I play at the Globe. Manager Brent bent over backwards to help out with busted sounds. My pick up was smashed. How professional of me. I am sweating and my nerves are shot and I still have two hours of playing to a room full of people eating mashed potatoes.

G-Love's Tour bus is outside- it is huge and blocks out our view of the sky. People are kind and buy CD's and the bartenders feed us and there is lots of clapping. Athens.

It's Valentine's Day in Florida. I am wearing cut off shorts and a cotton skull tee. The sun is awkwardly bright and there is the weird feeling that the environment is not catering to what is supposed to be a case of winter depression.

Am I nostalgic for the dark tunnel of winter? For excessive hours in bed? For that wool covered hunching over? For the pasty skin and tea cup clawing? Am I bypassing an important chapter of heavy self reflection and sad song writing?

Maybe.

Oh these palm trees. This pastel fuzz. These white puffy clouds.

Trevor Exter on the speakers.


I've played about 8 shows here in Florida in the past 6 days. Orlando, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, DeLand. . . .and have met brilliant new friends. Ate chocolate chip cookies overlooking the water on the old fort. Hoola hooped on oak leaf blankets. Written poetry in French Bakeries. Laughed with my dear friend Jessica Ruth Dean Behmer Panda Power.


Paleface and Mo were just here on a Florida tour. They slept out with the roosters. Benyaro is here now. Fellow singing Gypsies. I swoon to see people brave enough to take their songs on the road - despite the calculations that don't always add up.


I am booking. Booking. Spread Sheets. Phone Calls. This is new since New York. New York was not SPACE and DISTANCE sensitive. I was in one place.


How far is it to Decatur Georgia.
Where the hell is Decatur Georgia?
I think there are nice people there.


Mason Jennings is coming to St. Augustine and the Harvest of Hope Festival is happening for the first time in praise and support of local farmers. Oh good.


It is Valentine's Day in Florida and I promised the dogs that I would walk them twice today but all this booking is eating the day and Trevor Exter is playing, the pine trees are swaying, and I need to do some cardio. Jump rope.


It's Valentine's Day and I'll admit, I've been picking through the pawn shop a bit. Pondering lost love, old love, missing love, long distance love, trampled love. Yes, playing those film reels.

so it has snowed here and let me tell you, this FLORIDA girl almost jumped out of her bikini lined skinned yesterday. IT'S SNOWING! IT'S SNOWING! do other people feel this the first snow? i was in meditation and had to keep quiet so it created this little bomb in my chest-alot of pressure, pleasure, tsssssssssssssss, POW!

i saw snow that had collected on this trash can lid in a PERFECT CIRCLE like a white, icy pizza. i just stopped in my tracks and had a moment with it.

and then there was the christmas tree made entirely our of christmas balls- small and in the corner stage at pete's candy store. it was working so hard to be the shiniest ever, and was really proud. i fell completely in love and almost forgot to listen to the musicians. of which there were many lovely ones. why are there so many guys at open mics? where are the girls?

my giant, full length worm suit/sleeping bag has proved fit for keeping me sunny on the inside in the midst of snow covered sidewalks. cashmere gloves given to me. no hat yet.

i played a few songs at a friend's benefit for luekemia and cancer patients and WOW what a talented and uplifting crew! good friends, positive spirit. wood floors and triangle shaped corn chips. candles. a mountain of winter coats. water out of plastic cups. a bathroom with white christmas lights.

i'm working on a list of touristy winter must sees in nyc. ice skating, rockefeller tree, the shop window installations. .  . .anyone want to play? seize the snowflake day? join an elf parade? oh the joy.

don't miss the upcoming show. shadow puppets and lights a glow, glow.

 

 

so fall is slinking away and my down coat  is making its debut. this thing is head to toe kermit the frog green and leaves me feeling like a giant worm. as i step into the ice air i shout "activate the worm!" the worm gets warmer. this will be my second real winter. this time i know about wool, about signing up a good friend for snuggles, about ginger tea injected into the vein like an iv.

so the bigger steps to these musical endeavors are beginning. flyers. links. the phone game. one degree of separation. i'll gladly throw all of my coins in the song bucket! music is good friends and circles and BRAVERY. it's being inside and out at the same time. guts and sparkly eyes. sharing and surrendering. meditating and working. taking a stance and passing through. listening and saying at once.

i'm preparing for the show at integral. hoping to convert the room into a theater with dancing creatures and special guests. flickering lights. surprises. lay down the lines and then dance over them right? the goal is fun, fun, fun. magic, magic, magic. peace, peace, peace.