Speaker 1 00:00:12 You are listening to Right On Radio on Kfa I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Eric Bush. Now on tonight's program, Liz Olds talks with world renowned radio personality. Mark Thompson Heard every morning for 25 years. On the nationally syndicated Mark and Brian Show delivers the lifetime, the story of a lifetime in his memoir. Don't bump the record kid. My adventures with Mark and Brian, don't bump the record Kid offers a fascinating behind the scenes look at morning drive of the celebrities, the studio politics, the passionate fans, and the incredible live music and ingenious comedy bits that pumped life into two and a half decades of entertainment. Every weekday, every weekday morning for generations of listeners all over the country.
Speaker 2 00:01:05 And I'm Josh Weber. In the last part of the hour, Dave Fed talks with Ruby Blue, the author of The Poetry Collection, the Sun, the Moon, the Truth. In addition to her poetry, Ruby is also a lyricist, musician and educator. She headlines the band, red Eye Ruby, a Minneapolis based group that taps into the roots of rock music with funky ump up at Tempo Grooves, all the some more. So stay tuned to right on radio.
Speaker 3 00:01:43 Hello, mark, are you there?
Speaker 4 00:01:45 I am. How are you?
Speaker 3 00:01:47 I'm doing great. Thanks a lot for being a guest here on Right On Radio Tonight.
Speaker 4 00:01:51 Thank you.
Speaker 3 00:01:52 Uh, why don't we start with your reading from your book.
Speaker 4 00:01:56 I am ready when you are.
Speaker 3 00:01:57 We are ready.
Speaker 4 00:02:00 All right. I'm gonna begin with the very first chapter or near the top. Let's do it. Early 1985. One of my favorite things is there is no certainty I could get a phone call that could change everything, good or bad. I never know. Sam Levine. The call came one morning in early February, 1985. It was a call I didn't expect that presented me with a scenario I'd never considered. I was living in Montgomery, Alabama, doing afternoons at Y 1 0 2 fm. In my many years of traveling the radio road, I lived in several beautiful cities, but gun, but Montgomery wasn't one of them. It's not that it was bad, it was just there. I remember Trees and concrete, the memorable cities I lived in had a distinct beauty. Montgomery just wasn't one of them. I was in year 12 of my radio career and by now a seasoned radio entertainer.
Speaker 4 00:03:05 I was number one in afternoon, so going to the mall on weekends was dicey as teenagers who listened to me were there. Not that it was a Beatle riot, but it was enough of a thing that it made me uncomfortable, so I just didn't go. My first taste of radio fame was three years prior in Birmingham, Alabama, where I did nights. At 96 W E R C. I was invited to a high school pep rally and the teacher who invited me took me into the gymnasium and told me to wait by the rafters until they introduced me. The air was thick and stuffy and smelled like sweaty socks. The place was packed with students, the football team, and a microphone standing center court. Some goober stepped up to the mic. Ladies and gentlemen, from 96 W E R C, please welcome Mark Thompson. I started walking out when the roar hit and it shocked me. I didn't realize they would even know who I was, and I admit I was a bit uneasy. I don't remember what I said, but it was basically yay school. I turned to leave as the wall of screams hit me again. Melodramatic, as it may sound, I was never the same, but not in the way you might think. It was my first lesson in the frailty of celebrity. It feels good in the moment, but it doesn't last. Pride is something you can hold onto. Fame isn't.
Speaker 3 00:04:34 That's Mark Thompson reading from his book. Don't Bump the Record Kid, uh, book written by one of the, uh, a member of the Radio Hall of Fame, among other things. Mark, what inspired you to write a memoir right now?
Speaker 4 00:04:49 I didn't mean for it to be a memoir. I was just gonna tell the story of the 27 years that I was with Brian, but I learned to respect the creative process many years ago. And sometimes when you light that creative ball and you study it and you sit with it, you learn to follow it, even if it takes you down a path you didn't expect. So what was just supposed to be the story of Mark and Bryan turned into a full-blown memoir With me going back into my early solo career, my childhood, and the years afterwards, I, I just, I honestly felt like the legacy of Mark and Brian was being forgotten and slipping away, and I wanted to chronicle it.
Speaker 3 00:05:37 What made you love radio?
Speaker 4 00:05:40 When I was, uh, a kid, I couldn't sleep, and it was because of my father. He wouldn't let us turn on any lights in the house at night. So I don't have to tell you what a a 10 year old's imagination can do. When a pitch black house and I, I couldn't sleep, but I learned if I turned on my radio, the light from the dial would illuminate my room enough that I could see the monster that was going to eat me <laugh>. And I would lay there and it worked. I slept and each night I would lay there and I would listen to the radio and listen to the jock's voice, the, the, the tonality. I could hear the, the needle scratch through the vinyl. I could even hear the air conditioner turn on inside the control room. And it was then that I fell in love with what radio was because it became my friend and I wanted to be a part of it.
Speaker 3 00:06:34 And how did you end up getting involved? I mean, I know your love turned into your life's work, basically. So how did, what were the first steps of getting involved in uh, actually doing radio?
Speaker 4 00:06:46 Well, I went and uh, and said I was 16. I went, uh, to every radio station I knew and I said, I want to be a disc jockey. And I was told, well, you can't do that until you've got experience. And of course, it's the chicken of the egg. How do I get experience if you don't hire me? Um, I wound up getting a job at a country station Daytimer, which means they sign on, its sunup, sign off, its sundown. And the guy said, I don't have any on air jobs, but I can hire you to clean up at the end of the day. And then at night after we've signed off, you can practice. And so I took the job and I started as a janitor. I would, you know, empty the trash and wipe out the ashtrays. And then I would go in the control room and I would practice. And it dawned on me that if I rolled tape and recorded my practice, it would sound like I was on the air. So that's what I did. And I took the tape back to the stations that said I couldn't work there, and I gave them the tape. I never physically said the words, I was on the air, but I got hired.
Speaker 3 00:07:53 Uh, what were some of the stations you were, you were in the south, right? Alabama?
Speaker 4 00:07:57 Yes ma'am. Muscle Sholls, Alabama.
Speaker 3 00:08:00 Oh, great, great. I know what that means. <laugh>. Um, you did some radio and then you met your longtime co-host. Uh, but you first met him when you were doing this kind of radio. And how did you meet Brian and, and how did you guys know that you were gonna hit it off as radio talent?
Speaker 4 00:08:22 Uh, I was, uh, I, I was fairly successful at this point, around 85, I've been doing my solo radio personality work and it was going very well. And I got a call from a dear friend, mark St. John. He and I had known each other for years. He was my program director and a dear friend. And he called me and he said, have you ever considered taking on a partner? And I didn't know how to answer cuz I hadn't, I thought I was just gonna do this on my own. That was never a thought that I had. But he said, I've got a guy that, uh, I think you should meet. And he, this guy Brian, was an improvisational comedian out of Chicago. The problem was that he had never been on the air mm-hmm. <affirmative>. He had never been in a radio station. And I thought, how can that work?
Speaker 4 00:09:15 But I agreed to meet with him. And so we sat down and we talked for, for hours. And I really didn't, going into the meeting, I didn't think much about it. I didn't think there was much of a chance, but I liked him. And it wasn't until the very end of our talk when I realized I was gonna do it, when I found out that Brian had the exact same love and respect for the humor of David Letterman as I did. And it was then that I knew I'm gonna give this a try. This could work.
Speaker 3 00:09:49 And what did you do starting out to make it work? I mean, how did you begin? You did a lot of improv over the years, if I'm not mistaken. And how did you get started doing that again and how did you know it was gonna click when you were trying to do the improv and he met you back with the Yes. As they often say an improv. Um, talk more about how that worked.
Speaker 4 00:10:11 Well, we, you know, we, we went on the air the first day and I prepared the show as if I was gonna be alone because I didn't know what to expect from Bryant. He had never been in a radio station and he did a very smart thing. He didn't say much that first show. He sat and he watched and he listened and he observed and he was looking to see where he might fit in. And the show went very well. When he did speak, it was funny. And he was just figuring, it's kinda like driving a car or flying an airplane. You wanna sit in the cockpit before you do it. And then each day gradually he just got better and more comfortable and more comfortable. And right off the bat, we were connected in a way, uh, we would finish each other's sentences. We were traveling along the same comedy road. So it was an instantaneous connection between us.
Speaker 3 00:11:19 And you got very popular and you wanted to work in a major market and then K l o s calls. What was that feeling like when that happened?
Speaker 4 00:11:28 Well, it was unbelievable actually, because in the, you know, in the world of radio, I don't know about other businesses, but Birmingham, where we were, we were number one and we had quite a buzz going. And Birmingham is a medium size market. And so the next logical step is to a large market, something like Atlanta and St. Louis. And both of those cities were vying for our presence in their radio station. And in the middle of that K l o s called. And by taking that job, we skipped a, we skipped a step instead of going to large from a medium, we went straight to major market, which was kind of unheard of. Um, a lot of people didn't give us a chance cuz it was quite leap for us and quite a vote of confidence from Los Angeles and K L O S.
Speaker 3 00:12:27 How long did it take you to jump up to number one? It, it sounded in the book like it happened fairly quickly.
Speaker 4 00:12:34 It did. When we got to k o s, uh, the big act in town was Rick Ds and Rick was, um, the big dog. And Rick did your standard type of mourning radio, very fast paced, a lot of moving parts. Uh, his basic humor was set up, punchline, record, set up, punchline, commercial. And we went in and we didn't do that kind of radio, we didn't have punchlines, we didn't tell jokes. We would deal with scenarios that were funny. And so we wound up doing a very unique kind of morning radio that nobody had really heard in including us because we were making it up as we went. But I think because we were so different from Rick or anybody else in LA and because we were good, um, we hit number one within a year and a half.
Speaker 3 00:13:32 And what was different? Or was it the same between Birmingham and LA what you did as your, uh, well shtick, I don't know if that's a good word or not, but, you know, your routines, what was anything different or did you just stick to the same thing?
Speaker 4 00:13:49 No, it was very different, but not by any design. When we were in Birmingham, we also were doing a standard form morning show. We were doing funny characters saying funny things, reading stories about weird people doing weird things. And we were very good at it and that's why we got the job in la. But when we got to Los Angeles, we worked, we had taken a job at K L O S, which is a classic rock radio station. And I was listening to it as soon as I got to LA and I realized, God, what are we gonna do? I didn't, I didn't know literally half of the songs they played, I didn't know what they were cuz I had never listened to classic rock. And so the very first day we got on the air, I told Brian, we're gonna hit the ground running.
Speaker 4 00:14:38 We don't fit in here, and so we're just gonna do what we do. This is why they hired us. We're, we're not gonna try to fit in, we're just gonna do our thing. And we hit the air and we started making fun of the music. We star and then listeners started calling, yelling at us because we were downgrading their music and then we made fun of them. But we didn't, we weren't rude, we were playful and we were the most hated men in Los Angeles for about the first three months. But the thing of it is, is that even though we were making fun of them and the music, there was, there was a smile in our rudeness. And one of the number one comments I still get to this day is, I hated you guys when you first got here. But the key to it was, they knew our name. Everybody was talking about us because we were not what they were looking for.
Speaker 3 00:15:36 Now you've interviewed a lot of, a lot, a lot of famous people. I'm wondering who were some of the ones that you enjoyed the most?
Speaker 4 00:15:46 Well, I mean, you're right in Los Angeles we met and had a chance to sit down for a couple of hours with many, um, I'll give you two that come to mind. One would be the best. And that was Tom Cruise. He came in when he was doing Interview with a Vampire. And a lot of the big name stars come in with a whole entourage of people. Mel Gibson came in with 15, uh, Tom came in with one, his sister and Tom could not have been more engaging, friendly, funny. He listened. He was serious. He stayed for two hours. He had a blast. And we had a ton of people who worked at the station come in early so that they could take a look at him. And after Tom finished the show with us, he made sure he signed every autograph, took every picture, and said hello to every single person.
Speaker 4 00:16:49 I don't know that I've ever been impressed, more impressed with a big name than I was with, with Tom. And then one of the oddest, uh, that I hated because I'm a fan of Christopher Walken, he was coming in to promote his role in Batman. And I was really excited because I'm a big fan of his work. And he came in and, uh, normally when a guest is brought in, I'll spend the first few minutes making them comfortable. Do you need coffee? Do you want water, whatever. And as I was doing that before we had gone on the air, he looked at me and he said, could you stop talking please, <laugh>? And I, I stared at him thinking that he was joking, he wasn't. So I, so I stopped talking and right above our heads are our studio monitors, which are these giant speakers that we listen to the commercials from.
Speaker 4 00:17:44 That's why we hang 'em from the ceiling. And he pointed at the speakers and he said, could you turn these off, please? And we did. And so we sat in silence for five minutes, no speaking, no talking, no sound, nothing. And I knew then this can't go well. And we got on the air. And it didn't matter how praising the questions were that I asked, he just wasn't having it. He would answer in one or two word answers. So I, I quickly got him out. And the only thing that I can think is that there's a contract in every actor's contract that they have to promote the movie. And I have to think that on that particular day, Christopher just didn't want to be there. And he made sure we knew it.
Speaker 3 00:18:31 We're speaking with Mark Thompson, author of Don't Bump the Record Kid, a Radio Hall of Fame member who, uh, worked with Brian Phelps as Mark and Brian in Los Angeles and prior to that in Birmingham. Um, I'm curious, you write an essay in the back of the book, uh, about being a southern boy mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And I'm wondering what it was like to go from being a southern boy to being in this massive mega city and how the, uh, how that affected you or how you felt about doing that?
Speaker 4 00:19:05 Well, I didn't have any reservations about it. Um, I was excited because this is Los Angeles, but the very first, I mean, it's gotta be the culture shock central city of the world. When I got there, physically got there, we stayed in a hotel right off the 4 0 5 and the 1 0 1 freeway. And I sat on the balcony of my hotel room and I noticed the traffic six lanes going each way. And the shocking part of it is it didn't matter if it was one o'clock in the afternoon or one o'clock in the morning, the traffic never stopped. And I had never seen that. And then the other big part of it being in Los Angeles is that you're constantly reminded you're not in Kansas anymore. I was, uh, gonna meet a friend for breakfast one morning in Santa Monica, and I couldn't find it. And I saw a couple walking alongside the road and I pulled over and I said, I I, I'm trying to find the Rose Cafe.
Speaker 4 00:20:10 And the guy leaned into the window of my car and he said, it's right back here. It's small, it's easy to miss. And he told me how to get there. And I drove off and I was, uh, proud of myself for not making a scene that Jackson Brown had just given me instructions as to how to get to the restaurant. And so you, you have to get used to that cuz you're going to see celebrities, you're going to see places in a city that you've always heard about and seen pictures of, and now you live there. So it is culture shock Central, and you have to get used to it. But on top of that, the traffic LA is a big city and it's dirty and there's people. And so it was a lot to take in, but make no mistake, I loved it. It's one of the unique cities in the world.
Speaker 3 00:21:02 You have a great story about ET and your backyard. Would you share that to, to us? Sure.
Speaker 4 00:21:09 Um, my, uh, my son at the time was six months old when we first moved to to la we were living on Kill Finnan Street in Northridge, uh, a rental. And so after Matthew would get up from his nap, Linda and I would load him in his stroller and take him out. Uh, there was a neighborhood park right down the road from our house. So we would, we would go down there and Matthew out of all the things they had, they had swings and, and all kinds of things. But Matthew was attracted to this Caterpillar thing. It was a kind of a thing you'd climb on. And he ignored all of the other stuff. He would climb on that caterpillar. It had a caterpillar head and a caterpillar town. That's what he loved. So a few months after we had discovered the park and, and Matthew was enjoying the caterpillar, Matthew and I were sitting in the living room one afternoon watching ET on tv, and I wasn't paying much attention, uh, doing something.
Speaker 4 00:22:10 And then I heard Matthew start making noise and pointing at the television. And I looked up, and it was the part of the movie in ET where Elliot was on his bike and ET was in the front basket and Elliot was running from the bad guys. And Elliot rode his bike through a park, a park that had a Caterpillar gymnasium. And I realized then that that scene was filmed not 300 feet from my front door <laugh>. And it's there that you realize, seriously, you're not in Kansas. The movie ET was filmed right there. And my son plays on that gymnasium right there on tv.
Speaker 3 00:22:54 <laugh>. That's great. Uh, what do you attribute your huge success over the years to
Speaker 4 00:23:01 Hard work originality. I never was attracted to doing the same thing everybody else was doing. I was attracted to what I liked and what I thought was funny and what I thought was interesting. And I always prepared a radio show that I would want to hear. And if I'm on the air and somebody's listening to me do that and they don't like it, then they're gonna leave. And I'm fine with that because I'm not looking for you. I'm looking for people that think like I do. And that becomes your fan base. But I don't think it matters what business you're in. Nothing will ever replace hard work. And the key, the key to any successful business person is consistency. It does you no good to be fantastic on Tuesday and mediocre on Wednesday. Consistency is one of the hardest things anybody will do because it never stops. If you're great, it never ends. And those that can do it every day are the winners.
Speaker 3 00:24:13 I've just got a couple minutes Le let's wrap up with you, uh, telling us about what it feels like to have your names on the Walk of Fame, to be in the Radio Hall of Fame. How do these, uh, how do these things make you feel? How do they make you feel at the time? And how do you feel about 'em now?
Speaker 4 00:24:29 You can't, you can't. Look, I I I, I've won many awards in my career and they all mean a lot and, and I love having them. But when I was selected to become a member of the Radio Hall of Fame, that is a very, very small room filled with very few people who were deemed as the best to ever do it in history. And I'm one of them. I'm in that room with Bing Crosby, Abbott and Costello, Lucille Ball, uh, some of the greats. And I'm in that room. There's no words, there's no way to, to say that a redneck kid from muscle shells, Alabama could climb the ladder and be welcomed into the greatest honor that anybody could receive in any form of business. The best to ever do it. I was excited when I was inducted and I am as excited maybe more so today because that they cannot take away from me.
Speaker 3 00:25:43 Well, and congratulations for that. Thank you. And thank you very much for being with us. We've, uh, run out of time here on Right On Radio for, for our interview with Mark Thompson, author of Don't Bump the Radio Kid. I love that title. And, uh, thank you so much for being here with us tonight.
Speaker 4 00:26:01 Thank you, Liz.
Speaker 3 00:26:03 Take care.
Speaker 4 00:26:04 Okay, bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Speaker 0 00:27:32 Welcome
Speaker 5 00:27:33 Back everyone. Hey Feig. And I am really pleased to invite to our studio live, Ruby Blue. Hi Ruby. Hi
Speaker 5 00:27:41 Wake Grandma and grandma, get the kids away from those electronic devices and gather around the radio console everybody, because this is a great show. Ruby's here with her guitar. She's a poet, a lyricist, a musician, a band leader. But right now we're gonna talk about poetry. We're about books. Um, Ruby is just out with a book, the Sun, the Moon, the Truth, our Collection of Her Poetry. So before we have a reading, uh, Ruby, let's talk about your history as a writer and, uh, how you came to be a poet. You talk about this in, in your intro, but, uh, let's, let's hear the story about you in poetry.
Speaker 6 00:28:16 Yeah. I started writing, um, rhymed poetry when I was 12. I read Emily Dickinson and got really inspired. That's serious stuff. Yeah. The way that she, the way that her words kind of click together, right? Yeah. And of course, once I got to college and learned more about this stuff, I learned that I was reading in what people call an I amik pentameter. Right? Sure. Is do, do do kind of thing that she does. So that in the Rhyming kind of inspired me from a young age to write my own poems that kind of did that, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that kind of had that sort of pace and the rhyme and stuff. Um, and then, you know, as I got a little older, I, I got into other poets, like I got really into Ee Cummings Yeah. And Charles Bikowski.
Speaker 5 00:28:58 Oh, Charles Bikowski amazing.
Speaker 6 00:29:00 And so my poetry shifted a little bit, but that, that rhymed poetry. I kept writing it, but then I would just put it to music. Oh yeah. So anyway, so yeah. But I just, I've always loved poetry. There's something, it's just the way it makes me feel. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 00:29:15 <affirmative>, right? Yep. Absolutely.
Speaker 6 00:29:16 Yeah. There's something about it.
Speaker 5 00:29:17 We love our poets here on K F A I. Uh, we're gonna talk a little more about that, how you came to collect these and why. But, uh, with that as an introduction. Yeah. Uh, let's have a reading if you would please, Ruby.
Speaker 6 00:29:28 Yeah. I will read a poem that, um, I like to read this in the fall as the weather's getting cold. It's a little cold now, but I think it's still, I think it's still fits. This poem is called Hello, Mr. Spider. Hello Mr. Spider. I like your pretty legs and the webs you weave with molten string and death. You weave with poison dreams. The Octavian rhythm you stamp into the carpet is archaic embedded. I won't fight. I won't flight. I'll help you find the door. You're a dancer, a prancer, an ethereal prince. You'll find some more warm Mr. Spider cuz there's a chill in the wind. October is coming again. I hope you keep your long legs warm, Mr. Spider and all those hexagon eyes fixed on a glowing dream of summer.
Speaker 5 00:30:17 That's ruby blue reading from her new collection of poems, the sun, the moon, the Truth. Uh, so this was an earlier poem and I know that because first one It's the first one. Yeah. And you've organized your book in a certain way. Tell us how you organized your book and how old were you when you wrote Mr. Spider?
Speaker 6 00:30:34 I wrote that when I was in, I was about, I was in junior college. I was 19. Okay. Yeah. I was a teenager when I wrote that one. And I don't know if it's the earliest piece, actually, that first sort of section I open with that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but really there's a few that are even before that. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:30:53 Yeah. And, and again, you organized this book in a certain way. Tell us what you did here.
Speaker 6 00:30:58 Yeah, so I took, um, poems from different times in my life and I kind of organized them. Um, I organized the, the chapters chronologically. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but the poems are a chronological within the chapters Gotcha. To kind of, cuz I wanted them, I wanted them to flow with each other mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And sometimes if I get too worked up about, oh, this one I wrote first or whatever, it would kind of mess with the flow. Sure. So, sure.
Speaker 5 00:31:20 Yeah. It's like lining up the songs on an album Yeah. Is a certain way. Yep. Yeah. Uh, there's a lot of nature in these early poems. Yeah. Um, is nature a big thing for you in terms of your poetry and your writing?
Speaker 6 00:31:30 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think, um, I, I think that I've always been really inspired by nature. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, and looking at, um, well the, the poem Misty Morning talks about frozen raindrops and ferries and, you know, it's just kind of like, you know, all these different pieces that I, I think make me feel the way that nature makes me feel. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. I think that's kind of the goal.
Speaker 5 00:31:56 Yeah. Yeah. Um, you're, you have your guitar in hand. I do. Um, we're gonna talk about music, uh, but when you were writing, are you thinking of a poem? Are you thinking of your words as poems, as lyrics? How do you, do you draw a line? Is it blurry for you? Does it matter for
Speaker 6 00:32:14 You? Yeah. So yeah, I actually separate them quite a bit. Okay. So, and, and my process for writing songs. So it's very, um, easy for me to sit down and free write poetry that's kind of free verse and doesn't really rhyme or will kind of rhyme randomly. Okay. That's a pretty easy exercise for me to sit down and do that. So what I'll do with my songs, it's more difficult for me to write the kind of like metered rhyming poems. So I will write like a piece that just kind of comes out of me that doesn't rhyme and it's free verse. And then I will actually take that piece when I sit down with my guitar and then write my lyrics based off of the free verse poem. And so that's kind of where this actually, the idea for the poetry book came from. The, uh, there's a poem Pullman here that actually is based off of, um, the song Mockingbird on my Record that I just put out. Yep. And that, that poem is, um, oh, what's the title to it here? Um, it's something about in the Darkness of the Night or in the Dark of the Night, is what it's called In Dark of the Night. In the Dark of the Night. That's what it is. And that this poem, this free verse poem, I took that and I turned that into Mockingbird on the record. And I just pulled different pieces and just made them rhyme.
Speaker 5 00:33:27 Fascinating. So now we have to hear it. Yeah. By the way, I have that album, ladies and gentlemen, boys and Girls. And you can too. And where can they find your music?
Speaker 6 00:33:36 Well, you can find it on any major music streaming platform Of course. Um, I've got it up on Apple Music, Spotify title. I just, anywhere that you stream music, it's there. Yeah. Um, and you can also go to my website, redeye ruby.com. Wow.
Speaker 5 00:33:51 Awesome.
Speaker 6 00:33:52 Yep. And it's, it's there as well. We're
Speaker 5 00:33:54 Gonna talk about where to get this book too. Yeah. And your poetry. Yeah. But since we introduced this idea of this poem, darker than Night, let's hear that. Okay. Um, yeah.
Speaker 0 00:34:03 Wonderful.
Speaker 6 00:34:08 It's a tune called Mockingbird
Speaker 7 00:34:19 In the Dark of the Night. I saw you and stillness. Anna Gli in your eyes are still silent. Cause the city is dying now. The darkness shin, the, um, no Pacific Rose Rolling. You can have me anywhere. The dog you warm in the pale and we've got no one. So just kiss me here. Yeah. These melodies, they ring through the darkness and is inside me, whether I'm here or I'm there. Sweet. The sky. The, you were warm in the pale. And we've So just kiss me here tonight, everybody.
Speaker 8 00:38:33 Hey.
Speaker 5 00:38:35 Fantastic. That was Ruby Blue singing Mockingbird from her latest album based on a poem of her from her book, the Sun, the Moon, the Truth. I was following along Ruby's vet. Fascinating to look at the poem while you were singing Yeah. And to see what you pulled out. Yeah. I wonder if we should give the people a taste of the poem, at least the first thing, uh, while everything is still fresh, let Yeah. Can you find that it's some peace? Oh yeah. Yeah. 72, I believe. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, we'll talk a little bit more about how you do that, by the way, nailing the bar courts. I just started playing guitar a couple years ago, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not that good. That was beautiful, by
Speaker 6 00:39:17 The way. They're tricky. Thank you. Very lucky. Thank you. I lo I just that I wrote that right. Um, in April of 2020. Ah, and it's kind of about sneaking off in the woods with, with an old boyfriend. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, um, all right. Well, should I, should I read a little bit of the poem? Let's
Speaker 5 00:39:33 Do that. I think that'd be nice having just heard the music.
Speaker 6 00:39:35 I'll do, I'm gonna do the, the first two stanzas. Perfect. Okay. It was the dark of the night when I met my estranged lover in the woods. The sounds of songbirds rang through the stillness, and I knew it was him that was singing a Mockingbird. My love and his melodies rang through the darkness. He grew a mustache when he was away and his body was warm in the pale light of that waxing crescent moon. Happy to see me. He took me in his arms in the deep, dark cold of that still and forbidden night.
Speaker 5 00:40:10 It seems wrong to stop there. Do you wanna keep going? Sure, please.
Speaker 6 00:40:14 The people were shut in their houses. The city closed down. Citizens jobless a virus was spreading in dark, empty streets and a melancholy stillness sang through the night, the sounds of that Northern Pacific Rolling by. We drink Jim Beam in the moonlight, waxing, poetic remembering. And I can still smell pine needles, the dirt sticking to my skin as you held me. You always inside me, both of us covered by the still of the air are skin intertwining in the deep dark still of the night.
Speaker 5 00:40:46 Thank you, Ruby. Ruby Blue. Reading from the sun, the moon, and the Truth. So when those words are coming out, and I think you indicated that you often write quickly mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, then you probably go back and edit mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, do, are you hearing music? Are you thinking music? We, we, we started touching on this and I know you said you keep them separate. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I'm just mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, I can't believe it must be hard to do. I guess I'll say that.
Speaker 6 00:41:09 You know, it's the, the way, like, I think when I first started reading EE Cummings Hmm. I started to develop like this really appreciation for the way that words roll off the page mm-hmm. <affirmative> and the way that they kind of just naturally roll off our tongues, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And so when I write like that, I'm really just thinking about the way they fit together, just being spoken. Okay. And then I don't imagine a melody at all until I pull them out and put them in kind of the Emily Dickinson style. Yeah. Da da da, you know? Yeah. In the dark of the night I saw you, you were, you know, whistling a lullaby. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's not until I, I put it into those constraints that I'm able to be like, there's a melody, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:41:56 A question happened here. Uh, musicians, writers ask mu uh, musical writers is what comes first. The lyrics are the music.
Speaker 6 00:42:05 Yeah. Good question. For me, it's almost always the lyrics. It is. Okay. Because it's an idea. It is to me, and this is just me, but since I'm a writer first Okay. I started writing before I started making music. So the melody, the, the, the words are a the melody is a vehicle for the words from in my mind. Like, I, I, I'm not gonna, the melody is gonna be different if the words are different, right? Sure. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a melody that sounds different if I'm talking about something happy versus something sad. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:42:36 Perfect. Perfect. Um, I hear Northern Pacific. Yeah. When I think of the old train station in Bismarck, North Dakota, my hometown and
Speaker 6 00:42:45 Yeah. And my
Speaker 5 00:42:46 Hometown and Ruby's hometown <laugh>. Uh, is that what you're thinking of? Is that what we
Speaker 6 00:42:49 Yeah, yeah. I, well, the, this poem is actually about a specific night. Ah, and, and we sat drinking Jim Beam in the moonlight. And it was right by, there was trains that were going Yeah. Over. Yeah. Us over. I don't know. And I just remember sitting there drinking Jim Beam and Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:43:06 You know, I grew up very close with those train tracks. I heard 'em all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:43:09 Yeah. It's loud. It's
Speaker 5 00:43:11 Super loud. Yeah. <laugh>. Uh, so how did you come from Bismarck to Minneapolis and what, what was your, uh, journey there?
Speaker 6 00:43:19 Yeah. I came here in 2012 to go to the U of M. Nice. Yep. Yeah. It was either University of Montana or University of Minnesota. And I came here. I kind of wanted the, I wanted the big city life, you know? Right. Yeah. The big city of Minneapolis was shine and bright, you know, when I was growing up in North Dakota. And yeah. I came here in 2012 and I started going to the U and I just never really stopped
Speaker 5 00:43:41 <laugh>
Speaker 6 00:43:42 <laugh>. I went to the U for like seven years. No, that's right. And then finally I was like, okay, I think I, this is very expensive. I need to be done here. Yeah,
Speaker 5 00:43:48 That's true too. <laugh>. Uh, when did you pick up a guitar?
Speaker 6 00:43:51 I picked up a guitar, well, actually I first picked up a guitar when I was 11. My mom put myself and my twin sister in classical guitar lessons
Speaker 5 00:44:00 At 11. Isn't that cute?
Speaker 6 00:44:01 Yeah, it was really cute. And she went into mortgage lending <laugh>. And I am a guitar player, <laugh>. So it's kind of like, you know, you throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. Yes. For me, guitar stuck. Yeah. But I, I kind of thought guitar was boring and I was like, oh, I don't wanna play this. This is dumb. And so I stopped playing it when I was, I played, I, I played, it was, I think, and maybe it was nine to 11 that I played, and then I took a break. And then when I got to be 13, 14, I discovered Jimmy Hendrix and Blues music. Ooh. Wow. And then of course I was like, I'm gonna play guitar, you know, cuz it's cool. Right, right. Of course, once I, as a teenager, it was no longer just something my mom wanted me to do. It was now something that I actually felt called to do. Yeah. Yeah. Then playing and then I, I took a little bit of a break, you know, a few times as a teenager, but I really got back into playing when I was 20 and never stopped.
Speaker 5 00:44:47 When did the performance start?
Speaker 6 00:44:49 When I was 20.
Speaker 5 00:44:50 When it's 20.
Speaker 6 00:44:51 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And my first performance, you might know this, is that the walrus in Bismarck? Oh
Speaker 5 00:44:55 Yeah,
Speaker 6 00:44:56 Of course. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And it's, it's still there. Yeah. It's been a longstanding institution. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:45:00 Wow. Good for you. I hope they enjoyed you. They liked you.
Speaker 6 00:45:02 Yeah. I, I mean, who's to say it back then? Right. <laugh> <laugh>. They were certainly kind to have me up there. I'll say that.
Speaker 5 00:45:09 Right, right. Um, and you are a teacher? Yes. An educator.
Speaker 6 00:45:14 I
Speaker 5 00:45:15 Am a music teacher. Yeah. Yeah. You wanna tell us a little
Speaker 6 00:45:17 Bit about that? Yeah, yeah. I teach, um, well, I've, I've been at Twin Town guitars teaching private music lessons now for about, well, th coming on three years mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but I also, part of my, the U of M stuff, um, I ended up getting a master's in education, elementary education. So I, um, have been really enjoying, uh, teaching elementary school kids. Mm. And you know, I used to teach like third grade or fourth grade, I'd be like a general teacher. But since, uh, since I've kind of finished the Masters, it's opened up my ability to just go and be a music teacher. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so actually just picked up a position at, um, Barton Elementary School teaching K five Music. Yay. Which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 5 00:45:57 Congratulations. Aren't they lucky? Yeah. That'll be fun.
Speaker 6 00:45:59 I'm excited. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 5 00:46:01 So let's go back to the poetry Yeah. And talk about, um, how people can find your book and how it was published. Let's tell that story.
Speaker 6 00:46:09 Yeah. My parents have a publishing company. Fascinating. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I could have like done the thing, like put the book together and pitched it to people and done all that work, but I wanted it to be, you know, my, I grew up with my parents publishing books. Yeah. I grew up watching them. Oh, great. Publish stuff. Right. That's wonderful. And I thought, I want, I want them to publish my, you know, like I wanted to be me now. Yeah. Like, I wanna watch <laugh>. I wanted, I want them to do this for me. Right. <laugh>. So my mom was a huge help. My dad is a huge help too. Um, but my mom really did a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of helping me format it. Mm-hmm. Nice. And getting things Yeah. That she's an InDesign master. Oh
Speaker 5 00:46:46 Yeah. Great. Well, good job Mom and dad. Yeah. Uh, and that's Smoky Water Press. Yes. In
Speaker 6 00:46:51 Bismarck. Yeah. And they have, um, a lot of stuff they, Dakota book net is theirs as well, and they sell a lot of, um, North Dakota authors Oh. On their website. Nice. Cool. And so, smokey Water Press and Dakota Book net are very closely related. And you can purchase my book on Dakota book net as well.
Speaker 5 00:47:08 Dakota book net. Everyone. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Uh, when we have poets on the show, we like to ask 'em how they work. Um, we've gotten into this a little bit. Uh, so, uh, do you write all the time? Do you get up in the morning and write, uh, do you carry a notebook with you? Uh, are you inspired? Is that when you write, or do you think I need some lyrics? I got, you know, I gotta put, put a song together. How does it work?
Speaker 6 00:47:30 Yeah. I sometimes I feel like poems are like these just little spirits that float around and I just grab 'em sometimes <laugh>.
Speaker 5 00:47:36 Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:47:37 When I feel inspired, they'll just come to me. Yeah. And sometimes I have a pen and paper and sometimes I don't mm-hmm. <affirmative> and hopefully I, you know, I, I like, I like my phone cuz a lot of times I'll just pull up my notes app and just, and just get it in there right before it's gone. Yep. But sometimes I lose it and it's gone. I'll think, oh, that's a great idea. I'm gonna write it down. And then I don't write it down and then it just, poof, it's gone. Yeah. Um, but I, you know, I I I've heard a lot of people say, especially novelists, that writing is a lot of work mm-hmm. <affirmative> and that they sit down and they write from nine to five, and that's what they do. Yep. Um, I, you know, I'm not like that with poetry. I mean, poetry of course is much more whimsical. Um, but no, I, I really just write when I want to. Okay. It's very much just, I wanna do this, I'm gonna do this right now. A lot of times as if I'm feeling extra emotional. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.
Speaker 5 00:48:21 When you put this book together and you arranged it chronologically, roughly speaking and, and, and, and sections, did you feel like there were gaps? Or, um, on the other hand, did you have so much? Did you, were you winnowing things? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 6 00:48:34 <affirmative>? Oh, I was definitely winnowing stuff. Yeah. Okay. I was winnowing stuff, but it was also, I, I mean, I'll be honest, it was a very painful process to do this
Speaker 5 00:48:42 Book <laugh>. Wow. Oh, <laugh>.
Speaker 6 00:48:43 Because I went back, you know, I thought, oh, it's such a cute idea. I'll go and find all the poems I've ever written since I was 16, 17 years old and put them in a book. But what I didn't anticipate, you know, my mom came to visit and she brought this huge box of old writings from high school. Wow. And some of that stuff I was going through and I was like, I don't know if I was ready to uncover that memory. Right. Like, some of these writings were very like,
Speaker 5 00:49:06 Oh,
Speaker 6 00:49:07 Okay. Like, there's that memory that I repressed. Great.
Speaker 5 00:49:11 I understand. I want very little to do with my teenage years. I'd rather not even think about them. That's
Speaker 6 00:49:16 A good point. Yeah. I'm glad I did it though. Yeah. You know, but there were certain things that I did not use for that reason that I was like, I, there's no way I'm putting this in print. These
Speaker 5 00:49:24 Are very personal poems. Yeah. Uh, did you have trouble and you just addressed that, um, when, when you put things in, um, they were about yourself, so you could be as vulnerable as you wanted. Yeah. Um, how about when it came, when it comes to other people, um, even if you don't mention people directly, you allude to them. Yeah. The song we just heard. Yeah. Um, how did you curate other people in your poems in this book?
Speaker 6 00:49:48 Yeah. You know, there's some superstars in the poetry book, <laugh> people that just keep showing up. Right. But it's interesting because sometimes, you know, I, I don't know if if people necessarily, um, know who they are, if they were to go through and, and okay. Read the poems, maybe, maybe like a couple ex-boyfriends would go, oh, that's totally about me. Right. One in particular because he, he read a lot of my poetry.
Speaker 5 00:50:10 She probably thinks this poem is about him. Right.
Speaker 6 00:50:13 He's so va Yeah. But the truth is, it probably is if he thinks it is
Speaker 5 00:50:17 <laugh>.
Speaker 6 00:50:17 <laugh>. Yeah. I, I think in my poetry, I've always tried to capture, um, just kind of like people's generous human spirits. Yeah. You know, and even if I'm mad at somebody or I don't like them, I, I try not to write Ill words about others. <laugh>, I don't
Speaker 5 00:50:31 Know. There's no nasty songs about people or,
Speaker 6 00:50:33 I, I try to keep it, I try to keep the vibes like pretty, like loving as much
Speaker 5 00:50:38 As I can. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Um, we've just got the two minute warning. Can you believe this, ladies and gentlemen? We're already at the two minute warning. Wow. Um, so humor, there's humor in these poems. Is humor important to you in your writing?
Speaker 6 00:50:52 Uh, yeah.
Speaker 5 00:50:53 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it, it pops out. I, I laughed at a few of these. Yeah. The Palmer Bar one, um, <laugh>. You probably know that one by heart.
Speaker 6 00:51:01 Yeah, I do.
Speaker 5 00:51:02 Okay. What's the story? Go ahead and recite it and then tell us why. Where the heck this thing came from?
Speaker 6 00:51:07 The, the, the Palmers one
Speaker 5 00:51:09 Palmer's Bar. Page
Speaker 6 00:51:10 80, um, page 80. Here we go. Yeah,
Speaker 5 00:51:12 Here we go. Yeah. You, you won't need to read it too closely cuz you got it memorized.
Speaker 6 00:51:16 Uh, I, I won't smoke pot in the Palmer's bathroom. I won't smoke pot in the Palmer's bathroom. I won't smoke pot in the Palmer's bathroom.
Speaker 5 00:51:22 That's the poem. Kids <laugh>. Yep.
Speaker 6 00:51:23 Yep. So we had a, we had a residency, redeye Ruby, my band had a residency at Palmer's Bar.
Speaker 5 00:51:29 How cool
Speaker 6 00:51:29 Is that? And um, it was fun. It was a fun time for the band. And, and there was, um, you know, I think that throughout the band there was maybe some temptations in the bathroom. Sure. And that's all I'll say. I
Speaker 5 00:51:40 Can't believe that.
Speaker 6 00:51:41 Yeah. Not of me. Of course.
Speaker 5 00:51:42 Okay. We're gonna wrap it up. Yeah. And I, we wanna ask you if you can tell us anything about the band or you playing anytime soon or anything else we should know. Give us the websites and then we're gonna say
Speaker 6 00:51:50 Goodbye. Yeah. So, um, we are playing at the first Avenue, seventh Street entry on February 2nd. Okay.
Speaker 5 00:51:56 Yep. February 2nd everyone.
Speaker 6 00:51:57 Yep. And you can find more of our
[email protected]. Red
Speaker 5 00:52:01 Eye ruby.com. Yep. And the book, smokey Water Press. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> the sun, the moon, the Truth. Yep. What a treat to have Ruby Blue here in the studio. Maybe we'll have you back someday. Wouldn't that be nice?
Speaker 6 00:52:11 That would be nice. I'd love that.
Speaker 5 00:52:13 Bye now. And now this
Speaker 2 00:52:35 You are listening to Right On Radio on K FFA I 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected]. I'm Josh Weber. Like to thank our special guest tonight, Mark Thompson, Ruby Blue, and all of our listeners. The, your support and donations kfi, I would not be Possible. You can find more news in info about right on radio at cafe.org/right on radio. You can listen to all our, your favorite righton radio episodes on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcast, apple Podcast, and so on. Please stay tuned for Bonjour, Minnesota.
