Ed's Big Adventure

Running into this beaver yesterday, in the most unlikely of places, reminds me of Duluth’s answer to Donald Trump:

The entrepreneur/property mogul/recording artist quietly goes about his work, lunch pail in hand as blue collar as they come, with humility, grace, and generosity. His persevering spirit, paired with an innate urge to create and share art adjacent to the flow of humanity, is borne from struggle.

Mysteriously, he reached out for an album cover painting at the moment I placed him back into my next book (after five years of radio silence and some flip-flopping on my part while trimming the manuscript).

So, as described a year ago in a post extolling partnerships, Shawna poured out her magic (a renewable resource):

Though payment for the work provided for three weeks of our family’s needs, I was more excited about the prospect of a visit when it came time to hand over the physical object. As it turned out, this was somewhat underwhelming. Attention was divided between the exchange and an early morning harvest. Alas, hope remains for a more substantial visit in the future. Perhaps when I hand him my own hard-fought work of art (manuscript is finished, but I’m waiting to arrive at a title and cover image from Shawna)….

Until then, I’m enjoying his first solo album on the turntable, which he nonchalantly slipped into my front porch this winter.

After connecting with someone’s story, ideally after walking a mile in their shoes, there’s a loyalty that never goes away.

Prior to this, our interaction consisted primarily of a long chilly day’s walk. My dealings with him, a failed writing project, concluded the day before the birth of his first child.

Then, complete silence between us as he grew a family, formed another band, helmed a major property management company, and finally contemplated this solo project (findable on Spotify under Shippee).

Predictably, my favorite song on the album is Ava Lee, a deep track on the record’s B-side. It includes backup vocals from the girl born the day after we last spoke, the miracle of life accessed through a time machine. His parenting philosophy and unfailing love for his children are laid out succinctly. No reporter-like questions are necessary. In a way, I’m caught up, but there’s this line that suddenly jumps out in this love/exhortation song for his baby girl:

Those lyrics are coming from a man who lost both parents in his formative years. He’ll never take family for granted. Especially impactful, however, is how he conveys a love for these flawed, fallen beings who raised him up as best they could. His stratospheric success in business, I think, finds its genesis here. From these wounds, instead of bitterness, flows generosity. Consider the last song on the album, Moonlight, and how it’s written from the perspective of his father, who died by suicide when Blake was 17:

Granted, he wrote this after 27 years of reflection and having, “Just started to reconcile with it all.” But, could you have written this song? Could I?

Also noteworthy, he’s as connected as they come with the local and regional music scene, having cheered on and supported friends who’ve made it big. Here’s his friend, Dave Simonett, fronting Trampled By Turtles on the David Letterman Show some 11 years ago:

The band plays enormous venues, travels the world, etc, but once upon a time they got their start in the basement of an ancient fixer-upper that I believe was Blake’s first big investment.

To quote Teddy Roosevelt, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

While he must have worked through his own comparative lack of critical acclaim, envy never rooted itself.

After his band, Glen’s Neighbor’s second album was torched by the “local music curmudgeon” in the daily paper and later dissolved, he formed a new band, Boxcar.

And now, his first solo album brings us into the present. Unlike Simonett’s solo project, Dead Man Winter, who’s offering is discussed by serious critics and placed among the pantheon of breakup albums, in the vein of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Shippee’s work is out on the edges, appealing to a small niche and mostly unnoticed by Movers and Shakers. But still, he persists.

Rather, he thrives. Humanity in bloom.

Shippee, instead of engaging the path of starving artist, forged ahead in business. He experienced enough of poverty in childhood. Like our bold and confident beaver, Blake goes about creating his art almost compulsively, perhaps a form of therapeutic expression, but it’s clearly more than that.

Receiving his invitation to a backyard concert last year was a great honor. His baby girl, a toddler, bounced along to his music while wearing a priceless t-shirt, “I’m With the Band.” His older child, bearing the same name as my daughter, raced up and down the rugged rock that defines his property like it was an escalator.

Blake’s music is a generous offering. Equipment, travel, and studio recording, cost far more than the nickels and dimes that flow into the coffers, and, once again, he’s still not bitter. Rather than strive to build a name for himself, he has constructed a beautiful life for his family, focused like a laser beam on the beauty, while acknowledging the pain.

He isn’t hoarding these riches, like some grasping and greedy dragon. Shippee regularly sets out a table, inviting the community to feast at a banquet, even if he isn’t the main course.

This is the path of a successful artist, i.e. someone who plies their craft every day, regardless of outcome. Wherever you live, find these people. Feast.

At one point in the concert, Blake’s backing band, Boxcar, stepped away, and he debuted solo work for the first time. This is the very picture of courage, art’s binding ingredient.

How many people now lie in their graves, great art forever entombed, only because they lacked courage?