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Last week was Wisconsin severe weather awareness week.

In a stroke of irony from the “you can’t make this stuff up” files, all the tornado drills that were scheduled were cancelled.

Due to actual tornadoes

I guess the powers that be thought we were getting plenty of practice seeking shelter without taking valuable time out of school/work days to get more.

Thankfully, me and mine are all safe.

But it has been a near thing, with at least one tornado touching down less than fifteen miles from my home.

As we faced storms last Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Friday, I was made aware of varying levels of disaster response. While many of us took appropriate shelter, it has come to my attention that lots of folks still ignored the storm sirens and kept doing whatever it was they were doing.

It seemed to be an especially big problem with performing groups. I know of a rehearsal that just kept going and also a play where the stage manager sent the cast to safety while letting the audience choose whether or not to stay in their seats.

I am not a fan of this. (Scroll down for my own “the show must go on” story.)

Despite living my entire life in tornado country, I somehow grew up with the idea that tornadoes always swept across the plains like something out of the Wizard Of Oz.

I thought you could see them coming.

And maybe decide if they were coming for you.

This is incorrect.

It turns out there are lots and lots of tornadoes that don’t so much travel-in-a-straight-farmland-churning line but rather, form in the sky, drop down for a minute to gobble up a church, and then suck themselves up to the clouds for a relaunch and a gobble of a motor home two miles away.

Such tornadoes are nothing to play around with.

And you won’t know what kind is in your area until the church and motorhome gobbling incidents make the news later.

Get in your basement.

Period.

If you don’t have a basement, please try to have a plan to get to one. Or other shelter deemed safe.

During the Friday night tornado-multi-state-smackdown, I was attending a fundraiser for our local literacy council. And tremendously grateful that it was run by responsible people.

Who calmly made an announcement that we should all quietly stand up and, in a rapid but orderly fashion, follow the venue staff to safe shelter in the basement.

(We were allowed to take our wine. I was happy about that.)

Hilariously, I found myself in a room filled with about fifty super deluxe golf carts.

With cushy leather seats.

And cup holders.

Talk about sheltering in style.

But I would have been perfectly content to sit on a dusty floor for as long as it might take for everything to blow over.

Playing While The Titanic Sinks…

It is a sultry summer evening in 2010.

Did I say sultry?

Change that to whatever descriptor fits “sweltering-all-day-with-ninety-percent-humidity-you-could-cut-with-a-knife-followed-by-darkness-that-is-just-as-hot-and-sticky”.

I am sitting on the sort of flimsy stage you get when you bolt together forty elevated platforms and add rickety stairs.

In a venue on the shores of Lake Michigan that is not so much a “performance” space as a pavilion with a corrugated metal roof and glass panel “walls”.

In short, it is the kind of building you see on the news after the tornado has scooped it up, chewed on it for a bit and then - like a rejected anchovy, spit it back out.

I am sitting behind a six foot, not so easy to move in a hurry, concert harp and surrounded by my fellow members of the symphony.

We are deep in the middle of our dress rehearsal for the next evening’s pop’s concert.

Harp doesn’t generally play on every piece so, when things start to go sideways, I am in a tacit section, allowing me to observe my fellow musicians.

It begins.

Quietly at first.

With a gentle “plink”.

“Plink.”

“Plink, plink, plink.”

The rain is here.

The first clear reaction on the surrounding faces communicates: “Did I leave my car windows open?

Followed by (as the noise begins to ramp up): “Can I sneak off stage to put them up?”

Followed by “Holy Sh*t!

As the “plinking” suddenly changes to a roar.

A roar that can only be the product of furious rain battering torrentially down on a resonant metal roof.

A door blows open.

And slams shut again.

Lights flicker.

What do we do?

Does the general manager (or anyone else, for that matter) try to find a radio or make a call to the weather service or TAKE ANY STEPS to see if we should be – Oh, I don’t know – throwing down our instruments and running for safety?

Nah.

We’re musicians.

It’s dress rehearsal.

We just keep sitting on our easily blown apart stage on a basement-free concrete slab, under an eminently twistable roof, in a big glass box, and crank out show tunes.

Including me.

Because now we’ve hit the West Side Story Medley filled with harp solos.

In between arpeggios, my thought was this:

“As God is my witness, I don’t want to die playing ‘I Feel Pretty’!”

Yet, I played on.

Because my whole professional life I’ve been a slave to that dumb “the show must go on” mantra.

As stupid as I felt we all were, in hindsight, even if we had stopped playing, there was nowhere safe to go.

As I mentioned, we were out on the edge of the lake on a slab with no “underneath” and at least three hundred yards away from any safer structures.

The storm raging outside made an evacuation just as dangerous as staying put.

I guess, when the alternative was getting struck by lightning (or whisked off to OZ) while running for my car, playing show tunes wasn’t the worst way I could have gone.

One More Storm Story

From my Overbooked And Underpaid Substack - memories of a flooded, basement-free theme park escape.

A Pledge

You may have noticed this new graphic at the top of the newsletter.

I hereby pledge that all my writing, and other creative endeavors, are free of the use of A.I.

With the exception of Spell Check. And whatever other old fashioned proofing tools can be found in my eight year old version of Microsoft word. (I’m a lousy speller with suspicious punctuation skills. I need the help.)

I’ve written about my feelings regarding A.I. writing here.

“Let’s Feel Better” Tour

I’m putting together a summer “Substack” tour of my poetry reading, humorous storytelling and harp music. It’s aimed at small venues like house concerts and book clubs and will rely on YOU, my readers, to tell me where you would like to come.

More background and details can be found by clicking on the Summer Tour menu header or using this button.

Summer "Let's Feel Better" Tour

If you would like me to come to your area, please contact me - either by hitting “reply” to this email or by messaging me here on Substack or posting in the comments.

I’d love to see what we can make together.

Books - great gift for Mother’s Day!

If you like my work there are two book collections of the comics/poems for sale. They make great gifts!

Buy Books

If You Are New Here…

If you are just joining us I’m so happy you are here!

You might want to click here to find out what to expect.

And consider poking around the archives - there’s some fun stuff.

Joy Shot

Images that make me feel better.

Rainy Azaleas.

Weekly Dose -

Works by other creators that capture our current moment…

Paranoid Breakdown

If you have never seen the 1954 classic film “The Caine Mutiny” you should search it out.

If you have seen the movie you will be very much aware of the paranoid breakdown courtroom scene.

I have long felt that we’ve been living with our own Captain Queeg and that, eventually, we will find ourselves in the inevitable space where the whole world (rather than just a piece of it) realizes the madness and wakes up from its fever dream.

The way the folks in this courtroom scene do.

Sadly we seem to keep getting a different reaction.

Each time the unfitness is boldly revealed, it’s as if everyone witnessing the crazy just says: “Meh. What’s your point?”

But recently something does seem to be shifting.

Perhaps we are closing in…

Keep The Messages And Comments Coming!

I appreciate the feedback and knowing how often I have struck a chord with your lives.