Brad Shreve:
Wow, there is a lot going on in the world involving LGBTQ people right now. Can’t be denied. But you know there are good things happening too, and they shouldn’t be ignored. Each week, my guests discuss their strengths, how they’re making a change, and sometimes just what enables them to get through it all and stay optimistic. Through their stories, you’ll find hope, in the future, with possibilities.
Humor takes many forms, stepping back in time we’re gonna go to Threes Company where they had the weekly Oh, there’s a big misunderstanding format, and then there’s the we must secretly replace the pet who died while under a friend’s care format that’s been done once or twice or a hundred times. And of course, they’re the bumbling boss trope that’s been used repeatedly in movies and television for decades, and in theater maybe for centuries. But what about cancer? Is there anything funny about cancer? No, cancer itself isn’t funny, but in the hands of skilled 2 time Grammy winners, Cathy Fink and Marcy Markser. There’s plenty of humor to be found in the experiences of living with and being treated for cancer. Shouting with them made me think of the many laughs I’ve had with family and friends who’ve struck with and even died from cancer. Those are the little nuggets we need to hold on to to keep us going. We’re gonna discuss their newly released film all wigged out which is a musical comedy based on Mars’s experience of having cancer, it’s funny, sometimes wacky, and moving.
In addition to the film, we’ll discuss their musical careers standing over 4 decades, which happens to be about the same length that they’ve been a couple. And we’ll discuss plenty more I’m Brad Shreveve and my guests are singers, songwriters, musicians, storytellers and activists, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, and don’t go anywhere because we’re we are.
Hello, Cathy Fink.
Cathy Fink:
Hey, how are you?
Brad Shreve:
I’m doing very well. How about you, Marcy Marxer?
Marcy Marxer:
I’m doing well. Thanks, Brad.
Brad Shreve:
Well, great. Now that we know whose voice is whose I’m just going to jump into your career. Over the 40 years together that you have been very busy, including releasing over 50 album albums, you’ve been nominated for nine Grammys, which, I’m sorry to say, you only won two. But if that’s the best you can.
Marcy Marxer:
Do well, yeah, you take some, you lose some.
Cathy Fink :
How many do you have?
Brad Shreve:
I have less than that.
Marcy Marxer:
Fair enough.
Brad Shreve:
Last week was the release of your film All Wigged Out, which is now available on digital and streaming. And it’s music and humor about cancer. And I have to start by asking, don’t you know there’s nothing funny about cancer?
Cathy Fink:
Don’t you know there is?
Brad Shreve:
There is?
Marcy Marxer:
There is not much funny about cancer, but there’s funny things that happen around the cancer with medical professionals and friends and other people. So it’s worth keeping track of those things just so you have something to laugh at. Yeah.
Cathy Fink:
And cancer is a diagnosis, but it doesn’t have to define everything about how you live. And so one of the ways that we dealt with it was by making light of ridiculous things throughout the entire experience. And that was very helpful to us and helpful to a lot of other people.
Brad Shreve:
Well, unfortunately, my family is all too familiar with cancer. So I’d like you to describe the show All Wigged Out. Tell us what it is and what it’s about. What can people expect?
Marcy Marxer:
Well, this is my true story. It doesn’t leave anyone down at all. It’s pretty much a happy story, because what I did when I first got the diagnosis, I was quiet about it. And then as things went on, I started making we got calls from friends and emails and people wanting to know what was going on. And so I started making cartoons and putting them up on the Internet and got such a response from those, including private messages from people who couldn’t really speak about their situations. And I totally understand that. But Cathy had the brilliant idea to put these things together into a play, and then during the pandemic, we put it into a film. But it’s really step by step. Some people call it a journey. I don’t tend to call it a journey. I tend to call it crap.
Cathy Fink:
And let me define it by calling this a musical documentary. Right. Since we’re full time musicians and singers and songwriters and instrumentalists, we’re also storytellers. And our goal was to tell a story that was valuable to other people and nobody wants to listen, to watch, hear a total bummer story number one. And spoiler alert, Marcy’s here and she’s healthy. So we already have a happy ending and we know that in advance. But what we were after, amongst other things, was seeing how we could make this relatable to other people. You said early on you’re way too familiar with cancer. The truth is that by 2030, the American Cancer Society has said that one in two people will be diagnosed with cancer. Everyone in this country, everyone in this world is going to become familiar with cancer either from their own experience or from their friends or from their family. And so our goal here was to create a storytelling musical work of art that brought light and love and information and advocacy and hope. That’s what we were after.
Brad Shreve:
That’s beautiful. And I attribute this to Norman Lear. I’m almost certain I heard him say it, even though I have researched and can find no record of it. But I’m going to still say he said it. He wanted to do a show about a family living after the nuclear holocaust. And the networks were like, there’s nothing funny about that. And his response was, ‘everything can be funny depending on what perspective you put it in.’ And when I saw your show and watched clips of it, that’s exactly what I thought about.
Marcy Marxer:
Well, perfect.
Cathy Fink:
Thank you. And not every moment of the film is funny, but enough moments of the film are funny and have levity to balance out the things that are challenging. But the things that are challenging are real. And how do we balance them out in our lives? We balance them out with music and with comedy. And I think it’s an important skill to have. And what we’re finding is as we’re screening this with various different audiences, they’re really resonating with the real life experience, the honesty, but also that the film is chock full of suggestions. People don’t really know how to help cancer patients. Right. Everybody. Your best friend has cancer. Your pal down the street has cancer. You want to do something for them. One inappropriate thing after another comes out of your mouth and you didn’t realize it. Or you take them some food that they can’t eat right now. And it’s an opportunity. I think watching this film is an opportunity to be informed and mindful about things that are helpful and things that aren’t helpful, things that are true, things that aren’t true, and the fact that everybody has their own experience.
Brad Shreve:
Well, I think what you’re sharing with the audience is great because I’ve seen it way too often where somebody’s going through a difficult time and nobody says anything because they’re afraid of what they may say.
Marcy Marxer:
Yeah, cancer is odd in that people really don’t know what to say to you. If your house gets hit by lightning and it’s burning, it’s a tragedy. And people do know what to say. Can I help you? Do you need some blankets? All that kind of stuff. But when you have cancer as a patient, personally, I felt like I got hit by lightning. It’s just that people couldn’t see it, so they really didn’t know what to say to me. The first person that talked to me about it said, so what are your chances? And I didn’t even know I had chances. It was terrifying. Some of the questions that people would ask when I didn’t have any information about the things that they were asking about. But then I was scared a couple of times. And then the third person who said something really totally ridiculous to me, I just pulled out a notebook and said, hold that thought. And I started writing these things down and keeping track of them. And there was a really long list. And if you’re together with other patients and caregivers and you share the list, we’re laughing constantly through it. It is hilarious.
Cathy Fink:
Although that’s just a slice of the film.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah.
Cathy Fink:
We really were after doing a lot of things. One is being honest storytellers, but two was bringing the kind of lightness and comedy that helps us get through difficult times. And three, the whole advocacy part. When we went to Marcy’s chemo orientation, there was a woman there who was all by herself. There was a guy there with his son, and clearly his son was going to hold his hand through this, right? And then there was Marcy and myself, and there was a woman all by herself. And we kept thinking, nobody should be going through this alone. You need your pal, you need your advocate. You want somebody there to take notes for you. You want to make sure everybody’s hearing the same thing. You want to make sure somebody’s asking some questions that you didn’t think of. And I think that we are able the film is also a really interesting vehicle. For the last eight months, we’ve been traveling around the country, and we’ll be doing it a lot this fall with the film in all different kinds of circumstances. There are film festivals. We’re working with cancer support organizations, we’re working with arts organizations that want to show the film, have a nice Q and A afterwards with people from cancer support organizations as well as other members of the community and some live music. And it’s been a community building thing, but it’s also an opportunity in each community for these cancer support organizations to reach out to the community and say, hey, you don’t have to do this alone. We might be here for you.
Brad Shreve:
You know those times when you and a friend or family member are trying to find something on Netflix and instead of watching your flip flip flip flip flip looking for 1 movie after another, well, sometimes your decision comes down to the reviews. And the same thing happens to podcasting. So for those that are searching Madley for a new podcast, help them make the decision and leave a review for where we are on Apple Podcast or wherever you’re listening to this show.
And you mentioned several times that you’re storytellers, and that’s one thing I really love. I guess any musician is a storyteller. But you also do more traditional storytelling. We do, which is an art that I’m not going to say it’s dying, but we don’t see as much anymore.
Cathy Fink:
Oh, I would disagree that it’s dying. It’s building right now. I mean, between the storytelling going on with The Moth, the National Storytelling Festival, there are storytelling festivals all over the country. And by the way, I was the winner of the 2022 National Storytelling Festival – Story Slam, and there were six awesome storytellers in that story slam. But I think storytelling doesn’t necessarily get as big a platform as a hit song, but it’s really in communities building in a beautiful way, and there’s some marvelous festivals and opportunities to hear it.
Marcy Marxer:
Oh, totally primo. I started doing storytelling in high school when forensics I don’t know if they still do, but forensics organizations had contests and debates. But I was in the storytelling section and traveled around the state of Michigan entering contests and being chosen to go and perform, which was great. And then once I started playing with Cathy and really focusing on music alone, I did some music to theater, and that was great. But when you’re working with an adult audience or a kids audience or a folk audience, they want to hear what the story of the song is about. It’s not based on rhythm, really. I mean, if you’re playing a dance, sure, it’s all based on rhythm, but if you’re playing to a seated concert audience, they want to get the message of the song, whether that’s a happy song, a pretty song, a romantic ballad. I mean, whatever it is, they want to get the meaning of the song. So it’s still storytelling.
Cathy Fink:
And I think one of the reasons that we adapted to that is that we write a lot of songs, but we also do a lot of traditional music, and then we do a lot of songs by people that, for instance, we opened before the show started. We were talking about our second home in Lansing, North Carolina, which was the original home of Ola Belle Reed. Ola Belle Reed was a National Heritage fellowship award winning musician, an International Bluegrass Music association heritage award winner, and beautiful humanitarian. And we love her music. She’s been gone for about 20 years, but we love Ola Belle’s music. She’s one of what I would have called one of the elders or mentors that we spent a lot of time with. And when we sing Ola Belle’s songs, we tell stories about hanging out with Ola Belle. We tell stories about the background to the songs, the background to why she might have written a certain song. Same thing with we’ve got a story on YouTube that people can watch called Remembering Elizabeth Cotton or How Cathy Met Marcy. And of course, Elizabeth Cotton this year was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She’s the woman who wrote Freight Train, freight Train going so fast. Well, Marcy and I had both separate and intertwining opportunities to meet and work with Elizabeth Cotton, and some of them intertwined with when we met in July of 1980. And we threaded those two things together into an hour long musical storytelling performance. So this whole genre is near and dear to us, turning it into a piece of theater. For all wigged out was Brad new. Marcy has some theater background, but we’ve never done a theater piece together and it’s a step beyond just storytelling. Now we’re talking director set lights, production. And it was originally meant to be live theater, but because of the pandemic and live theater being canceled for such a long time, we just sort of rethought the whole thing and decided that we were going to do live theater, but we were going to film it so that we actually had the opportunity for this piece to reach a wider audience. Because even if we went into theaters, it’s a limited audience. You’re going to do a multi week run in one place and a multi week run in another place. And by film, we’ve been able to engage people from all over the world in a way that’s really interesting and.
Brad Shreve:
That’s fantastic, but film is a much different animal. Was there a point where you said, what have we gotten ourselves into?
Cathy Fink:
No, because we don’t think that way. We have a habit of saying, let’s go do something we’ve never done before, diving in and just digging our way through it. And it was a lot. We’ve made over 50 albums, as you said, but we had actually made videos before, and we had done a couple of live children’s concert films that were well distributed. One was on the Learning Channel for about ten years. But it’s a new world of film and distribution, just like it’s a new world of music distribution. And we certainly hadn’t done anything of this magnitude where there’s pretty fancy set and pretty fancy lighting and pretty fancy five camera shoot. And we had an Emmy Award winning production company in Chicago, and it was a month of rehearsal. We spent a long time writing the script with our collaborator Andy off at Irwin. We did a lot of readings to sort of hone the script a lot. And then when the Pandemic came along, we said, no theater for a long time. Let’s go film it. We did a GoFundMe campaign and raised over $85,000. And every time you turned around, there was something to do, something to keep track of, something to keep the ball rolling. But we live that way anyway, so I would say those challenges were all kind of fun.
Brad Shreve:
I love that attitude. I love when people see life as an adventure.
Marcy Marxer:
Well, making this film was certainly an adventure.
Brad Shreve:
To say the least, huh?
Marcy Marxer:
It’s kind of an understatement, but it was thrilling to learn and study and see how things have progressed. Everything’s digital now, and seeing the lightboard and meeting the crew, it was wonderful. And we were in a pretty good comfort zone with all the people that we worked with
Cathy Fink:
I wanna say too that although the centerpiece of this film is telling a story about a cancer patient, The sort of background webbed to the whole film is our 40 year relationship. And that’s not lost on any moment. It’s really I feel a very important part of what we’re expressing in this film. You know, as people who love each other, how we hung in there for each other for both the best of times and the worst of times.
Brad Shreve:
And I’m glad you brought that up because yours is truly a love story. I’m going to step away from all wigged out, but we’re going to come back to it. But you’re bringing up your relationship. It makes me think of some things I have to ask. I grew up in North Carolina, so I’m familiar with country, bluegrass and folk music. And for those of you that have wondered why I’ve always said I’m from Michigan. It kind of depends on what age group in my youth we’re talking about. So for this conversation, I grew up in North Carolina. But Cathy, you were born and raised in Baltimore. And Marcy. You grew up in Michigan.
Marcy Marxer:
Yes.
Brad Shreve:
And you two met in Canada as I believe you were performing at folk festivals at the time. Yes. How did you become involved in a music genre, which I certainly don’t think of Michigan when I think of folk and bluegrass.
Cathy Fink:
Well, you probably also don’t think of Canada, but that’s where I was when I started playing that kind of music. I lived there for seven years.
Marcy Marxer:
Michigan is a hotbed of traditional music, and I think in the early 1970s southern musicians who were performing started coming to the area. Probably before that, too. But that’s when I was aware. And sometimes when you learn about something, you think that’s the beginning of it, but it’s only the beginning of it for you. It’s been going on for quite some time. But I lived in Detroit and then in Flint as a kid, and there were people who had come up from the south to work in the factories. So when I lived when my family had moved to a town outside of Flint, there were actually seven working bluegrass bands in that town. And it was thrilling and exciting. And people were very open to showing a young girl whatever they knew and answering questions. They were so welcoming. You don’t really hear that about music so often, but there are scenes where people just can’t wait to see younger people coming in.
Cathy Fink:
And from my point of view, I grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore. As I was growing up in downtown Baltimore, people like Mike Seeger and Alistairard and Hazel Dickens and all kinds of bluegrass and old time and folk musicians were getting together all the time. They were playing in bars, they were having jam sessions. I didn’t have a clue about it. It wasn’t in my neighborhood. I had to move to Canada to hear in person live people play folk music. I had heard some on the radio, which I loved and started learning. But I lived in Montreal for two years. Then I lived in Winnipeg for five years. And I think it’s just a testament to the fact that you can fall in love with whatever music you want to no matter where you are.
Brad Shreve:
So when you met, first of all, no, Canada is not where I would expect that you would start that career. But I love that story. But you met in Canada. How soon afterwards did you start working together and become a couple?
Cathy Fink:
We started working together basically. It was kind of a gradual process. Over the next two years, the band that Marcy was in and I worked to book things jointly. Oh, we’re both going to go to these various festivals and then we’ll be in some workshops together and we can back each other up and we can do that kind of thing. And then Marcy started accompanying me on some of my solo tours and probably by 1983 we had decided that we were going to be a full time duo both performance wise, and we were going to live together and be a couple.
Brad Shreve:
It sounds like it might be working out then.
Marcy Marxer:
Yeah, I think it’s so far long enough, it’s starting to really seem like it’s permanent.
Brad Shreve:
It’s starting to even out now.
Cathy Fink:
It’s kind of funny because the festival where we met, which happens to also be where we met Elizabeth Cotton in person, that festival was poorly organized and it went under and a lot of the artists didn’t get paid. And one of the jokes of this festival has always been that the one good thing to come out of that particular festival was the partnership of Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer.
Brad Shreve:
So that was during the early eighty s and I don’t know for a fact, but from what I’ve read, it sounds like you two have pretty been much out as a couple almost from the beginning. Is that right?
Cathy Fink:
Well, here’s the thing. It’s not the centerpiece of what we talk about or do on stage. We are who we are. So there are many years where the women’s music scene ignored us because we didn’t sing words with songs with the L word in it, otherwise known as lesbian. There are a lot of women who were singing those songs specifically and that’s what that group of people wanted to hear. We were at that time more interested in the history of women in country music and old time music and digging into the background and doing a lot of that. We don’t hide and we don’t advertise. We don’t need to do either of those things. We get to just be us.
Brad Shreve:
And I love the fact that you aren’t known as the lesbian folk singing duo, which is something I notice.
Marcy Marxer:
Well, some people would call us that, but no, that’s not our identity.
Cathy Fink:
It depends on who you talk to. One thing that’s clear is there’s a lot of old time musicians these days who look to us as an example of an out couple that has been able to play this music in a world that is not always accepting of diversity in terms of this music. But we’ve managed to have a pretty darn good career, and we’ve brought lots of young people in and up in this music. And if some of them feel like they come from diverse scenarios and we’ve helped them feel strong and bold, I’m really happy about that.
Brad Shreve:
And I have seen that you have done some work for the LGBTQ community, if nothing else for concerts, but oh, plenty.
Marcy Marxer:
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. We worked with Cleve Jones and the AIDS Quilt. Yes, I did, quite a bit, and with the AIDS Quilt in Japan. And, yeah, we’re social justice activists. We’re lucky to just feel relaxed about our partnership. And when we’re in a place where we’re made to feel a little uncomfortable, we still have each other, and we don’t take those things personally. I know that I’m a good person and Cathy is a great person, and we try to do our best in the world, and that’s enough for me. A lot of people understand that and a few people don’t, and that’s okay.
Brad Shreve:
Well, the reason I was asking these questions is you have done, as you said, a lot of social justice issues. You traveled around the world with American Voices, which is, I guess, part of the State Department to it’s connected to the State Department.
Cathy Fink:
Yeah, it’s a wonderful cultural diplomacy program. And we went to China, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu. 28 flights in 30 days.
Brad Shreve:
Well, on top of that, you were keynote singers for the AFL CIO. So I know you’ve done work for unions thank you. Healthcare. You’ve done work for children rights. So I love when how do I put this? As you said, being lesbians or part of the LGBT community isn’t what defines you.
Marcy Marxer:
No. It’s important.
Cathy Fink:
It’s part of who we are.
Marcy Marxer:
It’S one aspect of who we are. And I think really talking about Olla Belle Reed being a humanist, that’s more what our philosophy is. Also, there were our elders who had open minds and open hearts and just appreciated everything that a young person could do creatively, and we learned from that. We were taken under the wing by Pete Seeger and Olla Belle Reed, Mike Seeger, and people who’ve really done amazing work and reaching out to people who thought they were on the outside and pulling them in. And we just have the same attitude. We were mentored this way.
Brad Shreve:
I want to go back to All Wigged Out now. My understanding is, originally it was going to be a one woman show for you, Marcy.
Marcy Marxer:
It was. And I found that I was constantly referring to Cathy, and I tried to talk her into being in it, but she really was adamant that it was my story and I should tell it. And then, luckily, when we were in rehearsal and Cathy’s so talented, she can sing anything. She sounds amazing. She’s great at acting, which I know from doing shows with her for 40 years now, but she’s totally delightful, and she’s my partner, so I felt it was really important for her to be in it. Luckily, when we went to Chicago and started working with the team, maybe before we were in Chicago, the director and another person suggested having Cathy in it. And that was like, for me, it’s like, yes, victory. Yeah. And Cathy reluctantly agreed, but she really got into it. She did a great job. She played several characters, and it really upped my comfort factor, too, by 100%. So Cathy is my hope, my joy, my love, and this is our story. It’s not just my story. It’s the story of the two of us.
Cathy Fink:
And it did give us the ability to put the perspective of the caregiver in the story in an important way. And one of the greatest moments for both of us was after the first time, we only performed the show twice to make the film in front of live and at that time vaccinated massed audiences. But after the first show, we went and visited with the crowd, and there were a couple of people there that really influenced us a lot. There was a couple in the very front row, man and a woman holding hands, and you could tell that she had a wig on and that she had been through cancer, and that was her purpose for being there. And you could see that they had gone through the laughter and the tears as the show went on. And afterwards, we went and said hello to them, and the man said to Marcy, I’m her Cathy. And that was incredibly meaningful. And then Marcy met a fabulous 13 year old girl.
Marcy Marxer:
She had been sitting in the front row smiling through the whole thing. And I was really curious because when we do a show, we’re always looking at the audience, how’s this going? How’s that going? And we don’t just get up and do a set show. We always have some interplay. But I saw this young girl, and she turned out to be 13 years old, and she said, you’re telling my story. I said, really? And she said yes. I’m here celebrating the fact that I have spent the last entire year, the longest period of my life, without being in the hospital with sickle cell. So the story of the feelings, maybe not the details of the treatment, of course, but the feelings that people go through, the way they have to laugh at things, the things they have to deal with and their support, that all meant a lot to her. And that was just wonderful.
Cathy Fink:
And I think that’s part of the joy of the whole thing is as we’re traveling around with the film, we’re getting amazing comments from people about what it’s meant to them, how it’s helped them, who they want to share it with whatever we do with our music. And of course, also with this film, we typically do things with purpose, and sometimes the purpose is just to see how dang silly we can get. But more often than not, there’s a larger purpose in there, and we sort of are continuing to discover the purpose of All Wigged Out as it rolls out there into the world.
Brad Shreve:
Well, I would say the only thing that really surprises me is you’d been a couple, I’m going to guesstimate about 35 years at that point. And Marcy was going through, obviously, probably one of the most difficult times in her life. So it would seem odd to me for Cathy and you not to be a part of that show.
Cathy Fink:
Well, that’s just the way it went. Marcy’s incredibly talented. I didn’t want to be the spokesperson for what she went through, and eventually we rewrote it to have another point of view in there.
Brad Shreve:
There are really two different stories that overlap a lot. Well, I got to say, one song that I absolutely love, that you do is Unsolicited Advice. I have bipolar disorder and going through the meds, trying to find the right meds, it was horrific. And then two years ago, I had surgery on my cervical spine. And despite the fact that I had the best neurosurgeon in Southern California who said a fender bender could easily paralyze me, I had so many people that say, oh, I had a horrible experience with back surgery. Don’t do it. So there’s a whole lot of unsolicited advice out there, and I’m glad you brought that up in the show.
Marcy Marxer:
That was one of the catalysts for making cartoons and posting things on the Internet. Let’s see. That song was written by a friend of ours named Ken Whiteley, who was at a reading in Canada, and it was delightful. So we’re going through all these scenes, and he sat there when this segment came on in the play or the workshop, talking about weird things people say to you and try to how to deal with them. He just grinned and sat up tall. Other people were, like, questioning themselves and dabbing their eyes, but he had a big smile on his face. And he came up to us and said, have I got a song for you. Now you can take it if you like it and you can change it if you want to make it your own. But we listened to it and it was perfect. We didn’t need to change anything. So he’s a very talented songwriter and we really appreciate that.
Cathy Fink:
And he’s been a friend of mine since about 1974, mine since 79. So we go back a long ways, and not unlike our friend Andy affid Irwin, who’s the co writer of All Wigged Out, we’re talking about very Dear Close friends. Another really dear Close friend allowed us to use his song, and it’s the only other. Song that isn’t original in the whole project. And it’s next to last. It’s called Closer to the Light, and it was written by Jim Bieloff, who is a Ukulele aficionado and fellow by the name of Herb Ota, a Hawaiian Ukulele player. And Herb wrote the melody and Jim wrote the lyrics. And maybe about seven, eight years ago, we were at a Ukulele festival. Jim asked us to sing harmony on that song with him. We fell in love with the song, we learned it, we recorded it ourselves, and it really, throughout Marcy’s experience with Cancer, sort of became our theme song. And we realized, oh, this would be really good in this film. It really has the emotional power of getting through the hard times, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. And Jim was delighted to have it be part of the project. So that was really wonderful.
Marcy Marxer:
And I love the song because it’s beautiful. And who doesn’t need some beauty when they’re I mean, looking at me, you’d say, what do you need beauty for? But it’s just a beautiful experience to hear this song and know that our friends wrote it.
Brad Shreve:
And I presume for those that want to see the film, which should be everybody, is your website the best place to go to find information on it?
Cathy Fink:
Yeah. cathymarcey.com/allwiggedout. There’s a tab at our website, Cathymarcy, and there’s an allwigged out tab, and that’s got all the information for buying DVDs, buying the music from the project, and also streaming.
Brad Shreve:
And also you’ll be able to easily find that in the show notes. So all you have to do is click on it and you can get more info on the website. Before I let you go, I’ve got to ask one question. Your attitude is just amazing, and it seems like it just is naturally a part of you. But I know you have to have your moments.
Cathy Fink:
What?
Marcy Marxer:
Of course. So we end up making fun of those, too.
Brad Shreve:
How do you keep your optimism? And I was going to say, in the world like it is today, but every generation says, in the world like it is today. How do you keep that optimism and that enthusiasm?
Marcy Marxer:
I think that one way that we can keep our optimism is by seeing what people are doing to try to turn things around in this world. And it would be great if more people were listening, but there are so many people out there doing absolutely beautiful, heartfelt, funny work and reaching out to people who don’t necessarily think like themselves, just trying to make this a better, more understanding world. We don’t hear about them on the news, but they’re out there and they keep us going on.
Cathy Fink:
My modus operandi, amongst other things, is that every single day I attempt to do something that will make somebody else’s day better. And sometimes that’s in a position in which I’m hired, I do a lot of work mentoring artists and musicians. And I actually have a position at the Music Center at Strathmore, which is a performing arts center near here where I get to do that. But I do it also a lot on a volunteer basis. And sometimes it’s doing other things in the community. I like volunteering at food banks. I like doing other kinds of volunteer work. And I think for both of us, it’s that commitment to it’s really a commitment to not give up and to think. I think in some ways, again, I’m going to bring Pete Seager up, who understood that it wasn’t going to be the really big things. It was going to be all of us doing a lot of little things. And those things add up. And you just have to wake up every day and believe that you can make a difference, even if it’s a tiny difference.
Brad Shreve:
I’m a firm believer that being of service is being of service to others is probably one of the best ways to be of service to yourself.
Marcy Marxer:
Absolutely. That’s a great way to put it.
Brad Shreve:
Well, I want to thank you both. You’ve been a delight to talk to. I love your energy and, um, look forward to seeing the full film.
Cathy Fink:
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Marcy Marxer:
Thank you, Brad. Bye.
Brad Shreve:
Yeah. I’m on most social media. Got to keep up with friends and family you know, but where you’ll find me hanging out most is Instagram. Sure. I post about this podcast sometimes But who wants to file an account that’s all commercials right? I have more fun sharing posts or Reels with good thoughts, opinions, humor, or on a good day, all of the above. To find me on Instagram, search for @thebradshreve or you can just make your life easy, and click the link there in the show notes. See you on Instagram.
