Brave girls are everywhere. Making music together in the Gorgeous city of Minneapolis, coaxing stories out of passersby on the highline, bicycling from Amherst to Milwaukee, making art with goups of teenagers. Collaboration is brave. Inclusion is brave. But I maintain that there is plenty to go around and we just have to quit this stupid scarcity mentality and share whatever we've got.

I had an incredible time in Minneapolis.What a great city. I mean, I've always loved it because my husband was born and raised there, and most of his very extended, very Irish Catholic family is still there, but I was really really smitten this time.

The Dakota is a lovely club, really great food, ambiance, welcome. Keri Noble and Chastity Brown are awesome cohorts. We were joking backstage about how awful women CAN be to each other, ironically it is often women who are most brutally mean to women. Why? Why is that? (Don't get me started about the Lilleth Fair!!!)

So we had a blast. It was a thrill getting to know their music, vibing and jibing with them on stage, singing harmony. Boy would I like to do more of THAT!

(that's Chris Kluwe rehearsing his bass part on "There's More True Lovers than One!") AND we raised over 21,000 dollars for the Marriage Equality Campaign. Not bad for a grass-roots effort on a Tuesday night.

I also discovered some great local cats who learned the music beautifully and quickly and rocked the house. Tommy Barbarella, Enrique Toussaint, and Matt Novachis.

Back in New York, I got to do a another little songwriting forum at NYU on Friday with my "co-professor" Phil Galdston. Dr. Brooke in the house!

And then, I got to see more favorite creative chiquitas! And stir up even more creative inclusive girl juju.

This is me and Amy Williamson at the Maya Stein "type-rider sessions" on the Highline!. (You may remember Amy as Becky Miller-Morton, our first Champion of Normal. She also is the energy behind "brave girls art." Just the kind of thing we're talking about. Girls making art with girls!) And man she whipped my marketing plan into shape in an afternoon!!

Maya Stein....

just rode her bike from Amherst, MA to Milwaukee, WI, the original home of the typewriter. Her quest was called "Type-Rider" - read more about it here. She gathered stories all along the way on her quirky, turqoise standard typewriter. Now you can find her most weekends, somewhere between 14th and 17th on the Highline in New York.

Go visit, and write yourself into the story. She is a poet, bright light. Writing yourself there is a great exercise in distilling what matters.
And then have dinner at Cookshop. Yummy for post type-rider distilled beverages and fine hearty fare. Art needs energy.

Cheers, more very soon!

jb