Alicia Bay Laurel

She’s my hero! There is nothing more to say.

Free_dreaming and I are sisters in terms of our goals, ethics and ideas. I love her list of things to do, it reads more like a poem.

In 2005 I painted with acrylics and made decoupage with Tracy Dove in her art studio, marched in a large demonstration against the illegal invasion of Iraq, finished the layout for my newest illustrated book, How To Make Peace, designed and illustrated the revised Feeling Good Cards that are written and manufactured by Gloria and Barry Blum, and started producing and recording my third CD of original songs, What Living’s All About, which I expect to release in April 2006. I walked almost every day, sang a set of vocal exercises created by Maria Muldaur most days, spent 18 weeks in Hawaii visiting friends and working on projects, spent the rest of the year in California and Arizona, was profiled in Be Pal, a Japanese outdoor living magazine, saw my first two CDs released in Japan by EM Records in Osaka, bought an acre of rain forest on a country road on the island of Hawaii, hired Richard Schave and Kim Cooper to teach me how to communicate better on the Internet and to make a new website with a blog on it for me, and celebrated my dad’s 95th birthday with him, my mom’s 86th birthday with her, and my stepfather’s 89th birthday with him.

Stayasleep is the very essence of hipness by my estimation. She has bright orange hair, and, without discussing it, won’t let you forget it. She lives in a monolithic dome and has a high tech job working with people who admire her. She has made amazing purses out of 45 rpm records, will drive hours to a forest to experience sleeping in it, and can tell you what music and movies will transform your life. She’s already done punk, studied art, gotten engagaed, and had a tree of life tattoo’d on her forearm, and most of her life is still ahead of her.

I met Alicia when I was 15 and attending a hippie school in Los Angeles. The funny thing was that while Alicia was “only” the receptionist and occasional Art and Spanish teacher, she was by far the most far-out, self-actualized and brilliant person there.

She has been a constant source of inspiration and love through my life, and I am thrilled to be able to watch as she reinvents herself (for the 8th or 9th time) as a Web 2.0 publisher and avant-folk musician.

Alicia is fearless and good. You will be hearing many more great things from her.

I deeply admire Alicia. She has been blessed with the gift of transubstantiating the spirit of the age in flesh. Living on the Earth was just her first use of this gift, and she is doing it again with immiment release of her lastest album, What Living’s All About.

Alicia facinates me because she never does it the “right way”. Most people who have recording careers start in the their twenties, and if the fates allow, continue to the tune of some inner metronome. Not Alicia. At twenty she was already changing the world with her book, an endeavor most people put off till their later years, leaving this period to allow herself to persue her recording career.

Right On, Alicia.