The Art of Removing Wallpaper (Written in 2004) (Adapted 2010)

The Art of Removing Wallpaper
April 2004

“Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good people who don’t vote.”
— William E. Simon

“If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.”
— Thomas Sowell

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.”
— Susan B. Anthony

“Mind is the master power that molds and makes
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
We think in secret, and it comes to pass
Our world is but our looking glass.”
— James Allen

Last April, right after settling into a new home, I began a new journal: “The Art of Removing Wallpaper.” I called it that because the house I bought was a monument to bad wallpaper. We’re talking football helmets, flowers, hearts, loops, squares and polka-dots, not to mention the prints with various wild animals. The past tenants had even attempted to wallpaper the light fixtures. While undergoing the painstaking task of removing the eyesore, I listened to a lot of radio and television. With the upcoming presidential election, I realized that most of what I heard was wallpaper, too. And, for the most part, I found it just as ugly as the border of ducks flying into the miss-matched field of brown-checkered print that adorned my walls. Sometimes, when I grew bored or frustrated, I turned everything off and just listened to the scraping sound my tools made against the wall.

As I removed the wallpaper and thought about what I’d been hearing on the news, reading in the paper, and researching online, I came to the conclusion that the deregulation of the media had made it virtually impossible to get to the truth. Adding to my uneasiness, national headlines and bylines all had a similar look and feel. Almost like that of a record release. I’d seen propaganda for breaking a new artist before — where both the press and the entire team behind the artist seemed in perfect synchronicity. Regardless of where one might stand politically, the message we were all receiving was coming from the deep pockets of a unified corporate machine.

The more I thought about it, the more I needed a few answers — if only for myself — on who owned what news source. As I slowly but surely reconstructed my home décor, I researched all the different media outlets and the companies that backed them via advertising dollars. Being the perpetual optimist, I was surprised to admit that what I discovered flat-out sucked lemons. It didn’t seem democratic to me that a few consolidated giants outright owned, and therefore controlled, every media channel — from billboards to my own Internet connection. I simply wasn’t gonna be able to take most of what I read in the newspaper or heard on TV, regarding the state of our nation, at face value anymore.

Arriving at my perception of the truth regarding our current “whirled” events was difficult. I had just about gotten a grip on my feelings when, en-route to Florida, I looked up and noticed two televisions, side by side, at the airport. On the left screen was the war coverage, with all its gory facts running underneath the picture. And on the right screen were cheerleaders leaping gleefully into the air after their college basketball team scored yet another point. I bobbed my head in disbelief back and forth between the two visuals, occasionally rubbing my eyes to check if I was indeed watching soldiers in the heat of battle right next to a sporting event. The image left me feeling ... all muddied up again.

Last week, I got a call from a friend who has a son who’s, yes, fighting this war. He’s young. Still has baby fat on his cheeks. Smells like aftershave even though his facial hair’s peach fuzz. My friend used to think that sons and daughters who joined the service and survived drill sergeants and basic training really didn’t have to worry so much about the defending-your-country part of the deal. Her boy, out of options for a career choice, signed his name on the dotted line for the medical benefits and college tuition. But when he enlisted, his forms clearly stated just what his deployment might entail. So today, he’s in Iraq — a small, brave soldier.

It seems like just yesterday when her boy used to collect tips for me on Saturday afternoons at Gruene Hall as I banged out Fleetwood Mac and John Prine tunes. Oh, those were the hottest months of the summer, when the air was too hot to breathe and merely looking at the sidewalk tanned our faces. They were simpler days, when my only concern was the sweat beading above my hairline, trickling down my forehead, and carrying mascara into my eyeballs and making them burn. This kid would sit by his mom, and when I’d motion to him, he’d mingle with the audience with my tip jar in tow. His pudgy cheeks turned red with the heat and later excitement as the glass jar filled up with dollars. He’d make a few tips for himself, run across the street to the General Store, and use his earnings on homemade peanut-butter fudge that he’d share with me after my show. Season after season, as those afternoons dwindled into memories, I watched as my friend’s boy turned into a pimply faced high-school senior, then a backwards-hat-wearin’, Robert-Earl-Keen-worshipin’ college kid, and later, father to a 15-month-old baby. The last time I saw him, I raked my hands across his burred haircut, pinched his cheeks, and declared, “You’re all grown up now!” At the time, it felt like a lie because his face still looked like that of the lil’ kid I so fondly remembered. Today, I’m thinking that he is indeed ... all grown up now.

As I diligently continued to remove wallpaper (off the walls and in my life), for all the ugly parts I occasionally uncovered, I uncovered a lot of beauty, too. And the ugly parts, well, I knew I’d get through it, over it, and around it … someway. Perhaps with a little luck — and spackling paste.

For some — I’m not just thinking of the Irish — clover represents good luck. For others, it’s nothing but a weed. You can’t kill clover. It’s a gardener’s nemesis. I have a neighbor who wages an endless battle with the clover invading her beautiful garden. And yet, during our recent unreasonably cold (for Texas!) February, my yard turned into a brown and yellow wasteland — except for one cheerfully green patch of defiant clover. I grew to enjoy my clover as much as my neighbor loathed hers. For my neighbor, clover was a demon. For me, it was a little green patch of hope on a mud pit. Sometimes difference is the only thing two folks have in common.

Opinions swing widely on the topic of just how much regulation there should be in our government. It seems these days that opposition is weeded out and only those that hang with the “wallpaper” are heard. I hear their voices loud and clear, but they don’t speak for me. My friend’s kid, along with all the other young men and women his age out there on that battlefield — they speak for me. They defend both my independence and my freedom. But as much I honor their brave service, I flat don’t think they should have to risk paying the ultimate sacrifice for what so many Americans feel is a dubious cause at best. And though my hands feel tied, I feel I have to stand up for them and beg that someone in the mainstream news media separate themselves from the “yeasayers,” rise from behind their news desk and use their national pulpit to scream — loud enough for the entire world to hear — this “four-letter” sentence: “This war is wrong.”

I had a blowout with my mom and dad about the war in Iraq over Easter weekend. I said the four-letter sentence and my dad spun around and called me a “communist.” Whenever I disagree with my father on anything, I’m called a communist. If I say, “Hey Dad, don’t grill the steaks when the fire’s that hot, you’ll burn ’em,” I’ll hear a grunt, followed by, “communist.” My dad’s a smart man, too … even though he thinks Fox is the only real news channel and CNN is, you guessed it, communist — right along with AARP and Reader’s Digest.

It’s my hope — no, my belief — that my voice, even if found offensive to some, will never be stymied as long as this country’s called America. You’ll find me right on the edge of the middle, removing the wallpaper so I can see both sides of the story. I don’t have time to be apathetic. I’ll write about my beliefs and I’ll sing them no matter how many potential fans I might lose in the process. For in my heart, I’m a folk singer, centered on the belief that in the end, the human spirit, like clover, will triumph and be heard — in spite of the deregulation of the media.

This version is what I wish I would’ve written back in 2004 but didn’t. I sent out a watered-down version instead. I suppose I was too scared to speak the truth — at least how it appeared to me. I wrote “Monopoly,” and a few other political songs, and shut up and sang. I’m not chicken anymore. I can just hear my father when I tell him my thoughts about this most recent election and how the voice of the people will never get heard as long as elections are won and lost by lobbyists, underhanded special interest groups, corporate conglomerates and the advertisers who back them, and those with the deepest pockets. Here’s the “Grunt.” Then the baffled look like, “How can you be my kid?” And then most certainly, “Communist.”

No, Dad. “American.”

The Art of Removing Wallpaper (By Terri Hendrix) THM All rights reserved 2010