Alicia’s poster for her movie, and a photo of Alicia performing the live show upon which the movie is based.
My dear friend, celebrated director/screenwriter SJ Chiro, who, right now, is launching her latest masterpiece, “East of the Mountains,” just took the time to review my first, and most likely, only, movie, “Living on the Earth – The Musical.”
Here is what she wrote:
I watched Alicia Bay Laurel’s one woman show, “Living on Earth – The Musical,” with rapt attention. The 1-hour-47-minute running time flew by.
As a child of her contemporaries, growing up on one of the communes on which Alicia herself lived in her early years, I listened as she unwrapped her history, a history I had never known. Tales of when she was a girl. The experiences which shaped her, including a fraught relationship with her mother.
As children, we only know what we experience of people in the present. I saw adults who had already made the decision to break with their straight, uptight parents and go back to the land, living simply and illegally, eating brown rice and vegetables communally, and walking down long dirt roads with bare feet. This was their present, but how did they get here? And now that they were here, what did living on the land mean to them? What were they eschewing? Why had they created a new paradigm?
Alicia tells the answers to these questions, and more, as she sings and plays her guitar in the style that brought me back to my childhood, her mellow voice, sometimes soothing, sometimes full of energy. I saw a portrait of a strong-willed and clever independent teenager who lit out for San Francisco and eventually made her way North to Sonoma County.
Always energetic and creative, Alicia decided to make a book illustrating Life on the Land. She called it Living on the Earth and it was surprisingly a huge success. As a young woman she was suddenly famous, and had money. A lot more money than most of the people around her. Alicia doesn’t shy away from honestly recounting how this imbalance caused some problems and resentments among her peers, but the show keeps on truckin’.
Soon Alicia is in Hawaii and other locales. The stories keep coming. At one point, she is joined on stage by her great long-time friend and collaborator Ramón Sender Barayón. How beautiful to see two artists who have known each other for so many years, respect each other’s company and make music together.
Some of Alicia’s rawness may shock, some inspire laughter, some elicit “Wow!”s from the audience. That is the glory of the unvarnished truth of a lifetime, and we are so lucky to get to hear all this from the master artist Alicia Bay Laurel.
SJ Chiro Director East of the Mountains Director Lane 1974 lane1974film.com“
East of the Mountains” is available from practically all Video on Demand outlets . It’s poetry in cinema.
Wonderful Art Kunkin, when he founded the Los Angeles Free Press in 1964.
I first met Art at my first Renaissance Pleasure Faire, when it was still a fundraiser for Pacifica Radio’s Los Angeles station, KPFK, which was the soundtrack of my childhood, growing up with leftist parents in Los Angeles.
A couple of years later, he offered me my first real job – doing graphic layout at the Freep in the summer of 1966. There, based on conversations with friends also working there, I plotted my course to the Haight-Ashbury, where my real life began.
A letter I sent to these same friends from Ann Arbor, Michigan, which they placed in Letters to the Editor unbeknownst to me, resulted in a write-up by Joan Didion in the Saturday Evening Post in January 1967, titled “Alicia and the Underground Press.”
The no-computer layout skills I acquired at the Freep served me well in creating the first edition of Living on the Earth in 1970.
Art and I remained in touch over the years, and I saw him again when he was in his 90s in Joshua Tree, California.
In the 2003 and 2004, as the US invasion of Iraq was raging, I campaigned for peace activist, US Representative, and former Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich‘s presidential primary run on the Big Island of Hawaii, where I was living then. That’s me in this photo, with one foot in the street, at a demonstration in Hilo.
With my tribe of fierce peace and environmental activists, we offered voter information from booths we set up at farmers’ markets (“Dennis is the only necktie in Washington that represents YOU. He’s anti-war! And he’s a vegan!”), got trained to offer voter registration and then offered it everywhere, including in the theatre lobby during a three-week screening of Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 at the Palace Theatre in Hilo, and, later, got trained to be a poll watcher at our local primaries. While engaging in these actions, I wrote my rant/waltz, America the Blues.
Our campaigning worked! People that had never voted before turned out in droves and swamped the normally tiny Democratic Party caucuses, giving Kucinich 60% of the vote in the Puna District, 50% of the vote for the Big Island (Hawaii County), and 33% of the vote for the state of Hawaii, which, along with the state of Washington, were the two states that sent Kucinich delegates to the 2004 Democratic Party National Convention in Boston.
Those of us that had organized this victory suddenly found ourselves officers of our precincts, writing resolutions and platform planks to present at the Hawaii State Democratic Party Convention in Honolulu, which I attended.
I wrote nine resolutions – one to outlaw GMO crops in Hawaii, and eight for election reform. One of these resolutions not only passed the vote on the convention floor, but also passed the vote in both houses of the Hawaii state legislature and was signed into law by the Republican governor, Linda Lingle. That is why all forms of voting in the state of Hawaii must produce a hand-countable paper trail. You’re welcome.
I had the pleasure of meeting Congressman Kucinich a couple of times during and shortly after the campaign. Here’s a photo from 2006 in which he graciously posed with me after a giving speech in Kahului, Maui, on behalf of Senator Daniel Akaka’s re-election campaign, in which he ennumerated Senator Akaka’s achievements in limiting the use of nuclear weapons.
I then presented this brave peace activist politician with a poster print of my painting, Peace Girl, which he liked very much.
Dennis ran again in 2007 and 2008. I would have liked to campaign for him again, but, during those years, I was responsible for my mother’s end-of-life care, and, afterwards, with addressing the various types of chaos she left behind. Even so, I posted about Dennis’ campaign, his platform and his speeches on this blog during those years.
I was pleased to reconnect with Dennis Kucinich again in 2020, on Facebook. I had replied to one of his posts on his wall that I had been a volunteer on the Big Island of Hawaii during his presidential primary campaign in 2003 and 2004. I did not expect a reply, since I was one of thousands of volunteers and voters that he met during those busy years, but, to my astonishment, he sent me the following message:
Dear Alicia,
I treasure your brilliant, memorable art, and your support.
I still have it. It is extraordinary, incandescent, as are you. Yes, I remember.
Juan Antonio Martínez Sarrión, who had translated, relettered and published (in 2017) Living on the Earth as Viviendo en la Tierra, was translating and relettering Ser Del Sol, a Spanish edition of Being of the Sun, with the idea of also publishing it through his company, Kachina Ediciones, when he painted the cover art on an old, traditionally styled house in the ancient Moorish village of Milinicos, in the mountains near the city of Albacete, in the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha.
A panorama of Milinicos, with the mural of the Being of the Sun cover.
This year I am having a multi-decade solo art exhibition from September 1 through 20 at fashion designer Aya Noguchi’s Sison Gallery in Daikanyama, Shibuya, Tokyo. The opening event will be recorded as part of a documentary about my work by Setsuko Miura’s environmentalist television show, Kotonaha No Midori.
My concerts are also CD release parties for my newest recording, “Alicia Bay Laurel: Live in Japan,” which you can buy here.
Here is the tour schedule in Japanese and then in English:
2018年9月17日（月・祝）コンサート＆新作CDリリース・パーティ。場所：大阪茶屋町URBAN RESEARCH DOORS（エコ・ファッション・ストア＆カフェ）。カフェでのライブ：19:30～20:15。住所：〒530-0013大阪府大阪市北区茶屋町15-31。電話：06-6485-0178（コーディネーター：Ryoko）
Here is the English language version of tour schedule:
08/11/2018 New Moon concert and CD release party and vegetarian dinner. 18:00 start. SHIRAHAMA TOFU FACTORY. 1500 yen. Address: 1477 Shirahacho Takiguchi, Minami Boso-shi, Chiba https://www.facebook.com/events/242954323164704/
08/18/2018 Concert and CD release party and macrobiotic dinner at Lungta Yokone. 18:00 start. 1500 yen. Address: 217 Kyonan-machi, Awa-gun, Chiba-ken https://www.facebook.com/events/257584581504181/
09/01/2018 Art Gallery Opening Party for Alicia Bay Laurel’s solo exhibition, “Dancing with Nature,” and her concert, at Sison Gallery, Daikanyama, Shibuya, Tokyo. 15:00 to 20:00. Live at 19:00, with hula by Miho Ogura. Address: 150-0033, 3-18 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Tel: 03-6886-8048
09/06/2018 Concert and CD release party at Thumbs Up Live House, Yokohama. Open 18:30, start 19:30. With the Inoue Ohana Band, hula by Miho Ogura, and translation by Kimberly Hughes. For more information, call 045-314-8705. Advance 2800 yen, Door 3300 yen. 3F Movil, 2-1-22, Minamisaiwai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 220-0005. http://www.stovesyokohama.com/
09/07/2018 Concert and CD release party at People Tree Jiyugaoka [fair trade fashion shop] (flagship store in Tokyo) 3-7-2 Jiyugaoka, Meguro-ku, Tokyo. 18:00 open, 18:30 start. With interpretive dance by Rie Nobuso. http://www.peopletree.co.jp/shop_jiyugaoka/index.html#shop_map
09/09/2018 Concert and CD release party at Cafe Yukkurido, 125, Yabe-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 244-0002. Open 17:45, peace prayer 18:25, start 18:30. Hosted by Naoko Baba. With interpretive dance by Rie Nobuso.
09/15/2018 Concert and CD release party at Modern Ark Pharm Café in Kobe. 19:30 to 21:30 中央区北長狭通3-11-15 Kobe-shi, Hyogo, Japan 650-0012. For more information, please call 078-391-3060. https://www.facebook.com/ModernarkPharmCafe/
09/16/2018 Intimate Concert to benefit The Branch Arts and Ecology Center in Osaka. Open 15:30. Start 16:00. 2-8-20 Kitakagaya, Osaka 559-0011 http://branch.sociecity.org
09/17/2018 Concert and CD release party at Urban Research Doors Chaya-machi (Eco fashion store and café.) Live in the café 19:30 to 20:15. 15-31, Chaya-machi, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-0013. Tel: 06-6485-0178 (Ryoko is the coordinator)
09/22/2018 Concert and CD release event Saikouji Zen Buddhist Temple, in the mountains west of Hiroshima, near the town of Miyoshi. Event organized by Souken Danjo, the head monk. Start time 14:00. Includes a vegetarian curry dinner. 729-4207 Hiroshima-ken, Miyoshi-shi, Kisa-cho, 610 Saikouji. For more information, please call: 080 5338 6274. https://www.facebook.com/SAIKOUJI
09/23/2018 Autumn Equinox Party, Concert, CD release party, and country market, at Italia Kaikan Fukuoka / Centro Italiano di Fukuoka. Address: Tokirikyu – Nakarikyu 2F, 1-18-25 Imaizumi, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka, 810-0021, tel: 092 761 8570. Start time: 16:00. Please contact Ayako at ayamomo821@gmail.com for more information.
09/28/2018 Concert and CD release party at Shoumyouji Buddhist temple. Start time: 18:00. Address: 〒899-6404 鹿児島県霧島市溝辺町麓 溝辺町2563 Kagoshima-ken Kirishima-shi Mizobechofumoto Mizobecho 2563 出演者 アリシア ベイローレル 他 出店 ワークショップあり
09/29/2018 Concert and CD release party with shrine-building workshop in Nichinan, Kagoshima.
09/30/2018 Concert and CD release party at Kaze No Oka, outdoor restaurant and music venue. 〒899-2431 鹿児島県日置市東市来町美山 東市来町美山2591 風の丘 Kagoshima-ken Hioki-shi Higashiichiki-cho Miyama 2591 Kazenooka 出演者 アリシア ベイローレル Start time is 13:00.
Kota drums and Alicia sings at Kaze No Oka in Miyama, Kagoshima. A typhoon had passed through the area during the early morning of the same day, but the café was full of happy people that evening.
He was promoting his novel, The Season of the Witch, and I was on the publicity tour arranged by Random House for the Vintage Books edition of Living on the Earth (the second edition – the first was published the previous year by The BookWorks, in Berkeley.)
A mutual friend reconnected us in 1977, and, after that, I was a frequent guest in his home in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles. It was during those happy times that he gifted me with his book, The Midnight Cowboy, with this sweet inscription. I gifted him with a drawing of his face as a huge photo on the wall of a living room, with Marlene Dietrich admiring it from the sofa. He had a movie screen-sized photo of her face on one wall of his living room. “That’s the size I’m accustomed to seeing her,” he told me.
Jamie had been Anais Nin‘s confidante, and told me this story: In her forties, Anais told him that she wanted to die at fifty, so she would be “always the ingenue, never the dowager.” When he reminded her of this as she lay dying at seventy-two, she replied, “How could I have known that my best years would come after?”
In 1980, Jamie’s long time partner, Bill Lord, was one of the first gay men to perish from AIDS. After that, Jamie’s life centered on hospicing and eulogizing many of his beloved friends. In 1991, when it became clear that he, too, was succumbing to the virus, he took his own life. I was devastated. Only one year later, a three-drug therapy came into use that could have saved him.
Kaorico Ago Wada’s portrait of Alicia Bay Laurel at Cafe Millet, near Kyoto, on June 13, 2015.
Here‘s a link to Hikaru-san’s article and photos in the magazine he founded in the 1970s and has edited since then.
Here‘s a link to a video he made of my performance at Art Cafe Naksha in Awajishima of a famous old peace song, “Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream,” on July 11, 2015. I tell the story of the song (at some length) before I sing, but, once I begin singing, people join me, and, in the instrumental break, and to the end of the song, everyone gets up and dances in a circle, echoing the lyrics: “…and the people in the streets below were dancing ’round and ’round…”
Here is a link to a video he made of my performance at Modern Ark Pharm Cafe in Kobe of my song Beautiful, Beautiful, June 28, 2015.
Here is a link to a video he made of my performance at Modern Ark Pharm Cafe in Kobe of my song Paisley Days, June 28, 2015.
When I fell and broke both feet and both ankles at an airport hotel outside Tokyo, where I had just arrived, my dear friends, Kaoriko Ago Wada, Kensuke Ishii, and Yasushi Yamaguchi all rushed to my aid. I didn’t think I could smile that day, but, with their loving presences surrounding me, I did.
ALAS, DUE TO A SEVERE INJURY JUST BEFORE THE TOUR, I WAS UNABLE TO TRAVEL AND PARTICIPATE. BELOW ARE ALL THE WONDERFUL EVENTS I HAD PLANNED TO PERFORM, BUT WAS OBLIGED TO MISS WHILE I SPENT THREE MONTHS RECOVERING THE ABILITY TO WALK. BUT I CAME BACK IN 2015 AND PERFORMED WITH GUSTO.
06/06 Concert and Talk with the staff and readers of Murmur Magazine at VACANT Art Space in Harajuku at 19:00. Murmur’s editor, Hattori Millet-san’s band plays first! Then I play, then Millet-san and I talk. Tickets available at Murmur magazine’s website. 3-20-13 Jingumae, Shibuya, Tokyo Transport Harajuku station (JR Yamanote Line) or Meiji-jingumae station (Tokyo Metro Chiyoda Line) Telephone 03 6459 2962 URLwww.n0idea.com/vacant/
06/08 Concert after the movie “Embracing the Seed of Life,” Keibo Shinichi Oiwa Tsuji’s interview with Vandana Shiva, and documentary of her work, the English version of which has Alicia’s song, “Sometimes It Takes a Long Time” in the soundtrack. Movie 15:00 to 16:00, Alicia Bay Laurel live concert and discussion from 16:00 to 17:00. At Cinema Amigo in Zushi, Kanagawa http://cinema-amigo.com/
06/14 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition, starts at 14:00, at Cafe Jisoan, Sue, Gifu, 2000 yen.
06/15 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition, starts at 18:00, Mi.Ca.Li Gallery, Mino, Osaka, 2000 yen.
06/17 Art Workshop with Alicia Bay Laurel: Visualization Altars with Crystals. Starts at 15:00. 8000 yen. Meet at Under the Light Yoga School Shogakukaikan-bekkan 4F, 1-53-4, Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0053 Flier: http://holiken.net/?pid=74868539 Contact: mail@rietreat.com Photo of Alicia Bay Laurel’s shrine “Love to My Inner Child,” made on Oshima Island, 2007.
06/17 Concert at Under the Light Yoga School Starts at 18:30, 2500 yen. Shogakukaikan-bekkan 4F, 1-53-4, Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0053
06/21 Concert (featuring Ikue Asazaki) and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition and Fashion Show, Cafe Slow, Kokubunji, Tokyo. Starts at 19:00, seats 3800 and 4300 yen. http://www.cafeslow.com/
Photo of Ikue Asazaki and Alicia Bay Laurel at Cafe Slow, 06/08/2013
06/22 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition and Fashion Show, Asaba Art Square, Kanazawa-Bunko, Kanagawa. Starts at 15:00. Seats: 2500 and 3000 yen, children 5 to 18, 1000 yen
06/27 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition, Gallery Kan, Fukushima. Start 18:30, 3000 yen.
06/29 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition, Manos Garden, Hiroshima. Start 16:00, Seats 2500 and 3000 yen.
07/04 Concert (featuring UA) and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition and Fashion Show, Cafe Unizon, Ginowan, Okinawa. Starts 19:00. Seats 2500 yen. http://www.cafe-unizon.jp/
07/12 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition at RAWCAFE by cacao?magic_ in Kyoto. Starts 19:00. Seats 2500 and 2800 yen. http://www.cacaomagic.com/
07/13 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition and Fashion Show at Cafe Millet, near Kyoto, Start: 14:30. 3500 yen.
07/19 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition and Fashion Show, Bagus, Wakayama. Start 19:00. Seats: 2500 and 3000 yen http://www.wakanoura.com/bagus/
07/26 Concert with Inoue Ohana Band and hula by Miho Ogura, Alishan Organic Center, Hidaka, Saitama. Start at 15:30. Seat and one drink: 2300 yen.
Photo of Miho Ogura, Kathie and Keni Inoue and Alicia Bay Laurel performing together at an outdoor festival at Yamapara Organic Farm, in Nakasakuma, Chiba, on 07/27/2013.
08/02 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition, Little Eagle Aso, Kumamoto. Start at 18:00. Seats 2000 and 2500 yen.
08/05 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Exhibition, Daisho-in Temple, Hiroshima. Start 18:00. Tickets by donation.
08/08 Concert and Little Eagle Fashion Show, Arts & Crafts Village, Okayama. Start 18:00. Seats 2500 and 3000 yen.
08/09 Peace Concert in Hiroshima (with other musicians). Start 15:00. Location and ticket price TBA.
The Los Angeles Visionary Association, founded and directed by art historians Kim Cooper and Richard Schave, who are also the owners and operators of the amazing noir Los Angeles tour company, Esotouric, has been holding monthly salons for nearly two years at historic Clifton’s Cafeteria in downtown Los Angeles. I’ve been a member since the beginning, but this was the first time I’ve managed to attend a salon. It was wonderful fun.
The opening event was a set of original songs performed by the Ukulady, Thessaly Lerner, and her band (on mandolin and electric autoharp). The Ukulady evolved her act during her years as a student and then a teacher at Wavy Gravy’s Camp Winnarainbow Circus and Performing Arts Camp in Northern California.
Next up was a slide show lecture by the gorgeously attired Dr. Paul Koudounaris, professor of art history at California State University Dominguez Hills, to introduce his book, Empire of Death, a lavish collection of his photos and research on the world’s forgotten charnel houses, ossuaries, and reliquaries.
After the salon, we all trooped out after Richard Schave and Nathan Marsak, who gave us a rousing walking tour and lecture on Victorian Los Angeles.
I particularly loved the Bradbury Building, a gloriously designed and constructed Victorian edifice, and our guides’ tale of how it was saved from destruction by fire by a brave and dedicated elevator operator.
Kim pointed out that the building’s elevator grills had little demon’s heads in the filigree.
Even the view out the side door of this building offered a dream scene.
Downtown Los Angeles fascinates with unapologetic Victorian grandeur, …
…ambitious, passionate murals,…
…and unexpected entertainers (that’s a banjo player on a bicycle trailer).
Alicia Bay Laurel 
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