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Listen to or read the narrative of the latest installment of the classic Ozarks commentary by beloved Ozarks singer and storyteller Marideth Sisco, host of the long-running series, These Ozarks Hills.
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The Amazing Geriatric Hillbilly U.S. World Tour, page 6
We’re two days into the trip and I’m nowhere near the end of the story about how we got here, so I’m just going to leave you in suspense… not. But here’s the Cliff Notes version. I discovered the movie’s impact hours before I saw it, when a fan rushed up to me on the snow-filled streets of Park City, Utah, grabbed the sleeve of my coat and said, in a thick accent, “You were in the movie. I love your music.”
Quelle surprise. But the big surprise was when I sat down, the theater got dark and up came the image, and the Missouri Waltz. Me, or at least my voice, on the big screen. I was stunned through most of the movie, not just because the music was such an integral part, but because the film was so damn good. And true, and all the other stuff they’ve said about it. When it ended, I just sat there for a long time, feeling the universe shift around me, and wondering if what I strongly suspected was true. Was I, in fact, about to enter a parallel universe. Well, yeah, kinda. In March they sent me to Austin, to the South by Southwest Film Festival. Then Kansas City in April. Then to New York in June for the film openings on the east coast. Then LIttle Rock, and Memphis, and all manner of places, culminating, I thought, in a trip to Italy to represent the film at the Torino International Film Festival. That was 2010.
This year started at the Moxie in Springfield to celebrate four Oscar nominations with the home crowd. Then in February, I got to join the crew for the big moment (which actually occurred the day before the Oscars at the Independent Film Awards. We got two. Something else happened as well. I was reunited with my old songwriting partner, Robin Frederick. And we began writing songs.
Oh, and there was the meeting set up by Matt Sullivan of Light in the Attic, who was hoping to generate a tour to promote the Winter’s Bone soundtrack, and Christian Bernard, booking agent for independent “Indie” rock bands. He said he thought he could book us a tour, I said sure, let’s try it. And now here we are in a motel in Denver, waiting for our first gig out on the open road. So with this post, we’re up to date. The following is a post from the road hand written this morning, somewhere on the Kansas-Colorado line. It goes like this:
Colorado – Just like Kansas but with the beginnings of randomly scattered Ponderosa pines.. Yesterday, we crossed Kansas as far as Colby. No cheese, but a giant wind farm that was truly bizarre. Thousands of years from now in the next cycle of doomed civilizations, they will create new myths about the aliens who must have built these monoliths for unknown purposes, possibly to communicate with their kin on distant stars.
You already know Kansas is flat and wide, but to give an idea of the relentless sameness, we started a bird list a while ago, and have already descended into documenting roadkill.
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The Amazing Geriatric Hillbilly US World Tour, page 5
I don’t remember much of the next two weeks, because of the drugs for the pain and drugs for the infection (and a couple of drugs for the drugs). But the doctors were good, the nurses were fine, and everyone was treading carefully lest I discover the infection was from a nicked bowel and sue the bejeezus out of them. But I didn’t know for a while, and I didn’t really care, so long as I ended up alive and back on my feet. And I did.
And the time after that was kind of sweet, because I moved out to the farm where I could have some solitude, get my bearings and grow a little garden for my soul. Plenty of potatoes, enough tomatoes and way too many cucumbers. Bliss.
And then sometime in late June or July, the movie folks got in touch again. They wanted more songs. A hymn that referenced the great mystery, instead of sin and retribution. I sent them Farther Along. Then they wanted to know what the Missouri Waltz sounded like. Racist, I said. Can you fix it, they asked. So I took out all the darkies and pickaninnies, and replaced them with old folks and babies. Out with Mammy, in with Mama. When I got to something that was singable and didn’t make me wince, I sang it into my recorder, shrank it down to a manageable size and sent it to them in an e-mail. And tossed away the original. It was late November before they called again, this time asking for the original file.
I threw that away, I said. Ohhhh, that’s too bad, they said, sounding like it really was. Why, I asked. Because now it begins the movie.
Dang! So I searched for it, digging through all my flash drives, and it was really gone. I had saved a dozen other lame things that nobody wanted. But I threw away the opening song. So I went into the studio to recreate it. After 5 tries, I was nowhere near the sound of the original. So they used it, poor little mp3 file that it was. They added wind and a few crickets and it worked out just fine. But I felt like a fool, and figured they’d probably had all of me they could stand. But a little after New Year, they called again, this time with an invitation.
Would you like to go to Sundance, they asked. Well, hell yes. I’d go back to Park City for the first time since 1976. See the mountains of the Wasatch Front. It would be a great way to celebrate the completion of the project. I’d miss these folks, I thought. It had been a swell ride, and this would be a great finale. I had no idea.
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The Amazing Geriatric Hillbilly US World Tour, page 4
I was two weeks out from surgery, feeling pretty good if a little sluggish and stupid. Anesthesia does that, I was told, so I didn’t worry — just continued coasting along, keeping a sanitary pad between the incision and the waistband of my jeans, and weaning myself from the pain meds. No problem. Then one morning I woke up feeling strange, kind of achy, and very tired. So I went back up a notch on the meds, taking 800 mgs of ibuprofen. Vickie and Zara had gone for the day and I was supposed to feed the dogs. But I just didn’t feel like it. I sat down in the recliner to rest a moment when there was a knock at the door. The dogs, of course, went ballistic. So I slipped outside to find out who wanted what. It was a census worker handing out info for the expected upcoming census visits. I took the pamphlet offered and stepped back inside.
Suddenly I was struck with a violent shaking, my teeth chattering as though I was about to freeze to death. I knew something was very wrong, but I didn’t know what. I called the surgeon’s office. The nurse who came on the phone, after asking a few questions, said “Are you sure you don’t have a fever?”
“I couldn’t have a fever,” I said. I took all this Motrin about an hour ago.
“Check it anyway, and call me back,” she said.
I checked it. The thermometer read 102° F. Impossible. But there it was.
I called back, and received these instructions.
“Do not attempt to drive. Call a friend and have them drive you to the emergency room. Tell them what you told me. I’ll send your records down.”
So I did. And they took me in for observation. This was shortly before noon. By 5 p.m. I was in intense pain and was pretty sure I’d swallowed a small grenade that had detonated somewhere in my lower abdomen, way in the back.
“We suspect an infection,” they said, and ordered an x-ray. Their suspicions were confirmed. I would need an immediate course of I.V. antibiotics, carefully administered by an infectious disease specialist. And the infection would have to be drained by a skilled radiologist who specialized in inserting such drains. There were no such specialists available at the local hospital. In fact, there were no such specialists available anywhere.
Did I mention it was a Friday afternoon, the Friday before Easter, commonly called Good Friday? It wasn’t so good from my view. By the time I’d waited through the Easter weekend, got shipped by ambulance to a hospital 100 miles away where such specialists could be had, and waited for one of them to return from vacation and insert the drain, it was the following Thursday, I was in a very precarious place, and the movie was the very farthest thing from my mind. I was in no mood to sing.
The Amazing Geriatric Hillbilly U.S. World Tour, page 3
For years, maybe decades, I’d been plagued with a little curse called “cervical polyps.” Wikipedia defines them thus: A cervical polyp is a common benign polyp or tumour on the surface of the cervical canal.[1] They can cause irregular menstrual bleeding (and it did) but often show no symptoms (other than the damned bleeding, of course). Treatment consists of simple removal of the polyp and prognosis is generally good. About 1% of cervical polyps will show neoplastic change which may lead to cancer. They are most common in post-menstrual, pre-menopausal women who have been pregnant.
Well, I should have been too old, and I was childless besides(I forgot to have children). But the damned things kept coming back. And back. And back again. And then one day, just like Jessup, they changed. And when I had them evicted, they contained cancer cells. Hysterectomy, the doctor said. Fine, I said. March 19, he countered. Nope. Can’t do it, I replied.
He responded with incredulity, understandably. Why not, he said. I’m making a movie, I answered. He shook his head and sighed. What are you doing the 23rd, he asked.
Evicting this bastard, I said. Wanna help?
And so he did, and we did and I got to wait until I could shoot my little part in the little movie, and all was right with the world. For about 2 weeks. But all during those two weeks, a little bug was growing, way back in the back of the incision. Either someone nicked an intestine and let it loose, or it just fell out of the hospital air. But it survived, and grew. And about mid-April it came to get me.
The Amazing Geriatric Hillbilly U.S. World Tour, page 2
She said, “We just can’t get that one song out of our heads. We’d like to use it in the movie.”
What movie, I was thinking, and then I remembered. The crew that came to Rick’s house said they were scouting locations with the intent to make one of Dan’s novels into a film. It’s title, she reminded me, was to be “Winter’s Bone.” Oh yeah, I thought. Daniel’s little film about the Ozarks.
Well heck. Of course I’d like to sing a song for the film. When did they want to record it?
No, no, she said. You don’t understand. We’ve written a scene into the film for you.
Me? Craggy old over-the-hill me? Well, it’s not like it’s a MOVIE movie. It’s just a little low-budget Indie. I can do that. So I said yes. Then I got cancer.
my life and times 