“It’s crop rotation,” he said. I get that.

Doug next quoted a meme which I, too, had seen attributed to Joni Mitchell:

I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate. I thought, that’s interesting, because I believe a total unwillingness to cooperate is what is necessary to be an artist — not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision. The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music. That’s why I spend my time now painting. – Joni Mitchell (citation: azquotes.com)

“…and that’s what I think is going on with me.”

Doug and I agree, though, that there’s more to it. There’s a job called ‘floater’ in almost every industry – the guy who’s knowledgeable enough to fill in wherever needed. “There’s something to be said for burrowing in…having more than one way to express one’s self is better.” As for clarifying inspiration’s message, he says:  “I let the medium I’m working with dictate that back to me.”

Doug uses underglaze pencils to create his signature style. I was taken in immediately by the pottery decorated with what I call Surly Bees, and bought myself one for my birthday – debora means bee in Hebrew.

me: What came first – music or ceramics?

DI: When I was 13, in junior high, my first art teacher was Rollie Younger. Not only did he turn me  on to art – he also was a potter – but during his art class, when he gave us an assignment, he would put on folk music – Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez, et al.  So he also turned me on to that. That was when I got my first guitar. When I did my graduation show I invited all my old art teachers. He’s the only one who came. Rollie retired to Cambria.

In June of 2021 I went and visited him. He had become an active potter with a shop and showed me that the biggest seller for him was his ‘frog’ mugs. We had a great reunion and visit. Later I made some ‘frog pots’ in his honor. When I went to check back in February 2022, what came up was an obituary. I am so happy I made that visit and told him what an influence on me he’d been.

I went to Pasadena City College and had a wonderful teacher, Philip Cornelius, for 4 or 5 years. I ended up his lab assistant. I also attended Big Creek Pottery during their summer immersion-type school. I remember I used a red glaze recipe from Bruce McDougal…

me: the more intense reds are high-fire, correct?

DI: Yeah, they go up to 11!*

me: there’s always so much anticipation waiting for the kiln to cool, take the piece out…

DI: When I opened the kiln, I was bummed. It came out green! Didn’t reduce correctly – something I didn’t expect. I was holding it one over a trash can with a hammer in my hand…

me: (wincing)

DI: I remember Phil grabbed me by the wrist, stopped the hammer swing. “That’s the most perfect copper green I’ve ever seen! Take it home and live with it.” I still have it – it’s one of my favorite pots from that era.

me: So you were what we call the Keeper of the Grail in the Kenny Loggins bio…

DI: Ha, yes. Kenny was beginning to write his memoir with Jason Turbow (Still Alright: A Memoir) and asked if I could come over to his house and zoom with Jason and answer questions about that time in his life. Kenny and I were in different rooms the same house, and Jason was somewhere else. One of the main things was finding out how I helped Kenny secure publishing rights on ‘House on Pooh Corner‘.

In the late ’60s, we were hanging out together as we always did; I was going to school, he was doing studio work, trying to pitch his songs. Kenny’s a big energy; and when he’s up  it’s great to be with him. And when he’s down it’s an intense downward spiral. One day  I picked him up and he was down. “I’ll never be a songwriter blah blah blah…”

I was trying to pump him back up. “What about ‘Danny’s Song’? What about ‘Winnie the Pooh’?”

“Oh, Winnie the pooh, yeah right. I can’t get it published because Disney owns anything that says Winnie the Pooh.”

“Give me a minute…”

My dad’s vitamin business (Tiger’s Milk) did well; we had a house on the beach. The Walkers rented out the beach house next to us. Mr. Walker was the executive VP at Disney, and they had a daughter named Marnie. Over a few summers, Marnie and I became close. Marnie was also into folk music; she’d invite me to see shows in the Disney Box at the Hollywood bowl, second row center. We saw Joan Baez the night she introduced Bob Dylan. (Joan ended  up getting angry letters from people wanting their $2.75 back.)

So I called Marnie and asked if they were coming to the beach that summer.

me: and the book takes it from there. Did Kenny Loggins ever get involved with art with you?

DI: Not specifically. He loves my work & ordered a honey jar from me a while ago. Kenny’s first car was a bright red jeep w/cloth top. He drove up to Big Creek to visit and take me for a spin. We went down to the beach…

me: It seems cool in the movies, right?

DI: (laughs) He was having trouble driving on the beach. “I’ll just go down to the wet sand,” he said. Greyhound Rock is a popular area with the locals. Everybody knows you don’t go below the ledge… the jeep got stuck. The tide’s coming up, the sun’s coming down. I ran up the hill  – fortunately somebody gave me a ride, it was about a mile. 26 students or so got in the bus and drove down to the beach to help. We tried to pull it with winches, nothing worked. Bud Bock, one of the students, had worked in the peace corps in Guatemala. He told Kenny to get out of the car. “Deflate all the tires. I’m gonna go fwd & backward.” All the students were pushing. Finally got the jeep beyond the danger zone…that didn’t make it into the book.

me: What was your major, specifically?

DI: I graduated BFA in ceramics/minor in glassblowing. Glassblowing is a pretty intense thing – a lot of heat, a lot of chemicals, so I never went back to it.

Then I got married, and knew I was gonna have a family, so I ended up going what I thought was a safer route than making a living as a potter or a musician. I ended up going into the vitamin business. What kept me sane during that time was that I drew. I was traveling a lot. It was a lot different in airports in the 70s. People were fascinated to just watch you drawing. Even before I went back to The Forge and started making pottery, that would be my creative outlet, just sit in a restaurant and draw, in pen and ink, just draw people.

What got me back to clay was just getting back on a bike again. The place where I work now is called The Curious Forge.  When I first moved up north I bought a kick wheel but never really used it. A friend called me and asked: “We’re starting this thing called The Forge, can we come get your kick-wheel?” I said sure, but it still took a couple years before I joined The Forge and started working again.

Combining drawing with ceramics brought it full circle. I was shopping for supplies at Alpha Fired and asked if there a way I could actually draw on ceramics. I was told I could use underglaze pencils. And that’s when I started drawing on pots. My oldest son’s wife is a wonderful artist in her own right, and she saw what I was doing. She said, “Can you do one with bees & thistles?” So I did. Once people saw that, that was it. People love bees.

me: …but you’re still making music.

DI: I’ll always be making music. It’s in my DNA.

In 1995, I think, Jimmy Messina started the songwriters performance workshop**. The 1^st one there was like 40 people. Wheat came away from the chaff pretty fast – pretty interesting core of 8 or 10 songwriters. I met John and Anastasia Gonzalez there.

During one workshop, I sang a song I wrote when I was in India in 1991. The only song I’d written up until then. While we were packing up, John came to me. “That would be a great song for Crosby, Stills, & Nash.” Yeah that’d be nice. I didn’t know then that John’s job was guitar tech for David and Graham.

So one day I get a phone call from John: “Hey, Dougie, do you have a demo of that song?” I’d just recorded it at Jimmy’s studio. On a great grand piano. “CSN are in the studio now and they’re picking songs. Send me a tape. I think they’d be interested.” 3 days later, John calls and says, “Where’s my tape? Don’t give me any excuses. They’re in the studio, they’re picking song, give me the f***ing tape.” So I did

John called me a few days later. “I slipped the tape to Graham after rehearsal. He came back in the next morning and he was singing the song. He thinks it needs a bridge.” I get a tape in the mail 3-4 days later with the bridge he and Joe Vitale wrote and all the harmonies. We negotiated ownership percentages and settled on a deal to put our song on the next CSN album.

And then Neil Young shows up with 100 songs and says, “Hey I want to be on this album.” So my song didn’t make the cut. It did get on Songs For Survivors. That song is “I’ll Be There For You.” (track 5)

John Gonzales made another connection for me.  Towards the end of the 90’s I was in the process of recording my first CD. I got a call from Gonz: “Croz wants to start a new band, call it CPR, and he’s looking for a room in Santa Barbara with a good acoustic piano and I thought of your place.  What do you think?”

He told me David Crosby had met his biological son, James Raymond, who is an amazing musician. David wanted to start a band with him and Jeff Pevar.  David had asked Gonz if he knew of a room in Santa Barbara with a good acoustic piano. Gonz immediately thought of my studio at the top of Mission Canyon.

My first thought was, “if you build it they will come.”  What I said was: “Of course!”  So, over the next few years David, James, and Jeff met up at my place almost daily.  Needless to say, getting to be the ‘fly on the wall’ and watch some of the best music while it was being created was a once in a lifetime experience.

I would say that from the beginning of Jimmy’s workshop up and thru the recording of my 2nd CD in 2012 was definitely the peak of my immersion in music.

Not only was it my most creative time musically but is allowed me to complete a ‘frozen need’ I had lived with for over 30 years … to live the life I had watched from the sidelines as my old teenage buddy Kenny Loggins experienced such success.  It was the best of times.