Ken Cook

I was born into a musical household, and have always had a song in my heart or my head.
When I was younger, I seriously considered a career as a musician, but decided that it would make a better hobby than profession.  I also felt that I had too much of a "yin" personality and needed a solid education to balance myself out.
So I attacked my weaknesses and studied science, and was, at one point, a pre-med student, but realized that I was more interested in keeping myself healthy than looking after sick people.
Deciding on travel and adventure, I joined the Peace Corps after graduation with a bachelors in biology, and spent 2.5 years in Cameroon as a fisheries volunteer.  Many times, I entertained the village with songs and single-handedly performed the Wizard of Oz, and Mary Poppins for other Peace Corps volunteers at get-togethers.
After the Peace Corps, I took a teaching job in Japan, where I quickly became an expert at karaoke, well before it became popular in the U.S.
After four years in Japan, I moved to Singapore and taught at the International School for two years before moving to South Florida in 1992, to go to graduate school.  I obtained a masters degree in Coastal Zone Management from Nova Southeastern University in '94, and worked in environmental restoration for a couple of years before joining the nursery industry.  I've been working at Plant Creations, Inc, since '96, and have written a beautiful website (plantcreations.com) that tries to show people the wisdom of using our native vegetation.
The music bursts out of me!  I have a bunch of poems and songs that pop in my head and I write them down and then they start moving around on their own.  I wrote the two songs I am submitting last year, in 2013.  You are the Madman is about Sketch, a homeless addict who used to sit in his wheelchair at the intersection of US1 and the 878.  I remember seeing him back in about the year 2000.  He could walk at first, and then started walking with a limp, and then with a cane, and then with crutches and then in the wheelchair.  A friend of mine knew him from a program, and said that Sketch had decided that he did not want to become straight, but would "ride the wave" for as long as he could.  He died earlier this year, and has been replaced at the intersection with other people who are having trouble walking.
The second song comes from the place I used to live in, in Homestead.  I saw baby snakes come slithering out of the drain in the sink, and lizards dancing up the walls, and cockroaches bursting out of the cabinets, and scorpions regularly appeared from who knows where, waving their claws in the air.
I think my songs are good, and different, and clever, and need to be heard.