Poison Extraction

How many times have allies – visible and invisible – come to our aid when we walk our true walk.

Mile Markers

I normally keep this shit close to the vest, but if we can manage to...

1) Keep me out of the asylum.
2) Allow Seth and Dustin to remain the voices of reason.
3) Drag Richard along and key in on motivating him.

We have a real chance at turning the hot water on.

Admittance

I guess I've always known this.  Probably coming around the bases a bit late on this epiphany, but I think I've finally realized something about myself.  Everyone my age has been looking for "the one."  I've been looking for "everyone."  

I Think This About Says It All

He Did It All For a Girl, You Know

Cable-Knit

Let me see if I can demonstrate this for you.
I am not afraid.
Shine on your skin is like the goddamn rocket's red-glare,
And you are the bright bursting light.
Raining slowly down on the sweaty onlookers,
With their heads up and mouths agape.
Toothy smiles.
In awe.
Eyes glimmering and wide.

Your explosion, pulsing far away.
Pushing through with waves.
Splintering load-bearing spires.
Force with a blow back.
Nail scratch.
Exhale.
Detail.

I was watching you from a hilltop far away,
And I knew I'd know what you've known today.
That there's some unavoidable wall of sound,
All the way around,
From my guitar, to the ground.
To the heavens and bottomless hell,
Time and space unravel unbound.

The creases in your sheets are small satin highways for my fingers.
In a warm hazy dawn beyond.
With the curtains drawn.
Over downtown.
In a town so lucky and free,
Burning the legends,
Tickling me.

There are entire armories of endorphins firing,
Only on the spark of your desiring.
I guess I buried my reservations.
Maybe in my sleep because I don't remember the dig.
Somewhere beyond midnight.

This is the scenic route.

My Darling, My Sweetheart

I absolutely love this song.  It's close to perfect.

Upstage on the Front Page

Ahhh, you ought to be more careful when you're out bumping around the night.
How clever do you want to be?
Help.  Helped.  Helping.
Frown.  Frowned.  Frowning.
Drowning.  In a clockwork sea of neon lights.
Cracked up, burned out, nervous, out of mind.
If you see me coming, jump in your getaway car.
Tonight, I'm a power chord crashing.
In an augmented key.
Are you afraid of me?
Through a sonic slide, I'm earning my pride.
Cracked up, burned out, nervous, left to right.
So many girls dancing.
Wild children unhinged.
Holding sweaty drinks in the air.
Silky curves, silhouetted by sundown.
I know what that look means.
Summer's hands around our necks again in the sticky air.
Tintype, oil-swipe, reversal of the curse.
This town is the red-hot center of the whole damn universe.
Youth is at a standstill in this city.
Maybe this city has stolen me.
God, it's wonderful.
Don't ever lock me up.
I have so many things to do.
I see green, I see blue.
Smile.  Smiled.  Smiling.
I understand why Peter Pan never grew up.
Or had the inclination to.
I want to meet absolutely everyone.
Underground vigilantes.
Smirking, shit-eating grins at the Fourth Reich.
Back on the ranch, they hold their fingers on their triggers.
They cast their vote.
This lovely America.

Isn't it Pretty To Think So?

"These are the final lines of the novel, presenting Brett and Jake’s final dialogue, spoken in a taxi at the end of Chapter XIX. Jake has endured an attack by Cohn and helped Brett in her seduction of Romero. Brett has pushed Romero away and now finds herself alone again. In this concluding passage, the lament over what could have been is truly poignant, and for many this represents the novel’s finest moment. Just as Brett voices, one last time, the dream that the two of them could have had a relationship, a policeman raises his baton and symbolically signals a halt. The car’s sudden deceleration presses Brett tantalizingly close to Jake, echoing a number of similar scenes earlier in the novel, but the barrier between them is quite clear now. Moreover, Jake’s slightly cynical and bitter reply shows that he has no illusions about their relationship. He seems to appreciate the fact that a relationship between himself and Brett, if such a thing had been possible, would have been unlikely to end differently than any of her other failed relationships. Yet Jake’s subtle doubts only increase the poignancy of the novel’s closing lines. Their relationship is revealed to have been merely a beautiful dream, a dream that is now slipping away forever."


And so it is.

Good Lord

This latest move is interesting, but typical.

Stick and move.

Don't Forget That Lazarus Died Twice

It's funny when you've got nothing to sell,
How easy a woman can condemn you to rot in Hell.
Just as well.

Well, it's not for sale.
It never was.
It's mine.
I expect it always was.
And I believe it always will be.

She's sweet.
Or,
So I thought.
I'm slippery.
Can't be bought.
May not ever be caught.
In that way, anyway.

I disagree.
Wholeheartedly.
I don't "deserve to be alone."

Deserve.

What a tricky word.
A jilted woman is a tricky verb.
All action and anger.
Vicious slurs.
Hell hath no fury, is it?
Yes.
It is.

Too many movies does this.
That grand old story you just know will happen for you someday.
Everyone's tidy and nice, in their summer dresses and suits.
When the wind blows a sweet breeze,
Ground easy under their boots.
But take someone who doesn't get what they want;
Ahh, they'll show you the threads that stitch them all up.

Some kind of balcony confession.
Curtains I didn't ask for.
Befriending my friends.
Whiskey at my door.
Letters in the mail.
I get leery when you get clingy.
I get gone.
I go away.

In my perfect world, you're just there.
And it's nice.
In your perfect world,
Well...
I'm nowhere.
Can't be.
Won't be.

So arrange it some other way.
Merriment on the way to marry.
Some lucky fella to lay in a hammock with you,
And count the stars.
They're all blinking for you two,
And your love.

While you're at it,
Remember that Lazarus died twice.
And tell me now what you think about life.

So hold your tongue.
I bite back.
No way to act.
I'm sure your momma taught you that.
At least, she should've.
Maybe would've.
Could've.

Your ideas for my happiness,
They are not congruent.
One does not involve the other,
And one exists without the other.
"I just think you're going to miss out."
Well, if I do that, I guarantee you I will.
I'm doing what I'm doing so that I won't.

Don't talk to me about 6 years of yearn.
Show me your pile of ash,
Then take a peek at the villages and forests I've burned.

I believe you're missing the point.
I know what I want to a great-grand-silvery-white-blinding-diamond-tipped-razor-sharp-point.
And before I die, I'll reach for it and stretch for it and scream and cry, and flex and sweat and run and bleed, and grasp and claw and want and need, and wave and point and pull every bit of sinew and joint.

So whatever the hell was,
And whatever the hell would be,
Can rest easy in Hell.
Right where you want me.

You Were Right About The Stars

Today, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot turned 10 years old and one of my good friends died and left this world.

Cancer is an awful thing. When it can take a towering inferno of a man in the fleeting breath of a moment and rob a good family and host of friends of his considerable love and unceasing lust for life.

The intolerable sadness and infallible nostalgia I personally associate with that album can't help but dig it's fingernails a little more into my day and make me shudder at the synchronicity. Even if it is inside my own experience. It's my unique narrative and it makes me sad and thankful all in the same sweep. Things we love often meet up in unexpected ways. Even in unwelcome ways. But that is the bittersweet poem we read as a voyager in all of this. We are all connected in some way. I still believe that. I am sad today. But I am hopeful too. My friend died in an honorable way, like a true man, and Jeff Tweedy will have died written Jesus Etc. Lives well lived. Everyone truly is a burning sun. You can come by anytime you want. I still believe that. Videbo te iterum.

I Miss Someone

I Fall In Love All the Time

Whiskey Revelations

"Almost every single thought I have, no matter it's genesis or destination, hovers somewhere just above the cataclysmic battle between good and evil. It's not as fun as it sounds."

- Cory Reinisch, 5 minutes ago

Sharpen Your Shovel

This is a mighty effort at mining.
With my headlamp on bright.
I got here through the side door,
By way of an awful highway.
From time to time, in order to find gold,
You have to dig through the piss and shit and blood and worms and goddamn filth and muddy petulance.

Sitting dizzy in a brine of hot sea,
With no movement of any sort.
Even without an anchor.
Sun-chapped eyelids and a burning mouth.
Clouds running from the sun.
No wind.
The gulls can't even stomach it.
Skin taut, red, blister, it hurts to move.
Acidopolis.

On the other side...
However...
Green grass.
Morning dew.
Cold condensation rolling on the side of the glass.
Wild flowered bursting painted sky scent.
Everything of great significance.
Every valve open.
Perpetual motion.

It's difficult for a narcissist, being allergic to himself.

Grieving Angel (Or, What Happened To Alt-Country)

“I saw the writing on the wall, with the Americana movement…I started to see country-western reproduction shirts at the Gap, and once something gets that big, it’s over.” – Darin Wald, Big Ditch Road.

“Do you mean Gram Parsons is dead?” – Larry Oster-Burg (Michael Shannon), Grand Theft Parsons

Historical periods, art movements, ice ages; you’re never really sure when one begins or ends. Art especially, with its constant action/reaction sequences, is vaguely defined from one movement to the next. We do tend to agree, however, that there is a start and there is an end, even if they are ill-defined. No Depression magazine announced earlier this month that their next issue would be their last and it’s hard not to see this as a bellwether for the movement it championed: alt-country.

The traditionalist country and “cosmic-Americana” music that most influenced alt-country as a movement was long over with by the time the scene began to rumble in the mid-80s. The old guard were either dead or in a holding pattern, the Byrds had gone off on one of any of the other directions they chose during their career, and Gram Parsons was ashes in Joshua Tree; all in all, there wasn’t much left. But there was Dwight Yoakam and his neo-traditionalist fusion of showmanship, style and punk’s defiant attitude, gleaned from fellow Los Angeles bands like X and the Blasters, both of which also channeled part of the specter of country music. And just around the corner would be the album most often cited as the genre’s opening salvo: Uncle Tupelo’s No Depression.

Where the style would go over the next decade and a half would be largely dictated by two groups, most efficiently (if not precisely) represented by the songwriting forces behind Uncle Tupelo: Jay Farrar (neo-traditionalists and slavish devotees) and Jeff Tweedy (progressive-traditionalists). When Uncle Tupelo called it quits after 1993′s Anodyne, both of the subsequent spin-offs, Son Volt and Wilco, channeled a lot of the same energy of their previous project. Then something went weird.

When Wilco recorded Being There in 1996, the gloves had come off for progressive-traditionalists. The restraints of the genre were showing. For some, like Wilco, this would eventually lead them completely away from anything even resembling country or alt-country. For others, it was more of a wake-up call for revitalization. The Jayhawks took a middle ground in the struggle by siphoning country, pop and soul into a righteous mix. Their records, on up through the adventurous and underrated The Sound of Lies in 1997, showed a fascination with reclaiming country music’s place as equal part of the more popular narratives of rock and rhythm and blues by deconstructing traditional styles and laying out image-heavy songs. Even pioneers who had been with the movement since before it was a movement were opening their doors. In 1998 Lucinda Williams would finish recording and finally release her long-in-the-making Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the glossiest and most polished record she had recorded – earning her an amazing share of critical praise and mainstream audience that she hadn’t previously reached.

Seeing a connection? Within a period of two years, from Being There to Car Wheels, the whole face of the alt-country game had changed. Neo-Traditionalists like the Jayhawks, Lucinda Williams and the aforementioned, Jay Farrar fronted, Son Volt (whose Wide Swing Tremolo, with its astoundingly louder and rockier tones, would also come in 1998) were fusing their country with pop and rock while progressives like Wilco were completely leaving the genre behind. By the release of Wilco’s Summerteeth, it was as if they’d never been the band that recorded “I Must Be High” or that they were fronted by the man who wrote “New Madrid.”

But the most central and crucial record to this pivot point is Whiskeytown’s 1997 release, Stranger’s Almanac.

–

You know you’ve got something going when the chameleons show up. The great imitators, the ones who can shift and shuck and jive with ease. Ryan Adams is one of them. Not to cast aspersions on Adams’ legitimacy as a songwriter or musician – quite the contrary. He’s a gifted and rare breed. But the trajectory of his career is a roller coaster of phases and stages – from the sub-Tupelo of Faithless Street through the American music museum of Stranger’s Almanac to Gold’s populist anthems and on and on.

Chameleons read the writing on the wall better than anyone and the divide between Stranger’s Almanac and its follow-up, the shelved and delayed Pneumonia, was as wide as you could imagine. Stranger’s Almanac had country weepers (“Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight,” “Dancing With the Women at the Bar”), exercises in r&b/soul/country fusion (“Everything I Do”) and the Midwestern, Replacements‘ channeling country rock (“Yesterday’s News,” “Waiting to Derail”). From stem to stern it’s the best amalgam and synthesis of everything that alt-country music accomplished between its mid-80s beginnings and its mid-90s apex. And it’s no wonder Adams would never come back to it.

Since then it’s been a genre just coasting. The great albums are past, with only occasional glimpses of great artists whose turn at the songwriting table would probably have succeeded regardless of whether alt-country existed. Great albums exist from these last ten years, but not because they were earth shattering in any way, but simply because they were just really good. That’s not a complaint or a criticism. It’s just the sign of it getting late in the day for alt-country.

Now with the deluxe edition re-issue of Stranger’s Almanac due out next week, seeming to perfectly coincide with No Depression’s demise, we might have that rarest of historical moments: when the changing of the guard is obvious and visible.

J. Neas

The Prettiest Girl In a City I Couldn't Wait To Leave

And I miss her.

Dammit.

Truth

SXSW 2012

Let the record reflect that we are an official showcasing artist at South By Southwest this year. I can't even believe to believe it. Wow.

The Tender Gratified

That was a graceful bow-out if I ever had one. You only get that chance once. It's really something to keep yourself contained in the middle of chaos. I learned that from my old man. Grace under fire...for damn sure. Someone once stuck a shotgun in his face (another story), and he didn't flinch. The power goes out in the entire corridor and people start scrambling, but I did not. I got through the barricades and found my way to my bed. Shook the right hands and gave the right hugs. A table only stands strong when all of the legs hold their weight. No matter what's on top of it. That's the way it should be.

Evil

I feel evil. Anger has a hold of me. I feel like Ty Cobb.

Slider

There's something I've been putting off for way too long that I need face and bring to action. I should start punching in my own weight class. No more of this bush league shit.

California

GOLDEN STARS ON STREETS OF PISS
Ryan Adams

I knew Hollywood late. I saw it on television. Brightly lit and never-ending ease. Not an intellectual place at all. A place where radios played Tom Petty’s “Even the Losers” loud in convertibles and all those stories of hookers and trips to Las Vegas in the middle of the night. For me, Hollywood seemed scary as in nightmare-daytime scary, two trillion stories intersecting one block at a time. But I am a transplanted heart. Southern body created, but veins and skin all meant for the shadows of skyscrapers. Leaving the cocoon of New York for L.A. is painful. Even in winter. Because inevitably, you will meet someone, and they will want you to stay. Out there in the desert oasis that rides the beaches up the coast all the way to the valley, what they don’t tell you, and you have to find out for yourself, is “they’re all lonely as hell” and “it’s why they dream like that there.” The Big Time, they call it by postcard and letter. Ha. If only they knew what was what.

Hollywood is cruel with nightmarish sunshine on repeat and the “real beach” is where all the dreams and their victims wash up like salt-blasted whales on the Boulevard. For every chic boutique there are meth dealers, bad and easily accessible cocaine origami folders to snort below the counter, watering holes in any place you are at any time. If you make it in Hollywood, you get a golden mask and an entourage of paparazzi. In New York, if you make it, someone will still punch you in the mouth if you cross them the wrong way on the subway during rush hour. Hollywood is, in my mind anyway, the half-tourist, half-hideaway area that stretches from The Frolic Room, a dive bar to end all others, all the way up two blocks past The Roosevelt (where the original Oscars were held) which still has its elegant neon sign, slightly bent cursive letters, totally awesome and gross.

If you stay on the walk of stars ascend or descend (depending upon your mood) on either side of this stretch of road, there is a fork just before a small strip mall with an Italian joint that will lead you to Sunset Boulevard (a different and altogether more compounded fracture of this dream place), or, eventually, to the streets leading you up into those canyons of Ewok perfection, where the beautiful villas of Hollywood’s best-known and not-so-known and never-known residents live. Somewhere in the fuss is the sign. That sign, spaced and mounted on a burnt, corn-colored sand hill, spelling “H O L L Y W O O D” like on TV, just waiting for the sun to go supernova-orange behind it. No matter where you are when that happens, you might as well faint. It is exactly like all the images of it in the movies—Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy are missing, but you sense them anyway. You can bet that 100 cameras go off in synchronicity as that massive sun trips and falls into the ocean once a day as it passes those huge letters. Where are the angels? They must be so busy keeping it from falling into the ocean. They must be getting their nails done. But you can’t order prayers from room service—and trust me, there is a dent in the wine supply from my twenties, and angry hotel staff to prove this.

Walking the stretch of stars, hurry past, because there are fallen dreamers everywhere still hungry for home (but not enough to leave). We lucky ones, if we are lucky at all, scurry off to our jobs or casting calls, “our appointments.” I am a traveling writer, of sorts. Always writing. Always listening with my one good ear. Out in California, luxury is a given. You pretend, if you are an industry type, to disown it, but if you have it, you keep it in the back rooms with the boxes from Barneys like it was nothing. It’s a thing. Plus cars—there are too many of them, and they change like you change your underwear. It’s awful in those things: riding up and down canyons, carsick, midday, the radio on, with DJs obviously brain-damaged by overexposure to light.

On that show Northern Exposure, they had an episode where in winter months you had to sit in front of a gamma light screen for 15 minutes a day, or else you would get too depressed to recover and work or even get out of bed. The show’s characters ended up addicted to the light—they were up for days, reading book after book, with incessant conversation flowing.
This is all California and certainly Hollywood. Even the dark sides. Even the late-night red-glow bars where lies and promises for movie roles go down in the triggered shots of words that fade like the floor does after one too many. And it’s an early town, kids. If you are a boozer, a late-nighter, hell, an insomniac (I am), Hollywood is a blessing and a curse. I wrote an entire book there at the Hollywood Roosevelt one summer when, after making an album, I forgot to check out … for four months. They provided the manual typewriter and paper and Sterling Vineyards wine (the ’97s are gone folks, as far as I know or had anything to do with it). Sometime after I was coaxed back into my rightful shiny New York, by way of the Chelsea (so cliché and another hotel, but no housing board or papers to fill out), I re-read what I wrote.

It was a suntan on bleached paper. Stained with wine. Littered with little fictional ideas that I had fallen in love with. My wings, if they were words, were made of less than wax but something flammable—and what a piece of shit it was. One hundred full single-spaced pages about how lonely I was and would “so and so” ever call me again. What a drag. I was a drinker then, far too young to know how much of one, and on my way to the cigarette store just outside the hotel, to get not just smokes but vodka and god knows what amount of aspirin, I would cross the star that bore the name of this kindred soul I had only met a few times. How odd that with all my own disgust at attaching to celebrity culture, or culture in general, there I was, misguided, waiting for the gods of Valhalla or California to come down and really “see me” for what half-assed drinking piece of work I was. “Seen” I was, unashamed and new, full of shit with bells on my shoes and a soul not so much for sale but for rent, as I wanted to milk the payback for as long as allowed.

Inevitably I left, and in a few pieces, but big enough to reassemble in one stiff walk through Manhattan.The things that stick with me the most are:

1. Hollywood and Cherokee. Late night, outside this amazing, dimly lit bar—so dim, so red, so seedy (there are chocolate-brown booths with green lights hanging above them), and so filled with common Hollywood proper residents and traveling stars, you can disappear completely into whatever conversation you need to have. And you see “real” stars (like they would be anything else) coming and going but you’d never be able to crane your neck from table to table to gawk or even hear anything … it’s so quiet in that place it’s loud.

2. Los Burritos on Hollywood Boulevard. It still has its Formica counter, free chips, salsa that will blow your head off and food displayed in a harshly photographed menu—but the meals are incredible. The television is always on a channel you won’t understand unless you speak Spanish and the place is equally filled with Mohawk punks, Goth kids, drunken wannabe celebs and musicians as well as a few in-the-know locals who like food that makes them sleep.

3. Hollywood Flats. I like the idea that you can get a tattoo at two in the morning and there is enough Elvis and Marilyn Monroe memorabilia to keep even the faintest of rock ’n’ roll fans way busy. Also, it’s nice to fit in and escape at the same time.

4. The Casting Office. It’s a perfect place to go when you are done, done, done and you have a name, a real name to cover you, so you can drown yourself if needed in that ocean which swallows only your ideas of what fame or fortune might be.

5. The Roosevelt. Not the shithole it once was, it became quite a spot for celebrities when they redid the pool. (Warning to future guests: Stay in the tower. If you stay in a cabana room, and it’s past seven, you will be manhandled by security like you were entering a hostile country, regardless of that hotel room key in your hand.) I used to hide my pot in the ventilator shaft for every time I returned with a few Xanax for coming down from the boozing. It was always there, as they never dusted the place. Not so anymore.

I miss the sunshine of California, but not the mask. Not the idea. I had Christmas there last year, celebrating with a burger and fries at the new, amazing all-night burger milkshake joint across from Mann’s Chinese Theater, with someone I loved very much. We crossed the street, hand in hand, and watched a movie. It was the best Christmas I ever had. In the back of my mind, as my feet walked over the golden stars that line the Hollywood Boulevard, filthy, horrid and bleak, littered with crumpled McDonald’s bags and streams of piss, I thought of home, my bed in my cavernous New York apartment, walls stacked with books like a shield from my own thoughts and the sounds outside. I thought of walking the empty streets alone and about how no matter how sad I or anyone else gets there, New York seems to prop a loner up on his side and up by the bootstraps we go, we loners. Our fair city is here to remind us that we are all alone together.

All the sunshine I really ever saw in Hollywood was in the eyes of a beautiful girl who saw that missing street in my posture and the faint ghostly constructs flickering the lights of a million windows in my eyes. This is how a person might know California for real. Through someone from there, through a fleeting holiday that forever changes your ideas of a place that is far too littered with other peoples’ dreams to ever call your own.

But it’s there; it’s the other side of that coin, and you can feel it as the plane dips and descends someplace just past Las Vegas. Your heart starts pumping in anticipation; you see the beach, or the brightest stars at night. They are all streetlights in an endless web of electric spider casings built to hold one million dreams a second in one million tiny apartments.

Oh No...

No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No I think I'm in love. No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No Oh No.

Prize and Battlefield

"Belief is both prize and battlefield, within the mind and in the mind's mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation and bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being. You and I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage, and our legacy? Why fight the "natural" (oh weaselly world!) order of things?

Why? Because of this: - one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

Is this the doom written within our nature?

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and claw, if we believe diverse races and creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable and the riches of the Earth and it's oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass.

I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real."

David Mitchell "Cloud Atlas"

Warm Ghost - Open The Wormhole In Your Heart

God's Awful Grace

I'm watching the ravens outside my window in the rain. They're overdressed in their black ties, scouring the ground for dinner time. They don't see the treasure chest inside my rib cage. But God does. I've been watching too many war documentaries. I woke up last night and thought I was in a German prison camp. I was lost. But I normally am. I've found this out about myself. I am an island. And not in the clever way. I am an island. More so than anyone else I know. Maybe it's turning into a problem. But maybe not. I am an island. I am an island of a man, and I can't seem to make the wanderlust be quiet. I've made an enemy of convention. It tastes sour on my tongue.

I see your manger. I see where you sleep. I know someday we'll meet. I self medicate, and I need rest. This is my letter to you. My self-styled hymnal. I constantly test the mettle of my heart. I poke it with a stick to see if it'll snap. I grow weary of the lack of purity in all things. Then I see the diametric opposition and the gray ground, and I just get confused. Shipwrecks on the jagged cliffs of the sea. I don't "just get by."

My seeking leads me to be sought. I feel that. I try to have patience too. I really try. I try to mean what I say, and say what I mean. I need rest.

Holy Shit

Indeed...

What Would Paul Newman Do...

I always ask myself, "What would Paul Newman do?"
It's not a bad guide...
Cause I'm that kind of guy.
You earn no respect when you don't fucking try.
You can be weak at night in the depths of your bed,
But there's no room to be weak in the depths of your head.
Like that hip-hop fool,
Popping words like they're truth.
Keep your thought inside that frame.
Be in tune to when and where they display.
Like the rounders in Manhattan,
Cigarettes, leather jackets, attitudes they patent.
Youthful energy, aged wisdom, a soldier you've known.
Utilize every ounce of testosterone.
Keep your muscles clinched, over the bones.
Be wild young man, and howl at the moon.
You are bear-like, explore and push right on through.
Take your risk, take your licks.
Then brush it off.
Don't buy into the idea that you can ever stop.
Life is a bonfire.
So burn the lights out.
Burn right on through the hesitation and doubt.
Pull hard on the reel and take the leviathan out.
Up from the depths of the deep dark water,
Quiet and steady like your hard-ass father.
Cinch up the rope and sit high in the saddle,
Always know there's nothing you can't handle.
I learned my entire life not to be of ordinary men.
It's the struggle between the ninth rep and the tenth.
On the corner of ideal and faith sits my residence.
That's the definition of confidence.

Silence, Experience Shows, is What Terrifies People Most

The hits just keep on comin'.

Predestined Arrangement

Predestined Arrangement by coryreinisch

I Love This Band

Yeah, I Don't Know About You Man...

...but, I've got to look myself in the mirror every night before I go to sleep.

I wonder to myself, "how many goddamn knives does he have?" It baffles me to no end. I can't possibly be more uneasy than I am at this very moment. It's that quiet feeling in the warm dark. The uncomfortable flush-warm feeling of evil as you can literally feel your blood moving through the pipes in your body. The dizzy nauseous feeling that settles in when your gag reflex triggers your stomach to vomit it's contents. He makes my fucking skin crawl. He fucking disgusts me.

Sometimes, when I look at him, his face morphs and shapes itself into a vermin-like specter. Something from the weasel family. He moves, no, he slinks around. His eyes have no color, just black marbles sunk back into his slender skull. Other times when I look at him, he glances away, like he's been staring at me for extended time. He studies me. He tells other people that "we're exactly alike." He creeps me out.

It's like he waits in the darkness, with a knife in his teeth...crouching...sweating with clammy skin, breathing heavily...probably touching himself...waiting for me to show my cards. With his pointed nose, and squinted eyes. An angular snout to poke into the tight uncomfortable, private spots of other people. The places you don't show anyone unless they are extended an invitation. He finds them anyways, with no invite. He only violates. He rapes trust.

Then he jumps out of the shadows and sinks a knife in my back. It's like I'm living a bad dream. I don't even like him...I never have. I don't know why it's understood that I do. I don't have the slightest fucking clue as to why there's any loyalty there at all. And her...she fell down the wrong rabbit hole. She can expect a twisted journey of ups and downs...talking through drugs and cheap sentiments. These moves are too calculated now. Every instance is a coincidence when it happens once.

It's strategy when it happens twice.

The Growlers - Feeling Good

Keep On Keepin' On

This band has been soundtracking my emotions for years. I love them as much, if not more, now than I ever have.

Delivery

One thing I've learned (and liked) about myself is that I don't sacrifice my dreams for security. This has presented some real and obvious challenges, and if anything is a certainty in this world, it's that nothing is guaranteed, but I don't see another way. At least, from where I sit.

Carver - Take Me Out

Wind In My Office

I used to dream of a farm.
Cattle by the mile; a tan on my arms.
The work would be biblical.
We are burdened by that great burden.
Somewhere, though, there is poetry,
In finding a task that we love.
You've got to be smart nowadays.
Strong of good mind.
Dexterous in thought and aptitude.
The city is troubling some times.
A wind blows through my office,
There's a computer in your eyes.

If...

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

- Rudyard Kipling

Teflon

That's right....

Your windshield (this morning) told you what the fuck I've been up to.
I made sure of that.
It was going to happen...I've had it planned for as long as I can remember.
A busy bee I've been.
I hope you looked at yourself in your rear-view mirror and caught your own glance.
I hope you got to see your own eyes.
Confused...
You used to write on my mirror.
In black marker.
Call me a cocky fuck if you want...
I learned from the best.
You always had a sword in your hand when you'd write your words...now I do.
It's easy to push the blade into a soft heart.
But your windshield told you what I am today.
Slides...oh yeah, it slides...I wish I would've seen your face.

You might wanna duck...
You're not going to like what you hear.
That's right.
In some circles, it's considered flattery.
I rarely have vindication in my quiver, but I was going to do that whether you asked for it or not.

This ship left the harbor a long time ago.
I can be that way too, when it's pulled out of me...
It feels good, doesn't it?

Ravenna

It's all in the follow through.
Forgive and repent.
I reckon damn so.
I walk among saints, and yeah, I sleep with those sinners.
They tug at my heart and they'll hurt you alright.
It's seeing your flaws and knowing you won't fix them.
Everything is burning around me.
Swallowing acres of people.
They scratch and claw and bite and rake and swing.
Effort bubbling under their nails.
There hasn't been a stranger year.
Lockjaw that won't sing, and songs that won't come.
People I love and also don't trust.
They don't write themselves, do they...
Why won't it rain?
I feel every feeling.
I want to tell you how I feel every feeling, and then I don't.
And then I do again.
And then I don't.
Mostly, I won't.
People don't know what to do with me.
I don't know what to do with my pride.
Peter and Paul spoke with their hearts.
I mostly want to be polite.
And then I don't.
Because,
I've got muscles to flex and tears to cry yet.
I was born under the moon in the sweet southern air.
I love everything.
I love everyone.
At once.
As much as I can.
As much as is allowed.
I clearly see the good in the world.
I want to be a great addition to it...woven into its fabric.
You and I see,
We're just made of carbon.
And it don't last.
It's the temperate silence of sweet serenity.
It's the sound in my head and the heat in my heart.
It's God's love.

"Honey, we all deserve to wear white..."

Ready, Rotten, Dead, Forgotten

I'm surrounded by capitalists.
Ghosts in people suits.

Digging, and digging, and digging.
For something that won't be there in the end.
Leaves faster than was found.
With no sound.
Under the ground.

Like some old Farmer's Almanac,
I feel a bit more wise.

But I don't know why it's taken so long to find my own voice.
My feet have carried me this far.

Pulling through the valley,
And hearing God's songs is like some vigilante,
At war's end.
It'll be nice to breathe.
To finally breathe.

It'll be really nice.
To feel that rain again.

I can't tell if my intentions get out in front of my mouth,
Or if it's the other way around.

You can see how that might stand in conflict with my better judgement.
But oh well.
My ears just ring,
So my eyes just close.
I know where I want to go.

If that's as close as I can get, that's as close as I'll take.
I expect it will be nice.

The Hottest Summer Ever and a Decade of Terror

There could not be a stranger year. There could not be a more backwards reflection. There could not be more paranoia or great divides in trust. People have gathered under my nails as I scratch and claw and rake through their minds trying to find their rationality. Bloody nails that hurt and burn and sting. Fires that billow and smoke that evaporates the sweet air from our lungs. Wine and beer and whiskey that only sings you to sleep until the next morning. Songs that won't come out and lockjaw that won't move. Everything is burning around here. Great fires that swallow acres of altruism. An armor is required for passage and flight. We all take the world upon our shoulders...as we must...and somewhere beneath that...under the fading carbon is the meaning of it all. It's the temperate silence of sweet serenity. It's God's love.

The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun from Laurent Rejto on Vimeo.

Very Much Yes

New Song

Threw her together tonight.

Bob Dylan's 78th Hangover

Bob Dylan's 78th Hangover by coryreinisch

Park Your Integrity Right Here

A good friend recently expounded on nothing less than the merits of integrity. Inspiration comes in all forms.

Sometimes I wonder if I have the good sense. The kind of sense it takes to paddle in between the shores of life's long river. I like to think that I do. I think through effective and purposed raising, some of this was branded on my hide. Even while I was squirming to get away.

But I also do that. I do get away with it sometimes. That's the rub. I could dive into the abyss here and wrestle with the different colors of moral conviction and the directive benefits and ruthless cage of guilt. However, I will not.

It's like I read on some wall somewhere. "When I was little, I wanted a bike really bad. So I thought I'd work really hard, pray for it, and then I'd deserve it. Then I realized that God doesn't work that way. So I stole it and asked for forgiveness."

I don't believe it's an inherent personality trait that's been decided for me, or anyone for that matter. In fact, I've found (to my own detriment) that my "politeness" has worked against me, in a counter-active way. Just as someone might find their ruthless intentions negatively influencing their environment. My friends often tell me I'm "too polite." That sounds awfully self-indulgent, but in some respects it's ridiculously fucking true.

I'm also not saying that you hand-pick where to apply your integrity. It should be held steadfast at all times (I do really believe this...I'm not trying to convince myself). I also know that we all stumble in this regard. Quite often, even when there is colossal effort. There are just certain times in our lives where we find a certain amount of gray area. That's why I think it's ultimately important to hold your integrity true to yourself. If you have an internal compass and place value on it's direction, you're never really lost.

Trust me...this is no high-championing of my virtuous existence. Cause God knows...

I've recently been afforded an opportunity to do something that I really genuinely want to do, but have refused to do so in order to spare someone's feelings. The same someone, who once presented with the same opportunity, did not spare mine.

It has nothing to do with holding moral high ground. It has everything to do with sleeping at night. Looking in the mirror and being able to look yourself in the eye, confident with what you're seeing.

Dammit.

Dealt a Good Hand

I don't normally show my cards in this regard, but a good friend put me on this awhile back and it holds tremendous water with me.

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want."

Philippians 4:12

It's good to feel what you know to be truth.

This Shit is the Jam

New Song I Wrote Tonight

I Killed Laura Palmer

I Killed Laura Palmer by coryreinisch

I Did It

I finally did it. I've been dreaming of it since I was 16. I finally did it.

Predestined Arrangement

I haven't written in awhile. Well, on here. Busy, busy, busy. Blogs are retarded.

You Should Start A Band by thefrontierbrothers

Brilliant

Oh, There's That Hummingbird

Oh,

There's

That

Hummingbird in a spring sunrise,
Should be no big surprise.
Flutter in a grand whiskey haze,
I'm fairly convinced it's just a vanity phase.
Everything happens by accidental grace.

And,

I

Suppose

I can't really ask for more,
When you draw me a roadmap to your front door.
Caitlin, you have my favourite name...
Pretty like violins and front porch swings.
I'm afraid you could drop me to my knees,
Like some Bible verse, or Sam Cooke song.
I'd be fine being perfectly wrong.

My

Eyes

Squint

While the morning strafes the ground.
I'll win you with a busted typewriter as sure as you breathe.
Nobody should underestimate me.
A threadbare lazy lean on the fence.
I'm spent.

See

How

Strong

All these winds are?
I won't be too far,
When you draw me a roadmap to your heart.

Cory, Do You Like Computers?

No.

The Sexiest Video I've Ever...

AND, I know her.

Hard Drinkin' Songs

This band is incredible. They are so much cooler than I could ever hope to be.

Everybody Must Give Something Back For Something They Get

This is so bad ass.

Yes, Please...

It's also for Reinisch, but c'mon man....we really need a bit of it.

Narrow Focus, Idea Generation

My left arm goes numb and tingles now.
I try to shake it out like some wiped-out pitcher in the bottom of the ninth.
I don't know if this is the first engine rattle as a sign of too many miles.
Nor would I pay much attention if it was.
It's probably nothing spiritual.

We used to be electric punks.
You and I.
A couple of idealists.
Carving out ideas.
In an ideal-less world.
I'd say anything if it sounded like it came from the inside of an incinerator.

But your purpose is easy to find when your needs aren't being met.
Don't you ever forget that.
In fact, you can quote me.

Somewhere I began to care what people thought about the things I'd say.
That's when you find yourself rounding the corners.
Using painter's tape.
So they don't see the errant swipes.
God...you might as well tell your corner to throw the towel.

I don't feel old, but I may sound it.
Where I used to pick up the sword and slash away,
I'm more inclined to diplomacy.
It's not fighting harder,
But fighting smarter.
Rather.

I used to pick up the sword and slash away.
Don't wager bets you can't pay.

Dedication to Roam

Yep...I Want You

The Shorter Story Usually Wins Out

Some people die in the service of others, and some people just die. Some people cry and some people don't take the time to feel anything that stabs them with a spear. Some people drop bombs. Some people are masters of war. Some people fasten all the triggers for the others to fire. Some people copy straight from the book. Some people light their own lamps and light the trails for those who can't see. Some people sit on the banks of the rivers with their fathers and throw hand-tied flies to raise the trout. Some sit behind desks. Some affect motion. Some run. Some stand their ground. Some motor through with no disregard, and some ruin them with humility. Some gut check themselves with simple questions. Some just make money. Some pass out forgiveness like a ticket to Heaven, and give-give-give, when all they do is take-take-take. Some just forgive. Some lower caskets. Some give birth. Some people are Judas. Some are Joan of Arc. Some are yellow, and some are black. Some are white, and some are red. Some are guilty. Some are beautiful. Some are looked-over. Some are talented, and some just try really hard. Some are what you see, and some are what you get. Some warm your heart. Some are never bruised. Some go through life with golden halos, while some can't win for losing. Some can't be alone. Some don't want you there. Some don't want anybody there. Some want to be lost on the mountain. Some just want you to be their date to the dance. Some want you to be the spouse you promised, and some just want to be mad about it. Some people love Jesus. Some think He's a myth. Some know it all. Some have no hope. Some live for today. Some resign to the fact that they never will. Some want to be men when they're only little boys. Some girls want grace. Some women have it. Some want children. Some won't ever have them. Some get them without trying. Some people are grumpy. Some are a blessing to be around. Some people only complain, and some people only count their blessings. Some people say they'll change. Some people actually do. Some people actually don't. Some people leave before it's over. Some people are here too long. Some people respond. Some people don't. Some people are too sensitive. Some people live in shells. Some people hate people. Some people know that the only life we have is this one. Some people wake to a brand new day, each and every day. Some people appreciate their soul. Some people reach out their hand.

Some people tell the truth, and some people lie.

Like a Well-Ironed Shirt

The Head And The Heart - Down In The Valley (not the video) from Sub Pop Records on Vimeo.

Literally, the Best Thing I've Ever Seen. Seriously.

Brunettes and whiskey. What drunk genius nailed down my two favourite things in the world into this real advertisement? It should have been me.

You Didn't Know The Words

I wrote this a long time ago...years ago. I haven't read it in as many. Maybe I didn't know what it meant to me then. Now, it reminds me of good love, and it reminds me of feeling right with the world, which I currently do...

YOU DIDN'T KNOW THE WORDS

The young man who keeps fortunes in a mason jar,
Tells himself growing old doesn't scare him.
He couldn't be more right.
Light bulbs in the darkest light.
The girl smells sweet next to him in the swing in the summer night.
Smooth white magnolia in her hair.
She flies under the radar, she flies everywhere.
He has plans and pennies, the courage and a view.
He sings a timeless tune.

Patrick Sweany - Corner Closet

Dressed All In White

Snow day in Austin. Don't get many of these around here...

What Would You Say to Bob Dylan?

Todd Snider On Bob Dylan (1/21/11)

it's hard to think of new ways to consider bob dylan and his work
he's probably the most debated and discussed singer to ever live.
but here's a question. especially for songwriters.
what are you going to do if you meet bob dylan?
have you thought about it? do you have a plan?
i've been working on a plan since i was about twenty years old
and still don't really have one.
is it presumptuous for someone to think they might meet bob dylan?
i don't think so.
from what i hear, he likes to stay on the poorer side of town.
and we know from the story about the cop who didn't recognize him
that he goes for walks.
i know a guy who thought he saw him on a street corner but wasn't sure
if he was bob dylan or a hobo that looked like him.
bob caught him staring and said "it's me"
my friend didn't say anything back.
i know a guy that was in a studio once with him and witnessed a situation
where somebody's booking agent gave bob a rambling speech about
the impact his music had on the world as he was sticking his hand out
to introduce himself.
my friend says bob just stood up without extending his own hand, walked
over to an exercise bike and got up on there
and started pedaling without saying a word.
in front of people no less.
what are you gonna do if you ever meet bob dylan?
i know another who was on a dylan session where they came back in
to listen to a track and after all the famous musicians got done with their two cents
bob asked the intern gopher kid what he thought and went with that.
i don't know what the hell i'd say if i was around bob dylan.
another buddy of mine had a band that played a festival in europe with him
and he said to get back to the hotels everybody had to take the same ferry
leaving the bands, bob included, exposed to the crowd.
my friend found a table with a chess board on it and sat down
and noticed bob dylan leaning against the rail and looking at the water.
at first nobody noticed him but eventually he started to get surrounded.
my friend got up and walked right up to him and said
"bob we got the chess board you wanted"
and bob saw his chance and took it. my buddy got to play silent chess with him
the whole trip and as long as bob seemed engaged people seemed to
leave him alone.
i don't know if i'd have had the courage to do that.
i also know a musician who got a call from bob dylan's manager
saying that bob wanted to ask him a few questions about a certain instrument.
my friend didn't know bob even knew who he was and was floored.
"of course" he yelled. "when?" ...
"how's today" the guy answered.
"fine with me" my friend said "what time"
"how bout now" the manager answered.
"sure . . . where do i go" my friend shot back
"well." the manager went on. "you seen that brown van out in front of your house?"
"yeah"
"bob's in there."
holy shit.
i got another buddy that said he was gonna audition for bob once
and the plan was for bob to come over to my friend's house.
my friend was supposed to have tuned guitars ready. he did.
bob came in with his dogs and kids. the kids started right in messing
with the guitar pegs and a dog shit. they never spoke of either thing.
then bob wanted to know if there was any other guitars and so my friend went out to the garage
to get a new one and somehow managed to get himself pinned under his own garage door.
so within a few minutes of meeting bob dylan my friend was screaming out to him for help.
i'm hoping if i ever meet bob dylan that i don't end up pinned under a garage door.
speaking of doors i heard another story from a studio in memphis where bob came in
to sing on somebody's record or something. they all say he didn't speak a word to anyone
the whole time. even when spoken to. and then, upon leaving he turned to the receptionist
and said "big doors huh."
no one remembers what she said back.
i have another buddy that worked with him once and made fun of his hooded sweatshirt
disguise. and bob brought him a hooded sweatshirt.
that seems like it worked
another buddy of mine auditioned at bob's house. he said he was kept waiting a while.
he said he told bob how great he thought he was. bob said nothing.
they picked a bit and bob got up and left.
ouch.
i have another buddy that was staying with a famous guy on an island.
one day putzing around on something to do street he sees bob dylan
and screws up the courage to walk over and say
"hey bob i'm so and so and i'm staying over at so and so's house,
i know he'd love to see you. you want to come with us."
he says bob just stared at him a minute and walked off.
i don't think i'd try to insinuate some mutual friend thing if i ever met bob dylan.
but what do you do. tell him you like his lyrics for fuck's sake.
or a particular song? are you kidding? a particular song?
no fucking way. or a period. can you imagine what he does here?
can you imagine how many people that never even consider once what
they would say if they met bob dylan get to.
and i'm standing around here like a schmuck.
and what do they say? they say shit like "my dad loves you"
or "my kid loves you" or "when are you going to do this or that again"
or "we loved you in the '60s"
you know i bet he gets as much of that as he gets the
"what did you mean by this" or "what made you say that"
or how bout the odd "were you talking about me"
fuck i've got that before. and i'm a folk singer from the '90s for fuck's sake.
they don't even really have those.
imagine how much crazy shit bob dylan hears?
especially all you traveling musicians who hear crazy shit yourself sometimes.
imagine how many of us have gushed him blue in the fucking face.
imagine how many superstars have just superlatived him sick in the fucking stomach.
should everybody just leave him alone? that doesn't seem right.
it seems like sometimes he should get to hear a "thanks bob"
which is essentially what all of it really is.
thank you. that's the only part of my plan that's been in there for a while.
i can't help myself from wanting to add.
"and not just for the songs and music either, but for the books and movies and interviews
and videos and photo shoots and concerts and the big dome house and the shades.
and all that shit. and speaking of the songs and the music. i love all of it.
every inch of it. every song, period, show, band, outtake, fucking all of it.
no favorites.
but you see here i go . . . now i'm starting to talk to the very bob dylan
the same way i talk to my nephew about bob dylan.
in that spastic way that remind me of an old far side cartoon
where the two gorillas are under a banana tree gorging on bananas
when one turns to the other and says
"you know man, i know we're supposed to like bananas. being gorillas and all
but i think its different for me. i mean, i really like them"
that's how most true bob dylan fans sound when they start trying to explain him.
that poor fucking bob dylan shouldn't have to meet anybody.
i wonder if he likes to sometimes. i wonder if there are compliments he likes.
anyway i better wrap this up. i'm heading over to my nephew's bar mitzvah.
god i hope bob dylan isn't there. i'm not ready damn it.
i'm just not ready.

I Still Love You

A lot.

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - Rise Up With Fists! from Team Love on Vimeo.

Push Pin Reminders

I want to drive a convertible.


She & Him - Don't Look Back from Merge Records on Vimeo.

Redemption and a Prairie Fire

I've learned, if I've learned anything,
That "never" has no place in the main ring.
You can turn your lover from the inside out.
Irish whiskey in the cupboard, saved for the title bout.
Old memories and beleaguered years keep rising to the top of the cream.
I think just maybe you might have heard those muted screams.
Directed to a pillow.
In the midst of a dark midnight.
Nothing ever told me, "You don't have the right."
In fact, it's the exact opposite.
All this regard brings the wondering to the top of it.

To the top of everything, where we breathe sweet helium.
And a sad note only lasts a minute.
Forgiving a satisfied wound is a perfect tune.
You can only tell someone enough of what they want to hear.
And they can only tell you everything you might have to fear.
But I've heard it before.
And there's NO WAY I'll listen.
Especially when I know the score.

I compensate my English with a dark blood wit.
I could shudder to think, and throw the towel to quit.
But there's something in me that won't die,
And I damn sure won't lose on the back end.
When you're as blessed as I am, you're blind to the floor.
In a place where less is more.
I'll pretend.
The great secret is that I don't have to.
What you see is what you get.
And all the change that comes in between has already been spent.

I do use what I need,
And I'll be damned if there's a place for greed.
There is the relief in knowing that when I get to the bottom of this glass, I'll find rest.
I'll sleep on it and wake in the morning to something beautiful and refreshed.
It's with focus that I train my desire,
And I can make things work through redemption,
In the middle of a prairie fire.

When There's Nothing Left To Do...

Late night dust up...

Agree to Agree

This girl's got the sand...

Cary Ann Hearst & Michael Trent - The Thread from The Moving Picture Boys on Vimeo.

CHRISTMAS BELLS, THOSE CHRISTMAS BELLS!!!

We wrote a holiday song...

Your New Favourite Video

For this weekend anyways...

Being a Man

"COURAGE IS DOING WHAT YOU’RE AFRAID TO DO. THERE CAN BE NO COURAGE UNLESS YOU’RE SCARED."

— Eddie Rickenbacker

"Talking to God is Laurel Begging Hardy For a Gun..."

They say youth is wasted on the young...

They couldn't be more right.  When you get older you have to bend all the rules.  Every.  Damn.  One.  Of.  Them.  If the rules don't give you the bend you're expecting, then you owe it to yourself (in a form that calls on madness) to break them in half.  Break the holy shit out of them.  Let's call a spade a spade...there is a wick in every candle, and it's only so long.  When it burns out, you're just left with a mass of formless, empty residual.  I think that speaks volumes of the biology we've been so intrinsically tied to, and to some degree found prisoner to and (to an extent) our own little delicate psyches.

Growing old doesn't scare me.  Growing stale does.  That's why I want to burn bright.  Like that little ferocious birthday candle that won't give in to the wind.  I've never felt truly numb and I never want to.  In fact, I know that I won't.  It's just not going to happen to me.  However, the minute I do, the Good Lord has my invitation to take me home...no matter the age I find myself sitting in here...inside my own head.

It's funny...I've spent the better part of my life thinking that everything is going to click like a light bulb in the darkest night.  Like everything is going to be illuminated and tangible.  You can see it, you can pick it up, you can feel it's contours, hand it to your friend, show them how it works, heat burns their hand, looking at it through a magnifying glass, write instructions for playing with it, leave it on a shelf and be mobile without it...drop it on the floor and know it won't break.  If that does happen, I imagine it won't be that way.  It will be a little more intricate.  Or maybe it won't.  Maybe it is that simple.  Maybe it's that great simplicity that seems to be the problem...just flying under the radar of all our great complications and distractions, successes and victories.  Better said, maybe it's the undeniable ability to recognize the lives we live which is the problem, and maybe it's the hope for what they might turn into that's the blessing.

I was born at 10:10pm.  I was a lucky baby born on an unlucky day.

http://cults.bandcamp.com/track/go-outside?auto=mp3-320

California in the Morning Always Made Me Warm...

There's a giant western sunset, beyond this here horizon, pointing it's finger at me with invitations on the table. To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under Heaven. I can already hear the surf break on the shoreline and feel the little hand I might be holding in mine. Hello love! I'm floating...

Sun Was High (So Was I) - Best Coast

Here's To The Day

This song is owning my mood right now...all warm and floating with eyes opened wide.

The Flood - Delta Spirit

You and I Have Unfinished Business

I want you to yell out loud if you need me...I'll be there if I can.  You be your woman.  I'll be your man.  

Damn Sam, I Love a Woman That Rains

And I will settle for nothing less.  I'll walk this world alone till I find the one that does.  I want her to be sweet.  I want her to be engaging.  I want her to be welcoming like the women in my family.  I want her to look me in the eye.  I want her to be clear as a silver bell.  I want her eyes to be blue...or whatever color they may come by.  I want her to have eyes, preferably.  I want her to be soft and smell good.  Like rose water, or bluebonnets.  I want her to be smart and speak with grace.  I want her to disarm me with a glance.  I want to glance off her ricochet.  I want to change her tires and cook her a country breakfast in the mornings.  I want the stupid pillow talk.  I want to slap her ass when she walks into my kitchen.  I want to put her name in my phone as "My Lover," disregarding her name.  I want her to laugh out loud with my sister, like she does.  Cackling at the moon and everything underneath.  I want to write her silly poems that I leave in envelopes, hidden in places she'll find before work.  In fact, everything I write is to her...before I even know her.  I am as sound as an old fucking engineer.  Ryan Adams is a Scorpio, just like me.  That means nothing (I'm listening to him).  I am at a point where I feel very blessed.  Age does that to you.  You count your eggs, and they mean so much...big, round, and full.  Hearty, as they are.  Full of sustenance.  Good things abound and I feel filled to the brim.  I have everything I need and then some.  This boy is full of blessings.  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I do want a woman.  A woman that rains.  On me.  Damn Sam, I do fucking love a woman that rains.

Play This Song

"Undertow" by Warpaint

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130693015

Saw these interesting kitties at ACL this year.  Despite falling in love with them on a totally non-music-related level, I fancy them because they can write a mean tune.  Rawr.

Let The Poets Cry Themselves To Sleep

You're the yellow bird that I've been waiting for.

Rare

I laughed, a belly laugh, at God tonight...or more accurately with.  Because of, in spite of, and in direct rebellion and welcome response to free will. Tears were streaming from my eyes during a bone-rattling laugh. I literally took a knee.

Why is there always a carrot in front of that damned old mule? What a torturous prank. Or is it?  God is a tricky cat. He'll toy with you till you learn the point and swallow the lesson. It will be learned. Carefully studied. Dangling in your face. Just beyond your reach.  He keeps watch over His flock by night.  As the vipers lay in the garden, sprawled amongst our ankles, to wit, armed against us.  

All you can really do is laugh.  Focus on one point and breathe.

I Sank My Teeth Into...

Things that should be felt and never heard.
The unbroken horizon on a blood-moon night.
Contradictions and alterations and silver coins that left no divot.
Fertile soil in a harvested row.
The face of youth while it flew all around.
All seething age as it comes crashing down.
A marked forehead with an ash-cross burn.

An anthemic route for a voice to be heard.
The bone, where the marrow lays bare.
The scars on my chest, and the wounds beyond there.

Worldly pursuits like meat on a stove.

Sanctity and benevolence and purity and love.

Mountains of fear and oceans of doubt.

Modernity and all the filth it spews out.

The halo on her head and the crest in her wings.

The vindictive instability the other one brings.

The Scorpio's good form.

The Aries' burning ire.

The Taurus' quick tongue.

The Libra's desire.

An antiseptic of spiritual redoubt.

A deception of will that poisoned my mouth.

An unbearable heretic conflagration.

The words of my iconic heroes, steeped in admiration.

A powder keg of sentimentality.

My ancestral heart for the courage and the nerve.

Things that should be felt and never heard.

As an Aside...

There is currently an infestation of lady-bugs in my apartment. At any one time, I will find 10-15 on the ceiling and along the walls. I thought about calling the exterminators to rid of the invaders, but decided against it in remembering that lady-bugs are good luck. Considering the innumerable and less desirable unwelcome guests from the insect world, I figured we'd live and let live here. This, after all, is a house of welcome, a house of respite, and who am I to decide who is worthy of that or not...just short of poisonous or winged attachments. Add that to the fact that I've had hallucinatory medicine-head for the past four days (attacking this vicious cold), on top of the fever dreaming, one in which a car horn outside actually kept the beat to the "Green Acres" theme song playing in my dream.

I've read paradigm-shifting quotes from Marcel Proust and delivered a personal "Waterloo" of sorts all within the past three days. This is a real watershed moment for me. Weird changes are happening in my head and around my life.