How

Did I get here?
Why can’t I go back?
When will these things change?
Who will be there when they do?
What is to become of this dream of me?
I let go and give in but not up.
I let go of holding on to any one thing so I can grasp it all.
Freedom is having nothing left to loose.
Well,that makes me a free man.

Some things always change and always stay the same

( Please dear reader,for YOUR added pleasure,be sure to always make the international hand gesture for quotation marks by holding up the index and middle finger of both hands,close to the eyes and make small waving gestures with the fingers,toward the face.Thank you, and enjoy your visit )

I don’t sleep much lately but then I’ve never been much of a sleeper-er (…..?….) My Mom used to let me stay up and watch TV quite a few nights (some school nights yes )and we would watch old horror movies on the weekend while my Pops was out playing musics somewhere in some town or some late night bright enlightened electric city far away from the fileds and pastures,chicken houses,hard working sweatin from sun to sun and year to year Farmers and ,last but surely not least,the Pickers & Moonshiners where I grew up.He used to come home at all hours, quarter to 4 or 5 ( and I am sure he ,as we all, might have came home at a few quarts in the morning, if you acquire my drift) but a lot of times it would be early on a Monday morning and he would sleep most of the day, and we would wait up on him more often than not if he was coming in late in the night.The night time IS the right time ( to beeee …with the one you love I said come on baby , right by my side.and I want you to keeeeep ooohh keep me satisfied……) I am on the road and playing music in some fashion and we are up late.You never get back to where you’re staying until at least 3 AM, and I just don’t get sleepy (unless I watch TV and that’s not helping right now for some reason) And in my most humble view,there are better uses for beds than sleeping.Sleeping is good.I am in no way anti sleep.It takes all kinds and I support all the rights and freedoms that were fought for and one for ALL us folks.Sleepers and Non sleepers alike. So yeah. When it comes to sleep, I like Tennessee a lot better.

“A body in motion tends to stay in motion,and a body at rest tends to stay at rest” that’s what they told me in science class but if i remember correctly I was too busy learning to play Castles Made of Sand or NIB or a Muddy Waters tune, you know ,wasting my life away on some wild crazy man just crazy adolescent dream that would slap me right straight into the night shift at McDonalds,or so I was told by some, so as far as any tests went I might’ve failed Hey it was a long time ago.I just don’t remember maaaaaaannnnnnnAh……,but I sure as hell ain’t playing no guitar in Mickey D’s (nuts).

It was a dream is a dream and will be a dream.I guess the point is that dreams suck if you aren’t constantly living them and I guess to some extent, you have to create a world for yourself to to be alive and live a life that you are meant to love and to live and have and hold, and to everyone else it is in fact a dream.Not a dream that comes from bad gas and in your dreamy little dream, like……..

………..The world is at war!!!!! You’re trapped in a bunker underneath your house.Your children are scared and they are huddled over in the corner by the dried fruit ,250 gallons of potable water,356 rolls of toilet paper 5 assault rifles, 2 pistols ,200 boxes of shells,some nerve gas,10 wooden dusty boxes of hand-grenades ( 100 count ), 6 survival knives,( one for each member of the family and 2 for you just in case they take to the Crazies and try to eat you,knocking you down with can of beenie weenies and taking your money and trying on your underwear.You know basic zombie deployment/control/takeover tactics) and Oh yeah ,there’s also a couple cases of scotch and a portable DVD player with a DVD copy of Kelly Clarksons “Behind The Music”, which actually turns out to be an episode of Honey Boo Boo.

All of a sudden there’s an explosion in the sky and your bunker buckles and boards break dirt falling and strangling through the cracks in the ceiling and before you know you know it a green fog covers the room!!! Your wife,if she continues to live long enough, shrieks and grabs at her throat and the kids lye motionless and cold on the unforgiving concrete floor in the room you built that has became their tomb, realizing no one can cheat Death……Then you wake up and realize you gotta poop and if you were’nt sleeping alone before you are gonna be sleeping alone now.Women don’t like bed farts.Awake farts,asleep farts,wet farts,dry farts,sleepwalk farts,on your way to the bathroom farts,coming back from the fridge with a bologna sandwich farts ( which is sometimes pronounced,by someone I love deeply dearly as true as night becomes day, as sandwedges ) and especially sex farts, which coincidentally turned out to be funny on at least two occasions for me.On top of the cover farts,under the cover farts,pillow farts, basically just don’t be blowin in the wind close to your sleeping area at all.Well, I mean your wife or girlfriend can do it.And they do too.That’s how you know they really love and accept you.When they’ll just let a mad one rrrrrriiiiiipppp, right there next to you, in the bed.Or the car.With all the windows rolled up.And the heat on.And it’s a really really,really. cold. day.

Ah, the things we do for love.

I have a lot of dreams.Just like both the dreams I have used far too many words to describe so little.( What if when you die,your last thought is,” I have loved so much,and yet so little.”?) I mean I am sure we all dream about the same types of things and I have nightmares and weird “Why am I the only one naked?”type “sleepmovies”( hey it’s really late …. I KNOW sleepmovies sounds stupid. It’s 5 AM stupid ,and that’s preettty stupid) as well as straight up awesomesauce life like flying dreams.I also used to dream,when I was a kid about 5 or 6 ,about falling off the interstate 77 bridge on Broad Street right by the mall.I would always wake up just before I hit the road and wake up like James Brown Gettin Down! In a cold sweat baby !!!!!!! And just as cold a sweat are nightmares ( i.e. ;evening horses, not to be confused with the”band”of horses) and dreams where I don’t know where I am and no one knows who I am, a stranger in a strange land of guitar necks that stretch past the stage and over peoples’heads in a mirage of a rock and roll concert until I can’t play anymore and everyone walks away.Not enough in them to even boo.They just walk away.Now that’s cold.At least boo me ya”ll.So I get lost and can’t find my way out and it’s just plain ole everyday awful.Yes I dreamed that.If you think that one or any other dream I have is, or makes me look remotely “crazy” you should hang out with me during the “waking” hours.( This where those hand gestures I hipped you to earlier come in )

But most of the dreams that I have that scare the shit out of me and keep me from going back to sleep because I am too terrified to go back to bed are the kind of dreams that actually keep me awake on more nights than I care to remember, keeping my mind busy writing,reading or playing guitar occasionally propped against the backdrop of a television with the sound turned off just because I was afraid I may have a certain dream ( there are more than one ) that is a reaccuring thing man. A scene that just won’t leave me out.Not a dream about a murderer monster or beast.Not a dream about anything in particular at the surface.At the surface.They all have a few things in common.I have them a lot and they are always mostly the same.Only the characters in the dreams switch “roles” if you will.Not the place or scene or time or completely debilitating fear,dread and total anxiety I get from even thinking abut them.

Now you maybe asking yourself,” What kind of monkeyfinger dreams could be that mickeyfickey horrible Mr. Fisher ?” I am not getting ready to say I dream of killing someone.It did happen once a long long time ago when I wore a younger man’s clothes.And I broke up with her shortly afterward.I had just turned 21.Just a kid.I don’t have control of the mental fabrications of the super sub concious mind,but I can be honest.It was a horrible horrible dream that brought me a bucket full of guilt and feeling like the lowest of low for a long time.It really did a number on me.I thought I was gonna be like that dude in the Shining.But I took it as a sign. A sign that I should KILL !!!!!!!!! Justjoking……Seriously……KILL!!!!!!! Really I’m just playin ,baby !!!!! I would never harm another human being but I think in the spirit of transperancy, I should say in full and completely honest disclosure, it would be a really bad trip if I ever got too close…..

…..to Darth Vader. Darth Vader Johnson, who lived down the street from me.He choked me out once and didn’t even touch me!!!! I hate that dude.

But I digress and sometimes you need just a little digress to truly groove with progress and I’ll be Uncle John if that ain’t the truth……..AAAAAaaaaanywho…….

This one dream in particular ( I forgot earlier that in these dreams that never really leave me,like those people who always show up uninvited to your house and then don’t know when to leave.How Rude) that I started having recently and it’s came back with the same intensity as always.

Beautiful azure crystal clear sky.I would see for miles and miles if I weren’t walking up a mountain dirt road with a grade that reminds you at every step, will only get steeper and rise toward the heavens and the birds in the sky as I walk ever toward to top of the mountain that I never ever ( yet) have seen in the dream.Now that strikes me as strange that I’m walking up a mountain road and never actually SEE the mountain.To the right of me is thick brush and bramble,limbs weeds and thorns, but I never look up.

The sun is hot,unbearably so and I take my shirt off and tell myself to keep going.My trusty busted out blue jeans that should be patched and more accurately thrown AWAY,and brown cowboy boots.I know this because in this dream I am a viewer of myself and am somehow not a participant.

There is NO one, no people no animals no sound except my feet crunching the dirt and rocks and gravel as I push on forward toward this unknown summit,walking with compulsion,almost against my will.But only because of some type of gravity, pun intended, of the situation I KNOW I have to keep going.

Eerily quiet and deathly still, this is not a safe place or a relaxing hug from mother nature,there is danger and a lurking menace laying wait and following in the thorny bush and brush to my right, keeping a watchful eye.Waiting.On what I don’t know I just have to keep going and pushing.I am purely energetic. Almost a feeling ,I would say, of lightness like I could just fly away if the wind blew hard enough or a cricket coughed.Moving ,like I say, almost against my will if I hadn’t had a burning consuming and enveloping need and desire to keep going all the way to the summit.Why? I don’t know, it’s a dream.

Eyes are on me from every direction but there is no one or thing it seemed to be around or even alive.The trees never sway because the wind never travels up this hill I guess.And then like clockwork I finally hear the sound following me up the mountain, slowly and steadily winning the race between the space I feel I must put between the sound and my lil ole lonesome me and finally, breaking my knees into jelly I turn and THEY are upon me.

In a wagon sits a man and woman dressed in period clothing , cue the harmonica and banjo , and behind them two young kids.Sometimes a boy and girl sometimes two girls and sometimes two boys and sometimes it doesn’t even figure into the dream.

You know how when you get scared in a dream you feel like you’re knee deep in mud and you can’t talk,well THEY are staring at me and there are two saving graces in this nightflight and the first is that every time I dream this I get quicker and better with more true dead aim at realizing I am in a dream and I’m able to control myself.So I turn and walk and only the man ever speaks.His wife sits next to him teeth wide in a jaw breaking gnashing of teeth and tongue smile that doesn’t hide the fact that behind it all she wants to kill me.I can see it in her eyes and smell it from every pore of her body sickening deathly rotten and I imagine she is rotten and falling apart under her dirty and worn out dress.

I want to run but like being chased by a dog running gives way to chase.”It’s a hot day and you got a long way to go young man.Why don’t you hop in this wagon and let us cart you aways.”His voice is pleasant but makes me sick to my stomach.”NO sir,I’ll be fine to walk.Thank you tho.”

“Now it’s no trouble just get on up here now and we’ll take you all the way to the end.” His words produce a chill and I walk on.His children sit dead pan and emotionless.Lost and gone.What a weird situation.

Soon enough after I have walked and walked and walked some more exhausted and tired I hear the roll and crackle cackling up the hill from behind as the horses hooves hoof and that dead wagon wheel rolls. ( and how the hell do I get so far away that it takes them so long to catch up?I mean come now let’s get real.I’m WALKING.THEY have HORSES.Must not be no clydesdales and they’re not) They are Scrawny and Growl.Hungry and emaciated red eyed smoking nostrils monsters not horses, everything about THEM reeks of my early demise.And I turn and walk again.

This goes on and on until they stay right behind me with those “nightmares”right on my heels and as this goes on the wife and husband keep calling me from behind.Their voices dry as a desert beckons almost in a scream and I keep going.I walk faster and faster and as I get closer to the top,as the road ends they begin taunting and cursing me telling me I’ll die.That I’ll never finish my journey and as I feel the heat of those ghostly stallions on my back and the fingers of a cold hand at the nape of my neck I make my last turn and look behind to find THEY are gone.

Up ahead sits a house frame with workers and a structure that looks like it might could possibly be a stage.They all come running out to me,slapping my back and shoulders and telling me how glad they were that I made it and was ok.The women give me water and hugs and kisses on the cheek and lead me by my hand to a creek where I bathe, washing the dirt off my trembling hungry wore out frame.

I am dressed and fed and handed a guitar.I sing and then I leave.I continue down the other side.They aren’t finished.We all have more work to do and so I tell them to look.To look and wait and pray for my re arrival.

And I know that THEY ,will be too.

Some things always change and always stay the same

( Please dear reader,for YOUR added pleasure,be sure to always make the international hand gesture for quotation marks by holding up the index and middle finger of both hands,close to the eyes and make small waving gestures with the fingers,toward the face.Thank you, and enjoy your visit )

I don’t sleep much lately but then I’ve never been much of a sleeper-er (…..?….) My Mom used to let me stay up and watch TV quite a few nights (some school nights yes )and we would watch old horror movies on the weekend while my Pops was out playing musics somewhere in some town or some late night bright  enlightened electric city far away from the fileds and pastures,chicken houses,hard working sweatin from sun to sun and year to year Farmers and ,last but surely not least,the Pickers & Moonshiners where I grew up.He used to come home at all hours, quarter to 4 or 5 ( and I am sure he ,as we all, might have came home at a few quarts in the morning, if you acquire my drift) but a lot of times it would be early on a Monday morning and he would sleep most of the day, and we would wait up on him more often than not if he was coming in late in the night.The night time IS the right time ( to beeee …with the one you love I said come on baby , right by my side.and I want you to keeeeep ooohh keep me satisfied……) I am on the road and playing music in some fashion and we are up late.You never get back to where you’re staying until at least 3 AM, and I just don’t get sleepy (unless I watch TV and that’s not helping right now for some reason) And in my most humble view,there are better uses for beds than sleeping.Sleeping is good.I am in no way anti sleep.It takes all kinds and I support all the rights and freedoms that were fought for and one for ALL us folks.Sleepers and Non sleepers alike.  So yeah. When it comes to sleep, I like Tennessee a lot better.

“A body in motion tends to stay in motion,and a body at rest tends to stay at rest” that’s what they told me in science class but if i remember correctly I was too busy learning to play Castles Made of Sand or NIB or a Muddy Waters tune, you know ,wasting my life away on some wild crazy man just crazy adolescent dream that would slap me right straight into the night shift at McDonalds,or so I was told by some, so as far as any tests went I might’ve  failed Hey it was a long time ago.I just don’t remember maaaaaaannnnnnnAh……,but I sure as hell ain’t playing no guitar in Mickey D’s (nuts).

It was a dream is a dream and will be a dream.I guess the point is that dreams suck if you aren’t constantly living them and I guess to some extent, you have to create a world for yourself to to be alive and live a life that you are meant to love and to live and have and hold, and to everyone else it is in fact a dream.Not a dream that comes from bad gas and in your dreamy little dream, like……..

………..The world is at war!!!!! You’re trapped in a bunker underneath your house.Your children are scared and they are huddled over in the corner by the dried fruit ,250 gallons of potable water,356 rolls of toilet paper 5 assault rifles, 2 pistols ,200 boxes of shells,some nerve gas,10 wooden dusty boxes of hand-grenades ( 100 count ), 6 survival knives,( one for each member of the family and 2 for you just in case they take to the Crazies and try to eat you,knocking you down with can of beenie weenies and taking your money and trying on your underwear.You know basic zombie deployment/control/takeover tactics) and Oh yeah ,there’s also a couple cases of scotch and a portable DVD player with a DVD copy of Kelly Clarksons “Behind The Music”, which actually turns out to be an episode of Honey Boo Boo.

All of a sudden there’s an explosion in the sky and your bunker buckles and boards break dirt falling and strangling through the cracks in the ceiling and before you know you know it a green fog covers the room!!! Your wife,if she continues to live long enough, shrieks and grabs at her throat and the kids lye motionless and cold on the unforgiving concrete floor in the room you built that has became their tomb, realizing no one can cheat Death……Then you wake up and realize you gotta poop and if you were’nt sleeping alone before you are gonna be sleeping alone now.Women don’t like bed farts.Awake farts,asleep farts,wet farts,dry farts,sleepwalk farts,on your way to the bathroom farts,coming back from the fridge with a bologna sandwich farts ( which is sometimes pronounced,by someone I love deeply dearly as true as night becomes day, as sandwedges ) and especially sex farts, which coincidentally turned out to be  funny on at least two occasions for me.On top of the cover farts,under the cover farts,pillow farts, basically just don’t be blowin in the wind close to your sleeping area at all.Well, I mean your wife or girlfriend can do it.And they do too.That’s how you know they really love and accept you.When they’ll just let a mad one  rrrrrriiiiiipppp, right there next to you, in the bed.Or the car.With all the windows rolled up.And the heat on.And it’s a really really,really. cold. day.

Ah, the things we do for love.

I have a lot of dreams.Just like both the dreams I have used far too many words to describe so little.( What if when you die,your last thought is,” I have loved so much,and yet so little.”?) I mean I am sure we all dream about the same types of things and I have nightmares and weird “Why am I the only one naked?”type “sleepmovies”( hey it’s really late …. I KNOW sleepmovies sounds stupid. It’s 5 AM stupid ,and that’s preettty stupid) as well as straight up awesomesauce life like flying dreams.I also used to dream,when I was a kid about 5 or 6 ,about falling off the interstate 77 bridge on Broad Street right by the mall.I would always wake up just before I hit the road and wake up like James Brown Gettin Down! In a cold sweat baby !!!!!!! And just as cold a sweat are nightmares ( i.e. ;evening horses, not to be confused with the”band”of horses) and dreams where I don’t know where I am and no one knows who I am, a stranger in a strange land of guitar necks that stretch past the stage and over peoples’heads in a mirage of a rock and roll concert until I can’t play anymore and everyone walks away.Not enough in them to even boo.They just walk away.Now that’s cold.At least boo me ya”ll.So I get lost and can’t find my way out and it’s just plain ole everyday awful.Yes I dreamed that.If you think that one or any other dream I have is, or makes me look remotely “crazy” you should hang out with me during the “waking” hours.( This where those hand gestures I hipped you to earlier come in )

But most of the dreams that I have that scare the shit out of me and keep me from going back to sleep because I am too terrified to go back to bed are the kind of dreams that actually keep me awake on more nights than I care to remember, keeping my mind busy writing,reading or playing guitar occasionally propped against the backdrop of a television with the sound turned off just because I was afraid I may have a certain dream ( there are more than one ) that is a reaccuring thing man. A scene that just won’t leave me out.Not a dream about a murderer monster or beast.Not a dream about anything in particular at the surface.At the surface.They all have a few things in common.I have them a lot and they are always mostly the same.Only the characters in the dreams switch “roles” if you will.Not the place or scene or time or completely debilitating fear,dread and total anxiety I get from even thinking abut them.

Now you maybe asking yourself,” What kind of monkeyfinger dreams could be that mickeyfickey horrible Mr. Fisher ?” I am not getting ready to say I dream of killing someone.It did happen once a long long time ago when I wore a younger man’s clothes.And I broke up with her shortly afterward.I had just turned 21.Just a kid.I don’t have control of the mental fabrications of the super sub concious mind,but I can be honest.It was a horrible horrible dream that brought me a bucket full of guilt and feeling like the lowest of low for a long time.It really did a number on me.I thought I was gonna be like that dude in the Shining.But I took it as a sign. A sign that I should KILL !!!!!!!!! Just joking……Seriously……KILL!!!!!!! Really I’m just playin ,baby  !!!!! I would never harm another human being but I think in the spirit of transperancy, I should say in full and completely honest disclosure, it would be a really bad trip if I ever got too close…..

…..to Darth Vader.      Darth Vader Johnson, who lived down the street from me.He choked me out once and didn’t even touch me!!!! I hate that dude.

But I digress and sometimes you need just a little digress to truly groove with progress and I’ll be Uncle John if that ain’t the truth……..AAAAAaaaaanywho…….

This one dream in particular ( I forgot earlier that in these dreams that never really leave me,like those people who always show up uninvited to your house and then don’t know when to leave.How Rude) that I started having recently and it’s came back with the same intensity as always.

Beautiful azure crystal clear sky.I would see for miles and miles if I weren’t  walking up a mountain dirt road with a grade that reminds you at every step, will only get steeper and rise toward the heavens and the birds in the sky as I walk ever toward to top of the mountain that I never ever ( yet) have seen in the dream.Now that strikes me as strange that I’m walking up a mountain road and never actually SEE the mountain.To the right of me is thick brush and bramble,limbs weeds and thorns, but I never look up.

The sun is hot,unbearably so and I take my shirt off and tell myself to keep going.My trusty busted out blue jeans that should be patched and more accurately thrown AWAY,and brown cowboy boots.I know this because in this dream I am a viewer of myself and am somehow not a participant.

There is NO one, no people no animals no sound except my feet crunching the dirt and rocks and gravel as I push on forward toward this unknown summit,walking with compulsion,almost against my will.But only because of some type of gravity, pun intended, of the situation I KNOW I have to keep going.

Eerily quiet and deathly still, this is not a safe place or a relaxing hug from  mother nature,there is danger and a lurking menace laying wait and following in the thorny bush and brush to my right, keeping a watchful eye.Waiting.On what I don’t know I just have to keep going and pushing.I am purely energetic. Almost a feeling ,I would say, of lightness like I could just fly away if the wind blew hard enough or a cricket coughed.Moving ,like I say, almost against my will if I hadn’t had a burning consuming and enveloping need and desire to keep going all the way to the summit.Why? I don’t know, it’s a dream.

Eyes are on me from every direction but there is no one or thing it seemed to be around or even alive.The trees never sway because the wind never travels up this hill I guess.And then like clockwork I finally hear the sound following me up the mountain, slowly and steadily winning the race between the space I feel I must put between the sound and my lil ole lonesome me and finally, breaking my knees into jelly I turn and THEY are upon me.

In a wagon sits a man and woman dressed in period clothing , cue the harmonica and banjo , and behind them two young kids.Sometimes a boy and girl sometimes two girls and sometimes two boys and sometimes it doesn’t even figure into the dream.

You know how when you get scared in a dream you feel like you’re knee deep in mud and you can’t talk,well THEY are staring at me and there are two saving graces in this nightflight and the first is that every time I dream this I get quicker and better with more true dead aim at realizing I am in  a dream and I’m able to control myself.So I turn and walk and only the man ever speaks.His wife sits next to him teeth wide in a jaw breaking gnashing of teeth and tongue smile that doesn’t hide the fact that behind it all she wants to kill me.I can see it in her eyes and smell it from every pore of her body sickening deathly rotten and I imagine she is rotten and falling apart under her dirty and worn out dress.

I want to run but like being chased by a dog running gives way to chase.”It’s a hot day and you got a long way to go young man.Why don’t you hop in this wagon and let us cart you aways.”His voice is pleasant but makes me sick to my stomach.”NO sir,I’ll be fine to walk.Thank you tho.”

“Now it’s no trouble just get on up here now and we’ll take you all the way to the end.” His words produce a chill and I walk on.His children sit dead pan and emotionless.Lost and gone.What a weird situation.

Soon enough after I have walked and walked and walked some more exhausted and tired I hear the roll and crackle cackling up the hill from behind as the horses hooves hoof and that dead wagon wheel rolls. ( and how the hell do I get so far away that it takes them so long to catch up?I mean come now let’s get real.I’m WALKING.THEY have HORSES.Must not be no clydesdales and they’re not) They are Scrawny and Growl.Hungry and emaciated red eyed smoking nostrils monsters not horses, everything about THEM reeks of my early demise.And I turn and walk again.

This goes on and on until they stay right behind me with those “nightmares”right on my heels and as this goes on the wife and husband keep calling me from behind.Their voices dry as a desert beckons almost in a scream and I keep going.I walk faster and faster and as I get closer to the top,as the road ends they begin taunting and cursing me telling me I’ll die.That I’ll never finish my journey and as I feel the heat of those ghostly stallions on my back and the fingers of a cold hand at the nape of my neck I make my last turn and look behind to find THEY are gone.

Up ahead sits a house frame with workers and a structure that looks like it might could possibly be a stage.They all come running out to me,slapping my back and shoulders and telling me how glad they were that I made it and was ok.The women give me water and hugs and kisses on the cheek and lead me by my hand to a creek where I bathe, washing the dirt off my trembling hungry wore out frame.

I am dressed and fed and handed a guitar.I sing and then I leave.I continue down the other side.They aren’t finished.We all have more work to do and so I tell them to look.To look and wait and pray for my  re arrival.

And I know that THEY ,will be too.

 

corn

up for the downstroke

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

I have really been busy lately with life and that means music and everything else I mean there is really nothing else out side music right?Finding the right rythym and tone and harmony for each and every moment and trying to stay in time my goodness gracious yes.Gotta know when to stay on the one or when you can play with time.But it’s really still always on the one.

I am gearing up for a lotta of fun gigs and trips for the summer.I’m not sure just exactly what I meant to write about I just haven’t done this in a while and I need to get into the habit of something before I can keep it up ( and then can’t quit )

I am glad to say that I feel better mentally and physically and more important spiritually than I have in a long time,although the passing of amendment one here in NC brought me down significantly but I was elevated almost as fast by remembering that votes ( unfortunately ) don’t always represent the way the whole of my fellow man feels about things.I know there are good people in the world and as much as I wish was different and better and more beautiful in the world, I am very blessed and fortunate to live in it.I know too many gorgeous things in this life to feel differently even though I do get discouraged sometimes.I could never stop doing what I am here to do and if ever what I came to do becomes something different I will always honor the life I have lived up until then.

I lost a very dear friend of mine about a week and a half ago.A very great guitar player and human being named Jack Bouchard.I have known Jack for many many years and have learned alot from him.I am sad to see him go and happy about the time he gave to us all while still on this plane of existence.I don’t believe that people really die and I can’t remember a time in my life when I believed anything different.Jack and all our loved ones who have already moved ahead have only done just that,moved on ahead.

Back in March my Uncle Carson moved on ahead.He taught me how to open tune my guitar and so is responsible for all the songs I have played and written in an open key.He taught me how to play slide guitar and gave me my first slide.He was also a real prankster and love pulling gags on folks and telling jokes.I will never forget all the things I have carried through life with me that he gave me.

Adam Yauch, man what a big part of my musical background and such a major part of the soundtrack to my life.The greats are passing each and every day.Remember that the next time you turn on the radio or read about the next big thing which isn’t big just next.I still can recall a time when you had to actually have talent to be a musician and Adam was certainly one of the greatest musicians of our time.

As always I hope everyone is well and we can all find our place in life which,believe it or not is right where you are now.

Own the day

AWW

Always at It ( Whatever That Means)

So this world keeps spinning and turnin no matter what I do or you do and it was before and will be after you and I and Love and war and Life and Death.

I have just spent quite a bit of time finally completely compiling a master song list of original songs and I had to stop and rest at 52,then I remembered at least 4 more and had to go back.As a matter of fact in the middle of writing this blog.So I have been much busier at trying to stay young and alive than I thought.

Isn’t that what all this “living” fuss we make is all about? Our fear of death? Of course it is and you know it.You’ll own up to it when you are no longer afraid and can see life and death as one big beautiful left and right and earth and sky.It is a dance and exchange and one cannot be without the other.So cherish one and run from the other and all you’ll be doing is running away from something you will never never escape toward something you can never have because you are so busy running you can’t stand still long enough to see it when it jumps right up in your purty lil face.

 

So just keep on doing what you do and be happy.Just make sure whatever it is you’re doing doesn’t involve escaping from one thing into another.

The other day I had the great pleasure of hanging out with my folks the other day.I never get to see them and talk to them either,I’m always busy but ain’t it always something.They gave me a ride from their house to somewhere else I could catch a ride to some where else I had to be.Now look at me preaching and harangueing with such bucolic dignity,I ought to be ashamed of myself.

 

NOw the whole time we are on the road,my folks and I , I wanted to drive see,cause I was in a hurry.After while my Mom says to my Dad,” Hunny ( she calls him that a lot ) ,”What’s wrong with the car? It feels like it’s shaking up a storm!!! “

And he casually replied,”It’s not the car,it’s Woody tapping his foot against the floor board.”

Now I ask you ,who’s in a hurry to live and who’s in a hurry to die? …..I’d tell you but I really have something  must rush off and take care of.Seriously.

 

Straight shootin

I got no fancy or funny pictures to show you so you can understand what I’ma trying to explain to you and don’t be upset tiwh me if I don’t even spell check what I write.

I have,only for your eyes here and only from my words,oil and smoke and fire and dust and wind that fall from my words and shades your eyes dark to all else but my story.

UP and down.kcaB and

f

o

r

t

h.

I have been a sailor on a lonely highway of mountains and cities and the deep blue sea.

I just got off tour is all I’m trying to say.I went up north to New York with The Ends.

For those of you who don’t understand what traveling on the road or the amount of work some one who really actually gives a shit about music will put into it,I certainly cannot explain it to you here.

We begin or story in a town called Asheville move to Burlington and then on to VA,MD,DE,PA,NY and back home. Just looking at those abbreviations reminds me of some strange eastern incantation or Buddhist chant designed to take your soul other places and indeed these sounds and words do.This music which is alive ,which is the very life of me and without which I would have no other choice than to quietly explode.

The world is hard and beautiful.It is soft and hard to look at.The road is the truth of the world outside my little bubble.Our little bubbles of perception.Real life in real time.Not read or watched or tweeted or facewasted.You cannot look at the picture that popular culture gives you,go out on the road and still believe it unless you refuse to pay attention.

This world is like a flower blooming in the breast of a garden of death.It is everything and nothing .All you know and everything you don’t wanna know.This is my meager representation of life on the road.

You wake up,hell you were never really asleep,and ride and ride and sit and watch………then you let your soul explode every night for two hours or more if you are lucky.A good friend once said he was more like a truck driver who played music for two hours.I liked that analogy for a while but then I realized he was missing out on the bigger picture of our bigger conciousness.That it’s all music.My thoughts and actions and feelings and interactions with other living beings and the light playing on all my brain and senses playing on sense objects are like the most divine dance and play of music you could imagine.The ultimate band.The ultimate orchestra.

All the other stuff we hate too.Booking selling emailing and calling and ego-ing.It’s a part of the dance of the bigger song.

There is nothing ugly or pretty.Only the song.What are you playing?