In My Eyes

Being a drug free adult is really isolating sometimes, but I have never regretted it for a second. Drinking and smoking are still dumb to me, but its even more dumb that people need me to drink with them in order to feel comfortable. I feel seriously insulted by it. I know its not something to get hung up about, and that its not really on this or that person, its just a system we're all caught up in, but I won't be sucked into that world. If we're gonna have a human connection, its gotta be analog, baby. I won't accept anything less than reality. Its something I rarely talk about for a number of reasons but its something I'm pretty fired up about all the same, just as much as I was at 17.

I love being straight edge and I wish I had more friends that felt the way that I feel. Its such a positive thing, and in my mind terribly romantic, in that reality is so much wilder and more unruly and challenging than the alternative. I don't need a ton of people to feel the same, but it deflates me a little from time to time knowing that something I see so clearly is not important to anyone else.

Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see. One chance out between two worlds; fire walk with me.

Last night I had a dream about Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, it was really cool. That is one of my very favorite books, you should read it so we can talk about it!

I've been in Arkansas for almost 3 weeks, I don't want to leave. I am going back to Seattle tomorrow and I gotta spend my first Christmas away from my family. "Life's hard so I gotta be hard too!"

Really anxious to finish this dang recording. It's gonna be really good I think. I've started writing a few new songs, not too sure about them but I never am. I hate writing lyrics so much, its stresses me out.

From Brighton Beach To Santa Monica

The Clientele are one of the best bands out right now. Their last two albums ("Strange Geometry" and "God Save The Clientele")have been nothing short of perfect. I say this as a weary old man, quite crabby and impressed by very little these days.

They have a new one coming out next month and they are streaming the whole thing right now at the link below. Give it a listen, I'm excited. The third track, "Harvest Time", is vintage Clientele: Alasdair MacLean's haunting English drone cooing over lush, reverbed out single coil guitar and an airy snare-ride rhythm section. Reminds me a bit of a song I wrote called "summertime", but that is neither here nor there.


http://www.mergerecords.com/store/store_detail.php?catalog_id=628#

Beachwood Park

This is for Alec, a man after my own heart.

The Fall is starting, it hurts me. The world is dying you know. People that I really like are coming back to Seattle. The Mopes are recording on Saturday and have a bunch of new songs. We're really good. I don't mind saying it, I think its pretty true. We're playing sunday in Beltown, I forget where.

I'm just about to a place in my life where I can be myself with every single person I know. Some people I might hold things back from, but rarely do I find myself wearing a mask for someone else. (It hasn't always been like this you know, I used to be a lot of different people. Most of them weren't me anyway, which is good because they weren't people I'd like to know.) I think this is due more to the great people I have in my life than anything else. Leaving my life in California is also a big part of it.

I will try to write in this more.

What man has made of man

“Even in laughter the heart may ache, and the end of joy may be grief.” (Proverbs 14:13, ESV)

I have been having so much fun and feeling so sad over the course of single days, its kind of hard to ride sometimes. I want something that seems so close but so impossible all at once. The verse up above is in my mind all the time right now.

Springtime is a good time to be melancholic, because the rest of the world is constantly trying to snap you out of it. It doesn't really work, or maybe it does but it doesn't last very long... In any case its nice to know that nature cares.

Springtime is a good time for poems. I have been thinking of lots lately. Wordsworth is really nice in the spring I think. Flowers just have to take pleasure in every breath, I really believe it.


Lines Written In Early Spring by William Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:--
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?


The verse that has been very healing for me tonight is: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5, ESV)
I'm gonna go try to do that now.

A poem, unfinished as ever

I want to connect these better, but this is a skeleton. Note to self, keep at it.

The overpass, it shudders,
as all the cars go by.
In the bosom of Abraham,
our kids too tired to cry.
King Sleep, you know he conquers
everyone and all.
Take rest where you can find it.
Cozy up to concrete wall

The road exhales in the distance
as cars drive along
to destinations I don't know.
On nights like these
it's a welcome noise,
and i crack my window just a little
to break up the silence