From a smoky southern bar

Phil Brady's Bar
Baton Rouge, LA

I must be morphing into a fucking Yankee. The whiskey-to-coke ratio in my drink is stinging my tongue like rubbing alcohol on an open wound. The shotgun cigarette smoke is overwhelmingly swelling the room and to my eyes it's absolute poison- acid burning them to ruins. Girls down here are more beautiful- the generalization that most everyone accepts, is mostly true after all. Gods Aphrodite prototypes.

The drinks are stiffer- you can taste the poison drowning your soul. No telling the horrid effects it's going to have on your stomach, intestines, liver, colon, and thereafter. But that doesn't concern me so much right now, really I'm just pleased I got a drink poured right for a change. My hands become much lighter, almost limp when gyrated against one another in an attempt to applaud the band playing. I wonder if my hands might just fall off, right here and now, drop to the floor like soggy biscuits. No good anymore. Maybe this is the end. My blood will soon fall to pieces, brain will atrophy and crack my skin like an earthquake, and I'll fall dead to the floor with my hands.

I realize that I'm being paranoid and I need another drink.
..
...
..
Life is an excuse to get drunk and sad
So we sing along to old soul songs when the world is going bad
and salvation ain't nowhere to be found
streets of mercenaries screaming the word of the lord we don't believe in, but fear everyday

and the billboards on the highway were from God and they said
"I'm coming, I'm coming for you. Will you be ready?"

they got a first class budget for judgment day
got a round trip ticket from heaven to this awful place.

Cowboy Boots & Glory Pursuits

Austin, Texas.
South by Southwest

Cowboy boots, but no cowboys. Glory pursuits, in line with the fashion. We wave our arms to the motions, bend our wills to our ways, and in this mob of confusion, face value appears to replace faith.

The circus, the brigade, the hand shakes, and free drinks.... privilege for remembering strangers names. I really can't complain that my belly is full and head of libations enough to make such social fancies work for me. But these social implications soon loose their appeal and I'm about as inclined to speak to a new stranger as I am to shoot myself with a shotgun. Just feels like one long gambling night that never ends and may amount to some profit, but will always be lacking in payments of comprehension of further enlightenment or soul revivals. Most of this playing dress up seems just a distraction from the point, from the truth, and I want to run back to the studio, back to my room, back to the arms of old friends or a library of books- anything real, anything away from this royal jester parade. It's just not my place, that's all. It takes all kinds, and my kind, of like mind are increasingly harder to find- the divide between my skin and all the others becoming indelibly more pronounced.

I don't do the rock star thing.
I do the musician thing.
And I want to go home.

Convenience, Quality, and Bar-B-Que

The roads have been clear- the ominous skies dissipated as the day rose to it's feet- well strapped laces, freshly shined and ready for any variable to come. Got Neil Young to accompany us through the speakers and we're shooting straight through Houston like it were a contagious disease, which is many ways, I guess it is. Paul refuses to stop in this fabricated Tex-Mex caucasion circus and I don't blame him, even though I'm copiously salivating over the idea of some bar-b-que- as it can only be found in true form here in Texas- Bar-b-que that could easily be obtained at any Houston interstate exit, lodged between trails of truckers litter, Wal-Marts, a myriad of Ethnic cusine restaurants all in Americanized Uniform of hideous neon signs and shiney plastic accutrements, gas stations, and shit-kicker western boot outlet stores. A proletariats paradise, free of the shackles of ambition or motivation. Apathy and good cuts of meat, Gods of all these things round here. Fair enough. I can taste the tang of bar-b-que already....

But Houston won't receive our patronage today. I personally would have given in to my stomach pangs and weak will and exploited Houston for what it's worth (damn good bar-b-que), but Paul has remained steady and true in his resistance and unparalleled disgust of such a tacky paradigm. He is clearly much more of a purist than I am, though he DID very eagerly scarf down a full McDonald's breakfast this morning: cheese egg buscuit, hasbrowns, coffee and all.

We try.
Convienence often runs a close second to quality.

Fruitition

Connection to other sacred souls
Provides no guarantee of consistency or truth
For most with such conditions are so complex
That there are many truths and persuasions,
Some of which contradict one another
And within skin and context
You could call your friend a liar or hypocrite

Those who proclaim their thoughts loudly
Find it harder to change their minds later on
Those who embrace prescience, speak softly
And do not invest their futures before they reach them

The purest souls often have the biggest mouths
And while in this human context, they make themselves out to be frauds
When really they are pure kid hearts, just playing dress up
Testing their condition, and toying with skin and such
To see the limits, and the definites

A cherry in the dewdrop morning
Will rot in passing days
Though the seed will survive it’s vessel and produce for ages
While our skin and fruit appears bruised
The bedded seeds remain, steady, constant and true.