SEX AND STORY-LINE

I enjoy sex with a story. I have always said that I am very romantic which is true but I was just thinking yesterday at the laundromat, that sex with out heart is very unappealing to me. It's the story that turns me on. It could be that stranger in Italy, that loyal friend you've had for years, a kiss in the rain from someone you barely know. I think to myself, those things sound ridiculous, conjured and they reek of Hollywood, but the truth is that once in a while these things actually happen. The latter one happened to me eight years ago. He was flying off to Canada to find his long lost father and brother in a homeless shelter. I was sick that night, dreadfully lonely, and forced myself into shape to spend time with this man who was a chiropractor and salsa instructor. He had a clean peasant look...very tan, very Oil of Olay and linen shirt (with leather draw string). We didn't sleep together, but the point is that I wanted to. I fall in love with the story, but the world around me seems to be in love with sex. I could write a paper on this. It's good material for songwriting too. You can wright a song about anything these days, and people do and sadly they get payed for it. There are songs about, how you just got your pay check and you're gonna go blow all your cash on sex and chemical stimulants. That is pretty much the whole song. It would be better if they finished the story. You blow all your cash and then you're broke and can't pay rent, so you are sleeping on the couch at your friends house until they get tired of you, and then you are homeless and smell bad because you can't shower and you don't get laid anymore. Now, you can sing the blues or get saved and sing about that.

I was inspired by Alanis Morsette and Sarah Mcglauphlin when I was 11 and my Mother bought me this guitar for my 12th birthday. We knew nothing of what we were getting into. The man at the music store said a classical guitar with a wide neck was good for learning on. I played it for months before I learned how to tune it.
That summer we moved from Woodinville Washington to Port Angeles. The small house had a loft that became my teenage bedroom.  I remember the smell. An old man had died there and the old furnishings seemed heavy and dark but fresh white paint made everything feel new. My bedroom was warm with the heat of the sun and bright with a sky light that my mother had put in. The most beautiful thing of all was the golden vibrations of my new guitar in that empty space. Aren't all teenagers delighted with reverb? I was. People ask me "What did you do in a small dead town and a Mother who didn't believe in cable." I'll tell you what I did. I wrote songs. Many of them.

I wrote my first song in that room. My first reall song. There were a few meandering melodies before then but they had no real stamina. The one that stuck was called "Shaggy Man." It was about a woman who's life was changed forever when she picked up a mysterious hitch hiker in the rain. His disappearance at the end of the song left her feeling haunted and moved. I found a magazine picture that kinda looked like my idea and I made him my mascot. You can see him looking back at you down a desert road with his guitar and his John Lennon sun glasses and his long biker hair. He's on the front of my guitar case. On the back of the case I created a b/w psychedelic looking text that says "Jesus Lives." It was 1997. Smiley faces and peace signs were in full swing once again and I was indeed involved in the Christian sub culture of that time. I desired intuitive living, getting along with everyone but was commited to my Christian beliefs. I even tried rewriting certain verses of the bible to sound like something a hippy would say. I had a very naive vew of the 60's. I imagined road trips with girls AND boys, in a hippy van, with long hair and hot days but never sweating and no leg hair and of course that song "Born To Be Wild"  would be playing and that other song "Wild Thing." Wild thing I think I love ya. As I recall I never knew the names of songs, even if I loved them. I just gave the song my own title which was whatever lyric I could remember. I called the National Anthem "Oh Say Can You See," clear up until the same year. Inspite of my innocent wanderings as a young thing, I had a keen ability to absorb the important elements of what ever music I heard, and I was able to write whole songs. By the time I was fifteen I had enough orginal material to play my first show during lunch at school in the auditorium.

I wrote "Train Car" in a time when I wanted to escape. On my way to work one day I was stopped at the tracks near my house by a passing train. It was the longest train in the world and as a result I was late for my shift. As the train cars were passing me by I wished that I could jump on one of them and go to the ocean. I subjected myself to a job I dreaded in order to survive. I hated my job and my prospects as a twenty something American. Feeling trapped, unable to even think outside the box, I reflected on my place in life with this song.

Today I have constructed a plan. I am always changing the plan and I am always carrying it out. The outcome is always the same and this is what drives me to continue. The outcome is that my time is spent doing something that makes sense to myself and others. As an American, I can go to college for a degree, to attain a job that does not exist, and then work minimum wage to share a one bedroom apartment with six individuals. I have done this already. It's a miserable existence, and it gets worse as you approach 30. What I have decided to do instead, is to write songs, sing them and get payed for it. This blog is a record of my commitment and a source of accountability. Today is the day that I will begin to share with you my work, rain or shine, starting with the link below. The song is called "This Drum." I was able to make this with the help of some very dear friends.
 

The Report

Community......................hidden but thriving
School.......................miss it
Work.............................job interview monday for a shoe store
Music......................a sleeping jem
Shelter..........................time to move on, waiting
Debt............................oops
Freinds.............................i want to hold them
Love Life................................dormant and now wishful
Future................a dream

A Mark In Time

CHURCH............................................................................................................................in limbo

SCHOOL................................................................................................................................on hold

MUSIC.......................................................................................slowly nurtured to survive my life

SHELTER......................................................................................................................in transition

WORK............................................................................................................................filling out apps

MONEY...................................................................................................................................broke

DEBT......................................................................................................................................... o crap

LOVE LIFE...........................................................................................................................dormant

FRIENDSHIP...........................................................................................................................golden

FUTURE................................................................................................................................a dream

Grief

chokes a person

and when it is not choking

it can sedate a person

tense, release

repeat. shake. shudder. sedated

what is it that makes this beautiful?

you tell me.