“Sometimes the things you like the best that have meant the most to you are the things that meant nothing at all to you when you first heard or saw them”
“In life anything can happen. Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things that you don’t have that you don’t want.”
“A song is like a dream and you try to make it come true… It helps to be moving. Sometimes the people that have the greatest talent for writing songs never write any because they are not moving”
Over the last week or so I have been revisiting Bob Dylan’s Chronicles… Some of what he writes speaks loud and clear to me like a church bell ringing between my ears. So as I press through it I will log those parts here. The first are words from his grandmother:
“Happiness isn’t on the road to anything, Happiness is the road.”
I hope this translates- Video was not possible but by far the best thing I have seen at a music venue in new york
I am very pleased to announce the completion of a live, intimate music video for “Keeps it Burning”
This was shot live in Forest Park Queens, NY
Directed by: Jessica Brillhart
Produced by: Brillhart/Gonzales Productions
As I watch MTV I realize that it is quite possible I am out of touch with reality… tv that is. Are these programs real or are they written? I can’t tell and I am not sure which is worse. Some guy in this show is afraid to move out of his mom’s house. He’s 31. Now life has him doubting that he will reach his full potential if he stays. He just can’t seem to get off the tittie. In other news, I recently discovered that driving up the west coast is gorgeous. I stopped in San Luis Obispo and played at the Apple Store there. I then proceeded to play beer pong for the first time in my life. Great little town.
Beer Pongin’ in SLO
After a cozy night at Vagabond Inn and a grand slam breakfast later, I found myself in Portland, OR. I met up with Ian Axel and Allie Moss to play the Apple Store in Bridgeport Village. While I was there I had some amazing home cooked breakfast, drank a little, and enjoyed the good people of Portland. Life. Breathing. Adaptation. good stuff
you get a 10% discount at Denny’s when you stay here
Allie Moss and Ian Axel @ Apple Store
In closing, I’d like to add that per the advise of good friends I have songs from the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss album “Raising Sand” stuck in my head. Why am I slowing down in my musical preferences lately? Seriously, it’s worrying me that I’m preferring slow country these days. Someone kick me in the nuts and make me rock please… but not too hard.
These are some of my whereabouts while in Los Angeles
Venice in the middle of the night
Jerry’s Deli OPEN 24 HRS!
The Original Pantry Cafe in downtown LA
Alfredo and Art satisfied in the parking lot of Pantry Cafe
“i feel the earth move under my feet i feel the sky tumblin’ down a tumblin down” -Carol King
Over the last couple of weeks i would say that i have learned some valuable lessons. Life lessons. Nothing that’s really huge but little things that make a huge difference when living life. It has become apparent to me that in order to exist with a decent amount of inner peace you have to be OK when you don’t have control. Yesterday I experienced my first earthquake. At first I thought it was the upstairs neighbor stomping around until the rumble forced me out of my chair. Then I could feel the building swaying as I looked out on the balcony and saw the condos next door shaking from side to side. Incidents like these create a feeling of hopelessness and shear panic that you have NO idea what could happen or what will happen… but whatever happens, how are you gonna deal with it? In these fleeting seconds that disguise themselves as minutes, nothing is important. Everything goes away. And whatever you were just doing can wait a minute. I would imagine to a worse degree those that are going down in a crashing plane experience something similar to this venerability. But it is in this state that our truths surface. Sometimes its just not in our hands after all. You have to take that step onto the bridge to cross over even though all you see is the canyon below. Like in the Indiana Jones movie where he’s searching for the Holy Grail. As I approach my final days in California I have embraced my current state of the unknown. 2,500 miles away from home with my musical instruments loaded in a car, I have never felt so powerful and lost at the same time. Just when you think you have something figured out, you realize that it is possible for the softest sand to eat the soles off your Pumas while you walk a moonlit beach. Or when your head hangs low and you feel all alone, the lights turn on slow and you look around to realize you’ve been poised up by all those people that don’t mind standing really really close to you.
