New York, Wed AM: Left at 6, Jay drove me to the airport in my car, to get to Detroit for my tour with Jon Rajewski (the w is silent: www.myspace.com/jrajewski). I'd gotten to sleep at 4:30 am, for just a few minutes, struggling to pack my meager bag, as I haven't done laundry in a wile and it being July, what do I really need but jeans and a few shirts--though I will have to go to a Meijer or something and buy some Fruit of the Loom supplies.

I'd gotten tacos at 3 am, but as it was light out, I figured I'd do my part for the local LGA community and buy some breakfast. Also, it was the only hotbed of activity in the airport, I was intrigued by their seven-person staff led by a slightly stooped older gentleman. I assumed he was the leader of this merry band, alert in maroon and gold uniform, as he wore a civilian shirt (designating that his presence made any garment, even the most lowly, the mark of his standing), held a wooden spoon and seemed to be constantly asking what was goig on. Eggs came, I et. Then had a beer.

A woman sat in my just-changed window seat. Her gentleman friend offered me his ticket in a cushy seat up front. I gladly deferred to the couple and took a seat next to a 13-year old girl who'd never flown before. We had a good time, me with my jellybeans and New York Times, her with Teen Magazine (glossy large Jonas Bros photo inside!), excited and a little nervous about flying for the first time. I told her about how you can see the curvature of the earth on the horizon, how we fly above the weather. "Do they ever fly through a cloud?" she asked. Yes, I said, told her how I've sometimes flown through storms...it was a fun trip, talking about the shape of houses on the ground and looking at sandbars on the shores of the Great Lakes.

Jon picked me up in his Jeep, and we drove to Dearborn for Middle Eastern food. "I figured we would go to La Shish", he said, the best in town, "but the place has been shut down due to accused ties of money laundering to Lebanon." Weird. Lots of accusations flying. not sure what to think. Luckily, there are many fine Middle Eastern establishments and we supped heartily on bread and olive oil and various sandwiches.

The show was fun, we played for an attentive crowd at The Intersection, a great rock club in Grand Rapids, supporting Joshua James (www.myspace.com/joshuajamesmusic) and Corey Chisel (http://www.myspace.com/thewanderingsons). Seems too that old pal Amber Rubarth (www.myspace.com/amberrubarth) Was on the tour but couldn't make it, which was a bummer. But cool that she's out with these guys--she's great and they're great and it looks like they've got a great tour planned. Good fun set--Jon's great and his buddy Steve joined us on banjo. I'll be rockin Betty Lou and his sweet burgundy Strat through a blonde Vox AC-15 the next couple of days...good tone.

Had some great beer and sammies at Founders, followed by pool with a couple of Jon's boys...a terrific brewpub, oastmeal stout, mmm... afterward rolled back at 80mph with John Prine and The Beatles blasting, talking philosphy, me passing out Embree-style on the couch, him trying in vain to get me up to make the bed, waking up in my jeans to birds singing....

Tonight at Jacoby's, I play a set and back up Jon: http://www.staticrecords.com/shows.htm . With Steve Leaf and Chris Bathgate. 9 pm

Hey folks...we have just finished in the studio and have 13 tracks in the hopper, just getting ready to package them up for ya. Two of them are posted on www.myspace.com/theramblersnyc and one is up here (Midnight). Really excited to have new tunes for you!

JB

Just came home from a night playing music, and see on the NY Times website that Kurt Vonnegut has died. I'm immediately taken to a place where I'm thinking, "wow, someone else I wanted to meet who's gone." And led immediately to thoughts of Indianapolis, his hometown, where I have spent so many loving hours, and thin of Kurt often whenever I'm there.

It sounds odd, I know. Someone I've never met, someone who's life shouldn't have been close to mine, but it is. I was ten when I first started reading his books, however rudimentary my understanding may have been. It's an opening to psyche and passion and depth, the first author I'd ever read who'd really inspired me...I just had a discussion about his writing a few days ago.

I don't know how to describe this. It's instant. And so strange. I haven't even read through the whole obituary yet. Maybe I don't want to.

Books have been my escape, my grace, my love, my life for so long. And his were always part of that. Kurt, I wish you godspeed wherever you may be at this moment and thank you for all you've given me.

    Bury me not
in your lone valley
where there is no water
or enough sun to grow

even a simple stone
is still
not to serve as a marker
but an arrow to follow
this is not your only rest

Bury me not
in fields fallow
set to run
into streams of
wrestling mud
when the rains come

under these seas
my bones will not
rest but rot
as I never find sleep
always moving.

No.

Bury me in the plains,
where the tall grasses
wear the teeth of
old cattle

where the roots are dense enough
to see no trace of my humanity

where my body climbs
into the breath of
each foundling lash of prairie green,

where I become the grace and the essence
of all living things:

Bury me here.

    Yup...please check out the new song I have posted on the player.  Rock on...

    roll into Boston in a green-grey Chrysler with Michigan plates. dyed-red girl next to sean in the backseat, hasn't said much the whole trip.  took the saw mill straight up to 84, rolling across perfect weather in connecticut, 85 the whole way.

skybar, somerville.  big stage, great sound, bad guinness, but cheap pabst.  john and I got wrecked real quickly, I walk in, jillian, our set mate, is all set up with her violin player, whome I immediately commandeer to jam on my set.  girl plays with jillian, name of asha, regularly.  sings like a bird...find out she was trained in indian classical singing. wouldn't have guessed.  girl got soul, tho.

i take the stage in front of a small but attentive crowd. from the moment I hit it they are wrapped up, no taling, enveloped in it.  beautiful black-haired lady in front staring and smiling.  sean making secret convo to his lady in her ear. she struts the room for me with my mailing list and cds.  the harley riders out front come in and lean back as I play heart, then I bring up asha to play pity. we rip through it, she has her solid-body fender violin running through my 58 silvertone with a bluesy tone, real thick. kicks it out and the audience is rapt and give her a rousing cheer.  I ask her to stay as I start up the virginia blues, "key of b minor", I call out.  she snarls, a raspy glissando underneath my words..."baby it's too bad...you had to leave the way you did...just can't forget those unforgiving things you said.." she's driving the song underneath. meanwhile john embree has got a whole setup, new, with handdrum and many of the old drum components I bought as a teenager which have been up in my attic for years...splashing out cymbal, my old vistalite ludwig snare, other assorted pieces.  bring the beat down as asha rips open a solo, long, lean lines floating over a broken up grrove rhythym. I don't need to look at john, we are so locked in, I start changing my right hand patterns and within a 32nd note he's right along. bring the song to its conclusion, and I thank her...the audience is there with me, I sing my ass off, new songs no one's heard yet except john and shanna; bring it out, whispering, shouting, singing, smiling, living.  That stage was mine.

kept the whole crowd in, they come up after and thanks are exchanged, email addresses, talks of new york and la, I take a moment and rush outside and talk with these bikers who were kind enough to hang. one of em, Jimmy, has got a bitchin '81 AMF harley FLH..rare indeed, and so hot. Talk to the other about his ride, his rides, too. "710 miles in one day's the record...and I only got tired 60 miles outsidea boston." He'd crashed his bike a month proir and this was the first night he'd had it back. Asked him what he did, how he survived.  "Don't remember the accident...all I knew is, I reached down with my left hand and I felt the road...I grabbed the sissy bar [handle on the back of the jump seat] and the handlebar and pushed the bike away from me...next thing I know, they're picking me off the street."  I notice the crunched front fender and lights..he goes on to say: "Yeah, brought her in to be fixed a week later...says 'How long?' to the mechanic, and he can only sya, 'You survived THAT?'"

Al is his name, medium height, grey beard and long hair, not too trimmed but not messy mustache, missing his right canine tooth, but a kind smile nonetheless. bought this bike just to go to sturgis, he says.  his buddy, this cat scott, is talking to us, loves the music, asks us where we're heading after.  the burren, I say...and they nod, we go back in to watch the rest of the performers then get ready for sean.

Sean's set was good, we've worked really hard on timing, and the tone was awesome..though I basically felt the drink kick in midway through the set and forgot how to play a VERY easy song!  Oh well..pulled it off. 

The motorcycle dudes have hung through this, as have some of the holdouts from the previous sets, a group of very cool ladies out with each other. They all give us praise, Sean's lady has sold them cds of us and we stay for a while, talk to the club owner, who is raving about us and wants us to come back asap. Sean, as always trying to convince a young lady to join us, rolls out to meet me at the car.  As I walk through the front door of the venue, al hits his harleys starter and the shock both of the noise and the power from the tailpipes knocks me back a foot or two, and I grin.

Pile into the Chrysler, and the two Harleys pull...well, RIP is a better word--in front of us and we proceed through the storied streets of Cambridge at full volume, both on the stereo and the tailpipes leading us, to our destination. Though the drive isn't far and the streets are slow, I have a tough time keeping up with the bikes.  Al pulls alongside us when we get to the burren, and jimmy, on his bitchin AMF, decides to plunge right onto the sidewalk, much to the chagrin of the patrons outside and to the amusement of us. What an entrance. And then, after sean and I hotbox it for a few mins and come inside, all al can do is grin and say, "hope I didn't go too fast for ya." I order a guinness and grin back.

Hang with the very cool ms. storch as we all get drunker. One of the bikers says to sean, "I'm gonna hook you up," and before we can say anything, hes into some chick at the end of the bar, pointing to sean, who is into his seventh at this point.  But the ploy works, and I look back over after having moved to teresa's table and see sean talking to the robust blonde that the biker had anointed him unto. Meanwhile,. Our time to play is getting closer; I have a near-perma-grin from all of the amusements. teresa takes the stage with her pal and rocks it, then hugh, the booker and host, says, "be ready,,you only have ten minutes before the bar closes." So I tell sean to grab his axe and he does; we both tune up, and he goes on about how his guitar just played a whole set and is still in tune, I shrug "whatever" and go in.  Take the stage, rip it up with "Ride This Storm," and Hugh introduces Sean. "Sean? Sean?"  Sean is back with the bikers, finally he notices and runs up to the stage.  And then, for some reason, he thought it would be prudent for the bikers to handle his axe, and they threw it out of tune...he's struggling to tune it to no avail...finally, I jump up on stage and tune it by ear and say to sean, "Play. NOW." As well he should, as we only had three minutes left!

He rolls through "Kathryn," despite an errant B string (sorry about that!), and it goes well..then the bar starts to shut down, very quickly. we make the rounds and advertise for our 19^th show a bit, say goodbye to our beloved bikers, then teresa leads us to the only open food in Somerville at that late hour (one-thirty, for chrissakes!  I knew there was a reason I left Boston), some relatively ok Chinese. We order, get our food, and eat at a public picnic area in the middle of Davis Square...no one around, totally Frank Capra-esque, very surreal. We laugh even more. We'd been followed by some weird dude from the open mic who is probably harmless but came off like someone who'd synthesized a bit too much MDMA at MIT in the Seventies, going on about some random facts and leaving us all in stunned silence.  We departed with laughter and hugs, and Sean and I in our very impaired state managed to make it back to my cousin's place in Union Square. Sat in front of his house in the car, smoked a pipe and laughed even more. rung the bell finally at 2:30 and my cousin finally did let us in after a very tenuous five minutes and maybe thirty doorbell rings! I'd told him John wasn't staying with us, so he'd only made one bed. Sean felt awful when he realized there wasn't a place for him already made, but I told him it was ok and made upa pallet right quick.  We regaled Cousin David with tales of our evening, and laughed even more...I swear, my face still hurts, I was smiling so hard. Passed out.

Woke up at 7:40 and hit the road hard, meeting up with John and his girl near my old place in Central Square, the boys promptly passing out as the rain hit near Sturbridge and me having a pleasant drive through my favorite roads all the way back to NYC...made the car rental place with no minutes to spare, and they didn't charge us extra for the second key, which I'd lost.  Score one for the little guys. ;)

-------------------------------------------
Only With You

Please
Answer your phone
It's been so many months I've been gone
Down the roads we both have been on

And if you want to getaway, I will getaway
Only with you

Came through mountains, came through storms
Never saw them before; don't care if I see them once more
My eyes are weary, but my body is strong
Through all these tears I have carried
my heart finally knows where it wants to belong

And if you want to getaway, I will getaway
Only with you

And I know what I want to send with you
Yeah, I know what I want to set free

Sing for your honor, and I will sing for your heart
Don't know if we stand where we might fall apart
But I really don't care how far you might run
Just promise me,
If I come by
You will leave a light on

And if you want to getaway, I will getaway
Only with you
Only with you

3.11.2006
Riverside Park, sunset

Revised 4.15.2006, New Jersey

It's been another long run, not necessarily of miles, though yes, they've been involved, but of emotions, wonder, questioning, awakening...I'm tired, though that's nothing new.  It's been a change, knowing people again I haven't known in a while, realizing my infatuation ever stronger for someone I left in a fit of fear. Seeing my father again for the first time in years and knowing we are not who he wants us to be and not knowing if I can ever have anything real with him. Friends making promises which seem like illusion. Or perhaps this is all fiction.

I only feel myself when I'm traveling.  As the road piles on its beauty and speaks to me in ashes and dreams, I live in this ancient new world city and look upon a vista of families, broken-down old vehicles, Victorian backyards.  I'm in Brooklyn now, was in the Upper West Side yesterday for the first time in months, and feeling not a nostalgia for my former neighborhood, simply a choke from the love I have for the parks, for the vibrancy of the constant people parade. It had become such a part of my life.

Brooklyn is very mellow and laid back, but I am not used to this, this very sparse outlay, and the vinyl siding (EVERYWHERE), the fact that I had to walk around fro forty-five minutes the other day just to get some damned Post-Its. The only decent grocery store has no produce section.  True, there are plentiful bodegas with fruit nearby, but that's just plain weird.

I'm not sure if I want to stay here anymore or where I would go. It's odd; I have such amazing friends, to the extent that my roommate has covered my ass on more than one occasion...after I lost my apartment, I bounced around for almost two months from bed to bed, couch to couch...Jay took me in and just let me live here until I had the rent sorted out. It was amazing having a DOOR to myself for the first time in ages...a room and bed of my own.  I know this sounds silly, but it's something I hadn't had in so long. I spent the first week I lived here just sleeping.

But I'm not sure anymore if that's what I want. Things keep breaking, things keep changing. I have an ability to work while I am vagabonding about, which I know is special and a blessing.  But I don't always like traveling simply for its own sake. I love the act of traveling and enjoying it while I am in it, but I do want to know there is a place I am going, or some sort of purpose, even if the purpose is not having a purpose. Yet isn't that always the case? I mean, I can't believe I just wrote that sentence. Of course I love traveling in and of itself...maybe there's a leap I haven't yet taken. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't want to be traveling simply because it's my only definition. It's a choice, and I want to feel at home somewhere.

When I moved back to NY area in 2001 I remember my pal Dex saying I'd changed, I wasn't the cocky sonofabitch he'd known back in our first year of college. Well, a lot of things had changed by that point...my mom had gotten sick, I'd lost some good friends, the first friends to die in my life.

So then I started to live in NY, and make new friends...I knew no one when I was starting out here.  All of my old pals had moved out of the city.  It was  not easy, but I started it up and ran it through, and here, four years later, I have a family, people who have my back.  And I have theirs.

But I don't think I ever really woke up. Mom got sick again in 2003, and I went back into self-preservation mode. After her recovery, I met a girl who knocked my socks off, but it all went sour, and took me out for a spell.

Flash to early '05: I had been touring mildly the previous year, and after leaving the corporate world, I said fuck it and hit the road hardcore. And I did, with friends and solo, embracing the whole shebang and having a helluva time. By October, I'd been on the road three weeks out of every month, working my ass off, playing some incredible shows, and getting closer with people who are now so dear to me. Decided to take a break and actually live in NYC again for a while...just that, the coming down, made me realize what amazing things had gone down, but how much I'd taken certain people for granted. How I got close to someone, and they to me, and at the point at which it spilled right over, I pulled right back, out of fear, sadness, hangups, I don't know what. And still, I didn't get to the base of that till recently, when encountering same. I don't want to be that person again.

There are many things I'd like to change. I don't need to be a cocky motherfucker but I do need to believe and be, and work to become. And the sadnesses that have dwelled on my past have nothing to do with my now, my here, and I know this. I am waking. But ultimately, I want to be happy in who I am. And I am, but there is something unsatisfied, something empty. And maybe that's what drives me to keep on. I remember reading a quote from Eric Clapton, saying something like, "The emptiness inside you, the pit in your stomach that only heroin can touch. That's the blues."

Not that I'm planning on hitting the white horse anytime soon, but that's where it's at. And the only thing that hits that is music. So I play, and I love in my way, and I write, and I wish and dream, and hope, and I work. And know that the road knows, and I gotta listen.
    
"Feel your voice at the weight of choice
turning steel on a willing wheel
turning age into fists of rage
coming down just to come around"

At Shelley's.  Yesterday was an interesting day of travel. Per my usual insanity, I packed up till the last moment, then once everything was readily prepared, I got slammed on Bud and bud with my roommate, Jay, and hit the road, taking the shuttle bus to the L, and the L to the A, and the A to Penn Station.

I flew Southwest. It's interesting 'cuz you have to travel about two hours to get out to the airport in Islip via LIRR...blissfully stoned, I kicked back in a four-seater with my Martin and played guitar most of the way there, with the sun beaming in.  Dave called and we rapped...invited me to come by his show in Chi that night and sit in. Shelley and I had been asked to play this really cool open mic and the time conflicted, so I told him that we'd catch up later at the open mic and that I'd sign him up.  Got back to my drinking and playing, then Mystie called about twenty minutes before the train pulled into Ronkonkoma and we chatted for a good long while.

The plane was absolutely full.  I just got over a frickin INSANE sinus thing, so was not feeling great to begin with. Then I sat next to a very sleepy woman with terrible funk. Not deterred, I chilled and watched the sun set out of the window and Long Island seemingly floating in the distance...I love flying on cloudless days, especially West, cause you can see the curvature of the earth once the plane gets high enough.

My head started pounding from the pressure in the cabin and then my ear popped in a rather disturbing and loud (to me) way.  The great thing about Southwest is that they a) give you peanuts, which most airlines don't do anymore; and b), actually have REAL aspirin, as opposed to just Tylenol (which was offered), or nothing (far more common on crappy airline of your choice). The dear, sweet stewardess brought me coffee and seltzer and all was mostly well...except when I had to climb over sleepy smelly woman to go to the loo. Got to Chicago and my bags took forever; by this time I was pretty simply beat up from all of my traveling.  Shels noticed my insane fatigue and took me straight back to her place, where she promptly made me some vegan goodness burger and "Soy-co-tash" (succotash with edamame instead of lima beans). Woke up a little, and we jammed out for a while, then it was time to go...

We drove out to the bar, a really cool old man dive kinda place by the highway (they have a jukebox with 45s!), only to find the door locked and an obvious renovation going on. After little debate, we decided to pop over to the Red Line to catch Dave and hang out.

Dave was totally surprised, and then surprised us by asking us to play with him on his whole set. He'd picked up Mystie earlier and we all hung out in the bar while this very cool and outspoken female singer-songwriter belted out songs about vibrators, panties, and other accoutrement.

We got hooked up on the stage and Dave ran us through one of his songs to warm up...the song, "If I'm Gon' Die Young," is a favorite of all of us MercyDrivers; he'd rearranged it slightly, a little more bluegrassy. But a reasonable pace. We ran though this a bit then the lights came up; Dave proceeded to start playing the same song at DOUBLE the speed in hyper-bluegrass mode (apparently 2006 is the "year of bluegrass" for Dave), and Shelley and I, cracking up, tried desperately to keep up. And we did an ok job.  We played a few more songs and then Dave went into what I like to call "Dave's Breakdown," a very fast and cool I IV V groove that rolls (usually) into his song, "Pawned You my Heart for Cocaine." Excpet he was playing it at like TRIPLE the speed he normally does, and called on me, in my sorry jet-lagged state, to knock out a bluegrass solo...I laughed as I tried to keep up, with Dave eggin me on...it was so much fun (smiling as I'm typing)...me, totally in a haze, sweating, not having a hard enough pick, atempting to do my usual speedy runs at triple speed while my body was in slo-mo....

We had a good set.  The kids seemed to dig it...Dave asked me to play "Heart", and I did, with Dave rockin lead and both he and Shels with the harmonies. Then a fine gentleman, mumbling something about "Milwaukee..murble...better club...get you...rock," brought a 64-oz pitcher of Old Style to the stage...with two straws.  Shels, dear heart she is, started a-sippin. Unfortunately, Mystie had not camera (very un-Mytie of her), so there is no documented proof.

We rolled through some more of Dave's stuff and pulled out some awesome harmonies...by the end of the set, Dave and I were really rolling together on guitar in a way we've never quite gone on stage...it was really amazing, and by the time we got to "Frida," his last song, we just ripped it apart and had this great, extended, very ethereal sound, just two guitars and Shelley wailing vox in the background.  It felt almost Doors-ish or Velvet Underground.

I was exhausted, and we went home...I made some instant soup and Shels and I talked for a while, then passed out around 3 (as I was beginning to honestly make no conversational sense!).

Shels and I have been plotting this trip for a while to maximize our time together, because even though we've known each other the longest of all of us MD folks, we've spent the least amount of time with each other. So we got up and did breakfast, then she dropped me off at a FedEx so I could mail some packages out. There was nothing in the FedEx's neghborhood, so I walked the two miles to Old Town (where Shels was teaching)...had a great walk though it was utterly cold out. Spent the next forty minutes playing through their stock of D-28 Martins, loving a couple (and wishing I had a few extra grand kicking around). Got totally humbled by the sales dude, 'cause I started playing slide in standard tuning, and he was like, "Man. No one plays slide in standard. You sound real smooth."  I probably blushed. Then the other sales dude took the axe and played this crazy Jerry Reed super bluegrass stuff...then I was REALLY humbled.

Shels had Beth Amsel on in the car, and we were listening to this really uptempo song when we got back. Stepped out of the car and got a riff in my mind, and a couple of lines; took off my coat and grabbed my Martin and figured out what I was hearing.  From the other room, Shelley beckoned: "what is that?" I said I was just messing around.  Shels walked in and before you could say jackrabbit, we'd started writing a song, completely unlike either of our styles. Five hours later, the sun had started to set and we laughed at what we'd created...the song is like this weird conglomeration of 80s pop, folk-rock, our dear friends Kara and Dave, the Beatles,  the Dead, and Whitesnake.  But it sounds soooo cool.
*****************************************
Shels went off to teach a class and I'm sitting in her apartment now, learning songs for my gig in Edwardsville, IL on Thurs.  I'm leaving at 5 am for Indianapolis. Fun stuff.  I haven't shaved or showered yet.  But I'm in a damned good mood. I love being on the road.

Well, all of this craziness has gone down in the last six weeks..the aformentioned apartment debacle, which has left me currently homeless, Micky's closed, and some various other non-stabilizing factors. What's good? Well, lots of stuff. I've got amazing friends with warm hearts who have opened their homes to me over the past twenty days or so, there are a couple of new venues I may be working at and one I already am, my band kicks supreme booty, and one of my best friends, Ross, is coming to visit in about a week.

I'm trying to focus myself back on the life I know and the things I want and the things I have. There isn't enough time or energy to pine over what once was, what might become. It's time for action.

Thus, I plan a hostile takeover of a small Latin-American country, declaring myself its grand commander and Supreme Leader. Once firmly installed in power, I shall audit all of the sugar and coca production, taking tithes of both and dealing the former to America (to preserve trade and decrease the chances of a CIA-backed coup) and the latter to my Colombian compadres for quick and easy dealings across the border. This, in turn will allow for a quick and easy confederacy of most Central and South American countries, with the notable exception of Peru (fucking llamas). And with I, Supreme Leader, or "El Líder que Controla y El Comandante Grande" (my formal title) in firm command, I will cross the border and free the unhoused or underhoused New Yorkers from this fierce tirade that has driven me to my noble quest. My only chink in this armor is Vincente Fox. That "president" of Mexico. What kind of president agrees to labor deals with the capitalist enemy and then allows Volkswagen de Mexico to stop making the original Beetle? "Por amor al automovil", my culo. He will be stopped. Viva!

Jeremia Arbol de Peras
El Líder que Controla y El Comandante Grande
"For the Nobility of the Commoners"