Through a lovely piece of serendipity, I have now inherited the apartment I've been staying at since arriving
 in Phoenix, thanks to my host family's finding and moving into a new place at rather frightening speed. In this time frame, I've also:

1.Left one job for another, after a misunderstanding.
2.Left the new job to return to the old job, after being treated like an incompetent asshole pretty quickly. It's a long story.

What this all means, is some gaps in income, as rent for my place now comes due. 
So, certain sacrifices have to be made briefly as I adjust. One of those being new internet service.

Hence, I post this from a McDonald's. At least Mickey D's has okay coffee in its' favor.

But don't think I've been sitting in the dark, twiddling my thumbs without having the internet as my friend. Dust has not been settling 
beneath me in the least. Majorly, I'm back at work on my long-in-the-works first novel, with an aim to finish by years' end.

I have spent at least four years writing notes (as well as an actual chapter here and there) for this autobiographical work of fiction, 
dealing with my severely effed relationship with my father as the basis for this story of a small-time, down-on-his-luck punk rock musician named John Paul Gentry 
(AKA Johnny Suicide) , traveling by Greyhound to his home state of Texas to settle the affairs of his long-estranged alcoholic father, OJ Gentry. 
As the bus rolls across America, he reflects on their story and discovers a few things about himself that rather disturb him. So far, so good. All I need is a title. 
And maybe a literary agent.

So, no worries, all. I'm alive, but taking a brief sabbatical to tackle more important things. 
I promise to be back in no time.

Thanks for reading this. Now if you'll excuse me, I surely have a million messages to answer....

Mother never said there'd be days like these. She never said that 12 years of professional rock journalism wouldn't be enough preparation for this spectacle: sitting in the driver's seat of the sort of deluxe tour bus strictly reserved for Nashville's royalty, waiting to do an interview, watching a near-Beatlemania crush of humanity outside on Sixth Street. Watching an audience waiting for at least a glimpse of the bus' cargo, 63-year-old Willie Hugh Nelson, son of Ira and Myrtle, native son of Abbott, Texas.