Thoughts From 39,000

Last month I got a emotionally heavy. Getting those feelings off my mind is good though. I need that every now and again. Like a sad song, these thoughts can build inside of me and need to be processed out even when I'm in a good mood.

And life has been good for me. Though for you guys it might look slow, I don't know if I've ever been this productive before. 

Right now I'm on a flight back home from LA. Cramped up in the middle seat between a sleeping wife, she's is the best part of this, and a large guy who never learned how to share or not invade personal space. Best not to look towards the aisle... Then there's the window. The sky. The miles of desert between Texas and California.

After exploring the city; traveling without working is one of bigger life goals; meeting new people, amazingly talented people my brothers and I are so excited to be working with; the beach; the freak-show; a really great recording studio; it's been unbelievable.

So I'm in the air. Going over it in my mind. Holding on to it. Listening to the engine. 

Dreaming...

---

Of days when we traveled in a used conversion van. Four captains chairs. Little beige mini-blinds on the windows. Rope lights everywhere.

I was 21 and hungry for everything.

We'd loaded up with the four musicians, suitcases, and gear, cutting up IH-35.

"What's comin' up?"

It was getting hard to stay sitting for so long. "Could use a stretch," I added.

I was eager to get to Ohio, Dan and his studio; but after switching my weight back and forth for the last four hours as I switched between each leg falling asleep, and I needed out.

We were only a jump northeast of Dallas into Arkansas at a small convenience store; I stepped out of the van for the first time since we left San Antonio. And already in a different world. Hope.

It wasn't exactly what I imagined leaving Texas would look like, but it was a start.

New horizon. New trees. New air bursting in my lungs pushing me to the edge between life and dream for a nobody from nowhere. I had spent years as an invisible. Wanting. Waiting. Sometimes my childhood felt like a slow fall to death. Knowing the world was busting with life happening everywhere else. And I only had to find it. But I was stuck.

---

"Would you like anything?" The hostess whispered over the belly of my sleeping neighbor.

She was in her late 40's, well dressed with a floral scarf around her neck like this was a jet off a Mad Men ad.

"Diet Coke," I said automatically. It's my junk. My vice.

"More crackers," Rachel said softly to me, still with her eyes closed.

"And more crackers," I passed down the message.

The hostess slashed a couple tick marks on her paper then moved across the aisle.

Rachel shifted her head gently against my shoulder.

Maybe because it was our first trip, or maybe because it was so strange, but I remember this rest stop well.  Better than the hundreds since that I couldn't tell you a thing about.

---

"Hmm," the lady behind the counter looked me over as the bell rang over the gas station door. 

I nodded politely. 

"You look exotic," she said without pause or hesitation. Somewhere between surprise and apathy. 

I didn't know how to answer her with anything other than a smile and another polite nod. A real Texan.

The lady kept an eye on me from behind the counter, as an orange and black calico bounced out from around her feet, rounding the lotto ticket display, cutting thru my legs, and down a small row of protein bars to the back of the store..

I followed heading towards the refrigerators.

"Where you from?... You look different."

"San Antonio," I answered checking back over my shoulder with a quick look at her. She was still staring at me. 

I could feel her examining everything about me, detached and scientific. I felt naked. I felt embarrassed.

I tried to keep focused. Sprite. Coke. Mountain Dew. But that feeling of her eyes just burned the back of my neck.

My heart jumped when I felt a light touch brush against my leg, but it was just the cat. Pushing it's face into my jeans. Wrapping its tail around the other leg.

"She don't like nobody around here," the cashier yelled at me.

The cat sat down to watch me too. It's eyes frozen on my face.

I could hear the lady shuffling behind the counter, "She must think your different."

"Maybe she's a Texan too," I laughed but I don't think she found any humor in it.

The women's stare turned from cold to angry, "wouldn't surprise me."

She rang me up quietly.

Coke. Trail mix. Money.

The cat ran back behind the counter as someone else came in.

She held the change above my hand, "born in Texas?"

"Yeah," I had my palm open. Waiting.

Her eyes looked me over back and forth, "nah, you look too exotic." She said finally dropping the coins.


---

"Here you are Sir," the softness in the hostess' voice pulls me out of Arkansas and into the air. She's holding the drink out to me and searching her tray for Rachel's crackers.

"Hey, coffee too," my sleeping neighbor butts in. His voice cutting low against her ear as she reaches over to hand us the bag.

The hostess flinches for a second then holding back her anger, she softly says, "A hello first," and she does it so gently, and with a sweet laugh too, the man doesn't even notice the poison behind it. 

He mumbles something between a grunt and a hello.

She's calm but her eyes were ready to kill, "and welcome back Sir. Would you like me to get you something?"

The man smiles unashamedly, "Yeah... coffee."

The hostess flashes a brilliantly white smile and flips around towards the back of train. 

My neighbor is back into his fully laid back and slumped position. A real throaty wind sound is gurgling in his mouth right now as I'm typing this.

Thankfully we will be landing soon. And I'll have another week before I take off to New Orleans to start a tour. Cutting north up to New York, looping back west through Canada, south along the mid-west and ending back in Arkansas.

It feels like I've been here before so many times. But each time I leave I have no idea what to expect. No idea what'll be at the end of this flight. Or waiting for me in Arkansas. New air. New people. New horizons.

-rene

Elysian Fields Part 1

Elysian Fields Pt. 1

I rolled over, checked my phone and found a text from Brian. I was lying on the bed in my jeans. Listening to the fan. The other guys were out at a movie, so I wasn't expecting to hear from anyone.

After spending the evening in the hotel watching TV, ordering pizza, sleeping, and listening to the rain I had collected this heavy jittery-ness in my chest like I needed to move. Like I had to get out. Like I had to get into something.

-you make it in yet?

Good guy. Musician. Sarcastic and smart. He was like the kid you looked up to in high school for being so cool, for being above the system. He seemed to have an answer for everything. Like he had just experienced it before you. Older than me but kind and encouraging to younger bands. I forgot he lived here, last I saw him he was going promotion work in Boston.

-got in last night... what's up?

I got out of bed slowly. Opened the heavy curtain up to the steel sky, the empty wet roads, and these heavy grey cube buildings. And for a second I felt like getting back in bed when my phone beeped again.

-playing an early show at Elysian Fields. Put you on if you want?

The road. The pillow. I ran my fingers across my chest exhaling a deep sigh feeling the movement under my fingers.

-give me 30

It really took me a couple of seconds to get moving. Working out the cracks in neck, hunting out the cleanest shirt in my duffel.

I washed my face with one of the little hotel soaps, moved my hair around into place, and fished out a pair of salmon red chucks from under the bed. 

Elevator. 

Lobby.

Once I was outside I was hit with the cool air, the clouded dissipated sun, the instantaneous rush of life. Walking in the full breath of the city I quickly paced seven blocks cutting through alley's and side-streets. Flocking among the buildings, the street lights, the clouds, a small herd of  wild urban calico's and the occasional car.

Finally I stood in the doorway. And for a second, I wondered if I was in the wrong place.

Music was playing. Lights were low. But no people. No one was even watching the door to even find out I was on the guest list. 

I checked the address Brian had given me again. 

- I'm here

The club was dressed in typical post-punk fashion.

There are a lot of clubs like this over the country. Black walls scattered with local art and posters. Heavy red curtains. Air like sweat and candles. A few small café tables. All trying to cover up years of graffiti and abuse. 

- Green room... left of stage

I walked myself over passing the bartender as he came out of the bathroom. And felt a little mixture of relived and guilty that I wasn't playing tonight.

"Just that time of year." "School just got out." "School just started." "Everyone's working." "Everyone's on vacation." "Bad night." "Games on." One of a million excuses for why people won't come out to a show. And they are all valid in their own way I guess, but at the end of the day if people don't come out it's cause they weren't motivated to. By the band, by the club, by the promotion, all of it combines into a tangled mess of blame failing to attract an audience. But those things don't need to be said to anyone there, not before the show, and especially when it isn't my night to fail.  Some people make a point to complain but all there is to do is roll with it.

"It's not so bad," I lied, while fighting to get comfortable at the edge of a maroon futon. Too dirty to lean back on, but the edge was wrecked by the metal support bar underneath. 

Brian dug through his backpack ignoring me.

"The night's young."

"Yeaaaah...." Brian dropped his voice an octave into a gravely roll of disappointment. "It's only a Saturday, can't expect too much."

I opened a couple PBR's from the cardboard box at my feet. Put one for Brian on the table. At least they were cold.

"I got this down the street," he lifted a vinyl I'd never see before. 

A faded psych, purple collage jumble of faces, shapes, and words looking like a b-level Axis Bold As Love. Brian always toured with a portable vinyl player set up in the corner of his dressing room. 

"Nice store. I used to go all the time when I was touring... ummm," He took a drink. Closed his eyes. Holding the moment.

"When I was in Philly... working this little shop. Half my pay was in cash. Half in vinyl... That's how bad I am," his mind wandered away as he pulled the vinyl out of the sleeve, set it on the table, "I have to stop myself from blowing all this... ya know... Won't eat tomorrow."

He gently placed the needle down, with more care than I've ever seen from him, "but... love is wax," and a smile broke under his long stringy fallen hair, narrow nose, and tired eyes.

"You doing alright Brian?"

Brian stayed looking at the record. Watching it turn a little too long, "Yeah. Just not sleeping much."

And I knew that. Sleep and touring just never mix, but this felt different. The way he hung his words. The way he seemed to be down.

"Yoooou READY?" A boomy voice shot out from the doorway.

Brian was too busy looking at the vinyl sleeve to care about the new guy.

Black shirt, black jeans, black boots. Big boxy shoulders, square chin that seemed to land right into his chest, short blonde hair, light blue eyes. 

"Gonna be a f*** all night, am I right?" he shouted over the twangs of a fuzzy tele and a poppy snare, grabbing a beer for himself.

This time Brian looked up nervously, and gave an un-assuring introduction.

"Rene this is... Hunter," his voice went up at the end like it was half a question, "His band is playing soon."

"Hey man," we shook hands before Hunter pulled out his key ring, and slid a key between his middle and ring finger. 

Hunter gave a blank stare at me as he lifted his fist in the air and punched open the can, throwing beer down onto the green room carpet, laughing as landed in big splatters around his boots.

"It's gonna be something," Brian mumbled. But Hunter didn't hear that, he was half way through finishing the can in one go.

Beer ran down his chin as he tried to crush the can in his left hand. Holding it out towards Brian, he dropped the beer, kicked it weakly with the toe of his boot, and sent the can into a spin across the room, spraying everything before it pinged off the wall and landed behind Brian's record player.

"S***!" Brian yelled as he raced to clean up his record. 

"Oh Man!" Hunter yelled, "Got the record."

He didn't care. Couldn't care. It was in his face. Smiling as Brian tried frustratingly to clean up. 

"Rock and Roll! Right!?" Hunter looked at me and maybe, just maybe, I saw a slight hint that he went too far falling over his face. But he didn't apologize. 

I'm not good at fake talk. And I'm definitely not good at confrontation either. So I just kinda gave this face in between 'that was not cool,' and ,'I don't even know what to say.' 

There's another side to the business that some people say is almost as important if not equal to talent. And that's just being able to hang. Being able to work in this ecosystem of artists, business people, and audiences and not alienating all of them. I struggle with that, but Hunter, all the Hunters, make me look so good. 

"Here you go Brian," I pulled a bandanna from my back pocket and wiped up the record cover. It really wasn't bad. A few drops of beer over the plastic sleeve. Nothing that would hurt it, but I could feel this raw hatred radiating off of Brian. His hand shaking as he grabbed the bandanna.

"Not too bad," I said.

Brian fumbled to clean up the edge of his player. He mumbled something I honestly didn't hear. 

Hunter quietly grabbed another beer. "See you after the set... We can keep this going... Right? Just gonna go find my boys."

He was standing half out the door, "Right," he said one more time. 

Brian nervously fumbled into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a cigarette.

"Let's go," he said holding it between his lips. "I'm... let's go."

He had barely made it out the backdoor to the back alley before he turned around at me.

"What an! Ahhh!" Brian was frantic. His eyes just madly darting around the night. "I don't even know what I'm doing here."


Brian turned in circles, trying to light the cigarette, but unable to hold his hand steady. The door slammed behind me in a clash of metal.

This was more. More than Hunter being a jerk. More than an empty club. There was a fierceness in Brian's eyes. A panic. An anger cracking the surface of who he is. I'd never seen a man break before. I'd never seen a person shatter. And it is exactly that. Everything I knew of Brian. His being. His calmness. It was gone. Slipped apart at the seams.

"What is this supposed..." he stammered, "What am I going to do... here... and all the," he pointed into the club.

"I," I struggled to come up with some words to help him but I was stuck, "I... Brian."

Shoulders shrunk low. He was breathing fast and shallow. Turning to the wall. Folding in on himself, the alley, the darkest corner he could find. Like he wanted to turn into brick, and disappear.
"It's alright," I reached out to him putting my hand on his shoulder. At first he flipped away from me. Turned in a circle like a lost animal but he had no where to go. His eyes feeble fighting tears. "Brian," I grabbed both his shoulders, "It's ok."

"I don't want to,"

"You don't have to. This place. This show doesn't matter. You don't have to play a note."

Brian looked at me. Every part of him was working on breathing.
"But.."

"You don't have to Brian. You don't."

His breathing started to slow down. "It get's so hard."

"It doesn't have to be man." My heart sank for him. It still does. Maybe now I think I would tell him something different. But at the time I was over my head. We were both fighting to get back to the ground. Maybe I was part of the problem. Maybe he needed a better friend. But I was the only one there. And I did what I always do. Get back to the show. Get back to the music. "You don't have to. But you can if you want. You can play all this out. Right? You can do this."


to be continued...

-rene

I Need a Book

I need a book

A place to catch all the fears
I've been growing, when
those little tears and fissures
scratching through my heart
finally let everythin'
fall

I need a book 

Between its leather hold, 

inked in the hidden cells of pulp,
well fit words quilt
together the furious drip-
fall from old
to young  

I need a book
A river rhapsody, a bloodstream
tenderly cut in the valley mind,
the blackest dream with blackest
water, reflecting now
the world lined
in a book

-rene

Our Blue Night

I heard your strange song playing through

our blue night
Good and tender, heart-strong inventions

plucking light
The strings that tie me to the moon

Your creation swoons across season.

This flight

Our love... yes... that wild born stars sing so well

and might

Play my name with yours on heaven's eternal radio

Forever, forever, playing our blue night: 

The kiss that was,

on the lips of every crooner,

The kiss that was our blue night 

After The Last Note

After the last note, I took a breath.

Two big lights came on above the audience pointing in on us: the band, the full stage, our gear, the interview chairs, the desk with the famous blue late-night coffee mug positioned at the edge. 

A camera swung between me and the audience. It had only been one song. A few minutes. A few heartbeats. Not even long enough to get nervous.

It's so much easier for me to take any big performance, show, festival, TV, if I can focus on one spot. One person. One object. My Drishti. Play there and only there. Let the crowd disappear. Let the room disappear. Let my focus disappear, till there's only me and the song. I had found my spot early that morning during rehearsals. The camera to my left. One singular mirrored eye. I watched it watching me. Sang to it. Ignored it. Came back to it. Tried to win its affections. But that was over now. 

After the last note, I had one breath before the world returned; a brief respite. I looked through the audience for anyone I knew, but they were too far away and those two bright lights came on right at my eyes. I remember hearing a good applause. And the cold. The studio was so cold my left hand hurt. I have an old injury that makes my middle finger cramp up in the cold. I tried to take this all in, holding it as long as I could. But once David Letterman was walking over to me with his hand extended out to my cold, knotted joint, I had to exhale. I had to come back.

"Take Me Back To Texas!" David laughed and the band played. Quick as it began, it was over and the camera swung away. Dave was off talking to Jaime. The stage crew began moving our gear off stage, the audience was funneling out, and I was led to the exit to meet our label guy Grover and publicist Mary who were waiting for us.

"You did it!" she yelled, "Your first TV appearance... and you were dancing and everything!"

"I did dance... didn't I?" I look back at the little stage, it is very little, that sacred ground, that space between the house band and the interview chairs for David Letterman is unexpectedly small and immediately powerful, and all evidence of our band was gone: our amps, drums, the cables and microphones all gone.

"Get your stuff, and we can meet outside," Grover said quickly.

I opened the door leading out of the studio floor... or was it open already? No, Abe was ahead of me, and I'm holding my bass slung over my right shoulder as we get ready to go to a narrow hallway back to the dressing room... and at the door is Bruce Willis. Unexpected as that.

Smiling like he is saying, "Yes it's Bruce Willis."

Just as I'm thinking, "Is it really? It really is Bruce Willis," and "man he is way more handsome than I could have imagined.

The guy seriously looks flawless and is I-don't-know how old... but instantly captivating and tall or was he standing on something... I remember him being tall... it's no wonder he's a movie star. He might have said 'great job' in a low-mumble-action hero way, but by the time I get past by him careful not to hit John McClane with my bass, I don't know how well I was paying attention. Maybe I just made it up.  Maybe it was just a grunt. I never tell people Bruce Willis said 'great job' cause I'm not sure, but I will tell you absolutely without a doubt, that I want to think he said it.

It's two flights up a metal grate staircase to get back to the dressing room. 

One flight above the studio was make-up, where I'd stopped before our performance. Each of us was sent down from our dressing room one at a time. The lady was talking to her friend when I arrived and sat me down on her barber chair without stopping her conversation. She immediately started across my face with a brush, doing her thing. She didn't ask me what I wanted, but that's probably best. I wouldn't have known what to say other than make me look good? 

The make-up room was incredibly bright and small. Spartan. Not even close to what I imagined from seeing movies. A chair, a small vanity shelf with her tools, bright lights, and one of those awful magnifying mirrors designed to show how much more sleep I needed but didn't get. But after a few minutes of her magic I'm looking better than I'd ever seen myself. She was packing up her brushes as I made my way past again. 

"Thanks again," I shouted as I made my way up.

The next flight, and the top of the staircase, are four dressing rooms. 

The first one was for Amy Adams; I only saw her in passing, I almost wish I had a cool Amy Adams story where I was charming or clever and made her laugh, or she was charming and clever to me and made me laugh, or how great would it be if she were not only beautiful and smart but also viciously mean? That would be a great story... but I don't have any idea what I would've said to her other than 'hello.' So it's alright with me we didn't talk.

The second room was for a film crew that followed, Paul Jr. and Sr. for American Chopper who were occupying the third room.

They'd briefly come into the fourth room, our room, before our performance. They said something like "Rock it guys!"

I think our room was a little disappointing for them, maybe they heard a rock band was next door and expected a rock star party going on, but we were just a couple kids in a mostly empty room. I had a bag with a change of clothes.

When I came back to the fourth room to get my bag everyone else had long cleared out. Just a few members from the film crew packing up gear as I snuck over cables, grabbed my stuff, and went back down the stairs. With the heave of the exit door. Out of the cold of the Ed Sullivan, I jumped down into the humidity of the loading alley.

And then I was alone.

On the same street we'd loaded-in from just a few hours before and feeling desperately indescribable. I had energy enough to run and no where to go. I had the feeling of accomplishment and change. But to what? Why? This big moment in my life. A fantasy, and it all seemed to have slipped out of my life already. Like it had left with that last breath, after the last note. Now there was only an echo. This alley. Leaving me with only a profoundly microscopic shift I felt in my heart. A wonderful anxiety. That I had only begun. That this was only a start. 

There was a me before and after.

The morning to afternoon. You could superimpose a photo of then and now and see I still looked the same. The day was as grey and clouded, though only a little hotter. Waves of people still moved busily along Broadway, though you could count more of them. And a musician still waiting outside the Ed Sullivan theater, though this morning he'd never played on this stage before.


-rene

Warped Wax, Where Did It Go

My love of listening, my growing appreciation of sound composition, started in San Antonio but flourished in Boerne. For that I am grateful to this city, my home. This story is the beginning of finding my home.

 

I don't think it would come as a surprise for me to say, Boerne is not in a cutting-edge city like New York, Chicago, L.A., London, The list goes on... I'm not taking about the people in the city but the lifestyle of the city itself. Boerne's pride is history, tradition, and nostalgia. A time machine, rose-glassed look at the best parts of our past.

You might think it is not the place for someone who wants to be forward-thinking artist. Who wants to be a rejectionist. Who wants to jump off cliffs of creativity without a care to where to land. And while I was younger, in high school, eager to begin my life, I thought like that. But like a lot of my adolescent beliefs I was wrong.

It was on one of these adolescent days, with nothing to do but walk and dream of far distant Americas and the adventures I was sure to have, that I entered into an antique store.

 

I'd been coming to main street for years with my parents, both avid antique lovers, probably one reason why we moved here, but I never paid attention to what was inside.


Usually I waited, moaned, rolled eyes and was difficult. That day I was on my own, shopping for me, and uniquely interested in finding something. Music. But not the music available at Best Buy or Target. Also it's worth a note to say, I was too young to shop online, no credit card, and too young to drive to Austin or any trendier record shops. I was looking for music I hadn't heard before. Tired of the radio, feeling rebellious, I was lured by the charm of rock'n'roll and finding it the cheapest way I could.

To my great teenage delight I found a crate of vinyl hidden under a table, containing a strange array of music I'd never heard or seen before.

These were not perfect by any means, nor collector pieces. They were dirty: covers torn, stained, and ripped, records scratched and dusty. Some in the completely wrong sleeves. Lots of oddballs, Ping-Pong percussion* anyone?

"What do you want for these?" I asked not trying to sound too interested.

The old man at the counter scrunched his nose so much it lifted the glasses an inch as he examined the crate I was pointing at with my sneaker.

 

"What do you want them for?" He laughed to himself, a joke I still hear shopping today: "Do you even know what those are?"

He went on to explain how they were his son's records: mostly from the early seventies, he'd left them at home when he went to college, never picked them up, and they'd sat under this very table for a year or two. He took $10, all I had in my wallet - goodbye lunch tomorrow, for the whole crate.

It took me a while to figure out how to put my father's system together. We had used it when I was younger, but since we moved a few years earlier, the turntable, stereo, and speakers were boxed and stored in different places. Cables and plugs had to be hunted.

Next came a thorough cleaning of every disk, as well as a total examination of every record cover and sleeve.  I was most attracted to The Who and The Beach Boys, a few country records, and a best of Dion and the Belmont's which proved to be phenomenal.

 

I'd like to pause from this story to mention:


This boy and his new found treasure trove worked very hard to get his vinyl sounding great. I'm not one to romanticize the pops and cracks, lack of high and low end, or the eerie warble of warped wax. Those artifacts which some find charming actually bug me because although a part of the experience they are not part of the music. I also do not enjoy people who talk during movies at the theater. But there's an atmosphere and quality in vinyl that's only now being matched. A liveliness, a magic, bred into the medium, which is why it is my favorite format for listening.

  
Early downloads, napster, mp3, CD's, tape cassettes, even the first iPods paled in comparison. And once I heard the difference, it was undeniably better. I couldn't go back. There was a universe of warm, inviting comfort in vinyl. I also didn't care much for the artwork, not that the artwork wasn't beautiful, I was just interested more in the songs within, and soon found out that a quality record inside a torn or distressed sleeve would go for considerably cheaper than any new music.

 

Back to my story.

Finally I had the records cleaned and began listening one by one. Unknowingly I'd planted the seeds of my future, and the toe path of that journey came was in this sleepy city.

 

Boerne, gave me the music education I couldn't get in bigger cities. It was affordable though the selection was erratic, sometimes strange, but always unique. So much great music waiting to be found, and it was all hidden away down the street in dusty bins and slopped shelves, piled on floors and underneath porcelain figurines.

 

Now that I've traveled, now that I've seen shopping center after shopping center with the same stores and restaurants offering the same experiences without any regional individuality, I can appreciate my home so much more.

Small towns and their oddball beauty can only be felt once in a specific time and a specific place. It's precious. I love it. I was lucky enough to be open to new surroundings, even if they were hidden in old packages.

 

 

Where did it go?

My fury of noise                    
       

pitched pain

subtle lulls
 

Tear and tempo                       
       
once so sure

in blood, an bone
 

Crying they found me             
              

when low, very low

life had pushed

I'd looked back                        

only once
but where did it go?

 -rene



*image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dsGis1BnHkzN8SCuf-sY_0xDB5Q-WL_-hhKUHkzCk5u1rTl-mDB5tKXccFrgiClBpMBgsK1hrJ-e8tVJ5h5c0H_y0Y4s10dBo_7_Zg2gic-iK8MUi1lJDYy_nlAuoMeGttpOPMwGIB8/s1600/sagle_ping_pong.jpg

A Line Of Strange Thinkers, The Man of No Direction

Let's start on a grey evening, driving into a new town from miles of highway. Every night: show, pack up, drive, unload. City through mirrored city. Slowly watching the past polished out into a reflection of television suburbia. Shelled out. Some cities hold well, the small ones better than the others.

When I was 15 at Boerne High School, small town dreaming of roads and places to go, I didn't think it would be this way. I wanted everyplace to be new and different. I wanted to see the quirks. The strangeness. But I see that all going. More and more are cities become the same.Exotic America survives in novels, photographs, songs, everything we keep in tucked away in our big community sock drawer. Maybe that's why I love coming back to the hill country, with all its character and love. Anyway, I'm not too messed up about it. The best parts are safe, hidden away in every town, deep inside the minds that people them. Never completely lost as long as there are thinkers hungry for living on the outside. Unhappy with what-is, and turning out the could-be. People ready to explore. Here I give a vignette about us, the line of strange thinkers.

This night, our band had a show in a small hold out town in Colorado. We'd just set up our amps and drums into a corner dive called The Firebird with a few hours before soundcheck, so I took off walking. Usually there's not a lot of time for sight-seeing in rock'n'roll, but we had time that day, and I needed it. My head was drowsy from lack of good sleep and thoughts of a warm night at home, people, food, real food cooked over a real fire... and a neck bent out of shape from crowding against a 15 passenger van window. Suddenly I feel a walk could be medicinal. I needed change to shake off the tiredness. The routine of motels and fast food.

The streets wet from a day I didn't know, tell me I'm stepping into this town's history - that's a great fact of travel. The outsider should be cautious, it does us well to know we don't belong. Observing from a distance. My headphones drowning out the slides of rolling tires, and the shuffle of people unloading at a bus stop.

"What are you listening to?" rings out. She's young. We were both young, but I was college young and she's high school. And those are oceans across. I pretended not to hear, but kept walking to her and she saw me through bright red swept bangs as she stood by a steel city bench. I like to keep my walks to myself, especially with my headphones in, but she seems sweet. Little sister sweet like she will follow you for blocks, trailing behind a step asking question on question, until you give some time. And anyway she stood right in front of me, so how could I ignore? She tapped her finger to her ear, and looked straight at me, "What are you listening to?" Again.

I lifted my phone to show her saying, 'I Got A Right.' Iggy was yelling half-way through - yeeeaaawww.

She took out her iPod, showed me '1970' and swore it was synchronicity. The girl had a laugh she couldn't control, and kept the history of Iggy Pop written verbatim in her head. Her blue eyes up the clouds like she's reading her lines of our conversation on the clouds. I couldn't have interrupted her if I wanted. She said, "You know... of course you know," as she described what she was listening to. "He sings with his whole body. Every part of him... it's more than performing. Every part of him believes." And she laughs again. "You know?"

And she's right. I know. She never asked who I am, or where I'm from, or names, because music was enough. Music connects. I knew she's a girl who listens, and she knew about me, all from a phone or an iPod. As we were talking, I remembered my beginnings. When I was her. The times I was eager to talk. The times I built my friendships on taste. When I looked for those who listened because only they understood. All the regular chat can be saved for a chit-chatting with estranged relations. This is real talk. Music's enough. Until it was time for me to head back to the bar. I waited for a break to smile and pull out my phone checking the time. Not that I wasn't having fun. It was just time. I've got my hands back in my jeans, my thumb hovering over the play button. "Gotta get ready for the show."

"Firebird? " she asked sliding on earbud. "Of course you're going too." Laughing again as she picked up her jacket.

I said "Let's walk," and step out of her way. Side by side like two siblings we walked back up the street quietly for a few steps before she flips her hair to say, "I'm writing about the show for my school paper. I love The H...'s - the other band not mine - so glad they finally came here." She said 'here' with all the frustration of being stuck in one place. And I saw in her pocket a well-worn notepad with ideas scribbled on it from past shows. Her dreams. Her words. Collected bits of Exotic America drifted in to her town with each band, and show. She's recorded them, made them her own.

I say something cornball like "hopefully it'll be something worth writing about," and left her in line outside of the club as I go in, with only a wave good-bye. I didn't see her again that night or after, though I looked for her face in the crowd. Never finding what she wrote, but I hope it was positive. Never telling her I was in the other band. But what a set we played. Jaime's bass drum rattling my leg on a tiny stage, nearly fell over twice. The monitors were so bad, I couldn't hear a note of my voice over the amps. The whole time, with the heat of the stage lights and the sweat on me, I thought of what she said. And Iggy Pop. Believing. And trying to sing like every bone in me had something to tell. Like I could make the words come alive. And give what I got out of music, to someone else. Someone who is really listening.

At the end of the night I was packing up and moving out. Having connected. Having given something to that night, and the city. Having received a memory. No longer tired of show after show, I felt good about cramming into the van again. Sometimes people can do that. Resuscitating a love. Taking me to the start. Feeling again in the lull of a long tour, a right to sing, a right to move, and more importantly the need.

-rene

The Man of No Direction

pacing summer streets
I think I saw him pass twice

across the mirrored bar-front

Waiter says he drifts in all the time

when he has enough for a drink

then out again

Who knows where?
 Some strange compositions 
he dreams of things beyond?

Growing beards of perseverance

Plastering eyes in purposeless anger

Giving a laugh at every pretty girl
Crossing streets careless in danger

he is gone
and he'll come back knowing
even more

I wonder, walk, drink

placing my own in his step
a swirl of directionless frustration

it's never the amount
money, accolades, creation
that becomes so infuriating
step after step, I tell myself

till I've turned alley
circling back the mirrored bar-front

where a man of no direction
waits for me

Fiery Indignation. Family Pt. II

So we can all be family bands. But still there's something different, something unique about a band of blood.

I am two years under Abe, three over Jaime. That's some distance, not as much as others but enough. As I went to middle school, Jaime still in elementary and Abe into high school, the three of us drifted.

Sure we hung out all the time on weekends and after school, but it wasn't close. I don't remember any deep talks, we played video games, watched tv and movies, had our inside jokes, but the personal stuff was kept private. Maybe that's because our parents were private people and we inherited that, but maybe it's because middle, elementary, and high school kids just don't hang out.

I internalized. I kept a lot of things hidden, not just from my family but from everyone. Anyone that knows me from that time, knew I had a temper and a tongue. It might be hard for friends now to picture who I was, or for those people to realize I've cooled off... but I have, and I was.

I was a fighter, quick to fists, quick to fits. My teenage years did me no favors either. My tastes in music and books,pushed me further from the friends I used to have. Deeper into my own thoughts, until I was happy being on my own. Happy living life on the fringes. Making jokes under my breath. Keeping my thoughts hidden away in secret journals, of fiery indignation. Turning isolation into creativity. Turning reaction into desire. My purpose: to observe, to write, to find inspiration to live fully in dreams and thoughts.

My brothers were always there, but not as close as we are now. It wasn't until we found music that we drew back together. We shared CD's, shared bands, stories, dvds, and became friends. And from there it was unstoppable.

I can't tell you how other bands feel about their bandmates, but for me, it's about as perfect as I can hope. I get to carry home with me when I travel, which is good cause the road is a distant and lonely place sometimes. I get to collaborate with artists I respect. I get to laugh all the time. But most importantly, I get to be myself.

My brothers know me. Know my jokes. Know when I need space. Know when I need to talk. I don't pretend, I don't have to be anybody else. This industry has a lot of pressure to be cool. To dress cool. Talk cool. Drink cool. And I hate that. Might be one part of the job I really hate. Cool is nothing. Cool is substance love. Cool is a form of control other people throw on you. Cool is as real as Dirty Harry, or The Fonz. Cool is a dream to laugh at. Cool is trading originality for fad. And writers shouldn't suffer that. I'd take honesty over cool any day of the week. 

Family gives me honesty. Luckily my work is family, so I get reminded when I'm being fake. When I failing myself. When I'm falling into traps. When I'm running off cliffs. When I'm losing. Cause it's so very easy to go.

-rene

Dirty Harry worked in a shop
Every day till his hands were shot.
His stomach grew wide, his hair fell thin
And his wife gave up counting his chins.
Her heart, alone so many years
Malnourished, shrunk, fed on fears
Of loneliness, but holding right
Like long winter's root, for spring's delight.
It should be no shock, this young sun
Found her, with a little time, and won
What was so long lost. Harry kept on
Squint-eyed at work, pushing it down.

Away, away, waiting for the morning.

A bell to strike 3 or 4. A warning

To Harry with force, get yourself home.

To lover to leave. To wife alone. 

- Don't... there's still a few minutes... -

and how do I feel? Like the wind over the shoreline, clouds under stars. I move nothing.

- ...not till the guard calls. -

and she smiles again like we have hours. When the night begins, and dawn is no closer than the body that should be warming this spot.

- and tomorrow? When he goes... -

she doesn't need to ask. That's not the when we need to know.

- here again. And you, Elaine. When will this be over?  -

the bell rings.

- Don't make me, - she says in a breath. - You need me here. Like Harry for his work. Like the author for this story. Like the bell in the tower. I'm struck. -

I don't know why she would bring the story in to this, having forced me to break my meter. But she is right. Never blame someone else for you writing. Especially your own character. It's cowardly. So I nod. Finding my shirt, the bell rings a forth time. Then a fifth. And we hear him on the stairs.

- Tomorrow then. -

- Tomorrow. -

I left the window open a crack. Moving softly down the fire escape. The metal floor creaking beneath my steps. I hear the door close. And he doesn't say hello. He never does.

Past Life: Clinically, Scientifically Naked

See the man with the stage fright, Just standing up there to give it all his might - The Band

Past Life:

I've never been scared to be in front of an audience with the band. But that doesn't mean I've never felt the chest-thumping, quick breath fear that can overpower any performance. I've just learned to live in it.


Once I had an assignment for a high school speech class...

I hated that class, not my teacher she was great as were the other kids, but I was just out of place. Having been lifted up two years I was 14 taking a summer class with 17-year-olds giving speeches about my life, politics, and drama readings. As you can imagine it was awkward. I wasn't living their life, I didn't know their music, their movies, their parties... to all my classmates I was still a kid. It's amazing the social gap between high school-ers.

...  Anyway, every time I stood in front of the class seeing, what then looked like men and women, adult faces wearing too much make-up and the beginnings of very bad mustaches, I wanted to disappear. To run out the door. To hide underneath my hoodie and stay in the back of the class reading. But you can't do that in high school, because for some reason, the more you hide the more teachers try to get you out of your shell. So instead I had to stand at the podium with the feeling of my lunch crawling higher and higher up my throat, with my hands shaking holding my note-cards, and the words failing to come. Receiving a flood of rolled eyes, smirks, and sarcasm. But this assignment was different.

We had to record ourselves as a Radio DJ, making a commercial segment between songs. So I grabbed a portable tape recorder, sat in my favorite spot: my bedroom had a window on the opposite side of my bed, I could sit look at the sky and no one could see me from the hallway, and I drained myself out in to the microphone. Recording songs off the radio, writing my skit, complete with a commercial break for Fizz Bang Cola. 

I got wild, gave my best Wolfman Jack impression:
Heeeeellllloooooooo, San Antooonne! So happy to be in the land of a thousand dances, a thousand chances, and the thousand lovers making gooood romances... hawr hawr...

There was no one watching. No faces to look at. Just me, the recorder, and my imagination. I wasn't thinking about what everyone else would think when I had to play the tape on Monday. I wasn't thinking about the grade. I wasn't really thinking about the assignment, cause I kinda went overboard making twice as long as needed. I was only thinking about the performance. I don't know why this project, why this time I decided to really try, but it felt different. It felt real. It felt comfortable.


There is a moment when a song finishes, no matter how quick the response is, there is a moment while waiting for the audience reaction that can be nerve racking. While the note is ringing out, and the heart beat raises a little. Waiting to see if you get applause or the silent death stare - I don't think people boo anymore. It's not that the audience controls me, I've played plenty of shows when the crowd and I just don't connect, and it doesn't mean we were good or bad, we just either connect or not. Still, in a performance something is given away and it feels so good when people receive it openly. I think that's where the tension comes from. Wanting to be understood. And the moment of uncertainty, that place can be scarier than first stepping out on the stage in the first place.

I was in that moment when my tape stopped. And I, the over-achieving 14-year-old watching the faces of the apathetic summer school 17-ishes and my teacher, waited for the verdict. 

Then the teacher laughed, the students laughed, I laughed, some of the kids paying attention even applauded, of course there were others who didn't really care. I was happy with that little bit of respect. But I gained something more than just my highest grade of the class.

I'd put myself out there and earned the response I wanted. They laughed at the jokes, they heard the words, it sounded like a radio program - poorly recorded - but legitimately like a radio program. It was a creative expression fully realized... Ah what a moment... And it was armor. And it was strong.

Making something without purpose and conviction will leave you feeling naked. You are exposed to every flaw of your humanity. Clinically, scientifically naked.

I go on stage believing in every song, in every note. That gives me strength to go into uncertainty.  To stand in front of people and sing myself. To write these words and give them to you. I have faith in my creation. In my ideas. I don't get my confidence from some in-born ability -  maybe others have that but I do not. I have honesty, and hard work. I have conviction. Living in the fear, is to free yourself from it.

-rene

Mother. At Mass

All of the wraps and knots a riddle.

This is the moment. She kept her fingers twisting threads

turning gold, her silken mind. Each thought golden

and each look... as the wick burned down.

What was it to know like she knew?

What was it like to turn a key?

All the answers I could never give.

The skill to unravel.

Understanding when we unravel, we go.

The Living Text pt. 3 And What I Heard

How do you become a band?
How do you become a writer?

The tough questions I've been asked. And my answer, not just mine but many others agree, is easy: bands make music, and writers write. That simple.
* You want to be a band: grab some friends and bash away until it works. You want to write: all you need is pen and paper. So what stops us (even me sometimes)? I guess the half-asked question wasn't really honest... what we really want to know is:

How do we become a money-making band? How do we make money as a writer?

That answer is hazier. I'm still not sure, though I'm looking - Maybe I'll write the answer in a post if I ever find out, let you guys know. 

Most writers and musicians who are successful have a unique voice, perspective, to set themselves apart. Being, or doing something new can you get buzz. I think that's a great, but the flip-side is that all the buzz building won't do any good if the substance is weak. You can get everybody's attention: perfect. Now what are you going to do with it? You have to have meaning. Something to give to your audience. I find that heavy buzzed often comes with light substance. Maybe that's what some people feel is lacking from big selling music.


A prospective, a plot, an opinion, anything, but it has to be something you believe in. Conviction is real inspiration. To feel something deeply. Maybe that's what tragedy gives. It's a fire. A burning understanding. The work burns away pain. The more you give to it, the more the fire will take. Let the flame take it all away. Give to it completely, be completely transformed, and it will give back something new.

The questions of success may never be answered. There is only you and the words. The thoughts you have incubated. The life you carry waiting to be heard, to be read, to escape.

I have grieved. Am grieving. And with every song try to burn more of that away. I sing about the places I knew, and my trying to re-build. That was Shakedown. The match being lit.  That is writing. Audiences are fickle, fame and money are a delusion. Writing can be real if you let it.

It took me a long time to be comfortable with being a writer. Saying it. I always wanted to see one of my poems in print, but I've learned that being printed doesn't make writer. Being recognized doesn't either, by news or people.

The words, the work, that gives me the title. It gives me everything I need. No one else can. No record deal. No publishing company. Let everything else burn away. Sure, I take the opportunities that come, work them hard. Unafraid to chase, to game, put myself on the line, but never need it. Never depend on it. Never make it the purpose, or else substance will fail. And empty words, quick words, never last.



-rene


PS. this is a special post. the reason: 11/13/13 Ulysses R. Villanueva


For you are all-things

All around the fire light, the feel pound

giving us freak ambition, feverish pulse.

All around, in every body, hidden sounds

flash morning. Your little light. Your lighting form. 

Do you know what's waiting? 

Who made you your crucible?

Can you see the hammer dreams the anvil?

The time of fire is gone, let the bell ring all

bouncing against my own forgotten tones. 

The signal, the warning, a beautiful song.

* Image: http://houselist.bowerypresents.com/files/2010/08/hacienda-25-495x330.jpg