Learning To Read. Pt 1

You probably know by now that I love to read poetry. It's the reason I got into writing in the first place. 


And in the short time I've been reading publicly, I've been lucky enough to find so much encouragement (btw thank you for all the kind words. they mean a lot to me). It's become such a big part of my life, that I decided to talk about how I learned to read and hopefully get more people to try.

Quiet a few years ago, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company visited my school and read On The Eve of St. Agnes.To tell you that it was an important moment for me would be an understatement. It changed how I wrote, how I read, how I understood poetry. 

And while I am nowhere near on that level, I am better for what I learned from that experience. More about that specific reading later but here are some things that have stuck with me since then.

⸓

Part 1

Poetry People and Poetry Is The Message

Let's start with an uninspired, blanket observation: poetry isn't for everyone. And while that's true for almost anything, I have found such a hot or cold reaction to Poetry that I can't help but try and theorize why something I love so much, can be so hated as well. So I'll move to my second cliche and move to the beginning of these experiences.

Most of the time, when people find out that I love poems, I'm met on some scale between confusion, annoyance, distaste, or anger.

Rarely.

                 Vary rarely.

I meet someone who enjoys poetry too. 

It's not impossible. But I find those encounters to be outliers. And of those few encounters it's even harder to find someone who enjoys the same kind of poetry I do. Maybe this is do to my geography, or the small circles I keep, and maybe this would all be solved if I just got out more?... but this has been my experience.

So younger me, often kept poetry as a solitary subject. Something not to bring in to conversations with my friends. The times I remember best, ditching class, to have time alone in a corner of a library, or in my room, or on the university lawn, or hiding in the front seat of my car with the windows down. Quietly absorbing every line. Taking in the page as a secret passed thru history just for me. And I was fine with that. In fact it was exactly what I wanted. A way to enjoy my lonerism.

After all, poetry wasn't about making friends. 

Still isn't. 

Poetry is something I do for me. I read and write cause I want to. It's my desire that is it's own reward. There's no monetary value. No good job or high five. No reason other than a desire to read and write. I can share a moment with a writer's thoughts, see if they speak to me, if I like it or not or if I want even want that message in my life. And everything about Poetry, hinges on me. And while yes, sometimes it's another author who wrote the piece, the conversation is strictly internal. They were merely the fuel for my own imagination. I hold the conversation. I dictate how it ends. 

And I imagine this true for you, if you are a poetry person.

Maybe that's where the disconnect occurs? Maybe some people don't understand why they should put so much work or thought into a poem when it takes so much effort to understand and they receive no tangible reward. Poetry is slow. Its practice requires calming that internal itch for fast and easy and waiting for a longer, personal reward that may not reveal its purpose until years down, when a reader can recall a succinct and poignant line.

And while poetry is personal, at its origin, it's meant to be communal. Meant to be spread and shared. That was a big lesson for me to learn from the Shakespearean Actor and my wonderful Romance Professor. What's the point of writing, of publishing, if not to spread out like a virus thru time, infecting futures with the strange ramblings of your mind? 

Poetry, like all writing, is the message. Every poem has one. From the author to the reader. From reader to listener. And often that message is simple, though sometimes it is obscured in difficult layers of representation. *(More on this later)

That communication is the most important part of reading. Even if you're alone in your room, on a recording, in bed with a lover, or on a stage in front of a room full of people, or live on Instagram, the point is to uncover the message. 

Bring it out. 

Give it warmth. 

Slowly make it live. 

Only the reader can do that.

A good reading should help the message emerge. A great reading should bring the author's voice off the page and into our reality. Into the moment.

Sometimes it takes a lot of time and re-readings to ever get to a comfortable place and say - I know this poem well enough to read it.

I hear a lot of people read unconfidently. And this is probably because they aren't precisely sure what they are saying. 

So take time. 

I never read aloud the first time. And I never perform without many, many re-readings. I imagine this was equally true for the Shakespearean Actor who read at my University.

Read unfiltered, then Re-Read asking lots of questions like:

What did the author mean? What is actually being said here? What should the reader get from this? Why is the poem divided up the way it is? Are the rhymes and rhythms supposed to be emphasized or is it just a background mood? What is the tone of this poem? Etc.

There are a million questions and even more answers, but with every answer you find (different readers will and should find different answers) you should get closer to understanding your message.


 This is the work of reading. It's not easy. 

And the reward... that's even harder to define. 

Maybe here we can revisit this Love/Hate problem. 

Why work so hard for words? Why go slowly over an idea, again and again? Why obsess over someone else's thoughts? If you see no value in it, it is the equivalent of eating a chunk of rubber tire. Hard. Distasteful. Unrewarding. It's easy to understand why someone would hate the thought of it. Or think it strange that other people enjoy it.

I think that's the inherited attitude of our High School understanding of Poetry. And for that, I won't blame them.

But if like me, you are a Poetry Person, you know there are universes of ideas to escape to. Dreams to make. Experiences to feel. Each one has made my life so much deeper. Has taught me to appreciate others. To Think. To Feel. To Love. To be cautious of the words I use. To be mindful of my form. To be something more than I could be without Poetry. 

Human. 

So I challenge you to find a poem, record yourself reading it the first time, then read it over until you find some new insight into the meaning, and record it again. Hear the change that comes with understanding.

Much love

-rene

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My Writing Practice

"She's not... She's not the love... not the love... you'd ever leave..."

I paced the room several times last night, feeling this burning anxiety running through my body. Like I was about to jump out of my own skin. Like my mind didn't want be in here anymore. And maybe if I kept moving, I could out run it, or shake it out of my system, or something. Change. And wrapped in that feeling were the words. A story that was starting. Maybe a song? This is how it begins.

Disjointed. 

Angular. 

The sounds falling against each other and pushing away. It's like trying to find the matching pieces to a puzzle. There is something here. Something that is trying to define itself. Fragments of rhythms.

"She's not... She's not the love... not the love... you'd ever leave?"

"What?" Rachel called to me softly from the bedroom, barely making it to the living room,"Sounded like you said something."

"No," I muttered, "Just... thinking..." my voice dropping off as I kept circling a track around the sofa.

"not the love... you'd ever leave. You can't da-da-dum, good memories..."

Just ideas that aren't growing. 

What is she? What is she to herself? What does she want? 

I lay down on the couch with these elusive ideas on me. This is all nothing. A Meditation for writing. My practice. Writing is raising the dead. Putting form to ghosts and vapors of ideas. Trying to fill them with weight. Trying to fill them with life. If they can't live and fell and act, in my mind, they will never survive in the world. 

Maybe that's why sometimes it feels like magic. A series of synapses firing in unison. Ideas from disparate lobes pushing together to make something. A color and a word. A feeling and texture. A taste and a sound. And they need to make her real.

"What is she?"

"Rene?"

"Yeah?"

"It sounds like your talking?" her voice is low, 
she is half in a dream already.

I'm keeping her awake. "Sorry babe..." and I sincerely am.

I have a habit of talking out loud when I write. Rachel says it's a creepy sounding voice, I don't know what it sounds like, I don't even realize that I'm doing it. I have a habit of staying up late. I have a habit of disappearing mentally from conversations. I have a habit of sleep paralysis. I have a habit of saying yes to everything. Of wanting to do too much. Of getting carried away. Of being too detached. I have a lot of bad habits. I guess I'm saying, I'm too lucky to have a wife that puts up with me.

I wanted a new song done by tonight. But that wasn't happening. And some how I got the idea that I was better off watching some Netflix than keeping this up.

And I did. Or started to.

I spent a good amount of time, feet propped up, shirtless, flipping through menu, checking my phone when I get an update from some social media thing. Not finding anything.Thinking of all the things I need to get done this week. Edit the podcast, finish a mix of a new Idyll Green song that will debut soon, start edits on a song we are recording, get back to my novel. And these are all swirling around me. 

I closed my eyes.

There, I saw the time we lay

in her room. When I learned 

she was a prism. We were tossed 

sheets and legs and the sun came in 

to catch her. She turned a vision 

on the walls. She danced 

like she was. So clear. 

So open. like everything could be 

                                               light

-rene 

Late-Night Drinking

I'm writing this a little late, and more than a little foggy in my head. This has not been a good week for sleep. Sorry to my wife for all my restlessness, but those things come in waves. Just the consequence of living for music.

The last two weeks have been non-stop, so I took yesterday evening with the guys and stayed out late-night drinking, having talks that were way to involved, books, writing, race, all those fuzzy speeches, that spill out of late-night podiums from pseudo-philosophers like myself.

It's too much I know. But I can't help it sometimes.

I can say being that guy is all terrible. A lot of good ideas come from venting. Pushing out all the weird ideas I carry and letting them go.

It was when I got home, the house completely quiet and dark except for the light over the sink, that I took a long breath. 

It was good.

I threw off my shoes. Made a snack of cheese, hummus and a slice of bread, not very creative but delicious none the less, and ate standing over the stove top, humming a song, and thinking this was a really good place to be. And I didn't just mean snack-wise.

The tracks with Larry are sounding amazing. We will be finishing the last song on Saturday, before the Mixing phase. 

Idyll Green is putting together a song to give away which will be out soon along with some really cool visual stuff. 

Tuesday night we recorded the first episode of the podcast that I think came out great, and I have a lot more to do. 

So much that it is intimidating. 

And exhausting. 

And fun. 

Through all of the work. This whole experience of collaborating, building, and creating Idyll Green has been one of the most fun projects that I have done in a long time. And that's a lot to be thankful for. 

And last night I found that, in the dark of my house. Alone. Tired. Content.



until next week



-rene



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A Long Trip Home

I'm going to tell you about a trip when our friend Jack drove the three of us through a long western night; determined to get us all home in one 35 hr go.

The first hours were the easiest.

No matter how tough or grueling a tour is, I always get a boost when we leave our final hotel. So it's no thing to pass 8 - 12 hours trading playlists on our phones and burning pavement. But at the 16th hour, just barely approaching halfway, that feeling turns into something else. Some new kind of exhaustion. Cause I know the only thing between home and me is time.

"Why don't you get some sleep? You can rotate back in the morning," Abe said jumping from the backseat up next to me on the middle bench.

He caught me in a bit of a daze, lost in the green numbers of the radio. "Did you rest?" I asked crawling to the back.

He shook his head, "enough. I'm ready to get driving though."

I fumbled over in the dark: clearing the bench, taking off my shoes. I could feel the tunnel vision hitting me. To make it worse all the caffeine had worn off and my body was coming down.

Looping around America the band had done 6 weeks of heavy touring. Up the east, then west through the north, occasionally popping up into Canada, we finished with a night in Seattle and one in Vancouver. So why we decided to do this drive straight through, I'm still not sure.

But like a good dream most of it seemed to fade with only flashes and fragments remaining. Good thoughts for another day, then all I wanted was silence.

3 to 5

My time to fell in and out of sleep as we slipped further away from the Vancouver, the last club, a really nice Holiday Inn that we didn't get to enjoy, the mountains, the tall pacific trees that are nothing like the brush of Texas, the desert, going south and south.

I closed my eyes.

The radio, the guys talking stories of future plans, the noise of the road; it all hung distantly on my consciousness pulling me awake.

I buried my face deeper into the back of the bench, feebly hiding away so I could try to sleep. I was tired. Really tired. I felt the weight of sleep taking over me. Pouring down the back of my brain, down into my chest flooding my lungs with it's gravity.

The other guys need noise to help them drive, you don't complain about things like that. It's an unspoken rule. I'd rather them blasting the speakers then have us all fall asleep while driving. We've had our close calls before, I don't care to relive that again. So I just listen to the road, slow my breathing and drift...

"Are you... Are you happy with this, the music?" Mom was reclined in her chair, a worn black leather massage station she'd bought for Dad many Christmases before. In her corner of the bedroom, two steps from her pillow. A place to watch TV, look out the window, and drift into a nap when nausea or insomnia kicked in.

"Of course," why was I remembering this moment? Lying on her bed, watching For A Few Dollars More, she had fallen asleep early on. I hadn't noticed her waking up, "it's not easy, but it's still fun," I said watching the desert and the steel eyes looking back at me.

"I used to think," she started, then stopped herself at the sounds of gunfire and cowboy groans. Her head rolled to the window. Mom never liked violence. It wasn't so much the killing, she told me, but the way he smiled afterwards that bugged her.

There was a bump in the road that jolted my body. And laughing from the front. The crackling foil of an empty gas station snack. The engine let open, pushing harder as we started rolling up hill. And I fought to keep level on the bench.

'Am I happy?'

The sound swell like the rising of sustained strings. A breath. A wave of violins. And down the road, bells breaking across the desert. The hum of her rollers gliding back and forth against her back.

The morning tinted by soft blue curtains broke around the floral scarf covering her head. Mom never changed for me. Her hair was gone. She had lost weight. Her skin had turned from olive to a pale white but it only made the green of her eyes stronger. Those were only superficial things. She was still as bright as ever.

"I used to think you get what you put in," she was looking back at me again and I lowered the TV to listen, "but things aren't balanced are they? Things aren't going to be fair for you."

I waited for her to continue as she looked me over, but she wanted me to share too.

"I don't know, the band's doing alright."

"You won't always be," she said understated like she was talking to herself, "I hear stories... You boys are talented, but that's not always enough...talent I mean... I worry."

"Every job has politics Mom... that's why you gotta enjoy what you do, right?" I smiled, turning the volume up again for the bang of timpani's, "if we weren't having fun... that'd be a different story."

"You can't feed a family with that René. You won't be ready." Such a Motherly thing to say. 

I remember the way my heart sank a little and felt it again.

The van slowly swung into a turn, as we slowed down for an exit. There was a jolt at the stop sign.

"A quick bathroom stop if anyone needs it," Jack whispered, unsure if I was sleeping, whipping the van into a spot under an orange light.

I kept still as the guys left the van running, locking me inside. And for a moment the van was quiet. I wanted to finish that dream, 'I am happy,' I wanted to tell her. 'Back to her room,' but my mind had other places to go.

The wind cut in over the water hitting my chest. I kept my jaw clenched tight, breathing between my teeth. Wishing I had brought a jacket or a least a long sleeve.

"I want to stay," Mom stood at the bank of the Guadalupe, in the smooth gravel, the ice cold water barely hitting her feet, "just a little longer. We don't have to eat here."

This. This memory. A weekend drive. We hadn't been ready for this trip. The whole family off on a whim, and the weather was cold, much colder than we planned. We had wanted to go tubing, but the water was low, and the wind was powerful.

"You might think right now that work matters, I know we've told you boys that, but it's the people. Of all the things I remember," she continued, "the things I want to remember, I never go back to my job. Sometimes I'm sorry I let it take so much of me," Mom kept her eyes on the drifting river.

"Mom," I walked up beside her, looking back, Jaime and Dad were at a fire pit working on getting a fire going.

The river was dancing with the sunlight, turning, jumping quickly on itself.

"You might think right now that work matters, I know we've told you boys that, but it's the people," Mom took a step into the cold water then another. "That's what I want you to keep. You should always do what makes you happy," She went deeper in, the water hitting at her knees, "When you're happy the others will follow."

I threw off my shoes, stepping in after her. And the river was so cold, so brilliant, instantly jumping up my body. I wanted to get out of the water. I wanted to head back, "Mom," I called but she was deep in her thought. The river felt like it was moving me away. Or pulling everything away from me. 

The song grew louder. The dancing lights flickered faster.

"Mom," I thought looking up at her in slow motion, like she was water, like she was light. She dove in the air. A slender flicker. Suspended above the river. Like all sound held on one note waiting for her to land. And the river pulling me down and down. 

"New Mexico... and coming up on sunrise," Abe said from the driver seat, "who's ready for breakfast?"

I sat up on the back bench. Feeling like the dream was still in my head, but every second disappearing. 

Jaime flipped through the GPS menu looking for a food stop, while Jack searched yelp on his phone.

The highway had tapered off into a narrow, winding two lane stretch. The sky was still dark purple, but I could feel the daylight coming. Soon the mountain sides would be splashed with the orange glow of dawn.

We were getting closer to home now. And only 14 hours to go. 

-rene

Where Is This Going?

"Where is this going?" 

My words hung unanswered in the dark of the van.

The road felt endless that night, the last few miles to the club was a beat up gravel track down a red brick alley, getting narrower and narrower.

'...beep....beep...' our GPS was freaking out, endlessly beeping and saying '...reconnecting.'

Abe drove focused on the narrow beams from our headlights as we inched past a set of dumpsters and bounced into a pothole with a full thud. The stacked cases in the back of the van rattled and slid before resettling.

"It was supposed to be a mile and a half. Should be... somewhere... here?" Jaime said from the passenger seat, "maybe?"

'...reconnecting...'

"Looks like it's just warehouses out here... I don't even know if we're close," I said mostly to myself.

The rain was soft. It didn't even feel like it was falling, but the air was incredibly wet and the heat from hours of sitting inside the van had fogged the windows.

"There are no signs... no names... ughh... this street sucks," Abe pulled to a hard stop under a lone streetlight, beside a chain-link fence that poorly guarded half of a parking lot.

'...beep... reconnecting...'

"Annnd we're lost," Jaime laughed, while Abe fought to get the GPS back.

There was a long silence as Abe restarted the GPS again. 

I thought about grabbing a book, but my eyes were exhausted from staring out the road and the words wouldn't sit still.

'Where is this going?' I thought again, but this time just in my head.

Click...Click... 

Someone tapped softly on Abe's window. 

Almost out of instinct Abe re-locked the doors before lowering it a crack.

"Looking for something?" a woman asked from the side of the van. I tried looking out my back window at her but couldn't see anything. 

Abe told her we were a band. 

"Club's down there," she pointed into the fence, "other side of the lot. Black door."

Abe thanked her then turned to Jaime, "it's gonna be a weird one," he said as the tires sloshed through the dirt and a small shaded figure with a flashlight stood by my window as we drove past her.

'...reconnecting...'

The club was a warehouse cut into four uneven rooms. If I walked in from the front door and stood in the middle of it, 2 o'clock would be the largest room and the stage with a narrow hallway that went towards the green room and the bathrooms. 

At 10 was a small sheet metal bar pushed against a wall, only selling beer bottles and well drinks. A handwritten, neon sign flashed in the corner advertising a PBR and an unnamed shot for 3 dollars, probably the brightest thing in the building.

Between 7 and 8 was a small area for a pool table, an old cigarette machine, a wall rack with most of the cues missing, and one of those big 20 something inch bulky TVs for sports.  

At 4 was the smallest room with a couple couches for people who were drinking and didn't want to watch the show. And even though it was only a mid-sized place it was too big for the night.

When I get to a new club, I try hard to read the room. The decorations. The lights. The stage. The equipment. The posters on the walls. How clean the bathrooms are. How sticky the bar tops and tables are. How clean the restrooms are kept. The feeling in the air. It's hard to judge an empty room and I've been wrong before, but I walked in and felt Abe was right. This was gonna be a weird one. 

I stood backstage looking out at a mostly empty room thinking again, 'Where is this going?'

Two guys were at the pool table playing their second game, drinking their fourth round. 

Three college-aged girls sat at the bar waiting for drinks. 

The sound guy was talking to a couple of regulars, and I know he really didn't care about us or the night having rushed through sound check while muttering things like, 'doesn't matter anyway.'

The bartender checked his phone with a look on his face like he just realized this wasn't the night he was hoping for.

The first two bands were outside smoking on the patio together with a couple of their friends.

And then I saw the stage set up with our gear. 

Unlit. 

My bass rested on its stand, ready to play. And it didn't care. It didn't worry. Just a machine ready to work.

I think those are the moments that can define a working musician. Separating the ones who want to play and the ones who just want attention. I'm not saying it's good to play those shows, or you have to play one as some sort of right of passage, or that you should be happy to walk out to sparse clapping. What I mean is that if you are in a band, you will probably have bad nights, a lot of them. It's part of being in a band, and when it happens, how you handle it will prove who you are.

"Time to go," Abe said grabbing four waters from our ice chest.

Slowly, into the dark silence, we walked out. 

No one moved yet. 

I kept looking down at my shoes. Not embarrassed, just focusing on the job, going through my check list:

Bass in tune, amp on, flip a pick between my fingers (if I think about the pick too much, it starts to feel wrong in my hand... There's a way the point turns into my palm, cause I use a short edge, where the pick feels like it disappears and it becomes part of me and I can play anything I need to, and I never think about it again).

The bartender yelled to the sound guy, "Ryan! TIME!" His voice cutting through the room and grabbing everyone's attention. 

With a disappointed nod, the sound guy finished his drink and headed to his console. 

The girls moved closer to the stage. 

The guys still finishing their game, looked up for a moment at the stage, then kept playing.

Finally the sound guy gave a thumbs up.

Jaime tapped his heel, and I could hear the high-hat whispering the beat. 

'Where is this going?' 

We were three songs in and I was already sweating from dancing around, singing, and the bright red stage lamps.

'Where is this going?' 

This set. This tour. This cycle. This music. The next string of shows. My life at home. A doctor's bill I had to pay, and a lonely merch table. Questions that could fill an empty room or crowd a sold out arena, bounced in my head.

'Where is this going?' 

An industry seemingly collapsing on all sides. People groaning about how bad music is today. How there used to be real bands. And what am I? Or how good it was before I was born. How people don't care about live music. None of which I believe by the way, cause music isn't about any of those things for me. And if it ever was, the purpose of writing, the purpose of playing would be lost.

I keep writing to make better songs.

I play cause it heals me. 

I sing to save myself from suffocating.

I dance when it moves me.

It should be an honest reaction. In this small of a show, there's no pretension. No reason for the girls to dance. No reason for the sound guy to clap after a song ends. No reason for the bartender to send a round of beers to the stage. No reason for the game on the pool table to be left unfinished. All that happened honestly.

And I look out to the empty room, to watch them watching me. Not because I need the attention, though attention is nice, but because I am amazed to reach anyone here. In the middle of nowhere. When everything should have gone wrong.

'Where is this going?' 

Sometimes I find that question stuck in my head. Usually on nights like this. When I'm loading out. When the 8 people who saw the show come together at the merch table for a drink. When I am re-stacking the gear into the back of the van, and my shirt is soaking wet from sweat, and the humidity makes me feel disgusting.

'Where is this going?' 

I didn't start for attention.

I didn't start so anyone would like me.

So I don't let it bother me. 

Not when there's 2 people, not when there's 2 million. I haven't gotten nervous yet, knock on wood. Reminding myself why. Asking. It helps me keep my way, as long as I keep asking.

-rene

Big Red, Histroy The Way We Want It

big red history the way we want it

"How'd she feel about you doing that?"

"She knew what I was about... Hell that's the thing about border towns man, everyone knows you before they meet you besides... it was party... but that's not even... I mean the next day... the next day got crazy."

Our table's crammed with food and wrappers, mostly burgers and the five of us lounging back in chairs bolted to the floor. Good days. My brothers, my cousin, and Dan. All family. We'd already finished half our second record in three days.

Of course we were prepared, and that didn't hurt. We had our songs arranged and rehearsed before we ever got to Akron. After Abe gave the arrangements a once over, we'd track the music as a group, following Jaime's drum lead through each take, mostly two or three passes, then overdubs, vocals, and the whole song done in an afternoon. One song, soon to be one half of the two title tracks, Big Red, had us struggling and ready for a lunch break: An Everly's style rocker called Everything She Needs.

And while Dante's on a story about his party days in Laredo, I'm now taking down a basket of Cajun fries.

I checked out around the time the food came; I've heard this one before, plus I can't stop thinking of the problem with this song.

It started in the morning.

A big, beautiful golden bear of an alarm clock named Bella came ringing her collar into the den. I was hiding under a pile of blankets and pillows, when she managed to sniff my face out from all of it. I tried to ignore her and get back to a dream:

Back in Texas, warm sunlight, a lake like heaven, where I'm kissing her or the sky itself, and everything is weightless, lifting, the sun, the water, the two of us. The music of her voice clear as the lake and the day itself.

but it's Bella and her big drooping lips, and the cold Ohio morning pulling me back. I guess the alarm was set just for me because Bella didn't bother to wake anyone else up...

Bella's next hunt was for a cloth toy behind the couch and she took it over to the sliding glass door looking out to the backyard.

The slate-grey sky brushed at the horizon with strands of soft red, the light was fighting to get out. It was another cold day. I got a chill that ran deep under my skin. I think the sun rises differently in Ohio, or I see it that way. And though this is where I wanted to be, I was still dreaming about home.

I rolled over to my suitcase, stuffed in a corner of the room marked by the pile of clothes spilling onto the carpet, hunted down my jacket, I needed it even inside the house, stepped over my brothers and snuck out of the den with Bella in lead.

Dan's house was held in a perfect unbroken suspension of morning. Guitars on nearly every wall waiting to be plucked, waiting to break from their stillness. Guitars are never good at resting.

Bella went off to the kitchen in search of her breakfast and left me in the empty room.

I can't tell you how crazy it is to be so close to an amazing studio and having to wait for everyone else to wake up in order to get to work. If it was up to me, I'd have run yesterday's session all through the night, and we'd already be into another song. It helps to keep my head in one state.

And now that I was up and alone in the house, I had a feeling calling me over to the tracking room, that's where I've got to be. I turned on the lights. Walking quietly past the Hammond organ, past the drums. My hands and mind wanted to shake off the cold and distance with a little music and looked through a rack of guitars like I was in a music store.

I found a '64 Texan still in it's bed case ready for me. Dan and his engineer Bob had so much cool gear you wouldn't believe it. Large barely begins to describe it... and the Paul McCartney '64 Texan was only one tiny, amazing part.

I closed my eyes. The smell of the guitar, the wood, so pristine, almost transported straight out of the sixties. For a brief moment I remember my dream, it hadn't been that long but almost completely slipped my mind already. And a song I had written a while back came into my mind...

My girls got everything she needs,

big cars, house, his money and tv's,

he tries to buy her all life's big luxuries/

My girls got everything she needs

so her love just won't come to me

I tried my best, but Love's no security/

My girl’s as lonely as can be
but she ain’t got the heart to be free
She’s in his house

I wonder if she thinkin' about me...

"Is that what we're doing next?"

"Hey," Dan caught me by surprise, "morning..." a slight pulse of embarrassment ran through my veins as I put the Texan back in its case.

He was carrying his daughter and a cup of coffee, still in full family mode, they weren't even dressed for the day. She threw her head down against his shoulder to hide her face, "This one sounds good... when the dudes are ready, we'll hit it."

"You tell me man, I'm ready to go."

She pointed down at the guitar and whispered to Dan.

"Rene, Why don't you play us another..."

---

The table's laughing... I hit the bottom of the fry basket as Dante finishes his story...

The sounds of the restaurant digesting, the mouths, the talking, the eating, and I leave the table for a refill.

Whenever I hit a songwriting problem, I like to get out into the public, back into the world, and let my mind ramble... something like this.

Everyone else, and the real problems of life are so much more important than a song, but a song can be all the difference when you have a problem... It can lift you up, or throw you deeper... Any song at the right moment. How tragic it would be to hear the wrong one? Or do we only get what we need?

I know it's strange to think so much, but my mind has to do these flips, I can't turn it off, and it won't stop,

I make music for other people, maybe even these people, I wonder how many of them even listen to rock n' roll? How many have sat down with headphones, to a full album? How many hear what the writer is telling them?

The line for the coke machine is four deep, and I wished I had noticed that before I got here. That's one danger of a busy mind, always missing the obvious. But I've got a good way to pass the time, a game I invented when I was in high school: trying to guess what music strangers listen to.

There's a young couple, 30's, at a high table. He's in jeans, work boots and a trucker hat. Hands cut and dirty. Textbook blue collar. Her hair's stripped blond and black, skirt tight, not a lot of make up but she didn't forget her blood red lipstick. I would have'em as Springsteen fans but they've been ignoring the classic rock playing. They're straight modern country, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert.

The guy in front of me at the coke machine, in his 40's, dress shirt and fuzzy vest, bald, well off and been rocking out to every thing from the eighties. I don't know why but he's putting off a Phil Collins vibe.

A curly headed kid, taps his foot against the metal legs of his chair, red chucks, and his unlaced strings flapping out of time.

He hits the heel so hard one shoe falls to the floor. He's a real mid-west rocker, even if he doesn't know it yet. A future Uncle Doug.

And that's when I hear it for the first time. Chuck Berry's Almost Grown starts playing overhead. And it comes to me.

---

The tape machine rolls back. It starts with drum clicks, Take 7 begins to play.

Dan flipped knobs like a mad man, several strings of jumper cables around his neck, his chair squeaked, as he swung around the mixing room.

His mind had been in another zone for the last half-hour of vocal takes. Quickly he moved his empty mug off the console and adjusted more knobs.

"It's just not sitting right," Dan said to no one in particular.

"Damn..." I wanted to say it, but I kept it back. It kills me when he we hit problems like this. I need more details, specifics: is it too much, not enough, too sharp, flat, what does he mean? But he's so focused I don't want to disturb Dan's process.

Finally his chair spun around towards us. "The vocals are good," he said while checking his phone, "I like it... I just don't know if it needs something else, or not, or what... but we're not there yet."

I can't help but take these things personally. Not because I think I'm great, but because I want what's best for the band. I want to nail my vocals. I want a definitive yes. I think I'd even take a definitive no, more than just a "not there yet."

The microphone hung in the tracking room like it had just beaten me, not eager to go through that again. "Should I go for it again?" I asked half not wanting an answer.

Jaime and Abe were sitting behind me, "meh," seems they weren't into that idea either.

Dan scratched his beard and finished up a text, "let's get lunch. I think I know a spot. You dudes want burgers?"

His idea got a much better response.

---

The table's quiet again.

"I think I know what we need to do," I said to Dante putting down my soda. "It's all about the rhythm, it's just off to me. Maybe the guitar, maybe if it had some more substance ya know? Just put some movement in it. Listen to what he's doing here." I pointed to the speaker, but Dante's looking away, the other side of the table, restaurant, maybe nowhere.

"Maybe," Dante's lips barely move, "I don't know." And the song finishes.

"We ready to hit it again?"

---

It didn't long for the guitar to find its place, and after a few takes, the song found a whole new position.

Bella ran through the playback room. Her tail hit against the legs of everyone on the couch as she got chased away by Dan's daughter.

Were listened to the playback, the speakers are loud enough for the sound to push into your chest. I can tell Dan's really into it. Like he's been hit by a jolt of adrenaline and every movement is sharp and inspired.

"This is sounding a lot better. This," I said getting closer to the center of the sound, where the stereo speaker's direction meet together in a beautiful sweet spot above Dan's chair, "is where we need to be. I can feel this."

Dan nodded his head, but he's lost in some thought far away.

The track reached to me, to some deep place of understanding and I haven't said it yet, but I start to get a feeling to cut all the vocals completely.

This song needs to be an instrumental.

Abe's standing next to me, studying quietly, his face is serious and I can't help but wonder if he's knowing it too.

Feeling the movement.

The song's better this way. And I'm over the pain of my failed vocal take, cause the song's feeling right. It's everything fifties. Chuck Berry, Everly's, sugar, burgers and car hops. And the taste of Big Red comes into my mind. The atomic red soda of my hometown. The fuel of my youth. And being a kid running at my grandparent's ranch, and summer, and the lake, and a lot of beautiful things, and I don't think my words could cover that. It's all a big landscape. A wordless vision.

I want to be in those moments. That dream. The sun. The lake. Home. Family. Me. And the curly haired kid I saw at the soda fountain. From his Ohio. And my Texas. Tastes that make a memory. The nostalgia. It's not always real. It's never as perfect. Colored in half-truth. Sweetening away any contradictions. But that's what all this was, Rock and Roll... History the way we want to remember it.

-rené