iron eyes.

One bottle down! Time to play a show. Hey everyone, I'm writing to you from my bunk, inside a bus, on a street in Kentucky, in North America, on planet Earth. And if you think of it that way, it makes me feel much smaller, and I like it that way right now. This morning I woke up and listened to Prince and the Revolution, and now I'm listening to Tom Petty. It's all very good, and as inspiring as that can be, it can be just as discouraging..I mean, can Mae really be as good as Tom Petty or Prince? Ha! You decide, I can't participate, the rules prohibit it. Lately I've been reading (trying to read) The Myth of Sisyphus. I love it so far, it's an essay on the subject of suicide from an absurdists prospective. I recommend it. Anyway...last night we played our first headline show in a while, thanks for coming out. We had a good time, and we were introduced to our new and old friends in The New Atlantic and The Hush Sound...so for this next week, we'll be hanging out with them. Here is a excerpt from the book I'm reading.

"In man's attachment to life, there is something stronger than all the ills in the world. The body's judgement is as good as the mind's, and the body shrinks from annihilation. We get into the habit of living before acquire the habit of thinking."

"The typical act of eluding, the fatal evasion that constitutes the third theme of this essay, is hope. Hope of another life one must 'deserve', or trickery of those who life not for life itself but for some great idea that will transcend it, refine it, give it a meaning and betray it"

Nashville

Hello everyone, I'm sitting on a hotel bed in Nashville today on our day off. I went and saw that new Mark Wahlberg (spelling?) movie today called "Shooter." It was good for what it was, you know how these movies are going to be right when you see the previews. They include men who are honorable to a fault, homemade napalm, evil government agencies, a romantic interest who ends up being a hostage, and unbelievable outcomes. I loved it. I haven't been reading too much and Ive been missing friends. Maybe I can go out to a bar tonight and meet a nice girl with a southern accent, make up a story about who I am and what I do, impress her somehow and get her myspace page address...ha! I'm kind of kidding, but right now, I'm that bored. It's a nice day though, the weather has gotten warmer and the nights feel wonderful. The other day, after the Nashville show, Dave, Jacob and I did a short Q&A session with some kids up in the coffee shop of the venue. It was a lot of fun, although, the night didn't pass without me making an idiot of myself. Anyway, I don't have anything interesting to talk about tonight. Have fun everyone, and keep listening to music. And oh yeah, in the movie, there was a website called zmag.org that was on the screen of a computer for a split second. Mark Wahlberg's character was looking at it in his wood cabin up in the mountains, you know, because he was an ex military man who was abandoned by the military and since then, has been clued into the crazy unethical practices of our government...he seemingly assumed a rationale and realistic outlook on the business of the world. If you look to my links on the left of the page, you will see that exact website listed, check it out.

chicago.

i'm a huge nerd for wilco so i took these photos. if you're fans of wilco you'll recognize them, if you're from chicago, you will also recognize them..ya know, the parking structures and condos by house of blues. the shows in chicago were awesome, so thanks mae fans for coming out and showing your support. even though the weather was less than desirable, i still found time to enjoy myself. I went with some friends over to the chicago music exchange and bought a guitar pedal. that's it...it was more fun than it sounds.

things are great.

Things are rarely as good as they might appear. Love is easily faked, and pictures can make anything seem romantic or real.

could you imagine?

My life has existed in a comfortable middle, a bed of greys, mostly soft and within reason. I have only seen the opposing ends of existance merely in brief, distant glances, like a passenger on a fast moving train looking through a window at the neglected sects of a city.... and that alone is enough to suck the breath right out of me. The diametrical opposites of an unexplainable and unpenetrable love, juxtaposed against a despondent something, an action or decision based on nothing other than a last resort. The soft middle is where words like "love" and "desperation" take on meanings that are much less offensive, much less impacting, much less consequential. "Love" in the middle is treated like a cheap marriage, a marriage in hollywood...... Anyway do you ever become aware, when you feel or experience anything real or honest? Some hint of truth that escapes its confines for one second, or maybe one whole minute and makes you completely drunk and incapable of putting anything you're feeling into words? Everything that the world is made of, the schematics of life and love, lies under a blanket of distraction and our eyes become glazed to it, maybe a tad like the "matrix", but not so cinematically sinister, although equally as important? I'm drinking wine right now and my head is becoming heavy. There is snow outside, and babies being born, love being discovered, love being wasted, love being made, the sun continues to role across the sky, everything continues as it has for centuries, and we are blind and arrogant enough to think we are a culmination here on earth. The world continues, and we continue our desire to just get along. My world is much too small for any kind of wisdom to be gained.

routines and rants.

Hey everyone, my life progresses from one state of immobilization to another. When I'm home, I'm mostly aware of the rare beauty in my life that comes from being in one place for more than one or two days. The sun shines in my window in the morning in mostly the same spot. I wake up knowing exactly where I am, how I am positioned and how I fit into the schematics of my neighborhood. I know that if I look out my bedroom window to the right, there is the end of my street, and if I look to the left, I see another street running perpindicular to mine. I know exactly where to go to get what I want. There's is a welcome sense of boredom and laziness when I'm not on tour, although, when I'm on tour it is kind of the same, and kind of different. I'm on a bus now, and even though I'm in a different town each day, I still feel confined to a bus with no easy means of going any where unless it is a close walk. Every morning I wake up in a pitch black bunk (I love it) and I check my phone, and then I wonder where the bus is, and where the closest place to get food is, but I have no idea of how I'm positioned in the city. When I walk out of the bus, I could either walk left or right, and if I walk to the right, I could wander into some strange business district with nothing but office buildings, seemingly devoid of any thing but copy machines and parking garages with security guards. What if I had walked to the left off of the bus, I might have ran into a plethora of deli's, waffle houses and bagel stands. It's all very consequential, little decisions like that, when you have no idea where you are going. It's cause for a stubborn sting of regret down the road, but if you find some food near by, you don't think anything of the decision that led you to where you happily are. The negative aspects of life always stick with us, so I guess it's good to make an effort and remember the better things that have happened, but not dwell, or obsess on them in an unhealthy way...but remember that it happened, and it will happen again. Who knows? As for now, i'm stuck in routine. A routine which oddly revolves around a block of time that lasts merely 45 minutes of each day. There are so many people and creatures swarming all throughout the cities we visit. We were in Times Square the other day, and I think that the subway stations are really just underground laboratories that create people and spit them out programmed and ready to function (some have glitches, some are deceptively immaculate), and I guess it happens all over the city, but Times Square is the hub of it all. Kind of like the U.S. military...there are certain main bases within the borders of the US, but there are little hubs all over the world spewing honest and ideal men, women and specificly self interested policies into parts all over the globe, green with justified pride and ideals, some with glitches-- perhaps spotted with a gung ho backwoods enthusiasm plagued with the kind of blind patriotism that can be a bit ridiculous, but who am I to judge? People are merely results of one thing or another which they have little control over. Although I should clarify, I am not myself a military man, I would prove to be a liability to any platoon I was a part of, but I can't express my thanks enough to the men and women who are part of the military, who either do it because they have no other way to survive in America, or because they feel a responsibility. It doesn't matter I suppose, my dad was in the army, my good friend Terra is in the airforce, my good friend Adam was in the airforce, and a lovely young gentlemen last night was in the Navy. And I'm staying thanks for what you do, regardless of what bullshit political party I align myself with as a result of the other political party (yeah, we only have two parties to chose from which ultimately end up being one in the same) being even worse. Jeez, how did I get to where I am in this post...free verse and stream of consciousness..blah blah. Thanks to all of you kids who came to see us play these last night two nights. It has been interesting getting into the grove of being a touring band again. It has not gone on without certain hold ups here and there, but we're sinking in nicely. I need to find some food. Right now, I'm waiting for a taxi to come and take me to a hotel. It's all so hectic, I should go home and make myself a nuisance in someonenice person's life, perhaps a tall refined woman who writes stories. I'll just hound her until she makes me makes me a character in one of the stories she writes, it's all just my sense of pride and "graphomania" disguised as humility and insecurity....it's more endearing that way...the worst kind of deception. hahahahaa....HA.