Bluebird bluebird please take a letter down south for me...

My friend who went with me to Galveston this past weekend to visit the Old Quarter Cafe, well he works for Comcast and he got to work inside of Milton Hopkins house. He had no idea who he was until he went inside of the room where he kept all his guitars and they started talking about music. That's when my friend brought up Blaze Foley and Milton started talking about how he knew him and had met him a couple times. He told my friend he was a jazz blues musician and even signed him a CD. My friend called me freaking out and when he told me his last name was Hopkins I had to find out if he was related to Sam Lightnin' Hopkins. And much to my amaze, he is Lightnin' Hopkins cousin. Milton has toured with Marvin Gaye, Lou Rawish, Sam Cooke, and was the rhythm guitarist for B.B. King for eight years. It's crazy that this happened because we just got to talk to Rex Blues and he got to play bass for Lighnin' and Townes Van Zandt was greatly influenced by Lightnin' and I just feel like this connects with everything that's been happening these past few months. As if it's is manifesting itself piece by piece right in front of me...Milton gave my friend his card and told him if he ever needed a guitar lesson to call him up if he's available. I'm determined to meet Milton and hear a few of his stories. Sunday he's having a show and I'm already excited to go.

Today my twin brother told me he's having a baby. And the expected due date is July 25th :)

I'm here, then I'm gone, and I'm forever blue.

I drove out to Galveston yesterday to celebrate Blaze Foley's birthday. I got to experience the island in a different light and fell so in love with it. I had one destination in mind that day and that was to visit the Old Quarter Cafe where rare pictures and memorabilia of Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley hang on the wall. Walking in there felt like being a part of a private concert. The bar had just opened for the night and I wasn't expecting to walk right in while Rex Bell (Long time friend of Townes and Foley and partner of the original Old Quarter in Houston) sound checked and sung about gypsies and the blues. I never imagined I would get that lucky. After three cups of Rex's famous "Star Bock", endless laughter, and his amazing short stories and covers of Foley and Townes, I felt like this day amounted to everything. I told Rex it was Blaze's birthday and he was in such awe. He'd forgotten it and that's when he went right in with his cover of "Clay Pigeons" and "Officer Norris" and I lost it. He called us the best audience and I could tell he meant it. At one point Bell's wife Janet got onstage and sung a song for us she wrote for Townes. She didn't have a name for it but when she introduced it as "A song for Townes", it stuck. The emotion when her voice cracked almost made me choke up. Being in that bar room and witnessing their grief and love for Townes, it was too much to ever forget. After the private concert, open mic was in session. It wasn't long until Rex approached me and invited me to check out all his rare pictures of Townes and other notable musicians. We discussed everything from his bass playing with Lightnin' Hopkins, his recordings with Lucinda Williams in Happy Women Blues, and his happy memories with Townes Van Zandt. All in all it was surely a celebration to remember. I was able to take a few pictures and voice memos of Rex playing on my iphone and a few pictures in his office. I'm hoping I could share some of it on New Years Day. It would only make sense. :)

"I even saw the Eiffel tower and a sovenir snow globe"

December is here and all I can say is time seems to be going much faster than it was two months ago. I'm stuck in between that moment of the beginning of the year and now and it's all too much. I sure am going to miss 2014. It will go down as one of the best. i wish time wasn't moving so fast. I wish it would slow itself down. i was caught staring at a Christmas globe right before listening to this song called "Sugar Street" from Conor Oberst and then i saw my Paris Eiffel tower on the ground while the record played for the first time. it made so much sense. I'm just ready for my Christmas break. I need this time to unwind. This has truly been an amazing year.