No sad songs

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. 

Then some one at my side says: 'There, she is gone!' 

'Gone where?' 

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. 

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when some one at my side says: 'There, she is gone!' there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: 'Here she comes!' And that is dying."

- Henry Van Dyke

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.

It's the song that they don't sing

I figured it out. I might be eluded to certain things but these epiphanies that I keep having and these moments that are significant and have passed already well something is telling me that they still linger. and it's happening right now and everything that has led me up to that point wants me to know that it never left. I'm gonna stay. I'm attached and I don't plan on leaving. There's this spark growing inside of me and it's making me feel warm and safe and that's exactly what i need right now. i don't want to sound selfish but things tend to disappear and at the end of the day you're alone again and right now i just want to feel a part of something out of my control. i hope that makes sense. my mind is in a mumble jumble and so is everything inside of me. January 13. I promise it will be special.

Deep Clean sleep

I feel like I'm living a true detective episode. I've been researching and trying to wrap my mind with everything that's been going on in my head. Yesterday I read this crazy article about the inspiration to the Bright Eyes Cassadaga album and I kept digging deeper and deeper and I read things that never made sense to me before and now it's so clear... Doesn't help that I keep having these coincidences either. I don't know what it all means but I'm going crazy in a strange and beautiful way. I don't want it to end. A live version of Four Winds from Another Day, Another Time is being released in January. Everything is so weird. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday gift.


http://www.vice.com/read/legend-tripping-at-cassadagas-devils-chair-456?utm_source=vicetwitterus

Gave up her existence to feel everything

Things have been really weird lately. I keep having dreams that end up happening or just really strong connections that tie with reality and it's beginning to mess with my mind. Last night I had a dream about transforming into a werewolf and I was in the hallway prowling on my predator and my dad was trying to calm me down and kept holding a mirror in my face and he showed me what I was turning into. Right when I woke up I checked the time and it was about 5 am and so I decided to get on IG and saw that MiWi La Lupa (who plays bass and vocals with Conor on this tour) liked my photo of Conor and it wasn't until I fully woke up in the morning and noticed he had pictures of wolves everywhere. It got weirder after that. I went on youtube later that day and found this clip of Conor talking about his Cassadaga album and all of a sudden he mentions his song Hot Knives and it being about a woman transforming into a different species and not being able to exist in her reality. After that I listened to Lupa's album for the first time and his song "When You're Gone" in particular grabbed my attention because he's singing "I packed my things, I called my wolves, and I hit the open road" and I kept thinking about my dream and Conor's words and then Conor's voice comes through in the same song and he's now singing about wolves too. I had to take a walk. I felt like a balloon about to burst. I don't know what it all means but I'm really thankful for this "awakening". :/

Anyway, I'm really excited that October is here. I got Julia's letter in the mail and there's just so many new beginnings happening everywhere and I feel okay. I saw white pumpkins today and my freebird boots came in and Somewhere Under Wonderland Vinyl is on the way and I borrowed my friend's ipod and i'm gonna fill it with beautiful music and I'm gonna end the year well.

I keep looking back for artifacts to prove that you were here

Sept. 19, 2014. I laughed, I danced, I cried, and I felt indifferent all at the same damn time. Maybe it was the wanting and giving up on seeing Conor Oberst for more than six years and to see him there plain just fucked me up. I don't really want to get into detail with that night but it's gonna be a performance I won't ever forget. I want to mention tho that his dance moves were on point and his jump mic roping will have me laughing for years to come. Sept. 27 is coming up, that's 6 years since the first time I saw Conor live. I was 17 years old. Alone at Austin City Limits. Anyway, it's this Saturday. I'll go out with a bang. Like Hemingway. Time to CELEBRATE.