Records are scarce, but this is probably the longest tour anyone has ever gone on. TWO cities, TWO nights, plus a daytime writing workshop. You might want to follow along like you once did for the Dead, camp out in the parking lots, and sell fatty burritos.
PORTLAND - Friday April 24
LONGVIEW, WA - Saturday April 25
Ticket link in bio
"My head is always one step ahead/ it's always trying to hang the painting before it's been painted."
Today is the release day of my new album The Monster Mash.
Release day numbers mean a lot to help independent releases updraft into the loving clutches of the algorithm, so please find it on your favorite service and stream a track, or download it for keeps on Bandcamp.
Always for love, always for truth, always to ease suffering. 🌝
Link in bio!
photo by @giant.eye
Of note: the vultures have been circling lately.
They are always depicted in cartoons as ominous and menacing, waiting for a man on his knees in tattered clothes to die of thirst, but I can think of very few patterns in nature as gorgeous and downright cool as several vultures circling high overhead, not flapping their wings, just gliding. I think alternatingly of them tracing a Celtic knot in the sky and also of the Beastie Boys weaving around each other onstage while rapping “Ch-Check It Out.”
A culture that sees vultures as ominous is one that doesn’t know that it is dying.
The vulture is the custodian of the world, cleaning up the dead bodies we don’t want to deal with. The connotation of calling a person a vulture is to say that they are opportunistic. But that would be like calling a hotel housekeeper opportunistic because they come and take away your trash. In truth, a properly reverent culture would be leaving vultures tips for the work they do.
(Read the rest on my Substack. Link in bio.)
Not to bug…
But the next unit of my memoir workshop starts on Tuesday, May 5th. We’ll be working on framing devices. No more anger! (Last unit’s theme.)
Join even if you’ve never joined before! All levels of experience welcome!
🐞
This Friday I’ll be playing in Portland at Grover’s Curiosity Shop. Tickets are limited, but only ten bucks, no fees, just go to the link in the bio. Music and readings and storytelling and (finally) an explanation of it all.
Remember when Instagram photos looked like this? Back in 2011 or so, when there was time to sit on a tailgate in Austin and sing songs with your friend?
I remember watching Dovekins at SXSW where they were locked out of a gig and played in the parking lot in front of their van. Stelth played this song “Springtime” that was a cascade of imagery about new love and promises, an accordion in his arms, a flute in his back pocket. I want to have more conversations with songwriters about the actual songs we devote our lives to, the lines I love most, celebrating this magical thing everyone does when they’re a kid but that gets cordoned off into careers and legal representation as we get older.
I recorded a cover of Stelth’s song “Springtime” and it’s perfect for the now now. The flowers are still showing up and being flowers. The birds are still showing up and being birds. There are still more songs to gather. The world is not ending.
And though all birds have feathers
not all birds are flyers
let me tell ya
that all the sap gets stronger
even squirrels can get tired of the trees
whose leaves have fallen over
tops of trees and onto mowers after summer
and the trees will take the leaves into their roots
and pop them back out in the spring
My cover of Stelth Ulvang’s “Springtime” is up on your favorite not problematic streaming service, not to be confused with my own song also called “Springtime”… Look for the green cover!
A prayer of gratitude:
Thank you for these flowers right here on this table. Thank you for the birds I hear outside right in this exact now. Thank you in fact for the now now, more present and real than just the regular now, a tunnel that burrows into the now and creates an even more now now. Thank you for this thought of doubt because it is honest and present and reminds me of the voice of a loving parent. Thank you for the cloud darkening the sun, it must have somewhere important to go. Thank you for the house I’m in right now, and the path that led me to be in it. Thank you for the little spark of confidence here, now. Thank you for all the good things that are going to come for all of us. And thank you for what is already here now now now.
I’ll be playing a special Portland show Friday April 24th in celebration of the new edition of my memoir Get It While You Can. It’s a small space and there are limited tix, so, you know, get THOSE while you can.
Also to get while you can: the light of the sun, the sound of the blackbird, hugs from your loved ones. Those don’t require tix.
Only ten bucks! Link in bio!
Anger can have a place in our writing, because it exists in our lives. We might be afraid of it taking over and setting everything on fire, but perhaps we just need to find the right way of wielding it. Maybe anger will only be the prevent of our writing. Maybe one percent. But we can at least face it and figure out how to use it.
You can always jump in to any unit of my memoir workshop series. The next unit starts March 10th.
