“Well Dan, I guess I’ll see you in Alabama.”
Tell me the last time you imagined yourself saying that. Hell, the last time I woke up in Alabama was after a battle with a gentleman named Jack at a watering hole on the south side of Chicago. But that is another story for another time. The point here is that there won’t be, and shouldn’t be too many times in your life when you plan on waking up in Alabama.
The past few weeks have been long. Some time off which results in me being busy for the first week or so and then going stir crazy. I’ve got to get out of LA. Took a trip to San Francisco and a trip to the Phoenix Film Festival in Scottsdale. Huh? Yes, the Phoenix Film Festival isn’t in Phoenix it is in Scottsdale. Marketing.
This two-week jaunt started Thursday in Orlando at Walt Disney World. What an awful place. The pool was full of little children and I’m positive that I saw a filmy layer of urine floating on the surface. We had these super top secret, plaid clad tour guides to the Magic Kingdom. They were in possession of key cards which allowed us top priority access to all the rides. We cut the line. Budged in front of little children whose families had paid top dollar to enter the park. Our admission fee was waived, of course. A bizarre experience getting to see the underbelly of Disney World, we walked through the tunnels underground, the city beneath the city as they call it, from ride to ride, location to location. I wrote my mother and father an e mail the other day thanking them for having never taken us on a “vacation” to Orlando. I am glad that they spent money instead on summer enrichment schools and camps.
Our summer tour is shaping up to be a banger. It appears that I will be involved in the creation of the video content for the live show. Art. Art. Art.
Just found out that on May 14th I’ll be flying to NYC, playing Good Morning America on the 15th, then flying to the Netherlands arriving on the 16th. On the 17th we fly to London for two days where the band will take part in a BBC documentary for the anniversary recording of the Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s album. The band is one of 12 bands chosen to rerecord tracks from the album with the original engineer on the original equipment. Wow. On Sunday we will fly to Hamburg Germany and then go to Zurich on Tuesday, London on Wednesday, Madrid on Thursday, Blogona on Friday and Milan on Saturday, and then back to the states on Sunday. I am going around the world, again.
Did I mention that our next five shows are with Aqualung? Great people. Good to be out here with them.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Any day I'm here could be the day I die.
I was going to write something about purchasing only white v neck t shirts so that I never have to choose what to wear, or write about how one of my roommate's cats is mentally retarded, a fact they can't seem to accept, or post the eharmony.com personal profile I've been working on, until I read an April 7th, 2007 issue of Newsweek that my friend Alex let me borrow today.
It is a special issue called Voices of the Fallen: Every day I'm here could be the day I die
It contains writings to family members, loved ones, and friends made by US soldiers serving in Iraq. I cried my way through the issue. All the words reprinted in there belong to soliders who have been killed in the line of duty. Alex had warned me that it would be tough to read but I was not prepared for the sadness that I felt when done.
I have typed up a letter from Lance CPL. Lance Graham that was left behind whey he was killed on May 7th, 2005.
"Well if your reading this I guess this deployment was a one way trip. I just have a few things to ask. Please don't be made at the Marine Corps. It was my choice to join and come here. I honestly believe this is what I was meant to do. I don't care what the media says we are making a difference here. Know that I did not die in vain or for some worthless cause. I died in memory of all those who gave their lives before me. We are fighting for those who can't fight for themselves and I think that is the right thing to do. Not all the people here are bad, so please don't fill your hearts with anger and hate. When I was a kid my dad gave me a Louis Lamour book and in the back of the book was a quote from all his books. One that really suck in head and I tried to live by sinnce the day I read it was on courage - "When ever there was trouble you never had to look back to see if he was there, you knew damn well he was". I hope I lived up to the that. Another thing I ask is that at my funeral the Marine Corps Hymn and Amazing Grace is played with the bag pipes. Nothing sounds better than the bag pipes playing Amazing Grace. I know that I haven't been the best son, brother, friend or boyfriend and I'm sorry if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Ashley can keep my H5 if she wants. Another thing I ask is at least one of you travel see the world and do the things I never got to do. This is really hard writing this. Theres so much I want to say and I'm at a loss of words. Just know that I have a god in my life and I'm in a better place. Marines guard the streets in heaven. Who else would god trust? Tell Ashley, Nathan, Kevin, Jason, David, Denis that I could not have had better friends. Tell Ashley that I was sorry and I'm stuipd and I really did love her. To my Family I love you all.
Semper Fi,
Love Lance."
We are fighting an unpopular war, orchestrated by a President who the majority of Americans did not elect to office. We have no exit strategy and every day innocent Iraqi men women and children die. The US military is responsible for the deaths of nearly 10,000 innocent Iraqis. Everyday US soldiers are dying and still we fight a way started for reasons that have sinced been revealed to have been falsified reports and documents about alleged weapons of mass destruction. I'm saddened by the state of our world.
My friend Brian is currently serving in Iraq, his second tour of duty. He doesn't know when he is coming home. My friend Kevin Kimmerly was killed in Iraq in the fall of 2003.
It is a special issue called Voices of the Fallen: Every day I'm here could be the day I die
It contains writings to family members, loved ones, and friends made by US soldiers serving in Iraq. I cried my way through the issue. All the words reprinted in there belong to soliders who have been killed in the line of duty. Alex had warned me that it would be tough to read but I was not prepared for the sadness that I felt when done.
I have typed up a letter from Lance CPL. Lance Graham that was left behind whey he was killed on May 7th, 2005.
"Well if your reading this I guess this deployment was a one way trip. I just have a few things to ask. Please don't be made at the Marine Corps. It was my choice to join and come here. I honestly believe this is what I was meant to do. I don't care what the media says we are making a difference here. Know that I did not die in vain or for some worthless cause. I died in memory of all those who gave their lives before me. We are fighting for those who can't fight for themselves and I think that is the right thing to do. Not all the people here are bad, so please don't fill your hearts with anger and hate. When I was a kid my dad gave me a Louis Lamour book and in the back of the book was a quote from all his books. One that really suck in head and I tried to live by sinnce the day I read it was on courage - "When ever there was trouble you never had to look back to see if he was there, you knew damn well he was". I hope I lived up to the that. Another thing I ask is that at my funeral the Marine Corps Hymn and Amazing Grace is played with the bag pipes. Nothing sounds better than the bag pipes playing Amazing Grace. I know that I haven't been the best son, brother, friend or boyfriend and I'm sorry if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Ashley can keep my H5 if she wants. Another thing I ask is at least one of you travel see the world and do the things I never got to do. This is really hard writing this. Theres so much I want to say and I'm at a loss of words. Just know that I have a god in my life and I'm in a better place. Marines guard the streets in heaven. Who else would god trust? Tell Ashley, Nathan, Kevin, Jason, David, Denis that I could not have had better friends. Tell Ashley that I was sorry and I'm stuipd and I really did love her. To my Family I love you all.
Semper Fi,
Love Lance."
We are fighting an unpopular war, orchestrated by a President who the majority of Americans did not elect to office. We have no exit strategy and every day innocent Iraqi men women and children die. The US military is responsible for the deaths of nearly 10,000 innocent Iraqis. Everyday US soldiers are dying and still we fight a way started for reasons that have sinced been revealed to have been falsified reports and documents about alleged weapons of mass destruction. I'm saddened by the state of our world.
My friend Brian is currently serving in Iraq, his second tour of duty. He doesn't know when he is coming home. My friend Kevin Kimmerly was killed in Iraq in the fall of 2003.
Friday, April 13, 2007
A letter to Paul Auster
Dear Mr. Auster,
I first read Leviathan as a student living and studying in Dijon, France. My mother was a French teacher at a small rural public school in upstate NY, and having grown up speaking the language it seemed a fitting course of study given my general lack of early twenty-something direction. At the time, I was boarding with a dysfunctional French family, the Bresseau’s, who were each on their second marriage. They had a rambunctious young demon son between the two of them and an older introverted son, with an all-consuming passion for comic books and mid-90’s rock music, from Madame Bresseau’s previous marriage. Dinners were always interesting, a breeding ground for awkwardly priceless moments. To avoid prolonged contact with this cast of characters, whose idiosyncrasies I scribbled furiously into my journal, I spent the evenings locked in my bedroom. Having grown tired of the bread and butter staples of French literature that I had been assigned to read, I rescued three English books from the Bresseau’s bookshelf and read them back to back to back as quickly as possible. I read your novel first and then moved on to the first two Harry Potter books. Madame was an English ex patriot, Leviathan happened to be one of her favorites.
I’ve read most of your novels, having enjoyed every word of each of them.
But it wasn’t until this past year, when I picked up Hand to Mouth that I felt the need to write you. My father is a small town jack-of-all-trades. He does snow removal in the winter and builds furniture in the summer. He doesn’t like people and recently began playing the banjo during what I’d like to call his third mid-life crisis. The first was forgetting that my mother and my two younger siblings existed once I moved away from home, and the second was trying to play the upright bass. He plays the banjo every Sunday afternoon at the deli in town with Tom “Buckshot” Butler on bass and the cross-dressing Steve Sverchek on fiddle. Steve is the father of the girl I thought was my first real girlfriend. She eventually informed me that we weren’t dating at all.
My mother is a prim and proper, pessimistic, tiny conservative woman from
Anderson, South Carolina. She became a French teacher to escape the grips of the poor rural south. If she couldn’t physically leave, this was second best. We didn’t own a television so instead I was raised on NPR and trips to the book mobile.
I’ve always enjoyed telling stories and feel confident telling you that I’m a filmmaker working on creating my first narrative short. I have worked on documentary shorts and features for the past few years. Your ability to describe characters, places, and situations is truly inspiring. It was while reading the Brooklyn Follies that I discovered the urgent desire and need to begin remembering the people and places of my youth, a place and time that I once long ago swore to forget.
There is no doubt in my mind that you will continue to write, so I don’t have to implore you to do so. I look forward to reading more of your work in the future. You have inspired me, and for that I should like to say thank you.
Sincerely,
Rod Blackhurst
I first read Leviathan as a student living and studying in Dijon, France. My mother was a French teacher at a small rural public school in upstate NY, and having grown up speaking the language it seemed a fitting course of study given my general lack of early twenty-something direction. At the time, I was boarding with a dysfunctional French family, the Bresseau’s, who were each on their second marriage. They had a rambunctious young demon son between the two of them and an older introverted son, with an all-consuming passion for comic books and mid-90’s rock music, from Madame Bresseau’s previous marriage. Dinners were always interesting, a breeding ground for awkwardly priceless moments. To avoid prolonged contact with this cast of characters, whose idiosyncrasies I scribbled furiously into my journal, I spent the evenings locked in my bedroom. Having grown tired of the bread and butter staples of French literature that I had been assigned to read, I rescued three English books from the Bresseau’s bookshelf and read them back to back to back as quickly as possible. I read your novel first and then moved on to the first two Harry Potter books. Madame was an English ex patriot, Leviathan happened to be one of her favorites.
I’ve read most of your novels, having enjoyed every word of each of them.
But it wasn’t until this past year, when I picked up Hand to Mouth that I felt the need to write you. My father is a small town jack-of-all-trades. He does snow removal in the winter and builds furniture in the summer. He doesn’t like people and recently began playing the banjo during what I’d like to call his third mid-life crisis. The first was forgetting that my mother and my two younger siblings existed once I moved away from home, and the second was trying to play the upright bass. He plays the banjo every Sunday afternoon at the deli in town with Tom “Buckshot” Butler on bass and the cross-dressing Steve Sverchek on fiddle. Steve is the father of the girl I thought was my first real girlfriend. She eventually informed me that we weren’t dating at all.
My mother is a prim and proper, pessimistic, tiny conservative woman from
Anderson, South Carolina. She became a French teacher to escape the grips of the poor rural south. If she couldn’t physically leave, this was second best. We didn’t own a television so instead I was raised on NPR and trips to the book mobile.
I’ve always enjoyed telling stories and feel confident telling you that I’m a filmmaker working on creating my first narrative short. I have worked on documentary shorts and features for the past few years. Your ability to describe characters, places, and situations is truly inspiring. It was while reading the Brooklyn Follies that I discovered the urgent desire and need to begin remembering the people and places of my youth, a place and time that I once long ago swore to forget.
There is no doubt in my mind that you will continue to write, so I don’t have to implore you to do so. I look forward to reading more of your work in the future. You have inspired me, and for that I should like to say thank you.
Sincerely,
Rod Blackhurst
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