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Good morning, Twelve years ago I played my first paid gig. It was at a shady bar in Gunnison, CO and I was 18. The night before I had taken what was to be my last drink after 6 years of hell. Though my withdraws weren’t as severe as they had been a year prior when I was committed to an inpatient rehab, my hands shook and my head swam for four hours while I played three identical sets of the only 12 songs I knew how to play at the time. When I finished, the woman at the bar slid a bottle of beer over to me and paid me fifty dollars. I don’t remember for how long I stared at the beer or by what desperate miracle I got up from the bar without drinking it, but I left with my money and a tired heart too heavy for someone my age. The next morning I attended an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and began rebuilding what was left of a life that I had resigned to the kind of end that only addicts can know. In the intervening twelve years of sobriety I have built on the shaky foundation of that undrunk beer the kind life of which I never could have dreamed at that time. I have known gratitude and peace unforeseen. In those same dozen years I have contended with a dozen kinds of pain and shame, and the itch that always wants scratching has never strayed far from my side. I was never supposed to make it to twenty years old, and so many of my friends from that time have succumbed to the disease that should have killed me so long ago. For every story like mine there are ten thousand lives snuffed out, like T.S. Elliot said, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Celebrate your fucking victories, and never forget what they cost. Your move @mailchimp. Time to send me some new monkey socks!
I miss Colorado sometimes. What madness leads a person to commit to a life of uncertainty, doubt and intangible, subjective valuation? Maybe because a dance done on the edge of a knife is more beautiful for being precarious. Or maybe we’re dummies... Sometimes it’s tough to keep it together in stage with @oliviarudeen but trust us, we’re only laughing about cool things that cool people laugh about. 😎 Anyway, this weekend is two more shows for us to be unprofessional at: 9/21- St. James, MO 9/22- Aviston, IL I’d like to be in the next Blade Runner movie please, in the role of “The Canadian”. What a week in Colorado! Thanks to everyone who came to @magicratlivemusic, @littlebearsaloon, and @denversongwritersclub at @lostlakedenver! I can’t wait to come home again soon! The band may be done, but we’ll be jamming to @placesband forever. Thank you so much for letting us open your final show, it was such an honor.