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The Last Tour

North to the DMZ.

There's a reason I haven't released much music over the last several months. (Even though releasing music seems to be all I ever talk about.)


I've been working on a book, you see. Been writing it painstakingly over the last six years. I say painstakingly, because sometimes it's like taking a stake and running it painfully into my eye socket.


So what's it about? The dust jacket will probably say something like ...a book for those of us who heeded Henry Rollins’ call to get in the van and are now rolling to a stop amid the fading music, looking for meaning in a post-truth world and a place to call home.


But beyond the marketing-speak, the story is about a walkabout of sorts. A June-to-June solo journey I took from 2017 to 2018 that was equal parts bucket list, a low-key political protest and a final hurrah at what I thought was the end of my youth.


But you know in those survival shows, like "Alone," where people go off for months at a time to survive by their wits in the wilderness? You let a pan soak in its own dishwater long enough and the grease starts to lift away. They start to lose it about six weeks in. It took me more than six weeks, but by the fall of 2017 this "walkabout" was a far different journey than the one I left on.


Turns out, writing about yourself is hard. I've started writing a book about this particular year no less than four times. If I weren't using a computer, I'd be yanking the paper out of the Smith-Corona with a dramatic zzzzipp, crumpling it up and throwing it on the floor with a pile of other aborted starts. Running a hand through my tousled, unwashed hair, pouring myself another six pots of coffee.    


It's one thing to code yourself in lyrics, or write about characters and worlds that don't exist. It's another thing entirely to come clean in a 100,000-word confessional memoir about a demanding, non-stop whirlwind trek across air, sea and land that includes a lot of jagged little pills to swallow about your life and the way you lived it.


For six years, I've been down in the mud with this thing. Up at 5 and 6am to write before heading off to work. Shedding literal tears of frustration from the grind and the sting of reliving some things that I'd filed away for too long. But it's close now. Close enough to post about it here.


And the book's not all sadness and regrets. There are rays of light throughout, moments of clarity and resolve. Places you normally don't get to until you get street-food poisoning for the second time in two months and holes walked through your shoes.


As the writing comes to a close, I really don't know what to expect. I've been published before, but have never tried cold-calling in the submission process. I assume it's like shopping a band demo to a label like we did back in the day, but I don't really know.


I'm just excited to get it out of my head and move on. Let the universe do its thing while I pick up my neglected guitars, update all my expired audio plugins and shake the dust off my backlog. It's been a long time coming. Too long.


Stay tuned.



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What I’m reading: On Trails (Robert Moor)

What I'm listening to: Solid State Logik 1 (The KLF)



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