Graduate School. The Guitar. The Hair.

1. Graduate School~ {mfa, creative writing}
{below excerpt from afore-linked interview with Jim Harrison}

Bednarik: You actually provided advice to young writers and said the best thing for them to be was “word drunk.”

Harrison: Well, the trouble is it’s a pyramid scheme, to me. The one good thing about the program is that it teaches people to read and they become very intense about it. But these poor folks—it’s a way of delaying your parents’ opprobrium. “I’m continuing on for an MFA, blah blah blah. . .” What could it possibly mean? There are no jobs available for them, it’s sort of humiliating for them. They’ve gone now to college six or seven years; an MFA is worth about as much as a BA in English, which means for a buck you could get a cup of coffee.

I could not agree with Jim Harrison more, and I could certainly go on and on and on about this topic. On and on and on and on and on and on. The truth is that I don’t want to study writing at all, and if anything, I think it would do much to weaken my writing. Suck the life out. It was simply my idea of the most painless way to get a job. MFA = English Teacher at Private School. A job that I don’t think I really want anyway. Ugh. In some way, the whole thing reeks of fear. An absolutely pathetic decision process. All of this, ultimately because I can’t seem to make any money with music, and don’t really want to do anything else with my life. Complicated it is. The answers, slow in presenting themselves. In a way, it was more frustrating to be rejected with option 2 {MFA} than it is with option 1 {music}. So what now, I ask? What does this man who really just wants to spend his life making music do? Keep making music whilst I figure it out I guess. Live.

2. The Guitar~ I will not carry on and on here, but simply put, I have what I believe to be the greatest steel string acoustic guitar that exists in the world. {subjective I know} I have dropped said guitar off at a shop in Toronto to have some work done on the instrument. Not only did I find a great shop, but I also found a man who I have more confidence in his abilities to work on my guitar, than any other luthier/repairman I have ever encountered. This excites me greatly. Deeply. A flood of relief. The repairing of a brace. The fixing of a bridge. A re-furbished nut. A pick-up installed. A custom case ordered. I said I wouldn’t go on.

3. The Hair~ I have not cut my hair for some time. I have been growing it, with the intention of growing it yet more, but it has reached that nearly unacceptable place. I told Keri the other day that I feel like I resemble Don Johnson. It looks horrible. It has even begun to feather above the ears. I look in the mirror and shake my head. I begin wearing a hat daily. Why I think about how miserable my hair looks each time I peer in the mirror is bothersome to me as well.

Trust me though, I am in a bad way.

June I Am Told

“I’m going to write on my journal,” says he. Me. Indeed, I’ve been silent for some time. I suppose I’ve felt as though I had little to say. Without words. Or perhaps I’ve just been saying things in other ways. Speaking by running. Moving my fingers on the fretboard. Cuddling on the couch with my wife, watching movies.

An odd thing to have this public presence for such a long time here, and then one day just feel like you’ve run out of words. Not an uncommon thing I believe, for I have often felt like I’ve run out of songs, the melodies {and especially the lyrics} dried up and washed out to sea. Needless to say, I have missed the simple form of expression. The daily ramblings. While I wrote some time ago {a long, long post or two} about what I want to do here, I realized more than anything else, more than the need to stop writing, or change what I write, I just needed to turn to damn computer off. And so I have. I would estimate that I am using the computer 1/10th of what I was before and I feel so rejuvenated by this fact.

And so, off it has been. This of course coincided with my having been rejected by 3 of the four graduate schools to which I applied, and put on the waiting list at #4. {sort-of rejected} This at first sent me headlong into a great depression, and the conclusion that I am indeed a miserable writer. They saw right through me. {All of this of course, just after my beginning to question writing here.} Anyway, the story is long, but essentially, the rejection caused me to question what I want to do with my life, something that I seem to keep asking myself. The frustrating thing perhaps, is that I know what I want to do with my life {more or less} but just can’t seem to make it work. {monetarily speaking that is} In questioning all of this, my friend Ben said to me that he felt I could write some damn good fiction if I gave three hours a day to it, but that would be three hours a day taken away from me playing music, which didn’t sit well with him. And to be honest, doesn’t sit well with me either.

And perhaps, just at the precise instant that Ben said what he said, I recalled a quote from Jim Harrison wherein he said, “if you’re not going to give your whole life to it, then why bother?”

So. Music. Music. Music. Music. I’m not sure what it all means yet. Practically speaking, it means that I’ve begun looking at graduate programs in music. It means that I’m back to practicing guitar four hours a day, and trying to work my way up to six. Memories of 1994 come exploding in. Greg and I driving to LA for lessons. Sitting in that house on Calaveras St., keeping a log of the progress, measured by metronome, in black books.

It means that Keri and I are moving to Spain in August, a fact that keeps me awake at night from sheer excitement. It means that it feels right to be giving so much to it again.

But today, the sun is out {sort of} for the first time in quite a while. It has yet to rise above 65 degrees Fahrenheit, but June I am told. June becomes the end of another desert. For now, we remain bundled in sweaters and scarves, but with sunglasses today. The grey light falling on the earth. There are though, splashes of such dazzling color. Flowers breaking the skin of dirt, and leaves coming slowly back onto the trees. The beauty of the green out here takes my breath. It is returning to what I first knew of it, this new home of mine. The long and tireless fields. The horses. How I love to watch the horses. Standing, running, eating, sleeping on their sides. Anything. They too, must appreciate the return of the sun. The bright light shining down.

wordless

too tired to write at the moment, and some things live without words.
Vicente has a new record out. a new site. etc. click on video...it made me cry, as seeing him play always does.