A Modern Spin

Falling backwards onto the bed, plugged into the newest sound,

We celebrate the comings and goings of our age.

For you let the guitar strings pluck your heart and soul,

As the beats pump the blood through ya' veins.

While, the piano sweeps from side to side caressing your brian,

All the Neurons dance to the sound from those tiny speakers.

Thoughtlessly, you open your mouth, singing along to the

Words that hold no meaning but mean everything, all at once.

Never Alone, we do this together, night after night. Passing out,

To the UpsandDowns and joys of life forever and ever.

Bojangling in Plymouth

Today is a quintessential Ryan Adams day. Dreary, misty, rain is a certainty and I know that the Sun isn’t going to come out and save me. I couldn’t sleep last night, body tired from too much, and too little, and from slipping in and out of time, and I couldn’t do anything. Sleeping in the suburban hidey-hole that my friend has crafted for his life.

So now I’m just kicking it in this coffee house, where the bathroom is painted like a tree house. Such a cool coffee house, makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with Los Angeles for not having anything so conceptually interesting yet simple, intricately crafted and at the same time so funkily bohemian. This is Plymouth, Michigan. Just chalk it up to one more thing that is wrong with Los Angeles.

I know I’ve got to go to Toronto, cause I booked housing, but I really don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. This feeling is hard to pinpoint, the effect is moodiness and the cause, I’m only half able to understand. It’s more that I really don’t want the present to propel me into the future, cause I don’t feel anything is really worth going towards. I know this moment will pass, and I’m not bummed by it, I just don’t want it and don’t want to do anything. I feel no excitement and I have no idea what might snap me out of it.

See a Ryan Adams day ain’t just about listening to Ryan Adams songs. It’s really about being locked into the mindset that so many of his songs take place in, and then his songs actually become uplifting, even the depressing ones. It’s not that I’m not excited about all the amazing things I am going to see, experience, it’s just that I can’t feel a damn thing. No Matter how much coffee I drink. It’s not that I hate all of the Los Angeles Coffee shops, it’s just that nothing is good enough when you feel like this. And even if I could muster an intention for today, I wouldn’t feel good about it, it’d just be, “meh.”

But I don’t feel too bad about this, because I know it will pass, in an hour, a day, hopefully not much longer, but it will and I’ll feel the inverse and it will be amazing. I think that’s just how it works. So just know, that right now, in this coffee house in Plymouth on a rainy Monday morning, I’m smirking.

So Close to the Sun

When you’re so close to the sun and driving high,

You don’t see that the wheels are falling off.

So Long as you keep moving you feel free,

But you can’t fight mother Earth, for her

Bountiful Clouds drown out the sky.

And I can’t slow down and I can’t see,

I want to be lifted up, taken from here,

To dissolve into the atmosphere and take my last breathe.

Where possibilities are endless because there is nothing.

Yet my old friend the sun brings me back.

He hates being alone up in these mountains,

Washing over the same rocks day after day,

So I ask him the questions of just this day:

Can there be freedom bought from this hopelessness?

And can you find something without looking for it?

And in his light I find the questions. And in his warmth,

I feel love, and his gaze I find the pain. And in his

Endlessness I find an answer.

Elizabeth, Put Down Your Bible

The waves crash down around you on this beach.

Those electric cracked, gray skies reflecting your lost dreams.

Where you’re at, is a crossroads of thought.

The sorrows set in; your next step might be your last.

Soaked in salt; your dignity lost, you approach.

Your voice is strong, but your heart is weak.

I watch you hide behind those circled blue sunglasses,

The ones that make your tears look all that more beautiful.

He left you, a single parent caring for a table of two,

But He left you a hole that you can’t fill with…

So, you’ve been cradling that Bible for 14 months now,

Your eyes run the pages, but your heart’s dropped the race.

Let the water rush over you and take up your pain,

Isn’t that why you came here in the first place?

Can you forgive yourself for the sins that you

Did not commit, but the ones he made you feel?

Oh Elizabeth, put down your bible.

Don’t let your year be measured from Romans to Romans.

Oh Elizabeth, put down your bible.

I know he broke your heart, but does he get to take your life.

Oh Elizabeth, put down your bible.

Know and take solace, for your journey is mine and we do it together.

Ameritrek Watch 2009 - Breaking News

News Night In America Jingle:

Fade to:

Good Evening America, this is John Johnston Daniels the Third, with breaking news on Ameritrek 2009. I send you to Kansas City, Missouri with our girl on the Jo Jo Rawlings.

"Hi J.J.D, I'm standing on the corner of 54th and Leavenworth Lane, where Eyewitnesses have reported spotted Will Gong jumping out of a 2001 white Ford Escort to vomit, or throw up on this lawn. The Lawn's owner had this to say:

"If I had seen him puke up on my yard, I would've come out here and shot him. Just terrible. No worse way to disrespect a man, then to disrespect his lawn."

Jo Jo continues, "I've also talked with forensic expert, Jerry Long, who had this to say:

"Uh, well, you know I've never uh, been interviewed, well, uh, you know, actually, there's really nothing here. Uh, I mean, we'll have to run a DNA test against this carrot, but that's all we've got."

Jo Jo continues, "So there you have JJD: was Will Gong here? Did he vomit on this man's lawn? And why was he in Missouri in the first place?:

Back to John,

I guess we'll have to find out and see how this all plays out Jo Jo. And now back to real news. Did you know Cell phones can give you cancer? Find out after the break.

Ameritrek: Best Sign So Far

The Coffee Shack:

Best Coffee.

Best Girls.

Best Service.

So when you're next in Northwestern Montana, you should look it up, because I was not abel to validate their points. And if you can't make it up to Glacier, you should just hit up one of the thousand Coffee Drive Thru shacks in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains!

The Lord of the Road in the Kingdom of Hay

When you’re the Lord Of the Road,
You’re always leaving something behind,

A lock of hair, a trinket, a memory, or something
Deeper that was meant to be forever.

But you can’t fight your own nature, and I feel,
I feel the rush of the wind that blows my hair gray,

The change of scenery, from mountains to sea,
And the knowledge that this life is mine, all mine.

With that said,

You can always smell it before you see it.
There is no sneaking up on me, not the hay.

The land grows flat and green, those long stalks
Beg me to stop and stroll, but before I respond,

It’s gone. The machines have ripped them out,
Rolled them up and stacked them miles wide.

He comes out to greet me, hand in the air.
The Ruler in the Kingdom of Hay.

I pay my respects; for all that he stands for,
A long life lived well and the cares of a Wife.

Her golden flowing hair blows in the wind,
And her scent fights the grass to whisper to me.

The king smiles, remembers what it’s like to be young,
And to wander the Earth before he settled on a life.

They turn from me and walk away, they’re hands entwined,
On the way home. To creature comforts and childish delights.

I see myself through his eyes, and feel his sadness,
His sameness. Too bad. That’s his life; it’s not mine.

Poems

Well, as everyone knows this trip has been something interesting, maybe something special.
So i thought I'd try to capture some of it in a way that might be more artistic, maybe lay down a
few poems that come to me through this trip. I've got two planned so far, and we'll see what comes after that.
I haven't written one in like 6 years, so this should be fun!

A Matter of Choice

Sitting in a quaint Portland Café, in the hippie/trendy neighborhood of Hawthorne I stumbled upon an intriguing idea. I stumbled like this
- Why do I live in Los Angeles? I hate Los Angeles. Okay, I don’t hate Los Angeles. There are a lot of worse places to live. But either way, why?
- Because I have to live there for work.
- Because I can’t work in the movie business anywhere else.
- Where else could I make enough money to survive.
- The battle of the back and forth between liking and hating where I live and etc, etc, etc.

But where this led me was that I have so many excuses for hating it and yet for staying, wouldn’t it be amazing to make it a conscious choice. How many of my decisions are actual powerful, conscious decisions? I don’t know.

I’ve spent a lot of time, over the last ten years, particularly between the ages of 22 and 27 talking a big game about “Going wherever the roads of life take me.” And they’ve taken me pretty far, but I think it’s easy to forget that you are the one actually making those decisions when you reach a fork in the road, you’re the one who is taking the steps. I forget that constantly, especially in my head, and I play the excuse game, which is ridiculous.

Now, I do know If I am going to continue to live in California forever, but I would rather say that I am living there because I choose to do so, rather then being like, Well, I don’t have a choice, or my work is here (and that coming off as an excuse.) I’d like all my choices to really come off more like decisions and less like I fell into it.

It just seems so much stronger to take control of my life, and really more to the point, I think it’s about damn time that I become responsible for all of my decisions; actual, real internal responsibility for all of them. There are only so many outward/external factors that can really make us do something that we don’t want to do.

We’ll always be on this road of life til the end, so until that day, I’m gonna try to remember that I am the one making the choice when I see a fork.

Ameritrek Watch 2009

News Night In America Jingle.

Fade to:

Good Evening America, This is John Johnston Daniels the Third.

In tonight's special segment on Ameritrek, we'll bring you all the relavent information on Will Gong's Trip Across AMERICA! Stay Tuned.

Commercial Break: A Skinny, Bald Asian Man walks through a room of practicing Yoga Students. His Smile is spiritual, but warm.

"I've been a Yoga teacher for five years now, some of you know me as Marisha NakaDu Kwan, but you can call me Kwan. As a yoga teacher, I can't tell you how excited I am about so many Americans picking up Yoga."

The Class moves together through a Vinyasa.

"But I'm here today to tell you that Yoga isn't safe."

A Man Cries out and reaches for her Lower back.

"You have to be in amazing shape if you want to do this."

A Woman balances solely on her head.

"And sadly most of you aren't."

Another Woman crumbles to the floor.

"This isn't to say that you will never be able to do this."

A Man holds himself in handstand as his legs fall back into scorpion.

"But most of you are going to look like this."

A Man's lays on his mat, barely conscious

"So please, keep coming, cause we love our money, and please keep buying our insanely marked up eco friendly mats, because it's good for you and it's good for the world. Namaste."

Voice Over: This public service announcement has been brought to you by the "Friends Of Rachel."

News Report Returns:

We're back, I'm John Johnston Daniels the Third. And this is Ameritrek! 2009!!!

He's been seen in Seattle, Washington smelling fruit at a Market. He's been seen in Olympic National Park, talking philosophy with a group of Germans in the Sol Duc Hot Spring, and worst of all is the picture that Paparazzi grabbed of him sneaking into a Twilight themed Gift Shop in Forks, Washington. And now it's been reported that Will Gong has been spotted driving along Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park in Montana.

What is it that Will Gong is doing up there, well that is exactly clear? Jo Jo Rawlings is in Montana.

"Hi J.J.D. According to local eye-witness witnesses, Will has been hitting up the saloons, spending thousands of dollars on girls and booze.

Another EyeWitness says and I quote, "He sleeps all day and only comes out at night, and then he runs out of that hostel he's staying at naked, and I swear I can hear him in those woods, but I really can't say what he's doing."

And a third account comes from Cody, a Physics student coming from Portland Oregon. He says, "Will Gong you say. Well, I don't know about the Gong part, but we did run across this guy, all by himself, sitting on a rock on the hike up near the chalet. Yeah, he joined our group as we headed up to the mountain pass to see the glacier. Cool Guy, except for his weird third person expressions. I don't really understand that. Oh and he worked on Pirates 3. Nobody liked that movie."

When it comes down to it, any of these could be the truth, your guess is as good as mine. Back to you John."

And there you have it. Will Gong. A Man of Mystery. What will he do next? And what is he doing right now? You be the judge.

And until next time; this is John Johnston Daniels the Third. Good Night and Buenas Noches.

Three Sunrises

1.
The phone rings, but it’s not a call, it’s an alarm. It’s 5:00 AM and freezing in this tent on a campsite on Crater Lake, Oregon. Why is the phone ringing? What time is it? Did I actually sleep? I hit snooze, blink a few times, and suddenly realize that I have to pack up, clean, and drive up to Watchman Overlook to watch the sunrise. And why didn’t I wear my longjohns to bed! SO COLD!

And after a quick cleaning in the bathroom, (God, I need to shave) and the most organized pack of my life (I stumbled into how to fold my tent, amazing!), I booked it at 25 mph up the mountainside to Wathman’s Overlook.

I kept stopping to catch each angle of the lake as the blazing flames of the sun began to sneak over the mountains. How many pictures can one man take? And then straight bolted from my car off the side of the Rim Road and up a pack of stairs and out onto the rim of the deepest and cleanest lake in the United States. You can see the sun in the sky and reflected in the water. It’s incredible.

2.
Hours later descending from the Willamette Pass Mountain, on the road to Portland, Oregon, they sky was shrouded in fog. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, whined out of my speakers. Ryan - being my choice for sad depressing morning drives, or extreme hangovers, and heartbreak of all kinds.

The roads were slow, the logging trucks and 12 wheelers were even slower. Ryan was doing his thing, while I pitifully mumbled along. And as I passed through a creek surrounded trees and thick leaves, magically sun began emerging in beams through the fog, bouncing brilliantly against the leaves. Beautiful.

There is something extremely powerful about the way that the sun breaks through the clouds, the fog, and ultimately, the darkness. Internally, I believe that this might have to do with our need, our inner hope for the hardest, darkest, deepest fears and anxieties we have to be overcome by something in the world, some blinding light that will champion for us, harkening back to the creation of Myths, Gods, and today’s Super Heroes. Or maybe it just a cool visual trick.

3.
1993
There was no way I was going to school today; I had had enough of it. The embarrassment of being a teenager and daily humiliation of myself and everyone else had driven me to complete avoidance of people. I had retreated into days of playing with the fireplace, watching the same 10 movies over and over again, and reading comic books, constantly. Oh yeah, and sometimes I went to school.

One morning, my Mom rebelled. The usual pattern was that I would stumble down the stairs and act my way into a sick day. I would be all woozy, dizzy looking, I’d warm my head by the lamplight, stir up a bunch of flem, which was easy, because I had a mild Lactose Intolerance, that I wasn’t even aware off yet.

So, given all that, one day My Mom had had enough of it. I have no idea what her reason was. Perhaps, maybe she’d had enough, was my acting not up to snuff, would I have to force a visit to the doctors? (Thank you Flem! I think I could get the world record for most Sinus Infections.) And then again, she might have been looking out for my best interest.

Whatever the reason, she’d had enough and believed that I could make it to school. So she sat me down at the kitchen table, looked me in the eye, and said “I want you to try something for me.” And I said, “Cough, what?” “ I want you to drink some coffee, and if you drink and still feel like not going to school, then that’s fine.”

This sounded like a fair deal to me. So she poured me a cup. She filled it with Vanilla Coffee Creamer. I sipped it. It tasted like Death. I was mortified. How could anyone drink this, goopy, oily, muck. I could literally see the milk and oil swirl on the top of it. I took another sip and proclaimed, “It’s Killing me!” and then I went back up stairs and pretended to sleep and read comic books.

I was 13. And maybe if I had started drinking coffee before the end of my Senior year of high school, I might not have ended up where I am today, I might have become a lawyer, a doctor, or maybe a politician, but I waited unaware of the energy, the power that was waiting to be unleashed by that small cup of black oil.

But no, it’s September 1, 2009, I’ve been posing as a Writer/Producer/Editor/Whatever in Los Angeles. I’ve lived an awesome life with some truly remarkable memories, but now I don’t know what the hell to do with it, and I’m on a road trip to “Fill in the blank.”

And I’m tired, I’ve been driving for only three hours, and I’d tried to get a latte from McDonalds, but it’s all sugar and milk, and it’s making me gag. So I pull off and search for a Coffee Shop. I’m 70 miles out of Portland, I swear I’m going to find a coffee shop, like a real coffee shop somewhere. Ten Minutes of searching lands me at Safeway’s Starbucks.

I grab an Americano, light on sugar and cream, and get back on the highway. Drinking this black oil, which is really black gold, I suddenly don’t care about all this muck in my life, all these thoughts, fears, and anxieties. Where am I going? Who am I? Fuck it.

They’re all gone, like the fog in the sky, like the dark of the night, burned from my brain, driven away by caffeine. I kick Ryan Adams off the radio and turn on Journey, “Don’ Stop Believin’”. I’m cheesy and I love it! With clear mind, I kick it into top gear, and hit the fast lane. “It’s time to get Busy up in the MOTHA! Portland meet Will Gong.”
Too Bad the Coffee wears off.