Ho Hum,

There will undoubtedly be lyrics in this one, 3 songs by a guy I very much respect by the name of Josh Ritter. I saw him live at the Avalon in Boston with my brother some months before Pop died - so early 2007. I won't post the whole songs, just the bits that I really dig. He's incredible live. 

My hair is coming back fast, it still looks like a buzz cut, but you can just feel more of it, the sad thing is that it makes the bald patches a bit more visible. That said I'm not as certain that I care at the moment.

I was good tonight, I almost spent $400 that I can't afford to spend. Oh it's so easy to do. New pipe, $250 - it's a really sweet pipe though... 

I mean common, you have to admit that's cool! It's Santa Clause, but if you lost the hat it'd be Poseidon - the God of the Sea, someone I have always looked up to - even if I don't believe he really exists.

Then $23 on a pipe reamer tool for cleaning the ash that cakes up in the bowl over time, $2 for pipe cleaners, $35 for 300g more Bombay Extra, and $60 for a stack of cigars.

Now I do need the tobacco, but not yet, and I can get it local, but it is unfairly priced local. The pipe I don't need at all, but it's so tempting, the cigars I don't need at all. 

I have to quit spending money, that's why I have about $3200 in a tin and about $30 in the bank. Can't spend it if it's not on the card. 

What I have to do is start building my body back up. 

This is the decaying form that my body has become:

That but with no hair, because I shaved it all off. So I now look somewhere between a crack addict and a cancer patient. Health wise that's not too far off, except my syndrome isn't terminal, it just hinders muscle mass, gives me a great deal of pain, the shakes, and a few other unnerving side effects.

That said I am on a gel that will allow me to rebuild myself. I never looked like that dude Shannon, who has muscles to spare, but I used to be quite strong, a stomach that wasn't so empty, ribs that weren't so visible, real shoulders, my legs and arms weren't like sticks. But that was 10 years ago. I ached less then. I wasn't as sick as I am now. 

I have to start eating right. Sleeping better - which is hard because I have terrible dreams, working out far more often. I have to get it together.

Ok fine, I'm still alive, that's good.

I made it to Phoenix, that's good too.

I kept it almost together while so many peeps I knew ended up in the ground, thats good.

But I haven't gotten stronger. I haven't built myself back up to who I was.

I have to do that. I have to build myself back up. 

Ok, lyrics:

I decided to go with the full songs and to bold the sections that hit me square in the soul. I truly think that anyone who has made it this far should find some way to listen to these three songs. 

I also strongly suggest his albums - The Animal Years, The Historical Conquests, and In The Dark - Live At Vicar Street. He is in his 20s and he is doing things with words and music that haven't been done since Bob Dylan. My Father's generation got Dylan, my generation is getting Ritter. 

 

Rumors:

Serenade me with rocks, love
No lullabies through the locks love
I locked myself in with the band
But the music's never loud enough

Decibels in the belfry
Hey what the hell if it helps me
I put a whip to the kick drum
But the music's never loud enough

So you're gonna have to show me
How that dance is done
The one where somebody leaves someone

My orchestra is gigantic
This thing could sink the Titanic
And the string section's screaming
Like horses in a barn burning up

He plays pianos with fistfuls
Of broken Belvedere crystal
And he's trying to forget you
But the music's never loud enough

So you're gonna have to show me
How that dance is done
The one where somebody leaves someone

He's impaling the front row
Fighting fires with arrows
And he'll act like he forgot you
But the music's never loud enough

So you're gonna have to show me
How that dance is done
The one where somebody leaves someone

Idaho

All that love all those mistakes 

What else can a poor man make? 

So I gave up a life of crime 

I gave it to a friend of mine 

Something else was on my mind 

The only ghost I¹m haunted by 

I hear her howling down below 

Idaho oh Idaho

Wolves oh wolves oh can¹t you see? 

Ain¹t no wolf can sing like me 

And if it could then I suppose 

He belongs in Idaho 

Packs of dogs and cigarettes 

For those who ain¹t done packing yet 

My clothes are packed and I want to go 

Idaho oh Idaho

Out at sea for seven years 

I got your letter in Tangier 

Thought that I¹d been on a boat

Til that single word you wrote 

That single word it landlocked me 

Turned the masts to cedar trees 

And the winds to gravel roads 

Idaho oh Idaho

Thin Blue Flame

I became a thin blue flame 

Polished on a mountain range 

And over hills and fields I flew 

Wrapped up in a royal blue 

I flew over Royal City last night 

A bullfighter on the horns of a new moon¹s light 

Caesar¹s ghost I saw the war-time tides 

The prince of Denmark¹s father still and quiet 

And the whole world was looking to get drowned 

Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds 

I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew 

Only a full house gonna make it through

I became a thin blue wire 

That held the world above the fire 

And so it was I saw behind Heaven¹s just a thin blue line 

If God¹s up there he¹s in a cold dark room 

The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons 

He bent down and made the world in seven days 

And ever since he¹s been a¹walking away 

Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes 

Where neither seraphim or raindrops go 

I see an old man wandering the halls alone 

Only a full house gonna make a home

I became a thin blue stream 

The smoke between asleep and dreams 

And in that clear blue undertow 

I saw Royal City far below 

Borders soft with refugees 

Streets a¹swimming with amputees 

It¹s a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart 

It¹s getting harder and harder to tell them apart 

Days are nights and the nights are long 

Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs 

And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign 

Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine 

Now the wolves are howling at our door 

Singing bout vengeance like it¹s the joy of the Lord 

Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round 

They¹re guilty when killed and they¹re killed where they¹re found 

If what¹s loosed on earth will be loosed up on high 

It¹s a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die 

Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please 

The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees 

Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage 

Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage 

Lead pellets peppering aluminum 

Halcyon, laudanum and Opium 

Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup 

His winding sheet is busy winding up 

In darkness he looks for the light that has died 

But you need faith for the same reasons that it¹s so hard to find 

And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck 

And like good tragedy that¹s what we expect

At night I make plans for a city laid down 

Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground 

Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script 

Streets named for heroes that could almost exist 

The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem 

To float like the smoke from a lithium dream 

Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares 

The young women walking in the portals of prayer 

And the future glass buildings and the past an address 

And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless 

And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right 

The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night 

The future descending like a bright chandelier 

And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer 

In Royal City I fell into a trance 

Oh it¹s hell to believe there ain¹t a hell of a chance

I woke beneath a clear blue sky 

The sun a shout the breeze a sigh 

My old hometown and the streets I knew 

Were wrapped up in a royal blue 

I heard my friends laughing out across the fields 

The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel 

The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay 

Cicadas electric in the heat of the day 

A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land 

And the lake was a diamond in the valley¹s hand 

The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts 

They were coming together they pulling apart 

And angels everywhere were in my midst 

In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed 

I wondered what it was I¹d been looking for up above 

Heaven is so big there ain¹t no need to look up 

So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air 

Only a full house gonna have a prayer