New Years Eve

I want to be her.

submit

submitting everything to everyone in hopes that somewhere something sticks. sending it all out with a hope and wish that somewhere someone is affected, that someone sees more, that someone has felt the way we have felt. I think the most we could ever hope for is to be more than we are right now. I keep sending things out into the universe but I'm pretty sure you aren't hearing me.

advice

"Sometimes when you Love someone, the best thing to say is nothing." -a dear friend.

Copper Door

Come Join us, Cherokee Fade, tonight at the Copper Door in Santa Ana. We play at 9. We Love you.

you're a fine girl

the first inspiration for content of cherokee fades next album.

pretty people keep pretty company

 

Miss Jenna Rae

 

 Miss Shelly Cush

Miss Megan

Miss Walter

faith

He kept on telling me it had something to do with faith. Like I could buy it half off, discount, bargain store style. I was tearing out the thread at the cuff of my sweater because every word from his mouth made me nervous. I had a feeling it was more than this or less. I couldn't be quite sure what direction the current was headed. I was wondering where people found the ease, how their step seemed longer and their handwriting slower. I was ashamed I had missed the lesson, felt it was too late to learn how not to worry about everything and everyone. He was still telling me to find faith. But I assured him there wasn't a place I hadn't looked, no stone gone unturned. The sixty three years spanning between us spread themselves out. He looked at me like a child, like I hadn't put in enough time to really know the difference. He told me I would know, told me I would know when it found me.

you've done it again

Paul Harding, you have done it again. How you manage to keep me, change me, and convince me of the wonders of words with the same piece of work after all these years is something truly special.


"I could feel his sudden surprise, his bafflement, the dismay felt in a dream when you suddenly meet the brother you forgot you had or remember the infant you left on the hillside miles away, hours ago, because somehow you were distracted and somehow you came to believe in a different life and your shock at these terrible recollections, these sudden reunions, comes as much from your sorrow at what you have neglected as it does from dismay at how thoroughly and quickly you came to believe in something else. And that other world that you first dreamed is always better if not real, because in it you have not jilted your lover, forsaken your child, turned your back on your brother."
- Paul Harding, Tinkers

#writenow

She told me was all about what wasn’t in the photograph, to look beyond the 4 by 6 borders. What had they chosen to leave out, what had been forgotten or cast aside, what simply didn’t fit the moment? That’s where your story lies. Your story is the secrets brewing on the edges, spilling over and out of the frame. The story is in the things you didn’t say. It was like she was speaking directly to me. As if time and space had parted and some way when she penned these words however long ago they were meant to find their way through the universe and sit in my lap on a Wednesday night after the early shift. How had I spent so long beating around the obvious fact that I wasn’t writing. I was. I just wasn’t writing enough. Not writing to survive, just writing enough to get by, writing enough to still feel like I was a writer. I had lost something or someone and all the spark was sucked out of my words so I let them fall away. I thought I had to wait for the wind to change or the moon to move me, but really, all I have to do is write again.

Hello Evening

 

Hello Evening Free Album

Over here at Milk Route Records we've been feeling like giving this season. So here's another album from our camp FOR FREE!!! Simply click above and download. Created by the talented Nisan Perera and his dynamic other half Kevin Yoches this record was crafted and recorded over a ten day stint at Milk Route Records last June. It is our great hope that you will then share this lovely piece of work with those that you love and cherish. Happy Holidays from our camp to yours xoxo!!

Over the hill and through the woods

On a journey up the coast to play in the Red Vic theater before it's forever remodeled led us then into the woods and and we happened upon the next greatest spot ever... Fernwood. Follow here...

 Tita. Thanks.

 Few things in life compare to the joy of a man and his pupusa.

 Buttonwillow. Haven't been? You should go.

 yes OJ we all love you fur coat.

 the lovelies at the Red Vic Theater.

 some genius

 OJ and Man.

 my life is complete. this is my singing Carolina with Nisan in front of a huge burning yule log. I'll never say I didn't do anything with my life.

 bff.

 our lovely cabin site.

 Sometimes it's good for you to feel so so small.

 We're going to play here.

 on the edge of today you can see the shadow of tomorrow.

 The thrill Seekers.

 The Comrades.

The historian.

something like a prayer.

we just live for living answers and forget the questions to the truth

we pretend like we deserve this and just assume the sky is blue

but sometimes these times they come along to remind us we’re alive

and ask us to live our life before its time to die

not everything is fair sometimes the best never find their luck

and sometimes the hand we deal is a hand that’s far from trust

you cant believe in anything if you don’t know that your alive

and why do we wait for tragedy to see who is on our side?

why cant we count our blessings on the days the sun does shine?

why do we forget how much we love those ones right before our eyes

because today is not forever and yesterday is gone

and it will never be the same

and you cant remember to hold on

to time that’s always moving and luck that seems to run

if I could tell you just one thing:

I love you more than the sun.

SF bound

Heading up to San Francisco for the weekend to play a show with some very dear friends. Come one come all, music, merriment, and more love than we could handle so come and share!!

Repeal.

 

Today in 1933 Prohibition was officially repealed in the United States. 

Go get yourself a nice glass of something you love. 

Take a moment and enjoy. 

And while you're at it go here: http://snakebitdrifters.bandcamp.com/ 

and download these free songs

my favorite is 5 minutes 4 my whiskey.

Saturday :)

Thank you Wahoo's for having us this Saturday at Fashion Island. I love tacos. I love music.

From Evernote:

Scout.

Spending a day in the LBC scouting for a video shoot for Cherokee Fade, Turnin Around. Should be a super fine time... Stay tunes. We love you  

bye

bye November. see you next year.
you don't feel any different than October and I hope you don't mind me saying but you were nothing special.

I shouldn't blame you.
It's my fault really.
Always has been.
Always will be.

From Evernote:

Haircut Mondays

  Did you ever wonder whaty afternoon looks like? Didn't think so. I'll show you anyway. 

Tester

From Evernote:

Want

 

give thanks

I am aware that Thanksgiving comes tomorrow, but I will be up to my elbows in pies and stuffing making. So I wanted to take a moment and count my blessings before had so as not to forget just how lucky I really am.

I am thankful for my family I love you, for my cat and my tea, for my job, and my friends, for my health and my looks, for my teeth and for my new j brand bell bottoms, for my house and my art, for my education and my music, for today and yesterday, for smoked salmon and capers, for early morning runs and afternoon hikes, for the beach and waves, for smiles and pianos, for the sunshine and the rain, for my life in Minnesota, for all the mistakes I made. I am thankful for second changes and reasons for change, for friends far away, and for everything I haven't had yet.

Thank you.

a gem

came across a gem on the internet today. I am in no way surprised, however I am impressed. I alwasy knew she was brilliant. Stop by http://theorangeglass.blogspot.com/ and check out the marvels of Felicidad De Lucas....

This photo of Me and Kevin was taken by Feli at our good friend Alrik Yuill's warehouse in Costa Mesa....

My very personal favorite of her work is this video she shot and edited here in Newport Beach: Eerie Love :)


Eerie Love from felicidad de lucas on Vimeo.

Maybe if I'm lucky, she'll make my next music video. Love.

lucky

It's been madness but I feel a great sense of pride for where I stand today. I don't know what else we can ask for as humans. To feel proud of ones own existence and place in this world is something that I didn't even know I was missing until I found it. I feel lucky, but I don't think this was luck. This is a product of hard work and hard decisions and commitment making. After August took the wind out of me I decided I was going to be a better version of myself. So I started to do all these things I kept saying I wanted to do, all these things that scared the shit out of me. I had to be that person I kept waiting for. A wise man told me that if I just put my head down and moved my feet that when I picked it up the people that should be there will be. He was right. Those people, the ones that stick it out with you through the crazy, they will still be there. I think that makes me lucky.

this time

Should we assume it's still unsteady.  Do you take head around every turn? Have you found yourself a new place to sleep. Silent and unassuming. Mornings are aching and yet moving at an unprecedented rate, around the world before noon. I spend my time sipping hours and the evenings serving whiskey. This time around I know is the last time. The last fall. The last Christmas. Things will irrevocably change. And for that, I am in love with right now.

'song for them' by Nisan Perera

Ghost Town

These girls rocked my world last night.

Cherokee Fade

A “Cherokee Fade,” is when for whatever reason or vice you may have, you take leave of your current situation or place without informing anyone of your decision or whereabouts.

 Kevin and I made a band. Or I guess this time around, the band made Kevin and I again. So cliche. And yet, sometimes it takes external forces to drive us in the right directions. I never would have guessed. So, I guess you were right, it is good to be surprised. Even in these times I still need the truth. Some things never change.

We want to share our stories with you. Our record is almost done. We wrote it over the summer, digging the truth out of each other with pick axes and blowtorches. The truth will set you free and for everyone we have loved along the way, thank you, you are a part of this too.

I guess the record will tell you more than I ever could.
Please take a listen, We Love You.

Miss Romero

This is me wishing the very lovely Miss Romero a happy birdy chrippin sun shining birthday!! My dear you are twenty five, what a damn fine age. I would know, I have been twenty five for a month or so myself. I know I told you at dinner how much you really mean to me but lets tell everyone else too. Let's share the love. So here it is...

LOVE YOU!! You are the bestest of friends that any crazy person such as myself could ever wish for. Thank you for putting up with me, for drinking with me, for seeing the world with me, for dancing with me, and working with me, and eating with me!! Thank you for being you, for being the sunshine in my often dark mind and for knowing, even when I don't, what is right for me. The past five years would be not be what they have been without the addition of you into our lives. I have no doubt that the next five will bring you exactly what you need. You have all the world to wish for and deserve the very best.

So I decided to include a picture of you at your very best below. In case you aren't aware, this is you in New York, walking back to our haunted hotel with an entire pizza which we then consumed. You're welcome. Love you!

Why Do Fools Fall in Love

1825 days. Give or take a day or two.

the happiest place on earth?

I will be the judge of that today.

spooky

Before we go launching into this weekend of complete mayhem and foolish goulishness, I want to take a moment to remind everyone what Halloween is really about. Contrary to most peoples belief here in California it is not just an excuse to go out and party in outfits that in my opinion should be saved for the bedroom, or the kitchen, or the hotel, or wherever it is you get down. So the story goes... Halloween began over 2000 years ago with the Celtics. It was held to honor the Samhain the so called "lord of death". It was a Druidical belief that on the eve of this festival Samhain, lord of death, called together the wicked spirits that within the past 12 months had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals.

It was a pagan belief that on one night of the year the souls of the dead return to their original homes, there to be entertained with food. If food and shelter were not provided, these evil spirits would cast spells and cause havoc toward those failing to fulfill their requests.

So there you have it friends. Don't forget it.

Peddle Promises

A bit of a clearer rendition from our show at Alta Coffee on Saturday via the lovely Jen.

first timers

Kevin Elliott and I are Cherokee Fade, our love child. We played our first nonlivingroom performance at Alta Coffee shop this past Saturday night with our dear friend Jordan Buckelew. This song Over and Over is one of the first that we wrote, far before we ever thought there would be a record. In the midst of a lot of secrets and some soon to be hard times we found ourselves saying things through music that neither of us would have ever had the balls to say otherwise. If you listen to the song, this is one of those. I'll tell ya'll the story soon enough, but for now, stay tuned. Our record is in the final stages of mixing and we are damn proud of it.

love nat

My dear friend Natalie found this, and appropriately sent it my way.

and now

I felt it pass like a meteor destined to crash with earth missing only by a few million miles. I felt the tension, the slack pull from the rope, the one the keeping me tethered, keeping me in place. For a strained moment, a tight pass, a questionable evening, and now I feel at peace. I feel the walls around me sigh heavily on their own relief. I feel myself stand taller and stop looking looking around to over my left shoulder. I feel my heart beat fainted and the world a little quieter. But if that's a trade I have to make to quiet my thoughts and slow my run, then so be it.

Cover Art

This is the cover to our album... It should be anyway.

?

amortentia

She drank a vile of amortentia. Fell further in love than she had ever imagined possible. The most powerful of all love potions poisoned her from the inside out. It left her mad and half happy most of the time. She left home in search of Nepenthe, the root of forgetfulness in hopes that in blind absence she could find peace again.

:)

paris waits for you

  

I stumbled upon this and it makes me feel more than anything other than actually being there, it makes me feel like my time in Paris. The wet cold and rainy streets on one long morning.

rough

LOVE'S SECRET
by: William Blake (1757-1827)

EVER seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.

 

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!

 

Soon after she was gone from me,

A traveller came by,

Silently, invisibly:

He took her with a sigh.

reeling.

I came across a piece of paper that was dated a year ago today. It was stuck in the pages of a book you gave me about stars and their distance. Made me think it had something to do with us, something I didn't see back when. Made me start to think about all the things that take place in short spans of time. It made me think about how some times are demarcated clearly with events or words or goodbyes. It made me think about how things start and those early choices I had made. Made me think I was bad. You always told me I wasn't crazy when the rest of the world was laughing mad. It's hard to believe how fast a year can go and far we can go. Reeling back in has been hard...

LANA DEL REY-VIDEO GAMES

a friend sent this to me. I am obsessed.

a pint

They said you're making dreams
said your drawing out the times
but you just fiddle with the idle hours
and spend the good ones writing rhymes.
Who's to say you are a student and
who's to say they're here to teach.
Who's to say the problems are meant to solve,
who's to say who's incomplete.
I saw you just the other night,
sipping stories about your past,
you had this look upon your tired face
that made we wish the bad times last.
I tasted all your memories
the way they brewed beneath your tongue
and by the time I wanted out of there
there was too far for me to run.
So we shared a pint of sorrow
and talked about last June
and dreamt of what life could be like,
if I wasn't always leaving you.

Cake - Mexico

my days advice

You can remember the way it feels without going there to feel that way. Find a way to channel the creative and destructive energy without actually destroying anything in your real life. Tangible yet imagined is what were going for. Tangible yet Imagined.

sun gods

He had come from a place where the suns took turns shinning. A place where later was the ever present now and very little was expected of a half hour. She had spent time in his universe, praying to those suns, worshiping their gods, and come home to find herself changed. Traveling across time and space gives you these undeniable gaps in your identity offering and sometimes forcing you to change even when don't you want to, especially when you don't think you need to. He came back to remind her of things she didn't want reminding of and it left a bad a sweet taste in the back of her throat that crept up through her mind. She wanted it gone. She lit her torches and ran him out of her town, denied her praise to his worlds and burned the memory of his sun gods to the ground. When it was all said and done she combed her hair and pretended like nothing ever happened.

Old Crow Medicine Show

The Dream.

crossed

Seeing you makes the bottom drop out of my thought process. It leaves the contents of my conversation strew across the unswept floor. I'm left standing there piecing together things that were never even meant to be in pieces. Wondering where and why things went wrong. The flux of October brought with it the rain and a chill that only reminded me how the world fails to change here. A part of me wants to pick up, take up somewhere new and forget this ever happened. Pretend like pretending is an answer or even an option. Somewhere in the channels of passing from here to there or then till now we found a sliver of time for us. Existing between two strange and stranger realities in a safe space lit of corridors and inconsequential views. When I check back in to wherever I am when you cross me it takes a few moments to register what happened, but realizing that all the important parts of life are still intact, I find it safe to keep going.

three

My Sisters and I. 

Photo taken by Ryan Donahue at Salt Creek October First 2011, for the love and wedding of Mike and Lindsay Brophy.

the vitals

      

         "I have something to protect," said the sky to the sea.
          They had been talking for sometime on the nature of whose space were more vital, more lovely, just more. It was the kind of conversation that could last days, a conversation that carried far over time as a distant friend. In the crossing of paths they would address the issue. In the space between the two was everything else.

Dear October

surreder

He said, "I'm no good with this." But it wasn't something to get good at. It was something to get on with, something to let go of. Finding a fragile way to face the very things that make us who we are is all a part of the process. Letting things and people fall away when the time is right is an inevitable part of growth. To second guess our ourselves is to defeat the very reason we made such choices, forced said surrender. It takes the strength of the world to stick to yourself, even when you know you are right. Force the surrender.

head west

She sat with her feet hanging over the edge and thought about how long it would take to hit the ground running. It had been nothing but broken signs and empty glasses since she left and the idea of going back was the only thing worse than going forward. Why did it seem that at this age only one piece of life could come together at a time. Only in loosing something would you gain something else and the sacrifice of breaking one meant the resolution of another. People are not for barter. Time is not for sale. And as far as she had become concerned, love wasn't a commodity they carried on this side of the Mississippi. It was why she was heading West. If it was good enough for the sun to set, it was good enough for her.

Make something.

There is a fair assessment to be made of the times. There is always something to be said, even when no one wants to say it. To be that person, to have that voice, and to make that change is one of the greatest challenges we face daily. How easy to bite your tongue, to stifle those thoughts, and quiet those truths brimming on the edges of your brain. How simple to simply slide aside and be one of the masses. It is a call to greatness to do what you do. It is a call of greatness just to be you. For people like us there is no easy way, there is the only way. It must be explored, these ideas they must be ventured. Something must be left behind as a tribute to these times. Call upon yourself to be the answer. Make something.

dreamt meant

If my dreams are right. Which they always are. Then I can safely say I am or I have moved from one place and am now precariously in another.

truffula trees

But those trees! Those trees! 

Those Truffula Trees! 

All my life I'd been searching 

for trees such as these.

The touch of their tufts

was much softer than silk.

And they had the sweet smell 

of fresh butterfly milk.

 

 

love

Photographs from the most heavenly weekend in late August in Sonoma California.
Nisan Perera and Marcelle Nicholson's wedding. Love you both.