guitar

from a winery gig with stephanie k:

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michael jackson

it was probably naive indifference that moved me to brush aside the anomalies of his youth or the unique damages inherent with child stardom to focus instead on the tumultuousness of the personality they fashioned. but when examining an individual so burdened with dysfunction as michael jackson, what matters to me today is to consider the enormity of his triumphs in the context of his deficiencies. in doing so i hope to gain at least a semblance of empathy for what will surely be a misunderstood emblem of my generation. to misapply his idiosyncrasies would be errant, and to discard his accomplishments would be in vain, and perhaps for now that's all that matters.

hbs!

happy birthday to sister Leigh, and to sister Regan (today!) in the wonderful-weathered month of june! good work!

sonoma

lots going on this summer. most recently, a trip to wine country. redwood forests. huge vineyards. the ocean. vacation amidst a vacation.





and i've been writing. some new songs to come. the single is written about constantine, but you might not gather that from the words, which are a cryptic lament regarding his maltreatment of christianity and its inevitable recurrence thereafter in the hands of the wrong people, us.

also, my diploma came in the mail. some words i wrote recently on graduation:

There are some things we learn to accept as given and permanent fixtures in the formula of the everyday routine, and not one of them more prominent right now than school. Most of the people I know have spent sixteen years (or more) of an only slightly longer life under a system of rigorous structure that has in many respects engulfed us, shaped us as individuals with the understanding that someday our own contributions might make us worthwhile. I dreaded it for years and years, the bus rides, the lunch lines, long division, the inimitable introspection of alienation, the unfathomable task of learning cursive. But today, finished and without the comforts and hassles of perpetual order, I find myself for the first time in the absence of all certainty, of all itinerary, and for once considering the life in front of me on my own terms, where every question is unanswered, every day is new and there are no guarantees. Nothing in the world could be more frightening or necessary.