Where Do I Live?
I go to a lot of different places. It comes with the job. And at every show I play I get to meet some people that I didn’t know before. And I love that about the job. The conversations I have had with you strangers (a lot of you aren’t strangers anymore, but friends) have been invigorating at times. But also frustrating at times. Like when you come up to me at the end of the night to have a chat, but are too wasted to form a simple question like “Where do you live?” I hope to talk to you sometime when you have all of your capacities about you. I’m sure most of you are awesome folks with cool jobs and interesting things to say about stuff like the personification of animals in television commercials and which tree grows fastest in normal conditions. (I just thought of that question randomly and couldn’t continue without finding out the answer so I Internetted it. The Eastern Cottonwood can grow 10-15 feet per year. That is insane. You could probably watch it growing if you stood there long enough.) But back to the drinking. When you’re drinking a lot, you can sometimes be obnoxious. But only because I haven’t been drinking. If I had a chance to catch up we would probably get along awesomely. And please do not take this as a warning and not come up to talk to me. I’d love to meet you still. Even if the chances are high you might throw up on my feet.
Anyway, that question: Where do you live? That one gets asked pretty much every night. And for the last few years I have honestly had trouble answering it. How fucked up is that? I really don’t even know where I live. Well, I’ve got a good reason for that. At least it’s a good rationalization in my mind. So if you find a flaw in it, please do not tell me. It will most likely send me into a fit of depression that will cause me to sing nothing but blues songs from the 1920’s on the streets of New York begging for money to buy a sandwich. Wait…I do that when I’m not depressed. Maybe I would get so depressed that I would quit playing music and get a 9-5 job doing something like tightening bolts or attaching heads to doll bodies for minimum wage. You don’t want that, do you? Then leave me to my rationalizations.
The reason is that I’m never in the same place for more than 4 or 5 days in a row. And then it’s on to the next town. Why would I spend a ton of money to rent a place and only be there about 10 days a month? That’s lame. So I haven’t done it. But I might do it soon, because I think it may be getting old for the people who invite me into their homes and apartments for those short periods of time. It would also be nice to unpack all my stuff. Granted, I don’t have a lot of stuff. But I’ve got SOME stuff. There are, like, 8 boxes of things in my parents attic. They’ve been there since I moved out of West Virginia about 5 years ago. I don’t think I’ve opened them more than twice that whole time. Mostly because I forgot what was in them. Which is understandable when your prized worldly possessions include wind chimes, Clue (the board game, Simpson’s version, actually pretty wicked awesome), a couple of Chinese mud statues my parents got me on the streets of Beijing (also awesome), ummm…. I can’t really remember what else is in there without looking. See what I mean? I could only remember the few cool things I own. I should probably just put the boxes in a car and drive them straight to the Salvation Army without even opening them to see if I want to keep anything. I obviously don’t need that stuff.
So where DO I live? I don’t know. I live in Brooklyn, NY sometimes. I live in Fairfax, VA sometimes. I live in the car sometimes. I live in Johnstown, PA sometimes. I live in a bunch of places. And I’m alright with that for now.
