March 20 2016
Walking back from breakfast with Caroline and we stopped for iced tea
A fan stopped me on Decatur and said that she recognised me
I asked where she was from, she said "don't worry, not planet crazy."
"So then where are you from?"
She said: "Denver, Colorado".
I asked if she was involved with anyone, and she said "no".
I said "that's odd I've been playing Denver for over 2 decades, and I've never met a person in my life from there who wasn't in a relationship."
She said I was right and that she moved there a few weeks ago, and everyone she's met so far is coupled up and she's still gettin' to know Denver, Colorado.
I said "well you're young."
She said 'not that young, I'm 31"
I said, 'like I said, you're young'
I introduced her to Caroline, and she said: she heard her name in a lot of my songs, many times.
She was polite and kind and not intrusive
I asked her what brought her to New Orleans, and she said she was on a road trip and it was a good stop down from Texas.
I was just in Texas too, but I didn't mention it, I just said "ah that's cool".
Some good things come from Texas, like Daniel Johnston and the Butthole Surfers
But the best thing to come out of Texas was Jack Johnson the boxer
No not the surfer musician I'm talking about the first black heavyweight champion
The turn of the century fighter who had more balls than China has plates
More balls than me or you or anyone listening to this piece of music currently living in the United States
When he went to Australia he didn't live the luxury of complaining that it took 18 hours by flight
He didn't even complain that by boat, it took maybe 60 days and nights
He fought his rounds, came back with the heavyweight title
There's a great book on him by Theresa Runtedler,
And even an album dedicated to him by Miles Davis.
I'm just back from Texas where I played a SXSW showcase,
And here's what people said to me:
Hey Mark did you hear the David Bowie lecture
Hey Mark how come you only get to play for 40 minutes?
Hey Mark I came all the way from Ireland
Hey Mark why is the show delayed 2 hours?
Hey Mark when is Universal Themes coming out on vinyl?
Hey Mark when is the Jesu/Sun Kil Moon coming out on vinyl?
Hey Mark is Steve Shelley playing drums with you tonight?
Hey Mark how's SXSW treating you so far?
Hey Mark you gonna be in Roadies?
Hey Mark when are you gonna play South Carolina?
Hey Mark when's your next movie?
unintelligible
Did you get to meet Steve Martin?
unintelligible
"...here's a copy of my demo."
Ask all the questions you want to, and I'll be polite
But I'm thinking 'fuck you', 90% of the time.
Not a harsh type of fuck you...
Just a light little 'I don't wanna talk about me, please tell me a little about you' fuck you
But a drunk girl approached me and said "Mark, I dont know you...
But you know me, I mean, you think you know me
You think you know me, I mean...
You think you know me."
I was like "hmm...what was that all about?"
She was original, that's for sure.
There's some original shit that happens out there in the rock n' roll journey
Like I was in bed with these two gothy girls once, after a show in Florida
When I got to piss, I came back and they were putting their clothes on really fast, all nervous and freaking out.
I was like "where are you going?"
And they said "there are four of us in here."
I said what are you talking about "four of us"?
They said "trust us, there are four of us in here Mark, and we're leaving."
I was standing there naked and they ran past me and opened the door and I said: "where in the fuck are you guys going?"
They rushed out and I was standing there, feeling very very alone and all shaken up.
Then I was looking under the bed, and in the shower, and even out the window for this fourth person.
I didn't see anyone.
Those chicks scared the hell out of me.
4AM March 21st, my stomach's been hurtin'
From all the red meat in Texas but tonight we went strictly vegan.
We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant down on Magazine.
During our walk there, a friend texted me.
He said "hey I'm in New Zealand", I said "hey I'm in New Orleans".
We started texting like a couple of kids
About making music together
And the cost of touring
And blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
And starting a boxing gym.
When I texted him a few days later, and said that they were playing his music in a restaurant, he didn't reply.
He probably thought 'fuck you'.
Not a harsh fuck you, but the kind of 'fuck you' I mentioned earlier.
He's like me, not one to bask in hearing about people hearing his music in a restaurant.
What do you even say to that?
'Wow man, cool. I love to hear about myself, send me some more.'
Some of us are in it for the ego stroke, and some of us are in this racket because its in our blood and we have no choice.
Caroline and I came back and I took a hot bath and I worked on the credits for the 'Sings Favorites' album.
March 27 2016
C14D United Airlines, Cleveland
To SFO
We ate in Akron last night with my mother and her boyfriend and friends,
It was a very short trip to Ohio
But overall peaceful, and I got to surprise her friend
With a brand new TV and some money in the form of a check
And though she was very tired I convinced her to take a walk around the block
Which I think did her some good
She'd been so down, on her luck.
But I did funny little dances in her living room to entertain her, and played her some music
From my 'Sings Favorites' album, and she wasn't impressed.
She said "Mark, these songs sound too much like the originals".
I said that's the whole point, that it's for moms and dads and little kids, and for the whole...family".
And she said "well...
"Did you sing my favourite song Float On by Modest Mouse?"
I said "I did"...she'd have to wait...
Her out...look on life seems to get bleaker and bleaker and bleaker and bleaker,
I wanted to give her something to look forward to in the future.
Ben was nice enough to give us a ride to Cleveland airport,
And do a quick photo shoot with me at the airport hotel.
When we arrived in Sheridan last night in Cleveland
Because I needed a promotional photo for the 'Sings Favorites' album.
Caroline and I fell asleep watching the movie Spotlight,
About lawsuits brought against the Catholic Church for priests molesting children
It was an insightful movie about how a child can be manipulated, into being molested.
About how it can all start with a dirty joke.
And escalate to other things, that I won't say.
I can't be 100% sure but I think I met a few child predators, in my day.
Nothing I can quite bet 100% on ,
But where in my opinion, the writing was on the wall...paper.
I disassociate myself from people like that, and rank child molesters as the lowest form of humanity in the world
Along with mass murderers and terrorists
I'm not a perfect human, and I'm on no superiority trip
But there's a disgusting side of humanity, and that movie and the few things that I've seen in my life made me hate the fuckin' world
Just for a little while
Yeah that's right
While I watched that movie I hated the fuckin' world
Yeah life can be tough, my friend isn't well.
She's downward mentally, spiritually and physically and I'm trying to do what I can to help
Her father made a comment, accentuate the positive eliminate the negative.
I'm good at that but there are negative forces out there, that are hard to prevent.
They could sneak up on us out of nowhere.
It's hard to ignore that shit...
How can we not care?
I gotta ask you something
Do you attract obsessives?
I'm just curious, like, when you have interactions with people...
Do they make mental notes or even written notes
Of everything you say?
I mean, every little thing you say
Maybe you know what I'm talking about,
And if you don't...
I mean this sincerely:
Enjoy that part of your life.
Do people discuss you as a human?
Or do people discuss you as a product?
I'm a human to most people who know me,
But I fall into the product category for the most part - a target.
I was born to be a product.
Yeah I'm used to that.
You wanna hate on me? Then hate on me.
You got shit to throw at me? Then throw it.
You wanna punch me in the face? I'm easy to find, throw the fuckin' punch.
See if you can catch me.
Either way, I love you.
I really do.
I got a lot of love in my heart
I got a lot of love for the haters
I even got love for the alligators
Mmm....blackened alligator.
Oh man...it's the fuckin' best!
???
For anything else who knows, but maybe 9-5...
Ain't so bad you get to come home every day to your wife,
And say "hey did you see the news?
Johnny Depp's havin' a hell of a time..."
? 29 2016, 12:31AM...
I'm tired I woke up at Caroline's and had trouble gettin' out of bed.
Thoughts of Ohio overwhelmed my head.
Thoughts of the walk to Caroline's place in Telegraph Hill,
To my place, at the top of Nob Hill.
??? won't be a anymore??
And I dodged Caroline's old apartment
?? after I knocked on her door
When I got up, made her bed, and headed up the hill,
Stopped at ?? at 11AM and got the Joe Special.
Fuckin' wheat bread, I fuckin' hate wheat bread.
Trust me you'll be eating boring stuff too when you're pushing 50, unless you wanna be dead.
I came home and my apartment hasn't been cleaned since last year
I picked up something, here and there.
A keyboardist is coming over tomorrow to rehearse,
For a summer tour...
I went to deposit checks, an old one from New York looked like it'd been pulled out of a sewer
The bank teller still accepted it.
A friend once told me that a check that I'd sent him disintegrated because it
Was in his wallet too long and I thought it was bullshit and it made me laugh.
And fuck here I was with a $12,000 check that was torn in half.
I couldn't stop thinking of my sick friend
I was so distracted, I ended up leaving my wallet behind at the bank
The security guard was chasing me and yelling my name
Was I being arrested for something? What could it be?
A wallet was handed to me by a security guard who didn't resemble any cast members of the Beverly Hillbillies, I'll just say that.
She had a really tough look, and she was polite and had a really nice smile once i got closer.
I ate ramen alone and on the way out, the kid working there asked me why i bought so many bottles of water.
I didn't wanna explain to a millennial that I had a 12 hour rehearsal the next day, because it would provoke more disingenuous questions
The place had just opened, and he was clearly being told to be extra friendly to customers as some kind of schtick to bring in more business.
Im gonna get my water elsewhere next time.
I came home and thoughts of Ohio were still bothering me
So I created soap operas on my flip phone with a few friends to distract myself.
Caroline and I met for Chinese but we took the night off from each other,
As I was so drained.
We slept at our own places.
The TV's on but it's turned down.
My apartment's a fuckin' mess.
I unfolded a piece of paper that's sat there forever.
And a pile of hotel and restaurant receipts from Europe and Asia.
There was a note from someone
Something someone handed me on tour.
You wanna know what it said?
"Fuck you".