I keep thinking of him. Keep hearing him. Keep recalling footage of him performing. There's something there. Something so immensely great, then lost. Like a good dream. The music was an expression of his sense of the divine. Even the pop songs took flight on jet wings of belief and experience. The little tin shack in Trenchtown. The stadium shows. The arc of his life is of Shakespearean grandeur. I wish I could find someone to follow like this. I'm not so sure about the future. We're turning into machines. Give me sand. Give me thatch and tin and bamboo. (I'm not naïve, he was rich as hell). But give me the biggest star in the world in a five-dollar soccer warmup. My God. There was a time when superstars were photographed wearing their own clothes.

I had a close friend who grew up in Trenchtown. It was a very tough place. To rise up out of that . . . . 

Bob Marley keeps evolving. Who is to say he's not still here.

The video for 'Nameless,' the first track on the Smoking Mirror EP, has been shot and is presently being cut by the intrepid John McGall. John is going to wrap his edits whilst 'sitting on the beach in Mexico' which really rather pisses me off. Clocks are ticking in my head.

I had to have a friend talk me through my email or text correspondences on that news so that I didn't come quite off like the asshole that I am.

I don't recommend writing text messages until at least one hour after you know what you're going to say. Not something I follow, but good advice.

However, a little heat always thins the weeds from the garden where the flowers aren't growing. John McGall is going to be a director of note I think relatively soon. The Seeded Planet is still unknown to all but about 100 of the human souls on Earth. I get impatient.

My art is not about compromise. My art is about vision. Unyielding vision. Only lack of money and the gravity of the world bring me down to Earth where I can collaborate effectively. With most people, I burn the relationship.

I'll be writing music for this project hell or high water. But the album is going to get passed in the speed lane shortly by something called In His Own Image.

Thank you for reading.

~Erik

This is my friend. Please support his work. Do you want to listen to a poet who lives the Road, doesn't just talk about it on Oprah? Chrisopher Blue is a 21st Century Dean Moriarty. Here is a genuine Hero of the Amerikan Road. There are few left. Be warned.
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