Jim's In Tears

08/19/2004

dude, your stuff is the greatest. i'm sitting here laughing my guts out and almost in tears, nearly 2am, waking the upstairs lady and baby. and at the same time almost in tears of longing for those amazing sights in your photos, which remind me of such adventures! man, every day i walk up church street past all these vagrants who are there every single fooking day, sit in the logicpole with the same freaking backyard painters, and every day i think, there is a whole big world out there, so much more than this! so many people settle for a silly little daily routine with petty cares. but man, there are undiscovered roads to be driven, vistas, misty mount rorairas and what crazy characters living next to it who would otherwise never be known! is it better to know the breakfast cereal aisle at safeway? or to know a crazy english fireman at the edge of the sahara who convinces you over midnight hashish to join him first thing next morning hopping a rust bucket bus east to see what secret people live back of them mountains?

so many people are stagnating all around me, man. i just finished a trip to see friends up north, and no one plays music anymore, not even on the stereo. they are gummed up in routine. no one even offers you a beer when you walk in the house. they have yards and care about brands of washing machines. tied down like gulliver by jobs, wives, and then the final chain, kids.

i'm not sure i want to just skip skip skip from one place to another like i used to do. i might want to spend more time in each place, maybe try to do some writing, learn some local language, teach a little. but see everything this world has, dammit. and not know what aisle to find cereal on, or whether maytag beats sears.

-jw (san francisco till august 31)