I have to start writing again.  The day goes by in a heat.  The
summer came today with blurred lines and glistening limbs.  Neil
looked as if he would cry at his desk and he was no more than three
yards from the only air conditioner.
      I have to speak.  How can I speak if I don't write?
      I wrote a terse quick letter today to my father.  I defended my
self-imposed slavery.  The letter helped me to speak.
      The music business is wearing thin.  Like rope burns.  Like
empty on the inside.  Like, I yearn for quite, trees, mist, dew, a
child.
      I'm afraid of not being able to do anything else.  Of being
chained to madness.
      I need to risk poverty if I ever hope to be an artist.  A real
writer.
  Each night I read a little to help my brain quit racing.  Each
night I must write a little.  I must be quiet and let my hand speak
with a pen.  It will help my mouth move in the end.
     I've been struggling to get ready for festivals.  I sold
strawberries as a child.  Now I sell performances and related
merchandise.  My father instilled in me the desire to do well.  my
father taught me that what we do matters.
     We watched "Hard Day's Night" tonight at Ric and Karen Jean's.  I
was sullen.  Karin and her mother Barbara and Stan Ginn and Brian and
Mallory and Jimmy D. and a whistp red-haired girl and two black
kittens...I bough three copies of Till We Have Faces today through the
mail after havign a store in Kentucky do a successful search.  For a
moment my heart lept with joy.  I must begin to exercize again.  And
run.  And play the piano.  And write.  My thoughts are desultory.

8 June, Wednesday
    It's 1:30 A.M.  I'm exhausted but exhilerated.  I must encourage
people.  Sandra Carnes told me I could write and I believed her.  Dr.
Lair, another professor (rennaissance man, collector of fountain pens)
read my freshman papers to the whole class and I enjoyed that.
Encourage people.
     This morning I slept 'til 1o, cooked some eggs, slipped to
Kaldi's to write a press release describing our Record Release Party
at Bogart's, scratched a few lines for a mass mailing, read some
naughty paperback about the girl in nothing but a Freudian slip,
dancing and prowling, came back to a frenzy of phone calls, eventually
dropped Neil off at a Frank Black show, caught som outdoor supper
w/Karin @ Arnold's by a quiet bluegrass, answered a pack of fan mail,
dug out some photos for Cliff Randael and earlier received permission
to use a Jay Bolotin and Rockwell Kent woodcut for a T-Shirt design.
All in a Day's Work.
     Received a lovely postcard from Jeff Bell!



10 June, Thursday

       Press check at 9:00 a.m.:  'Till We Have Faces "J" Cards.
Button search.  bAseball cap design.  Dan Porter:  Mercedes Benz for
rainy days, Porche for nice weather.  Interview with Cliff Radel.
Thunderstorm!  Off to Zender's to design T-Shirts with Owen & Michael
Wilson 'til 2:00 A.M.

22 June

     I'm sitting at a desk in a nameless hotel in Bryn Wawr, a
beautiful village outside of Philadelphia.  We just finished a
whirlwind flurry of 5 consecutive concerts.  Jay Boberg, President of
I.R.S., spent a couple days with us.  First he came up to my apartment
and rooted around the library and chatted with us.
      He said we're the only band I.R.S. has signed that he didn't see
perform first.  He said the he had a good feeling about O.T.R.,
similar to the good feeling he had when he discovered and signed R.E.M.
     He then met us for two show in Cleveland.  We talked about (among
many things) releasing a CD-5 this fall with some unreleased songs and
maybe a "live" version of 'If I'm Drowning.'
     But right now I'm listening to Van Morrison on "World Cafe" on
MXPN and I'm happy.
     And last nite on a nite off Krin and I saw Rosanne Cash and then
Lyle Lovett and his large band.  Lyle was pure aristocracy:
deliberate, elegant, refined by Texas fire.  Sometimes one sees a
concert and leaves with the overwhelming desire to just write som
great songs and forget about everything else.
  Right now I am so overwhelmed by the increasingly huge machinery
in which I am caught called "the music industry."  Somedays  I think,
well, we won't always be releasing a debut record.  (It's impossible
to be an artist and be two weeks away from a major label debut).
Other days I think, this could cripple me permanantly.
     Not being able to find solitude.  Not bein able to immerse
oneself in music.  Not bein open to grace:  receiving those ideas and
gifts that work themselves into songs.
     The only other downside to releasing 'Patience' this Monday is
the fact that the songs have been around awhile and others wait in the
wings...Patience.
      The only other downside is being wrung out like a dirty dishrag.
 tired, empty of oneself.  But hopefully I'm empty because I've given
myself away.  Hopefully only to be filled by something greater than
myself.  Hopefully this is no different than running a long race, and
running in such a way whereby winning is conceivable.

     The road beckons.  I must go.