My fans range from UK goth punks to ex-military Buddhist bikers who travel the great Beatnik highway like characters in a Ken Kesey novel. Behold Mark & Lily from Manchester, UK:
And their band, X Republic:
Also wonderful is this message from Alaska Jack, who seems to inhabit a beautiful world indeed:
Oaxaca? Go for it Nathan. You know it & you know what to do.
When I was in that "space" that you write of back in 87 (after 5 years of overseas military duty) I went to Alaska & stayed for 29 years a-way from the lower 48 & thus found a new "way." Your musical colleague Dan Bern knows too the magic of the "Great Alaskan Highway" & has dun at least 3 "getaway dumps" there akin to your Mexican trips.
Yeah, I'm happy you going back& would consider/love rolling with you, but am rolling up to OR again tomorrow for 3 weeks of shenanigans with crazy old military buddies...drinking, bbq, & play scratchy ol records. Haha. We play a lot of frisbee golf too. Have you tried it yet? It's so fun. Hahahaha!
PS- I did get a Pablo Smog Lives tee & sport it whenever I'm aimlessly rolling around marin/sonoma counties on my Harley spreading the gospel. That's true love...& true west, Mr. Smog.
PSS: meant to tell you this some time ago: I know you WILL STILL (eventually)go rolling all around America, and if you ever gigging in Omaha (like the Waiting Room lounge), tell me & I can definitely get you a full-photo review/exposure in Go Venue magazine.
Just keep banging on that guitar humming your woody Guthrie Buddha ways.
Be safe. Be well.
Alaska JackVT
I mean, how do you beat that?
I have the best fans ever.
Los Angeles 2015
Last time I checked, I had 235 followers on this blog. That's a pretty good-sized cult. While I appreciate the artless self-importance of the psycho-centric approach to culture, and the devolution from "artists with fans" to "influencers with followers," I prefer the artist-fan relationship. It isn't crazy. Unlike the phenomenon of influential fried pipers leading their followers like lemmings off the cliff of total culture death, or the homicidal acid collective, writing Beatles lyrics on the wall in the blood of whatever sacrificial pop-culture messiah happens to be handy, in the relationship between artists and fans, there are no leaders.
Musicians don't have followers. Stalkers, maybe, but not followers. Jim Jones had followers. Charles Manson. Christ. Not many fans, those guys, but plenty of followers. The phenomenon of cult-like followers is so ubiquitous that a platform called OnlyFans (presumably for fans only), originally intended to be used by artists to promote and sell their wares, I think...?
Devolved into a porn site, where anyone can enlist followers to the cult of giving money to people for taking their clothes off.
"And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, he is there; believe him not:
For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."
Mark 13:21-22
So while I appreciate the fact that you follow me on this blog, tailgating my work like an impatient content hound running late for his own funeral, I'd be more comfortable if you simply listened to the music, and joined the ranks of the British goth punks and freewheelin' Beatnik bikers. It's a better scene. Nobody is following anybody, and there is no presumption that the "leader" enjoys working for free while living in a van down by the river. The "777 Sale" still stands, for anyone who wants to deprogram themselves from the cult, and support another human being in his pursuit of not starving to death in the woods. Your patronage is appreciated, and welcome. If I have enough fans, maybe I can actually start playing again.
Thanks for listening.
