TomFlannery.com

Moving around lots lately. Lots of nights alone in hotel rooms and mornings surrounded by desperate looking airport junkies dragging bags way too big to fit in the overhead compartments.

Writing whenever possible, and what’s possible is never enough. Listening and reading just about anything I can get my shaky hands on. Everything from Buddy and Julie Miller to Jason and the Scorchers and the Jim Carroll Band. “People Who Died”…one of the all-time great rock and roll songs that manages to rock your balls off and totally creep you out at the same time. When you’re spending lots of time alone songs like “People Who Died” are damn near indispensible. They’re like intravenous caffeine injections and when you sing along to them with your Ipod on people generally stay out of your way.

In the Jim Carroll vein, for reasons known to insomniacs only I sat up until 3:30 am last night watching Leonardo DiCaprio portray a drooling junkie in “The Basketball Diaries” and didn’t turn it off until it was over. Like most New York City artists who can afford to live in Manhattan, Carroll was a bit of a pretentious wanker but was smart enough to make a decent living being a heroin addict and Rimbaud wannabe….no small feat in a town swarming with both. But he had that little bit of Keith Richards in him that made junk seem fashionable….plus he screwed Patti Smith, which in NYC buys you a lifetime of credibility. So he gets to write a book about jabbing himself with needles and knocking over old ladies for drug money….and gets the Hollywood treatment to boot. “People Who Died” said in 4 minutes what the movie tried to say in 110, which is sorta why rock will always be cooler than celluloid. If you don’t believe me imagine “Tommy” without the songs.

Anyway, that’s the way it is. I’m going to try to check in more often. Got many songs in various forms, and always reaching for more. Sleep won’t come, so what else can a poor boy do?

In a bit…

–tf