Mule

I'm in Iowa parked in the back of a Planet Fitness parking lot. Its 11:30 pm and there's a surprising amount of people working out. It's a parking lot of misfit toys - an odd assortment of vehicles with people sleeping in them. I'm parked next to an idling semi for white noise and across from a dirty van with a motorcycle trailer. The bus smells like the braid of sweet grass across the dash and coffee. There's a Meiser trout Spey and a 5 wt single hand in the rack above me.

I'm sleeping in this sprinter van because of the album above. It came out in 2006-three years after I left highschool. It changed my life's trajectory. The first of three times Kelly Joe would change my life.

I've kept this photo of a gift I received to myself the last couple years. It's a borderline sacred piece of the story I've held onto like a talisman. I couldn't even open the cd case for months.

When I heard Tap the Red Cane Whirlwind it swallowed me and spit me out on the path towards making these guitars. I fell asleep with it playing on headphones. It was the only thing I listened to. And after a half dozen moves I lost it. It was out of print and not online and I would look occasionally the last 17 years to try and replace it.

And then it showed up in the mail. A customer, Zach, sent it to me. We had never spoken except for figuring out his instrument. He didn't know if I had heard it but thought I should have it. He didn't know that album was the reason he knew me.

I'm driving 1400 miles to see my friends Charlie Parr and Tony Polecastro play their music and instruments I made for them. After Kelly Joe died Tony and I got talking about how we wouldn't be friends if it wasn't for Kelly Joe. Charlie included. So here I am sleeping in a van outside planet fitness so I can see some friends.

We can do that for people, ya know. Change their lives. Our lives are made up of moments small enough that we can influence them. Big stuff.

Knowledge of One True Thing

Our ends are wrung from our starts
Stars strung by wires
Drops filling dishes
Storied together by hopes
Unknowably connected instances
Pasts conceived by the present

-Matt