I credit this book with kick-starting my life and getting me going.
-Dr. Vasquez
When I was 17 years old I came across a copy of Henry Rollins’ One From None. I had already been a huge fan of the man. I loved the 1/4 Stick era Rollins Band. Turned On helped me through the wreckage of adolescence and was on repeat on my boombox throughout sophomore year of High School. And like many others of the postpunk youth demographic, I looked up to the man. He had a bead on how to keep himself contained. He had what Adrienne Rich has called a visionary anger.
From the moment I saw the cover, a blurred black&white photo of Rollins rocking out on stage, some part of me knew, or wanted to know, that I would be published one day. My verse and anger-my words, could be realized and achieve book format. I wouldn’t have to change a thing or subscribe to what seemed like a permanent zeitgeist of the shiny, happy set. One From None was punkrock but it went further. It was a book. It wasn’t a stapled&xeroxed zine from the underground but a perfectly bound book of poetry.
I read most, if not all, of that volume on the steps of my friend J’s house in Upper Darby. In four years time I’d go from graduating high school and auditioning for the University of the Arts to being homeless in the suburbs of my hometown while working as a day laborer. I won’t lie. Those years weren’t kind. Nothing was. Eventually I fell in love but that was even worse.
Life happened. I eventually pulled stakes and now I’m living in Paradise. The girls are pretty. The beer is cold. I have health insurance as a gigging musician. Every year at the beginning of March there is an electricity in the air that could only come from being in the center of the rock&roll universe. Down here we’re glad to be alive. The weather is killer and the people are nice. There’s a line that connects any number of singer-songwriters working down here that stretches all the way back to the Father of the Blues, Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Allot has happened since that cold night on J’s stoop in 1991. Our movement was usurped, it got flooded with posers and trend chasers. Fugazi, one of the greatest rock&roll bands of all time broke up. The aftermath of 9/11 resulted in a backlash that set this country back 40 years and doomed us all to never knowing peace in our time. I self-published 3 chapbooks and took them on the road. Of all the shit that’s happened over the decades since I read One From None, it’s what I used to get me through that persists. And unfortunately for me what persists are these filthy habits. The dirty ways that helped me squeeze through. Battle&recon&hatred and fear-which is the root of it all, really. Smoking a pack a day and ending most of my shifts with a 6pack and a glass of Scotch might’ve worked when everything felt like War. I’ve written about this before and plenty. The sad news about Molina passing Saturday at the age of 39 reminded me of it.
You just reach a point in your life where there’s no more battle and a no more worthy adversary. You confront yourself and this will be the hardest fight of your life Brother.
Which is basically where I’m at. I can honestly say that whatever I have dreamt I have made so. Some weird subconscious manifest energy has made me a published poet and an accomplished singer/songwriter with my fingers in several journalistic outlets inlcuding the column platform of this blog.
I wanna kick it to the sky Brother. For true. I threw out my black&whites yesterday and I don’t want to work for anyone else ever again.
I have received nothing but the most positive and heartfelt encouragement from you all. The fact that we’re discussing my work AT ALL pleases me to no end. It means that it’s up and walking around. It’s real. I think it’s time for it to be so much and all too-real. Viable. Keep checks like this one coming in and a smile on my face. 
My work has demanded that it be taken seriously. My work ain’t got time for that deprecation kick. I’m here to tell you that you can live your dreams. Trusting that your boot will hit ground ain’t a long shot. I believe in my work. You believe in me and, my People, I believe in you. Keep fighting.
Help does not
just walk up to you
I could have told you that
I’m not an idiot.
–Jason Molina
12/16/73 – 3/16/13
RIP DIXIE BLUESMAN
Going for the Throat 