SAM

This summer was quite notable for me. It was a coming of age time of sorts for me. I had been recently divorced and I was rediscovering who I was a man in the world. In some ways, this year I finally shed my boyhood.....or some parts of it. During my time in Los Angeles, some time after the 4th of July, I saw a young kid passed out next to the Santa Monica Pier in cowboy boots with a guitar and an empty bottle of Jim Beam. It was like 7 AM and a Saturday and it made me chuckle.

Later during that day, I was hangin' in Venice Beach and there again, bobbing and weaving and strummin' his guitar like a madman, there again was this happy kid with his guitar jammin' some Johnny Cash before a news crew. That's how I met Sam.

Sam is from Michigan and told stories of traveling the U.S. and just trusting life. He never had a frown on his face, not in the two weeks that I knew him anyway and he was always playing music....or writing it. He is a unique sort of cat, always dressed in a sorta western attire, yet he is from the North. He loved to jam music on the beach, Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and Dylan. It was amazing to watch as he posted up somewhere in the city and began to play covers and some of his own songs and captivate people...he was original and like Dylan he embraces both his own original works and erratically puts a twist on the sounds of his idols.

With Sam and my friend Carlos I spent many of late nights on the beach in Santa Monica. Playing for girls and discussing life and the importance of doing the things you love. I was acting, Sam was playing and Carlos was writing. We did our best to spread joy everywhere that we were in a city that can sometimes appear happy, but be very devoid of joy, THE CITY OF ANGELS. We laughed and we drank whiskey and told stories of our travels around the country. I spoke of trains and my friend Sam spoke of the wonderful people he met hitchhiking across this great land. Sam likes to play in the subway in New York...that's where the BIG crowds are.

This summer was a time of growth for me. I crossed a threshold this summer and along with my friend Carlos and Sam, I decided that I was going to absolutely do the things that I love, no matter what the cost and it was confirmed to me, with these guys, that we could be whatever we wanted. We could do whatever it is that we truly decided and together, we became aware of the fact the we were uniquely different from most and we embraced each others ideas and experiences.

Now it is winter time. The summer is a great ways behind me and I am thinking about my friends from the summer. There's Apache and Cash, and Patience and Cat and so very many more. We were all doing the things that we loved and collectively we inspired each other. Today I was reading a book on Dylan and that's what inspired me to tell you about Sam.

As I get ready to hop on an airplane and take another trip across America this time to the Northeast. I think about my friend Sam. Somewhere, in a Subway in Manhattan or in an apt. somewhere in Brooklyn...my good buddy Sam is pluckin' away on his guitar like this might be the last time he ever plays one, bobbing and weaving and inspiring others to be different, to do what they love and fear nothing. Somehow I know, I just know that during the spring I will hop down the subway steps.....maybe the 1 9 and head towards the train and there...in a hallway smiling in cowboy boots, 1700 miles from the beaches of Santa Monica I will see my ol' buddy Sam and I will feel like I am in that place once again!!

See you soon SAMMY BOY!