John K King Used and Rare Books in Detroit, Michigan takes the cake. I love bookstores. Can’t get enough of them. Even if I spend all day in one, I can probably revisit that same shop the next day and still have a great time. To me, a bookstore is a worthy alternative to traveling, …
Letters #3 — Unconventional Prose and poetry
It's more than being good with words. To write well, you have to be receptive to the things going on around you and within you. The second part came naturally to me while the first part, the technique, took more time and practice. Quite a few years. I still haven’t perfected it, but eventually I …
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The Circle (Amen)
One of the most important things anyone can learn right off the bat is the difference between taking the work seriously and the self seriously and to operate from the former rather than the latter. In fact learning to not take oneself so seriously will be better for the work, which will in turn better …
You Are America
People are losing the human touch that sense of the real visceral rapturous experience. They long for it again. Bring us an acoustic guitar and light a match to the fire pit, turn over our furniture and let’s dance around the bonfire. We’ll paint tomorrow morning and get to work I’ll make the coffee You …
The east is history. The west is myth. (Tales of two: east and west)
This morning here we are on the FTL flight to LAX, heading west. The west: romantic, epic, and mythological. The west, prolonging the morning. Keeping the day young. In the pre-Columbian past, east and west didn't exist in these terms, not like we think of them today. To the Europeans, all of America might have …
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Letters #1: On writing
Like just about anything creative, it's a river. Or stepping into one. And once you're in it, you let it take you. You might exert some of your own will onto it but ultimately when things are going best, it's the river that decides. And it speaks through you as well as to you, …
Letters #2: Influences
When you’re starting out you may find that there are many writers and musicians whose work you dig, but I'd keep an eye out for those who really knock your socks off, who make you want to dance naked in the street, howl at the moon and make love to strangers; who, when you read …
The Wake Up
Only Love For me there is only the road. Sometimes I think it's the only real home for me listening to good music and digging every new place I see and all the old places too with the sun in my eyes and above me the moon and the stars. It's a real sweet spot, …
On Meditation
I was thinking about Headspace and how it was the real introduction to mediation for me. I think it’s a great app for the beginner, and it does a wonderful job at making something long-considered esoteric more approachable and welcoming. I started in the early Spring of 2016 and I continued meditating consistently for the …
catching up
Well friends it’s been a busy year. I’ve been trying to write my book, and fortunately I’ve been able to do more than just try. I've actually finished my first manuscript. Yea man, in between the extremes of do or do not, I've opted for the positive. Yoda would be happy. The songs are coming …
Posting and Parks
I don’t often post in the moment because I‘m either without reception or—most of the time—too caught up in the moment itself. This was a combination of the two, though by the looks of it, I am in the middle of taking a picture. Needless to say, I post a lot of pictures after the …
quick tips: start_
When we’re about to begin a project, sometimes it’s tempting to sweat the beginnings. That is, trying to manipulate conditions, waiting for the right kind of ‘weather’ before you take the first steps. This can be anything from those things out of your control, like the actual weather, or things that are in your control, …
earth day
I’ve been fortunate enough to visit some spectacular places that celebrate our planet’s beauty, but the picture below was taken on a ordinary day walking my dog in the neighborhood where I grew up in south Florida. In anticipation of Earth Day and this week being National Park Week, I'd thought this post might bring …
quick tips: habit
In developing a habit, we usually anchor ourselves with how many days in a row we can keep it going. Let’s say the habit is meditating. After a good 21 days, it’s a safe bet that we’ve developed it into working order; but after that point, we might easily fall into the trap of maintaining …
Intro to Album No. 1
Not long ago a few hours maybe/came the dreadful realization that I stood alone on streets of New Orleans, haunted by rumor the spell of a girl I’d come to know well in just an instant & she’s a part of me now, so I’m haunted spellbound & cursed. I had my guitar with me, …
‘A guy who grooved on his own head.’
Yesterday I had me one hell of a good time playing some music for the people. I think I could get used to this. And so the morning has been splendid. MY girl’s telling me that even my skin’s looking good. It could be the sunlight. Could be the moon from last night. Bob Dylan …
I’m On Fire (feat. Andrea & Sunny)
G'Morning folks and Happy Sunday! I was fiddling with the new phone camera and getting it set up and running a little test video to see how it flowed, and that noise you hear in the background is our dog Sunny dancing to the music and the singing and the strumming with Andrea, who is …
Time Will Tell
LOS ANGELES — I’d go to the cafe and work on lyrics, even try to pen the novel a few times. I never finished it, but I heard the boys—Jude, Cal, Sam and (mostly) Quinby—are making some good headway on it now, that they’re using Jude as the narrator; and that they’re writing the whole thing under …
First thought on Ginsburg’s Wild Orphan
My first thought on Allen Ginsburg's short poem 'Wild Orphan' is how striking the last verse is...That is all for now. "And the father grieves in the flophouse complexities of memory a thousand miles away, unknowing of the unexpected youthful stranger bumming toward his door" Allen Ginsburg NY, 1952
The War of Ideas
I thought I'd grown numb to gun violence, until it finally happened close to me. In my county. Maybe it’s just another indicator of the distance we feel from one another, from east to west. Maybe it’s natural in a land as vast and diverse as our own, an impediment we must continually seek to …
Ren Michael 