I took a long hot shower after two rough nights in Cuauhtémoc In a shitty apartment with no hot water on the first night, oh fuck And then no water at all on the second day And the host didn’t respond to me when I complained The immigration line at the airport was a sweat box And I heated up a wet hand towel in the microwave to try and wash up And the place was next to a bumpin’ bar with cocktails, charcuterie, and terrible music Blasting until two AM… for picking a place to stay, I really blew it And lying in bed on the first night, stinking My brain seized in a vice grip of inspiration Sometimes it just doesn’t stop And it all comes pouring out with music or whatever my brain’s locked on Like, I’ll go to a restaurant and eat something so good it almost makes me mad Oh fuck that’s is delicious why haven’t I tried this yet? Knowing I’ve been missing out every day prior On something so incredibly inspiring Like Brentwood corn or heirloom tomatoes Or Mariana’s ramen at Los Loosers I’m far away from the small town I grew up in Or an unreleased Neil Young album Hitchhiker from 1976 Beautiful music speaks to the soul regardless of how undiscovered or rare it is I don’t need music blogs or trust fund kid music criticism I just ask my friends what inspires them When I was a kid things were different than they are now We shopped for groceries at a place by a barn something like D&A in town It wasn’t much and the lettuce was brown Things seemed less complicated back then, but maybe it was all just an illusion Looking back now I wonder if I just didn’t see it Growing up with a modest life Maybe we were just missing Out but we always had more than everything we needed Like my early records, The Beach Boys and The Christmas single Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano Which I listened to a million times until my mom went insane I was too small then to fret chords on my dad’s Martin built in Nazareth, PA And sometimes I hear beautiful music That makes me think things like, “I wish I’d thought of that” Or I have thoughts like, “that’s the kind of music I want to make” When there’s a sound or a chord change or a feeling that makes you double-take Music speaks to universal truth And music heals us and helps us work through Mundane or challenging Thoughts and issues we face Like, “why do I still bother reading the news?” Meanwhile everyone in Mexico’s like Aww that’s cute, you’re just catching up While forty years ago Neil Young was singing about Peru The news in Mexico was already many decades into being fucked up 
Maybe the world isn’t worse than it used to be Maybe it just seemed simpler in the 90s Sometimes you gotta take a stretch And make something pure and from the heart Even if you make a mess along the way To make an omelette you gotta break some eggs I can be a pain in the neck, ask Maryam or those who know me best I don’t stop moving and I can get pretty intense I can’t help the way I was made I see the good and the bad in everything often simultaneously Anyway here I am in La Condesa in CDMX Reading a book “Don’t Suck, Don’t Die” about Vic Chestnutt by Kristin Hirsh No one would insure Vic because he was a quadriplegic And he needed surgery but couldn’t afford it Sure Kurt Cobain was around, and it was before Twitter and Facetime But all the while Monsanto was rising TV life was dumbed down for couch-surfing hillbillies Remember Jerry Springer, Dateline NBC or unsolved mysteries I took a walk in the park under the cool summer rains Things are easy here, and I don’t really miss the bay The food is good and the music is inspiring And I gave a guy a few bucks and he played Bach’s Concerto for Cello in C minor Back in the bay I talked to my old neighbor Kerry About the homeless addiction in Old Oakland, my old neighborhood She said there’s a problem with pills and heroin I got a ride home with a Lyft driver, she had a masters in social work She had a nice smile and asked me how my day was And I asked her about the opiate crisis, "Please share your insight" She told me about how street drugs are laced with bad shit That many times the drugs are traced back to legitimate prescriptions They are finding that folks don’t react the same way as people used to When they overdose, and I didn’t mention that earlier this year I attended a funeral And now I’m back home in the bay And life goes on, the more things change the more they seem the same