For most of my life, I've been a working stiff. A “9-to-5er”. The Midwestern guy who played it safe.

My Old Man's family came from Indiana, where I think a lot of that sentiment comes from. We don't take risks. We take the gig that delivers the money on the first and the fifteenth. And we try to keep our soul intact in the process.

But, then enough time passes where you start to see those little pieces of your life begin to crack around you, falling away one by one.

I was living in Chicago. The phone rang. It was my aunt telling me that my mother had a heart attack and was in hospital. She survived it, but it hastened her alzheimers/dementia. Shortly after came the calls from my dad asking for help with her. So I helped.

I dropped my old life and moved back out west. It's now been a full decade. Most of it full of trauma and disintegration. I lost my job, my dog, my brother and my father. My mother's in a care facility now and it's reached a point where the only real meaningful communication that we have is music.

I stroll into her room with a tiny, toy travel guitar and sing her the hits. Her favorites. For now, this works.

The other part of my life is devoted to what has always been my devotion; writing the best songs I can in my little studio.

What I'm hoping to do with this blog is share a little bit of the process, from the first line of lyric and melody to the final mix. I'm also hoping to get some traveling in where I can post from the road as well. Stay tuned…