Stray Shot CD Released


On the night William S. Burroughs died I had a dream about him. In the dream, Burroughs was walking down the hallway in an army barracks, or something like it. He was wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Outside there was a big military transport truck waiting, with a driver in it. I was aware of both the inside scene and outside scene simultaneously, as can happen in dreams when the second attention comes into play. And Burroughs said, “I don’t need a driver. I can drive myself.”

That was sometime in the early morning of August 3. I had no idea he had died and when I heard of his death later that day the dream seemed a communication of his energy that I needed to process by making an attempt to communicate what were, to me at least, his last words.

“I don’t need a driver; I can drive myself,” is to me the ultimate expression of the doctrine of individual freedom: freedom from convention; freedom from conformity; freedom from religions and freedom from self-doubt. And it resonated with the message seeded from Castaneda to Tim Burton's "Big Fish" to Burrough's "Western Lands" trilogy: People may not be immortal, but stories, if they are constructed on an archetypal foundation, are immortal. The person who can consciously construct such a story, and be one with it, has a theoretical shot at freedom.

This is a collection of stories inspired by The Western Lands.

I have taken guitar lessons for two years with the guitarist on “Stray Shot,” Clay Hawkins, and we had a hell of a good time putting this together. He taught me to play the guitar, which was no easy feat, and was the guiding spirit behind the music production. Thank you Clay, for the musical performance and production in this project and for being a true friend. Thank you Bhima Light for the drum and didge and mouth harp, and thank you Bruce Gordon for the keyboards.

Posted: Sun - November 30, 2003 at 10:39 PM