The Dead Chapter

I’ve been writing, I just haven’t shared my thoughts. I wrote about crying on the plane, discovering a new band in LA, fixing the homeless problem, breathing at funerals, I just didn’t share. Writing gets written and thoughts disappear. Today I’m sharing cause a life change happened. I signed a contract with a publishing house in NYC, they’re called Akashic and they’re going to put out my book. It’s called The Royal We and it will come out in Fall 2025. To honor and celebrate this new chapter in my life I’m going to share with you the first chapter of my book that was and is no more.

I wrote the book over the course of almost a year and for whatever reason, the writing took me from childhood til now in my life. That was the storyline and the trajectory of what I wrote. It’s not like me because I really don’t like that format. The linear passage and telling of a story feels predictable and especially in the story of a life, like a biopic, I'm bored and just biding time in it. Waiting for whoever to die. So after realizing what I’d done, I rewrote my book pretty majorly. I sat my fancy ass in Paris for over a month and came up with something that I love. Now it’s more of an homage to San Francisco and what SF used to be and me in it in the 80’s. It goes all over the world from there but that’s the nucleus. The book now is called The Royal We. The following chapter is the first chapter of the version that I was calling Ways To Get High. It’s null and void and doesn’t exist anymore so I thought I’d share it. Thanks for looking.

1

Because it all begins with chemicals, I’ll start there. There was one they’d put in swimming pools when we were children. We all knew about it, folklore passed down from older sisters. If you peed in the pool, the chemical turned the water red. Not only that but it would follow you. The red would surround you and follow you as you swam away and everyone would see it and know. So in every pool I’d pee just a little bit and dog paddle away fast, looking back over my shoulder. If the color hadn’t changed and no red had happened, I knew I was good to go. That was my childhood. Acting out just a little bit, testing the waters, seeing what happened, then doing it some more.

Throwing things off buildings, stealing from stores, making bomb threats, taking drugs, telling lies, that was my youth, where I started from and who I became.

I’ve always been a writer and I’ve never written a thing. The actual placing of the words on paper, the very thing it all comes down to, the essence of it all, I just haven’t gotten to yet. The stories, the tales and the passages, all of them exist in my head. They have since they happened. The order of the telling, the flow of the words, the arcs and the tones, the twists and the nuances, the narration, the descriptions and the coloring, trust, they’re there, intact and at the ready. I just haven’t written them down yet.

As the blank page readies itself, patient and complacent, I’m slow, maybe wobbly but more bemused than concerned. I’ve never done this and so what, fuck off cause in my head it all comes down to this: the magical things are accidents. The records I love the most, the music of weight and importance, ingrained in me as a child, then and still now, are bands’ first records. Initial intents, exploratory journeys, the trips without a compass, these are the works that resonate. Creations spawned from places of naïveté, tucks of imagination, inexperienced accidents of emotion. The records and books and voicings that are anything to me are the clumsy unschooled ones, leanings of slips and stumbles, stubbed toes, chipped teeth, mussed hair and apologies. Sharings of intuit exploding innocently, unlearned twirlings of fury and inspiration, unbridled and unkempt, rough edged and amateur. These are the expressions that hold my attention, accidental words of beginners who have no idea what they’re doing. The mistakes and missteps have only always been miracles of charm and inspiration.

So here I sit, poised on a brink of dumb wonderment, my posture erect and in front of me the blankest page that’s ever been. The traffic outside has stopped. The noise around me not only gone, but disappeared inside out, I breathe in and hold my breath full in my chest. Nothing at first, a beat of a pause and then slowly a single drop appears. Like a magic reveal from the mouth of a dry, dry spigot, like a statue, so still. I blink at the drip, acknowledge as it graduates to a trickle, fawn as it forms a slow flow and breathe into the spirit of the gush. There they fall, the words onto the page, a parade of impatient familiars that have waited so long. Stories, bumps and landmarks, markers and flags, pivots and tableaus, the ceremony of unfurling begins.

The things I repeat, the tales I tell and tell again. Lovers, partners, pets, friends, they’ve heard these over and over. The closer friends who know me better, nod and stop me. ‘I’ve heard that one,’ ‘You’ve told me that before.’ These stories are the things that I’m writing down, the things I’ve collected. When they’re written down I’ll stop telling them and they’ll exist forever, like markings in a cave.

That felt good, thanks for reading. I read it back and compared it to what’s in its place now and I’m sad for her, this lost chapter. She deserves more but there you have it.

I’m listening to the Patrick Cowley ‘deep cuts’ collection called Muscle Up on the beautifully brilliant Dark Entries label. Such good morning music. Jean and I saw Tammy Faye last night, it’s closing this weekend. There were some moments for sure and Katie Brayben in the lead was pretty much stunning. Tonight I’m gonna go see Christopher Owens at Union Pool. I loved the band Girls. Know what else I love so much right now is Clarke and the Himselfs who I saw in LA, I can’t stop listening, it’s just great. What are you doing this weekend? Tell me three things.

Love you,

Roddy