On The Lone Balladeer

Avalon, NJ, was locked in a thick fog when I looked out my window this morning. I could hear the waves crashing across the street, but couldn’t see a thing. I decided to get out of bed — I could always sleep on the bus ride from Atlantic City to New York — and get lost into that gray unknown.

I poured a cup of coffee and drove south towards Stone Harbor, listening to a CD I’d just burned, “Golden State.” It’s actually a two CD set, “(ET)” & “(PT)”, one melancholy, one uptempo (none of the songs mine). I crept along Ocean Avenue slowly, as not to outrun my vision, digging into the melancholy.

It’s just 10 am now, and I’ve been consuming the New York Times, as I do most Sunday mornings. I’ve traipsed across a number of great quotes, great thoughts, that all struck me as keepers. Maybe it’s the fog. Maybe it’s the ocean. Maybe it’s that they’re all guys named Robert. But something tells me to pay attention.

“The truth is, a lot of the time I don’t know what I’m doing… It’s almost like waking up and finding that it’s all been done for you, like some trolls had come in the night when you were sleeping. That’s because when you did it, you were moving at creative speed. I call it working at the speed of thought.” -Robert Rodriguez

“Luck is where opportunity meets preparation.” -Robert Evans

“I always thought that one man, the lone balladeer with the guitar, could bow an entire army off the stage if he knew what he was doing.” -Bob Dylan