Postcards from the soul…
31 Days of Brannan – Day 22
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Today’s Entry (not playlist) – postcard for my friend sasha from the golden gate bridge
So for today’s entry I wanted something different. We’re just a little over a week away from Jay’s concert in San Francisco. I wanted something personal from him. It’s not meant for us. It’s a love letter to a lost friend. But I get it. Living here you always have that feeling of how much loss there is in this beloved city of mine. San Francisco is an amazing place to live. It’s also a difficult place to live in. It straddles the line between euphoric and complete indifference – between decadence and oblivion.
She’s been called the Paris of the Pacific. I’ve never really thought of her as having a french appeal. She always felt distinctly English to me. Perhaps it’s the cold that whips through the city – reminding me of London in winter. Although you can get that blast of bone chilling cold – you can’t help but feel the indifference. But then, on a fog laden night, the way the city looks – haunting, as if all points in time collide into one moment. It’s truly magical. It’s those moments that I live for in this place I call home.
So back to Jay. To say his work carries a degree of genius is probably one of the greatest understatements I can ever put to digital paper. But that genius, that savoir-fare in his prose, the brilliance of his ability to connect to the root of our collective experiences and give the horrors, the loneliness, the despair but most of all the small seed of hope, it has to spring from somewhere.
I have always appreciated Jay’s brutal honesty. I aspire to that level of honesty – if only with myself. I am not there yet. But I keep trying. Jay’s music reminds me of where I am with myself.
It’s also why my first novel is deeply rooted and inspired by him. My boys go through some major pain. It was important for me to get the ‘will they get together’ question out of the way from the very first chapter. Putting your love interests together has always been the end goal of any tale. It’s the usual formula. Especially with the M/M romance genre. But my story was taking a different tract. My boys are together from the very first chapter – but that is where their adventure begins. Coming together is the least of their concerns. With what they go through in the telling of their tale, staying together is the hard part for them. Not because they aren’t devoted to each other. They are. Completely. Utterly. Profoundly.
But will it be enough? That is where the drama is rooted.
Jay poses the question in Rob Me Blind (which is about a boy who wants the boy of his dreams but ultimately doesn’t think his love is worth offering to the man he is attracted to) – in the song he even says that he expects when compared to anyone else he thinks the man of his dreams would chose another.
So I come back to Jay’s entry today that I am highlighting. It is the last few moments – the pain that is so evident in his eyes. Experiences that are solely his own – though they may be shared with his missing friend Sasha and through YouTube with all of us, but that pain is his. So here is my takeaway: Thank you Sasha. Jay says that you were instrumental in saving him from what appears to be a very dark place in his past. So, from all of us, thank you. We never met. We never had the pleasure, I am sure, to experience your light in this world. But through Jay’s heartfelt postcard to you, I can’t help but feel my own sense of gratitude for your existence – however brief and pained though it may have been. I am only too sorry we couldn’t all be there for you. Or like Jay, that we couldn’t say thank you for helping him when he needed it.
We don’t know the depth of what Jay was feeling – he only hints at it – but I do know he’s also commented about anxiety attacks he suffers from time to time. I’ve seen the tweets. It’s clear he feels things deeply. Painfully so – which he layers in his compositions. Writing is cathartic – whether it is in standard prose or via a musical composition. It’s the same thing. It allows a release of emotions you carry with you. For me it’s the voices of the boys that inhabit my world. They are born of my own experiences, of my hopes and fears.
There’s a lot of me in them. As I am sure there is a lot of Jay’s experiences in what he gifts us with in each of his creations/compositions. But even with all of that, this creative outlet, the pain is still there.
Is it enough? You hope that it is. You hope that there are others in your life that will be there for you when you need it most. Sasha was there for Jay. And in a very pivotal way, was there for all of us. Can you imagine all of these treasures that Jay has penned that would have never been if he wallowed in his dark place? As the artist in me, I shutter to think about that.
So, though we’ve never met, though I’ve never had the pleasure, thank you Sasha. For helping my favorite artist take another step when he possibly didn’t think he could.
So I too will add my thanks to Jay’s. Though I can’t claim any personal knowledge of what transpired, believe me it is no less heartfelt in that whatever gesture of support you made in his past. You helped him not feel like ‘such a freak’ when he needed to hear it most.
So thank you, in as heartfelt a way a stranger can express and mean it.
And just so you know… no matter what it is Jay, you’re not a freak cause I got news for you – we all are. I’ve been around the block in so many ways (had a very colorful life to draw upon) and I know from freaks. And we all are freaks. Anyone tells you they aren’t – yeah, well, that’s a BIG ol’ sign that they’re MORE of a freak than you’ll ever be.
Hell, normalcy – whatever the fuck that is – is freakish in its own right. The human condition is a collection of freakish moments that we all try to make sense of, try to bring order to the chaos. When it works for us, that’s great. We’re happy. When it doesn’t – some form of damage ensues and we try to cope. Some do better than others. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not worth the love and admiration of others. I don’t claim to know what you’re all about. We only have your postings on YouTube, your website and thankfully, your music. But what I have witnessed, what I have heard, what I’ve been grateful for seeing, is that you are a very complex and deeply feeling man. A creative and emotive individual. Worthy of every thing people say about you (even if all we really know is your public persona).
So thank you for hanging in there. For working through things with your music. It’s clear that your voice is needed in this world or your voice wouldn’t have carried as far as it has. And aside from all of that, I wouldn’t have my boys if it weren’t for you. My craft is blossoming because of Rob Me Blind. The album that meant so much to you when you released it – inspired me and my own journey. That was an unintended gift from you, I know that. I am not delusional enough to think that it was anything but fortuitous that I discovered you back in 2008. I know that. And I am grateful for that discovery of mine.
One that without Sasha I might not have ever had. I wouldn’t have had my boys. My wonderfully sexually emotive and deeply flawed boys of Mercy. My Angels of Mercy. And I just can’t imagine my world without them. The little world of Mercy, California that I invented – that only exists in my head and on the pages of my forthcoming series.
So thank you Sasha – you’ve touched lives you never knew were out there. But I am indebted to you just the same.
The Always, Then & Now Tour…
Please check out his site with links for his upcoming shows. I am definitely a late comer to the Brannan bandwagon whenever he pulls through my city. But now that I am going this year, I am making it a goal never to miss when he swings through town. I hope you take advantage of the opportunity as well. Also be sure to check out his web store at the following link.
- Jay’s Website – jaybrannan.com
