I hope this music can do something of the same.

Think hard thoughts.
——————–
Friendly was once the president of CBS News, and was one of the driving forces behind the development of PBS.

p.s. There are a couple Nashville shows on the books in the next month, details on the side…

I’ve come to an awareness that Nashville has started to change that in me. The culture of the music scene here is one of endless confidence, and I’ve given in to the weight of those expectations, always feeling the need to make it sound like I have exciting things happening in my “career” and that my music will be blowing up any day now.

There’s no grace for anyone who doesn’t have their crap together.

This has started to change my songs too. My music doesn’t have a clear niche in this town, so I’ve found myself trying to mold it to fit one or another of the scenes that are so trendy around here. And I think the honesty of my expressions as an artist have suffered as a result.

So today is new birth.

As all days are if we only had the eyes to see them that way.

This new birth comes with a humbling confession; that I don’t know what I’m doing with my music. That I’ve been mired in confusion, sadness, and a bewildering emptiness regarding these songs for about 4 months now, and I don’t see a clear way out. I doubt my own abilities and potential as an artist, a musician, a human.

This new birth also comes with a declaration; that my writing, my songs, must come in closer contact with the deepest parts of my chest. If a song doesn’t make me feel like I’m getting punched in the gut, or like I’m dreaming a beautiful dream, or like I want to dance like an madman, I don’t want anything to do with it.

Otherwise, what are we all doing?

This journey is headed down some unmarked trails. I haven’t the slightest clue where they lead, if anyone can travel them with me, or if we’ll ever make it out on the other side.

But today is a new birth, and that is enough.

An honest word.

Zach

So if you stopped by in the past few days and got a “do not proceed to this site” warning—first, I apologize; and second, I’m glad to be able to say that all is well once again.

I never would have suspected that anyone would bother bothering little old me, but I was sorely mistaken. However, since nearly no one comes to this site in the first place, I guess the joke’s on them for wasting their time!

Take that, you mean hackers!

First off is a show on Wednesday night (2/1) at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Hollins is the alma mater of the inimitable Annie Dillard, perhaps best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. I also love Holy the Firm, The Living, or Teaching a Stone to Talk, but really you can’t go wrong with anything Dillard.

Then on Thursday night (2/2) I’ll be gracing the stage at Montreat College in Black Mountain, North Carolina. “Gracing the stage” is not a phrase I’ve ever used before, and I don’t think I’ll use it again. It’s just a liiiittle too much.

Black Mountain is just a stone’s throw from Asheville (assuming that you can, like me, throw a stone a couple miles), which is the hometown of the under-appreciated Thomas Wolfe.

Wolfe was still a young man when he died in 1938, but in his 37 years of life he learned to write with more clarity and depth than any other novelist I have ever read. As an act of kindness toward yourself, read You Can’t Go Home Again.

So there you have it—two shows in the cities of two of my favorite authors.

And you heard me right. I’m only taking one pair or pants on this expedition.

I walk on the wild side.

The empire of Zach Vinson (*sarcasm noted) will live to see another day. Talk to you in twenty-twelve!

Take a look, take a listen.

We Own This Town

There was a moth on our ceiling, and our friend Mallory killed it with her long arms.

As its last act, the moth turned to dust, as all moths seem magically to do, and some of that dust is still there—three spots of it gazing down at us while we recline on our couch.

We wish so badly to be noticed. We comb our hair, we tidy our house, we wear our footy pajamas to lunch, we get a new tattoo, we tweet and re-tweet, we set objects on fire, we camp out in vague protest of government policy, we do good, we rebel, and with our final and only breath we brush the dust of our wings on someone’s ceiling, anyone’s ceiling, in one last doomed effort to be noticed.

How’s that working out?

We hear that it is more blessed to give than to receive. (I’ve somehow always assumed that this applied only to Christmas presents—probably because that’s when I was reminded of it each year)

What if it is more blessed to notice than to be noticed?

I want to be a notice-er.

Or would it be noticer?

Someone who notices. That works.

Today I noticed the legacy of that moth. I noticed the strangely elongated shadow of our blinds on the ceiling as the morning light stretched its way across the room. And I noticed pain—the gut-punching pain of someone watching their son die slowly right in front of them.

It can be a dangerous thing to notice. We might see things we would rather not be aware of.

And I’m mostly too self-absorbed to notice much beyond myself.

But every once in a while, some good is worked within me and I notice something.

I’m grateful.

I’ve always believed (or at least told people) that it will take a long time and an incredible amount of work for me to amount to anything as a musician. I’ve heard myself say dozens of times “I didn’t move to Nashville to catch a big break; I moved to Nashville to work hard for a long time and see where I end up.”

And for the most part, I’m a hard worker. I find satisfaction in a job well done.

See how satisfied I am with these scrambled eggs?

But I’ve recently realized that no one cares how hard I work.

And I really don’t mean to say that in a self-pitying way, but just as a bit of reality that has begun to sink in lately.

Strangely enough, I’ve found solace in the words of a baker and a mountain biker.

They talked about the need to love what you do, because there are just not enough tangible results to make these pursuits worth the time that we put into them.

They talked about mental toughness and how we can either get distracted by comparing our circumstances to those who have things easier or we can just put our head down and keep moving.

So I have to come to a complete stop and ask myself, why do I do this?

In 2010, I lost $3513 playing music. I must not be in it for the money, or if I am, I’m an idiot.

But every once in a while you hear a song, and it breaks your heart in half.

Just like that.

I love that.

And I think that’s enough for me.

So I put my head down, and I keep moving. Whether anyone cares or not, whether anyone notices or not.

I put my head down.

And keep moving.