Marah Jawns / Ep. 2

jawn one.

Not long ago, I posted something on my Facebook page saying that I was planning to write some more stuff about Marah, my old band, in the near future. I mentioned that my format would be my ‘Jawn’ method', a method- if you’re not familiar- which allows me a sort of liberated chance to write shorter, often unrelated, vignettes that ostensibly add up to a single threaded comprehensive ‘episode’ of Jawns. Confused yet? Haha/ hope not. Beyond that, I stated that I was hoping to do some of this in a sort of oral history style. This meant that I would be asking fans to contribute by answering specific questions I post regarding their experiences and memories and feelings about Marah. My intent was, and still is, to incorporate their words into my own in an effort to create a loosely quilted narrative that might help tell the story of a relatively unknown American rock-n-roll band in a way that hasn’t necessarily been done before. Although, I have to admit, at this point in time… what the hell was I thinking? What I’m hoping to do here isn’t all that varied from what lots of other musicians or writers have done before me. Use the fans as a powerful voice in the telling of the tale, and you add intricate layering and promising depth. No rocket science required. What I didn’t see coming, however, was the straight up emotional rollercoaster I’ve been riding on since people began to actually respond to my initial ask. I guess maybe I should have understood that by scratching the surface of an experience that was so monumental in my life, I’d be soliciting visits from all kinds of emotional ups and downs and in-betweens. But between you and me: I just didn’t. Until now.

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jawn two.

Is it possible to never quite understand what the hell happened? In life, or maybe even in death, do you think there is a likelihood that many of us, if not most of us, are never quite able to add up all the days with all the nights and end up somewhere down the long dusty road with an equation that rings true somehow? It’s almost like, how much of what you have lived through/ or how much of what I have/ has even been important? Or necessary? Or recollected correctly? Do you see what I’m getting at here? The life we have known, as alternately sweet or as dog shit as it likely was at different times… wouldn’t it be fair to say that- more often than not- it was really just maddeningly difficult? And by difficult I don’t necessarily mean: a paper plate of Dickensian style short ribs ripped fresh from your own personal cage and served up with a slathering side of tin cup blind beggar blues. Although that qualifies, no doubt. What I’m getting at is more complex. The way I see it, even if a person like you or me has led a fairly average life, an existence with joy and sorrow more or less evened out across the decades they have known, isn’t it still quite difficult to truly fathom what the fuck even happened? Has our grandest hurdle in this world been tryin to figure out what to do? Or has the real challenge always lurked in the trying to figure out why we did it? Did my world actually unfold the way I think it did? And if it did, well then why? Or how? What dangling strings came together over time to stitch this tapestry I have now/ this thing that feels like home/ this wild, worn-out and musty collection of knots and loops that I call my body… and my mind… and my memories?