On Tour with The Honorary Title Pt. 2

Scenic Overlook

The landscape passes me by
Like I'm standing still
As though I am trapped in a slow-motion dream

Bob Dylan, where are you?
I've seen the things you sang about
The hard rain a fallin'
The answers whipping around in the wind
Seen 'em all from the scenic overlook
Gazing down on a herd of buffalo

Red Cloud, fight hard for your dream
'Cause Lord knows it don't come easy
Most times it passes you by
Like a shiny pocket watch in the hands of a man who stole it from your great-grandfather

Can you stand it?

So be it

John the Baptizer,
Put me down in Holy Ghost Canyon
Deep under the Pecos River
And let the cold, clear water slide from my body to my soul
'Til I am one with the flow

(Ryan)

On Tour with The Honorary Title Pt. 1

Two weeks ago I was working at Starbucks, dealing with complaints about the price of four dollar coffee, and becoming increasingly frustrated and disillusioned with the complacent turn that my life had taken since college. One text message later and i was packing my bags and calling to tell my mother that I love her, i felt rejuvenated, like i had been brought back from the dead, or any other metaphor that your brother who's about to begin freshmen english could come up with.

When I informed my friends of my decision to go out on the road with TNF it seemed like the only thing that they wanted to talk about was the copious amount of girls that i would be fighting off with telecasters and drum shells or the gallons upon gallons of alcohol that I would be consuming. If you ask me, this whole touring thing feels a bit like Rock N Roll UIL; a bunch of blue tubs all over the place, lots of hours in a van spent reading Harry Potter (book 4 if you were wondering), just enough money to eat on and three people to a room. Also gallons upon gallons of alcohol.

This morning we stopped at some convenient store in the middle of the Rockies to give the brakes a chance to cool off before we traversed the rest of the mountains on the way to Utah, that was the beginning of the most beautiful feeling I've ever had. The air in the anonymous mountain town was crisp and cool, the sun shone down on us like a a giant spotlight as if to say to all of the the other travelers at the stop "Everyone, look! These young men are the stars of the film that you are only a day player in!" I walked out of the store with my chocolate milk and my hoodie zipped up to my throat with tears welling in my eyes, I felt like a boy. I never grew up, my parents were never divorced and I was riding shotgun with my dad in his 1970s model chocolate brown Chevy truck. I am twenty two and in van with five of my friends, most of them are asleep.

Is it being out on tour that does this to a person? Is it the constant state of flux that one puts themselves in with all of the driving, playing, driving some more, sleeping for a few hours and then driving again that make you never want to leave the comfort of your home or at least settle down in the first town that'll have you? This morning it hit me that I was in the middle of the country that I'd never took the time to explore with good friends and good music, it felt like a ten ton weight had been lifted from my shoulders in that parking lot.

In the past week I've met a few people that I would love to see everyday for the rest of my life and it's killing me. The inherent problem with meeting new people is the fact that whatever relationship we'll have is doomed. Maybe it's the Colorado air but right now my day dream is to bring all of my friends from home and every one that I don't think that I can live without from this tour and move to the mountains. We'll live off of the land and sings songs to each other every night before we go to sleep. We'll get a giant golden dog and outfit him with a red neckerchief; we will call him Cody. There's a distinct possibility that by the end of the tour I'll have come to terms with the fact that meeting new people is some sort of tragic joke played on us by whomever scripted our lives, that the entire time we're saying hello we're just building up to a goodbye. I don't want to though, I never want to get used to saying goodbye.

We just drove on a highway that had been cut out of the side of a mountain, please get some friends together and just go. Now.

Also send cookies.

-Jacob Shelton (Friend, Merch Mastermind, and All-Around Good Dude)