Sometimes I forget where we went this time.

Waking up, I take stock: Billy’s big shoulders are partially obscured by a matching set of tiny tan ones. Bodhi must have slipped into bed with us sometime in the night. He can do this because our bed is a mattress on the floor. So we must be broke again.

Through a glass door is a palm tree…did we go to Florida? Texas? Australia? The Mojave Desert suddenly comes into sharp focus and I am briefly disappointed. The Mojave Desert is romantic, but I like Florida, Texas and Australia. Some other time maybe.

This takes about four seconds. By the fifth second, I remember that we’re broke because the bloated monster Recording Industry finally rolled over and died. Hopefully it’ll take some of its crap with it, free up some ear space for real music.

A real musician is someone who has no choice but to play music, whether or not it’s gonna make money or win friends. Or be heard at all. A real musician could be anyone; sometimes they’re in the music business, but they’re hardly ever rock stars.

So our habitat’s been paved over. The low-hanging fruit on which we lived grew on some of the first branches of the music business to fall. But the bloated monster should die. It was an ugly monster.

And we’ve always lived hard, on the move, looking for work. Not by choice, necessarily, but we’ve found that it keeps us…useful. And happy.

Happy because we like raising our own kids. Kids untainted by chemicals and brainwashing. And happy because we like to play our own music. Music unsullied by greed. Beautiful, smart, healthy children and beautiful, smart, healthy, music.

Bodhi wakes up and smiles.