You need an entire drama to construct your life around to avoid living it.

Jake La Botz is a creator of dark poetry and haunting song, the kind of music that gets in your bones and rides you for days, a sound and vision only those who've been to the bottom and clawed their way back up can generate. His midnight gifts evoke Hank Williams and Skip James as much as Tom Waits and Dylan. Not everybody will get this music - because not everybody is ready for the truth.

The art and act of writing - speaking just for myself - involves getting your proverbial ass in the proverbial chair.

All of us, at some point in life, choose our cliché.

If you're here for four more years or four more weeks, you're here right now. I think when you're somewhere, you ought to be there. It's not about how long you stay in a place, it's about what you do while you're there, and when you go, is that place any better for your having been there?

You can't really compare hells. But I suppose the hell of being strung out on another person's addictive behavior is its own special thing.

For me there was never a lot of glamor involved in being a junkie, it was about trying to hide the puke and bloodstains on my shirt.