Ryan Adams: My First Day as a Staff Writer at BlackBook & Other Weekly OMFGs

I am a ghost now, with two jobs -- musician and BlackBook scribe -- and a published author (I signed the books earlier this week ... boxes of them...my god, it's real). Hell, I am gauzy tired, dear reader, or just overcome with information. We writers dream of you. I can see a face which changes so fast when I think of you, and thousands of peaceful beams of light want to go through my fingertips to you. Damn. A writer with no reader? That would be an impossible echo. But maybe there you are; in the best of ways I went ghost, and so did you, if you are reading this. We must assume what we're like and why you're reading and why I am here -- eh, this is a two way street after all. Well, good then. Hello.

I had to go away on a European tour and got very ill with the flu, then tracheitis. Major bummer. I’m on hellish constant weird meds, because my other job is voice-demanding but necessary and I love it as much as I love plumbing. And I’m not messing with you—I love building plumbing. You see the veins of a living space. I digress.

Since I got home, I became a staff writer at a magazine I interned for (ever so slightly) and it’s one I admire so much—a magazine I have always loved for its absolute diversity and its open communication lines. Its content is educating, funny, and really, it’s a science lab magazine if the field of study were “taste” and not the status quo’s. Luck, lucky, lucky, I am. It’s got diversity, fashion, culture, rock, bad-ass books, movies, accessories—everything and the best photos ever, and a rad fashion section every damn time. Never lets you down. Always beyond. And I know, I know, it’s not “cool” to know that stuff—but if you stand in front of my amplifier cave and if you don’t get blown into reverb Valhalla first, perhaps you’ll understand. Cool is no factor in this frigid environment. Sure, I am a dork. I mean well though. I’m just a city elf, that’s all.

The other big news in my writing life: earlier this week I signed two thousand books at Akashic Books and I hold a copy of Infinity Blues here in my hand. So proud. So freaked out.

I only wish my grandfather were here to see this. He taught me to type, to read short-hand, to take dictation, and to be myself and never give up and live my heart’s dream and never bet against myself. When I first started showing him and my Grandma stuff, he said, “One day these will be good stories for others.” They were so generous. What a wonderful thing to grow up around. My Papo appears in my dreams so much, he might as well be a hand on my shoulder. Thanks, gramps, up there with Jimmy Stewart, for teaching me this. The letters and flow of “letting go.” I did it, and it’s for you.

This Versed Monster I made, Infinity Blues, has me beyond words. Seeing it in those boxes, thousands of them, pieces of me cut out, now in words, leaves me absolutely in shock, naked before the world. Once I had signed nearly all of the books, after eight hours straight, I became emotional and overwhelmed: This is the meal—this book. It’s a dream journal of a mind that is forever foggy with the infinity blues; my mind and life on repeat, win or lose.

But enough contemplation: I had work to do at my new job. MY NEW JOB. Crush, swoon, sigh ... I love it so.

I love my new job. I work in an office with tremendous characters. They are exquisite as well, each one of them with postures Lautrec would certainly know from memory—all of them, bent ballerinas but at the shoulders, concentrating with ease. These misfit Santa’s funky village gang in a sweet office with shared music jamming, old newspaper style, people talking, ease about despite the pressures, and that office feels like a beautiful gang of lovely outsiders. What a wonder.

I love that I can be more social and do something positive with my over-excitement, and let go of the narcissistic view which can overtake any man in a holiday funk. This is where a person like me can listen, can try and write on point, and maybe even understand the art of the desk, the working with others, the shutting up without shutting down. Teamwork. BlackBook, I’m all yours buttercup. My ears and eyes are so wide open to that lovely staff and yes I am blinking through the blush. I like getting excited about my new job, and it seems to only add to that sweet candy mountain of print. I am so grateful to bring the energy, and I always have ideas, no matter how nuts or how colorful.

This holiday season, rest your dreams and check back next week. Daydream out loud and let’s all go skiing on that slippery lake of what’s possible.

Best of holidays, New York City, the boroughs, and everywhere over this land.

Peace to you, reader ...

xxx Ryan