Saturday night a friend and teacher came back from the dead.

Alejandro Escovedo is easily one of the best songwriters living among us. He’s also a very very dear friend and, through his songs and words, has saved my life more times than he knows. He’s one of a few reasons why I still make music and art.

Well, about two years ago he collapsed after a show from the effects of hepatitis C. He nearly died. Given one of my musical mentors had passed a couple years earlier from cancer, the blow of Al’s situation refocused my perspective and reminded me how important it is to make a difference in this world.

But I digress.

Lately I’ve been struggling with finding the larger, global reason that I do what I do. When I was touring and writing songs it was clear; the music we made was for anyone who would listen. I tried to infuse some reason to live, love and look at the world into every song we wrote. But in doing this video production and graphic design, the “global rationale” is a little murkier.

I know the specific reasons for what I do; help the client get their message across.

But what does August Hour do for EVERYone. Mankind. etc..

I know some would say that is not the point. But it has to be the point, for me at least.

So I was really ruminating over this question Saturday night when I went to see Alejandro play for the first time in two years. In addition to all the excitement and anxiety of seeing Al for the first time in years; wondering how his health was, wondering about the show.

Well, the show was top notch. You never would have guessed that this 53-year-old man had been near death just a few months before.

Late in the set Alejandro introduced a song as one of the new ones they were working on. It’s called “I Died a Little Today” and it’s one of THOSE songs; the kind that mixes the beautiful and the personal into something perfect.

So there I am, listening to this song and I realize that this man hasn’t lost a step. I’m on the verge of tears because . . . well . . . when you see and hear something so beautiful if you have any kind of heart at all you bawl like a mother at a wedding. And just as the tears start Alejandro looks down at me and smiles. It’s a smile that says he’s glad you’re there and so happy and humbled that he gets to do that for you.

And I remembered something he told me about 8 years ago. We had just been playing some songs for these kids in a head shop here in Kansas City and we were back in the van waiting for the rest of his old band Buick MacKane to get in. And Al says, did you see what you were able to do for those kids with your voice? You have an amazing voice and you can make people fall in love with your voice. You always need to remember what you can do for people with your voice.

It occurred to me that a voice doesn’t always have to breath through a microphone in a bar or on a CD. Your voice is anything you do to communicate with others. Art, design, video, music, speaking, riding a bicycle — anything you do to express yourself is your voice.

And Al’s right. We can move people once we find our voice. And we all need to remember what we can do for anyone with our voice. We can bring jaded old assholes to tears with our voice. We can create a life with our voice. We can make people fall in love with our voice. We can make people see worlds they’ve never seen before with our voice.

Given all this, why would any of us want to be silent? And why would any of us want to be careless with our voice?

Thanks Al.

Jai Guru Dev(a) om

May we all die a little today.