I love the Coen Brothers. They are, for my money the best contemporary filmmakers out there. So it was an odd feeling for when last year they put out Inside Llewyn Davis, a movie that explores a singer who is part of the Greenwich Village scene of the early 60s, a music scene that produced Bob Dylan and many others, but the titular character is not the subject of a fictional rags to riches, A Star is Born treatment. Davis is part of the flotsam of that scene, the almost-could-have-beens. I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. But it just came out for home viewing and yesterday I finally brought myself to view it.

Why was it so hard for me to watch it you might be wondering? Mostly because I was afraid that I’d watch it and see myself in Llewyn Davis, all the possibility, all the flaws, the debilitating overconfidence and self-aggrandizing zealotry, the weakness and neediness. And I was right. As I watched the film I saw a representation of my 10 years in New York City as a hopeful songwriter and performer unfold in my mind. No one else would see it, but that’s the beauty of art. You bring yourself to it. It brings you out of it, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. It was probably one of the most difficult films for me to watch, but I watched it. And I enjoyed it. And it brought me back to the place where I was the most weak and–just a little bit–reminded me I could be strong. Maybe.

I read an article in the New Yorker that discussed how the trip to Chicago was really part of Davis’s “quest” he saw in that journey the choices he would have to make to be what he wanted to be and couldn’t make them. When the Grossman character listened to his (really beautiful) song and said “I don’t hear any money in it” I was crushed. But in a good way, I guess (not really).

That whole thing rang very true to me. I seemed and artistic representation of choices we all have to make. It reminded me specifically of choices I definitely made that resulted in my eventual downfall as a musician. I could have tried to take the talents I had and mold them to something that was more commercially viable, but I wanted to write my own stuff. I could have done many things differently. I worked as hard as I possible could for about 8 or 10 years in NYC.

One thing I came to know is that at a certain point talent is a given and luck, or placement, or even looks, become what separates. It feels maddeningly arbitrary. But maybe that’s just a story I tell myself to get through the night. Maybe I quit too soon. I spent more time than I wish I would have envying the success of a few others. Some of you know who they are. Maybe they envy as well. I try to be OK with it. I try not to second guess my choices, but it’s hard not to.

Should I have taken the record deal we were offered in 2000 even though the terms weren’t the best. After I turned it down I heard that our lawyer was shocked I didn’t take it. He told a friend that he’d never seen an artist turn down a first deal like that, or something. And he was one of the people who advised me not to take it.

Should I have asked the 2 dudes who quit the band in ’96 to stay for the SXSW gig where we had several major label folks coming with potential deals on the table instead of curling up in a ball? The Old 97s had occupied the same spot on the bill we filled that year. I don’t know. I don’t think I would have been able to do that at 24. Curling up in a shock-induced ball was probably the only possible reaction for me at the time.

For about 10 years I felt like things were possible. Good things continued to happen along with the not so good. People seemed to think that I was building something, that the next step would come, that I was building a resume. And then it just felt like it was over. Or maybe I was just done with it. Or did I lose my nerve? Errol was there for most of it. Steve was there for some. David and Nancy for a goodly part as well. At any rate, sometime in my 33rd year I just felt like I had deflated and it was over. Was that when the drinking really started? Or had the drinking been going on all along and that’s part of why it never happened? I could kill myself with questions if I let myself go on.

That’s what Inside Llewyn Davis brought out in me, and I kind of knew it would. That’s part of the success of the film. It shows the grinding of an artistic life, no matter how small, pointless or ill-advised. it shows the choices people make even when they don’t understand they’re making choices and the audience can feel how those choices will ripple out and resonate in the mind of the chooser for the rest of their lives.

There are plenty of excuses I could make. Star City put out our last record right before 9/11. We were enjoying a lot of critical “buzz” at the time. After 9/11 we had to cancel tour dates and we never regained our momentum after that. The record deal stuff I mentioned above. We happened to be gaining momentum just as the music industry was dying. Etc. Etc.

I’m still extremely proud of the work we did. I would put it up against other stuff that had more “success” and feel like it stands up, if not outshines, much of that stuff. But in my darkest moments that’s cold comfort. I had a dream. I’m not even sure these days what specifically that dream entailed, other than “Get a record deal, make records, do that forever.” It seems painfully naive now. It’s incredibly hard not to be bitter and sad about it. Sometimes I succeed in that. Sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually insane. They say that the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. A couple years after I receded from my music career I ended up coming to Iowa to become a writer. And of course I had early signs that maybe I could build something from that. And then the publishing industry fell apart as well. The only difference is this time I knew to expect it. I still get up and write, even though I know not many people in the larger scheme of things will probably ever read or hear my work. I try every day to be thankful for those who have and hopeful that I was able to add something to their lives with that work. And I know I have to just let it all go. But I keep doing it. Does that mean I’m insane? I like to think no.

It’s hard. We’re conditioned as a culture to define success in a certain way–public, spectacular, mythical. And because of that I’ll always feel like a failure. Next month I’m playing a show with Jason Isbell (a songwriter very similar to me but much more successful). I worked really hard to get that gig. And now I wonder why. Every time I think about it I try to see myself through his eyes, which is pointless but I can’t stop myself. And I see him seeing me as a sad, failed hobbyist. It breaks my heart to think like that. But that’s what it is.

And that’s OK, right? Or it’ll have to be OK. I don’t have a lot of choice in the matter. So thanks, Coen Brothers and Inside Llewyn Davis, for helping me dredge all this back up and explore it in the most narcissistic way possible. I’d be remiss if I didn’t admit that while I’m typing this I’m secretly hoping one of the Coen Brothers reads it and wonders, “Who is this heart-wrenching forgotten artist? We must know him and bring his work to the world!”

Sad. What a sad, needy bastard I am.