My interest in music wasn't always so consuming. Like most of you, I was just an occasional user. Sure, it started innocently enough, buying my first album at the age of 13 (America, Horse With No Name) and for a long while, I was able to keep it under control.

Eventually though, I moved on to the harder stuff, cassette tapes.....ah, I remember the first time I was able to pop that little rectangle into the tape player of my car. The high was unbelievable, listening to Billy Joel (The Stranger) and being out on the open road.

That is when I knew I was hooked. I began to notice that it took more and more music to feed my need.

From then on, every extra penny I had was spent on music. I was always trying to find that next high and trying to reach a level of musical bliss that seemed just out of reach.

By the time CDs came around, I was a heavy user and went right out and bought those shiny, hypnotic discs. And it got worse. With a CD I was able to play a track over and over with the touch of a finger...immediate gratification.

When I got my new truck and the CD player was installed, that is when I felt the addiction. A few favorite cassettes were still hidden in the glove box but empty CD boxes littered the floor of the truck. Anyone walking by would know that I was a music addict.

Then it happened. I found the music that sent me over the edge.

Late one night, alone in my living room, headphones on, I was listening to a compilation CD.....a music pusher from the local CD shop had given it to me ... he was trying to hook me on the hard stuff and I fell for it.

It was Gorka. The song was Gypsy Life.

I haven't been the same since that night. I began searching everywhere, asking questions, hunting for my next Gorka fix. In short order I had bought all his CDs. I searched the Internet for any information on his music, his concerts. I was Gorked out. I pushed away all other artists and became lost in a Gorka haze for almost a year.

Friends and family tried to pull me back, tried to influence my musical choices but nothing worked. I had that Gorka monkey on my back.

It was the music, to be sure, that beautiful acoustic guitar...but with Gorka, it was much more. It was the writing. No one before had used the English language in such a way. In three minutes, a story, sometimes humorous, oft times serious, always honest.

I am not one of those Gorkanatics that can name all the songs on a CD or who produced the music or which musicians played back up. I am the kind of junkie that peppers her conversation with Gorka-ese. His lyrics and his sense of the absurd are what have captured me.

I was standing on the corner in the shadow of doubt...

Life is full of disappointment, yes, and I am full of life...

I was bred for the occasion, but I didn't rise...

One combination still impresses, women wind and summer dresses...

Life is a pair of ducks who are heading south...

She had no recipe for sweet love, sweet love, for that sweet love...

Spread my seed like a farm boy, shined my light like a lamp...

I am here, you are there, love is our cross to bear...

People my age, have started looking gross, can't say all, shouldn't say most...

Like my watch I'm a little slow........

When these gems leave my lips people may think me odd or damn witty and quite insightful....depends on the circumstance. Depends on the person.

Okay, so a few other singer/songwriters have slipped into the psyche now and then. I have drunk at the well of David Wilcox, Tom Prasada Rao, Christine Lavin, Justin Roth and Don Conoscenti to name a few...but none have reached me, none have filled that need like a good Gorka song can. Some artists capture my attention for a week or a month but I always come back to Gorka.

His songs reach inside and touch a place that I can't find words for. His music, lyrics and deep, rich voice have been what pulled me through many a tough time. I've been to the land of the bottom line and back and now, after yesterday, I still find a place in my life for this most amazing music.

Some people use drugs or alcohol, me, I use Gorka.

Paula Bryn, music junkie