tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70578490245741043282024-03-04T23:03:17.882-07:00Tony Rosario - "The Trailer Park Diaries / 50 Shades of Corrugated Aluminum"A luxurious, yet frantic stroll through the mind of a "dropped-on-his-head-too-many-times" Sorta-Rican visionary and his faithful hound dogs, Elvis & June Carter:-) Recipes, colorful commentary, home plumbing and explosive tips, alternate tunings, and delightful recollections of rural life in the Golden Age of Rock n Roll. Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-52409562296876786052018-10-16T12:51:00.001-07:002018-10-16T12:51:29.373-07:00Her name is KathiOn a day as fine as they come, it drops like an invisible bomb with a deafening explosion of invisible fear and anxiety - cold and alarming as an ice blanket. I found myself suddenly on the business end of what was initially thought to be an innocuous and ordinary phone conversation with a dear, dear friend - one of my finest angels. In a broken moment I was gasping and choking silently - with a mouth full of feathers, eyes full of tears, and a heart freshly broken all over again - from top to bottom. It hurts to say the word - a 'bones-deep' ache of frustration and fear. "Cancer". It rolls off the tongue far too easily. A poisoned word that rings and resonates louder and more painfully with every reverberation.<br />
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On a day not so long ago when calamity had blessed me so beautifully and sorely - when my motorhome was totally destroyed at 85+mph by an uninsured and unlicensed driver - and I was catapulted at what felt like light speed into the oncoming headlights of a careening 18 wheeler on a twilit stretch of Colorado highway - I felt the tangible presence of very real angels - removing all my fear and holding my hand as my own mortality slid by me and came awake - fully alive - on the side of the road. These angels - so tangible and real - began to arrive sans-wings within minutes - wearing clothes and smiles and nothing but love and concern in their eyes - for me. I was not saved - I was lifted - elevated and made aware of a love I had done so little to deserve - A love that I had spent a lifetime denying. I was made humble by the gifts laid before me.<br />
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There was one angel whose quiet loving light shone as bright and comforting as all the rest. Within minutes of my bad news she sprang into action - setting up a Go Fund Me account almost immediately that provided for me and kept me working. She facilitated the love and genuine concern of a thousand angels and more - all in my behest. I was humbled beyond tears -beyond words. She put love in my pocket and in my ear - she gave voice to the angels that held my hands and held me close on impact. She put a face to their love. She put the warmth of their touch and all their sincerity in the embrace she held me so lovingly in when we finally came face-to-face after the crash. She is, and will always be, in my eyes - exactly what heavens finest intent is.<br />
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When she called today - to tell me the news - to share that awful word with me. I found myself at heavens mercy. That awful spectre is resting at her door today. She'll be going into Community Hospital tomorrow for a surgery that will dictate the rest of her days on this earth. To hear fear in her voice is an unbearable weight. I am asking - begging on my knees - for all of the angels that held me so tightly - on both sides of this mortal coil - to embrace her and guide her without fear - to the safety of the grassy side of this highway where I landed - in love and in the abundance of the angels embrace.<br />
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Please - I ask with all sincerity and humility I can muster - with all of the grace I have been so blessedly given solely by her love and grace - to pray today to whoever and whatever God holds your confidence - for my dear friend, my sister, my loving gift - Kathi Rohrs-Bledsoe. Heaven has never made any finer. Her place on this earth is far too valuable to comprehend losing. Pray for her and for every soul walking in that awful garden of darkness this awful disease calls home. Pray - give - cry - give more. <br />
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I could put pen to paper till the end of my days and never define the weight of this womans worth. I can never define the weight and strength of the souls of all who suffer - all who win and all who lose. But I feel them all today - for her. <br />
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I ask again. Her name is Kathi. She shines like a million sunrises. Please ask the God in your soul to watch over her today and all days. The grace we give is the grace we receive - she's given more than most.<br />
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God Bless you all - my angels<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-27908178778741516732016-12-18T09:40:00.000-07:002016-12-18T09:53:49.410-07:00This One Oughtta Piss Somebody Off<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvibQzxeUPdRWHLCP1bjNyfSsXaTZuppv7tIfFY_NhK6Drv-eVKOtth6truYLeMpTNsgc2LvcovxSCMtt90i_y95FbI9TCZvAfZptaKZu7MA7dPI3kyiO7pgQuUEHYtku0j6Bxuhn-EyJS/s1600/Hillbilly+Chick+Magnet+Album+Art3.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvibQzxeUPdRWHLCP1bjNyfSsXaTZuppv7tIfFY_NhK6Drv-eVKOtth6truYLeMpTNsgc2LvcovxSCMtt90i_y95FbI9TCZvAfZptaKZu7MA7dPI3kyiO7pgQuUEHYtku0j6Bxuhn-EyJS/s200/Hillbilly+Chick+Magnet+Album+Art3.jpg" /></a><br />
Lemme tell you about my night!! <br />
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Bubba can't read!!!!.....or count......or wipe his ass in the right direction. Bubba is a fuggin' idiot with the IQ of a philodendron. Bubba can't even spell the word "ethically" - let alone live that way. - with integrity or dignity. He frequently lies through his teeth to get what he thinks he wants, and constantly blames all his problems on everyone but himself. Bubba manhandles his women. Bubba is a Trump supporter.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3T0tJHCVNQYYhqHuhwvIRJB8oiqC8Ok7TyUqZ157VFrYhPvHRTgRu0kmL9yT5Pu8g-Do0qaevns9AepAPNHe9tQAlR7F6M8ywDsEANqip7anheDypGiAdkd8s4hoKO2x2vGqOXcUR-z1r/s1600/FB_IMG_1481538597394.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3T0tJHCVNQYYhqHuhwvIRJB8oiqC8Ok7TyUqZ157VFrYhPvHRTgRu0kmL9yT5Pu8g-Do0qaevns9AepAPNHe9tQAlR7F6M8ywDsEANqip7anheDypGiAdkd8s4hoKO2x2vGqOXcUR-z1r/s200/FB_IMG_1481538597394.jpg" /></a><br />
I got to see some of those Trumpeting rocket scientists first-hand last night. Played background music for a Xmas party in Rifle for an oil drilling outfit. It was a Donald Trump love fest. Just about closing time one of the drunken attendees - a big gomer-lookin' MoFo with trouble written all over his face - obviously well-respected by his peers - decided to drag his inebriated wife across the bar in front of me by the neck while she screamed for him to stop. Hurting her. I came up off my chair as soon as I realized what was happening.<br />
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It took me a minute. I couldn't believe it. I hollered at him to stop as I started frantically pulling my monitor lines off, dropping my guitar, and stepping over cords to go after the fuck. They were out the door in about 3 shakes and gone before I could get my shit together to untangle..</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeyAePSFBPrw6sl_E8jafP9TEhyDR-z7A0BR9wPaRpUCdyRD1ZjLE0znHfmMIKd6q52-0vyfow1Ux7ZiUlb4OexOmmBiscOPGW2tZiQV1Dz9eqBWzWpbFWjx5N3ixsIwsTTf6rXyRznZ79/s1600/FB_IMG_1481312093779.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeyAePSFBPrw6sl_E8jafP9TEhyDR-z7A0BR9wPaRpUCdyRD1ZjLE0znHfmMIKd6q52-0vyfow1Ux7ZiUlb4OexOmmBiscOPGW2tZiQV1Dz9eqBWzWpbFWjx5N3ixsIwsTTf6rXyRznZ79/s200/FB_IMG_1481312093779.jpg" width="0" /></a>In a room full of mostly men - I am appalled to think that I was the only person that seemed to have a problem with a women getting her ass kicked in public by a man 3 times her size. His shithead friends decided that I was the bad guy, they started shutting me down. Telling me to "let it go" - it was okay because "she's drunk" and "he's her husband". <br />
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The barmaid told me she had called the cops but I never saw any. Just tail-lights squealing out of the parking lot with the pedal to the floor. I'm livid this morning, and worried for that woman well being. I don't care what her situation is, or what she said or did. . Only a coward POS worthless gutless fuck puts his hand on a woman. . <br />
I'm getting more and more irascible with age. I don't have any tolerance left for people that put their hands on women, kids, or critters. Those aren't human beings - just plant food waiting to happen.<br />
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I had a lot of respect for people in the oil patch - until last night. 20 "hard-working American heroes" stood by and watched a women get brutalized and drug through a bar against her will - and never said a word.. My Dad worked in the oil patch. He was a wife-beater. I guess I should have figured it out quicker.<br />
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If you work in the oil-patch and this pisses you off - good. Do something about yourselves. Do something about the trash in your house that likes to beat up women and make you all look like idiot gorillas. Act like men.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fqjQySflpj2GInN5rxf4pMGQ6dN0sD8LnXB1zmjdJFC5KueOor2vWpkw6KBsd5xEoPlF_aSAF8JYqeksk8_KOf9MBROujxZlxvECQw70xXdtBhbar_ylr6LgLEWlr2edRz1u7uS8Y3HW/s1600/trains+guitars+1.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3fqjQySflpj2GInN5rxf4pMGQ6dN0sD8LnXB1zmjdJFC5KueOor2vWpkw6KBsd5xEoPlF_aSAF8JYqeksk8_KOf9MBROujxZlxvECQw70xXdtBhbar_ylr6LgLEWlr2edRz1u7uS8Y3HW/s200/trains+guitars+1.jpg" /></a><br />
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I have no idea what happened to that woman last night, but I'm gonna find out who her husband is. I'll keep y'all posted. Women need to know who to look out for -and men of character need to know what POS to look for. </div>
Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-33555237489888778642016-12-13T20:01:00.001-07:002016-12-14T04:17:48.851-07:00I Would Like To Formally Lodge A Complaint -and it's a Ass Whuppin offense<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay- so here's my beef with the new big Cheetoh in Washington. Women.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZHWOMwBUJwTSoAFAxphFL3Il6_aLYv7408UNn8KneGd9HkFbW0JrL-_VXT7NDNoWse3rRnt5HwUVTb2AomNTQYQVIqbTKz_rU3-rINkNO-clYohMwhBi3w6WbnsHgHhE4jjMXehWdGWZ/s1600/Mom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZHWOMwBUJwTSoAFAxphFL3Il6_aLYv7408UNn8KneGd9HkFbW0JrL-_VXT7NDNoWse3rRnt5HwUVTb2AomNTQYQVIqbTKz_rU3-rINkNO-clYohMwhBi3w6WbnsHgHhE4jjMXehWdGWZ/s200/Mom.jpg" width="138" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHgnQuMl1QLpr_7kWudkNc-FSA_ds4wrgadwQAFmDIoAmh9rds5MawR2GyIOpB3wzUAKkQQMwNxirr3OxJyWyRg4wxMd8ICYuQ9B4UEf53d6EpcLrni9GsqeVUQbQbv020jTgY8cp7G-H/s1600/Mrs+Nellie+Call.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoHgnQuMl1QLpr_7kWudkNc-FSA_ds4wrgadwQAFmDIoAmh9rds5MawR2GyIOpB3wzUAKkQQMwNxirr3OxJyWyRg4wxMd8ICYuQ9B4UEf53d6EpcLrni9GsqeVUQbQbv020jTgY8cp7G-H/s200/Mrs+Nellie+Call.jpg" width="165" /></a>As most of you know, I was raised by a teenage single Mom and my solid-as-stone country Granny. Both with a head full of dreams...... for me. Screwy old gals - funny as hell and tough as a bucket of hammers. Good to the core and challenged every step of the way.<br />
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Moms greatest accomplishment - and the unending testament to her saint-like patience - her true deep, dear love for her only son- is that she did not drown me in my sleep on any one of the numerous occasions when she had the chance and plenty of good reason.<br />
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Mom didn't have it easy for a single day that I can ever remember. Worked her ass off waiting tables , driving trucks, schoolhouses, cleaning houses, tending bar, or whatever it took to keep the bacon on the table.<br />
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She fought with her own demons - booze and loneliness. single parenthood, The futility and chastising judgements and sideways whispers of the 'proper " Christian community - abundant as tumbleweeds blowing through our west Nebraska cowtown in the 1960s. She had a few ex-husbands. She liked weddings I guess. Not a one of 'em was worth the the paper they wiped their asses with. Redneck booze-soaked shit-howdy reprobates who thought women were cattle.<br />
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I saw first-hand, way too many times, the kind of shithead that treats women like property. Who degrades them, who refer to women as bitch, sow, whore, and worse. The kind of man that insisted she have no voice and no choice. A man like a Donald Trump. Insulting, rude, conniving, lying, accusatory, etc. Completely assured of his own right to subjugate anyone physically weaker or in any way dependent upon him. Assured of his own divinely-placed superiority over every one he sees and all they own.<br />
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How in the hell does a person explain this to your daughters or grand-daughters; that the little boy who shoves her into the closet in grade school and sticks his hand up her dress, or the teenager who ignores "no" - and assaults or rapes her against her will - or the man who grabs her ass in a bar or club like she's meat, or says vulgar things to her or about her in passing, with complete disrespect - may someday be the president. "Why Honey" - "Maybe if you're lucky you'll get knocked up by one of these fine boys"<br />
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Normalizing the assault or brutalization of women is at least a 250 year slide backward by any metric of civility in human behavior. Normalizing Trumps "Grab her Pussy" philosophy as a laissez faire event is a serious mistake in judgement. It is condoning brutality on a scale that is no different than the broad-scale uneducated ignorance of the Dark Ages.<br />
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Have you ever heard the sound a 2" leather belt with a rodeo buckle makes when it hits a woman flesh - when it cuts into her and splits the skin on her cheekbone? The sharp wet millisecond smack of a closed-fist knockout punch connecting with her bloody crying face. The intensity and agonizing crescendo and fade of her screams as she's punched and violated. raped and humiliated, The frantic, angry rage as she tries to get away - as she pleads for the terror to stop. Have you ever seen hair in handfuls - your own -with bloody bits of scalp still attached? Smelled whisky vomit from a racist murderous raging drunk - and the flat dark odor of your own blood - your own and your crying, beaten mothers' - lots of it?<br />
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You never forget it. You can never excuse it. The rhetoric, the action, the upbringing, the character - whatever it is that coalesces to make up someone of this cancerous disgusting ilk - can never be tolerated for an instant.<br />
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12 women came forward with allegations of groping, sexual misconduct, and in the case of a 12 year old- rape. The dumbass was filmed on National TV describing his technique for getting to know women. That's plenty enough for me. I wanna puke on the sorry son-of-a-bitch.<br />
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I'm an old man now. Cranky and irascible - too tired and too smart to believe that the bullshit I'm being fed on an all-too regular basis is caviar. I'm an irritation and a confoundment to my children and a constant stream of left-turns and amazing contradictions to my friends. I have more confessions to make than a catholic hooker. Worthless by damn near every stretch. Thank God I sing good and make folks giggle occasionally. Those are just about my only redeeming virtues.<br />
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I've always loved women. Probably more than I was supposed to:-) Some of 'em loved me back but I haven't always been good about taking it. I've got more ex-wives, girlfriends, dalliances, and bad-end stories about relationships than Carters got liver pills - (which is surprisingly to my credit - for someone so aesthetically "challenged" :-) <br />
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That said; I don't think a single woman I've ever been with or been in the company of has ever had to fear for anything more tangible or grave than her sanity or public standing - The thought of raising a hand to a women or violating a woman is not an option - never has been. (I can drive the majority of women certifiable "scratch yer ass and holler at the paper boy" batshit nuts in under a week most times though without really even trying).<br />
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If and when I see violence against women or children in my presence, I am not at all above punching' a UtherFucker right in the lip, takin' a coffee pot to their head, or a Buick to their kneecaps. Generally making' a scene. I got no tolerance for it. To me these imitation humans are just speed bumps waiting to happen.<br />
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I'm not proud of what I'm about to confess, but I have once or twice had the pleasure of spending the night in a jail cell. Nothing too serious, but I do know that there are some things that are damn well worth it. Smacking kiddy-diddlers, women-beaters, and rapists till they spit up Play-Doh and nickels, and cease to make breathing noises - is one of them. I'm praying right now that God will forgive me for what I think about doing to them.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGNz1W1AWYyEf7yw3qQdAwNvi5rxLGOTR4qN0XAQvVCjdh0ud4BR0DVTUJTUP8oAV7YkecHD_9lsQHkoBqPVoxgZ2SBDKI0BynshBUiP77CXKyuI2BrgGDobj84nzSAfPB4C8yFbWKSRh/s1600/20140321_181953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQGNz1W1AWYyEf7yw3qQdAwNvi5rxLGOTR4qN0XAQvVCjdh0ud4BR0DVTUJTUP8oAV7YkecHD_9lsQHkoBqPVoxgZ2SBDKI0BynshBUiP77CXKyuI2BrgGDobj84nzSAfPB4C8yFbWKSRh/s320/20140321_181953.jpg" width="240" /></a>Violence, in any degree, psychological or physical, directed at a woman by a man, is an unacceptable paradigm. I don't tolerate it. Don't perpetrate it, and I don't condone it - especially by sitting on my lips when the President-Elect of MY country - the one I grew up believing in and counting on to do the right thing in the end - says about his own documented history of sexual assault and languaging is "no big deal - really". I don't accept it - Not for a minute.<br />
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IMHO Donald J. Trumps ought have his powder-puffed ass racked and whipped pink every morning at 8 o clock sharp, just because the sun came up - in retribution for any number of offenses, and just to make me feel good. (I'm a sick sum'bitch - I know) For Fomenting hatred and fear, castigating dead American war heroes, POWs, our military, handicapped people, people of color, etc. All of it. <br />
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His sins are many and his stand with women may be only one facet of this cat's putrification; But for this cowboy, the cavalier language and assault of women - that's the one the makes me stop, close my eyes, and shudder - in waves of long-smoldering, raging hatred. God forgive me. It makes me remember.<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-92056712543556714082016-03-07T13:38:00.002-07:002016-03-07T15:05:43.204-07:00 "Pop 'at rag like ya mean it"<br />
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Well what the heck is in this barrel today? The barrel being my head, where I keep extra thoughts for parts. I'm always surprised at what I find laying around in odd disheveled piles up in the locked dusty chambers of the "Dark Tower".<br />
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Memories, bent and twisted into shapes unrecognizable - old lies and truths- buried in weeds -parted-out and rusted, abandoned like a stack of old long outgrown bicycles behind the barn. Philosophical and eloquent diatribes of great import, and ass-whuppins for everybody stupid or mean, all exist up there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrFoafE2RErs_ruYA7Jy74FDJIQVJETMiJ_kl6zKps4se9VR54TgNt6ivW9FMOlr66-u-Y2WDBRKc2mKilCtwvx3o_ZiVVzfAurPUFTD_PJNOPJE3SVK9dfDEVbeuimklIwkHlSvunx-Z/s1600/IMG_2273453201051.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrFoafE2RErs_ruYA7Jy74FDJIQVJETMiJ_kl6zKps4se9VR54TgNt6ivW9FMOlr66-u-Y2WDBRKc2mKilCtwvx3o_ZiVVzfAurPUFTD_PJNOPJE3SVK9dfDEVbeuimklIwkHlSvunx-Z/s320/IMG_2273453201051.jpeg" width="320" /></a>All my dogs, past & present, are there, and they're all in perfect health - and they can talk. Apparently they think I'm a God. <br />
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There's a closet with a lock on it where I keep my most grievous heartaches and smoldering angers - securely bound and gagged - drugged if necessary, - it's a small closet. I'm blessed.<br />
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My kids are there too. They're still little. Their laughter is like sweetened-oxygen, like water and sunshine combined. They still like me, and although they don't entirely trust me, they'll still pull my finger.<br />
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I ran into Shoeshine Bill up there this morning. Hadn't seen him in years. A small wiry man of color, with a ready smile and a nature as gentle and soothing as a calm lake. The most polite man I ever knew. He still smelled like shoe polish, Old Spice, and scotch. He was stacked proper as always, in a starched white shirt and knife-crease slacks with a comb and a flask in the back pocket. Contrarily neat to a pin behind a wrinkled knee length blue denim work vest with large pockets at his waist, stuff you see tradesmen wear in old black & white movies. Smeared in vague dark streaks with the black and brown waxes and liquids comprising the majority of shoeshine color palette. The denim was patched and frayed, but always laundered. <br />
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He took pride in his work. He had a small store front in Sidney. A solid brick facade worn and old with apartments on the floor above it. My Mom and I lived in an apartment for awhile there, just down the hall from Bill. There were railroaders and old bachelors that came and went to the other apartments in the building with some frequency. We all shared the same bathroom centrally located halfway down the long plastered hall.Sometimes during the days when Mom would be working or trying to sleep off a late shift, Bill would let me hang out with him in his shop.<br />
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Bills shop downstairs was small with big picture windows facing Illinois Street, and brown slatted wood floors worn from 40 years of dirt farmers and railroaders shuffling their clodhoppers and $100 dollar cowboy boots across it's skin. He opened 6 days a week at 7:00 a.m. like clockwork. Coffee made by 7:05 and floors swept and mopped by 8. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlGZpKuwkfdnuQPHyO4WypjBIhANEXlMNEYRWcFZypHJmBZr9ua5M2jI_r46mwwzJsaZNYIr0uIaSAXIHim-xm-eW3T5YQaO-8WrQ_3AFCkHGvhY0mtqAXZdNvfj4c04Ipf-vSSw7R_-n/s1600/curious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvlGZpKuwkfdnuQPHyO4WypjBIhANEXlMNEYRWcFZypHJmBZr9ua5M2jI_r46mwwzJsaZNYIr0uIaSAXIHim-xm-eW3T5YQaO-8WrQ_3AFCkHGvhY0mtqAXZdNvfj4c04Ipf-vSSw7R_-n/s320/curious.jpg" width="232" /></a><br />
On those "never-long-enough-for-me" days with Bill, I'm sure I must have driven him batshit nuts - with a million "8 year old kid" questions about goofy shit adults can't even begin to surmise the worth of pondering. Perhaps in self-defense; Certainly out of the kindness of a wise and good soul, He taught me how to shine shoes.<br />
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"Pop 'at rag boy" "Like ya mean it". He gave me a dime for every pair of shoes he let me buff up with the rags. After a while I knew enough to gather up the rags a few times a day and put them in a box by the door. I figured out where the broom and dustpan was, and I kept that floor CLEAN. It felt awful good to have someone tell me I did a good job.<br />
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The central fixture in the joint was a large oak 3-seater shoeshine bench , about 10-12 feet long and around 6-8 feet deep. Chest high to a grown up, with 3 big steps leading up to red leather seat cushions on top. It had 6 ornate brass pedestals rising off the 2nd step terminating perpendicularly in the hard shape of a shoe ,shiny flat brass and worn on top - for the customers ensconced on the upper bench seats to rest their feet upon. There were a myriad of doors and storage compartments located all over the structure, and whatever Bill needed at any given moment to perform his duties was always a flip and reach away as this little door or that would open and close in quick rhythmic support of the maestro mid-performance.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEUiepZN7LR19PD9aWDqBfb2xqv7oXQrbl3n1-09MOZ0hP94sn7gQkjYKUhsZ71P8uStL6NI3cF-vlusWUjJku4tUbY-350hAA9duCBaHP1tz6yDLEoeXzxtzgLI9F81DeowyaXCopYOW4/s1600/10689960_791525814222838_8710788554003402887_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEUiepZN7LR19PD9aWDqBfb2xqv7oXQrbl3n1-09MOZ0hP94sn7gQkjYKUhsZ71P8uStL6NI3cF-vlusWUjJku4tUbY-350hAA9duCBaHP1tz6yDLEoeXzxtzgLI9F81DeowyaXCopYOW4/s320/10689960_791525814222838_8710788554003402887_n.jpg" width="320" /></a>He was always appropriate and graceful, with appropriately placed head nods and hm-mms while he swung his brushes , one in each hand, <br />
with the ferocity and finesse of Bruce Lee sand-painting in the middle of a fight scene. Flawless.<br />
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What drew my attention was the way the man could pop the rag. The soft cotton rags, 6" wide and a couple feet long. He could make it talk. Pop-pop-pop-pop. Sometimes he'd just fall into the rhythm of the song on the radio and he'd have to laughingly caution his client to please refrain from toe-tapping while in process. They couldn't help it. Neither could I.<br />
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When I'm writing these things sometimes, I feel as if I'm always the last to know regarding our destination. Here it is. I can see it on the horizon. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IieSKmSQ-MGzTwc9zqbvzej6hmyveDAArE2A2n5YwoaAVlgZFhtr5LuAC5eQyRG1klM3mvhJuMx2yBMj6_9Y7gGKz1lbK_lddzEPRdNK4R5RkBbqF3MNbHx8doB8y36CqHksOZOIo35R/s1600/530887_1980947969597youngsters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2IieSKmSQ-MGzTwc9zqbvzej6hmyveDAArE2A2n5YwoaAVlgZFhtr5LuAC5eQyRG1klM3mvhJuMx2yBMj6_9Y7gGKz1lbK_lddzEPRdNK4R5RkBbqF3MNbHx8doB8y36CqHksOZOIo35R/s320/530887_1980947969597youngsters.jpg" width="318" /></a>I told you some about her yesterday. My Grandma knew her stuff. The woman grew up hard in extremely hard times. The Dust Bowl 30s and the Great Depression were more than crushing to dirt-farmers in western Kansas. It's the world she was born into. Oldest of 5 - to a blind and mentally ill Father - A bitter and often cruel mother. They didn't have a pot to piss in and the window blew clean away in a dust storm. They lived in tents and barns and sheds in town from Kansas to Colorado back to the panhandle of Nebraska.<br />
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She never knew an easy moment in her life. She knew what it felt like to have people look down their nose at you. She'd felt the embarrassment of abject poverty. She knew about the weight of undeserved and unexplained humiliation, and had seen more than her fair share of hunger, abject fear , and loss. She knew, more than she ever should have had to know, about dignity in the face of adversity. Dignity as a response to stupidity, cruelty.<br />
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She took me to Bills shop to get my shoes shined once after she'd bought me a new black suit over at J.C. Penneys, to wear to Great-Uncle Alex's funeral. As it turned out , the day I told her about my new "job" at Bills , was probably a pretty good day for her. They were friends.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__O3Xm9MeJgIKH6Q_5YWp-HK0pM8SFc2M_vKOLWslxVkBLv7mf1Uz95uqm05coJLpT9w8YSlnfHWK_ZOZw65-e6R3qNbppuGhYPFa3o4KT4vPONXk0q-VpfjOZzwMmO5oHbvQhPFl2S5E/s1600/Nellie+Call+Ethal+Weimer+Paula+and+Kathy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__O3Xm9MeJgIKH6Q_5YWp-HK0pM8SFc2M_vKOLWslxVkBLv7mf1Uz95uqm05coJLpT9w8YSlnfHWK_ZOZw65-e6R3qNbppuGhYPFa3o4KT4vPONXk0q-VpfjOZzwMmO5oHbvQhPFl2S5E/s320/Nellie+Call+Ethal+Weimer+Paula+and+Kathy.jpg" width="320" /></a>She always saw past color. Made sure I did too. She understood and fully appreciated, the strength it must have taken for so many years, and on so many occasions, for Bill to unfairly bear not only the weight of his own mahogany-toned flesh, but the weight of all the well-intentioned stupidity and xenophobic bias one little Nebraska town in that dark era could produce over the course of one good mans lifetime.<br />
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The day I told her about my new career She smiled a little, and her eyes smiled a little more - as she nodded her head at me through a haze of Lucky Strike smoke. Grandma had known Bill for what I imagined at least a hundred and thirty years. "You pay attention to that man" "mind your manners" <br />
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She knew, and she felt it important that I know, that 25 cents bought you more than a shoeshine with a man like Bill. It bought you a tutorial in noble dignity. A smile, an ear, a friend, and a wise counsel. A good many folks were just too redneck dumb or adamantly racist back then to see it for what it was. Bill listened to each and every one of their commiserations , the tasteless jokes, the rude digs and slurs and the patronizing attempts at justification of poorly veiled racism in a small Nebraska farm town in the fifties and sixties. Never said a word about it. Looked like a boss doing it. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVLfe3gxhZr7w0cVAqlee-Qlq0rrtED7UYTiz1HnlTgvZMQ4H-HPlSBXVbP0wyuo_sAhL8p9RyDsnOhf5WH9QsW8EMFp4RcQB0R0242YeFohXs-9tjvGO6OaqlO4zCNQd4wq9B1L4qA2ZH/s1600/baby+beats.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVLfe3gxhZr7w0cVAqlee-Qlq0rrtED7UYTiz1HnlTgvZMQ4H-HPlSBXVbP0wyuo_sAhL8p9RyDsnOhf5WH9QsW8EMFp4RcQB0R0242YeFohXs-9tjvGO6OaqlO4zCNQd4wq9B1L4qA2ZH/s320/baby+beats.gif" width="320" /></a><br />
Come to think of it, Bill was the first person to ever propose the concept of RHYTHM to me. The radio on his shelf and the shoeshine rag snap in sympathetic syncopation made a connection in my little brain that I had no idea of the importance of at the time. (Too bad for him that he didn't get to stick around long enough to hear me practice my drums at 130 db along with Led Zeppelin records in Jr. High, eh?)<br />
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I stumble and stutter, and stagger through this life a lot now - like most of us. Through the grace of God, and the sheer kindness of strangers - I make my living playing music now . I take pride in my work, although the wardrobe could probably use some "spiffin', I've made a habit of giving it my best. Bill would be proud I think. I am, on occasion (when I'm not busy chasing my own tail and doing' other stupid stuff :-)<br />
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As a professional (musician) and smart-aleck <i>par excellence</i> - of good standing and unidentifiable mastery, I will today pass this tidbit of wisdom forth to you all from the Senseii hisself - my old friend Bill; "Pop 'at rag boy" "Like ya mean it"<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
See ya manana:-)Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-1582610479645589112016-03-06T08:39:00.000-07:002016-03-06T08:39:01.431-07:00Sometimes it has to feel bad before it gets better<br />
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Grace is a hard word. I don't understand it fully. I don't understand greed at all quite frankly. I know that collectively we are constantly in short supply of grace somewhere, and perpetually we are choking for air on unfettered greed, and somewhere in between the two lies the whole of humanity, waiting for a verdict.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIYP6vkBZTEMigARX4xOkZX5B0LFY97-NTPgj9FOaHQVwqRKFMN-dUq6gK26E6m1Df2E7bdNE5t_yGE41XWmcU5apr-pRrvtKlJ_rFJ9S8nP6i81N145cSudS6OlGRwj1xwKNEzBW_f8a/s1600/coyote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicIYP6vkBZTEMigARX4xOkZX5B0LFY97-NTPgj9FOaHQVwqRKFMN-dUq6gK26E6m1Df2E7bdNE5t_yGE41XWmcU5apr-pRrvtKlJ_rFJ9S8nP6i81N145cSudS6OlGRwj1xwKNEzBW_f8a/s320/coyote.jpg" width="320" /></a> Grace and greed, since the beginning of time, locked in a perpetual struggle, clamoring and clinging, rattling sabers and sounding the never-ending battle cries of good vs. evil. Mass media today claws at our senses leaving indelible stains of anxiety and frustration on us all, while the air around us grows thick and purple with vitriole and innuendo. Folks are nervous. I am too. Maybe for the same reasons. The "Land of The Free" is starting to look like the "Land of Too Freaked Out To Poop Right".<br />
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In our great nation, Intentional blockage of the system has become common-place as a negotiation <br />
technique. I know what Grandma woulda' done. I experienced it first hand as a child.<br />
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If your mule is stopped up, you slip a plug of chewing tobacco into his oats and wait. If your elephant is stopped up I imagine you'd just use more tobacco. If someone you love is bound up to the point of discomfort - then it's time for the red rubber hot water bottle - and a few rather delicate "Come To Jesus" moments. After whence, the sun will shine glorious once again, and songbirds will fill the air.<br />
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I hate to admit it, but that old woman could put the fear of God into me when it came time to "fix what ails you" Her approach was "Take No Prisoners" . Colonics, Poultices, Whiskey, Cinnamon, Voodoo, burnt horse-hair, prayer, more whiskey, charcoal, and that damned hot water bottle. I stayed real healthy because I knew that getting well could very well kill me. <br />
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Her hands weren't soft. She wore Grandads old work shirts and carpenters jeans most of the time. Worked her ass off from sun-up to sundown. I never remember hearing her complain about a single thing.<br />
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Mom was a single mother with a hungry little gorilla to feed and not much education or opportunity at her disposal. She waited tables and tended bar at night. Grandma raised me when Mom couldn't . I know she raised me right. On the day Martin Luther King died she held me with tears in her eyes, and made me promise on my life that I would never be like those sad terrible souls that carried that awful hate inside them. Any shortcomings I have displayed or fostered since , have been of my own device, and contrary to her tutelage.<br />
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Grandma was who I came running to every time I did something stupid:-) I ran to her alot. Bleeding like a stuck hog when I caught an huge ball of ice with my nose in the 1st grade. She was who I ran to when I fell off my horse and broke my arm (7 yrs old). She was who I wanted at the hospital when they took my appendix out. a couple years later. She was rock solid -and I knew she had the advice I needed to hear. If I could just hold on to her words , I knew I would be ok. <br />
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She would hold my hand, and with the most beautiful voice God ever made, she would remind me " "Sometimes it's going to feel bad before it gets better" "I'll be here with you" <br />
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Granny's been gone for a long time now. I think about her every day. I thank God for everything she ever said to me. Her voice comes back to me often - in times of worry or frustration. She was always right. Her wisdom has outlasted a lot of governments, a lot of administrations, a lot of life-changing stuff.<br />
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I wish we didn't have to deal with idiots saying and doing hateful stuff and being rewarded for it. But I am sure glad we all have each other. We're gonna need one another. At times like these I have to have faith. In God , in my dogs, in music, In you, in my children and my friends, in Grandma. <br />
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The world is a scary place right now. But we must be brave. Things are probably a lot more hopeful than they appear. Healing isn't easy. - but to the black, white, red, green, gay, straight, conservative, liberal, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Lakota,, Hindu, NRA, & PTA - Let's not forget how to forgive, how to give and receive grace , how to live in the example of a simple carpenter from Bethlehem, how to laugh , how to sing, and how to love<br />
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I hear her voice as plain as day. It sounds like Gods voice. Can you hear it?<br />
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"Sometimes it has to feel bad before it gets better" "I'll be here with you" <br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
See ya manana:-)<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-63649819685243955212016-03-02T12:55:00.000-07:002016-03-02T13:21:10.157-07:00March 2, 2016 - Getting back on The Pony With Spurs Pointed In The Right Direction:-)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Well damned if things ain't a real mess. I woke up this morning to a world that had gone relatively unchanged from where it was when I fell asleep. More noise on the news. Another idiot did something mean or stupid, or the next "Somebody like somebody else" made teenage girls and rainbow haired millenials squirt tears of rapturous joy over a bang-up imitation of a Lady Gaga cover of a Whitney Houston version of an Aretha Franklin smash on "American Idol" - Events unfolding around me of cataclysmic importance...............................and still. -----I needed a cup of coffee like crops need the rain. I needed a shave (as usual). My breath was makin' the dogs roll their eyes and paw the air, and I had to pee.<br />
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This day began with a set of challenges in front of it that frankly scare the hell out of me.Breakfast, Laundry, the microwave, Plaid button-down or T-shirt , Pants ???? I am thoroughly unequipped for adult life. While other men my age stare at the challenges before them, and the land around them, like noble warriors assaying the perimeters of their dominion - I wonder what kind of bugs are in the dirt. Hope I find a quarter, --or maybe a spaceship. <br />
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It's been a while since I wrote anything on the blog, and I apologize for that. Frankly, I've been blocked up. Literarily constipated. I was intimidated. Performance anxiety:-) Last year I wrote on the thing every day for a month. I was amazed at the number of people who actually read it in that time, and who continue to read it now. I continue to get emails and comments from all over the place. I'm completely stunned and I always try to issue a word of warning questioning the wisdom of encouraging my behaviour.<br />
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There are a few folks that would love to bury me head first in a whale turd over some of my foolishness - But for the most part, the majority of people who email me, or come talk to me at gigs have been very, very supportive. Always actively and vocally encouraging me to write more. I most certainly appreciate each and every one of you good folks. And I want you all to know right now that YOU are my prune juice - and with your gracious encouragement and support- "Here Goes "<br />
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Since my last writing I'm sure you will all be pleased to know that Elvis and June Carter are both in magnificent health and splendiferous disposition. They can still hear a grocery bag rustle from about 3 miles and they still sniff butts. They are my role models, my confidantes, and my spiritual advisers. They can sense imminent danger at every traffic light or passing chihuahua.- and are not afraid to bark at foghorn level volume directly in my ear when issuing their warnings. I'm partially deaf now because of my dogs. Serves me right for telling them I drink too much because they bark.?????<br />
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I'm gonna keep things short and sweet today. Sorta sneak up on your sensibilities slowly after my long absence. (It's exactly the tactic I was forced to take with all my ex-wives at least a time or two ) I think that august alumnus would all agree that what I may have lacked in material sensibility I more than made up for in sheer idiocy:-)<br />
Is it a gift or a curse? Who am I to judge? All I can say is that I am always more than willing to share my psychotic confusion with anyone who'll listen....on your screen...........on purpose. <br />
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What I'm tryin' to say is........"Screw yer' boots on and hang on to yer' saddle-horn Pilgrims" "I'm back, and it's probably gonna require some sort of medication or therapy!!!!". If I haven't irritated you over something stupid yet, just stick around, I'm working as fast as I can.<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
See ya manana:-)<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-41298000027548538162015-03-10T13:04:00.000-07:002015-03-10T13:31:56.113-07:00.."Was It Something I Said?"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Cars rolled by - out on the blacktop, about a hundred times a day</i></div>
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<i>never knew where they were going, they were just going away</i></div>
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An intelligent man knows when to speak up and when to shut up. That's always been a gray area for me.<br />
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Language is such a useful tool. It sets us apart from at least a few species (not prairie dogs). I think it's safe to say that "human homo-sapien erectus" are the only critters with a 1500+ word vocabulary, that have thumbs and can be trained to do simple mathematics - and we use tools. The big 4 triple-threat that makes humans the lords of all they purvey.<br />
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Not only is language useful, but it is a comfort. It is the single-most expedient way to convey information among humans - except for Iphones, Google+, and Facebook.<br />
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It allows us to tangibly author emotions into full bloom. Imagine your favorite love scenes or heroic scenes in your favorite movies. Now imagine it without any language. It can get weird in a hurry - (Like nudist camps in Utah).<br />
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Picture that poignant scene - the tortured gaze of longing, or the ferocious riveting stare of a vanquishing hero(ine). Relying solely on the "viewable" occular acrobatics and body language- well.......they sort of go nowhere until somebody says something, or the credits roll - unless it's a foreign film.<br />
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Conversation is the garden hose of the soul - for you medical types let's say urethra. It is how the by-products of thought are passed through the body into the bony light of reality.<br />
<br />
The down side of conversation is that it's absolutely impossible to un-say things. Once that brainstorm crosses the soft-palate, it's as permanent as Catholic sin.<br />
<br />
My transgressions are many and , most certainly unforgiveable, in some many camps. To my transgressors I can only say "I apologize whole-heartedly for my obtuse verbosity - and again for your own apparent lack of critical perception:-) See...........I told ya I wuz smooth :-)<br />
<br />
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I confess: I get frustrated and shoot my mouth off all to often. Please forgive my indiscretions. It's straight up fear. Our society spends so much time and does so much damage, worrying about and following the Dems or the GOP, the Conservatives or the liberals, the right or the left, etc.- and I know in my heart of hearts that that stuff is all pure old-T Bullshit.<br />
<br />
2000 years ago a carpenter from Galillee laid it all out - as simply as possible. Love one another, give to each other, make a difference in the lives of those around you, be rich by the things you do and not what you take from those who have less. It's the only way we survive,. and yet so many are so slow to come to the party.<br />
<br />
Selfishness and greed are a cancer. Humanity has to trump politics at some point.That, in a nutshell, is my frustration. Maybe my only significant one , aside from tamper-proof packaging.<br />
<br />
<br />
It has a lot to do with why I can't shut up - believe me I tried and failed more than once - through the whole first semester of the 5th grade, and again back in '80 when my ex-wife asked me if I thought she was putting on a few pounds in the hips . It like to killed me both times. Sometimes it's best just to give up.<br />
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<br />
So, I guess the world has to make room for one more ragged-voiced raven on the telephone line. I'll cackle and caw with the best of 'em. If a large target presents itself - and this is truly one instance where size <i>doesn't</i> matter - well...........Watch your heads - I got mad skills when I'm aimin'<br />
<br />
"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-83324699627715889442015-03-07T11:44:00.000-07:002015-03-07T17:20:57.820-07:00Came to in a Blinding Fog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's been a great week - head-cold not withstanding. June Carter and Elvis have both been of particularly good temperament lately. I have all 6 strings and all 10 thumbs -There's a banjo on the wall, a ride in the driveway, chicken in the pot, and coffee on the stove. If a cold is the worst thing that happens today - I'll call that a good day.<br />
<br />
I wrote that a few days ago, in a fit of blind optimism, before I actually realized that this cold was gonna whip me like a bitch and call me names :-/<br />
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3-days later: I have survived this pestilent plague, through the liberal use of jalapenos, Hulu, garlic, Gatorade, Vapo-Rub, Bengal Spice Tea, cheap cold medicine, - and banjo rolls. That's right - banjo rolls. Ya can't have just one.<br />
<br />
My near brush with death (as near as I wanna get until I get hit by lightning and a SCUD missile simultaneously at 104 ) - has seriously encroached on a time frame that's a little on the short side to begin with.Convalescence and reflection have brought with them a looming sense of panic.<br />
<br />
There's a lot going on in the next couple of months - So much I don't know where to begin.- and that's the problem. I'm a bit overwhelmed. I've about chewed a hole in my bathrobe sleeve over this.<br />
<br />
In my defense - I'm generally pretty good under pressure - but not so great on cold medication or sativas. Shiny stuff distracts me.<br />
<br />
Here's my to-do list:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Publish "The Trailer Park Diaries / 50 Shades of Corrugated Aluminum" as a daily blog - perhaps solicit advertisers and continue to steadily grow a readership</li>
<li>Promote a heavy web presence on social-media. Respond and interact with a daily increasing number of friends and new fans from the sortarican.com , Facebook, Reverbnation.com, YouTube, and Google.</li>
<li>Finish recording all unfinished parts on the new CD</li>
<li>Move the 5th Wheel ( I call her my "Sorta-Rican Shangri-La" - "My Hillbilly House of Happy")</li>
<li>Mix The New CD</li>
<li>Start a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign to raise money for mastering, licensing, and producing the New CD</li>
<li>Get CD Manufactured</li>
<li>New timing belt/ water pump for the KIA</li>
<li>Learn new songs, record new songs, and book gigs for new project w/ Alycia Vince</li>
<li>Stir things up again nationally with SoldierSongs / Develop lesson channel on YouTube</li>
<li>Go play in Fayetteville AR, Corinth MS, and Nashville TN in April - book more tour dates in the South</li>
<li>Book and Play a heavy summer schedule Colorado/ Wyo/ Utah/ Nebraska/ Montana/ Idaho/ Oregon - including dates with Miss Emily and some really fun festival dates.</li>
<li>Some serious time in a nervously intimate relationship with my dentist - where he applies a much-needed overhaul to my cracked-up grin, using nothing but $100 dollar bills and liberal doses of Novocaine.</li>
<li>Dress better - comb hair occasionally :-)</li>
<li>Do the dishes. </li>
</ol>
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I need all this to be done by the end of business tomorrow - at the latest. Unreal expectations? Of course, but where would I be today if it weren't for delusional behaviour?<br />
<br />
The long story short of this thing is: I've come to a place where being me is requiring a good bit more of my time and energy than I originally assumed would be necessary. I'll bet a whole lot of you good folks feel the same way.<br />
<br />
I'm just a guitar-picker(extremely low-stress position) , and if being me ( the most fortunate and blessed person I know), is this much work - You all must be working your asses off!!<br />
<br />
I know it. I see it every day. Good people trying and fighting - through circumstances so hard and so frightening I can't even whisper the words - just to get through to the light of tomorrow. <br />
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I have about a dollar more than I truly need on any given day that's plenty; and so much love around me that I never feel alone. These stresses I have - I can afford to be patient. <br />
<br />
I know some of you haven't got a minute to waste.I know that some of my brothers and sisters are in situations that need remedy immediately - that beg the blessing touch of heaven just to heal what's broken.<br />
<br />
It's a privelege to sing to all of you - to hope for a moment that someone is comforted or amused by what I do - that's the best I can ever hope for - in this life or the next.<br />
<br />
It seems unfair to me so often - that I am so blessed when so many need so much. I'm more than grateful. It's why I believe so whole-heartedly in giving away a little - of my money, my time, myself - is a requisite of living this truly wealthy existence I enjoy. To be selfish with what I've been given so freely - would be an insult to heaven.<br />
<br />
"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
<br />
.<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-68414468170207189742015-02-24T23:40:00.000-07:002015-02-25T00:42:11.853-07:00The Day He Showed Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I think sometimes, that I have lived a hundred lives, this one began on a cloudy February day in Boulder Colorado in 1985</span><br />
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I was on my knees, my fingers white-knuckled on the chain-link backstop at a corner baseball diamond - just across the way from Boulder Memorial Hospital in Boulder, CO. My eyes refused to focus - impossible through the well of tears that wouldn't stop.<br />
<br />
I was choking for each breath - begging - begging God - For the life of my newborn son. His tiny life was hanging by a thread. His mother had survived a harrowing delivery and a nearly-fatal episode of shock. The doctors were right on it and she was going to be ok - we all would - if our little boy could just hold on. The previous 12 hours had been a walk through the sort of hell Dante would envy.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
I know many people walked and drove by that busy Boulder corner that day. I'm sure they wondered what manner of demon possessed the sobbing, cursing wretch they beheld.<br />
<br />
I was oblivious to anything around me, trying to make a deal with God - along with every ounce of my being - that he stop my heart, cold as stone, right then and there. I would gladly give up this life, and everything in it - if my little boy could just hold on.<br />
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I knew he was better than me - better than anything I'd ever touched - the first moment I laid eyes on him. I knew that his tiny soul carried the weight of forgiveness.<br />
<br />
He was small - spindly and sickly, fragile and frail - and he carried the authority of heaven. He was a living love-letter from my grandmother on the other side.<br />
<br />
I knew also,right from the first soft fitful cry, that I would never again be whole. The part of me that was everything, now resided in this small wisp of a child that lay lingering between heaven and earth - as if making up his mind.<br />
<br /></div>
<br />
<div>
His hematocrit levels were completely screwed. The last 6 weeks in-utero there had been some separation of the placenta from the uterine wall. Long story short - he wasn't getting all the nutrients he needed as a result. Through no fault of her own, my wife gave birth to a starving baby. His red blood cells had gone berserk trying to compensate and as a result his blood was way too thick. Axle grease when it shoulda been 10W-40.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
The doctor had come in to Kelli's room a few minutes earlier to explain that they were doing everything they could, but that his body temperature and breathing were not stabilizing. He wasn't yet sure what was wrong, but It wasn't looking good. Kelli was given a sedative and told to rest. We talked softly and sadly, crying until she fell under the blessed fog.<br />
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I had no idea what to do. I couldn't think - everything between my ears and through my chest - down to my toes - burned. I started to walk to the exit sign and I found myself running - bursting through the steel door into sunlight. Light that burned my eyes like acid through a flood of tears I could no longer hold. I hollered in rage and cursed at God at the top of my lungs with my fists in the air - screaming " FUCK YOU" ................... "FUCK YOU"<br />
<br />
I'd believed in God all my life, but I could not hold belief in any God or being, that couldn't see how badly we all needed that little boy -Who couldn't see what he had made. Who would be so selfish as to take him away.<br />
<br />
I tried not to believe but I had nowhere else to turn. I walked in a slobbery sobbing fog across the street and into the park. It was right behind home plate that my knees buckled, and I fell like a stone. I could no longer breathe. I asked again - I pleaded in vain - "God please" "give him my life" - "take mine".<br />
<br />
I knew for certain in that instant, what I know today as one of the inviolable truths of my existence - I wanted no part of this world without that boy in it.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
After some time, when it finally dawned on me that God wasn't gonna show up and fight like a man. I gathered my composure as best I could and made my way back to the antiseptic porcelain hell where my son lay dying. I didn't want his mother to be alone when they came. There was a raging fire between my ears and breathing felt like sandpaper. My feet were mud.<br />
<br /></div>
<div>
Now God has made a long habit of going "off the reservation" when it comes to keeping me in the loop. I don't know what "He / She / They / It" does - or how <i>it </i>does it - or how <i>it</i> decides when to - but I learned that day how insignificant and powerless I really am .<br />
<br />
I learned that, in spite of myself - in spite of my doubts and fears - God loves even me. Every whisper and every tear of my pleadings was heard and heeded on that day - in the farthest reaches of heaven - by God himself.<br />
<br />
I and my wife, and my precious child, were never more than a breath away from an angels loving hand that day - not for an instant. Whenever my faith is tested, I remember that, on a single February afternoon in 1985, God laid more grace on me than any fool could ever hope to deserve in a lifetime.</div>
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At the point of our last conversation with the doctor he had still been searching for a reason why Chaz couldn't stabilize. They were drawing blood from the poor kid every 15 minutes and had him on oxygen. Searching for an answer.<br />
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One of the nurses - a brilliant young woman named Linda - our own personal angel - - noticed how thick his blood was when they would try to draw some out for testing.He wasn't running right.<br />
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She mentioned it to the floor nurse after her shift with Chaz, and then to the Dr. when he showed up. When they checked his red blood cell count, it was out the roof. They immediately gave him a transfusion of regular 10W-30 protein albumin, and within a few hours his temperature, blood count, and breathing all stabilized. By evening we had a perfectly healthy and thoroughly punctured baby boy.<br />
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His hand and feet were purple from all the places they had taken blood from. He was about as big around as a candlestick - all elbows and knees. He was severely underweight and looked like a Sharpeii puppy crossed with a tire-iron. His diapers looked way too big and so did his head. When he cried like it sounded like hard work. He was perfect.<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We named him after my Uncl</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">e Chuck and Kelli's father. Both good men - both extremely stubborn and both passionate, flamboyant characters just a little larger than life. We named him right.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Two days later </span>my very pale and determined wife Kelli cradled him in her arms like we were stealing the last watermelon on earth, while I wheeled her out the ER entrance on the backside of the Boulder County Memorial Hospital. I had our old yellow Volvo, engine running, waiting at the door. Under the watchful supervision of the floor-nurse, the security guard, and my wife- I fastened him into his brand new car seat and like a New York chauffeur, took my place behind the wheel.<br />
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</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Sadly, Kelli and I would divorce a few years later - we</span> lost each other somewhere. -'but in that moment we were in complete agreement. We almost spoke on top of each other and I will love her forever for the anxious determined look in those beautiful blue eyes that day. "Let's get the hell out of here" ........ "Before,they come out and want him back."<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">That was 30 years ago. He's a military man at the moment now - Active Duty Air Force Reserve. He's a black-belt and teaches Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to children, he's kind to women and critters, he's a damn fine cook, tough as a bucket of monkey wrenches, a pretty fair shot, and handsome as hell. He's the kindest and most decent man I know. Funny as hell and just brilliant - </span>my favorite person on earth.<br />
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When everything else in this world has gone to hell. When it's gotten dark or tricky. I remember that day. I've always known my blessings have been worth 10 times the cost - he's proof. I'm the richest man on earth simply because he's my son.<br />
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I look at old pictures, and I can't believe how fast the years have flown by. I wasn't a very good father, but he's always been a magnificent son.<br />
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</span> I've watched him become a young man, and watched that young man become a great man - of compassion and fortitude. A man of forgiveness and grace. - With strength and wisdom that I never possessed. I hold no claim to any of it - that's all his own.<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I hope God is as kind to him as he has been to me. I hope he gets the know the beautiful joy and heartache that a son like that brings to a mans life. I didn't have sunlight or oxygen before him - I don't have those things without him. That's how being a dad works. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">I want all sorts of things for my son. But what I want more than anything for him - To someday see his own loving eyes looking right back at him from the face of his own beautiful child. To feel that small warm hand, soft on his face, and to know that God has indeed heard his every prayer - in the farthest reaches of Heaven.</span><br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-74184648192676246252015-02-24T17:01:00.001-07:002015-02-25T02:37:40.745-07:00The Tip Jar Miracle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I might not have much money, but 'you ever got yer wheels greased on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower in the middle of a hot August night in Paris - drunk on red wine and completely mesmerized by the deepest sparkling brown eyes and the most beautiful luscious red lips a woman ever wore? Describe that in a balance sheet.<br />
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You ever spent the last $20 you have to your name on lunchmeat, bread, and dog food for a homeless guy with a sign and a skinny dog on a street corner. I highly recommend it. My experience has been that usually, before the sun comes up, I've got at least a few nickels more than I needed to begin with.<br />
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You ever walk into work, broke and worried, and in 4 hours time, pull everything you need and more out of an old cowboy boot? I do all the time. After awhile it cures you of worrying about being broke.<br />
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I have an old acquaintance who has luxury homes all over the country, and more money than a Silver Eagle bus could hold. He's right next door to a heart attack, alone, kind of miserable, and scared to death of things that never happen. He likes to talk about himself and he's afraid to be alone. He's a hard cat to like because of it. </div>
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He has lot's of people that he hands out money to, but no real friends. <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">The last time I saw him he told me that he'd really like to do what I do - but he couldn't - too much responsibility - not enough time. With all that money he can't buy his own freedom to live the way that makes him happy. </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> I feel more badly for the man than you could know.. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Not everyone gets choices - I know I am fortunate because I do. I wish for every single soul I know, those same choices - that money never be a good enough reason to miss out on doing what you love, being with who you love, experiencing the outrageous and sublime. To experience the opportunity to trust in the next moment without fear. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Its crazy, I know. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sunday afternoon I rolled into Powderhorn Ski area to play a gig, with my fuel light on and $8 in my pocket. The night before I had played one of the most memorable gigs of my life - a benefit show for The American Cancer Society. I could have taken a paying gig, but it was far more important to me to play the benefit. I lost my mother recently to cancer. I wanted to give everything I could, and that's exactly what I did. I met a woman and her son who reminded me what courage was. You can't buy that. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I had left my empty propane tank at the fuel stop in Mesa, to be refilled - so I needed to make at least enough in tips to cover propane and gasoline, if I wanted to get home and have heat. $40 bucks minimum - usually not a problem, but the day was cold and a storm was moving across the area. It was late in the weekend and most folks were headed for home. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Even with these conditions, a surprising number of folks stayed around to have a drink and listen to me. I was thoroughly flattered - seriously. The tips were looking sorta thin but sometimes that's just how it goes. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Somewhere in the second set I played a song from my old pal Kevin Welch - "Heaven Sent". It's a song about being grateful. I told a little story like I often do, about being the richest man I know - albeit occasionally monetarily challenged. I got a good laugh from the audience and I remember telling myself "If this is as good as it gets today - that's good enough" </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">From what I could see in my old tip boot when I went to pack up, it didn't look like much. When I started unfolding the 1s & 5s, I found $85 folded neatly among all the crumpled green. I don't know who it was, but as I sit here now "snug as a bug" warm with Elvis & June Carter, thankful for an anonymous strangers generosity, I really do hope that they get to enjoy their life as much as I love mine. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I hope that kindness and grace never leave their side. The same goes for everyone who ever put a nickel, or a bill, or a joint, or a bud, or a check, or even a cupcake or milk bone dog treats ( you see it all after awhile) in my boot. It not only keeps me alive but it keeps me believing. I hope, and I try with everything I got - to work at this thing, and to deserve the confidence of my audiences and friends. So far - so good😄</span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Peace Out"</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Don't take any wooden nickels"</span></div>
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-88241295003451893942015-02-23T17:41:00.002-07:002015-02-23T17:51:26.824-07:00Would I? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Saturday night I played and sang for a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society at The Copper Club in Fruita, CO.<br />
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Fruita is a small Western Colorado town with upwardly mobile intentions. Still has that small town feel, but with some very metropolitan inspired tastes and vision.<br />
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The Copper Club is one of my favorite music rooms in the state. Holds about 50 people comfortably - about 100 when things really get going. They make deliciously good beer and the folks that hang out are mostly neighbors, friends , and family from about a 10 mile radius.<br />
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I gave 'em hell and gave 'em my best Saturday night. I was excited about helping out with the cause. My Mom passed away in November after a nasty fight with lung-cancer, so this one was personal.<br />
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My other son, the one I got to pick myself, Bud Frisinger, showed up to help me out, as did Alycia Vince. We bent some bluegrass and twisted up some hillbilly rhythm & blues. A handful of adventurous dancers showed off some move that would knock over Miley with a wrecking-ball, and we all had a wonderful time. It always feels good to use music to do something that needs doing. <br />
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The high point of the evening for me, came at the very end. I had the good fortune to meet a delightful woman named Mary Dabbs and her son Ryder. The whole thing was sort of around her. She's going to Denver next Monday for a radical mastectomy. She's got cancer.<br />
<br />
She's a single mom with a mega-watt smile. Insanely beautiful by any standard and a complete a joy to behold. Everyone around her was wearing huge smiles and hugging her, and Ryder, and each other. If prayer pulls you through hard times, then she's hooked up to a squadron of John Deere Tractors. She says she can whip this and I believe she can.<br />
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I couldn't help but watch the boy - about 10-11 years old I would guess. Skinny little fella with an old school baseball cap, a mile wide grin, and great big glasses. Jiminy Cricket gone Coolsville. Reminded me of me for a minute. You can tell he's smart as a whip and he was never more than a few feet away from his Mom at any one moment. If she was reaching for anything at all, he handed it to her. He was working as hard as anybody at the benefit - filling the Luminaria bags and arranging the table. He was a working man looking out for his Momma.<br />
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I remember 10 years old. I remember how I felt about my Mom. We were alone too. I wanted to protect her. I wanted her life to be easier. I wanted her to worry less and to laugh more - with me. I didn't have to deal with cancer.<br />
<br />
I saw it in that boys eyes Saturday night. His Mom might have cancer, but she's not the only one fighting with the courage of angels. He would gladly whip the hell out of a dozen Ninjas and nineteen 8th graders just to make his Mom better. She will get better, and then he will - because of it.<br />
<br />
She seems FAR too young for this horrible disease - He's far too young for the ghost that hangs in the shadows - in every breath- at their house. Life isn't fair. It occurred to me more than once since Saturday night, that there is no rest for these two until this is over - and even then the notion of cancer will always rest uneasy in the dark corners of their fears.<br />
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A smile out of their household means something. Mother and Son have to fight with the unseen, and gamble on the unknown - fight with their own secret fears - every minute of every day. They will forever cope with questionable tomorrows.<br />
<br />
The night of the benefit I was humbled by those smiles. When she hugged me so sincerely, and so graciously thanked me for the music , it was difficult to keep my composure. I needed to thank her , and to thank Ryder - for fighting and for smiling through the worry. For their confidence - for their belief. I want her to survive - I need her to heal and live -because my own mother didn't.<br />
<br />
My life has no challenges today like Mays - like Ryders. Only the myriad blessings I so blindly and joyfully suffer through. I've often wondered if there were a way to free the people I<i> </i>love and care about from their suffering by taking it on myself - would I? I hope so. I know Ryder would.<br />
<br />
Tonight when you close your eyes and thank your maker for the blessings in your life - toss a prayer toward Mary and her boy as well. I'm going to.<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-16649520666466040522015-02-19T06:11:00.000-07:002015-02-19T09:43:03.794-07:00Day 27 - Be my Valentine??????<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Miss Emily and I played an incredibly fun show at The Palisade Brewing Company last Saturday night for a special Valentine's Day celebration. She was singing' like she invented the stuff, and If I do say so myself - I was having a pretty good night on the box as well. It was a wonderful evening and a packed house. SO many folks had called ahead to ask about reservations before we even got there, that we knew it was going to be a fun night. That was an understatement.<br />
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Husbands and wives, and boyfriends and girlfriends, and girl-friends and girl-friends, and all manner of folks came out to celebrate their sweethearts. It impressed me. It also scared me a little. <br />
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Love is tough stuff. It rarely goes well but we continue to reach for it anyway. It's a need. We fall for it every time:-)<br />
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On our good days, we're all optimistic about love, and our intentions are nothing but the best. That doesn't mean we can all juggle chainsaws and do long math. Some car wrecks happen at under 0 mph and last for years. That said - we all want it. We need it like air - to survive - to be complete. To make our story whole.<br />
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As a repeat-offender (multiply-wed???) and multiple award-winner (4 children) - I feel fully qualified to share some observations and notes from my time "in the trenches". To this day I've never actually left the trenches so this is all current information - "boots on the ground" stuff.<br />
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Love is where the magic and flavor of life are built - somewhere between the left ventricle of the heart, the right synapse of the brain, the farthest star in heaven, and the deepest pangs of desire. Just the act of caring for another human being changes everything. It's the best thing since sunshine but it's no picnic.<br />
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Love is blind and kinda dumb - believes about anything. Love is foolish, love is courageous, love is forgiving, Love talks shit when it's drunk and will cut your junk off in the night if you piss it off.<br />
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Love has absolutely no sense of direction, very little common-sense, and possesses a razor-sharp intuition.<br />
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Love is a slow-kid lost in a library of scientific journals and 500 page accounting reports. It's naiveté is both it's saving grace and it's achilles heel.<br />
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Love is messy - it wears a white tuxedo and eats chocolate cake with it's hands. It's "hair in the food" and "stains in the drain". It's indoor mud-wrestling in a space no larger than a heart. <br />
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Love is inappropriate -It smokes cigars in church and farts out loud at the opera. Love can spot a fool a mile away, but that don't mean it don't like that sort of thing???<br />
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Love will stand down a battalion - it will stare down a grizzly . It will stand on a chair if it sees a mouse???<br />
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It comes to you requiring forgiveness from the very first moment. Firstly forgiveness of yourself for ever doubting that heaven was hearing all of your silent lonely longings to begin with - and then secondly and sadly, forgiveness of your lover for the very things that attracted you to them from the outset.<br />
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If your "sweet-thing"is wearing' some hot little red number that got you all hot & bothered "back when" to the grocery store - fellas - You ain't havin' that baloney and you're wondering' who is.<br />
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All that waving' her finger back and forth at you and shakin her head side to side like a bobble-head doll - telling you how things "better" be - putting her hands on her hips and starin' you down like a bad puppy; All the stuff you thought that was so damn sexy back when. Whadda ya think now?<br />
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Mechanically challenged - you thought that so endearing back when. Now, smoke comes out of your radio and when you close your eyes you see a sad procession of blinking red engine lights reflecting in piles of $100 dollar bills - that your beloved is lighting on fire in a complete catatonic gaze, as if possessed ……….. with your lighter.<br />
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Love thinks about you when you're not around. Love misses you like air when you're gone. Love makes you want to try when you can't find any more reason of your own. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52a2SbPvOb1EUMnstfWdAoerO91aHeuZjoYkGnN7pafgFydg4w0sbI6AE65pKfiwKnR2mJe1kL7Z6tqjeWOKc4NArC5WFirn5ZR0etY4szHr_D68WeOfT6H7JcxN4tNQFytbUOeU6K3aE/s1600/snoball+fight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52a2SbPvOb1EUMnstfWdAoerO91aHeuZjoYkGnN7pafgFydg4w0sbI6AE65pKfiwKnR2mJe1kL7Z6tqjeWOKc4NArC5WFirn5ZR0etY4szHr_D68WeOfT6H7JcxN4tNQFytbUOeU6K3aE/s1600/snoball+fight.jpg" height="320" width="220" /></a>Love beats you up and love heals you. Never smoothly - never appropriately or comfortably - always un-timely and always on time.<br />
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Love has no idea what time it is - It sure knows it's address. It can find you in the darkest room at the farthest end of the universe. It can leave you there in longing. Love can define you to a T, but you could never to hope to define it in a million years.<br />
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Love has a real long memory and a short fuse - It can disappear like smoke - It can run like hell - it can stand like the Pyramids for 1000 years.<br />
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Love will give you no peace. It will whisper in your ear - loudly, softly, urgently, gently - reminding -every moment, every day for the rest of your life; "You need me"<br />
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And finally; Love holds your hand with trembling fingers - shares the heartbroken sting of your aching tears - and with it's last breath - whispers "I will wait for you"<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-37035198981030396522015-02-08T09:08:00.003-07:002017-08-22T12:11:19.932-07:00Day 26? -"Made In America"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In some of the more sophisticated places I find myself occasionally, ordering coffee in English just shows you're uneducated. As a point of proper decorum one must become at least conversational with terms completely irrelevant in neighborhood Conoco's just a few short years ago. Vente, Grande, Latte, Mocha, Italiano, and my favorite - Au Lait, I practiced some at home on Elvis. ("Au Lait down 'n shut up. You're standing on my nuggets.")<br />
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I have to go fix my Kia (Korean) today so, in preparation, I'm going to treat myself to a brioche(French) and a Pannini (Italian). Then I'm gonna go all hog-wild European with a Vente Mocha Italiano Latte with Crema Mexicana and crushed Vanilla beans hand carried on the backs of small Tibetan children from Madagascar.<br />
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I'm going to drink it from a decorator Sippee-Cup made in China (loaded with PCB's, LDL's, M&M's, & DDT). I will take my lunch-time repast at one of the most popular Sushi/Fondue restaurants in the area, where after giving up on ever deciphering the food descriptions on the menu in Vietnamese(?) - I will pass through a Swiss-themed lobby hung with pictures of beach fronts in Guadalajara , walking across gorgeous Grecian marble floors in to the mens room. I will secure myself in my own private stall (Finnish Steel) using hardware manufactured in Germany (they're so precise). <br />
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When I've finished what I came there for I will fight frantically for approximately 53 seconds with the toilet-paper dispenser holding the jumbo roll that never unrolls right - single ply - cheap.Rough! Then I will finally have in my hand something made in the USA - manufactured in this beautiful country I love so dearly. Don't get aggressive with this stuff, or you will learn to keep those nails trimmed.<br />
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I believe the time has come to examine ourselves. And I don't mean a quick "feelie". I believe we're in danger of being "pigeon-holed"<br />
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In our defense, there is a good bit of security in the toilet-paper strategy. This world will never run out of asses that need wiped, and, if we can keep those costs down, we might be able to at least keep some of the Wal-Marts open. Perhaps even keep John Boehners tan rockin'.<br />
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Happy Sunday everybody:-) Keep smilin' - I'm still crazy as a pet coon and relatively happy about it.<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
until ManyanaTony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-23085728612229523072015-02-02T19:21:00.002-07:002015-02-02T19:21:06.469-07:00Day 25 - Giving Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the life of my dreams I would read more great books. I would read incessantly and I wonder why I don't now. I could. This <i><b><u>is</u></b></i> the life of my dreams. I forget that far too easily sometimes. I'm not always the sharpest knife in the light socket.<br />
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A few years ago I threw in the towel and said goodbye to swinging a hammer for my bread and butter. I hadn't ever gotten rich doing it, and I sure hadn't gotten very happy . Quite the contrary. I went broke and hated life for awhile.When the bricks fell in for the last time I was lost and pretty devastated.<br />
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I used to build beautiful furniture and cabinetry - high dollar stuff. I loved the artistry of a beautiful piece of wood turned into a realized vision. The market just got tighter and tighter. I couldn't compete with cheaper and cheaper goods and labor from China and Mexico. Those are contributing factors but the noose around my neck, at all times, was that I wasn't a very good businessman - to whit: I sucked.<br />
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Money never meant the same thing to me that it seems to mean to every one else. I like a lot of the things I can do with it, like anyone else - but it "can't buy me Love" and it's not warm in my hands. The acquisition of large piles of it never seemed as important to me as being happy and acquiring a mountain of love - a wealth of experiences All kinds of wonderful love from all sorts of wonderful people.<br />
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Out of the ashes of my last "day gig", I picked up my Stratocaster and made the best decision I had made in years. I decided that: albeit that guitar was the only arrow in my quiver -- my angels had never abandoned me before -- it was the only arrow I would need.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimqeGulUtWBKX2mAzVTjwin3xUHQsxSOpaLd_Hy40C4LahR5MFPnseVyLWWmqyusDOi4VOgLZN5ttI1Ox0l5uy842iMId2eQxnWsv7E8eZiR40fWfh-4z8bhsq19IiF9IDqrPMENgPbigP/s1600/20140321_181953.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimqeGulUtWBKX2mAzVTjwin3xUHQsxSOpaLd_Hy40C4LahR5MFPnseVyLWWmqyusDOi4VOgLZN5ttI1Ox0l5uy842iMId2eQxnWsv7E8eZiR40fWfh-4z8bhsq19IiF9IDqrPMENgPbigP/s1600/20140321_181953.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a>People clap for me now when I show up for work. They smile and dance. They give me food and drink. They pay me well, and then they tip me on top of that. Then they buy my CD's and go out of their way, over and over, to give me what I need. That's what I get from playing music. It never happened to me behind a table saw.<br />
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I need money like everyone else to survive. I wish the pursuit of it didn't take so much of our time. I wish I had enough to give it all away. There's not enough cash on the planet to forgive my sins, or to buy back 10 minutes with my sons and my daughter when they were kids. To wipe out heartache or bring back the people I wish were still here. No one can ever buy the heart of one more fool with a gun intent on doing harm, buy the greed out of the hearts of politicians and CEOs, or buy back the minds and lives and limbs of a bunch of American soldiers. <br />
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There will never be enough cash in the world to buy the beautiful bubbling giggles that came from a 3 year old little girl, while she danced in big auburn-curled twirls, right in front of me while I played Friday night.<br />
Money has never come and got me in the middle of the night when my car broke down. Money never calls me up just because. It didn't hold my hand while I watched cancer take my mother.<br />
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And there's never going to be enough of it here to fill the thirst that it's pursuit put's into the hearts of good and decent people.. I was fed up with being thirsty. I had held large sums of it for fleeting moments, and never seemed to have a nickel in the end. I had cried my eyes out and beat my fists in rage in sheer frustration and disappointment, over money, too many times. <br />
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My father, in one of his truly more sage moments, told me "there's a thousand ways a man can make a living -- might as well pick one you like" The old man wasn't wrong. I'd had enough. I was no longer willing to wait on happiness until I had enough money.<br />
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Nothing worth anything in this world is ever easy, but playing music for my sustenance, aside from being a parent, is the greatest priveledge that heaven has ever bestowed on me. Since the decision to give my heart and soul to music, I have lived in a perpetual state of kindness and grace. Delivered at each performance, from all these wonderfully warm smiling faces that I've had the pleasure of sitting in front of in the years since. <br />
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Money always comes and goes - the friends that I've made behind that old guitar will be with me till the day I die. I haven't starved behind my old guitar - quite the contrary. I've had enough and more. That's as good as it gets. - as good as I can ask for - better than any fool deserves.<br />
<br />
"Peace Out"<br />
"don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-43873967138554405392015-01-29T12:45:00.000-07:002015-01-29T12:45:31.303-07:00Day 24 - Commitment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I made a commitment to myself 3 weeks ago to write this blog every day for the next 28 days. I don't know how news columnists do it. I've missed 3 days at least. Life has interfered with my schedule. Dad always said I was just like a turkey....".focused as hell until you see something shiney". He wasn't far off.<br />
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Living by myself, and writing this blog, has allowed me to examine closer that relationship that we all must have with ourselves. My son, wise beyond his years, urged me to foster and cultivate a better relationship with myself - perhaps so I would quit pestering the shit out of him all the time.<br />
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In that direct effort, and in an effort to be completely honest with myself right from the start, I've written my own "profile" - as if I were dating me online. Do me a favor and see if anything sticks out for you? I don't want to scare me off.<br />
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<br />
Tony Rosario</div>
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6'1- ish</div>
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200 glorious lbs - slightly pudgy with real promise in that direction</div>
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Favorite Color - Green (cash)</div>
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Favorite Food - All</div>
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Favorite Movie - Hulu</div>
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Favorite Book - Curious George (the classics)</div>
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I'm notoriously lazy and I don't like making commitments. Especially to myself. I never hold up my end of the bargain. I drag ass screwing around till the very last minute, and then at the last minute - I stick me with all the work.<br />
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I lie to myself compulsively all the time too, about everything - from money, to "joining a gym", to "how-far-I can-throw-a-bellhop".<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQjo-xLX84In-ZS5vvqixVLks_DD8loxiS4cZ_CNhxlPGVO9n39hyJnXPh0QsyyB7-0zhVsTUFQHXwijMbCk4CUok3i1lBMJXAinjXHTR4pCX3x8hTrF65dsQUMsAazrzfoS66NV2dEyPY/s1600/Elvis-Kayak+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQjo-xLX84In-ZS5vvqixVLks_DD8loxiS4cZ_CNhxlPGVO9n39hyJnXPh0QsyyB7-0zhVsTUFQHXwijMbCk4CUok3i1lBMJXAinjXHTR4pCX3x8hTrF65dsQUMsAazrzfoS66NV2dEyPY/s1600/Elvis-Kayak+(1).jpg" /></a> I get drunk and sleep in late way too often - and then lie to myself about where I was the night before - <i>and</i> who I went home with. The worst is when I promise myself a pony ride at the park, and then don't . Those sad little bloodshot eyes in the mirror just tear my heart out.<br />
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Also,when I wake up in the morning, my breath smells like ass.<br />
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I wasn't always unreliable. Not till I got nailed right in the left eye with an ice-ball, in kindergarten, by my truly beloved's older brother Doug. - a strapping young lad already at the grand age of 8 - with an arm like a rocket and a dead aim. I've been dumb as a post every since.<br />
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I've always been lippy too- always shootin' my mouth off over something that I don't know near enough about.. Just ask anyone who's ever known me........... "Ya gotta knock him out to get him to shut up"....."right between the eyes"???" Nothing short of a coma ever seemed to work.<br />
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After years of smoking everything from Chesterfields to Chesters' fields, and after drinking gasoline on at least half-a-dozen occasions, I now possess a voice like a 2-octave dump truck. My confused fingers often stumble like drunks - even when I'm not.<br />
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I brush my teeth with a soup spoon, run my hair with a rake, and I only dress up when I have to - and even then it's sketchy. My water-pistols might be loaded - but my cowboy hat and my wallet are both generally empty from wall-to-wall.<br />
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I was indeed "born in a barn".<br />
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Finally; I have no chest hair and no significant ambition - not a bit.<br />
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What I need to know from all of you is: Should I continue to have a relationship with this person. - and is playing a wooden box with my feet really just a cry for help? Do ducks waddle backwards, and what are ya gonna do for big fun on this Friday evening?<br />
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If you're anywhere near Moab tonight, stop in at Woody's and I'll sing right at you. In spite of my profile I believe you will find me in possession of at least one or two redeeming virtues. <br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-3883033495110341742015-01-29T03:52:00.001-07:002015-01-29T09:12:08.791-07:00Day 23- "First Time I Did It For Money / Why It's Never Healed"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The First Gig</div>
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The first time I did it for money I was 5 months shy of 15 years old . It was a country band named "Leroy Joy and The Country Kickers". I was a little kicker. We played at the American Legion Hall in Crook, CO. My Mom drove me 26 miles on dirt roads in a 1962 Bonneville, from Peetz to Crook, and dropped me off with my employer for the evening.<br />
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We rehearsed for as long as it took the other 3 fellas to get through a fifth of Old Crow and some little white pills that came in a baggie instead of a bottle.(approximately 20 minutes)<br />
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The drummer that night, A hispanic fellow whose name slips my mind, just got drunker by the minute at the gig. 30 minutes into the 2nd set he fell over backwards behind the drum kit, boots straight in the air, and passed out cold. Made a helluva racket. Leroy and the bass player put him in a booth to sleep it off, and since I played drums in the high school band, I played drums the rest of the night.<br />
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I didn't know half the songs. Everyone was pretty drunk but me. I did my best to hang on for dear life - I limped that beat along like I was whippin' a chicken for the next two hours. It was pretty awful but, at the end of the night, I did get sloppy french-kissed, and a winked invitation for a long slow ride in a Buick, from a "lacquered-up" - "liquored-up" "older women" out of Julesberg. That was enough to set the hook. I've been flopping around on that string every since.<br />
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I also got paid $40 cash that night. Somethings never change.<br />
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That year I had become completely fevered with learning to play guitar. Couldn't decide between Jerry Reed or Jimi Hendrix. As soon as I could shine enough shoes in town, I paid my own $30 , and bought a 3/4 size Stella acoustic guitar at Larsen's jewelry store. The strings on that thing tore my fingers to shreds, but I stuck with it, night and day. <br />
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If you'd have unscrewed the top of my head back then - a Les Paul electric guitar, a Playboy Bunny, and 3 Dog Night would have popped out. Our music teacher at the time, Jim Keezer, had a Les Paul, and I don't know that I'e ever lusted harder after anything in my life. It was cherry sunburst - cream pickguard - 2 Humbucking pickups - and it weighed a ton.<br />
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It was shaped like a woman. That alone was reason enough to appreciate the fine instrument. <br />
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Mr. Keezer let me take that Les Paul out of the case a few times during lessons, and I might as well have been holding the nails that pierced Jesus' feet on the cross. I was breathless. I wanted to weep for it's sheer beauty. I was beginning to understand what was possible with one of these things. <br />
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That next August one of my local heroes, a 20-s something farm-boy with a pirates swagger and formidable pitching arm, Mike Bules, changed my game entirely. He kicked the door open to a whole another realm of whoop-ass - in a single afternoon<br />
<br />
. Mike had been a major jock in high school, just a few short years before. He was cocky as hell - laughed easy and quick. - a complete smart-ass. He worked at the elevator and he drove a bright yellow Dodge SuperBee with hood scoops, a spoiler, and a 383 Hemi.<br />
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More-so than any of those things I've just mentioned, he was extremely kind and funny.<br />
<br />
Mike's mother was my Aunt Helen's cousin . Mike would buy me a Mountain Dew for helping unload grain trucks at the elevator whenever I'd wander across the tracks to hang out. He and Ron Nelson would take me along to Sidney with their softball team in the summer to shag bats and open beers on the way home:-)<br />
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Ron was Mike's nearest neighbor and best friend. His mother Delores, one of the sweetest funniest women to ever yell 95+ decibel obscenities at a high-school football referee with white foam coming out of her mouth - worked for my mother at the Cafe we ran in town.<br />
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As far as I could see it back then - If I was o.k. with these guys, I was probably gonna be o.k. These fella's always took the time to treat me like I was somebody worth hangin' out with - to encourage me and occasionally include me in some bit of covert mischief - that made us all related in my book. <br />
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I was unaware, but everybody in town knew by that time, that music and specifically playing guitar, had become an apostolic obsession for me. From sunup to lights-out, I couldn't think of anything else. I was driving my teachers, parents, my friends, even my dog - completely nuts. . My best friend thought I belonged in a home. From the time I woke up till the time I went to bed - that was all I thought about.<br />
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That August Saturday afternoon at the Bules farmhouse we were sat down to lunch. Mike's Dad -Dean - and he were discussing rod-weeders and vaccination syringes over their mashed potatoes. They would, in good-natured teasing, press me about football and the girls at school - in between farm implements. <br />
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I don't remember what all was said. I remember Mike got up from the table and walked out of the room. When he came back in he was carrying an old guitar case. It looked old - and pretty beat up. It was light chocolate brown and textured like alligator skin. Mike laid it on the sofa a few feet away and pointed at it it - nodding to me. "Take a look"<br />
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When I lifted the lid on that case I swear to Christ himself that I heard a choir of angels / NFL cheerleaders, singing my name. It was a red Mahogany 1966 Les Paul Jr.- with one p-90 pickup- a volume- and a tone knob. Most importantly, on it's signature dovetail shaped headstock - it read "Gibson" . Between the tuning pegs horizontally, in small scrolled and faded white letters, it said "Les Paul Jr". I didn't understand. I thought he was just showing it to me.<br />
<br />
Mike reached down and closed the lid. He looked at me with his signature smart-ass grin and pushed the guitar toward me. "You come back and work for me for 3 more Saturdays - and you can have it" You just make sure you learn how to use the damn thing better than I did" - he chided. " Take it with ya - I know where you live"<br />
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I couldn't even speak. I was an odd screwy kid back then (go figure). Eaten up with the hormonal tornado that is 14, and ate up worse every time somebody dropped a dime in a jukebox or turned a radio on. Music tormented every secret dream I had back then, but I had no idea that anybody outside of my house was paying any serious attention to any of my foolishness - to what I cared about, or to what I needed.<br />
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I was wrong. They were. Mike was. Turns out, the whole town was, and they all knew before I did.<br />
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I was playing that same Les Paul Jr. in Crook, Colorado the night I made my first $40. Not long after that I traded it off for another guitar that I , foolishly, thought was cooler at the time. That was about 50 guitars ago now.<br />
<br />
I wish I still had that Les Paul. It woud be worth around $20K now. I still have everything that came with it though. That's worth more.<br />
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I'm still all chewed up with the fever, and I still have these crazy wonderful friends and family that know me better than I know myself. Who see right through me, even when I think I'm flying under the radar. Who bless me with their kindness and grace at every turn, and who let me ride along so I can be that cool too.<br />
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I still stop by Mike's place now and then when I go back home. Drink his coffee and talk about our kids, wives, and yesterdays. He's still in my camp. Still watching out for me. They all are..<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-5757657278247952442015-01-27T17:58:00.000-07:002015-01-27T19:26:28.896-07:00Day 22 - A Rich Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I find the avarice of men - the wanton lust for money, power, etc - to be shameful, in any degree. All the money in China isn't enough to compensate for the damage that bad manners and arrogant greed can create. It's pernicious and I vote we change that right now. <br />
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This weekend I witnessed first-hand, a snarky little snot-nose of a prep-school bellhop, at a high-dollar resort I was playing at - stand not 5 feet away and watch me struggle with a cartload of guitars and speakers that I was trying to across the plaza and on the hotel elevator, to take to my gig, one level up.<br />
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The older model Kia I drive and the hurricane hair-do I usually sport, apparently signaled some crucial information to him upon my arrival regarding my tax bracket. He wasn't about to move a muscle to help me. Looked at me sideways and actually smirked - the little prick smirked!<br />
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2 minutes later a quite lovely and, obviously-loaded, grande dame - with a sweatered Pomeranian and a Rolex on each ear- appears from out of nowhere. In a flurry of near-curtsies? and slobberin' ":how-do-ya's" - Rob Roy the door-boy just about breaks his neck to cut in front of me and put her on the elevator I had been waiting for , lick her Gucci ski-boots, and get a whiff of her Diner's Club Gold-card - all at the same time. He was grinning like a mongoloid chimp when she handed him a $10 tip.<br />
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I could'a rung the insolent little shit's neck - just for bad manners. That poor dumb kid doesn't know what he was missing in passing up the opportunity to open the elevator door for <u><i>both</i></u> a wealthy women - and a rich man.<br />
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For the record, having money and being rich aren't even close to the same thing where I come from.<br />
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Here's a little story about that:<br />
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He was the richest man in town. Just about everybody in our little burg knew it. He was not a trifling man either, but everybody respected George. His counsel was often sought by the locals, "unofficially",when disputes would come up between neighbors or kin around town.<br />
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He was honest as the day was long, fair to a fault, and everybody for 30 miles in every direction had at least one story about how George had done something or another for them, or their family, when they were in some sort of pickle. He couldn't seem to stand to see someone in a bad way, if he could help it. He offered his assistance freely and he never asked a thing in return either. Never even mentioned it, like he and his family didn't even need what everybody else seemed to.<br />
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Seemingly unflappable, He was always pleasant and polite in public, soft spoken, sharp as a whip. Given to few words - and direct conversation. He had served his country with distinction as a Captain in the U.S. Army during World War II. When it was over he put away his bad dreams, came home a hero, bought a used tractor and a 3-bottom plow, married the smartest girl he knew, and took up the yoke of a dry-land wheat farmer, just like his father and grandfather before him.<br />
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When circumstances around town would occasionally fall to the chaotic, over some nonsense or another, George was often called upon as the voice of reason. He was on the school-board for what seemed perpetuity. He belonged to The American Legion and The Knights of Columbus, and was always being asked to be on some farm or church committee or board.<br />
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Unlike the rest of the "bib overall" crowd, you rarely ever saw him down at the Co-op in the mornings, drinking coffee from styrofoam cups and smartin' off about the government. He was never to be found playing pitch or rolling dice for red beers at the Hot Spot for an hour or two, like so many of his less-successful "gentleman" farmer counter-parts.<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">He was apparently above all that. Unlike a good many of the locals, the man didn't drink to any significant degree - The wine at communion accounting for the lions share of his alcohol intake. </span><br />
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He volunteered every August to work the American Legion hamburger booth at the fair, never missed a high school football & basketball games on Friday nights if he could help it, He always graciously attended the occasional funeral when someone died - or wedding when someone wasn't careful, and he wouldn't dream of missing Sunday Mass with his wife and kids at The Sacred Heart Catholic Church in town. These forays seemed to be his only indulgences or activities away from the farm. </div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">He kept to home and his wife and children. His corrals, buildings, and machinery were kept ship-shape and ready to work at all times. He proudly loaned his farm equipment out all the time - to just about anybody </span>around town <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">who needed it . A small handful of the old sour-puss n'er-do-wells would make cracks that he was "just showing off" or "putting on airs". </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">That didn't keep those same people from turning to George first when misfortune would find their doorstep. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For his pleasure, George only seemed to enjoy hard work, and plenty of it. That's all anybody I ever knew could remember the man doing..</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">He farmed an entire section of ground that his home place sat on, and another 320 acres on the east side of the highway. He ran as many as 50 beef cattle at a time in good years. Most years he ran about half that many. </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">He was not a man given to foolishness or idle behavior. He might have known what the word vacation meant but I truly doubt if he ever took one. </span></div>
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His wife, Dorys, bought new school clothes for their 5 children every fall after harvest. They would butcher a cow and a hog for meat through the winter. Dorys substitute-taught at the school in town, and they were never hard-pressed in need for anything.<br />
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George and Dorys taught their children well about all things financial. Taught them to save birthday and Christmas money. How to keep themselves from spending their pocket money on candy or other foolishness like other kids. How to set aside dollars for the collection plate at church, and how to open a bank account at Sidney National Bank with $10. How to patiently, with diligently frugal behavior, watch that grow into much, much more.<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><br />
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</span> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">His sons and daughters all bought and raised at least one or two calves each spring, with their own money. Raising their respective critters to market weight, and then using the proceeds to bolster their bank books - providing themselves with "pocket-money" for non-neccessities such as a soda-pop at the ball games, or a movie ticket at the Fox theatre in Sidney once in awhile.</span> They would all follow their fathers example in establishing a firm financial foundation for themselves.<br />
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</span> His kids were all taught from their earliest recollection, , that there is no excuse for low intelligence. Taught to work hard and study harder. They were all exceptionally smart, and expected to excel in school - to earn substantial scholarships to good universities.<br />
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George had a "nearly new" Massey-Ferguson combine with a 30' header for harvesting his wheat and millet, and two John Deere Tractors for pulling plows, planters, manure-spreaders, and the occasional tree-stump. The newer of the 2 even had air-conditioning and an enclosed cab.<br />
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He changed his oil in his old pickup every 3000 miles and traded his family cars in for a "nearly-brand-new" 4-door - generally off the back row at the Chevy dealership in Sidney - every 4 to 5 years.Usually in coincidence with one of his 5 children either getting a drivers license, or going off to college.<br />
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When the news came that George was sick, it spread across the county like tear-gas. Everyone that knew him choked a little. He and Dorys had gone to a big hospital in Denver at the family doctors urging, over some irregularities in Georges yearly checkup. He'd been trying to shake a disturbingly worsening cough since late winter, with no success<br />
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The minute he wheeled into the admitting room in Denver, things started going downhill fast. Each test confirmed their worst unspoken fears. "Cancer" - "inoperable".<br />
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There was no way of knowing how horribly aggressive his cancer was. I can only imagine what the drive home from the city - 4 hours in a car alone with his wife of 40 years - must have been like.<br />
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With every centimeter that the wheat in the fields grew that spring, with every changing shade of vibrant green that turned daily toward the brilliant yellow-gold it would soon become under the hot June sun - Georges condition worsened.<br />
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In the coming weeks every member of his family publicly displayed their grief only sparingly - They sadly and proudly, all held their heads with the quiet dignity that George was so noted for himself. They comforted everyone else before themselves.<br />
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Anthropologist speculate <i>ad-infinitum</i> about the importance of non-verbal communication among ancient tribes and clans. In any tribal family there are floods of information that pass non-verbally through nods, and winks, hand signals, body language, etc. Mountains of common "survival-dependent" information, social information, spiritual information, shared among members of a single clan. Their spiritual ideology and moral inclinations are unified and upheld from one generation to the next, solely through the stewardship of their leaders and holy people. Their healers<br />
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In our town, George was a leader and his wife, "Aunt Dorys", was a healer. They believed in God and the church, they believed in the goodness of each other, and they believed in the goodness of their children and their neighbors. All his life George had quietly believed it was his job to give all that goodness a place to grow in, and plenty of sunlight, . As a result of their stewardship, we all believed it too.<br />
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At his funeral, that's where you understood the full scope of Georges wealth. The church was full out to the sidewalk and packed up clear to the rafters. There wasn't a dry eye in the place and every single one of us had been given something at one time or another by the man. It looked like a hundred cars in that line that crawled away from the church that day. Out to our little country cemetery, small and lonesome, a quarter mile north of town on the same dirt road that led to Georges farm.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju63Pset706oC8A9ZzI78Opecllk3kg1chH35Lt_h8Q0reaCL0nqwjK8GYNOaMjD9BNRBynP4TlENr-fw2ulKaWvv-vx7ByyPR51xJCNC4cqFzGtdQ87VAA9WYW3023UvU3wxZO44G4XJa/s1600/Dogs++Jumping+Fish+027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju63Pset706oC8A9ZzI78Opecllk3kg1chH35Lt_h8Q0reaCL0nqwjK8GYNOaMjD9BNRBynP4TlENr-fw2ulKaWvv-vx7ByyPR51xJCNC4cqFzGtdQ87VAA9WYW3023UvU3wxZO44G4XJa/s1600/Dogs++Jumping+Fish+027.jpg" height="320" width="242" /></a>The wheat in the fields around the cemetery was tall and brilliant gold that day, and just hours away from the magic 13% moisture content acceptable for harvesting.<br />
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As soon as the final "Amen" was sang at the graveside, every farmer and able bodied hand in attendance went home, changed out of their suits, and without any significant discussion amongst themselves - immediately drove their own combines and grain trucks to Georges fields first, before their own.<br />
<br />
They descended on the rolling fields of gold like a swarm of locust, the instant the moisture test at the elevator read 13%. Nearly 100 men, 20-30 combines and nearly twice that many trucks - made quick work of over a section and a half of wheat before the sun fell that day, and as soon as all the grain was in the elevator - the weight tickets handed to Dorys - everybody went home and began cutting their own fields the next morning. That's what George would have done for any one of them.<br />
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I'll always be proud of my home. To Hell with politics - When the chips are down, you help your neighbor before you help yourself. It's an unspoken point of honor among members of the tribe.<br />
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When he passed I don't believe George had any more money, than anyone else around town. If he did it didn't matter. He was rich - with or without it. He had the well-deserved admiration and respect of nearly every soul on legs from one side of the county to the next. He left more friends than he could count and he passed a legacy of dignity to his children and theirs. He lived simply and in doing so, through good stewardship and Christian decency, changed peoples lives around him for the better. A simple farmer.<br />
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You can't buy that at Wal-Mart<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-79411361196797688752015-01-25T13:49:00.001-07:002015-01-25T23:13:11.093-07:00Day 21 - The Anniversary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What a life I lead:-) Last nights gig at Montanya was superb:-) Huge thanks to Karen and Brice Hoskins and their entire staff for having me. The audiences are getting younger - I'm getting older. I don't know why it surprises me so when young people dig my hillbilly ass, but they sure seemed to last night. It must be the rakish tilt of my $3 Stetson.<br />
<br />
I'll take another run at 'em this afternoon at the Sweet Spot up on the ski mountain .<br />
<br />
After the gig I got to hang out with my dear friend Dawne Belloise - a delightful red-headed firecracker sprite of a woman. She's a singer / journalist/ free spirit/ and working performer herself. We yukked it up like bankers and swallowed giggle water till our knees were fuzzy, Then she cooked me wild chanterelle mushrooms, sausage, and eggs to go with my horse-water. The woman has mad survival skills.<br />
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Later in the evening when - due to turbulent wind conditions between my ears, my kitchen chair began to buck a little more than I was cowboy for, Dawne graciously showed me to my stall for the evening, a very nice cozy stall with a down comforter and decorator curtains, where I sailed off in gurgling burps to a dreamy slumber - thanking God for Fireball Whisky and praying that my hooves would turn back to hands before morning.<br />
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I talked to my old pal Clem this morning. We have been best buds since the 6th Grade. We laughed our butts off like we always do. His wonderful parents, Maynard and Norma are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary today. <br />
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When we were kids his parents always treated me like I was just another one of their own. Made me mind my manners at the table, wash behind my ears, and hold still during church. They weren't fooling' around when it came to raising kids. They had 11 of them and never flinched a minute.<br />
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Maynard worked his ass off every day without fail. Running a farm, raising livestock, and keeping 12 souls fed and clothed. The real front liner though was Norma. She ran the house with the precision of an Israeli SWAT team. No Baloney, no excuses, no man left behind. The women may well be the most brilliant military strategist of the past 200 years.<br />
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That house was always ship-shape clean, laundry always folded, and dinner was on the table at 6 every night. Everyone in attendance had ears and fingernails washed and the chicken didn't get touched until everybody had bowed their head for grace. As soon as the food started making it's way around the table the laughing would begin. <br />
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Those lunatic white people would torment the hell out of one another. Normas' sense of humor was lightning quick and wickedly irreverent. . She passed it on to every one of her kids.<br />
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They'd laugh at each other and laugh at themselves - like the whole damn thing was just a big joke. Nobody was safe either. If you were sitting at that table you were gonna laughed at. And you were gonna laugh at somebody else, and you were gonna like it. You couldn't stay unhappy in that house for very long before somebody would have you giggling in your gravy. Their table was a pretty fun place to be for a kid like me.<br />
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When we were in trouble for something else "stupid", a regular occurrence for my compadre-in-chaos and I - I was scared to death of Norma's eyebrows. That's how you could tell you were in for it. Maynard didn't really have to say much to make a fella fall in line and march right. He had the "look".<br />
<br />
When he was perturbed it was cold as ice and hard as nails - like a mob hit man. I figured he'd just dispatch me with a ball-peen hammer to the forehead and give my Mom one of his kids. They all minded better than me.<br />
<br />
Clem and I were ornery kids; thick as thieves and truly inventive. Over the ensuing years, there's no way his parents, or mine, could have thought of everything we should have been told not to do. I own a few of the gray hairs on those celebrated heads today, I'm sure.<br />
<br />
Between under-age 3.2 beer, teenagers in cars, town girls, getting shot at by drunk janitors, and stealing watermelons for sport - Clems' folks and my Mother, all had their hands full. I will be indebted to Maynard and Norma until the day I die for the restraint they showed in not drowning both their son and I in a diaper pail, when we all knew they had plenty of good reason to.<br />
<br />
Clem runs a bank now, His brothers and sisters are all solid and good successful people. Kind and honest - completely devoted to their families - Just like their folks. Me…….well…………who knows? I'm not complaining one little bit. :-)<br />
<br />
That family showed me how to laugh. They showed me how families laugh. I learned how to celebrate and how to take joy out of a plain old day. There's no way to ever repay that. Sometimes laughter is all I have and it's nearly always enough :-)<br />
<br />
Thank You and Happy 60th Anniversary Maynard and Norma -You Crazy Kids :-)<br />
<br />
"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-87729757994349374392015-01-24T11:12:00.001-07:002015-01-24T13:28:10.707-07:00Day 20 - "Uncle Francis"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Uncle Francis was one of the most beautiful old souls to ever walk on two legs. He was my Grandmas younger brother and legendary in the family for both his accomplishments and his shortcomings.<br />
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To this day, I've never seen bigger ears on a human in my life. They stuck out of the side of his head, almost exactly like donkey ears - only rounded on the ends, instead of pointed. They would have looked inhuman and out-of-place had it not been for the toothless jug-head grin planted squarely between those twin aerofoils of flesh.<br />
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The lenses on his old tortoise-shell and wire rim glasses were always splotched with fingerprints and greasy smears. I was about 6. I would sit on his lap directly in the line of a face full of whisky-breath, and gently as I could, pull his glasses from the bridge of his nose - hold them up to his mouth so he could breathe on them to make them foggy, like GrandMa did with hers. I'd wipe them clean on my dirty t-shirt, and if they passed muster I'd put them right back where I got them.<br />
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Uncle Francis would just smile through rheumy red eyes and chuckle a little - slur an "att'away Son" in my dirrection, -and sometimes he'd even fish a 50 cent piece out of his shirt pocket (where he kept his drinking money) and stuff it in my palm - along with the secured promise that I wouldn't spend it all in one place.<br />
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He'd been sent France in WWI as a cook near the front. Somehow the man won a bunch of medals for bravery. Took 2 bullets, one in the calf and the other in the left cheek of his ass, from a German Mauser. When he was drinking you didn't dare bring it up - he'd show you the bullet holes.<br />
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He was also a superb guitar-picker. He had enjoyed a brief career as a cowboy singer / guitar picker of some renown in his end of Kansas back in the early 40s' .I heard from a few folks that "Cowboy Jack" was truly something special in his day. They said his voice could damn near make a person cry for the sweetness in it.<br />
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Uncle Frances never met a whisky jug he didn't like. He'd been in consistent decline from the first time he unscrewed the first cork. In 30 years he had drank and whored his way through 6 wives, 4 kids, countless jobs, and countless opportunities to "straighten up" and be like his brothers Albert and Calvin<br />
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My Grandma and my Mom were the only ones in the family that would have too much to do with him after awhile.. They'd still let him in the house when he'd show up liquored to the gills, reeking of pool-hall whisky and Old Spice They'd put him to bed in the back room and feed him coffee and toast when he came too.<br />
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When he was sober I don't think I ever knew a more sensible or intelligent man either. He was pretty wise about just about everything you could ever think of. Funny too. His stories were just the best, and always side-splitting hilarious when he told them. Frances could twist hat rubber face of his into a million expressions - everyone of them "piss-your-drawers" funny.<br />
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When I was in the hospital once,after an appendicitis surgery, He poured water in his brand new straw cowboy hat and then put it on just to make me laugh . I about busted a stitch for laughing so hard. It hurt like hell and GrandMa like'to smacked Frances stupid with her purse for doing it. Called him a "God-damned Clown". I thought he'd lost his mind but I laughed my butt off. He'd do stuff like that all the time. Act the fool like no sane grownup would ever think acting. I loved him.<br />
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The absolute BEST though...... was when Francis would play the old guitar that we always seemed to have stashed in our closet. I<br />
<br />
He'd often show up on our front porch, knee-walking shit-faced with his hat screwed on sideways, from a night of carousing downtown. Frances had been a snappy dresser in his heyday. He didn't believe in going uptown unless he could make a good impression. When he would venture out for an evening of adult pleasure at the local watering holes, his old brown cowboy suit was always pressed with creases in the trousers so sharp you could cut yourself on them.<br />
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Within 72 hours, after riding a bar stool for a couple days and whatever other nonsense Francis may have gotten into, and the creases in those chocolate colored pin-stripe trousers would fade and slacken, giving way to the myriad of wrinkles and splotched boozey stains that overwhelmed them. Like a once beautiful structure fallen to the decay of an inner-city slum.<br />
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Made me think of what those streets in France that he'd told me all about, must have looked like when Uncle Francis and the rest of the Army finally got to Paris.<br />
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As soon as he was planted at the kitchen table, with some guidance from both Mom and I - Mom would put a hot cup of coffee in front of him - I would grab his cowboy hat, screw it down over my ears, and haul ass for the closet. I'd dig out his guitar from behind the laundry and run it out to the kitchen just as fast as my legs would motate.<br />
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The man was an amazement. He could be dead drunk with drool running outta both sides of his mug, eye's like pissholes in a snowbank - and the minute that guitar would hit his hand he's straighten right up. His brow would crease and the cigarette dangling from his lip would stick straight out of his mug at 90degrees with the authority of a smokestack. He'd turn his head like he was listening to a sea shell, and listen closely to each string as he picked at at with stained yellow finger-nails.<br />
<br />
He'd judiciously tweak and pry gently at the tuners and then, just like a shot, he'd throw his head back and start singing loud as a foghorn - "The day I Took My Jenny.......Out Behind The Barn" . It was funny and Mom would make him quit before he said all the verses. My favorite was "I'm So Lonesome I could Cry" I always wanted to hug him when he was done. It sounded, and looked, like he meant every word. "When he'd sing "Old Rugged Cross" sometime his voice would start to shake and Mom would wipe at her eyes. She said it made her think of GrandDad.<br />
<br />
When Mom wasn't looking - Francis would sneak a half-pint bottle out of his his back pocket and pour little splashes in his coffee. He'd wink at me and put his index finger to his lips - our little secret. I never told on him either. We had an understaanding.<br />
<br />
Alas my covert cooperation would ultimately be to no avail . Each and every time we went through this scenario, Frances would treat us to a cowboy music mini-concert with that old guitar. He'd sing and play through blurry eyes with increasingly fumbling hands and much good-natured cussing and laughter. - Until his balance would betray him due to the whisky, and he would fall out of his chair..<br />
<br />
He'd come tumbling out of the chair like he'd been pushed. Guitar would go one direction and his glasses would go the other - the show was over. He liked big endings. I would get on one side of him, and Mom on the other, and we'd hoist him, muttering and giggling, over to the sofa and cover him up with an old patchwork quilt. I'd put his guitar back in the closet and head back outside. Mom would carry on as usual.<br />
<br />
I knew , even then, that whisky caused a lot of problems - for almost everyone I knew. For the life of me I couldn't understand back then, why anybody would fool with it to begin with. It smelled like ASS!! Little did I know how easily my opinions would change in the coming years. Back then,I didn't much care for brussel sprouts either. At some point I changed my mind.<br />
<br />
Francis would show up like that every now and then , with some regularity. He'd stay for a day or two - or for a month or 6. I always loved having him around. We were buddies. He would listen to me like I had something to say. I never knew a kinder soul. He knew every dirty joke that had ever been told, and he'd let me have sips off his beer when nobody was looking. When I was 12 he taught me to drive a stickshift.<br />
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He was in a hospital in Denver the last time I saw him. After years of too-hard living, his heart and his lungs were just plain worn out. I was just getting ready to move to Nashville to try my hand as a songwriter. I wanted to tell him, more than about anybody, what I was up to and how hopeful I was for the future.<br />
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His skin was grey and paper-thin on the back of his hands. Tubes and needles and beeping lights - the morphine for the pain had him fogged into semi-consciousness. He squeezed my fingers and winked. That was all that was left. I knew he fully understood - and he knew that I didn't.<br />
<br />
His eyes stared straight at me for the longest time and I remembered the way his cowboy hat felt on my head all those years before. I tried to stop the tears, for his sake, but I couldn't. In that instant, that tired dying old man reached out to me and held me in his arms while I cried like a baby. He let me try say goodbye to him. To tell him everything he meant to me. I couldn't....still can't.<br />
<br />
He rides with me now, everywhere I go. My silent partner and adviser. I trust him because I know he's still watching over me - that he loves me - and that he understands me. I know he's already forgiven me before I even fall. Wish I had that old hat.<br />
<br />
"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-11713693226380755672015-01-23T12:54:00.001-07:002015-01-23T12:57:23.426-07:00Day 19 - "Shotgun Hummus / Burned Fingers/ Ovaries"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Wallabee, Wallabee, Wallabee.... It cleanses the palate and prepares the tongue for precise erudition. Here goes..,.I strike my muse on her delicate butterfly knee with my little tin hammer - and she starts spittin' out nonsense like a jabberwockie<br />
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Some questions deserve to be answered, others defy logic at every turn.<br />
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The "Right-to-Life" coalition staged a candlelight vigil/march through downtown Grand Junction last night. I would guess 2-300 of these delightful and well-intentioned souls were out there - each carrying a single slender burning candle, as if to the manger of Bethlehem.<br />
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I had to traverse the march to get my gear into the gig. Nearly got hot wax on me. If I'm not paying for the hot wax "up-charge" - and you're not an NFL cheerleader in a teddy - I find it presumptuous and rude. <br />
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I saw a woman I even knew in the march. She looked the other way when she saw me- I think a little embarrassed.<br />
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I am also right-to-life;...... as in - "Right-to-<u><b>MY</b></u>-Life", as well as "Right-to-<b><u>YOUR</u></b>-Life".<br />
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Fellas we have no business weighing in on this one . It only spells trouble....we are not effectively qualified to mandate in the area of womens reproductive organs - anymore than they're entitled to mandate that, upon entering into any committed monogamous relationship with a significant other; - that our male testicles be surgically removed and placed in a very nice Chambreaux crystal glass of preservative formaldehyde, on a lacy pink doily, on the break-front nightstand beside the picture of her cat Boo-Boo.(A very well groomed Persian mix). <br />
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For our own self-preservation fellas,all politics aside. - any further ovarian interdiction by men has got to stop.<br />
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Do any of you really think that any male, apart from Richard Simmons, is qualified to tell any woman what to do with her ovaries? If you said yes, you're way dumber than I look. When's the last time any of you meat-whistles won an argument with your "significant other" - that didn't end up with you wishin' you would'a just shut up to begin with? Hell I can't even get one to change a flat tire in a rainstorm when I'm too drunk to say "noodle". We'll get into that later.<br />
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Anyhow, As I sat on my wooden box singing revolutionary songs of disenchantment last night, pedaling like<br />
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I was being chased, it came to me. Right then and there, it hit me. I started the: International "Right-To-"just my life, and nobody elses'"-Foundation. I held my own march. Walked all the way down to 3rd . Burnt my fingers on my AC/DC lighter in front of the Rockslide and nearly spilled my cocktail.<br />
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Unfortunately I was forced to stop my march before I got too far; both by dangerous weather conditions (under 45 degrees), and a Grand Junction Police officer. A frightening man with an itchy trigger-finger and his hand on his loaded banana. The fight will continue, but I just want to let folks know we're out there. We're a subsidiary of the International "Don't be a Dick" Foundation.<br />
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Tonight I will be at The Palisade Cafe for fun and foolishness with my pal T-Bone. We talked about him the other day. A Lincoln Burger is $5- a Beer is $4 - and I'll table dance for $40 but you damn-well better keep your nut-hooks to yourself.....this time.<br />
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If I show up at the trailer in my underwear and a sombrero again, the dogs are gonna start talkin'<br />
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It's time for me to take a break now and go kill something to eat. Today I'm making shotgun.hummus.<br />
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~RECIPE~</div>
Using good quality duct tape, simply strap a 20 oz can of Del-Monte Garbanzos to the end of a 20 guage loaded with #4 target shells. When all ingredients are prepared, aim and shoot at a large (8 feet x 8 feet minimum) sheet of pre-greased galvanized tin leaning against the barn. After you've finished pulling the trigger just scrape the fresh hummus of the wall with a spatula and season with a blend of cardamom and chicken feathers. A yummy fun treat you can make right in the comfort of your own driveway. (remember to spit the lead out)<br />
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Peace Out<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
"Until Manyana"<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-56660624120668188952015-01-22T14:44:00.000-07:002015-01-23T08:09:48.757-07:00Day 18 - "Nobody Told Me It Was Gonna Hurt"???"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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6:21 A.M. The dogs of winter have risen. I mean Elvis & June Carter.<br />
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2 minutes ago they were wrapped in their blankets, on what was once- not so long ago - my bed. Like a giant 2-pak of doggie chalupas. <br />
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Out of nowhere - perhaps a coyote may have broken wind a half-mile or so away -or perhaps a Slim-Jim wrapper rustling out of control in the 5 mph wind out by the highway - something huge heralding either imminent danger or potential dinner, happened right outside the trailer -and my two canine killers come to life in an explosion of electric invigorated life; joyful eager ear flapping, insistent frantic barking, and vigorous tail-thumping - like their switch got flipped from "off" straight to "puree". I stand amazed.<br />
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I wonder if that's what I look like when I've had too many Fireballs and I'm trying to get lucky?<br />
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I can't believe we're at Day 18 already with the blog. I'm as surprised as anyone. It's been really fun - like opening up an old box of toys from childhood and reminiscing over each one. Most of my childhood has actually taken place in my adulthood, thankfully - so I still appreciate toys. (Don't lie girls- so do you ;-)<br />
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I was busy in my childhood getting my PhD in "how shit works". I spent a lot of time with the radio and a lot of time in front of the bathroom mirror. If I wore Grandpas old Sunglasses, and put a handful of Brylcreem in my hair - I was Roy Orbison. If I put shoe polish on my hands and face along with the sunglasses - I was Ray Charles. If I put the shoe polish on my shirt and washed my face off, ditched the glasses and reloaded on Brylcreem - I got a whippin', but I was Johnny Cash. There were so many directions for a budding talent to go in.<br />
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Mom had a record player in a suitcase with a flip-top lid and Stereophonic sound - along with a massive collection of .45s that filled 3 apple boxes covering the entire back seat of a 1962 Fairlane. This car would today house a family of 8. Mom loved her Rock & Roll but she flat worshipped Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Dave Dudley, Johnny Horton, Lorretta Lynn, etc. - she was a country, country girl .<br />
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We moved around a lot up until we moved out to Peetz. 22 houses in 11 years. A lot got left behind on occasion, but Mom's suitcase record-player never did. That and a stack of records was always the first thing we'd grab on the way out the door.<br />
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I started shining shoes in the bars and in front of the drugstore in Sidney when I was about 10. .A quarter a pop. I always got good tips and as soon as I got my first $30, I bought my own record player.<br />
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My next $30 (after I spent $7 at the Ben Franklin lunch counter on milkshakes for my best pals Jimmy Stark and Henry Scheinholz) all went to the jewelry store next to Western Auto. They sold guitars in a little corner, clear at the back of the store. </div>
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They had a 3/4 size Stella acoustic guitar hanging on their wall that I was in a flat fever over- real wood with a cool geometric-y decal around the sound hole - brand new for $30. I knew if I was gonna be a cowboy, I needed a pony - and that Stella guitar was it. The strings were nearly 1/4" off the neck and old enough to have rust on them. It had been hanging on that wall for a long time ...............just waiting for me.<br />
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I put $5 down and every Saturday for the next 3 weeks I took my shoeshine money down and plunked it down on that guitar. The day I paid of that $30 I walked past those cases full of diamond rings like they were nothin'. Like I had something in my hands exponentially more valuable than paltry gems.<br />
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With Henry and Jimmy right beside me, me in the middle ,my instrument firmly in grasp, we were ruling the street that day. I was waving my future sucess, like it was Excalibur. Most of the locals knew me, and most had heard either the "drank turpentine" or the "head injury" rumors - no one really took my behavior as unusual, just a little sad.<br />
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We all 3 went our separate ways and headed home for supper later that afternoon. As I carried my new treasure in one hand and my shoe-shine box in the other, through our front door that evening' - I felt the confident self-assuredness of a man who knows he is on the cusp of greatness. <br />
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After picking at a too-large serving of tuna noodle casserole for 15 agonizingly long minutes, and after successfully dumping my mandatory serving of green beans behind the heat register (a whipping offense) without detection, so as to produce the required "clean" plate , I was released from the table to pursue my budding music career.<br />
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Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn't change much - but I sure would have bought me some lighter guitar strings to start off with. I had watched Uncle Francis play his old guitar when he was dead drunk, and if he could do it, I knew I could. Unfortunately I greatly overestimated both my capabilities and my threshold for pain.<br />
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I sat on the sofa all that evening with my new guitar. At first in complete bliss, but within minutes - breathing hard through gritted teeth and growing more and more frustrated with each squawk and thud; the wisdom of my purchase beginning to come into question.<br />
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I knew what it was supposed to sound like and what I had didn't sound anything like that. All of a sudden that fretboard now seemed to be about 3 blocks wide.I tried pressing the strings down like Uncle Francis did but I wasn't having any luck at all. . I was squeezing so hard it nearly sliced my fingers in two but it still just made a thud. and made my left hand hurt like the dickens!!!. I tried turning the tuning pegs a few revolutions to see if that helped but it just made it worse.<br />
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I was beside myself with frustration. By the time Mom whistled up bedtime I was in tears and mad as a wet hen. I could'a bought 10 hot wheels and the whole Hot Wheels Starter Track Kit for $30. I wanted to burn that damn guitar.<br />
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I went to sleep that night rubbing the ends of my fingers and trying to calculate how many loafers I would <br />
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have to buff to get my Official Hot Wheels Starter track - and at least 3 new cars to go with it. I was also pretty sure , at that very moment, that I did indeed want to go ahead and be, either a policeman, or an astronaut after all.<br />
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I couldn't go back uptown until Saturday so I was stuck with the guitar until at least then. Maybe I could get my money back<br />
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In the meantime a friend of my Mom's who was also a DJ at KSID - I don't even remember his name - was at our house visiting, a day or so later. He picked up my little guitar from the couch and - miracle of miracles - HE TUNED IT!!! Wow!!!! Completely different ballgame.<br />
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He played pretty well as I recall. Well enough for my developing brain to fire a fresh volley of "renewed-optimism" endorphins back and forth across it's synapses. Perhaps I could make this work after all.<br />
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For some odd reason, even as a child, even with mountains of evidence to the contrary, - I just assumed that I was at least as smart and usually quite a bit smarter than anybody on legs. I may have miscalculated my position.<br />
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I could wiggle my ass like Elvis. I did it in the living room all the time. I could sure as hell holler like little Richard. I did it every time I got the belt. This guitar was all I needed and we were off to the races. <br />
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Mom wasn't going to wait tables anymore and we'd have lots of money - I could have all the Hot Wheels I wanted and a brand new Stingray bicycle. And the next time one of Moms' knot-head boyfriends got drunk and slapped her around, I could pay somebody big, to drown the son-of-a-bitch in a gunny sack. That'd fix their wagons.<br />
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All I had to do was figure out how to operate that damn guitar.The rest was gonna be easy....I just knew it.</div>
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Mom waited tables at the Ben Franklin during the days back then, and cocktailed at nights down at The Mill Bar & Lounge. She worked her ass off in a "one-horse town" dive beer joint and a "greasy-spoon" blue-plate diner from sunup to 2 am at least 6 days a week, for wages so paltry it was embarrassing, just to cover the bills and keep me fed - and it still wasn't enough at the end of the month.<br />
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We were always hand-to-mouth back then, and we ate a lot of macaroni and hot dogs. A couple days after her friend had renewed my fervor by tuning and actually playing my new guitar, She surprised me.<br />
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she came home from work in her white waitress uniform, big ketchup and hamburger grease splotches all over it, and hollered me out of my room. "JOHN ANTHONY!!!!! GET IN HERE....NOW!!!!"<br />
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I wasn't sure what I might have done wrong since morning. I couldn't remember anything real bad since the last time I got paddled.It took a couple swallowed breaths for me to decipher that the holler wasn't a "gonna whip your butt" holler - it was a "This is gonna be good" holler. Whenever she called me by my middle name it was a toss-up.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69uC4tDppFVq7JkzDcYo9sc_ND-Qoav-qOZZIZ7iNGshCegqDHpWLeanvICwJ82Qr2mFV2wMpugcD9U8pvO6rz8PyEK_m6W66VvHpGs4VlBvjNpPLzFukorQrC8N4w7JTxKPELLqSKPxo/s1600/blogger-image-652140842.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69uC4tDppFVq7JkzDcYo9sc_ND-Qoav-qOZZIZ7iNGshCegqDHpWLeanvICwJ82Qr2mFV2wMpugcD9U8pvO6rz8PyEK_m6W66VvHpGs4VlBvjNpPLzFukorQrC8N4w7JTxKPELLqSKPxo/s1600/blogger-image-652140842.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a> I strutted out, fearless. There was a large white Ben Franklin sack on the kitchen table. It was stapled shut with the employee 10% discount receipt (blue) attached to it, and when I looked up at her she just smiled past a big cloud of cigarette smoke, and pointed at it non-chalantly with her left hand - a lip-sticked Kool stuck between her detergent-reddened fingers. "Open it" she winked.<br />
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I thought it might have been a couple Classics Illustrated comics - she'd do that some times.<br />
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I tore open the sack and produced "Mel Bay" Vol's 1 & 2- Easy Guitar for Beginners. These books had pictures.They showed you where to put my fingers. This was HUGE!!!! I really could figure this out. I just knew it, and now, so did my Mom.</div>
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Mom was a teenage dreamer and motherhood fell on her like the proverbial grand piano from the rooftop. she wasn't prepared to do it alone but she did the absolute best she could. The day I brought that cheap guitar in the door she started dreaming too. She saw something in me that gave her tired soul flight.<br />
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She saw it when she'd walk by the bathroom and find my Brylcreem mini-pompadour screaming into a hair brush to "Ring Of Fire". She saw it when she was holding me down and scrubbing the shoe polish off my face with turpentine, after "Georgia".<br />
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She didn't hound me at all about the guitar books - she'd just ask once in awhile. She'd lie and tell me things sounded "better" even when they didn't. She put up with the thuds and the squawks and the pops. Later she tolerated my drumsticks pounding on everything in sight. A few years later, when I was 14 and just starting to gig for money, she would drive me to my gigs with a local country band.<br />
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She passed away last November at 74, and I think about her a lot now, when I'm singing some song she liked. She asked me to sing to her a couple days before she died and it still made her smile.<br />
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Mom sacrificed a lot, and fought through her own mountains of misery just to raise me. I've been blessed to do and see alot of things in the years since that old guitar from the jewelry store, just because of those sacrifices. It's been nothing short of wonderful, and I appreciate every minute of this life absolutely.<br />
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I am grateful beyond measure for all of it. That said: I'd give every bit of it back right now if, for just a minute, I could just hold my mother, Patsy Anne Call; and that old Stella guitar - just one more time. Kiss her warm wrinkled cheek and tell her Thank You - sing her to sleep one more time.<br />
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Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana.<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-26845190383964120142015-01-21T08:24:00.002-07:002015-01-27T20:33:11.593-07:00Day 17 - "Why Wolves Eat Their Young"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The statute of limitations has long since run out so I'm gonna come clean. I did it. By the time the sun came up everybody in town knew I did it. The old-timers were already bitchin' a blue streak and pitchin' a fit, all over me, by the time 10 o'clock Mass started at The Sacred Heart Catholic Church that morning.<br />
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"The crazy little bastards gone too far this time" ......................"we should drown him" "let's pray". Incidentally - it wasn't the first time this same discussion had been on the table.<br />
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In our little town a sparrow fart didn't go un-noticed. Half of the older folks could tell you what the damn thing had for dinner. There are no secrets in a community of 300 souls, give-or-take. Everybody knows everybody, and most everybody's related in some direction or another. By marriage, by birth, or by accident.<br />
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The fella's down at the Hot Spot were having a bit of a chuckle that morning at my expense. They could see the damage in the little town park across the street ,right out the front window. The juniper bushes looked like they were goners. There were big circular tire tracks in the grass and big chunks of mud all over the apple blossoms. And to top it off, there sat my Malibu SS, covered in mud, parked side-ways in front of the old hotel next door. It didn't take Perry Mason to figure this shit out.<br />
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Pretty soon the boys were off telling stories about some of the stupid shit they had done under similar influence of youth and alcohol. It sounded adventurous when they said it. That was really what started this whole mess to begin with.<br />
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I was an impressionable, adventurous lad of 21; and I looked up to these people. I admired these men from the Hot Spot. They were good solid , salt-of-the-earth" ranchers, farmers, cowhands, and truck drivers. They were honest, to-a-man, and stood for God, Country, Family, Church, and high school football. Good decent Christian fellas saddled on those bar stools, but they were also a bunch of barn-yard comedians and nearly-prosecutable knotheads. Here they were tellin' me war stories about their mis-spent youth, and making horrendously dangerous feats of stupidity and bad taste, sound adventurous and heroic - romantic even. What was I supposed to think? What was I supposed to do?<br />
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Clem and I had been to Sidney on this particular evening, as was our Friday/Saturday night custom. Clem and I had both drank too much at the Branding Iron, narrowly escaped getting the shit kicked out of us for something one of us may or may not have actually done or said, and somehow arrived miraculously back in Peetz without the aid of the police or an ambulance - as was our Friday / Saturday night custom as well.<br />
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As it was, He and I were already legendary across 5 counties for our well-documented idiocy by the time we were freshmen in high school. No one around town really had any great expectations of either of us. "Put 'em in a home" -It still hurts.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_yGfFWkGDs4OV_dbNLfjK22Xz6kle0irJI7L3yraFUY8PkGW7JwptiNfyb4kPspq3YXiHrY-z5bprQCz3oQgnZZGMWUPIb4b8kAV9I8sUueMn2dXyFp-vQSoG2weYusdIyePmZ03xNjgq/s1600/IMAG0138.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_yGfFWkGDs4OV_dbNLfjK22Xz6kle0irJI7L3yraFUY8PkGW7JwptiNfyb4kPspq3YXiHrY-z5bprQCz3oQgnZZGMWUPIb4b8kAV9I8sUueMn2dXyFp-vQSoG2weYusdIyePmZ03xNjgq/s1600/IMAG0138.png" height="295" width="320" /></a> He had asthma and psoriasis - bad for a farm kid. I didn't have the common sense God gave geese. When either of us were exposed to even miniscule amounts of 3.2 beer, we turned into "Super-Doofus and Dingle Balls"<br />
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We had been in some sort of trouble for something, always together, since the 7th grade. We were creative. A pair to draw to, and after awhile folks just let us be, for the most part. "Just don't give them matches". No one else in the community could ever make heads or tails of what Clem and I were up to, or smoking. We had no idea either. We were just surviving by being idiots and laughing at each other - and everyone else as well. We didn't pay a lot of attention to the noise.<br />
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It wasn't always fun and games with my compadre though. He was a projectile puker. When Clem was full up on liquor, beer, and truck-stop eggs, he was a ticking time-bomb. And talk about sheer force. I once saw him, with my own eyes, throw a 12" stream of yak over 8 feet directly into the open window of an adjoining car at the drive-in movie theatre without even hitting the window trim. (Right before we left at approximately the velocity of a 30-06 slug) I think he probably still feels bad about jackin' up movie night for that car load of Brownies. I sure do.( I still hear their frightened little squeals in my sleep.)<br />
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On the night in question, my dear friend and runnin' buddy, had indeed, imbibed well beyond the full mark. He was set to blow and I, preoccupied, failed to acknowledge the gravity of the situation. The fault is mine. Cardinal rule: drooling precedes puking.<br />
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He went off inside the Chevelle at about 60 mph. It was a mess. All over the dash, the windshield, the seat, the floorboard . I had corn on my shirt. The window beside him was wide open but his neck would no longer turn to the right due to tequila poisoning. The puddle in the floor board was sloshing. <br />
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I made a snap decision - not a good one. I don't know why it seemed like a good idea, even now. I was whippin cookies in the middle of the street with the passenger door open to try to get the puddle on the floor to fly out of the car - so I wouldn't have to clean as much up. That's stupid with a capital P right there. I was givin' that 327 hell and we were spinning like a merry go around. Fear having sobered him some. Clem was hanging on to the steering wheel, my leg, the mirror and the headreast, all simultaneously - like a cat. His singing voice still worked pretty good too.<br />
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The car got away from me and we traversed the sidewalk and continued to spin until, having pulled Clems hands off of my head, had managed to come to a stop .. We had come to rest in the center of the Garden Clubs finest work. The Azalea garden. 3 large juniper bushes wrecked and every Azalea mangled. To make matter worse, the Chevelle was high-centered on the juniper bushes.<br />
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My confederate friend, covered in puke and carrying what I'm nearly certain was a fresh steamer in his drawers, had had enough. He wiped himself up as best he could with a beer can, and his took leave; walking as proudly as a man trying not to make shit-gravy in his britches can, back to his own car to sleep off the "whirlies" till sun-up.<br />
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I has no choice but to engage my own mothers complicity that fateful night as well. Shameless. After repeated attempts to get unstuck, I walked into the back door of my house at 3 a.m. and into my mothers bedroom. As politely as I could I woke her from what I'm sure had been a delightful slumber. I explained to her that a cat had run in front of my car and that I had accidentally, through no fault of my own, after heroically swerving to avoid injuring the cat, had somehow gotten high centered on the junipers in the park next door.<br />
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She bought my story for about as long as it took to put her glasses on. Mother was cagey that way. She began chewin' on my bony ass that very minute, and didn't even begin to slow down for about a week. She did although , get out of bed, pull the car keys down, and put her coat on over her nightdress - all while hollering very curtly at me in her "special" voice, "I don't suppose you're smart enough to find the tow rope on the porch - are you there genius??""<br />
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She bitched to high heaven all the way, but in a cloud of dust and a hail of pea gravel, Mother did pull me out of the bushes. I had previously witnessed my sweet mother deck a grown man with a hot cast iron skillet in a domestic altercation. I knew what she was capable of when angered. I might'a been 21 and grown, but when Momma was real pissed off, - chewin my haunches in a nightcoat and curlers, and holding my ear in a death grip with bony little fingers that felt like pliers - I just wanted help. She was mad enough by the time we got back to the house that she wasn't even talking - just blowing cigarette smoke out her ears and pointing. I went up those stairs rubbing the sting out of my aching ear-flaps, with my head hanging like I was 4 years old and just got caught .<br />
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A lot of bitching about me went on around town in the ensuing weeks. I was no stranger to the controversy. There was even discussion of filing charges, but none ever were. I believe now no charges were filed because it would have implicated my mother. Everybody in town liked my mother and sorta felt sorry for her already, over me..<br />
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It was suggested to me that I repair the sod and the Azalea bed, and I did. I wish I could say that was the end of stupid for me, but in truth , I was just getting warmed up.<br />
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I left home a few months after that park incident with only the highest of aspirations - go play with the Eagle's, smoke weed with the Beatles, and have monkey sex with Farah Fawcett:-). That didn't turn out the way I planned either.<br />
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When they were sure I was really gone, The town put up a heavy log chain barrier about 18" off the ground, all the way around the park. The old timers at Sacred Heart lit candles in thanks, and the boys at the Hot Spot just kept laughin' and carryin' on telling stories................about me:-)<br />
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Peace Out<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
"Until Manyana"<br />
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<br />Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-20702936556404371422015-01-20T14:27:00.001-07:002015-01-20T15:34:40.781-07:00Day 16 - "Illusions of Romance, Martin Luther King, and The Promise"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We all know how screwed-up I am. It's no secret. All my ex-wives will tell you the same thing. Yet....I have noticed recently, when I perform, an increased level of interest coming from some very attractive women in my own proximal age group. There's been 3 in as many weeks. That's an 3000% increase.<br />
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I must look real promising when I'm up there playing my old Silvertone, stompin' that box like we were both on fire. Nobody ever makes eyes like that at me down at the Conoco, or at WalMart. Of course, once happy hour starts, you don't generally find a ton of drunk, financially independent, and extremely-horny divorcee prom-queens at Walmart either.<br />
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If they ever do make cougar hunting an official sport - like alligator hunting. I'm either going to be an extremely good hunting guide, or the goat they tie to a stump in the swamp. last Saturday evening it didn't dawn on me till I was nearly to Idaho Springs that there probably wasn't anything wrong with that womens right eye at all - she'd been winking! Right at me! Probably wasn't anything wrong with her neck either - she was tilting her head in what I now believe she intended to be a seductive, come-hither gaze. I thought she had a cramp and went hither elsewhere.<br />
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I believe a large part of what some few,unfortunate, women have previously found attractive in me, is a very profound incognizance of my own situation, surroundings, and best interests - at all times. It sure as hell ain't the paint job.<br />
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I possess the God-given simplicity of a toad-stool;.- coupled with the savant-like ability to speak and make music. Some gals like that sort of thing. I can play my country ass off, but I will lick light sockets if somebody doesn't keep an eye on me.<br />
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30 years ago, in the heat of a sweat-bath summer kick-ass gig, some adventurous young trollop threw her underwear at me while I was playing. I didn't have a clue. I took them home and had them laundered. Brought them back (folded - heavy starch) the very next time I played there. Next thing I know I'm running a Chinese laundry for strippers. It's how I worked my way through charm school:-)<br />
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<b>MLK</b></div>
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The only bigger hero I ever had, other than Martin Luther King, was My Grandma, Nellie Marie Call - and this is what she had to say about that..<br />
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Grandma was a plain-as-cotton, solid-as-stone country girl; born dirt poor in September of 1914 on a share-cropped farm just outside of Leota , Kansas. Her Daddy liked to drink more than he should have. When he was in his cups, He was more than a little mean to his wife and children. Frank Wimer, went blind when Grandma was 12 from bad batch of "corn", and when she turned 14 he married her off to his wife's second cousin, a widower, John Call, in exchange for a $40, a Ford radiator, some hog-meat, and 2 mules.<br />
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When she married my Grandad he was 23 years her senior. John Call was not a cruel man. Quite the contrary, he was good to her. He was a likeable cut-up of a man, Short and solid like a fire-plug. He worked hard and kept groceries on the table and clothes on their backs at all times. Didn't drink more than a little on occasion, didn't carouse around or beat her like some men did. She told me that "he never paddled his children unless they really had it coming, and even then he showed a soft-hearted restraint that she thought too extreme. GrandDad was a good man. .They had 5 kids between them, along with his 6 from his previously departed wife. . From everything I ever heard or saw, she loved him greatly, and he loved her - but I get the sense looking back, that they probably had to work at that some.<br />
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In 1948 Grand Dad was diagnosed with leukemia and he passed in 1954. Grandma had kept house and farm running without skipping a beat all the while.She was tough as nails, smart as hell, and always soft-spoken - nearly to a fault.<br />
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After Grandad passed. she would sit at the kitchen table in the evenings, tired from a full day of "man's" work along with her own, wearing his old work jeans and plaid work shirts, (they fit her as well as they ever had him). She would smoke Chesterfields, one after another, and with drifting clouds of yellow-gray smoke circling around her silver-greyed head, she would stare for what seemed like hours out the kitchen window of the house that she and my GrandDad had built together, side-by-side, while she had carried his child inside her . She'd just sit staring and quietly waiting for something I could never begin to comprehend until recently..<br />
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I was 9 years old on April 4, 1968. The day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Grandma and I were both covered with dirt and happy as clams. We had been out in her flower bed digging up tulip bulbs. It was a beautiful Nebraska spring day. The sunlight was so crisp you could hear it. We first heard what had happened in Memphis on the kitchen radio when we came in from the yard to get a drink. Grandma stopped cold as soon as the sad urgency in Walter Cronkites emergency pre-empt took shape in her head . It had only been 5 years earlier that we had sat together in that very room and watched the nation bury JFK.<br />
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At her request I turned on the black & white T.V. and we sat on the big red couch together, watching the ensuing pandemonium for the rest of the day, from half a country away.<br />
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Granny was the sweetest, kindest, softest person I have ever known, even to this day -and I had honestly never seen her that upset over anything. We sat on that couch that entire afternoon, her squeezing me hard like she needed to protect me, with huge tears of exasperation and disbelief falling like rain from her pained face. She whispered over and over "What's wrong with these people" "That man didn't deserve to die".<br />
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She reached out and grabbed my confused face in her hands 3 different times that afternoon.It scared me some. She made me look her right in her tear-filled eyes, right at her, and promise.....that I would never be like those people who had done this awful thing. Like the people that say such awful words - that I wouldn't ever give 2 shits about someones skin color. That I would never hate. Like those sad, sick animals who gunned an innocent man down for his color. <br />
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She asked through a veil of tears. Tears that I would have crawled through a mile of busted burning glass on my 9-year old hands and knees just to stop. She made me promise....<br />
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This was my Grandma. I still hear her voice all the time. I love that old woman more today than I ever did - not only for what she planted in me, but for what she planted in my children, and now in theirs. We do not hate. We do not judge by color. We do not hate.<br />
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I wish all the world had known the blessing of that old womans' touch. I wish we'd all promised her not to hate.<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7057849024574104328.post-12177758476163612282015-01-20T10:03:00.001-07:002015-01-20T10:19:28.689-07:00Day 15 - Coyote Chimichangas, Innovation, and Old Friends<br />
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Buenos Dias from Red Knuckle Ranch. Today we have prairie dogs as big as chickens right outside our back door, and: fresh from the 4-wheeler - Coyote Chimichangas sizzling on the grill - they barbecue up real nice:-)<br />
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It's 7:a.m. and I believe I may have broken the internet: It appears that I have squeezed every ounce of shitty entertainment available out of both Hulu and Amazon Prime - and still my hunger lies - unquenched.<br />
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Tawdry entertainment on a 15" screen is my weakness. Where illicit drugs have failed - internet cable providers have prevailed - and with truly devastating results. I'm now nearly brain-dead, and have actually drooled on myself while watching a movie about poisonous tree-frogs. It's bad. In all fairness, I was a little drunk and it was pretty late. I wish my sofa had a urinal in it. I digress:-)<br />
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The gigs this weekend with Miss Emily were just "nutso" cool fun. Damn dat girl is good at what she does. She sings like Etta oughtta', and she's funnier than a bucket of monkeys. I've never seen her repair a transmission, wrestle hogs, or pour concrete before, but I have to say: I don't think it's gonna be a big deal if she can't. She's top notch, even without the domestic skills that all us fellas around the clubhouse have grown to really cherish in a single-wide women:-)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8xjZfE0HpCYwlhcUBakleXBucArAxtpm4RcxPqpvUaXCBt2LTpkyGp_9G5ijhMQ9uYuAcoTjBjoaxp9mBS1jQCUcpv-q9AW1dhaXYrRKdQ1ZM6bAr7NPkGnRQ_lJxIszJUxj1hnr6GL8/s1600/Monkees.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd8xjZfE0HpCYwlhcUBakleXBucArAxtpm4RcxPqpvUaXCBt2LTpkyGp_9G5ijhMQ9uYuAcoTjBjoaxp9mBS1jQCUcpv-q9AW1dhaXYrRKdQ1ZM6bAr7NPkGnRQ_lJxIszJUxj1hnr6GL8/s1600/Monkees.jpg" width="320" /></a>I love my work, and I love to travel, but it is somewhat difficult to compose this blog on the days when I'm out there on the highway somewhere. I've got to figure out how to make that work better. Denny's is my first thought for a game plan. They're everywhere and they have wi-fi. I could write the blog at Denny's; And with the money I save on the $2 menu - after 28 days, I can afford a quadruple-bypass and emergency removal of 5 gallons of sausage gravy from my sputtering colon. The Grand Slam.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52a2SbPvOb1EUMnstfWdAoerO91aHeuZjoYkGnN7pafgFydg4w0sbI6AE65pKfiwKnR2mJe1kL7Z6tqjeWOKc4NArC5WFirn5ZR0etY4szHr_D68WeOfT6H7JcxN4tNQFytbUOeU6K3aE/s1600/snoball+fight.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52a2SbPvOb1EUMnstfWdAoerO91aHeuZjoYkGnN7pafgFydg4w0sbI6AE65pKfiwKnR2mJe1kL7Z6tqjeWOKc4NArC5WFirn5ZR0etY4szHr_D68WeOfT6H7JcxN4tNQFytbUOeU6K3aE/s1600/snoball+fight.jpg" width="220" /></a>Saturday night Emily and I played at a nice little club in Northglenn called "The Glenn" . Very cool and friendly neighborhood joint. We were knockin' it down pretty good. Miss Emily was doing handstands on the rafters with that giant voice of hers; when in walks none other than Jim Mason along with his lovely wife Mary Ann and another of my old songwriting compadres, Kyle Norwine and his guest.<br />
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Jim is an old and dear friend. We hit it off from the minute we said hello nearly 30 years ago. He was a big influence on me musically. He was one of the first guys to ever trust me in a recording studio. Jim and I have seen each other through some nasty skirmishes (domestic turbulence in both houses and the 80's-90's basically), and made some pretty darned cool recordings together along the way.<br />
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He's is an incredibly talented and well-known Platinum-selling, repeat-offending record producer and songwriter; producing Firefall, Poco, Peter,Paul & Mary, Noel Stuckey, Richie Furay, etc. He also penned the iconic "I Dig Rock & Roll Music" for the Mamas & The Papas, back in the day. The man's got more gold records on his wall than I have grease rings in my bathtub most Friday nights, and still he remains my friend. How lucky am I?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2WHL_UhFWAPZOl6C0aHl7haz-22rIqEvERQXSw-zuG0gKgCSVn2JMOznN9IKhegOWYqPyARLefzyM_JdnT2hZ-cs-zslIzCYSo0SrGGFU_IUgx_YmXDKGwnGVezjUSXL8MOa0bYoE1sc/s1600/fantasy_island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2WHL_UhFWAPZOl6C0aHl7haz-22rIqEvERQXSw-zuG0gKgCSVn2JMOznN9IKhegOWYqPyARLefzyM_JdnT2hZ-cs-zslIzCYSo0SrGGFU_IUgx_YmXDKGwnGVezjUSXL8MOa0bYoE1sc/s1600/fantasy_island.jpg" height="320" width="248" /></a></div>
After all these years it was such a kind blessing to look a man that I respect that deeply, square in the eyes and sing a smile onto his welcoming face. It's been too long since we spent time together , since we even talked, and that's my fault. There is an ease and familiarity that always rests among people of the same tribe. No matter how long they're gone or how far they travel. Jim Mason and I are of the same tribe. His smile is pretty darn easy to smile back at.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QIjQ2qf1X-vzEj2jT6hvjR9yXvnxze9U6-8UFE16XQN4TAFoxwL-okZREVFRv2sGN864rr60Mm93sPRsKj4f-dsGGu7dS3NZtd37CGoHtqg0wgrZMqWhWgphE5Z3bnWp0D0rL2-BGyt5/s1600/20140524_165247.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QIjQ2qf1X-vzEj2jT6hvjR9yXvnxze9U6-8UFE16XQN4TAFoxwL-okZREVFRv2sGN864rr60Mm93sPRsKj4f-dsGGu7dS3NZtd37CGoHtqg0wgrZMqWhWgphE5Z3bnWp0D0rL2-BGyt5/s1600/20140524_165247.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
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Elvis, June Carter , and I, hit I-70 westbound about 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning and headed for home. We stopped for a snooze in Georgetown and another in Vail. Pee breaks in No Name, Parachute, and Debeque. We got back to the trailer about 9:00 a.m, rested and ready for ........another nap. These days after a couple days of driving and gigging, it takes a few hours in my own bed for the flattened-out spot on my ass to re-inflate.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULnNWrPQ1Jb4YDVbBdD76x85P1BUse3caGL_GLSRgHW52PmIQl0jEG2vXLG4QoNwf3gCTUbVSDhLpmRDNuET9hly57Ce-dpzYgSXmzLz54-fNBEvla452Y1EdqTx4OSANmb25WfQhtsL-/s1600/water.jpg" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULnNWrPQ1Jb4YDVbBdD76x85P1BUse3caGL_GLSRgHW52PmIQl0jEG2vXLG4QoNwf3gCTUbVSDhLpmRDNuET9hly57Ce-dpzYgSXmzLz54-fNBEvla452Y1EdqTx4OSANmb25WfQhtsL-/s1600/water.jpg" width="320" /></a>Yesterday was a dizzying flurry of inactivity. The sofa was my home for much of the day and I only communicated with the dogs in grunts and hand gestures until late afternoon.Accomplished absolutely nothing, save the "sofa-urinal" concept. At least the day was not a complete loss.<br />
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I vow to make this day more productive than the last. (It's good to keep expectations low in the early hours) <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0LC7zhYx5-TtCurjGGiVjqKH5sE5YdAHI1x1wo70jPFKNIBpTUjB2YJzFpRJdPIhBhNePqs1sMDT3MFjs73oKv26YXkN1g03a2Vv8nd0igkT11kuh1yus1lmb0itV58Lg8vlCPSWbV8FT/s1600/Joey-O.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0LC7zhYx5-TtCurjGGiVjqKH5sE5YdAHI1x1wo70jPFKNIBpTUjB2YJzFpRJdPIhBhNePqs1sMDT3MFjs73oKv26YXkN1g03a2Vv8nd0igkT11kuh1yus1lmb0itV58Lg8vlCPSWbV8FT/s1600/Joey-O.jpg" width="255" /></a><br />
I do intend to go and visit my friend Joey O'Neill today. The man suffers, and I mean suffers, with a debilitating circulatory disease that chokes the veins in his legs and arms horribly, causing him constant severe pain. When you ask him how he's doing it's always the same answer; a sideways smile and - " I'm good man" "Just hangin' in".<br />
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There are a lot of folks around us now in all sorts of pain, in so many states of suffering. "Just hangin' in" for somebody living in physical torment, is not to be taken lightly. Those are strong souls that must constantly walk through their own pain, before they can begin to do all the things all the rest of us take for granted. Recognize that please? These folks have to run marathons just to get to the starting line. We owe it to them and to each other, to show some love . We only become better as a whole when we do.<br />
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Joey O has the soul of a gladiator and I'm humbled just to know him. He's back in the hospital again, room # 339 at St. Mary's, and I know he could use a visit. If you're in the neighborhood today, stop by and say hi. You'll meet a man with the heart of a lion.<br />
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<b>"sunny side up/rubber side down"</b></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpLsskJV0Y4NOy_EWpTT7cYOdIHM1i3wVRfdDSDfUwl1QotGOcDIYWB0g0oJfMfLBE1yokwgGNWGkQ4mY1bhxhD6z7RoAiFM3APxcmSCygGKizCsLE3F1zKqeRidB39dROjrgQzLVv6Cij/s1600/rock+n+roller.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpLsskJV0Y4NOy_EWpTT7cYOdIHM1i3wVRfdDSDfUwl1QotGOcDIYWB0g0oJfMfLBE1yokwgGNWGkQ4mY1bhxhD6z7RoAiFM3APxcmSCygGKizCsLE3F1zKqeRidB39dROjrgQzLVv6Cij/s1600/rock+n+roller.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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Thursday night I will be slingin' and swingin' at Thunderstruck Mountain in Grand Junction, and Friday I'll be hangin' with my pal T-Bone at The Palisade Cafe for an Arkansas-.inspired evening of grits & grins. Saturday the pups and I head for Crested Butte and Montanya Distillers, followed by The Sweet Spot on Sunday afternoon.<br />
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It's gonna be a busy week out here at the trailer. By the time I get done repairing the hot water heater and the blow-up doll, dumping the grey-water, and brushing my teeth, - it's gonna be time to kiss the horse, saddle up Little Red, and hit the road again<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIr5vX9DfLmZqFDcRT9LT3gS0mN2U6rEA8I5BEQgWjw6FLLK8plHfRJQzS2b3aC7barufI1PkUbbmYkDubmTlATuzH5lKKXpHn1WjJhv-Ywis5XHq0sLVqlwLsne6wLtBPdVitqHebCvdQ/s1600/Spiffy.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIr5vX9DfLmZqFDcRT9LT3gS0mN2U6rEA8I5BEQgWjw6FLLK8plHfRJQzS2b3aC7barufI1PkUbbmYkDubmTlATuzH5lKKXpHn1WjJhv-Ywis5XHq0sLVqlwLsne6wLtBPdVitqHebCvdQ/s1600/Spiffy.jpg" width="320" /></a>I'll have more observations later..I'm pondering this very instant. This generally takes awhile so please be patient:-). <br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until Manyana<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7glBbGnYS3YqeX4SL8PMlv9XEwHlKOCwuJqTzNaIwVdRpzaAcqy9y6CKm9zNG-J1XmRVBedWXJ4ePWUj9cCDndSEEUeVR1UnSw4y0NpimySI3VyhpsiMaiLVACfRBzrJ9fjCnVlyF0CI/s1600/Tony+Banjo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg7glBbGnYS3YqeX4SL8PMlv9XEwHlKOCwuJqTzNaIwVdRpzaAcqy9y6CKm9zNG-J1XmRVBedWXJ4ePWUj9cCDndSEEUeVR1UnSw4y0NpimySI3VyhpsiMaiLVACfRBzrJ9fjCnVlyF0CI/s1600/Tony+Banjo.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
At 3 a.m. I kicked over the dog's water bowl while letting Elvis out. Stepped right in it in and soaked my socks up to the ankle bone . I hate getting my feet wet. I don't know how ducks do it.<br />
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~LURLEEN~</div>
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She was the queen of the trailer park in her day. I was just a kid but I still remember the first day she showed up. Everybody from the Shady Acres Mobile Home Community all of a sudden had big business to take care of out on their front stoops. We'd all heard the rumors, and <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">just had to get a good look for ourselves.</span> Even had some knuckle-draggers from the double-wide side come around to investigate.<br />
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When a girl like Lurlene shows up word gets around pretty quick. Don't get me wrong - we had some real pretty little squealers running around the Shady Acres Mobile Home Community, but not a single one had ever had what Lurleen was packin'.<br />
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She was easy to look at and Lurlene didn't ever disappoint. Always elegant, she was broad in the hips with small shoulders and what seemed like hundreds of small delicate curves all over that beautifully sculpted form of hers. . A long slender neck and her head tilted back "just-so" all the time. her flawless skin glowed like warm honey.<br />
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She was sassy right from the git-go. When she sang her voice was just as sultry and brassy and wise as it remains even today.Folks can't believe she's 53 years old. She loved a good time and still does. All these years later she can still shake and roll with the best, even if she rattles a little. <br />
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From outward appearances, time's been hard on Lurlene. She wasn't always "handled" well and over time she was used pretty hard by men who had no idea what they were holding onto, or letting go of.<br />
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She sat around neglected for long lonely years, just living for those "sparse and getting sparser" Saturday nights when the idiot in the recliner, the one perpetually parked in front of a TV dinner watchin "COPS" with a Budweiser in his hand, would actually look over and pay her some attention.<br />
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She always did forgive way too easy, it didn't matter how much or how little love was tossed her way, or how long it had been since she'd been touched , she always made the best of every bit of love that ever came her way. She would sing and croon and swing away again like she was brand new all over.<br />
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Only a fool quits what keeps on getting better with time. Unfortunately this increasingly trailer-park world never has a shortage of fools. <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When her beauty faded, as physical beauty always does, she was treated poorly because of it. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> She was passed around some, and she didn't seem to have much say about it, from what I could tell. One man after another traded her tender affections and stalwart devotion for their own foolishness - but only after they had mauled and picked at her and even cruelly broken her on occasion. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">When I found Lurleen she was poorly from the neglect and desperate for conversation, Desperate for the blessing of touch. For the warmth of a humans breath on her tired skin. She looked pretty rough at first glance but she still carried a quiet regality about her that whispered through the scars and lines. I knew what she <u>had</u> been in her day -she isn't one bit less than that in my eyes even now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">It was Christmas Eve a few years ago. I was invited to attend an intimate little 300 person "Christmas kegger blowout bash (of the millenium)" at a real nice trailer up by the clubhouse, over on the double-wide side. I spied Lurlene right away as soon as I walked into the living room. All alone, right next to the refrigerator.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> A certifiable moron of low-breeding had brought her around and then left her standing in that corner all by herself, all night long, looking like an ornament. He was busy trying to talk his drunk ass into the stripper from unit 12 down the street.</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> I started up an easy conversation with Lurleen and we hit it off instantly. Like we had known each other forever. She wasn't one bit bashful once you got her going. Her tone of voice and her obvious attitude were mesmerizing to me. She was sexy and willing and before we knew it I was wrapped around her like the corn wrapped around the dog..</span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> I couldn't leave her alone. The way she would respond to my hands was like nothing I had ever experienced. I took her home that night and we patched each other up the best we could. With a little faith and a lot of gentle attention and a lot of time - caressing, squeezing, stroking, and ultimately just listening and playing with her - she grew to trust me completely. To trust again. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">When I look at her now, I never see her lines or the cracks in that once glamorous figure, the one that once graced mail-order catologues and slick teen magazines.. I can only listen to her sing. I close my eyes and she can take me immediately as her willing prisoner. Right to the shining gilded gates of paradise, just as easily as she transports me to a back country dirt road 50 years ago, and the dry smell of wheat dust dancing on beams of sunshine. </span><br />
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</span> <span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">She has magic in her soul. Every time I hold her, I feel her soft resistance, and her complete willingness, in my hands, and I know she is once again "ready for a rodeo" . She breathes in time with me, her heart is like my own. She is fearless. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> The patina of age that rests on us both now, that paints me so harshly, paints her in vivid hues and brilliant streaks of passion and warmth and timeless eroticism. Shades and strokes that would make Salvador Dali and God himself weep tears of pure joy for their beauty. </span>Her whispers can bring down mountains when she's in the throes of her passion.<br />
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And Time only serves to make her stronger and more beautiful when she's loved right. Fella's you might want to take note.<br />
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Now..... meet ........................."Lurleen".<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVkWdNbJHCC_Aok-TIFnyA_h8zlCO_TxVSQ1gO4gmJ2uIP9W5X2frD3Dk1t-hEbzbLMORGIOp47-O7ZdyOAmZ9SL4ZmTyQxfvsdqubVHvgEv9z7RCvohyWhpOnKOAw8IQivWXjLu7dmLu4/s640/blogger-image-652140842.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVkWdNbJHCC_Aok-TIFnyA_h8zlCO_TxVSQ1gO4gmJ2uIP9W5X2frD3Dk1t-hEbzbLMORGIOp47-O7ZdyOAmZ9SL4ZmTyQxfvsdqubVHvgEv9z7RCvohyWhpOnKOAw8IQivWXjLu7dmLu4/s400/blogger-image-652140842.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Lurleen" - 1962 Silvertone</td></tr>
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<b>Todays Barnyard Wisdom:</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"Living in abundance while possessing the ability to affect positive changes in the lives of people in need - and then choosing not to?...... "That's the most hopeless definition of poor"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don't give a golf ball from a Gulag, Vladimir Putin looks as much like Skeletor as James Carville ever did."</span></div>
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
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ON A SAD NOTE:</div>
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Arnie Greene, - longtime Colorado tour-de-force, a wonderful passionate musician, a wonderful friend and colleague, and a dearly loved human being - has left this world and headed on home as of yesterday.<br />
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God Bless you Arnie - we're all grateful for every note and every smile you ever produced. Prayers for your daughter that you loved so deeply, and to all of us who grieve your passing today. We're grateful for the angel that now looks down upon us all, gently with a smile made of pure sunshine, imploring us to "groove"<br />
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"Peace Out"<br />
"Don't take any wooden nickels"<br />
Until manyana<br />
<br />
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Tony Rosariohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14155930587645972078noreply@blogger.com0