Day 16 - "Illusions of Romance, Martin Luther King, and The Promise"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:-)

MLK

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..

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.

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.

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.

 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..

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.

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.

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".

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.

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....

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.

I wish all the world had known the blessing of that old womans' touch.  I wish we'd all promised her not to hate.

"Peace Out"
"Don't take any wooden nickels"
Until Manyana

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Day 15 - Coyote Chimichangas, Innovation, and Old Friends

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:-)

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.

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:-)



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:-)



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.


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.

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.

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?

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.










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.









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.


I vow to make this day more productive than the last. (It's good to keep expectations low in the early hours)














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".

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.

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.

"sunny side up/rubber side down"

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.

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



I'll have more observations later..I'm pondering this very instant. This generally takes awhile so please be patient:-).









"Peace Out"
"Don't take any wooden nickels"
Until Manyana

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Day 14 - Trailer Park Queens and Sovereign Angels

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.

~LURLEEN~

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   just had to get a good look for ourselves. Even had some knuckle-draggers from the double-wide side come around to investigate.

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'.

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.

 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.

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.

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.

 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.

Only a fool quits what keeps on getting better with time.  Unfortunately this increasingly trailer-park world never has a shortage of fools. When her beauty faded,  as physical beauty always does, she was treated poorly because of it.  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. 

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 had been in her day -she isn't one bit less than that in my eyes even now. 

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.

 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.

 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..

 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. 

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. 

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. 

 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. Her whispers can bring down mountains when she's in the throes of her passion.



And Time only serves to make her stronger and more beautiful when she's loved right. Fella's you might want to take note.





  Now..... meet ........................."Lurleen".

"Lurleen" - 1962 Silvertone

~~~~~~~~
Todays Barnyard Wisdom:

"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"

"I don't give a golf ball from a Gulag, Vladimir Putin looks as much like Skeletor as James Carville ever did."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ON A SAD NOTE:

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.

 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"

"Peace Out"
"Don't take any wooden nickels"
Until manyana

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Day 13 - Tardiness, Gratitude & Grandma

I can't believe that it's Day 13.  I took a little pause yesterday and didn't do much of anything at all, so Day 13 is arriving 24 hrs (at least ) behind schedule. My children were all late as well , by as much as 2 weeks.  I don't feel so bad.

Late is my trademark. I'm not proud of it but I've elevated late to an art form.  I don't know how many doors I blow through in a week out of breath with my hair on fire, apologizing for the previous 15 minutes that was supposed to have me in it and didn't. My dear mother, God rest her soul, did everything she knew to do to cure me but I wasn't to be cured.  She'd beg and plead with me, offer me bribes, and finally whip my butt red over it - all to no avail - I was clock-impaired.

My poor Mom spent years agonizing -trying to discern if her one-and-only firstborn was actually some sort of egg-head rocket scientist in the making, or just plain too dumb to run a bar of soap.

Despite suspicions, I wasn't stupid (back then - yet), quite the contrary. I was just busy. About half the time I would be out in the barn or down at the creek or hiding out in the lilac bushes behind the house with my nose stuck in a book - just happy as a clam. (The other half of the time I was usually up to getting my little butt paddled on what seemed to me an altogether too-regular basis.  I was an inquisitive and imaginative child as well as studious, but not too good at not getting caught:-)

 I learned to read well by the time I was 5. I read  Grandmas "True Crime" and "Old West" magazines, and all the Superman, Classics Illustrated and Archies comic books I could get my hands on. Those comic books were chock full of good ideas. They inspired me.

 I can't tell you how many times I tied up and blindfolded my old dog Sport, just so I could ride up in a cloud of dust, pulling a Radio Flyer behind my bad-ass stingray bicycle and rescue him from "bandidos".  He was always incredibly gracious about the blindfold and so grateful for the nick-of-time rescue.

 Grandma used to clean the library in Sidney twice a week and she got me my first library card when I turned 5. I could check out 17 books at a whack every 2 weeks.  Most of the time they didn't last long enough.

 When I was 6, I grabbed Herman Melvilles' "Moby Dick" off the library shelf and tore into it. (That sounds completely different coming from a transvestite in county lockup??)  I dug the picture of the whale and the crazy looking guy with the harpoon.   I knew a book like that was going to last at least two weeks to get through. My Mom's drunk-assed husband-du-jour said I wasn't ever gonna read a book like that. "Hell..he cain't hardly carry it - let alone read it"

I was stubborn even then and, out of sheer spite,  I read every damn word and understood about 3/4 of it.  I knew just because I was little and I couldn't drink jug whisky and slap women & kids around when I was feelin' mean, that didn't make that sorry son-of-a-bitch one bit smarter than me.

 Bitter you say? :-)  Not really.  Everything happens for a reason and my distaste for violence and drunken lunacy was born early.  That brand of shitstorm has no place in a childs world, or in anyones' for that matter. In the words of Forrest Gump "That's all I got to say about that" - "for now"

Gratitude.  It's the foundational principle behind overwhelming abundance and wealth that I live inside of almost daily. Despite the irrelevant opinion of the IRS and 3 major credit-reporting agencies, I am L-O-A-D-E-D.

 I have more good friends than I can even count most days. My kids are all upright and functional, My dogs are spoiled rotten and sweet as the day is long, I'm not missing any groceries,  I play music for my beans & bacon, and a good many folks are happy to see me when I show up.  Tell me that isn't shamelessly opulent wealth.  You got a better description of "wealth"?

If you think for a minute that money is what makes you rich then I can't begin to convey how sorry I feel for you.  Grandma was as wise as they come, and this is what she had to say about that.  Her question that she posed to me so many years ago was in regard to what sort of person I might become.

She explained that a "good" man (like my Grandfather had been, and all of my uncles were)  will give you the shirt off his back and never ask you why. A good man treats his family with dignity and respect. A good man treats his animals with the same, A good man will roll his sleeves up and pitch in when it's time to celebrate, and he'll do the same again when it's time for tears. A good man will love ferociously and completely, and never turn his back on a friend in need.  Through his acts, a good man will know the love and respect of his family and friends, and he'll never want for anything else.

 A "rich" man is just hungry.  He'll always be hungry and his belly will never be full.  He'll bleed all the love and compassion and respect  and dignity, out of every nickel he ever touches - and still  rage for more

Grandmas eyes were deep and sweet - sad and serious.  Warm brown with flecks of green, looking right into my little soul.  Her breath hard with the odor of Lark cigarettes and Hamm's beer, elbows propped on the table with cigarette smoke circling around her tired loving face. The old womens' question still rests with me every minute of every day. "Son, which one are you going to be?"

Peace Out
"Don't take any wooden nickels"
Until Manyana

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Day 12 - Mail-Order Brides/ The French Connection

Good Morning Everyone!!  I hope this morning that your skillets are all full and greasy , and your shorts aren't.  It's a lovely day out at the Trailer Park. 

I live in a one-trailer trailer park.  I'm on the single-wide side next to the hen-house.

I've been getting emails lately from a Russian website featuring  young voluptuous mail order brides. That's just stupid. Had they consulted with the Catholics, they would have known - I am severely marriage impaired. Wedding injured.  Matrimonial melanoma.

Do you really think one of these Russian girls is going to be any less pissed-off and disillusioned than her American sisters, after the first 3-4 days of Hulu & corndogs at the trailer park?  I don't.  I've been called a lot of dirty names in foreign languages before, and it doesn't matter, you can still tell.

PERFECT

(Tony Rosario)

Don't You tell me you're not perfect

Don't you tell me you're not fine

I'm a man of strong opinion

I can make up my own mind

And I can see

A certain light in your eyes

I brought a young french woman home from Switzerland once. She was a sultry and painfully enticing vision of every fantasy  I had ever fantasized on . A real race-horse .:-)  Petite brunette, with luscious red lips like strawberries and a delicious eroticism about her that made even concrete just a little harder. 

I was playing a month long gig at the Casino De Montreaux in Montreaux, Switzerland with a good friend and crazy-assed cowboy, an absolutely brilliant songwriter from Comanche Texas, Tony Lane. At one point Tony had been a protege of the great Townes Van Zandt and there was no guessing why.  He's really, really good at what he does. Check him out.

On the plane from the states  a stewardess had threatened to throw a very inebriated Tony Lane off the plane over the Atlantic  and I, very inebriated,  had nearly gotten shot by airport security in Amsterdam over a pocket knife and a bottle of Bordeaux.  Our escapades only seemed to escalate once we landed. The hangovers were massive but the music was brilliant.  It was a game-changer for me as a writer.After our first month at the Casino they held us over for another month. That's another story.

 The Casino De Montreaux was our home for the next 2 months. It's the  place that Deep Purple sang "Smoke On The Water" about.  We played 6 nights a week at a "Western Bar" in the lower level of the Casino. There was a cabaret (Strip joint)  on the floor below us, and a world-class 5-star restaurant above us. We had gone over on a songwriters showcase that some folks at Polygram in Nashville has arranged for a few of their songwriters.  Sort of a cultural exchange, except hey realized all too  late that due in large part to our participation , the word "cultured" would be redifined forever.

Through the magic of music , and the complete abandonment of principles, I had already , within 2 weeks abroad, grown quite comfortable with the international set.  I was completely enamored with the boozy lifestyle adorned with so many lovely women. They were everywhere - like ornaments on a Christmas tree.  Shiny, sparkly.......I digress

 Suffice to say I was likin' the situation way more than was advisable. For a country Yutz with a mug like a shovel, all of a sudden I was killin' it!

Nathalie tended bar at an after hours techno club just down the street from the Casino. Tony & I would go over after we got off stage at 2 a.m. at the Casino. Being from Nashville, and never having heard the word techno, we thought it cute.....and fun. 

Tony or I went there to stare at beautiful women and drink - pure and simple. To hell with dancing. Fella could hurt himself doing that stuff in cowboy boots. I think the flashing black lights made us both a little queasy as well. 

We both had eyes and we both enjoyed being served those icy cold tumblers of  single-malt by a lovely little mensch like Nathalie;  the woman who, within months,  I would wake up next to in a hotel room in Vegas just married as hell. 

Her English wasn't bad at all. I asked her to teach me how to say "buy my cassette" in French.  We discovered that our birthdays were on the same day. Apparently there was something about the way I drooled, or perhaps it was my signature "deer-in-the-headlights" grin, but for some reason the poor thing took a liking to me.

It started innocently enough with coffee and pastries,  at a Turkish tea house overlooking  Lake Geneva on a brilliant May morning. Our birthdays were both August 18.  She loved Billy Holiday and John Coltrane. She thought country music was "stupid and "pas bon". Not long after that day I wrote a country song called "Perfect" about her.

The  next thing I know we're climbing each other like monkey bars, and within a couple months we were haulin' ass for dear life down a Swiss highway at 100kph in an old VW van that howled like a drowning cat, screaming for the airport with an entire family of pissed-off and well-armed gypsies hot on our tail. 

Some damn thing about the heartlessly wounded dignity of a young and quite voluptuous Swiss lingerie model,  and her also quite voluptuous "early 40-something" mother. Both, having recently discovered that I had secretly been in intimate congress with both simultaneously over the past several months,  now sincerely desired my head on a spit with an apple in my whatzit. All stemming from, what I must embarassedly admit were shameful dalliances with their affections. The cousins and uncles with pitchforks and pistols were just backup.

In my defense , I was at this point, off the rez and completely unscripted

When that 747 came off the tarmac in Geneva I peed a little tinkle of relief right their.  I believe Nathalie may have as well.  We landed at LAX with about $100 in our pockets between us.  Enough for 2 Greyhound tickets to Vegas and a cab ride out to my Dad's place.

We didn't have a car or any money.  We stayed at my Dad's apartment for a couple weeks until I got a job at a cabinet shop and a couple little gigs around town. With my 2nd paycheck we got an apartment just a couple blocks off the Strip.  At night you could hear gunshots and sirens.  

I was drinking more than I should have been and so was she. The next few months took a serious toll on both our worlds and Nathalie and I, painfully, went our separate ways in Vegas.  She's back in France now and I hope she is as happy as she can be.We still communicate occasionally on Facebook.  I will always wish her well and will always be grateful for the lesson - "ACHETE MON CASSETTE SIL TU PLAIS`!" "Je` T`aime, Je` T`aimerai  mon Cheri"

"Peace Out"
"Don't take any wooden nickels"
Until manyana

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Day 11- Turkey Basters and Cow-hands

FARM TIP: It's always a good idea NOT to use the same turkey baster the wife keeps in the kitchen drawer for artificially inseminating heifers.  No need for gamey tasting turkey at your holiday table:-)

It's the day after, the day after, the Broncos bit it so disappointingly in the playoffs. The wounds are still fresh. My hair hurts.  Experiencing some significant amount of soreness due to aggravated chafing, slight depression,  slight constipation, Gnarly bite marks on the backs of both hands and forearms, self-inflicted whip marks on back, buttocks, and thighs consistent with self-flagellation (i.e. see Da Vinci Code),  the house smells like burnt chicken feathers, and the new pizza oven (and the mini-vac) are both in pieces in the bathtub -unplugged.

Back to watching womens curling for another 8 months. Talk about suspense. That shit'll have you hangin' right to the front of your chair for what seems like forever. Some of these gals just seem to make those brooms fly:-) Good times.

In Entertainment news around the Trailer-Park today; This morning I am ranked at #94 among Singer/ Songwriters in the USA by Reverbnation.com. In deference to said ranking, I would like to openly suggest that the Mesa County Traffic Court show a good bit more respect and willingness to "forgive and forget"  when dealing with someone of my  station.  Where's the perks you guys? Celebrity ain't like it used to be.

This  afternoon I'll go play for the residents at the nursing care facility in Palisade.  It's an odd gig in that I'm starin' down the barrel at what the future is sure to hold at some point, and it's downright sobering, if not a little alarming.  I hope I can still get wood when I'm 80.  They're gonna love me at the puppet shows.

*****************

He stands up and dusts off the seat of his Levis

Waves back the gate-hands, bends to the ground

cursin' a foul-tempered Dunn they call "Twister"

He picks up his Stetson, and straightens the crown

Tonight it's a bedroll in the back of his pickup

warm beer and visions of rodeo girls

Yo-Da-Lay...Yo Da Lay

Draw me a good one

hand me the reins and open the stall 

If this ride's a good ride, the first round's on me tonight

and if I go down,

 it's the Lonesome Cowboy Waltz

It's from a song I wrote 20 some years ago in Nashville about a cowboy I knew from back home.  John Buttle.  Tough little booger. Darn fine Bronc-rider and crazy to boot.  He'd been busted up from top to bottom and kicked and bucked by every wild horse worth ridin' from Calgary to Dallas. Drove an old white club-cab Ford that looked more beat up than he did.  The bed of that truck was a mess of baling twine, drywall tools,  saddles and beer cans, with a gnarly little blue-heeler laying hidden in the carnage just waiting for any hand that wasn't her masters to present itself for a chompin'.

 John would show up around town every September like clockwork   broke, tired, and busted up- swearing he was done forever with ridin' that damn rodeo, and he'd be gone again by June. My Uncle/ Cousin twice removed on my Moms side, Larry Segelke would hire him to hang sheetrock with  Brother Richard (The finest man I ever knew- but I'll tell ya about him later) and myself.

Uncle Larry  owned a drywall business and he felt sorry for me when everybody in town realized how potentially dangerous I was to the farming industry . He knew that chimpanzees had actually been trained to hang drywall. He also figured I was at least half that smart. He was about half right.

When I graduated from high school I strapped on a tool-belt and would spend the next 3 sweat-soaked beer-drenched years hangin' sheetrock off the top of my rock-hard noggin, drinking warm Blue Ribbon and cold Budweiser, listening to rodeo stories, outright lies, and other half-truths about dallyin' up, cinchin' down, and leavin' town in a hurry, and developing an outright thirst for travel.

John Buttles  took me under his wing as a project of sorts. Like training a young mule to pull a plow. The man was rock solid but he did have a weakness that proved his undoing so very often.

 He would generally stop after work each day, and have a few drinks with the rest of us, and with some  regularity he would often wander home knee-walkin' turtled-up  from Jack Daniels and Budweiser, with his sweaty brown Stetson screwed down around his ears like a safe fell on his head. His wife would yell every name in the book at him through the front door and lock his sorry good-fer-nothin' ass outside, after which he'd just crawl in the back of his truck and go to sleep under a saddle blanket till the sun came up.

 He'd come to work that day hungover and quiet, covered in pieces of old straw and smelling like a urinal biscuit. He'd work all day and then go back home with his hat in his hand, and the Mrs. would let him in.  She'd cook him a nice dinner and they'd act like nothing ever happened , and then they'd start all over again.  

"In retrospect, I see now that I couldn't help but imitate the art laid so gloriously before me."

. In the spring, when the rodeo posters would start to appear around the county, John would start to get restless. All of a sudden that wife of his had grown surly and unbearable by his account, He wasn't making enough money all of a sudden. The weather was off, his skin was too tight.etc.....  

 He'd complain enough and act up the fool enough to get himself fired. By the end of May he'd be gone, running that beat up Ford of his, "White Cloud", down some stretch of blacktop to any county fair or Indian rodeo he could find offering  a $500 purse or better , pulling a trailer full of horse, a saddle,  and big plans to make 'er all the way this year.  

I think about him sometimes . When I'm out there trying to "make 'er all the way this year"  Usually when it's 3 a.m. and I'm bleary-eyed from the road, and trying to catch a little snooze in the back of my van in some rest stop, on some stretch of highway, on the way home from some honky-tonk somewhere.  I wonder if he's in the house tonight or in the back of his pickup. 

Eventually I left home and I don't know if John ever came home that next fall. I hope he made it to wherever he wanted to be.  I hope he still rides.  I wish him well and I'd love to thank him for everything I learned and everything I shouldn't of.  God Bless ya Buttles"  "Screw down on 'er Newt - She's a twister"

Peace Out

"Don't take any wooden nickels"

Until manyana

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