“The one on the road there?”

“Yeah. Meet me there. You want both of ‘em?”

“No. I only want the one.”

“O.k.”

“Are you leaving now?”

“Yeah.”

I pulled the car into
the mini-mart
off to the side
and out of the way
of the gas pumps

got out
got the cage out of the back
and stood there beside it

a kid, probably 17
pulled up and hopped out
and I looked into the
back of his truck

a moving burlap bag

he pulled out the bag
and handed it to me

not quite sure what to do…
I opened the bag and pulled
out a large, beautiful Buff Orphington

“You want me to unwire his legs?”

“Huh?”

and his feet had been wired
together so I said yes
and he untied the legs

I could hear my youngest daughter
behind me
muttering “whaaaaaat?”

so I shoved the rooster
into our cage
kid grinning….awkward

“Ten on the bird, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How bout $12 and I get the burlap bag?”

“Alright.”

I had actually been wondering
the night before where
I could still find a burlap bag

(I thought about making
a home made punching bag…
made fun of myself for thinking it and
called myself Rocky)

and when was the last time
I had even seen one?

but I didn’t read the bag
until we were letting
Quinten out of the cage
and into our coop

“Homegrown Marijiuana”
HUMBOLT COUNTY
and I stood there with my
two daughters
and we all laughed

reading the bag

and when all are safe
and home and
happy
and healthy

one should thank their God above

because sometimes,
it can all be
just a little much

(two fingers held slightly apart and squinted through)

40 years old today

Leonard Cohen just came up
on shuffle with ‘Chelsea Hotel’

I first heard it when john fullbright
played it for me
around the time I was trying
to figure out who ‘TEETH” was

I’m going to turn it down just
a little bit

“I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel…”

I got a bukowski book from amazon
the other day and on the back
was a quote from Leonard Cohen

“bukowski brought us all down to earth. even the angels.”

I was noticing this quote when I heard
my oldest daughter below me
trying to learn how to play Cohen’s “Hallelujah”
on the piano

took a minute for all of it to
come together in my head

all of that and I played
along while skiner sang it
in Louisiana…

he’s all over the house
today and yesterday
and last week

music is brilliant like that

forty years behind me

it feels o.k.

glad I stopped drinking when I did.

not sure if I would even be here
had I kept on

maybe on my 80^th birthday
I’ll throw a party and just get
drunker than a monkey

I’ve got 40 years to talk myself
out of that one

I know why the caged bird sings
I know why the mockingbird has wings
I wish I could fly
away from awful things
I know why the mockingbird has wings

What a tangled web we weave
what an awful mess we leave
when you reap
what you have sown
and you finally learn
what it’s like alone
and if you had wings,

You would have flown

‘through the thick and thin’ gets hard when things go bust
the thick is gone but that was just the crust
there ain’t many people
left in this world I trust
‘through the thick and thin’ gets hard when things go bust

What a tangled web we weave
what an awful mess we leave
when you reap
what you have sown
and you finally learn
what it’s like alone
and if you had wings,

You would have flown

June 20, 2011
Chicken Hill

the first song we warmed up on

was ‘used to be’

felt like an old pair of shoes
I hadn’t put on in a long time

I couldn’t help but grin
like a fool a few times

there was this certain thing that we
had when we played together

none of us were virtuosos
and I couldn’t sing worth a damn
but that never stopped us back then

if anything, the great divide
sounds BETTER now than we ever
have

of course we shanked a few bridges
here and there and I had to google up

some of my own words,

but there were times when it just clicked
and it felt powerful
I had forgotten about some of the old
songs and after running through them
a few times I fell in love with them again

I never could stand on a stage and fake
how I felt

maybe that shows lack of professionalism,

but I’m more about realism and what I’m going
through is what you get
in writing and performance

the way that music made me feel last night
and the smile it put on my face

makes me eager to play that music for
people again

and I won’t be faking that goofy grin

who knows how many shows we will
do because we all have families and
lives buzzing about us

but I will be proud to stand on the stage
with my old friends and do
what we used to do
as many times as they care to do it

I’d like to hit texas, nebraska…

the one thing I am most proud of
is the fact that the songs stood the test
of time

the band was not a footnote in
some ‘red dirt’ history

I’m also floored by how many people
are excited about seeing the show again

hell, I’m one of them

should be an interesting year
my friends

feels like I’ve flown full circle

so many memories came flooding
back when we jammed through
the tunes

I’m sure it will stir a few
in others

and that’s about the best thing
an artist can accomplish

in closing,

if there is a fence that you can mend…

get to mending it

added to the studio work
I’ve been in the middle of

added to the mrs. being tired
of raising kids alone

something had to give

I came home after a month of
running hard and pretty much
slipped into a coma

*note to married men:
wives do not like to see you laying
on your ass no matter how tired you are

so, I cancelled the monday night
gigs in fort worth

and thought I’d start ‘helping’
around the house a little more

first step was trying to fix
the kitchen sink
in the process of pulling out the old
one, I hit the p trap and broke it off

I’ve seen this movie before
and there is a reason why the
plumber is on speed dial

leave it to the professionals

especially if your house was built
before the second world war

man,
trying to run a weekly song swap
was WAY more difficult than I
thought it would be

dealing with radius clauses
and making 9 million phone calls
just really wasn’t my bag

spencer and I parted on good terms
and I appreciate him trying to make
it fly

I’m reminded of the quote from
Thomas Edison that says something
to the effect that he hasn’t failed,
he’s only found 10, 000 ways that won’t work

so,
I’m going to finish up the projects that I
have on my plate right now
and then gear up for rehearsals
with The Great Divide

I’m anxious to see just how rusty
the old machine is going to be
after sitting for 9 years

we agreed to play at College Days
in Stillwater this August
so we have from now until then
to knock the dust off

should be interesting to say
the least

I’m going to crawl out of this
bed tomorrow
and get back after it

finishing up The Damn Quails
in the boohatch
and dusting off my TGD cd’s
to see what the heck I was
thinking back then…

and which chords go with
what thoughts…

thanks to my wife
for her special brand of patience

which I can always tell
is almost over when I feel
a small boot in the ass

but I sat down with
the great divide fellas
over a cup of coffee last week
and cut through the years
and the b.s. with one gut laugh

and it felt good

and it seemed like a
rip in time…
some sort of funky worm hole
we all crawled out of

those of you who knew our story
know that it wasn’t a pleasant
split and not unlike a bad divorce

but bands break up

I whined once to ray hubbard
and he deadpanned to me:
“hell son, even the beatles broke up.”

but after a while a year turns into
two and then three, etc…

it’s like when you’ve talked to someone
too long to ask them their name…

I hadn’t talked to a couple of the
guys in 8 years

yet there we were
and it was very surreal

we grew up together
and did not take no for an answer together
and knew so little about the music
business that we weren’t scared of it all

reminds me of the guy clark line:

“he did not know that he could not fly, so he did.” – from THE CAPE

I admit I carried around a lot of
mixed up negative feelings about that
band for a long time

maybe, enough time floated by
that all of the negative faded away
and now there are only the thoughts
of  the good times and laughter

maybe this is what you do
when you get older

I imagine mending fences that can be
mended is never a bad thing

it felt really good to hug everyone’s neck
and honestly apologize for any hurt I may
have caused them by the choices I made

and still stand by

and would make again

I’ve always followed a weird voice
in the back of my mind,
call it what you will

and the path hasn’t always
been pleasant or easy

and more often than not
it has left me humbled
and far from exhalted

but I’m still in awe of an
E chord distorted and blaring
out of a speaker

and mumbling until I hit
the right babble stream and following
it down
without editing for as long as I can

so I keep on rambling down the track

and I’m proud to be able to hear the name
The Great Divide again and be proud
of what we accomplished as a group

and not let the pettiness and weakness
steal an ounce of enjoyment
that everyone in that band deserves

I’m glad we can still call each other friends

after all is said and done, there are times
when I was a lousy friend

the love was there,
but the tools needed sharpening

and time does hone that blade

standing in the hallway
of a hotel with a key
in my hand and totally
blanking on my room number

or the town

being totally amazed
at a drunk person’s
proximity to my face

fully aware that a short
time ago I was on
the other end

becoming more
comfortable in solitude

knowing when
certain situations
are going to be laughed
about later

laughter is my favorite

I think if you take
this life very seriously
it will eat you alive

learning to let things go
their natural course

can’t stop it any way

just tires you out

growing up a little
I guess

stopping the things
that disrupt the peace

stumbling

and then stopping the things
that disrupt the peace

becoming ever more
thankful for an honest voice

I used to sit around brooding
on negative things
all of the time

felt like I was weak
if I didn’t

wrong

losing the need
to prove anything

riding along
with my hands and
feet inside the ride
at all times

occasionally sticking
a leg out

definitely not riding
on top of the thing

screaming

tempting the odds
any more than I already have

giving people a chance

listening a whole lot more

rambling a whole lot
more
and hitting the keys
hard and liking the sound

patching up old friendships

letting that water
roll underneath the bridge

noticing glimpses of
actual patience

learning that one person
is the next person
is the same person
in a crowded room

and kindness is king

still staying up
too late for most folks

having no clue  where I’ll
be next

I’m still here

but not for very long

not for very long at all

heaven, earth and hell

all stopped by for a drink at the well

one drank ambrosia
one drank water
one drank filth
and cursed the potter

good to evil
light to darkness
from the mindful
to the heartless

persecutor to disciple
pontious pilate
watching idle

hands and feet in crucifixion
sign of cross in benediction

lose yourself and you will find
that what you lost, is not yours
nor mine

and if I found it I would not tell
for I sat there that day at the well

and watched the three in one all dwell

one drank ambrosia
one drank water
one drank filth and cursed the potter

good to evil
light to darkness
from the mindful
to the heartless

and I slept a couple of hours
on the way out here to
Amarillo

so now I’ve watched my stories,
mostly ‘lie to me’
with tim roth

and so many
days have flown by
at such an alarming
rate of speed

and I’m reminded of that
every time I stop
in the hallway and look
at one of the pictures
of my girls

and I look like a kid
holding them
on the couch

and I was

a kid with a lot of
crap ahead of him

and a lot of absolutely
amazing moments

and the amazing moments
don’t lie in the things
I thought they would

most things I thought would
be great turned out to be
huge bores

it’s in those moments
on the floor
with the kids
and seeing things from
their unfiltered,
un-jaded, un-warped,
unwrapped minds

or laughing my fool head
off at a baby chicken
following the goose
it thinks is it’s mama

and hearing my youngest
name it bruce
no matter what the sex is

I’ve been laughing to myself
on the long, boring ride
about the progression of nicknames

and I looked at the man at the wheel:

the blade
the blade runner
the skill blade
the buzz saw
saw blade
biscuit
the ole biscuit basket
the front end box blade
the skill saw
sawyer biscuit
skillitini on ice
scott

then I noticed the
eight or nine goose feathers
stuffed into the pocket
behind the passenger seat

and I remembered I had
the idea of making a headdress
out of  them and thread

I went so far as harassing
my wife until she found a spool
of thread before I left

I pulled the thread out
and realized I couldn’t really
SEE that size of thread
and gave up on the whole idea

I’ll need to pick up some yarn

where was I?

oh yeah, things.

well man,
you know…
things are like…

THINGS

visions of ‘the shining’ come
into my mind
while I walk around aimlessly
mumbling to myself

trying to make the mumbles rhyme

not trying to make
them rhyme

I was coming into one
room and there was our new puppy
Vivian

little bitty thing
hunched up directly
in front of the sliding
white wooden door
that reads:

Boohatch Records

written in sharpie
with a green, wooden star
duct taped to it underneath
the name

skinner puts tape on everything

colored tape

tape on cords
tape on keys
tape on books
books about tape

tape on a green wooden star
on the boohatch door

the spot
where sweet Vivian is
dropping a deuce

my own version of the RCA dog

earlier today,
during dinner,
it was somehow discovered
she did the same thing
underneath the perennial Christmas tree

I was standing there
noticing the only thing
underneath the tree was
a steaming pile of dog doo

I snapped a picture of that with
my mind
and immediately went to
work on possible captions