Journal Entries
Townes Van Zandt Documentary
Posted Jan 14, 2006
The Documentary Channel is airing "Be Here to Love Me" a bio of Townes Van Zandt, the late, great .... legendary.... musician. It is airing Friday Feb. 10th at 8pm (EST, I believe).
Unfortunately for those of you elsewhere, this is a Canadian channel....
http://www.documentarychannel.ca/docs/listing.asp?StartLetter=Be%20Here%20to%20Love%20Me&id=886
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Latest reply: Jan 14, 2006
It's too Damn Early!
Posted Jan 6, 2006
I was at the grocery store Wednesday evening and, I kid you not.... There were Easter toys on the tops of all the cash registers! In this case, Easter ducks.
I simply could not believe it!
Just to point out that Wednesday was January 4... Easter Sunday is APRIL 16.... That is a full three months off. IT IS OFFICIALLY TOO DAMN EARLY FOR EASTER CRAP!
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Latest reply: Jan 6, 2006
Tom Russell in Montreal!
Posted Dec 5, 2005
Tom Russell: http://tomrussell.com/index_flash.html
I was as excited as a little girl over the news that Tom Russell was going to be playing in Montreal. I managed to reserve tickets and so it's "Gals' Night Out".
Tom Russell, for those that DON'T know is one of the best narrative singer/songwriters on the planet. He does a lot of western ballads, along the lines of Johnny Cash, Andrew Hardin, and Ian and Sylvia Tyson. He also writes and sings about the America that is drifting out of sight, and has interpreted Charles Bukowski as music (He and Bukowski were friends and a book, "Tough Company", evolved from their correspondence http://tomrussell.com/bukowskichronicle.html ). I suppose that the best way of describing Tom is to that he excells at the American narrative in song.
His influences are Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bukowski, Hank Williams, Little Jack Horton, amongst others.
Asked about what advice he would give a young songwriter, he said
"All the road dust eventually shakes itself off into a rhyme. It’s the Gnostic process. Everything you bring forth will save you; everything you do not bring forth will destroy you. Young singer-songwriters? Advice? Go get a job in a bar and learn ten Hank Williams songs. Get lost in Mexico. Do your homework. Learn to walk on the ground before you get up on the high wire. Forget about all this bullsh!t about folk alliances, conferences and Songwriting For Dummies books, and magazines and technology.... where has it led us? Has all this bullsh!t created anything better then The Beatles and Dylan and Hank Williams? Hell no. Songwriting is about building on your roots then finding out who you are… and writing down to the blood and bones. You wanna sell out and stand in line with all the other zombies? Well there's buses leaving for Nashville and Austin and Toronto every hour. Get on board little chillen! The promised land? It's the dead f***king the dead… in a vacuum, to quote Bukowski. But then I digress.…"
"It surprises some people to find out that Los Angeles-born Tom Russell taught criminology in Nigeria during the Biafran war and drove a taxi before choosing to seriously pursue songwriting and performing while in his mid 20s. It’s surprising because within a few years, he was co-writing songs like "Navajo Rug" with Ian Tyson while Johnny Cash, Joe Ely and Guy Clark lined up to record his music. And while many fans consider Russell a full-time musician, the man from God also paints, writes books, and makes movies. His artwork adorns his most recent album, this year’s Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs. He now resides on the outskirts of El Paso, Texas when not touring with longtime musical collaborator Andrew Hardin. Fast Forward heard from Russell via e-mail during his recent tour." http://tomrussell.com/DontAsk.html
Some quotes:
"We made a film called "Save the Valley". It was banned. It's basically three rich white guys who bought up the water rights in El Paso to irrigate their golf courses... selling Mexico back to the Mexicans in the form of cracker-box houses. It's the American way. My three acres have become a fox refuge, I may import mountain lions and wolverines.… I do what I can."
"I look forward to Alberta. They respect the song up there.... I can also go by and visit that crotchety old bastard Ian Tyson and maybe co-write a song.... he's one of the last of the greats."
Every year, Tom Russell is involved in a 5-day song-writing workshop called "Tom Russell's Cowboy Train". Tom Russell and other narrative writers (Andrew Hardin, Stephanie Davis, Sourdough Slim, Rosalie Sorrels and Wylie and the Wild West are on the 2006 roster) run workshops and do shows aboard a train. "Five nights total, with three days and nights of music on board the last great long-distance streamline train still operating in North America - Via Rail's CANADIAN from Vancouver to Toronto. Round-robins and evening concerts all day and night with some of the top names in Cowboydom."
"Midnight Cowboys: The 2005 Tom Russell Cowboy Train" article by Peter Culshaw - The Guardian, UK.
http://www.flyingunderradar.com/ (scroll to the bottom and read the article (pdf))
As I say, I'm as excited as a little girl....
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Latest reply: Dec 5, 2005
Giant Icicles, Firebugs and a Girl Guide Jamboree.... A Dream.
Posted Dec 2, 2005
Hopefully I can remember this all. I had this dream on Sunday night and kept forgetting to post it.
I dreamt that I was visiting in England (where, I don't know) in this large, rambling house (most of my fdreams do). It was in the depth of winter and when I woke in the morning, there were several giagantic icicles hanging from the roof to the ground. I went to find my camera to take some photos. However, when I finally dug the camera out of the bottome of my bag, the lens cover wouldn't open. Whe I finally got it open, the lens looked all funny.
I realized that something had happened to the coating on the lens and it had started to speparate from the lens and was all crackly.
The people I was staying with suggested we should take it to the camera shop and see if I could get it fixed. I knew that there was a camera shop in a certain place which I remembered seeing on a previous visit. So we set off to find it.
We headed off through a park and then towards a footbridge which was being repaired. This man was driving a poor little donkey (I had seen a cartoon about a donkey being mistreated by its owner earlier that day, which explains this). The donkey was tethered to a heavy cart on which this enormous man was sitting by a nylon rope. I stopped the man and made him make a real harness for his poor old donkey and we set off again.
At one point, we would have to walk through a little garden which was about ankle to shin deep with grasses. Planted head down here and there in the midst of the grasses were large live fish, still flapping about.
Apparently, they were planted thusly to ward off evil...
At this point, we decided to return to the house.
In order to get back into the house, we had to waslk along the side of the house and down a slope covered with very wet earth. The whole are had been dug up by a bunch of Girl Guides and Brownies who were on a jamborie. Apparently, they were building a rock garden which required them to lay waste to a steep hill in order to pland purple pansies and some sort of small variegated plant.
We managed to climb up the slippery mud-hill and into the house.
As soon as I went into the house, I noticed that there were small piles of sawsudt all over the wood floor. As one walked across it, wood dust would fly up from the holes. Suddenly, I noticed small fires popping up wherever there was a littl pile of sawdust. I rn over to a tap which srood upright in a corner of the kitchen in order douse the flames.
At that point, I woke up.
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Latest reply: Dec 2, 2005
Dream Weirdness
Posted Nov 18, 2005
So.... The other night, I had a dream.... I don't recall what the dream, was all about. All I could really recall when I woke was that it featured this friend of my sister's, another of her "lame duck" friend who she tried to "set me up with". years ago.
I don't articularly like this person. I have always thought he was "weird". My sister talks about him frequently, as does my mother. I on the other hand, have met him a few times and just don't see what the attraction is.... He's weird and that is that.
Anyhow, in this dream, I was talking to "Bill"* reasonable friend;y-like, though I can't say what we were talking about or what my particular feelings were while talking to him.... Just talking.
The next morning (Wednesday) my Mom mentioned that she had to go out and look for "alternative funeral services" for "Bill" whose mother is dying at a local palliative care hospice. Weird enough.....
Even weirder later that evening when he called me personally because he thought it was I who was looking out information for him....
Normally, I couldn't care one way or another what is up with "Bill". However, I took the whole thing as a message that I was supposed to take special care in helping him out, firstly because I would do the same for anyone I knew, and secondly, because I had my dream..... .
* Name altered
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Latest reply: Nov 18, 2005
Mudhooks: ,,, busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest...
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