Back again for the first time

Ok, so the blogging thing hasn't exactly panned out as I'd hoped. Definitely not how my esteemed board of advisors had wished. But it's probably about as I'd foreseen. Habitually, I'm not one of those that when something's on my mind, my instincts lead me to the computer. It is much more likely I'm led to the wet bar currently housed in the back of a borrowed 2002 Cadillac.

I can't really call it 'eventful' but the last few months have certainly gone by in something of a blur, and only partly aided by the cut-loose at that. I turned another year older, have written some good songs that I need to memorize so I can actually play them for people, have started several recording projects that are finally starting to see the finish line in the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm finally gonna move into a new place. Life is good.

I just need to write more prose. Plain and simple.

No sense getting down on myself, though, right? Indeed. I can start right now. I am starting right now. I still don't see the point of blogging, but I'm told it's something I need to do. I have to do. So I'll try. Again.

Why prose? I like it. That should be good enough. It's more of a challenge than writing a song or poem. Maybe not a good song or poem, but if nothing else, it's a different kind of challenge. I'm pretty sure. The satisfaction of really nailing a song is incomparable partly because the form is much more constricting than prose. This presents a challenge unique to the format and I enjoy it for exactly what it is.

And we're not even talking about performance yet.

Music is it's own thing, and I'm happy to devote part of my life to it. Of course, I'd almost certainly be more successful were I to devote all of my energies to it. Submit and thrive. But I can't. I've got this other part of me that loves stories, short and long. I'm a reader. Since my earliest childhood I've loved books. I'd be no more true to myself were I to deny this part of me at the expense of a life in music than were I to quit playing music to focus on the written word.

It's a delicate balancing act that I've nowhere near mastered yet. I'm constantly falling off the tightrope, as it were, but at least I'm still trying. Or trying to try.

Time management is not my forte. Discipline has never been my thing. It kept me from ever being much of an athlete though I had aptitude and even some skill. "If only he'd apply himself..." was and is a constant phrase on the lips of teachers, coaches, mentors, parents, peers and most any other observant persons looking at me.

I feel it. I know it. It's futile to pretend otherwise. Now you'd think that'd be motivation enough for me to do something about it. But you'd be wrong. It's far easier to pour a drink, sit back and daydream, drifting off to the magical worlds in my head where everything is as I order it and I am king and fool both. It's a helluva place, my head.

But now even that's become too confining. Or maybe just too lonely. I'm not sure. I'll have to think about it. Hoho. Not too long, though. The time for thinking has passed. The time for action is at hand. George W. Bush said that. Not really, but he should have.

Life's a quick trip on a rocket ship, you know?

I'm feeling good right now, optimistic if not about the state of the world than at least about the state of myself in the world. It's as good a place to be as I know of, this side of a nice stream full of fat fish eager to bite.

...and then the Fall

I first became aware of the word "malaise" in a book called "The Movie-Goer." A good read. Recommended right here, folks, the first such recommendation I believe I've made in print form, cyber-print though it may be.

Of course, sweet Lady America herself became keenly aware of the word during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, a fellow I believe was improperly maligned, even if at the time it seemed the thing to do. No one likes a loser, and ol' Jimmy had the stink of loss all about him, for whatever reason.

But enough of that. No need to kick an old dog, and I have more respect for Jimmy Carter than any president this fine nation has had in the past half-century.

Yup, Jimmy & Dubya. Ye gods, the fun truly has stopped.

Dammit, I've lost my focus here. Malaise... terrible, creeping malaise. It crept up on me, just like the sneaking suspicion that our parents lie to us about so much over the course of our most formative years. Hell, maybe there's a correlation right there. I'll have to consider it, later, when I'm not so zeroed in on finishing a piece of writing, which despite all evidence to the contrary is really what this little exercise in blogging is all about.

My advisors, after all, tell me that to simply finish a thing, anything, is good practice. Never mind the results, or if anyone even notices. I will know, and that is all I need know.

Or some such jibber-jabber.

These people do tell me repeatedly, though, that dammit, man, you simply must get off the snide and do something. Write. Produce. Perform. Rinse & repeat.

Amen, brothers & sisters. I should. I really should. I know it, just as you know it. But there's this malaise, by god...this great, hulking, lumbering malaise that stalks me thru night and day, relentlessly, giving me occasional pause to catch my breath, take a look around, plot fantasy moves I'll make when I wake up in someone else's reality maybe, able to actually do the things I wish to do, accomplish the goals I set for myself, when I no longer let myself down and am somehow finally not let down by others.

It always comes back, though, the malaise. The pauses are just that. Temporary relief. A stay of execution that has been in the works longer than I can remember at this point.

On the bright side, it is October and I survived a grim summer of bad news, hostile people claiming to be friends and many, many lies relatively sound in spirit if not mind & body. At least I like to think so. Hell, I didn't put a gun in my mouth. Didn't have to fight any urges to do much more than beat a hasty retreat to some far away place where I don't know anyone at all.

Beaten but not broken? You bet. Goddammit, I'm tough enough to handle a bit of malaise, even though it grinds me down and slowly wears me out.

Still, this shit will kill me in the end. I know it.

And that's the rub.

What's the old line...only the fool expects to get out of life alive?

Sounds about right.

On Cutting Loose

The name alone could very well say it all, and i should have known what to expect when I attended my first Handgun & Hard Liquor Night somewhere outside of Llano, TX over the Memorial Day weekend, but there was no way to properly prepare for just how much good honest country fun it was gonna be.

We cut loose as only good ole boys can, or are willing to do.

In our wake, we left behind hundreds of spent shells & cartridges, several empty bottles of booze, and enough beer cans to make a good bed at the Kerrville Folk Festival. I know. I've slept on such a bed before, seven years ago. It was good sleep, aided, no doubt, by a heavy dose of Old Crow bourbon whiskey.

Cutting loose. Seems to me people get so worked up by our daily lives, are so wound up & balled up tight, that cutting loose is the only way to get any release from the tension of living, working, grinding, struggling to get by. And yes, there are many ways to cut loose. Handgun & Hard Liquor Night isn't for everyone. But if you only cut loose every now and then, only when you've reached the end of your line, however short or long it may be, well, then you're in for trouble.

It's like a rubber band snapping. You get stretched too severely, too fast...then, POP! That's it. The older I get, the fewer friends I have who raise hell the way they once did, when they were in their prime and stomped the earth. It's like Hank Jr said: The hangovers hurt more than they used to. Instead of regular or semi-regular outings to the bar, they stay home.

Nobody wants to get high on the town. No one wants to get drunk and get loud. All my rowdy friends have settled down.

But every now and then, just when it seems the fun's stopped, they'll cut loose. And then pay the price. If you don't keep at something, anything, you lose your knack for it.

Cutting loose is good. Staying loose is better.

Tension's only useful under certain conditions. Physicists and hell-raisers know this.

...and the fun never stopped

Had a great birthday yesterday. Slept in, played 9 holes of very un-competitive golf, ate steak, drank red wine (and tequila, and a couple of Bear Fights, and some light beer for good measure), and generally worked myself into a frenzy, with a little help from my friends.

What does it all mean? Nothing. Except that I'm blessed to have the friends & family I do. Which is Everything.

When the dust cleared this morning, I realized it's time to get back to work. This business of creating a "web presence" is damnable, at best, and I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what it might be at worst.

I signed up on Twitter, for example. Ye gods, I'm one of Them now, aren't I?

You bet.

Facebook pages, music players, sites linking it all together--the MySpaces & FBs & Twits, Tweets & Sweet Meats-- we live in the Age of Promotion, and one might as well accept it because fighting it won't do much good.

Resistance is futile.

I don't know that it necessarily means I'll be tweeting all that much. Because if there's one verb that eats at my ancient sense of decency more than "blogging" it would have to be "tweeting."

Just google me, baby.

Losing Time

Mother of Babbling Buddha, where does the time go? How in hell is it already Thursday? Keeping current is quite the challenge for me, predisposed as I am to staying either a few steps ahead of, or more often, many behind whatever curve there is.

Be Here Now. Pretty simple words of wisdom in concept, and I'm told it's not that hard to put into practice. I don't know where I am right now. Actually, in a physical sense I am in my room, typing away about Godknowswhat... in a larger sense, though, I am one of the Lost.

This isn't so bad. Not exactly great -- I wouldn't recommend it for everybody, but then I wouldn't recommend LSD for everyone, either -- but not terrible. Whole days, weeks even, seem to pass without my so much as noticing. Or, if I do notice, I simply shrug my shoulders and casually dismiss it: there goes Monday...

Productivity is down, obviously. I'm not writing as much as I should. I'm not doing a lot that I should. I know it, deep in the gut, and it bothers me. Not enough to force my hand, however. Not yet.

Wednesday night is softball night. We field two teams and so far this season, only one team had won so much as a single game. A king-hell losing streak. Last night, though, losing time was over, as we came thru with not just one but two decisive victories. It felt good. No one loses forever, it seems. Every dog has its day.

And every Dango has its night, long as it may be.

Shows & shows

Great weekend in Dangoland. A mighty crawfish boil on Saturday. The annual fundraiser at the Horseshoe Lounge for the Make-A-Wish Foundation on Sunday. The aftermath at Dr. Lew's Monday Jamboree. Ye gods if it didn't try to kill me. Doc Card, Cornbread, Ace & myself played a solid hour of good tunes Sunday and then turned around and went at it for two & a half straight on Monday, sans Ace.

I think we did ok.

We lost power Sunday at the 'Shoe. Board got fried, is what Doc Card said. Too bad, is what I say, and it really is. Electricity's a helluva thing. I somehow shocked myself unplugging a lamp a few weeks back. Scared me more than it hurt...and it hurt all right.

They've discovered ancient batteries in Egypt, leading to speculation that the Egyptians (or someone else) was onto the secret of electricity long before Ole Ben Franklin sent his kite into the storm. I wasn't so good with the physical sciences in school, and even now electricity baffles me. We built a guitar pedal a month or so ago, soldering capacitors, resistors and transistors onto a circuit board and then wiring the thing up. Plugged it in and lo & behold...it worked.

Hot damn, I thought, we're onto something here. And we probably were.

I'm still not sure the thing sounds so good, though.

When Dangosaurs Ruled the Earth

Spurred on by Others, I've decided to join the Future Age and get hip to this blogging thing. I'm told it's a good career move, whatever that means. I'm not much of a career man. Not all that good with technology, either. I curse my computer more than some sporting teams.

But we can't go backwards, can we? Not on your life, pal. The future is here in all its bestial stink. Just yesterday I heard there were no more cash register-repairmen around anymore. Gone. Extinct. Just like typewriter repairmen. A way of life, a living, just disappears. Sink or swim. Adapt or die. It's an ancient story.

And maybe its for the best. No one wants actual dinosaurs roaming the earth, wreaking havoc and leaving reeking piles of steaming dino-waste in their wake. No, people prefer their dinosaurs in museums.

Perhaps then this blog is simply that, an online museum. Let's hope so, for now.



So here we go then. Welcome. Take a look around. Enjoy yourself.

And goodnight...