After watching the latest Ken Burns documentary on The American Buffalo, I’ve realized again that America was mostly built on greed.

I don’t know why I seem to forget that from time to time. Maybe it’s the dim witted idealism that we desire to be a good and kind race above all the evils of the world.

Occasionally there’s a ray of hope. A good deed done by humans that erases some of the bad and instills the delusion of positive liberalism.

Alas, this blog is not about bison or the starvation of natives or even good and bad deeds. I only mention the documentary because it made me wonder… At which point was unchecked greed powerfully enhanced by unregulated marketing?

I graduated from an advertising design school and during my studies I was often appalled at the lack of decency and responsibility to be slightly ethical. Eventually I was excluded from group projects or decided to go it alone and abandon my unscrupulous peers. One issue I protested was an actual TV commercial airing in the Valley of the Sun where an animated piggy bank was brutally murdered with a hammer. The pink ceramic pig was portrayed in absolute terror, cornered and being slowly approached by the evil hammer. The lighting became dark with beams of light shining and flickering on the fragile cash filled pig crying in fear. It was especially gruesome and out of season for a thirty second Arby’s commercial.

A few days after a heated debate over the commercial in “Videography” class, where I was outnumbered and forced to retreat and silence my scruples, the commercial was pulled off the air due to public complaints of violence. I remained silent and deemed them all unworthy of an ‘I told you so’ from me. I wanted nothing to do with those people.

The experience made me sadly aware that my sociopathic classmates were going to be the next generation of advertisers that would greatly influence America in thirty second, commercialized mini films in the near future. 1989 was a tough year and perhaps the reason for America’s current waywardness.

So when did it happen? The thing that ruins Christmas every damn year. You know what it is. It’s only second to blaring horns and deadlocked traffic. Breathing toxic exhaust fumes and shuffling through box stores to get nonsense presents for family members or friends that wouldn’t have picked it out for themselves, because it wasn’t what they really wanted, and then contributing to even more congestion on the trip to return items after the stupid holiday.

And yes, Christmas is stupid. It’s historically and even mythically inaccurate. It excludes cultures across the globe that celebrate the changing of the season. It doesn’t mention the whole Pagan thing at all and has us believing that it’s Jesus’s birthday. A white guy hanging out in Jerusalem and Egypt until he was nailed to some boards and died. But it was cool because he came back. Back from the dead, for reals, y’all. But that’s another holiday. This one in December is mostly about presents and stress until it’s over and we can all finally relax and aggressively watch grown men play with a ball on TV.

It’s culturally divisive by religious beliefs. Even the name suggests that it is strictly Roman Catholic – which is like christian-zilla. The name is Christ-Mass. Nobody has a problem with that? Really? In this cancel culture generation?

Or maybe Christmas could be interpreted scientifically as the amount of matter that makes up the Jesus.

Christmas is horribly disruptive to nature and the environment. Birds are now subject to pointless decorative light pollution in tall trees – all freakin’ night! Fake plastic snow never decomposes and of course eventually winds up in the ocean, and a massive amount of conifer type trees are murdered, degraded, publicly shamed, and displayed in the living rooms of countless homes. Tinsel is eaten by cats and slowly digested into shiny, pretty trailing cat turds. Dogs eat boxes of seizure inducing chocolate and devour peanut brittle leaving diarrhea remains that resemble… peanut brittle. The only thing worse for wild and domestic animals are explicitly loud fireworks in the new calendar year and on the fourth of July.

But the worst thing,…the worst thing…is advertising. Visual and auditory pollution. Lazy ad-copy writing reliant upon christmatism (a cross between Christmas and patriotism). Appropriating the holiday icons, such as Rudolph, rosy cheeked caucasian children, snowmen (..and where are the snow women? Trump might ask. We love the snow women, don’t we), Mrs. Claus, and Santa Clause and having them represent rampant greed and commercialism.

But why not Jesus? Why isn’t he included in the hocking of material items? Why’s he so special? After all, it’s his own name in the holiday. He should be the spokesperson. It’s not Santamas or Saint Nickmas. They could have him on the cross pitching ads for Goldman-Sachs or Chick-Fil-A, on or off the cross. Either way works, as long as it’s not on a Sunday.

But the absolute worst, worse than everything, is the theft and desecration of music. Holiday songs repurposed for profit. The laziest form of art is to take what has already been created by someone else and change the lyrics to suit your evil capitalistic purpose. Don’t make it funny-I say sarcastically. Don’t be clever or creative. Don’t be a wordsmith or intelligent. Just keep it as bland and boring as your God damned soul. Go ahead, use the world’s most famous and popular, heart filled, sincerely written songs to sell your manufactured concoctions, elixirs, and snake oil. Feel free to obtain your massive wealth built on the backs of the impoverished and oppressed. It’s the American way, after all.

There’s a special room in Hell for Christmas music marketing planners and it’s filled with perpetually screaming children, tinsel turds, epileptic dogs having seizures, and peanut brittle diarrhea on white carpet everywhere. And there will be music. Their own stolen auditory abominations pumping out at a consistently creepy volume, chipping away at their souls for all eternity.

So, anyway…Merry Christmas!

It’s strange to read a book by an author I know on a personal level. Although I don’t know them well enough to know where they begin and their character ends. I do know it is a mix of both. The book is a blend of fiction and reality.

It’s strange to know exactly the taste of the dust in the breeze they describe and the color of a specific sky. A geographical place where part of myself also still lives. People I shared real moments with that I can feel through the pages. I can decipher the code and know the actual people who’s names have been changed. I learned of their disappointment in a real person disguised as character building.

It’s like holding the hand of a stranger with the same past. Crossing lives in another dimension, foreign but familiar. Like a kid being friends with their parents friends kids. It just feels a little weird.

It’s a good book, with good intentions, but as someone methodically judgemental, who can feel people and see through facades, I have issues. Don’t worry, I’m not going to point them all out. I have no intention to expose the author or the book.

I find it intriguing that our society has so many quirks. So many crevices and corners of our personalities and beliefs. That people are absolute products of their environments. Myself included.

I can sense a struggle with the characters development and a fear of embracing them fully since the character goes against the authors own beliefs. I assume it’s hard to write about something you don’t understand. An example would be an Atheist character treating suicide as a sin. It doesn’t exactly add up.

It’s interesting to me, especially since I am sadly not an avid reader, that I can see into the depths of someone, knowing only a little information about them. I’m also open to being completely wrong. That’s just as interesting.

I recognize there’s very often a membrane, due to a life of privilege and clouded with religious beliefs, that leave aspects of a partial fictional story bare and shallow. The forbidden topics and underlying sins are left out of the context of the story, and it leaves a giant hole. It’s the same in all forms of art. Sometimes something is missing. It’s a little off. Personally, I compare it to the insincerity of most faith music and pandering politicians.

I even recognize it in my own art forms when I miss the mark. I’m sure we would all fix it if we could, but it’s as complicated as human psychology. It’s like defining “soul” in a guitar solo. It’s just there or it ain’t.

Those same material and spiritual tangents can leave a hole in real life as well, and ironically, they are designed to fill a person up.

I think that’s the saddest thing about a giant portion of humankind. Not knowing how to recognize sincerity and follow our hearts. The intentional confusion and distractions thrown at us by malicious players disconnect us from ourselves and our own spirits.

Recently, we were reminded of that through the death of Sinead O’Connor. That’s all she was ever trying to say, but few listened.

All in all, it was a good story. It’s the author’s first book and I am not much of a reader anyway, unless I have nothing else I can do. I’m not even educated. My opinion is useless. I obviously enjoy the philosophy of it all as much as anything else. And yes, I am just as harsh and critical of myself and it annoys everyone.

Go read a book!

“He’s gone!” Carter’s exact words when I asked if he’d talked to Chuck. It was his own way of telling me the news. He was waiting for the moment I would expand the conversation and ask about our friend. It was said as a statement, less of an exclamation, but more like an unexpected surprise short answer, as if I’d asked if Chuck was home. Nope, He took off. He’s gone.

I told Carter that it’s been strange to mourn and grieve for days for someone who hasn’t even died yet. Chuck really got us this time.

The day before, I was struggling with the idea of calling up my friend in Hospice and offering to play some music over the phone to distract from the brutality of waiting for an excruciatingly slow death. My empathy had been tormented for days by the thought of what Earthly Hell they were all going through. My only capacity for expression was writing song lyrics from their dog’s point of view. What was poor Sophie feeling? Chuck had said it was only going to take a few days for the end to come, but then, with a little research prompted by one of Carter’s texts, I realized it could be weeks. I read that the death could even be painful with volatile illness, or drug induced and out of consciousness. I wanted to reach out. I was jumping out of my skin wanting to know. I finally expressed my concern to Carter’s wife, Darla, someone I could trust to understand, and a close friend of Chuck’s wife. She’s also well educated in medicine and understood the situation better than most.

I didn’t want to intrude or disrupt. I was struggling with my place as a friend and a musician. I was not sure if it was appropriate for me to offer my ability as a guitar player and songwriter to give him some comfort, or if I just wanted to make myself feel better, or if I should just leave them alone. My battle with reasoning with myself and my instincts were wildly confused but Darla ensured me to just follow my heart.

So I was getting ready to call Chuck and offer a private performance. I was setting up in my little studio when I noticed Carter had called earlier. I thought maybe Darla had told him about my question and he was going to give me some new information or advice. I thought, I should wait to call Chuck until I knew why Carter had called. It turned out Chuck wouldn’t have answered anyway. “He’s gone!” He took off!

I knew of Chuck’s illness and difficulty from my recent visits back to Lubbock. I’ve been visiting the dusty little big town quite often over the last few years. My good friend, Lee, died of cancer just a few years earlier, and more recently, I’ve moved my elderly mother from there, closer to my current town for caretaking. Throughout the last few years, I have reconnected with my old friends.

I consider Lubbock my home town although I only lived there for about five years, off and on. But since childhood I’ve been visiting both sides of my family that chose to settle, for some unknown reason, in Lubbock, Texas. My Aunt Linda was a school teacher along with Chuck’s mom and had been friends for years. Chuck was one of the few that had actually seen my Kids Music CD that my Aunt had bought multiples of. I’m not sure what she did with them, but I appreciated her support of ‘Bugs for Dinner ‘. She’s the only family member that’s ever purchased my music and because of her, Chuck also knew me as a musician.

I had an idea to write a song about Chuck and his wild, younger days. Especially since he was sick and most likely didn’t have but a few more years. I wanted to get it done while he was still alive and could enjoy it. I wrote down some verses and had the opportunity to let Chuck read them at a Thanksgiving get-together my Lubbock crowd called “Friendsgiving”. Chuck, Carter, and Bryan all had some input and memory corrections so I rewrote it a few times before I recorded it. All the while, Chuck’s health was declining. I pressured myself to work as fast as I could, without forcing creativity, and luckily released the song to the World in time for the now immortal Chuck to hear the finished product. I sent it out on social media but hadn’t heard from Chuck. I was hoping my friends would get it to him since he wasn’t active online much, but no one was promoting it and I didn’t want to ask. I finally worked up the courage to get his number and call him up. I didn’t know if he was okay with any of it, after all, I had put some of his pretty personal information into the public song without getting his explicit permission.

It turned out, he was fine with it. And some of the last words he said to me were thanking me for making him happy in his last months of his life. I said I knew it was a weird thing to do, but I’m glad I could do it. I’m so glad it made him happy.

He called just days before he died to say goodbye. I’m grateful and sad.

Before he died, my most recent visit to Lubbock was to a memorial for my cousin’s husband. A sudden and unexpected death. We can only use these moments for goodness as an opportunity for family to connect. While I was there in Lubbock again, I took some extra time to record video footage of a 1/24 scale model replica I made of Chuck’s old yellow, 1966, Chevy Pickup, created solely for the making of the Music Video to accompany his song. I knew his eyesight wouldn’t allow him to see the video, so I gave him the model pickup I crafted before I left town. It was the last visit. I asked Carter and Darla to go with me. They didn’t know how much I needed their support. They made it much easier for me and I’m glad they could be there for me and everyone. While sitting in the living room beside a dwindled tower of Dialysat boxes, Chuck let me play his prized ‘Zager’ guitar and even sang an improvised blues song to the tune of “Pride and Joy”. It was hilarious and beyond great to see him happy. He occasionally played with the remote control model truck, zooming it across the room and listening to where it went. He had a very nice night. Something he had very few of.

When he called that last time to tell me about his final decision, we talked long and honest. He spoke about burials and the few that couldn’t accept his fateful decision. He asked if I’d made the music video yet and although I hadn’t, I was happy to tell him some of the ideas I had. I mostly got to explain the music video so he could visualize it, which is what someone would’ve had to do anyway, so, in a way, he actually saw it before anyone ever could. I’m happy that happened too.

Each visit I had with Chuck, I was amazed at his optimism and endurance, his humor and strength. Even towards the end, he’d lost his will to live but was still listening, still telling stories, and seemed happy to have a conversation. I admire his courage to do what he did. We were never close friends, but as I explained in person and on the phone about why I wrote the song about him in the first place, I was happy to know him.

Chuck was my fourth friend to die in the last few years. Each one is different. It’s sad to know I’m learning all the ways people die and navigating so many of the confusing feelings I have.

When my friend, Lee, died, I was putting together a personal comeback music album and struggling with sobriety. One of the songs was specifically about him and his family and life as a truck driver. I was trying to get it together with music and videos for him, but I was having a hard time. I also felt like I was being egotistical and self absorbed if I played my guitar while people were hurting. As if I was making it all about me, demanding attention and taking it away from those who need it.

But with Chuck’s illness, I was trying to balance those feelings, knowing that maybe I could make things a little more bearable. I regret not being more helpful with Lee. And for some reason, I convinced myself that these friends weren’t part of my life as a musician, so I didn’t want to be a different person around them. It wasn’t until just recently I realized I was always playing music in some way or another. I’m just being stupid. I should just do what I do. I’m coming to terms that maybe my ability might also be a responsibility. I just have to learn to be comfortable with it even though I don’t want the attention.

I also give credit to Chuck for making me think about my place and my ability. As I quietly played guitar at the Friendsgiving get-together, I noticed that Chuck was really enjoying it. The way I always did even before I could play. He was even disappointed when I abruptly put the guitar away. For some reason, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with anxiety and wasn’t feeling well. I heard him say, “I guess we’re done playing guitar”.

I still have some issues with playing in certain settings. I was even shy and unprepared at the last visit with Chuck. I can’t really explain why I choke, but I’m working on it. I can play for strangers so much easier than with friends. I think maybe I don’t want to be special. I think I have a debilitating anxiety. And I think I should have worked this out a long time ago.

I’m happy and sad about the song, “Banana Truck Chuck”. It’s another friend that rightfully should have grown old and ornery. He would have been great at it.

Death is another thing about life I don’t understand. There’s nothing fair about it. It often takes good people and leaves the unworthy. It teaches me things I don’t want to know. It hurts and never heals.

The day I was going to call Chuck and play guitar, I was watering plants on a job site. I was thinking about how I could help him feel better, like watering a plant. I can’t save a sick plant, but I can make it perk up a little.

I’d also been thinking of learning a favorite Hank Williams Sr. song for about a month, so I thought maybe I could play it later. I’m not sure how appropriate ‘I’m so lonesome I could cry’ would have been, but it was followed by ‘I’ll fly away’. Strangely, my research would’ve been playing those songs on my phone at the exact same time he passed away.

It also got me thinking about those old songs. They were gritty and dark and filled with real life sadness.

“Did you ever see a Robin weep

When leaves began to die?

Like me he’s lost the will to live

I’m so lonesome I could cry”

These songs were written in a time where modern Hospice didn’t exist. People died young, painfully, in a home they’d built themselves. They didn’t understand the illness they had and the only comfort they had was in gospel and in song.

One of Chuck’s nicknames was ‘Festus’ after the wiley character in the TV western, Gunsmoke. Chuck looked and acted a bit like him and possibly died in much the same way Festus would have died, but much more quickly, peaceful, and without pain, surrounded by love and terribly missed in a home he built himself.

Rest in Peace, Festus Banana Truck Chuck. You will be greatly missed.

3 1/2 years sober.
The relationship I have with booze is wildly complicated.

As an aspiring musician, I’m forced into the cult of alcohol. The venues I’m reaching out to are primarily houses for drinking. There’s food and entertainment, but the biggest profit from any evening establishment is always alcohol sales. James McMurtry says on a live album, “Here I thought I was a musician, but turns out I’m really just a beer salesman”.

That’s just the way it is. We can have issues with the system and society, but as long as alcohol is promoted and encouraged for profit, ain’t a thing anyone can do about it.

I’m aware that my discussion is possibly self sabotaging.

As a musician that very much needs to pander to these performance venues, I am biting the hand that I hope will feed me. But there are plenty of bar owners that fully understand alcoholism, the only way they can, by being an alcoholic themselves, reformed or not. I know they won’t be offended.

It’s not entirely their fault. Selling alcohol is their business, although their true intentions are providing a service, a good time and a way to unwind. It’s considered therapy and socializing and Humans desperately need that.

It’s also not any individuals fault.

I don’t want to shame anyone for letting loose. This is where it gets complicated. I fear I come across as preachy at times, and have straight up been accused of acting like a born again religious fanatic. A reformed alcoholic spewing blame and guilting people for enjoying themselves. I apologize if that’s the interpretation, but also, if that’s how you hear it, check yourself, alcoholism is sneaky.

In absolute honesty, it’s just all about me. My own study of myself. It has become an interesting experiment. My beginnings of alcoholism as an eight year old drinking Tequila, whiskey, and beer well into my teenage years of binge drinking, and continuing the party way after the party was over. To the brutal alcoholic deaths of my father, friends, and acquaintances to somehow wind up here on the other side, miraculously still alive. In hindsight, it seems quite predictable that I was destined to wind up with a drinking problem.

Most everyone is aware of the potential to become an alcoholic. Functional or dysfunctional. There are even laws in place to make us keenly aware of the danger. The real problem is how we embrace alcohol as a society. Ignoring the dangers or worse, glorifying them. Turning to drinking when there’s a problem. Turning to drinking to have a good time. It sounds insane if you think about it.

I think everyone has a slightly different relationship with alcohol. It’s something we all have to figure out. Our tolerance, our ability to reason, and our physical limitations. And there’s only one way to study. Get trashed a few times and see how it pans out.

My sobriety has gone through stages. My first attempt lasted about a year. The initial withdrawal was very intense. I couldn’t sleep for months. My brain was rebooting and every thought seemed broken. I eventually started thinking and feeling again and it was weird. It was mostly indescribable but I felt like thousands of small computers coming on line, one by one. It’s still happening today, but not as intense.

The internal rage, bitterness, self loathing, and cloudiness my disease had been cultivating was slowly breaking apart and I could feel it. There was a raging storm inside my entire being.

I still had a desire to drink. Especially since my wife continued to enjoy her wine. It was extremely hard to suddenly remove my entire lifestyle, drinking more than a few beers to relax. Especially grilling and working in the music studio.

I made a deal with myself. I’d only drink during these times and I’d limit myself to three beers. And I would only drink high quality, delicious Mexican beer with salt and lime on ice. It worked for about three months, then three beers turned into eight. But that’s where I stopped. Eight was my magic number. I continued for another year.

I saw a doctor and told him my biggest motivation to stop drinking was the death of my friend, but I had started again. He said, “How many friends have to die?” Then apologized for being so harsh. I thought it was kinda funny. We all need a harsh truth sometimes.

Eight beers was about half of what I was drinking nightly the years before. I actually felt more healthy. I was drinking twelve to twenty-six beers every night for over ten years. I don’t know how I sustained.

I realized that I wasn’t healthy and I was lying to myself. I had pain in my gut again and was incredibly weak. I realized that I was going to have to quit for good, or die. The alcohol revealed itself as a disease that I could not wager. A demon monster that controlled my thoughts and led me to believe lies. The disease made me betray myself. I now understood just how my father died. I understand how my friend died. The disease uses all of your existing sadness, discomfort, shame, and self doubt and coddles you with the intent to kill you. Like an invasive weed that eventually chokes itself out.

The second time I quit was amazingly different from the first. I still had insomnia but there were new things. It felt different. I developed a sweet tooth. My memories came back in true color. My reasoning sharpened and my desire to live returned.

I also know, from experience, that if I drink at all again, I might not survive. I have to leave it forever and that’s a scary thing. Not because I have a desire, that’s actually gone, but because of the stories we hear about relapse twenty years later. It always ends bad. I have to always remember that the monster is waiting. I didn’t kill it. It’s still there. It lies in dormancy and will always be there.

Three and a half years later, I still feel my brain growing. I’m alive again. I feel my hard age, but I’m not consumed with sadness. I believe I have some undiagnosed clinical depression, but going through my dark spells now is more rare and less painful without alcohol. I am aware that my brief suicidal thoughts and sadness are just another monster. That monster used to have a very powerful friend and together, they wanted me dead. They almost succeeded.

So now when a concerned friend asks me if I’m okay with their drinking, I have to respond with a quick answer. “Yeah, fine”. Explaining it takes to long and they are trying to party, but eventually, they’re loose and have lost their inhibition and they ask again. So I tell them about some of this.

I’m not concerned with you. I’m just remembering and imagining myself and how I once was. I’m not judging anyone although I strikingly recognize the symptoms of potential problems for you. But I understand, you’re just trying to have fun. You’re already aware that you’re dancing with a devil, or you wouldn’t be concerned. So was I, until it got out of control. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. Don’t worry about it now anyway. I’m sorry I make you feel awkward. Go ahead and have a good time. Let’s see if you can let me have one too.

It was fifty years ago. Something happened in the universe. Jupiter got stupider or Saturn got smart, or Mars collided with some other stars, but whatever it was, it created a Cosmic Cowboy. A different kind of traveler. A storyteller that didn’t adhere to any established rules. An outcast, a societal misfit that just happened to gather with others cut from the same cloth. Drawn by cosmic energy focused on a specific spot on the globe. Like ants to a grain of sugar. Like bugs to a light bulb. Like cotton candy around the lips of the gods.

I don’t know all the facts and I refuse to be bound by the strict rules of journalistic integrity. I deal in rumor and folklore. Tales of the unknown and low class mystery. I’ll tell what I think I know, embellish for creative flair and glorify that which I know little about.

Because I wasn’t there, but I felt the energy as an infant. It affects me to this day. My mind was corrupted by the same big bang and has led me throughout my awkward life of waywardness. Searching for the collective of like minds in this vast world of round holes and square pegs.

I yearn for the type of comradery and shared intellectual being as they once had. A pack of wild wolves strangely drawn to the same pond. To drink from the same creative waters that would forge a new art form. Temporarily sustainable, legendary, and the power to shape a nation. Creating the seeds of sound and style that generations would feel forever in their souls. Souls that are sometimes completely unaware of its existence.

The Cowboys are still around, well, most of them anyway. They’ve agreed to get old and survive the chemicals and ignorance of their youth. Some used the popular drugs of their generation to experience expanded thought and consciousness while others kept their minds pure and un-enhanced, or unaltered. It was that social division that ultimately corrupted their world, causing the downfall of their temporary culture. The room was divided by users and non users, two different attitudes that didn’t mix. Unable to effectively communicate.

Like any spark of life, the creation must evolve by duplication and the original copy will eventually deteriorate, doomed to fade into cultural obscurity. It’s now only legend, with a few occasional elderly reunions in dimly lit rooms along the paths of its original trek. Giving new life to memories and memories giving new life.

The unofficial club of Cosmic Cowboys. There was never a membership jacket or dues to be paid. Membership only required some scribbles on random sheets and mindful floating ideas that became the anthems of a generation.

It was an original flame of creation that lasted as long as anything else of purity in a corrupt society. Giving birth to evolutionary marketing and fueling years of unchecked capitalism and greed. Branding a new, less friendly, but purely American ideal of badassery to blanket the nation with self indulgent worship for generations to follow. Even the icons were uncomfortable with the idea. It was a false identity. A farce. A delusion. It became the Outlaw era. And it’s influence is still corrupting our society and making tons of money.

But it’s important to note, the Outlaw craze was always just a marketing stunt that appealed to those who needed a self gratifying identity larger than their own life. To those that can grab on to a culture that makes them feel powerful. Like a pistol in hand or having a warning sticker on the back of a vehicle that seems to suggest their own vigilante justice is above the law. Proudly proclaimed that the vehicle is protected by Smith and Wesson. It isn’t true, but it’s empowering to pretend. A fantasy can create the same feeling of confidence as a flamboyant red sports jacket and a little hair gel.

Meanwhile the less aggressive original mantra of simply following your own path was mostly forgotten. It was less appealing for a mass frenzy. There were no poster boys. No gods of coolness to worship. They were just people. People that were a little odd. People whose intentions were never based on greed or wealth, but art. Simply art, in the form of music and words and a good time to be had.

I’m a straggler Cosmic Cowboy, lost in time. I’m not the only one. I can’t be.

I don’t have the resources to create a new generation of Cosmic Cowboys, and yes, it was financed. Someone had the space to create the universe. The dollars and clout to book the venue for experimental research. Motivated by just having a party and to see where it lead. To create a gathering of songwriter dorks and goofy artsy fartsies and push the record button to capture the moment in unlost time. It was a collaboration, unorganized and whimsical. Motivated by boredom and the desire to simply entertain themselves. I can only assume that some attempts were total flops, but surely led to successes. Eventually, the pot was stirred long enough and magic happened. The sugar caramelized. The dough rose.

I can only imagine what it was like to be there. To live in the moment of future nostalgia. I’ve had some relatable moments, but nothing that lasted. And nothing that was shared on such a massive scale. I assume they all were aware of what was happening when it was happening. I’m sure they knew they would be legends and revered as musical heroes. No, no they didn’t know.

The buildings that once provided the stages have all been torn down and replaced with corporate money generators. The music has been added to the vast ocean of noise on the internet, only to be discovered by a few curious cultural small town mindset historians. The lyrics have been integrated with our societal phrasing, the origin and actual meaning lost in the fuzziness of trend and now seems utterly meaningless. Cowboys, Hippies, Redneck Mothers?

But that creative spark still exists. There are places and gatherings that can be conducive to creating another wave of Cosmic Cowboys. The universe just has to align and focus on a specific spot on the globe. Again.

And I hope I’m there this time.

In a snow covered parking lot on the edge of Chicago, two giant Kenworth semi trucks sat idling in the darkness, side by side with no trailers attached. Like a couple of old buddies, the drivers were sitting inside one of the cabs talking. They were drinking out of chilled aluminum cans from a smuggled case of LeBatts beer that was half buried in the snow, keeping it cold, just outside the rumbling truck’s passenger side door.

They’d actually just met a few hours before in a tiny bar a few blocks away from the railyards, taking advantage of a rare moment of being locked down by winter weather, when they could get good and drunk and sleep it off before the freezing snow melted enough for the shipping business to reset.

There was no concern if it was legal, or against company policy. As long as they were cool and quiet, no one would ever know. It was, for a moment, very illegal when the bar closed at three a.m. and the scrappy female bartender informed the intoxicated commercial drivers they would have to move the bobtail trucks to a nearby parking lot for the night. It was ignored that it would involve actual operation of a giant motor vehicle and be considered a DWI. But it was Chicago at three in the morning, after all, and sometimes the rules just don’t apply.

I guess the frizzy haired bartender didn’t tell us earlier so we wouldn’t leave and quit buying drinks. I remember being so incredibly pleased that I was going to stumble out of the door of a bar and have a nice, warm bed waiting for me just a few feet away. That’s when the bartender, who resembled a coyote wearing mascara, told us, “Uh yeah you guys gotta move them trucks so’s they don’t get towed with you in em’. Take a yoo-ee and don’t go cross them tracks, that’s a bad part a town down there. That’s a big empty parkin’ lot cross the street. You’d be good in there for a night. Lotsa drivers do it”.

For me, and my inebriated thinking skills, I chose in that moment while crossing the street, to lock the differential into eight wheel drive, dump the clutches into seventh gear, and see how high in the air the giant truck tires could throw snow. I reverted to my High School mentality with my logic being, when would I ever again have a chance to do donuts and rooster tails in an eighteen wheeler? Never. I surely would have been fired, locked up, and had my expensive commercial drivers license revoked if I’d been caught. But just like in High School, I was smart enough to hide it and not brag about it later. I’m betting the statute of limitations has run out by now.

I can’t speak for how intoxicated my temporary friend was. I knew he could handle his alcohol as well as me, since we’d been drinking all evening and continued to drink well into the early morning hours.

I didn’t make a large habit out of drinking on the road in those days. Maybe four or five times in a year. Hangovers while driving big rigs were dangerous and miserable. Dealing with dispatchers, deciphering their bad grammar and incomplete sentences on the satellite messaging system, mapping out an itinerary, fueling up in the freezing cold, eating unhealthy and poorly prepared food, getting directions on a stinky, germ infested pay phone and writing them down in a miniature spiral notebook, using my own hieroglyphic shorthand language, and using disgusting smelling restrooms was hard enough with a clear head. Who knew truck driving would be so glamorous? It wasn’t anything like my career inspiration, the movie, Smokey and the Bandit.

A week before, I had gone to Canada to deliver the biggest avocados from Mexico I’d ever seen. Once the trailer doors were opened, I wondered why I’d never seen them in the United States. They were as big as Nerf footballs. As I wandered through the world market in Toronto, I wondered why I had never seen most of that amazing food in the United States. I still don’t know, but we sure are unhealthy and fat.

I did have a delicious glass of beer at my next Canadian working tourist destination. I stopped at a local shopping center, had an afternoon meal and an authentic brew, then saw a movie called Fried Green Tomatoes in a mostly empty theater. After the show, a random, polite, young man told me, “Good movie, eh!” I’d only heard that phrase from my Bob and Doug McKenzie, Great White North album before and wasn’t sure people really said that until then. My only response was to nod upward, like a Chicano in a passing low rider. He’d probably only seen that in a Cheech n’ Chong movie. He probably didn’t know people really did that.

When I left Canada, I bought three cases of the delicious LeBatts beer. Since it was Federally illegal in the USA to have alcohol in a commercial vehicle, I decided I would hide it until I got back home. More High School logic. Be cool and keep your mouth shut.

It is very against the law to transport alcohol into Canada, but I was leaving, so it didn’t matter. There wasn’t a checkpoint entering the U.S. for some reason. I guess we trusted them more than they trusted us.

I was absolutely terrified when my next load from New York sent me right back into Canada, but I wasn’t about to ditch my brewskis. How bad could a Canadian prison be?

And of course, as luck would have it, I was randomly pulled aside at the border and inspected. I watched in horror as she had me open my side box door on the sleeper, exposing my three cases of contraband. She looked at me, closed the door, and let me go. I guess I was damn lucky it was Canadian beer.

I remember, in truck driving school, they told us not to say “Texas” when we were asked about our nationality. We would be instantly detained and inspected for guns. I guess that happened a lot to people from the Nation of Texas.

I’d bought one case for my brother and two for me. I had no intention of drinking it before I got it back home to Texas, until that night in Chicago.

At first, the only thing my new friend and I had in common was the logo on our company trucks, but we talked for hours about life and women, and growing up and doing dumb things. That’s all most drunks ever talk about. He was never going to get married, and he was serious. I told him about a girl that loved me, but I didn’t know if I loved her. Love was confusing. I said she was just my friend. He just smirked and said, with a combination of confidence and disappointment, “You’re gonna marry her,” as if he’d seen the future already, 

Many years later, our circumstances led to a real choice and guess what? I did marry her.

I had to look deep inside myself. I had to learn that, for whatever buried psychological trauma, I was probably not a person who was even capable of real love. But I could respect it. I could recognize it and I did believe in it. Kind of like how a sociopath knows about empathy and what’s right and wrong.

And maybe I couldn’t actually, completely, fully fall in love with her, but I really liked her. I respected her, and I believed in her. I knew that I would never find anyone that loved me more than she loved me, and maybe that was enough.

And maybe, that’s what love is for everybody.

Love enough.

That drunken trucker had seen the future. His confidence was just one of the voices in my head, pointing me to my destination. He was the unknown, unnamed ambassador to my destiny. In retrospect and memory, that strange moonless night was out of place. It was out of time itself. It was my future visiting me, guiding me. There were no other people around. The bar was foggy and empty, except for the scrappy bartender who I could barely see through my booze riddled glassy eyes. I was visited by the Ghost of Christmas LeBatts.

I delivered a case to my brother in time for Christmas and the other back home to share with my future wife.

This is our twentieth year of being married and I’m still overthinking and just as confused as I ever was. Luckily, in my marriage I’ve learned that it probably doesn’t matter what I think anyway.

There’s love, and that’s love enough.

It was the size of, and almost as round, as a baseball bouncing through the cars. I watched without a thought as it plummeted, leapt, and spun, bouncing from the summer sun heated pavement up and over the hood of a black Lexus sedan, gliding and trickling across the shiny fender, dipping adieu only to pop off the blacktop, elevating itself to the perfect height to gently scale the side of a speeding monster truck and tap dance across the flat bed cover of the Super Duty Ford.

As it traveled away, almost matching the speed of the wayward traffic, I lost sight of the whimsical roadway meteor, leaving me in a state of awe like I’d just experienced the last note of a symphony concert.

The scene slowly replayed in my mind from the beginning of the sonata. I remember seeing the work truck trailer pass by, peripherally, seconds after the rock star took it’s leave, falling gracefully off the back of it’s construction trailer stage for it’s solo performance. Saying farewell to it’s stone comrades forever as it followed its own, very different destiny. It would not be one to wind up forever buried again, after a million years, only after it’s tiny contribution, with its team of thousands, as a temporary driveway. To block the force of water from eroding the path to someone’s future home or office. To be a small part of a foundation to support the giant rolling rubber tires of Goliath sized tractors and trucks.

I realized in that moment, that it had bailed off the back of the trailer just a few feet ahead of where I was parked in the turn lane and it’s trajectory was completely left to fate.

I imagined a different dance, a fate-plotted assassins target. It could have been any one of us. I contrived a different moment, where my last vision was of a rock blasting through my windshield into a spider web ball shape and my last word-formed thought was, “What’s tha…….”.

I would have no knowledge, I hope, that my brains were instantly smashed and my spark of life was suddenly extinguished, leaving my corpse forever waiting for the left turn light as my turn signal slowly clicked its last audible click.

The gravity fed, fueled spinning boulderite could easily have taken the life of an unsuspecting motorist if it was just destined to do it, but it wasn’t. Somehow, it seemed to float through the air and rocketing, rambling vehicles, each driver and passenger uniquely unaware of their own immediate dance with fate.

Shared on Facebook 6-28-2020

Stupid.

I wonder how many friends think I’m stupid?

I used to think I was stupid. I was treated like I was stupid by some teachers in school.

I look back and I was pretty stupid. Maybe because the education system failed me, or maybe I was just bad at learning. I didn’t pay attention and I didn’t care.

Something woke up in my brain later in life. I started to question things I grew up thinking were normal and accepted. Now it sometimes feels like I’m an outsider.

Our opinions and grown up personalities are based on our experiences. Our upbringing and influences. We can re-evaluate at any time.

For years I have been self examining and evaluating, trying to understand myself. The good and especially the bad. I try to figure out other people too, and try hard to not judge.

I see religion for what it is, complicated, and sometimes useful and good. But I personally can’t believe there’s an invisible man in the sky that loves us. I first pondered that when I was twelve and didn’t understand why so many bad things happen to innocent people. Especially kids. It just didn’t make sense. I was also very afraid to even think it, for fear of God punishing me. No one should be afraid of their own thoughts.

I grew up riding horses, raising animals, and being involved in rodeos. I’ve always known that the sport involves some animal cruelty and abuse. We should probably stop doing that, but it’s complicated. There will be a day where that will become an issue. It will probably be politicized by people wearing blue hats and red hats.

When I was a freshman in high school, I had a Confederate flag hanging across the back window of my pickup. It was simply a Rebel flag to me. I wasn’t taught about slavery and oppression in a way that made me truly understand, or empathize with, all that the flag represents. I didn’t realize that it’s a reminder of, and a monument to, the worst era of my American history.

I once considered painting a Swastika on my Volkswagen because I thought it would represent my funny little German car in a funny way. Again, I was vastly unaware of the meaning of that symbol. I was in my twenties. I honestly didn’t know anything about the Holocaust other than Hitler was in charge of bunch of Nazis and they tried to take over the world. Why didn’t I know about the murdering of millions of people for white supremacy? I just didn’t know.

So when I see the hatred, the ignorance, the stupidity, and the conspiracy theories on social media, I understand. I can relate.

I also understand that survival is at stake. I personally have the privilege to openly have opinions that don’t affect my work or important relationships. But I know that some of my friends won’t be accepted if they don’t have the same opinions. It can cost them a job. We were told in truck driving school, if we wanted to be a truck driver, we needed to dress like a truck driver.

I can also assume that sometimes they just don’t know about things. Maybe the education system failed them, like it did me, or maybe they’re just bad at learning or just don’t care, like I used to be.

But, I fixed my stupid. I learned how to learn. I freed my mind to think about things I wasn’t supposed to question. I changed my environment, and most importantly, I started to care about the world beyond my own.

Some of you will not like this story. It will subtly reveal my opinion on law enforcement. I have friends that are cops and I don’t mean to generalize or demean, but I have recognized problems with law enforcement for a very long time.

I was a bit of a lost youth and had many run-ins with the cops. My days of criminal behavior are very much over. Not because of anything law enforcement did, but because I grew up. I can relate to being profiled. I get profiled. I have a naturally rough look that makes some people nervous. It took years for me to realize that, and to not be offended. I get it, but I’m really actually a good guy.

I’ll limit my experience with the police to just two instances. One good and one bad. I’ll start with the bad experience.

To preface, no cop, I believe, has the right to hurt anyone, but sometimes some do. Sometimes they are just angry, over excited, with too much adrenaline to control themselves. Sometimes they’re full of hate or insecurity that manifests as aggressive behavior. Sometimes, some cops initially become cops for the authority and have power over others.

There is a Brotherhood of law enforcement officers. They watch each other’s backs, they protect each other, for good and bad. That gang mentality has to be in constant check. A lot of officers do that well, as they should, but a lot don’t.

Many, many years ago, three of my friends and I idiotically stole a Coke machine. I don’t know why. Maybe just to counteract the boredom of Lubbock, Texas. We were performing surgery on it in a cotton field when a cop shined a spotlight on us from the nearby highway. The driver friend peeled out and would have left us in the dust if the rest of us didn’t run and dive into the back of the moving pickup truck. The cop followed us into the plowed cotton field in his 5.0 liter Ford Mustang interceptor cop car. After a long game of high speed, hide and go seek, dangerously speeding through tiny neighborhoods and cotton fields, the driver friend gave up and pulled over to the side of the highway. There was also a very long line of intimidating police cars with flashing red and blue lights headed toward us.

Obviously we had broken the law. Obviously we had peacefully given up. Obviously we were going to jail. Obviously, we were going to be punished.

Minutes passed after we stopped on the shoulder of the highway. No officer had even approached us. We were all just waiting. I remember being ordered to stand up to be handcuffed while still in the back of the truck, and an officer deducing that we “pissed ourselves” because our pants were wet. Actually, Coke cans had exploded due to the vibration of the truck driving across the ruts of the cotton fields, that’s why we were soaked. After being cuffed, my friend and I were physically thrown out of the bed of the pickup, face down onto the gritty pavement. I was thrown on top of my friend and we were unable to move for a very long time.

At this point, we could not see anything but could hear the group of law enforcement officers having a murmured discussion about thirty feet away. My other two friends were patiently waiting to be arrested in the cab of the truck. All the officers were waiting for the cop that had originally found us to arrive in his limping Mustang to make the arrest. Brotherhood.

When he arrived, there was a brief discussion, then dead silence as footsteps approached the truck on both sides. I could hear scuffling but couldn’t see anything but pavement as our legs were becoming uncomfortably numb.

We were all eventually separately transported to the police station in individual police cars. My personal officer casually informed me that the cop chasing us was having trouble reaching his shotgun to disable the truck. I said he could have killed us riding in the back. He proudly said we would have been casualties and assured me it was all legal. Nice.

When we all briefly saw each other again in the booking area, the driver friend had obviously been beaten. We had heard it when it was happening, but now we got to see the results. His face was swollen and had been bleeding. He never looked up as he was escorted by, with two cops holding each handcuffed arm

As we sat on a bench waiting to be booked, the other friend that was in the cab of the truck had been un-cuffed and was removing loose hair from his head that had been pulled out by the arresting officers. He was holding a matted ball of hair the size of a baseball. His face was red and scuffed. My other friend and I had been removing road gravel from our faces while we waited. Our faces were scratched up.

I guess we had it coming. There were no complaints filed. Nobody ever said much about any of it. We all assumed this was normal and deserved. We were barely eighteen and nineteen years old. We were all raised to take our beating when we did something wrong. Old enough to know better, but not old enough to know police brutality.

It was a stolen Coke machine.

I can only imagine what might have been different if our skin color was different too.

Now the good cop story with a lot less detail.

Another time, in another town in Texas, I was detained overnight. They could have filed charges but didn’t. I was covered in my own blood, under age, alone, and intoxicated. They just gave me a place to clean up, sober up, and be safe. I had a private room with a comfortable mattress and a TV. The officers were all respectable and kind. It was like a motel and I was released the next day, refreshed and ready to get the Hell out of that town.

I can only imagine what might have been different if my skin color was too.

I’m amazed at how many people have opinions on race but know very little about people of color and our own country’s diversity and culture. I’m amazed at how many people don’t know they’re racist, especially because they might have a Black friend, or just know someone who is Black. It’s incredible to hear someone insist they’re not racist while they’re using racist slurs.

I grew up racist. I was being taught to be racist. Members of my friends and family told racist jokes and were noticeably on edge around Black and brown people. It took years for me to understand racism, and to this day I still have to evaluate myself.

I have finally realized that Im really only prejudiced towards stupid people. Skin color has absolutely nothing to do with it. Sorry stupid people.

I was lucky to be immersed in Black culture even though it was not intentional. I have a greater understanding now, but still far from an expert. I’m not even sure this next part is appropriate.

I ran a recording studio in East Nashville that naturally evolved into a mix-tape studio. It was a crash course in Black culture. One profound moment that made me highly aware, happened in a rap recording session. I almost always had a movie playing with subtitles to occupy the lulls and pass the time while an artist would work out lyrics or a beat. This particular night I was watching ‘Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?’ A movie set in the time period of the slowly emancipating South. There is a scene with the KKK and the attempted lynching of a Black man. It occurred to me that everyone in my studio had ancestors that lived something like that horrifying scene in real life. I suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable as I realized that I have an ancestor in Tennessee that was an actual slave owner, and everyone else had great grandfather’s that were actual slaves. As we were all watching the scene, I suddenly started to sweat and become flushed. I suddenly became strangely overwhelmed. Then I noticed that I was the only one who was profoundly affected by this moment. I thought it was strange that a room full of Black dudes could watch this and not be absolutely enraged. But I realized, they have dealt with it their whole lives and I had never even really considered it as a real thing. I’ve just kind of seen it as history in a movie. I calmed myself down and could only say out loud that I couldn’t believe that sh*t really happened. Everyone responded with, “Yeah”. I really wanted to say what I was feeling, that I’m sorry for what my great grandfather did, but that would have just been weird.

So when people say all the other things about racism, like reverse racism, or all lives matter, when they make excuses for bad cops, like saying that guy that was killed was a criminal, or try to divert the attention away from the immediate subject, like the police casualties of the protests, I don’t think they understand that it’s real. It’s horrible that cops and civilians are getting hurt and killed, but the protest is simply about police brutality and racism in our country. It’s the same thing they’ve been protesting for over fifty years. Fifty years!

It feels like a scene in a movie when it’s on TV or our phones. If you haven’t lived it, you can’t possibly know. You can’t possibly judge. You can only have empathy. Hopefully, you have empathy. These things are either right or wrong. Our nation is being confused and divided by everything right now. Race, religion, politics, wealth, and on and on.

There is only one division in America. Right and wrong.

Pick a side.