Saturday, September 27, 2008

Crimson White
Sidewalk Film Festival preview
Alabama natives return with 'Skiptracers'
Ryan Mazer
Lifestyles Editor

Published: Friday, September 26, 2008
Updated: Friday, September 26, 2008

After leaving their home state of Alabama, Harris Mendheim and Andy Stuckey have led successful lives in New York’s entertainment world. But no longer satisfied by their current success, the two will be revisiting the state to throw it in Alabamians’ faces.
What Alabama did to warrant this mass face-rubbing is unknown. But comfort can be taken in the short duration of their stay. The two will be in Birmingham for the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, where they will screen their comedy film, “Skiptracers.”
According to Stuckey, a UA alumnus who co-wrote the screenplay and played the role of Rusty, the film is about “bail-bonding brothers and their pee wee football coaches” and is inspired by true stories from Alabama.
Mendheim, director and co-writer, said the main characters of the film were inspired by members of his family.
“It’s kind of loosely based on my uncle and my two cousins. They’re bail bondsmen down in Dothan,” he said.
The filmmakers lifted other true stories from Alabama as well, one of which took place at the University.
“Go to the Museum of Natural History and you will find a meteorite there that, in 1957, hit a woman. So the stars literally fell on Alabama,” Stuckey said. “We took that story and embellished it.”
The idea for the film had been gestating for about six years before production began.“While I was an [NBC] page, me and Harris, who was at Georgia Tech at the time, knew we wanted to make movies and decided we would just make a movie together and that would be our film school,” Stuckey said.
“We made a movie about a mullet toss and it ended up being a little bit of a cult hit,” he said. “That was back when VHS tapes were being passed around. So that’s where Harris and I first started working together. And shortly after that, we started talking about ‘Skiptracers.’”
Referring to the initial idea, Mendheim said, “I thought the idea of what my cousin did for a living was pretty funny. So this is my first attempt to immortalize my family on the screen.”Over the years, the screenplay went through a series of rewrites.
“The more we rewrote it, the crazier it got,” Stuckey said.
Stuckey said the film expresses his feelings about the South.
“The only place we could have ever done this movie is in Alabama,” he said.“Skiptracers” screens Saturday night at 6:30 at the Alabama Showplace.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

From the keyboard of Buddy Buie:

RR......I hope this post finds you fat and happy. I'm being a good prisoner in my isolation room at the LONG TERM ACUTE CARE
wing of Southeast Alabama Medical Center. FYI - George Wallace Jr. came by to visit for about an hour. I can have an occasional
visitor but they must wear a plastic gown and rubber gloves. I did a session on George when he was about 15 and we have stayed
in touch. He still loves to sing and play and has a little studio where he and his buddies pick and grin. He told me he was through
with politics. Coming from such a controversial family and growing up in a fish bowl, he seems totally unaffected. We talked about
his daddy and mama but the subject always turned back to music. I was humbled that he took time to visit and show concern for my
health.

l have faith that I'll be good as new when I finish my treatment. Every now and then I start feeling sorry for myself, then I think about
people who have it so much worse. Millions of cancer patients, accident victims,etc. would love to trade places. I feel fortunate to
have great doctors, wonderful friends, and the love of God

Keep Rockin'
Buddy

BTW I was thrilled yesterday when Paul Finebaum called to wish me well. BB

Wednesday, September 24, 2008


Jim From Tuscaloosa, Star of Stage, Screen & FINEBAUM.
Pictured here a 17 yr. old JIM FROM TUSCALOOSA in '62 with his sister, two brothers & Daddy.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Iowa City police say a man who was driving drunk tried to bribe a police officer — with a sandwich.

Police say 25-year-old Mark Booth
of Iowa City, was charged with drunken driving early Sunday morning.

Police say he was pulled over after an officer saw him driving with his headlights off.

Police say that Booth was riding with a police officer in a squad car when he offered the officer free sub sandwiches if he could go home.

The officer declined.

Yo, Roberto:

Enjoying your e-mails from out in the Pacific, somewhere SW of Monterey! Aboard to do a blog and later story on research being done by a team of FSU oceanographers. Share my blog with the group, if it's your pleasure: http://www.rinr.fsu.edu/GoesToSea

cheers, from the R/V Point Sur, and Roll Tide!

F

THE HOUSTON COUNTY HERITAGE ASSOCIATION


Dear Friends,
If you are not interested, simply delete this email. Your input is needed, however, in writing a true history of Houston County. You have pictures, etc., stories of your family no one else has. It is a shame that they might be lost to history. If you don't have time for a meeting, we understand. Write up what you have when you have time and email them to us at your convenience. The internet is such a wonderful opportunity for community. Share, if you will, in our discussion at ftp://houstoncountyalabamaheritage.blogspot.com. (A BLOG is an ongoing conversation online on certain topics...ours is Houston County History. My daughter informed me about setting this up...kudos to Brooke Ramsey Evans. Hopefully hometown folks from around the world will share in our discussion and their pictures.)
The Houston County Heritage Association will meet again at Deli-N-Delites on Wednesday October 8th at 12:00.

Please notice the picture I have included with this email.
It is a picture of Frank Gaines' grandfather, Frank Moss Gaines, Sr. who moved here in 1902. He can be seen in his law office above the S.R.M. Store in 1906. A portrait of William Jennings Bryan hanging on the wall. This picture tells a story. If you have pictures of ancestors or early days of Dothan, please bring them with you to the meeting in a folder or large envelope with your name, address and telephone number. Label the back of the pictures as to who, what, when, and where. Frank and I will take these pictures and scan them and then bring them back to the next meeting. Do not be shy.
Visit our website. http://www.southern-style.com/Southeast%20Alabama%20Heritage%20Association/About%20SEAHA%201.htm I have added several family genealogies...Saliba, Blumberg, etc. I have also added more pictures. As we acquire the pictures and the information about these pioneer families we can use them in the history books we put together. Somehow those precious pictures seem to get lost or orphaned with the passage of time or in the bowels of some institution while someone somewhere needs the picture for genealogical or scholarly purposes.
Attached you will find a questionnaire I made out to send to attorneys who have practiced law here for a long time. Perhaps you are a family member who can fill out this form and fill in the gaps on these people. Do not assume that anyone has been contacted. Please help us by getting these questionnaires into the hands of those who can answer these questions, before we lose those who have those memories. This information will help Julia Trant, Tom Sorrell, Joel Ramsey and me when we start writing the "History of the Houston County Bar."
If you can join me at 10:00 that morning (October 8) at Landmark Park, I plan to be in the library with my computer cataloguing the biographies Evelyn Isbell had members of the pioneer families write.
Frank Gaines book Preserving the Past for the Present is now available for $25. Frank's email is FGainesiii@aol.com. He will have the books at the meeting. You might also want to pick up a Dothan Magazine. There are many fine articles there, but one pertaining to Dothan history and the pictures is the Looking Back section in the back that Robin and Nick have given me the privilege of writing. Those of you in this group have been very helpful in helping me identify pictures and make them come alive.
Thank you for participating in the gathering information about our town's past.
Sincerely,
Sharman Ramsey




THE MAL THURSDAY SHOW #8: Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush
This time out, we've got a very special episode for you, much like The Mal Thursday Show #6: The Girl-Getters, as we salute the 1968 film Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush. It's all about a boy named Jamie, played by Barry Evans, who's keen to lose his virginity at the earliest possible opportunity. We'll be telling the story with excerpts from the soundtrack, and the music of various British and American beat groups.

Presented in Living Monophonic Sound.

Available for download at
Garagepunk.com and via iTunes
Playlist:

THE BOLD: Gotta Get Some
TRAFFIC: Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush
THE COUNSELORS: Love Go Round
MITCH RYDER & THE DETROIT WHEELS: Shakin' With Linda
SPENCER DAVIS GROUP
: Looking Back/Caroline's Waltz (bed)

THE SPARROW: You Can't Make Love By Yourself
STEPPENWOLF: 28
THE PRIMITIVES: Cara-Lin
THE COASTERS: Girls! Girls! Girls!
THE NONCHALANTS: I Wanna Do It

DMZ: First Time is the Best Time
KAMA DEL SUTRA: She Taught Me Love
THE BIRDWATCHERS: Mary, Mary
SPENCER DAVIS GROUP: Possession
TRAFFIC: Am I What I Was or Was I What I Am
ANDY ELLISON: It's Been a Long Time




J.M. Dobies
Writer/Producer/Host
FLORIDA ROCKS AGAIN!
THE MAL THURSDAY SHOW
SURREAL CINEMA
904.806.4934
512.297.2320
BLOG! by JM Dobies
Garagepunk.com Podcasts
Reviews at Viewpoints.com

SKIPTRACERS will be shown Saturday in B'ham and the first weekend in October in Athens.



http://sidewalk.bside.com/2008/films/skiptracers_sidewalk2008

http://dixie.bside.com/2008/films/skiptracers_dixie2008


ZYGONE
Wanta yak with the Capn? Click on:
YAK
Give them what they want. Give them their money's worth.
-- skypilotclub motto
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
R.I.P. Paul Newman 1925-2008

by Ken Babbs

When they were filming Sometimes A Great Notion over at the coast, Kesey and George Walker and I drove over to watch them shoot. Kesey and I were in my car and George followed in his psychedelic painted Lotus convertible.

The shoot was up on a landing, a long winding road, rising above the low clouds to a scarred flat top with a spectacular view of the ocean and town down below.

They were just finishing up and we met Paul Newman and talked and he said, "Let's go down to the tavern for a beer. They're shooting a scene with Henry Fonda." He looked at George. "You want to race? Loser buys the beers."

Nothing would make George happier. Paul turned toward his Corvette, then paused and over his shoulder said to George, "Ask Clarence there if he'd like to ride with you."

When George looked around for Clarence Paul sprinted to his car, started up and gunned down off the landing, George, realizing he'd been had, took off in hot pursuit. After that it wasn't a race because the road was one lane and there was no place to pass. Frustrated, all George could do was stay tight on Paul's rear end.

There was good natured razzing and bellyaching in the parking lot outside the tavern. Inside, there was a break in the shooting. Henry Fonda was pacing by himself, his arm in a cast, bent at the elbow, you remember the scene in the movie, he's playing pool and whirls around and catches a guy in the chest with his rigid elbow, knocks him ass over teakettles.

When on the job, Henry did not shmooze or talk to anyone, stayed by himself, locked into his role. Paul Newman, on the other hand, was wide open friendly, drinking beer and yakking, joined me in a game of nine-ball, continuing conversations all through the game. Yes, he won, and I paid for the next round.

A few days later, Kesey went over by himself and spent the night on the Joe Ben- trapped-in-the-water-by-a-log-shoot. It was done in a big tank, Kesey told me, and they filmed all night. They drank a whole case of scotch and never got drunk, the shoot was so intense.

Kesey and Newman became good friends and whenever Kesey and his wife, Faye, were in New York they got together with Paul and his wife, Joanne Woodward.

It was fitting they became friends for, when Kesey was in Hollywood after graduating from college, hoping to get into the movies, he was a Paul Newman lookalike. Their paths diverged, Kesey into writing, Newman into acting, then their paths merged, Kesey's book becoming one of Newman's movies. Similar guys. Strong men. Independent and successful.


FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2008

Inane Answers to Astute Questions

by Ken Babbs

1) Could you tell us about your early life?

Rapscallion child, football basketball and baseball and trombone in Ohio high school near Lake Erie for summer beach parties and campouts by the railway pond where the steam locomotives sucked up their water. Basketball at Miami U in Ohio, two NCAA teams, turned on to writing by Walter Havighurst, a master.

2) When did you meet Ken Kesey?

After Miami, went to the Stanford graduate writing program, 1958, and there was Kesey and Wendell Berry and Ed McClanahan and Larry McMurtry and Bob Stone and other luminaries.

3) What about him impressed you when you met him?

He had already heard of me, from when I was in North Beach a week earlier at blabbermouth at The Place, ranting and cajoling on the open mike. Feted me off my sweep.

4) Could you tell us about the formation of The Merry Pranksters?

It would take a while. Quickly, we were friends who met around Stanford and continued to trip and produce works together. Tom Wolfe made us well known with his book EKAT which gussied up our bus trip in '64 to New York and back which we documented on film and tape and you can now get that film from www.key-z.com, Kesey's son Zane's website.

5) Did you meet up with Timothy Leary in your travels? Could you tell
us about him? or Stanley Owsley?

Leary we met at IFIF on the bus trip in '64, when he shook Kesey's and my hands and we agreed to collaborate in our efforts to save the world, continued to meet him and do public and private appearances with him, become good friends with him, a super person. Owsley, I knew from the Dead, got to know him real well, too.

6) What did yourself and Ken hope to accomplish with the staging of
happenings and is there something missing from today's art that was present in the
1960's. In other words could you explain this need or want to shift reality for people, to shock them or maybe if you want to say "wake them up"?

Wake them up, yes. And once awake, keep them awake, use your skills as performer, wizard, magician, raconteur, teacher, up out of the chairs, on your feet, get to work, help other people out, raise your consciousness, respect all others, be kind, humor works all the time.

(To be continued)



SHE'S JUST MY STYLE

Every time I see her she don't even look my way,
Maybe she will notice me, but then what would I say?
I would say what's on my mind,
But the words are hard to find,
But I'm gonna try to tell her anyway.

Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's fine, so fine.

Other guys who meet her may not think she's much to see,
I can't begin to tell you what she always does to me,
Maybe it's the clothes she wears,
Or the way she combs her hair,
Oh, that makes me want to tell her that I care.

Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's fine, so fine.

(Guitar Solo)

Maybe it's the clothes she wears,
Or the way she combs her hair,
Oh, that makes me want to tell her that I care.

Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's fine, so fine.

Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild,
Don't you know that she's just my style,
Everything about her drives me wild...

Monday, September 22, 2008

Hey y'all~

Received this email from Jennifer http://dhstigers68.com/3/gallery.htm
today:
Our very own Kirby Moore (DHS Class of '63) will be the honorary captain for the Ala-Ga game this Saturday night.

1965 |
_
Georgia upset national champion Alabama, 18-17, in the opening game and then shocked mighty Michigan, fresh off a Rose Bowl appearance, 15-7, in Ann Arbor. Trailing the Crimson Tide 17- 10 with two minutes remaining, Dooley called the “flea flicker” play that saw Kirby Moore pass to Pat Hodgson, who made a quick lateral to Bob Taylor who went 73 yards for a touchdown. Georgia still trailed 17-16, hit Moore passed to Hodgson for the decisive two-point conversion.


I'VE BEEN COLLECTING SOME RANDOM IMAGES THAT I WANT TO PUT ON THE WEB SO I'M TAKING THIS OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE 'EM WITH Y'ALL:



image courtesy of ROBERTOREG'S ATLAS OF ALABAMA http://atlasofalabama.blogspot.com


I Know IT'S MY CHRISTIAN DUTY To F*CKIN' Find A Way To Forgive You Sorry Bastards But I Can't Ever Forget!



Jr.


The Frist Time Lynn Swann Was On The Front Page Of The TUSCALOOSA NEWS


Mr. Stiles also owned THE OLD DUTCH


This Was About The Time Jr. Bought His Tires @ JACK WISE TIRE CO.
located in Dothan on U.S. Hwy 84 West across from THE ALABAMA STATE HATCHERY.




Farewell, COUSIN CLIFF!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

If ya like ghost stories, dis one have'zzzzzzzzzz a Register in it!

http://www.ghostinmysuitcase.com/places/kings/index.htm

Click on the above to read 'bout dah ghostizizziz!

Found this postcard tonight of KING'S TAVERN

& the details on the reverse of the postcard state, "Home of Mrs. A.C. Register and family. Built in the early 1700's.
It is oldest house in Mississippi. (ed. note: Oldest in Alabama [formally part of MS Territory], too!)
Understood to have been constructed as a French block-house of Fort Rosalie. Loop-holes in upper rooms suggest the days when Indians roamed through the forest surrounding it.
Late made into a tavern, the oldest now in existence on the Natchez Trace.
Long lower room is the old bar, or tap-room, where assembled historic characters of the time.



Bear Country

Fri., Jan 09 to Sun., Feb 15

http://www.asf.net/ticket/production_detail.aspx?perf=6360


What if you had the opportunity to get up close and personal with legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant? In ASF’s production of Bear Country—you can. Sit in the stands and absorb the wit, wisdom and life journey of a man who rose from being the child of dirt poor sharecroppers to become an Alabama icon and the national standard by which college football coaches are judged.



ALL THE STUFF BELOW IS COURTESY OF

SHAKE IT UP TIMES!
http://shakeituptimes.blogspot.com/

Please enjoy the YouTube clips from the ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL'S Production of

WEST SIDE STORY


from http://shakeituptimes.blogspot.com/

Tony and Maria singing "Tonight"

Good morning bloggers!

Here's another snippet from the press junket on 7/9. Tony and Maria singing "Tonight (Balcony scene)" in the rehearsal hall. Enjoy!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Karen Azenberg talks about West Side Story

Good morning bloggers!

I know, this is the same post that I put up a few days ago then took down again. I thought I had a mistake in the video, only to find out that it was correct. So, in the way of OK-Go, here we go again! This is an interview done with Karen Azenberg a week before West Side Story opened. And wow, was it ever a party yesterday! The show is amazing and the after party was spectacular. Kudos to the amazing Meg for getting all of that together.

And now on to the interview!

M~

Did you know that I talk to you all the time?
IN MY HEAD!!!!

A waiter comes up to his table full of Jewish women.
"Is ANYTHING all right here?"

Anywayzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Wanna try to make up for talkin' nasty to you THIS AFTERNOON...

I do have a stragedy to ovuhcum
dah tragedy
uv DUH eboneze-like ebonological relationship wid dis thang called "POOT".

It is simply a question of my valididating my eboneze/ebonological ethninticity & tell 'EM to,
"Cut that shit out!"

I'm working on it.

END OF DISCUSSION!


ANYWAYZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

You gotta know I'm excited about SKYP TRACERS http://www.skiptracersmovie.com/

& & BEAR COUNTRY

Bear Country

By Michael Vigilant

Octagon Stage

Jan. 14, 20, 21, 27, 28; Feb. 3, 4, 10, 11

What if you had the opportunity to get up close and personal with legendary University of Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant? In ASF's production of Bear Country—you can. Sit in the stands and absorb the wit, wisdom and life journey of a man who became an Alabama icon and the national standard by which college football coaches are judged. Grades 9 - 12.




O.K.

Gotta report numbers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YpVtW4cKvo
Rite now Wilbur's got 3456 views on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCAq3D-AAbU

Buddy Buie & J.R. Cobb's video from Tommy Wilcox Outdoors using song called THE DAY BEAR BRYANT DIED has 8023 views


I gotta tell this...
This buddy of mine was disappointed this afternoon because one of our friends was not going to show up tomorrow.

I decided to stir the mud~

I said,"Well, he's shunning you. He ain't got a friend
RIGHT NOW in Tuscaloosa
& he damn sho' ain't got one in his
OWN
hometown."

My buddy said,
"Yeah, you right.
He was born
WITH A SILVER SPOON STUCK UP HIS ASS!!!!"

NOW GIT DIS!!!!

This playwright named Mike Vigilant has done a play on Coach Bryant.

He explained it on YouTube & right now he has 7 views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl6KudQVAbw

courtesy of http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/LIFESTYLE/805110304
PLAYWRIGHT RAISES CRIMSON CURTAIN ON FOOTBALL LEGEND


It's among (ed. note: SAY WHAT?!!!!)
~the most daunting- and inspiring tasks Michael Vigilant has ever attempted~

His new play, "Bear Country," spotlights an Alabama legend, Paul "Bear" Bryant, a wise and witty man who rose from his dirt-poor beginnings to becoming the standard by which college football coaches are judged.

"It's a daunting project because of the feelings (University of) Alabama fans and players have toward Coach Bryant," said Vigilant, a playwright who is also chief operating officer at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. "He changed his players' lives. They were different people when they left the program. They were champions on the field and winners in life."

And nobody has to tell Vigilant just how important it is to get Bryant's story right. While researching his subject, he has come to know many of Bryant's former players and others with close connections. Early on, when one of the former players heard about Vigilant's plans, he said, "That's great, but you better do it right!"

What impressed Vigilant most was the fact that even now, 40 years after playing for Bryant, these men still think of their coach, think of him every day.

"I can see feelings well up in their chests and their tears," the playwright said.

On Friday, "Bear Country" will have its first public reading as part of ASF's Southern Writers' Project Festival of New Plays, giving audience members an opportunity to attend and offer feedback.

According to the Paul W. Bryant Museum in Tuscaloosa, Bryant was national coach of the year three times, Southeastern Conference coach of the year eight times, coached six national championship teams, became the "winningest" coach in the history of college football in November 1981 and retired from coaching with 323 victories.

As impressive as he was on the field, Bryant's greatest accomplishment may have been the impact he made on his players and devoted fans.

With "Bear Country," Vigilant hopes to capture the spirit of this remarkable man.

Vigilant, who is originally from the West Coast, has spent the past couple of decades writing and producing plays and musicals, and he has published more than a dozen of his works, including "Cindy Cinderella" and "The Wedding Ring."

Before joining the ASF family, he was a playwright resident and public relations manager at Michigan's Meadow Brook Theatre.

He also was chief operating officer and marketing director for Detroit's historic Music Hall, where he worked with such performers as Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach and Smokey Robinson. While on the Music Hall staff, Vigilant also served as chief operating officer and marketing director for the Detroit International Jazz Festival, North America's largest free jazz event.

A big sports fan, Vigilant loves football and was fully aware of Bryant and his accomplishments. And like Bryant, Vigilant has wrestled a bear. A real bear. Bryant was about 14-years-old when he agreed to wrestle a bear for $1. He earned the dollar, but the bear and its owner left town before paying up. Vigilant was a junior in college when he wrestled Victor the 640-pound bear to raise money for charity.

This experience is one of the reasons Nancy Rominger, ASF's associate director, thought Vigilant would do a great job on the play about Bryant.

"When you look at an idea for a commission, you want a playwright who can do it with honesty and treat the subject with respect," she said.

Several months ago, during a table reading of "Bear Country," Rominger said it received positive reactions. On Friday, she will have an opportunity to see what Vigilant has done since then, and she's really looking forward to that.

But few people are as eager to see "Bear Country" than Young J. Boozer III, ASF's board chairman. Bryant was his honorary godfather and his daughter's godfather. Bryant and Boozer's father, the late Young Boozer Jr., formed a close and lasting friendship when they were roommates and teammates at the University of Alabama.

Boozer admits he was taken aback when he first heard of the commission and said, "You're taking on quite a task."

Being so close to Bryant and his family, Boozer was more than willing to help Vigilant gather information, provide some perspective and connect him with players and other people who would have intimate knowledge of Bryant.

"He (Vigilant) can't afford to get it wrong. There are too many people who knew him and about his life," Boozer said. "But Mike is a great writer and has just the right feel. I have no doubt that when he finishes, it will be right."
Anywayzzzzzzzzzzz....

It's knowing that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleeping bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the backroads
By the rivers of my mem'ry
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

It's not clinging to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that binds me
Or something that somebody said
Because they thought we fit together walking
It's just knowing that the world will not be cursing
Or forgiving when I walk along some railroad track and find
That you are moving on the backroads
By the rivers of my mem'ry
And for hours you're just gentle on my mind

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman crying to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me 'til I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see you walkin' on the backroads
By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup back from the gurglin'
Cracklin' caldron in some train yard
My beard a roughning coal pile and
A dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands 'round a tin can
I pretend I hold you to my breast and find
That you're waving from the backroads
By the rivers of my mem'ry
Ever smilin' ever gentle on my mind

http://www.johnhartford.com/index.cfm

Luv ya!
best,
r

P.S.
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a
new order of things."

Niccolo Machiavelli

Hey y'all:
I already had my peak experience for 2008...
YESTERDAY!!!!

Pompeii :Tales From An Eruption
http://www.pompeiibirmingham.com/index2.html
has the potential to transform.

It did it for me.

I can recall no time since my father's death on September 14, 1972
where
I kept that man almost constantly in my thoughts for at least three days.

Pompeii was a big thing in my family.
We had the bell from the Isle of Capri.
We had the bronze model of the Roman Coliseum...

but the thang
that weirded me out
WHEN I WAS AN INFANT
was that statue of Romulus and Remus.

image courtesy of http://worldhistory1b.homestead.com/files/rome_ga_romulus_and_remus.jpg

When it came to Romulus & Remus and Pompeii,
Daddy would always look at me with this evil little grin and say,
"Remember Bob, there ain't nothin' new under the sun."

My son is gonna get us tickets for Saturday or Sunday on Ticketron or something because I don't know about that stuff.
{Christopher is real hip at buying tickets.First time Christopher ever went to a rock concert, we were catering a WIDESPREAD PANIC SHOW http://www.widespreadpanic.com/
at Coleman Coliseum & I took Christopher when he just a little boy to the sound check. He immediately put his hands over his ears & WE HAD TO LEAVE! Now he's already been to 9 WIDESPREAD PANIC shows on his own!GO FIGURE!}

I got the book that describes the exhibition.
POMPEII: TALES FROM AN ERUPTION http://www.pompeiibirmingham.com/tales/tales_from_eruption.html
To have this material here is something all of Alabama can be proud of & we hope it'll
help REGIONS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_Center
through the session they're about to go through. {TEE-Heee!}

To me, this exhibit is the most superb thing that's ever happened here.
DON'T MISS IT!!!!

Christopher & Bob are going to the 'Ham fo' Pompeii dis weekend!

Guess Christopher & Bob are also gonna have to be heading down to Mobile soon for the opening of BODIES

at the Explorium. http://bodiestheexhibition.com




OUR BODY: The Universe Within Exhibition Gives Gulf Coast Audiences a Revealing Look at the World's Most Complex Machine-- The Human Body


Extraordinary anatomical exhibition featuring real human bodies opens January 11

MOBILE, ALA. — OUR BODY: The Universe Within, an awe-inspiring blockbuster exhibit featuring actual human bodies will premiere at the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center on January 11, 2008. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness the elegant design of the human body's form and function up-close in an artful, compelling and dignified environment.



From DEVIL MAKE A THIRD page 122:

"Damned jackass weather. Three days till Christmas and winter still ain't headed up."

The weather never did make up its mind in Aven. Most places in the world had four seasons of the year. In Aven, though, God had given them only two seasons, summer and winter. Spring couldn't be called a season proper because spring frolicked right into summer so sweetly it was like a twinkle in a child's eye just suddenly being
a smile. And autumn! Autumn was a faker in a red and yellow jacket whose flaunted colors faded and ran in the first winter rain. Then winter wouldn't make up its mind until it was almost past time for it. December would come along and the calender would say it was time for frost to sweeten the persimmons, but the soft winds from the Gulf would tell the possums to wait a little longer near the burdening tree on the fence line, and the hot sun would say there wasn't much use in hilling your sweet potatoes. The farmers would come in the store all out of heart, eyeing the meat block and growling, "By killin' time, the hogs'll 've et up all the corn an' there won't be no meal to eat with the meat."

GIT YOU A COPY OF
Devil Make A Third
& ya might learn something 'bout yo' OWN DAMN
self!


Best,
RR http://myspace.com/robertoreg