“I wouldn’t be doing any of it if it weren’t for writing,” he said, looking back on his career, in a 2006 interview with the online magazine Country Standard Time.
“I never would have gotten to make records if I didn’t write. I wouldn’t have gotten to tour without it. And I never would’ve been asked to act in a movie if I hadn’t been known as a writer.”
“Writer” was the occupation listed on Mr. Kristofferson’s passport.
A writer indeed. The Old Gray Lady has the obit.
The whole “Your Daily Don” thing never really took off, did it?
Honestly, the less I think about Darth Cheeto and his new droid, Clockwork Orange, the happier I seem to be.
Speak of the devil and he appears, as the saying goes. So let’s not and hope he doesn’t.
There are other ways to pass the time. Jogging. Hiking. Cycling down to the bosque to gauge the color of the cottonwoods (not quite spectacular yet).
And reading about the newish editor and vice president of the Albuquerque Journal, who apparently is doing 10 days in the clink on a shoplifting rap.
Whatever is the world coming to? I’m old enough to remember when only reporters, photographers, and copy editors were so poorly paid that they had to steal to make ends meet.
The Journal may be so hard up it can’t even afford a poorly paid copy editor. My tribe goes unmentioned in the “Contact Us” section of the Journal‘s ghastly website, though I found a “design desk” with four people on it, or under it, depending on whether they’re still sharp enough to steal booze. And two assistant city editors but no actual city editor. Maybe s/he’s in jail too.
That the Journal apparently has no copy desk wasn’t news to me. Not after I saw the story refer to Patrick Ethridge as “editor in chief”, “executive editor,” and “Executive Editor” (in the “Contact Us” lineup, Ethridge is called, simply, “editor”) and report that he was serving “10 days” or “ten days” in the calaboose.
These are peccadillos that even the most poorly paid, knee-walking-drunk, one-eyed copy editor could catch on the first pass through the story from underneath the design desk between attempts to grope one or more of the designers. When one sees these tiny turds floating in the bowl one wonders what monstrosities lurk beneath.
Miss Mia Sopaipilla thinks it’s a good day to leave the bike parked and hang around indoors, where there are suddenly fewer people to distract The Help from its primary mission, which is the care, feeding, and amusement of (wait for it) Miss Mia Sopaipilla.
The sisters-in-law have departed, and an air-quality alert has arrived.
I thought I smelled smoke last evening, and sure enough, fire managers from the Santa Fe National Forest apparently have begun prescribed burns.
Not a word about it from The New Mexican or the Albuquerque Journal, of course. I had to find out by checking the New Mexico Fire Information website, which I assume is available to our local newspuppies as well.
Even the TV nitwits managed to figure it out, probably after a few of their talking heads bitched during makeup about how their eyes were all itchy and red. Is it the eyeliner? Nope.
At least the Rio hasn’t risen up on its hind legs and started chasing us around, the way the ocean has on the right side of the country.
I knew I didn’t want to live anywhere in hurricane country after seeing “Key Largo.” If the ocean isn’t trying to kill you, Edward G. Robinson is. Here’s hoping our readers in that neck of the mangrove swamps are sitting high and dry.
A friend and neighbor who’s lived here longer than me and grown bored with The Duck! City menu of cycling possibilities proposed we try something a wee bit off the beaten path this week.
And so we motored up NM-337 a ways, parked at the Otero Canyon Trailhead, hopped aboard our trusty cyclocross bikes, and took a 21-mile tour of the rolling back alleys to the east and south, beginning with Juan Tomas Road and ending with Oak Flat Road.
Phil had warned me that we were headed for some steep, gnarly bits that could only be described as “roads” because they were passable by horse or halftrack. But they weren’t any worse than some of the knee- and tire-popping Paris-Roubaix-style bighorn-sheep circuits I used to wrangle in CusterTucky County, so I got along just fine on the old Steelman Eurocross with its new 34x32T low end and 33mm Donnelly MXPs.
To be sure, long stretches were steep as medical bills, with ruts that may recently have channeled hot lava, enough bad lines for a Sylvester Stallone film festival emceed by Carrot Top, and more baby-heads than the basement of the John Wayne Gacy Memorial Montessori School in Hell, if your idea of a baby is a 45-year-old Scandinavian blacksmith who dabbles in professional wrestling, rugby, and steroids.
But we saw plenty of wildflowers, and the motorists were mostly parked, hunting piñon.
Oak Flat dumped us back onto NM-337, just below the Morning Star Grocery, and we had a fine, high-speed plummet to our parking spot. As roller-coaster rides go it was worth the price of admission and then some.
There hasn’t been much time for bloggery lately, with Herself’s sisters in town for an extended visit.
Having four females in the house, a fella hardly gets a minute to catch his breath, much less his thoughts.
To be fair, Miss Mia Sopaipilla likewise found her routine disrupted. The three sisters held their morning war councils at the kitchen table, which is the second step of Miss Mia’s ascension to the countertop, the first step being a stool. So instead of being all cute on the countertop she’d find some acoustically appropriate corner of El Rancho Pendejo to announce her annoyance.
Man, does her voice ever carry. Miss Mia may be a senior citizen, but she can still hit the high notes.
Anyway, that’s my excuse for the lack of “content” around here lately. (The fine weather for cycling may have played some small role.) We’re down one sister as of this morning — Heather flew back to Tennessee — but Beth will be with us for a couple more days, so I anticipate a continuing hitch in my digital gitalong.
The good news is, you can fill the lonely hours with the latest from Hal Walter, who is collaborating with son Harrison on a project that is something of a work in progress. “The Blur Goes to College: Full Tilt Boogie Too” is intended to be a book, eventually; in the meantime, they’re rolling it out on Substack, in serial form. Writes Hal:
It’s part comedy and part tragedy, part train wreck, part triumph. Moreover, this is a story of empathy and compassion, and exploring the rights of people with so-called “intellectual disabilities.” We wanted to get the story out as soon as possible. We hope you enjoy this serialized rollout on Substack as we finish the book and eventually get it into print.
If you enjoy what you see, you can subscribe to have chapters delivered by email. If you’d like to support the project, donations are gratefully accepted via Venmo @Hal-Walter (phone# 8756).
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