A workin’ man finally clocks out. During one drink-and-drug-soaked road trip I played one of his “greatest hits” tapes so often that my copilot yanked it out of the deck and threw it out the window.
I let him live. I didn’t want to turn 21 in prison doing life without parole. ‘Cause Mama tried.
Well, I didn’t manage 62 miles on my birthday. Nor did I ride 62 kilometers.
How’s 62 minutes sound to you?
Yeah, sounds that way to me, too.
But this morning I managed a run that lasted exactly half that time, and I reckon that’s the equivalent of 62 minutes on the bike. So I got that going for me, which is nice.
It wasn’t an entirely unproductive birthday. My burro-racing pal Hal Walter has expressed interest in doing a podcast, so I broke out all the old hardware and software and gave myself a refresher course in Podcasting 101.
Everything still works — though what Apple has done to GarageBand while I was otherwise occupied is matched only by what they’ve done to iMovie — and we may do a short test run tomorrow, if time, Skype and Call Recorder permit.
If we actually manage to slap something together, I’ll give you the 411 on the sumbitch. Expect it to be heavy on the works of Jim Harrison.
Damn. I go flying past 62 only to hear that Jim Harrison hit the binders at 78.
My burro-racing pal Hal Walter and I have been Harrison fans for years. Hal especially, since he’s an outdoorsman, as was Harrison; me, I just like to be outdoors, to no particular purpose.
We caught a Harrison reading once at The Colorado College — weird thing is, it was right around my birthday, if not on the actual day itself — and I recall Mr. Harrison being less than pleased with the book I asked him to autograph. Seems “Warlock” was never one of his faves.
I liked it, though, along with other tales: “The Man Who Gave Up His Name,” “Sundog,” “Wolf,” the “Brown Dog” stories and of course “Legends of the Fall.” His essay collection “Just Before Dark” is a keeper, too, as his collection of poetic correspondence with Ted Kooser, “Braided Creek.”
He’ll be missed, and not just by Hal and me. Bon voyage, Jim. Thanks for the tales, and for that autograph.
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.
It had completely slipped my mind, but Phil Austin actually dropped by the blog back in 2009 to squeeze the wheeze (honk honk) and tip us off to a quartet of shows The Firesign Theatre had scheduled in Hollywood.
He will be missed. And thanks to Mike Deme for sending me to Doctor Memory with this remembrance from Mike Tiano.
I have yet to hear word one from John Cleese.
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