Ramblings ..................................................... Notes, thoughts & thanks from John
September 26, 2007
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Thank you to Margo for inviting me to be an honored guest on CowboyPoetry.com, an exceptional, comprehensive and relevant web site that tirelessly chronicles the Cowboy poetry and Western music scene. Sharing the same cyberspace with Paul Zarzyski, Wally McRae, Baxter Black et al (even if I'm just crashing on the couch) is a great honor. CowboyPoetry.com receives 1.8 million hits a month -- so I figure that if only 10% of those guests visit my site, and half of them purchase a book or CD, and if two trains leave Chicago at the same time, the square root of the hypotenuse may prove that...I should just keep writing and forget the math (again).
Reading folks' memories of the much-loved cowboy poet, Colen Sweeten, on Cowboypoetry.com put me in mind of a quote from Samuel Johnson: "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good." I met Colen on my first visit to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada some years ago. At that time, I didn't have my beautiful family with me to make me seem interesting. So I shyly skulked about, invisible to most of the nice folks in attendance...except for Colen Sweeten who suddenly, out of the Nevada blue sky, initiated a conversation with me about seemingly everything that made me feel truly welcome in Elko and good about myself. I worried that the old feller must have thought I was someone else -- some old friend from a past gathering or something. But on subsequent visits to Elko, I would watch Colen working his magic with the Big Dogs as well as the nobodies like me. He was a true man and an inspiration.
Thanks to Mick Vernon who's been playing Twisted Vignettes on his Radio Ranch show on KNRY - Monterey, Salinas and Santa Cruz. Some of my biggest heroes called that part of the country home, including Ansel Adams and Bill Dorrance. I once drove my '57 Chevy pickup through that spectacular scenery in hopes of absorbing some of the things that made Ansel, Ansel and Bill, Bill. So far, I'm still John (singular), but their influence on me through books and photographs is quite deep. Driving around Monterey with no power steering or power brakes did give me an appreciation for gravity, some modern conveniences and, I suppose at some level, auto insurance as I stared through my white knuckles at all manner of Lexees and Mercedees, pumping the brakes frantically and praying to Ansel and Bill for stopping power.
September 10, 2007
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A very special thanks to Deb Robiscoe at KGLT in Bozeman for the great show on Thursday, playing five tracks off of Twisted Vignettes. KGLT is a listener-supported radio station that is broadcast all around the state of Montana and on the internet. Deb's weekly show is one of the best I've ever heard, hands down. The fact that she can even think of playing five cuts from the same artist in one three-hour show is a testament to how great KGLT really is. Somewhere in their lair, deep in the bowels of some cold flourescent-bathed office building, Clear Channel's research department felt inexplicably & collectively nauseus last Thursday between 9:00 a.m. and noon...at least I hope they did!
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