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Agriculture, skepticism, politics

Cold Beer Boys

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Gumby’s rocked balls. Fantastic show. Great feeling coming off Judge’s. Thanks to the Cold Beer Boys for the show and Chris Deines for making a special trip from Topeka to run our sound board.

The Cold Beer Boys were great. They were even better than I thought they would be.

gumbys
Aaron Traffas and Jim Billinger

Thanks to everyone who made this show our best ever.

I downloaded RealOne player–Wait! Let me finish!—I downloaded the damn thing to watch the video from the farm on Mike McClure’s website. Note to McClure: RealPlayer blows. It really does. I promptly removed it from my computer. I’ll spend the next weeks removing bits and pieces of it from my registry. Icky.

I called the Willmore Opry to see about getting a spot out there. They’re booked through spring. I think it’s time to send the secret weapon.

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If I don't cry tonight…

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I was flipping through the channels last night before going to sleep and I caught President Clinton giving an address at the Kennedy Center. He spoke about what he’d done in Africa since he’s left office while making jokes (quite tasteful and funny) about the current administration. I cried. I really did. I cannot understand how in the hell so many people despised this president. I realize that he wasn’t the most admirable person, but I hope that some day I’ll see another president as great as Clinton was.

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What am I going to do…take the blame?

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Greetings from lovely Bellefont, KS. My little vacation from the dull drudgery of workaday tidal waves should include some songwriting, soul-searching, and plotting, not to mention some good old fashioned farmer-engineering.

Had an interesting show Saturday night. While I think it went well, there were few people there. This was due to, I believe, advertising and competition from one of the Octoberfests and a show by Blaine Younger in Lincoln. No matter…we booked another in November.

I went to Dodge City last night for some food. I don’t remember being so scared for my life. Everyone was driving around with modified cars and writing on the windows that I didn’t understand, blasting hate and base and sending dirty thoughts my way. I went to Burger King and the only person I could understand was the guy that took my order. I saw someone ask for napkins and the person working there gave her a blank stare until she re-asked the question in Spanish. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs when the employees of an establishment don’t understand simple English. I’d heard of it happening, but I guess I didn’t expect it in Kansas.

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Should it really be that hard

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Should it really take an educated man 7 minutes to figure out how to get sound to come from a TV? We have such an advanced entertainment system at my house that it took me that long to ascertain which remote control to use, learn that the volume on the TV was “fixed”, find a different remote, cycle through the input selection four times, hit some other buttons…finally, I selected “analog” and lost my hearing.

Had a rather wild night last night…attended two birthday parties and two bars…paying now as I pack to get ready for Victoria tonight. I wish I were more excited about playing tonight. We’ll see how well this has been advertised and then I might be more excited. I don’t expect to be.

I’ve found myself again

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I feel like my old self. I spent the night after the auction drinking alone and watching the new Star Trek: Enterprise episodes. T’Pol’s new hair cut and uniforms kick ass…the new security crew also is quite impressive.

I talked to Julie for quite some time tonight…just like old times sitting on the porch and drinking beer…except she wasn’t drinking. It was refreshing none the less.

I got home expecting to go to bed at a decent hour…I walked into a party at my house…I had to play guitar and sing for another hour and a half…not the best thing for my voice, to be sure.

God bless Star Trek and beer.

On the run again

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“Goddamn that guy!” –Air Boss, Top Gun

Burgess somehow swindled me into going to Fat’s tonight, bless his heart. Just what a person who can’t breath or stop sneezing needs…$1 draws.

I’m off to find Barry and take him to Fats. May my search not lead to the RCPD.

Good news and bad

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Looks like the Frankfort show has been cancelled. Look for one there sometime in October. Burgess will be playing in Frankfort this Saturday while Jimmy and I play in Victoria.

I got out of the New Mexico trip. Not really got out of it so much as the option was removed. That’s fine. I wish I could get out of this damn cold.

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US 160

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I think I’m autistic. No, really. There was this quiz in Newsweek that was supposed to demonstrate how autistic people think…you know the kind of quiz…choose if you agree strongly, slightly, disagree slightly, strongly…there were questions like “I frequently find that I don’t know how to keep a conversation going” and “when I read something I always notice if it’s grammatically correct” and “I can easily tell if someone else wants to enter a conversation”…I looked at the key and my answers of strongly agree, strongly agree, strongly disagree, along with my answers to the rest of the questions are those kinds of answers that someone with autism would answer. I think I’ll self-diagnose myself and prescribe caffeine and alcohol in large quantities.

I got up this morning and find out that I may have to go to New Mexico tomorrow. Just like that. We need you to go to Farmington, Aaron. Ok. Turns out we had a wheel fall off of a W900 and it needs a new axle. They want too much money to haul it down there so I have to take it. Damn. I just looked at the map. It’s about 60 miles this side of Arizona and over half way from Sharon to California. Here’s to the Trucker’s Dream.