Jesus and Johnny Cash (Sabakh)

In 1945 an Egyptian named Muhammad Ali, and three of his fellaheen partners, were riding their camels along the Upper Nile. They were in search of "sabakh," a natural fertilizer which accumulated near the river cliffs. In their search they discovered, and dug up, what became known as the "Nag Hammadi" codices, or the "Gnostic Gospels." These were the lost Gospels of Christ - written on papyrus leaves and buried in wine jars.
Muhammad's family used some of the texts for fire starter ( sacred poetry up in smoke!) before the rest were turned over to scholars. The Gospels contained many of the poetic utterances of Christ which were expunged from the "true Gospel" by four rather dreamy-eyed journalists, cum apostolic altar boys, named Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. These fellows shaped and edited Christ's words to foment an earthly church, and they disputed texts which urged folks to seek the Kingdom within. The Gospel of Saint Thomas (which I often quote) states: "everything you bring forth will save you….everything you do not bring forth will destroy you." Christ stated his kingdom was "not of this world." The apostle boys wanted an earthly kingdom with rules and "good guy - bad guy" moral logic. "My God is better than your God." Tribalism and insanity. Those lost texts, by comparison to King James, read like something from the mind of a poet or songwriter. A mystic. Poetry and song, in the end, is dangerous stuff.
Fast forward, brethren, to modern times where Christ's words are twisted by right wing talk show hosts and slick Jack TV evangelists with billion dollar glass churches and funny hair, who have profaned "the Word" about as profane as you can wish to profane it. If Christ comes again to cleanse these craven idolaters and money lenders from the Temple he'll need a mighty big bull whip. But I digress. ("Blog" comes from the Latin word "blogula": to digress.) What interests me is how we selectively corrupt the character of historical heavyweights and then twist our life and fate around false words and distorted characters. Then kill for it. Christian and Muslim and Jew alike. Based on our belief on a book or document that was edited and watered down by self seeking journalist choir boys. Lordy.
Okay, follow me brethren…. I'm having breakfast with Johnny Cash in Switzerland, and the people and family around the table won’t let him get a word in edgewise. He kept saying: "You talking about Me?" The Johnny Cash I talked with on several occasions was a big hearted, complicated human who bore no resemblance to the Hollywood version or the picture his friends and family now push into the DVDS which are more about "them" then Cash. Words are being jammed into his mouth. He's become the black-suited Christ. It's how we journalize great characters to suit OUR needs. Ditto Woody Guthrie the person….we live in a world of Reader's Digest versions of historical characters; versions which deny the heavier complexities of the human spirit. Which thus denies us the deeper truths of the hard and worthwhile human poetry. Life-saving poetry.
So there…you bastards! Our thoughts for today.
But what does all that have to do with those three fellaheen riding their camels across the black lands of the Upper Nile in search of fertilizer?
Plenty.

Desert Fronlines

Been hiding out in a Tucson studio concocting the new record of originals which will surface this Fall. Blood and Candlesmoke. Dylan's drummer from "Unplugged," and "Time Out of Mind," is here (Winston) as well as some of the Calexico guys and Barry Walsh, who works with Gretchen Peters, The Box Tops, and was with Waylon Jennings. Much Calexico stuff has come from this studio, as well as Neko Case, Kevin Ayers and….the Tucson sound. Think "desert industrial" and 100 vintage keyboards and guitars, lots of drums and feral instruments resonating against the stone walls here in downtown Tucson. Some of the songs are: "Guadalupe," "Crosses of San Carlos," "Nina Simone," "East of Woodstock-West of Viet Nam," "The Most Dangerous Woman in America"…and others. Gretchen will show up in a few days to lend her voice. Borderless folk rock with world intentions. The reaction to "One to the Heart, One to the Head" has been extremely strong. Lots of five star reviews and airplay already. It's available on www.tomrussell.com and the cover art is at Rainbow Man in Santa Fe.
www.yarddog.com also has my new Bob Dylan print and the paintings "Hamburger" and "Milkshakes."
In the last few weeks we've visited Elko Nevada for the Cowboy Gathering and performed a follow-up workshop with Ian Tyson. The DVD of last year is available on our web. Then on to a successful Texas tour with Thad Beckman on guitar - giving Michael Martin a breather for a month. Thad has several albums out and plays a vintage 1935 Gibson guitar….great player who amazed the folks.
Canada tour in a few weeks - then Denver and Salt Lake and on toward Scandinavia. But more songs to cut here with accordion and Palm Wine guitar. Twelve good songs and a cloud of dust.

One To The Heart, One To The Head

I was driving across the desert the other day with the great filmmaker Eric Temple; scouting locations for our film on the West: "California Bloodlines." We'd decided to take savage left turn, thematically, and consider raw, authentic Cowboy origins: Mexico; Charreadas and Charros; Spain on back to the Moors. The Violence in Juarez. Digging deeper into the bloodlines. The old west is chillingly alive on the border. The history rock and rolled through here; the guns are smoking. Why not include that in this film? The Spanish crossed the river just up the road. Rosas's Cantina was still open, where Marty Robbins wrote "El Paso." Cowboy as all hell. In the truck we were listening to "One to the Heart, One to the Head," the "western" side project I co-produced with Gretchen Peters. I'm a guest singer on the record. Gretchen is God's chanteuse.We covered Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, Rosalie Sorrels, Mary McCaslin, Jennifer Warnes, Ian Tyson, Stephanie Davis…and Gretchen sang a version of my new song: "Guadalupe." The music and Gretchen's voice was hauntingly simpatico to the desert landscape. The yucca, sagebrush, chimesa and Mexican broom washed past our windows, like a Maynard Dixon painting touched up by Willem DeKooning. All of the singing was underscored by Barry Walsh's marvelous piano score. Eric Satie meets Eno. The landscape and the music blended until they fused together. Eric turned to me and said: "This record is a western masterpiece. There's not a bad song on it." I listened to Gretchen's voice. Unearthly. There was no motive in putting this out, except a love for the West and a desire to make "westerners" aware of Gretchen's powers. And to celebrate the poetry of the songs. Then the song "Wolves," by Stephanie Davis, was rolling out of the speakers and I squinted out ahead into the sunlit asphalt on Highway 9. I saw what I thought were two coyotes crossing the road, about a 100 yards up there. "That's funny," I said. "They don’t usually travel in pairs. Pretty big,"
"Those are Mexican wolves," said Eric. "I'm sure of it." A wild little desert co-incidence as the song played. Wolves. Blue Roan Horses. Blue Mountains. Cowboys born out of their time. Crosses in the desert. Shrines for our lady of Guadalupe. And finally The Last Go Round" was playing…"we drank the rivers, we rode the twisters, we stumbled down to the ground….but we'll rake and ride, we'll spend our glory. On our last go round." Amen.
(The record is now available on www.tomrussell.com).

The Watchtower

We took a taxi to the edge of Havana, into a little village called San Francisco de Paula.
Street vendors sold canned soup and cheap cigars; gaunt, skeletal dogs yapped and whined; limping down dead-end alleys. Somewhere up the road was the Old Man's house, Finca Vigia, which meant "watchtower farm" or "lookout farm." Around a dusty corner and there it was; a large tropical bungalow hidden in the overgrowth of palm trees, orchids, jasmine, avocados, hibiscus and bougainvilleas. Lush and decadent. Decaying in the wet heat. I day-dreamed that he'd be standing on the porch, with his white beard, fishing cap, and a tall gin drink in his paw. The Old Man lived here once. Hemingway. Nothing has moved since he handed over the keys to Castro. Out of respect, Castro allowed Finca Vigia to stay exactly as it was when the Old Man walked away. Only Miro's painting - The Farm - went with him. It hangs in The National Gallery in Washington.
First thing I noticed was the empty swimming pool, where he swam laps every afternoon after writing. His fishing boat, The Pilar, was dry-docked poolside, next to four little graves for his dogs: "Negrita," "Blackdog," "Linda," and "Neron." Blackdog was his favorite."The Black Dog," was also the term he used for the deep depression which would eventually cripple his mind and lead him toward the shotgun rack one Idaho morning.
But none of that now. I peered through the windows, like a peeping Tom. You weren't allowed inside. A female guard approached me and offered to let me go in for a five dollar bribe. "Three minutes. You no touch nothing. I watch." And so I climbed in a window and saw and felt it all. The half-empty gin bottles on the living room table, next to his reading chair. The marvelous bullfight posters. His bedroom, with the typewriter where he stood to write at first light. There were hundreds of books and, unlike the libraries in most people's homes, these volumes looked like they'd all been devoured. Chewed-on. The covers were tattered; they matched the feel of the place. It was the house of a writer. A good one. Forgive him the late inning macho-bully ness, and the posturing. Praise him for the finely honed sentences; the essays in "A Moveable Feast;" some of the short stories; a few of the novels; and, especially the last chapter of "Death in the Afternoon." The one where he reveals all the wonderful things he left out of the book.
Raymond Chandler said: "The critics waited for him to write a bad one. Then they clobbered him. But when the Old Man couldn’t throw the fast ball, he threw his heart." And when they were sure the old lion was down; wounded and defenseless, they went over and kicked dirt on the body. That is our American way.
As we drove out through the bougainvilleas, below the watch tower where he flirted with Ivana; we were happy that the rum and lime Mojitos in Cojimar were waiting for us. And they tasted perfect that afternoon. Sweet and sour, like the Old Man's life.
I wished him peace-filled eternities.

Mickey

He used to send me messages in the middle of the night. Emails. Both of us couldn't sleep. I didn’t sleep much for a year back then, and Mickey was dying. He'd talk to me about my record, "The Man From God Knows Where," and what it meant to him. I'd tell him how much I loved his songs. He was the master of the middle tempo ballad. "San Francisco Mabel Joy," and "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye." ("Baby's packed her soft things and she's leavin'…..") Killer songs and sentiments. A lot of rain between the grooves. You can trot out words like "deep" and "dark" and "chilling," but they're cheap little tools to describe great songs. We shouldn't try. We should listen. There was a newer one that I'd play over and over: "Nights When I Am Sane." ("My moments of insanity are never like a chain, I only know I am not free, the nights when I am sane….") Man, I hear that. I'm right with that. And then the killer, final nail in the coffin: "I'm just one man, Lord, sometimes I wish I were three…. I'd take a forty-four pistol to me… Put one in my brain, for her memory, and one more in my heart…then I would be free.") Few of us would have the guts to write like that. Love and insanity and what it does to people. Us people. Us.
No, I never met Mickey Newbury in person, but we passed a few lines back and forth in the middle of the night. When we both couldn’t sleep. After he passed away, his daughter wrote and told me that Mickey had kept "The Man From God Knows Where" by his bedside up there in Oregon. That meant more to me than ever shaking his hand. I'll keep "Nights When I am Sane" close to the bed. I'll think of Mickey on those long winter nights when sleep doesn’t come easy, and the wind pushes the mesquite trees against the windows. It's just Mickey sending me a line or two. ("What will I do, in the dead of the night....when she turns out the lights..." Mickey Newbury)

Nothing But A Child

"Nothing But A Child"
by Steve Earl

Once upon a time, in a far off and
Wise Men saw a sign, and set out 'cross the sand
Songs of praise to sing, they traveled day and night
Precious gifts to bring, guided the light.

They chased a brand new star, ever toward the west
Across the mountains far, but when it came to rest
They scarce believed their eyes, they'd come so many miles
And the miracle they prized, was nothing but a child.

Nothing but a child, could wash those tears away
Or guide a weary world, into the light of day
Nothing but a child, could help erase those miles
So once again we all, can be children for awhile.

Now all across the world, in every little town
Every day is heard, a precious little sound
And every mother kind, and every father proud
Looks down in awe to find, another chance allowed.

Happy Seasons. TR, El Paso

The Black Rock

Walking along the beach of Monterrey Bay. Sea Lions barking from distant piers. The smell of Doc Ricketts lab; all of Steinbeck's Cannery Row characters sail around in the morning breeze. Crustacean music. Sea weed jabber. Monterrey show the night before - the only foul one on the tour; I'm feeling disjointed and ponderous. I see a smooth black river rock lying on the sand. Pick it up. Pocket it; thinking of Georgia O'Keefe. She became an ex-patriot within her own country. Disappeared into the New Mexican desert… I like that notion. Georgia collected shiny black rocks, and I run my fingers over the smoothness in my pocket; I feel like I'm carrying around her hardened, mummified, glorious soul. It keeps me going. Georgia became the landscape she painted: parched, serious, caustic, poisonous, eternal. She spoke in poetry; held little use for poseurs. She fled New York and reinvented herself in the wilderness; made art that floats above the changing landscape of an America illuminated by gas station signs. I'm not as big a fan of her art as her enormous, matchless spirit. And I finger the smooth black rock in my pocket and keep shuffling down the beach like Prufrock; trying to some to terms with the morning and the far off barking of the sea lions, and praying for the strength to write a few more songs that will fill up a record that will resonate and feel as wild and permanent as the shiny black rock; the relic of O'Keefe's spirit. Later, craving something to read, I find the paperback copy of Joan Didion's: "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" in my war bag. "It's easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends." There are two masterpiece essays in the book from 1966, and '67:
"Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream," and "Goodbye to That." Didion saves me that afternoon, as I read those two essays over and over and hold the black rock. "We tell ourselves stories in order to live," says Didion. Stories and songs and long walks on the sea lion beaches of memory. And now the black rock rests on Didion's book; next to my bed. And the blood dimmed Steinbeck tide is loosed, and the ceremony of innocence is drowned.