This year my birthday adds up to one. (How appropriate, especially if you know the lyrics.*) It was a stressful birthday eve but I am straightened out. Be that as it may, my original plan for today was to drive north to Costilla, Amalia, and the Valle Vidal in my snorting V-8 Dodge. But on a trip to town I noticed how smoky and sad the mountains were. There’s also the immediate case of possible abduction, murder, and bad hygiene in a “compound” full of crazies near Amalia itself, and there must be troopers everywhere. I saw five black-and-whites heading north in a pack, and that was just us in the moment. The valle isn’t going anywhere. So.
My Fender Twin Reverb amp has sat under my desk gathering dust for several years. I will not add them up for shame. It’s a classic, very loud, and weighs ten thousand pounds. After the sound went wonky and the tubes glowed strangely and the thing just quit, I stopped playing, too, and put the electric 12-string in the case. This was already well into the Great Deprivation and seemed to fit. No one feasts until I kill the dragon, etc. I already needed hearing aids and now a dental implant and of course a home. However. There’s just one way to have these things if you’re an artist, and it’s not the way I thought my whole damn life. That’s why I’m driving the amp to Santa Fe today to drop it off to be repaired. A new power supply, I think.
Everybody behave. Back soon!
* Blue Suede Shoes
John Hamilton Farr lives in Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” See .png)
Happy Birthday, John. I was thinking of you today, and checked out your blog….hope you and Kathy are well…Love, Kate
Hi Kate! Sorry to take so long to reply. We’re okay but struggling. All best! Love, J.
Happy Birthday, cosmic traveller!