First in a while, and a long line I hope

Cody was pretty upset. He sent me and the rest of us some pissy text messages. Greens and yellows like the Costa Rica shirt I gave him, off my back, for his birthday last year. A savannah maybe, and some protective, electric or nuclear fencing guarding who knows what. What lay inside is lost now. And it looked like something out of the show Lost. Or The X-Files when Moulder is in Costa Rica. Pretty skimpy.

Hosts Samantha Sigmon and Martin Bemberg chat it up with Gwendolyn Wind, up and coming Queen of the Scene. In this episode we discuss the local music scene and other stuff. Recorded, produced and engineered by Martin Bemberg of villewave records.

We Must Tend Our Garden

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         I spend declining days beneath

the to and fro of sunshine

on one of two verandas.

I lose at chess with heaven is pals,

and when my sweet-she comes to visit,

sweet-she sits with me in wicker --

sweet-she leans in close

as not to impede.

I have gardens to tend

and so does she.

We are the gardens

we tend for free.

Hers is a nursery

for gratitude.

Blessings counted sow the seed,

contentedness to water her  

compassion flowers.

Come the bloom: how they grow;

how she grows; how she plucks

its fruit to fill her pantry further,

pantry of a soul.

She feeds me from it

when we wake, and when

we wake I make her breakfast.

In my garden I grow me.

I am the seeds and the shit beneath,

am the fertilizer. I harvest all the me I need

for free.

          She is here on wicker

and I am thinking where to move

my queen in gridded battle,

basking in the sun and battle

and heaven is pals,

when the living queen leans close.

I tend to what I tend to

and she to what she to:

leans in close,

as not to impede.

We must tend our gardens

And know our seeds.

Except I don't know what I am running from

I buy a sub-machine gun in the same way that Llewelyn Moss did in No Country For Old Men. Except I don't know what I am running from.

I don't remember much of what happened that night. I run out of bullets, I think, and am trying to come up with other ammo. Powder wrapped in paper didn't work. I don't even know what else to try, and when I open the thing up it has turned into a double barrel shotgun. Dirt or mud or dust or rusty resin creep out where the shot ought to have been thrust inward.

I have visitors at home in Austin. We're in my bedroom. They're younger. Maybe much younger. This is probably when I'm coming up with new ammo ideas. I talk to the father of one of them. He reminds me of Hank Hill and tells me all about guns and ammunition. I mention my powder-paper idea and remind him I know how they did it back during the Civil War and that my way was not at all how. He was neither impressed nor not so.

I am a rebel like Carlos. I kill all sorts of fascists with my sub-machine gun. Sometimes it is a straight up machine gun.

Another night at the rec

I leave my table of friends and approach the bar at Roger's Rec to pay my tab. No, I didn't order this or this or this.

Someone is going to pay for this.

I decide to stick around until the whole mess is sorted out, which means hanging out around the hacienda that comes out after the Rec shuts down. Pony rides under the gazebo and moonlight on spring-green grass. I spend the night in a van.

The next morning I approach the bar again. Everyone recognizes me as that guy who didn't pay his tab. Look, there was a bunch of shit on there I didn't ask for and I'm not going to pay for it.

Well, you cost us thousands of dollars by waiting until now to tell us that.

I apologize very sincerely: I didn't know it was so important to you.

This sounds kind of snarky, but whether they notice they make no mention. I pay my tab and suppose it is settled.

A pair or no?

I wake up to too much sun in the living room of the Blue House on a larger-than-life bed to a view of the larger-than-life television.

I cannot find my brown pants anywhere and I probably need them for something important. There is a pair of nail clippers in the khakis that I wear and I wonder now whether the clippers are actually a pair.

Albuquerque

Beth and a few others I do not know take me in her car to a sort of office supply store within Fiesta Square in Fayetteville. It turns out we have gone there to feast on Mexican food. The feast is spread out near the front of the store, entrance in view, near the checkout counter. These people I am with explain what all the food is as if I have never eaten something similar, showing me the enchiladas, the cookies, the cake and the different kinds of wine, which jugs in the foyer hold - vino tinto and vino loco. I explain that my Spanish professor, Sergio Villalobos once told us, his class, that white wine is so called because it makes one want to fight.

I ask what kind of meat is in the enchilada in a brown tortilla and covered in a dark green sauce. Beth explains what an enchilada is, and when I clarify that I am interested in the meat only, she says, "Chicken. It's called pollo."

I go up to the front of the store to pay, and a woman who knows my name, and Beth's too, is at the counter to check me out. I don't catch her name, but I think she must know me having been a lunchlady in my elementary school days. I owe three dollars. I start to pull out my debit card, but then realize I may have enough cash to pay that way. It turns out I have two dollars and one Turkish lira. Before anyone even knows this the woman behind me in line says something to the lunchlady about Turkey and I say, "Well what do you know. I have a Turkish bank note here," but they are far less than impressed.

One of Beth's friends is looking for her backpack, asks if I have seen it. I say, "No, I don't know where it is," as I walk towards the dining tables and show her to what she has been seeking.

I exit the store alone and find myself feeling like I am in Austin. Before, I was worried about wearing shorts, thinking I would get too cold (Beth made fun of me for that), but it is comfortably warm outside and other people (it's quite crowded) are wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts too. I weave my way through the crowd towards Beth's car, still all alone. I have to do a kind of dance to make my way there, maneuvering in and out and through people who do not seem interested that I am trying or having to do so. When I make it at last to Beth's car, I think I am the last one to have returned, as the front and back seats are full with me inside, but another friend comes sauntering towards the car and I think "Oh no, I'll be squished," but somehow when he gets in I have avoided such a fate.

I sing to Beth, "Oh no, okay," with the melody of Eliott Smith's "Oh well, okay." Beth asks if I have heard "Albuquerque."

"Is that an album?" I ask.