I danced in the morning when the world was young
I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth
Dance, dance, wherever you may be
I am the lord of the dance, said He
And I lead you all, wherever you may be
And I lead you all in the dance, said He

The Lord of the Dance (Traditional English carol)

Found this on a Buddy and Julie discussion page. Thought some of my buddies might a kick out of it:

On the first day God created the twang and the Lord heard the twang and saw that it was good and said let there be Telecasters!!

And on the second day He created the Deluxe Reverb, and thus
a beautiful twang was heard throughout the heavens and earth below.

And the man loved the Telecaster and small combo amp that the Lord had provided. And the Lord told the man "go forth and enjoy the Deluxe's built-in reverb and tremolo effects" but commanded the man to stay away from Guitar Center especially the stomp box counter saying on the day that you enter therein thy tone will suffer.

But the man entered into Guitar Center where the serpent at the stompbox counter showed the man a small, orange compressor and the man placed the device between the guitar and the amplifier the Lord had provided and saw that his tone was mysteriously enhanced. But his eyes were now opened to other strange devices on display and the man began to lust after the bright colored boxes.

And the Lord was angered by the man's blasphemy and said to the man "because you were not satisfied with my gifts you shall toil in the fields in vain to satisfy your gear lust". And to the serpent the Lord said "because you have tempted the man and corrupted his signal chain you will suffer spending the rest your days locked inside Guitar Center listening to adolecent boys trying to play Metallica riffs at ear shattering volume".

The new trailer for "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" is out. It gives me goosebumps. Man I love these movies. I imagine that George Lucas is ashamed of himself.

It’s a lot harder learning to trust God than I would have imagined. It would seem like a “no-brainer”. All Powerful – Creator of the Universe – All Knowing – All Caring – etc. If you can’t trust God...

Trouble is; awe is easier than trust. I stand amazed at who He is but still find myself unable to close my eyes and fall backwards into His arms. See I’m not yet convinced He will catch me. I know He can – that He is able. I’m just not sure He will. It’s not that He hasn’t caught me before. Fact is He has done it over and over again. It’s just that most of the time it is because I tripped and fell or was knocked down by some event or circumstance. He always catches me when I fall unexpectedly – but that doesn’t require trust. Where I am having trouble is when I am standing on the edge of the cliff with an enemy coming fast behind me or when I find myself gripping a rope woven from my own ability in order to save myself. In those moments when I should just let go and trust that He will catch me I tend to freeze – to trust in the pain or the despair that I know rather than risk the unknown of the abyss.

Trust requires risk. It always does. Trust demands that I give up any ability to KNOW and instead embrace the journey of the unknown.

Christ rarely tells us where we are going. He simply calls to us; “Follow Me”. If I knew the way I am certain I’d run ahead – I am impatient like that. I’m a little like Abraham who never thought to “help God” until God told Abraham what He intended to do. I think that’s why most of the “God Stuff” in our lives comes out of nowhere- when we aren’t even looking for Him. It keeps us out of the way.

But something in my heart needs to trust Him. Why else would I fight so hard to get the faintest glimpse or the smallest touch? I need to know He is there. That He has not left me. I am trying to learn to trust Him but most days…

Hope is the best I can do.

Here's another great Cash story told by former son-in-law Rodney Crowell on the event of Johnny's 70th birthday:

When Rosanne and I first started living together we got an invitation to Jamaica where John has a house. So we flew from Los Angeles to Jamaica. I had a few drinks on the plane to screw up my courage because I was nervous since Rosanne and I decided we were going to sleep together in his house. We got there late in the day, and having shored up my bravado, I figured I better case out my territory from the start and told him our intentions to stay together. He just looked at me, fixed me with a stare and said, "Son, I don't know you well enough to miss you if you were gone." It just sobered me right up. And I thought, "What kind of arrogant fool am I," and decided to file that line away and use it one day. Cut right down, I asked " Where are you going to have me stay?"

Rodney Crowell

Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison was the first "country" record I ever listened to from beginning to end. My uncle, Arlon Earle, owned it and we were visiting him in Jacksonville, Texas. I first heard Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, and Ray Price in that house — "hillbilly records" he called them, so I called them that, too. As I got older and discovered the Beatles and the Stones and Bob Dylan, only Johnny Cash survived the shift in my musical tastes. Cash was different. He was a BADASS. He wore a lot of black and he sang about murder and dope and adultery and ghosts. He had genuine attitude. His music, more than anyone else's, was simultaneously COUNTRY and ROCK.

In 1968 John had his own television show and I NEVER, EVER missed it. I saw Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt and in his first network appearance, Bob Dylan. All during the most formative period in my musical life. Nothing else would influence as much as that hour a week until I met Townes Van Zandt in 1972.

I finally met John in 1987 at a photo session for a newspaper article publicizing a benefit we shared the bill on. Present were John, myself, Waylon Jennings and Mark Germino. It was John who noticed that everyone in the picture was wearing black except him.

In 1991 I dropped off the edge of the earth, resurfacing in '95 by way of the Davidson County Criminal Justice Center. Later that year Ry Cooder asked me to play electric guitar on John's contribution of the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. (I got to "be" Luther Perkins. How cool is that?) I hadn't seen John since I went away and when I walked into the green room at 16th Avenue Sound, he was standing over the pool table with his hand in an old fashioned picnic basket. He looked up when I entered the room and said "Steve, would you like a piece of tenderloin on a biscuit that June made this mornin'?" I allowed how I would and he said "I knew that you would." Then we went in and made a record — as if nothing bad had ever happened to either one of us.

— Steve Earle, Troy, NY, June 1999

As some of you are probably aware, The Captain has been in the process of "Going Down With the Ship" in relation to his occupation. It looks like the ship will touch bottom in another 3 or 4 weeks. Time to tune up the resume' and find a new command. The Captain plans to use the following phrase in all interviews:

"Permission to Come Aboard?"

Let's all pray that Cap'n Flippy will not have to shear his pirate locks or remove the gold pirate hoop from his ear. It is feared that these are the source of all his powers and without them...The good Captain would cease to be.

I've changed the link below for "The Passion". I really want to know what everybody thinks of this. It must be a topic of interest as it has shown up in both Barberman's and Fat Nathan's blogs. So bring on the comments.

Just saw the trailer for Mel Gibson's "The Passion" I don't really know what to say. It is more powerful than I could have imagined. I want to live my life deeply - passionately in love with a God who would do that for me.

Well...



It's 4:00 AM and I have been at work since around 3:00...I should back up a bit.

My sweet wife and I have become addicted to the Sopranos. We have been watching the entire series on DVD and are about half way through the 3rd season. After watching our nightly episode last night, we decided we were up for another and so it was a little after mid-night when we turned off the TV and went to sleep. I slept deeply until 2:00 when my phone rang. The kind lady on the other end of the phone informed me that she was with Sonitrol, our company's security service. I expected this as, since the deaths of my parents, no one else would ever call me at 2:00 AM. These calls are usually just an annoyance as they are always false alarms due to motion detectors set off by the family of racoons who roam our plant at night. This call was a bit different. There had been a "broken glass" alarm followed by a motion alarm. The police were dispatched and I waited for the inevitable second phone call. The second call came at 2:20 AM. The police were at the plant and needed me to get there as soon as possible. I got dressed and left my house at 2:30 headed for work...45 minutes away.

When I arrived at the plant I was greeted by one of Little Rock's finest. We had indeed had a break-in. The front office door was smashed in and there was glass everywhere. I turned off the alarm system and proceeded to walk through the plant with the officer on the scene. Apparantly the alarm had frightened away the culprits and nothing appeared to have been taken or disturbed.

After satisfying ourselves that nobody was in the plant and that nothing had been taken, the officer left me in my office at 3:30 AM with no front door and a big mess to clean up. I can't really leave the building with no front door and besides, if I went home I'd get there about 30 minutes before my alarm went off. So instead, I started cleaning up.

It is worth mentioning that my plant is in a really bad part of town. Especially at night. We are next door to a little free-standing liquor store where a clerck was shot and killed just a few weeks ago. I don't mind saying that I am a little uneasy. I cleaned up the glass and taped cardboard over the front door. I realize this is little protection but at least it might make some noise if someone tries to enter. I have a Calloway 7 Iron next to me as I type and I am kinda jumpy.

So...Here I am blogging for the first time in weeks. Sorry it isn't more funny or entertaining or soul searching. Not very well written either. I am just scared and sleepy and a little angry at no one in particular. Pretty crappy way of starting out a day I wasn't really looking forward to anyway.

Check in on me later...to make sure I made it out alive.

This question is from a February 2003 interview in Creative Loafing magazine

CL: OK, who's most in need of an ass-kicking: Ryan Adams or Rhett Miller?

Earle: [Laughs] I don't think Ryan needs an ass-kicking. I just think he needs to stop going on the No Depression message boards and reading about himself.

Well...

I'm still waiting.

Finally someone has designed a computer to meet my needs. Take this link and enter your name.

Ft. Worth Blues

In honor of Father's Day I thought I'd re-post one of my first Blog entries.

I have an old Martin guitar that I really love. I mean REALLY love. I have heard better sounding ones (like Larry's old '59 Brazilian). My Taylor plays better. Fact is, it is all sentiment and legend. The guitar belonged to my Dad. I spent most of my young years wondering why he hadn't called or sent a birthday card or whatever. He was a pretty lousy Dad but I don't think he could help it.

What I do remember is him being a fair picker and wanting a Martin more than anything in the world. He was living in Palestine (with a long eee sound) Texas in the mid '80's. The story, or a least the one he told, was that this fella blew through town and was lookin' to score some cash for what were certainly nefarious purposes. He had a 1980 Martin D-28 (likely stolen) he was tryin' to convert. Not surprisingly, this shady character managed to find my Dad who claims to have bought it out of the fella's trunk for $400 on the street right in front of his house.

My Dad worked for a company that built power plants all over the world. In 1990, he was working up in Fort Smith when his company told him he was going to Puerto Rico for the next five years. He was limited as to how much stuff he could take and told me he wanted me to keep his Martin for him. I bee lined it to Fort Smith a week later only to find that my Grandpa had shown up the day before and left with the guitar. I spent the next year learning to love the sight of my Grandpa, who dreamed of a Martin even more than my Dad, beam as he thumb picked old Jimmy Rogers or gospel tunes on the beautiful dreadnought. I have never seen anyone so pleased as he was. As glad as I was for him, I always played the thing with a touch of longing and regret.

When my Dad came back to the states, he swung through Russellville en route to Fort Worth to pick up the guitar. I saw it a couple of times over the next few years and fell in love with a Koa Taylor along the way, but...

You never forget your first love.

It was almost two years ago to the day that my Dad called to say that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer. Just like David Crosby and Mickey Mantle. My Dad had begun killing himself over 30 years earlier when he started crawling into a bottle that he could never seem to find his way out of. When my Dad came up for Thanksgiving a few weeks later, he had the Martin with him. He pulled it out of his trunk on the gravel road right in front of the half completed home we were building. He gave me the Martin and said not to expect a Christmas or birthday present. It didn't feel like I thought it would. I felt kinda guilty. It meant so much to him.

For Christmas we got the worst ice storm in the history of the world and I got to weep over the death of my Grandpa from my bedroom in Little Rock because the storm closed the interstate to Russellville. In January I took my family to Fort Worth to bury my Dad. I also took his Martin.

I was amazed how much his buddies knew about me and my family. His best friend Butch approaced me in the funeral home (we had never met) and threw his arms around me. Through tears Butch said "I know you Mark...I know you and your family. I know your kids names, I know what you do for a living, hell, I probably know what's on your god-damn tax return. I know about the Martin too, son. Your Daddy was so proud for you to have it..."

The next afternoon, I pulled the old Martin out of the case and sang "Ft. Worth Blues" over my Father. Every bar maid in Cowtown wept as I sang a song that could have been written for him. I spent the rest of the afternoon weeping, not for what I had lost, but for what I would never have.

I can smell my Dad in that guitar. Nate and Dan have smelled it too. God I love that smell

I suspect that their are about 10 people who really dig what I do as a worship leader and that everybody else just thinks I am stupid. I find myself very conflicted at the prospect of recording a "Mark Currey - Worship Project” as I fear that the resulting sales would only confirm this suspicion. I guess I have just played to too many empty houses in the last year or so. MCB fans (whoever you are) don't seem to travel well. I am feeling a bit insecure right now. Maybe it is just encroaching age and receding coolness. Maybe I am just too damned self involved. Maybe I just need to play somewhere and have more than 5 people I know (most of which are family) show up. Maybe I still secretly want to be a rock star. Maybe I should shut up and write some new songs.

I am in a very dark place today.

Bob Dylan's Little Rock concert at the 18,000 seat Alltel arena has been moved to the 2,400 capacity Nite Life Rocks dance club due to poor ticket sales (1,400 so far). The whole world is going to hell. I give up...

Happy Birthday Outlaw...



"They say writing the first line of a book is the hardest part. Thank God that's over. Roger Miller said it must be true that the longer you live with your pet, the more you look alike. My neighbor came over this morning and chewed my ass out for shitting in his front yard. Thank you, Roger. I also have you to thank for the opening of my last book-"I didn't come here and I ain't leaving."... " Willie Nelson

Running away? You yellow . . .


What Monty Python Character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Send me your French jokes! I am especially interested in anything involving surrender, cowardice, or body odor. Post as many as you like but please post them one at a time so everybody gets a chance. I'll start with my favorite:

Q. Why did the French plant trees along the main streets in Paris?

A. So the Germans could march in the shade.

Today I have a teenage daughter. Pray for me...

I can't stop watching the video for Johhny Cash's "Hurt". The song was written by Trent Reznor and originally recorded by Nine Inch Nails but The Man in Black clearly owns the song. The song and video have cut me at the soul level. I'd really like to hear how it affects others.

Sometimes other folks have already explained how you feel better than you could have...

Darling when I was your age
I could do anything
There were days of rock 'n roll
And lunar strolls and friendship rings
And baby I told myself
I'd follow my deepest dreams
Knowing if I did my best
Success would always follow me
It was another good lie
Coming down like a freezing rain
From a hot blue sky
Another good lie
Coming in like a crosstown hurricane on fire
Another good lie
Coming down on your Daddy's soul
'Til it made him old
Another good lie
Another good lie
Another good lie

Darling they all told me
That they would do anything
Climb the highest mountain
Swim the ocean
Do the damnedest things
And baby then they took my heart
And vanished like a memory
Leaving it to time and circumstance
To come deliver me

It was another good lie
Coming down like a freezing rain
From a hot blue sky
Another good lie
Coming in like a crosstown hurricane on fire
Another good lie
Coming down on your Daddy's soul
'Til it made him old
Another good lie
Another good lie
Another good lie

Baby I'm just one man
And my world fell apart long ago
I guess I'm still in shock
It shouldn't have been like that
I guess I still hope for deliverance

Darling when I was your age
I could do anything
I could be a restless heart
A social force
Or just genuine
And baby don't our dreams die hard
In the ashes of destiny
I wish that I could lay to rest
The bitterness that keeps telling me

About another good lie
Coming down like a freezing rain
From a hot blue sky
Another good lie
Coming in like a crosstown hurricane on fire
Another good lie
Coming down on your Daddy's soul
'Til it made him old
Another good lie
Another good lie
Another good lie

mark heard - 1991