Have you heard of John Tester? He's the new Montana Democratic Senator.

Random Sandman News: Cooked first pizza in my new oven tonight. Cupboards and fridge are stocked, washing machine hooked up. Bought an old oak desk for the living room yesterday. Grandpa brought over some aspen logs from Killdeer Mountain for for the wood stove; I'll chop them tomorrow. I'm reading Autobiography of a Yogi, by Yogananda Paramahansa.

My friend E just ordered three pillow cases and three Good to Be Awake CDs. Friend S ordered one Long Walk Home and one Live & Suspicious CD.

I leave for tour in thirteen days. Earlier this week I got my cowboy boots re-soled for $45.

Wrote a song tonight called "Corpse," about a frightened man who kills a pregnant wolf.

This is how they do it in Manitoba. It took 'em eleven minutes and eight seconds to harvest the wheat from this quarter-section (160 acres).



We had a ceremony at Dunn County Museum today for Dorothea Pelton, who won the 2006 North Dakota Excellence in Local History Award. About 25 years ago she and her husband, Les, became millionaires after discovering black gold on their remote Badlands ranch. They donated a good share of it to our Museum, and that's why I have a job. Les has passed on. Dorothea is in her mid-to-late nineties.


Mrs. Pelton with my Grandma in the log cabin earlier today.

Check out the new Crunks Not Dead website: http://www.crunksnotdead.com/

That's the record label that earlier this year put out (return to) . . . the blackhole (of outerspace). This CD would be a good holiday purchase along with a Sandman pillow case. It has a song on it called "Pillow Cases," which explains why I silk screen my name onto pillow cases.

A glass is good, and a lass is good,
And a pipe to smoke in cold weather;
The world is good, and the people are good,
And we 're all good fellows together.

John O'Keefe (1747-1833)

Democrats have taken control of Congress. Here's to balance of power.

Meanwhile, legendary CBS journalist Ed Bradley has died of leukemia at age 65. I appreciated Mr. Bradley--he had that common touch and trademark earring. Too bad he couldn't have lived to possibly see Barack Obama be elected President in a couple few years.

In Dunn County news, my neighbor Emogene has given me a sweet little cook stove, which Dad installed earlier today. Emogene is a very generous soul (Grandpa calls her a walking, breathing angel), and I will be thinking about the best way to repay her.

In other Dunn County news, my galfriend Elle Newman will soon be arriving for a three-day visit. How you like them apples?

I spend a lot of time thinking about G_d and always have. G_d this. G_d that. G_d is Love. Let G_d. Thank G_d. Trust in G_d. G_d is the Answer. G_d will set you free.

(G_ddess.
Yahweh.
Elohim.
Jah.
Engai.
Vishnu.
Christ.
Mwari.
Shang Ti.
Allah.

Unity.
Higher Power.
Infinite Love.
Divine Breath.
The Light.)

How nice it would be to know G_d, unshackled from all propaganda and reactionary prejudice.

News stories like Saddam getting "outed" or Ted Haggard being sentenced to death by hanging are no longer interesting to me. I can't even keep people straight. Was it Floyd Mayweather who just won World Series MVP? Did Raul Castro call Borat a sulphorous smelling devil? It's confusing. I'm confused.

I will vote tomorrow.

Food tastes better when one camps out, and camping is basically what I'm doing in my new home. A normal tomato, for instance, seems like a delicacy when sliced onto a hot buttered biscuit. I wake up at 6:30 a.m. and listen to news stories on National Public Radio before getting out of bed. Tea becomes more than tea; it warms your hands and gives inspiration. I might grow a beard. I think that a long-necked pipe for tobacco would suit my new lifestyle, too, as well as a penny whistle, bird feeder, and ceramic bowl filled with garlic and oranges.

P.S. Alice, of Alice's Restaurant, read yesterday's blog and felt sad for me that I was eating so many bugs. She invited me over for chili and rhubarb cake at noon today.

November. The eleventh monkey.

Last night, Halloween, I officially moved into my haunted, cozy home. I lit candles in each room and posted a bag of candy near the front door. Four tiny hobgoblins stopped by for treats, and later three much bigger ones came by for beer. Then we went downtown to the Ilo Bar for some more.

Sadie, the Japanese-born bartender/owner, was handing out Skull Pop suckers. Sadie's approximately 4'10" and hobbles like a small pirate, due to an old injury. She's lived in Dunn Center and run the bar for as long as I can remember. She'd like to sell it, she says, but no one's buying.

Alice's Restaurant is for sale, too. It's been a year since Alice closed its doors. Somebody busted out a few of its windows this summer.

Tomorrow I'll pick up the oven that my neighbor Emogene offered me. Then I can eat something besides spiders, flies, and cold cereal. I have an antique wood stove, too, which I'll tell you more about soon.

I can't tell if have the flu or food poisoning, but I haven't eaten food in 24 hours. I doubt if it would stay down anyway. I feel like a ghost.

Happy Halloween.

I just spent the last two nights in Bismarck at a thing called The Governor's Conference, which took place at the North Dakota Heritage Center. I stayed at the Kelly Inn, where I watched the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers to win the World Series. I love baseball. I also appreciate Texas Hold 'Em poker, and I watched plenty of that, too. Then I watched CSPAN, the Comedy Channel, and whatever else I could find to keep me from sleeping.

Today was Dunn County Museum's Annual Meeting. Below you'll see a picture of me and the assistant curator, Jeri, giving the annual Curators Report.



When the meeting ended I rode with my friends, Paul and Kristen, out to the Vang Lutheran Church for their yearly feast. Vang Church is ten miles out in the country with rolling fields in all directions.




Paul and Kristen.

Happy 61st, Mom, from the whole family!

(This picture, circa '72, was taken on the Montana farm/ranch my mom grew up on in Charlo, Montana.)

a) b)
Dunn County Museum just acquired an old country schoolhouse and had it moved onto the Museum grounds. It was interesting to witness a building get so delicately transitioned from one place to another.
c) Voila!

This is the floor and bathtub that Elle helped me paint while she was here.

I have yet to bathe in the tub, though, because I don't have hot water quite yet.

These icicles were hanging off
My museum
Awning
Like a quintet
Of glass tuning forks

"Three is the magic number." De La Soul



Three friends have sent me sand-inspired photographs this year.

Today I was listening to the radio and heard Joni Mitchell sing "Help Me," and the thought crossed my mind that it might be the greatest song ever recorded.

"A great nation is like a great man: When he makes a mistake, he realizes it. Having realized it, he admits it. Having admitted it, he corrects it. He considers those who point out his faults as his most benevolent teachers. He thinks of his enemy as the shadow that he himself casts." - Lao-Tzu

My songs and poetry are at their best when performed around campfires, so tonight I'm ordering a fake campfire as a stage prop for my long winter tour. I'm hoping to add the primal and hypnotic ambience that real fire evokes. The inebriated will become somber and reverent as they watch the colors and effects of the long-life Halogen lamps that shine through moving white fabric, simulating flames with natural shadows and highlights. The homeless will look through tavern windows and feel a solidarity with the thin troubadour on stage. They might enter to admire the high-speed, powerful fan that quietly blows the fabric upward. Police officers will feel uneasy about the poetic implications of this artificial fire, not to mention the gathering crowd of drunks and drifters who've become entranced by the strange poet's shadowy tales. It will be simulated anarchy; a faux post-apocalyptic gathering of hooligans and heretics. And it will be legal. Bwuh-ha-ha-ha. Happy Friday the 13th.

My friend Chris "Goose" Kirk has been living/working in Bogota, Colombia, for the last couple years. I'd like to visit.

Here's one of many photographs he's taken while there.

There is snow on Excalibur
Branches are losing their hair
Pumpkins in the reservoir
Money bathtub floss
ice scraper vote
mattress
pillow
case

I was set to go fishing for northern pike today at Lake Ilo, but right as I was leaving work, the tree mover came. Within minutes he busted one of the brass street elbows on his hydraulic system, so I had to make a run to Killdeer to get a new one. I found one at Prairie Implement, but by the time--Oh crap! I just remembered that I left the hose running at work. I was watering the transplanted cedars and forgot. Gotta run.

For today's entry, click the upper left corner where it says "SANDMAN the Rappin Cowboy" (which, coincidentally, happens to be my homepage).

Here's an article regarding the recent tragedies in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and how the Amish community coped.

Elle left this morning. I will miss her. She's one of those lovelies who brightens the world wherever she goes.

I'm lucky to know so many bright spirits. For instance my Killdeer/Buckskin party people, my hip-hop homies in Olyville, the CrimethInc. renegades of Salem, Oregon, my parents, all the people I stay with when I tour, my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and on 'n' on. In a society saturated with corruption, hypocrisy, and greed, it's a blessing to be surrounded by the antidote. I can see a light and it's you.

The answer to yesterday's riddle is my bathroom floor that Elle painted. Can you see? It looks like a cubist rendition of cardinals perched upon a Holstein milk cow. Very eighties.

I forgot to bring the normal camera and had to use my cell phone. Click on image for close-up.

What's black and white and red all over? The answer tomorrow.

The 2006 Museum season is officially over, and it ended last night with a bang. About 140 people crowded into the Dunn County Museum for our Second Annual Country Music & Cowboy Poetry Gathering. It was awesome! Performers included Fran Armstrong, Jessie and Gene Veeder, Leslie Keltner, Casey Fredericks, the Larsen Brothers, Joe Reems, Quintana Biffert, and myself. Western North Dakota is chock full o' talent.


Local humorist, Joe Reems.


The Larsen Brothers, and Gene Veeder (black hat), backing up fourteen-year-old Quintana Biffert. The Larsen Brothers, I should add, are perhaps the finest cowboy singers I've ever heard.


Dad & Elle.