Very well, then.

I just canceled my performance in Wells, B.C.

They said they'll try me again next year.

Now I can go to my 20th high school class reunion!

Question of the day:

A dilemma: Do I play a music festival in the middle of British Columbia this summer and earn $1000, or attend my 20th high school reunion in Montana and hang out with old friends, most of whom I haven't seen since '89?

The two events are at the same time.

This decision is tearing me up. I really need the money, and I sincerely miss my old classmates.

I just submitted my Dakota Creative Connections grant request.

Here's an excerpt:

My last CD, Rough Notes from Otter Cove, celebrated nature with Henry David Thoreau. The one before that, Good to Be Awake, swapped love poems with Emily Dickinson. This one, I imagine, will express an, at times, ominous remorse with Edgar Allen Poe over sins freshly exposed and shadows suddenly seen.

I hope they like macabre.

Happy Earth Day, ye plundering scoundrels!

In a week I'll hit the road again: Minneapolis, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Los Angeles. All in three weeks.

I need some cash money. I need some shiny round Ameros to store in my floorboards.

Today I began writing a Dakota Creative Connections grant to fund my upcoming CD. I'm requesting six grand.

The CD is tentatively titled All the Things I Done Wrong.

Last night's hootenanny at the Eagles Hall in Mandan was a good time. Bismarck/Mandan is showing lots of enthusiasm for rock shows lately.

Much of this has to do with my pal Elija, who diligently organizes and promotes shows. He's a musician, too. His new band, The Vexed, played a blistering set to end the evening.

I performed just before them. Although my set was off-kilter, the youthful crowd was kind. I dressed up as a pirate for this show. Another novel twist was a toy marshmallow roaster, with two sticks and a bag of marshmallows provided for audience use.

Before me, Romanteek, a fab five-piece band from Olympia, WA, enchanted the audience with uplifting dance jams. You might like to listen to them here. I've known the members of Romanteek for years, and it was awesome to catch up.

When the show ended Greta, Matt, Heather, Ian, Ira, and I drove to Killdeer for a slumber party at my parent's house. They left this morning for Bozeman.

Tonight! - Mandan, ND, @ The Eagles. With Romanteek (pictured), Zebra Corpse, and The Vexed. All-ages. 7 p.m. $5.

A mile from where I live is a small lake, Lake Ilo. Many people go there to birdwatch or fish for northern pike.

Lake Ilo was drained last September to kill off carp, white suckers, and bullhead. Many people were concerned that it might take months or years to refill, but I heard recently that water was already overflowing the spillway, thanks to all the snow this winter.

Two days ago I drove out to look around. As I approached the lake, the air began smelling like the ocean.

I soon saw why: Thousands of dead carp lined the entire perimeter of the lake.

It wasn't a pretty sight, except maybe to flies and gulls.

I was tempted to take a couple of fish home to use as fertilizer, but refrained.

Neighbors Alice Goetz and her son Loman live just across the alley. Last week Alice brought over a batch of homemade butterhorn pastries.

Today, when she heard how wracked my back was, Alice generously offered me the hour-long session she had scheduled with a core synchronism therapist. I gratefully accepted.

This evening Alice and Loman treated me to a supper of macaroni, biscuits, and pickles, then sent me home with a container full of food for tomorrow's supper.

I'm lucky to have neighbors like these.

News from Sand Land:

1. One of Pearl Drop's balding tires blew out.
2. Herniated disc slow to recover. Need morphine.
3. While I was in bed, wanting to die, Dad planted grass.
4. Taxes.
5. Blood.
6. Pirates.
7. Kidneys.
8. Bo..............
9. Love and Happiness.
10. Spirit and recovery.
11. Thunder on the prairie.
12. Rain.

Wild crocuses!


These are the first blooms of any kind I've seen this spring in NoDak.

Indeed, after an Easter dinner with Farmor and Farfar, Mom, Dad, and I drove to Killdeer Mountain, where we took the photo.

The beaver dams are full and running. Saw 3 porcupines, 25 deer, 50 wild turkeys, and dozens of newborn calves.

1975

"Blanca"

It's hard to believe that less than a month ago I was drinking avocado soup in Marfa, TX. It's a rare, beautiful thing to fall in love with a whole village.

I crushed out on Bisbee, Truth or Consequences, Terlingua, Dallas, and New Orleans, too. But Marfa was alchemy. She sparkled like gold braces.

I liked her size, her shape, her shadow, her light, her permanence.

She welcomed me home like King Tumbleweed. If I'm lucky, she might welcome me home again.

Though I blog alone on a still-frozen plain, I visualize billions of green bulbs beneath the snow. They burn like poetry.

"When I Love" by Nizar Qabbani:

When I love
I feel that I am the king of time
I possess the earth and everything on it
and ride into the sun upon my horse.

When I love
I become liquid light
invisible to the eye
and the poems in my notebooks
become fields of mimosa and poppy.

When I love
the water gushes from my fingers
grass grows on my tongue
when I love
I become time outside all time.

When I love a woman
all the trees
run barefoot toward me…

Qabbani, like Neruda and Sappho and Rumi and Tagore and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, wrote heart prayers.

Oh, my love
If you were at the level of my madness,
You would cast away your jewelry,
Sell all your bracelets,
And sleep in my eyes

Neighbor Loman e-mailed me today:

"Hi Chris, and welcome back to the neighborhood! . . . It's nice that you painted your house red as during the winter we knew it was blizzarding out when we couldn't see it."

He added, regarding the tenacious blanket of snow:

"Your house looked like a giant strawberry sitting in cool whip all winter."

The cool whip is melting, though. Dunn County's dirt roads are muddy messes.

Spent the evening feeding old shingles to a snapping bonfire in my yard. Pleasant duty with full moon, flames, and coyote songs.

Soon grass can be planted.

Before the thaw:

The mound to the lower left is where the cedar shingles laid buried.

Artist: Bob Dylan

Title: "Woman in Red Lion Pub"

I love her. I love him.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Funny website: www.badpaintingsofbarackobama.com

After a grueling winter, Dunn Center still has a spring in its step.

Grandma and I played cards at City Hall today, and about everyone was there. Martha, Helen, Alice, Adeline, Melody, Anne, Ione, Alan, Rodney, Willard, and 25 more friends showed up for pinochle and then stayed for dinner. Dinner consisted of roast beef sandwiches, pickles, coffee, homemade pie (rhubarb, apple, and pumpkin), and ice cream.

My body's hurting this week. I hope my herniated spinal cartilage repairs itself before long, 'cause I can barely do any kind of physical work.

Speaking of work, I won't have any trucking runs until June, so I'll mostly be working for Dad for now. I'm also setting up a couple small spring and summer music tours.

Sandman's Best Winter Tour Ever Tour: Left 12/23/08. Returned 4/4/09.

Home!

Took me an extra day to get here, 'cause I stopped in Bismarck to visit friends.

Thirty miles west of Mandan, West Dakota's arms embraced me and put me at ease.

Fifteen miles north of Dickinson, the flapping wings of Dunn County fanned me with her peaceful breeze.

When I arrived in Killdeer, Mom and Dad greeted me with a venison supper, plus apple crisp made by Farmor and Farfar from last summer's Killdeer Mountain apples.

Dale and his singing dog, Boo.

http://www.carepages.com/carepages/DaleBentley/patient

I-94 West is mostly clear and my back has mostly recovered, so I will now, after fifteen weeks of being on the road, seeing new places, meeting new people, and playing music, return to my house and family.

Danke schoen, Dale, for putting me up for the last few days. As spring's warm zephyrs melt winter's dogged ice, so may your nagging ailments disappear. As April's first tulips re-emerge and bloom, so also may your health return and flourish. Until then, I'll keep watch over your little ranch in Killdeer. Auf wiedersehen.

"The average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit."
-George Orwell

(No joke.) Happy April!

Threw my back out removing snow. I can barely walk.

Also, when tours end, I feel depressed--adrenaline withdrawal.

Cabin fever, too. Roads in all directions are blocked.

My cell phone doesn't get reception here.

My car doors are frozen shut. Can't get to my clothes.

All things considered, though, I'm doing better than Dale.

I guess you could say that, relatively speaking, I'm wolf of the world.

The Spring '09 Flizzard continues.

Spent the afternoon clearing Dale's driveway and sidewalks of snow. Since then a foot of fresh snow has fallen.

Dale is patiently awaiting a liver transplant. If he can get one, it'll cost $580,000. He might need a kidney, too, but that's to be decided later.

After three months, I'm officially back in North Dakota. Not all the way home yet, though.

This bridge is in Fargo. You can't tell, but it's near flooded. My pal Vaughn, who snapped the pic, gave me a tour of his water-logged city. Lots o' dikes and leaks, and news crews with wet shoes and cold feet.

I'm staying at Dale Bentley's mansion in Buffalo, ND, tonight. I-94 is closed from Bismarck to the Montana border, due to blizzard conditions. I may not be able to get home for a few days.

The final show of tour in Rochester last night was an indescribable workout. Even so, it was an improvement on the last show I played there, two years ago.

Skilly took good care of me, wrangling tips. This morning, she made blueberry pancakes.

Rough show in Winona. I'm worn down. Runnin' on empty. Weather beaten. In need of a massage. In need of a vacation to recover from my fourteen-week vacation.

I do like my Winona friends, though. Stayed on Elle's couch last night. She makes the best breakfasts.

My last show of tour is tonight in Rochester, MN.

Now I'm in Winona, Minnesota. I took my time driving through Missouri and Iowa yesterday. Found some good thrift stores and such. Show tonight, then westward ho!

FYI, eastern North Dakota is crazy flooding. Where I live, however, it's high and dry.

Tonight! - Columbia, MO, @ Cafe Berlin (21 N. Providence Rd.) w/ The Mooks, Too Little Too Late, and The Beating Hearts. 9 p.m. $5.

Mar. 27 - Winona, MN, @ Canswer House (367 Grand St.) w/ Froseph and CWKSMA. 8 p.m. Donations.