Happy October!

The filming of Roll Out, Cowboy, continues to be a surreal experience. Elizabeth and Rachel are enjoying their time in Olympia; they may be having even more fun than I am. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm having bureaucratic issues with the Washington Department of Licensing. And now my little Subaru, Pearl Drop, is broke down and stranded on a side street. Last night, while driving up the 5th Avenue hill to see a Moustache show, we heard clunk-clunk-grrrrind, and that was it for going forward.

As helpful as this documentary and the Roll Out, Cowboy website could be for giving my music more exposure, it also promises to shine light on some unflattering character traits and my sometimes embarrassing past. Oh, well. If a good, artful, and inspired film is created, I will be pleased.

Thus I respectfully say to filmmakers Vine & Lawrence, "God speed, young madams. I, Sir Sandman, vow to remain in your service with artistic integrity and anguished, undying honesty. All I ask in return is this: do not spill iced coffee in my car's console anymore, nor flatten my black cowboy hat with your suitcases."

Sweet September Saturday in my sleeping bag. Granted, I did arise early to take my Department of Licensing CDL General Knowledge test. Alas, I couldn't take it because I can't prove that I've lived in Washington over the last six months. I missed that requirement, and, honestly, I'm worried. If I can't prove my case, then I can't get my Washington driver's license . . . which means I'll need to return to North Dakota and find another trucking school as soon as possible.

Hopefully things will work themselves out, and I'll take my D.O.L. tests before Tuesday or Wednesday. Otherwise, I'm a jackass.

In other news: I'm staying in my friend Tiffany's spacious basement, joined by Ladies Vine & Lawrence. We have access to a sauna, wireless internet, and other luxurious amenities. We're very grateful to Tiffany, her house mates Blas, Heather, and Ariel, and her dog Ivy.

Last night we three drove to Anacortes for a show at the Back Porch Cafe. The Roll Out Cowboy blog has more on this. I'll make one correction to Rachel's kind assessment, though: I did not put on a good show. Anacortes always shows me love, however, and I made a lot of dinero.

Highlights from the show include:

1. The Spoonshine Duo sat in with me for half the set, Jacob on guitar and Bill on stand-up bass. These guys are two of the best musicians I've ever played with. Amazing! (On top of that, they gave me their share of the door money. Saints, I tell ya.)

2. The after-show Casio Rapman dance party. Anacortes consistently cranks out some of the coolest kids on planet Earth.

3. Merch sales! I sold at least 10 leather belts, 5 jacket/hat combos, 3 antique hotel soap bars, 2 snap-up flannel shirts, and 1 white lacy thong.

4. Performing "Persian Den of Sin" with beat-box extraordinaire/barista, Anna Starr.

5. Seeing Bret, Denise, and Louisa Lunsford. I love this family.

Day 4 of trucking school and all's swell. I'm beating back my cold with vitamin C, naps, and saunas. This week has been intense, and it's not over. I thought my time here in the NW might be a vacation, but it's not. True vacation will be when I start working for Shawn Goodall next month.

Friday night I have a show on one of my favorite islands--Anacortes!!

Sept. 28th, 7 PM @ Backporch Cafe w/ Spoonshine! $4.

Anacortes, WA
1717 Commercial Ave.

(All ages with Beer & Wine)

Tomorrow I'll be cutting out early from my trucking school classes to perform on a Seattle radio station.

For details visit:

www.radio8ball.com.


You'll be able to listen to it as a podcast.


Above: Andras Jones, host and creator of The Radio8Ball Show.

I'm hangin' in there . . . barely. This cold is kickin' my butt and making it hard to be in class. Sniffle, cough. Yuck.

Don't forget to check out: http://rolloutcowboy.blogspot.com/

Elizabeth & Rachel write more than I do. They make me look like more of a rock star than I really am, but it's fun to pretend.

Ok, off to my dorm cell in Lakewood.

The first day of trucking school went fine, but I'm a little under the weather. I have a cold. I am staying tonight in a dorm room the size of a large cardboard box. Ladies Lawrence & Vine are in Olympia staying with my friends Candice & Lucinda.

Hallo from gorgeous Livingston, MT. The Rocky Mountains are snow-capped, the sky is crisp and blue. We stayed with Earl & Susan last night. I soaked in their outdoor bathtub, this morning, and got interviewed in the buff, by Ladies Lawrence & Vine. The dames and I are now off to Basin, MT, for another hot springs soak, supper with Aunt Bryher, and a show at a haunted brothel. Hopefully I'll sell some merchandise, so that we'll have more real estate in "Pearl Drop," (my new Subaru). We three are currently crammed like canned oysters.

It's a circus, I tell ya. I feel like a monkey on stilts.

I'm so tired that I can barely write these words. Nevertheless, we head to Montana tomorrow morning, and I have a lot to do tonight to get ready. Then again, I think I'll sleep instead, and worry about it in the morning. I'm useless, toothless, I make music with toothpicks . . .

Until then.

Usually I have to go on tour to collect so many interesting adventures. It's been a nice change of pace to have the adventures find me this week. You can follow these adventures here, courtesy of Ladies Lawrence & Vine.

Jonah & Alice left for Montana this morning. It was great to have 'em. Yesterday, up on the mountain, I threw a dehydrated gelding turd, about the size and weight of a hollow goose egg, lightly at Jonah's gut for him to catch. Somehow it caught the wind just right and swerved down into the tender spot of his left testicle. This caused him to drop onto the prairie grass, in fetus position, and puke up some cereal. It was cinematic gold, but we didn't get it on camera. No pun intended, but getting the choicest film imagery is a crap shoot.

On a related note: A biologist was recently hiking just north of our mountain property and spotted a rare black wolf and snapped a picture or two.

The video cameras are rollin', and I can say with authority that being documented takes concentration. It's challenging to act like oneself for so many hours in a row. As Buck Owens sang,

"They're gonna put me in the movies
They're gonna make a big star out of me
. . . And all I got to do is act naturally"

Fortunately, Elizabeth & Rachel are professional and groovy to hang out with. I'd better pace myself, though. Their Canon HDV XHA1 will be my extroverted robo-pal for the next four weeks. Think Luke Skywalker + R2D2 on Planet Ayahuasca.

Also visiting this week are my awesome friends Jonah & Alice from Seattle. We five stirred up much Dunn County mischief today and will continue tomorrow. Don't forget to check out Rachel & Elizabeth's daily blog.

Jonah & Alice. (Photo by Vine).

A cold Canadian airmass has moved in and there's a freeze warning in effect for tonight. This will sweeten the buffalo berries for Saturday's harvest.

The brrrr factor has been tempered by the arrival of "two sassy film broads" from Manhattan. Their names are Elizabeth & Rachel, and they've created a website, with a very active blog, of their journey. They named it after my first CD, Roll Out, Cowboy. It's www.rolloutcowboy.com. (Note: as of Friday morning, it appears to be down for maintenance . . . check back.)

They have this as their mission statement: to hog-tie that elusive cowboy known as The Sandman and dish the dirt on his rappin' western ways. As the duo track their prey, they'll hit up hot springs and hotter nights, kicking up dust along the trail and leaving nary a saloon standing. Yee-haw!

My mission statement: stay sober.

Curious. I live 45 minutes from the small city of Dickinson, but I've never explored the south side of town. Until last night. My friend Dale and I were looking for a place to eat and, since we weren't too hungry yet, decided to cross the tracks and search for historic houses. (Dale's the Director of Preservation North Dakota and is a building geek.) I'm guessing that the south side of Dickinson is where the Ukrainians and Bohemians live. The houses reminded me of those in Pittsburgh or some working class corner of Chicago. My favorite store was Rosie's, an old convenience store that had an area in back for foosball, Pac Man, and Asteroids. They sell fishing bait and tons of Polka cassette tapes. You have to see the music racks to believe it.

Also on the south side of Dickinson is undoubtedly North Dakota's most amazing Thai food restaurant. It's small--about the size of my bedroom--and is called Upin. It's been open three weeks. The woman who runs it is originally from Chang Mai, Thailand, and makes everything from scratch--pickled eggs, curry, pad thai, egg rolls. She even grows her own chili plants, and they double as decoration. Oddly, she has decorated the walls with big pizza posters (or more likely has not yet taken them down from the venue's previous incarnation).

Whoever thinks that Dickinson is boring needs to drive south across the train tracks.

I just lost my Baseball Fantasy League playoff game, and with it the dream of a $450 jackpot. It was a cruel defeat, as it came down to my opponent's good fortune in his last player's final at-bat. C'est la guerre. It's better this way.

Weekend Report: Rode horses with Gramps and Dad today for an hour; found a nice flint hide-scraper and knife along a dirt path; canned 12 jars of wild plum & chokecherry syrup with Mom; my sweet Aunt Christi & Uncle Ken, from Colorado, visited; attended the outdoor western wedding, yesterday, of my childhood friend Todd Bang and his wife Talia; found a box full of antique soaps; wrote a new song. Plus, it rained a good 3/10ths of an inch yesterday. The hills have greened considerably. The ticks are long gone. Feels like autumn.

Last week, on the side of a Killdeer backroad, I saw the granddaddy snapping turtle of them all. I wanted to herd him across the road and into Spring Creek, but he hissed and charged as I approached, so I let him be. He was at least 40 lbs. and prehistoric looking as a triceratops.

For an interesting article on North Dakota snapping turtles, click here.

"Lord, protect our fish." That's the new official road prayer.

I just returned from a 36-hour drive with Mr. Goodall. We filled up with young tilapia in Phillip, SD, and then drove to Renville, MN, where we dropped the load and picked up a school of full-grown floppers for Calgary.

Lots is happening in Sandland. A documentary is in the works. I don't want to reveal too much, but . . . two New York filmmakers will be here in one week to start shooting. They will follow me working on my house, hanging out with friends and relatives, hiking in the badlands, and silk-screening pillow cases. After a week of North Dakota shenanigans, we'll pile into my new 1997 Subaru and head to Montana for a few shows, hot spring expeditions, thrift store raids, and more visits with friends and relatives. Then we'll continue west to Olympia, WA.

I will then begin a four-week truck driving course in Lakewood, WA (30-minutes north of Oly). After each day of study, and on weekends, I will record songs with various producer friends. Or not. I think spontaneity should play a key factor in this documentary production. On a lark, we all might climb Mt. Rainier, take in a Seattle Mariner baseball game, or watch whales.

Lord, protect our fish.

Good news: My Fantasy Baseball team has made it to the playoffs. I award Magglio Ordóñez my team's MVP. He's been amazingly consistent all season: he led all batters with a .359 batting average and, so far, he's contributed 99 runs, 25 home runs, & 116 RBIs. John Smoltz gets the team's Cy Young Award honor, due to his team-leading 155 strikeouts and 3.06 ERA. Ryan Braun snags Rookie of the Year.

I predict that in three weeks I'll be the champion of the 2007 Prozac Fantasy League World Series. And then, I guarantee, I will never play this absorbing and time-draining sport again.

The Earth eclipsed the moon
But the clouds eclipsed the view . . .

The fish truckers have returned. We arrived in Killdeer last night around midnight. I'm thinking that trucking might be right up my alley . . . once I can figure out how to properly shift. Driving a big rig with 18 wheels and 18 gears is exponentially more difficult than driving a car with 4 wheels and 4 gears.

My first adventure with Goodall Trucking began Wednesday evening, when Shawn and I cruised ten hours to Renville, MN, to pick up 11,000 lbs. of live tilapia. From there we drove 16 hours to an alligator farm near Alamosa, CO, where we dumped the carsick pescados into large holding tanks. (Note: Any dead fish, known as "morts," are fed to the alligators and crocs. Ninety-nine percent of the fish usually survive, though, and are re-sold by Colorado Gators farmers to Asian restaurants in Denver.) After the unloading, we were given a generous tour of the facility. There are some famous and large alligators there, not to mention many other exotic reptiles, birds, amphibians, and mammals.

Friday evening we made it to the home of Shawn's brother and sister-in-law in Denver. After a satiating supper cooked by Kim, the Goodall boys and I drove to Coors Field and watched the Colorado Rockies whip the Washington Nationals in dramatic come-from-behind fashion. The Rockies were down 1-5 in the bottom of the ninth, and came back to win 6-5.

Yesterday morning we boogied home. I drove for a total of five hours. The rest of the time I gandered at roadside scenery, watched two movies in the sleeper cab, and slept.

My first drive with Goodall Trucking starts tomorrow evening. We'll go to Denver. There's a chance we'll attend a pre-season Bronco football game Friday.

All my drives will be with Shawn Goodall, who's pictured above with his Belgian team. His horses' names are Ram & Rod.

Two of my friends came out with new music videos this week. I highly recommend both.

1) Willie Wisely just sent this one: "Through Any Window." It has a lengthy cameo by Jenna Fischer, who plays Pam in the NBC sitcom The Office. Willie produced my 2005 CD, Live & Suspicious.

2) Giles O'Dell, aka "Timezone LaFontaine," made this video to go along with the first single from his new CD, The Slink: "Real as the Slip of the Tongue." He can do anything, it seems. He's the producer and beat maestro on my 2006 CD, (return to . . .) the blackhole (of outerspace).

Finally, I have some news. Kirby and Megan had their baby last night. They named him Jefferson Paul Sand. He weighed 10 lbs. 4 oz. and was almost 2' long. Giant Sand! He's the first of Grandpa and Grandma's grandkids that will carry on the "Sand" surname, which means I'm off the hook.

Well done, Kirb and Megan! I'll be sending a full-sized Trailblazers jersey instead of a onesie.

By Jove, last night I saw Jupiter and four of its moons through a giant telescope that was set up at the north unit of Teddy Roosevelt State Park. I also saw the Andromeda Galaxy, a supernova, a planetary nebula, and several meteors.

Hendrix: Original Cosmonaut.

Still no baby news from Kirby and Megan. In fact, there's not much news to report at all. I haven't even started training for the CDL driving test.

I've been living in my late Great-uncle Chris' double-wide trailer, 16 miles from Killdeer, drywalling by day and reading Lonesome Dove by night. My right shoulder and neck are sore, but I'm livin' good. I haven't felt this at peace since the early '90s, when I lived in a van and now-and-then hitchhiked around the country--when gettin' to some Idaho hot springs or writing folk songs and raps were all that really mattered.

My cousin Megan must've swallowed a watermelon seed, 'cos it looks like she's got a sandía in her belly.

The baby's due date is tomorrow. It will be Grandma and Grandpa Sand's sixth great-grandchild.

Grandpa and Grandma are in Medora this weekend for the 2007 North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. Grandpa's accepting the award for old-time bronc buster and rodeo entrepreneur, Sam Rhoades, who died in 1963.

Life is gettin' simpler. I've been camping on the Mountain and working with Dad this week--and will be for the next three or four months (when I'm not hauling fish). Currently there is no computer, limited cell phone, and lots of isolation from everyday distractions. The chokecherries are ripe for picking; frogs are abundant; and the dragonflies, like Utopian micro-copters, are gunning down gnats that the frogs miss.

I'm on my way to getting hired on with Goodall Trucking out of Killdeer. Earlier today I took and passed the State Permit exam in four testing areas: general knowledge, air brakes, combination vehicles, and tank vehicles. In a couple weeks I'll take the CDL (Commercial Drivers License) skills test. Once I pass that, I'll soon be hauling tilapia fish to Vancouver, Canada, twice a month with my friend and future boss, Shawn Goodall. We'll be burnin' gas and makin' cash. I'll soon pay off my Visa debt.

It reminds me of a Bob Dylan lyric from his song "Visions of Johanna":

The fiddler now steps into the road
He writes: 'Everything's been returned which was owed'
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes . . .

It might sound backwards--shipping fish from the center of the continent all the way to the west coast--but that's the way it is.