Some places are so iconic that they exist only in our memory and on movie sets. Gruene Music Hall is an exception. Nestled on the hill above the Guadalupe River in central Texas this little piece of Americana has the smell, feel and look of everything that is good about Texas, Country Music and America.
Just a few miles west of Johnson City, Texas, is the LBJ Ranch. Then Senator Lyndon B. Johnson bought the ranch in 1951 a few years into his first US Senate term. The ranch became the center piece of LBJ’s political career, the backdrop to many visits by world leaders, national politicians and cultural icons. When Johnson became president the ranch featured an expanded runway that brought the president to his home. A scorching August day seemed like the perfect time to take a look.
The runway on the ranch was not big enough to handle the full size Air Force One so President Johnson sourced some JetStars to bring him from Austin to the ranch.
MK and I have been driving across the landscapes of life for the past 17 years.
Dostoevsky
against the wall, the firing squad ready.
Charles Bukowski
then he got a reprieve.
suppose they had shot Dostoevsky?
before he wrote all that?
I suppose it wouldn’t have
mattered
not directly.
there are billions of people who have
never read him and never
will.
but as a young man I know that he
got me through the factories,
past the whores,
lifted me high through the night
and put me down
in a better
place.
even while in the bar
drinking with the other
derelicts,
I was glad they gave Dostoevsky a
reprieve,
it gave me one,
allowed me to look directly at those
rancid faces
in my world,
death pointing its finger,
I held fast,
an immaculate drunk
sharing the stinking dark with
my
brothers.
