sleepiness of buddy don: plumb tuckerd out

yesterdy i seen that thar neurologist thats been a'heppin me lately. he tole me in should increase my dosage of depakote from 500 milligrams to 750. i been havin whut he calls 'sidekick auras' (thats whut it sounded lack) lately n that ye gut to git the dosage rite ere ye kin git over it.

but at the moment, i am wishin i could go back to bed, witch thats how most of the folks i know feel ever mornin.

innywho, i hope everbidy has em a grate day! i reckon i will git woke up by the cold outdoors.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

gardens of buddy don: whut a differents a week makes

last week i putt up sum pitchers i tuck of our aerogardens here in our lil apartment. this mornin i tuck a cuple more pitchers of em sos ye kin see how much they dun grown in jes one week. furst thays them gormay erbs, witch we dun razed them lites twice now n we been eatin offn bof kinds of the basel (eye-talian n purpull) ...



nex thays them salad greens, witch miz bd promissd we wood eat sum of em this verr evenin ...



(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: It Is Not Stomach

It Is Not Stomach

The enemy's emboldened still (would someone tell Bob Gates?),
Our use of free speech will not make him bolder.
If exercise of liberty is what he denigrates,
Must we allow our Bill of Rights to moulder?

We do not seem to understand you can't kill an idea
With all the weapons man has yet devised.
How contradictory to think of war as panacea –
For shock and awe just leave us more despised.

The terrorists have no set number that we have to kill
Until terror's cruel practice is no more –
For terrorists are made when demagogues claim it God's will
To use the Devil's arts to practice war.

To win we must take higher moral ground: that's everything–
It is not stomach that we lack but Gandhi, Christ and King.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

songs of buddy don: Let's Get Old

a while back one of the mos thought-pervokin bloggers on the net, ominverse (she rites bout purt near everthang ye kin magine) lef a comment astin whuther i wood rite a luv pome or two fer valentines, witch tiz a lot harder to do that than tiz to write rhymin joke bout them thats in charge. so i couldnt cum up with nuthin yet, but i found the lyricks to a song i writ that me n miz bd aint never recorded, so here tiz. dont mean i wont try to find sumthin else fer valentines day, but i orta keep that as a lil sprize fer miz bd (so dont ye mentchun it to her!) btw, it cummences with the chorus, witch ye aint spozed to do that, but i aint one fer follerin all the rules innywho.

Let’s Get Old

Let’s get old
Together, Baby, though it might take fifty years
Let’s get old
We’ll sit on the porch, a couple of raconteurs
Let’s get old
Together we’ll make it a life-long holiday
Let’s get old
C’mon, Honey, embrace the gray

Some people put their faith in beauty
They’re in love with their pretty face
Growing old is a horrible duty
(‘Cause) Time always wins the race
They place their hopes in cosmetic surgery
But getting old with you is my hopeful strategy

Let’s get old
Together, Baby, though it might take a hundred years
Let’s get old
We’ll sit on the porch, a couple of raconteurs
Let’s get old
We’ll buy us a boat, and sail around the world
Let’s get old
No matter how old or wrinkled we get, you’ll still be my girl

Some people trade their lives for money
Oh, how they want to be rich
Don’t know if it’s sad or funny
Watchin’ ‘em scratch that itch
They can’t be happy no matter how much they accrue
But happiness for me is getting old with you

Let’s get old
Together, Baby, though it might take a thousand years
Let’s get old
We’ll sit on the porch, a couple of raconteurs
Let’s get old
Together we’ll make it a life-long holiday
Let’s get old
C’mon, Honey, embrace the gray

I want to see how our children turn out
I want to see the end of our tale
Through the aches and pains, the fear and the doubt
Together let’s stick it out to the end of the trail

(and)
Let’s get old
Together, Baby, though it might take ten thousand years
Let’s get old
We’ll sit on the porch, a couple of raconteurs
Let’s get old
We’ll buy us a boat, and sail around the world
Let’s get old
No matter how old or wrinkled we get, you’ll still be my girl

Some want to go in a blaze of glory
Martyrs to a mythical cause
Don’t matter how gruesome or gory
They judge by their own cruel laws
But the most heroic thing I could ever do
Is to keep showing up and doing my job and getting old with you

So let’s get old
Together, Baby, though it might take a million years
Let’s get old
We’ll sit on the porch, a couple of raconteurs
Let’s get old
We’ll buy us a boat, and sail around the world
Let’s get old
No matter how old or wrinkled we get, you’ll always be my girl

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

nitemares of buddy don: jes bad dreams?

i aint gut not time to blog today, but i did dream lack nobidys bizness las nite.

i dreamt that them paranoids that bleeves in cunspiracies wuz rite, that the 9/11 attack wuz a inside job, set up on a counta them neo-cons needin a pearl harbor moment sos they could take over. twuz one of them dreams whar ye know thangs, lack how them energy meetins cheney had in the summer befor the attack wuz to splain to them oil cumpny buddies of his how they wood solve the energy problem by takin out iraq n tuther places in the middle east thats gut our oil underneath thar sand. i wonted to ast why hadnt nobidy spilt the beans on such a cunspiracy, but miz bd splaind: turnt out they had all dun been blackmailed by thangs larnt by ill-eagle gummint spyin.

i shore wuz glad to wake up n fine out twuz jes bad dreams on a counta couldnt nuthin lack that ever happen here.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

leeshure time of buddy don: grate musick at bb king's

yeterdy evenin me n miz bd had tickets to see the john hammond quartet at bb king's blues club n grill, witch the mane reason we know innythang bout john hammond is on a counta miz bds bruther bein a huge fan. he writ miz bd a note lettin her know bout the eevent n tellin her how she orta git toot, witch she gut them tickets rite away ...



we walked down to 42nd street, whar thangs is always happenin, witch ye kin see thangs wuz jumpin outside that thar club ...



we wuz seated quick a nuff, but the food servus wuz the wurst we ever had. our ontrays dint git thar till tuther folks at our table had dun et thars, witch we had orderd furst. then whenever that food finely cum, twuz cold.

but that one negative wuz moren made up fer by the musick ... startin with john hammond, a blues master who kin do ye rite with his guitar pickin, whuther lectrick ...



acoostick ...



or slide ...



he could also blow a purty rightchuss harmonica ...



but whut we dint egg speck wuz how marcia ball wood blow everbidy away. i never herd such piano pickin in all my born days ...



n whut a band she had, startin with this kid n his magick telecaster ...



n this sax player ...



ye kin see the hole gallery of pitchers here (i fergut to turn sum of em rite side up!)

we couldnt stay fer the hole show, but ifn i ever git the chants to see marcia ball agin, i will stay till the wee small hours. aint never herd nuthin so amazin as her band n singin.

dont tell miz bd, but i dun been to the itunes store this mornin n will be skippin to wurk to her musick on 4 hours sleep.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

gardens of buddy don: aerogardens

whenever i wuz livin in tennessee i lacked to make a garden. since i been livin up here in the ny metro area, thay aint been no whars to do that. taint lack we dont have no plants, witch we gut over 60 of em a'growin lack crazy in our apartment on a counta havin a 10 foot by 12 foot winder facin south.

but i have been missin a garden with thangs ye kin eat.

so fer chrismus, loretta n paddy gut us one of them aerogardens, witch miz bd planted it with goremay erbs: mint, parsley, italian basel, purpull basel, chives, dill n cilantro. since twuz so obveeus how much i lacked it, whenever it cum my birthdy, she gut me a nuthern, witch we planted thatn with salad greens.

heres a pitcher of them erbs after jes two weeks:



but as ye kin see by the nex pitcher, tuck ten days later, they wuz jes a'gittin started (we dun been eatin sum of that thar basel):



heres them thar salad greens after jes 12 days:



(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

happy ness of buddy don: them Colts!

i am a tired but verr happy man this mornin on a counta them colts finely makin it into the superbowl. ever since peyton manning deecided he wood return fer his senior year of collidge, i been a fan of his. i am now even a fan of them colts, witch the mos i ever dun wuz drive thru indianapolis one time n i dint much keer fer the way reggie miller made them knicks look foolish (back befor the knicks showed patrick ewing the door, back, that is, when i could git myself to keer much fer them knicks).

but i have been a huge fan of tharn ever since they tuck peyton fer the qb.

las nite he give us ever thang innybidy could ever wont of a qb n then sum.

normally me n miz bd sleeps with the chickens, as they say, gittin into bed by no latern nine pee em, but i had to stay up to watch the game on a counta how could innybidy turn away frum it? twuz the best game of the post season so fer.

no more questchuns of monkees on the back.

no more talk of peyton bein grate but chokin when thangs is on the line.

no more talk of legacy.

jes that we seen one of the verr best qbs in the histry of the game.

now ifn only the magick kin keep up long a nuff to beat them bears, witch i lack them purty good as well.

n aint it grate that ye git not one but two black hed coaches fer the furst time in a superbowl?

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

reedoosed mizry of buddy don: that thar depakote

reglar readers of this here blog knows bout my trubles with migraines but thangs gut much better once i give in to the doctor who sed i should be takin depakote. i dint wonta doot on a counta them side effecks -- possibull permanent liver damage, weight gain, dull hed n other syptums ye mite eggspeck frum a drug that stops epileptick fits n keeps bi polar folk evened out n deepressd folk happy -- but i finely deecided twuz better to risk em side effecks than give up on life. one of them docters ackshly sugjested i ackcep long term disbility.

so i caint cumplain much. but thays one thang. we jes had one of them dredfull weather changes that has always caused migraines fer me in the past. n true a nuff, i woke up that last cuple nites with them awfull feelins. only differnts is i gut back to sleep n kin wurk today.

but as miz bd sez to me, i am havin a migraine on depakote. means i aint near a hunnert% but i kin wurk. i am thankfull fer the reedoosed mizry but wish i could thank a lil strater n rite sumthin uther than this.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Our Long National Nightmare of Sacrifice

Our Long National Nightmare of Sacrifice

He said we 'sacrifice our peace of mind
When we see those terrible images'
All over TV during dinner time –
The pain of watching deadly scrimmages!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Unleashed Forces

Unleashed Forces

At last he can admit mistakes were made
(But only stated in the passive voice) –
Disproved are all the reasons to invade,
But now we're stuck there, left with no good choice.

For if we leave the consequences are
Most terrible for us to contemplate –
The violence then would be, as now, bizarre,
For we've upset a hornet's nest of hate.

And if we stay how many more must die
To regain the security we lost
When we invaded based upon the lie
That claimed we could win this with little cost?

In fact, Iraq was just a box, much like Pandora's was –
We opened it and unleashed forces that will never pause.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

readin of buddy don: dont read thisn!

i warn ye: dont read thisn. ifn ye start it, dont finish. ye shorely dont wonta brake yer silents neethur, rite?

tiz shamefull we gut to go thru this overn over agin. i hope ye had a grate day 'on' yesterdy.

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

quick note of buddy don: pomes

i been trine to git thru all my ole posts sos i kin putt labels on em, witch i started out wurkin on pomes. thang is, i dint have no idee how minny of em i had writ up to now. i still aint shore on a counta i gut a ways to go ere i git am all labeled, but at the moment, i dun labeled 63 of em.

wow! makes me wunder, when did all that happen?

i wake up ever day hopin to rite the nex chaptur, but taint as easy as it orta be. so jes to putt sumthin up fer the day, i git to makin rimes in my hed n nex thang ye know i am cunsidderin whuther to use my favert form, the shakespeare style sonnet. mos days i figger i jes tuck the easy way out. but whenever i gut reddy to figger whut to rite today, i noticed the list of labels n how minny posts thay wuz fer each of em, witch whut amazed me wuz how thays a slew of em n i know i aint gut em all labeled.

that putts me in mind of a feller i used to know in grad skool. he wuz one of the bes n funniest riteres i ever new, witch he wuz in the group i used to rite bout. innywho, he finely gut shed of grad skool n never writ a nuther story that i heard tell of. seems lack he could only rite stories whenever he wuz shirkin his other duties.

thats kindly how i feel bout them pomes (not that theys near as good as his stories): i felt lack i wuz shirkin my duties whenever i writ em, but now seems lack they are well wurth the effort that went into em. ifn ye click here ye kin see whut i mean, least in quanty if not qualty.

[i jes tested it n wuz sprized that the page that lodes dont give ye all them pomes, but ye kin git a purty good samplin.]

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: Let's Whistle!

Let's Whistle!

I wouldn't send enough troops
When enough troops would have mattered –
Shinseki's guess was wildly off the mark –
Perhaps mistakes were made – oops! –
And the war plan has been tattered –
Let's send more troops and whistle in the dark!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pomes of buddy don: The Right Thing

The Right Thing

We did the right thing in Afghanistan –
Disturbed the breeding ground for terrorists –
For when our forces whipped the Taliban,
They put the keys to justice in our fists.

It seemed that any day we'd get our man
And bring him in, whether dead or alive,
To face the justice for what he began,
To show the world we'd never lose our drive.

How must it have emboldened his vile base
To see how easily he could escape
The greatest power on the earth's great face
To gloat and taunt us with video tape!

We did not see it through, no, we turned back
To seek him where he wasn't, in Iraq!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

pinions of buddy don: questchuns bout thangs that dont make no sense

i figger i owe it to that feller who calls his self 'the author' to prove that i aint dead, so here goes sum thangs that dont make no sense to me:

• we dun been tole overn over agin that ifn we wuz to leave iraq, twood embolden them terrists: aint them terrists bold alreddy?
• why wudnt victry deeclared after we prooved agin whut them united nayshuns investigaytors wuz proovin, that saddam dint have no wmd?
• we have been tole that ifn we wuz to leave iraq, twood turn it over to al qaeda, witch ye gut to wunder wuz al qaeda in iraq befor the invayshun??
• since al qaeda wudnt in iraq befor the invayshun, how did al qaeda git thar foothold in iraq?
• did the chaos frum the war let al qaeda into iraq?
• wuz lies whut gut us into iraq?
• ifn ye kill one terrst by invayshun of a nuther cuntry whar thay wudnt no wmd nor no al qaeda neethur, how minny reglar folks deecide to join the terrsts? is it zero? one? more than one?
• why do folks keep wontin to join up with terrsts?
• how did escalayshun a surge wurk back in our other nayshunull nightmare uh, that is, quagmire make that, great forn pallsy adventchur effort to free the people of vietnam n keep them dominoes frum fallin n turnin us all into communists?
• whut ever happend to 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far'?
• is thay a penalty fer gloatin in a loud blustery voice n then showin the worl that yer big stick is broke?
• is it hubris or ignorunts that makes inny cuntry thank it kin fix this place?

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

innerduckshuns of buddy don: the author

i been promissin a feller i wood innerduce im n let im have a say, witch he holds to the mistuck bleef that he runs thangs here. he claims he is the author of this here blog, witch that dont hardly make no cents on a counta tiz clear i have dun writ everthang thats yet been writ on this here blog, ceptn them thangs i quoted.

but hes a verr insistent feller, witch we kin call im stubb on a counta hes so stubborn he wood argue with a fence post n blame it fer not upholdin fer itself. i am sick of his arguin over the keybird, so without futher do-do, here he is, the author:

One of the many odd things about my creation of buddy don duncan, a vehicle I created in order to tell a long story, is how he became an almost independent "person." My original plan was to work out his use of the hillbilly dialect I grew up around. I wanted to make sure it had a fairly consistent grammar and spelling.

My plan was not to do scholarship, to attempt to claim I could speak for all speakers of the dialect. As far as I can tell, there are regional differences between New River and Wartburg, much more between Lake City (once known as Coal Creek) and Oak Ridge. So my plan was simply to codify as well as I could the form of speech used by my family when they gathered for events such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. No matter what the context of the family's gathering, the high point was the telling of tales from the family history.

Though my grandparents' generation and my father's were educated, when it came time to tell tales, they always slipped into the folksy dialect of the hills. In some cases, this was deliberate, but there were several non-standard usages that were believed to be correct: Vick's Vapor Rub was always called "Vicks Save," meaning "Vicks Salve" with "salve" pronounced as "Save." As a sickly child, I believed that it was something meant to "save" the patient, and it helped me breathe through many sick nights. That's a small example, but there were many: "Vie-eenna" sausages, "putt" for "put," "tuck" for "took," "skillet" for "pan," "vittles" for "food," "uphold for yourself" for "defend your position," use of double-negatives to increase the degree of negativity (not to negate it) among others.

When I studied the philosophy of language in West Germany in the 1970s, I learned that English usage in the mountains of East Tennessee more closely resembles that of the English used during Shakespeare's time than English usage anywhere else in the world. Because of its isolation, East Tennessee's moutain communities continued such usage long past the time that English elsewhere in America was becoming more homogenized.

Once I began practicing this dialect using buddy don as my mouthpiece, I was surprised to find I'd begun a novel. I'd originally planned the writing of such a novel, but I always thought of it as something I would turn to someday. My habit of writing was well-established, and I figured once I had a better handle on life and truth and beauty, I would be able to take the raw material of my life and the stories I learned from other people and the stories from their lives and mix them all into a huge cauldron of the life and times of our country during the latter quarter of the 20th century.

But instead, the novel was what happened to me while I was busy practicing the language of the novel I was someday planning to write: the novel you write is what happens to you while you're busy making plans to write a different novel.

Once the novel broke out, it amazed me, the author, as much as it could have amazed anyone else. A lot of that had to do with the dialect I hoped to have buddy don use to tell his tale.

I have been fortunate enough in my life to learn two languages in addition to English: German and Spanish. I learned the former the "proper" way by studying at the university and then spending time living in a German-speaking country. I learned the latter the better way (but not "proper" way, according to language experts at universities) by meeting someone who spoke Spanish and learning it by using it as often as possible.

In each case, as I did so, I began to feel as if I had dug new deep ruts in my mind, ruts where German is spoken and where Spanish is spoken, both of them off the beaten track of English. When I say ruts, I am referring to the kind of ruts that develop in the backwoods, where there are deep tire tracks for the road and it's hard to drive anywhere but in the ruts. Once in the rut of Spanish, it's very difficult to steer the verbal vehicle out of the Spanish rut to speak German: all of the common terms want to come out in Spanish.

What most amazed me from this exercise was that I discovered a rut for buddy don's dialect that was as deep as any I'd dug for either of the non-English languages I had learned (not mastered, but I can "uphold for myself" in each of them fairly well).

And that led to a different and very pleasant surprise: writing as buddy don, using the rut I'd run through the wilderness of my creative mind to move my story along, led to better writing. When writing as buddy don, I don't have have the luxury of over-explaining things, which is a tendency I fight unsuccessfully in my usual writing.

It got to the point that I almost felt – Strike that, I should be more honest: I almost feel as if buddy don is a separate creature from me. My wife (buddy don's "miz bd") and I often speculate about what buddy don will write on a given morning.

But I also discovered more than that. Through the vehicle of buddy don and his dialect rut, I found myself reliving much of my life, looking at it as if through the eyes of a stranger, even though I am myself that stranger, or at least his "creator" or "author." Still, it has led to a lot of work on myself and re-evaluation of what I have done with my life and what I believe.

In addition, it's taken its toll in health matters. I haven't written a chapter on life n pinions of buddy don, hillbilly since life of buddy don, chaptur 145: puzzles of the hart. The day after posting that chapter I got a migraine attack and remained under its spell for 17 days. That led to a period of two and a half months of short-term disability, during which some of my doctors suggested I face reality and prepare to accept long-term disability. (I am much too young to consider that!)

But I have since found myself a little gun shy about picking up the story again. I have written the final chapter of the entire thing, have it all "outlined" in my mind, know what I have left to do with the novel, but I greatly fear the possibility that messing with such topics as honestly as I have been trying to do via the voice of buddy don, I am risking further misery. I truly don't know if there is a relation between my writing and my migraines, but every time I prepare to write the next chapter, I find myself flinching, as if to avoid the blow I know is likely to follow.

Despite that, I know I have to continue if I am to do what I am on this earth to do (insofar as any of us can know what we are here to accomplish, I know that writing this huge novel is part of my reason for being). It would be easy if I had lived the life of a saint, but I haven't even come close to that. The next chapters begin taking me through a long and shameful part of my life, which though fictionalized and changed to make a better story, to get closer to "truth" than I believe "non-fiction" can do, will still be hard for me to confront as honestly as I need to do to reach my goal for this work.

In addition to that, as the story gets closer to the present (and it's still 24 years in the past at the moment), more and more of the characters can be mistaken by readers for historical people. I am taking the grist of history and using the mill of creativity to make something new. Any resemlance to the originals is pure luck on my part, if not lack of talent or just lazy writing. Even so, some of the people I know might mot realize what I am doing and want to "correct the record," as it were. But there is no record to correct: I am not trying to record the history of my world but to create a new world to illustrate the truths and morals that do not come from an accurate accounting of the non-fictional record.

So there are many risks involved with writing the next chapter, and for that reason, it has been almost a year since I attempted one (the draft of the last being completed on January 27, 2006). Despite those risks, for me the greater risks are in not completing what I have begun, in not having the courage to face all my demons, living and dead, real and imagined, threats to personal health or not.

To do that, I have to be able to quit chasing the will o'the wisp of politics. The little poems I write on topical subjects have very temporary worth, going out of date almost as soon as they are written. Commentary on politics only gives the amen chorus what they need to continue shouting "Amen!" But I truly do not believe anyone has a change of belief or viewpoint on the basis of reading what buddy don duncan has to say about any issue.

Enough of that! I hope from now on to devote myself to that, giving myself days off to do politics and such since I can't write a chapter every single day. But I must get back to writing that. I'm about to be on the planet for the 55th time it has circled the sun since I was born: there is no time to waste!

(ifn ye wonta make a comment, ye gut to click on 'link' below.)

quick note of buddy don: cold or flu?

i wuz feelin good bout myself on a counta miz bd had a cold all thru the new years hallday n i wuznt the lease bit sick. but it dint last. i started gittin it nite befor last n couldnt sleep last nite much atall. so i wont be wurkin n lackly wont blog no more today neither.

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pomes of buddy don: Three Thousand Dead!

Three thousand dead!

Though Iraq did not attack us
And old Europe would not back us
And no matter how they whack us
We will win unless we leave!

Three thousand dead!

It's a number, not a comma,
Though not worthy of such drama
As we know thousands of mamas
Have already learned to grieve.

Three thousand dead!

Absolutely we are winning –
For we still control the spinning –
And just need an extra inning
To resolve the mystery!

Three thousand dead!

Yet we know this higher number
Doesn't mean that we have blunder'd –
All will see the great good wonder
When we rewrite history

Three thousand dead!

All must praise their sacrifice!
We shun the ISG's advice,
Suggestions that, to be concise,
Would lead us to defeat

Three thousand dead!

We can't know how many more
We'll have to send to die before
Too many dead can't be ignored
And the Democrats retreat!

Three thousand dead!
Three thousand dead!
Three thousand dead!

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