Hola, amigos!

I’ll bet you’re wondering, “Now why don’t he never write?” Well, I’ll tell ya’. In the summer touring season, when there is news to be reported, I’m so bizzy dashing down the lonesome highway to make it to the next gig that I don’t have any time to write. Then, in the winter off-season, when I have all the time in the world, there’s nothing of a musical nature to write about.

Sure, Katy and I do some traveling, migrating with the birdies to far flung lands where the climate suits our clothes, exotic destinations like Thailand, Peru, Brazil, Egypt, Jordan, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Arizona, Hawaii! I list them individually, wistfully gazing southward out the window with dreamy eyes. We’ve come to love Mexico and have endeavored to live there through the past few winters. These are fun things to write to you about during winter. Hopefully you read these posts from a warm, exotic locale, yourself.

Dolefully, we are damned to suffer these dark and dreadful months in cold, snowy, old Wyoming. I needed to stay close to help my ailing mother before her recent passing. So it goes. Katy is the new owner of the Paramount Ballroom & Cafe in Cheyenne. Sweet cocktail bar. Check it out. So, she had to stay home too.

As such, I squander the truncated days and interminable nights wrenching on motorcycles, playing online RISK (TM), reading WW11 books, and roaming the badlands with my good dog, Roadie. As for music, my hobby is to sit up late, drinking rye whiskey and smoking cigars, learning jazz standards on the nylon string guitar. Maybe I’ll pick up a jazz gig at Katy’s cocktail bar under a pseudonym. Would a jazz version of “Trailer Park Fire” be weird? As for music work, I’ve been excavating my song catalogue, arranging solo versions of many of the songs that were lost after Shaun passed and the ensemble disbanded. You will hear them soon.  

So there ya’ go, just letting you know that I am still among the living. Wednesday is New Years Day. Thank you for sharing music, mirth, and mischief in 2024. I wish you all good things in the new year and look forward to whangin’ banjos and whoopin’ it up with you next summer!

Your dedicated minstrel,

Jalan