A LITTLE ADVICE ABOUT GUITARS

Since I'm a builder of guitars and a collector of them, I often get asked what's the best guitar for the money.  And I never have a good answer for a simple reason - there isn't one.  I'd have to ask a lot of questions before I could answer.  Are you a professional musician?  Beginner?  Fair to middling picker?  Collector?  But I could ask all sorts of questions and still not come up with a decent answer because we all have ideas about what we want . . . or think we want.  If I run across a rare person who has no idea what he wants, I can be more useful. 

First off, guitars can be expensive, and some of them are very expensive.  As a young man, I wanted the best guitar out there - a Martin, Gibson, or maybe even a custom made guitar.  I learned to play on an old Gibson Hummingbird, and that set the tone for me and guitars.  But I was an older man before I ever got one of them.  I finally figured out that the only way I'd ever own quality guitars was to build them myself, and I've built dozens and dozens of them.  I've built bass guitars, jumbos, dreadnaughts, parlor, and even ukeleles.  I've built electric guitars too, but that's not my favorite, and I've bought lots of guitars.  What's my favorite commercial guitar?  That's still the Martin guitar.  I sure wouldn't turn down a Taylor, Santa Cruz, or Gibson, but I'm a Martin lover first and foremost.

I own about 70 guitars, most of them vintage.  I've restored quite a few old guitars, but I don't really enjoy the work.  And I've long since overcome my love of expensive guitars.  One of the guitars I play most often cost under $500.  And my best playing guitar is an Alvarez Yari, a DY-77 that's over 30 years old now.  I bought a Parker guitar a few years ago, and I like it very well.  Not cheap, though.  Mostly, I play guitars I built myself, and that's because I made them to suit various purposes.  I've got jazz guitars, big box dreadnaught blue grass guitars, little parlor guitars, and my favorite size, the OO size guitar.

OK, here's my suggestion.  If you're an accomplished guitarist, bite the bullet and get a good guitar.  All the big names like Taylor, Martin, Santa Cruz, and Gibson produce fine guitars, and there's other companies out there doing the same.  If you've got big bucks to spend, go to a custom guitar builder and buy one, but if you've got only a moderate budget to deal with, try Alvarez.  A top rung Alvarez will set you back well over a thousand dollars, maybe even two grand, but they're good guitars.  And don't be afraid of the Asian guitars from Korea or China.  I've got several Chinese made guitars that are pretty nice.  Spend some time in guitar shops playing various models, even if you don't know much about them.  Ask lots of questions.

One last note.  My granddaughter wanted a guitar for Christmas some years back, so I went online
and bought a cheap guitar for her.  Paid like $150 for it, then was amazed at how good it was.  It was cheap, not a great player by any means, but it was decent.  And just as I suspected, she lost interest before long.  Don't be afraid to start at the bottom end, especially with a beginner.

LIMPING ALONG, THE AMERICAN WAY

Maybe we got it from the British, that old notion of muddling through.  I taught political science at the college level for well over 30 years, and I still don't know exactly what that means.  Here's my take on it, for what it's worth.  Democracy is clumsy and often inefficient, and sometimes the only way you can get anything done in a society like ours is to muddle through, to limp along, to just get by and be done with it.  Hardly anyone gets their way in politics and government because democracy forces upon us something we're still not artful at doing - compromise.  Want a close up look at how that works?  It's on display right now in Washington, state capitols, courthouses, and city halls all over the country. 

I broke a leg when I was a kid and have had a limp ever since.  It was just a slight limp at first, but the older I get, the more pronounced the limp gets.  These days, and with the onset of joint problems, the limp is a pesky problem.  I live with it just like I live with doing what most Americans do - limp along, just get by, make ends meet, and go from day to day along a highway of life that always seems to be uphill.  It's the American way, and it's not altogether bad.  Like a physical limp, it's pesky and irritating at times.  I put up with the physical limp because I'm still walking, still getting from one place to another, and that's what counts.  I'm not just sitting there, and that makes life tolerable.  When it gets right down to it, perhaps the limp serves me well because it keeps me from moving too fast . . . and we all want to go fast.  Going slow allows you time to look around, pay attention, and maybe learn something.  You miss a lot going fast.

I try hard to pay attention to what's going on in the society around me.  I watch other people, so I'm aware that most people around me are also hard up against it sometimes.   Life presents everyone with speed bumps, detours, and a whole helluva lot of little irritating chuckholes.  And you can't just run through them; you've got to deal with them, and that means slowing down.  Some folks like me call that slowing down process limping along.  I hear quite about of talk about the fast pace of life, and most people tend to think that's America.  We're the right now society, but that's mostly in our heads.  Yeah, we want to get there in a hurry, but that usually doesn't happen.  Our system just isn't set up to go fast.

Lack of money is a speed bump for some, or if you're lucky, maybe it's just a chuckhole.  With me, it's often a detour, and sometimes it's a roadblock.  I have a steady income, and I get bills paid.  I don't really have a budget.  My way of doing things is to start the race fast, then limp to the finish.  In other words, I pay bills early, and then I quit spending money until more comes in.  Sound familiar?  Even if you carefully budget your monthly spending, you're still limping along.  Don't worry about it.  You might not be living the American dream, but you're sure living the American way.  I'm not convinved that you can run down a dream, but you might be able to limp your way there.

Cats: The Real Pussy?

I'm a cat lover, which means I'm a real pussy hound in that regard.  I love cats for sure, but I don't call them a pussy cat, or just a pussy because the word has been ruined by slang.  Pussy might well be an good word had it not become associated with a woman's private parts, and that happened during the 19th century.  If you look it up, you'll find that the word pussy came from low German or maybe Norse, but it didn't find a commn usage in English for a long time after that.  And it's not usually used in regard to a feline critter . . . but rather for a female body part.  Or more recently, a pussy has come to be a weak hearted person.  Regardless of how you use the word, I like it.  I don't call my cats that, and I don't use the word in conversations with women, but I have been known to call someone "a big pussy."  That's because we've got lots of them around.  Congress, for instance, is full of them.  You don't have to go to Washington to meet a big pussy, though.  Go to your local bank and ask for a big loan, and you'll meet one. 

This blog isn't going to be about big pussies.  It's about cats, my cats, and there's some purpose here other than cat talk.  My day starts with cats and ends with them.  I feed the house cats, the front porch cats, the back porch cats, and then drive across town to feed the shop cats.  And I'm personally involved with all these cats, some of them still kittens.  I didn't have a choice because they picked me, just showed up at my door (or doors) . . . all 30 of them.  I'm convinced that there's a cat channel of communication out there.  If you feed one stray cat, he goes back to the park or wherever he came from, and says, "Hey, guys, there's an old guy over there on Parkview Drive that puts out food.  All  you have to do is show up and act hungry."  And across town at the shop, the same thing is going on.  Go to the shop, hang around, and the old guy comes and puts out food.

Now, here's the bad thing about getting involved with cats that just show up.  Sometimes they don't leave, and sometimes they stay and have kittens, and before long you've got a ton of cats hanging around.  Then whatcha gonna do?  Well, in my case, you buy lots of cat food.  And, you pay lots of vet bills.  And, you devote lots of time to making sure they're cared for.  So, I've been told, "Well, dumbass, quit feeding them."  Sorry, can't do that.  I'm a sucker for animals, especially small animals.  As long as I've got money, they'll get fed.  And I'm doing my best to have them spayed and neutered to keep down the cat population some.

At the shop each morning, I'm greeted by Rusty and Big Mama, the two neighborhood females that keep me supplied with kittens.  Street life is tough on kittens, and most of them die before they show up at my back door wanting food.  If they're lucky enough to make it that long, I'll damn sure feed them.  So outside at the shop I feed the two mama cats, two tomcats (Toby and Tinker), and two 3 month old kittens (Gizmo and Gidget).  Inside the shop, I've got six cats, last spring's kittens now about 7 months old - Urkle, Yoda, Lionell, Muffin, Pekabo, and Lulu. I go back in the evening to feed them again, and I try to hang around each time to play with them some.  With the weather getting cooler now, they'll see more of me during the daytime.  That way I can let them outside for a while.

Yeah, I know, I sould like a pathetic old man who's got nothing to do but mess around with cats.  And maybe I am, but I live by a simple code - what goes around, comes around.  I could be a hardass and turn my back, just let the cats starve or go uncared for.  Someone has got to care, and if I do nothing, that somehow comes back on me.  The same is true concerning people, and that's the lesson I learn from the cats.  Some of my cats are hard to deal with.  I feed cats that won't allow me close to them, can't be petted.  I've got one house cat like that - wants to be close, doesn't want to be touched.  Just feed me and go away, that's her attitude.  I've found that most needy people are also difficult to deal with at times.  If you're expecting gratitude from some folks you help, forget it.  When you help animals like that, or people like that, you can't get bogged down in your own needs.  Do I need the gratitude?  Sure, we all do, but I don't have to have it from every cat I help, and I don't need it from people I go out of my way to help.

And when you run across someone who is too consumed with his own affairs to help a needy animal or person, then you've met the biggest pussy of all.  Myself, I'd rather hang around the real pussies, the cats.

Cletus Duhon Books

He's a cowboy, rancher, adventurer, and storyteller . . . and he's not real.  Oh, he's real in a literary sense because he's the cowboy voice of author Philip Martin Cawlfield.  And there's a story there, too.  Phil had gone on a brief vacation with his then girlfriend, an outing one Easter weekend, and ended up stopping off to visit with a friend in east Texas.  He met a few interesting people and came away with a story, or at least a story line.  Several months later he had written his first Duhon story, The Duck Ranch.  That was just the start of what has turned into a series of novella length stories that are showing up in The Altos Cuentos Trail: The Adventures of Two Old Cowboys.  The first two volumes of that series are out now in paperback, and more will follow.

But back to Cletus Duhon, the focus of this blog.  Although he's just a pen name, Cletus has taken on an identification that makes him more than just part of the stories he writes.  Phil created him as a voice for his cowboy stories, but he has used him extensively as a blogger.  Perhaps that's what did it (give him a personification), but he's now got a history.  I've Googled him several times and find that he's even got a criminal record, or at least you can conduct an internet search for one.  He's got an address, phone number, and even a ranch (that doesn't exist either).  So the question is this:  In this digital age can you create a big as life character like that?  Apparently you can.

I remember reading once about a group of students at a university who created a student.  They got him registered and enrolled in classes.  It took a team of students to work this ruse, but the got him up to being a junior before getting caught.  They'd enroll him in a course, let's say English 101, then have one of the team members attend class and take tests for him.  And they'd pick a team member who was good at that particular subject, and that's how they got caught.  It seems this imaginary student ended up winning an award because his grades were high, and somebody had to show up to receive it.  Professors started talking then, comparisons were made, and the jig was up at that point.  I don't know exactly what point this team of students was trying to make, but they made at least one point.  If you're clever enough, you can make the unreal appear to be real.  And if you can do that, what's real turns out to be what people think it is.

Cletus Duhon seems real to readers because his name is on the books they read, and he's a character in the book.  His narratives are always about what he's involved in, meaning first person or up close and personal . . .and that makes him more personal, more familiar, and more real.  When it gets right down to it, I'm not real either, at least by name.  D. Paz Dalton is also a pen name, with the man behind the pen being the same author who created Cletus - Philip Martin Cawlfield.  I sometimes wonder if this is wise.  Perhaps it would've been better to keep that secret, to just allow people to think we actually exist.  But sooner or later someone would recognize how much alike we all look, that we have the same address and all that.  And as writers, there are differences between us - different voice, different style, and different stories to tell.  And it's fun.  Today I'm D. Paz Dalton, writing about Cletus Duhon.  I'm OK with that, and I'm not crazy . . . yet.

Pontotoc, Texas

I write stories about rural America and small towns most of the time.  Maybe that comes from my background as a teacher.  One of my favorite courses to teach was a rural sociology course, and I usually turned it into a discussion class with quite a few field trips.  I'd load students into a school van, and we'd head for the boonies to take a look at a one room school, or a feedlot, or a dairy, or perhaps even a ranch.  I wanted kids to understand that there's more to living in this country than city living, and I did that with some purpose in mind.

We've got over 300 million people living in the U.S., and most of them live in cities.  In fact, something like 90 percent of our population lives in less than 10 percent of our land area, and that leaves lots of empty spaces out there that have become neglected areas.  I could go on and on about this neglect, but that's not what this blog is about.  My point is that we should not overlook rural areas because this is still the heart of America.  Perhpas it's true that the brains of the country live in cities, but if the heart stops pumping, the brain dies.  It's a simple as that.  When small towns die, we lose something important.

I live in a town of about 5,500 people, but that's not at issue here.  Out in the countryside here in the hill country of central Texas, we have lots of small burgs - tiny villages, just wide spots in the road.  It's easy to miss them, even easier to ignore them, but we shouldn't lose sight of them.  My friends Alphonse and Martha Dotson are in the grape business.  They own and operate a vineyard in Voca, Texas, and that's about 13 miles from where I live.  Voca is one of those tiny towns, but it's perfect for a vineyard.  Down the road, that would be highway 71, there's another tiny village called Pontotoc, and something remarkable is happening there.  I don't know the exact population of Pontotoc, but I'd be surprised if more than 100 people live there.  At one time, and that would be a long time ago, there was a school there, built by the man who first settled the place.  All that remains of that school are some stone walls, and there's not much to the business section of town.  There's a small Thrift Shop, and then there's what once was downtown Pontotoc.  It's just one building - a long rectangular building divided into four or five sections. 

At one time this little village had a post office, a theater, and several businesses.  But that was quite a while back, and the building has been shut and vacant . . . until recently.  Then a man with some vision for Pontotoc showed up and bought property, including the building that once housed the few businesses in town.  He bought a historic old house and restored it, and he set about creating a vineyard and winery.  The old business district is being restored.  It already has the winery up and running, there's a tasting room, and the theater is being refurbished.  And, my friends Alphonse and Martha Dotson will have a home there for their wine products.  In short, the smal downtown area of Pontotoc is coming alive again, and that's good for everyone.

I'll write more later about Pontotoc and the people behind the restorations there.  And I posted some pics to show what's going on. 

Loneliness: The Heart Stopper

Cancer killed my mother.  A stroke killed the only aunt I was ever close to.  Heart disease killed my two best friends and my father.  I could go on and on, but it's like my mother once said.  "Everyone dies from something."  Occasionally I'll see statistics about the killers of most people, things such as heart attacks, cancer, flu, and so on.  I never one time have seen loneliness listed as a killer, but it is.  It will never go on a death certificate as the cause of death, but it is responsible for the deaths of quite a few people. 

We've all experienced spells of loneliness.  Everyone knows what it feels like to be lonesome, but that's a different thing.  Lonesome is an active thing, something that comes on a person when they spend too much time alone.  There's an easy fix to lonesome, but dealing with loneliness is something more demanding and difficult.  I find myself getting lonesome from time to time, and that's when I seek out someone to visit with.  An old fart like me can always find another old man willing to swat tall tales with him, or at least I can.  But I can't get over being lonely for people and things and places no longer around.  I can't pick up the phone and call my mom, can't run across town and visit with a friend who died ten years ago.  I can't go back to the town where I was raised because like me, it grew up and changed.
I can't go to a drive-in movie theater or even look forward to seeing a caboose on a train.  I can't go to a downtown drug store and buy a soda, and there's no old time hardware store around these days.  Loneliness is a product of outliving the things you got used to, the people you loved, the places that changed or don't exist anymore . . . and it's a killer.  Old people like me have to fight off this loneliness, find ways of dealing with it, or it will eventually lead us to something sociologists call disengagement.  We'll pull away, or pull back into a shell because we don't understand or like the world around us anymore.  We have to fight back, or loneliness will eventually be a heart stopper.  We'll reach a point where we just don't want any more of it.

I hate cell phones with a passion, but I have one.  I don't like computers either, but I spend up to eight hours a day sitting at one.  I can't get by without these things anymore, but that doesn't keep me from feeling like I've been left behind.  The train of modern digital conveniences pulled out of the station while I was still in the bathroom.  I'm surrounded by digiheads, tecno-retards, electronic gizmo button pushers, and brain dead doodadders.  My vehicle holds me hostage ever time I get into it because I can't trust a machine that talks to me, and worse yet makes me do what it wants to do.  My wife loves it, has our cell phones programmed with its system . . . and now the damn car is calling up people for me.  Yeah, I get in the thing and a voice says, "What do you want?"  And I say, "Who the hell is this?"  And the voice says, "It's Craig.  You just called me."  And then I have to sound like a total fool and say, "No, that was Dotson (that's my Explorer's name) calling.  I'd let you talk to him, but he's driving right now." It's a killer, I tell you . . . a sure enough heart stopper.

I wonder if anyone ever blew their head off over a cell phone, or over an automobile computer system.  Lots of people have been killed using them while driving, but I've never heard of anyone killing themselves over some infernal contraption.  I'm sure it has happened, but I've never been that desperate due to frustration that comes from dealing with a contraption.  But I can see it coming.  The doors to my vehicle automatically lock when you put it in gear and start to drive.  I'm accustomed to the sound now, and I don't mind it.  But some day I'll get in, the doors will lock, and a voice will say, "Sorry, Phil, but your time's up.  This is a call from God, so please pull over and accept your fate.  We wouldn't want you hurting anyone, would we now?"

I'm thinking of finding the fuse box on that vehicle and taking out some fuses, but I'd still have the damn cell phone.  I'm living a digital bad dream, and I want to wake up.  I'm lonely, dammit!  I want to wake up in a time and age I understand, but we all know that won't happen.  As bad as I hate it, I'm going to have to go digital.  Da, dit, da, dit, da, dit!!!

Where You Hang Your Hat

Home is where you hang your hat, so goes the old saying.  But that's not true.  I've had hats hanging in lots of place I didn't call home, and for good reason.  I didn't really live there.  I resided there for a while, but that's not what I call home.  To me, home is a place you look forward to going back to.  It's a place where you not only keep all your stuff; it's where you keep you points of reference.  Meeting someone new always requires a few minutes of introduction which means you're giving people your reference points.  What's your name?  Where do you live?  What do you do?  In my case I tell them my name is Phil Martin, and I live in Brady, Texas, and I'm a retired college professor who writes books and sometimes builds guitars.  If they want more, I can tell them I'm a husband, father, and grandfather.  If the discussion goes deeper than that, I might tell them that I'm an animal lover, and that I like to collect old things like cameras, audio equipment, and musical instruments.  I might even tell them I'm a left wing Democrat, a tree hugger environmentalist, and an avid reader.
Those are things that identify me as what I am.  Those things are my reference points, and even though they might be important to other people in identifying me, they are much more important to me in identifying myself.  We all need to know who we are . . . and where we belong.

I belong in a small town because I hate urban living.  Were it left to me, I wouldn't live in a town at all, would be out in the country somewhere.  I've always had this dream of living in a log cabin out in wild country somewhere, but that's not practical.  Small town living is a good compromise for me, and I like the one I live in.  Brady, Texas has a population of about 5,500 people, just big enough to have a few things of convenience.  Most things a person needs can be bought right here, but in case it isn't, we're close to several cities - Austin, San Antonio, Abilene, and San Angelo.  Brady isn't quaint like the neighboring town of Mason, but it's a nice old town.  And people are friendly here.  The best thing about living here is that I'm left alone to do my thing.  Most people pay no attention to me at all, and I like it that way.  I've got some decent friends around town, but I'm not a good buddy kind of guy.  I don't hang out with a crowd of other older men, don't join clubs or things like that, and I'm not a church person.  If I feel the need to hang out, I do it with a former Oakland Raider football player now in the vinyard business . . . or with rancher down in Mason . . . or with a neighbor up the street who collects vintage cars.  It's a quiet life, and a good one.

I point this out about my hometown for a reason.  Places like Brady, Texas are important to our national interests, our well being.  If all America had to offer was a city, we'd been in deep doo doo.  And we're moving in that direction with each passing day.  As small towns decline, so does America, and we are declining because most Americans don't live in places like I do.  They're cityslickers, and most of the people filling elected government positions are one of them.  That not only concerns me; it scares me.  I understand why people gravitate toward urban centers.  Everyone needs a job, and you've got to go where you can find the better jobs.  Not everyone can afford to live in a small town because they've got to make a living.  But at the same time, we can't afford to forget about rural America.  Out here in the boonies might not be where the brains of America live, but it's damn sure the heart of America.  And when the heart stops pumping blood to the brain, it dies. 

The books I write aren't usually about cities or the people who live there.  I've written one book set in a large town, and I have no plans of doing so again.  I write about small towns, the people who live there, and in doing so try to point out both the good and bad aspects of rural living.  I write about farms and ranches, about wildernesses and wild country, and even about places most people wouldn't care to visit.  I do that for a reason.  Looking at rural America is like looking into a mirror of our past.  It's where we came from, and if we take a careful, critical look at it, we'll see where we're going.  And we sure need a clearer view of that.  You can find what I write under the pen names Philip Martin Cawlfield, Cletus Duhon, and D. Paz Dalton.  And that, my friends, is a shameless promotion from a small town hick.  Even country folks have to pay bills, you know.

Little Lives

I suppose all of us think out lives are large, or at least larger than many living things on this planet.  We live longer than most animals, if that's any guage of a big life.  Some might argue that most people have little lives because they don't have much, thinking perhaps their own life is larger because they have more.  Living large, that's a term I hear from time to time.  I never hear anyone brag about living small because they means doing without, or perhaps it means living a life without a lot of excitement or fun.  If that's true, we live in a world where most life is small.

I grew up in a mill village in South Carolina around people who didn't have much.  They worked their asses off in cotton mills, but I don't remember much complaining.  Just having a job seemed to please most of them.  My community was full of mostly small houses occupied by people who earned meager wages for the work they did.  They got by, managed to have a few nice things, and for the most part life was good for them.  Looking back on my upbringing, I think the best thing that ever happened to me was growing up around those people.  I loved them, still do.  Things have changed there these days.  The cotton mills are gone, but the little houses are still there, and they're still occupied by people who work hard to have a decent life.  I live in Texas now, but my home town isn't a lot different from where I grew up.  Most people do what it takes to get by, and some of them don't make enough money to do that and end up dependent on the government for some help.  I don't mind that, and I don't think of these people has having little lives.  Besides, it's not up to me to decide what kind of life they have.

I don't think of myself as having a large life.  We do OK, manage to make ends meet most of the time, and we have some things so people would think means large living.  My house is large, and I have several large cars.  But we don't travel much, don't have a budget for recreation, and we usually don't buy what we don't need.  Most of our money goes for basic things, and that includes paying the leeches - the blood suckers like insurance premiums, taxes, and utility bills.  But doesn't everyone?  It's the American way, and it a way that keeps a whole lot of people living little lives.  Living a good live, one that's not so small that it hurts, sure isn't a freebie . . . and no one should expect it to be.

I've come to realize that my life is dependent on little lives.  Nothing pleases me more than holding a kitten in my hands, or a puppy, or any small animal just starting life.  I love animals, all kinds of animals, and without them my life wouldn't be worth living.  My point is simple.  There is no such thing as a small life.  A little life can sometimes make my day a million dollar day, and at the same time, an encounter with a big life can sometimes make my day not worth a penny.  If someone gave me the choice between being able to hold a newborn kitten or shake hands with a sports hero or big time politician, the kitten wins hands down.  Think small and it sometimes makes you large.

News From The Line Camp

It's all about guitars over at the Line Camp, but that's what I intended for it to be from the start.  I bought the place in late 2003, started working on it early the next year.  It was a small house with a shop area built onto the back, and it was in bad shape.  I started renovations with some things in mind - a working shop area to build and repair guitars, a showroom, an office, a kitchen and bathroom, and a set-up area to work on guitars once they were almost complete.  After about six months, I had the place looking pretty good both inside and out.  I built lots of bookcases and shelves to store things, and I covered the walls with stuff I'd collected over the years.  It's definitely cowboy, a man's abode, and it is now home to six inside cats.  Got another six who hang around outside.

But I got older and less able to do hard work, so the outside area now looks run down again.  Got an old boat, car, and utility trailer in the yard, all sorts of other stuff.  That's a pending clean-up project.  Inside, the place still looks good, but it's much more than a guitar shop now.  Since it's a quiet place, it's good for writing.  My old computers are there, and they still have some stories on them written back in the 1980s and 1990s.  There's some audio equipment, and lots of tapes and records.  Yeah, a good place to crank up the old stereo and listen to some classic rock, country when it was country, or even classical music.   And sometimes, I do some playing myself.  I own about 60 guitars, and most of them are there at the Line Camp.  I've got a music room here at home, but it's small and cramped.  I'm not allowed to spread out here.  Female restrictions, you know.

But it's sad at the Line Camp these days because something is missing now.  My favorite shop cat was killed on the highway a few weeks ago.  She's buried in the back yard now, along with several other cats who died there.  I loved that cat, and I'm still angry at myself for not keeping her up at night.  She loved being outside, begged to go out, and I allowed it, and now she's gone.  Dammit!  My heart drops out every time I go there now because she's not waiting on me at the back door.  Oh, cats are still waiting - Toby, Tinker, Rusty, Big Mama, and a couple of new kitten.  I still have cat buddies, but I sure miss the one that's gone.  And her best friend, a grey tabby that was always with her, is here at my residence across town now.  I at least had the good sense to make sure she was safe.

My day will start before long with a trip across town to feed cats, clean litter boxes, and piddle around with whatever else needs doing.  Now that cooler weather is here, I'll be spending more time there.  My writing projects are coming along well, time to get back to
working on some guitars.  I need the work.  I've been blue lately, and blue isn't a good mood for writing.  I need to get my hands on some wood and see if I can make it come alive again.
Creation is good for the soul, and mine needs a little help right now.  My hands are less able these days to work the magic they once did, but they still work.  Yeah, today I'll work with wood.

Blame It On The Cats

Writing sometimes requires some patience around here, which means shooing cats away from my keyboard while I'm trying to write.  We've got plenty of them both here and at the shop across town.  By shop, I mean Line Camp Guitar Shop, a place I've owned for a while now.  When I'm not writing, I'm piddling around with a musical instrument of some kind, usually a guitar.  I took up making guitars back in the 1980s, still do it from time to time.  And I collect musical instruments.  The Line Camp is home to a lot of things I've acquired over the years, including some cats.  They seem to find me, both there at the shop and here at home.  Here on Parkview Drive, I've got about 15 cats hanging around - some inside cats, and some who live outside.  In all, I feed about 30 cats, and that takes lots of cat food, and then there are the vet bills.

Here's an example of what a cat lover like me can get caught up in.  Dogs attacked a kitten in front of my house about 3 months ago, nearly tore it to pieces before my wife chased them off.  When I picked the kitten up, only about 6 weeks old then, it appeared to be dying.  So, we called the veterinarian and rushed it to the hospital.  He didn't think its chances were good, but I told him to try and save the kitten.  And, he did.  We named him Lucky, and he's still with us.  He has scars, a disfigured face, and perhaps more surgery ahead of him, but he's the happiest cat I've got.  He's a miracle kitten to have survived at all.  He fits right in with a three legged cat I own, one that same vet saved years ago.  And there's other salvation cats around here, animals that would've died had someone not taken care of them.  Maybe I'm stupid, but I can't turn my back on an injured animal. 

So, even though I had no specific intent in mind, I've ended up running my own private cat shelter.  Part of my motivation for publishing books is so I can afford to take care of cats.  It's a good thing I'm married to a cat lover. 

I'm not a seasoned pro at blogging, but I've done some of it in the past.  And it didn't take me long to get bored with it either.  The internet can be vicious at times, rewarding at other times, but just sort of dull most of the time.  Some bloggers are fireball advocates of one thing or another, and sometimes they're fun to read.  Some are bitchers and moaners, whiners and complainers, and some are looking to generate interest in something.  That's me, the blogger looking to draw attention to something.  In my case, that is the other things I write, the books. 

I've been a writer most of my life, but I've never done it with commerce in mind.  In short, I didn't give a damn about publishing . . . until recently.  And my sudden surge of interest in getting my work in print isn't motivated by dreams of financial reward.  Some extra income would be welcome, but that's not what I'm up to.  I finally got to the point where I needed to see my work between the covers of a book, and I've long since given up on dealing with publishers.  I've played that game in the past, even as a young man - that irritating and frustrating game of trying to get a publisher interested in your work.  I even had an agent once, and a good one at that.  He worked his tail off for a while trying to market my books, and I think he believed he could.  He got some interest from major publishers, but they wouldn't come up with a good enough offer for him to accept them.  And he finally gave up, and that was fine with me.  By then, I'd given up on dealing with the big market press.  My stuff was too regional, they said, not main stream enough.  And, they were right.

Things have changed a lot since I first started trying to get published.  For one thing, I'm a much better writer now than I was back then.  And, I'm no longer concerned about the success of what I put on the market. If it flies, fine . . . if not, so be it.  I'm not everyone's cup of tea because I don't mind stepping on toes . . . or because I just don't write about what some readers are interested in.  When it gets right down to it, I write for me, to entertain myself.  I'm a hard guy to entertain, so I work hard at
making what I write readable.  Sometimes it works, but sometimes it comes up short.  That's when I have to go back and rework it.  There's at least one benefit in letting something you've written lie around for a long time before getting it in print.  You have time to think about it, mull things over, and make changes.  I don't usually change much, but some changes are always made.

Over the years I've developed several different voices, pseudonymns, pen names.  I use the D. Paz Dalton voice to write my borderlands stories and a few others.  He's my hit man, my go after the bad guys voice who tells it like it is.  He's oblivious to political correctness (or any other kind of correctness), doesn't mince words, and is often critical of our system of government and the society we all live in.  Cletus Duhon is my cowboy voice.  He's responsible for my Altos Cuentos Trails stories, and a few other books.  He's down home, folksy, practical, and funny.  Philip Martin Cawlfield - well, that's me.  I write the more stories that need an academicians touch, but that doesn't mean they're not at times humorous.  Regardless of what voice I use, I always try to work in some humor.  Sometimes my words might generate only a smile, a chuckle perhaps, but that's better than lots of other emotions they might bring about.  Smile, pardner . . . then say anything you want.

I almost forgot about this blog site until a few days ago.  Don't think I ever used it but maybe once or twice, but now's the time to start being a regular blogger again.  Used to do that a lot, then lost interest.  My attention span is short, barely long enough to get this written.  Anyway, here's the recent news.  I've got a book out there now, for sale on Amazon.com.  It's called The Redrocks Chronicles, a collection of short stories, fourteen in all. 

I don't really know what to say about this book other than . . . it's funny, it's different, and it's easy reading.  Redrocks is an imaginary Texas town on the Rio Grande River, and the stories are about the people who live there.  It's all in good fun, but there's some serious business going on here.  I started writing this book to amuse myself and then discovered what a wonderful vehicle it would be to take to task the society we all live in.  I've long been a critic of government in this country, but that stands to reason since I'm a retired political science professor.  But nobody wants to listen to someone vent their dissatisfaction with government, even if they are qualified to do so.  Sometimes our government is so sad it's funny, and that's what I tried to focus on in this book.  Don't get the notion that the book is about politics because it isn't.  The stories are about other situations and conditions, and I simply use them to point out the shortcomings of a system of government that has outlived its usefulness.

If you read my book, you'll see that I'm looking to start something.  I've always been like that - a bit of a troublemaker.  I'm not a bully, don't pick on the little guys, but I don't mind a good fight either.  I look forward to confrontations, and I don't bite my tongue to keep from offending other people's tender sensibilities.  If a reader doesn't like my style or points of view, shut the book and don't read it.  I'm sure not everyone's cup of tea.  I'm direct, confrontational, opinionated, politically incorrect, sarcastic, and downright ornery at times.  But I see the humor in things even people with good senses of humor miss, and when I do, I'll point them out to you.  You don't have to be smart to understand my stories; you just have to be willing. 

I'm working on other projects, and you'll be hearing about them before long.  If you think this blog is a shameless effort to pump up interest in the new book, you're right.  And I don't feel a damn bit bad about it.

October 11, 2013