The following never-before-seen
Tom Russell interview was conducted by email in October 2011 while he was on
the road, touring in support of his album Mesabi.
It was intended to appear in a third collection of author interviews, in
sequel to ART IN THE BLOOD and ROGUE MALES (the latter boasts an earlier Tom Russell interview). That third book didn’t happen (for myriad
reasons, I pulled the plug). The interview survives. Revisiting it for the
first time in several years, I’ll declare it here and now to be one of my
personal favorites of the exchanges with writers I’ve been privileged to
conduct.
Tom Russell has
a new double-album out called The Rose of Roscrae. (You can find my review here.) The following interview stands as a
deep-dive into Mr. Russell’s interests and thoughts on music, the writing life
and creative types of all stripes. Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you Mr. Tom Russell….
***
Q. Bob Dylan centers the title song of
your new album, Mesabi. You’ve
recorded several Bob Dylan covers, notably on Indians Cowboys Horses Dogs, a take on “John Wesley Harding,” as
well as a recent track from the Pat
Garrett & Billy the Kid soundtrack with Gretchen Peters. You do a
killer version of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.” You’ve never been bashful
about putting your heroes and inspirations at the center of various songs, but
Dylan seems to loom largest for you. What speaks most profoundly to you in Dylan’s
music or career?
A. First: his catalogue. Astounding in its depth and
profundity. Bob Dylan exploded folk song, or hell, exploded American popular song, and also did away
with the absolute necessity for poetry in this culture. At least for awhile. When I was a teenager I
absorbed three key records: Bringing It
All Back Home, Highway Sixty-One Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde. Dylan wrote and recorded all three in
an 18 month period, along with dozens of outtakes. That’s probably fifty incredible songs within less than two
years. It’s unimaginable now. I can only liken it to Van Gogh painting over
three hundred paintings in the space of one year. The impact of that never left
me. Then he kept re-inventing himself. It seems like most other songwriters have
been scared stiff, into silence, ever
since. Dozens of damn good writers from the early Dylan era just gave up, went
home or killed themselves. Ponder
all that if you will, and bring out the crucifix…the kid from the Mesabi Range.
Q.
The album closes with a bonus track of you and Lucinda Williams dueting on a
Dylan song. With the vast Dylan catalogue to draw on, why did you pick a Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, for this particular album?
A. I was fooling around with it one day
and started finger-picking a version while reading the lyrics. It sounded like
a fresh take on the song. The song had much impact on me because it appeared on
Dylan’s second album and it was ahead of its time. He really didn’t write
apocalyptic poetry like this for two or three more records. So he was
channeling his future muse. I like the drone of the lyrics as they build into
Armageddon. The images seem to combine Steinbeck, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos
Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sandburg and Rimbaud.
Q.
In terms of Dylan and “the reputation,” it seems increasing numbers of buzzards
are circling these years. We let some rare novelists grow old without critical
fallout. A character actor here or there… Painters get to age gracefully. But
few others in the creative arts are granted the privilege to mature and remain
relevant. Maybe some percentage of critics would actually have preferred Dylan
to check out in 1966 when he spilled that Triumph Tiger near Woodstock. Is
Dylan’s greatest sin maybe living too long?
A. Buzzards. Of course. This is a heartless
culture full of journalist buzzards. Elvis was laughed into an early grave. The
Wall Street Journal did an incredibly cruel article about Dylan being too old
to play. No respect. But consider the fact that Dylan has been getting booed
throughout most of his career: for turning electric, for not writing more
protest songs, for being born-again
for awhile and preaching about it in song, for doing Victoria Secret ads, for
going to China…on and on. And finally for not dying young. Journalists would rather write his obituary, and then
the magazines could do the memorial issues and bla bla bla. I think the bottom
line is it’s intimidating to journalists and young songwriters to have this guy
still around performing and recording and writing. He set the bar way to high
and now they want to crucify him for it. His face should be on the fucking
hundred-dollar bill instead of some dead politician. Let’s give him the Noble
Prize and shut up.
Q.
At the other end of the spectrum, I recall watching you perform a few licks of
Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” during a Columbus sound check a couple of years back.
Did that “live hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse” siren’s song ever
threaten to reach you?
A. I always knew
my limits, so to speak. I love the discipline of writing too much to wipe it
away with dissipation. Though I’ve been in the alley a few times. My wife
Nadine keeps me out of the bars now. I paint away the nights. I think Amy’s
rehab song was the last great and honest song I’ve heard in ten years. Blunt
honesty and dark humor. I loved her. She was the real thing in the faux era of Lady Gaga.
Q.
Like you, and several other singer/songwriters, Dylan also paints (and has
recently drawn fire for that, too).
You’ve been painting for a number of years now. Hemingway claimed to learn
about writing about the natural world from studying the paintings of Cezanne.
Does your painting, in any way, feed or enrich the music, or does it run the
other direction?
A. I’ve always
seen a link between songs and paintings. More of a link than between songs and
poetry. It’s hard to describe. I think I spelled it out pretty good in the
introduction to my art book: Blue Horse/Red Desert. Painting and
songwriting enrich each other. For
certain. There’s a lot of magic involved. You throw paint on the canvas
until something magic happens, or until you take it too far and ruin the thing.
Same with songwriting. Like Picasso said, it’s better to leave your mind
outside the door of the studio…and let it all rock.
 |
| "Zapata" by Tom Russell |
Q.
In Blue Horse, Red Desert, the new
book collecting many of your paintings, you quote Baudelaire: “Genius is but
childhood recovered at will.” Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The
problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” How do you keep the adult
from getting in the way on the canvas or in the studio?
A. I never grew up. Still the idle day-dreamer.
I walk through the usual bullshit of adult life just like everyone else. You
have to eat and sleep and mow the lawn and all that. I outlined the problem in
the song The Pugilist at 59… the goal is to keep the passion going while
balancing it all against the paying of bills and dues and the painfully dull
bullshit of modern existence. I believe art, and the making of art, and even listening or seeing great
art….takes us out “out of time.” We don’t age when we are painting or singing
or digging good art. I know that
for a fact. The trick is to stay in that realm, or tent, as long as possible.
Head on down the rabbit hole with Alice in Wonderland. It’s no mystery to me
why a lot of painters live to an old age. Painting and singing are like
floating above the killing fields. It’s the avoidance of getting that “heart attack machine” strapped across
our backs…as Dylan might say.
 |
| "Peckinpah in Durango" by Tom Russell |
Q. You’ve asserted, “It’s far healthier to be creative
than to be bored.” Have there been periods in your life when you were bored in
more than the usual sense?
A. There’s been
periods when I gave up on myself, and then boredom and depression knocked me
off base until I could find my footing again. I drove cab. I dried out in the
odd mental hospital. Briefly. When
the writing and painting and prose writing is going well I’m never bored.
Depression is kept at bay. That old snarling predator! I also love being out on
the road singing the songs and taking them to the people. That routine is good
for me. That old Shakespearean stage life. Art has saved my soul, brother.
Q.
The new DVD, Don’t Look Down, gives
some sense of life on the road. Maybe it’s apocryphal, but you hear these
stories of Willie Nelson touring nearly year round, then getting home and still sleeping on his tour bus parked
out in the yard in order to get a solid night’s sleep. Do you look forward to
touring? Is it hard for you to transition between the road and home?
A. I love the
road, though I’m not as much of a road-hound as Willie. I like the balance of
writing the songs and then taking them out on the road for a year or two, then
holing up to write a new album and paint new paintings. Work on a book. I think
every new record deserves two years of concerts and such. Then I’ve got to lay
back and figure the next move. I’m working on several books, so I need to be
home part time to keep them going. But I love hotels and the routine.
Q.
Your albums have always boasted strong thematic structures—the sum of the parts
amounting to a much larger, clearly carefully constructed work. Is it
frustrating to see the bigger work chopped up or diffused through the delivery
system of single shot sales of songs via iTunes and various other web outlets?
A. Naw. The
songs will survive being thrown up in the air. They are children who were
raised well. There’s something out there for everyone. I would hope each song
is strong enough to stand alone, outside of the album. But I also appreciate
those who still look for full records.
Q.
Do you see a viable future for albums as a format?
A. Yes. It will
never fully go away, but the question is more like…will there be any writers
around who can write ten or twelve decent songs to fill a new record? We’re not
creating great songwriters. We’re creating people painting ambient sound walls
of whine. We’re creating networkers when we should be encouraging
outsiders. But the old forms survive
on the edges. L.P.’s are coming back. As are cassettes! Dig it.
Q.
Let’s talk about what seems to me to be the two running thematic streams of
your latest album, Mesabi. First we
have Hollywood and what you term, “the Hollywood Skin Trade” — what others have
called “the Hollywood Death Trip.” The front end of Mesabi is populated by several Hollywood—particularly Disney
associated—screen icons. You grew up in Los Angeles. How did living in the
heart of the Hollywood machine affect your attitude to film?
A. We took it
all for granted back then. I mean we were virtually living in Disneyland. The theme park was just down the road and the
T.V. show came on every Sunday and man, those
cartoons. Scary and weird. Check out Pinocchio
again sometime. They take all the bad kids to an island where they grow donkey
ears and work in the mines! Frightening things. Then Jiminy Cricket sails into
the scene and saves the day…the voice of Ukulele Ike. Weird. Cartoons, and
movies and great characters who were also actors…we took that for granted.
These hugely unique people. Now actors are just somebody on the faces of those
glossy magazines when you stand in line in the supermarket. Empty mannequins.
Q.
Your line in “Farewell Never Never Land” about meeting former Disney child star
Bobby Driscoll when he was pretty far gone—does that refer to an actual
encounter you had with Driscoll? Are there other Hollywood-types you
encountered in your youth around L.A.?
A. I think I saw
Bobby one day outside the Topanga Canyon Market and he looked strung out. It
was a long way from Treasure Island,
for sure. Adios, Never Never Land. Scary. It formed my idea that there was a
difference between real life and movies. I also grew up near Lee Acre who
played “Rusty” on Rin Tin Tin. We
played baseball together. Jerry Mathers, who was The Beaver on “Leave it to
Beaver,” played football against us in high school. These people were just around. You saw them at the beach. You
saw them in school. They were just doing a gig like anyone else…until it turned
bad for them. When your voice changed you might not get those parts anymore and
they drop your contract and you have no other skills. The bottom ain’t too far
from the top in Never Never Land.
Q.
The actor and noir icon Sterling Hayden is another Hollywood casualty
spotlighted on Mesabi. You earlier
name-checked the “Viking God” in “Beautiful Trouble” on Love & Fear. Is it the actor, the troubled man, or the
later-in-his-career author you find yourself drawn to?
A. All of it. I remember seeing him on the
Johnny Carson show, where Sterling was broke and asking the audience for a free
apartment overlooking the Hudson River with a typewriter and a mattress. He was
going to write the big novel. He’d written two books already. Once you saw him
on TV and heard his voice you didn’t forget him. He was damaged yet fearless. That
was back when they smoked on T.V. And laid the talk out on the line. I also saw
a documentary on him in the 1960’s (which I can’t locate now) where someone
filmed him on a barge on a river in Europe. Sterling was living on it. He was chugging Johnny Walker and really laying his
life out on the line. I’m drawn to his no-bullshit character. You can see and
feel the rough edges on that face. He’d been on the frontlines and could tell
you what it was like.
Q.
The second theme of the album seems to be “the dark and bloody battleground”
that is present-day Mexico, particularly as seen from your vantage point via a
key U.S. border town. Was Juarez still relatively open when you first moved to
El Paso?
A. I used to
walk across the bridge to Juarez until about two years ago. I drank in the
bars, I went to the bullfights, and I filmed Mariachi’s in the market place.
Some of that you can see in our film Don’t
Look Down. Juarez was wide open then. All of that is gone. It’s been a war
zone for several years and a lot of the old bars have been bulldozed.
Q.
Can you talk about a couple of your last border crossings? I read somewhere
about you getting caught up in at least one exchange of gunfire at some point….
A. When I first
came here in 1997 I used to go over to the bullfights. Twice I just missed
being mowed down in a drug rubout. We could hear the machine gun fire as we
drove away in the cab. The taxi driver was ducking down and the bullets were
flying. Those were the incipient rumblings of the war…cartel’s fighting cartels
for all that American drug money. It didn’t dawn on us that it would escalate
into World War Three. Nine thousand people have been killed over there and more
than forty thousand in all of Mexico, and yet this country seems obsessed with
the Middle East.
Q.
You’ve said Juarez is now more like “Tombstone on methamphetamine.” Can you
foresee any return to normalcy on the border or deeper in the heart of Mexico?
A. It works this
way: we sell them the guns, they kill each other to control the business, and
then we buy the drugs. The cartels war against each other to make the millions
in profit from all of this. It’s
too much embedded in the economy over there to fully go away. If America legalized some drugs it would take the heat off, but that won’t happen. We’ve lost the war on drugs. Charles Bowden,
the writer, is really the authority on all of this.
Q.
The other night, in concert, you remarked that Mexico City is the center of
western culture. Can you elaborate a bit on that?
A. The Aztecs
were there. Mayans. The pyramids and temples and art. It’s the old land of the
bottom line. Then the Spanish rode through. The shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe
is there. Mexico City is the spiritual heart of our western and cowboy culture.
You could spend two weeks down there and not see all the pyramids and museums
and shrines, and eat at the great cafes. The largest bullring in the world is
there, and Frida Kahlo’s house and the murals of Diego Riviera. I could go on
and on. My sister, who is married to an Italian, is always going to Italy and
Rome, and I tell her she should visit the heart of our culture. But most
Americans don’t get the point. They think it’s too dangerous and third world down there.
Q.
In an age when the very act of reading and writing seems threatened by
technology, you strike me as one of contemporary music’s lonely and truly
voracious readers. On recent tracks you’ve riffed on everyone from T.S. Eliot
to Graham Greene to Raymond Carver to Ray Bradbury. You seem to continue to
cast a pretty wide net in your reading. Are you still mostly drawn to
nonfiction? How do you choose a book?
A. I'm educated
as a criminologist, so I used to be drawn to a lot of true crime things. But
there’s not a lot of it being written that’s decent. I love biography. I’m now
reading Hemingway’s Boat, which is quite good. I love the non-fiction
work of Joseph Mitchell and A.J. Liebling, and both used to write for the New Yorker. You can learn a hell of a
lot about New York and Paris and food, and writing,
by reading these two. And boxing, in
the case of Liebling. They had character and style. I choose a book now by
hearing about it or reading a review or getting a nod from somebody. Then I
read a few pages and if I’m not pissed-off that somebody is writing at me or showing off, then I
continue. If I reach a point where I don’t care or give a shit about the subject or character or what the writer is
trying to do, I put it down and move on. Life, in that sense, is too short to
tolerate writing you are not moved by.
Q.
On the subject of fiction writers, you told a journalist recently,
“Ninety-eight percent of writers are lying… Even in fiction, it goes a long way for me to
find a modern fiction writer that I believe.” Who are some of those modern
fiction writers you can take the ride with?
A. I recently
discovered Denis Johnson. Train Dreams.
Nobody Move. Jesus’ Son. Unbelievably good. I want to read more. He seems
to be able to hit to any field with plenty of strength: crime novel, historical
novel etc. It seems the worms haven’t
gotten to him. He lives off the grid,
as you told me, way up on the top of Idaho. I’m going back and reading some of
J.P.S. Brown’s western stuff because I visited him recently and he’s led a
fascinating life. I think Leonard Gardner’s Fat
City (an influence on Denis Johnson)
and Fante’s The Brotherhood of the Grape
are modern master works. Of sorts. I always go back and read the openings to
several Graham Greene novels like: The
Power and the Glory and The Heart of the Matter.
Q.
You spent a period of time in your earlier years trying your hand at writing
novels. You’re back at that task, working on your own timetable as you put it.
Can you talk a little about where you might be headed in terms of subject or
setting?
A. I’ve been
trying to work on a piece of fiction about life on the border, here in El Paso,
during the Mexican drug war. Sort of a fragmented cowboy novel about the last
frontier. Cowboys, Indians, and Mexicans, fighting it out on the great
Chihuahua desert. It’s amusing me.
My earlier crime novel Bloodsport
(published only in Norwegian) was recently released as a paperback in Norway. I
won’t pursue getting that out in English. Not yet. I’m also writing a regular
essay on western things for a magazine called Ranch and Reata, a very well done publication. When I have about
twenty or thirty of those I’ll collect them into a book. My take on the West.
Q.
In “Goodnight Juarez,” there’s a lament: “They even tore the bullring down.”
I’m pretty sure you’ve read Hemingway’s bullfighting tribute, Death in the Afternoon. Hem equated
bullfighting with the act of fiction writing. The bullfight is under pretty
strong fire, even in Spain. What lessons or value can still be drawn from
witnessing bullfighting in your estimation?
A. That’s dangerous to try and explain or justify. First of all, I think Death in the Afternoon is dated now. But
the last chapter, where Hemingway celebrates all the things he left out of the
book, is one of his strongest pieces of writing. He summons up the old Spain
which has been ruined by the transformation into the euro economy. It’s the
best travel writing on Spain ever composed or concocted. It’s all gone.
Secondly, to even discuss bullfighting or Torero
within the context of current culture is almost impossible. It can’t really be
defended, even Hemingway knew that. I find all the political correctness rather
absurd in comparison to factory farming and the world of horse racing, and
other pursuits. I grew up on the backside of the race track and, trust me, racing thoroughbreds are
treated a lot rougher than fighting bulls. Dozens and dozens of horses ruined
and killed every season. But the very idea of sticking swords into an animal
and such is alien now. Torero is an ancient art,
not a sport. It’s a ritual. To really get into the idea of what’s going on and
why, one would have to explore the duende
musings of the great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, and his writings have
been edited and politically corrected in online bios. Such bullshit. I wouldn’t defend the bullfight to anyone now. It’s
a cultish thing that you either get
or do not get….and you’ll spend too
many afternoons waiting for that one moment when the door opens and you see
something that will hook you forever. By the way, I’m not a huge Norman Mailer
fan, but the best piece of writing he did was an essay on bullfighting called El
Loco. Or “The Crazy One.” It’s worth seeking out because it goes a long
way in describing these matters of duende
in the ring. Mailer says the bullfight taught him “something about the mystery
of form.”
Q.
Your penned a memorable Hemingway piece about visiting his house in Cuba
several years ago. You’ve indicated you’re thinking of expanding that into some
kind of essay. What’s your strong impression of the Finca?
A. I was offered
a rare glimpse inside the house, if I coughed up a five dollar bribe, and so I
was able to walk into his bedroom and see the typewriter and the spot where he
wrote, standing up. The books on his shelves were well thumbed and the bottles
of scotch and vodka were still in the front room. It was all very moving. It
was the house of a writer.
Q.
What, if anything, do you most admire in Hemingway’s writing or life as an
artist?
Charles
Bukowski, who I corresponded with for many years, said something to me once: Hemingway is better when you’re young. I
suppose that’s partly true. Same could be said of Bukowski! We immerse
ourselves in writers like Hemingway, Steinbeck and Kerouac, when we are
younger, and get carried into their dream. They lived “full up.” Hell, it was
exciting to imagine how these people lived their lives. They were certainly characters in the truest sense. But then
we had to grow up and lead our own lives. I went back recently and read A Moveable Feast and loved it, even with
all of its meanness and back-stabbing. It’s wonderfully written. I think Hemingway changed the American
sentence, and all the airplane journalism parodies and put downs will not erase
his influence on writing culture. As with Kerouac… I think the drinking life
caught up with Hemingway. Rituals that worked when you were twenty sometimes
slap you down when you reach fifty. He turned into a parody of himself. The
funny thing about Hemingway (and Bob Dylan for that matter) is there have been
over a hundred books written on these guys. Positive and negative. These two
artists have left a huge mark on our culture and all the cheap
criticism and mockery doesn’t matter. Is anyone going to remember Max Eastman
or those critics who went after Hemingway?
Q.
Your previous album, Blood and
Candlesmoke, contained this beautiful song called “Guadalupe” I especially
admire and I think you’ve referenced as a song you’re particularly proud of. In
setting up the song in concert, you seem to take pains to make clear it
shouldn’t be construed as a religious statement on your part. I’ve seen
Kristofferson do a similar thing in past years when performing his song, “Why
Me?” Is “Guadalupe” a song you fear some have taken the wrong way in some
manner?
I don’t really
care, since the song has to stand on its own. And does. I just want people to know what moves me is the story and the spirit of the Mexican people in continuing to react to the story.
We all pursue our miracles wherever we can find them. And in some ways, for
some wild reason, Our Lady of Guadalupe has become one of my own angels. We all
need to pray at times and prayer has nothing to do with organized religion.
Prayer is found embedded within the pursuit of making art. And in the reaching
out for help and hope. No matter Who you’re
reaching out to.
Q.
So many of your albums contain songs with flashes of autobiography, but you
seem to have become more aggressive about putting yourself at center of your
albums, particularly since Hotwalker.
Is that a false sense on my part, or are you deliberately letting more of your
life into the music?
A. I’ve become
more at ease with digging deeper. I often quote an old Carl Perkins line: a man can run away for so long….until one day
he runs back into himself. I
was known for many years as a “storyteller” which seems to stand outside the
idea of writing your own personal saga. After ten or fifteen years of being
slaughtered in personal relationships, and clawing my way back up to the rim of
the canyon, I decided to write about it. What it’s like on the frontlines. I
think it really started with the record: Love
and Fear. Now I’m happily married, so maybe I have the balance I need to
get personal.
Q. The new DVD includes
some footage of your wedding to your wife, Nadine. Has marriage changed or affected
your songwriting in any way you’re conscious of?
A.
Yeah. I’m more confident to follow whatever path my muses and angels will lead
me. I also am able, finally, to approach the great American love song with a bit of confidence. I’ve written a number
of songs for her. She also runs our business interests which allows me to focus
on art and song. Meeting her has really saved me. She’s also got a Master’s in
psychology, so she is perfectly equipped to deal with the maestro.
Q.
You’ve said,
“Every Tom Russell record should harbor at least one song of hope or simple
love.” The album Mesabi, proper, ends
on an acoustic version of “Love Abides,” from The Man From God Knows Where. What brought you around to closing
out with a reprise of that particular song?
A. Nadine heard it a few years ago and told me I
should re-cut it, because it was a great song. I picked up a guitar in the
studio in Tucson, recently, and laid down a rough version. Just me and the
guitar. I was going to re-record it with a band, but Nadine said it was
perfect. It’s rough and to the point, like Dylan finishing a record with Dark Eyes. Him and his guitar. A voice
in the night. I think all these dark stories need a little light washed over
them. Like Churchill said: if you’re
going through hell, keep going. You’ll eventually find a place where love
abides.
Q. Your earlier
composition, “Roll the Credits,” and a new one, “The Road to Nowhere,” are
featured in the Monte Hellman film, of the same name. There was reportedly some
interest on the part of Hellman for you to act in the film. Were you tempted to
take that “star turn”? Why didn’t it happen?
A. I think that scene got cut from the script
when the budget ran out so they didn’t call me. I wasn’t that interested. I was
honored Monte would think of me, but I don’t need to stand around a film set
all day when I could be painting. I was really happy to write the music and
Monte has become a good friend.
And he makes a killer Margarita.
Q. On the subject
of performing, you’ve often described yourself as the kid who was a dreamer and
one who lived in his head. Yet your stage persona is that of a man who is wry,
engaging, charming. Do you relish your time on stage, or are there still
butterflies?
A. I’m now more comfortable on stage than I am in
“real life.” It took forty years, but I relish it. As I said above, when you’re
really inside a song, performing it
truthfully, then real-time stops. I also like bringing the songs to a live
audience, because a lot of people don’t have the patience to dig into records
these days…you lead them through the songs, then a light bulb goes off in their
heads. Oh, I get it!
Q.
I believe you’re now living part-time in Switzerland. Is that having any effect
on your writing or painting in terms of voice or theme? Do you paint when
you’re in Switzerland, or is that strictly a while-in-Texas pursuit?
A. I’ve been
writing and painting in Switzerland. Same as El Paso. Two unique perspectives.
We live part time in a small, medieval, Swiss farm town and there’s an inn down
the road built in the 1600’s with a huge wine cellar and a beer garden. I fancy
I’ll sit out in that garden and write a few books. It’s like living in a dream.
I also think you have a more objective view on the American scene from the
perspective of Europe.
Q.
Any intimations you’re prepared to share about where you’re headed next
musically or in other fields of creative endeavor?
Q. I want to
finish up a film on the West I’ve been working on with Eric Temple. He put
together my DVD and has done some great work, including a film on Edward Abbey
called A Voice in the Wilderness. It
will be an edgy look at the Spanish-influenced West, and will have a soundtrack
of new and original songs. I also want to finish the border novel and keep
working on a book of essays, many of which have appeared in Ranch and Reata. And of course keep
painting. I’m working on a series of nudes called “White People,” and trying to
finish three paintings titled Juarez-Guernica.
Adios.
Posts
