tucson – nov 29
I woke up and remember tonight is the benefit show for the 2 arrested humanitarian aid workers. They were arrested while assisting some migrant workers from mexico who were suffering in the swelter of the summer desert heat. Many die here like that every year. It’s a deep sadness. This time it was a father and son who got hit hard by the sun. so 2 aids, named shanty and dan, tried to get them up to Tucson for medical help. They were stopped by border patrol and arrested instead.
I wake up and figure I should write a song about it. Dare myself to go down to the community radio station (kxci) and record it so they can play it on the air and possibly garnish more air time for the cause and benefit that same night. So I do. “The ballad of the Tucson 2” .
it works somehow.
Meantime, susan is flying out of town and back to Dresden. Patti, her and I spent the day yesterday remembering chris whitley out there in the desert by where she spread his ashes. It was a stunning sunny cool crisp day in the desert. A memorable memorial.
Somewhere in that day she randomly mentioned something about matt ward playing in Dresden once. Circles within circles. Like a spring. A boing spring. If you look at the ups and downs of life as waves, and the familiar circular pattern of events here, it all kind of resembles the shape of a spring, this path we’re on.
This world is spring loaded I think.
Later that same night, the benefit for the aid workers goes very well. Tom walbank stuns the troops. Al perry proves why is the mayor of Tucson (without term restrictions). I did my set and attempted to remember the song I wrote and recorded and radioed all in the same go. It was a full day.
The next day my bed would not let me go. Just me and it. all day. The brain was busted. The heart, squee geeed. Time to do nothing. Soak in the nothingness. Sleep. Deep.
Tuckered and well tucked.