Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

A Walk In the Woods With Coffee

I awoke at 7:00 A.M. — early for a vacation day — and made a full pot of strong coffee for the house. I did some stretching and scratching while Mr. Coffee hissed and gurgled, then I poured a cup and went outside into the crisp, cold air.

Steaming mug of coffee in hand, I trudged through the leaves up the hillside and stopped to rest on a log after a few minutes. There was a small copse of trees and bushes to my right, running along the crest of a ridge. Between sips of joe, I could hear something rustling through the leaves a couple hundred yards downhill, just the other side of the ridge. Then I heard a second animal, uphill a ways from the first. They were moving loudly through the leaves, obviously unconcerned with the racket they were making.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

My Quest for a Gold Bond Sponsorship, Part Two

I’ve been sharing the virtues of this magic powder with my audience for several years, sometimes even doing a short commercial between songs while the band plays behind me (“It’s like a thousand icy gnome fingers tickling your goodies”). I sometimes list Gold Bond on my posters as a “sponsor,” even though, to the best of my knowledge, they are unaware of my existence.

Two years ago I tried to change that with a letter to their marketing department. I mentioned my admiration and liberal use of their product, and asked if they would be interested in forging some kind of endorsement deal. Hell, a free case of Triple Medicated would have been fine, but I got no response.

So when I found myself in Chattanooga to visit Barb’s parents the week of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d seize the opportunity to get a little face time with the powers that be at Gold Bond Powder.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Flying Has Become a Drag

Between the overzealous security measures that must be applied to everyone in order to avoid the appearance of profiling, and the money-saving measures undertaken by poorly-run airlines desperate to show a profit, flying has become an ordeal to be endured, not the stimulating adventure it once was.

I’ll fly out of Missoula maybe once a year, and by the time I strap myself into my business class seat (which was designed for an anorexic midget), I’m surly and disgusted. But not to the point where I’d spring $7.00 for a Coors Light.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

‘Tis the Season for Christmas Lights and Cussing

Well, I finally got around to taking down the Christmas lights from the house last Saturday. I laid them all out in the driveway, then plugged them in and checked every bulb on each string. Then I carefully coiled them all up, sealed them in a plastic bag, and tossed them into the garbage.

I’ve been burned enough times to know that, when I put the lights back on the house in two weeks, half of the strings won’t light up. I could never see the point in replacing nine flimsy bulbs in a $3.00 string of crappy lights, so I always get mad, yank down the dead string, and replace it with a new $3.00 string. This year I figure I’ll just save myself the anguish and replace it all before I start. Hey, I’m happy to help boost the economy. Of China.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Another Birthday, Another Pawn Shop Prize

Nothing like a brand new used guitar to light a fire under a performing musician.

Friday afternoon I walked into my favorite local pawn shop, with $235 unfettered (read: birthday) dollars burning a hole in my wallet. I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for as I scanned the dozens of guitars hanging from hooks on the wall. There were several Strat knockoffs, a couple of pointy Jackson and ESP metal guitars, and a mishmash of various sticker-covered six-stringers that were suited more for a high school shredder, not for a discerning practitioner of maximum honky tonk such as myself.

It’s the same thing every year. I receive a modest windfall, and before the birthday candles have even cooled off, I come home with a new pawn shop prize. One year it was a bass. The year after that, an Epiphone Dot. After that, a mandolin (there should be a five-day waiting period on those things). The next year it was a Strat. The bass and mandolin are still hanging in the studio downstairs, and I sold the Strat last year to help finance the kids’ new laptop. So my guitars, as with most guitar enthusiasts, come and go. That’s why pawn shops are so popular with us musicians. These instruments are like currency, and on any given day, you might stumble upon some treasure that a desperate guitar slinger had to unload in order to get the money to pay for his addiction/bail bond/ex-wife.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Parent-Teacher Conference: BYO Cookies

“Well, Speaker has been doing great in science, great in math, and we’re in the middle of our unit in social studies. Here’s the rubric that explains the grading system, and here are a couple of papers she’s written.” She slid the pages across the table, and I sat back, thinking, unit? Unit of what? Whole blood? Rubric? I thought they came in cube form. The terminology I’ve been hearing from the kids and their teachers since they entered kindertarten has me wondering if I ever really attended school, or was it all just a vivid nightmare. I have to admit that I did wet the bed as a child. From the hallway.

“And you can see that she’s very proficient in her reading…” Mrs. A began.

“Yeah, she gets that from Barb,” I said, cutting her off. “Barb’s reading at an eighth grade level.” My laughter was cut off by the pain of Barb’s heel on my instep, which I interpreted as “no sex for a month.”

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

I’ve Got the Post-Kill Blues

A hunter once told me that all the fun ends the moment your bullet hits its target. From then on it’s all hard work and drudgery, and maybe crawling into the carcass to keep warm. That sudden shift from giddy anticipation to grim determination is where I find myself in these heady days just after the most historic, emotional election we’ve ever seen.

My hangover is only figurative (for once), as I had only two or three beers while watching the election returns with about sixty other people at a friend’s house. An identical scene was played out in millions of homes all across the country—we drifted from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room, drink in hand, eating gobs of appetizers, exchanging political small talk with acquaintances you normally see only at grade school Christmas programs or maybe the local grocery store. Our kids all gathered in the basement to play Guitar Hero (even though most of them didn’t seem to be musically suited for anything more challenging than Tambourine Hero).

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

A President Younger Than Me? Righteous!

Barring a catastrophic asteroid strike, massive LSD dosing of low-income voters, or a triumph of the inevitable Republican vote-rigging/suppression efforts, our next Commander in Chief will be someone not only from my own generation, but actually younger by a year.

Long ago, I accepted the idea of rooting for an NFL quarterback who is younger than I am. Still, for a guy who’s just on the good side of 50, I’ll admit that it stings a little when I hear some TV announcer talk about the “grizzled veteran” or the “old man” on the field who’s barely 40. Hell, I’m older now than the oldest player ever, George Blanda, who retired at age 48. It became apparent that Blanda’s time was at hand when he began showing up in the huddle with his leather helmet and a walker, and annoyed the other Raiders by riding his Rascal™ up and down the sidelines.

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Dog vs Hamster: A Death in the Family

I found Houdini sitting near his dish in the kitchen, ears forward, looking at me as if to say, “Oh, that rodent in Speaker’s room? Yeah. I killed it. I saved all your lives. You’re welcome.”

I gave him the finger, and shoved him out his dog door. Of course, he was only following generations of inherent hunting instincts, but when a dad sees his little girl’s heart broken, someone needs to pay. He’s a purebred Cambodian tunneling hound, and dispatching rodents, next to seeking treats, is his favorite activity. Especially during the spring and fall, he nails quite a few hapless field mice and brings them back to his lair, er, doghouse. That’s where I found the lifeless carcass of Huckleberry, wet with saliva and bloody about the head.

The scene in Speaker’s bedroom suggested a brief but savage attack. The cage lay broken open on the floor, and hamster bedding was everywhere, making the room look like one of Speaker’s stuffed animals had been a suicide bomber. Mixed in with the bedding was a scattering of hamster food and hamster poop. Hmm. An entire existence spelled out in a crime scene.