I want to make one more introduction. Longtime readers are familiar with stories about John, the New Orleans musician who spends quite a bit of time in Austin and with whom I’ve had many, many adventures. He’s agreed to allow me to post the often quite insightful e-mails he sends to his e-mail list once in a while.

Without further ado, here’s John’s most recent e-mail:

Nobody outside of the city (of New Orleans) has a clue what any of this is about.
- Mac Rebennack (Dr. John)

Alright y’all,
Hopes everyone is utmost and ever-so,
You know the drill: got my wine, and someone left the computer unattended…

Music.
.
.
Music has been my life.
It has taught me how to live.
What I am am looking at.
What to expect.
What is worth trying to create.

Look here, yea u rite:

Music is different here in nola.
Just listen to it.
It says ” Alright! We’re doing it.”

Some people think they jive me, but I know they must be crazy.
- Mac Rebennack (Dr. John)

Music in ATX.
Just listen to it.
With a (VERY) few exceptions, it says:
“Check ME out. I”M doing it!”

Fuck anyone doing that to music.

To life.

Can’t teach soul.
Believe me.

Much love and peace, y’all.

I want to add to Misty’s post below, but first I have to make a quick detour:

Where the fuck has Mike Jasper (aka Jasper aka The Jasperino) been?

My wife starts blogging and out he suddenly pops from whatever rinky-dink woodshed he’s been hiding in writing his man-eats-trout, trout-swims-in-man, the-two-become-friends-and-go-fishing-together magnum opus to make a comment about car washes? (And, for the record, if there were a car wash called Free Will Car Wash, I would avoid it at all costs. There’s no telling what those machines will do to your car if we give them free will. Look at what we do to our vehicles.)

Before I move on, I should note that (a) Jasper named this blog and (b) I still use his line, “Ireland is the Mexico of Europe.”

Now that the acknowledgments are out of the way, I thought I’d talk just briefly about my own lack of inspiration — as if such hasn’t been neon-obvious to everyone who (still) reads this journal. (I’m going to refuse to call this a “blog” because it was started before the word “blog” even came into existence. Call me French.)

I can easily blame my lack of inspiration — let’s be honest, it’s a lack of making the effort to find time to work (write) — on my job, but so can Misty, and everyone else who does this for personal satisfaction rather than money. (“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” wrote Samuel Johnson, likely for free. Unless he spoke it instead; that’s another matter entirely. Only Bill Clinton won’t speak for free.)

Beyond being “busy,” I suppose I just completely lack the creative drive I once had. (Thank God I have Misty to fill that void in my life.) And, probably more important, I now have the nagging — nay, suffocating — requirement of self-censorship. It’s gotten to the point in our culture where everything is up for grabs and everything is up for critique and all the lines are blurred. You write a post on your “blog” one day and the next your boss is breathing down your neck for something that really doesn’t concern him or her.

If you ask me, it should be illegal for employers to look up potential employees’ personal information on Facebook and the Web as a determiner of employment. Let the resume speak for itself — just like in those Golden Days the Republicans want to get back to. (But they do love the Interwebs when it comes to ensuring no one with a brain works for them.)

So, as my final excuse, I will use that feeling of self-censorship. The inability to be honest with my readers (ha!) as I once was. I’ve discovered I’m no good at one of those subject-specific blogs focusing solely on military issues or politics or pop culture or hating/loving cute animals. The one thing I ever had was a brutal honesty (and a willingness to sometimes be a little circumspect), and that’s been beaten out of me by . . . growing up some?

I’ll try to regress. Devolve. Like the Texas State Board of Education.

– William

P.S. There. I’ve written an entire entry using Jasper and excuses. And Jasper once said that the only way to stay young is to stay immature.

Hello, all,

I’m going to start posting more, but I need to do some paper-journaling to get some of the stuff rattling around in my head into a form even I can understand.

But, in the meantime, I hope my new co-blogger will keep you entertained. My wife, Misty, is, I hope, going to begin blogging here as well.

I’m certain her posts will be much more humorous and insightful than mine!

Without further ado, Misty!

Things follow you. Some things you don’t want to follow you and others you do. Some, you have to remember why they followed you. More importantly, why you wanted them to follow you.

My life has been filled with changes large and small. Not as many as others, I know.

But bigger changes have happened to me recently — and I don’t mean my dog deciding it’s okay to piss on the patio.

What I find most amazing is that within these big changes that seem all-encompassing — even if they’re good changes — are others. People say, “A riddle wrapped inside an enigma.” That may be true, but even the most exciting changes can encompass excitement and extreme depression, depending on the moment and circumstance.

Beyond the changes that are happening — the ones that move forward no matter what, the ones you want to move forward no matter what but have no control over and no way to slow down even if it would be better all around — are others.

There are the ones you resist. The ones you resist but, secretly, know need to be changed. The ones you know you to need relent to, but don’t. The ones you aren’t sure are needed. The ones you think you can do without them becoming a group or legal enterprise.

“You’re a disgrace to the concept of family . . .”

Sometimes I worry that may be me.

I don’t want it to be.

Let’s end this now.

There are things I want.

There are things I don’t want.

There are things I want, but can’t force.

There are things I want over which I have no control.

And those are the things I want the most.

I am excited.

If only you knew why!

There’s so much I want to write about and so little time. Or so it seems.

It’s late . . . for me.

My friend Joaquin returned from Iraq today. We spent the late evening discussing his experiences there, then he had to meet a girl.

His date pulled up on our street, and, as they hugged, I looked skyward. I saw the trees in our yard, and, beyond, the stars. There was one brown, unfallen leaf in a tree. It made me wonder: What is lacking in this moment? In what way does that solitary leaf bode another solitude?

As I said, I’m excited. I can’t say why just yet. FYI.

But it isn’t about the inauguration. Plenty of people have written about their excitement concerning Barack Obama becoming our president. And, yes, I’m happy.

But, unlike the folks you see on TV, I’m not ecstatic.

Misty and I listened to his inaugural speech on the radio, which seems rather apropo in the 21st Century.

It was a great speech. An inspired campaign. And the current White House Web site puts all others to shame.

But I’m waiting for results. “Change,” like “maybe,” is an easy word. Let’s see what actually happens. Obama has made a lot of changes — he’s already fixed some Bush administration policies, but let’s see him under fire. That’s not to say I doubt him. I don’t. I just want proof.

As Misty said, when she hears people say, “I can now call myself an American again,” she wants to punch them.

Personally, I find those statements and others (like, “Let’s move for Canada/Spain/wherever),” to be the most ridiculous. Americans don’t run away from a fight, especially one on their own land. If we all leave, who is here to preserve what we believe in?

That’s enough for tonight, I think. There are some people I want to make fun of/criticize (read: Michael Barnes of the Austin American-Statesman and Supreme Court Justice John Roberts), but I won’t waste my time on them tonight. Maybe tomorrow.

What You Missed If You Didn’t Read Today’s The New York Times

1. Read about the guy who used a park bench as shelter during Hurricane Ike. And this guy:

Southwest of Galveston, officers said that one man from Surfside Beach was the only resident who did not evacuate the highly damaged area. He was drunk when they reached him on Saturday morning, the authorities said.

2. Understated Headline of the Week: Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

3. Interesting:

Experience. In the 2008 presidential election, it’s been a campaign slogan, a debating point and a subject of endless column inches and talk show hours. John McCain and Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin — whose life experiences offer the best preparation for the presidency and vice presidency? Does it help to be a naval aviator? A community organizer? A senator? A small-town mayor? Does one trump another? To answer those questions, the Op-Ed page asked people whose résumés overlap with the candidates’ to explain how the qualities they’ve needed to draw on for their jobs and their lives would come in handy in the White House.

4. I’m looking forward to picking up Dexter Filkins’ new book, On the Ground, about his experiences reporting during the Iraq War; but I’m not a fan of this dry, loquacious review. (Though I do like that the author of the review gave a needed shout out to Michael Herr, my favorite war correspondent.)

5. Sarah Palin’s hair! How many column inches were given to the wars in which we’re embroiled?

6. And a nice little column on dating in the Google era.

Plus a bunch of other stuff you folks don’t care about.

Okay, listen Cable News pundits. Listen, Keith Olbermann.

I DO NOT WANT YOU TO READ ME THE SPEECH OBAMA IS GOING TO GIVE IN AN HOUR.

There is a reason I’m watching the Convention on television. TO WATCH OBAMA GIVE HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH — not hear it from you before he’s even walked onto the stage.

You bastards are like a guy in line at the theater who loudly proclaims the ending of the movie.

Off to C-SPAN for me.

An aside: Can anyone confirm that all those little flags the delegates are waving are union-made? Can’t be shipping our flag-making to China any more!

The big news tonight is that Sen. Barack Obama has chosen Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket.

But another news item of immense import surfaced today as well: the agreement by the Iraqi and American governments on a deadline for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops by 2011.

Now, aside from the groundbreaking nature of this agreement, I would like to suggest a possible impact on the presidential election.

Given that a large part of the campaign (aside from the economy) is centered around foreign policy (especially Iraq, Afghanistan and, more recently, Georgia), does this agreement not, in some respects, take the issue of when to bring the troops home off the table?

And, if so, does that not hurt Obama more than McCain? As it is, Obama has been able to hammer McCain on his judgment in sending troops to Iraq (while Obama opposed it in the first place) and his (out of context) comment about remaining in Iraq for a hundred years. By losing this as an issue, Obama loses one of his most effective talking points and the motivation for some of his supporters to work so diligently for the campaign.

Hopefully, I am overestimating the impact this agreement will have on the campaign, but it should be interesting to watch unfold.

For the conspiracy theorists out there: Does this also not smack of a President Bush playing politics with the war?

If I were to start a gang, I would name it FM 3-24.

Just FYI.