I've never been ashamed of "packing heat" Al - so why not get the ball rolling now. Let me step up and be the first take one for the team!

Hank Williams Senior carried a pistol in his guitar case at every show - right on the stage in front of him, where he could reach it quickly. He pulled it on more than one rowdy fan, because he wasn't playing to choirboys, and his spina bifida made him particularly vulnerable to assault.

Bob Dylan slept in a house full of guns when he lived in upper New York State. Does he pack heat now? Do you think he'd tell you if you asked?

Allen Damron, the Texas folkie who helped found the Kerrville Folk Festival, was a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association and proud of it.

Joe Bethancourt, who is one of the few acoustic musicians to get a five-star review in Rolling Stone Magazine (for his fine album "Old Red Cat"), is very active in both the Single Action Shooters Society and the Arizona folk music scene. He is also a Second Amendment activist in the fine folk tradition
of protecting civil rights. ALL civil rights.

Me? I've got an NRA sticker on my truck. I'll never forget the night I was loading my gear at 3am in a dark parking lot, dog-tired from a long show, and found myself confronted by two very tough-looking, hostile young men who wanted my stuff. The sight of my .357 sent them running in two different directions. This saved them from a severe beating and prison time, because I was in no mood to be robbed.

I also know that many folkies who secretly pack heat, or hire private heat, will never talk about it. Maybe they want to sell records more than they want to be honest with their fans. But they also travel with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, not to mention cash and product. Also, as any cop who's ever lied about his hideaway gun knows, why give potential attackers the opportunity to escalate to your level?

Anyhow, I figure if exercising my right to protect my person and my my family offends someone to the point where they don't want to listen to my music or buy my CDs, so be it. They won't be there for me at 3am in the middle of nowhere, and I won't lie to them for their fifteen bucks.

Heat? From the way we sing, you'd think most of us don't even own hammers. Though we do seem to spend a lot of time thinking about what we'd hit with them if we did. Jim, if you have a cat, it's got one more reason than mine does not to squat in an empty instrument case.

Two cats - I NEVER leave empty cases open!

And we have to hide the TP rolls, because the calico will spend several minutes carefully unrolling each one she finds.

I accidentally locked cat #1 on the porch this weekend. I figured it out when I put out dinner and she was nowhere to be found. She was not happy (we got about 5 inches of snow Saturday and it was pretty nippy for my Georgia cat).

Kittycicle! Revenge will be served soon. Check your slippers before you put them on for the next couple of mornings.

OK, Group hug everyone!

Right now I'm listening to one of these new agey subliminal message tapes. It has the sounds of the waves and gulls flying about. The subliminal message between the waves is "put down the gun, put down the gun." It's enough to p£&ss me off all them damn gulls squawking and being disruptive to me sense of calm and concentration.

I used to pack heat, but right now the boiler's broke for the third day and the reason for the subliminal tape is becasuse I'm tempted to shoot the landlord.

So what goes clippety clop, clippety clop, clippety clop, bang, bang, bang, clippety clop, clippety clop? Amish drive-by shooting.

Peace

Hmmm.

I can't afford what I want in a pistol, so I don't have one now that the kids are in their teens and twenties.

I'm also embarassed to think how long it's been since I cleaned my shotgun. Too much of a hassle with the thing borken down and a trigger lock. Then I gotta find the cleaning box and see if there's any oil left... jeez, Jim! I was feeling bad enough for a Monday!

Here in Arizona they don't drive by - they stop and make an afternoon of it.

So it's an Arizona Amish Drive-by Picnic?

Believe me, it is no picnic!

So like what's the deal? A wooden turret next to the candle search lights?

Potato cannon, made out of hand-lathed wooden tubes and powered by cow methane. Frightening stuff.

If'n the stink don't kill yea, the carbs will, hunh?

Ohhhhh...Cats squatting in open instrument cases... that gives a whole new interpretation to Norman Blakes's lovely instrumental,
"The Old Brown Case".

For Joshua Brande:
Those CDs of the Pacific Coastline AT NIGHT should take care of all those pesky seagulls!
Whatever might be the subliminals on the one I listen to (nightly) must not have an effect...puts me to sleep in 20 minutes, never fails!