OK team… so Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson are here tonight and in a half an hour or so, we’ll be enjoying their show. As a setting for this jewel of a show here’s a shot of the Fur Peace Station taken a few minutes ago.

It’s a sold out show and of course I’ll be reporting on it later.

I’m looking forward to this one!

Up bright and early this morning to get my Jeep serviced. We have a camp at the Fur Peace Ranch this weekend And we expect Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson to be arriving tonight or early tomorrow morning. It’s going to be a great weekend of fellowship and music.

At home we’re winding up the preparations for Winter and it looks like everything is in order.

I think I’ll get a free cup of coffee while I’m waiting for my car.

We just completed the Eighth Annual Tribute To The Rev. Gary Davis at the Fur Peace Ranch. Roy Book Binder was one of the luminaries and the Rev. Robert Jones from Detroit was the other. Both gentlemen are dear friends and it was great to see them again as well as getting a chance to play some music together. The weather was beautiful Friday and Saturday. Sunday night some rain came in, but we needed that. The moon rise Saturday night was outstanding.

Our show at the Fur Peace Station was quite a different beast this time. John Hurlbut set the stage like the Johnny Carson Show and we proceeded humorously in that vein.Lots of yucks, let me tell you! I went on first and here is my set list:

Eighth Annual Tribute To The
Rev. Gary Davis
With Jorma Kaukonen, Rev. Robert Jones
Fur Peace Station
Darwin, Ohio
Saturday, October 23, 2010

Jorma’s Set

1. Death Don’t Have No Mercy
2. Things That Might Have Been
3. Come Back Baby
4. I Am The Light of This World
5. Candy Man
6. I Know You Rider
7. Full Go Round

Rev. Jones followed, we took an intermission and Roy Book Binder closed out the evening. A great night.

Indeed, Robert Jones is a national treasure as well. His original songs have touched my heart for years and Saturday night was no exception. It was grand to have him back.

Roy and I go back to when we were both… well, younger men. He just gets better and better with each passing year. I find much of his current work absolutely breathtaking.

Our classes we all outstanding… old friends and new, another great weekend at the Ranch. Today after everyone was gone I went down to the Ohio River to do some shopping in Pomeroy. The sun was setting… the 2010 is pulling into the stretch as well as October.

I just love where we live.

Back at home in the evening I cooked meatballs for the girls.

How good does it have to get?

Just a quick note. Last night my four and a half year old daughter brought home a model from Lowe’s. Indeed, it was a model of NASCAR #48… that would be Jimmy Johnson’s car. I helped in a minimal way, but she really did it herself.

You know… It just doesn’t get much better that this from a modeling Dad’s point of view. I can hardly wait for the next one.

Time for my first class at the Fur Peace Ranch this weekend.

‘Life is short… shorter for some than others…’ Gus McCall from Lonesome Dove.

I was going to write about the honor I received (along with others of honor) from the Ohioana Library. That will have to wait another day or so.

People who know me know that I am not necessarily a ‘cat person.’ That said, we have four cats plus one and in my own acerbic way, I love them all. Some years ago a feral black cat, very small, realized that the buffet was at our place and made Hillside Farm her home. You couldn’t come near this cat, she was so wild. A couple of years ago when my son Zach was visiting for his Winter Break, he gentled her and she became a member of our feline family. The ‘plus one’ I mentioned above is a large grey male cat that lives under our deck and shares the buffet with the official members of the family. He shared more than that this year and the gentled wild cat that Izze named ‘House’ became pregnant. This unauthorized pregnancy resulted in a small litter of two. House was a less than stellar Mom and she did her best to kill her kittens. We found them buried in the basement and wound up taking out part of a cinderblock wall to save them. They were covered in dirt… in their eyes, nose… everywhere. I took them to my sister-in-law Ginger’s place… she had a cat that just had kittens and we hoped she would adopt them. I was driving to Ginger’s and talking to my son Zach on the phone when I heard one of the kittens crying loudly. ‘Son,’ I said. ‘She wants to live,’ and indeed she did. Ginger’s cat treated her as her own and when she was obviously flourishing, we brought her home.

Izze had named her ‘Flower’ when she was born. When Flower came home, Izze morphed her name into ‘Flauber.’ A play on words? A French poet? Who knows? Anyway, Flauber came home with Snowball, one of her adopted sisters and joined Zami and Mimi The Cat (My Mother’s old cat) here on the farm.

I am not into indoor cats so Flauber and Snowball were truly cats of freedom, ranging at will through the woods that surround our house. When Vanessa and Izze and I went to Columbus Friday the fifteenth for the Ohioana Awards we left plenty of food and water for the cats as well as Nana the Dog. We knew we would be back Saturday afternoon so they would not go hungry or thirsty. When we got home, all the animals greeted us except for Flauber. We thought she might be in the woods or perhaps visiting a neighboring farm which she occasionally did. She did not come home yesterday and today when Vanessa was taking Izze to school, she found her dead on the road.

Now dead animals on the road here in the country is nothing new… unfortunately I myself have hit deer, turkeys, and yes, once a cat. It just happens. I was working in the barn when Vanessa sadly came back to tell he she had found Flauber. I went down with my little tractor and a wagon and gently picked her up and brought her home. I then took a post hole digger into the woods and dug her grave.

She had been with us for less than a year and yet her passing was like losing a longtime friend. Our pets are so beloved… so much a part of us. They surround our lives with love and help us measure the time that oft passes more quickly for them than it does for us. They do not seem to care about this disparity. They truly live in the moment.

I enclose one of my favorite poems by the poet Derek Walcott. It is about a dog and yet in my mind’s eye I substitute Flauber The Cat.

ODDJOB, A BULL TERRIER
Derek Walcott

You prepare for one sorrow,
but another comes.
It is not like the weather,
you cannot brace yourself,
the unreadiness is all.
Your companion, the woman,
the friend next to you,
the child at your side,
and the dog,
we tremble for them,
we look seaward and muse
it will rain.
We shall get ready for rain;
you do not connect
the sunlight altering
the darkening oleanders
in the sea-garden,
the gold going out of the palms.
You do not connect this,
the fleck of the drizzle
on your flesh,
with the dog’s whimper,
the thunder doesn’t frighten,
the readiness is all;
what follows at your feet
is trying to tell you
the silence is all:

it is deeper than the readiness,
it is sea-deep,
earth-deep,
love-deep.

The silence
is stronger than thunder,
we are stricken dumb and deep
as the animals who never utter love
as we do, except
it becomes unutterable
and must be said,
in a whimper,
in tears,
in the drizzle that comes to our eyes
not uttering the loved thing’s name,
the silence of the dead,
the silence of the deepest buried love is
the one silence,
and whether we bear it for beast,
for child, for woman, or friend,
it is the one love, it is the same,
and it is blest
deepest by loss
it is blest, it is blest.

Flauber The Cat brought much joy into our lives here at Hillside Farm. Why she should have been spared ignominious death at the hands of her mother in our basement to die on our little road once again illustrates there is no logic to life and death. She loved to swim, go figure. She would occasionally jump in the pool and paddle around before getting out. I buried her in one of the beach towels we would dry her with.

She rests behind our garden. The tree that shades her in the woods is flame today. Soon the leaves will be gone, but today they sing brightly just for her. Mimi The Cat seems to know she is gone and walks gently by her place in the woods here at Hillside. She raises her head as if listening for something… silent as night, she walks on.

Her days in the woods and on our porch were filled joy and freedom. What more can any of us want. With all this in mind, I shall try to make the most of today and perhaps tomorrow as well.

On 10/10/10 Hot Tuna played the Gothic Theater which is in Englewood, Colorado a little outside of Denver.

We had just flown down from Alaska and everyone was a little crispy. However, we knew it we were in Englewood, Colorado at the Gothic Theater.

The Gothic is always a great place to play and this was Skoota’s first time with us at the venue. Well, let’s suffice it to say that everyone rocked out seriously. Here is our set list:

Hot Tuna 28, 2010
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
Barry Mitterhoff And Skoota Warner
The Gothic Theater
Englewood, Colorado
Sunday, October 10, 2010

Set One:
1. Been So Long
2. I Know You Rider
3. Ode To Billy Dean
4. Can’t Get Satisfied
5. Sea Child
6. That’ll Never Happen No More
7. I Wish You Would
8. Good Shepherd
9. If This Is Love, I Want My Money Back
Set Two:
1. Serpent Of Dreams
2. How Long Blues
3. Bowlegged Woman
4. Rock Me Baby
5. Corners Without Exits
6. River Of Time
7. Talkin’ Bout You
8. 99 Year Blues
9. Funky # 7
10. Hit Single #1
11. Encore: Water Song

Back at the hotel by the Denver Airport by 0100… up at 0500 off to the airport and then the flights home. When we got to Milwaukee we were so late for our connection that they held the plane and we walked out on the runway. We made it and before you knew it, we were back in the Buckeye. Vanessa and Izze met Myron and myself at the airport and in two hours were home in Meigs County.

I love my gig and I love the traveling… but there’s no place like home!

This has been a lightning strike into and out of Alaska. I wish we had more time to enjoy this beautiful state, but it was just not to be on this outing.

Here’s a shot from the Spit down in Homer on our last trip.

Tonight we played the University Of Anchorage and as we always do up here, we had a great time. Here is our set list:

Hot Tuna 27, 2010
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
Barry Mitterhoff And Skoota Warner
Williamson Auditorium
University Of Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska
Friday, October 8, 2010

First Set:
1. Been So Long
2. Hesitation Blues
3. Can’t Get Satisfied
4. Ode To Billy Dean
5. Sea Child
6. 99 Year Blues
7. Bowlegged Woman
8. If This I Love, I Want My Money Back
Second Set:
1. I See The Light
2. I Know You Rider
3. Talkin’ Bout You
4. Rock Me Baby
5. River Of Time
6. That’ll Never Happen No More
7. Funky # 7
8. Hit Single # 1
9. Encore: Water Song

We’re out of here bound for Denver first thing in the morning, but I just wanted to get this posted. I can hardly wait ’till we get back. I think I feel salmon fishing coming on.

A very hectic day yesterday… we played the Triple Door in Seattle, a strange and wonderful place. Good old fun loving Hot Tuna came through and I thought we played on of our best Seattle shows. Here is our set list:

Hot Tuna 26, 2010
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
Barry Mitterhoff And Skoota Warner
The Triple Door
Seattle, Washington
Wednesday, October 6, 2010

1. Serpent Of Dreams
2. Living Just For You
3. Ode To Billy Dean
4. Can’t Get Satisfied
5. 99 Year Blues
6. River Of Time
7. If This Is Love, I Want My Money Back
8. I Wish You Would
9. Corners Without Exits
10. Good Shepherd
11. Funky # 7
12. Encore: Hit Single # 1

Early this morning we hit the SeaTac airport and flew up to Anchorage and tomorrow we play the Williamson Auditorium on the University Of Anchorage Campus… We should be well rested by then and of course, about this more will be revealed.

… and here we are just getting ready to leave Portland for Seattle… Just a quick one after a late night and an early rising. We love the Aladdin Theater… Before I went to the gig I took the free tram across the river to the downtown area and hit the Portland Outdoor Store. This place is the greatest. Unwashed jeans… what a concept. I bought some jeans and a pair of boots. Winter… bring it on!

Back at the Aladdin we played two rousing sets which are listed here:

Hot Tuna 25, 2010
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
Barry Mitterhoff And Skoota Warner
The Aladdin Theater
Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, October 5, 2010

First Set:
1. Been So Long
2. Hesitation Blues
3. Ode To Billy Dean
4. I Wish You Would
5. Corners Without Exits
6. 99 Year Blues
7. If This Is Love, I Want My Money Back
8. Bowlegged Woman
9. Come Back Baby
Second Set:
1. I See The Light
2. River Of Time
3. I Know You Rider
4. Talkin’ Bout You
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Operator
7. Good Shepherd
8. That’ll Never Happen no More
9. Funky # 7
10. Encore: Hit Single # 1

Gotta eat and hit the bus. The Triple Door tonight and then off to Alaska.

… outta here for now!

We’re at a truck stop in Reno, Nevada right now getting fuel and permits for Oregon. Last night good old Hot Tuna played at the Crystal Bay Casino and had a heck of a good time. Before we played, some miscreant ran into our trailer in the parking lot, but that’s life on the road. Anyway, here is our set list:

Hot Tuna 24, 2010
Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady
Barry Mitterhoff And Skoota Warner
Crystal Bay Club
Crystal Bay, Nevada
Sunday, October 3, 2010

First Set:
1. Serpent Of Dreams
2. Hesitation Blues
3. Ode To Billy Dean
4. Talkin’ Bout You
5. 99 Year Blues
6. That’ll Never Happen No More
7. Can’t Get Satisfied
8. Bowlegged Woman
Second Set:
1. I See The Light
2. How Long Blues
3. I Know You Rider
4. If This Is Love, I Want My Money Back
5. I Wish You Would
6. Rock Me Baby
7. Corners Without Exits
8. Good Shepherd
9. Funky #7
10. Encore: Hit Single # 1

In the spirit of our ten plus hour drive to Portland, I’m thinking the bunk is starting to look pretty good since I got up a 0500 this morning.

Onward!