Category: Diary

Whiksey

You see, that’s the problem. The first whiskey of the night makes me feel like I am in love. It overcomes me from the pit of my stomach, rising in flightiness to my head and I swoon over the 9 volt battery sitting in the corner. But, the last whiskey of the night makes me feel heartsick, and I know that feeling way too much. Like I am somehow rotting inside, and that there is no way that you would ever take me, or take me back.
I arose this morning at 4 AM to try to get out with the camera when the morning light was good and to see the world like I hadn’t seen it since I was swimming in high school. To make sense of this city when it moves more along the pace of the place where I grew up. Residual whiskey in my bones, like a dead lover, weighed heavy on my mind and the only photos I could find, which seemed beautiful to me at the time, were ones on the shadowy sides of buildings, perhaps the peek of sunlight around a corner, but no more.
I went to bed with thoughts of you, and I awoke with you still standing there in the corner of the room. An apparition of light and darkness all tied up into one little mess. It was not you I assume, as you were across town, the continent, or somewhere else as your alibi would prove – but a bundle of tied miscellania – earrings, one sock, a hairpin – enough to conjure the spectre.
There’s a dream that I have had, and had again, that seems to be unwilling to let me go. A hyperactive kid jumps in and out of a pool in a NC summer. I walk around the pool patrolling until my heart falls out of my body and into the water in the deep end and the tike swims down, sits on the bottom and eats it in a matter of two bites. My therapist knows nothing of this and I would rather keep it that way. I know it says something about me and you, or the apparition of you in the corner of this room, as I watch the war tonight, and try to drift ever so silently into slumber, and dream a little dream… dream, dream, dream.

Open for Business.

Hankvegas.com has launched for all of the hungry masses. Go there now for video and audio samples, most of which have never been posted here. A more substantial site will be coming in the near future, but we needed to get something out there right now. For any of you that will happen to be in the Macon area for the Cherry Blossom Festival, come see us on Saturday, March 29 at Riverfront Bluez where there is sure to be ample amonts of rascalism going on. If you can’t make it, look for us out elsewhere soon, and if you have ideas of where we should play near you please email us.

BP, of sorts

I’m going to say something not entirely novel. But I need to say it anyway to make me feel better, warmer, more hopeful. Winter is like sadness. Cold, lonely, seemingly infinite when you’re in the middle of it. You check the forecast and there is no end in sight. It’s dark all the time, you drink more, no amount of layers protect you from the chill. But what would you know of happiness without it? Constant smiles, soma-induced positivity, an endless summer. Old people flock to sunny places because they’re tired of being sad. They’ve earned that right. They know what it is. Young people in sunny places live like thieves. But they don’t know what they’ve stolen or even that it’s a crime. In my winter, my thoughts turn to sunny places as well. To that which is happiness. And I feel better off for having lived without it for a while. The sadness is almost over. Big kids in sunny places are taking bp.

A Long White Car

For those waiting with the baited breath (it’s time to brush your teeth), here’s a track recorded weekend before last at the Roddenberry House. We have three other tracks from this session and if everyone behaves themselves we may get those out here in the next few days as well.
Hank Vegas & The White Lightning – Long White Car (MP3, 3.2MB)
Cheers,
Bryan

A Cup of Coffee

I can’t seem to find too much of a way out of this, other than Lucinda Williams, the occasional drink, a few hours with a half-ass friend. I’m going south for the rest of the winter. A dirty drinking place where there’s no woman that casts dipsersions on my character for the desire to skip all that the rest of the world seems to hold so dear. I’m making my way south on a fast train with big wheels that roll over all that is in sight and half that isn’t. I’ll see you there if you make it time, because I ain’t staying nowhere too long and you are nothing but a pawn, I’ll tell you.
But perhaps it is beautiful in the north this time of the year. Or is it just cold? I might head that way, as I know what heat feels like on the skin at night, and the way a sweaty body moves through the atmosphere. I know the way that ginger feels when rubbed on bare skin, and cinnamon. And I can imagine a way in which all of this, and rum, can help to keep the kids quiet tonight if we play our cards right.
I take your right hand and make a crustacean. I take your left, and of it make a paper airplane. We are now flying south of the equator, north of the capricornious tropic, south of cancer, or somewhere noone has been. I might make a million being something that I am not, but a cup of coffee would still be nice.

Hank Vegas & The White Lightnin’

Last weekend at the Rodenberry House in Juliette, GA, Hank Vegas & The White Lightnin’ made another step in the direction of what will be most assuredly world domination by the end of the year. For all of the fans who have been asking for this stuff (and you know who you are) here’s a little taste. More to come.

Driving (New Song) – MP3

Another Way to Lie Take 1 – MP3

Another Way to Lie Take 2 – MP3

Another Way to Lie Video Footage – 12.7MB (requires Quicktime)

Scene in bathroom 3.36 hours after our protagonist’s departure.

This is what she said: “Do you think I’m a sexual person?” I said: “I don’t know, probably.” She said: “Well, actually I’m not a very sexual person. What made you think I am?” I said: “Your lips.”
This conversation took place in the downstairs bathroom just off the kitchen. She’d dragged me there to escape the raging New Year party that filled the rest of the house. We’d only just met – I sat on the edge of the bath while she locked the door.

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Subject line of email received today:

“Complimentary free gift at no charge!”

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

It hasn’t been the best new year so far. I’ve been in a funk and the walls that surround me seem to be tumbling, which could be freeing, but they also hold up the roof, and it is now falling on me. As we are building up the troops near Iraq, my troubles seem to coagulate as well. Dubya says he is doing all possible to avert while we continue to clog, and I seem to be ignoring my own little clot.

I can throw myself into work, into the charts and graphs, checklist, budgets and schedules and try to forget that the sky is falling. falling gently all over Georgia tonight. Skyfall is general all over the Southeast tonight. It is rain and hail, touches of snow in the higher altitudes, and chicken eggs across the coastal plains.

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A yellow umbrella.

My patio umbrella is exactly the right size. The bar-style table that rests underneath is a circumfrence that allows for just enough coverage that on rainy nights like tonight I can go out, barefoot, onto the porch, and have a cigarette, without wetting my shoulders, or really getting my feet wet. I can walk out the back door and to the shelter of the vinyl yellow thrift store ($9) umbrella and it will shelter me from the storm for the duration of one Winston Light.

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