Ever since the dog died and mama went to prison

Well, if I can remember from a speech class, I guess that would be called an attention step--it's actually a line from the "perfect country song" by Steve Goodman and John Prine, who refused to take any credit for his effort. "Mothers, prison, trucks, trains, farms, Christmas, and dead dogs are essential, you can't have a good country song without them things"-they managed to get them all in. And this is one of my favorite Steve Goodman songs so that's why it's today's song-oh yeah, it's title is "You Never Even Call Me by My Name" (AKA "The Perfect Country Music Song") Most folks, if they know who he is, remember him for writing "The Spirit of New Orleans." -(no Arlo Guthrie did a great job of singing it, but he didn't write it--instead think, "Alice's Restaurant" or "Motorcycle Song" or from Woodstock, "Comin' into Los Angeles). Steve Goodman did write a lot of good songs and wrote several songs for Jimmy Buffett ("Door Number Three", "California Promises"), who sang on at least one of Steve's albums under the alias of Marvin Gardens. It's been a long time since he died of leukemia, I think--he wrote a great song about his father called "My Old Man" and one about the perpetual Cub fan called "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request."

I mentioned Steve Goodman and I guess Buffett and John Prine because all three are writers first, singers second, and of course Buffett is a conglomerate now-- but all wrote their share of serious songs but also maybe even more that chose to look at the world with a sense of humor. For me, a sense of humor is essential for no matter what I try to write--even on the most serious things--for instance, I wrote a poem on "cutting" and about a man that had a significant other, in this case a girlfriend, who dealt with life by slicing herself, usually superficially with utility razor blades, so she could relieve her pain, world weariness and depression by feeling pain and watching the blood---no psychological discussion here on the dynamics such as transferring that pain to physical pain or the need to punish--no I am not getting into that here and I didn't in the, umm, rather long poem. Neither am I gonna say how it ended. It was a personal poem for me, and no, I am not going into why it was, at least not here. But I think it turned into a decent poem and a lot of the reason it did was because--well yeah, it took about a half a dozen versions--but I had to regularly stop and remind myself to lighten up--tell the story, share the feelings--make them real, but don't bloody (oops, sorry) don't beat people over the head with it all--just do what you set out to do and don't turn it into a graphic novel or psychological case study---and keep the characters three dimensional, i.e. "real"

So free advice tonight from a therapist who doesn't "therapize" and a writer who don't publish---
so feel free to "caveat emptor" ---except I guess "free" advice is not bought
-hmmm-
-will-