“That’s gonna get old pretty quick.”
—Levon Helm

Or, so you would think. On the other hand there are they that say, as George Jones sang, “I’m not ready yet.”

As we used to say in old San Angelo, “I’ve had about enough of your bull corn,” or bull shit, take your pick.

Then, that’s all she write.

70 years ago I took our boys up off Great Northern. The dry bluebonnet seed pods were popping, sailing seeds this way and that.

Today Miss Judy and I saw them, heard them, corkscrewing seed in our garden.

“Thank you for the food and flowers.”
—Eric’s boyhood prayer

© 2025 Bobby Earl Smith

Tonight at Buddy’s Place with a mighty fine little band—John X Reed, Dennis Ludiker, and Eric Smith playing new and old original tunes for your ears—“Dry Creek Inn,” “Cold Wind,” “Muleshoe,” “Old Hippie Fandango,” “Buddy’s Place,” y mas.

Buddy’s Place sits at 8619 Burnet Road. Y’ll come, 8-11.

Bobby Earl Smith is at Buddy’s Place, Tuesday, March 18, with Eric Michael Smith, Dennis Ludiker & John X Reed, picking and singing two sets of original songs.

Y’all come, y’hear! Tap your foot and grin your face at Buddy’s Place, 8619 Burnet Road, in our neck of the ‘hood—all of Austin town

Beware of wildlife this afternoon on Bull Creek Road and Allandale.

“Don't Listen to News. Listen to Music!”
—Charles Ray Thibodeaux

Oh, how I’m tempted to forget all about it—everything—but the music.

Though withdrawing now at “the time of great unraveling” hardly seems wise.

News at 10:00. I wait til ten in the morning and ten in the evening.

Listen.

A bird flew down the chimney and about the living room at Aunt Vida and Uncle J.A.’s house in old San Angelo. It was early in the morning before I got up. I was five.

“Oh, Bobby, you should have seen it,” says my Aunt Vida.

“Why didn’t you come and get me up?”

“It happened so quick.”

“That’s the beauty of playing rock & roll. It puts you back to being 12 years old, or 20. You dial right back down.”
—Speedy Sparks

Come see! It’s Speedy’s 79th trip around old king sol today at 3:00 @ Saxon Pub.

It’s free fun in Austin. Just in time for Christmas.

Speedy photo by Bob Zink

The go-to prayer of Eric—“Thanks for the food and flowers.” And, like Mutts tells Earl—everything.

We gathered together at C-Boy’s Heart & Soul on a Saturday afternoon in September to tell Bill Campbell stories. After the old stories, and good music, we went our own ways. Some here, some there, some who knows where?

Here’s to you, Campbell.

Adios, Mofo

“I'll be in Austin at the end of this week. I may try to catch Alvin and hope he still does Nyqil Blues like at the Lonestar Cafe in NYC.”
—Ed Salamon, March 2020

Ed was at WHN radio in NYC and remembers the old 1946 Flxible Flyer bus rolling along the avenue in Manhattan in 1978.

Three hundred characters.

Speedy Sparks, John X Reed,
Nancy Coplin, James Dilley, Mike Buck, Joe Nick Patoski, Marcia Ball, Eve Monsees, Alan K. Sanders, Sapphire, Jesús Monsavais, Hoover Alexander, Lilian Gish, Bob Ford, Blue Duck, Lorena, Fred Sanford. Three hundred characters. That’s all, Folks!

One thing leads to another.

Thanksgiving Eve of 1972 I got a call from Doug Sahm. “Garcia is out of pot.” Jerry Garcia got no pot?

I hooked him up with some Christmas weed. “I’ll leave your name at the door.”

I got busted. What a long strange Thanksgiving trip.

© 2025 Bobby Earl Smith

“It was the best Thanksgiving ever,” says Freddy Fletcher.

Freddy was in the 3rd grade. His older brother, Randy, and his younger brother, Michael, and their mom, Bobbie Nelson, split one can of Campbell’s Gumbo four ways.

They were poor. They were around a table together for thanks giving.

He said he wanted to write songs. Write a simple two-chord song to get started, I said.

So, that’s what I did. Sat right down and wrote myself a good half dozen two-chord songs.

On playback these new two-chord ditties are sounding pretty alright.

Songwriter teach thyself.

Victor White and I are nine years old in this clipping from the January 2, 1953, of our home town newspaper, the San Angelo Standard Times. Victor’s drinking a Pepsi Cola and I’ve got a Barq’s Root Beer.