Johnny Cash died

This has been an odd day.

When I woke up this morning, the sky above town was full of hot air balloons and tonight as the sun went down, they were still there hanging in the sky right between the sun and the moon.

Johnny Cash died at two this morning. I worshipped Johnny Cash. I remember as a kid, staring at my dad's Folsom Prison album and thinking that he must be the coolest, most bad-ass man alive with his coal dark eyes and clothes - his ruddy complexion - his songs about prisons and trains - I wanted to be like him and in my innocence wondered what a person has to do to end up behind those cold prison walls or hopping a train down the line. I reasoned that it must be that he "shot a man in Reno - just to watch him die..." I wasn't sure why a person would do that but it sounded icy cold and interesting.

It was odd to hear Johnny's songs on the radio today and I even heard Eddie Angel doing his version of "Straight A's in Love". There was something surreal about hearing that song on the airwaves. You don't usually hear Johnny on the radio here unless you tune into AM radio. Only the new guys get top billing and airplay - the pretty ones with the overproduced "new country" sound. Everywhere I turned, it was his music on the radio. When I went home at lunch, I turned on the TV. I got to see the reporters standing in front of the hospital while pointing up at the building, "Johnny Cash died here at two a.m.". They also stood in front of his home and offered up sound bytes from his neighbors - "I used to see him and June down at Home Depot all the time buying plants and manure..." It was freaky and strange. They were like buzzards or vultures. Whichever of those picks the flesh off of dead things...that's what they were like. They were hunting and pecking for any tiny little morsel of meat. Do they really have to do a live remote from the hospital or in front of his family home? I decided not and went upstairs to listen to "Because you're mine, I walk the line." Man, we have lost a great one in Johnny Cash. I hope that if there is a heaven, he and June Carter are sitting there singing "If I were a Carpenter" and looking down through the September haze and hot air balloons and news satellites and giggling at the sideshow down here.

I learned that they are putting catfish in the pond at Centennial Park for something called a "Catfish Rodeo". There beside the spectacle that is our Parthenon replica, people are going to be fishing for catfish. I think they should let the homeless people in on it - but I bet the rich folk hog the whole place as if it were that yearly Arts and Crafts fair. Bastards. Greedy catfish hoarding bastards.

This morning, I was in a funk because I was going to spend the weekend a little light on cash. My boss slipped me a twenty dollar bill for no reason and then when I got home - there was unexpected cash in the mail. I'm telling you - I usually don't get twenties handed to me all day for no reason. I felt a little like a stripper but wasn't at all bothered by the new and exciting cash flow. Perhaps a little grocery buying and if allowed, a nice visit to a thrift store or two? Thank you gods of carefree bosses and parents alike for this manna.

I have agreed to go to the State fair which will surely entail comfortable shoes. Do I even own comfortable shoes? I have been told that there will be piles of manure there and I really must step out of my zone and wear comfortable shoes. Hmm....Chuck Taylors with a skirt? Perhaps. If I dye my hair a nice funky color first - I looked at the 'manic panic' colors tonight and haven't yet decided between the midnight blue (will go with my eyes) or bright red (will go with the 'whites' of my eyes).

Even better still, I received emails today that contained the following lines:

" Godzilla is very angry. We must flee."

"Mr. Twinkie had a drunken, blue-humored appearance on the Dick Cavett show that included a particularly controversial joke about Pat Nixon's genitals..."

" William Burroughs is there removing the bun from a quarter-pounder with cheese and carrying on about 'American Breadsuckers'. "

I also received a rousing MP3 about goth girls and those who love them. Bravo! Any song that lauds "her skin is white as snow... I'd follow her wherever she goes" is okay in my book (says the girl whose only known super power is "Translucence").

I went to Wendy's for the first time in over a month and couldn't remember what I ever liked about the place. I said "Thank you" to the unenthused teenager in the drive-thru window three times just to see if he would say it back. He didn't. He only shoved a sack in my hand and slammed his little window. Well, at least he didn't commit the cardinal of all drive-thru sins (as far as I am concerned). He didn't call me "Ma'am".

Peace, Ya'll. I think I am going to call this one a day.