 The Web Trying Not Trying Thank You Sabres, Gentlemen! Sabres! You'll Think Jeff Weddle The Web What if Charles Bukowski had never lived or beautiful Paula Hinchman? What if I had never known my childhood friends like Randy Burruss or Marty Osborne or Doonie Ward? What if I had not drunk vodka with Mike Fitzpatrick or started on beer with John Spears? Or what about beautiful Vicky Hill and David Banner and Tom Blackburn and Philip Bishop? What if I hadn’t gotten into karate when I was fourteen? What if beautiful Margaret had not been at that high school reunion? Or what if I never read Brautigan and really what if Bukowski had never been born? What if I had never found my Jill through all of it? That’s the terrifying question. What if I had not found her? What then would have become of me?
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 Lessons and Lovers Wonky Tonk by Roy Peak A Movement Towards Heart Last week we featured a review of Lessons & Lovers, the latest album from Wonky Tonk and the High Life. Since the worldwide pandemic began a few months back, Ms. Tonk has been staying in Ecuador. Here's a short interview we did via email. Roy: First off, for those new to Wonky Tonk, how about a short introduction? Wonky Tonk: Wonk is a movement towards heart. Tunes are a byproduct, a language. Many people ask “what genre is this?” I say: Wonk. (magic) There isn’t a particular genre or style because Wonky Tonk is transformation, love, creation, surrender. It is a performance, it is honesty, it is an unmasked mirror. The choice to see things as they are, imperfect and full of possibilities. Wonked.  Wonky Tonk and the High Life Lessons & Lovers by Roy Peak Imagine a life put on hold. You're a musician about to release your third album. You travel to Ecuador for a quick trip and plan on returning to the States just in time for the album release and ensuing tour. (With Justin Townes Earle, no less. R.I.P.) Then the pandemic strikes, gigs are cancelled left and right, and with the current state of political and societal affairs in your home country, you decide that it just may be best for you to stay put indefinitely.
This is what happened to Jasmine Poole, AKA Wonky Tonk. All these months later, and she's still there. Wonky Tonk definitely goes her own unique way, you can hear a little bit of Lucinda Williams, a smattering of Shari Elf, and even some Tywanna Jo Baskette (intended or not) and I'm loving Ms. Wonk for it. (Much like Elf and Baskette, Tonk's songs are witty, heartfelt, quirky, and wholly original.) Tonk rocks hard and tough, she's not afraid to get noisy when the song calls for it, and the contrast between an abled noisy rhythm section and Tonk's high, sweet voice adds even more angst on many of these tunes.  Gardening Priorities by Jarad Johnson I’m currently laying in bed sneezing my brain out after accidentally putting my face in some ragweed yesterday. One of the things I’m really bad at is sitting around. I. Can’t. Stand. It. I always have something to do or a project to complete (or a blog post to write!). But as I’ve been sitting here, seething as I see all the things I need to do, I’ve been thinking about some things. Specifically, what my priorities are. I guess that’s normal for someone my age who graduated from college and is searching for a job. You wonder what is important to you. And I realized that I haven’t really wanted to touch the garden for a few weeks for a few reasons. Firstly, sometimes life gets in the way. When there’s a lot going on around you, I sometimes just don’t want to brave the heat. Secondly, I’ll have to move before the year’s done, and tending a garden that won’t be yours for much longer feels a tad defeatist, although I still try to keep all the weeds at bay, but I certainly wouldn’t plant anything new. Although the garden design part of my brain is begging for some hydrangeas in front of the house. That’ll come in time, in a different house, of course.
 Writers Are Kinda Crazy by Jarad Johnson Writers are, as a general rule, a strange bunch. It takes someone who’s at least a little strange to concoct wild fantasies and make up stories. I found myself having a conversation with…myself. Debating with myself about whether or not to include a storyline in a piece I’m writing. I’m not sure if me, myself or I won that argument, but it did make me think about what a writer was. Ooohhhhh, self-reflection, I say to myself, so philosophical you are, young padawan. Shut up, you’re insufferable, I say, also to myself. And so on and so forth.
 3 Poems by Ahmad Al- Khatat The Gypsy Prayer
Sometimes I think I am less than more than a human who’s always experiencing the brutality of being vulnerable and pray without being known the gypsy prayer In the house of God, most of the people choose to take advantage of my family Meanwhile, when I am around my sinner friends, they taught me “enough is enough.” I dress the way I dress without any regulations I talk the way I talk without any limitations I walk the way I walk within my boundaries and I’ll die the way I wished with the sufferings Being happy with someone you love could be more of a curse than a gift, as being miserable creates, hides emotions and tears whenever my mind, body, soul slowly bleeds to death.  Sabriel Garth Nix by Jarad Johnson I think as readers your tastes in books ebbs and flows, much like the way a river crests in spring and dries out in the summer drought. You can go through, “reading slumps,” where nothing is appealing at all, and you can go through what I refer to as, “Book Mania,” where every story grabs at your attention. I have been in somewhat of a reading slump for most of August (where did August go, by the way? Has time truly lost all meaning? I’m still stuck in July!). Every book I picked up I felt like I had read before. Sometimes, every plot feels redone, and every storyline too familiar to be entertaining. This is when I fall back on old favorites: Tolkien, Harry Potter, and all the other high Fantasy novels that helped tolerate the enormous imbecility that surrounded me in high school.
 What It's Like To Walk Past a Cemetery Every Day by Jarad Johnson I am a walker, not a runner. Every day that it’s not raining, I’m out walking up and down the road that I live on. There’s quite a bit of scenery, and thankfully it's mostly trees and peoples yards. The yards in my neighborhood vary greatly. There’s a cute blue house with some pretty standard cottage garden plantings. There’s my house, with still far too much grass (both in the flowerbeds and otherwise) and there’s a few houses which appear to be professionally landscaped, by which I mean, boring. No offense neighbors, but your yards need a little color. I also live in an area where somehow the woods have escaped construction. It’s always nice seeing what random changes pop up there. Of course, there are also people who clearly don’t like to (or are too busy) to work in their yards. And then there are those few yards that I have thrown seeds in, just because I felt sorry for them. I don’t know if the people who lived there wanted cosmos next to their mailbox, but they certainly got it. It looks better, anyway.
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