Willard and I are very unhappy about the collapse of the Colbert campaign. We fear the well-meaning but self-important Dims of South Carolina have forgotten the great lesson of the Ross Perot campaigns: that comic relief in the political process is essential to our national sanity.

Not to mention that we and fellow Orneries SD and Bella were looking forward to that trip to Charleston. We aimed to do all the local ghost tours and wallow in low country cooking when we weren't answering phones, stuffing envelopes and fielding impertinent questions from the media.

Still, even at our lowest we were in good shape compared to poor Madame Sadie. After not hearing a peep out of her for several days, Willard got worried and stopped by to check on her. A few minutes later I got a frantic phone call.

"Hello?"

"She's gone into a decline," Willard declared tersely.

I confess I was taken aback. Madame Sadie is above all a survivor; she survived the hard life of a Hollywood reject, the overflowing port-a-potties of the great music festivals of the sixties, and seven hundred fifty eight and a half consecutive nights of doing the Hustle in the seventies. (We assume she was dancing. . .)

"Must be brooding over the loss of anticipated--uh--income. What's she doing?"

"Hunkered down in a corner, surrounded by Bud Light cans, listening to one Merle Haggard song over and over."

This was serious. Undoubtedly the one song was "Think I'll Just Stay Here and Drink." Time was of the essence, so I hotfooted it down the creek and up the holler, arriving just in time to hear Madame say petulantly, "I don't WANT coffee. That stuff's poison."

She looked bad. Red eyes, red nose, smeared makeup, and a general resemblance to a ragdoll that was only heightened by her favorite red wig. "Drink it anyway, you old bat," I snapped. Madame let out a surprised belch: Willard had just dumped a vindictive pint of ice water down her back.

Willard hissed, "Intervention."

"Yep. But we haven't time or money to go to Red Lobster before the Endless Shrimp promotion ends."

"You got a better idea?"

In the end, Willard went off to our local fish joint while I kicked Bud Light cans out onto the porch, got Madame up from the corner and replaced Merle Haggard with an oldies station. By the time Willard got back, Madame was kickboxing to "Kung Fu Fighting" and I was hunkered down in the corner covering as best as I could.

Eventually, after we all danced to "Thriller" at Madame's insistence (Willard and I were the zombies), we settled down to enjoy fish sandwiches. Beer battered or not, the food perked Madame up. When we were done she announced she was ready for a nap. She settled in front of the TV to watch a REPORT repeat and was soon snoring. Willard and I cleaned up the kitchen, bagged up the Bud Light cans, and locked up after ourselves.

I checked on Madame the next day. She seemed none the worse for wear, but was not especially glad to see me; Miss A and some friends were coming for an appointment. I shudder to think how it turned out, but I guess I'll have to wait for Miss A's blog--hopefully in the next day or two. When she does, her link is http://missatheornery.blogstream.com.

Till next time, fair thee well.

It's barely been ten days since we lost the legendary Porter Wagoner. This morning, Mom tells me that we have lost another: the great swing singer, songwriter and bandleader, Hank Thompson.

Hank Thompson is one of the few singers I can actually tell you when I first heard him. I was in my tween years, and Dad brought home a vinyl record (yep, LONG time ago) that included a number of his Top Ten hits. I loved western swing already, having been exposed to Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Spade Cooley and Tex Williams. Hank Thompson, though, was a revelation: tight instrumentation, powerful baritone vocals, and a clever turn with words that made extensive use of internal rhyme and were very easy to memorize.

Thompson served in the US Navy in WWII, working as a radio personality on an early version of the Armed Services Network; he recalled later that one of his daily tasks was to remind troops to "toss those pellets down the palate"--i.e. take their antimalarials, which in those days were quinine tablets. Upon leaving the service he got a recording contract with Blue Bonnet Records, for whom he recorded his first hit, "Whoa, Sailor," a cheeky tale of a sailor who only succeeds in winning the heart of a girl in a bar when he flashes six months' pay.

Not long thereafter he got some help from the great singing cowboy star Tex Ritter, who wangled his label, the larger Capitol, into giving Thompson a contract. It was for Capitol that Thompson recorded what may be his best-known song, 1952's "The Wild Side of Life," which in turn inspired Kitty Wells's greatest hit, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." He would go on to rack up a number of Top Ten hits during eighteen years at Capitol, followed by twenty-two at what was eventually known as MCA Records. These included a number inspired by nursery rhymes, including "Humpty Dumpty Heart" and "Rub a Dub Dub." That last flabbergasted my beloved Bubba; Sis used to sing it to him when she was bathing him, and he was freaked out when out of the blue one day I began to sing it. "How come you know the same song my mommy does?" he roared.

My favorite, though, was the one I used for the title of this blog: "The Blackboard of My Heart." Although the lyrics are based around an atrocious pun, Thompson's delivery made it a classic honky-tonk two-step.

Thompson scored hits well into the 1970s, including the one I use as a putdown for any man who makes snide remarks about older women, "The Older the Violin (The Sweeter the Music)". He was a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. Asked once if it bothered him in his later years that "country" radio stations no longer played his music, he answered, "I don't consider those stations country, so I don't expect them to play my music."

Hank Thompson, like Porter Wagoner, died of aggressive lung cancer. He performed up until ten days before his death, in some cases with original members of the Brazos Valley Boys. Even though there's another great act at the rowdy honky tonk in the afterlife, our world is somewhat the poorer today. We love you, Hank Thompson, and we'll never stop missing you.

None of the Ornery as Hellfire Club are impressed by either side of Candidates currently on the roll for President. Madam Sadie, an honorary member, has been heard to say the democratic side is wimps and the other shrimps—evidently very large shrimps—and for her part the only good shrimp is beer battered and fried.

Up until recently we didn’t have a ornery candidate. That is until Stephen Colbert tossed his hat into the South Carolinian ring—not just in one race mind you but both—yup he’s running as both Democrat and Republican now if that ain’t ornery then this old girl don’t know what ornery is! (It has since been revealed that it’s simply too expensive to run as a GOP candidate so he’s only going Democratic.)

The night before Colbert made his announcement Madam Sadie had invited Fairweather and myself to her house for supper which included her special dishes of beer-battered fish and shrimp. She glanced at her crystal ball which was covered again in talcum powder. I took a quick swipe at it so she could try and see one of her "visions". She started as she peered in then started giggling coyly.

"What do you see Madam Sadie?" Fairweather asked.

"Our football team is coming into it’s own soon." Fairweather and I high-fived each other and did a war-dance. And Madam Sadie continued softly.
" Our candidate is coming. Finally."

"Who is it?" I asked trying to look over Sadie’s shoulder. As Fairweather has said before I have a little more talent than our friend.

"No, my dear Willard, it is not for you to see just now." She giggled again and covered the ball.

We don’t know a lot about her past life, but if I didn’t know better I’d say she was getting some action however vicariously over that crystal ball—but was it Kinky Friedman, Stephen Colbert, the local Bud Light delivery man (I believe she has a special deal going with him to get her orders discounted) or even the TV Coors ad man? (She really prefers Bud Light but will drink Coors if nothing else is available.) Who knows since Madam doesn’t kiss and tell.

She allowed us to puzzle over this for a while. We even called Tooey, who works at a famous retail establishment here in town, to see if the Bud Light delivery man had begun to hand out campaign fliers and kiss babies. Unfortunately, Tooey was off that day and didn’t know anything about it.

In desperation we went back to Madame Sadie. Short of threatening to cut off her never-ending supply of Bud Light I didn’t know what we were going to use to make her talk to us.

Fortunately for us she decided to throw us a bone.
"My girls, Yes I know you are grown women, but still my girls I have now decided who to honor with my political endorsement."

Fairweather and I leaned forward, chorusing breathlessly, "Who, Madame Sadie? WHO?"

She put a finger to the side of her face; then she closed her eyes and puckered her lips.

"I have thought long and hard about this, and frequently consulted with the crystal ball. But at last my visions have guided me to the right one."

Fairweather was rapidly losing patience, and I had to grab her to keep her from Madame’s throat as she shouted, "WHO IS IT, YOU OLD BAT?"

Madame blinked in (spurious) well-bred surprise. "Fairweather, darling, really!"

"Please Madame tell us before Fairweather loses complete control." I pleaded.

"Our Ornery Candidate is……"She paused again and Fairweather made a lunge.

"Stephen Colbert." Madame shouted hastily as she quickly jumped over her couch. Amazingly she made it before Fairweather could catch hold of her.

Things seemed to calm down after this announcement. Madame exited her safe retreat as Fairweather and I began squabbling over campaign posters and where to put them.
Personally I’m thinking the local slogan ought to be "At last a real comedian in the White House."

Fairweather says "I’d give him a turnstile token". Wink! Wink!

For those of you who don’t understand this please see A Visit to Madam Sadie. (A previous blog)

Since then we are having a running debate about whether to go to South Carolina to offer to work as gofers, muscle or cheesecake for the campaign. Madame is all for it; she has some idea that Colbert will be so glad to have a psychic on board (sloshed or otherwise) that he’ll gladly take her on (DON’T GIVE THE OLD BAT ANY IDEAS, STEPHEN!) and pay her off in an endless supply of shrimp and Bud Light. "After all," she says reasonably, "he says South Carolina shrimp are the best in the world."

Fairweather and I have our doubts about this; according to Fairweather, a faithful viewer of THE REPORT, he has said he will try to run a clean campaign on no more than five thousand dollars, and that won’t keep Madame in Bud Light and shrimp indefinitely. We should know by next week whether we’ve thrown in our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor (in Madame’s case, such as it is) with our ornery candidate and will let you know accordingly. Our next post may be from Charleston. So long till next time.

black & gold
lightning
sunders the sky

leaving
evanescent scars
on the moon

phantoms
float & fade
exchanging

kisses of darkness.
I too
am

a shadow
at the edge
of the veil

crossing all boundaries.
Tonight I can walk
between the worlds

Happy Halloween, guys. As for us, we're scaring ourselves silly watching the news. Luv, Fairweather and Willard

the wind wails
a banshee skirl
to the bodhran bump
of some fleeing heart

a skull leers from the moon
a gleeful grin,
an ice cream gleam of teeth
to bite the stars

tonight I walk
alone, a soul
of no habitation
save a fright:

a trickster
playing hide and seek
with the dark

a queen of old
riding my last glory
on a death road

copyright 2007 by Fairweather Lewis