I'm coming back to Canada! You go far enough north, and you're back south again. Friendly people, good food, slow talkers, a religion of hunting, great homemade music, the works.

I'll be touring with the fella who wrote 'The law and The Lonesome' and 'May The River Run Dry' with me. He's my biggest fan. He's a true friend. He's a bulletproof songwriter and a performer with several metric tonnes of mojo- Corin Raymond. http://www.myspace.com/cor..inraymond


BEGINNING IN ONTARIO...

Thursday, November 5th in DUNDAS, ON
House Concert at Kathy and Colin Pfeiffer's
8pm/$20. For information/reservations
Please contact Kathy and Colin at pfeiffer@cogeco.ca 905-627-6930

Friday, November 6th in PORT DOVER, ON
Concert at The Perch Gallery (233 Main St.)
8pm/$25 (ticket includes snacks)
For tickets call the gallery at 519 583-9034.
Or email at perchgallery@hotmail.com

Saturday, November 7th in OTTAWA, ON
BobCat House Concert
8pm/$20 For info/reservations please contact Bob Ledrew at
bob.ledrew@gmail.com
http://bobcathouseconcerts...com

ALBERTA!!

Thursday, November 12th in EDMONTON, AB
House Concert w/Scott Cook!!
8pm/$15 For more information, or for reservations
Please contact Scott Cook at grooverevival@gmail.com 780 695 3474.
http://www.myspace.com/gro..overevival

Note: Scott Cook is AMAZING, and he just came out with a BEAUTIFUL new record called This One's On The House. Very worth checking out.

Friday, November 13th in NANTON, AB
House Concert at Lance and Toby's!!
730pm/$15. For information or reservations
Contact Lance Loree at teleman@telusplanet.net

Saturday, November 14th in CALGARY, AB
House Concert at Rickk's Room
8pm/$20. For information or reservations
Contact Cecilia Fewtrell at rickksroom@shaw.ca

BACK TO ONTARIO..

Wednesday, November 18th in DUNNVILLE, ON
at FLYER'S BAKERY AND CAFE INC. (144 Queen Street)
Doors at 630pm, show at 8pm. Suggested donation to River Arts Fest $10
www.riverartsfestival.ca to reserve a ticket or call 905-701-8527

Friday, November 20th in PAISLEY, ON
BACK EDDIE'S (at The Paisley Town Hall Theatre)
8pm/$15. You can get your tickets across the street at Back Eddie's, call 519 353-4787, or email Jim and Erica at backeddies@bmts.com.

Saturday, November 21st in PORT ELGIN, ON
House Concert at the Hopkins
8pm/$20 For information or reservations
Contact Christine Hopkins at chopkins96@yahoo.com

Sunday, November 22nd in HAMILTON, ON
House Concert: The Kilgannon's Back Room
8pm/$20 For information or reservations please respond to this email.

About Corin Raymond...

Corin and I co-wrote three of the songs on his new solo album, There Will Always Be A Small Time. He doesn't play these songs everyday, because he's usually touring with his ass-kicking duo, The Undesirables. Their new record is amazing, too.

Touring with Corin is an insomniacal melee of enthusiasm and dark beauty. I met him in Austin and he promised to fill a house in Toronto for me. He did and he kept doing it. We've toured Canada six times to full houses everywhere we go. There's no way I can repay him for all hat he's done for me. I just keep a firm grip on his coat tails and try to stay awake for it all.

http://www.myspace.com/cor..inraymond
http://www.myspace.com/und..esirables

Forward this. Turn someone on to my music right now. Turn someone on to Corin's music. Happiness is free. CDs are $20 CAD. Pass the jam.

------------------------

I'll leave you with a letter to a friend from my summer trip to Montana. Many thanks to Storyhill for hosting me in Bozeman. I'll never forget it.

A.,

Thanks for your phone calls. I haven't felt much like talking on the phone lately. I never really liked the phone anyway. Something about the disembodied voice that disturbs me. I don't have any pictures, either, not of my family even. I'm just realizing lately that those two things are linked somehow, having one sense engaged while the other four are going nuts in the waiting room.

Sounds like your life is beautiful. I loved hearing about the fresh vegetables. Good food is priceless. I was in Bozeman, Montana, getting ready to drive out to a festival in the hills and looking for breakfast on Main Street. Passed an old 7-up sign that said "Western Cafe." Looked like vibe to me. So, I pulled over and went in.

It was a diner, to be sure, walled in ponderosa pine and surrounded along the top molding with brands from various ranches across Montana. My favorite was Diamond Seven. Just a diamond with a seven in the middle, but somehow more elegant than all the other Lazy S's and H Bars. I picked a stool along the bar next to a cute kid with a robot toy. Turns out, he belonged to one of the waitresses. Reminded me of when I was a kid, hanging out at my dad's drugstore.

They had everything you would expect: diner menu minus grits. I ordered two eggs over easy with hashbrowns and rye toast. Big glass of water. Took a long time, but everything was right when it came and I had plenty of time to talk to the kid and peruse all the brands. Each brand was burned into a square of pine about as big as your hand, with a small punch-tape description meticulously stuck across the bottom. It was somehow so worthwhile, this efficient language of property. Montana is still legally open range. God, this country!

The hashbrowns were perfectly textured, not greasy, just shy of crunchy. That's a rare thing. It got me to stop looking at the brands, the college kids, the cowboys, and the waitresses long enough to realize that there was a newspaper article about their pies framed on the wall. I looked in the cooler on the wall directly in front of me and there were four enormous pieces of what looked like apple pie.

How can you not get the pie that inspires journalism? Besides, I've been on a fruit-last kick lately that's working well for my digestion. Meat first, with vegetables, then the grains, and then fruit to finish. The Chinese docs say they end up in that order anyway, go ahead and put them in that way.

That pie was the most amazing thing. Nutmeg was the star, perfumed and wooden. The apples were left to do their own sweetening and whatever sugar there was was transparent. The crust was glorious! Thick, buttery, flaky, fresh. On the first bite, a tear actually came to my eye. It was a large slice and, before I was done, I found out the name of the baker. Not that I'll visit Montana a lot in my lifetime, though I may: I just wanted to roll that name around on my tongue, too- a prayer of thanks, an ode to a holy skill.

The food at the festival was great, too. Not quite as good as that pie, but with all the right intentions behind it. I headed back to town after the campfire on Saturday night/Sunday morning, about 3am. On the way, I saw up ahead a gleam of something, like reflective tape on a pack, or a deer's eye. I slowed down and rolled over to the left to avoid whatever living thing it was on my side of the road.

It was a horse. A gorgeous, tall, chocolate Arabian. Such a born athlete, perfectly muscled, trotting with an arc and a purpose known only to itself, all God's questions in its eyes. It regarded me as a standard curiosity, something to keep an eye on, but certainly not to be feared. How could a beast like that fear anything?!

We passed and another horse followed, dusty white with black nostrils and the same discerning eye. I fancy they pitied me, the lame creature with its crude wheels. And another, black and white, painted in large sections, larger than a Holstein's spots. Such style! Such movement. "Hoof beats like castanets on stone." And one more, purest black. I could not have imagined healthier animals. They were Gods in the night. There was not a shred of gear on them. They belonged to themselves and to the wild pastures they sought.

I awoke in the morning to find that my alarm had been ringing for hours and I had slept through my flight. At first I was distraught; I missed Mary awfully. I soon had my situation in hand, though, and Delta assured me that $50 would get me on another flight that day. So wild, and yet so civilized. What a country.

I went back to the Western Cafe one more time, on my way to the airport. They had rhubarb. Fuck's sake. No one gets paid enough for that sort of sorcery. She must not care whether people like her pies or not. She's beyond that, to the point of having to satisfy herself, and her tastes are beyond anything we know. So, yeah, food.

I love you.

J.


Your fan,

Jonathan Byrd.

represented by the Americana Agency-www.americanaagency...com

I was entering words into my little google window, a "how to" search. You know how it gives you suggestions as you are typing? After I had typed "how to," I stopped to see what the most popular "how to" searches were. In order, the first four are:

how to tie a tie
how to kiss
how to get pregnant
how to lose weight

Of course nobody knows how to tie a tie and everyone has to wear one eventually. A natural first. They are all in chronological order. Go back and read it again if you don't get that. Most importantly, sex education is seriously lacking among googlers.

Your fan,

jbyrd