Hi -ho Kiddies!

I awoke in a grumpy mood this morning . . .. I have been working too hard (as we all must) my cars are broke (again) and my dog was in surgery yesterday. (she'll live, but it's an expensive deal)
I know there is a country song in there, and when I find the time I'll squeeze a tune out of this week's sh*t hammering.
 So, as I mumbled into my morning coffee, fumbling with the buttons on my keyboard and cursing the gods for not having allowed me the good fortune of being born to a wealthy family; a rarified group of folks whom I refer to as; "The lucky sperm club,"
I turned on my trusty Mac to check out the dailies on my book.
~
Lo and behold, there before my tired, bloodshot eyes was the latest review of Book 0ne in Amazon reviews. . .
What I saw, so eloquently stated turned my frown upside down. For
knowing that people are finding my novel this enjoyable helps to soften my hardships, and reinforces my belief that my years of effort were not in vain.
~
So, I've now had my coffee, (sweetened with local honey) and having reluctantly, and temporarily, forgiven the gods their cruel oversight, I am off to work; lighter of step, and with the metaphorical feces wiped from my mug. For altho' I've paid my dues, suffering does not cover the rent. And besides, I must make the moolah to get my pooch out of medical hock. ( after all, it's not her fault)

 Here is the review that brightened my day.


By itoldalthea

If you're looking for a good, action-packed, adventurous book to read this summer, or fall, or winter...heck, this spring, this one is it!

Author Denver Davis his knocked it out of the park in his debut novel, Southwestern Songline: Book 1 - The Fall.

Set in SW Colorado and the canyons of Utah, the story follows the exploits of Teller, a man's man that also has a way with the women. Teller leaves friends and admirers in his wake, and has a lasting impact on everyone he encounters. The Fall takes us from Telluride to Lake Powell and the journey is full of action, plot twists, romance, intrigue, and suspense. Along the way Teller dips into the realm of the supernatural and brings you, the reader, in with him.

Having grown up in Colorado (but since long removed) the author's narrative brought me back to a time long ago in my life. While reading his descriptions of the various mountain ranges in SW Colorado, I could easily envision the different locations and return there in my mind's eye. Whether running rapids in a raft, finding refuge in a cave, or stepping into Teller's dreams while he sleeps, the author makes the reader feel as if they are a participant in the story rather than an observer. There were times I swear I could smell the river, the trees, and a character or two in desperate need of a shower.

Without giving away the plot I will say the adventures of Teller involve beautiful mountains (and one beautiful mountain woman in particular), raging rivers, Anasazi ruins, hair-raising helicopter flights, ancient spirits manifested in the present, long-lost treasure, music and booze-filled nights in the bars of Durango, and some old-fashioned western justice along the way to boot. The final two-thirds of the book were a very fast read; in fact, I couldn't put it down. The only disappointment for me was in the finishing of the book and the realization that I'll have to wait for the release of the second installment to pick up the story again.

As someone who has been an avid reader for 45 years I would rank this offering in my Top 15 of books I've ever read, and I recommend it to others without hesitation. The read is worth your time and you'll be rewarded with a story for the ages for your effort.


Yeah!! Thank you itoldalthea, and folks, read the book; apparently it's pretty damn good.

D.C.

       With another tug at his hat Teller stepped towards that upraised stone finger, favoring his right leg and cursing his reckless soul.
That he had not been kind to his body over the years was a colossal understatement, and that he was now suffering the consequences was certainly no surprise, for Teller was not a man who observed life, he absorbed it. He fought, drank and danced with it. He was a man of great appetite, and having partaken fully the banquet, was now paying dearly for his hunger.
    Thinking back to a song he had written for his Grandfather before he had died, Teller sang a prophetically appropriate line: “To sacrifice youth and replace it with truth seems an unfairly high price to pay.”
And so it seemed.
~
That was an excerpt from Book One: "The Fall"
I decided to drop this in this morning as I find it particularly poignant. I had a birthday earlier this month, and I am feeling every one of my years.
I would write more, but I'm late . . . it's time to go out into the world and take my daily beating.

Ahhh, Life . . .

            Last week I got a wild hair and called a buddy of mine, (a pretty good guy who is not only blessed with a sense of humor, but aint too bad on that ole’ six-string box.)

Any old hoo, I talked him into flyin’ us over to Oahu for the big Fourth o’ July Fireworks show in his little Grumman Cheetah aero-plane, where, for lodging, we got to stay on his 40’ sailboat. Now, this is one of those deals where altho’ I may not have the toys, I have still have friends who do, and I sometimes get to play with them. (when they are willing to share of course)

It was a blast, and I tell you this not to provoke jealousy, but to emphasize the vagaries of our existence; for, as fun as it was, I missed my humble home and the small pleasures it provides . . . which leads us to the point of this post.    

            These are men who were not nearly as foolish in their youth as I; for while they have managed to acquire and retain such wonderful things, I have managed only to hold on to a few fine treasures; a Woman, a Dog, a Guitar and a bottomless Chest packed with songs and stories. (I have capitalized these on purpose to indicate their incalculable value.)

            It seems my friends, bless their souls for loving me as they do, and sharing their toys, were lucky enough to have metaphorical cotton stuffed in their ears at birth, muting the siren song that called to me from the day I first opened my ears.

For those who've not heard the sweetness of that wicked refrain, there are no words capable of describing the delicate fishhook that imbeds itself into one’s soul, convincing the unlucky recipient to run themselves repeatedly onto the rocks; only to be left to salvage the contents of your ship from the flotsam and jetsam found in the surrounding waters of your being.

~

            Now, with the illness that befell me in 2004, I've spent the past decade and a half crawling across the sharp reefs of survival, the worst of me left in bits and pieces, caught on the razors edge for the scavengers to feast upon. But with love and luck, and blessings from above, I have not only survived, but have come back with a vengeance, scarred and beaten, but a better man for it all, with the talents that had lay snubbed for so long being wrestled to the surface where at last, they see the light of day.

            I could go on with the observations and witticisms that a lifetime of livin’ has shown me. (As a matter of fact, I've a song by that title, and it will soon be included on this site, and on FB through a service called; Sound Cloud.) But I feel that by reading my novel; ‘Southwestern Songline’ you will find Teller walking you through a world still tinged with magic.

            So, as I'm beginning to ramble, I will leave you with a fun little tune I wrote awhile back that seems to fit the general concept of my reality. It’s a simple thing, but beneath all of my complexity, so am I.

Ahhhh, Life . . .

ALL BETS ARE OFF

Denver C. Davis  Copywrite 2004

   C

It came as no surprise to me

           G                          

 When I turned off my TV

         F                                                     G

That everything I thought I knew was wrong

        C

Like Alice down the rabbit hole

           G

The whole damn things out of control

               F                     G                    C

Now the best that I can do is just hang on

 Well it seems a few decades have passed

Since the days I thought I had a grasp

On what at the time passed for reality

Now looking back in retrospect

The one thing that I most regret

Was betting that I’d keep my sanity

        * CHORUS *

Barre F        Barre G          Barre F           Barre G

All bets are off now, all bets are off now

Barre F             Barre G         C

All bets are off now you bet!

Barre F                              Barr G

I’ve been played by the best of fools

       Barre F                                Barre G

But you learn the game, they change the rules

      Barre F                      G         C

So roll those dice but, all bets are off!

Life’s a lot like countin’ cards

Except twice as fast, and twice as hard

And there’s at least a dozen jokers to every Queen

Be you Jack a’ diamonds, or Ace a’ Spades

The dealin’ slows and the money fades

So you best have somethin’ hidden up your sleeve                                                                                                                                          

Win or lose, the results the same

So it’s all in how you play the game

You can play it crazy or play it crazy fun

Between lunatic and the slightly strange

The little off, full blown deranged

There’s always someone to show you how it’s done

All bets are off now, all bets are off now

All bets are off now you bet!

When I was young I could have sold my soul

Now the dang things worn all full of holes

But it’s all I got, so, all bets are off

It’s academic anyway

Tomorrow will be yesterday

And you’d think by now I might have had enough

I would’a bet a leg, tossed in an arm

By fifty I would have bought the farm

But here I am so, all bets are off

All bets are off now all bets are off now

All bets are off now you bet!

 All bets are off now; it’s a losin’ game anyhow

But I have not lost it all no not yet;

I have not lost it all no…..

Not yet!

A Blast from the Past.

    So, an  old friend, ( I just had a mental pause; now the term 'old friend' takes on a much more significant meaning,) anyway, an old friend sent me this photo of one of her sons in my lap from waaay back in 1990. . . . My first reaction was, of  course, wow! how cool. my second reaction was, fuck, where did twenty five years scamper off to??? and my third thought was of how much has changed since that picture was taken on an uneventful afternoon at the beach, and what a peaceful( comparatively) world we lived in.

     ~
    9 11 had not yet happened, so all of the horrors that now plague the planet were no more than a morbid fantasy turned profit machine in the minds of monsters like the future vice president, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union not yet complete, little tin despots in shit-hole third world contries did not have wholesale access to the endless stockpile of weapons leftover from the cold war. Funny, but irony being what it is, with all of that chest-pounding puffery between the two superpowers, the world was a safer place. (again, comparatively) For as long as the threat of the U.S. remained, the iron fist of the Kremlin kept the black market warlords at bay.
    ~
   Conversations were primarily actual person to person events, as Cell phones were not yet the ubiquitous things they are now.
Text was the print in a (gasp!) book, and anyone who walked around talking out loud was likely unhinged. Now, one cannot tell the crazies from the masses; and that line gets thinner by the day.
As a matter of fact, the internet, or the world wide web, as it was referred to then, was not even available to the public until 1993
    ~
   And the United States was about to enter into the longest period of economic peacetime expansion in its history.
~
Wow, the power of a photograph . . ..
Now that boy is a young Man, and I, alas, am that much older, and in theory wiser. Altho' on that score, I often have my doubts.
Yes, it seems that time marches on, and we are left stuck to its boots, and carried into the future.