Post a Comment On: Banjosnake - Chipper Thompson's Web Log

Well, it's taken me a while to get up-and-running this year, y'all. Sorry for the delays and the boredom.
Times seem to get weirder and weirder, but I'm holding on. Whether it's true or not, it certainly feels like it's more and more difficult to control our universe at any given moment (as if it's ever been possible!) so I'm learning to let go of stuff and have some sort of "faith" that things will be okay, and if they're not... well, who can do anything about it? It's tempting to go all political at this point, but I'll spare us all and refrain. Let's keep it to the world of Ars BanjoSnake at the moment!
1) I'm on Twitter now, and I'm gonna try to be very conscientious about posting Tweets there when something - anything! - of note in my world is happening. I'm posting under the name "Chipper Thompson" and the user name of "reverendcolonel" if y'all want to follow me. Please! Do!
2) Speaking of "reverendcolonel" my close friends have been jokingly calling me that for a long time... so, I went on-line and got myself ordained! I'm now officially "The Right Reverend-Colonel R.E.C. Chipper Thompson; Swami, Druid, Magus, and Hoodoo-Man." Call for services... births, christenings, circumcisions (just kidding), marriages, funerals... I gotcha covered. Special catering to heretics, unbelievers, blasphemers, and excommunicants. "By the powers vested in me by the universe and the internets...."
3) I'm at the beginning of what I hope will be a long and mutually fruitful relationship with the Harwood Museum of Art here in Taos, NM, and want to let you know that not only am I an artist-on-display in their upcoming show "New Mexorado" but they also commissioned me to do the poster and invitation for the show! Check it out! There's some rumors going around that we're gonna print limited-edition, signed-and-numbered copies of the poster, too, so stay in touch!
4) Speaking of "art" I'm also newly-affiliated with Taos, New Mexico's newest (and one of the coolest) art-and-retail spaces, TurnStyle. Very cool place, y'all. I'm currently displaying "Document #3" and "Reliquary #1" down there, and you should hurry down there to check it out. There's LOTS of other cool stuff there; art by my lovely wife Kim Treiber-Thompson as well as friends Dan Enger, Doug Yeager, Pattie Traynor, Nathan Lowe, and more and more! Git on down there!
5) I'm still affiliated with another of the finest galleries in Taos (voted "Best Gallery" in the people's choice awards, 2010!) and that's Wilder-Nightingale Fine Art. Git down there, too!
6) Lastly, I'm going to work harder than I ever have on getting myself out there in the world so more and more of you will know what my work is all about... if you're reading this you're probably already one of the converted, so help me out and tell all your friends - heck, tell all your enemies, too! - about what I'm doing and what's going on here at Ars BanjoSnake and spread the word! However...
...this so-called self promotion may not take obvious paths and make predictable moves. My imagination was recently captured by a comment in William Gibson's newest book Zero History, and I'll paraphrase: "We're talking old-school geographical exclusivity." Hell, yeah. I like it. More on this later... maybe.
But there's so much stuff I want to do this year (music, art, writing, and more!) and lots of projects in the works, so check back here often. I'll do my part and Tweet loudly when there's news, but if things go the way I want 'em to, stuff's gonna come fast-and-furious about the time Spring hits, so pay attention!
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Yes, BanjoSnakers, it's weird out there. Like so many of us, I made New Year's resolutions and I'm trying to stick to them... it's all the usual stuff: eat better, get in shape, work harder, play harder, blah blah blah. But let me give you quick example of just how many chuckles the Gods get from our piddley efforts.....
SO, after a few months of utter decadence - especially during the holiday season when I ate so much sugary crap that I thought I might wind up in a diabetic coma at any second - I decided on a pretty simple resolution: no sweets or sodas or such like this year. Simple, direct, easy to understand. I built in a pressure valve in the "allowance" for myself that on Valentine's Day and my birthday I'd allow myself that one day to eat sugary stuff, just so I wouldn't go crazy, and I'd have something to look forward to. So, all the push-ups and long brisk walks and stretching and yoga aside, I figured eating sweet-free was one thing I could manage to truly make a healthy difference. And frankly, until yesterday, I haven't missed 'em.
Now, my nostalgic favorite sody-pop from my childhood days in Alabama was "Sun-Drop" cola. Fantastic, ultra-fizzy, nuclear-lemon-yellow stuff that has God knows what in it. Love the stuff. But it was hardly ever an evil temptation, 'cause I had to go all the way to Alabama to get it. Heavily regional, we're talking. But I go into our local grocery store yesterday to buy the regular healthy stuff, grapefruit and kale and whole-wheat bread and whatnot, and guess what's sitting right there for sale - here, in my town - not in Alabama, but Taos-frickin-New-Mexico:
SUN DROP COLA.
Dammit. And they're nearly giving the stuff away... Four 12-can cartons for 5 bucks. Shit. That's less than ten cents a can! DAMN! DAMN! DAMN! First I nearly cried, then I busted out laughing and everybody looked at me like I was a crazy person, which for a moment or two I was. But that's life, folks. There it is, in a nutshell. So who knows what'll happen in the world of Ars BanjoSnake this year? Hell, I'm the cosmic architect trying to manipulate it all, and even I don't have a clue!
So stay close, friends and neighbors, and stay happy and healthy and don't buy into the bullshit and love this life! Sure, the sun might crash into the earth someday, but whatta ya gonna do? In the perfect, wise words of my wife: eat out more! Yee-Hawwwww! Sushi and pizza for everybody!
Yours, Chipper