Ray Wylie Hubbard

Click on the title to play

Drunken Poet's Dream

by Ray Wylie Hubbard

"I got a woman she's wild as Rome

She likes to lay naked and be gazed upon

She crosses a bridge and then sets it on fire

Lands like a bird on a telephone wire

Wine bottles scattered like last nights clothes

Cigarettes, papers, and dominoes

She laughs for a minute about the shape I'm in

Says, "You be the sinner honey, I'll be the sin."

I'm gonna holler and I'm gonna scream

I'm gonna get me some mescaline

She brings me roses and a place to lean

A drunken poets dream

There's some money on the table and a pistol on the floor

Some old paper back books of Louis L'Amour

She says, "Honey, don't worry 'bout judgement day."

All these people goin' to heaven, they're just in our way

And all my life I laid around while the colors all turned blue

Closed my eyes and finally found it brought me back to you."

The River Road Prayer

Dear Lord, thank you for the return of my soul, and thank you for the next thirty years.

Thank you for allowing me to walk in the beauty of the natural surroundings you have provided.

Thanks for the food that you have provided me and my friends around me, and thank you for those friends. Thank you for the health you have given me to take these walks and the ability you have given me to enjoy them.

Please allow people I have hurt or offended to forgive me, and allow me to forgive those who may have offended me. Forgive my pride for sometimes it gets in my way.

Please watch over those people that struggle spiritually, emotionally or with health problems for they need you more than ever.

Lord, watch over the poor, the week, the ill, the handicap, and the elderly. Also watch over the rich and the strong, for they give us goals.

Watch over my family and friends here on earth as you do there in heaven, in your name I pray.

Amen

Annoy

As I get older I find it easier to annoy people. I guess all my life I have done things different than everyone else has. Sometimes it has worked out for me and sometimes it hasn't. Either way I know I go against the grain a lot and that is why I like the song "Against The Grain" by The Trishas so well. Click here and listen to a young group from Texas that is just now starting to take off on the national level.

The Graduation

Macyn Taylor recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee at the age of 17 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts. Incredibly she took her first class there at the age of twelve. This young lady will be the Chet Atkins of her generation.


Click here and listen to her play "The Tennessee Waltz".

Admiration

Tom Waits sent me a note from the Chili Parlor recently telling me he admired me. I sent him back a note asking why?

 He replied, “Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don't get out much. It's true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.”

― Tom Waits

Sandy Denny

In the 1960's  and 1970's growing up I can remember all of my friends older brothers and sister talking about Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention. The girls' in my neighborhood all tried to dress like her.

When I hear her voice now it haunts me. Click above on Fairport Convention, and listen to an Angel sing.

The Waylin' Jennys

God, I hate goodbyes.

Click here

The Ten Indian Commandments

"The Ten Indian Commandments", These may be older then the 'Ten Commandments' of the Bible. Click here to see them.

Golf War

Although it is the middle of January, I think about golf everyday. Watch this clever video from UniqueDaily.com and live The Golf War with me.

Rez Ball

Chief Left Hand

As a I turned another page of my life yesterday and I celebrated my 51st birthday, I have started thinking about what I will do when I retire from teaching in Iowa. One thought I have had is to teach and coach on a reservation in the west. Basketball is extremely big on reservations throughout our country.

Here is a music video made from the documentary about a Wyoming high school's basketball team from the Wind River Indian Reservation. The documentary is called 'Chiefs'.  Click here to watch this group that has ancestry from the proud Arapahoe tribe.

Energy

"Most People never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you."

William James

Old

I went to the doctor and told him, 'I've got a bad back.' The doctor says, 'It's old age.' I told the doctor, 'I want a second opinion.' The doctor says: 'Okay - you're ugly as well.'

Success

By

Peter Legge

27 Habits of a Successful Person

1. Never give up in either success or failure

2. Believe you have intrinsic value

3. Follow through

4. Feed your mind

5. Set goals

6. Keep it simple

7. Be Punctual

8. Move quickly

9. Be courteous to everyone

10. Serve the community

11. Acknowledge people who are more successful than you

12. Work out and be healthy

13. Return phone calls and emails within 24 hours

14. Dress smartly

15. Focus on your own unique gifts

16. Have self discipline

17. Be a lifelong optimist

18. Know the difference between marketing and sales

19. Be hard working

20. Have a positive attitude

21. Make people feel important

22. Accumulate money

23. Find strength through adversity

24. Be yourself

25. Have a prosperous mindset

26. Do things that failures do not like to do

27. Balance your life

"Big Ears"

Growing up I had big ears that would stick out, unlike now. Any how I would have people that would ridicule me about them. One day I was talking to Tom Waits at the Chili Parlor, and he said to me that perhaps the reason we get along so well is we have elaphant ears and we try to hide them with wierd hats. He may be right.

Check out the picture above from the website Tom Waits at the Diner.

20/20

Kayla Waskow went for 28 points and a Coe women's basketball record 20 rebounds against Buena Vista Saturday. Read more here.

Aggressive

"Be the hunter, not the hunted"

Tim Collins of the Royal Irish Regiment

"The Art Of Basketball"

To view Part 1 of 'The Art of Basketball' series click here. These are the top hustle plays of all time. The voice over is the 'Inch by Inch' speech by Al Pacino in the film 'Any Given Sunday'. There are two words that are questionable, but it is without a doubt one of the greatest movie speeches of all time. Enjoy!

"Jesus Gonna Be Here"

All people have faith in something be it themself, the government, or Jesus. All people hold on to something they have no control over. I was reminded of this when I heard Tom Waits sing

 "Jesus Gonna Be Here"  Below is a line from that song. Click on the title of the song and enjoy the man from the Chili Parlor.

"Well I've been faithful

And I've been so good

Except for drinking

But he new that I would

I'm gonna leave this place better

Than the way I found it was

And Jesus gonna be here

Be here soon"

Waylon and Willie

Growing up in the 1970's Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings were very popular. I learned to sing many of their songs and can still sing them, not real well mind you but I can sing them. One of my favorite Waylon Jennings songs was "A Long Time Ago". A great verse from that song goes as follows:

"Me and Ole Willie Lordy



We've been sold and bought


Guess you've heard about some


kinda system that we fought


Well we ain't the only outlaws


Just the only ones they caught


They tried to run us off but Willie's slow


And I quit runnin' A Long Time Ago.."


Click here and enjoy the entire song.

My Mom And Her Wit

My mom had a great sense of humor about her. One time she was talking to a girl I had a giant crush on in high school. I begged, pleaded, wined, and joked til I finally convinced that girl to go to prom with me. I think that girl liked my parents better then she liked me.




Any way as was the custom of the time you would go to each other’s houses for prom pictures.



We were at my house and I went to my room to get something, I heard my mom and my date talking in the kitchen. I heard my mom say to her that there's something not quite right about Jim.



I started to panic and I ran out there, but before I got out to the kitchen mom told her with a serious look on her face that it seemed like Jimmy (yes my mom called me Jimmy) is watching a movie that only he can see.



Mom continued, 'Jimmy was so clumsy as a little boy, we had to put a football helmet on him until he was four because he kept bumping into things.'



My date asked me later ‘did you really wear a football helmet in the house until you were four?'



I said, 'It was more like five.'

"Better Off Without A Wife"

I get a hard time for not being married, but Tom Wait understands why, as he explains in his song "Better Off Without A Wife". Click here to hear that song.

"Train Song"

To my Bohemian friend going home.

Waits On Religion

"I don't know.. I always thought religion should be more visceral and that you should get beat up a little by it, you know? I was hitchhiking through Arizona, it was New Year's Eve and I got stuck in a little town called Stanfield, Arizona. You think Arizona's hot - in January it's 10 below zero - and I'm not getting any rides. I'm about 17. And an old woman named Mrs Anderson comes out to the sidewalk and I'm with my good buddy Sam, and she says, "It's getting a little cold, it's getting a little dark, it's New Year's Eve, come in the church". And they sat us down in the back of the church, and it was all Pentecostal. They had a band up there; two Mexican guys and a black drummer and an old guy on the guitar - very weird - and a boy about seven playing piano. And they did this talking in tongues. I had never experienced anything like this before, so as far as I was concerned it was like scat singing; they were just going crazy. We were in the back, starting to laugh because it was unusual, and we were young and naive. And at the end of the service they took up an offering and they gave all of the money to us. They said, "We want to honour our wayfaring strangers, our travellers in the back who've come a long way to be with us tonight". They gave us a basket of money, and we bought a motel that night, warm with a TV, trucks out the back. And we got up next morning, and we hit a ride and went all the way to California. That was probably the most pivotal religious experience I've had. If I was going to join a church, I'd join that church." (Source: "My Wild Years And The Woman That Saved My Life", Word magazine (UK), November 9, 2006. By Mick Brown)

“I Wish I Was In New Orleans”

Few people know I lived in New Orleans. That seems like many incarnations ago, yet it was when I graduated from college. I painted government warehouses and explored the city. It was fun for about six months then I missed the serenity of Iowa. One night at the Chili Parlor over Christmas break Waits started singing “I Wish I Was In New Orleans” and he had us all crying. Click here and listen to his rendition.

An Old Irish Blessing

"May love and laughter light your days,

and warm your heart and home.

May good and faithful friends be yours,

wherever you may roam.

May peace and plenty bless your world

with joy that long endures.

May all life's passing seasons

bring the best to you and yours!"

"Fightin' Words

"If you talk bad about country music, it's like saying bad things about my momma. Them's fightin' words."


Dolly Parton

Anyway

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

― Mother Teresa

"Who Am I"

A good friend sent me this, and after watching it I am convinced motivation is a huge part of not only sports but life in general. Click here and watch perhaps the greatest high school motivational speech of all time.

The Hiphop Preacher

How bad do you want it?

You've got to play this now!

Click here

Life = Risk

"If you've never failed, you've never lived."

Click on Do not be afraid to fail.

"A Change Is Gonna Come"

It is hard to beat the music from the 1960's. The music of Aretha Franklin and Joe Cocker still beat anything coming out today. That is why I thought I would post a little Sam Cooke for your pleasure.

Click Sam to listen.

System Quote

Here is a paraphrased 'System' quote from the movie "We Bought A Zoo".

"Thirty-five seconds of insane courage can change your life forever."