{"id":7016,"date":"2015-06-14T00:02:04","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T06:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=7016"},"modified":"2015-06-15T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T13:35:12","slug":"prairie-lights-distractions-result-in-column-cancellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2015\/06\/prairie-lights-distractions-result-in-column-cancellation\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Lights: Distractions result in column cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"She\"<\/a>

I know how she felt, believe me.<\/p><\/div>\n

I regret to inform you that there will be no Prairie Lights column today.<\/p>\n

When I launched this basically one-man operation, I was warned to be on the alert for signs of burnout, things like neglecting to shave for several weeks, sacrificing small animals on the altar of Google Analytics and finding myself, unaccountably, in a closed casket.<\/p>\n

\"Ed\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick<\/p><\/div>\n

Although I have noticed nothing along those lines, I have definitely encountered lesser strains of burnout, including the sudden inability to collect my thoughts or to write an understandable story about a fairly straightforward subject.<\/p>\n

The problem I encountered today, today being Saturday, is that I am so distracted that I couldn\u2019t possibly deliver a connected, coherent column on some pressing matter like the vote on fast-track trade authority, or the downturn in Bakken oil production.<\/p>\n

What am I distracted by? The weather, for one thing. Even though it\u2019s still Saturday morning, I have been outside quite a bit and I am of the opinion that this might be the most beautiful day we have yet seen in 2015. If I were a poet, I could go on at length about how beautiful it is, and that would be a column. But after a bit of head-scratching, all I came up with was this:<\/p>\n

This day is so lovely,
\nSo very great,
\nEven by half past eight.
\nBy nine, I must say,
\nIt was really fine.<\/p>\n

I am also distracted by the imminent arrival of former Gazette reporter Jim Hagengruber and his lovely family. A bunch of us are going to be staying in a cabin near Cooke City with the Hagengrubers this evening, which means that if I had written a column, it would had to have been done fairly early today.<\/p>\n

And I just want to hit the road, to witness the finest day of the year from the Top of the World, which is quite close to Cooke City. I am also distracted by thinking of how Hagengruber, some years ago, bet I could not work this word\u2014Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft\u2014into my City Lights column at the Gaz.<\/p>\n

Well, I did, and it even made some kind of sense. I would refer you to the actual column but I cannot find it in the Gazette\u2019s electronic archives. It may be that I misspelled Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft, but that is unlikely. I mean, I\u2019m a professional.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>A further distraction is that I find myself, for some strange reason, wondering how different my life would have been if, instead of going into newspaper work, I had become a captain with the Danube Steamboat Shipping Company. I don\u2019t know if it was my German heritage that got me thinking of this or seeing Vol. 1 of Mark Twain\u2019s autobiography at the library book sale yesterday, but there you are. The mind is a strange thing.<\/p>\n

If I had written a column today, there was a fair chance it would have been about Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman, the Blue Yodeler and the Father of Country Music, whose biography I am reading.<\/p>\n

But even a one-man operation like this has to show some restraint. I can\u2019t just write about whatever I<\/em> want without thinking of what my readers might be interested in. Even so, allow me to share one anecdote about Jimmie.<\/p>\n

In 1970, in a backstage interview, the great bluesman Chester Burnett, known to the world as Howlin\u2019 Wolf, was talking about his musical influences. He said the first record he ever listened to was by Ma Rainey, often called the Mother of the Blues, and he also expressed his admiration for Blind Lemon Jefferson.<\/p>\n

He went on: \u201cAnd then, my<\/em> man that I dug, that I really dug<\/em>, that I got my yodel from, was Jimmie Rodgers. See, he yodeled, and I turned it into something more of a howl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damn, that makes me want to write that Jimmie Rodgers column right now. But I can\u2019t. I\u2019m too distracted.<\/p>\n

One distraction is, in fact, musical. I keep thinking about how Martha Scanlan, one of the best singer-songwriters anywhere, and who happens to live down on the Tongue River, will be performing Sunday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Garage Pub at the Yellowstone Valley Brewing Company.<\/p>\n

As if that weren\u2019t good enough news, she\u2019ll be accompanied by Jon Neufeld, a wonderfully talented guitarist. I think even Howlin\u2019 Wolf would have dug his playing. Get yourself down to the Garage, is what I\u2019m trying to say.<\/p>\n

So, let me apologize again for neglecting to write a column this week. Next week for sure, unless I find myself in that casket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I regret to inform you that there will be no Prairie Lights column today. When I launched this basically one-man operation, I was warned to be on the alert for signs of burnout, things like neglecting to shave for several weeks, sacrificing small animals on the altar of Google Analytics and finding myself, unaccountably, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[623,2639,2641,2640,524,1373],"class_list":["post-7016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prairie-lights","tag-bakken","tag-google-analytics","tag-howlin-wolf","tag-jim-hagengruber","tag-jimmie-rodgers","tag-martha-scanlan","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}