Rope Around America!

Hey folks! Hope everyone's doing well. As I'm writing this we're cruisin' through Nashville headed to Texas. Telisha's driving and Annabelle (the real road dog!) is asleep in the back of the Mobile Clubhouse. Things couldn't be better... other than gas prices, which send me into small fits of rage every time we pass a billboard with an even higher number than the last one.

Anyway- in an effort to think about something other than that, Telisha and I have been talking about you guys. Yep, you. We've had some really good shows lately, and a lot of the reason is because a bunch of ya'll have either sent your friends out to see us or drug them along with you when you came out to see us. I can't express how much that means to us. it's the only way we can make this work, and we really appreciate it more than you know. We'd really like to find a way to thank you for it!

So with that in mind we've got an idea. We're really expanding our touring and playing in a bunch of new places. The good news about that is that we're hopefully getting ready to make a bunch of new fans and friends. The bad news is that we might not know a lot of people in the places we're heading to. That's where you come in. We're calling it the "Rope Around America" campaign! It's simple. At all of our shows, we've got a little clipboard where we collect email addresses. All you have to do is send your friends, or drag your friends, to our show. Then all they have to do is write YOUR name on the clipboard by the email blank! Whoever gets their name written down the most times between now and July 1st wins. See? Simple. Oh- what do you win? More good news. Telisha and I are going back into the studio at the end of this Summer. That still puts the new release WAY off, but the grand prize winner will have their name mentioned in a song on the record! I'm not kidding! We're really going to do this. It's just how much we appreciate your help.

So- to give you a running start I've pasted a bunch of our upcoming shows below. Of course there are more on the website, so go there too. (www.DandTW.com/tour.html) Even if you don't live in any of these places, SURELY you know someone close to some of them. Send them out! Do whatever you gotta do. The only real rule is just don't cheat- One person=one name=one point. We don't have any Michigan or Florida dates between now and July, but we're in negotiations, and hopefully we'll have it all worked out in a fair way by the conventio.... uh... recording.

Mar 20, 2008 Thursday 6:00 PM Whole Foods Market Austin, TX With Idgy Vaughn!
Mar 21, 2008 Friday 9:00 PM Anderson Fair Houston, TX
Mar 22, 2008 Saturday 8:00 PM Labyrinth Walk Coffeehouse Dallas, TX with Small Potatoes
Mar 25, 2008 Tuesday All Day University of Central Missouri - Social Work Conference Warrensburg, MO
Mar 28, 2008 Friday 7:00 PM House Concert Mineral Wells, TX
http://rafandsioux.com/house_concerts.html
Apr 3, 2008 Thursday 8:00 PM Mojo Risin' Coffeehouse Houston, TX
Apr 4, 2008 Friday 8:00 PM White Rock Coffee Dallas, TX
Apr 5, 2008 Saturday 8:00 PM The Bugle Boy LaGrange, TX
http://www.thebugleboy.com
Apr 11, 2008 Friday 8:00 PM Eden Hall Gleneden Beach, OR
http://www.edenhall.com
Apr 12, 2008 Saturday TBA Old Richmond Church Richmond, OR
Apr 18, 2008 Friday 8:00 PM Bongo Billy's Salida, CO
http://www.salidacafe.com
Apr 24, 2008 Thursday 7:30 PM The Birchmere Alexandria, VA
Opening for Joe Ely!
Apr 25, 2008 Friday 8:00 PM The Gravity Lounge Charlottesville, VA
With Danny Schmidt!

OK- That's it for now! Good luck! Hope to see you all somewhere down the road soon-
Doug
www.DandTW.com

Why I support Barack Obama

Truthfully, some of you don’t care. I’m just one other person with an opinion. And opinions are like… uh… noses – everybody’s got one. But I figure I may as well air mine out. You’re welcome to do the same. This whole “shut up and sing” phenomenon is really strange to me. Politics, music, literature and art have always been intermingled, no matter what anyone tells you.

Anyway- different rant. Back to Obama. Here’s what it boils down to for me. There are some big issues on the table; Health care, the war in Iraq, education, and constitutional rights. I really think we need a universal, civilized, affordable, national health care plan, just like the rest of the ‘civilized’ world. So do both Obama and Clinton. I want to have our troops in Iraq return home ASAP. So do both Obama and Clinton. I want our public education to be properly funded and progressive and forward thinking. So do both Obama and Clinton. I believe in the constitution- from front to back, beginning to end. Particularly the Bill of Rights (yes, even the 2nd amendment—real Liberals like me support our right to bear arms). So do… well, they’re both with me on most of it, like free speech, privacy, right to a fair trial, personal liberties, church and state stuff. Things that have turned up missing over the past 7 years.

I could go on listing topics, “Green Collar” jobs, right to choice, minority rights, gay rights, etc., but that’s missing the point. There are two things that are at play here that I think we’re missing in the national democratic debate. One-- Hillary and Barack line up pretty darn close on almost every issue. Two—The president doesn’t just “say” something is law and it becomes law (unless you’re W, and you scribble out unconstitutional signing statements—but I digress). Things happen in Washington through cooperation and hard work. The minute differences in the policies both of them propose don’t add up to anything. It doesn’t matter. By the time either of them get anything through congress it will look a lot different than it does now.

So why do I care? Why am I excited about Obama? First off because he’s an exciting guy. Maybe that seems like a pretty soft reason to endorse a candidate, but think about it for a minute. In America, we’ve been disenfranchised with our politics pretty much since Watergate. I WANT to be excited about a candidate. I WANT other people to be excited. I WANT to hope for a better America, and I want to be inspired. People keep comparing him to JFK for a reason. He makes you feel good, and that’s not an entirely bad thing, is it? I’ve heard people try to detract from this point. They say it’s an “Obama-palooza” and that “he’s the next best thing to Hanna Montana and getting an iPod”. I suppose that means it’s a fad to be excited about him. He’s trendy, and he’s got all these young whipper-snappers excited about politics. I still haven’t heard anyone explain why that’s a bad thing, though.

Second, maybe it is time for just an itsy-bitsy revolution. Out with the old and in with the new. I love Hillary. I do. I hope she has a great and long political career ahead of her, just not as the President of the United States right now. This might upset some of you, and I hope it doesn’t, but here goes. When I watch them speak and debate, and when I watch their ads and read their press, I get a sense that Hillary is very intent on winning this election. On the other hand, I get the sense that Barack is very intent on leading this nation. To me there is a massive difference there. (And no, I’m not a sexist—not any more than Hillary supporters are racists.)

My third reason is that Barack really is a uniter and, whether it’s intentional or not, Hillary is a very polarizing subject. Notice I said “subject” and not “person”. Call it bad luck, or whatever, but your average every day republican HATES the Clintons. Sure, they all made a lot of money in the killer economy Bill provided for them in the 90’s, but that point gets missed. The Clintons were the first big target for the ‘Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” and it worked. Hillary was right. Now for better or for worse, as Machiavellian as this may sound, she unfortunately has to pay the price. This is something that through traveling I’ve learned “blue state” democrats don’t understand. Obama, on the other hand, actually has republicans voting for him in open primaries! Obama-cans! I’ve met some of these strange creatures and talked to them. There are several reasons why they do it. The first, and obvious, reason is the lack of a good choice on the republican ticket. The second is that they’re actually fed up with the neo-cons and want to get back to Goldwater and earlier style republicanism. The third is that, hey, the guy’s pretty cool. Something about him I just trust, and “like”. (I could write a whole other post on how so many good, honest republicans have been conned by the neo-cons into going along with them. I miss the old republicans- they were fun to debate. They generally meant well, even if they were wrong.) Anyway—I guess I feel like these qualities will help him actually get things done. Help him get some good cooperation from good hearted republicans. If this makes me sound naïve then so be it.

My forth reason I’ll keep short. I love his message. “In America, there has never been anything false about Hope!” God, it just gives me goose bumps! It’s so positive. So inspiring. So against my cynical nature to buy into it, but I CAN’T HELP IT! I do believe it. Damnit, YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!

Ok—so that’s it. I’ll close it out with this little story. My sister called me on her cell phone after leaving the polling station yesterday. The poor thing used to think she was a republican, then she saw the light, then it got dark again, and now I think she’s pretty much removed the blinders and is a full-fledged democrat. She isn’t as liberal as me (thank God—if everyone were as liberal as me I wouldn’t have anyone to argue politics with, which would remove VAST amounts of fun from my life!) but she believes in pretty much all the right things, as far as I can tell. Anyway, she called to tell me that it was the first time in her life that she had had an opportunity to cast a vote for a candidate that she really believed in. It felt good. It almost moved her to tears. It made me proud. It made me proud of her, and it also made me proud to be an American again, to know that yes, we can still do it. It’s been a while, but we’ve still got it. We can still be a shining beacon to the rest of the world.