is anybody out there?

can anybody hear me?

welcome to the jungle. we've got fun and games.

so i wrote a poem today.

wanna hear it.....here it goes..

"I Know Where Robert Johnson got the blues."

by: scott copeland

i know where robert johnson got the blues.
he got 'em on all-night benders in a room full of pretenders.
he got 'em in backhall alleys with lil' girls named sally.
he got 'em with runaways and junkies and two-bit thugs
and with booze and pills and every other kind of drug he could get his hands on.

he got 'em with cops and three-time felons
and with thousands of strangers calling out his name.
he got 'em from sideways promises
and from people bleeding him dry
and from all those cold miserable nights alone
with just the stars in the sky.

he got 'em from a cracker ass manager with one hand behind his back.
and from a thousand dollar suit and a long black cadillac.

he got 'em from people whose souls were scarred from living hard.
he got 'em from bloody fingers cause he played all night long
for all the wrong reasons.

he got 'em in the winter season in chicago.
he got 'em from watching a man get stabbed and his friend getting shot.
he got 'em because he was who he was.

he got 'em from sleeping on hardwood floors thirteen days straight.
and from drivin' 12 hours in the rain.
he got 'em from five hour gigs
and from women who spread their legs for the next phony with a guitar.
he got 'em in hotels on the roughest side of town.
where the streetlights are busted out and the shady deals go down.

he never made a deal with the devil.
that was just an excuse.
you can't make a trade with nothing to lose.

i know where robert johnson got the blues.


shit, son. you're a goddamn poet and don't know it.
you're a goddamned genius.

you don't say.

well, tomorrow i'm playing in a golf tournament. it's a memorial to my good friend, joseph valentine. he was a fireman and was killed in a car accident. he was one of the coolest guys i knew. he was learning the guitar and getting better all the time. i used to show him how to play bob dylan songs and todd snider songs. whenever he came to gigs, it was hard for me to play because he always stared at my hands watching for chord changes. i used to do that at steve earle and robert earl keen concerts. he was cool and i miss him.

anyway, after that i'll be in stephenville at the city limits. some big back to school thing. jason boland and the stragglers, no justice, and frank neville are the only ones i know for sure and i'm not too sure about them. i'm supposed to emcee and introduce every band and play three songs between each band set. yeah, we'll see.

i hope to see some of you out. introduce yourself and i'll be sure to avoid you in the future.

alright then....

i'm cool and you're not,

scott