Documentary to Reggae to Brewin - Wowza

How many woodchucks could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? I don't know that one but I do know how many seemingly unrelated activities could be stringed together to form a weekend and a Monday. From hiking to seeing a documentary to reggae to brewing beer to disappointment to work to sitting here in Calhoun County - add all that up together and ya get a Saturday Sunday and Monday in my life, hot damn.

After the hike, I headed directly into Charleston and missed meeting up with Larry to talk about summer music (i'll miss meeting him both Sunday and Monday too, we're real good at not talking to each other apparently). I made it there in plenty of time to do a bit of email work and head over to the Rise Up West Virginia (www.patchworkfilms.com) film showing. It was in South Charleston and there was a great turnout of organizin folk & speakin folk & supportin folk for a film that traces one Pocahontas County woman's journey to find the effects of mountaintop removal on the people of Southern WV. It was a great film and it brought a coupla tears to my eyes when I say how crucial the Mountain Keepers Music Festival that I coordinated was to the making of that film. It's pretty amazing when you really do see yourself as an imporant part of something big and something moving and something powerful. Especially seeing this one woman, Atherine Spurlin (an old-timey church singer from the Kayford Mtn area of WV), that wouldn't have gotten the attention that she got if it weren't for Mountain Keepers, is amazing. I remember being moved by her singing that day and showing people the recording of her singing over the course of the past 10 months. She was invited on stage and sang a couple of songs before the film & sang a song during the film. It was an especially moving film for me...so I bought a copy...hopefully I don't lose it...I think you can see me fixing my hat in the background of a 3 second scene while I was running all the hell over Kayford that day fixing little things and keeping the day moving (I'm a famous dude - get my signature).

After that, Matt & Trevor & Jordan & I headed on over to the Empty Glass for beers & music & talkin. I had a headache and I thought I should avoid and hangover - so I went home at maybe midnight or something like that. BUT I had a beer that I hadn't had before...maybe a sharky beer? I dunno...it was pretty fancy though.....

The beer making was pretty incredible - finally did it after 2 years of talking about ! yessssss! Got an Irish Stout and a Nut Brown a-brewin in the SEAC office right now. I mean its sitting right next to my desk, doing work and then glancing at what will soon enough be a party is not too shabby. I'm gettin pretty tired, so I'm not gonna write so much about this even though there is a lot to write. Whenever I get off this dial up internet and connected up to broadband, I'll post pictures.

Sunday was a real great day right up until evening, then it got hard - a kind of hard that I could only describe with the word HeartHurt (not heartbreak but hearthurt) - I wrote about that in my own journal....

Monday morning kept being pretty tough, but Dana & Jordan & Matt & I all went to IHOP and then watched part of Lord of the Rings. That made me feel a lot better - I'm really glad Dana & Matt are here - good folk, comforting folk.

I'm thinkin tomorrow I'll stick around here unless I end up heading over to Glenville - but I definitely have enough SEAC work & personal reflection to keep myself busy tomorrow. Figure that I'll leave again Wednesday to either up to Buckhannon to be at a documentary or down to Charleston to be at an Environmental Council event.

Here I am.