Australian-Scottish-Renegade Beat-Trash Fashion-Peace

Things are revving up for the summer, yet I spent this afternoon watching the Australian film RABBIT-PROOF FENCE as if I had nothing else to do. Actually, I felt like I deserved a break, after all the hedge-trimming, lawn raking, and sidewalk sweeping I did this morning. And where is the rain, o where is that confounded highly-forecast rain?
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Now, at the night job, I'm reading snippets from an anthology of contemporary Scottish writings. Fiction by Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) and James Kelman (post-colonial working class winner of the Booker Prize)whom I once had lunch with on the Drag, when he was in Austin teaching fiction writing as writer-in-residence. My friend and fellow poet, Nailah Sankofa, had snagged me on-campus, urging me to "Come have lunch with us--Kelman likes Black Americans and he wants me to introduce him to interesting people." I regret now that I wasn't more familiar with his work, his oevre, his reputation at that time.
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I got a phone call yesterday from my old ranchera-crooning, cowboy boot-wearing, beat poet friend Kell Robertson aka Wild Dog of Poetry. He's almost 75, living in a tiny shack outside of Santa Fe. He made the craziest collage once, with photographs of burqua-clad Afghani women juxtaposed with porn mag pullout poses. He's just that complex and unpredictable. A rascal in love with Lydia Mendoza's songs. There's a European writer doing research on underground Texas musicians, and apparently, while interviewing her, he told Mendoza that a grey-haired old white guy (Kell) loves her more than anything and she broadly announced, "Well, bring him over. I want to meet him."

Kell's coming to FW next week (gigs at Black Dog and at Fred's Cafe), and it's gonna be wild. He writes book reviews for the Santa Fe New Mexican (periodical), and his book A HORSE CALLED DESPERATION is probably on my top 10 list (of books by poet-friends).
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And I'm getting ready for my next performance: TRASHIN' FASHION. My friend Machete and I have created original anti-fashion garments made entirely of recycled materials (trash), household items, etc. We sprung this on the public last year (for Buy Nothing Day) and we'll do it again on Saturday, June 4th. Butt-ugly, hoot-silly, make-you-blink get-ups you'd never find on the red carpets of Hollywood. The show's at the Firehouse Gallery on Meadowbrook (E. Fort Worth), around 7pm.
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I'm also starting a temporary position as co-coordinator of the upcoming NATIONAL CONVENTION of the VETERANS FOR PEACE. The convention is happening at the U of Dallas (Irving) in early August, coinciding (ironically) with the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I heard that two survivors of those bombings may be joining us at the convention--all the way from Japan. Should be intensely poignant.
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Busy, flutter, busy.