It has been awhile..so here i am to tell you about current happenings and stuff...I tutor a fifth grader everyday after his school lets out...his name is Parris,Byars. He is my friend ...he helps me with chores and he loves 'Ren and Stimpy comics and "Spongebob..and i have to admit i like them too. His dad 'William, Uncle Thomas and myself play and write music together.
Parris is a typical 10 year old..except he knows a lot about mythology, and history...plus he loves to read ..He plays drums and will be a great drummer one day...He is already an entertainer and comedian...Anyway, i will write a long piece soon...This one is for my buddy and student "Parris Byars".

Hello Folks..it is 2007 and January...The cold here in my basement makes me wish i still lived in Ca. during the winter time here in CrackerLand...Actually i am only half-kidding...I love living in The South but could do without our recent cold snap..H.P. Lovecraft captured my mood perfectly in his book "At The Mountains of Madness"..
reference that source for my attitude at this moment.To me winter has always held dread and sadness..death seems to be in most of my encounters with it..and i say most but not all. Recently, my dreams have been along the lines of (say) an anthology of horror..featuring people, places and things that have occurred in my dreamstate before.
Through the years i have dreamed of a dark city where people are shadow-like creatures but it's streeets are familiar..I walk up-and down these streets sometimes and i know exacting where i am and who lives in those houses on that particular street...I wake up and remember every last detail...I dream in color and black & white sometimes together in the same sequence of dreams during the same night...Do you the reader have such dreams? Two weeks before the Winter Holidays of 2005 i received a call that a serial killer has returned to a part of CrackerLand in an area i once lived long ago..
Maybe this is where my dread comes from....i will know when i finally vist this old place of memories from my childhood this spring..More on this in my next Message...if i get enough courage to re-visit this place...

At this moment i am sitting next to my un-screened window in my basement room..It is 6:o5 pm,cooling off..what has been a beautiful
spring day...i am feeling very blissful for the first time in a long while.A possum walked across the yard earlier..in a slow ambling way.
Sort-of-looked like i feel."The Reconstruction" and myself played a couple of shows in the last few days at LennysBar and The 10 HighClub
in Atlanta,Ga.(near our home in Smyrna)..great shows,big crowds,rowdy
behavior..fun for all.I am so glad to be back down south in Georgia.
Being on myspace as an individual and a band member with a music site
has re-united me with many,many old friends and acquaintances.That has been some of what i have been up to lately.We are reording new songs..writing more..keeping busy..

Now, i have been enjoying a new interest i recently picked-up..
Watching silent movies...American(DW Griffith,Thomas Edison,)Foreign (FW Murnau,Fritz Lang) and Avanta-Garde (from everywhere on earth)
I enjoy all genres..I watch a couple a night..

Music i am really into right now...Jimmy Rogers,Ledbelly,Woody Guthrie,Early Bowie,Eno,Elvis and New Johnny Cash..

I'll just end with this phrase from a Johnny Cash song "At my door the leaves are falling..the cold wild wind will come..sweethearts walk by together and i still miss someone." ..I miss ya Johnny..rest easy.

Once in an age that occurred not so long ago...I began to live the stories i tell; Here are a few i would like to share about Bruce Joyner...(just a wandering storyteller.)

I lost my right eye at the age of 6 trying to stop 3 bullies from picking on one of my 1st grade pals..The biggest boy was 12..he threw the broken top of a coca cola bottle at me and my right eye was cut in half...My right eye is ceramic.

I grew up in a bar my mama ran...she also booked music there..Rock n Roll and country...this was 1957-61 in Fitzgerald,Ga. and 1961-69 in Ashburn,Ga.

At my first show (played at Joe's Cellar in Albany Ga.) a guy i knew
was shot..He later became a preacher and my friend...

My friend Don Fleming and myself were threatened with death in Thomasville, Ga. when we played a club..We pissed off the locals when we berated the patrons for being in-breed- sister- lovers...cause they booed every song we did and threw bottles at us.

I was in a car wreck on the road to Quitman,Ga. I barely survived.
I walk with a cane and use a wheelchair at times...Nothing can hold me back..I use all my energy when i play live so most people don't know i am a bit tweaked.

I recorded and put out an ART/PUNK album on ABACUS Records..in 1978..
titled "Green and Yellow" and a single...Don't get Angry- side A and
Rat Race-side B

I was fired from my first teaching job because according to the local Board of Education i was a punk rocker...I guess because the kids listened to me and not the other teachers...

I was invited to a record burning event at a local church/school in Valdosta, Ga. but declined when i spied a few copies of my record on the floor next to the pastor who was offering me the invitation.

I was not popular in school nor was i liked..except by the other
misfits..I liked to fight too much...a car wreck later made me a better communicator...but was still turned away from my school system
when i applied to teach after graduating from college because the superintendent still hated me...

I have always been a singer...and songwriter

My songs tell stories i have experienced..first hand..

My mother was the greatest person i have ever known...

.....................................................................

So these things are all true...life as i have lived it and keep on living it...I will cover more of this stuff and fill in a few more blanks later...For now--from CRACKERLAND i say goodbye...Bruce Joyner

Back in the early 80s i was a singer in a punk/garage band playing clubs in Los Angeles so i was surprised when i was asked to perform an old Blues song "Love in The Midnight Hour" in a play in a small theater (the location of which i don't remember)..it was titled "Johnny 2000" a future turn of events concerning the banning of rock music and the underground scene that was beginning to flourish in that so-called future...in the audience one night was Shelly Winters..who came up to me after the play and said hello and offered me some cheese and wine..She said" It's good honey."I was thrilled to meet her...To do this show i had to be carried onto the stage and stood up..i had just received surgery 5 days before but I was not gonna miss being in my friends play and now i got to see Shelly Winters..Shelly asked me if i was alright and i said yes,but she saw i was in pain so she motioned for a usher who helped me find a place to recline...i could not sit down...she sat down next to me and told me i was a nice looking boy ..She was a sweetheart..A few months later i walked into a restaurant she went to from time to time,she saw me, recognized me, and motioned for me to sit down and have my meal with her..the details of which are not important..just Shelly.but at some point in the conversation i told her i loved her in the movie(directed by Charles Laughton)
"The Night of The Hunter" in which she starred with Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish..She said she liked it too and that Mr. Laughton had been a friend of hers.. later,as the meal and conversation ended.. i kissed her hand as i got up to leave the table..i don't know why but i felt it was something i had to do.she smiled and we said our goodbyes,that was the last time i saw her.Shelly died a few days ago..but my few memories of her never will..she was a star and a sweet lady...My life is richer for just meeting her..