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38 Postcards from the Road H e was bouncing between venues in Carroll County and Atlanta, learning the ropes the hard way. His letters are chronicles of the difficult task he’d set himself. Often he was able to meet discouragement gracefully. One afternoon while waiting to perform at Good Ole Days, he wrote me tongue-in-cheek: “I’m going to play again to a totally empty house. But the people that work here are a good audience, both of them.” Being his own manager meant having to promote himself, offstage and in print. Sometimes the results were maddening . When a local gazette incorrectly printed an announcement of his act in Atlanta’s Underground, he fumed: “They missppeelleedd my name again in print. Blaze Folley? Blaze Foley!!” Despitethesesetbacks,hewasfindingtimeandspacetowrite.Thesnatches of lyrics he included in his letters give clues to his frame of mind. Like this first glimpse of “Rainbows and Ridges”: A chair got knocked over I got the Blues Some don’t get any Some get to choose Some days you’ll win Some days you’ll lose And tears They just fall to the ground On postcards sent in the span of a week, he mixed identities playfully, signing himself Blaze Dawg and D. Dawg Foleywoley. He was on an emotional roller coaster, some days up, some days down, but his music was beginning to receive positive responses, and that was all that mattered. A letter penned in mid-October contained this hopeful news: 150 Postcards from the Road | 151 I did some Previously Unreleased Dawg last night. It went over real well . . . A guy from B.F. Deal records is coming here from Austin. Some people here told him about The Armadillo Song and he’s interested. Keep your fingers crossed. “The Armadillo Song” was Blaze’s response to Texas’ love affair with itself. The docile armadillo had once been a symbol of the anti-war movement; more recently it had been shanghaied by a posse of rhinestone cowboys in a series of Lone Star-struck tunes. Blaze’s song was meant to be the ultimate antidote to self-adoration. The refrain went: I want to go home with an armadillo Spread her little legs And try my best to thrill her To her very soul With my cowboy pole You get the idea. It was a little weird being the girl of the guy who wrote those sentiments. If Depty sang them when I was present, inevitably some drunk would turn to me and ask, “Is that about you?” Another example of muse status gone awry. His hopes for “The Armadillo Song” never materialized. Dep was determined now to go north. Scott, a Zonko-ite formerly of Waller and currently of Chi-town, had invited us to stay with him when we arrived. We’d written back to say we were definitely coming, we just didn’t know when. Across the fold of a letter dated October 27, Depty wrote, “I love you, little onion, you make my eyes water.” He was lonely in Georgia, and no longer writing about me fulfilling my physical needs elsewhere. “Big Woo” is an expression from our private lovers’ lexicon: I don’t know how much longer I can stand this being away from you. I still have the first glimpse of you in the airport, along with many more glimpses of your smile, your lips, your hair, your body naked and close to mine, holding you and kissing you, giving my seed to you. How is your Libido? I’m sure you must be in need of some kind of fulfillment. I know we talked about that. I hope you will wait for me to fulfill you. I will not fulfill myself in any way but with visions of you. (How about a big hand?) OK (Get it?) Big Woo. By the end of October, we’d come up with a plan: rendezvous in Virginia for Thanksgiving and go on to Chicago from there. A few nights before I was 152 | Living in the Woods in a Tree: Remembering Blaze Foley to leave Austin for good, Dep caught up with me at midnight on the restaurant phone. “Just hearing your voice puts goose bumps all over my body,” he whispered. I ducked behind the counter to hear him. “How’s it going, honey?” “Miserable.” He cleared his throat. “I was hoping to get another letter from you by now.” “It’s been so hectic,” I hedged. “Getting...

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