Category: writing


Some Mysteries Remain

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May 29, 2025

by Dan Roark

A friend and fellow songwriter, Allen Larson (on the far left in the picture), posted about a band he was in in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Nightchase. I recognized the guy on the far right that Allen identified as a short term member whose name escaped him. That is Joel Nichols. Elton Goodner is the one in the middle who resembles Jerry Garcia.

Let me give you some background first. Allen and I have been friends and members of the Dallas Songwriter Association since around 2013. We’ve supported each other at shows. When he had the Allen Larson’s Project, I knew a few of them had played together for years. But not once did I think anything in Allen’s history would intersect with mine.

Now for me. In 1976, Cyndy (married now, dating then) introduced me to Joel Nichols

Joel Nichols, Dan Roark, Bruce Gibson

and Bruce Gibson on Super Bowl Sunday. We became Southern Plains. Sometimes it was the three of us. Most times over the years, it was Joel and I. In either case, if the gig paid enough, we had a bass player and drummer. George “Allen” Turner was our friend, and drummer on occasion. I opened for, and played with, Allen’s bands over the years. He even played when we couldn’t afford to pay him.

Southern Plains – Nashville Edition Joel Nichols, Cat Waldeman, Dan Roark

But I digress. Joel had one year left at college in Nashville. I moved out there with him. For one reason, to help him finish school. For another, to see what we could do in Nashville music-wise. Which is an entirely different post. Cyndy and I lost touch after I moved to Nashville (still another post).

By ’79, I was living in Ft. Worth, managing Famous Ramos in Ridgmar Mall. In ’80, I married my first wife, Janice, and we moved at one point to help Joel open up his sandwich shop in Commerce in East Texas. Janice and I lived in Greenville. I drove back and forth. At the sandwich shop, I did the advertising and any other thing that needed doing turning the space into Lindy’s. As it turned out, when the college was out during the summer, the shop was unsustainable.

Janice and I moved to Denton, where we lived when Jennifer was born. We moved to Dallas when I became assistant manager at Pizza Inn. Which would have been sometime in ’81. That would have been when I met Elton, but I’m still not sure how. Joel was still in Commerce at the time.

Elton and I talked about being a duo, “Ruf ‘n’ Redy.” We co-wrote a theme song, which was the only song we wrote. It was called, oddly enough, The Ballad of Ruf and Redy. I have the lyrics in my hand written songbook. I don’t remember if we had any shows.

That winter we were at a party – either Christmas or New Years – at an apartment. Joel and I played. I don’t remember if Elton and I played. But I do remember Elton asking me if it was okay if he asked Joel to be in his band. Between jealousy (both about Elton not picking me and him wanting to ask Joel), alcohol and other things, I didn’t take it very well.

It wasn’t too long before Joel and I were playing shows again. I never knew what happened with Elton and the band and I never asked. Until Allen posted a couple of weeks ago about his band back then and I recognized Joel in the pictures.

I wonder how close Allen and I came to meeting back then. It may remain a mystery. Joel and I continued to play together until his death in 1999. Bruce and I played at his funeral.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

 

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, Pt. 2

Filed under: Communications, Current events, travel, writing — 1 Comment
February 18, 2025

By Dan Roark

There are signs other than road signs. Posting on bulletin boards and other written paper notifications that are not permanent or near a road. Then the kind of signs that are simply sayings, texts, or whatnot – although we don’t know exactly what they are signs of. We’ll discuss it because, well, why not?

Today we’ll have one of each of two of the sign categories listed above. The first is the assumably permanent sign pictured here. As you can tell it was a cloudy day and there’s only so much you can do to a picture taken on a cloudy day.

Forget for the moment the fact that the sign above is technically on a hill to begin with. A smaller hill, but a hill nonetheless. The point I’m making is that you can see the freaking hill. You can’t miss it. You don’t need a sign to tell you there’s a hill.

What would be useful would be a sign telling drivers what is over the hill. Once you’re on top of the hill, it’s a little late to find out any changes in the direction of the road or see obstacles.

_____________________________

I was checking my email the other day and came upon an email from Walmart. I frequently order online and then go pick the order up. So I opened it:

“Thank you for buying lunch meats and deli meats.  Our pick for you today is Smoker Pellets.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand (or sit) before you, amazed and confused. It has been months since I have purchased either lunch or deli meats. We do, indeed, have a smoker. But it is old enough to precede the creation of pellets for smokers or grills. The three grills our family members own are charcoal so there is no grill attached to our name that uses smoker pellets.

I have, in fact, bought charcoal in an online order. So on what planet would you assume I would need smoker pellets? I wonder about the validity of their algorithms.

________________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

PayPal.me/danroark

 

 

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Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign, Pt. 1

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February 7, 2025

By Dan Roark

There are signs you see all the time, but ignore, because you either already know or it makes no sense. Then there are the signs you pass all the time, but don’t actually notice – or it doesn’t affect you (at least at the time you see it). So you quit noticing it.

We’ll begin with digital signs that may or may not change what it says. The picture above actually says “New Traffic Pattern.” I was taking J.D. – our youngest grown son – to work and back for a while. I took a picture with my android phone one day. J.D. took a picture with his iPhone the next day. The next day I had the 35mm camera.

What you see above is the best we got. That is not what we saw with our eyes. Since we could see what it actually said, it ruled out hackers. Hackers would change the message. It had to be a force that kept the correct message from being recreated in a picture. And it would have to be an electric/static force. Which would come from where, exactly? Certainly not the gas station across the intersection.

That is a rabbit hole we are not going down today. Take it at face value – New Traffic Pattern. Here’s the deal: in the numerous weeks we made the trip, the pattern NEVER changed. They did add a stoplight at one point, but the pattern never changed. It went on like that for weeks, not just the week we tried taking the picture. It alternated with Drive Slowly. Those that are going to actually slow down were slowing down regardless – whether there was a sign or not. Either way, New Traffic Pattern would have done the trick. If they weren’t going to slow down anyway, same difference. Whatever way you slice it, it’s using taxpayer money.

Every time I drive somewhere, I’ll see a sign (the electronic signs are relegated to high traffic areas in the city) that seems to be irrelevant or makes no sense. I think, crap, I need to get a picture of that. Then I remember that I’ve got signs on the list to keep me busy long enough to take the pictures. I just need to remember where they were.

Come along on the journey of stupid or useless signs. It’ll be fun!

______________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

 

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One Night in Colorado Springs

Filed under: brewery, Communications, craft brewery, Food, Music, Songwriting, travel, writing — Leave a comment
January 24, 2025

By Dan Roark

The tour began on a Friday in August at Oskar Blues Grill and Brew in Colorado Springs. A guy from a group of people at a table between me and the bar began to drift around the empty space in the middle of the tables, dancing to my songs like someone on acid at Woodstock.

If you’ve heard my music, you wouldn’t immediately think that it was danceable music. But it happened for the first time that year in July at Townhouse Sports Grill in Manitou Springs. A couple was dancing to my song, Poet and the Lady.  Which I could kind of see. Particularly slow dancing.

But the guy at Oskar’s was dancing to everything. I was amused, and flattered in a way. It certainly made it interesting. Another guy came up and asked if I could play a song. He showed it to me on his phone and it was The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. That’s out of my style.

Then a woman who was apparently the significant other of the birthday boy came up and ask if I could say Happy Birthday to him on the mic. I was just happy she didn’t ask me to sing Happy Birthday. Then she asked if I knew Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash. Well, no. Then – get this – she asked me if I knew anything by Journey. Hell, I could have faked Ring of Fire. But Journey? Are you freaking kidding me?

I kept talking about my new CD at the time. How would that suggest to you that I take requests? But the crowd over all was very receptive and appreciative. It was a good, albeit interesting, evening. But some people are oblivious to anything outside their own head. They just want to hear the song in their head, regardless of the style of music being played on the stage.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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It’s Just The Way You Do It

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January 23, 2025

by Dan Roark

When you’ve been doing something the same way for years, chances are it would be difficult to get you to change. It’s hard for anyone who’s been doing something for a number of years to learn “new tricks.” Not just “old dogs.”  Take folding t-shirts, for example. I’ve been folding shirts the same way for years. I can’t tell you why I fold them the way I do – see picture (not my best work). My mother is the only one who folded my shirts before I did and I don’t think I fold them the way she did.

I think Cyndy folds t-shirts the way my Mom did. I don’t know how my daughter by my first wife, Jennifer, folded her t-shirts, even if she did, before she passed away. And I have no earthly idea how her mother folds t-shirts – to my recollection, she didn’t. Mostly because she didn’t wear t-shirts. But her sons by the husband after me I’m sure wore t-shirts. But I don’t know how she folded them.

Of Cyndy’s and my three boys, Cameron folds his shirts like my Mom, I think. He wishes his wife, Julia, would fold t-shirts like he does. As the three boys were growing up, to my recollection, folding wasn’t required. As far as I remember, the boys just shoved their shirts into a dresser drawer.

The point is, none of us will ever change the way we fold shirts. And, among other things, we all grill differently, too. We grill the same meats, just our methods and spices differ. Even Cyndy and I grill differently although we aim for the same basic results. However, we’ve been using the grill my parents gave us years ago that was old at the time. It is just a basic charcoal grill.

Now we have Cameron’s grill/smoker because he got a more advanced smoker he could operate with his phone. But we haven’t been able to use it because, for one thing, the weather has sucked. That, and J.D. lived here until he moves completely into his new apartment, so his grill/smoker is also in the back yard. He grilled more than we did while he was here.

Our oldest son, Conner, lives in Des Moines, Iowa, so grilling isn’t really a thing for him. But if he did grill, it would be different from the rest of us. Cameron and J.D. don’t eat each other’s barbeque. Cyndy and I will gladly eat barbeque from any of our sons, but, like them, we prefer our own.

There are any number of other things that we all either learn, or just do, differently that it will be tough to get us to change, whether it would be more efficient to change or not. But chances are that we’ll never change.

What do you do, in your own way, every time you do it (and have been doing it for years)?

_____________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

 

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Daily Triple Threat

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January 19, 2025

By Dan Roark

It is a daily occurrence. In the picture, the mouse, the Fire Stick controller, and my cell phone are neatly placed. That was for the picture. They get moved quite a bit. With the exception of the mouse, I never put them back in the same place after using them. The mouse does, however, get moved on occasion, but it basically stays on the mouse pad. However, it’s a big mouse pad and the remote will fit there as well. So I am constantly grabbing the wrong thing for what I want to do.

I want to change shows for background noise and find I’m trying to do it with the mouse. Then I go to do something on the computer screen and grab the Fire Stick remote. Or the phone rings and it takes me a minute to figure out what to reach for.

I’m usually lost in my thoughts so I get confused easily with sudden reality. Like suddenly realizing I’m trying to use the mouse to change the channel. Or trying to click on something on my laptop with the remote.

I move each of them to different places on the desk. But that doesn’t freaking help. It just pisses me off more when I still grab the wrong one. It’s acerbated by the fact that I change the channel less frequently. Followed by my phone which I only check when getting certain notifications or a call from someone I want to talk to enough to answer it – I get some notifications on my watch, but I check them on the phone.

So far I lack any viable solution. I’m not sure at this point that there is one. But it illustrates that multi-tasking is a fallacy. You can only truly do one task at a time. If you try to alternate between several tasks, you never do any of them as well as you can one at a time. And it takes longer to complete each task.

Most importantly, it makes my damn head hurt changing from task to task. I can think about a few things at the same time, yet I can only act on one at a time. That still doesn’t keep me from thinking about a task I’m not working on – making me switch again. Which is why it makes my head hurt. At that point, calming down and thinking of nothing is an impossibility.

So I simply grab my mouse and try to change channels.

_____________________________________

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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The Phantom? Horse

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January 2, 2025

By Dan Roark

I was coming back from my show at The Barrel House in Winnsboro last Wednesday night – the night of the torrential rains. When I left, there was a misleading pause in the rain. It was not long before it came back with a steady, vicious, vengeance.

The weather people were not wrong about the flash floods. The rain was freaking relentless. Which rendered the GPS as useless as the empty cracker wrapper that ended up in the floorboard. I found myself in the middle of nowhere East Texas on two lane roads that weren’t really safe on a good day, much less after near continuous rain for hours on end.

I’m not quite sure exactly how it happened. Suddenly, I was careening off the road to the right. It would have helped if the tires were actually connecting with the ground. I turned the wheel and was headed to the left side. I think the van may have actually made a 360 degree turn. I remember praying that it wouldn’t end up on it’s side. When the tires caught the dirt and the van finally stopped, I was facing to the right. As I tapped the gas to make sure the van was still running, I was staring at a fence I was very happy was not closer. (The happiness was masked at the time by shear fear mixed with absolute confusion.)

With no other cars on the road, I took time to breath and a motion caught my eye. A brown horse was running from my right to my left. There was enough light to know it was brown. She was running like she was frightened, or at the least agitated, with mane flying. She looked and acted like a mare to me. The constant rain with occasional lightning and thunder had probably gotten on her nerves and the noise of the van skidding certainly didn’t help.

But it was a few seconds suspended in time. Just me and the mare. She looked like a phantom horse, with every thing else a seeming shadow. It seemed as if every move she made was directed at me.

I had no idea where I was. Actually, that’s only partly true. I knew where all the relatively bigger towns in East Texas are located. On a sunny day, with the light combined with my sense of direction, I could have gotten home with considerably less problem. But it was pitch black with hard rain. My sense of direction was on vacation.

When I finally came to the conclusion that I had to completely abandon GPS, I stopped at a 24 hour gas station/convenience store that seemed to be the outermost corner of a street that resembled more civilization than I had seen since leaving Winnsboro . The couple operating the store was friendly, helpful, and East Texas to the core. The man had a moustache and a beard down to his chest. He had a high voice and her voice was lower. She even unlocked the bathroom to let me use it. That’s how friendly they were.

As it turns out, I wasn’t so far off after all, even though most of my sense of direction had washed away in the constant rain assaulting the windshield after my frightening carnival ride on a rain soaked section of East Texas backroad. A stop sign and a stop light and I was on Hwy 80 headed to Dallas. It wasn’t much longer before I was home, drinking beer with the drive back running through my head on repeat. Not too long after that my nervous system calmed down enough to let me go to bed, comfortable in the knowledge that I was still alive and the van was still running like it should. I was also remembering a good show. So naturally, I dreamed about the horse.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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A Friend, A Cop, and The Morgue

Filed under: Communications, friends, guitars, Music, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 16, 2024

Ridgmar Mall

By Dan Roark

Kevin was my roommate when I was manager of Famous Ramos Hot Dogs in Ridgmar Mall in Ft. Worth in the early 80s. Kevin worked across from Famous Ramos at a jewelry store, the name of which escapes me. I think it was Sterling Jewelers, but don’t quote me. He played a little guitar, as I recall, but not much. He rode bulls at a local rodeo on weekends. We did play a few shows together in Ft. Worth over the years before disco kicked in. I played guitar while I sang and he followed along on his guitar.

When the job at Famous Ramos ended, I moved out, got married, and moved back to Dallas. But we still kept in touch. We were living on Marquita, in the M streets, off of Matilda, one street east of Greenville Ave. The marriage didn’t last too long after we moved to the house on Marquita, despite producing a beautiful daughter previously.

I don’t know if I had a housemate when the phone rang, but it’s highly likely. It was a duplex that my parents and I owned. We rented out the other side. I often had friends hanging out. Kevin had arranged to come over to Dallas for the evening. But he was running late. This was back in the days when CB radios were common. Whoever was with me at the time and I had been drinking beer and smoking whatever. The phone rang – we still had landlines at the time.

Being a smartass, I answered, “City morgue, you stab ’em, we slab ’em!”

“This is Officer Harman of the North Richland Hills police.”

In my head I begin to panic.

“Yes sir,” I replied – not having any idea why he was calling.

“Kevin Hunter is running late and wanted me to let you know that he is still on the way.”

“I appreciate it,” I said. “Thanks for calling.” My voice was a little shaky.

“Have a good evening.”

I hung up and starting breathing again.

While I was glad to know that Kevin was still on his way, I was a little perturbed about him having the policeman call me. He knew me and I would have thought he would know not to have a cop call me. Yet it wasn’t like he had him actually stop by.

But it worked. And it turned out to be a pleasant evening.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

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Suspicious Activity

Filed under: Communications, craft brewery, Current events, travel, writing — Leave a comment
December 9, 2024

By Dan Roark

There are numerous things that happen that can seem suspicious. Not that they are implied to be inherently bad, but at least enough to be, well, suspicious. And suspicious in different ways. There’s odd suspicious, “what the hell are they doing” suspicious, and holy crap! suspicious. I’m sure there are more, but we’re concerned at the moment with these three.

Odd Suspicious

Odd suspicious is simply things for which there doesn’t seem to be an answer or solution. I was driving north on I-35 from Farmers Branch to across Lake Lewisville. Traffic was moving, but slower than the speed limit. Naturally, people were being stupid in every lane, braking at the slightest thing that surprised them since they weren’t paying much attention anyway. Changing lanes made no difference because the morons were doing that first – ad nauseum – which was causing the problem in the first place. There was no lane to change to that wasn’t occupied by someone not going the speed limit for one reason or another.

Then I come around a curve and suddenly there’s no one in front of me for like a quarter of a mile. Where did they freaking go? They didn’t exit. They didn’t speed up. So where did they go? Did they get sucked into the ethos so fast I didn’t notice?

“What the Hell are They Doing” Suspicious.

I turned onto Trend off of Beltline. Trend is a short street with a turn that becomes Arapaho after the light at Marsh. Most of Trend is trucking companies with docks everywhere and trailers in front of a lot of them with small businesses on the west side. When I turned onto Trend I saw two cars following each other slowly into a parking lot with trailers at loading docks. And they didn’t seem like they were supposed to be there. But they were definitely following each other and about to get out and meet outside the cars.

At least they didn’t pull in between the trailers at the loading docks. That would have been creepy. I thought about taking pictures for this post, but that would have been even more suspicious – someone following another person into a dark parking lot – or someone trying to take a picture of them doing that. They weren’t just meeting for beers. There’s plenty of places in the vicinity to do that. One of those places is Bitter Sisters Brewery, where I was headed.

They weren’t there for that. But who knows what they were there for. Probably not anything legal.

“Holy Crap” Suspicious

There are several places where construction is in process in the area (Dallas and Denton Counties) that have a sign preceding them that says “New Traffic Pattern.” I have no doubt the situation is repeated in other counties. And when I say construction is in process, I mean that there are fifty to one hundred pylons or traffic cones (the terms are interchangeable, but in my mind traffic cones are the ones that actually look like cones, and pylons are the other ones) but, in a number of cases, there are no machines  or personnel present. And the patterns rarely change, if at all until progress had been made enough to move the sign – which seems to take forever.

Over three days of taking J.D. to work every day, we both tried to a get a picture of the sign saying “New Traffic Pattern.” It alternated with “Slow Down.” It is at a traffic light so we had to get there at the right time to get the picture. And each time we had a chance to take a picture, the result was similar to what you see in the picture here. We used a camera, an android phone, and an iPhone. But that was not what we saw with our eyes – or through the cameras for that matter.

So it wasn’t a matter of being there and then being gone. And it wasn’t exactly an optical illusion – except maybe for the camera. I’ve been taking pictures for years. I’m not an amateur, but I’m not a professional. And I’ve never had this happen before.

Is the sign haunted? Not likely. Why would extra-terrestrials, if they had superior intellect (which has not been confirmed), screw with our traffic signs? Even if they didn’t have superior intellect, why would they screw with our traffic signs? Our traffic is so screwed up now they would only be able to wonder what the hell we were thinking.

Which is why it’s holy crap! suspicious. Some forces from somewhere were at play. But from where no one knows…

 

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark 

 

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Almost Home Taphouse Open Mic

Filed under: Communications, live, Music, open mic, Songwriting, writing — Leave a comment
November 26, 2024

By Dan Roark

The inaugural open mic at Almost Home last Saturday was a good start to the weekly open mic. I opened the show at 7. Nelda Tone – shown with me in the picture on the left was next. Nelda is a storyteller and enthralled us with three of her inspirational stories.

I played a few more songs before Dylan Evan

Dylan Evan

arrived and signed up. Dylan, although relatively young, writes old school country. It’s a refreshing change from the music coming out of Nashville now. He and I were both semi-finalists in the B.W. Stevenson Memorial Songwriting contest at Poor David’s Pub.

Joey Tacos

Joey Tacos, the beertender, closed out the inaugural open mic.

It was a good night for the beginning of the open mic. Come on out this Saturday – or any and all Saturdays – for the open mic. List goes out at 6:30. Show starts at 7.

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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