Bootgazing Vaquero Manifesto
I. All actions must produce the tendency to ponder one’s boots thoughtfully. (or Converse occasionally.)
II. No reins before any reins. Genre limitations are creative limitations.
III. Consider the space it represents, tumbleweeds of any kind should be free within it.
IV. Aspire to encompass the ideals of one or more of the following.
a. Nudie Suits
b. Space Suits
c. Adobe Coats
d. Road Trips
e. Android Federales
f. The American West
g. Cowboy Boots
V. Process before product but not before road trips. Highways are a vaquero’s driveway.
VI. Presets are stagnant urban products; manipulation is a rural survival process.
VII. Keyboards are kin to banjos, and slide guitars are genetically the same as samplers.
VIII. Less vaqueros are often more vaqueros.
IX. Mistakes are cosmic fortunes.
X. All creations would be at home on an AM radio in a pick-up truck driven by Brian Eno on the way to an open ranch or at a rodeo held by Gram Parsons.
XI. No good horse thieves stare and share.
XII. Mexican standoffs are best won by refurbishing culture, recognizing the advantages of working within a limited range of possibilities, and reconciling with repetition.
XIII. “Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.” Cormac McCarthy
