I'm at a film festival. Sort of but not really.

The Neighborhood Theater, up the street, is doing a film festival that I expect to be going to tonight. Okay, actually I'm pre-posting this and I expect to be going to the showing tomorrow night, but whatever. It's kind of a fake film festival--they're showing a BBC documentary, not a festival of films, but since I went to see the first half last night (er... earlier tonight in reality), I guess I'm going to/am currently at/went to the second half. Whatever.

(Confession: the post with the Chris Matthews clip was actually written Friday and got bumped twice. I was watching this BBC thing Monday evening and swamped at work Monday day.)

Anyway.

For today's blog entry, the late great Townes Van Zandt performing one of his best-known songs, "Pancho And Lefty." I have a feeling, based on the popularity of the Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard version, that a lot of people think this is a nice little song about friendship. It isn't. It's a song about karma, and the price you pay for the decisions you make. And betrayal. Very much about betrayal.

Where did Lefty get the bread to split for Ohio? I wonder.

Van Zandt's studio version can be found on a reissue of his first two albums on one CD, High, Low And In Between/The Late Great Townes Van Zandt. Ten bucks to Amazon.com will get you two albums by one of America's greatest singer-songwriters on one CD. I'm telling you it's a bargain and you should buy it if you don't already own these records.

Van Zandt's version actually isn't the best. Nor is the famous Nelson/Haggard cover, no disrespect meant to two legends. A bad version of the best version--this will make sense--is tomorrow's Neverwednesday Nights entry. Stay tuned to this spot.