Roy Payne where are you?

Did you write the song "Goofy Newfie" cause this was some kind of twisted premonition you would get hooked deep into goofballs of Heroin and Speed?

There he is! In the bushes. Mr. Goofy Newfie! Some kind lounge shark suit. Bolo gold chain country blues. Black cowboy boots. With red blood and bone white alternating diamond design. He has a dark weary look. He became one with his shadow.

He may have not killed someone....yet wanted to. Some kind of situation went down. Things did not cohere. Most things don't work out. Troublesome. Toilsome. Shakespearian even. Lonesome gaze in a strange direction.

“For a while there, I was right inside,” Roy recalled. “I was right in the thick of ’er. I was making a lot of money, believe me, for a boy from Trout River. Maybe that was the problem…”

Did writing the musical score for Dan Aykroyd's movie unravel the peripheral cattle fence boundaries of sanity?

Joking aside, the one album I've heard is just as good as Merle Haggard or Porter Wagoner.

Your version of Haggard's "The Fugitive" always skips on the record player.

A tangible sense of pain shades Mr. Payne's singing as well as electric guitar playing.

I don't believe in your anti-drug rants in 1987, yet I don't damn you for going there. We all have our diverging ways of reconciling the darkness.

“There were times when I wouldn’t cross the street in a snowstorm to fetch a quart of milk, but then an hour later I’d drive 100 miles to get drugs."

Canadian Country music! Newfoundland Country Music. He was writing songs for all of North America. He was something.

“Some of my friends were dropping like flies,” Roy said. “I can’t mention any names, mind you, but I’ve seen friends of mine keel over right in front of me, and die of a drug overdose. One friend of mine was killed when he hit up speed that had been cut with Ajax!"

Mr. Payne, I do not agree to you trying to brain wash those kids with anti-drug talks. You were very confused. Yes, you were drunk on sobriety. You thought there was a possibility of salvation. You gave it your all after you retreated from dope and booze. You were drunk on the unreachable reality of completely laying rest the unquenchable blood thirst of ghosts that hounded you.

Sometimes all anyone has is the perception of potentials. Some of these potentials are grotesque and grandstanding delusions. Yes, one must give one's all.

No more judgments. The damned always have a tendency to judge the damned. Maybe doing so takes some kind of existential pain or dread away...yet mostly it just don't.

They call Mr. Payne one of Canada's top songwriters. He won a life time achievement award in 2010. Mr. Goofie Payne has achieved through the foul wobbling realities of living this life with some kind of pride still intact.

Recently there was an exploding blue whale carcass stranded upon the shore of your hometown village Trout River, Newfoundland. Did you write a song about that? Are you alive or dead? Somewhere all between those manic depressive divine magnets, we are.

All quotations are taken from the highly recommended article "The Incredible Saga of Roy Payne." You can find this lurid piece of journalism at http://nfldherald.com/recent-issues/the-incredible-saga-of-roy-payne/.