See the Watertowers Sunday 7/5 and support Bill

The Watertowers' new CD - click for more info.

We just heard from our friends in the Water Tower Bucket Boys that they’re doing a show Sunday, July 5, at Mississippi Pizza in Portland, and donating all proceeds to Bill!

They’ll be joined by Woody Pines, from Asheville, NC, with Huck Notari sitting in.

The show starts around 8:30.

Thanks, WTBB! Maybe this’ll inspire other musicians out there to do the same thing.

Bill’s insurance situation

A lot of you are writing with concerns about Bill’s insurance situation. He is now on subsidized COBRA, with the prospect of getting on Medicare eventually, although we’re not sure exactly whether he’ll be able to get a special extension of COBRA to cover the full wait until he can get on Medicare. There was a brief gap where he was uninsured, and he did incur a few costs on his own, but he’s in much better shape now. The COBRA payments are do-able for him, with a little help.

Blog launched successfully, how people are helping

The Bubba "koozie"

Like many of Bill’s music friends, Martha and I just got from the big fiddle campout in Weiser, Idaho. And, by the way, the Bubba koozies were selling like hotcakes — everybody seemed to have one.

We’re thrilled to see how many of you wrote, donated, and subscribed to the blog after our recent mass-emailing. Thanks to everyone. Once we’re sure that everything’s working smoothly, we’ll send out another email encouraging more folks to subscribe to or bookmark the blog. It would be great if it became a true electronic community for supporting Bill. And please don’t be shy about posting stories or sending us pictures and news to add. Putting energy into the blog would be a great non-financial way to help!

Here are a few examples of the kinds of things people are doing:

Yard sale benefit this Saturday

Bargain hunters in the Portland area will want to hightail it across the river this Saturday and check out a yard sale, benefiting both Bill and his uncle, Bayard Mentrum. Here’s the poop, direct from Bill hisself:

Anyone have a recliner?

Actually, a traditional La-Z-Boy would suffice . . .

I hung out with Bill yesterday while he had a treatment, and he was saying how his back’s been hurting, and his only armchair at home is worn out. It would be great if we could come up with a nice La-Z-Boy sorta thing for him. Comment on this post or write billsbuddies@gmail.com if you have any possibilities.

Get your Bubba “koozie” at Weiser!

A koozie. Actual design is nicer than this.

Those of you going to the Weiser, Idaho, music fest this week can look forward to keeping your beer cold in a Bubba “koozie,” designed by Brian at Stumptown Printers, with all proceeds going to Bill. I don’t have an image of the real thing yet, but I can reveal that it’s a camo background, with screaming pink printing.