james arthur page sr., age 58; neeli, rip; sicksicksicksick, so often sick

my cuckoo, my fine man, was sick on his bd at his bd show in long beach, so i ended up singing a lot more than i wanted to (ppl had come to see james, not me) & we tried our best without hurricane james at the helm. there were many ppl; the place was packed. the photos are me earlier that day trying to see the rip in my fishnets (i lifted the wrong leg) & watching james run out of the room in his bd suit. i post the pix bc am continually shocked, throughout this life, when i see images of me that resemble a "normal" woman instead of what the sworling maelstrom in my mind, in those darkest moments, thinks i be... james is better today & off to another show, & i have been very ill. this is the second day i have missed work... my dear boss complains of ppl being absent on weds, when we have staff mtgs, but i am barred from today's. i tried to get someone to call me so i could listen in, but she said no. i know that i tried, & my side of the street is swept, but just hope colleagues fill me in so i'm not totally out of the loop, as so often i be.... found out i have a new student. i called her mother to apologize for my absences; the young woman replied, gallantly, "it's more important that you get well! she'll be ok! take tomorrow off, too!" it sounds like the child is gifted & has been bullied. am eager to meet her & help her. i remember my long-past life being young, gifted, & bullied. gifted or not, no child should feel afraid to go to school... i work in a petrie dish (public school), & the poor kids have been "dropping like flies," said boss corey. the latest something is a vicious one, a covid-variant, mebbe. mama said, you need to wear a mask!, & i fear that she is right!... an opportunity to change careers arose recently. it would allow me more time w/mom & dad, james, time to help teacher candidates go forth & serve students... but also to not get sick so often. historically it has been rough for me to work in schools with all the wee disease vectors swarming about. i love them, but my immune system doesn't... in sad news, one of my new college teachers, neeli cherkowski, passed "into the next realm" yesterday. he had been an acolyte of bukowski's in the '60s. a hirsute, chubby, brainy man from LA who ended up in SF & made his life there, he became that city's poet laureate one year. he resembled buddy hackett, poor man, but was beautiful in the way he spoke: about how all humans are the same, since humankind rose from the muck, all having the same brainpan as well as the needs for love, connectio, & meaning. that hit me, & it still does. "we're all red meat & white bone underneath," said carl lee perkins. rest in peace, dear teacher.

ps, the last pic is me & "AC," ebullient, fiery, forever-boyish blues express guitarist & friend of us both.

Dex r.i.p. and more

dexter romweber passed away. the music world is much diminished. 😞 dictating, using speech to text. all errors are not sic. just finished watching a stunning show from BBC by way of hulu, am I being unreasonable. funny, twisty, sad, shocking. what terrific scripting and acting! I have not seen anything like it, the way it showed how grief and loneliness can create such a mess of one's life. quite worthwhile! ... been waiting since December to see poor things. the lobster's one of my most favorite movies ever, so I am highly hopeful. heard this morning on NPR about, among other topics, an AI video platform called sora that is causing Hollywood to quake in its britches. so I pulled up a free speech to video site right here on my little phone. it was far from Sora quality, but within 3 minutes I was watching a video I had just suggested: "an exciting film about Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley playing a show with the Frankenstein monster." there were glitches, but how astounding that the video was generated in a relative instant! ... not too much else is up except the low level confusion and terror surrounding the possible outcome of November's election. why hasn't McDonald's taken its toll? what kind of weird ass evil bizarro world are we in these days? i truly wish hunter s. thompson still were alive to bring outraged comfort. and definitely george carlin! anyways, back to the nearer & more explicable, sup

posed to be another storm coming this weekend. maybe we'll get out before it happens and go to visit the family. to end this post, so readers can see that we have not yet completely melted into troglodytes, here are James and I at Valentine's Day. still not pushing up daisies. we are quite fortunate that way. well it's time to do the dishes and then some Pilates, I guess. and tomorrow my big baboo will be home and we'll practice.

a good day to be a human

it's a good day to be breathing, to still be alive, to be a human. i decided to make a cover for dad's book this morning. astoundingly quick was the process! i did this on canva in about 1 hour w "help" of a.i.... the verb's in quotes bc of its implication of agency... dad & mom were so delighted by the cover results, i am happy to have used cyber means. (ignore the stupid blue outlines. i forgot to unclick them before screenshotting the images.)

last foggy evening, james & i were noshing at carl's jr in gorman when we noticed that the drive-through voice was eerily measured & pleasant. sure enough, the chain & a score of others have gone to using a.i. for drive-up service. james, of course, immediately riffed on all the profane ways he would deal w/such an entity... in bakersfield, i ordered doordash or grubhub or some damn thing for mom & dad, too tired to make dinner. the next morn, dad asked alexa what was the temperature in frazier park, to see if it was a good moment for me to get home. the a.i. assistant reported the stats, then added, "and by the way, remember to thank your driver for last night's delivery." if we'd been sucking on mints, dad & i would've swallowed them whole at that moment as we goggled at each other. she knows. ... who would've predicted the ease with which our culture has invited into our homes big brother? we volunteer with eagerness to install into our private spaces the all-knowing screens & devices. yes, everything is so damn easy now... we hardly have to use our limbs; the tech does it all! (picture the movie "wall-e," with its helplessly vestigial humans, but even that brilliant film didn't foresee the machines' takeover of our private spaces!) it all is frigging creepy to me, & so i'm glad to be back in my funky, analog mountain home. if i want a.i.'s help, all i have to do is push a button & speak into my phone, but i choose to do that. as far as i can tell, nothing is listening in, & that's how we want it!

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this has been a really, really, really weird week. anyways, some good came of it bc yesterday & today i edited dad's book, which has been hanging around his neck albatross-in-cement-shoes-like. and spending much time with the dear parents and dog furrrballl muffins. and i made a teepublic store for james shirts. i guess i did that part backwards bc it turns out most ppl don't make 10 cents on teepublic, but at least i got some cool designs up. and it could be a place for me to put my own visual art, which is a something i haven't indulged in in quite a spell. i sure hope to go home tomorrow tho it's nice to be here, where there are stores & sidewalks... but also smoagg. (think of the song "let's have a war," fear.) and i hope that my james will be all better soon. geez, i'm so exhausted i can't even move. brain tiredness can be as wiping-assout as body tiredness. time for a showwwwwa. here is the link to the store, and a picture of it, too: http://tee.pub/lic/MOxlzrZRhag

courtin´ mortis, mucha nuthin´

wow, i haven blobbed in a good long while. was deathly ill for a month, tho no covid. we went to a funny, dadaist place called omegamart. quite a good one for two who grew up on mad mag. and we tramped thru an abandoned motel. there´ve been other events. mostly i am spending moolah like a madperson. tis the season.

this sat

for our 3rd set, we have batted around the idea of doing the entire first blasters album from start to finish. oh, would that be cool!!! we blew thru it a few weeks ago. we both know it so well, it was like magic, like the stuff i was reading about this morn in the forbes interview with sir roger penrose, like clairvoyance & memory & the uncanny & the time loop. today's haunted house was such fun for all. i barely made it home & fell in bed. then home was the hunter, home from the hills, the sailor home from the sea. he needed a flyer, so i made the above. i reposted my weird interpretation of the weird song sinner (on this blog, october 2015). was gonna watch a horror flick. guess there still might be time. blegh. happy howloween!

i hate

adulting.