haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

feliz navidad, prospero ano, y felicitad :)

today was family- & food-filled, lots of laughing & good times, & if you read this, hope your day was swell, as well. my family likes to spearhead game-playing marathons at holidays, & i have to resort to mad-nerd buffoonery to cover up my ineptness... my hubby & stepson, both engineers, killed everyone at the game inventions, which requires one to be able to study & interpret diagrams, i think (my mom killed, too, but she is the family genius)... we also played rounds of mexican train & balderdash between helpings of tamales, chile relleno, flautas, carnitas, enchiladas & etc. mom & sis are killer cooks, so i have to deliver my spouse to them frequently so that he may eat well. he doesn't mind, & i'm lucky to have such an understanding guy. as my niece told me, "auntie jenny, you don't have many woman skills, do you?" and i guess i just don't in the traditional sense, can't cook or sew or the like, so music & the arts & trying to help others avoid the bigger speed bumps of life, as well as any other semi-skills i might have, will just have to suffice for now...
... our christmas music shows were fun! : friday night more than sat, i thought, but each night about 20 friends came out to support me & friday night the crowd was large & very enthusiastic (both nights were receptive, actually, but i could hear much better fri night, which always helps me have a better feeling about things in the end) & folks seemed to enjoy some xmas cheer, something to be mighty grateful for, & i am. thank you to sally & friends, mo & tom, lisa, my family, the lloyds & rafi, 3 chord whore, tammy & byron, greg, lyrch, the people who came up to get biz cards & ask about the band, & if i didn't mention you here, well, thanks to you, too!
fri at fishlips i met a beatific, beaming young guy from bakotopia named jose, 21 looking 16, who danced with big ray & chatted winningly with me at breaks. it seemed appropriate to meet such a cheerful person at christmas, & he seemed good to the bone, a music-lover-musician & a genuine soul, sort of a christmas angel, i felt. sat night he grabbed me to dance a little & probably regretted it since i only know how to twist & maybe pogo, but those guys certainly were fun to watch oi!-ska bouncing & rolling around the dance floors like big puppies... thank you so much to cesareo & matt for playing with us both nights, too: their expertise & good spirit really helped! i always have my fun, but afterwards i sometimes suffer when thinking about my hack playing... but i know what they did really made our sets sing, & i know people were enjoying the performance, so my job is to just not let my magic magnifying mind take over & make everything go fubar... brian p & i got to wear glittery & tacky holiday costumes; rocky nash was lovely & announced she will be a mom; a hip hop singer whose name i don't know, impressive in stature & voice, sang with the sat hip-hop act; & mento buru, well, they are just top-notch, the best in town, producing a professional, dance-inducing, monstrously musical sound always... i am again grateful to have been able to participate in all of this & now will sign off to go digest my tamales (or maybe go eat another one). :)

u-huppa-huppa-coming shows

dusk devils have holiday shows!!!! fri 12/22, fishlip's downtown; sat 12/23, sandrini's downtown... mon 1/8/07, elvis presley birthday show, henry fonda/music box theatre, hollywood... more info on the first two below or at www.bakotopia.com ; more info on the last at www.sofein.com ... yesterday at salvation army i got a xmas cassette tape for 54 cents (their pricing is strange) full of gems! : little eva & big dee irwin, elvis, the platters, frankie lymon, robert gordon... FIFTY-FOUR CENTS!!! :) happy hohoho or happy whatever you celebrate... or do not... happy.

oh-ho, the mistletoe: where's the dang mistletoe when i need it?? holiday shows 12/22, 23 (flyer below)... providence in boulder, blasters forever!!!

(photo by jerry angel) just back from colorado... and how are you? something swell happened, so i want to write about it, for when immersed in the pleasantness, mundanity, & occasional even horribleness of life, the important thing seems to be to learn from the drags, but heed the cool, so... we were in boulder visiting my hubby brian's (not to be cornfused w/brian paxton) mom, in the gigantic & warm hotel rm, nestled in against the snow & skimming the free alt-newsweeklies & i saw... heavens to betsy... surely this is providence... THE BLASTERS WERE PLAYING IN DENVER!! we made plans to drive to the show the next night. minutes later, hubby called from the commode-room, "they're playing TONIGHT!" i corrected him, tho i was the wrong one... they were on that night right there in BOULDER... this all may not mean a fig to you, but me, well, i've been enthralled with the blasters for more than a few decades, & i'm no spring chicken anymore, tho my squeakyish voice may falsely hint of youth: it's been a while! then the story gets incredible as in the dusk devils i've gotten to actually meet the blasters & see shows more than many times; interview their bandleader (whom i used to want to be my future ex-husband, but it's too late for that now; interview link on this pg); take my little sis to a "reunion" blasters show in socal that was filmed for a doc, & appear in it (for a few frames, that is...); & even do two elvis BD shows in hollywood, which the blasters headlined! it's all amazing ... when it gets down to it, so what? it'll mean nothing in 50 yrs. but for now, such happenings add to my temporal little joy. :) the "lattice of coincidence" (repo man) makes me wonder, all the time: there seems to be so much "random" fortuity! the only constant is change, yet there appears to be order underlying all. what is that order? the scientists may it discover; meantime, i marvel & wonder at its possibility & seeming appearance!
the show was at a wine bar in yuppie boulder, alma mater city of my hubby & art fein, too (more coincidence?). boulder is denver's yuppie little cousin, but i like them both, tho for my money, denver much more. anyhow, we were early & walked the trendy pearl street mall, freezing our keesters off, with no cares... what bad could happen? this was boulder! we sure didn't have to worry about getting brained or boosted... the wine bar led to a back-room, medium-sized theatre w/raised stage. it slowly filled with 50ish folks. even with the walk, we waited a long time. blasters fan club pres billy davis ran out, set up movie camera, audio recorder into board, tuned guitars, etc. finally the band came thru the crowd to loud cheers & my friend, drummer jerry, gave me a hug. phil alvin swaggered out like a jack emperor, smoking & grinning (or maybe i just imagined him smoking)... BLAM! they started. i moved stage right so i could see both bassist john bazz & guitarist keith wyatt's necks, lined up one atop the other (from my P.O.V.) as they played. the guitar, i think, was designed by beelzebub & just makes no sense, but keith was wheedling all over the place. he is certainly awesome! tho i could follow john b, i could never play five of his lines consecutively, especially not with his force, without breaking my fingers & wrist: he is the most awesome bass player in rock&roll! at the end of the second song, bazz yelled, "what are YOU guys doing HERE?" "visiting his mom!" i yelled, pointing to brian... jerry angel looked 30 if a day, black hair in 'billy do, & beat the skins with the precision & force of a guy who's played with everyone, punk to c&w, sneaking in surf fills that made the loud music ride higher... phil alvin has one cool, handsome band with these three guys, complimenting his beefy, bugs bunny on speed kind of grimacing wise-guy allure & expert showmanship & drive (he was born to be onstage.)... they did songs off "4-11-44," the tempos slowed for dancers in many cases: the sound was heavy, hard roots-blues, with johnny paycheck's "precious memories" louis armstrong's "i'll be glad when you're dead, you rascal, you" (dedicated to GW) & charlie rich's "rebound" grooving uptempo, intense, country-dixielandish. the blasters rocked!!! they curtain-called with "rock boppin' baby," bazz & wyatt's bottom-top melody lines jibing in such a sexy slinky way, even dorky me wanted to dirty-dance, & i got right up under phil at stage left, & he has this way of looking at a gal that will make you about faint, so he did, but i rode out my vapors & next was, of course, "american music," & on the famous chorus, phil replaced the word "rockabilly" with "norteno." god, i just love that!!! the blasters play music the people love, for the people. there's no dress code & there's no category. it's not just for boulderites, or rockabillies, or the haves: it's gritty, blasting "american music," which includes vernacular mexican, scots-irish, R&B, rhumba, jump blues, dixieland, hillbilly, etc... after the show, we said our goodbyes & talked a bit out back in the frozen alley with phil: moms, hiding out in nederland, the STPers, phil's union boss dad, who organized the area back when brian was in the physics dept wanting to smash atoms. i was grinning like a stupid moron, kite high on music-buzz, but it was time to go... sweet sleep didn't come til early that morning, even with french fries & calming, boring hotel TV, but i was only deaf til the next day: good news... as we left: "you playing the elvis show?" i about jumped out of my shoes!! "i hope so!!" i yelled. "yeah," phil said, "we told art fein we'd do it." "see you at elvis, then!!" i yelled, but we'll see!... that will be jan 8 in hollywood someplace. go to www.sofein.com for more details... and we have two little christmas shows coming up, too (below), & i say this as much to myself as you, to remember to watch for the good & for coincidence cause why not? why not? feliz cumpleanos to all...

hohohoho holiday show

we'll do nothing but yuletide songs! uptempo and rocking ones! fun and sing-along ones! come out for a beer, to bend an ear, some christmas cheer!
more show details: (friday night) fishlips, 1517 18th St, (661) 324-2557, www.fishlips.com ; (saturday night) sandrini's restaurant, 1918 Eye St, (661) 322-8900. both places are downtown eateries slash music venues known for good food (fishlips, seafood & some southern; sandrini's, italian)... i imagine we'll be on early, probably after 8:30 pm... go to bakotopia for cover, dinner reservations, etc.