oh, professor, you're full of whimsy!! www.old99.net

-> "well, it's midnight, & i wanna go home / driving union avenue all alone / eucalyptus trees frame the old moon / i'm in a terrible place, i don't know what to do / so i'm driving into bakersfield / motels line the avenue wide / broken dreams, old places, neon signs / this town used to be so grand, old 99 was big buck land / & i'm driving into bakersfield" ... that's part of a near-rhyme tune i wrote several years back, about driving & crying & loving-hating bakersfield, & was pt of the dusk devils' genesis... a happy turn is my newest band is called OLD 99! our drummer recently went to the rob's house & laid down about 8-9 drums tracks for songs, then in a burst of enthusiasm, came home & made a bunch of whimsical pictures. (thelma todd: oh professor, you're full of whimsy! groucho: you can tell from over there? that always happens when i eat radishes. - Horse Feathers) this is my favorite, capturing the appropriate way i feel we should approach this musical project, which has been increasingly exciting. (too, i have happy memories of going to big boy w/auntie rita & my sister & cousins.) it's all for fun - nothing lasts - don't take yourself so dang seriously (rule 62) - whee!
-> soon enough, there'll be the equivalent of an LP's worth of music available on the band website at www.old99.net . the music's mostly honky-tonk w/emphasis on harmony singing, also some old R&R, rockabilly, R&B, & softer stuff, which i'm really having to get used to. i think i can, since the fellers are so generous in spirit. so far, old 99's been a welcome & unexpectedly nice surprise.
-> feliz fin de semana to all who read this. :)

a posting for jim b

here's a clip from my all-time favorite TV event, recorded by granada television (uk) in 1964. you can order it from www.videobeat.com w/keywords "Don't Knock the Rock" granada & some of the artist names below... jl lewis is a bulky & seductive musical harry powell-elmer gantry kinda powerful-perverty figure here, & the wild rock&roll frenzy is (in a good way) a crazy-making thrill. (forgive the lazy writing; the happy fellowship of this wkend's drunk convention salved my physical ills, but was draining)... the other footage, esp of gene vincent & little richard, is absolutely amazing!! - follow the youtube clip below to watch more - one guy posted most of the show there in snippets for now.

upcoming shows you gotta gotta goada

if you can get there, that is... i'm a-goin. just gotta. life's too short not to.
-> THE PONDEROSA STOMP, house of blues, new orleans, LA www.ponderosastomp.com
-> ROCKIN'50s III, oneida, green bay, WI www.http://www.actionpackedevents.com/Oneida%20Fest%202007.htm (pix from Rockin'50s I, Spring 2002)

nothing flip to say on this day. glad to be alive, is all.

they're coming to take me away, haha, hoho, heehee... "the only proof he needed for the existence of god was music" plus a few little gush-fests

BREATHLESS exgirlf...

-> R.I.P. kurt vonnegut, the (i think, dang it!) eternally hopeful and quotable: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/kurt_vonnegut.html
and http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut ...
-> art fein, who sent me a copy of "man w/o a country" last yr, told me last month that his girl was researching vonnegut & desired his j-hancock (i wrote about kesey at her age, but he already was pushing up daisies) & he actually GOT IT for her... what good timing for the young lady. who knows - maybe she will be one to help carry on the spirit of such outraged, brave, & humane satirists.
-> lately my research has taken a happy turn & i've become hopeful that young folks may save this world, w/the social networking revolution perhaps being a good sign that they want to commune & be involved & the volunteer soldiers who persevere despite inadequate federal support evidence of the driving, inner voice, which manifests itself uniquely, but seems to come from a common & benevolent source. specifically, my stepson, quite the party boy, also does engineers w/o borders & is becoming involved in a green engineering project; young local activists & punks do food not bombs, feeding the homeless, every sunday at noon at central park; my 13-yr old niece, who seems to have eyes only for manga, has a benevolent, fully-formed, animistic spiritual belief at an age when all i wanted was candy, mad magazine, movies, & piano... i think beyond the youtube narcissism & foisted, all-pervasive celebrity-consumption culture, our young people look to be better than we are so far, more other-directed, less vision-obscured (or maybe less dualistic? more accepting of "difference"?), more engaged.
-> well, i woke up too late & piddled around & missed an apt this am, so here is what i did instead, more crude & peppy solo music. brian p & phil are gonna go play this wkend, so i didn't practice w/them yesterday (i'll be at school this wkend - no sense in me being there last nite wasting time when they could've been readying for sat), so i hope that's fruitful for them...
-> in my new band, old 99, www.old99.net , we're doing stuff like 3-part harmony & slick playing, but then when i listen back, i don't barf at all, it's kinda like when i sang choir years ago - whatta pleasure to be a part of a bigger, effusive, team kind of spirit!... then, bonus, the other day we did a chuck berry medley that was swell: i thought, good gracious, wow, WOW!, if we can have this energy level here & there, i'm home!!! the occasional slow or poppy song, well, i guess i can hang w/it. i like that everything's coming from a traditional C&W kinda base rather than anything more "modern," too: this band definitely respects the roots. rob even wants to do some zydeco stuff. yahoo! and there's none of that fake middle-class bluesman stuff that really is gross... we have some recordings down, but they asked we use them for practice, not public, even tho they sound 100x better than what i do alone. (however, i'm realizing how blest i am to get to do it all - the crude & wild alone stuff; the rocknroll duskdevils stuff; the crystal palace-kinda old99 stuff)... a person has to keep trying & occasionally realizing, don't you think? vonnegut's great words: "If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED / FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD / WAS MUSIC" .. ah-men.

easter/prospera pascha sit et pacem in terris

(the above just means "easter/happy easter and peace on earth")
my first "video" (tho my 13-yr old niece is right - it's just a "slideshow"):

hope you like it, anyhow. :)

happy to be living, obsessed: chicken, waffles, toxic sodapop fuel the monkey

first of all, we all lost another friend the other day. he was lucky, maybe, to go very suddenly, but still, how sad (especially for my hubby, w/whom he was friends; i know b admired j very much, like everyone did). j was taken too early... he was one of two people i recall from '91, when i lived every day in a sick & altered state & yet couldn't see why i had such blasted bad luck. thru then-called-kernview hospital, i wound up at the drunk club (didn't come back til '95) & the smiling, rangy-athletic fellow w/the buzzed, prematurely-grayed hair helped make me feel at home. may he rest in peace, sweet soul that he was. i know he will be well-remembered; we wish his family solace.
i know it's saddest for us still living when we lose someone... being a friend of bill w's means i have more camaraderie & fellowship than i ever could've possibly dreamed, but then loved ones go, suddenly or slowly, here & there, & it stinks each time, but it's life. i know soon enough i'll be shuffling off myself, so i guess the best thing is just to stay with the herd, appreciate & love people while we're here, & try to remember them gratefully & reverently, not sadly & self-centeredly, when they leave.
maybe i'll be so lucky, but i guess that part doesn't matter... remember marcus aurelius, so noble, writing repeatedly that one must act & live from a place of one's own truth, w/o worrying about the condemnations of others, & how the 1st book in his "meditations" pays loving homage to his many role models... he obviously was a man who loved & appreciated many, but knew not to pay unnecessary heed to critics & those lacking vision.
on to the mundanities of life: today, dedicated to polishing off part 3 of my thesis (been at it all wk & sick of it), i sat at the computer for 9 hrs & embarked on a strict regimen of chicken & waffles (a whole essay could be written on this alone, but i'll spare everyone), swashing it down w/a particularly creepy yet delicious sodapop, maybe even deadlier-better than diet big red, called diet pepsi jazz caramel creme... do you think the ingredients of such a potion could fit on the side of a train car? but hi-dee-ho: let's have another can.
that the paper's done & i still live is a really nice deal. :) there's all kindsa music stuff to attend to, especially w/my new band "old 99" (those fellows really want to get stuff started asap... i do wish it were that way w/dusk devils, but not for now, i guess). i have been a little negligent in my saintly duties, as well, but it all has had to wait cause i have had research monkey brain (haven't even been sleeping lately; too many ideas sloshing around in the noggin). by 3 pm, i had birthed another 18-pg paper & it was jig time. we're supposed to turn in 8 pages by april 14, and i've written 42. my thesis is up to over 60. i am very pleased!!! overachieving is necessary in this context; i won't get done by august, otherwise. (btw, i found out guitarist keith wyatt went to new college!!) the toxic chemicals, i guess, help, in the short run (tho kill in the long, but what the hey, let's play play play). not to mention obsession... productively funneled, the latter can be quite a boon. :) (P.S. - tho roscoe's down south has the world's best, dope-wonderful chicken & waffles, J's Southern here in town serves them, too... j's is finger-licking good stuff, dang worth it, on ming avenue, but tho lisa paxton - I MISS LISA!!! - knows the name of the cross-street, i don't.)