Feelin' Good - Nina Simone

"hello" to jp + bang bang: great song, bad idea

hello.
thank you for continued interest in life. and i suppose me.
it's good to maintain a constant interest in life - one's own, others', the life process. good but elusive.
i bashed my noggin pretty badly yesterday, so we'll see where this writing goes -- here're some pix from this past wkend. cattie ness & the revenge: nice, fun-loving full of life, generous, laid-back comrades. becky, strong & beautiful, has created for herself a full artist's life which she kindly shares w/people like me. as you can see, the band pic came out well -- atractive folks, photogenic. however, from now on, i will groom myself for shows, & for life, for that matter, since when i don't, i feel like i'm in drag, an impostor, a midget. becky'd asked the band for an elegant look -- you can see that she (& fabi) are gorgeously coiffed -- mentioning "audrey hepburn." sighing w/doom, i realized i can't even see "audrey hepburn" from here... but "lon chaney"? yes, that look's possible, as you can see from hotel photo of my texting marathon w/fellow monster... ah! society breeding discontent & desperation (damned freud!)... ah! unstructured life condemning soul to sloth & madness (i pray temporarily)... this reminds me, tho, that i glimpsed another kindred spirit in dex romweber when skimming his CD dedication to both st cecilia & chaney & wonder if he's better-reconciled the monstrous & ecstatic impulses, a life of fun & bliss blackened by the hole of heartache & oblivion. thought my fellow monster had it made, but he, too, confessed to sadness & brokenness. arrrgggh.
will there be fun & fulfillment again before this pop stand blows? can we write out a syllogism? what would the fringe physicists say? certainly someplace there are different versions of you & me & everyone we know, & some of them gotta be consistently happy. quantum mechanics thusly alleviates, @ least for this parsec, bleakness & self-pity... w/that, let's toss the gloom & wish happy rapture-that-never-came to all. we're all still breathing, for pete's sake! lastly i must thank a person i know for ratting the demon out so that he didn't have to try to contain her all alone & so she could live another day & maybe get a dang exorcism once & for all. as for mr & mrs gia, there are seats in heaven for them both, & no words can tell how much i love them. bravery to do what the soul calls -- i've had it; i've been there; i seek it again. may your path today be clearly-guided, gentle & brave.

road trip, friendship, a little tip

- glamorous becky & co came up to the mtns yesterday to practice for her bd show, bringing boxes of food: becky's smoky tri-tip & potato salad, fabi's rice, guacamole from johnny's grandparents' avocado ranch, & more. my main contribution was dogzilla, the most gigantic hotdog i'd ever seen, from flying j at I-5. john bruce hipped me to a garage punk site run by ratboy69 & played a fast, fast town hall party-style instrumental i hope they will record. fabi sat on her prettily-painted doghouse bass, pulled up karaoke from youtube on her i-phone, & sweetly sang "volver volver" & "la bamba" on breaks & becky & i harmonized buck & don & i found out our voices blend well! b & f went thru my show wardrobe & found me a dress to fit the "cocktail" theme, assuring me i won't look like a dumpy old lady & that they'll make me look "classy & beautiful." i don't know what to say except i hope they can & will. :)
- cover for the show'll be $10. we're starting our set w/fats domino & closing w/some late-50s psychobilly, a crampsian freak-out to lead-in the psycho- bands to follow. should be a fun time, showing up early for sound-check & so the girls can glam me out as they do themselves, staying at dude boy ranch (aka brad's house), then back to meet dusk devils for mtn practice. woohoo!
- the birds at the window, in the tree, soaring around, on the lines, on the ground are singing that it's a joyful day. my tip for today, read this a.m.: "every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time" (annie dillard).

wanda, dex, & damien

not that you asked, but this is what i've been listening to lately, along w/cattie ness & the revenge stuff for becky's bd show in 2 wks. i love the weirdness of the wanda album, from its lugosi-meets-elvis valentine cover to jack white's "reverb-drenched" kitschy mix: lux & ivy'd be (would've been) proud! my fave, tho, is dex -- hard-rockin, full-throated, pleading, crazy-in-love, betrayed, sobbing, romantic, sincerely way-out dex... his commitment to music invites such grandiloquence! too, i love his absolutely-no-irony. good gravy, that haunted cat can wail!
some more of my audio favorites are these: james brown live @ the apollo; little walter le roi du blues; professor longhair house party new orleans style; the blasters over there (ep);  get hot or go home compilation; gun club the fire of love; self-titled LPs/CDs by the blasters, the paladins & the flat duo jets, 1st LPs; hank ballard & the midnighters; the stooges rubber legs; the cramps gravest hits (ep); five royales monkey hips & rice (if you have this & rip it for me, i'll give you BIG CASH!!!!*); jerry lee lewis london sessions; clifton chenier bayou boogie; chuck berry the great 28; ronnie dawson monkey beat city; wanda jackson rockin in the country; big sandy on the go; phil alvin's 2 solo LPs; gene taylor's 2 solo LPs; johnny burnette & the rock'n'roll trio tear it up; carl perkins sun sessions; fats domino specialty box set; wild fast & out of control box set (just cause it's got most all the standards in one place); born bad series; preservation hall jazz band; etc etc etc! (* along w/the DVDs of the movies "safe" [1995, todd haynes dir.] & "molokai" [1999, paul cox dir.])... wow! i almost forgot! today is SAINT damien's feast day! see link @ right about blessed saint damien, a gruff, misunderstood, hard-working, humble human being who dedicated his life to the lepers of molokai'i, who loved them & dearly cared for them when they were treated like animals, a true hero, patron saint of those w/leprosy, HIV/AIDS, & incurable disease (such as alcoholism), sanctified last yr.... well, gotta go. the creature that lives in the walls is scratching away. no metaphor there -- i'm talking a real varmint! after all, living in the mtns means we get beauty (snow last night! mother's day snow!)... & also critters! :)

it's alive!!!!! friends... good... dusk devils don't die

 -> we've been in shock dealing w/news that phil & his family were MOVING!!! we were gonna record a CD w/art fein producing called "dusk devils die," but the prospect was just too depressing, so we didn't... what to do? at our last show, brian paxton, dusk devils' original guitarist, spelled the phil for a set, & i thank him for that, & phil performed that day/ eve w/the reliability; melodic, blistering playing; good humor; & tons of wonderful traits he's always given the band... it was tough to play, knowing he'd be leaving soon, but what a swell final show it was. :)
-> we sure miss phil, but have to be done blubbering over it & know that if he ever comes back & wants to join up again, dusk devils will be a two-guitar band!!!

the excitement of maybe

that's the title of exene's new record (on bloodshot!)... brilliant! is there anything more exciting than the maybe, potential, perhaps, dream, rhapsody of possibility? sometimes, just sometimes, the reality approaches or even (so rarely) exceeds the maybe... but the ecstasy of maybe!... so easily lulled, i'm always grateful i somehow have a doer's constitution (imbued w/it? nature or nurture? don't matter). plus, living in fantasy & pipedream scares me! i know & have known a "shiftless dreamer" (to quote the addams family) or two & find them romantic & frustrating! -- maybe their imagination & vision is fuller than mine? -- but bottom line is, the maybe calls to all, like sirens to sailors, but i don't have to get lost in it or be destroyed by it...
anyways, my favorite of exene's lately songs has been "white trash wife" from "old wives' tales" -- what lyrics!... two ppl brought up x this past wkend - that exene lives in orange, that a friend does jdoe's amps & that jd still lives here AND (mebbe) in bako... and the maybe is calling to me now, thinking of all this & the other details that go along w/it which i must keep private for now, but i won't be dashed on the rocks of reverie... so i write about it here!
may you glimpse the romance of possibility today... but act in the realm of reality! :) (the most perfect-handsome-romantic-dreamer in movie history: raul julia as gomez addams)

happy may day!!!!!

- what a day for the usa! here is a bouquet for you who read, since i cannot put it on your doorknob, as we used to do for our mothers as we all walked home from school, bearing the flowers we'd made that day in class... this evening's news! resolutely, the man in the white house has proved his vision, intelligence, & strength. no showboater, this president. nose to grindstone, his administration & its navy seals have accomplished an amazing feat. "it's like if america captured hitler," said my friend. "he moved our troops to the country where the REAL war was; he kept his eye on the prize, & he got it."
- i hope those who have poorly veiled their racist motives while purporting to "demand the truth" about our president will shut up & go home now. i hope our president is proud of what happened today on his watch! - tho surely he would not take pride in the death of a fellow human, no matter how malevolent, & glory's not why the president, a man of bravery & brains, nobility & humility would do this. he will move now to the next arduous task, w/o fanfare. he will continue to toil to help us all.
- it happened today. it happened because of president obama. "mission accomplished!"

clepto, cats, cattie ness, kleenex, common touch, country kitchen

- i was stuffed in the cab of johnny rage's truck between johnny (drummer) & fabi dean (upright bassist), coming home from practice in bksfld w/cattie ness & the revenge, when johnny swerved & bellowed into my ear, "HEYYYY DUDDDESSSS!!!" as we soared past a band van to our right, pulling a trailer hand-painted "clepto.net." he laughed maniacally & yelled, "those're my buds from canada!! oh my god!!! we gotta run them off the road!!!!!" his friends, "arabs from canada," have a "metal punk" band, & johnny, who plays not just w/cattie ness but w/punk band D.M.F. (dirty m...fers), said, "i really respect those guys cause they quit their jobs & they've been on the road for three years playing; they're livin' it!!"
- we pulled off at ft tejon just as a family of deer were on their gentle way & waited til the unsuspecting clepto van clambered by, at which pt johnny stomped on it & we careened in pursuit, tires screeching, even sailing on two tires for a second as he in his haste rammed the onramp curb... @ the frazier mtn exit, fabi & i got burgers while johnny visited w/clepto, surprisingly mild-looking, sleepy, hirsute young men... then J&F took me right to my doorstep, kind young friends, & took a deep breath of the mtn air here & smiled & sighed, "wow!" before they went home to the big city.
- to back up, this was a wheel-less wkend, a bit of an adventure, 1st walking the mile down thru frazier park "village" to the county transit bus stop, taking that to downtown bakersfield, then walking from there to oildale while listening to rev frost's show on my new ipod... hoofing across the oildale bridge to the sounds of ronnie love's "chills & fever," gazing at the supplely-flowing kern river, the swaying grasses, the cavorting birds, i thought, well, no kids, no spouse, but i do got adventure.
- as i got to trout's, jani pulled up & off we went to pick up our friends, then to a touring company of "cats" at the rabobank, thanks to generous mama, whom we called & cheered a thank you. (when my niece was little, i trained her to call mama "grandma claus" bc of her easy largesse -- just a few days ago, mama took us to see my 1st opera, the silly, sexy rossini farce "le comte ory," at the edwards cinema!) none of my friends had seen "cats," & for me it had been 20 yrs; i was stunned by what i'd not appreciated when i was a kid -- the limber, lissome cartwheeling & twirling, executed SILENTLY by athletic dancers who at the same time SANG -- as well as was ongoingly distracted & chagrined by flashbacks to the "simpsons" parody of the play... despite my prematurely hardened shell, when i'd see "cats" as a cynical kid i'd always cry during the show-stopping histrionics of "memory," the last time copping a resentment cause i knew that dang tear-jerking note was coming, but could do nothing to stave the waterworks. what melodic calculation -- what musical dishonesty!! to save my friends potential embarrassment, i slipped them kleenexes, instructing jani to wait to give one to young jenna, who is sharp & cool & therefore might not even be moved... engrossed in the play, jani directly handed the kleenex to jenna, which then meant i was gigged for the rest of the show. i'd look over & jenna'd be grinning at me, making crying motions w/her face & hands. i'd look over again & she'd whisper, "how you doing, sniffles?"
- a few thousand breaths later, i was having bbq in a teepee in tehachapi, then headed out to the desert to see a friend speak at a meeting. afterward i had thrifty's ice cream &, in the dark desert night, promptly got lost w/no gas in the tank. many unhappy hrs later, i met cattie ness & her band at country kitchen in bksfld & practiced at a studio off union avenue & i do love how becky leads the band w/firm hand, yet how laid-back she can be as well as appreciative of other musicians, & i like how loose & friendly the revenge is & that we played every song today SUPER FAST!!! it'll be a fun birthday show i'll get to take pt in w/bd girl cattie/becky. 2nd guitarist adam -- whose pleasant air, quick ear, mild manner, & even looks remind me of the phil -- & i will be guest revengers that eve, & hellbound hayride & another psychobilly bands will play, too. whee!
- after the happy sardine-can ride home w/johnny & fabi, i got email from a lovely musician who wrote, "would you like to come play w/us?" what a thrill! i hope it happens, but if not, to be asked was nice... so in spite of life's little & sometimes big ups & downs, music, like life, goes on. c'est la vie... c'est la musique!