karling, cattie, lessons learned, devils, music, travel, friendship, & chuggachuggachugga choochoo

i want to write, i want to write, i want to want to want to write...full of cereal, laying-around-with-dogs, zapped from long phone conversations today (usually i eschew phone, but am so glad i answered it cause sometimes friends reach out & i'm so glad i was there)... geez; there's so much to write about, too... argh. ok, here goes: went to france, led by b, to whom i'm grateful for organizing the trip, even w/times of disconcerting roughness. experienced w/france, she led us four to paris, where we got to stay in center of town in a gorgeous historical apartment, near louvre, tuillieries, not far from the seine. i got the apartment loft for several days, turning it over to fabi when she arrived. went jogging at palais royale. little kids chased me & giggled cause people in paris don't really jog, esp females. went to a rockabilly-swing music show @ the moulin rouge. pianist fabian was awesome, but i don't speak french. oh well. fabi danced w/a boy dressed like a ww2 soldier. he later showed up @ the attignat fest looking like an extra from guys & dolls. a beautiful kid, blue-eyed, dark-haired. french people generally are beautiful. became object of adoration of a sweet young guy named lucien, who also didn't speak english. it was puzzling... i was flattered & scared. he even jumped metro trains to come back & try to get me to go have coffee w/him. i was glad the other "girls" were there. onward. made friends w/eccentric, free-spirited, fun, willful laurie; i was grateful for her kindness. saw a hushed medieval village, perouges, where maybe i had some deja-vu. visited many stunning churches & cathedrals; i'm not religious, but i am dialed to be high, & the beautiful things of this world, such as catholic palaces of worship, stir my soul & aesthetic pleasure, not to mention remind me of our dear departed grandma, who was devout. took beautiful bullet trains: paris to lyon, paris to rennes. walked & walked & walked & walked. got to know the metro system. smoked galoise cigarettes & went on adventures w/laurie. fell in love w/wearing scarves, which immediately dress up & girly-fy any outfit (tho french men wear them, too, as well as color, & look terrific). fell in love w/french bread, &, to my detriment, perhaps, butter. went to the rocks at carnac, the cairn at gavrinis (i bumped my head inside the latter). made the pilgrimage to mont san michel, walking there & back in torrential rain & wind. had 90% incredible meals & desserts & coffees, including one particularly amazing feast after our attignat rockabilly fest show, an ultra-rave-up during which i played not just w/cattie ness, but with paris's hot rocks trio, who called me up to sit in w/them! back to the feast: after we played, the club owners heaped the table w/breads, cheeses, meats, pickles, butter, water, &, at end, trays of coffee w/steamed milk & sugar... it was not just beautiful, but so delicious! i also couldn't help falling in love w/the ultra-rockin' hot-rocks trio: red dennis, baby-faced, tough-guy ted w/whom i'll chat more next time, when i can speak french; intellectual, accomplished, well-dressed alexis, stoic til he discusses american music, & then his serious eyes glimmer w/yearning; & generous, full-of-life, trilingual francis, laughing, friendly, w/louis prima's ursine bearing & gerard depardieu's flirty burr of a voice... i was so smitten w/francis, but then met his wife & was just as smitten w/her. what a lovely couple! on our last night, they treated us to raclette @ their cheerful vintage-decored pad on the edges of paris, & what a beautiful time that was, chatting warmly in our pidgin french-spanish & english (only francis is fluent in all), listening to gypsy jazz & rockabilly, admiring their proximity to both the music university & concert park, & eating this amazing raclette, which is a dish of melted cheese & potatoes... well, there's so much more i could write, such as about all the swell musicians i got to meet & watch at the attignat festival, as well as its fervent, friendly, innocent-in-their-joy fans, & other places we went, things we saw, etc etc etc... will try to post pix sometimes soon. upon return home, i hung out w/my dear family, then had a gig w/karling as well as dusk devils at rockwell's trouts in bakersfield. the funnest [sic] parts were our ramrod dusk devils set, sans bassist cause robbie was up on the mtn, during which the small crowd laughed & laughed & smiled & cheered & oh, how i so love that feeling... then karling came up & she & i sang "let's have a party" collins kids-style, which was quite pleasing & silly & fun for me, & i believe for her, too... two days later we had the barndance in burbank at which we bulled our way thru our short rockin DDs set, then karling's, then got to hang out all eve w/legends of the american music scene, most excitingly for me, of course, phil alvin, who was typically amazing in his part of the show...the hollywood borracho crowd of jonny whiteside, raucous walter, groovy rednecks' tex, & brian hogan were fun, dave stuckey & marty rifkin friendly & musically amazing; other than these folks, i mostly visited w/skip edwards (THE fantastic house pianist) & art fein, art & i drawn in from the patio goggle-eyed by a super-rockin sound that turned out to be 3 bad jacks. they were green-bay-rockin-50s caliber that night! another highlight was how much fun bassist robbie had at the show, so, so excited to meet his hero rosie flores as well as many pretty girls (robbie is a young looker)... we had a terrific bd party for dad in bakersfield next day, & the following i was able to head back to the mountains w/the doggies, now just sitting here cooling my heels & waiting for the next show, which won't be til next week... that's about it for now. likely time for another dog-nap, which unlike a catnap, can stretch the whole dang day.. this lazy, lovely weather's just ripe for it. love to anyone still reading. may i suggest finding now some transcendentalist poems? or maybe a good-rockin tune or twenty...