life is a cabaret, old chum...

... one made of microtubules. this i wrote on fb, so rather than rewrite, am pasting it here bc what it describes is highly noteworthy:
Just watched 2010 BBC documentary "The Day I Died" on Youtube !!!!! Mind is separate from brain, microtubules within each cell operate as quantum computers, superposition & quantum entanglement allow consciousness to remain when the corpus dies; spooky & beautiful accounts from near-death survivors, plus the rationalist (skeptical) view to balance it all.. BBC pulled this doc after airing it, not wanting to be associated with "fringe" ideas, but... YOU GOTTA WATCH IT!! Its startling ideas baffled, excited & comforted me hugely & may you, too... jnypg
if that intrigues you, google stuart hameroff, one of the world's preeminent laborers in the field of microtubules & consciousness. fascinating research & theory! for more fun, google "qualia" & "seamus heaney," whom i studied & didn't appreciate as an undergrad, but do now in my relatively advanced (for me) years.
other than that, well, just was reminded today again life's quite a ride, quite a cabaret, quite a merry-go-round, quite an unpredictable baffling tamale... prompting a new song. haven't written a full one in quite some months.  a little sunshine on a cloudy day? more like a cathartic process i'm vitally fortunate to possess.
it's beautiful here. gonna blow this popstand for a bit to visit friend & family. arrividerci.

friendships! & having fun in backwardsfield...

the lady below has known james for decades, & when james & i became a couple, she was wholehearted in her support for us: "james has been my friend forever, and if he loves you, i love you, too!" she exclaimed, & she's proved it many times. in middle age, her life hit some serious rough patches after she suffered some huge personal losses; like any of us, she's no angel, but like the best of us, she has a big heart & is loyal & loving. she came to visit & we had a good time hanging out, tho she froze most of the time in the mountain climate. put on a coat! i kept grouching, but she wouldn't listen... so appropriate that our friend would be stubborn...
wanted to report on a few great experiences we had last week in backwardsfield. you should check em out when you're there:
1. driving in the country outside town, james told me, "i wanna go someplace where i can sample fruit & nuts!" our 1st stop was a locally-well-known grower/tourist attraction/fruit place off 58 on the way to tehachapi, a bust: the selection of fresh stuff was small (it IS winter, but...), the samples parsimoniously controlled by a woman who actually sneered when i said my dad grows citrus, too! the vibe of the place was not too friendly, our "okie pie" tasty but too expensive. next we headed for california fruit depot, which i've seen signs for for yrs but never visited. highly worthwhile! we walked in the small store to shelves of dried fruits & nuts, with samples of everything that you are trusted to sample on your own! in the back rm, i was able to squeeze my own fresh sample of orange juice. it was delicious, tho... not as good as dad's. :) a picture window looks out on the production line, with (all female, when we visited) workers quality-checking fruit tumbling out onto a conveyor belt, colorful boxes labeled for shipment to asia on the floor-level conveyor. we came out with orange creme almonds (they taste like torrones!), "frog balls" (a horrifyingly-named concoction which james & angie knew of & love!), & garlic chips, all weird & delicious treats. on top of this, the ppl who work there are nice, nice, nice! if you're anywhere near southeast bakersfield, you gotta go to this place! http://calfruitdepot.com
2. backwardsville is known for antique shopping, having write-ups in national magazines & newspapers. with the gias, we hit a 2-block length of 19th street downtown, starting off at the old woolworth's, now three stories of antiques. the highest floor, once a work/storage rm, we thought, was most interesting to me, w/its exposed 1930s-era ventilation system & doors hand-labeled from a time when big department stores ruled the land & had whole storage rooms just for candy. we found a whiteboy james-style army-issued black trenchcoat for very reasonable bill, then went to a place around the corner filled w/toys, comics & all the junk i wanted when i was a kid... james & i almost hyperventilated cause there was too much stuff for us to look at, but little of interest for mom & dad, so we resolved to return, just the two of us, or with the bennetts... the place of most note, for me, & that i want to hep you to, if you ain't hepped, was the merry-go-round antique mall. this pretty antique store has a funky treasure in its basement: a fake vintage movie theatre they seem to've built just for fun: behind yellow cages along the walls are a small lobby, classic movie posters, a ticket booth w/mannequin ticket seller, & a theatre screening an old picture & inhabited by a few dummy-patrons! in another room, a sign announces "pool use for hotel guests only" or something close, behind which are fake palms & sun shades to mimic a resort of old: such imagination & whimsy must be promoted, even if just on this little blablablog! here's a facebook link to the place so you can see it, too: merry-go-around antiques
(if you love military/work clothes, but also costumes! costumes! costumes!, another place you shouldn't miss is howard's workwear in the bakoland quarter of oildale. this is one of the best costume shops i've ever seen, as good as ones in san francisco & austin, i think, tho far darker, more cluttered, & less fancy! howard's workwear & costumes on facebook)

reflection...

life is short. and horrible. or beautiful. or something in the middle, the wide, wide middle. and one extreme can veer to the other, depending on the split of your pendulum's walnut. like my good-starting life went horrible for years, then beautiful, then horrible, then back again cause my walnut's kinda cracked. seems to've stabilized somewhat in past years, knock wood...
just feeling reflective (not like a bicycle reflector or a disco bulb or a wading pool, as lightning-minded james would maybe quip...)
james's friend, musician joe houston, recently passed on, & also a few wks back the world lost bakersfield sound pioneer red simpson, who lived to the ripe age of 81. tough for musicians to make it to their 80s, i think, w/the wearying lifestyle of weird hours, smoky places, booze, pep & other substances, crappy pay for most, stress & violence, promoters & club owners, & lonely, lonely

mr handsome, tony lopez & some gray-haired woman

nights. the exhilaration & godly embrace of stage time's mighty brief compared to all the other hours in the day... loved ones save. red & joyce had many, many -- true, deep, forever friends & loved ones, like james does, not just hangers-on & glad-handers, of which there've been & will be many.
rest in peace, joe houston as well as red "suitcase" simpson, a decent man, prolific songwriter, friend to so many, & hard-working musician til the end.
i worked at a different library in the south valley yesterday, a gladdening time. it's not a fancy library like the one on the mountain, but has more volumes, & i got to do lots of heart-warming & soul-bolstering librarian tasks with patrons & rub elbows with cute little latte-colored black-haired tykes & hushed but earnest parents. i love that part of library work best, the helping humans part, information-seeking 2nd. my spanish will get much better at this position, & i'm happy now to get to both play music & work in these knowledge repositories, bolstering literacy & community & safety...
we've had some gigs lately, me & james along with tony lopez on drums, & especially taft -- TAFT!, the once-sundown town i used to be skeerd of! (as late as in my teenaged yrs, i seriously thought me & mama might get hanged if we went there) -- has the warmest, friendliest folks. like i felt when i lived in backwardsville, many of the ppl of taft feel they have to apologize for their down-home town, but there's a lot of good going on there as well as the dumbness &/or violence, which everyplace has... a few wks back we drove out to taft college so i could talk to its english dept staff about online teaching & i discovered taft college recently was rated #5 in the CCC system! that's a huge WOW!
i hear sleepyhead stirring in the other room, so i'll sign off now except to say i hope joyce simpson will have comfort & peace in these first weeks w/o her beloved husband. extra prayers for my friend candice, the widely-admired & adored "toughest woman alive," & my wild aunty rita, who just won't take care of herself, but we all love her anyways... & reflecting on ppl i've known who are ill or just wondering how they are these days... may all be well. (except you. yes, you.) :)

next!!

please come see us...
  
(postscript to my blablablog -- my latest obsessions are neville brand & barbara ehrenreich. the best movie we've seen recently was called uncle john: seek it out! the creepiest was the scientology documentary going clear... yeechh!!)

an important message...

(EXCESSIVE EXCLAMATION POINTS AHEAD)
if you're reading this, you are alive. stay that way!!! it ain't gonna last forever!!  life might not have gone or be going how you wish it would, but know you have a reason to be here. what is it? i don't know: i'm not you!!! -- probably something to do with helping other living creatures!!
our meeting tonight was about the difficulty of living in the middle. so many of us "first world" human folks have trouble just living. not only is our commodity culture immoral & corrupt, built to make us all feel bad if not on the treadmill of consumption, but not everyday's fireworks! or a parade! or lollipops & laughter! or hahaha, lalala!
things don't always go my way or yours!!
it's not so bad to sit in the modest, humble, homely middle way. most of life is like that, in fact. it's ok to be ok. i don't have to be either exceptional or a piece of dogsh*t. i don't have to act like a teenager or try to cling to immature dramatics. most hues in the palette of creation aren't black or white. the prudent way is to get to "the middle of the herd," as steve c used to say. the other elephants can't hold me up when i'm low if i'm out at the edge or off by myself. "no man is an island." etc etc etc etc etc. blablablablabla. you get da picktcha.
go forward & live.

yayyyyyyy!!!!!

feel so good about this new year. :) hope you do, too.

jumping jehosaphat, casey hensley sings like no other!

ant, me, beloved james on happy new year's eve 2015-2016...