"forget it, jake. it's chinatown."

Marseilles isn't a city for tourists. There's nothing to see. Its beauty can't be photographed. It can only be shared. It's a place where you have to take sides, be passionately for or against. Only then can you see what there is to see. And you realize, too late, that you're in the middle of a tragedy. An ancient tragedy in which the hero is death. In Marseilles, even to lose you have to know how to fight.

Jean-Claude Izzo

i've been watching the netflix french potboiler marseille (a sleazy-fun view: dallas for francophiles), starring gerard depardieu, my favorite crazy actor. he might be a nut, but can he emote more with his nostril & small wince of porcine eye than can most any other actor? certainement! and his voice: i've fallen in love w/various males largely because of their pipes (well, & large frontal lobes). only twice did i have boyfriends (ha!) of uninteresting, even annoying vox, & each time it was fubar enormous... it's always fascinated me -- maybe you, too? -- great &/or gorgeous men who go to pot: orson welles, elvis, marlon brando, oliver reed, even: maybe being that spectacular is too much for the human flesh bag to contain. no one since brando has puffed up & weirded out quite like depardieu, i don't think, but yet he allures...

then there's the experience that resembles depardieu: something ugly in which one must root out beauty, like an easter egg or junk store jaunt or exploring abandoned places or doing seemingly unending research... these experiences can be so much more rewarding than the new & "perfect," in my opinion, when they reveal beauty/revelation/discovery. and that's why i always will love bakersfield, which long ago i realized is like a bad relationship, so often dissatisfying, disappointing, even heartbreaking, but the moments when it is beautiful shine brighter than sunlight because of their rarity.

james tells me most places are "bakersfields," like even the places i used to think "if only i were THERE..." i think he's right. i can't demonize bakersfield anymore: nearly every place is bakersfield. there IS that thing called the bell curve, yknow, which, while not applicable, i don't think, to racial or SES matters, IS pertinent in our human cultural world, which maddeningly seems to slide toward the mundane, even stupid.

oh heck, i forgot why i got on here. oh yeah; something beautiful in bakersfield: 

NO SCHOOL AGAIN!!!!! aaaaaaaahhh!!!!

- we had to cancel shenanigan's yesterday due to the weather! dang it!!! and now school's cancelled!
when i worked in bakosfield, i woulda loved all these school cancellations. this is the 6th snow/wind/weather cancellation this year!  not that i didn't like the kids in backwardsland, but i didn't love my job then like i love it now, teaching on the mountain. i know now how mama felt all those yrs. i could never understand why she'd stay so late at school, grading papers, arranging her room. she had the most beautiful room. she was a super teacher. she devoted herself 200% to school, as she does everything. mama is a lover & a doer, a creator, a leader. i'm certainly not in that caliber or ever will be, but i really enjoy now staying after school in the quiet, prepping everything just so for the next day. it's comforting, energizing: it feels right, like playing the pianny or talking to another woman drunk or listening to good music or running or watching a great movie or kids or animals at play or homo sapiens being kind to one another... anyways...
 it helps to be rid of the distraction of always trying to be glamorous, yes, it helps being older (not really wiser, tho). i love the kids kinda like a grandma would, i think (gadzooks! i'm their near-grammy age!), plus i get to be creative at this school, so i get that "mama" feeling in that way. at this school, the boss lets us come up w/ideas & try them out, so now i'm doing drumline, color guard, art class, book room, library in addition to 6th grade class. yay! now she'll likely let me have meditation time for the kids who want it, tho likely under a different moniker so parents fundamentalist or otherwise won't freak out. we have a lot of traumatized &/or wigged out kids at our school: i think correctly planned, this could help the ones who want it.
wow! it's really coming down out the wihnder! they cancelled school, i think, bc of high winds/rain, the latest storm. altho it's been in the 30s & 40s, relatively warm compared to january, we're sposed to have more snow tonight. i read an interesting bit about rain/snow conversion on our local weather website, w/which i'm obsessed. living in this elemental place can cultivate obsession even in the most normal, i'd think, & weather-mania is a healthy direction to point craving feelings. here's the website, maintained by a golden local, god bless him for being so meticulous: www.fpweather.com
- this might be only interesting to me, but maybe you, if you're interested in such things: i downloaded an android altimeter app (called simply "altimeter") & discovered the following: long beach ca, where most of our music gigs are, is at 13 ft elevation. poo! whatever! however, our house is at 5040 feet. i like that! now come the big contrasts: downtown frazier park, just 1 mile below our home, is near-400 ft lower. no wonder it's so hard to chug up that road on foot! our exit from the interstate, 5 miles down the road, is 1200 ft lower. my school is 1800 ft lower. the entrance to the san joaquin valley, the rd to bakerspatch, is 3800 ft lower than our home!! i hope our blood is becoming super-rich from all the elevation changes we experience daily. :)
- anyways, back to today: when dad fell off a 5-foot ladder some months back, indomitable, hyperbolic aunty rita called cousin tushi in tx & told her "uncle gil fell off the roof!" aunty rita's a member of the same mutant race james is. (he, too,'s been known to shuck facts in favor of a rollicking tall tale: maybe it's a trait connected to the superhuman metabolism of such folks?) she called this a.m. at butt-crack-thirty to tell me "you gotta get off that mountain. they're saying on the news the winds are gonna be blowin' 90 mph. you & james gotta get down to bakersfield NOW." merde! i got back in bed, somewhat troubled, clutching james's warmly sleeping hulk for comfort. soon after, a gust blasted the house, shaking its timbers & ripping across the roof like god's gigantic comb. ah! we just lost the roof! thought i. how much is THAT gonna cost?!?!
no more sleeping now.
but the weather says the gusts only will be 65 mph.
i think we'll be ok. :) we've had 70, & no one here blew away to oz.
at this rate, tho, we'll never get to play shenanigan's on a thursday night til winter is completely over. va fan! this has been a heckuva winter, tho i know pallid by past-decade standards.... cacahuates! now it's snowing again! how is that posssible when it's 37 degrees?!? time for more coffee.

poster by mister page

he is learning postermywall & so has been making gig flyers. we will be at this show tonight unless it rains in long beach... have a parent mtg for one of my favorite kids early, better get cracking. happy day.

el dia de la enfermedad & go see wbjbe tonight at shenanigans in lbc ca usa

am trying to blog, but the cat won't have it. he crawls behind the computer & swipes a claw at the mouse as i move it. with great effort, i haul his gigantic bulk to the ground, & he responds with a pounce, teeth bared. earlier he was a big fat sweetheart warming my feet as i rested, but now... we know if he were human-sized & human, he'd be an autistic psychopath & we'd both have been shredded to pieces long ago...
been having weird dreams the last few nights. they come up whenever i'm sick. today's, time was kerflooey, as dreams are, & i was telling my ex-husband, a good man, that i'd been a crummy wife, then i jettisoned a yucky creep, feeling much better about the whole thing than the way it shook out in real life many yrs ago... then was looking all over for james to tell him BC i felt he'd be proud i'd been honest & in the dream, i FOUND HIM & all was well. he was silly & dashing & goofy & tough, like he is. in past dreams, i can't find him. so this is all good. 😀
wanted to post about decent silent film just watched on pub-d-hub (think that's what it's called) on the old roku on the old tv we just got free from a local lady... set it up in bedroom for lovely tv viewing on sick bed day... feeling weary. it's one of those "it's going around" illnesses... but wanted to share that this is worth watching for its social realism & lead actress & poignant plot & lack of misogyny... the goddess ... not the greatest film ever, but worthwhile.... if you're near long beach ca us this eve, go see the amazing whiteboy james on stage all night. if you don't know it yet, he is an astonishing performer, the wonderful, one-in-a-billion, big-hearted galoot... better go now. be well.

where i'll still be tonight

where james will be tonight & we'll be thursday