i'm an a**hole

(thinking of that denis leary song from decades back)... since james started turning the basement into a podcast studio, i've been down there a few times more than usual. the usual used to be to go down only when doing laundry, & then never to the basement back-40 w/its serial killer shadows, certainly venomously-infested wood piles, creepy shelves. recently, i peered back that way & noticed vermin nests in the shelves where i had stuffed my Lifetime Boxes. rats; this meant action was in the future, messy, emotional, time-consuming action... today i finally donned a mask & hauled the disgusting boxes up to the long porch, our nawlins porch of wrought iron & wrap-aroundedness. five hours later, the boxes i brought up were all separated: 1) keep; 2) give to others; & 3) sell at the antique shop. yep, i'm so vintage now, the stuff from my teenage yrs, 20s, & 30s are collectible. to continue with the numerating, those five hours brought these discoveries: 1) i used to have about 40 more IQ points than i currently do; 2) was super-arrogant about always being the smartest person in the room; 3) had absolutely no common sense; 4) completely objectified the men in my life as if they were figures i was drawing or were players in a movie i was watching; and 5) tho now dumber, i prefer who i am now, not who i was, the young female who somehow didn't overdose or get murdered... those boxes full of rodent poop & vermin nest piles contained many emotionally-sobering items, but so many wonderful ones, too. 1) our dad is a droll, absurdist deadpan artist & always has been. 2) friends' & boyfriends' correspondences -- considerable in those pre-cyber decades -- were bright, witty, troubled, but so brilliant! at the time, i had no idea of all the brainpower by which i was surrounded! 3) there were cards from family & friends no longer in this realm, 4) drawings from students & family members now adult, 5) obsessively photographic artwork by me, young, talented me, her head so far up her a** i'm surprised she could see to draw. by the former inhabitant of this somehow-same (at least similar) human suit, 6) obsessively worded articles, hundreds and hundreds of them, no exaggeration!! i wrote a lot!! she wrote a lot!!! she loved to write, draw, observe & analyze... all in futile attempt to control other people, places, & things. nice try, young one, but i am glad you are gone -- though i wish i still could write such elaborate sentences & draw with such acumen! -- in the end, it's a plenty-good trade to now have mental health & (mostly) times of peace & gratitude. "alcoholics tend to confuse chaos with adventure," i've heard. this calmer life is the way a person gets to make it to old age, & i'm glad for it.. related to the boxes but decades ago, my then-best friend marc & i used to ditch high school & drive from bakersfield to hollywood. we always went to hollywood book & poster. in those days, it was a big dusty mess of boxes over-spilling with lobby cards, movie posters, film memorabilia, a real junk heaven of movie paradise. on one of those trips, i got (among other stuff) a signed gary leonard photo of phil alvin with the gun club's jeffrey lee pierce. it had to have been in the dollar bin; that's the only place i really shopped, being a kid with no job... well, i thought i had lost that photo forever, but there it was, in one of the disgusting boxes!!... and now here it is for you to see, too...

the next pic, also gary leonard but not an original, shows a kid in the audience who looks suspiciously familiar, but james sez it ain't him. this would've been right around the time he met phil. what do you think?

bluhbluhbluhbluhbluh

"we're going to have fun," james reassured me. the day before the gig, my go-to keyboard had taken a crap, so i was fretting. after much swearing, i realized i'm just gonna have to start prying the broken keyboards open & seeing what's inside. but for this gig, i had to take a casio james got me over in lake hughes, a great deal, but set up for classical playing. not much bottom end. my amp had been all set up finally, perfectly, for the yamaha that had taken a crap. it finally sounded real cool with the vocals and kick drum set-up. oh well. james sed it was gonna be fun, & i needed to believe him, so i went to work yesterday, then came home & we loaded up & drove to la habra for the gig & my part went fine except the keyboard just didn't sound full enough. james's band had two subs yesterday, & when jerry lee luithle came in on the first song, big butted woman (not a subtle number), the full bombastity of his thumb-pounding bass on that particular number made me laugh & thrill aloud. it was the perfect fat, humorous, rich, wonderful tone for that silly-cool anthem to dumbness that james wrote! james's friend jll's tone was the most thunderous bass sound i'd heard since manuel (r.i.p.) playing bass 15 yrs ago at a southland vfw... jerry lee was named by his father after the killer & taught robert lucas how to play, james said. jerry lee spoke wistfully of his father, a music lover & honky-tonk pianist, & took videos of me playing. i guess my playing made him think of his pop. and how nice was that. :) it was a long but fun night. the band sounded really loose but tough & full. james, 7 months-plus without mind-altering substances, brimmed with charisma, good cheer, silliness, naughtiness, toughness, benevolence, virility. wobbling with fatigue, trying to get coffee, i watched him from the bar, & there he was: balding, middle-aged, yet there he was, all eyes on him because he just has that: all eyes are drawn to james, bursting with light & life, one of this world's good-will ambassadors... other than this, what i'm thinking about is how tony lopez has the best gear, & his vintage drum kit had some super-cool tones. "tony, play that," me & anthony pointed, & he pounded his super-cool tom-tom, & anthony laughed as i yelled like tarzan swinging from the vines. yes, good-natured anthony was spot-on, & it was great fun yapping with buoyant him, the sweet, shy, boyish man who plays like a lunging predator... so as you can see, all was going well enough, but then on the way home james's tank, the purple parade float, broke down & we ended up having a brain-deadingly-long evening. as we waited & waited to get home, i kept flashing on how many ppl i've read about who, something like that happens & it's all over for them. the car breaks down, they can't get to work, they lose their job, they can't pick up their kid, cps swoops in, they lose their place to live, the dominos fall disastrously, maybe even fatally. for us, he has triple-a & i have a middle-class union job: it all worked out in the end. so there was a lot to be grateful about... we met a kind tow truck driver who took us to a nearby denny's so we didn't have to stand outside, then after some waiting (no one wanted to drive from the city to the rural mountains), a gig-driver with spotless hybrid decked out with twinkling lazer lights, european chocolates, & bottled water scooped us home. in armenian tones, he burred that he couldn't sleep & got the call & realized he wanted to "help these people" (us), so he took the job. his main career, he said, was at a school for autistic children in north hollywood. i conclude that we met some roadside angels because, though salaried to do these tasks, they did them kindly & they did them well... a few hundred bucks down, we arrived home around 5 am to happy dogs, cat slinking around our ankles, tv, comfy bed, home. & that's about it, i think, for now.

happy mamas' day

to all mamas, all you mothers, all you aunties, all you seesters & grandmas, all you menfolk, too, all you humans who care for others, who nurture, who abide, who forgive, who endure, who are patient, who love.

more ghosts

am trying to set up a new website for james. godaddy was all messed up & they said his domain would be safe, but it wasn't. godaddy has been such a pain in the ars for so many yrs, we might be grateful for this "loss." while trying to setup the new site, i came across all these pix in james's photo cache. so many memories. so many ghosts. the only person you might not recognize is the one of me & aunty rita. she was quite a character, one of my heroes, even if james only met her at the end, when she couldn't tell her funny stories about oj simpson or mean joe green.

ghosts and second-guessers

decades ago my friends ruben and manuel made a blazers (r.i.p awesome east-LA band) christmas cassette tape. it was a load-of-fun-listen. since i've always loved singing close harmonies so darn much, i took the tape and another blank tape (you used to be able to do this), plugged in my cheap mike, pushed play on the blazers xmas tape & record on the blank, and made a new recording that added my vocal harmonies to their recording. undoubtedly there's still so much obsessively rewarding experimentation that goes w audio recording, all digital now, much ai-assisted. but in those days it was so basic, so immediately, tangibly rewarding: stand farther back from the mike & sing so the harmonies don't overpower the main vocals. bounce your voice off the wall for reverb. sing into the wall heater to get fuzz. record the instruments in an old bathroom to get a cool echo. yes, it always was engrossing fun to experiment, for me, in that dark wood-paneled parlor room in that large craftsman home in which i once lived in that long-ago life that i don't much recall... manuel always had such a beautiful voice; the christmas tape, all rollicking rock-n-roll good-cheer, seemed to be begging for a backup, plus, you know: the fun aspect.... my then-bro-in-law, at that time in his life a major ass, listened and sneered something like, "yeah, i bet you wish you could play with them"... i was only a bit crushed bc i knew it sounded good, & in the next decades, i got to play with manuel many times as a member of the big manny band, one of the biggest thrills of my life, & with ruben, too, most often at the yearly chango jams in memory of manuel/big manny... anyways, at that time with bro-in-law i did have a fraud-twinge, like mebbe i was an impostore of sorts. & i feel slightly like that now, adjusting this flyer, but the difference now is that i feel so much more solid about my one-man band. i'm doing it now, fully doing it, more than i ever did, & it feels so powerful, singing, playing keys, kicking the drum. truly, i feel like a badass when i do it. like i'm sposed to do it. and i am good at it. so here is the flyer, & der you go.

erstaunlich

today i missed seeing bernie sanders & "aoc" in backwardsville bc of feeling unwell. mama, angie, cousin thomas, mary fafa, & sister dawn all went & had a 'magical experience" with the packed house, so sh*t. i'm happy for them but wish i'd been there, too... i've been eating vegan since august with i'm sure some slips since animal stuff is in most every american processed food item. don't care at all about the condescending attitudes some pipo have had. i read that bc food is not just vital but cultural, emotional, addictive, any food choice that removes one from the master tribe will cause a person to be eyed with scorn, suspicion, etc., even envy! finally talked to sister & mama so that when we go out to eat, they don't loudly tell me what i can & cannot eat, & still need to talk to bro-in-law. what I eat does not hurt them, plus, bc of the privilege inherent in americanness, i won't starve. at least not right now, w the country insane but still maintaining steady food supply... if in the house of someone serving animal flesh, i try to be a good guest, not a psalm-singing ass. (it's the "when at grandma's" idea. you don't refuse food grandma serves you.) and you know what? most humans don't monitor others' food choices... unless the others make a big gd deal about it!!... i've really liked not having stomach problems & have dropped a bit of poundage, been taking supplements here & there, but lately, increasingly, have been feeling weak, so weak. so after all these months, just now was a big moment bc i had a tin of my favorite canned fish from aldi, just to see if it'd help, but shared it w james since it's been a good long while since i've eaten animal stuff & no need to be a fool... i cannot remember what the book the world peace diet had to say about fish suffering, so that helped to eat it w/o feeling guilty. the result? almost immediately, i started feeling more energetic. james said it's likely the placebo effect, but if so, so be it. i just know i now feel better. like, within minutes of eating the deliciously tender savory fish steaks in yummy sauce. so between tinned fish & the occasional local egg (from a chicken not in deplorable factory-farm suffering), i think i'll be more up to snuff now. i'm no longer vegan, but cows, pigs, lambs, goats, chickens, octopus, my beloved creatures, you all still are safe around me. i wouldn't eat a cat, a dog, or a two yr old baby, so why would i eat you?

no matter how old i get,

i always step in s**t!! you'd think i'd know better by now. argh!!!!!!

love to draw. so pleasing i still somewhat can.

drew these last night, quickly!, using a free online font generator. the table i bought in sta clarita @ the junk store to hold my keyboard had a piece of tagboard in the drawer, & in my pocket was a school expo marker. so i got the wild hair & drew these. such coincidences please my soul deeply!... i remembered that james liked a certain font @ one time i'd found for the stompers. it was easy to recall, being called "third man," like one of my very favorite movies on earth, but memory sez it's the font from the opening of "touch of evil." either way, it's very wellesian, but also blasterish, so that makes this font nearly-ultimate cool in my book... the other is a hodgepodge of fonts, & i like it ok... today we had another snow day, but also couldn't have school anyways bc the water board turned off the h20 in the lower pt of town, where the school is, to make well repairs... now it finally is sunny and beautiful; earlier was icy, icy snow... been reading & hemming & hawing & playing the piano all day with headphones, waiting for james to awaken so i can practice my one man band. my set-up is so cool; i am so pleased with how the pieces have come together so i can play keys, sing, & kick a drum, too. i hope to run it all through my amp so that i can be totally independent. it just feels better that way, especially with the strangeness of what i really want to do. that lonely rockin strangeness is what i still crave, even as i get old, closer to the grave... pumping away at the instruments & voice for 30 mins is like going for a run or jumping around in an exercise class. just love it!!!... gee, sure hope he wakes up soon... on another note, am looking & looking for a particular edition of a children's religious book. think i got it as a gift when i had my first communion 50 yrs ago (preceding a life of hostile irreligiosity turned -- only after sobriety -- to agnostic pantheism)...yes, the little book made my weird little kid soul feel soothed, how good jesus was, the pretty illustrations. it was a particular edition w/ a yellow cover, a hardback, likely from the catholic shop then on h street in bakersfield, but when i turned teen, i cast the lovely book in the trash, snarling (at least in my memory), yet with a pang of regret that still sticks in my craw. like, i knew even then i shouldn'ta dumped that little book, "jesus of nazareth" by mother mary loyola. if you read this & might have a link, thank you for sharing it... it's all an ongoing quest for connection w/the ineffable: the music, the weather, the little book, the relationships, the life-death pull. it's all one pancake.

well, that is it for now.

music

am going to start my one-man band again & open for james next saturday... i am so happy. i feel like myself again! in a musical sense, that is... i will play all the weird songs that i can pull off vocally and pianistically... and maybe with my feet drumming along. we'll see how unrusty i can get in one week... here is the flyer. please share it!

best. book. ever. and r.i.p., gene, betsy, & their canine friend

i ordered it from penguin for $20, including s/h. the real book, the tangible tome, i think you'd agree, is much preferable to the online read. including this one.

below is the best article i've read of the sadness of the last days of this actor, with whom i was in abject infatuation from ages 12-15. (before that was humphrey bogart.)

hackman's character of popeye doyle is a bit like james, at least james's hale, fearsome, tough-talking, irish, rogue-cop parts. of course, as with all people, there's so much more... keep your attention tight on your loved ones, is the message i get. cleave close to your fellows, for "no [wo]man is an island." here is the article: A Lonely End for Two-Too-Private People

blablablablablablablablabla

in another life, i wrote a thesis on the topic of "learning with soul." the idea was if ppl connect authentically to an experience, they must learn & grow. it's evolutionary... tho it's sunday & there's no need to wake early, the animules don't know this & got me up @ 6 am w tinkling collars & expectant pants signifying their need to go potty. my husband is giving penny her eye drops right now, sweetly singing to her that he loves her. she's healing slowly, having injured her tiny paw, which carries a quite portly frame... so this morn i finally made corn bread cake w minced jalapenos, splash of vinegar hot sauce, topped w maple syrup, but not enough binder since i'm still learning to cook, then add the wrinkle of cooking w/o animal products... if you didn't know it, you can replace egg w apple sauce or a "chia egg," which is a T of chia seed mixed in warm water. anyways, tho it crumbled, the cake was great, so tasty w coffee... james woke @ a decent hr & we talked about the male version of the human just wanting to be on stage (endlessly soloing harmonica player) & the female version (woman singing janis joplin or "black velvet"). i recall the time i sang on the crystal palace stage, buck owens' place in bakersfield, & young blonde tarts keened from stage side, "IIII wanna sing, let MEEEE up there!" and @ the time, i thot, they wouldn't say that if i looked more like a movie star, more like somebody, but i think now ppl who go to shows, events, they want to be in the limelight, too.... we just decided i won't play @ his bd show march 16. last yr i had to cover the show bc he was ill, & ppl didn't like that. my forte, too, is NOT shuffles, tho i can do them. i've not much seen my place in james's testosterone-heavy band, not to say i don't love what he does... i am still hopeful the stompers will rise again... that conversation led to his reminiscence of kris kristofferson, when he went to some fest w phil alvin & x, w whom he was friends for a long while, & how kind & bright kristofferson was, & how ppl who sing janis joplin usually cause the walls to vibrate, but janis herself was beautiful bc, again, she was authentic. real. she suffered & lived & it shined thru her music & soul... here are pix of fun last wkend. we drove to hollywood to have delicious plant power, which i wish was on every offramp instead of the other poison pushers, then we walked around hollywood & looked @ the sea of humanity there, a samurai exhibit, the walk of fame, the hollywood costume shop, & the famous hands & feet @ grauman's chinese theatre... the candles are from the mexican supermarket on the way home, so bright, mysterious, & some sinister-seeming... it was a great wkend, & this one's been trying but we're still trudging. ok, i think that's it for now.

oops, i uploaded the wrong pic. the one here is the place of mama's & my dreams, south union, south bakersfield, our trees, our beautiful old farm road, our beautiful eucalyptus looming like grandmothers, protecting, enveloping, they used to usher me home when i was young & drunk, & young mama drove under them w her loud large family en route to redondo beach from delano to visit aunty iney, a trip that used to take 8 hrs in the 40s & 50s... ok, that is really it now.

it's peanut butter time, peanut butter, butter ti-i-i-ime

(sing to tune of "finger poppin' time.") i sang that & james told me, "i saw him do that live." of course, it couldn't just be that he saw hank ballard. he saw hank ballard backed by the blasters... which i only have a bootleg cd of. just by being alive, james always one-ups me, & he's never trying, he's just recounting his life. he's lived more than i have. i wouldn't still live if i'd lived his life... i'm stuffed right now on seasoned black beans & tortilla & rice & onion. it's kind of cold here. we're sposed to have another storm this wk, so we've spent all day working on the house & getting this property ready inside & out. i did every chore except the one i've been wanting to do for months: build a ramp to the little house (antoine pearl junior). might be a little skirrd of hurting myself. anyways, today's been fine even w/o ramp-building. the old man dog is clacking his toenails around the dining room as i type. james took our girl penny to the store. i really have nothing to talk about. did go to an inspiring mtg the other day, with ppl who are into positive action & have hope. that's important nowadays. it sure helped our mama, who's been devastated since november. ;

later that day, me & my big baboo went to a super-fun antique mall in downtown bakersfield, my old home of 25 yrs. so weird to go there now. all those people & cars & noise & stores & convenience. everything seems so much easier in suburbia-city. but also louder, unsafer, more startling, more chokey-aired. back to wagon wheel antique mall, we were having a great time in the funhouse-like place with peeks of the tunnels of downtown, & then james of course says he's been in the bakersfield tunnels, tho me & dad've been trying to get in them for decades, & moreover he knows all the tunnels of long beach... like i said, he's just done so much more than me. ok, i need to finish chores before shower & collapse. here are some pix.

terrible, rotten, unethical, monstrous pendejo

Coronation Fact Check, Live Update
response: Bernie Sanders Goes Scorched Earth on President Bone Spur's Inaugural Speech

the valley of the smokes, a glass jaw, the cinque terre

LA is on fire!! the santa anas are not just speaking, but roaring. james sez the LA basin is water on one side, mountains on the other, & the people of old called the area the valley of the smokes! i know the biggest one of all is on the west side. lots of wealth, LOTS. hope every one of the people affected by these fires has insurance that pays, & that the rest of us are able to absorb the blow when it affects our own premiums. bc you know it's gonna be rich to replace those mansions, restaurants, yachts, six-figure rides, & etc.

my cousins all are brilliant, but one in particular also got up to the 3rd rung working for elon musk, & he lives in the fires. he took his wife & child to safety. "we're not worried," he told his dad, my brilliant, kind uncle. "we're in a hotel." he could buy the hotel, james quipped.

i hope most people burned out of their lives have similar resources. but i think that's not the case.

have heard some of the blazes could be arson. humans are always the problem. always.

been having these bad pains, earaches & stabs in the skull & jaw, missed work, & being a hypochondriac, went wild on webmd & convinced myself i was a step from the grave. visited the young medico up here & he said it was tmj. it can happen when you talk a lot, he explained. i'm a teacher & a performer & i do a lot of singing, i said, & he said, that's it. i got a shot in the keester & meds & was on my way.

looked at my paperwork. he had diagnosed me as having a dislocated jaw.

turns out you can get one if you do the above, but also 3) eat crunchy or difficult-to-gnaw foods; or 4) yawn or sneeze with too-wide-a-mouth.

so beware..... of the snapping glass jaw!!

feeling much better now, stopped the meds, been doing these jaw exercises, & we happily spent the day working on our abode. it's january, but we've had the house open all day. the weather's that balmy. somehow that seems it could be related to the fires, but i dunno. climate seems wackier than when i was a kid, but maybe it's just that now i pay attention to it.

this picture is us at a stop on our vacation trip to palm springs. we ended up at the spaghetteria (bc it was next to a junk store), run by the rossis of florence. the waitress seemed brusque, so i went to the can with an attitude, spying walls lined with pix of movie stars & gangsters. on the way back to our table, an old woman who looked so familiar grinned at me from the kitchen with friendly snaggly teeth & sparkly downturned eyes. i used to see such faces when dad's italian family would assemble. i felt comforted, warm, even. the food came & the plain pasta was so much better than i could've dreamed, & james said his pizza was the best he'd ever had. as we left, a video show that had been going displayed the cinque terre, which is where grandpa gia came from. look look! i exclaimed. the gias are from there! la spezia. i was there lifetimes ago, but all i remember is seeing the pope on tv on sunday morning.

"wow, it's so beautiful," james said. "i wanna go there. let's go there."

i felt so happy bc now, with the changes james's made in his life & consequently ours, we might be able to do that. we'll just see.