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.