the question isn't will you do it? / the question is can you do it?

life has been in session lately, which is recovery-speak for things have been pretty shite. songwriting is a productive funnel for emotion, so i wrote a song just now in the style of the 5 royales, recorded a video, then realized i'm too deflated to figure out how to upload it. but this pic of my home recording session reminded me of a co-worker i had many lives ago, when i worked for buck owens & dated his youngest son. this co-worker, who typical of that time felt entitled to say such things, said "jenny g** (my family name), some days you look fine, & some days you look like sh*t." this pic is more of the former variety, w/its

flattering bright lights. there's an episode of seinfeld (tellingly, of that same time period) on that same idea: the woman who is a goddess from one angle, medusa from another. anyways, i can't play you the song right now here, but one of these days i hope i'll record the hundreds of songs i've written & just throw them out there on some platform or other. i've even considered going to tiktok, tho i feel i might be decades too old. my friend ruben (late of the blazers) used to say put the songs out there, let them steal them, then go after them. that was in the days before streaming, however. who knows now what would happen. i know the few times ppl have written songs about me, or even better, recorded songs i wrote, it's been a great compliment. ok, back to Life. not knowing what will happen is a great curiosity & terror, but it's the only notion that's realistic. all moments have led to the great Now.

chop wood, carry water

keep trudging

blablablablablablabla

james, in a typical state of insomnia-triggered exhaustion, put on a gangbusters sold-out show yesterday in long beach, ca. on his bathroom break, i jumped up & sang one & people laughed & grinned. after, i chatted with steven hodges about one-man bands: he's working on one, too! i told promoter cadillac zack about mine & he said i'm the only one around who sings like wanda jackson; let's work together. my foot's still healing, but once i can get thru a few sets w/o it killing me, i'm gonna hit up a bunch of musicians from jump blues to western to psychobilly to see about opening... on the way home, we stopped at the whopper palace, which serves impossible burgers, yknow, & i realized the ones in taft (a rural place) actually are plant burgers, not impossible. impossible actually tastes & feels sorta like meat! weird but good... today has been an exhausted blur. i finished watching huge-fun wacko netflix documentary kings of tupelo & have been trying to get going on projects but bleh. no gas in the tank! guess some days, if a person has the minute, a rest or snooze might be in order. hard to do when the world's so full of interesting shtuff... did learn about some cool new (to me) musicians like bad banana & rell robertson & make chickpea cakes, which were if not scrumptious, at least decent. the older human's predicament: how to get enuf protein?? esp when eschewing the cannibalization of our animal brethren. well, that's enuf fo now but here's pix of ever-cinematic mister james with super-mensch guitar monster anthony contreras.