this weekend...

whiteboy james & the blues express plays this friday at sammy's original in lake forest ca & sunday 1 pm at the roadshow revival festival in ventura ca (see www.whiteboyjames.com for details). at bottom's the front & back of a flyer i made up we'll distribute at the fest. we opted to not sell merch. we don't want to give up even a penny. it's gonna be a good bunch of fun! i think fans will go nuts when the see james just being james!
just walked home from library. big uphill! high elevation! it's summer on the mountain, pretty hot (though with breezes blowing, thank goodness)! my favorite part of the walk/hike home is when i get to the cut-off point where i can take a short cut, climbing about 15-20 ft up the side of the road via a rope somebody thoughtfully tied to a shrub at top. it's a rugged detour, but rewarding: you gotta use your muscles, you gotta stretch, you can't be a weakling!
my "lunch at the library" job for june-july has been dubbed "the library workout" by boss marie: we put up & break down 10 tables & 70 chairs! between all the gigs & this, i lost 5 lbs last week, even with stupid thyroiditis & middle age & bad eating habits influenced by ravenous james, who eats like a hibernating beast, or like he might have a tape worm, but likely like a creature with high-gear hyper-manic metabolism... i can't eat like that, so am grateful to enjoy exercise & have opportunity lately to do more!
last wk i built a "meditation shack" on the back 40. my counselor-lady recommended i have a place to go meditate & pray, so i got a bunch of scrap lumber & nails & paint we already had & built a little place at the top of the hill in "the back yard" (leading to the national forest). happily, the view within is glorious. i cogitated a bit before starting construction, such as how to build it & where to put it, but didn't give a thought to view, so that was one pleasing coincidence.
i need to crawl in there & commune with the Great Spirit or Pumpkin or Singularity or whatever Good Grandness i only amorphously understand but do feel in a definite, visceral, even at times forceful sense -- anyways, think & surrender a bit about what to do with my career path. am grateful to be wanted in a few different fields, but the thought of giving up this bohemian lifestyle of 6 yrs' running to again step onto the path of job respectability, security & big bucks is... intimidating.
well, here's the flyer.  if you wanna order anything, just follow the directions & we'll send you some WBJ swag... tho please don't hold your breathe bc we can be a little tiny wee bit inefficient around here in getting tasks promptly completed (you WILL get your stuff, tho! you WILL!) :D

bum ba-bum bum

meeeeeee (hope you sang that, to the tune of the tums tv commercial of old...) i've just not wanted to write for some time... but this morning i realized it's that i haven't wanted to get on my computer because then... i have to... pay... ...
BILLS.
with this realization clear, i leaped up, turned on the ancient laptop, got it done. relief!!!
don't know why i procrastinate so at times. mebbe cause i don't have other bad habits, other than occasional descent into considerable depression & self-pity (& binge eating)... i rip articles from the NYer mag with plan to read them later. there was one on procrastination i kept for some months. but of course, i never read it. (badump-bump!)
geez, it's been a month since i wrote. i had my sobriety bd: 20 YEARS! didn't go to the international drunks convention in atlanta (HOTlanta, as dan m called it). got beautiful flowers from friends, pearls from james, cards, cakes, sobriety chip. my bd was a big huge happy wow. :)

Photo by Kaykay Jagger: me on really nice Roland, James w/new guitar.

mama recently had a 50 years reunion of her bakersfield college choir, the little choir that toured & sang all over europe, becoming the first americans ever to win wales's prestigious eisteddfod festival. at the college, i got to see their informal "concert" (they'd had just one practice) & with the first notes, dad, me, & the man to my right burst into tears. the sound of all of these reunited septuagenarians was that beautiful, that moving. we were watching something special & unique, all these talented once-20-somethings reconvened as 70-somethings, voices & hearts still so filled w/soul & conviction. choir director joe huzsti, who with his wife melinda have been huge life-long mentors to mama, talked about what this choir always has meant to him, tho he's since traveled the world many times, winning  many awards with other, more prestigious choirs, teaching musicians who've gone on to greatness. "they have a special something," he said (i paraphrase), delivering song so sincerely & w/a commitment that makes young musicians sound comparatively plastic. i thought of james. i thought of me. we're certainly not classically-trained maestros, but we are hard-working, hard-loving, hard-stomping & dedicated musical preservationists. the greatest compliment i ever got, i think, was from david nigel lloyd, who called me a "working-man's musician."
mr huszti was on the nose: no matter the musical genre, a few off notes, some clams, if sung or otherwise performed with unabashed, undiluted heart & soul, beam a life force that leaps from stage into the heart of the audience. such a performance can't help but move, being human, humane, transcending rather than "perfect"!
i'm so grateful i got to be there, as well as to help at the after-party at mom & dad's house! what nice folks! what talent! what testament to the power of music & hard work & love!
james has been having a wonderful time lately at his shows, both w/the newly-invigorated band & with me. he says so, & i can tell it's true. i'm so pleased for him!
we've gone out of town left & right. traveling, gigs, visiting family. friends have visited. we've played many music shows together, good, middling, great, fantastic! gotten magical feedback. i've worked at the library. still like it, still disconcerted to be doing one task at a time. i can get immersed in putting the books in order, tho. arranging all the deweys on all the books' spines is calming yet exciting, lulling, tranquilizing yet invigorating, like counting my footfalls when i run. that's the other thing! i've gotten to do some really cool jog-runs! and lotsa fun yardwork! even got some tomatoes growing, tho some butthead varmint's been eating them. and we've had a great time in the morns watching the birds, squirrels, & chipmunks chirping & hopping & munching & splashing at the birdbath/feeder area we set up under the window amongst some trees. the quail have birthed a new branch of the covey, so there's at least 20 of them running around here now, cooing so cutely, fatly, sweetly.
saw a coyote in the arroyo & for the 1st time since i watched one eat my cat in 2011, i didn't wish i could shoot it with a bb gun. as james has said, he's just trying to make a living. other than a deer, bunnies & hares are the only other animals i think i've seen... oh! and the biggest horny toad ever! i guess all the creatures have come down out of the forest to Civilization in search of water...
that's this wkend's biggest news: a huge storm washed in on tails of gulf hurricane. rain was beating the house like the band & i was sitting w/peeweenie (his name when he's being a turd) when i heard a great rushing swooping roar. i ran to the window & what a sight! storm runoff from higher climes had plummeted down the ever-dry, parched arroyo, creating a shooshing restless riverlet, a swifting running muddy creek! i got on galoshes & ran down there to chronicle the event... it smelled wonderful, like colorado used to (sure it still does, but i don't go there no mo) like wet pines, sage, earth.

Mt Pinos rocks (photo by Harriet H) from hike w/H

here comes the rain again! a cool heavy steady mountain shower! the rumble & flash of thunder & lightning! so invigorating! so scary! so beautiful! so overwhelming!
life! ah, life! we have it! :D

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

sitting here at my favorite picture window in the office area of our dining room... it's my favorite window in the world cause it looks out on the arroyo & mountains, always a beautiful view. the snow's been falling off & on for 3 days now, all types of it: big & sloshy; icy pellets; soft & gentle; plump flakes; dancing, steady, cascading, plummeting, frolicking, disappearing into the ground, sugaring the trees & earth, forming icy packs; & more. right now, it's falling like movie snow, blanketing the sky & land with quiet white calm. :) except for blizzards (only been thru one since moving here: yecch!! i had cabin fever after four hours!!!), i love the pretty

i am very, very, very, very, very lucky.

snow, & who wouldn't, if not besieged by it, as is happening in the eastern u.s. these days? snow brings cleansing, comfort, contemplation & beauty.
the wide & parched san joaquin valley's been getting rain as part of this weather pattern, & it needs it badly. so happy my dried-out, too-often dirty home area is being washed & quenched by the rains!
back where i lived from 2012-2014, they had a freak snowfall on the beach this a.m., but upon closer reading, turns out it was hail. i'm just glad i'm here now, that we're here, that life is unfolding as it is!!

the universe has been very good to us.

and how are you? i'm just swell, blabbing on a bit in the warm house looking out on the lovely snow cause i'm a little trapped today. couldn't hike in it today cause it never let up enough, but i did a few other times in the past week, always such an experience for which my heart fills w/gratitude & happiness: steps crunching, muscles warm & straining, lungs & heart pumping, breath pluming, inhaling the fragrance of wet pine & sage, enjoying the cool sting on my face, stooping to hydrate w/handfuls of the clean cold white stuff, just standing there, elevation-dizzy & dazed by the gorgeousness all around. wow! on the penultimate hike of the past week, i found a big chunk of deer skeleton for james, a bone collector, the biggest specimen i've brought home to him yet! the poor creature, no doubt coyote-killed, was reduced to meaty ribcase & spine as well as hip to hoof still encased in delicate, nubby fur: macabre, fascinating. james was delighted!
on another front, the other night we recorded 17 songs in 6 hours w/young producer nick, who got everything down w/adept speed & skill! after i laid down all my vocals, i visited my dear friend donna, just around the corner from nick's little studio, for a bit & we had one of our big, gigantic laughs & ate some delicious food she'd made for her daughter's party (& sent home for us -- yumyum!) & we watched a show about the dead sea scrolls before i returned to pick up dear james & we hit the late-late-night road for home... we goofed here & there on instruments, as would happen when going live at such a pace, but the only thing that needs work is the guitar sound:  james is confident he & nick'll get it beefed up just fine. yes, we went live, instruments 1st, then vocals; nick captured the very best piano sound i've ever gotten in a studio setting, really pumping & mighty & rich, as well as terrific vocals from james, who happens to be one of the greatest vocalists on this planet!!... we can't use all songs for a demo or to sell at shows, but we will have more than plenty once the mixing is done!
that reminds me: james's shows start back up march 14 w/a birthday show at LB's shenanigan's & i need to make a poster; he & i start up weekly in taft at the bank this thursday. music music music: we're jumping back in the mighty stream!

donna & i having one of our big snorting gasping guffaws

ooh, it's falling harder & starting to blanket the hills... what another lovely day, i pronounce unironically. i will put up posters for shows as well as more on our recordings as all shapes together... the snow's really falling now as night approaches, but the quail are bobbing & pecking around on the 2nd driveway so cutely, joined now by two new babies!, none of them deterred at all by the cold... meanwhile, peewee the genius cat jumps adorably, trying to catch snowflakes thru the picture window... wish everyone could see it, or something equally heartwarming.