blablablablablablabla

stompstompstompstomp

saturday at the doll hut, james was in highest form, a god on the stage, a superhero, an icon! he was a big whoaaaa. we made it back to kern county for easter with the family. we were home today on frazier mountain working on the house. i put up the patio again & took a little sauna. tomorrow school resumes. as does the music. now here we go! our combo renamed & restamped! i hear pour house has good food. yessss! we are going to stomp stomp stomp!!!

wednesday night!

so anyways...

i have to go to the bathroom, but the cat is on my lap. he looks up at me with trusting green orbs, blinks, puts a soft paw on my arm. dang it. i have to go to the bathroom!
we had such a great time in swellay. actually hollywood. i'll have to post more later.
oh good: kitty just remembered he really is a wild, only-semi-domesticated beast & swiped at me with claw. off the lap, beast!
now i can meet nature's call...
here's a poster i made for saturday night. i'm gonna play on this show.
ahhhh.... vacation: leisure time! i like it. :)
may your holidays be filled with love & not too much internal conflict as you reconcile breaking bread w/dear ones in commemoration of a genocide... i choose instead to focus on the fam!

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

whiteboy & jenny combo thurs & fri in kern county

i thought i'd posted these! please come out, if you're anyplace near. we'll put on a fun show for you! friday night we'll have the wonderful mister stephen kida on drums...

wheeeee!!!

next!!

please come see us...
  
(postscript to my blablablog -- my latest obsessions are neville brand & barbara ehrenreich. the best movie we've seen recently was called uncle john: seek it out! the creepiest was the scientology documentary going clear... yeechh!!)

mo later

thass all for now

patience, patience… musica musica...

mama asked me to record baroque piano for her for christmas, so i'm taking a break from practice… my hand was injured last month, the same day i accidentally ran over james's foot (the two incidents were not related; it was just a really really bad friggin day for us!!). his foot's recovered, but my hand's still sore, especially the wrist & third/fourth right-hand fingers, so i'm sure it's good to be working them while playing these bach & scarlatti things… i forget how calming the tempo & orderliness of this kind of music is. it's pleasing & slows my heart rate. i hope i can get them up to speed, maybe by next week… this piece i bought for a buck up at this great bookstore at westminster mall has actually THREE parts, one for 2nd piano, one for double-bass. i spose i'll need to put them all together to get the best possible arrangement. hand, heal!!
speaking of piano, the other night we hopped over to the blasters/x show at the observatory in santa ana & squeezed thru the massive crowd to land side-stage RIGHT BY GENE TAYLOR!! the young samoan bouncer was nice & backed against the wall so i could watch gene play, getting a 35 or so minute lesson. wow! his playing is so relaxed, effortless, yet jumpingly fast & musical! it sings! it soars! after the blasters' set, we went backstage & sat w/phil alvin while gene came in & asked if we'd be at the elvis show (yes) & was i still playing (yes) & told a story or two... i was tired & mentally sluggish. i met exene, who had big puffed hair & shiny mischievous eyes & wore polyester dress/cowboy boots. i grabbed a french roll & james a drink & some meat slices as we headed out… wednesday night was nice with manuel: he & james hit it off very well & he gave james the greek fisherman's hat that he'd been admiring (both men, like my dad, like to wear hats). the eve started very late; we did a baby set, then james got up & strong-armed thru five or six, then i got to get up with manuel, john palmer on drums, leo on bass & play for about 40 minutes. it felt very comfortable playing with manuel! i realized a lot of what i organically play comes from having watched his old band the blazers all those many years back in the early 90s (that same band is how i learned to play the bass, too, by watching)… i'm nowhere as nimble as ruben guaderrama, manuel's long-time best friend & musical partner til about 10 years ago, but playing with manuel nearly felt like putting on a 2nd glove that's been missing. i knew where he'd go, & he left space for me to fill. it was a happy little set for me… yesterday james took off for the toy run in long beach & i got ready & followed about 1 hr later. that was a weird afternoon cause we all were sposed to start about 130-2, but with another band on, then a protracted raffle, we ended up sitting around for many hrs -- musicas interruptus, sorta. i stormed thru about 5 songs, the best moment being during "the big g" when i found myself bouncing in a way that resulted in me playing piano & singing w/both feet off the ground! it was a superhero kinda moment! james played afterward, sounding good but looking kinda wild & ground-down (a lot on his mind). afterward, we very slowly meandered this way & that looking for a meal, finally winding up at our favorite eatery in long beach w/dishes so delicious, they nearly were obscene… today he's at a party & so now i'm gonna get back to the piano. i think i'll record some of my tunes, tho, just for variety's sake, then maybe do some christmas shopping to add more gifts beneath our pretty, fragrant, tinselly tree, which makes the downstairs smell so lovely festivey… gutta buys for now...

santa claus, where are my presents?

this wednesday, dec. 4, 9 pm-midnight in long beach, ca:

"if you ain't right, you're goin' down there..."

... that's a hint to one of the songs on the halloween CD we're putting out tomorrow!... it features two songs i wrote, seven tracks total, from fun & spooky to fun & filthy! "the bride of frankenstein" is the one that initially drew the attention of whiteboy james (now my husband james) to me! he says he was surfing the internet late one night about 3 years ago & my weird DIY video caught his eye & he thought, "i have to meet this person!!" we both love universal monsters, especially karloff's monster, tho james also loves lugosi, who was a junkie & somewhat misunderstood... some of the weirdest cuts on this CD actually are the ones i do, like the obscure rockabilly-swing tune alluded to above (tho no theremin on this version)... of course, james adds plenty of his own weirdness. i wish my voice recorded as smoothly & fully as does james's, but of course, james has one of the very best voices that exist, so i'm setting my sights pretty high! i know i have a good-enough voice, certainly interesting-enough, & i'm happy with what i have developed over the yrs... the other original on the CD, i wrote it two weeks ago for james -- it's called "jekyll and hyde," a roy brown-style jump tune that features a mouth solo, like red mackenzie kinda, but i didn't use a comb... james has played me red mackenzie, who would fire his sidemen, then play their parts himself on comb, which sounds kinda jerky, but maybe his sidemen were the jerks - who knows?... crap! i just looked red mackenzie up & he's yet another musician who died from the bottle! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_McKenzie
- anyways, i think "jekyll and hyde" could be a hit! at least a modest hit in this american music genre we inhabit... something, anyways! yes, i'm better at song-writing than other artsy skills i enjoy, i think, & i figure eventually i'm gonna settle into songwriting & being a sideman, which i'm very happy about... so now i've got 6/7ths of the CD mastered after countless hrs of trying this & that (this was my maiden voyage on garageband; i'm pretty excited about it now, after all the initial tribulations & frustrations!)... just waiting for james to get home & record vocals for J&H, then the CD'll be ready to go!
- please email me or james if you are interested in getting a copy, "sure to be an underground sensation," said one of our friends. which is part of the reason she's our friend, you know. :)

whee!

woke too early after too little rest so my hubby & i could play music for several hrs... he'd been up all night like he does, the man w/the energy of a troop, but it was a happy night for him, he said, listening to music & reading the good news... we played & played & actually developed some strong harmony parts! then i spent several hrs on his gigs & t-shirt orders & networking & europe gigs/fishing for more... at bottom of this post are some links. "i've been waiting for this my whole life!" he smiled. "thank you, baby!" am grateful to feel appreciated, tho his upcoming tour's sure not solely my doing, & no amount of networking would work if james & his music weren't so strong. i believe in james's talent & charisma, as would anyone w/half a mind & heart: he's a white-hot flame of american music & he's gonna set europe on fire w/excitement...
1. (we're 3rd down): guadalupe salad bowl festival;
2. (i like how this site lists our free weekly show at harvelle's...) some of wbj's shows in europe
3. (this'll be a halloween to remember!) baden, switzerland's nordportal

:D

yayyy!!!! "oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful..."

i am quite excited about this show! if you're in the area, or feel like taking a road trip to the piney, pretty los padres mountains between sta clarita & backwardsfield, w/its potential for wintry snow, come on out. it will be a very positive & happy event in one of our most favorite towns on this planet!... at the last show i did as dusk devils, in long beach, i was backed by my adept & photogenic new guitar player scott abeyta (also blues express guitarist & one of james's best friends!) as well as max bangwell & the friendly scott lambert (two more of james's best friends... & i so love james for the scores & scores of dear & long-time friends he has!)... at the show advertised here, the line-up will be robbie on bass, scotty on guitar, & tony lopez on drums, 1st playing w/me, then backing james the extraordinary... being very much a cornball who loves all holidays, i'm so looking fwd to singing & playing christmas tunes as well as ushering in the yuletide season w/my family & friends new & old as well as bandmates new & old (tho robbie's really quite young, compared to the rest of us!)...

happy thursday night to you, dear reader.

FRANKLIN MOTEL by Jenny & the Phantoms

[FOREWARD TO THIS POST: these songs most all are about james page, my now-husband, which i could not say at the time...]have had too much energy lately, 90% good... yesterday i got fed up & decided to do something useful w/it, like record this little thing, which in the old days might've been dubbed an EP, but today is just a DIY, one-day, one-woman toss-away... hang in there, if you will, thru the 1st song, on which i really messed up the levels: yikes! it improves after that... made this song collection a video cause wanted to present lyrics, too. they were fun & satisfying to assemble! i never much heed lyrics while enjoying music, tho do love to write them... hope you like the songs, slapdash as they be. :)
thanks to all my friends, musicians & non, who've encouraged me to make a "real" solo record in a "real" studio... maybe it'll happen! we'll see if there's any reaction to this latest batch of tunes... meantime, it's so awesome that such well-known & respected american roots scholars, performers, & songwriters (listed below) would think i'm worthy!! all i know is, i love to write & perform music, tho to call my efforts rough would be generous (have got this impatience thing that prevents me from doing many retakes to get things more correct, like on solos, levels, etc, & i have no idea how to mix)... i'm so happy to have realized lately that no matter, who ever, wherever, whenever, nothing ever can or will separate me from my music... it's as much a part of me as breath. how about for you? can you or should you allow yourself to be separated from your bliss? i think we should not, long as that bliss doesn't hurt anyone! :)
dusk devils play tomorrow, march 17, at the ridgecrest fairgrounds sometime in the evening... we'll headline a super-rocking long set w/our sturdy awesome rhythm section... i should have a flyer; i should have this & that; really all i know is, i'll wear my new piano-keyboard punk-lolita tutu & some green for st patty's day, & we will kick butt!... tomorrow, too, is my friend jp's birthday. i'll miss his awesome bd bash down south, but we dusk devils are gonna have some mondo-top-fun, i just know it!! and afterwards we all got comped rooms, & since i don't have "real" TV here at my mtn home, HBO, here i come! :)
meanwhile, happy birthday, frankenstein! may you who read this be, if not in, then en route to your bliss, one way or nuther... :) xo
:D

there can be no veil for this...

- so i won't write about it. cept in my journal, that is. actually, i can't adequately write about it... too amazing. seemingly. at this moment. who knows what tomorrow'll bring. my life has become wondrous in a way i never thought it could. was trying hard to resist, but when i let go... well, i wish all well.
- but in another vein, yesterday i got to go hiking w/two new friends & one i've known for 20 yrs, tho not well, andy noise, who had a record store in bk forever... what a nice experience! andy heads the bakersfield distance project & i'm hoping to work w/him as my at-least part time trainer to prep for my 45-mile birthday walk... the day was really swell & the scenery beautiful, but unfortunately i filled my camelback bag too hurriedly (they pulled up & i was still watching howlin wolf videos online -- eep!), & the sucker leaked all over me for the entire hike, all the way up to the summit of mt pinos, along sawtooth pass, for a good 3 hrs, & a cold snap had hit... so that combined w/happily, crazily burning the candle at both ends this past wk has put me in a sick bed...
- got to watch, tho, the coolest max fleischer cartoons, betty boops featuring louis armstrong & cab calloway, & eat the last pretzels in this house w/pb packets mama bought me for france, but which i didn't take...
(- so much i write on here is veiled... hope it's not too annoying for you who read... i always try to remember that my experiences are universal cause we're all pink meat & white bone underneath, to paraphrase carl perkins -- nothing i do is novel, really...) anyways, here's some unobfuscated stuff:
- today at 530, boxcar 7, a band recommended by ed boswell, will play for free at the pine mountain club clubhouse (actually, out on the lawn). bartending will be dusk devils robbie! i don't know if anyone on earth from the mountain will see this in time, but if too late, know there are music events & robbie drinks going on up at the PMC clubhouse all the time...
- tomorrow, sunday, is a rockabilly bbq in santa clarita, ca. dusk devils are on at 530 pm, karling & the atomics at 930 pm... it should be swell fun! here's the flyer:

ribbit... yawn... blablablablablablablablablablablabla

- (excessive 1st person pronoun alert... dang it, it's my blog! why do i apologize? good grief. oh well.)
- life's hopping, tho activity's been slow here on the blablablog... a frog in my throat since last saturday, i sang my pipes out completely at our DD/karling & atomics show in sta clarita, afterward collapsing into total sicky land. (word around bakersfield, which ALWAYS is the word around bakersfield, btw: "there's something nasty going around...") been pretty miserable, worsening things by continuing to try to gallivant as well as show up for family, telling friends since it's just physical sickness, i can handle it -- a wan joke... shoulda seen it coming, tho, & been smarter: been hitting it too hard. then there was the cold (tho fun) 6.5 mile hike led by andy noise/exploding water bag (read beblablablablalow)... dang, why is common sense so elusive? must get some payoff, as must all who may be intelligent, but aren't too dang smart, literally in my case not smart enough to come in out of the rain (well, water)... back to sta clarita, i've never done a show so laryngitically: ouch, it hurt intensely!! so like at our last show at trout's (bassless), i figured we better just attack that sucker & rock it extra super-hard!! i found out that robbie's stage presence is as cool-solid as stevo's is winning as well as that people still seem to love dusk devils & tell me kind, flattering things, even when i have no voice, & that a rockabilly-punk band called inazuma, who played clean-up that night, are my favorite japanese band since guitar wolf... wow! those guys were super-cool & rockin!!! they really capped the whole eve for me & made it one of the funnest gigs i've had in some time, ill health included. it was so swell to hear & watch them grind out "shakin all over" as kids & oldsters bounced off one another in a slampit... haven't seen anything like that in quite some time!
- being sick all wk i've had to realize how much i miss & get a kick out of my silly, neotenic voicet; it was reduced to a scratch, then a bark, then a nothing, then a whisper, then a drag queen, then waylon flower's madam, marge simpson, fran drescher w/o the honk, & finally, finally it's about 80% back, tho i still can't sing too well & still have a lot of throat/ear/eye pain...the impulse to just shout it out is near-overwhelming. i can't recall so, so wanting to sing! i guess the sentiment that "you always want what you can't have" extends beyond "love"... i've had two chances to play music this wk w/others & one i absolutely could not resist, so through the glass shards piercing my ears & throat, sang i did, realizing tho my range is significantly reduced, were i to have to continue like this, i could evolve into a shout singer cause there can be no fear: a person's got no choice but to belt it out good!!
- went to a few music shows to see my wild bluesman friend james blast the concrete off the barroom floor like he always does, feeling unusually shocked & amazed by his & his band's charisma, tightness, musical prowess/knowledge, & sorcerer-like power, whipping the crowd up in a wave of musical frenzy & catharsis ("a dionysian!" exclaimed my artist friend, her eyes lighting up w/joy, when i told her how he blows each solo & belts out each song as if it could be his last, w/such commitment to performance, any human unmoved, or rather, un-entranced, would have to be one incapable of emotion or in heavy denial)... so i showed up & was so surprised & flattered (& slightly embarrassed) to be greeted as if it were MY show, too!, w/people asking left & right when DDs were gonna play & how much they love ME (me??)... i tell you, who could've envisioned this kind of response from folks? i can only be dazed & grateful & try to appreciate it while i'm here, at this time in my life, doing it... i especially love that i get such kind attention from other women... anyways, back to the voice, a gal singer at one show told me she ruined hers for YEARS not resting it during laryngitis, even had to have surgery on her vocal cords. that should scare me, & it did momentarily, but my monkey don't listen & also has a short attn span.
- i hope i don't pay dearly for this some day... :(
- dang, how many times in life, in how many situations, have i (you, too, maybe?) "vaguely sensed," as it says in the big book, "i was not being any too smart," then ignored the little voice (not the monkey; monkey usually is the "big voice," unfortunately) & went full-steam ahead into whatever foolishness loomed? the big book also says, "common sense will... become uncommon sense." ha! when? well, only when i'm willing to take some right action! -- not when i'm running around w/pockets full of cash & no commitments except to play music & hang out w/loved ones. talk about a spoiled life i'm having right now!... merde... i shudder now, tho, realizing that the only way i've ever cleaned up my ways is thru some calamity/nightmare/travesty or other... unless i want the bad monkey to hog the cage, & indeed, crap all over & eventually ruin it, i need to be back in service.
- dang it!! i used to tell students one of the main benefits of writing is it helps them figure stuff out... this just was proved to me again.
- after all, as a friend so in-eloquently but truthfully stated, "i'm too old for this sh*t" -- that is, too old to be on tears that, tho clean & sober in my case, involve too-long hours, not enough sleep, performing w/hysterical, sometimes near-berserk exuberance, then shouting & having ears screamed into in order to "chat" in crowded bars & nightclubs... & then there are the cigarettes. i don't have the nicotine jones like my dear ex-hubby or wbj do, thank the great pumpkin, but i do have a thing for greens, finding them strangely sensual. i dunno. do "loves" ever make sense intellectually? at least immediately? not for me... those dang cool menthol death sticks: they're like that bad, bad good-looking man...
- so anyways, i sits here in the wee hours of morn & should be in the sack, but now that i'm finally starting to feel better, am hoping maybe to roll up on another creative wave, even if it's a just a mini-one, just ride it a little ways before being dumped back on the shores of mundanity (not sickness again, tho, please, no)...
- oh gosh, how boring has this post become? bleh. love to all. something deeper, more intellectual, more creative, more entertaining next time, maybe... for now, another dumb blablabla now draws to its close.

dusk devils off the cuff & unplugged

happy independence day!!! and it's a big music weekend for dusk devils, karling & the atomics, more!

today is july 4, an especially important day for me (see below) as well, of course, on a much, much larger scale, the united states of america... may we all be freed today of whatever oppresses us, be it physical, spiritual, or elsewise. a special prayer, thought, intention, too, for dear loved ones who are in pain. i fervently, sincerely wish them return to good health & strength as quickly as possible... as i know many more of you are experiencing, too, tho life may be wonderful, it hurts to see loved ones suffer... i pray that i'll be ready to help however possible, whenever asked.
meanwhile, in the fun & frivolous dept (tho sunday's a benefit for a kind friend), this weekend: