you gotta home, james, long as i got mine

we decided not to go south to see 3 blasters since phil wouldn't be there. instead just had the coolest rehearsal. we know 100s of songs between the 2 of us! the blasters & chuck berry ones have settled into the ur-brain & come out natural as air. like a 2-engine locomotive!! 3 hours later, my foot needs an x-ray more now than ever. it was worth it!!!

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.

" the creature beckons me with broken arms "

brideoffrank1manband was going through my phone, deleting items, created a photo dump for classdojo, adorable pictures of 3rd graders for their parents to enjoy, found the above video & am posting it here. between louis & james over the holidays, i musta been too preoccupied to get these out in a timely way. not that the world cares, but those parents do, & i do. see i love this weird song that i wrote. turns out it helped bring james to me. of this song he always says, i was sitting at home & found this weird song online & thought, who is this strange, beautiful creature?... saw another ad for the bride. my prediction is it's going to be one of the great duds of filmdom, a razzy on the level of ishtar or plan 9.... well, it's saturday. the plant food experiment seems to be paying off. my doc said the other day, i don't know what you're doing, but you are very, very healthy. please consider dropping animal foods if you are often not feeling well.

"must be a different part of the brain."

james wants a t-shirt for his upcoming 60th bd show. we needed to capture an older james. so was finishing this drawing & marveling at how, unlike music, i can NOT draw for even years at a time... & still some skill is there. drawing does not seem to get as rusty as do the fingers & pipes. when i don't stay up on playing & singing, i am clam & suck city.

well, today im home ill & making the best of it. tcb. here's the drawing.

(extra cool addendum - i just realized the circular font is from the original planet of the apes.)

yippee

we are on our third snow day, three days without going to work! james compared us to the bored garbagenauts in john carpenter's hilarious 1st feature dark star. you can find this awesomely strange cult scifi comedy streaming freely these days. that's definitely an upside of the cyberculture soup of today: instant access to the once-obscure, weirdly exciting content!! we spent hours today playing music: james's repertoire, his originals he hasn't gotten to play on stage forever, his jump & hi-lonesome faves, my favorite two beats, originals & uptempo rockabilly & american music raves... i got great news from my superintendent about when i can retire. i love my students, my school & the duty of educating the future. i love how my boss treats us like artisans, professionals on a most important journey, but how he does it with humor. having said all that,

i can't wait to jump back into the stream of music, or as my sister called it long ago, the rock and roll circus.

yeppers

now and then i get an anonymous insult. of course it happens! really i've been quite lucky considering my strong beliefs, choice of spouse, & plus just being a female: yknow. i mean, everyone in print & video & audio meets this kind of cowardice at some point... for never is a real identity given. mare see! say la vee!