if you hear him howlin round your kitchen door, better not let him in

i love roku!! last nite, watched "let the right one in," disturbing & lonely & extremely well-made swedish vampire movie that touched off one nightmare of a jacked-up eve... tonight played music, rewatched one of my most faves, "zombieland" ("time to nut up or shut up!" "and without other people, you might as well be a zombie," etc.) & ate caveman cavey's & so the nite, like the werewolf's hair, "was perfect."
am thinking some folks maybe are sore at me right now, tho. such is life, i guess. this, too, shall pass. they all have lives... how important can i be? it can't last, not the good or bad... upside is fri after practice i get to go watch manuel back up karling abbeygate, then we get to do a halloween show, then monday i'll meet the big man again at the barndance... tho i guess not the sore guy who lives in hollywood. maybe some other time. for now, oil well.
am now slightly lamenting i won't be at ex-hubby b's (& my) friends' halloween party sat, where the sober bikers sing (at funnest pt in set, for me) trashy 60s tunes & john smith does his spot-on karloff (i mean bobby boris pickett) & i get to pluck away off-the-cuff... however, we'll debut a new devil this wkend (i hope - if the guy has stamina to run a marathon in 3:30, he can certainly bust thru 4 sets, i'm thinking!!) & i'm looking fwd to seeing the fellows in caveman attire. that should be swell! :) for me, i spose i'll be the token cavewoman.
i think i'll rat my hair. and imagine the makeup i'll be able to get away with!
shuddering w/excitement now... time to hit the keys & try the zevon song... as well as there's a moon out tonight, whoa-oh-oh-ooh (capris)
(p.s. - this reminds me of when i was totally obsessed w/movies & tv shows & did stuff like the following: zombieland dialogue transcript )
(p.p.s. - "go get em," said manuel. "hit em hard & make em love you. i know you do." he speaks from experience!! anyone who doesn't love manuel has no heart & also no ear for sumo-sized talent & the best music!!!)

screeds, songs, & poems: there was a little house on a hill w/a pretty white porch, little pink curtains, & a white picket fence.

and then it blew up.
-the above paraphrases a poem i plagiarized & had published in a literary magazine, i think at the JC level... amazing!... here's the other one:
-little birdy on the tree with lovely breast of red
-i brought the window slowly down & crushed its little head.
- certainly i stole that one, too, & now the sentiment horrifies me. the other day in a conversation about mad, my favorite rag when i was a child, this jerk i know sputtered, "i hate that magazine! i was this innocent little kid & it turned me into a smarmy smart-a** cynic!" ... the comment perturbed & disturbed me. did mad hip me to society's absurdity or turn me into a snickering lout?? yes, probably both. such Qs only are pondered by people like me: middle-class, spare-timing, fleet-fingered, monkey-minded. no one cares in kansas or kathmandu, nor anyplace else. as they should not.
-my friend candye, the big-hearted, beloved superstar, was dumped recently by a prickly romeo w/pretensions of intellect. she will heal & grow. if rather than move on to his next victim he also should grow, all will be bettered, for no one should live life as an a**hole. it disrespects not just others, but oneself & in the end can lead only to despair. to quote my friend, "i... have spoken." la vie continue.
- evidence of this is i started moving today, to the mountaintop dump-cum-abode. many friends helped! i couldn't stop smiling... how wonderful it is to be supported by others, making me want to do so in return. thanks to mighty philip, mighty randy, the amazon carly, strong patty, smiling mo, mom & dad, & the two young bucks who unloaded the truck on the FP end, nimbly tossing furniture into the house like footballs, or beers, or things much lighter than furniture. all saved me hrs & hrs of work & many bruises, sprained fingers, & sundry hurts. it was move, sweat, & food drink food all day, & i'm grateful to've had the scratch to make it happen. great fun it was to man the big u-haul w/patty & mo shotgun & happy conversation singing thru the cab, singing like my heart.
- tomorrow will be another load, then it's blow this popstand for cleaner air &, i hope, a new life of good health & happiness, w/frequent jogs to bakerspatch & &swellay as well as consistent visits from friends & family.
- lastly, our show tonight was cancelled last second!! i was solemnly prepared to move all day, then grimly (tho w/big dippy grin on my face) soldier thru 4-hours of gig w/my similarly dog-tired pals, entertaining the crowd thru our exhaustion, humble showpeople that we are... so now instead i sit in my near-naked pad, typing this nonsense.
- all club/bar/saloon owners who promise to pay a flesh-and-blood, practiced, entertaining, fun loving, hard-working band & then last-second pick DJs over musicians should be pantsed & trash-canned!!!!! ... to the devil w/said booze slinger. to da devil!!!
- well, time to sign off. HAPPY WEEKEND TO ALL!! to quote alfred e, from the extraordinary & exalted flexi-disc 45, "it's a GAS!!!"!

wop-bob-a-loo-wop a wop bam boom

music is love & friendship, passion & excitement, peace, catharsis, joy. and kicks!!!
without music, life wouldn't be worth a fig.

long long long long time since blogging

am back to work! the kids are so swell. :) will fill this in later meanwhiles, here are pix...

skip heller honky-tonk trio thurs 7/10; dusk devils in studio; this'n'that

1. go see skip's free show, 7:30-10:30 at narducci's (flyer below)
2. we're gonna finally record a live session w/sharon marie end o'this month. whoopee!! then we'll have professional-quality recordings for people who've been asking. :) and thank you for asking, people. :)
3. had such great sound & met wonderful folks at safari sam's sunday, from friendly DJ "texas" jeff to smokey miles, art fein, russell scott, randee & george, & of course birthday boy cody & friends; got to eat brunch (french toast - yumyum); got some dough; i got swung around the dance floor by a big feller named walter who's light on his toes as gene kelly; met & got critiqued by skip heller, who said i need a clavinet, & "you stick to that shuffle & gene taylor thing," & i thought, "well, that's all i got!" - his thoughts on music were prickly but interesting & i appreciated his perspective. & he's gonna get me some recordings of 5 royales (mine were stolen) & the diablos!!!
4. art fein's comment when i told him of skip's critique: "pope catholic?" :)
5. by now, all blasters fans know that bill bateman's back in that band's drummer saddle & jerry angel's joined touring band shurman. best wishes to gentleman jerry!!!!
5. "i'll never swim kern river again"... on a recent 100-degree-plus afternoon, orangy smog & smoke-choked sky like the apocalypse, b wanted to take his motorbike out into the kern river canyon & as we whizzed along that scorching ribbon of tar, brown walls above & angry water below, i started thinking about the men who've recently gone missing in the river. then the signs popped up: "help find beto." "help find gonzalo." :( too often, the people who go under in the "killer kern" are mexican & from southern california. i think when the weather's this miserable, the lure of a cool river dip overrides the fear of drowning. this is the kind of heat that raymond chandler wrote about: "meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks." it's desperation-heat, crazy-making, brutal, brutal, brutal. to want respite from it, no matter what, isn't much different (tho more innocent) than the depressed soul turning to a hit of dope.
6. so many people drown in the kern while trying to save someone else's life. doubly sad. i saw a car pull to the roadside & a brown-skinned man & boy got out. when we circled back to return to bakersfield, i noticed they had edged near the river, carrying long sticks & sad faces. they were searching the reeds for a dead man.
7. can you believe that people here criticize the river's missing & dead? people who blame the river victims remind me of those who blame new orleanians for wanting to stay in their hometown after katrina, or return to it. when you have the money to have a leisurely life, to travel, to conspicuously consume, to move w/out much life-disruption, or to just swim in a swimming pool when you feel like it,... well, it's easy to criticize the people who have to seek out a river or watering hole, who barely scrape by, who live desperately, who don't have the resources to move & start over, & beyond that, to whom many times home is where the heart is, even if that heart resides in a storm-prone delta bowl.
8. am reading harry crews' "car" right now, & if you want something good, go get it.

the city by the bay, schooling, driving, 3-part-wang-dang-ding-dong-harmonalizing, pax tecum (y'all)

my life lately's consumed with school. school school school school. in sf yesterday, i turned in my 2nd paper & lunched w/my wise & gentle advisor. my thesis is four parts: problems "young" people face developing a sense of authentic purpose; a few suggested solutions; a school curriculum based on the philosophy of the solutions (help people feel safe so they can learn, grow, become happy, useful); & last, how to make the philosophy workable & successful when it faces opposition... i stayed in a gorgeous hostel at ft mason in the n. reaches of the city, w/dining rm overlooking sf bay, view of the golden gate bridge, presidio, sf, all just so lovely, w/verdant & safe ocean-breezy jogging paths beneath giant trees, all only $25 (tho the beds were paper thin)... home takes forever on boring I-5, tho less so this morning in golden sunlight, then we had a big family powwow w/my visiting tx cousin & her brood, full of enchiladas, tamales, rice & beans, champagne cake de smith's, embarrassing stories, little cousins running & screaming, loud laughter.
the band had a great & crazy uptempo rehearsal the other day w/wonderful phil on bass & brian paxton & i getting along; it felt like energy was zapping our cans again, & that's nice. i've practiced 2x now w/some nice guys who are looking at putting up a more expert gig, w/the exciting part being full 3-part harmonies. they have their eye on big shows, professional musicianship, & this unnerves me a bit since i'm adrenaline & little polish, but for now, i love the rich harmonies, which thrill to the bone: it's pleasing, plus doubles the music i get to experience... listening to npr this am, i learned this wk to watch for ronnie spector & patti smith, both going into the R&R Hall of Fame, plus the new stooges LP... if you're lucky enough to be headed for sxsw this yr, tell austin hi for me & drink up all that good music like sunshine & oxygen... for me, this yr it'll be school instead, but this MA program is changing & restoring my life, so i'm all for it, even if i can't wander so congress & guadalupe & sneak into sxsw events like last yr. also, we're going to rockin' 50s in may, & that'll be the living end, bound to be as good as in 02 (www.actionpackedevents.com)... pax et felix tecum, & may you ride joyously thru your day.

"just the thought of her lips sets me afire, i reminisce & i'm filled with desire..." such a night at elvis show

"such a night, oh what a night it was, it really was such a night"...(me and phil alvin - photo by jerry adonis angel)... i think my expression here might be called a "s**t-eating grin," and the makeup's definitely melted... but look who i'm standing with!! who cares??? ... we visited cody in hollywood and dined on kombucha and curry at a vegetarian spot, then it was on to art fein's 21st elvis birthday show at the henry fonda/musicbox on hollywood blvd... here's the line-up (if no comment, i was in the john or wandering): Harry Orlove (bearish, awesome house guitarist); Neil Morrow; Fleagles (friendly 60s garage rock); Truly Lover Trio (uptempo rockabilly); Billy Sheets (powerful, natural, southern-gentleman mien); Dawn Shipley (slender, lovely, girlishly winning singer); Crash Justice ("circus-big" basso-voiced rockacat in good suit); Justin Curtis (awesome honky-tonk set-let with wonderful houseband, including fantastic skip edwards, marty rifkin, dave raven); Del Casher (told charming elvis story); Dusk Devils (not many flubs, great audience reaction, huge fun playing with bassist phil!); Count Smokula (and the smokulettes: me, roobie breastnut, and charmaine - an impromptu lark!); Rod and The Tonemasters; Crown City Bombers; Fur and Steve (pretty country vocalizing); Fred Willard - (the king! he did the cape thing and all); Russell Scott (he dresses like heehaw, & what soul! sang in his light voice, didn't play); Carlos Guitarlos (awesome! i just loved his heartfelt shout singing and woolly chuck berry guitar); Lisa Finnie; Patty Booker (in the ghetto!); Lori Dewitt (this was the showstopper! i was in the can, dang it); Rip Masters (rip -appropriately named - just kills on those 88s! good god!); Candye Kane (SHE WASN'T THERE!!!!!!!!); Sheiks of Shake; Barry Holdship (art says he's a surgeon by day! this guy has the nicest stage presence, very appealing); Glen Glenn; Alan Clark; Tommy Sands (these were the historical high points of the show); Danny Blitz (fast, loud); Blasters (they get their own paragraph)... the blasters closed out the show with three tunes. "i know we are here because this is the birthday of elvis presley," proclaimed phil. "however, there are other things that are important. and sometimes you have to do what you have to do..." (or something like that) and then he lunged into "please please please"! i was standing with paul body (stoutly elegant in mariachi formal-wear) and we started jumping up and down and laughing, "that is one confident S.O.B.!!" : the whitest fellow in the room screaming and sobbing out, with entire conviction and success, a james brown classic at an elvis birthday show... it was wonderful, needless to say (but i said it :) ). next was "tiger man" (rufus thomas), which they have done the last three years, and finally, "such a night," originally done by the drifters. so like what we 1/2 did, the blasters did elvis songs not originally done by elvis... "down in the alley" was hank ballard and the midnighters - a nice fellow who declared "i'm your fan" told me originally the clovers.
such a night! exciting, fun, and, as you can see, educational. :) late-late night at denny's on the grapevine, dishing pancakes, the waitress suddenly was talking jazz pianists and live music, then we were back on the road and in a groggy blur were home, heads on pillows by 4 am. thanks again, art! i know you don't do it for me, but i get to be part, and it was wonderful, once again. :)