Ronnie Mack's Barn Dance in Bakersfield

this was a fundraiser for our friends craig garrison and kathy kennedy, musicians. in feb, kathy was diagnosed with leukemia. she & craig have been clotheslined by the medical bills & expense of commuting 3x/wk to city of hope in so cal. the event was highly successful, in my estimate, tho i didn't see the final monies tally. standout for me was seeing old friends & making new, playing with the house band (esp ernie lewis & bob reynolds), getting to sing lots of harmonies, my set w my darling james, backing him later, james the force of nature, seeing sister angie & bro doug, & being part of a good thing. few a**holes were there, mostly just friendly folks wanting to have fun & help out. thank you to kind-hearted ronnie & friendly, feisty tammy for including us. kip of fishlips now runs the old train depot rustic rail, & i hope we'll go back under happier mission.

james arthur page sr., age 58; neeli, rip; sicksicksicksick, so often sick

my cuckoo, my fine man, was sick on his bd at his bd show in long beach, so i ended up singing a lot more than i wanted to (ppl had come to see james, not me) & we tried our best without hurricane james at the helm. there were many ppl; the place was packed. the photos are me earlier that day trying to see the rip in my fishnets (i lifted the wrong leg) & watching james run out of the room in his bd suit. i post the pix bc am continually shocked, throughout this life, when i see images of me that resemble a "normal" woman instead of what the sworling maelstrom in my mind, in those darkest moments, thinks i be... james is better today & off to another show, & i have been very ill. this is the second day i have missed work... my boss complains of ppl being absent on weds, when we have staff mtgs, but i am barred from today's. i tried to get someone to call me so i could listen in, but she said no. i know that i tried, & my side of the street is swept, but just hope colleagues fill me in so i'm not totally out of the loop, as so often i be.... found out i have a new student. i called her mother to apologize for my absences; the young woman replied, "it's more important that you get well! she'll be ok! take tomorrow off, too!" it sounds like the child has been bullied. am eager to meet her & try to help her. i remember my long-past life being bullied. no child should feel afraid to go to school... i work in a petrie dish (public school), & the poor kids have been "dropping like flies," said boss corey. the latest something is a vicious one, a covid-variant, mebbe. mama said, you need to wear a mask!, & i fear that she is right!... an opportunity to change careers arose recently. it would allow me more time w/mom & dad, james, time to help teacher candidates go forth & serve students... but also to not get sick so often. historically it has been rough for me to work in schools with all the wee disease vectors swarming about. i love them, but my immune system doesn't... in sad news, one of my new college teachers, neeli cherkowski, passed "into the next realm" yesterday. he had been an acolyte of bukowski's in the '60s. a hirsute, chubby, brainy man from LA who ended up in SF & made his life there, he became that city's poet laureate one year. he resembled buddy hackett, poor man, but was beautiful in the way he spoke: about how all humans are the same, since humankind rose from the muck, all having the same brainpan as well as needs for love, connection, meaning. that hit me, & it still does. "we're all red meat & white bone underneath," said carl lee perkins. rest in peace, dear teacher.

ps, the last pic is me & "AC," ebullient, fiery, forever-boyish blues express guitarist & friend of us both.

Dex r.i.p. and more

dexter romweber passed away. the music world is much diminished. 😞 dictating, using speech to text. all errors are not sic. just finished watching a stunning show from BBC by way of hulu, am I being unreasonable. funny, twisty, sad, shocking. what terrific scripting and acting! I have not seen anything like it, the way it showed how grief and loneliness can create such a mess of one's life. quite worthwhile! ... been waiting since December to see poor things. the lobster's one of my most favorite movies ever, so I am highly hopeful. heard this morning on NPR about, among other topics, an AI video platform called sora that is causing Hollywood to quake in its britches. so I pulled up a free speech to video site right here on my little phone. it was far from Sora quality, but within 3 minutes I was watching a video I had just suggested: "an exciting film about Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley playing a show with the Frankenstein monster." there were glitches, but how astounding that the video was generated in a relative instant! ... not too much else is up except the low level confusion and terror surrounding the possible outcome of November's election. why hasn't McDonald's taken its toll? what kind of weird ass evil bizarro world are we in these days? i truly wish hunter s. thompson still were alive to bring outraged comfort. and definitely george carlin! anyways, back to the nearer & more explicable, sup

posed to be another storm coming this weekend. maybe we'll get out before it happens and go to visit the family. to end this post, so readers can see that we have not yet completely melted into troglodytes, here are James and I at Valentine's Day. still not pushing up daisies. we are quite fortunate that way. well it's time to do the dishes and then some Pilates, I guess. and tomorrow my big baboo will be home and we'll practice.

a good day to be a human

it's a good day to be breathing, to still be alive, to be a human. i decided to make a cover for dad's book this morning. astoundingly quick was the process! i did this on canva in about 1 hour w "help" of a.i.... the verb's in quotes bc of its implication of agency... dad & mom were so delighted by the cover results, i am happy to have used cyber means. (ignore the stupid blue outlines. i forgot to unclick them before screenshotting the images.)

last foggy evening, james & i were noshing at carl's jr in gorman when we noticed that the drive-through voice was eerily measured & pleasant. sure enough, the chain & a score of others have gone to using a.i. for drive-up service. james, of course, immediately riffed on all the profane ways he would deal w/such an entity... in bakersfield, i ordered doordash or grubhub or some damn thing for mom & dad, too tired to make dinner. the next morn, dad asked alexa what was the temperature in frazier park, to see if it was a good moment for me to get home. the a.i. assistant reported the stats, then added, "and by the way, remember to thank your driver for last night's delivery." if we'd been sucking on mints, dad & i would've swallowed them whole at that moment as we goggled at each other. she knows. ... who would've predicted the ease with which our culture has invited into our homes big brother? we volunteer with eagerness to install into our private spaces the all-knowing screens & devices. yes, everything is so damn easy now... we hardly have to use our limbs; the tech does it all! (picture the movie "wall-e," with its helplessly vestigial humans, but even that brilliant film didn't foresee the machines' takeover of our private spaces!) it all is frigging creepy to me, & so i'm glad to be back in my funky, analog mountain home. if i want a.i.'s help, all i have to do is push a button & speak into my phone, but i choose to do that. as far as i can tell, nothing is listening in, & that's how we want it!

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this has been a really, really, really weird week. anyways, some good came of it bc yesterday & today i edited dad's book, which has been hanging around his neck albatross-in-cement-shoes-like. and spending much time with the dear parents and dog furrrballl muffins. and i made a teepublic store for james shirts. i guess i did that part backwards bc it turns out most ppl don't make 10 cents on teepublic, but at least i got some cool designs up. and it could be a place for me to put my own visual art, which is a something i haven't indulged in in quite a spell. i sure hope to go home tomorrow tho it's nice to be here, where there are stores & sidewalks... but also smoagg. (think of the song "let's have a war," fear.) and i hope that my james will be all better soon. geez, i'm so exhausted i can't even move. brain tiredness can be as wiping-assout as body tiredness. time for a showwwwwa. here is the link to the store, and a picture of it, too: http://tee.pub/lic/MOxlzrZRhag

courtin´ mortis, mucha nuthin´

wow, i haven blobbed in a good long while. was deathly ill for a month, tho no covid. we went to a funny, dadaist place called omegamart. quite a good one for two who grew up on mad mag. and we tramped thru an abandoned motel. there´ve been other events. mostly i am spending moolah like a madperson. tis the season.

this sat

for our 3rd set, we have batted around the idea of doing the entire first blasters album from start to finish. oh, would that be cool!!! we blew thru it a few weeks ago. we both know it so well, it was like magic, like the stuff i was reading about this morn in the forbes interview with sir roger penrose, like clairvoyance & memory & the uncanny & the time loop. today's haunted house was such fun for all. i barely made it home & fell in bed. then home was the hunter, home from the hills, the sailor home from the sea. he needed a flyer, so i made the above. i reposted my weird interpretation of the weird song sinner (on this blog, october 2015). was gonna watch a horror flick. guess there still might be time. blegh. happy howloween!

i hate

adulting.

spooky, gooey, oogyboogy, wrestling for rory

last night was spooky, reminding me of that scene from night of the hunter where lillian gish waits on her nighttime screened porch, shotgun across her lap, while the evil rev. harry powell (robert mitchum) lurks outside, singing a gospel hymn in a sonorous baritone that echoes eerily in the darkness. he´s trying to get in, he's trying to get at the kids in the house, he wants to kill them all in the name of the lord, he´s a scary, sexy, southern gothic boogyman. the version here, far less sinister, from last night, was something that happens just occasionally, james said he´s surprised not more often. someone came up the road playing an eery harmonica, then planted himself across from the house and played and played and played that harmonica in the direction of our place. someone was beckoning james to come outside, to get james´s attention, but james wasn´t in the house, so it spooked me. he´s here now & says ¨someone´s gonna get an a**whipping.¨... am home from work today bc of pink eye, which is a gross, gooey condition, if you´ve had it. and i feel drained, weak, awake but submerged. the immune system must be ebbing.... james´s friend tattoo mike just arrived & they are going to level the tiny home. yaaaaaaay!!! meanwhile, i will grade papers & rest... sister angie´s double-nickel bd is this weekend & for her bd, she gifted herself by having her book be kindle-published that day. (later will come paper tomes for those who prefer the physical read.) angie has been long-obsessed w/pro-wrestling, & her novel novel combines that subculture w/early hollywood woman film-makers, california indigenous people history/ways, punk references, & romance. attached is a pic & a link. :) angie always has been a highly capable, talented type-a person, as you can see; she labors hard & with creativity, always producing much!... back to work news, the school haunted house & after-school ¨spooky slumber party¨ play are going well. my little group of theatre/drama girls is weird & talented. they will put on a great little show. that is all. as you were.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJVSJCCR?ref_=cm_sw_r_apin_dp_7B6KDBQEPYWBN869TZ29&fbclid=IwAR3OZGcJeo8yq6dN0fhBR4uUiSlijFl5xEQe76u5fea67O0d_I1uBril8Y0

sunday morning (not) coming down & a country founded in genocide & slavery

yesterday i chauffeured james to his show. i decided i won´t play with his band for a while. but now kidá´s back from hawaii & james likely will be able to expand his repertoire again, which means a lot more variety, happier band, happier james. the timing of my resignation was off! argh! but james told me i have an open invite to re-join. :) i am a lucky person. we are supposed to practice the stompers wed & i hope we just slam thru the first blaster slash lp because it´s in our cells. i asked if we could learn a lot more bob wills, chuck berry, & blasters. and i´d like to do some weird old rockabilly tunes of my liking. he told me that bob wills started playing in bands when he was a child & by the time he was 16 or 17, was fronting his. he only knew break downs, rags, waltzes, two-steps, & square dances, so he would improv his songs around those. and such a beautiful, stomping, happy, brilliant legacy blossomed from that! the old recordings of him & the texas playboys have been our #1 listen in the past year, along with for me zydeco. wills was a virtuouso fiddle player, delightful singer, nimble, funny lyricist, & fantastic band leader. every single player was top-notch, & the instruments dance & weave & harmonize & speed along with such joy. it would be heaven on earth to be able to have even part of that experience, tho for me, it would have to be without the go juice & bennies & bop pills. james had a terrifically successful show last night, & his friend eric sardinas (sardinias?) showed up. james told me many times on the way home that eric is ¨really famous¨ in spain. he was high on happiness talking about his friend, a guy handsome up close & gentlemanly, the latter which i really appreciated! such a guy could be a snake! he must be a songwriter, i think, since he told me, ¨your eyes are mesmerizing¨ as well as that james is ¨an outside cat, but one that will always come home.¨ :) while james played his butt off, i went across the street to the lakewood center & thought, this is so novel for me from lily-white kern county, all the black teenagers having fun, no gang-banger-looking kids, just teenagers enjoying the mall, but there were a lot of them! and constant from outside, audible behind the soothing shopping musical soundtrack, was the sound of police helicopters & sirens. it was unsettling, all that cop activity, but i didn´t think much of it, just it´s part of being in the sh*tty city, mebbe. so i kept walking, looking at the kids & all the clothing & shoe stores, then came across - gasp! - a book store! yes, there´s an amazing book off in that mall! emerged hours later with a bursting bag for me & james, family, & a bunch of k-pop music for maddy, who is really expert on it. k-pop music is boxed in swanky style. i guess new the music sets are quite expensive, so they seem to partially justify it with fancy packaging. i walked out with treasure-loaded arms to a sea of sirens, squad cars & cops. truly, these guys looked like sterotypes: big, fat, pink-faced, ultra-white. cruisers were circling the mall & surrounding shops at snailś pace, lights flashing, announcing, vacate the premises now; leave this place now; get off the sidewalks & leave. inside was lively, happy mall; outside was armageddon. i have never seen such heavy police presence. it looked like footage of mass shootings. what was going on?!? oh god, i thought, this is bad, whatever happened! more & more law enforcement was arriving, more & more sirens. i beat it back to the club & waited for james, looking on my phone for info. all i could find was the kids were doing a flashmob. a flashmob?!?! wtf were all the cops doing there???? a father posted, ¨get your babies home. they just children they don´t know these cops got heat.¨ mike harden finally showed me what he´d located: the mall had been closed due to ¨civil unrest.¨ the source: law enforcement. a member of james´s band told me he was glad the cops were doing what they were because ¨things can escalate quickly.¨ i know james has said the same when he was in the military & had to deal with large crowds that turned into riots. but on the way home, he also told me the town we were in is notoriously racist & the sheriffs dept is a bunch of a*sholes. they are the ones that always cause him problems & try to majorly assault him (instead of minor, which they always do) when he tries to get home or to a gig, even still, over 20 yrs after... ok, back to the subject. he said the white town doesn´t like all the young blacks coming to their mall for the weekend. so the SD sends its battalion to harass the kids until they leave. horrible! how could this be true?!? isn´t this a major civil rights lawsuit? how could this happen in america?!? well, then i found out the kids were setting off firecrackers & jumping on cars. so it was a little more than nothing they were doing. but still... this did NOT justify all that pork. america. these could be its last decades, don´t you think? we shall fall, as did rome. as a teacher, iḿ saddened by the idea bc i was raised in a family that identified our country with democracy, ingenuity, hard work, compassion, & a desire for fairness. but the reality has been a steady worsening of this land due to greed, inequality, & people kept deliberately ignorant, distracted, & sick by endemic screen culture (producing solipsism & narcissism), poisoning fake food, & corporate consumerism. plus it´s a country founded in genocide & slavery. i have to admit: how can such an evil entity truly last? & why should it? it really makes me sad. this country is beautiful, & so are many of its ideals. but look what has happened. just look. ... ... ... well, i don´t know why the coconut went there, but think i´ll leave this screed in place. ... ... ... just 20 mins ago, we were playing music, & he still is. i could learn from james: DON´T LET THE COCONUT RUIN A GOOD TIME! so i´ll just post some pix: one, a little painting i found yesterday for $3 when wonderful mom & dad came to see the new little house; the next two from last night as we had late-night chicken & beans; and the final one from this morn, with dear james loudly singing ¨one woman man.¨ (i was so tired, i fell into bed & didn´t take off my makeup, but don´t think anyone here will tell my mama.) i sure love my husband. he is a dear soul, when it gets down to it, tho like i wrote in a song, ¨he´s so sweet, meanest muther humper that i ever seen.¨ he´s both as well as much, much more. he says part of why he must´ve met me was so he could meet dad, & that dad is one of his best friends, & he loves mom & dad so much, & that´s the kind of thing james says, but nobody else ever has, & dad told him, when me & james were having tough times, ¨i´ve never seen my daughter so happy.¨ so in short, as usual, been down so long, but looks like there´s a way up & out, yet again. here is to still living.

inhale, exhale, repeat. rest in peace, ben.

sinus arrythmia, i just learned, is normal: your heart rate will vary between inhalation & exhalation. cause for alarm is when the resting heartrate overall & steadily (more than 7 days) is outside the normal range of 60-100 bpm. my sister & i each were born with mitral valve prolapse. as kids, we took meds before dental work. she maybe still does, but mine cleared up or maybe originally was a diagnostic mistake, a more recent md said. but i get palpitations, & it´s worrisome. we did a show saturday in lakewood ca at a place built for 50-60 ppl, but there were hundreds of bodies packing the place. i was set up in the walk-through with maybe 200 ppl breathing on me thru the course of the afternoon & i left there really sick. and been sick since. it has felt like covid-light. back when i had covid, i realized, this is really serious: this could take me out. i jumped on getting meds asap. this has brought similar symptoms, but not as severe, so i´ve just been lying around the house like a limp noodle, not doing much of anything... i posted today´s attempted natural remedy on facebook, & many responded that it could be a covid variant, so i keep taking at-home rapid tests, but they´ve all come out ok, so i´m gonna stop. btw, heart palpitations are very common w/¨women of a certain age¨ (iḿ now in that group). and iḿ the daughter of a hypochondriac, ergo prone to unraveling imagination, so i just gotta keep remembering: the human suit wants to be in a state of equilibrium. until it is finished... james was there saturday night when ben passed away. james was singing songs for ben & the loved ones & gatherers, & mid-song, he noticed his dear friend had perished. james knows what that looks like. he finished the song before he told everyone else in the room what had happened.... ben loved & adored elvis, so maybe, & i hope this is the case, he now sees elvis again. i want to believe that could really be; the fancy makes me happy, & i guess that´s all iĺl ever know... i just really had begun to see & understand what a cool & interesting person ben is, just this past yr. but nick still is here, & nick is worth getting to know better. we will make that happen.... iḿ supposed to be at work for extra yearly-planning stuff, but iḿ just not well... school´s about to start, & maddy is now on our staff, & so much is happening, but i gotta get better.... since this is my blog, here are pix from the show taken by krystal kozak as well as a flyer for another upcoming. james continues to be the maddingest, bravest, strongest, biggest-heartedest, amazingest & infuriatingest love of my life. that is all; more rest now.