driving through the winter night, lovely winking christmas lights, rocking chuck berry b-sides

it won't save the world, but it sure is bliss. in that way, it saves my world, at least for this evening. happy holidays tooyall!
AND GOOD GRAVY!! LISTEN TO THIS!!!: http://thehound.net/19881224/mp3s/start06.mp3 huey smith & the clowns, silent night... for more, or if this link doesn't work, go to http://thehound.net & look for the december shows... wonderful wonderful stuff!! life is worth it!!!!

it's the most wonderful time of the year.. time to buy more crap!!

i can't find the coolest christmas picture i've ever seen to post here!!! we used it long ago for the cover of a local underground paper, and it showed esquerita (left above) as santa claus!!! it was an image ripped off from norton records http://www.nortonrecords.com/index2.html , so maybe you'll be able to find it there in the upcoming month, not to mention many cool records.
well, tinsel & lights & commercial xmas is up all over; that kid put his gargantuan light show up at CALM for some really wonderful cornball loveliness; traffic & blood pressure's rising as the gift-buying frenzy intensifies; that crazy-crackup christmas story movie'll be on 24/7 soon enough; i have my annual wintertime headache & lack of air; & this all means it's time to post some christmas musical suggestions!!
MP3s: go to http://thehound.net for tons of free 40s-60s yuletide primitive rockandroll, RandB, and CandW!! (dang ampersand's not working on keyboard)
LISTS: go to http://www.ratso.net/cheat03.html for DJ ratso's finest (but i doubt you'll find many of these titles on limewire, blubster, or morpheus!)
RECORDS: i recommend these compilation LPs: a john waters christmas; rockabilly christmas; tejano country christmas; blues blues christmas 1925-55; rhythm & blues christmas; blue yule; christmas blues and shout; as well as tis the season for los straitjackets; merry texas christmas y'all (asleep at the wheel); merry christmas baby (charles brown); and the elvis, johnny mathis, johnny cash, brenda lee, new orleans, and andrew sisters christmas records. all these are available online from amazon, i think.

gobblegobblegobblegooblegobblegooblegobble

happy feast day! a few (very) simple thoughts: we're most of us americans "mixtures," but being indigenous american (YES, i use that term!) & italian at thanksgiving (or is that columbus day?) can be confusing!.. did anyone else grow up baffled about "what you are"? i've always loved the words, the music, the philosophy of underdogs, misfits, sad-sacks, & downright nutcases because anyone who's not these things more likely has instructions to life, privilege, slickness, conventional beauty, ideological certainty, those things that allow them to be on top, a lot of times by stepping on the heads of others. who needs them!! to paraphrase the christians, the meek shall inherit the earth, & you know what they say about the rich man entering heaven...
and i attribute this misfit-love to being mixed-race, being, like most of us USAnians, a "mutt." our dear little grandma was juaneno mission "indian" from san juan capistrano. she was devoutly catholic, & for that reason, i never bash the Church. i see a rosary or a "blessed mother" statue & think of grandma mary. the tribe has gotten very active & is one of those so close, yet so far from federal recognition, at which point we build casinos & get scholarship money. why not? i think such reward, tho insufficient (yes, & cynical), is tiny payback for near-eradication of an entire race. grandpa was mexican via chile, but i know nothing of his background, really - just have surmised that he was a talented, brainy man poisoned by cultural self-loathing from prejudice... all i know of the other side is that in italy, all the cousins, irregardless of age, drank vino, & "Papa" was always on tv. they served this regional dish, a ham loaf with eggs & pimientos & such that tasted (i'm sorry to have to admit this) just gross. dad said his uncle & father used to come home from union events talking about guys standing on the factory scaffolding & throwing hammers at scabs. sounds pretty old-world-violent. such are the measures to which the disenfranchised may resort to claw for power, i think. i wouldn't know, always having been lower-mid to (now) mid-class. we kinds kill ourselves with affluenza, self-absorption, & idle hands, i think. my last quadrant is english, & i know nada of that except that my dad was raised by a kindly, patient, parsimonious grandpa whom i never met but am grateful for because i think he taught my dad to be the gentle, circumspect man he is. that grandma's an ex-deputy, 83, a world traveler. :)
anyway, thanksgiving celebrates something very weird & uncelebratory, when you get down to it, so like so many things, i prefer to limn, float across the reality so that i may keep myself dopily grinning. to get into its implications, well, it's just too heartbreaking & makes me worthless. thanksgiving fundamentally for me is about loved ones, & giving thanks. i have a wonderful, precious family & so much love in my life. i have food, shelter, companions, music, books, opportunities for service to fellow humans, the things a soul needs. i also am 11 yrs past my due date, so on thanksgiving, i will give thanks for having another day on this precious planet. hope if you're reading this, you, too, may find good things for which to give thanks, & take action to improve the bad. if you want to comment on family or heritage, please do.

slaaaaaaaaaahd show

i just put a slide show on the dusk devils' myspace site. go to www.myspace.com/theduskdevils to see it! i rearranged & chose some new pix, but for some reason, they're not showing up. i'll check again tomorrow & see if the changes have shown up... meanwhile, enjoy the blast from the past these snaps provide, & comment if'n you wish! :) we had many good times, amidst all the "dysfunctional family" problemos common to music ensembles... my sister band, the ex-girlfriends, have recorded 5 of their 12 new songs & likely will post them to www.bakotopia.com once they figure out how to go from digital 8-track to cd... if you have such expertise & want to share it, please email! :)

la musica ed il video per uno spaventoso halloween il giorno... zombi rocknroll!!

happy halloween again! got a minute? here are links to video (below) & a few songs you've maybe never heard... rockabilly ain't the stray cats, & video (plus psychedelics & heavy metal) killed the radio star & rocknroll, period! this stuff, tho, to me embodies adrenalinized, greasy, wild rocknroll music, & in the spirit of the special day, here you can listen to & download crazy halloween tunes, to create a fun, rocking, out of this world spookfest soundtrack! http://thehound.net/19891028/ , http://thehound.net/19901027/ , http://thehound.net/19931030/ ...
how about some video? here are links to my most favorite videos by the ultra-photogenic cramps, the band that lives halloween all year long... it's hepped-up, gross & cool fun - don't watch unless you like zombie-monster sci-fi sleazybilly stuff, & if you do, you've probably seen all of these already! god bless youtube. these videos used to be so very hard to find! ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kpYUuHMhkg (garbageman) , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQcSiq--F0I & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3h315SyLmw (human fly & teenage werewolf - unused footage from urgh! a music war!) , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCQ4QLFl01g (tear it up from urgh! this part of the movie warped & moved the lives of nerds & misfits everywhere! at least it did mine!), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFxqJs9PdKI (interview w/hilarious bollywood footage used later in movie "ghost world" - lux is hilariously spacy-deadpan & very cool)... I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST! this is super funny & pretty tasteless (i guess)... if you like that kinfa thing, it'll make you laugh out loud!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGToQt1EylY (creature from the black leather lagoon) ... here are some more non-cramps halloweeny videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONKzJS1T_XM (screamin' jay hawkins - i put a spell on you!) , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdiCLpRgvEw (the mummies - justine!) , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRM3LO2ZCac (screamin' lord sutch - jack the ripper)... well, that's enough for now. there is so much more, so watch now, cause the recording & movie industries are cracking down... aaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooooooooooo!!

happy all hallows eve, all sts' day, dia de los muertos, plus a bunch of pontificating & psalm-singing no one cares about, including me...

bako has the #1 haunted house in the nation! go to http://www.chamberofchills.com/home.html for specs (thru 10/31/06)... show starts nightly at 7 pm...( i just looked at pix, & it looks way too scary for me, & i am a long-time horror movie freak, my favorites listed at bottom. doesn't seem "appropriate for all ages," to these eyes!! however, parents should decide for themselves. if i had little, medium sized, or just impressionable ones, they'd definitely not be going!)
happy birthday to blib! :) for halloween, we were haystack calhoun & the great moolah this past weekend, with friends in monterey. haystack's beard & moolah's red wig bit the dust, but it was fun enough... happy trick or treat & nighttime merry making to all who read this... & kind remembrance of those loved ones & seas of souls who've left before us. i love halloween's whistling in & laughing at the dark, followed by the colorful ceremony & reverence of all saints day & dia de los muertos. but can you fathom there are still some (here locally, A LOT more than some, sad to say) who think halloween is "the devil's birthday"??? that's what they actually call it! children in my classes, parroting their parents, say it. where does this fear come from? halloween, an "evil" celebration? in my view, evil is people who interpret their sacred texts for oppressive & violent purposes. evil is those who hurt fellow humans (& animals, which opens up another can of worms all together). evil are those who let their little ones dress up in "pimp" & "ho" costumes. (or maybe that's just stupidity... there have been articles recently about the sexing up of little girls' halloween costumes... yeccchhh!!! what can "adults" & manufacturers be thinking to encourage this mindset in children? i don't even wanna think about it. that certainly would make me think evil thoughts, like going out & slapping the crap out of someone.)
dressing up like "evil" to poke fun at superstitions & fears... to me, that's admirable! to show courage, to live bravely in the face of impending death, the death that is built into all of us, is the way to go. a definition: "Ignorance coupled with fear produces what is referred to as evil. "
boo!
these are my 13 favorite halloween movies:
terrifying (no children allowed!): 1. zombi; 2. texas chainsaw massacre (the original)
funny-gory (again, no kids!): 3. bad taste; 4. sean of the dead.
comedy-horror (ok for kids): 5. young frankenstein; 6. the addams family.
classics: 7. bride of frankenstein; 8. dr jekyll & mr hyde (1932); 9. the mummy.
psychological horror: 10. island of lost souls; 11. night of the hunter; 12) targets.
campy: 13. the abominable dr phibes
music: the cramps, the groovie ghoulies, screamin' jay hawkins, screamin' lord sutch, plus born bad and halloween rock & roll compilations galore. it's halloweeeeen!!!! wheeeee!!!!

jenna jenna jenna won't you come along with me jenna jenna wooo jenna jenna

i tried adding this pic to the below post, but it wouldn't go. blogger's funny like that sometimes. so here are jenna & i at the jerry lee lewis show last week down south. whatta kick! (too bad her "bakersfield" sweatshirt logo is obscured, tho.) it's funny how small the rockabilly & primitive R&R enthusiast subgroup is, no matter where you go. it can feel friendly and familiar, despite the dress code insisted upon by some! ferinstance, i saw that evening a fellow who was at the don't knock the rock gun club movie show back in june as well as a few musicians from green bay wi's rockin 50s fest back in 02 & several popular rockabilly musicians lots of folks know & like as well as friends of art fein's whom i've only read about on his site. (art took the photo.) now i can attach faces... tomorrow it's back to the city by the bay for school, where blib & i will stay with smitty, ex rso bassist, ex sometime model (one time he described in rhapsodic detail a photo shoot he did for playboy with some gorgeous babe), & early-retired schwab millionairo, now gardener of lombard street... john has a samurai kind of job these days, nourishing the famous plantlife while chasing off tourists & bikers who show bad driving etiquette along the crookedest road in the world... happy weekend to all who read this!

jerry lee lewis, stories of lennon & dylan

(ok, i just got an email asking for more show details, so i'm fattening this post...) these are photos by young jenna from yesterday's record release mini-show in hollywd by the one & only jerry lee lewis, promoting his new CD, "last man standing," featuring tons of guest artists ( http://www.amazon.com/Last-Man-Standing-Jerry-Lewis/dp/B000GRUQYW ) ... the record is full of energy; jenna enthused, "he sounds just like he used to!!" the thumping thumping bass, wild-abandon guitar, & shagging tempo of the mall-piazza packed show reminded me of the fabulous "don't knock the rock" video i seem to write about now & then (it's fantastic! look for it & get a copy!)... the killer did a 20-min set: two chuck berries, two of his, all pulsing-rocking. he stood up & smashed the keyboard with his foot & plonked it with his butt, but that was it for wild dramatics: jerry lee's been rode hard & hung up wet, not like the flaming wildman little richard still is... JLL has arthritis now, & so stuck to 3-4 of his never-fail thrill-to-the-bone piano tricks. i sympathized, having somewhat-arthritic thumbs from the tiny bit of key pounding i've done. jerry lee is one inimitably talented & tough mother to have assaulted the ivories all these years & still have such strength & dexterity, even if he isn't a wailing-wild good ole boy anymore... afterward at mel's, jenna & i had fries & onion rings while art fein ate off our plate (he had his own order, but does this) & told nonstop stories about the brown derby, cobb salads, working at variety, capitol, with the blasters, the cramps, hanging out with john lennon & yoko as well as bob dylan, phil spector, the fella's known & knows lots of famous folks... jenna was refreshing company & talked excitedly about the rousing music of the 50s in a way i've only heard art express, in a way i've always felt, too. she was a wonderful traveling companion. :)

"the greatest true psychobilly"...a backhand-slap of a compliment: remembering the earliest "dusk devils"

my sister wrote to exene & original sinners to say "thank you for putting my sister's band on your site." i figured they were recognizing the band of me & the guys playing rockabilly cover songs since late 2002. however, the o-sinners' reply indicates otherwise!
in 01-02, songs began pouring out of my craw like rainwater over a dirty gutter... nearly all were about old relationships (train wrecks, hostage situations, near murder/suicides). like many songwriters must, or how in the world would they move forward?, i felt i had good melodies & lyrics. i pried open my wallet, purchased the 2nd-tier tascam tape portastudio & started laying down tracks. problem is, i'd never sung before & was seriously rusty on piano. at that time, i was on the heels of having played bass in a hessian-type band, but that was it - no ivory stomping since the high-as-a-kite country beau days, when i'd forge out buck owens, rodney crowell, highway 101 by ear in the wee am hours on his bartender roommate's bitchin' yamaha cp-80...
slowly, very slowly, i would work out the crudest of guitar parts. it took hours & hours to play one little crappy sounding line!! i have this beat-up kay, so beat up, even phil alvin wouldn't play it... i had no amps: everything went straight into the portastudio. no effects: i'd sing into a trash can, even, to try to get some kind of different sound. most of the singing, i'd double the vocals w/a tight harmony to fill the sound up, like buck & don or louvin bros manque... the signals were always too high or low. my timing would go off constantly cause it was so hard to hear what i was doing. i used drum tracks off a keyboard my father was sweet enough to buy me, since my earlier efforts with chopsticks to make "drums" were too bad even for me to abide. with each track addition, there would be degradation of another. it was a mess, but it was mine.
so many people were doing this kind of thing in the earlier net years, pretending to be a band, but working solo at home, trying to get their music out there. i certainly didn't feel unique, but it was certainly fun & exciting, too: i felt like a low-rent, nobody, distaff ed wood. but productive!! creating!! no matter how rotten the track, if it recorded, i'd usually roll with it, mostly out of fatigue & determination. this was when i'd just started a local underground paper & my total attitude was, just do it. don't look it too closely or you'll balk. make something, do something, or SHUT UP!!!
i took my crude but heartfelt love, loss, revenge songs, made a tape called "the dusk devils," & gave it to many people. i'd give them out, then run. maybe SOMEONE would hear the songs, through all the mess. the cover was a photoshop i made of me, me (me as twins), & my husband being choked by a young andre the giant. johnny fire in fl ended up recording one of the songs professionally - "my heart remembers when." recently, i pulled out the old recordings to see if any of them were salvagable for another music project i sort of have... i decided NO WAY!!! i was happy to realize, tho, like brian p has said, my playing has improved since back then, so i guess i need to tell him "thank you" since he was right. i used to scoff when he'd say it. those old recordings were not only emotionally naked in sentiment, but REALLY REALLY RAW (read: bad) in many ways!! i don't think i could or would ever perform them, but i like my lyrics & melodies, & i like my pretty, rottenly made songs, their stubborn horribleness & grit & yet how some parts ring out like lovely truths & how does that happen, anyway? there just must be a god.
these are the recordings that the original sinners & exene liked. :)
here's the letter angie, my younger sissy who had a birthday yesterday, got. thank you, ang, for sending the thank you note. i never would've thought to do so, & so never would've known that exene & her band liked my first songs, my earliest music. :)

"No thank her, Angie, This is Jason from Sinners. Please tell her for me that I'm in love with that terrible tape recording they gave us in Bakersfield when they opened for us years back. ["We" didn't because there was no band, but I'm glad to think he remembers it that way.] I still have it and it doesn't leave our truck often. The over driven bass, the screeching squirps of the recorder, the synthesizer drums, and through it all the most beautiful songs. It's a complete disaster. I consider it one of the greatest true psychobilly recordings I've ever heard. True love, Jason Edge"

the killer awoke before dawn... he put his boots on...

i always thought it'd be cool to put jerry lee lewis's mug on a shirt w/those doors lines, since they're sinister & so is the killer, tho one is hotly & one is coolly so, like the difference between robt mitchum (hot) & charles laughton (cool), but both musical acts headed by magnetic, egotistical, manly SOB types... (i have a fever. bear with me.)
JLL'll play a little show at the virgin megastore, hollywood/ highland in socal, thurs oct 12 at (i think) 6:30 pm to promote a "new" LP...i hope to be there with my boots on, tho if this flu doesn't pass, i might die with 'em on instead. i wrote about it a yr or more ago, but the coolest video ever is "don't knock the rock," a bbc granada tv show from '63 featuring JLL, little richard, the animals, gene vincent... it is breathtaking, one of those musical deals that makes the listener want to go wild, jump out the window, make a break for it. i saw it when i was an ostrich teen & it nearly made me come to life (tho unfortunately it took the advent of partying to do it). i saw JLL many yrs back with bo diddley (lots of fun) and little richard (always the best, but did a set so short, our friends went for cerveza & the king-queen was done when they returned)... the killer at that time decidedly lacked oomph, but he could still run those keys, as i bet he still can. maybe i could partly follow a geriatric jerry lee, get some playing ideas! (doubt it.) ...oh, i gotta let the dogs in... just got home & they look so pitiful out there, in the drizzle... then to bed for something resembling death, sweet sleep, i hope. (pic is of great double LP - corny, raunchy, gritty, sort of horrible in its egotism & slop yet oh so cool stuff...)

the painter man: may he rest in peace

this am i got home from a trip where i visited wonderful sister b & my old friend donna & was told that our dear friend dennis died last night at around 11 pm. dennis had been to prison several times, said his middle name used to be "failure to appear" because of the length & nature of his rap sheet, lived on top of the silver fox bar for a while, but in the past 10 yrs had completely turned his life around. his new middle name, he said, was "willing to go to any length," & he lived that way. he had been reunited with family. he backed up his words with action. he was well-loved & respected in the local fellowship. he was hard-working, a jokester, a friend, someone who always had a funny, kind word for all, a guy head to toe sincere. "has anybody told you they loved you today?" was his most common greeting to men & women alike, accompanied by a cheshire-like grin & a hug. he always sat by the door at the oildale sunday morning spiritual meeting, &, in what surprised me in such a gruff-seeming guy, would loudly sing perfect harmony during "happy birthday." when i helmed the local roundup last spring, we asked him to lead the saturday night speaker mtg & a woman at this morning's mtg remembered, "he showed up wearing his shades & a flashy purple jacket & i thought, 'is that dennis, or dr johnny fever?' he cleaned up real nice."
dennis's dear buddy jimmy called brian & gave him the news last night at 11 pm as he drove up to fresno, where the accident had happened. jimmy was on his way up to bring home dennis's friend kathleen, who was on dennis's painting crew, saw the accident happen, saw dennis draw his last breath at the hospital (the story is so moving & full of so many "coincidences," but kathleen is the one to tell it, not me). when i got the news this am, through my tears i asked brian what jimmy & kathleen were doing now & he said, matter-of-factly, "they're on their way to the meeting." so in the truck we got & off we went, too.
dennis told kathleen, when his own father was dying & he was there every step of the way, "this is what we do." meaning that we take action, do the next indicated step, do the right thing, even & maybe especially even when it's tough.
dennis, dear friend, dear "painter man," as brian called you, we miss you already. you walked it like you talked it, died doing what you loved, surrounded by family & friends who loved & admired you. from a hopeless & incomprehensibly demoralized drunk, you had become a happy, productive, successful member of society who helped so many to find hope & have the courage to keep trying. we should all leave this earth & be fortunate enough to have lived like dennis did.

punk rock queen exene's top 8: dusk devils

johnny fire from FL emailed & told me exene had put the dusk devils on her myspace top 8... !!!... this is something of a small compliment, a big one, in old punk circles. it'll be gone soon, but here's the link: www.myspace.com/exenecervenka ... exene is a celebrity, like the great moolah or buck owens, about whom folks seem to have strong feelings. i saw her original sinners at jerry's one time, in a ear-bleedingly loud, screaming, shredding, but bouncy-fun & exciting event. exene, just a bit my senior, looked like a pretty, broken victorian thrift-shop doll. 3 chord whore's shantell had a punk rock book filled w/autographs she'd gathered from punk royalty: exene was flattered & happy to sign it. i had a scrap of paper; exene was not flattered or happy to sign it. this was one of punk rock's queens, what did i expect: pollyanna? it was a great show. not everything's personal!! ... when i was young & everything was personal, exene was to me cool & mysterious & more accessible than siouxsie of the creatures/the banshees... exene's band x was punk-poetry, but their guitarist, billy zoom, had the look & lines of rockabilly. they were quirky & stubborn people, you could tell, who covered the doors, jerry lee lewis, the troggs, whatever they wanted to, & wrote brutal & beautiful odes to LA life. they liked what they liked & i respect that, tho when their music went more metal, i stopped listening.

"some people never go crazy. what truly horrible lives they must lead." - bukowski

just concluded school wkend #2 in shaky town, the city by the bay, just can't call it san fran-sicko, that just ain't right... the 152 over pacheco pass is the way to go, i think, past the reservoir & casa de fruta, then on 101 where i stopped off in burlingame & caught the bukowski pic "factotum"... i am not shiteing you when i say i've dreamed many times of this movie house, from the windy staircases & terraced seating & partitions in the pie-shaped theatre to the mirror-backed tree growing in the foyer. it should've been creepy to finally see it, but it was downright cool & wasn't weird a bit! fri night a lovely & gracious 1st grade/art teacher put me up in her bernal hts home & i went walking in the cool eve & had the greatest malted at this little hamburger joint full of winking lights & flowers & chromed surfaces.
sat's classes dazzled me. after near-15 yrs in elementary ed, i'm so grateful to receive education (& to know i still can learn!)... my favorite teacher is neeli, who was drinking buddies with bukowski & has formidable credentials in beat poetry, street & school, life & learning: he's in line to be poet laureate of san francisco right now. he's this beautiful, broken-toothed, brilliant, big-hearted soul who spins wildly fascinating, rambling lectures. when the profs get going, & neeli especially, my heart pounds like it's love or music... it's too thrilling to learn learn learn, & i feel grateful, humbled, invigorated. Man has specific manifestations, but Man is one: i love it. i'm a bit of a slouch in the group, mebbe, having majored in english tho i should've majored in "pub" & learned little formally, but i feel worthy of my seat. i may not have big school breeding, comparative classics muscle, or polyglotism, but i've got life & i've got willingness &, doing the new college program, i'm getting my heart & soul back. (bukowski said, "if you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose.") a little more on neeli:
http://www.newcollege.edu/profiles/profiledetails.cfm?profileID=15 ...he & gary tombleson, the program's keen & regal director, took a road trip to smellay for the donation of bukowski's writings to the huntington. the info is here: http://www.huntington.org/Information/bukowski.html ... tho it doesn't feel as funky-safe as austin or as rambling-romantic as LA, sf's mission's diversity & rhythm invigorate me: stopping in for a burrito-blimp that lulls the maw all day, rummaging thru free books on a sidewalk, hanging out at a corner to listen to mexican or jazz music coming from bars while watching yuppies walk dogs & realizing that HERE, i look like a square, L7, a dork... cool! no one cares how much makeup i have on or what i'm wearing; no one stares, like happens at times in bako. it's like when i was a kid & wished to have powers of invisibility, but it's real & i can reappear at will, by smiling at or greeting a passer-by... due to brain drain, i forwent more movies at the corner roxie theatre ( www.roxie.com ) & hit the road, on the way home cheered to realize, tho my nocturnal vision's getting awful dim, if i can be a chase car & have music, i can drive all night: chicago soul, old crow medicine show on prairie home companion, classic country & western, reprises of creepy, wild wolfman jack shows: the songs kept the truck rolling & i was home before 10, greeted by spouse & menagerie.

i see ghosts... getting eddicated in books and in life

took niece to bookstore so she could get the latest manga mag she wanted. thought i'd get a few texts for my sf-masters program, like henry V, civilization & its discontent... looked to my left & a sandy-haired man was walking the opposite aisle from me, quickly, to keep pace w/me, smiling w/bright eyes & a mischievous smile. i was knocked for a loop cause it was a ghost from the far past, someone who'd broke my heart, who i never should've been with, but someone who suffered giant heartache himself recently when his famous & ignoring daddy died. i felt great sympathy for this fellow when his dad passed b/c i remembered how sad he was that he hardly got dad's attention; a very talented singer himself, his heart was broken because all he wanted was to sing on stage w/his pop just once, but he knew it wouldn't happen.
and it didn't. son continued to fail, it seemed, & dad continued to ignore, tho i guess in the last days, son got to be there for his ailing father. i extended my hand but he wanted a hug (he was the guy who taught me to hug & be friendly, tho ironically he'd learned it in a phony & glad-handing way)... i was shocked by how he'd changed, from a burly linebacker, baby-faced kinda guy to this handsome but aged, sad-eyed, thin fellow, about my height w/me in platform shoes. we chatted just a little. i felt he was looking for cheering up. he introduced me to his scared-looking little girl. i'd seen them before, two yrs ago, & at that time the child looked scared, too. that family was taught to be suspicious... a child that age, it seemed to me, should be happy & trusting, but obviously that wasn't what she'd seen & learned. this was worst of all, to think that the same suspicion & fear the ex-beau felt was being carried on as some kind of family tradition... i guess when people wish for fame, they (i) should consider its consequences on soul & family. i would not want to have led the life this fellow has...
it was the longest relationship i had at that time. i was a child & we were mired in partying. he was raised rich but ignored, right-wing, blustering, uneducated, emotionally abused. i was raised lower mid-class, lonely but loved, idealistic, educated, backward. he told me one time i was the only girl who didn't want his money. i thought i could save him. seeing him, i was reminded that i'd left a tiny bit of my heart with him. the feeling seemed to be reciprocal. i'd sent him condolences thru a friend, & as i walked away, he said, "thank you for the card." i looked back & he said, with sincerity in his eyes, "i mean it. thank you." (i include this picture, taken over 20 yrs ago w/brother jack, because jack one time dunked my head in a fountain at magic mtn when i was being an immature little brat. so jack was one of the very few people i knew back then who'd here & there let me know how out of line i was!... the original pic also showed their uncle dale, but since i didn't know the man, it didn't seem fitting to put him here.)

the daughter of the yodeling blonde bombshell & leaving downtown school

(pic from www.carolinacotton.org) today was my last day teaching at a high-profile public school in the middle of town... of course, it took me 5 yrs, 2 wks to realize people there cared. self-centeredness can make a person (me) really dense! anyway, i will miss the kind, generous staff there, the retired-nfl-looking, southern-gentleman crossing guard, the sunny daycare gal who'd come in after school to have homework class, the office & cafeteria staff, our short, strong custodian-lady, &, of course, the children... i was able to have some fun side projects while at that school, like a backyard b-movie society, a local underground paper that's still publishing, a band... but now that part of my life is past for the most part & next wk i start that masters program in san francisco. whoopee! and uh-oh... but i guess change is always scary.
tonight i got to go to b2 studios & lay down a piano part for fattkatt's record. sharon marie opened the door & i saw in her pretty, friendly face her mama, carolina cotton, with whom i taught at mt vernon school for several yrs. when i knew her, mrs cotton had been teaching for decades & was well-respected, retirement age: may she rest in peace.
sharon marie is nice & easy-going as can be & devoted to her mama's memory. for in addition to being a well-known, old-school, caring, dedicated teacher, carolina cotton as a young woman was a beautiful, slender blonde western singer who acted in movies w/gene autry & the likes! she could yodel, sing in english & spanish in a warm, pretty voice, & smile & entertain in a most lovely and inviting way. i remember her being quite beautiful as an old woman, with sky-blue eyes, a patrician nose, & a pretty smile.
rockabillies & country-western music fans should get carolina's cd, which sharon, who mastered her mother's music from original acetates, has available. the western swing music is upbeat, nostalgic, & wonderful. :) . here are some links: (sharon's studio) www.myspace.com/b2studio ; (carolina cotton) www.carolinacotton.org ; (carolina cotton on myspace) www.myspace.com/carolinacotton ...

willie for texas energy czar, auntie rita for president

tonight auntie rita took me (tho i drove) to the tachi tribe's palace casino in lemoore to watch willie nelson (future texas gov kinky friedman's energy czar). aunt rita is an apple-shaped, copper-toned senior citizen with a mischievous smile & crow-black eyes that twinkle. she starts talking & crowds gather. she is loads of fun, likes to stir the pot, & can beat anyone at spinning a yarn. men love her & they always will, even when she's 90 years old. in her day, she was gorgeous & wild as they come & had more fun than 5 wild women could've. when i was a baby, she told me i would be a go-go dancer - now, she says my little cousin meredith will be a pole dancer (times change). she & my mom are fiercely devoted to each other in the love-hate way opposite personalities are - sisters, on top of it! they cook feasts for each other & the family, go on obscene shopping sprees, worry, yell, fret, laugh, & talk s**t about whoever's not in the room.
i enjoyed myself, both of us chowing "rez dogs" & a butt-burning pepper at the casino, me watching aunt rita play the slots, walking around amidst the jingles & flashes of the dark casino world while sipping free douwe egberts coffee (a tasty brew!), waiting forever & ever in the late-summer sun to see willie, worrying a bit about my aunt standing all that time as she chewed my butt for not working the security to let us in (razzing me to "flash some boob" or "show 'em your g*d* indian card!" as people in line laughed & laughed), but then once inside, everything being ok as the friendly, musty, jazzy, country-blues washed over everyone. usually the slow stuff makes me want to rowf! but willie's mellow show had much heart & soul. the music was laid-back, but definitely not sappy; the songs were romantic & felt authentic. i loved the sloppy elegance of it, how the band seemed to fall down the stairs, then all land at the bottom, soundly & together: ta-DA!!
willie's band was billed as "willie nelson and family" & that's how it felt - like watching a bunch of old friends playing road-weary, nose-tweaking, tough but good-hearted backwoods tunes, with a touch of big city. the church songs were especially rousing, but then willie said, "i'm gonna try an instrumental now, somethin by django reinhardt."
"that was bee-YOO-tiful!" aunt rita said at the end of it.... & it WAS.
john fogerty followed, but we didn't stay. aunt rita wanted to beat the post-concert traffic, she had more wild & funny & crazy stories to tell, & i was just along for the ride... tho i was driving. so off we headed for home, into the dusty, humid, dairy-stinking, but somehow lovely valley nighttime moonlit fields.

the lost weekend on secondlife.com

popular science had an story about second life, a free-membership, streaming video program, a mix of virtual reality games (tho a game with no objective), ebay, & myspace. you create your character, "teleport" to different "lands," meet people, use fictitious $ (which you obtain with real $) to buy & sell stuff.
i was intrigued when i read that you can mold your character/avatar's appearance to your specs. i love photoshop & being a half-breed kid during the 70s, have always been obsessed with my (what i think to be) odd facial features & skin tone, so i jumped at the chance to create a cyber jenny & find others on secondlife who looked like me or like my mixed family.
that was thursday. i came up for air last night.
secondlife is highly addictive. and now i must delete it.
but before i do, i forwarded secondlife info to friends, especially artists. let them become immersed for a bit, too!
the avatar part was most fun! i was obsessed w/making my character "really" look like me. quickly i learned that it's impossible - you can only create an idealized "you." the facial feature possibilities & skin tones are anglo-centric. the body types & skin textures are of healthy 20-somethings. however, it sure felt creative to mess with the little template female til she came out looking generically enough like a cartoonized me. (see pictures of "me" at my "home," a swiss chalet. i don't know why my home was a swiss chalet. i think there were parties going on inside, but i was scared to go see.)
i opened an account for & made an avatar of my spouse, too, but he didn't much like it, so i won't post it here... i thought the resemblance w/ him was much closer than the one i made of me, but that makes sense since i objectively observe his looks better than my own.
anyway, in my three days lost in secondlife, i was befriended by a young guy who took me on a ski lift ride & helped teach me to walk & fly (you can fly places, realistically, probably one of the most mesmerizing features of secondlife, especially if you've ever wished you were a bird) & then asked me to go get a drink, so i teleported to beat it... i went to "amsterdam," & it did look like the real place, but it was filled with impossibly tall, gorgeous, muscular, &/or scantily-clad young people looking to pick each other up.
it became more & more apparent that the "people" i saw on second life didn't WANT to look like their real selves... many of the conversations i observed (i mostly just flew places & was a voyeur) were about second life being escapist, a fantasy place. i really thought i'd find lots of folks who, like me, wanted to be themselves! secondlife is very UN-myspace-like in this way. myspace is juvenile & narcissistic, but i've met many music & movie nerds on there, bright & strange & wonderful people who proudly display their own visages & quirky interests. i've actually met people i have stuff in common with on myspace! second life seemed quite generic, by comparison, a place i guess where you'd go to "get away" from yourself & your "first [real] life"... i did chat with a chubby, bearded guy in trapeze artist garb who said he was in his "first life" in a hospital in bangkok, but i got spooked again & beat it out of there.
i put brian's avatar at the car & motorcycle races, but at each, there was only one car & one bike, & no other people.
secondlife felt lonely. i felt like charlton heston in "the omega man." i found myself flying all over the place, looking down on empty villages, buildings, towns. i would land & there would be groups of young people talking. it felt like high school. i felt awkward. everyone was toweringly tall & slim & glamorous. didn't anyone want to look like themselves?? maybe i just was in the wrong places... i kept trying to find nerds, goofballs, fat people, record collectors, movie fans, but no luck. oh, one more thing: on secondlife, you'll find lots of porn. and lots of furries. you don't have to even be on the look-out: both are just THERE.
when i realized hours & hours were passing with me unawares, it was time to stop.
so i say goodbye to vinyl raveup, my second life alter-ego (you have to pick a canned patronym). i'm gonna quit second life. this time, i'll stop. i can do it. i'll quit tomorrow. :)

los lonely boys texicano rocknroll por vida... & why my friend brian paxton is wrong because i'm narrow-focused, not narrow-minded... :)

our dear friends david & yoli gave us a night on the town - dinner at mama roomba's, then tickets to los lonely boys. i knew nothing about the band, so went on youtube & heard that grammy song w/all the melody & thought, "oh, YAH!!" it has the line that goes, "how far is heaven". :) ... saw friendly, ubiquitous matt munoz outside the rob-a-bank cnvntn ctr & recalled the last time i was there, at a rodeo at which the ambulance came down SEVEN TIMES to whisk away crushed-up cowboys... how nice it was to see 100s of happy people out for a night of music, happy even buying plastic cups of beer for SIX BUCKS... but then the opening band came on & i was dunked into irritated depression, practiced TM a bit, thought to myself, well, they're working hard at it, ...but they weren't even sweating!!! then the guy beside us said the frontman looked like jim morrison & i got even more bummed because he looked as much like jim morrison as i do, but wore an army coat, so there was the resemblance, how dang dumb can people be, i thought, grumble grumble, but then pulled the evil one back in & thought nice thoughts... but how did this band get this opening slot?
maybe the agent pitched it like this: "we got this band, & they have an accordion, & they have this song called 'paloma'"... the frontman (a nice enough i'm sure, self-serious looking guy whose songs i have written myself, but keep locked in a drawer) looked a bit like lux from the cramps, so i finished their set imagining him w/big greasy punker hair wearing fishnets & stiletto heels & that helped the time pass.
i went to the can & was spooked when i spied a stalker from the past, so ran back to the seats & soon enough, the show was on.
los lonely boys, of san angelo tx, are a brother act with lots of vocal harmonies a la other brother acts like the everlies, & their voices all are a lot like dave hidalgo's from los lobos to me, or my friend manuel, late of the blazers, who were under los lobos' wing for quite some time a decade ago.... there is a cute (bassist), skinny (guitarist), & chubby (drummer) lonely boy, & they sweated enough for both them & the opening act. i don't know this type of music much, but a few main influences seemed to be santana & stevie ray vaughn; i especially could imagine frail, long-haired guitar-whiz henry locked in his room as a teenager, going over & over & over those carlos parts w/spidery finger til they were perfect.
i loved a lot of the first 1/2 of the set, with its ultra-melodious songs performed in two- & three-part harmonies near-throughout: east side louvin brothers! there was a really lovely tune with a haunting half-step cuban-kinda vibe... then dad came out, looking like a mexicano kinky friedman, a cheesily handsome, big smiling man w/black moustache & white 10-gallon hat, & sang some tex-mex tunes. then even better! they winged two buck owens songs & i finally! realized what that music means to a lot of people. they didn't know the lyrics & blew changes & endings, but the emotion & heart were inspiring! :)
drummer ringo came out at the end & thanked the audience & god & his family... "the greatest thing in the world is when i'm playing and i look to my left & right & there are my brothers," he said, beaming like the happiest boy on earth... i've never seen THAT at a concert!!!!! the set wound up with a 15 or 20 min solo-orgasmo piece w/lots of wheedle-wheedle guitar & excess (we'd already had plenty of evidence these young fellows are bad-ars on their instruments), but overall, the night had so much heart & the musicians such commitment to putting on a good show...
it's kinda nice to like a popular band; i feel a bit more like i belong... maybe. it doesn't really matter, but it IS nice to have commonalities w/fellow humans. brian paxton says i'm narrow-minded, but i don't see what's wrong with liking what you like & knowing it. good music doesn't have to have a label or name, but to me, there's only good music & bad music. bad music is intolerable. it actually makes me physically ill!!!! it's like trying to have a conversation w/a person who's just vomited all over you!!! or having to play hostess while holding an enema!!!! ...no, someone telling me music is good will never convince me. i learned that back in childhood when the cute boy at school told me to go buy this new foreigner album. that was the last time i let the opinions of others influence me musically!!!!!! ...well, here i am rambling again, so happy weekend to all. :)

suitcase simpson & one-handed jenny on piano

i found out fattkatt wants me to play piano, not sing, on his record!!! aaaaahhhh!!! he told me, "don't worry, it's like a carl perkins song," but carl perkins played guitar!! he had backing piano on early cuts, especially on sun, where most all the platters featured keys... so i listened to fattkatt's song a few times &, after clarifying whether he wanted a jerry lee or floyd cramer kind of part (both recorded with carl early in his career), i came up with something kinda a little killer like: lots of 7ths & stabs, bloodied-finger glissandos, heavy on the south side... good thing i'm a lefty! good thing brian p just gave me rips of all the JLL mercury sessions! (i had one or two of them, but they're buried in my vinyl collection...)
it's kinda funny & amazing that red simpson is the other piano player on this record... because all red has to do is a red simpson kind of part. :) this is the guy who wrote "close up the honky-tonks" and hundreds of other great songs!!! my name'll be on the same record. it's amazing, really... :) here's red's website: www.suitcasesimpson.com
the other day, art fein called out of the wild blue asking us to be on his tv show & i was very flattered, but also stressed!! ...because a certain someone in my band was unavailable to play... so i got on el horno with all the interesting artsy people i could think of in the smellay region, sent art names: ruben from blazers/pistoleros, romeo carey (filmmaker son of timothy, the world's greatest sinner), pixelfest honcho gerry fialka & songstress wife suzy williams, count smokula, my ultra charming maniac writer friend clancy, and finally got cody bryant on the phone. pitched the show to him and red simpson. cody used to play shows with red at viva cantina by the racetrack in pasadena; don't know if he still does. he was en route to a gig, but called back. i don't think it worked out in end, but art was interested in having them on, and i hope he does!
fattkatt went and saw red last monday at trout's, so i guess he's doing better health-wise and that's real good news. he and his wife joyce are the best of folks. :)
anyhow, the corn is ready on the stove, so time to run... but first, in case your soul is missing, in attempt to get mine back visavee [sic] my profession, i'm starting this masters degree program in two weeks, twice a month in san francisco: http://www.newcollege.edu/leadership/index.cfm . two people said it "changed their lives." that sounds like just the ticket! i made curtains today for my truck cause i have a feeling i'll be sleeping in it a lot while doing this gig......................... dang! there was smoke coming from the kitchen!!!!! i burned dinner!!!!!!!!

i'll gladly pay you tuesday for an htmlburger today

i just love cryptograms & other such code-like puzzles & was a typesetter for the baron of bakersfield for several yrs, but i don't know squat about how to write html. i guess it's not something you can just intuit... one time as a kid my dad showed me some basic programming & i wrote a little thing that made the computer insult you. clever kid, huh? (TYPICAL kid, that is.) :) anyhow, people've been pestering me periodically: how come you don't have links on your blog? finally, nick belardes (www.nlbelardes.com) set me up. i just needed him to get me started. once i SAW the code & how it goes, i could ape. i like, no, LOVE learning patterns. like when i was a kid, i was crazy for that game simon. i could go up into the 50s, repeating the musical sounds, before bombing out. so i love all that (i can't type it correctly or blogger thinks i'm writing code) < f =" blablablablablog.blogspot.com "> < / a > < / li > stuff. it's all new!:) i went in & added more links to the ones nick had started for me, & now (i'm a little obsessive) there's about 100 of them, & i hope you look at them all, & suggest more of them. :) especially be sure to read "how to yodel." nick says my beefed-up page looks "cool," implying it didn't before :)... which i know it did not... & it still ain't, except what the presence of the names of cool people give it, but i'll take the compliment! thank you, nick.