feliz semana/fotos de tammy (y yo y mi banda)

well, merle haggard was at trout's sat night. and cash'd out at f-lips sunday. and i saw none of it!!! but my wkend was super swell & hope yours was, too. :) it's a golden morning... may all be well...

blablablablablablabla & a get-well-soon to jani's foot

it's saturday!!! aaaaaaaaahhhhh!!! :) :) :) :)
how are you? i'm hoping the burning pinch above my left eye will be loosened by this cup of coffee i drink, heated on the stove so as not to wake my visiting friend who is snoring away in the living rm (if an ant walks across the ceiling in this little place, everyone wakes up!)... was supposed to do a walk w/jani this a.m., charity for family survivors of suicides, but jani dropped the new fridge on her foot, so no walking for her. if you read this, it's at harris pk... later, tho, i might pick her up cause mama's having a tea party. doesn't that sound quaint? right now, once the pinch evaporates, i will run to the farmer's mkt. if you didn't know, there's one every sat a.m. out front of montgomery world plaza on F st near golden state. a friend says an rx said it's worth the extra dough, if you can swing it, to get organic. i just know the apples i got there a few wks ago were juicy-sensational! ...missed my friend british bard david nigel lloyd's show last night at dagney's due to being under the weather, but here's his site: www.davidnigellloyd.com - did see an awesome harvest moon, fecund-golden in the night, over duck park (central). if you haven't been to central pk, directly behind the art museum, thru which the kern river is prettily channeled & darling ducks wiggle & swim, GO!!! it's one of the nicest things around... did you read about the old man who saved the other from pit bull attack? while others took pix/video of the former being ripped to shreds by the dogs, or stood by frozen in horror, 67-yr old andy castaneda used his cane to beat off the dogs, saving the other guy's life. we have heroes amongst us!! a big-city friend has caused me lately to appreciate this place a little more bc yesterday i quite easily was able to get a thank you to andy castaneda (thru felix & steve @ the cal)... we can walk our wide sts @ night in relative quiet & safety, we run into one another in passing @ the mkt or strolling downtown, our traffic isn't too too too bad: yes, i guess this place (except for particulate smog, brain drain, & scary jingoism-fundamentalism) isn't so bad in some ways... yes, if discussions of politics & religion generally are avoided, we are some nice folks, relative to some places!
ok, enough stalling, time to go get in a few miles... may your wkend be very, very, very long... & mine, too! :)

gratitude

ohhh... have a headache/sore throat & am being attacked by delusions of obesity. time for a gratitude list!
1. being a dusk devil; 2. pizza & chicken & fries w/the fellers last night on randy claus; 3. not too hot these days in bakersfield; 4. school success story from beaming friend who usually doesn't smile enough; 5. planning & imagining & dreaming up another band trip; 6. gina marie & toni; 7. learning new songs last night; 8. randy's nice kid; 9. the comedy team of philbert & krambo; 10. my little shelter; 11. reading interesting book called nickeled & dimed (donated by woman who read my article in the paper); 12. spoke spanish a lot today at parent-teacher conferences & really enjoyed it, tho i likely sounded mentally challenged & my brain hurt afterward; 13. compliment from school grandma on article on importance of libraries that the cal ran 2 wks ago; 14. running the track & just being around the nice kids at our school; 15. friendly, sympathetic chat w/nice school mom who's also getting divorced; 16. will hang out w/family tonight & do my laundry; 17. stephanie & sylvia; 18. free californian at the farmer boy contained cryptogram & pic of beaming brown old man who saved another from pit bulls by beating them off w/his cane (it just made you blubber to read it, or at the least, be moved); 19. egg sandwich w/lettuce at farmer boy; 20. alice & other nice people at my school.
21. about to lie down for a quick snooze before an appt i hope will continue to extricate my head from my can. the hour has arrived...zzzzzzzz....

rest in peace, jay; halloween at cal; "fair is foul, & foul is fair: hover through the fog & filthy air"

->this past wkend i saw again that contradiction, confusion, even calamity can make the life-path more clear. usually i heed & cultivate & covet my joys; however, then, having nearly fetishized the "happy" & transcendent experience, when misery hits, i magnify & pathologize it: I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY!! WHY CAN'T I BE HAPPY??? (continue w/self-pity script). but really, of course of course, as all a-dults know, misery's a part of life, a prompt to action, a message, a whisper or kick from the universe to get cracking. to quote zombieland, "time to nut up or shut up!" which i take to mean, get moving, stop whining, no half measures. for out of action, spurred by misery, revelation, growth, improved closeness to other humans can bloom... what a change of mind & life i got to have by leaving this "filthy air" for a wkend!
-> 1st, this: jay & cece were friends from the motorcycle trips i used to go on. they were the most perfectly matched duo: hard-core sf-born stone-cold bikers, recovered & into service, short, stocky, long-haired, cheerful in the grateful way of sober people who've been rescued from a common peril & realize it. they were such great examples of happy sobriety, sponsoring tons of people. on summer trips, jay & johnny (& woody if he was in the rm, too) would make the hotel walls & ground shake w/their snoring in a cacaphonous thunder that was sort of funny cause it made all us non-snorers in the rm feel like we were snow white w/the 7 dwarves, mebbe.
-> we went to visit jay & cece one time at their place up in gold country & cece & i did wii sports, which was huge fun i'd never done, then we all went to this italian trattoria housed in a big wooden building & to a speaker mtg. when they'd stop thru bako en route home from parker, az, where they'd set up their enormous rolling 2nd home for the spring & summer, cece & i would sing everly bros @ the piano. cece is a great harmonizer, her dad having traveled the country in a barbershop quartet back in the '50s. she also told incredible stories about being the little queen of the portuguese church she attended, of her aunts crawling on their knees to approach her, all gussied up like a tiny bride, at the altar.
-> i write this bc sunday while i was in berkeley, all those friends whom i don't & maybe won't seen anymore held a wake for jay, who passed on last month. b wrote me that jay woke up w/a sore back, went to the rx, & was told he had systemic cancer. it took him faster than it did uncle henry (june 18). wise, friendly jay is much missed by all, & i hope the many sponsees whom he helped show the way will continue to carry the msg of recovery. if you know cece, or just want to post something for her, i'll pass along condolences. she is a great little lady, such a champ.
-> berkeley was wonderful, like a dream, like freedom, like a honeymoon w/life. left the valley smog for the east bay, staying again at the piedmont house hostel, & walked telegraph, shattuck, university, ate crepes, loved zombieland & the most delicious caramel popcorn @ the shattuck moviehouse more than i thought i ever would (never seen such a combination of X-rated gore [closed my eyes a lot] & warm-heartedness), went to bookstores, novelty stores, enjoyed the breezes, dined at angeline's cajun cafe to the wonderful sounds of nola tunes, felt aged & tired but then ultimately not unhappy amongst the droves of laughing, squealing, bellowing, frisky berkeley babies in their halloween fineries, got in my costume (pic from last yr & this below)) & drove to alameda to tammy & byron's & visited while they passed out candy (old-school punk & rockabilly slapped away in the background & tammy & sarah & byron cracked foul-mouthed jokes - declaring us all "wenches" & "scurvy mates" - in that cool mix of irreverence & love for life that the livelys have). i was dazzled by a friend who, appearing in costume, was transformed, positively regal, handsomer than george clooney, for pete's sake!!! all i could say was "wow!!" cruised alameda's main drag, dipping away from the happy bustle of costumed strollers to find the shadows & gaze at the full moon & feel that romance of nighttime & being alive that fills me up again, thank the universe, then navigated thru oakland & back up to berkeley in the inky night. sunday brought a late, good breakfast & a cheaper & better possible crash pad for next time, followed by an hr at the hot tubs on university. for $17/person ($7 w/coupon), you can steam & soak for a whole hour!!! bakersfield is ripe for such a place, i think. people need an affordable spot to soak away their worries, relax, take a break. it was like a one-hr vacation: languid, stimulating, revivifying!
-> however, this kind of experience isn't too wise when one next has a 5-hr drive home... eep.... but made it back, yessir, & all's well that ends well. a good deal got better, much much better. belated halloween, all saints, dia de los muertos to all. may your spirit be stirred, soon & often, by the joys & miseries of being... & from them may you have revelation, my friend! :)

balancing the grim below

halloween's coming... all st's day... dia de los muertos... so to balance the grim post of yesterday, here are halloween links for today:
bride of frankenstein on youtube - there, you can watch the entire movie in serial form as well as clips from young frankenstein & my own DIY BOF song/video, which appears as "bride of frankenstein (j.a.)." ... in bako, there's bound to be much to do this wkend, tho i'll be in bay area at the study-hostel & i hope at russell quann's teenage dance craze party, or watching soul goblins of transylvania in the mission (both shows are near-free to free)(tho might be too hard to get into the city, even on bart, w/the bay bridge being closed)... can't wait to go back to SF/berkeley, since haven't been but once since my grad from NCOC.
finally, a pic of horror's royal couple (in my opinion). this eccentric british duo were, of course, the hunchback/dr moreau/director of touch of evil as well as the bride/mary shelley...

reality check part bleh

just wrote entire book about my depressing time yesterday. no one needs to read such self-indulgent, depressing blah. deleted it.
just tried to write capsule version (why???) & accidentally hit backspace key & deleted it.
someone/thing is trying to tell me something. like shut the f up.
am sick today w/burning head & swollen throat & soul that feels limp, moribund. it's "going around" (physical pt). maybe ill body, lacking good rest, is sickening my mind? vice versa? can't sleep, feel horrible, like when 1st forced to become a teetotaler. life got better then, so it will get better now. but when?????
divorce is like death. i don't know how to live well & happily in this world right now. thank the universe for gina marie & my band, all of whom i hope to see today. thank the universe for people who continue to put up w/me while i'm on the worst rollercoaster in my life. if this ride doesn't even up, it's gonna kill me.
i am sick. i am going back to bed.

dusk devils oct 09 weekend

some nice things continued to happen this wkend. got opening spot for rev horton heat on new yr's day (thanks, ollllen)! jogged to farmers mkt, found grapes like used to grow across st from grandma's/grandpa's in delano, some nice apples, a good cookie. yum! in dollar tree, they played awesome halloween music: strange days, dr demento, scary monsters! phil arrived to get me & we drove to kern river inn. nice setup, no stress, not too hot. good to great little show! pretty silver-haired nora asked, "are you italian? you have laughing eyes." got compliments again on piano playing. this is happening more & more! my family arrived, including my aunts. joe played some pedal steel. phil got kudos on his awesome guitar playing! mark & randy were rock-solid! we got some great band pix. the band's got some good mojo going, i think... saw some friends! played googoo muck for tammy (livelys came down from alameda!). loaded up, had burritos & tacos @ el taquito. went to cool little oildale place, the branding iron. they had xmas lights up! we're gonna played there before the yuletide. watched token okies, a tight band, for a while til exhaustion overtook us. young lena, bass player's pretty daughter, has lovely voice, a real songbird! tore-up tired, visited for a while w/friend & shared pix of respective wkends. now sit here w/cup of coffee, too tired to get off this chair. however, i love my band, & life sings again. amor y amistad a todos.