So. Central Rain

"You might need this." my friend said and handed me a handkerchief.  We were getting ready to leave to view the body of our friend who had been killed- the victim of a hit and run.
That was in June of last year and since then have kept the handkerchief in my bag.
It gives me comfort knowing that it is there.
Since then I have wanted to contact my friend who died 71 times.
Most of the 71 times were not important things. Mostly I saw this thing and thought of you. One time a few months ago, I got super sad that I couldn't talk to my friend about an academic article I had read about manufactured nationalism in music of the early 1900s.
She had left academia, but I could coax her on occasion to delve in and discuss nerdy music topics with me. I am putting together a lecture series for my other job and I would have loved to have bent her ear and bounced off suggestions to her and get her input.
Today I saw a woman wearing a coat with Daleks lining the bottom seam. She would have liked that coat.
I love my friends.

I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down.

I have been looking for a new job for about a year. I thought the job I am currently working could be a forever job, but alas, it is not. So, I am searching for new opportunities.
This past year, I have had quite a few interviews and some I know I bombed (I am looking at you Fremont) and others I have felt pretty good about, but didn't get for whatever reason.
Yesterday, I heard from a position that I interviewed for (which I was really pumped about) and the answer was no thanks.
They sent me an email, which is fine, but I interviewed for 4 hours and I thought they would have called. But whatever, everyone has a way.
So I ask myself what could have I done differently, better, and that sort of stuff.
Was I not a good fit because of my personality?
Did I divulge too much information? Not enough?
Did they not like my suit? My hair? My face?

For years I was on the other end of that and I get it...You just know. Or at least you think you know.

I have to believe that there is a good fit for me out there somewhere. I know what I am looking for  and this last rejection, is where I pivot.

I got a ton of ideas that don't really work for my library. But I will see if other libraries want to work with me to try out some of my ideas.
Also, I will submit my proposals for conferences, articles for publications and the like.

No hard feelings for those who rejected me, maybe an opportunity to collaborate on something else.

I did chuckle to myself though when I found out that a job I interviewed for and didn't get was looking again to fill the position. The person they hired didn't work out.

Tubthumping.

I'm walkin', yes indeed and I'm talkin'...

For the past two and half years I have walked to BART from my house.
There is a corner where people leave stuff and often I am surprised by what is left.
Here is a partial list.

3 car tires
A box of floppy discs
4 of the same left shoe
Soccer net
Lava Lamp
A desk, chair, and semi-smashed printer (with graffiti)
Keno Machine
Bicycle handlebars
Jane Fonda's workout  tape (VHS)
Couches
Chairs
Bookcases
Fans
Refrigerator door
Portable movie screen
A box of camouflage clothes
Tea kettle
Car doors

Velvet Days

I am exhausted.
It seems like a no brainer to condemn white supremacy and all that goes with it, but ... um.... huh?

In 1988 I hung out with a group of peace punks in southern California. Once a month we would have punk picnics where maybe a band would play, people would trade zines, and we would smoke cigarettes and eat really bland vegan food. We were non-violent people in a violent music scene. There were a lot of skinheads who hung out at the same punk shows as us and they were quick to pick on non-skinhead punk rockers and kick our ass. It was toward the end of the second wave of punk rock in So. CA and there was a surging scene of straight edge music coming out of Orange County. They assumed the uniform of skinheads and there was often confusion, because though the straight edge folks look similar to the neo-Nazi skinheads they were anti drug and drink. There were lots of splinter groups because of the violence that happened and I can recall on more than one occasion where I was chased, shoved, or  physically threatened just because I was not one of them.
It seemed like the late 1980s there were a lot of skinheads in the media. The Geraldo Rivera show skinhead brawl, which left the host with a broken nose is the first to come to mind, but I also remember reading articles about them in Rolling Stone and Spin. It was not just a southern California thing.
The band I played in had a drummer who hung out with a bunch of fellas from the O.C., who did not identify specifically with the skinheads and their ideology directly, but rode the edge of it. We didn't realize this until we played a party where my friend was in jeopardy of getting his ass whupped for wearing a skirt (he was goth). I had to drive him home, because I was afraid for his safety.
Obviously, the drummer was out of the band, but not before we played our set and the guitarist sang "f^&% you Nazi sh*^heads! Why do you  care who wears a dress you homophobic assholes" in every song, whilst pointing at them. He changed the lyrics a lot that evening. Those are the only ones I remember, oh, and he wore a habit. The drummer was a Catholic and the guitar player thought it was a nice touch.
I have no idea why he had a habit though.

The other day on BART, a person who I suspect was not well was spouting off some "us verses them" rhetoric. He started kind of directing his business on a woman in a head scarf. I said kind of loudly, "Oh, you are a racist.?" And I saw a bunch of folks get out their phones. He moved toward the back of the train.
I know it isn't much, but it felt good to say something.

I'll only make you cry, this is our last goodbye...

Andy Steward Copeland. Mr. Bobis Poberton. Pumpleumpigis Kittypants. Baby King. Mamalovecat.

Yesterday Andy left my world.
I got him when he was just a few weeks old. I worked at a Pet Hospital and I was going to "foster him for the weekend." He couldn't be left alone and still needed to be bottle fed every couple of hours. Yeah, that was in the spring of 2000.

Some of my memories of him are falling asleep while playing with a feather toy, peeing on the bed, because he hated Barak, punking Loretta because I had the audacity to bring another cat into our home, and putting his claws into my neck, because I took him outside to see snow.
He was never a lap cat, but a sit next to you and lean cat. My legs were the preferred night time sleeping area. And 5am was a totally cool time to tell me to get up and give him breakfast. It was none of his concern that I had stayed up late. HE was hungry.

Always the regal one, he did not drink out of a water dish. Bha! The drinking glass on the nightstand was the preference. If he could have talked, I am positive he would have had a British accent.

While living in Tennessee, I had the pleasure of being home with just the cats during a tornado alert thingy. As a native Californian I was freaked out and I decided to open the door leading to the basement so the cats could down there- just in case - the tornado touchdown happened. They were not allowed down there, so of course they were in the basement within moments of me opening the door. The weather passed and it was starting to get dark and I wanted them upstairs. I think there was one light in the basement and though I am sure it wasn't always flickering and swinging from an old metal wire that is how it seemed, especially after the severe weather. Anyway, I looked around and could not find either one of the cats. Panic was setting in because it was dark, the cats never went outside, and the last thing Barak needed was a panic phone call.
I shook the food bag and Loretta was in the kitchen. I locked her in the laundry room and opened a can of tuna (Andy was a tuna enthusiast) and hoped he heard the sound of the can or could smell the fish. A few minutes later he emerged with so many cobwebs on him that it looked like he was wearing a mummy mask.I wiped him off with a towel to discover he was covered in dirt grossness and had to give him a sponge bath in the sink.

When my daughter was born, we stayed at my parent's house for the first couple of weeks and my in-laws stayed at our place. Andy did not care for this and he stopped cleaning himself. He had a mat on his belly that was 3 inches by 6 inches. The groomer gave him a lion cut and he looked so cute. And mad.  When I would be up in the middle of the night he would sit next to me or by my feet, or if I was in the rocking chair on my lap with the baby, while I fed her. He would sit next to her crib when she was sleeping. If she was fussing he was usually nearby keeping watch on the situation. It must have been exhausting for him, since he normally slept 15 hours a day.

The past year he had not been in the best of health and in the winter is when I knew his time with us was limited.

I will miss you so much.

Waking Life Afternoon

I had the pleasure of recording this week.

It had been a minute (or decade) since I had spent any quality time in a studio. 

The night and a few hours before I got to the studio I had been exploding out of my face. Puke. I was puking my guts out. And it took all of my being to get in the shower and clean myself up before leaving the house. Though I truly do not remember recording some of the songs and it felt like my stomach was collapsing on itself, I did enjoy tracking my bass parts, watching the engineer set up the microphones on the drum kit and the like.

The engineer is great and I enjoy watching audio folks work who really know their room and gear. Ooh, I got to use an amp that sounds really good that I would never buy. And quite possibly the coolest- we recorded on tape!

The second day I was able to eat some saltines and an apple and record vocals. MY FAVORITE! I could record vocals all day. I have weird rituals I do before each song when I am standing alone in the iso booth. I shake my hands wildly and over accentuate my mouth with kissy face before taking my breaths to sing. Sometimes I "hand-jive." If you don't know what that is watch the movie Grease, they hand-jive during the dance scenes.

I put my hair in a side pony tail and stuff like that. 

Also, I really like to double my vocal. I like the sound of natural chorus and I think it make my voice sound better. The engineer agreed, so obviously he is brilliant, and so I was able to double all my parts. Usually I can nail them within a couple of go rounds. So even though I still felt like ass and all the time away from the studio, I still could do the things I used to do.

The tracks sound good and in a few months we will be able to mix. Mixing is fun, but in a different way. The performing part is much more physical and emotionally draining (I mean you don't want to do 50 takes of a song). The mixing portion is more cerebral and since there are 4 of us, probably more debating with a chance of an argument. With the time gap before the mixing happens there will probably be lots and lots of notes.

Louie Louie (Explicit Version)

Since my daughter was born, I have been doing my best not to curse and not just in front of her, but in general. And if I may be completely honest I really enjoy it. Cursing. My husband has said that I use cursing as a way to express myself. It is my poetry at times.

Now I have replaced some of my favorite curse words with "pickles," "dang it," "holy cow," jeeez Louise," and so forth and I feel pretty good about it. So with my alternative vocab to curse words I started thinking about how some of my favorites were inappropriate and extremely derogatory. Now I know what you are thinking- they are curse words. WTF?

I read an article recently about the use of non-gender specific pronouns and it got me thinking about the way I gender some of my cursing.
I know it may seem silly, but one can stay within the potty mouth rhetoric and not use slang for female genitalia. Does mother have to be in front of the f-word? Is there something else that will get the point across?
Anatomy parts, specifically below the belt seem cliche' and though I experience plenty of a-holes on a daily basis, I think there can be other words to use.

I have been experimenting with curse words and expressions here are some I have used.

A friend likes to call people sh*t necks. Not too bad.
At work the other day something crazy happened and I used the term sh*t bananas.
On BART the other day I heard someone say that something was pure stink.

So there are options.

People came from miles around, everyone was there Yoko brought her walrus, there was magic in the air...

Y'know when you have so much you could write about that you write about nothing?

That is kind of where I am at these days.

Things seem so much more complicated then it did just last year.

Sometimes I feel like an Elvis Costello song, "what's so funny about peace, love, and understanding?"

I could comment on Trumpcare, dismantling of government agencies, DeVos, wiretaps, White House leaks, Wikileaks, poor people buying iPhones, and the list could go on and on, but instead I want to examine pedals.

For most of my bass playing life, I have not really been into pedals. Yes, on occasion I have played a distortion pedal. I also for a very short time played with an octave pedal, and yes, yes, I do like how my bass sounds playing with a bit of chorus on it. My main problem is that I don't want to deal with them when I play live. No muss, no fuss.
Aaand I don't want to appear to be hiding behind pedals.

There are many guitar players who I like that use effects to create soundscapes and some who treat them as another instrument within their instrument.
Since  I worry about effects for effects sake. I have been listening to some bassist who use different effects to see if there is something I am interested  to explore. My list offers players who I have been listening to for years and are some of my favorites-
Les Claypool
Tony Levin
Jaco (OF COURSE)
Kim Deal
Paul Barker
and my new obsession- Esperanza Spalding.

But then there is my favorite bass player Mike Watt who said this from Bassplayer.com April 2013.

Though Watt used a few stompboxes on The Secondman’s Middle Stand, he’s wary of effect pedals. 

“I feel the debt the bass owes the band, and pedals fuck with that low end."

 With that being said, there are a few songs that I will be recording next month that maybe could be spruced up with some effects.

Fast Food for Thought

On December 29, 2016 I saw Henry Rollins speak at the Herbst Theater. I have been a fan for many years and have had the pleasure of seeing him perform many times. His spoken word has not always been a home run for me, but this night was probably the best talk I have ever heard him give.
There was no way he was going to avoid talking about the election. Last year  he predicted in his LA Weekly column that there would be a Trump presidency. You can read it here.

http://www.laweekly.com/music/henry-rollins-bend-over-america-here-comes-president-trump-5841096

So I knew he would be talking about it. And he did. His perspective was interesting and I have been mulling it over for a few weeks now and I am still, I don't think inspired is the word, hmmm... Motivated.
A couple of things that have stuck with me.
It is time to act. When things are going "okay," people fall asleep and now is the time to get up and stand up for what you believe in.
Donate, protest, support in any way that you can.
He talked about being 55 1/2 years old and even though he is getting older he can still clear the path so the younger and faster can push on ahead to create change.
Art is important and expression in this form will be vital for dealing with the next 4 years.
Don't be passive, if you see someone being marginalized or bullied, don't just stand by and do nothing.
Stay awake and be prepared to take many, many steps in the opposite direction.
Take the rest of 2016 to relax, get your breath and be ready for action January 1, 2017.
Henry Rollins is intense and at 55 1/2 he can make fun of it. He has matured and so have I. Now I am not quite as far along as Hank, but I close enough to relate.
I am ready to take action. Here are some good websites if you need inspiration.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5855a354cd0f68bab2089b40/t/5867cd26be65940ffdeeac1e/1483197741124/IndivisibleGuide_2016-12-31_v1.pdf

https://proactivesteps.info/

https://www.beforeitgetsworse.com



January 21st, I will be wearing comfortable shoes to march.