The Canaries Reunite, Split Up

Em had been visiting from back east and we had taken Ma out for Em's farewell dinner. After dinner, someone had the bright idea to go to Coffee Depot to cap off the night. Ma doesn't get out much, so we took her there.

Lo and behold it was Open Mike Night. This duo was playing-one guy with dreads, the other curly blondish hair. They were ok. They were followed by a guy we'll call the Droner. He played and sang without much style or even feeling. I'd go into more detail about this if it hadn't looked so dismal. Very few people were there and fewer were paying much attention to the performers.

We got the idea to rush to Billy C's house and grab some ukes and a guitar and sign up as the Canaries. Liam Canary, our child prodigy lead singer also wanted to perform a solo number. I thought that it would be his rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man that he had performed at the Folk Music Center.

So, it took us about ten minutes to get the ukes and guitar. All the way, Liam, who had stayed at the Depot, kept calling to see where we were.

When we got back, I asked Liam if he had signed us up. He didn't. He only signed himself up. Billy c and I went out to tune up. I had his pineapple, which hadn't been played in awhile and was not holding a tune well. As I tightened the pegs, Billy C came out with his Bari and said, "Liam wants to do a song alone. Then he'll call us up and we'll do one with him. Then you can do one if you want to."

Ok. Not exactly what I had envisioned, but ok.

So we go in and Liam gets on stage and starts singng "Don't Think Twice" and I'm thinking "Hey, ya little creep! That's a Canaries tune!" But he sings it just the same and as he sings, people start moving towards the stage. Pretty soon, the stage is blocked and when he finishes, Billy C and I have to push our way forward and he forgets to even introduce us but we play anyway. We play "Maggie's Farm." Billy and I play our hearts out, but clearly Liam is just calling it in. He's already got bigger plans.

He stops the song short and says, "I just can't deal with you guys anymore. You're smothering me artistically." And he just walks off stage.

Billy, who by the way is his kindly old father, shuffles off, leaving me standing there alone on the stage.

So I plow right into my rendition of Bach's toccata and fugue in G-wizz and I'm playing brilliantly, but the crowd has left the stage and followed Liam Canary to the back of the Depot, where he buys a frappuccino and starts signing autographs.

At the end of the evening, as I sit in the back and console Billy Canary, the guy who runs the show invites Liam back. Then he turns to us and says "You guys were ok too."

Oh well, at least Ma got to hear it.

Anger

I started to write about the meditation class I took Thursday. It was my first time in that sort of class and I liked it. The topic was anger and the Buddhist nun who spoke had a lot to say about the topic. But, instead of writing about the class, I thought I'd write about Anger.

The nun essentially said that anger is a destructive force that makes us do childish, often cruel, things. She said that anger is the greatest evil.

Looking at my own life, I can see where this is true. I'm usually pretty mellow; but, when I get angry, I can become pretty cruel. I tend to hold it in and, when it finally surfaces, my anger is incommensurate with what ever has finally set me off. It's like all of the anger in me spills out on the person who has caused almost none of it, but happened to say the wrong thing at the wrong time.

There's this teacher at work who, to make a long story short, has not been re-hired for next year and has received a few unsatisfactory observations. I have been dealing with him as a site rep and agree with him that he has been treated unfairly. Now, mind, I think the guy has brought some of his troubles on himself-but he still has been treated unfairly.

One day, when I brought his grievance over for him to review, he began talking about lawsuits and how many other career opportunities were available to him and how much more money he could be making in any other business.

So he says, "I'm a devout Christian man. And the Bible tells me to be slow to anger. And I have been slow to anger, but now I'm angry."

Since then, his anger has caused him to scold some of our administrators and go over their heads and just try to cause trouble for those who could recommend him for re-hire, if they so chose.

And it dawned on me that he has completely misread that passage as saying that one should get angry slowly.

I think it means that you shouldn't let your anger make any of your decisions for you, because that's when you get childish and act foolishly. It feels good for a while, but only a while.

When it's all over, you have to live with the results an irrational decision.

Like my friend who quit his job a few years back because he got angry at his employers and felt that he couldn't take it anymore. He made sure that he burned all of his bridges and, when he tried to get a job later, couldn't find one for the longest time because employers most likely put the word out on him. When he finally got another job, it was outside of this county.

If he had been more diplomatic when leaving, or if he had gotten another job before quitting, things would have been different.

Teacher Sells Used Ukulele for $5000!

Just kidding.

I'm mapping out my summer. I don't have much disposable income this month, but this phase of vacation planning is free.

Top three possibilities are a re-visit to the Summer Solstice Folk and Storytelling Festival, the Taos Writers' Conference, and a trip up North to the Portland Ukulele Festival.

I have been thinking about the Napa Writers' Conference. I went three years ago. I didn't have the best of workshop leaders there. She was the Poet Laureate of Connecticut or some other state. She was flaky and was unprepared. All of the workshop leaders were expected to do a night time reading and a daytime lecture. She was alright with the reading-it gave her an opportunity to sell her books. But during her lecture, she kept saying "I'm really not used to doing this sort of thing." On her web page, she claimed that she conducted many workshops all over the country and apparently held a faculty position at a university. So I couldn't help but wonder why she wasn't used to lecturing.

But the food was good and the other writers ere pretty good.

I have no complaints about the Taos Writers' Conference. Both times, the instructors were very friendly and hung out with the participants. The last night, in fact, our short story instructor, who wrote a fine collection of stories entitled How Animals Mate, got drunk with us.

The Summer Solstice Festival last year was about the most relaxing weekend I have had in a long time.

This Portland Fest sounds like it might be a fun road trip, with several major players in the uke world.

Anyway, it's all about relaxing.

Another Fix for My Uke Jones

I met my friend Do at Mt. Rub this evening for our un-scheduled hike tonight and she surprised me with this ukulele that her parents had gotten on a trip to Hawaii many years ago. It's a Harmony made of Mahogany and it's in very good condition. It had trouble holding a tune at first, but I tightened the tuning pegs when I got home after the hike.

I couldn't resist taking it on the hike with me. I fiddled with it for awhile, trying to get in tune, but just as I finished tuning one string, the previous string would de-tune again. So I had to settle for approximate tuning.

So, I started playing happy tunes. Our fellow hikers would smile as they approached us. At one point I realized that I was having trouble concentrating on what Do was saying and playing the uke both, so I stopped playing and just walked.

As I did this, we approached a father and son who were chopping up a tree that had been cut down-presumably for firewood. The man stopped and looked at us imploringly.

"Please, kind sir," he said. Do not stop your fine playing. It brings my poor son and I such joy and gives us strength to finish our work on this dark and forbidding evening."

I couldn't say no to a request like that, so I played my rendition of "All You Need Is love."

"Ah, sir, that is the ticket."

As I played, Do tapped me on the shoulder and told me to turn around. A crowd of hikers had stopped behind me to listen.

I shouted "All together now!"

They all joined in singing "Love, love, love" as one great voice. Soon a coyote sat down with a sparrow. An owl hooted and swayed to the music from a tree branch.

We all began marching to the top of Mt. Rub, singing loudly all the way. At the top, our voices echoed across the Inland Empire as lights flicked on in the valley below. The world seemed as if as one with one another.

I made a little bit of this up.

I Want to Save You Some Time

This guy I used to team-teach with came out to visit his son and his newish granddaughter and we got a chance to meet and have a beer. I jumped off my wagon for this occasion, but will jump right back on after tonight. It was a good meeting and he returned three CDs and one book he had borrowed five years ago.

Actually, I'm not sure whether two of the CDs were mine. But it has been so long and I have had so many CDs that I took them anyway. I'm sure he borrowed them from somebody.

Afterwards, I went to Barnes and Noble and looked around for about an hour. I browsed through a display of political books and had an epiphany that many of you may benefit from.

You know the old saying "You can't judge a book by its cover." Well, these days, you can tell a political book by its cover. If you read the title, the author's name, the name of whomever wrote the foreward, the "reviews" on the back cover, and both inside flaps, you've pretty much read the book. The only part you haven't read-the hundreds of pages inside-can be summed up with the words "We're good. They're bad. In fact, when reading the back cover, you can even skip the "reviews." Just read the names after the reviews. It's usually the same few people. If you see the names of Rush Limbaugh (who probably doesn't read as much of the book as you just have) or William Bennett (who is famous mainly for collecting the writings of others and then misinterpreting them), well, the book is for conservatives. If you see the names of James Carville or (I can't think of any other liberal writers) it is for liberals.

Then, go to the fiction section. The reading is better there.

12. I Was Also Close to John Wayne...

...once.

In high school, our concert choir was a part of the Singing Christmas Tree at Disneyland. Every year, they had a celebrity join the festivities and read the Christmas story.

That year, the celebrity was John Wayne. It was '72, so it may have been a political choice, seeing as how D-Land is in Orange County and the Disney family is very conservative.

On the other hand, he was also an icon at the time.

Anyway, High Schools around the state were invited and learned some Christmas carols and were bused in one foggy December morning to Disneyland, where they were herded into a rehearsal area to go over the songs as one huge, angelic choir. I think we all wore green robes. I don't know how they worked that out. It could be they only invited schools with green robes. It could be that green is the official choir color.

Rehearsal was interrupted twice. Once, by some Disney "carolers" that wandered the park singing polished renditions of seasonal tunes. They were very showbiz, Disney style.

Which, by the way, is what has always bothered me about music at D-Land. Always sanitized. Vegas without the sin. I remember once sitting around the New Orleans section, eating a fritter, sipping a julep, when a jazz band, four elderly black men with real chops, came out and played a few songs. They were really good-probably the gutsiest music you would hear at the Magic Kingdom. Then, they played "When You Wish Upon a Star." Not badly, either. But I couldn't help resenting the fact that my brief aural departure from things Disney was cut short by a Disney thing.

The second interruption was the Duke himself. He came out of nowhere and walked up to the microphone, shouting "Hi, kids!" Of course, we all shouted "hi" back. But his greeting was also returned by a canned, pre-taped chorus of "Hi, John!" I guess the Disney people were afraid that not everyone would respond.

Later on, as the Singing Christmas Tree paraded solemnly across Main Street, as we passed through the audience and towards the tree-shaped choir loft, I noticed a man sitting on one of the end-seats, watching the procession. It was dark and I at first thought it was my Uncle Bill-he had the same thinning hair, the same high forehead, the same bulbous nose. Then, he winked at me-a paternal kind of wink. It was John Wayne, who did indeed look like my uncle.

I think I winked back. Or at least nodded.

More Famous Friends

As Some have commented, I know many more famous people.

11. Spike and Mike of the Festival of Animation. I knew Mike better. I actually rented a room at one of his houses for a couple of years. I have always thought that, if there is such a thing as being haunted, that house may have been haunted. As my brother said when Mike died, "He didn't waste any moments." When Mike would come up and stay at the house, I would often walk in and catch him napping in his chair. He would wake up and immediately be awake, where most of us would be a little groggy at first. During this time, Mike wore a half beard, ala Man Ray, often died purple. What ever he was doing, he was in all the way, whether it was work or play. Every time we talked, he would recommend books that he had read to me. As an English teacher, I always appreciated that. At the house where I stayed, his bedroom wall was lined with books. After he died, I accompanied his girlfriend down to his other house where he lived most of the time to help her go through all of the books he had down there. Some were to go to friends, others to the local library, and others to Goodwill. I spent the entire day helping her. It got to a point where it was getting dark and we had all of our boxes filled and there still a lot of books. That's when she said, "Why don't you take some with you." I just started grabbing books. I got a few for my brother. One was a first edition novel by Ken Kesey, signed. I didn't find this out until after he opened it and found this ornate, colorful signature done in magic marker. I went home and went through a few of my own books and found that I had a few myself-the main one being a first edition "The Making of Bambi" signed by two of Disney's Old Men of Animation and "Chuck amok," signed by Looney Tunes animator Chuck Jones.

Famous People I Know

It dawned on me as I wrote yesterday about my affair with Diana Ross, that I have known several famous people in my life. Here are some of them:

1. Jeff Meek. He is a local boy who appeared on a soap opera for several years. I think it was General Hospital. He also appeared in several movies. I remember one in which he was dragged to a frigid death through a stream by a horse as Kurt Russell looked on and did nothing. He also had a couple of TV shows. Yes, his own shows. In one, he was a karate detective living in Hawaii and Lee Majors (the bionic guy) was his sidekick.

2. Michael Cudlitz. I appeared with him in a local production of Showboat. I was Cap'n Andy. He was an Angry White Guy. He has appeared in A River Runs through (got a lot of close-ups). Also, he has appeared in a lot of episodic television. He once beat up the bald guy in LA Law because he thought he was gay. He was also in Band of Brothers.

3. Marco Barricelli. The finest Shakespearean actor I ever knew. Also, the only Shakespearean actor I ever knew. He appeared in the same episode of LA Law as Michael Cudlitz, playing an environmental lawyer.

4. The Schultz Boys. Both Garth and Jason played with the Skeletones, a local Ska Band that did fairly well for a time. I think Jake may still be playing with them. But Garth left and joined up with Green Day to lead its touring brass section. He's now married to the daughter of my 6th grade teacher.

5. What the hey! Now that I think about it, I also know Paul Hammond, leader of the Skeletones and former student of mine. He played the victim in a murder mystery role-playing activity in one of my classes, in which I had to break up a pretend fight between him and one his "murderers." It was worse than breaking up an actual fight. He was already making records and playing gigs at the time, so school was unimportant to him.

6. Speaking of Rock Stars, Victor K, of Camper van Beethoven.

7. This bald guy that played Hajj in Kismet to my Wazir. He shows up all over the place.

8. My cousin Larry does special effects work in the film business.

9. My former student Marlan. Also in special effects.

10. My former teaching colleague, Matt. Also in special effects.

To be continued...

I Tried It, but I Don't Think It Worked

My friend Jim says that you can e-mail your blog entries. I tried what he said to do, but my e-mail blog hasn't arrived. Maybe it's on a delay. Maybe it ended up on someone else's blog.

I may never know.

I didn't watch much of the Grammys last night, as I said in my e-mail blog, but I did catch the photograph of Sly Stone and his silver mohawk. I often think that some rock stars feel obligated to create a costume for themselves. It may change from time to time, but you know it's them by the look. Sly was always like that too.

I wonder if they do that so, when they go about their day-to-day lives, they aren't recognized.

Once, when riding an elevator in New York, I'm pretty sure Diana Ross was riding with me. She was a dainty woman, dressed pretty casually-in sweats, if I remember correctly-and her hair was in a wrap. Had we not been in a fairly nice hotel, I might have thought she was destitute. She had a big, toothy smile, like Diana's and she smiled sort of like she knew me.

With her was a very large, well-dressed black man and a couple of other younger women, also well-dressed. I didn't ask her who she was because I didn't recognize her until after I got to my room.

I recall that, awhile back, Ross was arrested on a plane because she raised a ruckuss about being treated badly by the crew. Don't remember what specifically happened. But I wonder if the grew recognized her. Again, maybe she was dressed down-not wearing the sequines or big hair.

So, after reading about how Sly is trying to "be normal," as his brother said in one article, I wonder if the Grammy outfit, with the big sunglasses, "Sly" belt buckle, and silver mohawk was just his way of being recognized while keeping his life private. I mean, he MUST dress differently when he's mowing his lawn or washing his car.

A Sad day

Every once in awhile, someone says something critical of education and my first impulse is to defend education, but I stop myself and realize, what with current "reforms," including No Child Left Behind, there isn't much to defend.

Today was one of those days where this point was driven home in spades.

First, this was the second day of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). Students were herded into our two gymnasiums, separated by sex, and submitted to two full days of taking a test that you have to get a score of 52% on if you want to get your diploma. All students, even those taking rigorous AP classes, have to take it and pass it. And, since everyone is in the gym and test security is so tight, everyone has to wait until everyone else is finished. So that means that a brilliant student who aces the test in a half-hour has to sit and wait for the students who fell asleep, went to the bathroom and had to be hunted down and brought back, or came in late after we had already started.

Folks, that's the reform you are paying for. Schools are forced to set their sights low for all students, wasting much of the time of their top students. Why should a student taking difficult classes be forced to waste their time like this when the REAL test, the AP test, is more crucial for their future?

Second, our principal called in the probationary teachers whom he intended to let go. Now couple of these needed to be let go. But, as a site rep, I sat in on four of these meetings, and will probably still sit in on one tomorrow, and I could see that many of these teachers had no idea this was coming. Nothing ever came up during the evaluation process. No assistance was offered. They were let go just because.

If you want real reform, start with the people who run the schools, you'll get rid of a lot more incompetence that way.

A Brief, Unsatisfying Entry

Just checking in.

Just back from Open House at school. Not much to say. I actually spent most of the night not meeting with parents, but getting grades caught up.

There will be a few unhappy campers tomorrow, as far as that goes.

Not many parents, at least not in my wing. Usually there are quite a few more.

I stood outside my room playing my uke much of the night,like I do during the day. Some parents just scowled at me. Others were cheerful as they walked by. Still others asked me to play.

I'm tired now. I'm going to bed.

I Saw Sal

It's getting so I can't go a day without seeing a former student. Friday night, I went out to Buca de Beppo in Anaheim, with four colleagues of mine. While waiting for a table, this man walks up to me and says, "Mr. A-Bomb of Reflection?"

It was Sal M, from a ninth grade class I taught during my first year at my current school some thirteen years ago. A real good kid, though often a smart-ass.

"Sal," (yes, I remembered his name) "I was just thinking about you the other day."

It was the truth. I had run into a classmate of his who works at my credit union the day before and had been thinking about Sal and some of those students.

Sal was an interesting kid. There was another kid in the class that he claimed was a brother, but I don't think there was a blood relationship of any kind. I think two of their step-parents had been married at some point.

Sal was a good writer. He wasn't especially grammatically good. But he was creative good. He was inventive good. I couldn't believe when his AP teacher said that his writing was poor. I always found his essays insightful and entertaining. Her complaint was about its sophistication, or lack thereof. But she was not an especially creative thinker herself. I doubt she understood the way Sal's brain worked.

The last time I saw Sal, he was studying at the local University of California and tutoring on-campus. He had planned on attending grad school.

Apparently, a local politician and UC professor took Sal under his wing and got him working in government. Sal switched to law school and had just graduated. He moved to Anaheim and was working for the Mayor of that town.

It was good to see him.

Orson Scott Card

I heard Orson Scott card speak at a luncheon banquet I attended today. I' know he's a big name in SciFi and fantasy, but all I've read of his would be most of the Alvin Maker series. I enjoyed those books quite a bit, but lost interest after the third because it took so long for him to write the 4th one. I think I read that two, but I got the feeling that he had lost interest.

I also read an editorial from the New York Times from awhile back in which Card celebrated the end of the Star Trek Franchise. The last series had been cancelled and there were no new films in the works. He prefers scifi as literature as opposed to TV or film.

He surprised me in that he was quite scholarly. He also pissed me off a little with two comments he made.

First, he suggested that Shakespeare be translated into our vernacular, remarking that we are the only country that can't read Shakespeare in our own language. I would argue that, no matter what language, no matter how skilled the translator, if it ain't in the Queen's Renaissance English it ain't Shakespeare. You'd just be reading a translation of Shakespeare. The poetry of Shakespeare word would be lost in translation.

He might have been kidding, but no one laughed.

The problem with Shakespeare is that most of us have had the same exposure, usually from High school, that does Shakespeare a great injustice. We read one Shakespeare play a year. That's it. We probably skip this in our junior year, because that's when we get American Lit. Then we get another dose in our senior year, and then, if we don't go to college, we're done.

I learned in grad school that, if you're going to learn much about Shakespeare, you need him in large doses. If high school teachers are going to teach him, they should have their students read at least three plays in a year, preferably back-to-back. That way, the students get used to the quirks of Shakespearean English and learn that, at his best, Shakespeare is pretty simple.

The other comment Card made, the more I think about it, contradicts his opinion about Shakespeare. He regaled the teaching of haiku because it comes from an "unstressed" language and can't be adequately adapted into English. So, Shakespeare can be translated, but haiku can't.

I honestly think that he, and many others, don't get haiku. Haiku is as much about sharing an image of a moment without commentary as it is about from. The 5/7/5 format does probably work better in Japanese that it does in English, but many writers of haiku in languages other than Japanese abandon that strict form anyway. They emphasize brevity over syllable counts.

Not that I write the best haiku. But, apparently, neither does Card.

He was a fine speaker though, otherwise. He had a lot to say about poetry. And he had a lot to say about how we teach it and how perhaps we would do better to not overly praise every poem a student might write, but save the praise for student poetry that was really high-quality.

Further Lessons in Poetry

So, if you clicked on the title "Two Sijo" below, you might have learned something about sijo. What I learned was that sijo, unlike haiku, does make use of metaphor and other figurative language. With haiku, your supposed to use literal language, put yourself in the moment and capture it with direct language.

What I haven't learned is how to link the text to the same website.

Control Nature

Last night, at this god-awful class I have to take, the learning was interrupted by this shriek of a wild exotic bird. It scared the teacher.

The teacher sitting across from me told me that it was actually an aural scarecrow. When an animal approached, the bird noise went off.

It was installed mainly to scare away birds. "Bird poop," my colleague told me, "It scares birds away so they don't poop all over the buildings. Mainly, they're trying to scare the gulls. They have one on my campus too. Not a bird on campus."

Then, today, we had an inservice on the other High School campus. Students got the day off while teachers worked. I noticed the same alarm had been installed there. The campus was silent. The campus had been landscaped with trees, lawns, bushes--but not a bird to be seen.

I recall a time on campus, during an Open House. It was night and I was standing on the balcony that overlooks our quad. An owl, as silver as moonlight, glided from out of nowhere, and landed on one of the towers, where her chicks were nested. I watched her at about eye level.

I don't believe we have this robo-bird at my school yet. I hope we don't get it.

Two Sijo

I was sitting in this horrible class I have to take to fulfill No Child Left Behind, the sham perpetrated on Texas and now the rest of the country, and I wrote these two poems in the sijo form:

1. Dark corner, the glimmer of beady eyes-a mouse blinks,
a tightrope walk across a chord strung along the ceiling,
the danger below: a well-placed morsel, an unexpected snap.

2. Red drop on green plane-ladybug scales a blade of grass,
pauses at the tip, but does not open its shell or spread cellophane wings
and does not escape the roar or chop of the spinning blade.

Anyway, I'll work on them. Click on the title of this blog and you'll go to a web page that explains the form. I also describe it in my first ever blog entry.

The Canaries Part Tres

I have postponed my latest review of the Canaries performance because I was a little disappointed in it. Let's just summarize by saying that what we lacked in skill, we made up for with enthusiasm.

We performed "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles-a favorite of mine for a long time. Myself and Billy Canary playing ukuleles and harmonizing. Canary Liam providing vocals.

We rehearsed for about an hour-and-a-half before leaving for the open mike. We had gotten to the point where we almost had it, but not quite. It was at the state of almost memorized, but not to the point where we felt comfy-cozy with it.

As a result, at least for my part, we were still thinking too hard when we were performing. Somewhere in the course of the song, I thought I had played a wrong chord and let that trip me up. I don't know how others feel about how they did.

Canary Liam, Billy's son and the youngest Canary, got to do a solo rendition of "Tambourine Man," accompanying himself on guitar. He began with a joke about a naked man and an elephant the punchline of which was "How do you breath with that thing?"

Then he played the song. He was pretty good. He took the song slowly, but sang with feeling. I think that he is still searching for a musical identity, experimenting with different instruments. And he is just discovering his voice.

The Ditty Bops

Went with the bro to see the Ditty Bops tonight at the Folk Center. I won tickets through an e-mail contest. The Ditty Bops are led by Amanda and Abby, two perky young ladies with voices like angels.

The opening act was Ruth Barnett, mother of one of the Bops and a fine singer who has a rather extensive ouevre. She played dulcimer and bodhrain and sang old school folk songs. Many of her tunes were original and some were traditional. And some were traditional to which she added lyrics and melody. Amanda Bop apparently selected the songs of this set from her favorites. She and Abby joined Ruth on stage for harmonies on several tunes. A very warm set it was. It ended with a lullaby Ruth had written for Amanda Bop when she was just a wee bop. It was a lovely tune and it was especially nice to hear mother and daughter sing it together.

Come to think of it, it's pretty hard to write a bad lullaby, unless the Backstreet Boys have one that I don't know about.

Anyway, it was a lovely tune. Mother and daughter should be very proud of one another.

I gather from the website that a part of the Ditty Bop mystique is to have running themes in their shows. Many of their fans know this, which explained why I saw a few folks wearing eyepatches at a nearby Starbuck's before the show.

The Bops made their entrance in pirate regalia, with Amanda Bop's pirate hat taking on a life of its own.

The music reminded was kind of parlor/tin pan alley type of jazz. The style was subdued yet energetic. Abby Bop's guitar stylings were especially good. And the harmonies were tight and seductive. The Bop's voices blended sweetly together.

There were these two pirate themed instrumentals introduced by the fiddle player, a buckaneer named Scurvey Dan or something like that. They weren't exactly piratey, but they were really cool.

This concert made for a relaxing, fun evening. Having appeared with both Nickle Creek and Tori Amos, the Ditty Bops seem to be at the cusp of the height of their zenith. They are destined to grow in bopularity.

All You Need Is Love (but a Little Yoga Couldn't Hurt Either)

During my between-class practice I have focused on the Lennon-McCartney hit "All You Need Is Love," a hit tune that has some fun chord and tempo changes. About five minutes during each practice period and I've almost got it.

The song changes from 4/4 to 3/4 every few bars and I find it a little difficult to feel the change. At this point, I am making the change. I'm not playing it with much style yet, but I've almost got the rhythm down.

There are also a couple of chord changes that I need to master. There's a switch from an Dm to a G7m or something like that and my fingers don't always get through that.

Some of the students try to follow me on it too. Most of the stuff they join me on is pretty simple, tempo-wise. Today was a little different. Almost like a music lesson.

Also, I made my first yoga class in about a year-and-a-half. My SiL ran the class,so I expected quite a workout. Her class is a little different from other teachers I've had at the studio. The movement is a little more constant, the lecture a lot less.

My bones, tendons, and muscles had a faint memory of what they were supposed to do. While I was in one pose, my knee started shaking and sent a reverberation through the arc my outstreched legs and I fell. It was sort of like what must happen on a tension bridge when one of the cables gets loose. I tried to stop the chain reaction, but it just got the better of me.

There were a couple of other poses that certainly challenged my body. But I was surprised at how well I did.

Things Are Looking Up

I entered this e-mail thing on the internet to go see the Ditty Bops at the Folk Center. Yippee!

I know little about this duo, except that they are two ladies and that they may have entered my awareness at the Folk Center and Ukulele crossroads of my life. I previewed a CD of theirs at Borders a couple of Sundays ago. They are both charming and rambunctious. I hope I spelled that right.

So, this is keeping with my resolution (not New Year's--I never make those-I made this one back in October) to go hear more live music--focusing on music that you don't normally hear on radio.

I got an e-mail from the Folk Center that says the concert is sold out. Not hard to do, considering the place only holds about 100 people, if that.

I've had good luck at the Folk center. Saw The Asylum Street Spankers and Dave Alvin there. Now the Ditty Bops.

Next Sunday is Open Mike Night, I think. We haven't rehearsed since Christmas.

My Ukulele Wants to Kill Your Mama

On my drive home, XM Radio was playing The Mothers of Invention's "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama." My mind wafted back to when I first heard that song. It was Saturday on American Bandstand. It was that segment called "Rate a Record" where two teenagers listen to two singles as the rest of the audience dances to it. Then, they rate it, usually making comments like, "It had a really great beat Mr. Clark and I can tell it would be fun to dance to" or "I liked the words and loved the lyrics."

So, this day, "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama" was one of the songs. The two teen judges didn't quite know what to make of the song (remember, this was back when kids were still pretty intelligent-you know, MY generation). I don't remember what it was, but the other song got a better rating.

I also went back to when I was a youngster, sharing a bedroom with my older brother. He had one of those suitcase-like stereos with a fold-out turntable and you could place up to six albums on the record changer. He used to like to go to sleep with music playing.

I was indifferent to this.

One night, he had FREAKOUT by the Mo's of Invention as one of the selections. It was eerie, but I liked laying there in the dark, listening to the bizarre tunes.

The last album of the night was one by Steppenwolf. I don't remember the title, but the song playing was "The Pusher"-the one where John Kay growled out "God damn, God damn the pusherman!"

It was one of those extra-long tunes that was so popular back then.

It was not a song that lulled you to sleep.

I could hear that my brother was sleeping (i.e., snoring) and this song was keeping me awake, so I got up, leaned over my bedpost and, reaching through the darkness, turned off the record player.

Bro sputtered awake and snorted at me "hey, what are you doing? I was listening to that!"

The Canaries' Love Affair with the Camera

I showed the most recent Canaries open mike performance to my classes on Monday. We played "Maggie's Farm." At the end of the video, my teaching partner said that he had a GREAT version of the song and got out his I-Pod, hooked it up to our sound system, and played U2's performance version at Live Aide. As it was playing, a little girl in the class said that SHE had a version of the song recorded by the Specials, a ska group of the 80's. She got out her I-Pod and played it for the class as well. It wasn't so much ska. But it was good. And I got to explain that the Specials were pretty popular when I was a youngster.

THEN, earlier tonight, they played a version of the song by Richie Havens on XM radio.

Coincidence, I think not.

My Dinner with Uli, the Final Chapter

Uli Jr and Mrs. Uli Jr left soon after the singing stopped, just before the walkers and wheelchairs jammed in front of the elevators that would take the residents back to their rooms. That left Mom, Uli, and me sitting at our table, waiting for a break in the traffic.

Once the Uli Jr's were gone, the wrath of Uli was unleashed. Uli, who did not rely on a walker or wheelchair, complained that, at 96 years, he did fine on his own. He had maintained his independence-mowing his own lawn, washing his own car. Mrs. Uli was the culprit that put him in the tower. His comments were punctuated by sidelong glances from my mother to me, shot at me to infuse just a dab of guilt for the holidays.

I shot glances right back, as if to say "Yes, Mother, we put you here. But you won't walk and are overly dependent on a motorized wheelchair and motorized La-Z-Boy, and won't do the slightest bit of exercise to strengthen your muscles so that you can live more independently." But my look fell, as usual, on deaf eyes.

Uli, while able to get around on his own, walked with a wobbliness that betrayed the potential for catastrophe that his family must have feared. Should his family left him in his own home? I don't know. That's a question most of my friends my age have to wrestle with these days. Our parents can no longer live without assistance, but don't want to surrender control.

As the second wave of wheelchairs and walkers crowded around the elevator, the self-ambulatory residents, learning long ago the virtue of patience, busied themselves with other activities as the staff broke down the banquet tables and chairs and put the visiting area back in order.

One woman, Selma, began working on the community jig-saw puzzle.

"Oh, she's good at those puzzles," Mom said. "Let's go take a look."

Selma, indeed, worked quickly at finding a proper match for each piece.

"We've got hundreds of puzzles," Uli informed me. "They're all in that cabinet."

He got up and almost sprinted to the cabinet and opened it's doors, revealing hundreds of puzzles, containing one, two, as many as five-thousand pieces. We could have had a puzzle party.

Christmas with the Canaries

I guess I should say something about Christmas Day.

I got a new Oscar Schmidt to replace my kidnapped one. This one is an OU3 I think. It's a blond. Sounds good.

We, the Canaries, spent a good hour or so rehearsing our next big hit, "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles. We used the arrangement from Jumpin' Jim's Sacred Ukulele book.

Canary Liam got a "G"-tuned harmonica for Christmas, which is the key the Beatles recorded the song in. Jim arranged the song in a different, squeaky-voice key, as he often does. Liam wanted to adapt back to the original key but we didn't seem to get anywhere with that. I'm going to look at fixing that today. It seemed like it would be pretty easy to do, except for one chord that's something like a G7Sus+dim or something.

I think Liam gets frustrated because we don't seem to listen to him because he's the kid. I think it has more to do with the fact that we have to mind the uke part, which takes a little more work, so we do what's easiest for us. I also think it's because the three of us are creative types with diva tendencies. Oddly, Liam is the most musical, I think, in that he plays more instruments.

We worked out the harmonies, of which my line turned out to be a Johnny-one-note kind of thing...boring. It sounds good enough. But I hope I can work it out to something more interesting.

I would like to make Zoe a Canary also. I have this idea that we could do Tom Waits "Phone Call from Istanbul," with Zoe doing the organ solo at the end-only on her sax.

My Dinner with Uli, Part III

The Uli's Jr had owned a gift shop next door to Uli Sr's Gourmet Grocer. I don't remember the name, but it's closed now anyway.

Uli himself was a salt-of-the-earth type who had worked his way up in the grocery business and had held every job there was to hold, eventually learning the butcher trade. Uli's had been in this town only about 12 years, if I remember correctly from what he told us. It seems to have been there as far back as I can remember. He got the idea to open it because so few grocery chains knew anything about meat and he thought the town would support a store that emphasized good meat. He said that he sold it and his buyers sold it again within a year. The second buyers didn't last more than a year either.

Mom was interested in talking to Uli, as fellow old-Riversider. It turned out that they didn't have many fiends in common. My impression of Uli is that, since he was old enough to work, that's all he did and, since he first got himself behind a butcher counter, that's all he did. Once he opened his own store, he spent every waking moment seeing to the store. A hard worker.

Every once in awhile, Uli would mention that moving to the Tower was not his idea. It was Mrs. Uli Jr's idea. I don't know whether Mrs. Uli Jr was half the villain Uli thought she was-but I didn't like her too much.

Uli complained about the types of activities provided by the Tower. Mrs. Uli Jr told me that he complained about them, but he always seemed to participate in them. Mom, who has also complained about the activities, but has found some that appeal to her, tried to convince Uli that there were some good things to do. In the months since she moved to the Tower, Mom has discovered a literature class and has also discovered some retired professionals who were still very much in tune with the world around them. They, like Mom, just needed someone to help them take care of themselves.

She mentioned to Uli that she and another woman had started a book club. I didn't hear Uli's response, but I wondered, with his coke-bottle glasses, how well he could see to able to read. Mrs Uli Jr whispered to me that Uli didn't read very well. He was a man who had begun working so young and had continued working so hard, that he never had time for much formal education.

My Dinner with Uli, Part II (Scroll down a little for Part I)

As the choir sings, I think back to when Dad was alive and how we used to stand side-by-side at Christmas Eve services and harmonize during the carols. I miss that. I'm not a fan of organized religion these days, but those moments seem sacred to me as I look back. They were never planned, we just knew that we would harmonize, him on tenor, me on bass. There were a couple of songs we never got quite right, but that wasn't the point anyway.

So my voice joins the warbly chorus, as does Mom's. I notice another voice joining in as well. I glance over and see Uli's Jr and Sr-the younger sitting rod-up-his-ass straight, arms folded across his chest, the elder, slouched in his metal chair, grimacing behind coke-bottle glasses. Mrs. Uli Jr's somewhat wobbly soprano trilled along with ours. About half the gathering joined in song.

We all joined probably the last three songs, including silent night, which I recently learned on the ukulele. A pretty tune, sublime lyrics. Peace surrounded by a dangerous world.

As the singing ended, we all began talk of music. I mentioned to Mrs. Uli Jr that Mom had sung at the Loring Opera House as a teenager. Mrs Uli Jr was not from around here, so the comment had little impact. Mrs. Uli Jr had told us that she too had been a fine singer at one point, but was now out of practice. She said that her voice sometimes felt uncomfortable. I noticed that pretty much any time you talked about someone at the table, she would manage to bring the subject back to herself. Her whole demeanor was that of someone who was used to grabbing attention and making sure things turned out the way she wanted them to.

Mom, who probably could have taught voice, gave her some advice about how to use her voice. Again, I'm not sure that Mrs. Uli Jr really paid attention.

I told her that, if she wanted to get her voice back, she should buy a ukulele. I told her that it was an easy-to-carry, handy-dandy way to accompany one's self and keep one singing for hours on end. I had been playing for a couple of years now (three I guess) and it helped me re-discover music and become independent of piano players and other accompanists.

Again, she could not have cared less.

The Flu, or Whatever It Is That's Going Around

Merry Krimble to all of you.

I've been laying low for my own protection. Many of my friends have caught this thing that won't let go, a type of flu bug. In some cases, they get it, get better, then it makes a resurgence.

I haven't had a flu shot, so I am just staying away from my friends who are getting sick. I had a similar case of the flu about five years ago. I got sick, got a little better, then got sicker, missing almost a whole week of work. Even when I came back, I could feel the disease still lurking inside me. So, stay away sick people.

My Dinner with Uli, Part I

Tonight, I joined my 81-year-old mother for a Christmas party at the Tower, an assisted living facility that we recently helped or forced her to move into, depending on whom you ask and when you ask them. They served a sumptuous repast of quasi-glazed ham, salad, potatoes au gratin, mushy vegetables, and an array of deserts.

The highlight of the meal was potatoes au gratin. I don't know if they were all that good, but I think my palate is spud-centric, so I liked them a lot.

As we entered the dining hall and located our table, we were surprised to see a place setting at our table for the family of Peter Uli. I wheeled Mom to the chairless spot, noted that three metal folding chairs sat across the table from her and one cushioned chair sat next to her. The Uli's had not arrived yet, so I sat next to her.

In the cushioned chair, of course.

Peter Uli, for those of you who aren't from around here, ran a successful gourmet grocer in town. It was kind of like Trader Joe's, except they had a butcher shop on the premises, as well as a gourmet salad selection with salads, pastas, and antipastas. I don't remember all of the details, but I believe you could walk around the salad set-up and that the butcher shop was next to that, against a wall. Peter Uli, I was to find out that night, worked his way up in the grocery business and had been a butcher first and foremost.

It closed several years ago, after having been sold twice to new owners.

Mom was born and raised in this town. Uli has not lived here as long, but is still a part of the town history.

We had just finished our salads when the three Uli's arrived. The son was a stiff kind of man, thin, and sat uncomfortably in the folding metal chair. He wore glasses and his hair was a little like that of Chico Marx with his hat off. He his face seemed pulled forward by his pointy, pencil like nose. His wife was a chubby woman, with a loud coloratura (I hope I spelled that right) voice. She did most of the talking, which wasn't always a good thing.

Peter looked like an older version of the son, with a more relaxed, if somewhat angry face. His hair was a thinning, backswept grey wave. He wore coke bottle glasses. Once in awhile he would mention an article that had been printed about him in the Tower's journal. That, or he would complain that moving to this place was not his idea.

As we dined, we were serenaded by a group of younger senior citizens who had also performed at the Thanksgiving banquet. You had to enjoy their heartfelt enthusiasm, if not their actual singing ability. One lady in particular would greet different tables between songs and talk to the residents. Many of the residents sang along with the carolers, especially during "Silent Night."

One lady at the table next to us grew steadily angrier as the meal progressed. Her granddaughter would say "Grandma, they don't mean it, it's an accident." But the lady finally said in a loud voice "God Dammit, these waitresses keep kicking my wheelchair!"

Hers was more than a wheel chair. It was red, motorized throne that took up the space of three wheel chairs, and it obstructed the passage between tables, so the harried servers sometimes bumped into it.

Eventually, a team of family members figured out they had to help Grandma move her chair a little to be out of the way. That calmed her down.

Canaries' Sophomore Gig

The canaries flew into Claremont once again to wing it with another Bob Dylan hit, ruffling the feathers of many folk purists with their uke-o-centric rendition. This time, they thrashed "Maggie's Farm," the title of which is actually longer, but I'm too damn lazy to type the whole thing, even though typing this sentence has taken longer. I mean "thrash" in a good way.

Canary Limo once again provided power vocals, setting many young girls hearts a-flutter, while Billy Canary and Canary Jeff lit the stage with their ukes. Canary Jeff attacked his ukulele solo with the ferocity of a young tiger raging through a forest of Frosted Flakes, bringing an otherwise complacent to it's feet for the first of many standing O's.

Other acts at the Open Mique (and I'm going to be occasionally serious here) were plentiful. Kudos to the nice elderly lady who started an impromptu jam session while we all waited in line. But I have to take at least one kudo back. The lady was first on the list and, in spite of the new Folk center policy of one song per, asked if she could do a second song. The first song was good. The second song was kind of "faux" folk and not very good. The FC open Mique MC return to the one per policy for every act that followed. To make matters worse, after making us sit through her two songs, she couldn't be bothered to stay until the end--major chutzpah in my book. She left during the break. What's wrong Granny, didn't get your nap?

For those of you classical music fans, Paganini Man was back, trying to recapture the glory that he so elegantly didn't capture the first time. This time, he brought his own sound equipment, which didn't make the piece any better, or shorter. Again, he had to be stopped before someone killed him.

My theory is that he is actually a long-lost son of Andy Kaufman.

But there were a lot of fine performances, with a lot of unusual instruments featured.

One of the FC's employees played tubular kind of banjo-esque thingy that. A good instrumental performance.

One regular put aside his guitar and pulled a charango off the wall and played that. Another fine instrumental.

Special ed and the Guy Who Looks Like Jim Croce returned with another Croce tune. It was okay, but I hope they realize that you can only take that Jim Croce gimmick so far.

The highlight was this perky little Chinese lady who showed up with the Japanese version of a koto and played that. It was a haunting, exquisite performance. It was probably the most surprising and even best thing I have ever seen at the FC. It was one of the reasons I go to these things.

That, and to catch the Canarie's in their latest performance.

Haircut (My 100th Post)

Huzzah. Who knew that, back when I first started this venture, my readership would explode into to the upper single digits as quickly as it has?

Yesterday, I got a haircut. And this was no ordinary haircut. It was a haircut touched the essence of haircut-ness.

I knew from the moment my stylist approached me, smiled seductively, and led me to the sink to wash my hair, that this was going to be something special.

I had only asked for the wash and the cut, not the scalp massage. But her technique during the wash was kind of a half massage that gradually evolved into a full scalp massage that left my toes tingling. Oh yeah, it did.

Then, she asked me what I wanted done. I said that I wanted about an inch all around (I never know what to tell them, I'm not a hair guy--just make sure my bald spot is covered).

But, from the first snip, I knew that she was in control. As I watched in the mirror, helpless, I could see that she was cutting off much more than an inch--perhaps an-inch-and-a-half, maybe even two. But I could do nothing to stop her. She was so good. At this point, I just hoped she would be kind and make it even.

My God, she even trimmed my ear hairs--just the exterior ones around the lobes, though. She left my inner ear hairs alone. You have to leave something for next time.

Great Moments in Slightly Higher Education

So, I teach this night class at the local CC and my students have this final paper due, which is supposed to be an argumentation piece and I have each student discuss their proposal in class tonight. One of the real treats of the evening is where I espouse like an expert on each of my students' topics.

One nice lady told the class that she was going to write about women in leadership. I couldn't figure out what her real point was and after commenting on that, I smiled and looked musingly up at the ceiling and said "Hmmmm, I wonder if I will ever see a female president--imagine, President Hillary Clinton."

At which point this one young lady, clearly upset, shot back, "Not no Hillary Friggin' Clinton--what about Condoleeza Rice!"

"That girl's got it going on," she said.

I had espoused significantly already for the night. As professor, I try not to dominate with my opinions because the class is really about helping students express their opinions. That, and I knew this young lady's husband had served in Iraq and might be going back.

So, I straddled the fence of forcing this woman to explain what Condi-I'm-too-Busy-Buying-Shoes-to-even-pretend-that-I-Care Rice has done for this country (really, what has she been successful at, folk?) or be silent and let other folk chime in. I decided to be silent.

Maybe I was wrong. But, were I the student and had my professor been neo-con, I wouldn't want him using up class time to promote his views. The classroom should be a place for the students to discuss and develop their ideas.

The Canaries on DVD

Went to the Folk Music Center to pick up the open mike CD (which, by the way, the Folk Center folk spell "M-I-C").

The sound and picture quality is better than I thought it might be, considering it was a single camera. You can see all of the performers very well and the sound is clear--in the case of the Paganini-playing guy, too clear.

The Blues

I was down today. I sometimes get that way these days--what with my mother's illness, my car thing, my kidnapped Oscar Schmidt, and on, and on.

I left my music stand inside between classes. The wind was strong enough that I feared it would blow my music away. So I stood outside and absentmindedly strummed some chord progressions to songs that I already knew.

Iz, my prize ukulele disciple came out and stood there awhile and said, "Mr.O, that's so sad." I was playing "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime." It's one of those songs that I practice often because it has a grip of chords.

I guess I was really selling it.

So Iz goes in and grabs my music stand and turns to "Daydream Believer." Fewer Chords. But much happier. She has been practicing this one and so have I.

So we started playing.

Soon, a few non-uke students grabbed some rhythm toys out of my grab bag, and we had a jam session going.

I felt better, then.

Another Accident, Not My Own

But before I get to thesis, I am half-watching SIDEWAYS. There was just this scene with Paul Giamatti standing and looking at pictures from his past, which included a picture of him standing with his father, who is either Bart Giamatti, the late Baseball commissioner who famously tussled with Pete Rose, or an actor who looks like him. Of course, Bart was Paul's actual dad, hence the name similarity.

But back to biz. On my way to the Rubeedoo walk, I swung (swang?) by Blockbuster's to return a video. The way back, traffic was slowed to an almost stop. In the ten to fifteen minutes it took me to travel 1/10th of a mile, I discovered it was due to some accident.

Hence, I stand by my previous post(see Four Guys, Four Guitars). Not the part about it being a great concert--although I do stand by that too--but the part about drivers around here being increasingly idiotic. Still feel compassion for the victims, but hating on the pricks who feel they MUST challenge the odds and drive stupidly. In their hands, cars become weapons.

As I drove by the car that must have rear-ended the car in front of it, the jerk who must have been driving it was standing there with his little camera taking pictures of the damage, smiling.

In the last two years, I have had three accidents, two from the rear. The first, the woman not only ran a red light and plowed into my side, she stopped at the red light, and, when I had entered the intersection on my green light, she THEN ran her red light and plowed into my side. No insurance, of course. It was her boyfriend's car of course.

The second was on a rainy morning where I got up extra early to get to work. The turn lane was backed up. The guy behind me said his "foot slipped." He had insurance.

The third one, no damage, merely bumped me from behind while I waited for the light to turn green. I got out to check my car only to meet her stepping out, cell phone in hand, and told me that she had turned around for a second to discipline her kids.

I need to get a skateboard.

Four Guys with Guitars

I saw that Lyle lovett, Joe Ely, John Hiatt, and Guy Clark were playing at the Disney Concert Hall in LA and got it in my head that I wanted to see them. These are four singer-songwriters from Texas, not twangy country-western, more country-folk. I am most familiar with Hiatt and Lovett. I barely know Joe Ely's stuff. Guy Clark I am only aware of because Lovett did a song of his on his CD "Come into This House." In fact, Clark's song is the title Clark. I also know of Clark through a contribution on a CD tribute to Townes Van Zandt.

Billy Canary had been interested in going, but had to back out. I thought about asking a couple of people, but decided to go on my own. I had a stressful week and just decided it would be good to get away from people.

Also, the concert was sold out, so I was going through the cancellation Line. I figured one person would stand a better chance of getting a ticket than two.

I planned on leaving early enough to be there two hours before the concert. It was a good thing, because traffic was pretty bad. That's the problem with Southern California these days. What used to be an hour drive can actually be a two-hour drive. I was slowed down by traffic jams four times during my two-way trip--once by ordinary congestion, once by a break-down, twice by accidents.

I arrived at the Disney Hall and the line was short. After standing in line for about 1/2 hour, I got a ticket for the Orchestra West. This gave me a nice, slightly angular view of the performers.

They audience received the quartet warmly as they walked out. They took there seats, just four singers and four guitars.

Guy Clark announce that there had been "no planning, no set list, and no rules" and then performed "LA Freeway," which was a hit for Jerry Jeff Walker. Clark is probably the least famous of the four because, while he made records, his songs have been made famous by others.

I had not heard the song before, but it was tasty. As he finished, some guy across the hall from my seat let out a huge "Wahoo!" to which Clark replied, "As long as I can reach just one person..."

Clark then introduced Ely. And so the evening progressed, with each singer playing a tune and handing the spotlight to the singer on his right.

The Wahoo Guy wahooed several times throughout the evening. In fact, he tried to control the show. He clapped along with the songs enthusiastically, and always off by a beat. Every other song, he yelled out a request to either Joe or John, couldn't tell which, for one particular song, couldn't tell what.

I don't think they ever played it. It reminded me of something I heard Steve Martin say when he still did stand-up. Guys like that can really mess with a performer's concentration. They could have taken the man's request, but that would have given control to one guy in the audience, who might not ever stop making requests. So, they just smiled up at this fellow and kept with their format.

The guitar solos were all handled by Ely and Hiatt. All four would occasionally harmonize with whomever was singing. It seemed unplanned, which made it all the more lovely. Lovett acted as MC. Among the best tunes were "Baby Don't Tolerate," "My Chihuahua," "Real Fine Love," "Come into This House," and "If I had a Boat."

They closed there initial set with a Carter Family tune that I did not recognize. They came out for one encore, each singing another tune, then closing together as a quartet with "This Land Is Your Land."

Great concert.

They are moving up to San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington this week.

Good-bye Oscar

So, I'm rethinking my anti-gun views. Early, early Thursday morning, my car was broken into while sitting in my driveway and some stuff was either wrecked or stolen.

I admit, the phrase "broken into" doesn't exactly apply here. I couldn't have made it easier. I got home at around 10, after teaching my night class, and was tired, having been up since about 5 AM. Forgot to unload my briefcase containing my school stuff, my Oscar Schmidt OU-5--and, most of all, I forgot to turn on the car alarm.

I know, I know...

Anyway, I realize that, to be able to catch the thief and shoot him, I would have had to run out of my house at some ungodly hour, in my naked-ish glory,
locked and loaded, not knowing what kind of fire-power the perp might have brought with him, not knowing how many there were.

So, I guess I'm still anti-gun.

At least my insurance will cover the expensive stuff, like fixing my dashboard, where the perp tried to pry out my XM radio and failed (but he did take the removable face and the remote, which I think is pretty worthless without an actual radio).

But my insurance won't cover my Oscar, the very uke that I played at the Canaries' debut. Since it was stolen from my car in front of my house, it is covered by my $250 deductible home-owner's insurance, which makes it essentially uncovered. If the perp had dropped it and broken it and left it there, it would be covered by my car insurance.

So, uke-wise, I am trying to practice Buddhist detachment form worldly items. Plus, I have a few other ukes to play. It's just that the Oscar does have some sentimental value.

On another note, I recently got Kurt Vonnegut's latest, A Man without a Country. I just started it, but the first twenty or so pages are just a rehash of things I have already read from other of his non-fiction books. I happen to like his non-fiction more than his fiction. A full review as soon as I finish it. In the meantime, go read Wampeter, Foma, and Ganfalloon.

Power Trio

The Canaries made their debut last night. The initial line-up was Canary Limo singing, Billy Canary on this egg shaker doohickey that he bought at the Folk Music Center that night, and myself on my uke.

I was going to perform solo again, but couldn't really settle on anything. My brother and I were going to carpool and, when I got to his house, I found that His son Limo was going with us and that he might be performing with some friends. We picked Limo up at the nearby park. Liam's friends weren't coming.

On the way there, we discussed the possibility of Liam and I performing together on Dylan's "I Ain't Gonna Work on Maggie's Farm No More." I asked him what the chords were, but they didn't seem to fit. So he began rattling all of the Dyaln tunes he knew.

I stopped him on "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright." I knew the chords and thought we could practice. So, we practiced in the car. Later, we practiced in line at the FMC. We invited Billy C to join us as percussionist, so he got the shaky egg and practiced with us. He wanted me to slow the tempo, but Liam liked it. So we overruled.

Lima and I decided when we were alone that, after the third verse, we'd turn to Billy C and say "Take it Bill," as a surprise.

So, the open Mike itself was among the worst. Lowlights include the guy whose bangs on a notebook with drumsticks while he plays guitar and sings Jesus songs badly. Not actual gospel, but that sappy stuff you hear on Christian Broadcasting Network. The lowest of the lowlights was this guy who asked the crowd if the they wanted to hear a little Paginini (sp?) as he took his blue electric guitar out of its case. People ooooed in anticipation.

What he played was the most gawd-awful. He'd start, flub, and start again, then flub, then complain to the soundman about the volume. It was merciless. The MC finally got up and stood in front of him and said he'd have to stop because he was over his time limit. The guy says, "But I'm not finished." He was. He really was.

Highlights, as always, were Matt, UF's pal, and us.

We really had a good energy. We got a few laughs with our intro. Then I started with the song, screwed uo the first three chords, stopped, and said "Let's do that other tune."

But I ripped into it the second time. Limo sailed right into the lyrics and Billy C shook a mean egg. The "take it Bill" bit worked pretty well, too. Billy just owned the moment and improvise some schtick with his shaky egg and also made noises with his face.

We're thinking of going to open Mike at Coffee Depot tomorrow night.

Pete Townsend

I just discovered that Pete Townsend has been writing an online novel of some sort and it appears on this very same blogger thingy. What a coinkydink.

haven't read it yet.

I believe I refer to "Tommy" as one of my top ten favorite operas in an earlier post.

When I first heard it, I was in my room with my good friend Curt and a another kid I didn't particularly like, but who ran in the same circle of friends I did in Jr. and Sr. high school.

I still get chills when I hear music from "Tommy."

One time, not too long ago, at our weekly dinner at Mom's, I walked into the room that was once my bedroom where I had actually heard "Tommy" for the first time and disovered my nephew Limo listening to what ever type of portable musical listening thing he owned at the time and asked him what he was doing.

"I'm listening to 'Tommy,'" he said.

I explained to him the history of "Tommy" and that room. To which he replied, "Cool" and then put his headphones back on.

Here's Townsend's blog:

http://boywhoheardmusic.blogspot.com/

Wedding from Hell

I went to a friend's wedding party Saturday. He is the son of an old friend and colleague whom I have gotten to know over the past couple of years. This was the second marriage for both. She has kids. He does not.

I have never been to a wedding like this before. Most of the truly bad weddings I have been to had some redeeming quality to them. But this one...

It was a civil ceremony. She and her family are devout Catholics, but she agreed to a civil ceremony and he agreed to have a catholic ceremony later.

On the day before the wedding, the mom calls to say that she will not attend the wedding and is going to Mexico for the weekend.

The same day, the caterer cancels.

Then, most of the bride's siblings don't bother to show up. Didn't call her. Didn't show up.

The maid of honor, the bride's adult daughter, didn't show up.

The one brother who was supposed to bring the cake showed up an hour-and-half late and then left after a very short time.

A few of the bride's friends showed up and all of the groom's friends and family showed up. They put the best face on things they could. But it was pretty sad.

Another Soul Seduced by the Dark Side

I've been acting as a co-facilitator at this weekend Professional Development Institute for teachers in Palm Springs. A month ago, at the first meeting, my co-teacher and I presented a unit plan that we use. At the beginning, I played my uke, as I do before class at school.

Yesterday, we had our second meeting. This guy who's in my breakout group told me that my performance had inspired him to go out and get his own uke and that he now carried it around with him, playing for his students.

Our numbers are growing.

My Top Ten Most Influential Operas

1. Tosca. I watched on PBS once. Performed at the baths in Rome, Italy. One of the few operas where the story made sense.

2. Turandot. Just for the Nessun Dorma aria. The story about the chinese princess loses me the minute she tortures the tenor's girlfriend to find out his name and she dies and the tenor still wants to marry her and her heart melts.

3. Tommy. Yeah, it's a rock opera. But it's part of the soundtrack of my life and I get chills when I hear it today.

4. Jesus Christ Superstar. Same thing. Spent a lot of time with my best friend Curt discussing teenage theology while listening to it.

5. The Ring Cycle. Saw it on PBS. Again with the Norse stuff.

6. Carmen. She's hot.

7. Carmen Jones. She's pretty hot too.

8. Threepenny Opera. I guess it's not really an opera. But it's a fave. Let's all go barmey.

9. Ok, I guess I don't have ten.

9. William Tell

10 Most influential Books I Read as a Kid

I hope I can remember them all.

1. Yertle the Turtle. I wish Opie would try to make a film based on this book.

2. Harold and the Purple Crayon. When I was between 4th and 5th grade, I dropped out of a summer school art class when the teacher didn't like what I drew. We had to draw using only black and white crayons, plus one primary color crayon chosen for each student by her. First, I drew a picture of Hades riding down into Hell with his newly kidnapped bride Proserpine. She said that the characters should be bigger. So I drew another picture that zoomed in on the happy couple. Then she said that I should draw something a little more cheerful. I reminded her that I was working with black, white, and f***ing blue. I didn't actually say "f***ing." This has little to do with Harold and the Purple Crayon, but clearly I still have issues.

3. Make Way for Ducklings. There, I feel better now.

4. Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I loved mythology, so I struggled through this when I was about 10.

5. This book about Japanese mythology by Miriam Cox. Later, as a college student, I took her Children's Lit class and she gave me a "C." Bitch.

6. Some book about King Arthur with really cool illustrations. Got it at the library. Thanks for taking me, Mom.

7. A Donald Duck comic book. My first grade teacher said that I had a reading problem. My mom got me some comic books to read to increase my interest in reading and see for herself if I was having problems. Turned out that I only had a first grade teacher problem. Thanks again, Mom.

8. This book or Norse mythology. I liked this stuff more than the Greek stuff.

9. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. I think this is self-explanatory.

10. Horton Hatches an Egg. Hey, anything is possible.

10 Most Influential Books Other Than the Bible

Influential in my life anyway. All are works of fiction. Not in any particular order:

1. Don Quixote. This is the biggie for me. As with Shakespeare, you find yourself wondering how he ever thought of all of that. Plan on taking your time with this one, though.

2. King Lear. A study in what it means to lose who you are.

3. The Tempest. About forgiveness.

4. Cold Mountain. If you love folklore, mythology, and music, this may be the book for you.

5. Underworld. Don Dellilo (sic?). When people become consumed by their own pop-culture.

6. White Noise. Same guy. Why fear prevents people from connecting with one another.

7. Johnny Got His Gun. If the president could read, I'd send him this book.

8. The Brothers Karamazov. It struck a chord in my then-teenage heart.

9. War and Peace. Didn't think I would like it or finish it. But, damn, what a story. I think it might be about who our parents were before we knew them. Again, take your time.

10. A River Runs through It. I don't fish. But this book is about the soul we all share.

I only liked parts of Ulysses. I probably should add something by Hemingway, but it's hard to decide. In Our Time is cracker jack, in the best sense of the phrase.

You Can't Tell a Book by It's Cover

On the first meeting of the night class that I teach, one of the first people to walk in the door was this really skinny kid. She had a real angular look about her and her dress was rather masculine, but, after studying her, I realized that she was probably a man. When he took off his paramedic's cap, he revealed his two-tone close-cropped haircut, as well as a subtle amount of make-up. So, I figured he might be a gay man. Then, I studied him again and I realized he was, after all, a woman--Still gay, but a woman. The way she sat, the way she carried herself--all of this seemed lesbi-ish to me. Then, as students finished writing their first writing assignment, I asked if anyone wanted to read what they had written, she raised her hand and read this piece about her husband and young son.

I promise I wasn't staring at her. This was all a part of my usual sizing up of students as class begins.

I'm just saying that this woman had a lot of layers.

Starvation Jam

Of course, to prepare for the big journey, I had to fast. The last time was easy because I didn't have to work. But yesterday, I had to work. So, I bought a grip of apple juice and gatorade and took them to school and drank pretty much non-stop. I kept my mind off my hunger by strumming pretty much non-stop as well--except for when either my teaching partner or I was lecturing.

I was standing outside strumming my newish Fluke, when this one girl comes out and joins me, carrying my Triumph uke. She asks me to teach her some chords. She already plays guitar, so I knew it would come easy to her. I showed her the chords for "Ain't She Sweet?", which I learned at the Cerritos Uke fest. She goes away and starts practicing and, by afternoon advisory, she's got it.

For those of you worried about your tax dollars at work, she practiced only during breaks and lunch.

In fact, during lunch, she, another student, and myself spent most of the time jamming on those and other chords. This one kid worked out several guitar solos on the Fluke, including "Malagena." Another kid came up with this two-chord punk progression and improvised some hilarious lyrics. Then, as lunch ended, we stood outside and played as students came in.

My colleague had been elected Teacher Homecoming King, so he stood outside shouting to each approaching student, "Bow down to your King!" to which we would sing "Bow down! Bow down! To the King!"

It was a pretty good day, fast or no fast.

Squeaky Clean

After my sigmoidoscopy, where the reader will remember the doctor found a polyp in my sigmoid, and after not receiving any urgent phone calls summoning me to the hospital for an emergency cancer surgery, nor receiving any postcard with the results, I lived under the assumption that it was over for the next few years.

Then, two months later, while visiting my doctor on another matter, I was told that I had indeed been referred for a colonoscopy. "Yeah," the doc told me, "That's one flaw in the system. It takes a long time for these referrals to go through." So two months later, I get an appointment for the procedure.

I'll skip the grody details and just say that I came out of it clean.

Doppleganger and Practice

Sunday, there was some guy at this restaurant that SiL, Bro, Mom, Z'ster, and Limo all thought looked like me. Sad thing is, I thought he looked like a slob. Perhaps it's time I get that makeover.

On the uke front. I have discovered a way to increase my practice time by a half-hour a day. On my way home, I bought a music stand on sale and took it to school with me Monday morning. As my fans know, I usually stand outside my classroom playing the songs I know while the kids come in the classroom. Now, I set songs that I am trying to learn on the music stand and practice them between classes for about 5 minutes at a time. I can get through the chord progressions twice in that amount of time. This will be great for those more complicated songs that I keep putting off. I tend to stick within a certain range, which means that I stay within the same four or five chords much of the time as far as song selection goes. So this is good.

By the time school was out today, I practically had Over the Rainbow nailed. Still have a couple of difficult chords changes to overcome, but I should have it by tomorrow.

Learned some new techniques at the Cerritos Uke Fest over the weekend. Went to a workshop run by Lil Rev and another by Cool Hand Uke. Cool Hand Uke was god, but digressed a lot with personal anecdotes. But he did have me playing Jamaica Farewell(easy) and Ain't She Sweet? (moderately difficult) by the end of the session.

Lil Rev is a uke player (and multi-instrumentalist) that I admire. I admire even more that he seems to be a dedicated roving folk musician. A good teacher too. Had us doing some interesting strums. Taught us how to do Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits also. Not too hard, but I never thought about it before.

Spent Sunday reading a book that I have been teaching for a week. I had read it many years ago and thought I knew it very well, until I tried leading a discussion on it and realized it was time for a re-read.

Mostly a productive weekend.

Speaking of Musicians

I was at a local, non-Starbucks franchise, embibing in a tasty coffee beverage with my friend Al (Fresco, that is) taking advantage of their free wireless internet, finishing my grades, when this shaved-head white guy sits down at the table behind me, lights up a smoke and dials someone on his cell phone. He says to his party "Hey, niggah, wassup?" Then he cracks up, saying, "I bet you thought I was some rapper or some shit, dintcha?" And he laughs some more.

Then he goes into some dialog about this heavy metal band he is in and about some song he wrote the night before and about how at practice the night before he was just screaming into the mike when the bass player who had quit this band before but had come back just to play one gig and help them out with their new lead vocalist (this guy behind me) and he(the guy behind me) is just absorbed in the music when the bass player just stops playing and turns to him (the guy behind me) and says"Dude, you just WAIL. I want back in the band."

So the guy (behind me) is just all pleased with himself and is asking his call whether or not eight songs is a good number for a set and how lots of people are going to be their from his work whatever that is and especially this one chick is smokin' and she'll be there and he hopes she likes that kind of music because she's smokin'.

And I'm thinking wouldn't it be great if everybody was in a band and could find a way to express their innermost feelings in such a way so as to be scary but not dangerous?

Because I think this guy could be dangerous.

And I'm thinking about this former student named Kat whose name really isn't Kat you see but she's bipolar allegedly and allegedly doesn't take her medication. During her senior year, her parents took her out of school and put her in a convent, which didn't work out especially well. So she contacts me and tells me that she has started a band called You Told Me We Were Going to Disneyland and that there is a ukulele solo in one of her songs.

But I didn't know she could play an instrument and I don't know if she's kidding.

I just hope she's doing ok.

Three Guys Wasting Time

So, yesterday, I remember why I went back to school and got my MA. I was tired of wasting time with people who have nothing better to do than argue over trivial matters.

Reverse to the end of my 43rd year. It was a pleasant Saturday, and I thought I'd join my friends at a local independent coffee place and chat. God only knows why, given the history.

Sure enough, I walked up and found my three friends-J, G, and S-arguing.

Now, as everyone knows, the two things you're not supposed to bring up unless you want to start an argument are Religion and Politics-right? Well, how about grammar?

The four of us are English teachers. The subject of debate was grammar. S warned me as I approached to keep going before I got sucked in and, like a fool, I sat down anyway. J and G were silent, but both were fuming. It was as if they were two cats locked in mortal combat. You know, bodies, claws, tails all entwined, occasionally a growl would seep out from one of them.

From my perspective, G would get passionate about something and J would bait him and G would bite and tempers would flare. G would usually become visibly angry. J would pull back and egg him on.

It was usually about school stuff. Like grammar.

For the life of me, I could never figure out why these guys wanted to spend so much time talking about their jobs. We all spent enough time on our jobs.

So, anyway, it was on a day like that that I decided I could spend my time doing something productive. I invited all three to join me. G declined. J showed up one time to check out a class, but never enrolled. S enrolled, but didn't finish. I began to spend my Saturdays and Sundays at Starbucks studying. Got a lot done.

So, I decided to join S and G at Starbucks yesterday, another beautiful day. G and I somehow got on the topic of country music. One interest I share with G is an interest in music. Whenever we used to do this, J (who has since moved to Connecticut to be with a lovely woman he met at a Yeats Seminar) would get bored and change the subject.

G made the comment that Country Music, as we know it, was pretty much invented by the Carter family. Now, it could be that "invented" is an inaccurate word-but, at that moment when the energies of several musical sensibilities converged and generated a new kind of popular music, the Carter family were standing pretty close by. There may have been others, but I don't know their names. And I'm pretty sure that most Country performers would give the Carter family a great deal of credit.

Yes, there were twangs and lilts floating around in the air for centuries, beginning in the British Isles and wafting their way to the Appalachians in this country. But the Carters were among the first to snatch them and record them.

S began saying that it wasn't true and that there were probably many others as responsible. But S didn't know that. He was just being contrary. He couldn't name anyone and he started insisting that, whenever G made a statement like that, he should be prepared to prove it.

Echoes of J.

The point being that, if I wanted to be in a Socratic seminar, I'd go back to school. If I show up on a pleasant Saturday afternoon, I'd like to keep things pretty informal.

S baited. G bit. G's face turned red, he shouted obscenities at S. S went into passive-aggressive mode, saying things that he knew would make G even angrier. The lovely afternoon was ruined. I took G's side for awhile. Pretty soon, we all just left-with me following G trying to calm him down-the guy has enough health problems and doesn't need that kind of crap. As we left, S came running after to basically make the same point he had made pretty feebly before. We all got in our cars and got out of there.

I can't understand why anyone would want to spend that much time so unproductively.

You know, last year, I had the idea to start that Ukulele Sunday thing and I got caught up in other things-visiting family, mom's illness and subsequent move to assisted living, the writers' conference, etc. Maybe now the time is ripe. I could feel my blood pressure rise yesterday. I left pissed.

All I know is that, anytime I play my ukulele, it is the best meditation and blood pressure medicine I can take. And, when I'm done, I'm a better ukulele player.

Trip to Del Mar III: The Journey Home

Before the concert started, I sauntered over to the merchandise booth to get my Knitters T-shirt. I had only brought the shirt I was wearing because it was just an overnight trip and I thought that, worst case scenario, I would have to wear the same shirt an extra half-day for the trip home or, best case scenario, I would have a brand new Knitters T-shirt to wear at every rest stop on the way home. Complete strangers would look at me and think about how cool I was for a middle-aged man. I even told this to Billy C, who by the way had brought a whole freaking wardrobe.

When I came back to our table, I showed him my shirt. He got up, saying that he wanted to get shirts for his whole family. When he got back, he asked me if I wanted him to take my shirt to the car and leave it with his. Knowing that when I drink I forget things, I said yes.

After the concert, we drove back to the hotel room and put our stuff in our room and then walked up to a pub whose name I forget for a last beer of the evening. We drank and discussed the concert, which we both agreed may have been the best concert ever in the universe, except for maybe the premiere of Beethoven's 9th or any Snake Suspenderz show.

Our motel was practically on the beach, so, on both the walk to the pub and our walk back, we could hear the crashing of the waves. We saw a lot of bunnies around the landscaped nature trail. We saw a drunken couple, he sitting on a bicycle and she trying to climb on the back in her mini-skirt. Once she got on, they coasted down the dark street, hopefully not to their doom, but it could have happened-their doom, that is.

Once back inside our hotel room, I decided to try on my T-shirt before I went to bed. I looked through the bundle of shirts and found that BC had gotten one exactly like mine.

That didn't bother me, but the next morning, after he had showered and went for his dailey walk, I also showered and got dressed, putting on my brand-new Knitters T-shirt.

Moments later, BC walked in and he was wearing the duplicate shirt.

How tacky.

So, pretty much everywhere we go, people look at us. We look enough alike in our matching shirts that people thought we were a couple of cute, aging twins. We were also both wearing straw hats that were different enough, but given the T's, made us look even more twinish.

It got to the point that, wherever we went, one of us just said "We're not twins, okay?" to whomever stared at us.

Our plan for the trip back was to stop at this Japanese restaurant for lunch, but we found, since it was labor day, the place was closed-as were most of the places we had planned on stopping. Even Giacoletti's in Carlsbad, where they have a variety of ukuleles in stock, was closed.

So we stopped at a roadside Mexican fast food place-not a chain, but a one-of-a-kind place- and had breakfast burriti, which were very tasty.

The trip home after that was pretty uneventful. I may have fallen asleep. BC snored the night before. Actually, we both snore, but he fell asleep first. So I was more tired than he.

Where Were You?

On the night of Sept. 10th, I was having trouble sleeping. I don't remember why, I just was.

Sometime around 3 AM, I decided that I wasn't going to be able to sleep, so I decided to get up, get ready for school, and go to Denny's to commandeer a large booth at which I would correct a massive stack of papers and eat a massive breakfast.

It was very quiet when I got there, and still dark out. As the sun struggled up, and I had begun to make a dent in both my stack of papers and my stack of pancakes, the restaurant gradually filled with a variety of people who had just begun their day. A man of about my age sat down in the booth facing me. I hunched over my papers so as not to get caught in any small talk, seeing as how that would take focus away from the task at hand. Besides, I am not at all a morning person. I hate talking at that hour.

I noticed the man checking and re-checking his cell phone impatiently, as if he had been stood up.

Then, I guess around 6 AM, a group of students from UCR came in, leading a line of new fraternity pledges who had apparently been kidnapped for breakfast. They were dressed in bathrobes and slippers and all were having a good, loud time.

Shortly after they were seated, a guy rushed in and sat down with the man across from me. "You'll never believe why I was late," he said, and began telling his friend about the attack.

I listened for a bit and then, paying my bill, got in my car and turned on the radio and heard Rick Dees sharing the news as he got it, punctuating it with comments like "Moments like this are what I have trained my whole life for."

I drove home, which wasn't far, to turn on the news and see what was happening. I got there just as the second tower had started to fall. Like many, I couldn't turn the TV off and was almost late to work.

Trip to Del Mar, Part II: The Knitters Concert

So, upon checking in to the Del Mar Motel, we hopped back into the car and wended our way to the Belly Up. We got there at about 6:45 or thereabouts and saw that a modest line had already formed, so we decided to stand there until the doors opened at 7, because we wanted a table. We would eat after we claimed our territory.

Billy Canary struck up a conversation with this tattooed, curly-haired kid in front of us. He had peddled his bike from Carlsbad and planned on peddling at back up to Carlsbad after the concert. That's a two-hour pedal. One way. I silently wondered why he didn't find another means of transpo. Billy did most of the talking.

The kid followed us in and sat down next to us at this common bench-type table, leaving the corner chair between him and Billy, because it looked like it would get crowded once the pub got full. He drank an awful lot, which perhaps explained the bicycling instead of driving part of his story.

Our waitress was this charming young lady named Magaly (a Mayan name, by the way), who was smart enough to laugh at our jokes. We found that we could order food from the eatery next door and had a sumptuous feast: Billy, some kind of spring roll-burrito hybrid, and me a turkey burger-both with wine, followed by beer during the concert.

There were two opening acts-a band whose name I forgot and Phranc, a jewish lesbian folksinger. Phranc has been around for awhile. She opened for the Knitters 20 years ago. She dressed like a man and passed for one during her first couple of numbers. When she mentioned that she was a jewish lesbian folksinger, a few in the crowd became uncomfortable. One idiot in particular made it his mission to heckle her from time to time. Billy says there were more, but it looked to me like it was the same guy, but he just moved around a lot. Phranc either didn't hear him or just chose to ignore him. At any rate, most of the crowd was with her. Towards the end of her show, she had the audience doing the Hokey-Pokey.

Phranc also throws tupperware parties. If you want to check out her website, here it is:

http://www.pholksinger.com/


The Knitters, for those of you who are too young to know, are members of X-Exene Cervenka, John Doe, and DJ Bonebrake-and former Blasters guitarist Dave Alvin, as well as a stand-up bass player, Johnny Ray Bartel. They play a combination of traditional songs from folk such as Hank Williams, as well as songs from the X, Blasters, and Dave Alvin catalog.

The show started with John Doe and Dave Alvin coming out alone and performing Merle Haggards "Silver Wings," followed by another sad song that I recognized at the time but don't remember now. Too much beer, ya know?

The rest of the band came out and performed "Poor Little Critter in the Road" off of their first album. When I first heard it 22 years ago, this sounded like a novelty song. On this night, it sounded like an allegory for the plight of the common man, who, though he work hard for a little pleasure in the life, cannot avoid being run down by the automobile that I call "the Man." Think about it, OK?

By the way, The Knitters first formed those 22 years ago and only put out the one album. Now, they have released their 2nd and are touring with it. I think that tour is over now. If you want more information, here's their website:

http://www.theknitters.net/

This was an evening where things just got better and better. One song in particular, "The New World," just kicked ass. Dave Alvin took the old Billy Zoom guitar solo and turned it upside down and inside out. This guy is the best hardly-known guitarist I have ever heard and probably better than your favorite guitar god. As Billy Canary puts it, he enters a zone. And anything can happen. After the first few Billy Zoom licks, he eased into this "Battle Hymn of the Republic" riff and, just as it began to stir up the blood, eased back into this lyrical replay of the Zoom riff that could make a boy cry.

His further solos alternately blazed, thrashed, and swooned with the music. Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, it did.

I have seen this guy three different times in three different venues in three different band formations, and he never ceases to amaze. He writes some great songs too. If you want more information, here's his website:

http://www.davealvin.com/

Former X drummer D J Bonebrake had a couple of chances to shine too. His drum kit was simply a snare and cymbals played with brushes. But he was the rhythm master.

John and Exene were great as a front duo. They put the punk back in spunk. John's persona is the warmer of the two, whereas Exene gave the evening an edgey quality. Together, they bantered back and forth like to divorcee's who could laugh at their differences now.

I just hope this band doesn't make us wait another 22 years before they put out another album.

I Don't Meet Cheech

For all of you people I stood up tonight: I spent the evening NOT meeting Cheech Marin of Cheech and Chong. I thought I was, but I didn't.

Cheech Marin has backed an art an art show featuring paintings from East LA artists-actually prints from originals in his private collection. 26 of these prints (each from a different artist) are now hanging in the Riverside Municipal Museum, or what ever it's called. I got in on a special VIP reception, featuring a documentary on the exhibit. The film included interviews with Cheech and the artists.

But the significant detail that no one followed up on was whether or not Cheech would actually be there.

We discovered that he would not. He was in New York directing a play called The Chicanologues. First, Chong has his Marijuanalogues, and now this.

But, the evening was festive, once you got past the speeches from all of the dignitaries.

The show was good enough, considering I don't know squat about art. My main criticism was that, rather than one painting each by 26 artists, I would have liked to see a broader representation of each artist so that I could develop an opinion about their work. I ran to in an art teacher I knew who is also a working artist and he said that the reason for the narrow selection was that the show was more about selling these prints than introducing art lovers to these artists. Cheech stood to make serious cabbage off of this deal.

My friend Hlav and I spent about ten minutes analyzing one painting that didn't really merit that much analysis. But I learned that I could apply my knowledge of literary analysis to art. So maybe I don't need to know anything about art. My BS potential is as broad as it is deep.

There were a couple of the prints that I really liked: one depicting the Zoot Suit Riots, another showing a vato looking dreamily at the night's sky.

Outside, there were dancers from the Riverside Ballet de Folklorico. The choreographer explained the dances, so I expanded my knowledge of traditional mexican dance.

I know a couple of my students dance in this style, so now I have something new to talk to them about.

Trip to Del Mar, Part I: A Day at the Races

My bro Billy Canary and I took a trip down to Del Mar to see The Knitters, a band made up of Dave Alvin and former members of X at a place called the Belly Up on Sunday, Sep 6. We decided to make an over-nighter out of it and spend Sunday afternoon at the racetrack. We figured that the concert wouldn't get out until late and that we'd be too tired to drive the 90+ minute return trip.

We left Riverside at about noon-ish and stopped mid-way at Larryland (the Lawrence Welk Village Resort and Dinner Theater, where BC worked as an actor in several productions). Our aging bladers needed relief.

There was some remodeling going on and most of the public restrooms were closed, so we had to use a luxury Port-O-San facility. After, we entered the Lawrence Welk Museum and Dinner Theater to see if BC knew any of the performers in the current production of GYPSEY. It's been about 10 years, maybe more, since BC worked there.

He found two names that he recognized and left a note for one of them. This particular actor appeared in ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES, among other things.

The other actor was one with whom I had also worked in a production of KISMET. In fact, BC and I both appeared in separate productions of KISMET with this guy. He has appeared in several TV commercials, one of the a "Got Milk?" commercial. If I remember correctly, he played a father who gives his baby a bottle of milk and then fixes himself a bowl of cereal, only to discover that there is no more milk. It ends in a stand-off between father and baby.

We didn't like him much.

But you know actors.

We just missed the first race, which sadly, had a horse-crash at the starting gate. I think everyone survived, but the race was nullified.

I won only one bet to win which paid a whopping 10-to-1.

Otherwise, it was a nice beginning to a great day.

Tomorrow: A Night at the Belly Up, Part 1