Sometimes

I am lucky to feel in the zone, with the flow.

Tonight is going well. I'm listening to the Melting Pot now (talked to the host earlier today). After work I went to see Jackstraw. I ate delicious leftovers that reminded me how well I eat. Then I ran a successful errand and ate some ice cream. It has been so long since I've had frozen cookie dough.

I saw the Freak Mountain Ramblers and caught the tail end of the Grgich Summer Reunion and parts of PDX Pop Now over the weekend--a guy who I think played with Bonnie Prince Billy and another who sings like Adele. There was some crowd surfing at the end during the band called Guidance Counselor.

I heard Janice Joplin sing Summertime and saw a video for a new Bjork song.

There are some bad thing in the news, but the Georgia mom who was convicted of letting her kid get hit by a drunk driver as she crossed the road coming home on the bus doesn't have to go to jail.

Three blind mice

There was a dismembered bloody rodent corpse on the street on the way to work.

Dead mice in the movie "Terri" that could have been fake, but maybe not. The movie was kind of like the Crispin Glover movie which felt it necessary to kill real snails.

I cut off some tails today, read about a farmer's wife and this poem:

the rat

with one punch, at the age of 16 and 1/2,
I knocked out my father,
a cruel shiny bastard with bad breath,
and I didn't go home for some time, only now and then
to try to get a dollar from
dear momma.

it was 1937 in Los Angeles and it was a hell of a
Vienna.

I ran with these older guys
but for them it was the same:
mostly breathing gasps of hard air
and robbing gas stations that didn't have any
money, and a few lucky among us
worked part-time as Western Union messenger
boys.

we slept in rented rooms that weren't rented
and we drank ale and wine
with the shades down
being quiet quiet
and then awakening the whole building
with a fistfight
breaking mirrors and chairs and lamps
and then running down the stairway
just before the police arrived
some of us soldiers of the future
running through the empty starving streets and alleys of
Los Angeles
and all of us
getting together later
in Pete's room
a small cube of space under a stairway, there we were,
packed in there
without women
without cigarettes
without anything to drink,
while the rich pawed away at their many
choices and the young girls let
them,
the same girls who spit at our shadows as we
walked past.

it was a hell of a
Vienna.

3 of us under that stairway
were killed in World War II.

another one is now manager of a mattress
company.

me? I'm 30 years older,
the town is 4 or 5 times as big
but just as rotten
and the girls still spit on my
shadow, another war is building for another
reason, and I can hardly get a job now
for the same reason I couldn't then:
I don't know anything, I can't do
anything.

sex? well, just the old ones knock on my door after
midnight. I can't sleep and they see the lights and are
curious.

the old ones. their husbands no longer want them,
their children are gone, and if they show me enough good
leg (the legs go last)
I go to bed with
them.

so the old women bring me love and I smoke their cigarettes
as they
talk talk talk
and then we go to bed again and
I bring them love
and they feel good and
talk
until the sun comes
up, then we
sleep.

it's a hell of a
Paris.

from "Mockingbird Wish Me Luck" - 1972
Black Sparrow Press

two mikes with guitars

At Music on Main-one young woman named Michael something and Mike Coykendall (not to be confused with Mike Koykendall).

The bands were ok. I think I'm too distracted by my hair to fully immerse myself in other things.

Nick and I watched The Fighter. A real feel-good movie. He likes Amy Adams. Miss Pettigrew's Something, her movie with Frances McDormond isn't available on Netflix.

I'm not going to make it to see Nanci Griffith tonight.





I did get to see an excellent talk by Donna Beegle today.

I wish that I could give hope to people who are suffering.

Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings were great last night. No opening act, I made it just in time. It reminded me a bit of the Lucinda Williams shows in Santa Monica with Gurf Morlix.

I skipped the Wed. night free downtown concert to go out with Lori and her friends. I'm very glad. Maybe I made some new friends for myself tonight.

It was national French Fry day. I had some sweet potato fries.

I'm still a little mopey. Full moon is nearly here.

Maybe tomorrow I'll go to see John Doe.

Tonight was a night for appreciating all that is great about Portland. Portland Cello Project's Extreme Dance night had all kinds of local musicians playing music from before many of them were born. Two MCs, one who looked like the Hebrew Hammer and sang like Prince. The other could have been the Baby Ketten Karaoke guy.

I think that Jennie Wayne was in one of the groups. Jack Loves Jackie?

Afterwards I talked to some guys who talked to me about Baroque music and offered me mushroom chocolates.

Fair Hoes

Henry's birthday present was to come with me to see Neko Case at Edgefield. Eliza and Nick (hers, not mine) dropped in for a bit.

I got to see a few song from the opening band the Cave Singers whom I've liked since the Pickathon last year. Henry wasn't impressed and read while they played. But Neko said she'd been trying to play with them for a long time, and I trust her taste in music better than his. It was light out until we were on the highway heading home.

I can't say that this show was better than the one I saw at the Crystal Ballroom when The Middle Cyclone came out. But Edgefield wasn't a crowded nightmare tonight and the half moon was nice.

Tomorrow the boys leave for SunRiver with their dad. Doh stays here. Maybe I'll get some housecleaning done. Maybe I'll sunbathe.

Accordions

I have been driving a lot lately across town and back. I guiltily admit to turning on the air conditioner a bit.

Despite giving rides to two people whose cars were out of commission, I was only 30 minutes late to see Jason Webley. As it turned out, he was second on the bill not first, so I was early. I got to see many songs by 3 Leg Torso, whose accordion player is a Reedie who cleaned the SU in 1981. Then I left to drive some more and got back for the end of Jason's set, right before he was starting to do an exciting climax amidst the crowd, just in time to see him fall face first off the stage onto his accordion. He went on valiantly, but the encore set with the band was cut short.

I got to shake his hand (a hand that has touched Amanda Palmer's) and introduced myself to Courtney Von Drehle. I wanted to tell one or the other that I am not a newcomer to accordion love--that my favorite bar in LA was the Red Lion Tavern on Glendale Blvd. because of the old guy who played his one-man chest band there. But I couldn't remember the name of the Red Lion Tavern.

Sunny blue holiday weekend

I'm being a mom this weekend. While I want to connect to my kids, as teenagers there is a limit to how much they want to be with me. Saturday night I ended up biking down to the waterfront to catch the end of Lucinda's show after getting Henry from the airport, having dinner and trying to find something fun for all of us to do.

Yesterday Henry had a party, Nick and I tried a new Chinese restaurant and then turned in early. There were a lot of explosions, more that I expected. I was up intermittently checking for news from Henry. About 2:30 he confirmed he was sleeping over at his friend's house (same place where he fled from the cops in the middle of the night earlier this year.)

I want to get tan today but it is getting harder and harder to impose the site of my huge white body upon any innocent passers-by.

OK music

I already mentioned Rush right?

Then I saw Celilo at the first downtown Wednesday night concert. It was cold and not crowded.

Friday I went to the Blues Fest and heard Norman Sylvester, Maceo Parker, a band that was good who played recognizable riffs from people like Michael Jackson and then Robert Cray. I had a great time selling KBOO T-shirts.

Afterwards, I rode my bike to Dante's to see The Fleshtones, a band I saw long ago when I was young. I had Hexbreaker on cassette. There is a certain fast tempo that I like and they hit it. Bands that came later in the 90s slowed down.