JB

RIP JB.

He also has a great X-mas album. We listen to it every year.

Favorite X-mas album

Christmas with the New Christy Minstrels and

Merry Christmas from the Supremes.

I love those two albums. They have been by two favorites since I can remember.

Just look at Diana Ross in that hat--HOT!!!

I remember on the back of that album is the three of them riding a sled in the snow.

And I think a young Kenny Rogers is in that line up of the New Christy Minstrels. Awesome!

EARTHQUAKES

We've had three 3 point earthquakes in the last 3 days. Because we live one block from the fault line it's a little disconcerting...
But having three 3 points is better than having one 9 point! So I'm hopeful!
Happy Holidays to all ya'll !

Pretty Decent

I thought this was a good Holiday tattoo to post.
We had a little earthquake last night. I was cleaning the bathroom in a yoga position. Bending completely over at the waist to put hair "stuff" away in the cabinet. When suddenly it sounded like a train rolled through the front yard. But there was no shaking..? I've never experienced an earthquake with blood rushing to my head before. It was almost better.
It was 3.7 in the East Bay Hills. Not too shabby.

More Santa Con Madness

My mom forwarded me an email today.

Her friends in SF had snapped a photo last weekend from their balcony. They send it out to my mom and several other friends as an X-mas card. (This would be the first photo you see here).

My mom wanted to know if the picture they snapped was of that "SantaCon" we always attend every December.

It was...and not only that but we're in the photo! On the very far left above the railing on the balcony is where we be.

If you look really hard at the first photo you can see our friend in the tutu (second photo). Both pictures were taken at the same time. Kimm took the second one.

Isn't that just wacky!

Just more proof

Here are the blushing bride and dapper groom from the wedding we busted last weekend. This picture is off the internet. Notice the purple butt plug in the lower right being presented to the young couple. Now I cannot think of a better wedding present.
Can you?

Santacon 06'

I guess I've been a touch out of it the last couple of weeks.
I really hate the rainy weather.
Here's a picture from this years Santacon. It was last weekend. Here's where we busted a wedding in progress. It seems that every year Santa's come across a wedding.
Surprisingly the wedding party is always really enchanted by the drunk, sloppy Santa's yelling "HO"!

Thanksmas

Here we are at my Uncle's place outside of Mt. Shasta (See it looming in the background).
This was our Thanksgiving picture with the family--except for that little girl in the front wearing the pink shirt--I don't know who she is but she jumped right in. This year we had our Thanksgiving celebration and then two days later on Saturday we had our X-mas celebration... Thanksmas.
My mom and her husband are going to New Jersey for X-mas this year so we had our gift giving/Tree/Dinner thing early this year.
It's actually kind of nice because now Kimm and I feel freed up for the rest of the holiday season.
More time for parties and we already have our presents!

The only 4 guys this dyke would do.

Here they are in no particular order.
1. Mick Jagger circa 1970 "Performance" era. Mostly because he looked SO androgynous. And he had those hot young lips. But ONLY 1968 through 1972. 2.Johnny Depp. The only one of the bunch who looks better the older he gets. I know he's a big mega star but he's just so...Piratey!
3.Joe Dallesandro circa early 70's from Andy
Warhols films such as "Flesh","Trash" and "Heat". I'll also go
as far as to throw in "Frankenstein" and "Blood of Dracula" which came a few years later. He's so unbelieveably sexy especially in "Trash"---mmmmmmouth watering!
4. Iggy Pop of course--circa early 70's "Raw Power"
"Funhouse" era.Oddly enough he looks best to me when he's in the
worst throws of his herion addiction.
He is the epitomy of 'beautiful man' to me in those early years.
Especially when he had the platnum hair-YOW! I'll even throw in doing him after David Bowie 're- discovered' him and cleaned him up a bit-circa mid 70's.

Travel Trailers

I've not mentioned this previously. But I'm obsessed with small fiberglass travel trailers.

Here's a picture of a Casita. It's my dream to own one of these. A 16 ft. Casita Spirit Deluxe. Every Saturday morning I spend a couple of hours clicking back and forth between the Casita website and the Casita club website. Dreaming...

As a recovering Mormon I still can't shake the feeling that I'll eventually have 10 minutes or less to throw everything important into the car and speed off to Zion. In that case it would SO help to own one of these.

Free Porn

Well, tonite we'll be going to this Mondo Porno gig with some friends. Should be fun for all. Free porn, naked girlie clowns, a Guns and Roses cover band...Can life get any sweeter?

What the????

What is this you ask??? Our sewer line.

Those three holes?? They are in our sewer line.

This is a picture of that line right below the dirt. Those holes are OLD. And quite undisclosed to us by the previous owners. they had been patched many years prior. But in a jimmyrigged fashion. They covered them with somekind of thin metel and then poured concrete over them. Didn't really work unfortunately.

So last weekend this was our fate. We replaced this part of the sewer line. I did the digging and Kimm did the "replacing of parts".

But it's done!!! I've been fretting about this for a year. It's so nice to finish something this important that's been on the back burner!

YEA DEMS!!!

Conservative, Christian, Right-Wing Republican, Straight, Wh

Warning: This song may be stuck in your heads for days to come.
But it's pretty much hits the nail on the head dontcha think?

Kill the humans!

This picture is really just to prove that if Kimm and I are found dead in our house.....it was the cat.
Here she is being instructed on how to do it by the plasticized mama rat we put out every Halloween.



If any of you have met my cat you know I'm not kidding.

The Minutemen

This last week I bought a CD I hadn't had for awhile. The Minutemen-Double Nickles on the Dime. It's one of my all time favorites.
It reminds me of Kris. When we were in highschool Kris and I would hang out in this little studio where our taxi driver friend Chris lived. Jesse, Mike R., Clay and Bob were also there. Other stranglers like Robin, Chris A.and Mike S. with his brother were often in and out of there as well. We would listen to the Minutemen, Black Flag, Fear, the Avengers, the Vandels, TSOL, the Germs...etc...
Sometimes we would put Chris's matresses up against the walls and make our own little mosh pit.
It was from here that I started playing in bands with those boys. Kris was always the singer.
We had lots of good names: the Tombstones, Total ASSets, Bucket of Death, Catholic Fags in Trouble, and my favorite...Jesse Christ and the Apostlettes. I still have a cassette that I put together of all the music I taped. Because of course it ALWAYS had to be taped. We'd all listen back to it in Chris's little studio.
These are such great memories for me. Sitting around a dirty little table choking on cigarette smoke in a room with no windows, Punk Rock blasting on the little portable sterio, empty cans of cheap beer everywhere, all planning our escape's from Redding.
Chris eventually joined the Army, Jesse, Mike R. and Bob moved to SF. Clay --I don't really know. I think he stayed around up there. Eventually he died in a car accident on his way back to Redding from a visit to SF. Kris and I ended up going to BYU.
Now Kris is gone too.
It's funny how listening to music can remind you of so much and make you so sad and so happy at the same time.

Day of the Dead

The Hollywood Mansion Tour

On this Day of the Dead I'm honoring my beautiful friend Tedd. He left us back in Feb. of this year. I thought a lot about putting this video on here. Granted it is on You Tube and anyone can see it at any time. Tedd is special beyond words to me and I want to share him with anyone who will listen. (He's wearing the green and white baseball cap in the video.)
I still think of him everyday. I don't know when that will end. But I do love to hear his voice and laughter in my head.
Here he is back in the summer of 05. He was the make-up and hairstylist for Colt Studio's--(hot boy porn).
I tried to link this up with my post of Tedd I put up after he left us. but I couldn't for some reason. You can see my original post on 3/24/06 called 'Tedd ruins our lives lately'.
This video shows how Tedd was ALWAYS...Fun, Witty, Charming, Brilliant, Adorable, irreverent, Wonderful!

Enjoy! And Eternal Cheers for Tedd!!!

Last Halloween in the Castro

Here's a picture taken at a bar we went to after the shots rang out at the Castro. The scariest thing about gun shots in a group of people is the stampede that accompanies said shots.

When our group of 8 left the Castro party area I heard the gun shots. I looked back and then looked at Kimm who was standing in front of me. "Those were gun shots" I told her. Then I looked back again to see a wall of people running towards us. "RUN"!!! I was the last in the group and everyone in front of me got to the bar straight away. I was beginning to get pushed from behind so with my adrenaline push I made it to the side and ran into a parking lot which I recognized as a spot where I dragged Kimm on one of our first dates just so I could puke up all the vodka in my system and start again. She always remembers our first dates as being like that. We're at a bar and I say "Come outside with me for a second". If I say that to any of you while at a bar---Stay inside the bar.

Good news--we didn't get shot or trampled in the stampede.

Bad news--This will be our last year at the Castro Halloween extravaganza. Too many CRAZY MUTHAFUCKAS!!

Did any of you guess my costume from the non-revealing picture?

I was Steve Irwin--crocodile Hunter. I had a cardboard stingray hanging from a piece of rope from a hole in my shirt at heart level. Yes it was tasteless but this is Halloween--and I wasn't the only Croc. Hunter either.

Happy Halloween!

Here's a picture from last year's Halloween excursion to the Castro. We're going again this year with some friends that we go with every year -including this adorable vampress in this here picture.
Keep your fingers crossed that all ends well. It's always a little bit of an adventure going to the Castro on Halloween.
I'll post my costume tomorrow.
I'm going as someone who recently died...Who do you think it is???

XENA!

Xena & Gabrielle - Kisses - #622

I am just as happy as a pig in shit with this YouTube thing. Now I'm wallowing in my Xena obsession. Yes I am one of 'those' who would love Xena to throw me like a rag doll.
This is just one of their hot kisses. How lucky is that Gabrielle?

Sandy West R.I.P.

The Runaways - Wild Thng
Here's Sandy West, drummer for the Runaways singing 'Wild Thing'. She died of lung cancer on Saturday Oct. 21st. She wasn't even 50.
Sandy was such a powerful drummer. She totally opened the door for girls like me. Thank god for the Runaways!

This video really rocks. Remember these girls were all teenagers back then.
Amazing!

Because she hates painters

Darby Crash Interview
When I was in high school back in the early 80's, this movie was the soundtrack to my life. The Decline of Western Civilization. My friends and I listened to this record so many times that we had all the lines memorized and would recite them to each other.
often.
We didn't have a lot to do in Redding.
Back then it was fun to say what you hated. Sometimes I miss that.
Here's Darby Crash singer from the Germs and his friend Michelle spliced in with an interview of Nicole- the Germs manager.
And of course I love this because I'm a painter.

Stone Fox ---- Cinderella
A while back I posted about this great band from SF called Stone Fox. Here they is........
I miss seeing them. They were so fuckin great!
I love You Tube.

The Fake Banana

I've been staring at our Moosa tree (Fake Banana). It's looking so good right now. It's not easy to tell in this picture which I just took. The best thing about this picture is the icy glare of the wrot iron pink flamingo to the right of the tree. And the Canna bloom inbetween the two of them.
I have a "little Florida" in my back yard.
We've been juggling 3 different job's this week.
We're tired.
More will be written soon.

We're recooperating

Yes, it's days later. In fact tomorrow is Kimm's birthday. But we aren't starting again. It's too much. I just started to drink alcohol again so...ya know....
We'll wait until Saturday when our friend M. is having a BBQ at her place in SF.
It rained today for the first time this fall. It makes us sad. We hate the rain and clouds. I walked the dogs around the neighborhood this morning and tried to find things I liked about the rain. .... .......... ............
Not a lot except that it made the wild fennel growing on the side of the road smell like maple syrup. And that smell hung around in the air today forever. That was cool.
This is another picture from my birthday last weekend.
I'm hoping to handle this winter better than the last two, or six...
When you own your own home and you have to worry about water "issues" it makes the rain seem like an ever reoccuring SATANIC CURSE!!!
We have to enjoy these last days of our indian summer before they are gone for good!

Birthday Party # 40

I know this picture isn't great but it wasn't a night for holding the camera steady.
At this point I was lucky enough to be putting my arms in front of me before I fell.
It was a great party! We kept it goin' until the sun was rising.
I was more sick on sunday then I've been since I was in my 20's and just beginning to know my limits with alcohol and such things...But the liver damage was worth it!
Highlights: All three Babiarz sisters! My Mom coming down from Redding just for the party. Police action with k-9's and megaphones down the street (not at our house by some miracle)! Naked hot tubbing. And Whip-it's!
I love my crazy friends and family. They be knowin how to celebrate!

Now for the downward spiral?

Here's a picture of the back of my dad's gravestone. This type of stone that includes the names of the deceased's children is very popular for Utah Mormons

I hope no one thinks this is in poor taste. My dad would be laughing.

I'm just posting this because as a new 40 year old. Looking at my name on this gravestone reminds me that life is short.

I've decided I need to accept my old age and live it up everyday despite the spreadin' hips, wrinkles and age spots. My god look at this one. She's 53. (And by the way I used to have that same bass--why did I ever get rid of that)! Or this hot one. She just turned 48 a few days ago!

I'm sure this will be an ongoing process for me.

This stone is also proof that I am a Kim and not a Kimberly.

The last night of my 30's

It's here. I've barely had time to begin processing it. I'll be 40 tomorrow.
When I was young like I was in this picture... I used to think that if you made it to your 40's you had lived most of your life. If you suddenly got terminally ill, it was o.k...YOU WERE
40 for god's sake!!! You were old. Washed up. Old enough to be sick and DIE.
I'm on the eve and I can't believe it. I only ever pictured myself living until I was 33. Nothing after that.
I'm dreading tomorrow...
This picture by the way is from Left...Julie T., Jesse W., Kris B., Me and Mike S. On the day of Jesse W's graduation from the San Francisco Art Instutite circa 1988...I was 21..

La Turley

"I haven't laughed that much since the Clinton Administration"...S.T.R.

Love Fest

So here we are at Lovefest 06.
Kimm and I were invited on the Anon Salon bus with our friend Robyn Hood. She made us some nice girly drinks. It was fun. Met up with many friends. Good times-good times.
It's been a busy week. I had my old college (BYU) friend Shelley and her family visit for a few days. She brought lots of great music with her. For her 40th birthday she made several CD's of music. One might call them "Music from the soundtrack of Shelley's life". She made me copies of the CD's for my upcoming 40th birthday and they are SO awesome! Thanks Shelley!!! They'll be playing at my shindig next weekend.
Another great CD Shelley brought and I copied..the Akron Family. I LOVE them! Amazing vocals.
Having problems posting You Tube videos to my blog...Jesse, Cassie any suggestions as to why???

End of an ERA

This may be kind of a hard picture to figure out. It's me ..maybe in 98'?, turned so my back is towards you. Cassie is in the foreground ready to pull the rest of my pants down. I think Jamie or Ilhan took this picture and later when I brought a copy of it into the practice spot, Tedd wrote "Choad Flosser" on it in black sharpie and it was tacked to the wall of the Practice spot at 143 Turk st. room 22.

143 Turk or Francisco Studios in SF. Between Taylor and Mason. Some of us practed there for 10 years or more.

Mike (currently drummer for my band Mutton) was in a band called Ear Plug Boy". He was the first one to wrangle the spot and make it available for his band, my band Yusakuta and a band called Zen Guerrilla back in 1995/96.

10 years later I still practiced there. My band morphed from Yusakuta to Mighty Tight to Hoegarden to Hazy to Mutton all in one practice spot.

Today I moved all my stuff out. As Mutton (a three piece), we didn't want to pay the rent anymore. Mike and I figure we can build a studio in his basement at his home and hopefully practice more often.

I'll miss that place. I had a lot of good memories there...

Tedd's dead now, Cassie's moved far away. I spent a lot of time in that small room with the flickering fluorescent light and asbestos celling. Walls filled with Lunachick and CCR posters, clocks with Celtic men snapping whips at wolves, vomit bags, dental dams, photo's of bandmembers, stickers of bands long since departed. In the corner are racks of musical equipment seldom or over-used, amps with blown speakers. Broken strings litter the dirty carpet along with ends of joints, cigarettes, picks, pieces of duct tape.

We'd shared the space this last year with a band called Send for Help. They are taking over the lease from us. I snuck a swig off of their bottle of Whiskey before I walked out for the last time.

Here's to the Tenderloin.

Birthday Camping Trip

We went camping last weekend for the birthday celebration of my pal Chris. He plays guitar in my band Mutton.
Chris usually has legendary birthdays and this one was no exception.
Here he is (the one in the middle) after laughing so hard that he sent Whiskey shooting out his nose.
We camped at Big Basin campground. Outside of Boulder Creek in the Santa Cruz mountains.
This party had it all; insane drunken behavior, visit's by the campground cops, tipping chairs full of people, candles burning in trees, "left overs" from Burning Man, Irish and Spanish exclamations and many more things I either can't mention or remember. It was definitely good times for all. Even L. who I found sleeping under a tree the next morning curled up in fetal position.
Can't wait for my birthday celebration in a couple of weeks with this bunch.

Here's my 40th Post

I'm a little obsessed with numbers recently.

Here's me at 20. It was 1986'. I think I'm wearing a pinky ring! I'm really trying to pull off that androgynous thing.

I pulled this one out to compare to 'me' 20 years later.

I think my brother still has that guitar. I think I might still have that sweater... Favorite music to listen to back then was Throwing Muses, The Runaways, Cocteau Twins, Black Flag, The Smiths and the Stooges. And lots of David Bowie, Bob Marley and Led Zepplin.

They never found that armed guy they were looking for in my neighborhood..But I'm not worried because with the current dog we're sitting that makes 5 dogs that live here with me. I'm hoping that keeps armed men and Former home dwelling, singer, junky, murderer parolees away.

Art and Soul / Richard and Jimi

Yesterday I spent some time at this festival. While there I spotted many a sexy Oaklander donning his or her favorite summer t-shirt. Three T-shirt themes stand out...They numbered the most of what I saw..Here they are in order of shear numbers...
1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Richard Pryor
3. Taxidermy
I'm not sure what to think of the later.
Comments??
We also saw Rickie Lee Jones who still has a sweet piercing voice.
Chuckies in Love!!!

Tower of Power

Today while I was outside in the driveway talking to Kimm this guy walks by. He says "Hey did you know that Rick Stevens used to live there?" "You know, the singer from Tower of Power?" "I've lived in this neighborhood since 1964 and he used to have the guys over and practice there all the time."
I'm like..."Cool". I didn't really know whether or not to believe him since it looked like maybe he'd just smoked a tower of crack.
But what if it's true? My house is less than 1000 square feet and the thought of a large horn section in the living room is hard to imagine.
Rick Stevens was one of the first singers for the band and sang the song "Your still a young man" which has always been one of my favorites of theirs.
He was arrested in 1976 for the murder of two people. He's currently housed in the California Prison System.

OPD

Tonite when Kimm and I were coming home around 8:30 PM from meeting with a client we see this OPD car blocking the street we usually turn on to go home. We thought we'd turn onto the next street but it also was blocked off by the OPD. We went down one more street and were finally able to get up to our road. We back tracked and saw that the last block of our street was blocked off with like 20 cop cars and dozens of cops crouched behind them.
They told us to leave.
We have this police scanner that we've never used and we found all the AA batteries in the house to make it work (10).
Nothing came in on any channel. What the hell, it has 40 channels!
Our neightborhood has a Yahoo group where you can post or find out about crimes in the area. It's really a great idea. I know where any problem houses are. I know what cars to be on the look out for. And usually I can find out what's going on when something like this happens.
This time I was the first one to post. Since then I've seen two other posts similar to mine but one of them added that the police told him to stay inside because they were looking for someone who is armed.
I guess that answers my question. But why aren't they telling us ALL to stay inside? And have they caught him?
More on this later when I find out what the hell happened!

Jasper

Here's Jasper.
Isn't he cute?
This morning I awoke to him puking on my arm.

We walked the dogs in the neighborhood tonite because my allergies have been too horrible to take them to the park.

We walked him, Monroe, Gabe and Mills thru the neighborhood. Smiling at all the neighbors. Talking to the kids riding bikes. Marveling at the different plants in peoples yards. Glancing furtively into their windows. While the sun set over the bay. Then as we looked down an embankment off the side of our road we saw a GIANT safe. With it's door clearly pried open by a crowbar. Obviously stolen, ransacked and dumped.
And no, there was no money inside.

Cockroaches

Listening to the blues

Cockroaches--Not good. In Hawaii there are lots of big ass cockroaches. As I sat on a couch in the living room of our rented house last week one such animal tried to kill me. It was night. Kimm, Claudette (mom), Emily (graduating sister) and myself sit down in living room to relax after a physically exhausting day spent shopping. Out of the corner of my eye I spy a small cat--oh no that's a COCKROACH! I jump up like a little princess bitch onto the couch. Kimm smacks Emily on her fresh sunburn. "GET IT!" Emily the family Buddhist cries, "NO I can't kill it!" She promptly grabs a flip flop off the floor and aggressively runs toward the cockroach. She smacks it! It runs under the couch where I'm swooning. Claudette begins to laugh hysterically. I shriek "AGGGGHHHHH get it you guys!!! Kimm pulls back the couch with one hand. Emily smacks the beast again and it heads towards the stairs. She jumps from one stair to the next like a small frog beating the roach as she goes. It continues to run like hell. Kimm runs down the stairs like a bear on speed "EMILY----OUTTA THE WAY!!" She grabs Emily by the shoulder and yanks her back as she barrels down the stairway. Emily yells out in pain...HHEEEEYYYY! As Kimm slams herself down at the bottom of the stairs she lets out a primal scream and stomps on the vile monster! DEAD MOTHAFUCKA!!

This happens in some fashion over and over nearly every night.

Otherwise the vacation was sweett.

ALOHA

Here's the house we stayed in. It's in a little town called Kane'ohe on the island of Oahu. It was great aside from someone stealing my sisters dress from our room and cockroach incidents. We snorkeled, ATE, smoked, DRANK, celebrated and generally had a wonderful time.
While there my allergies acted up and now I have a fun sinus infection. Nothing worse than getting sick on vacation. Luckily I only felt really bad thru one dinner. I'm much more sick now since I've been home--could it be because vacations over??

Hawaii vacation awaits...

Headin' off for Honolulu Hawaii tomorrow. For eight days! Going to see this one graduate from University of Hawaii. Traveling with the family. Including grandparents! Should be exciting and slow moving which is fine for Kimm and I right now. We finished two jobs this week and are straight exhausted! Well maybe not straight...
Hope to snorkel a lot. Drink, eat and smoke a lot! Maybe get lucky this time and see a turtle!
This is our first vacation in about a year and a half. Hawaii is beautiful and I love the food--except the spam.

Butthole Birthdays

Here's the lovely Butthole Surfers. It's J's birthday today and we share a deep love for this band.
Happy Birthday J!
Hope you like this picture.
See you on thursday at the Nostalgic's!

By the way --your little naked man was a hit at our party!

Animal Collecting

Here's my kitty Yuki. As you can see she has two different colored eyes and she's all white. She's also all bitch. My neighbor tells me white cats are the worst. I don't know if anyone else knows this cat fact. She's been a MAD bitch from the day she crawled out from under a car to beg us to take her home. We were living in this bad neighborhood. We stayed in a horrible apt. Underneith us was an equally horrible natural gas leak coming from the rotting water heater.It was raining that night. We were walking our doberman Isabelle so she could poop. Yuki crawled out from under this car parked on the side of the road. She had a grey patch on her head from oil pan. She ran up to Isabelle my dog and said. "Hey, take me the fuck home. I love dogs." She was desperate and we could see it. She was a teenage cat. Not fully grown.
We took her home and she's been our's ever since.
Days later we found out that she had previously belonged to our crack smoking neighbors who had kept her in a bathroom for the first 8 months of her life. On the same night we found her they had decided to get rid of her. S'pose the glamour worn off. They threw her outside in the rain to fend for herself. I guess that seemed reasonable to them in their cracked out state to throw a kitten out into a storm who had only known cold dirty tile her whole short life.
I really hate people most of the time.
Just today I went to buy dog food and saw rows upon rows of sweet kitties up for adoption. I wanted to take all of them. Even if they turned out to be mean and sadistic like my cat.
I can't look at animals up for adoption. It's too upsetting.
I could go on and on about this but I'll stop now.
My proof that I am NOT an animal collector.

No Underware!!!

Isn't this picture fantastic!!!! This adorable little man pranced naked around our Anniversary party nearly the entire time. I just love when parents will let their kids run around naked. I'm MORE than sure my mom never let me do that. In my Mormon family it was against the law to be seen in your underware-religious or otherwise.

Balloons

Let me say there is nothing better than watching a baby play with a fake boob balloon. The wonder in their eyes when they finally grab ahold of it. To the look of horror after they lock on to the fake nipple and taste that squeaky rubber.
It can't be beat!

10th Anniversary Party

Here's our beautiful neighbor dancing the 'candle dance' at our 10th anniversary party last Sunday. Too bad we didn't get our friends naked son in this shot. He was standing on top of the hot tub dancing along with her.
From what I could tell it was fun for all. It was for Kimm and I anyway. Lots of drinking and delicious food courtsey of Janel our good friend who quickly grabbed the bbq utensils away from me and took over cooking. Jenel I thank you endlessly!
About 40 people in total. Including my Mom Claudette and her husband Dave. Our good friend Mark and his hot boyfriend Paul from the Sierra foothills, My cousin Meg who left for Africa the day after the party. Our SF friends, Our East Bay friends, neighbor friends...Good Times..Good Times. This anniversary party was long over due.
We worked feverishly up to the last minute before the party fixing doors, landscaping, shoving things in closets. Then yesterday we crashed like zombies when everyone left. After planning this party for the last couple of months, now that it's over I feel like someone's moved out.

Painting + 100 degree temps = EEWWWWW

We just finished painting the exterior of this house last week during the start of our heat wave here in CA. This is a 'before' picture by the way. I can't find any of the 'after' pictures to show the true superiority of our work. It's been HOT. But I s'pose everyone is feelin it these days if you live out here in the west. Now we are painting the interior of another house and the heat is worse inside! Especially if you are down on your knees painting behind the toilet. Sometimes I can't believe the little girl in me who at 4 threw away all the silverware in the house when dinner was done because it was 'dirty' can crouch behind a toilet for 1/2 an hour with sweat dripping from her nose as she carefully paints a line.
Now THAT was a run on sentence!

So TIRED..I miss Weed.

Here's a very bad picture of the very beautiful Mt Shasta. It's taken from my uncle Jamie's side yard. He's got a big spread out in Weed (yes Weed). It is absolutely gorgeous. Lots of acres with horses and flowers. And they look out on Mt. Shasta. Not bad. This is what I'd normally be doing in July. Sitting with Kimm on my uncle's swing with under the deck with somewhere near 10 dogs milling around (4 of them ours). The tempatures rising into the 100's. Sipping on a beer. Looking at Mt. Shasta. Watching the space ships fly in and out of the secret portal in the mountain. Good Times.

Unfortunately, Kimm and I are working our asses off to get our house ready for our big 10th anniversary party next weekend. We're going to have close to 50 people over here and we still don't have a working front door. That's just one of our GIANT problems we have to deal with before the party.

And summer is slowly slipping away...

Shorty

Kids really like me for some reason. I think it's because I tend to ignore them.
Such was the case with "Shorty". I never did ask him his real name. He told me his friends called him "Shorty" or "Killa" as nicknames. I chose to call him Shorty. It seemed more fitting for an 8 year old.
He was at the property Kimm and I are currently painting. He came with his dad who was doing landscaping work in the back yard.
I was painting the front deck in the direct sun so I was a little crazy from the heat and not in much of a mood to chit chat. Shorty started asking me questions. "How much do you make for painting?" "Where do you live?"
Then he asks me my favorite question and one I will remember forever..
"Do you have any famous rappers in your family?"
!!!!??????? I put down my brush and looked at him for the first time.
No, do you?
"Yeah. Do you know who Too Short is?"
YES!
"He's my uncle."
WOW! That's some uncle you got there kid.
Too Short is the most famous of rappers to come from Oakland. East Oakland in fact-where Shorty and I live. He's widely known for being the first west coast rap star. He's recorded over 30 albums with songs like "fuck face" and "pimp the ho". It doesn't get more gold teeth than Too Short and that's saying a lot.
Shorty told me that back in the day his famous uncle used to "put food on his mama's table". But now that Too Short is too famous his "mama has to put food on her own table". I guess sometimes success can ruin a good thing.

Woody

So I watched the KQED American Masters doc on Woody Guthrie. It was so depressing. He died at 55 of Huntington's disease. I woke up in the middle of the night and grieved for him.
I'm so weird.
Rock and Roll wouldn't have been the same without him.
Hail Woody!

Devendra Banhart

I really haven't been interested in anyone musically for awhile.
Except for this guy Devendra Banhart. I was given a copy of his CD Cripple Crow and I LOVE every song on it.
He's just all over the place on this CD. Plus he looks all Charles Manson so it's intriguing. He just doesn't sound like anyone else and I find that SO REFRESHING....
Plus I'm a sucker for that lo-fi sound.
Highly Recommended..

Jan, Joe and Zoe

Here we go again... More of our friends leaving the Bay Area to live out of state in large suburban areas dominated by cheaper housing and better schools.
I don't ask why anymore...
If I was a parent I'd do the same thing.
Jan, Joe and Zoe of all the BBQ's, bio-diesel, Punk Rock Music mix CD's, adoptees, wine and whine and flag girls.

They hailed from our neighborhood one street down. They understood.

They left on Monday July 3rd to live in Portland, Oregon. Summer time BBQ's will never evah be the same.

They will be missed..

Cassie

Here she is in all her glory at one of our shows. I think we were still calling ourselves Hoegarden back then. In fact...this may have been our very first show. It was at this space called the Accordian on Bayshore in SF. Kind of a scary place to park your car. But as I remember...no one was hurt or robbed.

This was before babies and all. Well, Jamie was pregnant with Miles. So she didn't play drums for us at this show.

Cassie and her husband Kaveh and their two beautiful kids left SF last weekend to live in Chicago where apparently it's less expensive.

It's never going to be the same here without Cassie. She of all the songs, gossip, parties, dinners, camping trips, clothes with animal print's.

She sang for three of my bands. Yusakuta, Might Tight and Hoegarden/Hazy. Cassie definately had that loud punk rock girl voice I LOVE SO!!!

I'll really miss you Cassie