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!