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.