Another One

Da Bear's Original Songs

Just a bit awkward

http://www.deargirlsaboveme.com
This is a photo from the above blog- funny stuff. I went out to hop on my bike for a 40 mile ride with the Boy Scouts on Sunday morning and discovered I had a flat and about 15 minutes to change it, if I decided to. It seemed too hard. So I put air in my daughter's bike- also oiled the chain and off I went. I'm a big guy and have a big bike with a big frame. Hers was normal sized, but with the cruising handlebars my knees didn't hit anything at least. The legs cramps at 9:00 pm last night were the most negative part of it. It was a bit larger than this one.

Played with Sawtooth on Saturday morning at a Convalescent Home. I took my little video thing with me and set it up on a ladder to film us. Guess what? You can't see me in this one either. I told the singer to move toward me a bit so he wouldn't be out of frame and when he moved, his music stand was in front of me. The same thing happened last Sunday night, when the band I sort of manage played at Boulevard Music in Culver City. Most of the audience couldn't see me and the little bit of the video that did get taken doesn't include any of me. I sit down when I play. If I stand up, I'm 6'8" and will be the center of attention whether I am or not. I was trying to do my part for the folks I playing with.

I just ordered this today:

I ain't gonna put in all this work so nobody can see me. This should put me at eye level with everyone that's standing up.

The sound of Wayne and then me singing

Goofing on Saturday Morning

That's Dan and me posing for the only photo from last Saturday's Meet-up. It's his banjo, and I can't play left handed. It's Friday night again. I'm going tomorrow to play with "Sawtooth" at a Convalescent Home in Long Beach. Maybe I'll get somebody to video it for me. Played Wednesday night again at the open mic- did a tape of that, but I ain't gonna put it up. Not enough ohmp in my singing to make it entertaining yet. Got to work on that. They are laughing at my jokes however. Got a new one for next Wednesday. Wrote a new song last Sunday. Maybe...maybe. Kinda want to write something. The new book is not ready for take off yet. Should be reading my buddy's novel- should be working on the closet doors that have been sitting out here my studio for three months.  We're going to our first Squaredancing Square Dance tomorrow night. It's raining here in LA again. Got a 40 mile ride with Scouts on Sunday. Should be reading the 1000s of pages my writer's group is sending me. Should plan and work and get ready. Think I'll go play the banjo for a while.

Reading the last of the Calvino today. Its a collection of three novellas that I hadn't read: The Watcher, Smog and something about an angry ant- its at work in my desk, so I'm not sure.

As life goes, I'm finishing off the works of my favorites. This is it for him. He's dead, can't write no more.
Maybe I'll work up a list of finished with: Did I do that all ready?
Flaubert, Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Frisch, Sherwood Anderson, James Agee, Keasey,
Not as many as I thought.   

Places I have been

This is a Lois Magnolia. There was a writer's group that I had to invite myself to. A friend by the same name started a group and I heard about it. So I called and got myself invited. We met at a Hamburger Hamlet in West LA and had dinner and read to each other out loud. I really didn't want feed back at this point in my life, I just wanted to go somewhere and read it out loud. The lady that had wrote for The Love Boat (that I've mentioned earlier) was in it and a lady that wrote romance novels- and a lady that wrote plays and humorous pieces. And Bobbie, who had run the group in the park years before. People came and people left, I kept bringing in new people: Lorraine and Annette and Rex and I forget who else. We met once a month for a thousand years. I began with the second draft of the book I've since published, then there was a screenplay about Robert Louis Stevenson's romance with Fanny and then three years on the Joe Strong novel- both the screen play and novel went through two drafts and these folks listened to good potions of all of it. They had very little to say except that I was too dark. (Another woman, a poet, that I had brought into the group as well, would try to leave before I read.) I included them in gourmet outings at my house and invited a couple of them over to listen in on the jug band and to check out a male single guy in the band who was their age.  Then something began to happen, I was being flaked out on, on my invitations, and then it became clear to me that they didn't want to meet with just me- like I wasn't really their friend. And they didn't seem to want to bother with me or anything I was doing.
We moved from one restaurant to another to another - I always drank too much and tipped too much and was always shorted on the check by everyone almost all the time. When I and another friend asked for something different from the arrangement, we were ignored.
It died. Lorraine is in assisted living in Indiana, Annette is in Sweden, Bobbie can't go out at night any longer. The poet that didn't want to hear my writing goes to bed at 8:30 now from the looks of her. The ones still in LA pretty much ignored my invitation to a New Year's day music party. The poet did come and left. She still doesn't want to see any of my writing.
What the hell, it was just me performing. I've just moved on into another form of performing. C'est moi.
They will miss the Daydee book.

Parent Fiasco #1

I decided that we needed to go camping. The twin bears were pre-kindergarden- don't remember exactly how old they were. We borrowed some stuff and I bought a tent and off we went. Left the baby at home. When we checked in, the ranger warned us about mountain lions. Apparently one had been spotted. My wife was reassured. We had a nice hike and a campfire and dinner and then put the two to bed in the tent with water bottles in case they got thirsty in the night. I borrowed a pup tent from a friend that turned out not to be long enough, so I positioned it under a card table to protect my head. They proceeded to spill the contents of one bottle all over their tent, soaking their sleeping bags and all of their clothes. After momentary consideration, we had to pack everything up and drive back home in the middle of the night since there was nothing else to do. I threw everything into the back of the van and spent the entire next day untangling the whole mess.