That's A Wrap.

Ah yes. Was at Bones and Knives recording until about 1:45 this morning finishing the last song on the album. The very last final version is in the works, being mastered at Final Mix at this moment, as I write, and my cd should be in hand within the next few days, yippy-skippy. After six? eight? who's counting? years, this project has concluded and I can once and for all move on to the next. I am ecstatic over the outcome and cannot thank my parents enough for championing the deal (beginning in 1966 with the now-legendary Perry Street piano lessons), as well as my producer, the immensely talented Terry Carleton, for making it real.

Not So Magic After All.

I saw an infomercial about a product called The Magic Bullet, a kitchen appliance that chops, shreds, mixes and purees at turbo-nuclear warp speed, and whose parts can be microwaved, refrigerated, frozen, frozen then microwaved, and so on. To me, this product completely de-romanticizes the experience of preparing food. The total experience - the relaxation of the motion of chopping vegetables by hand, the smells of the spices as you twirl them between your fingers.


Throwing everything in together and zipping it to pieces is so X-generation. Good food is prepared with care and concentration, knowledge and thoughtfulness. Not mega-morphed from one state of being to another, generally high-calorie and rather mooshy, one. The magic is in the method, the moods, the motions and the mentality of it. Putting on some opera and lighting a couple of candles turns it into an in-home, do-it-yourself, romantic Iron Chef cook-off.

Besides, who wants to have to keep track of all those doggone parts and pieces? Give me a couple of good, sharp knives and a thick, seasoned cutting block. Period. That's all anyone really needs.

Only So Many Notes.

It's happened again. I was in the midst of writing another song and had the tune presupposed in my head as I wrote the poem/lyrics and wham, somebody publishes the same melody line that I'm matching words to. This time it was the Rolling Stones on their new album. It takes four notes to constitute identical-ness and those were the very ones they took and now they're theirs. Oh well. Last time it happened Bette Midler robbed me in that "God Is Watching Us" song. I've had to start over with another melody line. I like the poem. It's called Wrong View Mirror and it's about my long-lost son, John, whom I love with all my heart. Bye for now. Pam.

Family Freedom.

Tonight I am sitting quietly in my own back yard, eating peanuts and listening to owls screech in the trees. I am living a dream I never had.

I feel relatively safe and don't understand why. I believe it's my God, my family's God, watching over us. I question whose God He is, but I believe in the love that is the thread running through my family. Like 24-carat gold we are the embodiment of the purest form of love everlasting. We know what we are talking about. Sharon. Nona. Rex. Andrew. Pug. Kerry. Winona. Tommy. Ruthie Pearl. Thelma Evelyn. Aunt Genita and Uncle Don. Aunt Mary and Uncle Gene. My Mom, Gladys Marie. Gloria Fran. Me, Pamela Gay. Matthew Gene. Bobby Gene, oh the laughter of the young, handsome Bobby Gene. All of us. It is us and we are It and He's got our whole world in His hands. I Love You All. The story, generations long, is as sweet as fuscia nectar reflected in a child's eye.

Heavenly Father, Please Pull the President's Plug.

Father in Heaven, please forgive the zealot president of America, George W. Bush, for he knows not what he does. He claims to follow you, Lord, but anyone with character knows that You would not order the bombing of innocents. That is not what the world is about. The point is to seek peace and embrace one another with love, not to set the bar at hatred and violence by conjuring up unilateral reasons for a preemptive strike. Lord, we pray today for full-on and immediate impeachment of President George W. Bush, for he has played folly with the powers given him, to the detriment of We The People. We ask that you give the president the will to envision the bigger picture of the passage of time, the necessity of keeping our resources at home, and the future of our world. Help him see the righteousness of opening his mind to the possibilities of what a peaceful nature, true humankindness and a good honest heart will do. George W. Bush is not a good fit for this role, Lord, and we pray you help him find the inner peace and patience to quietly step aside. Lord, tell Mr. President it is time to let someone else take over, someone who is not a congenital bonehead. Lord we ask for deliverance from this president, and that you send this nation a stronger leader, one who forges peace, spends not billions on frivolous wars, monies we should be reserving for natural disasters the likes of these hurricanes which our government knows it should have been prepared for. Lord, we need a president who actually upholds the Constitution by allowing our mourning mothers of your dead soldiers to openly weep and publicly speak their minds, without sending the police in to pull the plug on constitutionally-protected, peaceful, anti-war demonstrations. Lord God, we are thankful those police did not open fire on Cindy Sheehan's crowd, as the government had them do in Ohio. We pray for your healing hand bringing about a long-overdue regime change in our own country. In the meantime Lord, I pray that you restore my pride in being an American for I am in doubt about belonging to a nation ruled by this Fool on Capitol Hill. Impeach George W. Bush oh Lord, we pray with all our hearts and minds. Amen.

The Big Birthday Picnic.

Madison lost a tooth.Bob, Gary, Louisa, Shari, Lisa and Marshall, Mom, Gloria, Alene, Tom, Carol, Gary, Debbie. Dad's there in the back out of sight, manhandling some Pepsi Chicken at the big bbq pit.

Wonderful to See You.

We had the most fun birthday picnic for my sister a couple of weeks ago. Is that not the cutest card in the world that my parents made for Gloria? It was wonderful to see everyone, and was such a beautiful day.

Habits.

This morning after locking up the house to leave for work, I used my remote control unit to open the truck of my car. Realizing I'd left something in the house that I needed to bring with me, I found myself absent-mindedly pointing the remote at the front door of my house to unlock it in order to get in. Nice try.

Frogs and Flowers.

You might thing my web log is a bit sanitized. You would be correct. What a waste it would be to write about the bad stuff, the stuff too awful to share. NO? You want to hear the juicy details? Like the time...wait. Not here, doves. You've got to call me for more information if you want the real nitty gritty. I admire from a safe distance the bravery of those who blog too much, or even risky, personal information, but only to a certain extent. The great thing about the blog is that it kind of forces me to retain only the good stuff. The smart stuff, the good stuff, the fun stuff. The stuff I want to remember. There's enough bad stuff going around out there already without my contributing to it. The blessings outweigh the pains. And so, here's my favorite garden creature, Froggy, for your amusement, and a flower. When the doctors tell me I've got six months to live, I'll start writing deeper, more meaningful things to say but until that day, I will eschew the negative and share only the best.

A Little Closer!

Okay -- I believe I can *promise* a shipping date window of September 15-17 on Roses And Bone. My little project was minimized for economy and speed and the end result is pretty slick and simple. (Like it wasn't five years in the making!) Hey, I wrote what I know. No pithy politics or underlying motives here, just yer basic life, death, love and loss stuff. Memorialization of a couple poems, set to different tunes. Sober meanderings, if you will. One of them is a nasty little western swing. I do hope you folks like it. For sale from this here website, too. Send me twelve-fifty and your mailing address. Simple.

Met Local Celebrities.

I met KGO broadcast newsguy Bernie Ward on Sunday and got his autograph. I stood about five feet away from the booth (next to which a woman toted a sign saying "Impeach Bush") during a live broadcast from the San Jose Tapestry and Talent Arts Festival and had to smile as I watched this very large, very lively guy talk, laugh, make blunders, fiddle with his headset and microphone and chair. I was jealous.

I showed up exactly at 9 a.m., just as they started the show - such timing! First he interviewed the pretty young gal who was the head planner of the whole festival. She described the hard work involved with running a smooth, safe and enjoyable fair. They cooed about the terrific weather and talked about the free concert that evening featuring the Joe Sharino Band, a very popular local band.

They went to commercial break and the fellow standing next to me asked if I would take his and Bernie's photograph together using his cell phone, which I was happy to. Back on the air again, Bernie ranted about what is happening in New Orleans. How a dozen or more empty transit buses had been moved, relocated before the storm hit, because someone ordered that they be moved to a safer place so as not to be damaged by the storm. The lady waved her sign.

Then walked up Joe Sharino, poster boy of 60s-70s-80s-90s rock cover bands everywhere, who hung around right nearby for a minute while Bernie finished his bit. Joe and family friend Kevin Minto could be twin brothers, I kid you not. During the break Joe sat down like he's done this a million times and got ready for his interview with Bernie. They talked about how Joe's band caught the attention of Steve Wozniak a few years ago, who invited them to play at the US Festival before a crowd of 250,000, something Joe said he was not used to, being a small-town guy. I wished I was there! It was a great interview.

When they were finished and going to break, I walked up and asked for both their autographs as two big black bouncers glared. Sweet! Talk about being in the right place at the right time. I had decided to go early to beat the crowds, a brilliant smart move. Many of the booths were open, some were not, and very few crowd-goers had arrived.

I appreciated the industriousness of the early-birds. I practically had the place all to myself. I noticed something else this year - prices are more normal on food and some of the goods, and I got a big 12-oz. cup of really good dark roast coffee for a buck and a half. I thanked my lucky stars at the fortune of not paying three dollars for a cup of coffee like I have to everywhere else. I bought myself a wicked cool kaleidoscope and a harp music CD to take home with me and remember the total festival experience. I got to see Joe Sharino interviewed by Bernie Ward.

I even joked with Bernie (who has really sparkling blue eyes by the way) that if he were a band he'd be called "Tenacious B." He laughed and joked that he was in a band in high school called "Phlegm," but that they changed the name because it kept getting stuck in people's throats. Joe liked that one. I grossed out -- "ewww!", thanked them for a great interview and the autographs, and headed for home. I listened to the rest of the show in the car. I never listened to him much before, but I like what he has to say and I'm going to tune in more now that I have met him in person. That was great fun.

The Guys.

Henry shows off some homegrown heirloom chard. It was delicious stir-fried with chunks of tofu, a few homegrown tomatoes, minced garlic, herbes de provence and fresh corn from Berry Man's farm.

Berry Man.

Visit Tsekuda's Farm, on Seely Drive at the junction of Montague and Trimble, right next to Cadence Software. This local grower grows the best produce in the land. He and his wife are both in their eighties and have arthritic, berry-stained hands. Henry calls him Berry Man. They let the fruit ripen on the vine before they sell it, unlike grocery chains like Albertsons, who sell green, refrigerated fruit from South America. Grocery store fruit is not as good as produce stand fruit. Plain and simple.

You can only get there by going westbound on Montague - it's just past the 880 interchange. There is a sign on Montague that is a simple painting of a strawberry, no text. Just a big, handpainted strawberry on a piece of plywood. Turn right on Seely, go up a few yards and pull into the drive on the right. Right now he has the most incredible, delectible melons you've ever had. Ripe and sweet to the rind. The ripest tomatoes, big red onions, the most picture-perfect, buttery avocadoes on earth, better-than-candy raspberries and blackberries, peaches, nectarines, corn, peppers and more. Right down the road from here! Grown onsite! These people are so nice to talk to. As sweet as the fruit they sell. Check for yourself and you will see. We don't have to drive all the way to Milk Pail any more for the freshest produce available, now that we've found Berry Man!

The City that Care - And Bush - Forgot

An excellent op-ed to share with you. New Orleans now has a double-entendre of its nickname, "the city that care forgot." I wish I had a chance to visit New Orleans before Katrina happened. All the richness and history, and artifacts, are gone. And those thousands of poor homeless people. I have made a donation to the American Red Cross. It is all I can do. Aaron Neville's song, "Louisiana," on the NBC/Capital One concert yesterday, was so moving.

The City That Care - And Bush - Forgot

Historically Speaking.

I have been a legal secretary for 23 years now, and was a normal secretary for a few years before that. All in all, I have been in the workforce since 1979, from the age of 19. I have seen a lot. I think of the typing technologies that have advanced during that time. My mother sent my sister and I to a class called "Word Processing: Job Of The Future," at San Jose City College some time in early 1977. Taking that class was my mother's idea intended mainly for my sister's benefit - I had not yet graduated from high school but my mother told me I really should go too, I might learn something, and paid for two seats.

I was the youngest person in the class. It was not a hands-on laboratory - the room was filled with desks without computers. (Desktop computers had not yet been invented, of course.) It was a reel-to-reel film presentation, like the ones we used to see in elementary school; 90 minutes long and was very, very informative. The subject dealt with what innovations were coming, and I latched onto the concepts with both fists. It all looked pretty cool in that movie.

The next thing to do was register for a typing class at the high school - it was an elective for some odd reason, and we were only given two. So for typing, I had to give up drama so I could stay in band. I focused on those two electives, typing and band, more than history and algebra. I now know why.

Typing class was the show. Teacher threw me out after I peaked 120 wpm with my eyes closed. With nowhere to go, I jumped halfway into a senior lit class. (Back in the day, "lit" meant either "drunk" or "literature," an ironic parallel. In my world, it means "litigation." Such is life.) We finished the year with "The Crucible," and it was riveting reading.

After graduation I tried majoring in music at SJSU but it was not meant to be. My first job was at EG&G Geometrics, 395 Java Drive, Sunnyvale. (It's a Star One Credit Union now.) That place was a blast. I was hired on the spot when they saw my typing test. In truth I was hired to be a kind of handmaiden to one Lauralee Lilly, a scientist who married another scientist that worked there. Peter was British and a had a rollicking sense of fun. I got pulled into a sort of impromptu typing pool for the geophysicists, whom I found to be a lot more charming than old Lauralee. These guys were rock geeks extraordinaire and it was to be my first experience dealing with difficult genius-types. I learned a thing or two about geology and mineral history there. The word processing system was a Vydec, which used 8" floppy disks and a daisy-wheel printer. It was my very first real hands-on word processing experience, and I loved it.