Yesterday I managed to get about half my blog post up after this here lil’ computer got kind of funky on me. I know I go way too long on posts so it was probably a good thing. Still I put in the work and even tried to copy edit the text to the best of [...]

Everything is a tool, right? Machines can be our friends. All you have to do is get familiar with how it operates, know something about caring for your machine and then get used to the feel of it, right? I’m going to go slow with this new machine. Yesterday I set it up, wound thread onto the bobbin successfully an

Do I love New Year’s Eve because, being an Aries, I love a fresh start? I was asleep by 11 p.m. so it definitely has nothing to do with partying the night away. I felt good about this passing because I am actually engaged in doing creative work that fascinates me. I worked on my “Albi the racist [...]

And which came first? Before The film by Warren Beatty was this pre-cursor music video by Serge Gainsbourg with Brigitte Bardot: Serge was born on my birthday, April 2. Real name, Lucien Ginsberg, and he was a poet.       

Here is one of my favorite songs from back in the early days. Cilla Black “Girl Don’t Come”       

Delaney Bramlett died in Los Angeles from complications of gall bladder surgery. He was 69. News stories are noting that he wrote the song “Let It Rain” with Mr. Eric Clapton and that he was in the houseband on the TV show “Shindig.” After you pull out your Delaney Bramlett LPs and let that sweet s

I tried my hand at making a mix tape as I had promised to create one for some lovely young hipster relatives of mine. They sent me a beautiful specimen to cheer me through Christmas and beyond. I got through side one of my project and screwed up the last song which was too long. I haven’t listened [...]

It’s my day off and I’m listening to a new CD that came in the mail Monday. Fresh Air with Terry Gross featured the music of Erran Baron Cohen last week and I really liked it. EBC wrote the music for his brother’s Borat movie. Both of these men have a calling to question borders and the meaning of [...]

I remembered an amazing stylie-thing from the late 70’s a few days back. Imagine if this girl has twice as much volume to her hair, it was slightly teased, or ratted on the top and she lost the cliche jewelry and T-shirt image and had a more authentic rock, thrift store aesthetic. Oh, yeah, and imagine she [...]

Today may be the last day for making little gifts and taking trips to the post office where I’ve been nearly every day for the last 10 days. This is my funky navy blue whale. I’ve gone through my first Etsy Christmas rush. At least I’m assuming it’s about over and I made it just fine but [...]

The astrologers had warned me that I would have a flurry of planets at odds with my natal planets surrounding the time of the full moon. It turned out to bear some soggy fruit. I had another why-the-fuck-can’t-you-do-it-better-faster Sunday phone call from Ms M. I wish she could grasp the fact that her harangues, rat

Is this not the sweetest thing you’ve seen today? I think I am in the process of making many, many kitties happy. I have sold mass squid over the last week.  I’m stitching like a pro. My granny’s cat was delirious when I gave him a new one packed with a super helping of catnip. One day they will [...]

 I’ve been keeping myself busy this week getting holiday greetings and packages together, shipping off Etsy orders. I sent another giant red squid to Australia. The third one! These squid are stuffed with a lot of organic catnip. Granny’s cat loves his squid. I have stopped a couple of times at the local thrif

Picture from this site. I took the Stooges “Raw Power” out to the car and slipped it into the CD player.  It’s called Raw Power for a reason and that reason is obvious in the first five seconds. Then it just keeps blossoming like “a nuclear ‘A’ bomb.” Incendiary. This music alwa

Back on the patio. You can see it’s screened in. Joe and Alberta never had children. They slept in separate rooms. I don’t know what that meant for them. Uncle Joe was much older than Alberta. Her nickname was Babytot. That’s what my grandmother, Kathleen, called her. They were very close. Kathleen and Ha

The woman sitting in the center of this photograph from 1955 or 1956 is named Alberta. She’s sitting beside the woman standing. That’s Kathleen, my grandmother. Kathleen was a fashion plate. She is wearing cat-eye glasses. They may have had rhinestones set in them. I am the youngest member of this luncheon par

I knew that Slimey was ultra cool but I didn’t know that he had a rock band.       

Beautiful fruit, extras from the fact shack. Persimmons. Such an odd thing. So sweet and gooey but slimey as well. The color is one of my favorite. I’m on day three of a rare five-day jag at the news factory. So time is limited. I’ve been trying to sleep in so I’m not so dragged out at work [...]

Love this:       

This past year I have been conjuring familial/historical recollections based around a series of photographs. I’ve exhausted nearly all the photos that remained in my possession. Don’t I look like a muppeteer? I recently proposed a joint project to my daughter, Jessica. She’s in possession of the leopard pr

Wednesday I waited for the cable guy to show up. The second one in two days. I tried to return my Motorola DVR boxes by taking them to the local cable office and asking for two Moxi boxes instead. Moxie boxes are far superior to the latest Motorola. I found that Moxi boxes can’t be given out over the counter. [...]

It took me years to understand that the notion of inspiration could be a slippery slope where creativity is concerned. “I believe in magic. Why? Because it is so quick . . .”* If we wait to be impelled by mysterious forces before we begin to practice our craft well, we don’t, practice. It took me a very

“Humans are one big spirit separated into different bodies wandering around a hunk of mud called Earth, and all beings are basically reflections of each other. That’s what my songs are about.” Arthur Lee said that. Arthur Lee was a musical genius and according to the thesis-like text by Andrew Hultkrans, a

It’s deep into fall and the big tree next door is turning. Listening to Nico’s “Chelsea Girl.”    It puts you in a certain time and place if you take the simple approach. 1967. New York City. Post Velvet Underground. A handful of young musicians flowed through her life at this time. She had asked

I love Dan Savage. It’s no secret. I devoured his column and not long ago his funny and touching book “The Kid.” One of my favorite passages describes preparation for meeting the potential birth mother of the child that Dan and his partner, Terry would adopt. “There were two issues Laurie (the adopt

Here she is. The last eggplant of the season. Magnificent, bejeweled (her stylist insisted) and with that drape of green, looking very Veronica Lake. So, all in all, I deeply appreciated the sustainence the veggies provided but the visuals were the best part. It’s a little sad to look out the kitchen window and see on

Mitch Mitchell, fab drummer of the Jimi Hendrix Experience passed on to the other world yesterday. He was 61years old. Check out the guardian.uk obit. There is a great picture of the Experience. Here’s one from drummer world. I’m making a t-shirt of this print:       

I saw this today with new eyes. The hippo, fushia glitter heart and the rusty nails. Rad hippo. I am listening to Jim White.       

Though I hadn’t seen her for nearly 40 years I still remembered Alice Marquez Lashbrook as a friend. She made it easy. One simple gesture made it true. She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and invited me in. She was confident, gregarious, funny and down to earth. She was always ready to insert a good-natured pin in

You want to know this band. You need to tell me what you make of this. I saw them in 2007 on Austin City Limits. Uber Sexy Front Man, Old Style and yet Fresh. They blew up my mind. “We just got up there and started jackin’ tracks.” More G.O., Thomas Turner and Aaron Behrens: Fine, funny, free:  &

I’m just beginning to get my environment as decorated as I like it to be. Though I sometimes long for clean, simple, uncomplicated I’m a glutton for visuals. My honey calls it gypsy decor. Sometimes I see the zillions of elements I’ve stuck around this place. I occasionally feel like I’ve over don

Next year we plant early. It sounded really reasonable when a man told me years ago that all I had to do was look west toward Trinity County and if I saw snow on the mountains don’t plant even if it’s April. I think I got my herbs and tomatoes in the ground sometime in June. [...]

Tibetan prayer flags flying with the bluegreen mountains on the horizon. Beautiful. I bought another book. I found this one at Barnes and Noble. I Love Tibetan religious art. It is almost as strange and kick-ass as the Mayan stuff. Sometimes they seem similar.       This skull guy reminds me of the crazy Mayan skull

Now I can breathe a sigh of relief and feel once again that maybe most Americans don’t suffer from low I.Q. Despite my desire to believe most of us are rational, kind hearted people, eight years of Bush darkened my view of the citizenry. But the looks on people’s faces last night, every color and creed of [...]

Go and vote and if you have already voted offer to take your reluctant friends, neighbors, etc. Hold their hand, give them candy and get that ballot filled out!       

I grew up in Orange County, California and entered my teen years at the height of commersh-surfer hysteria. Nobody ever called it the O.C. and nobody ever referred to the state as “Cali.” It was a time before most in the O.C. felt they had to be a bleached-blonde spoiled trophy wife (at any cost) or the Bettie Page [

It was sometime in the 70’s. I had been visiting my grandparents at their mobile home in Hemet. The had a space across from the park’s man-made lake. it was quiet and serene. When it came time for me to leave my grandmother suggested I get a lift back to Orange County with my father, Jim. He’d stopped b

I had just pulled into a parking space at Raley’s. I was going to check out the weinermobile. A bright shiny new version of the one the oldsters among us will remember from our childhood. The Weinermoble attendents, gregarious girls on a marathon weinie tour, were handing out glow-in-the-dark weinie whistles. Firs

I know it’s going to be awhile, and I am definitely not trying to exert pressure prematurely, but when my grandkids get to this world I’ll be ready for them. Call me crazy, but I swear I can feel their spirits out there. They are just waiting for an ultra cool mom like Jessica and a super true dad like Bria

I opened the Cine Mexicano: Posters from the Golden Age 1936-1956, book and had to look carefully at each page. I could not put it down. It is amazingly rich and the artists are uber skilled. This poster, inside the book, was painted in 1954 by Josep Renau Berenguer (1907-1982). He was born in Valencia, Spain. He studied a

I had a real treat waiting for me when I got home last night, I mean besides, Frank. Two books I ordered from Amazon had arrived. One is a rock novel, Say Goodbye: The Laurie Moss Story,” about a woman who grapples with fame in the music biz. Lewis Shiner, a man who lives in Durham, North Carolina wrote [...]

My painting work space is set up well for large boards. There is a sort of natural place to lean the boards and paint them bit by bit. When I first started I always painted on a flat surface. Of course I started with small sections of MDF that I cut and gessoed myself. My first board came [...]

This is something I just had to share. One of my favorite things to eat for breakfast is an onion bagel and some smoked or dried salmon. This piece came out looking like a rose. I thank the beauty gods for letting me see it.       

I was on my way to do errands this morning when I passed a row of trees along Park Marina Drive. They put on a show every fall. I had on my big brown-glass shades and the color of the leaves was changed from its natural state.  I took some pictures through the sunglasses. Here is what [...]

I am still working on what itemsto send to Old City Hall. I brought out these two paintings: Redheads — the first came out looking like a hot chick form the 40s that Homer Simpson’s dad my have been in love with back when he was young and frisky. The second is a modern chick with glasses and a [...]

Tuesday has arrived at last and I am here trying to gather myself and get to work. I felt very much like painting this morning and I am hoping that I can avoid being so distracted that I lose that motivation. The light was brilliant outside the kitchen windows this morning and the wind helped make the fairy [...]

I am doing deep breathing exercises and I feel I will need to do them religiously over the course of the next 16 days. I have consumed a lot of MSNBC. I have been experiencing the car crash syndrome. I cannot often look away but sometimes the vicious skankiness that is being hurled gets to be [...]

Started the morning listening to NPR. Scott Simon was talking to a man with a very, very soothing voice. Simon seemed very moved by much of what the man said. Simon’s guest was a deep thinker. His words showed a very intelligent view of life and the universe. Some of the things he said were profound and unexpecte

It is that time of year. The holidays are just around the corner. This year, more than many other years, we really should be thinking of authentic alternatives to our typical knee-jerk reaction to use a credit card to extend our giving power. In the past when I was more naive I fell under the consumerist holiday madne

This morning the light was so beautiful. It was a pleasure to have eyes. I spent some time cutting off dead portions of the vegetable plants. Here it is Oct. 15, and they are still growing. These look blue due to having forgotten to change the light setting on the camera. I shot the “regular” eggplant. It had ta