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| Me and Emily |
Emily is an artist and she used to accompany me to the beach and paint while I played ukuleles with all my friends. And she was there for me when I needed help with cleaning up my apartments and moving. She called me with her usual, "Hi Beatles Mary!" -- said she missed me, so we had dinner in downtown San Jose and then saw the Emphatics, a band my friend Michelle had recommended since we were sad that our favorite local classic rock band, Full throttle, had recently disbanded. they were playing down on Murphy St. We met my friend John there -- lots of high energy music,mostly 70s and 80s. I ran into my friends Mojo and Michael there and we all had a great time dancing the night away on a Friday night!
I got home late but had to get up super early the next day to head over to Berkeley where my long-time friends from Oregon, Colleen and Tom were staying. I had my writing workshop at 11 and really wanted to connect with them before they left later that day. I made the mad dash to Berkeley and found the Durant Hotel pretty easily -- I parked and paid two bucks or so into a meter and we found a lovely cafe where we were able to sit outside upstairs and enjoy the sun peeping through the clouds -- and eat a nice breakfast. I had a spinach and mushroom omelette. Colleen and I chatted about life, about the crazy things our kids did when they were young, about my book that I'm working on -- and life. We always found things to talk about -- she's a talented pianist and singer and super intelligent and soft spoken. We are the same yet very different! tom is a Math Professor at OSU in Corvallis. They're good, down to earth people whom I've known since the 1980s.
After my visit, I had to make yet another mad dash across the bay bridge to my writing workshop on Scott Street in San Francisco with Adair Lara -- at the gigantic yellow Victorian mansion on the corner of Scott and just beyond Haight. It's wonderful to go there, yet bittersweet since the loss of Jim so suddenly last November -- he was Adair's exhusband and father to her kids. They all lived happily together in the house -- Adair and her husband. And Adair used to write about their lives in that house in her SF Chronicle Column. I am thrilled to be in another workshop with her finally -- determined to finally get this monster of a book done so I can finally move on with my life!!! it's like I have to get this done. I can't even explain it.
The class was good -- beyond good -- and Adair and I agreed to meet the next day to go over my story arc and to help her with formatting and adding styles to documents in Microsoft Word. Then I took off for a rock n' roll benefit show in North Beach which I had seen a blurb about on Facebook. Little did I know that the Condor was a topless bar on the corner of Columbus and Broadway and everything looked dark and red velvety with lots gold-colored shiny poles all over the place. But the rock n' roll music was good and it was also cool to see Janis Cooke-Newman, another writer friend and teacher whom I know -- she used to run the "Creative Caffeine" that I was a part of for a long time. Her exhusband was the lead guitarist and instigator for the whole event.
One guy walked in and said he expected to see topless gals but instead got rock n' roll music. I said just wait until after 6pm, and I'm sure he'll get his wish. We laughed. I ordered a gin and tonic just to be scandalous -- it was only three bucks. Drinks are cheap here, that's cool. A group of scantily dressed girls showed up wearing Mardi gras beads -- they were loud but super nice. One gave me a beautiful purple beaded necklace which I've worn ever since she gave it to me.
I stayed til right around 6pm when I could see a lot of hustle and bustle and lots of pretty girls coming in. I checked out the Beat Museum and City Lights Books and then left just as it started raining again. I was going to head home, but instead decided to drive over to the Mud Puddle in Fremont where Michael McNevin was having a birthday jam. I just thought, why not? It's Saturday night and the night is young. And besides, I'd seen on Facebook that Baby Jeremiah was going to Disney On Ice at the Oakland Colloseum! No one would even be home.
I called Margaret and said I was going -- and she said she'd meet me there. I'm glad I made it on Saturday night as it was
VERY fun! I thought Rob and Alexandra's rendition of that Leonard Cohen's
"Hallelujah" song was probably the best I've ever heard in my life
(and I had gotten really tired of hearing covers of that song just cuz I'd
heard so many)...groovy music all night long. And I loved hearing everyone sing
harmony on Leavin' on a Jet Plane... and the slide guitar on George Harrison's
"Something" was awesome...I was so happy to see the guys from No Fly
List as you know they're into the Beatles music and then some...Alexandra has a
killer singing voice...lotsa the usual good talent. It was a last-minute
decision on my part to attend because I knew I wouldn't make it to the Sunday
gathering as I was in San Francisco yesterday...I cruised in from San
Francisco...and enjoyed a magical musical night at the Mud Puddle and then even
at the Flo afterwards where I got to see some of the gang dance for the first
time ever to a decent blues band...good night, good times at the Mud Puddle in
Niles with LOS HORRIBLES!
TO BE CONTINUED...with THE Sunday adventure!!!
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