Beyond The Bridge in Laurel Canyon!

Do you live in the LA area? If so, and if you're looking for a worthy cause to help support (as well as great time!) check out the website of Laurel Canyon's Wonderland School.

This Saturday evening, Friends of Wonderland will be holding a silent auction to help support, among other needs, their recent hiring of three full-time teachers in the fields of music, art, and gardening, and the Special Edition of my book, Beyond The Bridge will be under the gavel. If that doesn't jibe with my main character, Gordon Hammond, I don't know what does! If you've read either (or both) of the first two books in the series, you know that these three subjects are what make Gordon tick.  He in fact spends a significant amount of time in Laurel Canyon and falls in love with it. For a while he even entertains the idea of moving there, only one of two places in the entire world that ever nearly lures him away from his beloved Chadwicke Park. What's really awesome is that the organizers of this auction had no knowledge of this little fact when they approached me.

"As you may know, many schools in the Los Angeles area have fundraisers to enhance the education of their children. With the current budget crisis in LAUSD, the funds that we raise are crucial! Fundraisers not only guarantee the much-needed day-to-day supplies, but also basic curriculum, like art, P.E., music and technology, as well as our unique gardening curriculum. Wonderland Avenue Elementary School is proud of the accomplishments of its remarkable students and teachers. Our school is public and located in Laurel Canyon. We serve the neighborhood as well as attracting children from all over the city to our Gifted Magnet program. Our 550 students broadly represent the many cultures and ethnic groups within Los Angeles. We also have a very active parent body that donates time, energy, and resources to our classrooms and both the PTA and to Friends of Wonderland, the school booster club." - Friends of Wonderland

When they came to me asking if I'd like to donate a copy of my book, I leapt into action. How could I not? Not only have I been a resident of Laurel Canyon, but the state of education in our country is of great concern to me. We need more public schools like Wonderland, but to create and maintain those, we need to donate what we can, and help support them with our time, money, and involvement.

If you'd like more information, check out the school's website, which I linked above. The event, called "All That Jazz", will be held at the famous celebrity A-List venue, The Sportsman's Lodge in Studio City. Tickets are $85 if bought in advance. At the door they will be $100. Entertainment will be provided by The Looters.

Blog Versatility

I don't know why, but after nine years of blogging, I'm still tickled when someone presents me with an award. I haven't seen all that many in the past couple of years, though. I think they kind of came and went with the first flush of blogging infatuation. Sadly, now that we have places like Facebook and Twitter, blogging and reading blogs seems to be taking a bit of a nose dive as a popular daily activity. I blame this on the ever-decreasing attention span. But those of us who like to read and who are curious about how other people think will not give up either reading or writing blogs until the last blog host closes up shop. And I don't predict that happening anytime soon...

Hey, I Clean Up Pretty Well

I got the editorial! (Click to embigiate.) Here's the original in all its effin' glory.

Stillwater News Press, July 12, 2011

Stillwater News Press Hops To

Well, that was pretty cool. On Monday evening I cleaned up my blog entry (I mean I really cleaned it up!), Things I've Learned From Being Broke, and I submitted it to the Stillwater News Press via email. It wasn't two hours later that I received a reply from the editor, asking me for a head shot. I sent it and the thing was in yesterday's paper. Remember when life was like that? When people didn't drag ass about doing things? When procrastination was the exception rather than the rule? When your appointment was longer than the time you spent waiting for it? Thanks SNP. You're my kind of outfit!

(I'll post a scan of the article tomorrow.)

Ojai and Ventura View

Editor Joel Anderson has been so kind as to give me the feature article on the music page of The Ojai and Ventura View's May issue. The OVV is a local paper in my home of Ventura County, California. The article is about my memories of live music in the county from 1976 to 1986, an incredibly exciting decade in music in VC. To read it, follow the link, then scroll to page 12 and mouse-over the bottom right corner to enlarge. Thanks Joel!

Check out The Ojai andVentura View's Facebook page.

What a Day That Was!

It started out like any other day... Actually, it didn't. I hadn't gotten much sleep because the evening before, plagued with a bad headache, I took some Excedrin, which kept me wired until 4:30 am. Then I kept waking up (I forgot to wear my earplugs, so I heard the garbage truck, the boom-boom cars on their way to school... I heard everything. I finally fell good and asleep around 8:00, but was soon wakened again. Can't remember why. I got up and plugged in the coffee...

Gorillas, Fake Books, and the Big Mac

Since your response to last week's post about the time I spent in London was so positive, and you asked to hear more, here I am with another installment.

In the spring of 1981, my manager got me into the studio to record a four-song demo that she'd planned to shop around to various recording and production companies, not the least of which was MPL, Paul McCartney's company in London. I'm not sure why she contacted them. Maybe she had an inside track or something and had heard that he was looking into producing an unknown. I don't know. She received a phone call one afternoon though, telling us to come to London and then call them for an appointment. I left all that to her; I was busy writing and recording, and it was her job to sort out all of that stuff...

Stoned

Back in the summer of 1965, I spent a couple of weeks with my aunt and uncle, who lived in Ventura County. I lived in the Santa Ynez Valley at the time, a two and a half hour drive away in those days. Yeah, that's 14 year-old me, ready to take on the world...

One afternoon I took the bus to a Walmart kind of store called Disco (short for discount) to get some cool, mod-inspired earrings. When I came out, there was a band playing on the back of a flatbed. I can't remember their name, but they had the obligatory Beatle haircuts and were kind of good, so I stood and watched.*

Backstage with the Lovin' Spoonful

The Lovin' Spoonful

Growing up in southern California afforded me many opportunities to attend some incredible concerts. My older brother Rick and I were musicians, which opened doors to meet a lot of recording artists as well. Through our friendship with Ernie and the Emperors, we felt like we were part of something incredibly exciting, like we were riding on the tail of a comet...

I'm a Guest Poster at Last!

I've always wanted to be asked to write a guest post. Seems to me that if someone asks you, it means they like your writing enough to entrust their hit counts to you for a day or so. Well, that dream has come true for me because Sue over at Back Door Logic recently invited me to write a guest post for her great blog. A few weeks ago I gave Sue my Remarkable Women Bloggers Award. You really should go check her out (and not just because of my guest post). She has so much wisdom, and her story is a compelling one. She's quite exceptional. To read my post, click here.

The great drawing is by Sue's brother-in-law, Steve Dean.

Saturday Story Time: I Was a Lady of the Canyon, Reincarnated

The only reason I'm re-posting this entry from last August in an new incarnation is because I just finished readin a great book, Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood, by Michael Walker. Not only has it filled in a few gaps, it has brought some memories to the surface that I thought were long forgotten. Also, I've gotten some new readers who might find this tale interesting. Hope so, anyway. It was an interesting time, not only in my life and not only in LA, but in rock history.

Instead of putting up the earlier post and then my updates as an addendum, I'll work the new points in to make a cohesive whole. Sorry, some of you will have to read it again to get the new stuff. I promise I won't do it again. I don't like repeating myself that much...

In Their Off Hours

Growing up in Solvang, was a unique, if not downright weird, experience. One of the fun things, however—and there were many—was seeing film stars in their every day lives.

The Valley was home to a number of famous people, not the least of whom was Ronald Reagan, but I never saw him. Who I did see was Jimmy Stewart. Always dressed in denim bib overalls and a western-style shirt and cowboy hat, Stewart looked every bit the rancher as he walked down the cobbled sidewalks. No one bothered him. The tourists didn't even recognize him, but we knew who he was and we just said hi. Another was comedian Louis Nye, who you might remember from the old Steve Allen Show . "Steverino" being one of my all-time favorite people, I knew who Nye was, but I was too shy even to say hi to him. I made eye contact once though. My mom's personal favorite famous neighbor was Irish tenor Kenny Baker, who was at the time the featured singer on the Jack Benny Program. Most people today don't know who he was, but my mom absolutely loved him...

What a Great Surprise!

The first thing I found after logging onto my computer this morning is that my post, Pleasant Valley Sunday, won Post of the Day at Authorblog. I read David's blog every morning of my life; it's one of those places that's just plain nice and his photography is brilliant. Go check him out.

Thank you David!

While I Wasn't Looking

I was interviewed by Newsweek a couple of weeks ago. It seems that the article is in this June 2nd issue, but I received minimum press:

"Wine should taste good. It's that simple," says Steph Waller, a California wine lover who is working on a book called "Box of Wine: A Cultural Icon."

But wow... Newsweek! Guess I'd better get out to Hastings and buy a copy.

Here's the article: Boxed Vino Goes Primo.

Out of the Blue

Suddenly, I'm swamped with web design work. Over the last two days I've worked for three different clients from 9 in the morning to 3 a.m. the next morning. Business lunch, emails, phone calls, and did I mention that I was also interviewed by Newsweek?

Well, that wasn't related to web design, but it added to the soup. I didn't even have time to post an entry yesterday. But it's officially the weekend and I have plans for that hammock on our patio and the six-pack of beer in the fridge.

Jane, You Ignorant Slut

Tonight I participated as a judge at Stillwater High School’s debate tournaments. When I volunteered for this last weekend I was in the bosom of my family with a few glasses of wine in me and I imagined sitting in the school gym at long tables upon which sat Tupperware carafes of water and styrofoam cups, and boxes of those little yellow pencils that used to be at bowling alleys before they got computerized. There would be an audience at my back, students on a dais, and I’d be flanked by half-a-dozen other judges. Like American Idol. It wasn’t until we were in the car that I learned that I would be alone in a classroom with two varsity Lincoln-Douglas debaters and a timekeeper. I admit it. I panicked...

On Losing Bohemia

Although I’m enjoying waking up refreshed and rested due to going to bed at midnight all week, I have to admit that I kind of miss my late nights. I love when everyone’s asleep and the house is still. It’s not being alone that I enjoy, it’s being alone knowing there are people around me who are lost in dreams, leaving all of the thought energies for me.

On the other hand, I also like the clean look of early morning light. The eating area of our kitchen is in a set of bay windows that face north. The view from these tall, paned windows is of verdant, green grass, blue sky, and the cul-de-sac’s end, where not much goes on in the morning, outside of the neighbors pulling out of their garages to leave for work or school. The light that comes in is not direct, so it brightens the entire kitchen and living room area without being blinding. My only beef is that the windows don’t open like the ones in our old house. I love open windows on summer mornings. Must be all those years I lived on the Pacific coast, with the sea air softly billowing the sheers.

But I’m in danger now of waxing poetic at 8:30 in the morning, and that’s a scary thing. I’m not sure if my going to bed earlier this week is going to help with jet lag, however.

While on the phone with Deni last night, she mentioned that since I’m concerned about puffy eyes after the flight (we are going to be filmed at the airport as we arrive), I might try using Preparation H on them. Why does that sound wrong? I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Have you ever tried it?