Shots from the Lip

It is now 8am on Tuesday morning.  I have to leave in about 15 minutes in order to make it to class on time while still heading first to the coffee bean for take away to sip through the class. Nothing much accomplished over the past couple of days - but I have been around and we have gone out every day - that is nice! And that's my quickie - it is 8:03am and I am ready to head to my class on short story writer Raymond Carver.  Have a great day!! 

There are three-12 hole harmonicas on my desk (2 chromatic, one diatonic).  Over the past three days I have actually picked each one up and started playing.  After writing this, I plan to play again......how nice it is to start with music again!!!!!   Not this week but either next week or the week I intend to start going to some open mic nites - simply to observe.  How much time can I have?  What can I do vis a vis a screen and projector to add Powerpoint as part of my gig?  I'll find what to do with the video part of things as I write for the second gig but I do know how I want to end the script:  with the 5 IRS/Someone to Watch Over Me slides - this is too strong to abandon - if I can do the Powerpoint, then this is how I will end it......... And I will start the gig with the chromatic harmonica, using it as Jack Benny did with his violin - never quite playing it....but........ Subject to change - the six songs I am now practicing:  Someone...

 It was sunny and 19 degrees at 7:50am this morning as I left the house for an hour of bike riding.  It was overcast during the entire ride at the beach but the sun returned as I rode downtown Santa Monica.....and it felt warm as I rode past Tartine on Arizona St. The temperature, at least according to the weather app, projects a high of 25 degrees outside today.  This is a 'nice' temperature that I'd enjoy  living in  year-round.......but with the trade winds constantly coming in off the ocean, it always feels cooler than that. We'll go to Sawtelle today.  Nijiya Market has 20% off every 29th of the month and today is that day.  I'll go to Nina's for huevos rancheros lunch while Katherine does Panda Express. Tomorrow we go to look at antique jewelry in Beverly Hills.  We'll travel, again, on the Metro 720 bus but be on the lookout for bus detours as that really screwed us up the last time we ventured into Beverly Hills. And on Wednesday?  No...

 -  and Japanese bread at home on Saturday  Katherine had an injection reaction on that kept her in bed with a low-grade fever for a couple of days.  So I did Fromin's for a pancake breakfast on Thursday.......and I over indulged with both an onion bagel smothered with cream cheese and a bialy (thrown in, complimentary, by the owner).........if I keep this up, I'm going to get fat again..... 26 degrees of separation??     Bill Evans is my favorite jazz pianist.  He's most famous for My Foolish Heart.  The song is the title of a movie starring Lois Wheeler.  Lois Wheeler married Edgar Snow in the late 40s.........and Lois and family became friends and clients in the early 1980s..... Yesterday, for the first time, I sketched directly with a pen on watercolor paper.....and later I watercolored in..........this is how I hope to eventually sketch......but still primarily from photos I take......will I sketch from watching instead of watching ...

Katherine ordered WD-40 from Amazon.  The can was defective and pressing the button on top did not function so, at 7:15pm last night I brought a bag with a defective can to Whole Foods for refund prior to going to a comedy show across the street from Whole Foods, at O'Brien's bar 2 blocks from our home. The Amazon employee at Whole Foods verified that the can was broken but because of the low price ($8), there was no refund...we don't want a refund - we want a WD-40 can that works!!!! I passed by O'Brien's going back home, carrying a smelly WD-40 bag, to call Amazon Customer Service.  The bar was empty - was there a show to go on???   If there was, I never made it as I spent a half hour trying to get Amazon.....no success - I could not find a number to communicate with them.......dammit!!  Ah well, a show was not meant to be.......what I do have to go to, first, to observe and after to participate is open mic nights.  There is one in Santa Monica on Monday ...

 Thursday morning - a chance to sleep in a tad bit later because unlike the prior two days, there is no morning class, live, in the Emeritus Building, downtown Santa Monica today......... ....And with Katherine still feeling the results of a medical appointment at St John's on Tuesday, I went to Fromin's for two buttermilk pancakes, two strips of bacon, two cups of coffee and one glass of orange juice.  All prepaid off of the discount payment in advance card!  I am now home and, after reading the day's news, will start working off of my calendared tasks for the day.  I will end, though, with a walk of two blocks to O'Brien' s and local comedy - I need to see how the whole system works - shows, open mic's, et al......before figuring out if I really want to be a night club comic!

So.....I cancelled my photography class on Mondays and added History of Comedy on Wednesday mornings.  John Achorn, the old time actor who acts through the literature he reads in class, is also teaching this one in addition to his Tuesday morning American Novel class. Gertrude Berg - Molly Goldberg - the first woman power both in front of and behind the camera was the topic and we watched a really good documentary video.  There were 60 Zoom attendees and 11 of us in this hybrid class.  Five of us were men....... And then I went for lunch and a movie - Tatami - at the Laemmle Royal.  It was a good film but not, in my opinion, worth the accolades that preceded my watching it.  Still, how can one possibly complain with a $7.00 admission price??! Other than that, it's been, more or less, a lazy day...... Tomorrow night I will walk two blocks to Wilshire and see some local stand-up.....and meet the promoters???