I habe a nasty code...

So, since I'm not into spotlighting, I'm showing y'all my new picture I got on my trip..

I love this guy... he looks different in alternative lighting...

mine..,

For Jason... The Ledbetter's Fire.

Jason, a new reader and commenter on my Ledbetter's stuff has asked about the Ledbetter's fire.

Oddly enough, it was the fire that cemented my place in Ledbetter's. I went from 'someone who really liked the music (and the boys who sang it) and was there almost every night' to someone who worked her butt off fixing the place after the fire.

It happened in the summer. My family and I went to Balboa Island in the summer for a couple of weeks. It was another spotlight time, as it was a small island, safe and fun, and if you went across the ferry to the peninsula there was the Prison of Socrates. The Prison was another fold club (ex beatnik place). I did my first on stage performance there and met, having borrowed his guitar, my first folk singer. Read into that what you will...

I came back and called my friend and said "I'm back, let's go to Ledbetter's" and she said "It burned up last night"..

Heart broken..

No other words for it.

One of the articles I"m enclosing mentions the fire as happening AFTER the Survivors got their name, and it may be true. I have a picture I can't put my hands on with a couple of guys who worked at the club posing with the Survivors life ring and some burned pieces of instruments. Wish I could find it.. oddly enough, the group sang in Manhattan Beach in a club that wasn't even left when I moved here.. go figure...



So, after the shock, we set to fix it. The fire may have started with a cigarette, as stated, but I seem to remember it starting in the recording booth, or near it. I still have some large tape reels with music recorded there... I believe one is Dave Mason, but haven't been near that kind of player in years (if the tapes are even good). I'd love to see (hear) who else is on there.

Refurbishing the club took a while, and was not without it's trials. I was on a ladder, painting a stain on the walls... at one point I went to move the ladder and the bucket of stain fell on my head.

By the time we all quit laughing, the stain was hardening.. We had no running water or cleanser, so I had to take a jar of handyman cleanser and go across to the laundromat and TRY to wash it out in the sink. I was a blonde at the time, and for a long time I would put my hair in little pony tails. One was smooth and the other was ... a horse tail. I also suffered a number of splinters which I would remove with a knife (much to Randy's dismay and shuddering).

We rescued some of the instruments; most notable was the bass that was later painted black (I noted it and did the same for my guitar when I moved to Hawaii). Randy,as usual, had everyone working on the club who was in a group but not playing somewhere. All in all, it was a good time, and the club was better for it in the end.

And Jason?.. Here's the New Society picture... you will, of course, recognize some of the players from other groups (grin). I believe I see Gary Mule Deer (ne Miller) in the back there...




and a good picture of a very young Mike and John.


So.. let me know what else you want to know, J.. I'm glad to remember!

Go Ahead... Throw That Ball... Go On... I'm READY!

Someone sent this to me in a collection of OK pictures. I just love this one...

it's the absolute concentration..

poor ball....

Random Spotlights...

No Peebs, I'm not giving up on spotlights... I haven't even started (grin).



Me, as Elvis..

The first time I heard of Elvis, I was in Junior High School.. almost too old to care. I remember seeing an ad in a Teen age Magazine (at school ... gasp!) that said "Win a date with Elvis Presley" and thinking... WTF kind of name is Elvis??

Needless to say, I found out soon enough. Not soon enough to enter the contest, but soon enough to appreciate the music, if not the maker. I didn't really appreciate him until the 1968 'return' concert he gave in his tight jeans and small .. um... er.. AUDIENCE .. (tsk tsk.. your MINDS, children, your MINDS!). He was my kind of sexy then, but didn't stay that way for long..

Poor fellow.

Music has been such a huge part of my life that I find it interesting that I listen to so little of it today. Much of my travel stuff this trip was Country, when I listened at all. Something about 75 MPH and beautiful weather and neat countryside and great people that was just fine without any music..

go figure..

The same little choir that sang on the Milton Berle show also performed for Jimmy Durante, at his home. It was very impressive for me, and he was a gracious man. We sang "Inka Dinka Doo" for him (quite well, as I recall). Still didn't hire us on the spot, but by then my great leader was already thinking of leaving me behind, as I never DID sound like a teenager, much less a teen age girl.

I mean, who is a whisky tenor at 12?

In College I was part of the All City Choir, which I told you back in an earlier post. One of the perks of being part of the choir at Santa Monica City College was that we got to usher at the Civic Auditorium (for free, of course) which meant that we got to see all the music for free, too...

Some wonderful stuff over the years, including one smarmy little violin player who told me the bags under my eyes meant a misspent youth... and who was quite willing to help me spend it right.

yuck...

I've been in Sweet Adelines, which I LOVED except for all the other women, and sometimes the choice of music. The won't let the women sing the same types of songs as the men (sexist pigs, she said sweetly). I've seen some of the more recent stuff and it seems they are coming into their own, which is a good thing.

and the end all was that we used to go to a little bar (like a lodge bar) after the rehearsals. One night there were half a dozen of us and we started singing. Had a ball... Next meeting we come in to the admonition that "poor quality singing in public places" is a no no for Sweet Adelines.

and, as I left, I said I would sing as poorly as I wished any WHERE I wished any TIME I wished..

and we weren't singing poorly..

at all..

(harumph!)

A New Peace...

So I moved one of their climbing places behind my couch, where they can keep an eye on me... and each other.

They've become closer, I think, since I was traveling..

Time will tell.