Learning Italian the FUN'MENTAL way!

Early Morning Karaoke

Molly

here's why you should keep your piano....

Another Gypsy Dance with 3 dancers

This is our second czarda on Blablablawblawg. The first one is still very popular. The female dancer in this Slovakian czarda early 80's home movie is Stephanie Elchuck, the Gypsy healer/magician friend who helped me quit smoking. Her two Gypsy compadres are now dancing legends in Bratislava .Stephanie a graduate pharmacist, now also sells beautiful and magical healing stones on the Internet at stefstones.com .  She owns a beautiful second home on a bluff by the sea in Baja California MX, and  so we get to see her often. Her step has barely slowed down after all these years!

time of the gypsies

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China Willing To Help Our Hillbilly Economy?

Nikki Filmed in 8mm in a 1958 Costume Party

The movie 'Jules et Jim' by François Truffaut was released that same year with the sultry Jeanne Moreau playing the main role. In this classic 'Nouveau Cinema' piece, the lifelong pals Jules and Jim fall madly in love with the same woman. The issue is resolved during a happy romp in her convertible Simca; they simply shoot off a high cliff in the French Alps, all three of them laughing to their death. The heroine sings the soundtrack in my montage, the actual title song of that movie, called 'Le Tourbillon'. Having been called 'Jim' for most of my life, I assume that the dancer in this home movie is 'Jules'. That does take us back to simpler prettier times, don't you think?

Woody Guthrie and The Dust Bowl Refugees to California

Woody Guthrie, in this library of Congress recording of 1940, narrates and sings about the plight of the unfortunate mid-western farmers facing the repeating dust storms of the late 1930's, the great depression, terrible banks and the boll weavel pest attacking their crops. They left in droves for California where hey were looked down upon, exploited, settling down near river beds that flooded and drowned a thousand of them, picking up peaches for as little as one dollar a ton, picked, packed and crated. Most had no running water or sanitation, surviving on a diet of peaches and whatever they could fish out of the mostly dry river beds of Southern California. Hundreds of thousands of them, mostly forgotten today, dreamed about California where they were told that they would make $5 a day. This had to be before the Internet or snopes.com!. Thanks Woody Guthrie, you are a sweet man to remind us of all of them. It's been good to know ya!  Also my thanks for 7 photos by James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California
 

(Below, a well-done YouTube of Woody singing)

Our New Treillis Fenced Courtyard

This project was seeded with 9 leftover 4x4 posts given to me after I built a fence for Paul, my Carlsbad brother-in-law. Now we can dance around almost naked in our front yard with Chica, her ALWAYS naked under her nascent fur coat. She is a true Mexicana-Americana and has a knack for disconnecting wires and breaking lamps and perfume bottles at night. But you just adore her youthful exhuberance.

mysteryvid

Blues in Gm

Hippy Days With Clifton Chenier

This is so good. Following Ron's comment on the last post, here's the UTube video of Clifton Chenier performing "I'm a hog for you". Clifton aka "The King Of Zydeco", is the daddy of CJ, the one that perform in the last post. Last time I saw Clifton was in a dark Montreal second-floor nightclub that was 16 ft wide and 200 feet long, June 1992. I got there late and had to jump to see a tiny man's head. Never got to see the accordion. Last time I saw Ron (all 6'5" of him!) was in a Lafayette restaurant in 1994. Now to see both of them in their prime on this video was quite a thrill. (Ron is the mustachioed spectator in the front row, shown wearing a red t-shirt and holding a beer exactly 52 seconds into the clip). Those hippy days were allright. Clean pre-9/11 fun all-around with sensual females dancing. Got a feeling that when boomers retire the good drugs and music will come out again for an encore. Meanwhile if anyone including Ron has more details on that party (date, place etc...) it would be nice to have it in the comments below. 

Hard To Have Louisiana In Mexico But One Must Try

OK I tried to bring some Louisiana into our house but I quickly quit, having the sound system to play a peppy zydeco tune by C.J. Chenier instead (CLifton Chenier's son). Then I found this clip on UTube. Christ Almighty this family has what it takes, including da beat!

An Tribute To The Great Ship Oooooosterdam

A short clip of this fine Italian designed and built ship, enhanced by an old Italian tune. It was leaving Puerto Vallarta in the evening of the 13th of February, St Valentine's day eve.Funny how a bad video clip can be made romantic with the aid of a 'watercolor' filter and the voice of Rossi from a scratchy 78rpm . The lady smiling is Nikki, of course. Who else does it like her?

BayouMEX first fake concert - Oh Marie!

This beautiful Cajun tune and at least a hundred more were mailed to me by a gracious and genuine Cajun lady from Lafayette LA. We assume that she was either touched by our lack of palpable Cajun energy in this recent video, or she thought we should just quit and buy good music instead. In either case we thought that this 'lip sync' and 'bellow sync' rendition of 'Oh Marie!' should cheer her up. If we cannot be true Cajuns in Mexico, we can at least mouth their words and squeeze their tunes over their music. And, Madame Broussard, dat was fun doin, chère!

Greeting Our New Maid Lupe

Nikki and I were looking forward to our new maid's first visit this Tuesday, a person that came highly recommended by friends we have by the beach. Our house built in dusty Baja was in dire need of some prep work, basic human pride demanding. Our bed was concealing a complex matrix of dog hair and dust bunnies coating the guitar case and everything else thrown under there for two years. Done. Then we took care of the different trash bins overflowing with crap. What would she think? Of course the kitchen floor Mexican tiles had too many grease spots, so I took care of that since I am the one who tends to cook with wild abandon. Nikki did her clothes closet so that the lady's organizational skills would not feel challenged. I thought I ought to wash the top windows since most natives in our area tend to be of short Mayan stock, unable to reach there. But then water started to drip on the lower panes, so I ended up washing all the panes. Eventually we cleaned up the dust bunnies hanging on the walls that Lupe would not reach. Many fell on the furniture, so a quick 'Pledging' of these was called for. No big deal since I happen to be addicted to the scent of lemon Pledge. My desk was covered with books, cameras, tools and wires. We declared the area verboten. The same with Nikki's computer area. One bad move dusting the keyboard and a chapter of Nikki's next novel is gone or badly mangled. We do not want that. Same with the music keyboards, piano, electronics. A wire is so easily pulled from its socket. Verboten. Of course we expect Lupe to clean corners, our house having several hundreds of these from a quick estimate, all suffering neglect. But all shelves need to be cleared before accessing their corners, precious little objects that could fall on the hard ceramic floor and shatter, some three-part sculpture held only by gravity. We could tell her which, but this would tax her already overloaded memory from all these other client's stuff. So we ended of clearing all the shelves ourselves, placing all their content on sevaral tables that became de facto 'verboten'. Since we now had no place to have our Monday night dinner. Nikki "Windexed' all the glass shelves and together we put the stuff back. Tuesday morning we got up at six. The arrangement was that Lupe was to bring her own favorite mop and that we were to provide her with a pail. My pail had some cement deposits stuck to it so I washed and scraped it till 7AM, eyeing Nikki who was frantically cleaning around the sink for traces of my morning breakfast, sorting out the cleaning products underneath until they looked like something that Lupe would see in a normal house. This is when I saw them, those ceiling fan blades, how awfully dirty. Never noticed before how they could show off the soot from our central wood stove. What would she think? And worse, what would she tell? We have a 13 foot ceiling. I'm six foot tall and our stepladder is 5 feet. But I did it, I cleaned up all 3 ceiling fans...breaking a bulb that splintered all over the floor below. Tiny glass chards. She could could easily cut herself while rinsing her mop.

So I scoured and washed the entire floor before 8AM. However, I cut myself rinsing the mop, leaving blood marks in both bathrooms while looking for a Band-Aid. No big deal. I quickly washed both lavatories, removed finger marks from the mirrors and then rushed to put some clean clothes on. Ouch! , my own 'armoire' was a war zone. Verboten for Lupe. She would certainly tell neighbors what a slob I am.
8:25AM, any minute now she will be here. Thank heavens for Nikki's fluency in Spanish. She will guide Lupe through the tasks. We discussed tips. This hard-working woman referred to us by our elitist neighbors ought to get at least 20 dollars, an amount I just happened to have as a crisp bill in my shirt pocket. And there she was, all 5-foot of her, beaming at the gate. 'Hola Lupe'...said Nikki while our three dogs barked in unison. She then introduced the woman to the house and to her 'marido'; I immediately handed her a cup of steaming coffee and a croissant while Nikki quickly swept the crumbs from around the toaster oven. Then they sat by the coffee table and smiled profusely in Spanish.
A nine o'clock, Lupe and Nikki were still chatting about dogs, a common interest, later deciding that there was really nothing to do in the house today. We paid her one hour and a half and I gratefully gave her the $20 bill so that I can get on with the business of the day, writing this blog in quiet silence.

Dog Playing The Piano

Amélie is soon to take lessons from this alented chap. I certainly hope that she doesn't disappoint us...or damage our beautiful Kawai.

South Austin, A Musical Melting Pot

It's cold in northern Mexico today, so how'bout having 'Happy Hour' at Evangeline's, a Cajun hotspot in South Austin TX. I miss that lively town where I worked in 1971, designing the Thunder Jet snowmobile racer . All workers at Glastron were Mexicans, the bars played cowboy music and I never knew that just two blocks away from the plant was a big boisterous Cajun bar and restaurant. Workaholics just miss out on too much good stuff. But my then wife Diane did come to join me. She was struck by the fact that when she walked on those long flat boulevards,many Texans would slow down, lower the windows on their air conditioned cars and drawl on to her: "Wouldjoo laaaahk' a raaaahhhde, maaaaaam!" So here's musical compensation, one month away from formal retirement, courtesy of Charles Thibodeaux: