faboo mama

It’s official, this campaign has a lot more funny than the last one.

Over at Seesmic, Craig Manganello is offering guitar lessons. This project arose from a conversation where people expressed interest in learning their guitars. So Craig, a singer and songwriter from Long Island, has offered to tutor. There are 5 lessons all together, culminating in the guitarist playing Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

Though I’m posting the lessons here, you can also follow Craig’s lessons at seesmic under the user name ‘guitarlessons’:

Lesson 1: Tuning Your Guitar

Lesson 2: The G Chord

Lesson 3: The D Chord

Lesson 4: The C Chord

Lesson 5: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Yay! Thank you Craig. Everybody give Craig a big round of applause.

Because I’m bored…

Wow.

Just wow.

I’ve gone to opening nights before and the act is always good.  Ernie Andrews just blew them all away.  I listen to a lot of blues.  I like the blues.  Jazz…it’s great, when it has a more blues infusion.  Otherwise, that vocal jazz or the smooth jazz crap make me want to slit my wrists.  There are times that I’m listening to blues and in my head thinking, “Gosh, this sounds the same.  Boring.”  Every once in a while, I hear a singer who makes your heart break just listening to them sing the blues.  Ernie Andrews is that man.  Even the funny lines, and there were plenty, made you want to laugh through tears.

The opening night of the Friday Night Jazz series at LACMA is never to be missed.  I’ve been going since ‘ 95 or ‘96 and it has always been one of the best ongoing series in Los Angeles.  Back then, it was truly a cross section of the city.  They used to have about 3 or 4 rows of seating in the front.  Then a few tables in the middle.  People would bring picnics to eat there.  I remember these two guys would come with lawn chairs and a cooler and sit there all evening.  That was back in the days when you could show up at 5pm and start getting served a drink and stay until 11pm without the security guards harassing you.  You could smoke on the patio, until 2002 when they banned smoking cigars and then in ‘04 when they banned cigarettes too.  Times have seriously changed.

It’s always strange, since I’ve seen the same group of people at LACMA, off and on, almost every Friday night for 7 months of the year for the past 12 years.  I still have never spoken to most of them.  But we smile, nod, wave hello.  When I started going there, I was single.  now I’m married with two kids!  We were joking that next year they’ll probably institute a dress code, the year after that, they’ll ban kids, then by 2012-ish, they’d have a cover charge.  Times definitely change.

Ernie Andrews plays at LACMA

We arrived pretty late, thanks to my lameass husband.  Seriously.  If I tell him, I have to be somewhere at a certain time, guaranteed, he’ll find some reason to linger.  I had planned on leaving the house at 4pm.  I told him that, repeatedly.  We didn’t leave unil 5:30pm.  When we finally got to the museum, it was almost 6:30 and he was like, “Wow!  It’s packed!”.  Ya think?  Needless to say,  we didn’t get a table.  Not that it matter anyway.  The stupid museum only set up like 4 tables.  They used to have between 12 and 15 tables set up.  I counted 4.

Oh, and as for the other bloggers…I got 12 emails from people.  Unfortunately, none of had considered doing the obvious thing of sharing phone numbers.  I didn’t even know what blogs some of them wrote for!  So, I didn’t get to meet any bloggers.  There were a few people that my husband insisted looked like blogger (?), but he was being such a tool, that I thought it better he wasn’t around people.

At any rate, if you were there, I’m sorry I missed you. If you weren’t, I’m sorry you missed a pretty awesome show.

Back on March 9th, I blogged that some LA Bloggers should get together and blog on Opening Night at LACMAs Jazz series. Unfortunatetly, I dropped the ball on actually promoting it, so I can’t say many people know about it. However, we will still be there, since we were going to go anyway. If you know of any LA bloggers, let them know and maybe we’ll see you there too.

Some details from my previous post:

The event starts at 6pm and ends at 8pm. We usually wind up at Farmers Market or Koreatown afterwards in the cooler months. During the summer, we usually frolic around Hancock Park. Early arrival is necessary to secure chairs and tables. I plan to get there to secure tables around 5pm. If you choose to visit the museum while there, you will have to pay to enter.

So, besides meeting other bloggers what can you expect? Here’s the opening act for the season:

Ernie Andrews
April 4th, 2008

The 2008 Friday Night Jazz season opens with one of jazz’s living legends and L.A. treasures, vocalist Ernie Andrews. For over sixty years, Andrews has been thrilling audiences around the globe with hits recorded with such giants as Harry James, Cannonball Adderly, Gene Harris and Ray Brown. In a recent review, Los Angeles Times critic Don Heckman said, “[H]e blends a hard-swinging, outgoing vocal style with a quick-witted sense of humor . . . he does so with a rich timbre, a gift for drama and a singular capacity to stimulate an audience.”

OMG…music heaven!  I received my Hollywood Bowl schedule today and I think I’m going to have to scrounge up some money to get a season pass.  Why?  Only because this is the first season in the past 5 years where there are interesting acts at least once a week.  There are tons of Must Sees.  Oh, I’m about to burst with happiness.  Before opening night, on June 14th - 15th we get the Playboy Jazz Festival.  Sunday looks like a must.  Here’s a few other outstanding nights:

July 9th - Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis and special guest Natalie Cole

July 20 - Feist, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and Pacifika

July 27 - Gnarls Barkley, Youssou N’Dour and Deerhoof

Aug 3 - Reggae Night featuring UB40 (bleech!), Beres Hammond and Barrington Levy

Aug 13 - Etta James and the Roots Band, Solomon Burke and Paulo Nutini

Aug 15 - 16 - A Night in Old Havana (Friday and Saturday)

Aug 22 - 23 - Donna Summer

Sept 21 - Ozomatli, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Lila Downs and Nortec Collective

Hyperventillating.

I am going to have to see how we can get enough money so that we can attend these shows.  I don’t know how we can not go.

What are you doing April 4th? Nothing? Great? Then you can attend the opening night of LACMAs Friday Night Jazz series. Most of you are aware that I’ve been attending these Friday night concerts for the last 8 years. Why not join me and my family? Not only can we all meet each other, but it will be interesting to get various viewpoints on the same concert.

LACMA changes the rules every year, so off the top of my head, items you can’t bring: food, alcohol and your own chairs. I’m assuming that I won’t be stuck in Aliso Viejo or Fontana on a Friday afternoon. You can buy food at the restaurant and cafeteria onsite, they also have bars set up in the courtyard. However, last year, the beer and wine sold at the bar was $0.50 - $1 more than in the cafeteria.

The event starts at 6pm and ends at 8pm. We usually wind up at Farmers Market or Koreatown afterwards in the cooler months. During the summer, we usually frolic around Hancock Park. Early arrival is necessary to secure chairs and tables. I plan to get there to secure tables around 5pm. If you choose to visit the museum while there, you will have to pay to enter.

So, besides meeting other bloggers what can you expect? Here’s the opening act for the season:

Ernie Andrews
April 4th, 2008

The 2008 Friday Night Jazz season opens with one of jazz’s living legends and L.A. treasures, vocalist Ernie Andrews. For over sixty years, Andrews has been thrilling audiences around the globe with hits recorded with such giants as Harry James, Cannonball Adderly, Gene Harris and Ray Brown. In a recent review, Los Angeles Times critic Don Heckman said, “[H]e blends a hard-swinging, outgoing vocal style with a quick-witted sense of humor . . . he does so with a rich timbre, a gift for drama and a singular capacity to stimulate an audience.”

So. Are you in? Email me.

This is what I had to tell the girl because she wouldn’t take a nap. I’m sorry but that ain’t even normal. It’s not even in the neighborhood of normal. To fully understand just what she’s whining about take a look a little lady’s newest obsession:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPbrSjiJI8&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

You can thank my husband for that one. He kept singing the song and had to find it. Ilia fell in love. I think she watched the clip like 5 times in a row.

Speaking of bad disco music from foreign, she’s also convinced that Boney M. made songs for me and daddy.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/BIkpLXeU2fA&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1]

Clearly, this is daddy’s song

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/Dt77ZqE1bCA&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1 ]

Here’s my song…

It’s clear that she has interesting taste in music. Her newest things she likes are punk rock and The Specials. She thinks The Specials sing Halloween songs (Ghost Town). Hey, even though I’m not a Boney M. fan, I can’t complain. It could be worse, she could like current pop music or hip-hop.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs&rel=1&border=1]

This was done by john.he.is “inspired” by John McCain.

Usually, when Obama finishes a speech, Stevie Wonder’s Sign, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours is played afterward.  It’s a great big hug to the room.  Now, I’m just blown away.  Logged onto the Senators rally in Denver and  McFadden and Whitehead’s  Ain’t No Stopping Us Now was playing.

There’ve been so many things that have held us down
But now it looks like things are finally comin’ around, yeah
I know we’ve got a long long way to go, yeah
And where we’ll end up
I don’t know
But we won’t let nothing hold us back
We gonna get ourselves together
We gonna polish up our act, yeah
And if you’ve ever been held down before
I know that you refuse to be held down any more, yeah yeah
Don’t you let nothing, nothing
Nothing stand in your way
And all we gonna do
I want you to listen, listen (That’s right)
To every word I say
Every word I say about it

Talk about a theme song.  Every time someone told me I couldn’t or shouldn’t do something, I sang this  song to myself:

It then switched to Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground.  I swear he’s playing the soundtrack of my youth.

Bleeeh…it switched to some frat-rock song and the kids were like “turn it off!”