Bruce Cockburn in San Francisco-GAMH

5 August 2006:

Lucky for me, I asked friend Cristin, who loves to drive and likes the city, to go with me. We had a blast going down to see Bruce! We stayed at a motel on Lombard and took a taxi (what a ride that was!) to the venue. The Great American Music Hall is an ornate old building in a rather ‘seedy’ part of town. The line for will call / and with tickets had already started to form. We arrived right behind my friend Paul from Fremont… how’s that for timing! He had been to the Saratoga show the night before, but was ready to see Bruce in this venue.

We met some great people while standing in line, hi to you Leon and Sherrie! Hope you are enjoying the BC_Live group. And Marsha and Steve… I will be looking for you at the Mystic Theater in Petaluma on November 9!!! I got my tickets in the mail yesterday!!

While standing in line I got a brief hug and kiss from Julie Wolf, love this womans energy and what she brings to the show with Bruce. The show was awesome ..read more details at CockburnProject.net and on the gigs page.

A very special thing happened at this show. Again while waiting in line, someone walking by catches my eye… and low and behold it’s Mark Squire my very old friend and one time boss from the days at the Good Earth Natural Food Store in Fairfax, CA.

I can’t quite describe how glad I was to make connection with him again. It has been several years since we even talked to each other, for no other reason than time and distance and life. Any way, I owe him an email and as soon as all this updating for the Project and blog is done that is what I will be doing. He said, “Of all the places to run into you at, I’m not surprised for it to be a Bruce Cockburn concert”. He claims I turned him onto Bruce and maybe it is so. I worked at the store in the eightys, and played cassettes of Bruce’s all the time.

Bruce Cockburn - Paradise photo by Layne Russell

(Photo by Layne Russel taken at Paradise show, 6 August 2006)

So for the whole show, I was just glowing on the inside. I didn’t take my camera as I wanted to be able to just enjoy the show. Bruce was happy and having a great time the audience was with him and active and that makes for a great performance. It really was one of the best shows I have seen him do in a long time, energy wise. It ended to quickly for me….

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf Festival-2006

I wrote a review of the Kate Wolf festival for the CockburnProject.net Most of what I had to say is printed there. (scroll down for the Kate Wolf show report at the bottom of the page).

Pushing Bruce’s set back by an hour or more didn’t help things. I feel he was put off by that, but maybe I am wrong.. who knows? I didn’t get to ask him. I wish he had talked to us more, the crowd was also more subdued… or just wasted from 3 days in the 110 + degrees! I couldn’t holler as usual either as my throat was taking a beating from the heat, dust and talking.
[I found out much much later that the reason the set was pushed back was because Bruce’s tour bus was having problems, probably overheating as it was just too hot.]

It was great seeing Doug Stacey and meeting his friends. Talking to others sitting around us at the site.

I took pictures during sound check:

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf 2006 soundcheck

Unfortunately Bruce is trying to be incognito. And succeeded for awhile. My camera was soo hot in my hands that I stopped.. the battery doesn’t want to be over 86 degrees!

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf 2006 soundcheck-Photo Margriet Seinen

Bruce at Kate Wolf photo by Margriet Seinen.

I did manage to give to Leslie, Bruce’s stage manager (don’t know what title to give him?!), a cd I had created with pictures going back to the 80’s of him and me and of shots from some more recent shows.

I always want to give him something, and it gets harder and harder to know what he would appreciate. I just want to give back to him.

His words and music have been a constant soundtrack in my heart and mind since the first time I heard him. No matter what was going on in my life, Bruce has been there with me. From the way some of the songs on the new album, Life Short Call Now, sound, it seems as if we, as fans, really need to be with him now. And I don’t know how to do that, short of just telling him that he is in my heart.

The night shots weren’t very good. I really need to learn how to take better night shots, and well a better zoom would help too!

Bruce Cockburn at Kate Wolf — tomorrow

HOT!!
Right now it is 102.9 and rising in the shade!! (make that 103.3 !!!)
Yikes.. and it’s been like this for a few days with more to come..
yea right – there is no global warming. It is quite scarey though..fire danger just from walking on the parched earth!!

The heat will keep me from going to Kate Wolf Memorial Music Festival early in the day… just won’t be able to handle the heat.

We will get there later in the day… it still will be hot, but coming down.. Bruce doesn’t come on until 8:30.

Bruce Cockburn ticket for Kate Wolf festival

CockburnProject in anticipation of the new cd release to happen in a couple of weeks. The tour has already started, I will be writing a review of the show, if I get it together. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new CD –
Life Short Call Now, which should be here any day, to write a review and well just to hear it!!

Still not operating at 100%, but getting better, the tonsillectomy kicked my ass for sure.

Russel went to the bay area for a few days for Aikido, he really needed to do that, as he missed his annual Aikido retreat here with his teacher Frank Doran Sensei, while I was recovering from the surgery.

We have full week ahead of different projects to do here. And I need to focus back in on www.seinensilk.com.

And life moves on…

So after 2 weeks of being totally down, I could finally do a little work, not much.

The site I had been working on really wanted to go live by June 3 and we made that date! There is still much work to do on the site, but it was together enough for her to start telling people at the annual Summer Arts and Music Festival.

Go visit Seinensilk.com and see what I have been up too! (check out her gallery!)
This is Margriet at Summer Arts Fair:

As part of the moving from the town house to the land full time, it meant selling my 1971 VW bus. Well, selling is the wrong word, I practically gave this one away to another lover the VW bus world:

It was a end to an era, sort of sad. I used to live in my bus, travel, go places …but once I got here, that life style seem to end for me. Even leaving the town house after 16 years was also an end… lots of new beginnings though, and no regrets.

I will miss the town garden though, it takes care of itself now, and I can’t really have that type of planting here. All we have going now is the veggie garden with a few poppies and a few plants in pots I brought out. The sun here is like a blast furnace lots of days, so lush we won’t ever be, especially with having to pump our own water.

So this is where we are now.. made all the dead lines we had, and now we are unpacking, sorting, storing, and moving stuff from the shed to the house and back to the shed.. lots going to thrift store. Many things have been packed for many years, and we need to make room in the stoage shed for the stuff from town that we want to keep.

I have a feeling this type of thing will be on-going all summer, making this place really home. Getting some art up and textiles on the walls. We will get satellite TV soon and satellite internet by fall. I am still overwhelmed, not fully healed, and antsy to be done with it all, but hey living in paradise makes up for it.

Buck just outside our bathroom window. He had his whole crew with him that day..5 of ’em just laying around chewing their cuds. 🙂

Recovery is slow..

The last time I wrote here, I was getting ready for a tonsillectomy.
Well May 9 I had it done. I am 53. It was the most horrible physical experience I have ever had.

I knew it would be rough, but those words don’t really bring it into focus just what goes on with your body. The throat was as if a blow torch had been used down it.

The Dr. said, my tonsils were really bad, worse than he had thought at our initial meeting.. they were large with lots of folds and filled with tonsil stones .. the operation usually takes him about 20 min.. mine was a full hour.

I was in recovery getting the somewhat good, but could of been better pain meds, till 5pm.. when they kicked us out.

Then I was on liquid vicodin with tylenol, not all that effective for the pain I had. I still couldn’t use Advil because of the fear of hemorrhaging when the scabs come off 10 days or more later. So nothing for the head ache, the ear aches, which almost brought me too a withering blubbering idiot. (I probably was, according to Russel!).

Not to mention the neck ache and shoulders and back that always ache. And no food of course.. the first couple of days weren’t as bad as I thought they would be, I could get down some mashed potatoes, energy drinks, and such, but 3 days into it and I was just on ice water (for 8 days), and ice chips, with an ice pack around my neck.. and because the ice made the Eustachian(sp) tube hurt, the ears started really hurting so I used hot packs on them tied up with a scarf. And my circulation was low so I was wrapped up in a blanket and it was 92 in the shade here for a week!

And I didn’t really sleep..for 8 days I couldn’t lay down, or even recline much as I was so swollen inside that I couldn’t breathe out at all. My sinus was totally blocked. And if you mouth breathe in this condition the pain is so severe!! I would nod off and wake screaming, for meds, ice and heat..poor Russel he was my savior. He was at my side the whole time, which I thought would be 5 days…ended up being 2 weeks. I was using 10cc of the vicodin every 3 hours for over a week.

The main thing is to keep the throat moist..constantly be sipping water.

I did lose 10#s but most of it has come back on.

I still have trouble swallowing..things still don’t look right in there, and there is still swelling. I squeak when I swallow, but there is little pain. The sinus and upper palate in the back is where the sensation of having a big old glob of something in there ready to be expelled, is at. I am hoping that this too shall pass.

More info than you needed to know.
Would I do it again? Don’t know, haven’t healed enough to know if it was worth it yet. The one problem I had in my neck/throat area is gone though and that is great… I can once again look up at the stars and not hurt.

Tonsillectomy May 9

I am finally going to do this. Months of sore throat and pain and tonsil stones and I believe toxins entering my body. Wish me well and a fast recovery. I won’t be able to talk for awhile, and the pain I hear is just dreadful.

Nothing like having a full plate, I am in the middle of a website build, with at least many hours to go. We are in the last phases of moving from the little town house to here… Russel may have to do the rest by himself, as I may be down for anywhere from 10 days to a month (yikes!).

Russel is at the end of the school year with spring fever kids and lots of demonstrations to get together. His Aikido teacher, Frank Doran Sensei will be here for a weekend training May 20-21, which is always fun, but lots to prepare for as well.

And it went from rain rain rain 2 weeks ago, to 90’s last week…mud to dust just like that. We haven’t got the garden in, but the beds are mostly ready.

We took some big trees that were dying out and the back yard is full of timber and debris. Russel has started the firewood cutting, but there is a ton to do. And so many other things here, boxes are starting to pile up, water system needs work.. the list is endless.

So for the few of you who come here, that’s what I have been up too. I hope when I recover from this surgery and Russel is done with school and we are out of the town house, that all our energy and time will be here, either on the homestead or for me, on the web doing all the things I said i wanted to do last year.

Oh, and my camera is in the shop..in New Jersey of all places, at MackCamera, who i had an extended warranty with. It had developed dead pixels in the center of the ccd and it was very hard to even photoshop them out.

Oh, and Bruce Cockburn has a new cd [Life Short Call Now ] coming out in July and he starts touring in June…we have tickets for the Kate Wolf Festival June 25, more on that later.

More Julie Wolf at the Mateel

I can gush a bit more here than I can over at the CockburnProject.net where I just updated the front page.

So gush I will..

What can I say about her — she is a beautiful light, she is funny, honest, real and present. She does not make me feel uncomfortable, quite the opposite, I feel so relaxed around her. It’s a heart thing I guess. She gives (and gets) great hugs. I would love to get to know her. In her busy life, don’t know if there is time or room for that, but I hope so.

And she stole the show! The Mateel was buzzing with “Hey, I’ve seen her before, she is awesome! Wasn’t she here with Bruce Cockburn? Didn’t she used to play with Ani deFranco? She is so beautiful. She is so hot! ” You get the drift.

I hope she tours with Bruce and band later in the year. I really hope they play here at the Mateel Community Center.
I hope I get the chance to see her again. I hope we email each other.

Ok, done gushing now.

Julie Wolf at the Mateel

Ok, for those of you who may not remember all the Bruce Cockburn details, a couple of years ago now, he played here at our local Mateel Community Center with Julie Wolf.

Julie is an extraordinary musician, keyboardist, singer, player.
We met at that show and just had some fun, it was good.

Well, this year, when Bruce went into the studio to record, Julie went with him. How cool is that?!

Any way last night Russel was checking email and asked, “Do you know someone named Julie Wolf?” I’m thinking, yea I do, don’t delete!

And there she was in my in box offering comp tickets to a show she is doing with Shana Morrison (Van Morrisons’ daughter) at our Mateel Community Center this Friday, 17 March 2006.

This will be so fun to see her and hear her play. The simple fact that she remembered me enough to be able to email me is just too sweet. This woman is on the road playing with incredible people all the time. And recording her own amazing stuff.

And yes the Bruce connection is strong, I mean, that is what connected us in the first place.

I have asked her for a short interview to do later about the making of the new album with Bruce and band for the CockburnProject.
It will be great to get the insiders look at the process, and the band members are all upper crust high end musicians.

Now I just need to get the energy up to take these older bones out at night! Living in the hills is causing me to become even more reclusive, to go out even less than before, and unless it was Bruce or reggae, I never seemed to make it. This time I will. A lovely person has asked and I will go. Russel was planning on it, but it looks like he may have another commitment.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt