Man! I get all excited that someone's left me a comment and it turns out to be from...Jordan McElroy? Uh, thanks for leaving a comment.

Anyway, I totally forgot that it's Cesar Chavez day and there's no school. My friend aka Manila Galleon Stallion said he's gonna propose that continuing along the Cesar Chavez day in March he wants to propose "LARRY ITLIONG" day, every third Thursday of the month.

I've been getting more and more into the Kulintang thang. Master Kalanduyan teaches two beginners classes at SF State on Tuesday nights and Friday afternoons. Since I'm a little past that stage I could go and help tutor those who are a little more behind, which is what I usually do Tuesday nights. But he teaches a class to his TAs [most of whom are a part of the Ating Tao Drum Circle] on Thursday nights, which, because of my involvement in University Chorus, I end up missing due to having to work the late shift at work.

But lately, me, Princess Bel, Gilomonsta and Miss Ava usually head over to Manila Stallion's house for some practice/teaching/learning sessions. But the last few times we've been playing a lot more Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo? Geez, is there anything more addicting [yes, narcotics, weed and maybe sex]. The Stallion has the most experience but all of us are catching on pretty fast. The plan is to have Master Kalanduyan split up the songs that he knows between five or six of us [that way there's no pressure for one of us to learn everything.]

I'll be going to Sonic Lounge Friday night, a karaoke bar in Japan Town, located right above J Town Denny's to be exact. Hit me up if you wanna go!

jmaxl@aol.com

Makin' Mine Music

~No Tations~

What a beautiful day today!

Blogging from my DC home today [using our new cable modem] and I'm just getting over a fever that I had Friday night. I don't know what happened, it just hit me all of a sudden. You feel cold, but your hands and ears are burning hot. Your body aches and every time you take a step it feels as if your head is expanding. Yeah I had em all. But I ended up heading out to the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel to see my Ninong Nito who plays there every friday and saturday night. It was his daughter [my godsister's birthday]. She's turning 16 going on 25. With all the stuff she's had to deal with it's makes me happy that she's able to go out and have a good time and smile. I remember when she was born, and now she's able to drive. But that wasn't anything compared to my telling my Ninong that I was now 27. My father calls my Ninong a musical prodigy. He studies violin at the SF Conservatory of Music at a young age then taught himself guitar. He has perfect pitch and can scat his guitar solos [ala George Benson on the songs 'This Masquerade' or 'Broadway'].

Saturday was a little gathering at Molloys on Mission Road in Colma, right across the street from the cemetary, for a friend's birthday. All my folks from Alameda were there talking about their upcoming trip to Vegas. Personally I'm not that impressed with Vegas itself, but the people who go with me are the ones that make it worthwhile and fun. To me, we're not joining the party, we're bringing the party. But my upcoming Chambers Singers trip to Oregon means I won't be available for Vegas II. But I know I'm in for sure on the next one.

Make Mine Music

~No Tations~

Well, Mz. Jazzy Josie B is officially over.

We finished our last show on Saturday night. Thus ends my first official community musical theater production. My overall thought was that it could have been a lot better. Our last weekend we had only a drummer and an organ player [though they did do a great job.] But the sound system was once again not the best and the PR wasn't all that good either. The transitions could also have been better. It would also have been nice to have a stage crew and a tech crew, but turned out that we had to do it all ourselves. Luckily I played one of her gardeners so seeing me move furniture around you can technically say that I was still in character!

But still, I am very sad that it is done. Most of us did this show for free [one of the performers actually dropped out this last weekend] and we did work very hard to put on a good show. I worked with some very good people, including the bay area's top radio DJ from '77-'83. That was pretty cool to find out.

Thank you to all of you who made it out, I hope you enjoyed it. I'll let you know when the next one is.

Oh yeah, free concert at St. Mary's college in Moraga on Wednesday, March 26, at 730 pm. It's more like a choral exchange with choirs from Monte Vista, Campolindo, a Montana HS, St. Mary's and also the SF State Chamber singers. Contace me at jmaxl@aol.com for more info.

Make Mine Music

~No Tations~

Haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately, but I do still enjoy reading the other blogs on the site. Finally got the chance to meet another of the writers. After a few weeks of email tag, I finally got the chance to meet Mooncake. I met up with her at her apartment, then we rolled over to the Canvas Gallery for a hot chocolate [for her] and a double mocha bowl [for me.] It was cool and especially too because this was the first time we'd met [though it sorta felt like it wasn't]. Anyway, Ms. Mooncake, anytime you want some coffee let me know.

As for me, well, I've been kinda tired lately. I yelled at one of my best friends on Saturday because of lack of communication [which was nobody's fault]. Luckily, he was pretty faded so he wasn't too upset, because it could have been real bad had he decided to take me seriously. I met up with some of my friends at Club Whisper to partake in the party bus they rented, although this was the last club. After three drinks [and no food since 5 pm] my speech was garbled, the room was spinning, and the stomach was hurting. Yes indeedy, a near inebriation was taking place.

We got back to the South Shore Center parking lot in Alameda and decided to go to La Pinata #3 which is on Park Street and Santa Clara. Turns out that one of the dudes in the bus has actually with my two brothers and I at variously FedEx locations in the East Bay. Small @ss world.

In between shows on saturday was my Grandma Irene's 80th birthday party. She has five kids and they were all there, and also attending were most of the grandchildren [whom my brothers and I grew up with]. Now that we're older it's kinda cool kickin' back and just hanging, which is something we haven't done with any consistency since we were the kids running up and down the aisles at the family parties.

I was telling one of my cousins, "Now I know how freakin' annoying WE WERE when we were little kids!"
And he said, "I know! Since we've eaten now it's time to go run around!"

It's also interesting to see how much people change. Theo, Mr @ss, and JHips are three brothers [similar to me and my two] who we've become quite close with [well at least with Theo and Mr @ss] They attended San Jose State University, while my brothers and I went to SF State. There's another set of siblings, Drea, Ohm and Chris, who moved out to Oakley [near Antioch]. They've been in Oakley since the mid 80s. After they left, there were less and less family functions, and then when Grandma Irene moved out of her house on Murray Street, my family pretty much didn't see any of them. But all of a sudden we were in college, and by hanging out with some of the pin@ys here in SF, we ended up crossing paths pretty often with the SJ crowd, of which Theo, Mr @ss and JHips were a part of. We got reacquainted and found we had a lot in common, and we do kick it every once in awhile. On the other hand, Drea moved to Cincinatti, Chris ended up in Florida and Ohm was doing his own thing. Though we all grew up together it's a lot harder to get through to Ohm and Chris, though Drea is still the 'older sister I never wanted'.

A little later we had a little music/dancing session with Ninong Ted on keyboard, Uncle Czar/Uncle Bobby on drums, Uncle Ted on congas and my dad on bass. Since I've pretty much shed my singing inhibitions I joined them onstage for a round of oldies. They got me to sing "Route 66" and then I stayed [and missed the first Act of Jazzy Josie B] so I could tear it up on "Shout" by the Eisley Brothers. I had so much fun singing and seeing the family that I really had to force myself to leave.

Makes me realize how much family means to me. I told my brother, "Our weddings are gonna be tight!"
Shyah. That's WHEN we get married. Kinda hard to without someone to marry first.

Makin Mine Music

~No Tations~

Chalk up Week 2 of Mz. Jazzy Josie B.

I showed up late on Friday because my ride was late due to the rain we had. But luckily I'm only in Act II, meaning we really don't need to be there until intermission. Friday went pretty well without a hitch. Then my friend Lex and I went to have some drinks in Berkeley [I finally got to eat at Top Dog.]

We were without Joe Bouillion, Josie's bandleader/husband, who also became an unexpected father of the 12 children who made up Josephine Baker's 'Rainbow Tribe' of children of different ethnicities/nationalities [take your pick!] But we were able to cut out his scenes and still make a pretty good show.

Saturday's night show was great. Unfortunately that was the last show for our musical director Herb Geller, who is headed back to Germany to make good on a gig that he had already moved twice previously. We headed out to Everett and Jones in Jack London Square and hung out for awhile, swaying our bodies to the cool sounds of Birdleg and the Tight Knit Blues Band. Then we rolled down to the Craig's [our Hammond B-3 organ player] to a late night of jamming. I got to sing a little bit and then we looked up to see that it was 330 am.

We bid our goodnights and then I headed home to Daly City.

NEXT WEEK IS OUR LAST WEEK!
email me at jmaxl@aol.com for more info!

The First Weekend of Mz. Jazzy Josie B is now done.

It didn't go bad. Saturday's shows were definitely better than the Friday one.

An old friend came Saturday night and then we celebrated at Holy Cow and that bar right next to it by getting pretty freakin faded. But then we split a philly cheesesteak at V Cafe next door and I was fine, although she ended up yakking at Alameda Business Parkway. I hate driving while intoxicated but I had no choice as she MADE ME get drunk with her!

My throat is tore up. A week full of singing and three shows [plus about 5 cigarettes -- hey, they prolong the buzz!] make me think that I need to rest my voice at least one of the days this week.

Makin' Mine Music

~No Tations~

The first performance of Mz. Jazzy Josie B is in the bag.

Not a bad one. If you've been in a PCN [Pilipino Cultural Night] this show was the equivalent of the Matinee performance, which, as we all know [and Ms. Voodoochild will concur with] is just a glorified dress rehearsal. Basically that's what happened tonite.

I decided not to drive to Berkeley, and since Ashby BART is one block down [albeit a very long block!] I figured I'd take public trans. So I actually skipped lunch and got off work at 530 so I could go home right quick and put together my wardrobe [keep in mind this IS a community production] and shoot to BART. Hopefully I'd catch the 6:18 pm train which would be a direct shot to Ashby.

NOT. The power was shut down between DC and Colma stations so the trains were out of service because they were being used as tow trucks. I finally got onto a train at 645 but I still had to transfer at MacArthur station which was a 15 minute wait. So I showed up around 755 [showtime is at 8]. My numbers were good though. The lead part of ACT II was sick so he actually had to sit out two of his numbers and he's not doing the matinee shows, so one of the other cast members was trying to get me to learn the lines -- basically the part is there for the taking. Besides, the Josephine Baker of ACT II is pretty, so I wouldn't mind pretending to be her 'husband' [free kisses? hmmm!].

We'll see how it all turns out. We have two shows later today [Saturday]. 230 and 8 pm but I'm getting down to the Theater early because I'm actually cramming another song into my performances.

But now I'm gonna go watch The Matrix cause I haven't seen it in awhile.

Make Mine Music

~No Tations~

Here's what's happened to me musically the past week:

2/22: Keem and Lex's Karaoke Blowout
- Good turnout. If not for us 2/3 of that bar would have been empty
2/23: ATDC practice
2/24: 11 - 1 Chamber Singers Rehearsal
2/25: 11 - 1225 University Chorus Rehearsal
8 - 1030 Rehearsal for Jazzy Josie B
2/26: 11 - 1 Chamber Singers Rehearsal
2/27: 11 - 1225 University Chorus Rehearsal
2/28: 1230 - 6 All Day Chamber Singers Rehearsal
3/1 : 2 - 430 Jazzy Josie B Dress Rehearsal
3/2 : 4 - 630 Performance of the Oakland/Alameda Community Chorus at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Oakland

WHEW!!