Happy Holidays from the Beatles!

28 Years Ago....

This is a day late...28 years ago (although it still seems like yesterday) John Lennon died.

Holiday Party!

Here is a flyer I made for the ISO NYC Holiday Party....

We Have a Winner!

History in the Making!

Harlem residents voting, NYC

I voted today. Did you? I voted at PS 128 on West 169th Street. I voted using one of those very old lever machines-you pull the red lever to the right before you vote and then you pull it back to the left when you finish. Regardless of your political beliefs, this is an historical moment. I never thought I would see a black president-of course he hasn't won yet but from what everyone is saying...we should have our first African American president tomorrow.

Resisitng Empire

If you are interested in Iraq and what the mainstream media is not telling you...be sure to check out the tour dates of Resisting Empire.
http://www.resistingempire.org/Fall_speaking_tour/Home.html
I'm currently reading Blackwater-The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army by Jeremy Scahill who is speaking on the tour (a Brooklyn resident!). I'll be posting a review of Blackwater soon.

10 CDs

I've been playing around with the idea of making a top 10 list of songs, albums, bands with my main obstacle being that it would be hard to narrow it down to just 10. And so I've decided to make a list of 10 albums I like, as of today. My thoughts will probably change tomorrow so this is not set in stone. These are just 10 albums, excuse me, CDs(!) that I'm fond of. Most of these are albums from the past (when we still had albums!). I'll try to put something recent on...but as many of you know, I'm a bit of a retro girl (and that's putting it mildly). I grew up in the 80s where people were listening to Duran Duran and The Cure. I, however, in my continual quest to be different, was listening to the Beatles and 13th Floor Elevators. And even today...I'm still like that. I'm now obsessed with movies and music from the 1970s. I'm also obsessed with making lists (I am the "girl of 100 lists")! So here are 10 albums-some of them you've heard of...some of them will be new. All are available on CD. I hope you find one or two that you like:)


Shelter-Lone Justice
I first became interested in Lone Justice because Maria McKee, the lead singer, guitar player, songwriter etc., is the sister of Bryan MacLean who was in the group Love in the 1960s (see below). Lone Justice had its roots in the country, punk, rockabilly sound of the 1980s. Their first album did quite well but on their second album, Shelter, they went more for what critics saw as a "traditional" pop sound. However, I disagree, and I think Shelter is one great album. And when I listen to it, I can still get a hint of their early inspirations. Maria McKee kind of reminds me of Janice, Joni Mitchell, with a better vocal quality of Stevie Nicks all rolled into one. Reflected is my favorite song.



Rubber Soul-The Beatles
I will always have to put the Beatles somewhere no matter what kind of list I make! I picked Rubber Soul because...well..I felt like it so bugger off! I love the album cover. Yes, the Beatles were getting stoned...you can just see it in their eyes. This was pre-Sgt.Pepper so the boys were departing from their happy pop I Want to Hold Your Hand style and delving into musical genius. My favorites are Nowhere Man (because that song describes me so well); Girl and when you hear John suck in his breath..it's almost enough to make me rethink Paul as my favorite Beatle; and In my Life...because this song..it just says it all.


Rumors-Fleetwood Mac
Before I ever loved the Beatles, I loved Fleetwood Mac. When I was about 11/12, I wanted my hair to look like Stevie Nicks, I wanted to dress like Stevie Nicks...and fly around in a make believe world. There is so much drama going on in this album. Lindsey and Stevie were breaking up after 9 years together and Christine and John McVie were divorcing during the making of Rumors. You can feel the tension in the songs-Go Your own Way and Dreams especially. My favorites are Gold Dust Woman and Songbird.


Forever Changes-Love
I'm sure many of you have never heard of this band. When I was in my teens, my three favorite bands were the Beatles, Stones and The Who. I then started realizing that there was more music from the 1960s that I hadn't yet discovered. One of those bands was Love. I see Love as being part of the psychedelic punk/garage band explosion that happened in the mid to late 60s in Los Angeles. My favorite story about Love is that they were Jim Morrison's favorite band and he used to always say that he hoped they (meaning the Doors) made it as big as Love someday. How can I describe Forever Changes? Very psychedelic, most definitely acid (LSD) inspired, dreamlike. My favorites are You Set the Scene, The Daily Planet and Your Mind and We Belong Together. Bryan MacLean is the brother to Maria McKee (see above). He has since passed away as has Arthur Lee, the genius behind the band.


Parallel Lines-Blondie
Ah...Blondie. Deborah Harry is the bomb. I'm still hoping I'll run into her someplace in Manhattan, maybe at Staples? I was very young when Heart of Glass and One Way or Another came out and was instantly hooked. Deborah seemed so incredibly cool to me with her bleached blond hair. After I heard Parallel Lines I immediately went out and bought the band's previous albums-Blondie and Plastic Letters both of which I also recommend. Blondie was one of the bands along with the Ramones who played at CBGBs in the 1970s. My favorite songs are 11:59, Pretty Baby and Sunday Girl.


Play-Moby
I love Moby especially the fact that he's a hardcore vegan. This is a great CD-the music is organic and fuses (sorry for using two overly used words in one sentence-meaning organic and fusion!) techno, blues, gospel and funk. Bodyrock is full of energy and is a great one to dance to; Moby reveals his spiritual side in Natural Blues; and Porcelain is just a gorgeous song.


Automatic for the People-REM
This is an album I continually come back to and as I add and delete songs from my ipod, the ones from Automatic for the People tend to stay there. REM used to be so huge and they've kind of faded away although I hear their most recent CD is good and they did get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. My favorite songs are Sweetness Follows, Ignoreland and Nightswimming. I like their politics too.


Star-Belly
I first heard Belly in the mid-90s or so. The band only had two albums, the first one being Star. Tanya Donelly, the lead singer and songwriter is an amazing talent. She gets a lot of her inspiration from dreams and fairy tales-my kind of person. This is a gem, a classic..every song is amazing with so much going on below the surface. The opening acoustic Someone to Die For is extremely haunting and a great introduction to what follows. Dusted is a disturbing song about child abuse or kidnapping. My favorite is Every Word-I can really relate to that song right now.



The Piper at the Gates of Dawn-Pink Floyd
Before I ever heard of Syd Barrett, I tended to think of The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon when Pink Floyd was mentioned. Thanks to Tim Storm (formally of the Gargoyles) who made me these very cool tapes many years ago. On several of them, he put tracks from Piper. Syd Barrett was the founding member of Pink Floyd (he's dead too!) and will probably go down in musical history as a footnote (Brian Jones is another footnote too..don't even get me started on him!). Like Love (see above) this album is extremely psychedelic but it's a definite classic-good music to play if you're on an acid trip (only if you're into that type of thing). Lucifer Sam and Bike are my favorites.


Seeing Things-Jakob Dylan
I managed to put a 2008 release on this list. I'm a big fan of the Wallflowers so it was great to hear Jakob Dylan was working on an acoustic solo CD. He's a great songwriter but his lyrics tend to be on the somber side and a little depressing. My favorites are Evil is Alive and Well and War is Kind.

Hope you enjoyed my list of 10 CDs I like as of today (I can always change my mind, you know!). Please let me know of a favorite CD that you have...and put them in the comments section so others will know about them.

Things to do on Saturday Night-Part 1

The Metropolitan Museum http://www.metmuseum.org/ is the bomb on Saturday Night. It's opened till 9:00pm on Friday and Saturday. It's less crowded in the evenings but at the same time, many more interesting people show up. The best thing to do is get a bunch of artists together and sketch in the Roman statue or Egyptian section...and then go out later. Yet another fun thing to do on a Saturday night in Manhattan.

Free Market Failure

Here is flyer I've made for our next public political meeting...

The Great Gene Hackman

Tonight I was late for both my political meeting, meditation class and bookclub. No, I wasn't planning on doing all three! Two days ago I planned on going to the bookclub but I didn't start the book. Last night, I was planning on going to my political meeting but I didn't do the homework and I was too late for my meditation class tonight so instead I went to Borders to see Gene Hackman. He has a new book co-written with a friend of his, Daniel Lenihan, Escape from Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War. I had no intention of buying the book and I have no intention of ever reading it. I just wanted to see the real Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey is no Gene Hackman!) in person. He was just walking by when I got to the Borders event area and I thought "oh, that's Gene Hackman". It's quite fun to see someone in person that you're used to seeing on the big screen. Gene has done some great movies-some of my favorites:

Mississippi Burning (on my top ten list)
Superman
The Conversation
Bonnie and Clyde
The Birdcage (he was so funny in that!)
The French Connection
Get Shorty

He was very funny but I got the feeling from what he said that he is pretty much done with Hollywood and his acting career. He basically said that he's getting too old for Hollywood.

George Clooney Couldn't Even Save the Day!

Last Tuesday, I went to the emergency room at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. I had been suffering from flu-like systems for close to 10 days: nausea, heartburn,and other stomach ailments, (which I won't mention at the risk of being too graphic) severe neck and shoulder pain, and a rash on my lower arms and around my eyes and ears. I had gone to the doctor the week before and he took some blood tests for an ulcer which would take two weeks for the results. In the mean time, he gave me medicine for nausea and told me to take Prilosec for my heartburn. That was Thursday and I was still very sick Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I started to get scared because I wasn't getting any better. On Tuesday morning, several people encouraged me to go to the emergency room and since I live only two blocks away from the hospital, I really had no excuse not to go. However, I still didn't want to go-I had heard so many horror stories about emergency rooms. People wait 10 hours to get seen and feeling the way I did, I really couldn't imagine waiting 10 hours to see a doctor. But I thought that maybe today wouldn't be busy and I could get in and out in a couple of hours. HA!

I went in around 10:00 in the morning and I didn't leave the hospital until about 6:30. So much for wishing and hoping. I sat in the general waiting area for about 4.5 hours and if you ask me what I did during that time I couldn't tell you. I didn't feel like reading or writing and I couldn't take a walk because they might have called my name so most of the time was spent staring off into space.

I talked to a Homecare worker who had brought in the woman she took care of and evidently, this wasn't the first time she had brought her to the emergency room. The homecare worker said that this woman was a bit of a hypochondriac. One woman came in who seemed to have hurt her leg-she could hardly walk and she had all her possessions with her. At one point she stood up, eyes closed and swayed and was like that for at least 20 minutes. I don't think she was all there. I then saw a young man who was in a wheelchair wheeled in by his girlfriend. He was maybe in his early 20's. He looked very sick, in a lot of pain, shivering and was holding on to what I think was a blood transfusion. His girlfriend tried to comfort him and she told me it was his kidneys. I saw one woman, maybe in her 40s, come in around 2:00 complaining of chest pains. There were at least 20 people in the waiting room throughout the day. The ones that were waited on were immediately replaced by more people coming through the doors.

I kept checking with the front desk every hour to see what time I would be called and to make sure they hadn't forgotten about me. Many people came after me and got waited on. The man with the kidney problem was one that came after me but got waited on right away. I wasn't an emergency-I understand that but I still felt awful. At one point I was #5, then I was #3 and then I was finally called in. The nurse who waited on me (along with another patient) was very nice but he was rattled. The ER seemed to be short on staff that day but full of overworked nurses. The nurse took all the relevant tests. I didn't have a temperature and my blood pressure was normal and I thought that now, finally I would see a doctor.

No such luck. I then was sent into a big room with about 20 patients in beds, some in private areas with curtains, others just stuck in the middle of the room. I was given a chair and was placed in the middle of this big room. The first doctor I saw after about an hour was a med student (I think). He was nice enough but seemed surprised that I had come in and told me that I really didn't need to come in with my symptoms (was that supposed to make me feel better?). They took lots of blood and other samples from me (which I won't go into due to the graphic nature if you know what I mean but I will tell you this: one sample that is normally taken lying down had to be done standing up because there were no beds for me (lucky me!). They also gave me 2 Tylenols for my migraine which was just starting (lucky me again!). It didn't help that I hadn't been eating very much for the past couple of days-that always triggers my migraines. They also gave me an IV in case of dehydration. I couldn't leave until I saw the supervisor of the first doctor which took another 2 hours and then I had to wait for the test results. They said I could leave but it wasn't recommended until they had a complete picture of my health which included the test results. I felt like I received good care but I got the feeling I was being talked down to by both doctors. At one point, I told the supervisor my symptoms-I referred to them as flu-like and he immediately asked me "how do you know it's the flu?" but with a slightly snotty attitude. Like I was trying to play doctor-whatever. The good news was that all my tests were negative. They even took a test for an ulcer or bleeding in that area which was negative.

As I was leaving this big room from hell I passed by the young man with the kidney problem. He was lying on a bed stuck in the middle of the room with no privacy. He looked very pale and was still shivering. I told him I was sorry and walked out. I'm still thinking about him. I hope he's ok.

I left around 6:30 feeling better because the ordeal was over. I was also relieved that all my tests were negative. But I still felt very weak and my migraine was extremely painful. I hope I don't have to go to the ER again in my lifetime. But unfortunately, I might have go again someday.

Was is really a "lost weekend"?

May Pang. Who is she? For those of you who aren't familiar with Beatle lore (Oh, I can hear some of you start to snooze but stay with me-this will get interesting!). Sometime in 1973, Yoko kicked John Lennon out and said he needed to have an affair and find himself (I kid you not! John and Yoko have always been a bit eccentric). Yoko intended for him to be gone for only a couple of weeks but it turned out to be close to 2 years, famously known now as John's "lost weekend". Well, John found himself with May Pang and partied hard with the likes of Keith Moon, Harry Nielson and Elton John. I was at Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago and I noticed an advertisement that said that May Pang would be there on March 13 for a talk and signing, and I thought to myself, "oh, fun"!

Tonight I decided to skip my weekly political meeting to see May Pang. I really didn't know anything about her book only that it was photographs taken by May with narration about her relationship with John. For those of you who like trivia-May is the one saying/whispering "John" in #9 Dream from the Walls and Bridges album (thanks sis!).



When I got to Barnes and Noble I, of course, had to use the porcelain facilities, as a certain someone I know would say, and all of them were closed except one. I'm waiting in this cramped bathroom and in walks these two English women and I looked at one of them and she looked just like Cynthia Lennon, John's first wife and mother of Julian. (I know, most of you are probably thinking, "who cares about Cynthia Lennon" but this is my blog so just bugger off, to quote the Brits, and I'm saying this in a very cheeky way so don't take offense. Believe me, if you love the Beatles like I do then Cynthia Lennon is a big deal!). So I'm thinking that it can't be Cyn-is she here to see May speak? But why would the ex-wife of John Lennon be friends with one of his lovers? Well, it did turn out to be Cynthia and evidently her and May are the best of friends. I kind of regretted not saying anything to her in the bathroom but what would I have said..."I thought John was a real jerk the way he left you for Yoko". Yeah, I'm sure she would have really appreciated that. Besides, bathroom time is private time!

May Pang was very entertaining

Some interesting tidbits from May...

-Phil Spector shot a gun off in the studio during one of John's recording sessions (a foreshadow of what was to come for Phil Spector and sadly, for John too)
-John was going to meet with Paul in 1975 in New Orleans to write songs but he ended up going back to Yoko instead. What could have been? We'll never know...
-John was supposed to play a show with George while he was on tour (was it the "Concert for Bangladesh"not sure-my Beatle trivia is rusty these days) but for some legal reason John could not play with George because the Beatles had not yet been officially dissolved-the offical papers had not been signed at that time. This might have been the last time John and George saw each other. When May told this story it brought tears to my eyes-the idea of the Beatles being "officially" dissolved struck me as so sad.

When I took a picture of May and Cynthia, I actually did tell Cynthia one thing. She wrote a little paperback book many years ago called, A Twist of Lennon. I told her it was the first book about the Beatles that I read (not really true but it was close) and she said something like "that was a looong time ago".

I saw 50 year-olds with Beatle jackets, I overheard people talking about Beatlefest...I also saw this kind of geeky couple-the girl had a Beatle hat on (believe me, it takes one to know one. I used to have a Beatle hat too-Yikes). I saw this couple I had seen at the Idina Menzel signing a couple weeks before. They had a ton of stuff for Cyn and May to sign (just like with Idina) and May seemed to know them (and Idina seemed to know them too-what the hell!). Between the two of them, they had bought about 12 of May's books and at $25 a pop, that's more than $300 and they didn't look like they had money.

I was obsessed with the Beatles in my youth but I rarely go to any kind of Beatle "event". To be honest, the whole talk was kind of sad especially seeing the photos. John just died way to young...

Where would you like to go?

A couple weeks ago I went to the NY Times Travel Show at the Javits Center in NYC. I don't intend to travel anytime soon but it sounded like an interesting event. The show consisted of hundreds of travel vendors representing every part of the world you could imagine (except for maybe Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. I don't think I saw Israel represented either). They were giving away luscious brochures (some quite large-I have one of Africa called Simply Safari which is about 100 pages) filled with beautiful pictures. I would just saunter up to each vendor and quickly take information otherwise, the person at the booth would try sell you a nice little travel package (little did they know that I was the wrong person to sell to!).

There were also talks, demonstrations and dancing (for instance, Puerto Rico had dancers throughout the day). I sat and listened to a woman talk about her cheese travels-OMG talk about boring! but she did give everyone cheese samples (very smelly and rich-i had to throw mine away but the pears were good!). I also listened to Rick Steves talk for a bit. From what I could gather since I arrived after he started talking, his presentation was about terrorism and traveling abroad. A lot of his political views came out and at one point I thought it was more of a political talk than anything else (please Rick, tell us how you really feel!!!). I couldn't help but wonder if some people in the audience were just hoping that he would talk about how to get all their crap in one suitcase!

One funny part was when I was walking through the United States section and this guy forced a big catalogue of New Jersey on me but as soon as I was out of eye shot of him, I left the catalogue on an empty chair. Why the hell would anyone want to go to frigging New Jersey for their vacation!? I picked up catalogues/brochures of Korea, Greece, Lithuania, Zambia, Indonesia, China, Macau, Italy, Alberta, Hudson River Valley, Asia, Russia, India, Grenada and many more. There are some great photos to practice my drawing on too!

I couldn't help but wonder, walking around the Javits Center, that if I had all the money in the world, where would I go? They had a film playing on a big screen TV at the Alberta/Canada area. I never even thought of going to Canada but this film had me literally drooling-it looks like an absolutely gorgeous place.

If I could just take off today for any place in the world it would probably be London because I've been wanting to go there for so long. And now that I'm in NYC, London is closer and cheaper. However, if I could pick someplace farther away or more exotic or adventurous I would have to say Africa. I would love to someday see the gorillas and chimpanzees and also go on a safari. Zambia looks nice. Well, maybe someday!! Maybe I could get a job where I travel around the world buying beautiful fabric for famous designers!

I know you didn't have the privilege of going to a travel show but where would you like to go and why? And try to think of someplace you've never been to. What do you think you would learn by going to this place?

Let it Snow!

One reason I wanted to live on the East Coast was to experience the four seasons. I was a little nervous about the winters in NYC. Being from California, I'm not used to cold weather. However, this winter has been very very good to me-not too cold. Snow came several times in February and it was absolutely beautiful. But ask any New Yorker how they feel about the snow and you most likely will get a negative response-they don't like it! And it's because of the aftermath and clean-up that comes with it. I don't care what they say-I love the snow even if it turns to grey mush 24 hours later. Here are some pictures taken from my apartment and Central Park.

Idina and the $100 ticket

Many years ago I read a great book called Wicked-The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. http://www.amazon.com/Wicked-Times-Witch-Harper-Fiction/dp/0061350966/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204853943&sr=1-2The story follows the friendship between Elphaba (the wicked witch of the west or the green one) and Glinda, the good witch, through college up until Dorothy appears. It's really a hoot of a read especially if you like a different take on a favorite childhood fairy tale. Sometime later, I found out that they were making a Broadway musical based on the book and I remember thinking how great it would be to see it.

My top priority the second time I visited NYC in 2003 was to see Wicked and I did! I went the night after opening night and it was the best $100 I spent in one pop (which I don't do very often). I was in the 4th/5th row right in the middle and there were no basketball players sitting in front of me!


I didn't know much about the cast going into the theater only that Kristin Chenowith was playing Glinda and some girl named Idina Menzel, from the original Broadway run of "Rent", was playing Elphaba. Well, Elphaba/Idina stole the show because she was the underdog. The audience was rooting for Elphaba because Glinda and all the Munchkins were so damn mean to her! I remember the end of Act I when Elphaba was singing Defying Gravity...

So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky
As someone told me lately -
Ev'ryone deserves the chance to fly
And if I'm flying solo
At least I'm flying free
To those who'd ground me
Take a message back from me -

Tell them how I
Am defying gravity!
I'm flying high
Defying gravity!
And soon I'll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!



and right when she flew up to the top of the stage I knew then that she was singing specifically to me (and to the hundreds of others in the audience!). It was a great night and another example of how a little creativity-seeing something creative or doing something creative can never hurt. And I personally think it makes us better people. Yes, art is very very important to life!


I got a chance to see Idina a week ago at Borders Columbus Circle at the Time Warner Building where she was signing her new CD. She seemed very nice and much prettier in person.

Oh, she also has very good taste-she's married to Taye Diggs!

Richard Warren Mangan

June 8, 1920-January 26, 2008

My father died today. He was 87. He was diagnosed with cancer in early January. The picture above is of my mother and father on their wedding day. They were divorced some 38 years ago. Richard Mangan was born in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin and went to Whitefish Bay High School. He was in the Army Air Force from 1940/41-1945/46 during WWII. He was an instructor pilot who taught young men how to fly B24s. When the war was over, he attended Marquette University Medical School and after that he started a private practice in Corona, California around 1954. He retired in the 1980's and there's no doubt that he helped thousands of patients.

He is survived by his wife Marti, six children, three stepchildren and many grandkids.

My dad and I were not very close. I was adopted at four months and my parents divorced soon after this. I really only saw him at Christmas. It's hard to deal with death especially when your relationship with the person who passed on is rather confusing. However, I am glad that I was able to stay in contact somewhat with him especially in the last couple of years through letters and phone calls. I will think about him often.