We’re going to Tennessee with Jennifer Espinoza.

8 July 2011

 

 

Big Brother and the Holding Company are going to Maryville and Dunlap, Tennessee, this weekend with Jennifer Espinoza. Jennifer is from San Antonio, Texas, and she has a big voice. Four years ago when she was 14, she sang Piece of My Heart with us and she was a sensation. Now she’s all grown up and i hope we will do a lot of gigs together.

 

 

This is a portrait I did of Megan McCauley who recorded a song that I wrote, Shining Glory, and she did such a great version of it.

 

In an earlier writing, I mentioned that Louis Jordan and Chuck Berry were musicians who transcended their genre and time because of their humor, their narrative ability and their just plain great musicianship. Little did I know then that Chuck took the unforgettable, immortal guitar intro to Johnny B. Goode directly from Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t That Just Like A Woman.” In Louis Jordan’s band, the whole horn section played the riff, but it’s definitely recognizable. Chuck took it and made it so beautiful on the guitar. Listen to Louis Jordan. He’s as much fun as Chuck Berry is. These are two people who make life worth living.

 

People at Intel say that microprocessor speed will douible every eighteen months for at least ten years, but i think they are being conservative. The computer will evolve faster than that and one day not too far off either, it will surpass us. Do you know the word “singularity?” Let’s just say for now that computers are evolving faster than we are. It’s only a matter of time, and probably not much time, before computers surpass humans in intelligence and even intuition. At some point, computers and humans will probably became one species.

 

Cage Okada’s contemporary Hokusai photograph.

 

Everyday People. Don Wehr and Sly Stone.

 

Erin Homs and Emily Bullis Rollins. They call me Uncle Sam.

 

Many people who keep a gun at home for safety are the same ones who refuse to wear a seat belt.

 

Women know less than men but they understand more.

 

Sam Andrew and Alex Call.

 

The lines at the bottom of The Statue of Liberty, composed in 1883 by New York City poet Emma Lazarus, a Sephardic Jew, whose work was praised by Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, were almost completely ignored by critics and public of the day. She wrote the lines for a literary auction and they expressed her belief in America as a refuge for the downtrodden. Sixteen years after her death from cancer in 1887, the sonnet’s final five lines were cast in bronze, and they cast a spell over us.

 

The distance between your fingertips when your arms are outstretched at shoulder level is equal to your height. The drawing called Vitruvian Man, attributed to Leonardo, but much older, dramatically illustrates many such proportions.

 

 

The Mission District meets Long Island. Don Wehr and Carmine Appice.

 

My mother’s parents.

 

Michael J. Fox. is a friend of mine. He’s a public defender in San Francisco. Good man.

 

Poison Ivy: Leaflets three, Let it be.

 

In Puritan times, to be born on a Sunday was interpreted as a sign of great sin.  Of course, everything was interpreted as a sign of great sin, so it really seemed like nothing was a sign of great sin, even a great sin. You know how that works?

 

Sam Andrew was on one side in the Civil War. Joseph Mann was on the other. What if they shot each other and both died? Think of all the worthy people who have died in wars, never to reach their potential, not to mention all of their issue who would otherwise never have existed. What a loss. We hear in each biography of a great person who barely escapes death at several junctures. Life is so tenuous, accidental, coincidental, arbitrary.

 

Don Wehr using his middle finger to tell Bill Graham something. Bill’s mouth is open, but it looks as if Don is holding his own here. No mean feat. And eating a popsicle at the same time? My hero. Go, Don, go.

 

Give in to temptation. Any old person will tell you that it’s things you didn’t do that you will regret.

 

Among the numerous examples of gloves discovered in norhtern parts of ancient Europe are “bag gloves,” sheaths of animal skin that reach to the elbow, and isn’t this a good idea that should be brought back?

 

The Happy Stone.

 

Churches welcome all denominations, but greatly prefer tens and twentys.

 

(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock (1954) Bill Haley and His Comets. Danny Cedrone was the guitarist on this and he played a solo on the tune that is still amazing. For this, he received $ 21. (It must be said that Danny had already played that solo on another tune, Rock This Joint, recorded in 1952, so, come on, did he really deserve that fat $ 21 paycheck? He was recycling. He was years ahead of his time. In every way.

 

Doh Wehr and Greg Errico.

 

Carlos Santana and Reese Marin at Don Wehr’s Music City, Columbus Avenue, San Francisco.

 

Whatever you believe in, I hope it makes you a better person to everyone in your life… including your cat and dog.

 

Aynsley Dunbar’s historic kit

 

 

Not patriotic, matriotic. Love your whole mother earth, not just one country on her surface.

 

Kate Russo playing a D chord. She could be, but probably is not, playing Down On Me.

 

Chad Quist with Sophia Ramos and another beautiful woman in red.

 

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then 1 1/100th of this canvas should be worth ten words, so what would they be?

 

Janis Joplin doing her famed snow angel ritual.

 

Elise Piliwale with The Theatre of Light.

 

Kathi McDonald looking pretty darned cute.

 

Chuck Jones and James Gurley, 1966.

 

Walk, Don’t Run was written by Johnny Smith, the jazz guitarist.

 

Albert Einstein couldn’t speak fluently when he was nine. His parents thought he was mentally retarded. Probably what was happening was that he had so many thoughts crowding in all the time, that he couldn’t choose one path for speech. This must happen to all of us at one time or another. David Peel and Lenny Kaye.

 

Elise Piliwale who was born in the same hospital as Barack Obama.

 

Greg Errico, Camen and Don Wehr.

 

In Germany in the XVIth century, the first pharmacopoeia was published and it listed hundreds of drugs and medicinal chemicals with explicit directions for preparing them. Drugs that had previously varied widely  in concentrations, and even in constituents, were now stringently defined by the text, which spawned versions in Switzerland, Italy and England. This was the beginning of the modern era in pharmacology.

 

High in Greece.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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