HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (AND BOOOKER T AND NEIL YOUNG AND YES, EVEN TONYA HARDING):
elia is treating me to a massage here in berkeley. last night i spent the evening having dinner with loris, martha, marcus and elia (y negra, of course) in lake merritt, wearing my 45rpm record spindle that judy wishart gave me as an early present. ON TO SPAIN: Alone Records in Madrid is set to start distributing my record, HELP WANTED and FRED DRAKE'S TWICE SHY, in europe. fre always said to elia and i "Let's Go to Spain!" so here we go. i spent the night last week mixing up a BRAND nEW Ministry of Fools recording of AS TEARS GO BY - discovering after billy bizeau had transferred the 16 track analog to proTools, that FRed had sung the words to almost the whole song (where he ereased himself or otherwise stopped singing,i used the voices of Robert Floyd and my own)...it was so nice to sit in the quiet Rancho as the sun rose, hearing Fred sing the prescient words: "I SIT AND WATCH THE CHILDREN PLAY, DOING THINGS I USED TO DO..." as I sat there, doing things he used to do...negra and i drove up the 99 through california, west to berkeley...with many signs along the way: personalized license plates which read LETITBE and BEHRNOW (i think that's how they spelled it...) either way, i think i'll call my next album : LET IT BE HERE NOW (with the subtitle: They are Few, We Are One)...i wonder if anyone reads this thing...no matter, i'd write anyway. sunday night i perform back at the beatnik for the last time this year...in a benefit for Linda Sibio's Cracked Eggs performance group...did i tell you that Elia Arce's Fruitvale Project was tender genius...she has been working so hard and the work showed up on stage...still, she doesn't need to be training kids anymore. She is after all a supertsar in her own right...whereever she may go from here. my heart goes with her ALWAYS!!!!