Playing Music Tag

Baton
1. The person who passed the baton to you?

Jean Vengua at OKIR. This one was the one that's been lingering the longest. Sorry for taking so long, Jean. (BTW, is Margo Ponce the same one who graduated from Berkeley? If so, tell her hello & give her an abrazo for me. Ask her to visit me on the blog)

2. Total volume of music files on your computer.

I have no idea (scroll down for my Book Meme post, re: Who counts?) Not much. All legally & ethically attained, I might add. Besides, I'm too much of a techno mensa to do otherwise. Most of my audio files on the computer are mpgs of poets reading. Next, a lot from my Memphis Minnie collection (15 cds), I made a cd of a 12 song progression that my screenplay is structured on, beginning with "Frankie Jean" and ending on "I'm a DownHome Girl (And I'm Tired of Fooling With You)!" My son has Deep Purple's Greatest Hits on my 'puter (cool guitar riffs, so I let 'em stay). The rest is radio playlists of Classic Blues and lots of radio streams, mostly blues and little college stations. Coyote's Radio Free Boulder. My brother, Steve Cervantes's music, I'm trying to figure out how to post something from The Journey of Quetzalcoatl to play when you open my website I'm still designing. And lastly, my "ladies": ever Joni, Tracy Chapman, Susan Tedeschi, Bonnie Raitt, Ferron (I have a quote from "Shadows On a Dime" opening my new collection of 5 new books of poetry, DRIVE), Joan Armatrading, Billie Holliday; my soundtrack for a life ("I dont say a good life. I say: a life." ~James Wright) so "my ladies" also include guy balladeers: Ever Dougie MacLean, Dick Gaughan, Ricardo Arjona (whose incredibly poetic lyrics I'm translating just because I do), Marc Cohn (for "Walking in Memphis" to which I've written a montage scene for my screenplay that includes a young Elvis wandering into a tent show for the music and running into the stuffed remains of "The World's Ugliest Woman" and her child, her baby pickled in a jar by her showman father, the indigenous woman's owner), and Ruben Blades. Nancy Griffith. Lourdes Pérez. I'm fixin' to google up an early "lady", Filipina poet/musician June Millington & a more recent, but equally obscure poet/musician Ana Egge who I first heard at the New Mexico book festival organized by Denise Chavez. Yowza! What a voice, with lyrics to match, so fine they pulled me in off the street because I just had to see (and hear) who was singing. Now she's an important part of my personal soundtrack. I once saw her in the Denver airport eating a good burrito (the only edible food in the DIA) and I so wanted to go up to her and fawn & fan at her feet. I knew it was her. (I tend to listen to the same thing over & over incessantly in waves) She had her guitar with her, en route in an entourage of singularity. I know it would have really made her day. I don't know that she has many fans who would spot her in an airport. I would have complimented her on her choice of airplane food.

3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought.

Los Lobos: Acoustic en vivo.

4. Song playing at the moment of writing.

"I'm so glad/ I don't have to ask you for a thing...". ~Wolfman Jack.
Song playing at the moment of composing this piece in my head: Joni Mitchell, "I was a Free Man in Paris" and lyric playing at the time of reading & composing the answer to this question: Joni - "They open & close you/ They talk like they know you/ They don't know you...".

I never write poetry to music. Although I can play, at the computer, to streaming classic blues. Most of this blog is written to blues stream, unless I'm posting Rosie, when I switch to Joni. Mostly classic blues stream at http://www.radiocave.com which I suspect is a long playlist loop on my itunes. But, what do I know. It's all geek to me.

I'm passing this baton on to the same writers I tagged in previous book meme post: Manuel Ramos, Cynthia Huntington in LoveAndSalt, Luís Rodríguez, Luis Urrea and Rosie O'Donnell on this. I'd like to hear from Silliman, "himself" but I doubt he reads my blog. As opposed to Ro, who is more accessible to me than the guard dogs of the post-avant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I will post a secret. Answering this tag honestly, and I am ever honest, makes me feel geeky. And, not in a good way. It reminds me of the date I lost with a guy who was interested in me in order to be more in touch with his Mexican-ness (his inner "Nessie?") and liked the fact that I listened to Mexican music, everything from Roc to Conjunto (Jean, accordian!), from my beloved Arjona to Trio de los Panchos, from Lola Beltran (from whom I owe my poetics) to Vicki Carr, from Ana Gabriel to El Véz. ¿Y qué? KUVO's Canción Mejicana every Sunday morning. But at the first date/meeting, when he asks me: "What are you listening to now?" I just had to be honest. "Celtic music. There's really this connection, on an indigenous level. I listen for the poetry. Great lyrics...". And, that was the end of that. Or else it was the fact that I told him I was a writer. "YOU WRITE BOOKS!?" And, not in a good way. "More than one." "More than one!?" Eight ball down the right corner pocket. He was kind of cute and, until then, kind, so I never let on that I was a Professor of English. I profess! Some people! Or, what if I had told him that the song going down in the hard drive of the bone piano of my skull is "Pans of Biscuits." "It's pans of biscuits/ bowls of gravy/ pans of biscuits/ we shall have...". And, unlike my first husband, who was not Mexican, he would never ever get Black Banjo Then and Now.

Thanks, Jean!

Streaming: "You're black and evil.../ But I love you and/ I just can't help myself...".

Streamingly yours, Lorna Dee (which stands for Lorna Doone, and not the big-boobed porno star of another era which must account for some percentage of my present traffic)

now streaming: "Nobody loves you when you're down & out..."