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Matt Clark, the guitar teacher who teaches the kids at the Sound Cafe Music Clinic, wrote a song called Bent, But Not Broken in homage to New Orleans. He’s gotten an all star cast to perform and record the song: Ivan Neville, Paul Sanchez, Sista Teedy Boutte, and many more. All proceeds for the song will be donated to Silence is Violence. You can download the song from iTunes – it’s just 99 cents off.

There will be a fundraising and celebration and parade for Matt and the song on April 3 from 1:30 to 4:30 that will start and end at the Sound Cafe. Before the parade at 12 noon there will be a kickoff party featuring the performance of Mark’s song with Paul Sanchez, Matt Clark, Shamarr Allen and Margie Perez.

Please go to the party, bring as many people as you can!

After years of avoiding my work space when not working, I am now trying to embrace the space. For instance, I had my neighbor who is an artist with wood make my beautiful writing table. All of the succulents that were part of Tatjana’s garden have now climbed up to the terrace to make our yard more kid friendly and to give these plants a hotbed to thrive in. I worked in a closet on Vermont Street in San Francisco with a window to watch the hookers and their Johns do their thing, I worked from a basement in Marin where I looked out at my perennial garden from a huge wooden sliding window we had installed, and now I’m in this marvelous tower which was dedicated solely to my working moments and was waiting for my retirement to become a guest room and thought, hey now, what about me, what about now, what about this gorgeous space.

Let’s see, there was the initial landscaping of the LaLa that got pretty much half blown away in Gustav and then in the subsequent snow we had that winter (wasn’t it that winter?), then I replanted, and then there was the next round of landscaping done mostly by me where I lost about half of the plants to a streak of freezes we had last and this past winter, and now this year, Marcela Singleton, gardener and artist extraordinaire, has landed in my yard with a ton of natives and eye towards the delicate, the beautiful, the colorful, and wow, what a fabulous garden the LaLa has now. It’s hard to pick a favorite but here’s the list of plants added to the side and back:

Tin lays in bed at night and has his plush toys speak for him – “Superdome?” “Yes!” “Marching Band. Louis Armstrong. DRUMS!” “Oh no, fell down. Trumpet.” “Trombone. Tuba!” This morning for breakfast he sat in his high chair and told us an intricate story about Louis Armstrong, the Superdome, falling down on the bayou, milk, and a flute. He looks at us like there is something wrong with us for not understanding his narrative. I feel his pain.

We were speaking about the indiscretion – five long years and how one could tell so many lies. I said not many, but one. It is not easy to tell a lie, but once you do, you are faced with the ugliness of owning the lie or telling one after another to cover up the original one. To forgive five years of lying, you have to be strong enough to forgive the first lie. And I’m just talking about the liar forgiving, not the ones lied to.

The strongest natures, when they are influenced, submit the most unreservedly; it is perhaps a sign of their strength. -Virginia Woolf, writer (1882-1941)

Both of us got up at 4:30 this morning and couldn’t go back to sleep and both of us had Mike Tyson on our minds. There was an article on the now reformed Tyson in the NYT magazine this Sunday and he said he goes to bed every night at 8 and gets up at 2:30 and then takes a walk around the neighborhood. The difference is that I had to wait till it was light out before I ventured out seeings how I am not Mike Tyson, but sometimes I sure do wish I was (for a moment). Tyson is keeping his demons at bay and I’d have to say I am at a point where mine are at bay and for a change instead of nipping at me, I seem to ruminate on demons past as a pastime instead.

Is that healthy – hell no! Well I can still write cuss words, I just can’t say them – my cussing kitty fattening as I sit here. I had also read in same magazine about a Muslim cleric and I forgot who said that all these young Muslim men have a deep desire for certainty – really now? – and I have a deep desire to be sitting on an island sipping a nice drink and finishing my Mitchell novel that is set in Japan. No kidding dudes, we all have a deep desire for certainty but you know what it ain’t gonna happen. You can sit here and fathom your god and any sort of idealized certainty but that is a losing proposition. Chaos rules. Get over it.

Which brings me to the podcast Crime Fighters I was listening to on It’s New Orleans yesterday and again not young Muslim men, but young black men, all wanting to overcome the world that has presented itself for the world they desire … one where they are in charge, they have the power, and they rule the WORLD. I must say that is empty – sadly empty – to aspire to this sort of certainty, ruling the world, and all sorts of other nonsense related to this way of young adult male thinking. What ever happened to daydreaming and masturbating – for goodness sakes.

But let me ask you a question – what else is left for young men to dream of these days? I searched my mind for one nanosecond, and okay I’ll throw out a couple and you let me know – music, poetry, literature, film, adventure, science, outer space, artist, architect, teacher, biologist … didn’t I say a couple, geez Louise, I couldn’t stop dreaming of the paths that lie in wait for any young man – paths that are divergent from guns and violence and blowing up the planet.

Yesterday on the podcast, one of the men said if you want to see change, be a mentor. That mentoring was a way to help effect change. I concur. I say be a role model, be a mensch, and by all accounts be for real. And I’m sorry I don’t see the world Chuck Perkins glorified by giving credence to the young black man holding a pistol my head in his Don’t Shoot piece, or like the guy on the Crime Fighter podcast I don’t see why on earth Jay Z’s seems determined to use the n word on Oprah’s show or any other place he damn well pleases. I wonder about that one, young black men owning the n word because it is a fact that women are taking back cunt ever since the Vagina Monologues came along.

Listening to Crime Fighters on ItsNewOrleans right now and I have to say this show is right on. The other day my friend Jerri was talking up Tin and his advanced development and she was telling this to a colleague she works with and asking if he thought Tin is advanced, her colleague said, “Jerri, that is parenting.” And I agree, a child needs to be read to but when a mother is struggling herself she can’t even do the basics, like read to her child. Parenting is a huge issue and it’s not one that we as a society can address except through education.

They are talking about some serious stuff on this podcast like how the rap music saying F..k the b.tch and kill the cops, and the rest of that trash is as guilty as the lack of parenting and the entertainment like the TV shows and movies that glorify violence and guns, and all of the things that are going into making this a truth – 94% of the murders in New Orleans are committed by African American males. Let me add to that statement – who see no future for themselves.

I don’t want to bring back the 50s but I agree with this statement “antisocial values have been normalized” – you have to listen to this podcast.

But I ask what now? I was thinking about the matriarch elephant but also the BULLS – these were the elephants that got relocated from their families and afterwards the young bulls went crazy and started raping hippos. Where are the old men getting these young males in line? Let’s stop blaming the mothers – where are the fathers?

The front garden is now planted – here’s a list of what’s in there:

salvia greggii

verbena ‘homestead purple’

asclepias tuberosa

bronze fennel

lobelia cardinalis

lysimachia ‘goldilocks’

coreopsis grandiflora

gaura ‘ballerina rose’

Most people think my new do is making me look younger. My doctor is conspiring to make me disbelieve I am fatter today than I was yesterday. Most of my friends these days are younger than me.

Look here’s the truth, I’m aging – I’m going to be 52 as soon as April showers bring May flowers (uh, that would be me).

The other night I dreamed that Steve was taking me to get a face-lift – and I can’t begin to do any dream analysis on that one, but he sent me a link that shows that there are some benefits to aging, at least in elephants.

One thing I can tell you is that women who are aging want to look younger, but we don’t want to BE younger. I’d gladly keep marching to my grave rather than give up the wisdom I’ve gained to get to this point.