RIDE -- The Mixin' Kitchen 2

"Ride" the latest episode of The Mixin' Kitchen, is now available through the ccMixter podcast channel. Featuring mixes that get you places! Ride, drive, bump, cars, trains and busses. Perfect for listening to when you are on your way! Just search ccMixter on iTunes if you are not already a subscriber or check it out at ccMixter's featured playlist page: http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists

The Dad & The Suitor: Threats of Macho Guitar Violence

My elder teenage daughter, T., has been spending the summer hanging out with a co-ed group of friends, and seems to be having the time of her life. There is one young man in the bunch, D., who has been around a bit more frequently than some of the others. He plays guitar. The other day, he was serenading T. and her friend in our garden. (Originally, they were sitting in the front, but my husband, thinking that appeared unseemly in our fairly conservative neighborhood, asked that I move them inside.) D. is actually quite an accomplished guitar player, and he is seriously into classic rock, idolizing, over all others, Eric Clapton. My husband, who is a fantastic guitarist appreciates that about the boy.

Yesterday, a group of teenagers were meant to meet T. at our house to take a two mile walk to another girl's house. Only D. showed up to escort T. My husband insisted the young man come into our house to say hello, and not just have T. disappear with him. D. came in, shook my husband's hand, and D. and T. went off alone together.

After they left, my husband started huffing and puffing, formulating all kinds of nefarious fantasies of what kind of intentions this young man might have for our beautiful daughter. As he stomped around the kitchen while I was cutting watermelon, he started shaking his head and his finger. "Yep," he tries anything, my husband said, "I will challenge him to a play off and then I will wipe the floor with that boy!" "Of course," he added, "I can only do that because the kid is into Eric Clapton . . . if he was into Yngwie Malmsteen, I would be toast."

Independence Day

Independence Day has a lot of meaning for me. My mother died on July 2, 1984 and her funeral was on July 4 - so that day is always a day of rememberance. As a family, we celebrated 4th of July together, often going to the beach to watch fireworks, and usually in the company of close friends. My dad would go to one of the unincorporated cities nearby where he could buy fireworks -- sparklers and poppers -- and we would set them off in the street in front of our house. As a girl with a lot of compunction, I was a bit timid as I did not want to become a poster child of the dangers of fireworks! Nevertheless, I would gamely hold my little sparkler as far in front of my body as far as I could, drawing gilttering, spark and smoke circles in the air for others to decipher before the smoke dissipated. To our delight, my dad was brave and set off the fancier fireworks in the street. All of us, including my mother, would watch from the curb, clapping our hands as the fireworks shot colorful stars into the air that fell toward the ground like broken fairies, until they disappeared into the night.

As my mother had been seriously ill for a long time, I often thought of her passing as a day of independence -- she was finally freed from her pain and suffering. After her funeral, I took all of her medications and burned them in the bar b que. I even wrote a song about it. . .although I am not sure what happened to that song. I cannot believe that this year is 25 years. She has been gone now for more than half of my life.

The Mixin' Kitchen

The Mixin' Kitchen,

my new internet radio show/podcast

is now up, running and open for business!

A tasty musical feast

filled with remixes harvested from

ccMixter.org.

It's a great way to sample

all that ccMixter has to offer!

You can listen here:

http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists/featured

or subscribe to the podcast: http://ccmixter.org/view/media/playlists/podcast