Here’s what happened. Sam and I were headed to the Miami Book Fair International to promote our books and play with the Rock Bottom Remainders. Then we were going to fly back to the West Coast, pick up my mom, and fly back east to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with Maya Angelou, Guy Johnson, and their family and friends. Our usual relaxed holiday pace. I was really looking forward to all of it.

Only we never even made it to the book fair. When I got off the plane in Miami, I was in excruciating pain—like no other pain I had ever felt. Sam and I tried to walk through the airport, but I just couldn’t do it.

The next thing I knew, I was in Doctors Hospital in Coral Gables, being X rayed, scanned, poked, prodded, and ultimately scheduled for emergency surgery. It happens that Doctor’s Hospital is near my brother and sister-in-law Dave and Michelle’s home. This was not coincidence—originally we thought this would be a quick visit to the emergency room, so Dave recommended the closest hospital. We thought we’d be out and on our way in a few hours, and on with our adventure.

The universe had a different plan. I really wish the universe had consulted with me.

Ten days later, I’m still here. It turns out that “here” is one of the world’s best orthopedic hospitals (“LeBron goes there, all the teams do,” reports my sports-writer sister-in-law Michelle), and my surgeon’s hands are renowned for being among the best at this kind of surgery. Still, life goals that could be defined—less than two weeks ago—as “kick ass at new job,” “finish book proposal,” and “learn Spanish” have been transformed. A bowel movement is big news, as is locomoting as far as the nurses’ station with the help of a walker. Everyone says I’m doing great, but I’m bored, anxious, depressed, and in pain. I’ve made friends with the palm fronds outside my window, and named them with the help of my niece Sophie. Pepe, Babushka, and Helena welcome me to our day each morning. They wave their big green palm-frond hands and dance for me in the breeze. They remind me of a group of friends, huddled together, gossiping. When the wind blows they look like they’re laughing, raising their hands. I don’t know what I’d do without them. So you see the state I’m in.

The light in the darkness has been Sam. He’s handled the phone calls, the doctor communications—pushing when pushing was needed; schmoozing when schmoozing was called for—and all the details of making our imminent move to rehab. He’s run out for sundries, to do emergency banking, and whatever else might be needed. As we wait for the results of scary tests and word about what the next hours will bring, he’s here.

Tonight we’ll watch some junky TV, and he’ll unfold his little cot. We’ll lie together in the dark room, holding hands across the bars of my hospital bed. Sam’s hands can play a mean blues boogie on the piano. They can make excellent spaghetti sauce. They’ve been known to take out the trash, wipe up a spill, slam the hood of a car in frustration.

But tonight, with the lights low and a rerun of NCIS on the tube and my weird leg pillow and other paraphernalia cradling my suddenly fragile body, he’ll take my hand and say “Goodnight Sweetheart.”

Tonight, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, that hand will be holding mine as we walk through this new storm together, waving away the demons in the darkness.

last month in a dollar store on Mission Street. I challenged anyone who cared to provide evidence of something uglier, and The Ugliest Thing in the World Contest kicked off to a blazing start, inspiring two dozen visually repulsive entries. My panel of judges was deadlocked for days, which just goes to show you can’t trust Congress to get anything done anymore. I stuck the jpegs on my facebook page and the final decision was put to a general vote. Unfortunately, everyone pretty much voted for his or her own entry.

So I decided to add a top-secret judging category: how much did any of the contestants actually care? Michael Madeiros got points for the most submissions (4); Eddie Muller got points for taking the trouble to send in a video of his entry, which was probably in truth the ugliest (and I think you would agree if you could see the video, which I think I’ve just inserted below, but I’m not sure it worked–if it doesn’t, email me if you care).

Eddie’s entry came from a department store in Barbados.

Dennis Sherman made lots of comments and actually got a couple of unsolicited votes for his own entry; but Shannon Hughes was the hands-down winner of the caring category, posting frequently to ask who won and at one point even leaving “vote for Shannon” pamphlets in our mailbox.

Shannon, this is the kind of dedication we think the world should award, so YOU WIN with the so-ugly-he’s-kinda-cute “Spookenheimer.”

What’s Shannon’s prize? REGGIE himself, to be sent as soon as she provides her mailing address.

Runners-up Dennis Sherman, Michael Madeiros and Eddie Muller will each receive a kazoo and a “Sam Barry for Mayor” bumper sticker.

Now (phew) we can get on with our lives (i.e. surfing the Internet).

Thanks to all.

At midnight on the fourth of July we locked them in a room with a box of Triscuits and a case of Red Bull and they’ve been there ever since, yammering on and on about overturning the tyranny of the bourgeois aesthetic paradigm and not compromising their artistic integrity. At one point the shouting got so loud we had to blast the last episode of Treme to drown them out. And yet, despite all the racket and many trips to the corner store for supplies, no progress has been made.

So we’re letting the judges go home and turning this crucial task over to you. Just go to my facebook page and cast your vote by leaving a comment below the photo of your choice. We’ll compile the results and announce the winner at 6 PM Saturday, July 9.

Vote early and often. And when you’ve finished voting for the ugliest thing in the world, be sure to vote for Sam Barry for mayor!

Since our total campaign budget was $500, and the bumper stickers cost $385, the burning question becomes “How should we spend the remaining $115?”

I have an idea. I think the future First Lady of San Francisco (me) will need a special-occasion wardrobe, including some show-off jewelry. A lovely bracelet would be nice. Tasteful but impressive, not too gaudy. If you have better ideas, please feel free to speak up. We are nothing if not accessible.

And meanwhile, if you would like a bumper sticker, send a stamped, self-address envelope to:

“Don’t Quit Your Day Job” Productions

PMB #120
236 West Portal Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94127-1423

We’ll send you one when we get around to it, as long as supplies last.

The choice was clear. Anyone who’s ever been to my house might correctly guess the equation. Me + 15 minutes + Dollar Store = redecorated living room.  Wandering the aisles, I admired the merchandise: fruit-shaped refrigerator magnets, a compartmentalized plastic container for storing leftovers, bride-and-groom cake toppers shaped like little ducks. Needing none of these things, I carefully placed each one in my basket.

And then I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. Made of some kind of ceramic substance, with salt-shaker holes in the top though too big to be a salt-shaker really, and sporting a jolly face, green spots, and orange hands and feet, it looked sort of like a frog and sort of like a snake—this was a treasure beyond compare. “Why,” I said to myself, “that has to be the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.” Into the basket it went. Here he is. I named him Reggie.

A Challenge to My Readers

Send me a picture of something uglier than Reggie by the Fourth of July. I’m not talking about ugliness like racism, war, hunger, gaping wounds, or the aftermath of earthquakes or tornadoes. I mean a thing: an object that is less pleasing to the aesthetic eye than my little pal here.

We’ll employ a panel of glamorous celebrity judges. Neatness counts. All decisions are final. The winner gets a Reggie.

Or a wedgie.

(Send your entries to kkg@well.com or post them on my facebook page.)

Pretending you can’t hear is something every married person will agree is a useful skill now and then, but that’s not my great new idea.  Today I want to talk about ear plugs. Not to wear around the house, as your spouse might be offended. But earplugs are something you might need the next time you’re singing with Bruce, for example. For me the problem is not with ear plugs per se. The problem is remembering to bring them to gigs, and then remembering to put them in my ears when I get there.

A few weeks ago, wandering around the SXSW trade show in Austin, I came upon a display of abstract-designed, weird-looking little pairs of glass-like objects that looked for all the world like fabulous earrings made by an avant-garde designer. I stopped in my tracks. I love earrings. I own hundreds of pairs of earrings, but why would that stop me from buying more? A closer look revealed that the shiny little objects were not earrings, but ear plugs, especially designed for stage use, manufactured and sold by two earnest-looking people who care deeply about musicians’ hearing loss.

They were ready to test my hearing right then and there, and fit me for a pair of leopard-print-on-lucite ear plugs, so of course I pretended I didn’t hear them and moved on. But it got me thinking: why couldn’t ear plugs hang on little chains (or stylish hinges) and also be earrings? They could be decorative costume jewelry before and after the gig; you could slip them into your ears during the gig; you would actually have them with you when you needed them. I ran back to the display table to share my idea with the earnest ear plug people. They nodded politely, but I don’t think they could really hear me because they didn’t seem very interested.

But I still think this is a great idea. One of these days I plan to call Kathy Peck at the H.E.A.R. office and suggest that we go into business together designing ear plug/earrings. I know we’ll make a fortune because so many of my band mates never seem to hear me when I make suggestions about things like the set list or what we should wear to the gig.

I’d like to hear your suggestions too. What are your favorite colors? Do you prefer gold or silver settings? Pierced or clip-on?

What’s that you said? I’m sorry, I can’t quite hear you…

We all know how to use these contact-list programs, how to “personalize” our communications so the recipient’s first name is in the heading and it feels direct and immediate. Day after day, I get emails that begin: Dear Kathi, Hope you are well. I’m writing to tell you about the groundbreaking work of (choose one: author/expert/clown school coach/toilet inventer so-and-so) blah blah blah.

The thing is, I am not well. Anyone in my wide circle of family, friends, colleagues, and associates who knows me also knows that I’ve been fighting breast cancer, along with a treatment program that, while administered by lovely brilliant people, borders on the barbaric. I’ve been spindled, mutilated, terrified, stuffed through tubes, and am getting systematically poisoned. After the poison segment ends I will be radiated daily for many weeks. There have been months-long periods when I wasn’t allowed to drive, or lift anything as heavy as a laundry basket. I’m on meds that make me woozy, and there are certain bathroom issues—where’s that low-flush toilet when you need it?

So, “Hope you are well” doesn’t sit well these days. It’s actually a little insulting, even though I understand the intentions are benign. Somehow, this sentence without the “I” makes it even worse. These writers aren’t even owning their words, or bothering to state this vapid sentiment in a complete grammatical sentence.

Am I being cranky, petty, and paranoid? Probably. Chemo does that to you—just ask my husband, noted author and harmonica genius Sam Barry…or my son, theme-park commentator and comedy music genius Tony Goldmark. Am I really mad at cancer, and not clueless online marketers? Of course. But please, if you are a publicist, consider this. We producers want to hear from you. We want to know about your fabulous clients. We are happy to receive a message that gets right to the point. But unless we have a relationship in which good thoughts and healthy wishes carry the blessing of personal connection, I’d rather not hear (insert low-flush toilet joke of your choice).

Hope you are well.

I utilized the latest in cutting-edge technology (the copy machine at work, scissors, glue stick, and construction paper in all the colors of the rainbow) to make our band flyers. But even though they were low tech, they were pretty good. Don’t get me wrong—it wasn’t a case of “Stanley Mouse, move over”—but they were charming and funny, and they worked. Some of our fans even collected the flyers, if you can believe it.

Then on Saturday we’d all sit around on the floor folding and stapling (but not spindling or mutilating) and fastening pre-owned stamps to the addressed flyers. This generally took all day, in-between a little bit of rehearsing, a little bit of eating, and a little bit of partying.

On the night of the gig, we’d gather at Rick’s house and load all the gear into Joe’s truck, caravan to the venue, passionately “discuss” the set list, play the show (in which a thrift-store bowling trophy was always presented to the best dancer on the floor), drive back to Rick’s house to unload, sit around until three or four in the morning listening to the tape we’d made of our performance, and passionately “discuss” the fine points of who had screwed up. I guess we had a lot more time on our hands back then.

When everyone started using personal computers the flyers got fancier. They could be centered, aligned, and elegant, created and emailed to a list; no stolen stamps required. But though they were more relevant and informative, they weren’t as cute. Unless you were a mac-usin’ graphics pro (which I was not) it was hard to figure out the new programs, especially in between job and family obligations.

Now we do our gig alerts on Facebook and Twitter, without any glue stick art, which I honestly kind of miss. Sometimes I forget to send out the alerts at all. But the point is the same. We want you to come to our gigs, to support live music, to make that trek across the bridge, or across the street, or across town, to hear us play.

You have a chance every month! Los Train Wreck, hosts of nineteen years of all-star jams, takes up residence at El Rio in San Francisco on the second Tuesday of every month–where we live to make YOU sound good. We’re also playing at the Glen Park Festival on May 1, with special guests Charlie Owen and Laura Barry. Please come. It’ll be fun, we promise. We’ll try to rustle up  a bowling trophy for the best dance, or at least a glue stick.

An old Enchanters flyer

The Coupons Sizzle

Country Music Makeover

]]> http://www.kathiandsam.net/kathi/glue-stick-nostalgia/feed/ 0 http://www.kathiandsam.net/kathi/queen-for-a-day/ http://www.kathiandsam.net/kathi/queen-for-a-day/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 20:43:03 +0000 Kathi Kamen Goldmark http://www.kathiandsam.net/kathi/?p=85 There’s something about the Pulpwood Queens’ Girlfriend Weekend that draws me to Jefferson, Texas every winter. It’s not the costume-party Hair Ball, though that’s a swell deal indeed. But San Francisco offers more than enough opportunities to dress up without having to figure out how to fit my queen of hearts costume—including its wide hoop skirt—into a suitcase. It’s not the food, although you can’t get better pie than the coconut cream at the Hamburger Store, and Valerie at the Azalea Inn B&B provides enough breakfast to fill you up for the day. It’s not even the brilliant, soulful lunchtime speech by Pat Conroy or hearing Fannie Flag nose-whistle or the day-long back-to-back author panels or the really nice bookstore people who tell you they sold every copy of your book except for that little pile over there on that table.

That’s all great, but the reason I go is about the spirit of the event, not to mention the wardrobe. The Pulpwood Queens dress in hot pink, fake leopard fur, and rhinestone tiaras. They have big hair and they all look fabulous. The difference is that in addition to looking fabulous, they want their guests to look fabulous, too. So when you finally throw up your hands and give up on stuffing that hoop skirt into your carry-on, a Pulpwood Queen will come up with a bigger hoop skirt she’d be delighted to let you borrow. And hey, these women (along with a few brave men) love books.

By now you might be wondering, “What exactly is a Pulpwood Queen, anyway?” The Pulpwood Queens’ book club was started eleven years ago by a force of nature named Kathy Patrick, a former beautician who became a publisher’s sales rep. Somewhere along the line she decided to open a combination beauty salon and bookstore. With Beauty and Book as her home base, she started the Pulpwood Queens book club, which grew to include chapters all over Texas, Louisiana, and beyond—there’s even a chapter in San Jose. Kathy enforced a dress code (tiaras are mandatory at Pulpwood Queen meetings), and as Head Queen she now chooses a book for thousands of tiara-sportin’ readers every month.

Girlfriend Weekend is her annual gathering of the tribes. PQs come from all over to enjoy the festivities, which include skits, author panels, costume parades, hairdo contests, elaborate table décor, and all manner of friendly showing off. The spirit is a little like Woodstock and Burning Man, only with well-mirrored powder rooms.

We went this year to promote Write That Book Already! Or at least, that’s what we told our publisher. But really we went to see Kathy, to admire the especially gorgeous ladies from Northwest Houston; to hit the local bar with Jamie Ford, River Jordan, and Mark Childress, dressed as characters from Alice in Wonderland. Sam went so he could jump onstage in his Mad Hatter costume to play harmonica with Marshall Chapman and me. I went so I could sing a song I am proud to have written with Marshall, inspired by a line we heard uttered by Amanda Cauley from the ever-entertaining Northwest Houston contingent.

Hello, my name is Holly, East Texas is my home
I have a lot of girlfriends I talk to on the phone
Tonight we’re gonna dress up and go out on the town
I need my hair and makeup done, so I won’t let them down

Kathy get your hairspray and do me up just right
I want my hair considered at the Pulpwood Ball tonight

My shoes are pink and pointy, my dress is pink and black
I bought them at a closeout sale so I can’t take them back
I’ve got my feather boa, rhinestone earrings, leopard hose
But the total look I’m going for requires more than my clothes

So Kathy get your hairspray and do me up just right
I want my hair considered at the Pulpwood Ball tonight

Now step back all you girlfriends, and make some room for me
I’ve got the biggest beehive the world has ever seen
I may not win the prize tonight, but I don’t really care
‘Cause everyone’s a winner when you’ve got outrageous hair

Cause Kathy got her hairspray, and did us up just right
Our hair will be considered at the Pulpwood Ball tonight

And that’s all I’m gonna say. What happens at Girlfriend Weekend stays at Girlfriend Weekend. All except for the pie, which somehow made it home attached to my butt.

“I’m not sure what to do,” he said. “I saw that Emily Grandstaff posted on Facebook. It’s the first time I’ve seen her there since she moved so I was going to click ‘like.’ Then just in time I realized that her post was about her friend’s lost dog and ‘liking’ it wasn’t appropriate.”

There are many Facebook moments in which the “like” button is inappropriate, but it can be hard to come up with the perfect response, or even with something that hasn’t already been expressed by others. For these moments, I propose that Facebook offer the option of “Awww.” Judging by the response I got when I posted this idea as my status a few days ago (second only to the time I made the spontaneous declaration that “I want ice cream”), this would be a popular feature. My friends took the idea and ran with it.

Jane Yedlin checked in with “How about Mr. Bill’s ‘Oh No’ or how about ‘TMI’?”

“I would also add a ‘Ewww!” button for those sometimes unpleasant reveals,” suggested Elaine Estelle Surani.

“Did you lose your dog? Awww,” from Dave Peller, to which Sam responded “We have a dog? And it’s lost?”

“I’d NEVER lose my dog,” added Gretchen Schields, but we already knew that. Gretchen really “likes” her dog.

Robert Cambra got us back on track with “sorry to hear it” and “you’ve got to be kidding” buttons, while Kimberly Standiford suggested that “maybe in addition to ‘Awww’ and ‘like’ there could be ‘hmmmm’ and ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhhh.’”

Jane again, not to be outdone: “How about ‘whine whine whine’ or ‘suck it up’?”

Chris Cole thought an “empathy” button would do the trick. “You know how I feel about an empathy button,” countered Dave.

Mark Childress “liked” the post, but noted that he really meant “awww.”

And Ron Childress (no relation), who should know, offered “how about a ‘Badump-Bump’ button for those who make bad jokes?”

So you see, Facebook? We’re clamoring for more subtlety in our choices, more ways to effortlessly express ourselves with one tiny click. Or else…well geez, we might have to pick up the phone or write an email or come up with a thoughtful hand-written note.

But that’s so 2003.