What Are They Teaching In School These Days?

I'm immobilized in bed, recuperating from a back injury and dictating this blog entry. Hopefully I will make a full recovery and not have to use a walker when I perform a few songs on May 5 at the Silver Lake Film Festival. That wouldn't be too much fun.

Here's an email interview I just completed. Thanks for allowing me to share this on my blog, Leah, and good luck with your work!

"Dear Alice Bag,

My name is Leah and I am a senior at Brookline High School in Massachusetts. I've been extremely passionate about early L.A. punk for as long as I can remember and have read about, listened to, and watched most of what I have been able to get my hands on. I decided to write my final senior thesis paper about the role of women in the early L.A. punk scene. Unfortunately (and obviously), I was not there. Because of this I have been doing endless reading and research in hope of depicting my opinions with well-supported information.
I have read all of the interviews with Women in L.A. Punk on your website and they have been endlessly helpful. You will be well-cited and I wanted to thank you for taking on the task of making those interviews public. I was also wondering if there is a chance I could convince you to do an email interview with me concerning the topic of my paper...."

I am always happy to answer questions, although it sometimes takes me months to respond. Here are Leah's questions and my answers:

Do you feel early L.A. punk changed the way women were thought of in society?

I think it changed the way women felt about themselves, which eventually changed the way society felt about them.

How do you feel the punk scene allowed you to escape from female gender roles?

I was too busy creating something new to worry about what my role as a female should be.

How did women in early L.A. punk redefine what it meant to be tough?

I don’t know that anyone was trying to be tough. I think they were just trying to be themselves, which requires strength of conviction and the will to act. If that is considered tough, then a woman’s toughness is measured by the same standard as a man’s.

Why do you think women felt so comfortable breaking out of their gender role and really letting loose?
Perhaps because the punk aesthetic didn’t require women to fit into a role. It was something new that had yet to be defined or stereotyped.

How did people think of females fronting early L.A. punk bands back then?

I’m not sure because I personally didn’t care much about how people were perceiving me as a female. Even though I thought of myself as an performer, it wasn’t like I went on stage to entertain. I went on stage to engage the audience. If people were not engaged by my performance, then they could leave. If they stayed and got engaged, that’s what I was after. But I didn’t think about what they thought of me personally.

What did you think of the Plunger Pit? Did you have any note-worthy experiences there?

It looked like a fun place to hang out but my impression was that it could have been overwhelming at times. I’m not sure, but I suspect they might have been around before the Canterbury. I didn’t go there that often. It was fun and chaotic.

In We Got the Neutron Bomb I read about an argument you got into with Darby Crash about the fundamentals of stage performers. You reportedly felt that musicians and audience members should all be on the same level (which I think is amazing by the way), while Darby felt singers should hold an almost God-like position. I read that this argument lead to a physical fight in which you kicked Darby’s ass. What’s the truth behind this and how do you justify your actions?

I didn’t really kick his ass and it wasn’t a very long fight. Darby enjoyed irritating me and he liked to see how far he could push people. He figured out that he couldn’t push me very far. We disagreed about a lot of things on a very fundamental level. Our differences went much deeper than just the proper role of audiences versus performers. But the arguments we had also left us with food for thought and we would both go home after an argument and then come back to the subject later to pick up the thread again.

Early on in the punk scene both Darby and I wanted to be leaders. I think Darby held onto that desire until the end and I reached a point where I wanted to form relationships where there was a give and take. This concept is discussed at length in a book called Pedagogy Of The Oppressed by Paolo Freire. Basically, it states that a leader’s thinking is authenticated only by the authenticity of the followers’ thinking. The leader cannot think for her followers.

I think too many people don’t understand that logical argument can be a healthy thing and arguments don’t always involve threats or conflict. It’s just that on this occasion, Darby pissed me off and I resorted to violence.

In early L.A. punk, it seems as though women started to get comfortable exerting their physical selves. Often this meant fighting each other or males. From what I’ve read, women were physically kicking a lot of ass. Why do you feel they suddenly felt so comfortable fighting?

I’m not sure that this assumption is correct. I can’t say that I saw an extraordinary amount of female violence in the punk scene, but I grew up in East L.A. and I certainly saw a lot more of it at Stevenson Jr. High. I think I was an anomaly because I was violent and I grew up around violence, so it was what I knew. Plus, punk music was aggressive and it may have fueled those emotions a bit more than, say, Donovan and the Beatles.

Cuentos de mis Padres

A comment on my last blog entry got me to thinking about my Mom and Dad.

"Hey there Ms. Bag! This is Harakiri, from Mexico City. That mom & dad pic happily walking in Mexico it's just great; and I 'm so curious, when did you all come to USA? I'm thinking how weird must have been for your family to face the fact of L.A. punk and hijita Alicia messing around!!
Would you tell me a little about this??
-Harakiri."

Dear Harakiri,

Much of what I know about my parent’s lives before I was born comes to me from my mother. She enjoyed regaling me with stories of her childhood and young adulthood. My father was more reticent and so I know only sketchy details about his past. They lived such colorful and rich lives that I felt a lengthy answer was warranted, so these recollections of my mother and father might end up unfolding over several blog entries. Anyway, let me begin by telling you a bit about my Mother.

My mother, Candelaria, who was the third Candelaria born to my Grandmother after the first two died. The third time is the charm.

My mom, Candelaria (also known as Lala to her family or just Candy to her American friends) grew up during the Great Depression. She was born in Torreon, in the State of Coahuila, Mexico, but her family moved to the United States when she was still young. With a large family consisting of eleven brothers and sisters, my grandmother and assorted uncles and aunts, they all worked the fields, picking fruit. I expected my mom to tell me how hard and backbreaking this was, but instead she told me that she was very young and often goofed around on the job, playing with her siblings and picking only a modest amount of fruit. With that kind of work ethic, it’s no wonder that there was little money for anything but essentials.

Candy and her brothers and sisters would sometimes raid the dumpsters behind a big shoe factory in downtown Los Angeles, hoping to find a new pair of shoes. She described searching through mountains of shoes, but they never found a single matching pair. What usually happened was that if they found two of the same style they were for the same foot. If they were really lucky, they might find a pair where one foot was a half size bigger than the other. Those they could wear with a little bit of toilet paper stuffed into the toe box.

Candy learned to sew at an early age. During the Depression, any fabric that could be fashioned into clothing was considered a luxury and being handy with a needle and thread was a source of pride for my mom. My mom sewed clothes from any available cloth, from bed sheets to flour sacks. Her real expertise was the blind hem. She boasted that every morning on the way to school she would tuck a threaded needle into a seam in her skirt. A block away from the school, she would stop and hem the bottom of her skirt or dress to a much shorter length than my grandmother allowed and every afternoon on her way home, she let it back down. She claimed to be able to do a blind hem by hand in 2 or 3 minutes. I can’t do one at all. But I think that story explains why my mom allowed me to have the shortest school uniform at Sacred Heart of Mary High School.

When my mom was fifteen she met her first love and he carted her back to Mexico (where she could be legally married at the age of fifteen) to work with him, running a little store. My mom promptly began having children and was happy running her store until a fire burned it down and her husband was diagnosed with cancer. After his untimely death, my mother was left alone with four small children and no work.

She met a handsome stranger on streetcar who threw a few piropos her way. He was on his way home from work, wearing a sweaty tee-shirt (I imagine Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, except with my Dad’s face) and as the story goes, he told my mother, “If I wasn’t so dirty, I’d invite you to a movie” to which my mother replied not with a slap in the face, not with “We‘ve not been properly introduced,” but with “You don’t look dirty to me.” You go, Mom!

My father, Manuel Armendariz, came from Parral, which is in Chihuahua, Mexico.

Before you know it, I was on my way to being born and the family was moving back to the U.S. For my Dad - unlike my mom - was fond of hopping trains to come look for work in the U.S., illegally. He boasted that he was on friendly terms with the Border officers who he claimed to have known by name. They would often bid each other farewell with “See you next week,”(things sure have changed!) Dad eventually became a member of the officially sanctioned bracero (or guest worker) program and everyone started to feel a little bit more American.

My older siblings promptly got married and flew the coop but my half sister Yolanda lived with us. She was my idol. Every night, she and my mom would wrap their fancy hairdos in miles and miles of toilet paper, a strange ritual that mystified me. Then it seemed they had to sleep very still so that in the morning they could add another layer of Aquanet to stick it back together. It was so Memoirs of a Geisha, except from the 'hood.

Just as strange was the initial setting of the hair, which involved soaking the strands of hair in a concoction of Lucky Lager beer mixed with Dippity Do and then rolling it onto the rollers. I remember my mom and sister going through this ritual during a time when they were studying for their American citizenship exams. They claimed to know more about American history than the people who were born here, which is probably true of most immigrants studying to pass the citizenship exams. And like most immigrants, once they became legal citizens the color of their blood changed from red to red, white and blue.

My sister Yolanda looking glamorous, me wearing a raincoat and matching umbrella I wish I still had and my Mom, looking effortlessly beautiful. I know what you're thinking..."cool hairdo, Alice!"

Only my Dad held steadfast to his Mexican nationality. He refused to take the citizenship exams. He reminded me that I was not only American, I was a special kind of American - a Mexican American (Ohhh... Ahhh...). He ridiculed the pochos who didn’t know their mother tongue and decreed Spanish as the official language of our home. He resisted the notion of assimilation but learned to swim in the new cultural waters of the U.S.

As for what he thought of his daughter being in a crazy punk rock band, I can tell you that he and my mom went to see me perform with the Bags at Madame Wong's. I had no idea that they were going to show up that night. My mother later told me that my father was standing on top of a chair, enthusiastically cheering me on. I am also certain that this was the night a riot broke out at Madame Wong's because our audience got so unruly. Afterwards, my Dad said to me, "I don't know what you were singing about, but I loved the way you were doing it."

Weird Fashion Sense Runs In The Family

My husband and I were cleaning out the garage this weekend and came across more boxes of old photos that were just stored in no particular order. One box had photos from 1950 to the recent past all lumped in together. In sorting through them, I first noticed the cool jacket and dress my Mom was wearing in this 1950's photo of her and my Dad in Mexico.



Then I found this photo of me wearing a blonde wig and another cool dress from when I was probably about 10-12 years old and going through my "phat and sassy" phase.



Next, I found this photo of myself in 1977, modeling my hand painted Weirdo's mini-skirt. Yes, those are paint smears from the skirt on my arms and face.



And last, I found this photo of my daughter, Snow, modeling her Betty Blowtorch tee and striking her rock star pose.



I think this is pretty conclusive evidence that weird fashion sense is somehow genetically pre-determined.

More Questions About Sex and Punk

Requests for interviews seem to come in waves. Here's an excerpt from another one I just completed. The interviewer's questions are in boldface type.

1. What did you feel the attitude toward women in general and you in particular was in the punk scene during your involvement?

In general, women in society were and still are discriminated against in all kinds of insidious and subtle ways. If you’re asking me what people thought of women in punk bands, I’d have to say that I didn’t and still don’t know what the attitude was. I never bothered to stop and ponder that question because I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking for external validation. I had been brought up to believe that I could do or be anything I wanted and the punk scene provided a setting where I could do just that. So there were no limits for me.

2. One of the things women have always had to deal with (in rock) is the sex/attraction factor of being a woman in a band... Punk women have taken a whole variety of different approaches to the sexuality factor – some openly scorning it, some embracing it, some playing with it in a mocking way (the shredded fishnet sort of thing). What was your attitude toward it?

Both men and women in bands are often seen as sex symbols. I suppose some people cultivate that image and as you say, others reject it. I wore many a shredded fishnet in my day, but I was a 17 year old girl in a band and I felt tremendously sexy and powerful. I was not about to suppress or tone down my sexuality. I have always broken with traditional feminism on this subject. If I was ever compelled to burn my bra, I might replace it with a corset. I could never embrace a brand of feminism that tries to make a woman deny part of who she is. So when I say I’m a feminist these days, it’s because I’ve claimed the word and created a definition of feminism that suits me - not because I’ve decided to conform.



I have not always considered myself a feminist. In the early punk scene, most of us rejected any labels. I liked to think that I was Alice, a human being free to be sexy or not, free to act aggressive or sweet without even considering what gender roles might dictate. The very early punk scene operated almost completely outside of mainstream society so we felt no need to rebel against or conform to expectations. I would never censor myself. Maybe that was naive and idealistic.

3. How much awareness do you have of later generations of punk women?

I still listen to new music but I haven’t closely followed the evolution of punk. If I know that there are women in a band, I will usually go out of my way to catch a show, buy a CD or be supportive in some way. Some of my younger female friends would make me tapes and CDs of their favorite bands, and that’s probably how I first heard Bikini Kill, Cub, Le Tigre and The Gossip. I still find new bands that I like on MySpace and via CDs that friends send to me but I don’t go out to see shows as often I used to, so it’s hard to keep up.

I guess the answer to your question is that I don’t think of women playing what sounds like punk (or punk inspired) to me as “later generations” because it is all one continuum and I either like what a musician is doing or I don’t. The only thing I’ve noted before is that female musicians seem to be much more comfortable onstage and are more willing to challenge audience expectations than the females I grew up seeing twenty or thirty years ago. Take, for example PJ Harvey and Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls. They have fun with their sexuality but it’s not central to what they do as artists.


Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls.

4. Why do you think it was that women seemed to mix so much more naturally in the early scene but all-women bands seemed to be treated as novelties and tagged with media labels like foxcore and riot grrrl (albeit, their own label) later on?

Treating all-woman bands as a novelty is a way to trivialize their contributions. Let’s talk about the Go-Gos. I think the Go-Gos are a really important band. They are the first all-woman band to compose and play their own songs and sell millions of records. Sure, there were a few other all-female bands before the Go-Gos, but those girls really took it to the next level. They were trivialized because they were young, cute and female as opposed to young, cute and male which is the gold standard. They were talented, hardworking trailblazers. So what if they were writing mostly love songs instead of wrestling with their dark demons. Do we put such demands on our male pop stars? I don’t think so! Those girls opened doors and inspired countless young girls.



In the early punk scene, most of us rejected any labels. In a series of interviews I’ve conducted with women in the Los Angeles punk scene, one of the questions I ask is “What was the role of women in the early punk scene?” and a recurring answer is that the women involved were too busy creating and doing, being active participants, to think about what their role as a woman should or could be. They just didn’t even stop to think about it. So, gender roles ceased to exist for us. We didn’t think of ourselves as boys and girls, each of us thought of ourselves and treated each other as individuals.

I’m much more willing to accept and embrace the Feminist and Chicana labels now because I know we’re not all on the same page and allowing myself to be categorized this way helps people who don’t know me to have a clue of where I’m coming from. After all, we define the universe by labeling and classifying its contents. I accept that some labels are handy for giving people a general idea of what something may be about, but we have to be careful not to be overly simplistic. Guidelines can turn into stereotypes and trying to get to know someone as an individual when you have preconceived notions about what he/she stands for can sometimes get in the way.

Interview Questions and FAQ's

I frequently get mail from readers of this blog - students, researchers and other interested parties - who ask me questions about the early L.A. punk scene. Although I know I have answered some of these questions elsewhere, I can’t always remember where and inevitably end up having to repeat myself. I thought it might be interesting to take some of the most Frequently Asked Questions and answer them here on my blog and so, without further ado - Me Interviewed by You.

FAQs for Alice

Why don’t you interview ____________ for your women in punk series?

I am interested in interviewing women who were active in the L.A. punk scene between 1977-1980. I don’t always have current email info and I don’t use the telephone but I try to follow up on leads. Many of the obvious choices have been given interviews but haven’t finished them or they have finished the interview but want to add pictures, or they want to change something or are in the middle of something else...

How can I get in touch with________________________?

Although I love to help old friends connect as well as introduce journalists, researchers and punk enthusiasts to new friends, I don’t have the time to go back and forth with messages. I never give out contact info without getting an O.K. from the person who is being sought. I hope to eventually compile an email address book where people who don't mind being contacted can be located but I haven’t had time to do it yet. The L.A. punk rock directory is on my to-do list. I'd venture a guess that many of the surviving Masque regulars are on MySpace and can be located by doing a little digging. A good place to start is on the MySpace Masque page.

Will The Bags ever do a reunion?

Never. Half the members are dead, one lives in England and we’re not on speaking terms and the other remaining member is busy working on his first book.



With so few recordings that The Bags made, what was your contribution to today’s music scene? Do you feel that you influenced any of today’s artists?

Although The Bags made very few studio recordings, the Dangerhouse recordings are a good example of what the band was like. The movie The Decline of Western Civilization depicts the band near its final break-up. It’s an accurate representation of some of the changes the band had gone through in personnel and in musical direction. It also captures the changes that were taking place in the L.A. punk scene as it moved from a young experimental phase into a more hardcore phase.

Ultimately, I think that the things that turned out to be most important and influential to others are not the things I thought were important at the time. I wanted to be appreciated as a singer, but I’d get all caught up in the moment and lose myself onstage. I was better known for high energy, aggressive, confrontational performances rather than my ability to stay on key. Some of those angry performances inspired other artists who also needed a different way to express their rage.



I also now know that being a Latina from East L.A. and fronting a punk band meant more to others at the time than it did to me. Both of those aspects (being an angry female and being from East L.A.) are things that people who got to see the band perform live could immediately relate to and which were never captured on sound or video recordings. Perhaps it’s for the best. So much of what artists do is significant because of when it is done and what is happening in the world at the time. I realize now that I could never in a million years be the type of singer who could deliver a controlled performance. My performances were chaotic, aggressive and therapeutic. In the many years since my days in the L.A. punk scene, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to many young people and I’m convinced that being Latina and being a woman with a proto-hardcore attitude are the two things that left the biggest impression on others.

Why was Disco’s Dead not originally credited to the Bags?



Disco’s Dead was not written by anyone in the band. We were approached by an outside source and asked to record the song for a flat fee. I believe the song was used as a demo for the composer but it ended up on an obscure compilation under the name "S.G.A.B. from the Planet Zed." I have to confess that I was not a disco hater. The glitter scene which I was into before I got into punk had an active alternative disco scene. I never hated disco. In the late 70’s I just preferred punk.

What happened between you and Patricia?

This question is usually attached to the reunion question. I could probably write many pages about what happened between us. I thought the hard feelings about the break-up were all behind us, but I discovered through a recent interview that Patricia is still quite resentful at being kicked out of the band 30 years ago. I have a long response to this question, but I found in reading it back that it doesn’t make me feel any better to tell my side of the story and include nasty details. The long and short of it is that Patricia and I were close friends at one time and that is why we formed a band together. The reasons for the collapse of our friendship are numerous. Patricia has implied in interviews that I was jealous of her good looks. On the contrary, I think her striking looks were an asset. I have always been proud to have beautiful friends. When our friendship ended, our reasons for wanting to be in a band together disappeared. Although I would welcome reconciliation, I don’t really believe either of us will ever see the past in the same way and with the past unresolved, there is little hope of any renewed friendship. It is easier for me to put it all behind me because I’m not the one who got kicked out. I do have many fond memories of our adventures in high school and during the early band days and I’d like to hang onto those memories instead of focusing on what went wrong.

Who was in The Piranhas? Was Belinda really your girlfriend?

The Piranhas were started by me, Shannon Wilhelm and Sheila Edwards. We were bored one night and decided to dress up in wigs and fake blood-splattered clothes and take a walk on Hollywood Blvd., scaring tourists and causing trouble. Just good, clean fun.

Margot Olavarria (Go-Go's), Shannon Wilhelm and Sheila Edwards (Piranhas).

The lesbian part of the story has been greatly exaggerated. The women in the Piranhas were all good friends. Some of us were bisexual, some were just curious. There was no real stigma associated with being lesbians; in fact, I think we were thought of as a little edgier than our counterparts, the Poodles, who were more focused on being fashionable and attractive to men. We let the rumors run rampant because we enjoyed our bad girl reputations. As for Belinda and me, we were very close and cuddly, and we went through a brief period when we told people we were girlfriends. This had more to do with being there for each other during difficult times and filling in as a date when a guy had to be dumped. As for the rest of the details, I’ll never tell.

Was there much competition/rivalry in the early punk scene?

People in the early L.A. punk scene were pretty supportive of each other. I think we were each other’s first fans. Occasionally, squabbles would arise over petty things like billing or playing order, but for the most part there was a strange sense that seniority was important. It made sense to us that if you started a band because you’d seen an earlier band play, then naturally you’d want to open for them. That held true most of the time, but not always.

What’s happening with the skate deck?

The skateboard deck is being put out by a skateboard company. I don’t have any control over when it will be on sale. I love the artwork which was done by Zeroxed.

What’s happening with the Artifix release?

Artifix has been very good with keeping me in the loop about what they are planning with the Bags compilation CD. I understand that there will be some reissued studio tracks and some live material. The delay has been in getting authorization from all the proper sources.

Love In The Time Of Aneurisms

What a coincidence that someone posted a comment asking about my latest rant. I don’t always have something to rant about, but I actually do have something to rant about today. I just got back from L.A., where I went to visit a very good family friend who is in intensive care after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. I got a distressed call from my friend’s daughters who were having trouble securing treatment for their mother because she doesn’t have medical insurance. My friend takes care of her elderly father and aunt and receives a small stipend for this service, but she is not eligible for medical coverage and doesn’t make enough to be able to buy medical insurance. So basically, she makes just enough to screw herself out of qualifying for Medi-Cal, but not enough to be able to purchase an insurance plan.

My friend suffered a cerebral hemorrhage on New Year’s Eve and was taken to the emergency room at Glendale Memorial Hospital where she was diagnosed and stabilized. Her family was told that she must have surgery to stop the hemorrhage, but that the operation could not be performed there because my friend doesn’t have insurance. My friend’s family was put through hell trying to figure out a way to get the hospital to either release their mother so that she could seek treatment elsewhere or try to secure an acceptable method of payment so that they would perform the surgery there. I urged the daughters to do their best to not allow their mother to be thought of as just another case number. They had to make it personal to the doctors and nurses at the hospital so that their mother’s situation would become a human concern rather than simply another case to process through the system.

You won’t believe the strategy that finally worked. My friend has 11 brothers and sisters, each of whom drove to the hospital with his/her spouse and all their children. By all estimates, there were about 80 people in the waiting room. The group formed a large prayer circle, spilling out into the hospital lobby and began fervently asking Nuestro Senor Jesucristo and la Virgen de Guadalupe to intervene on my friend’s behalf. As nighttime approached, sleeping bags were brought in and an all night vigil ensued. I don’t know if it was divine intervention or the fact that the staff freaked out at having so many people jamming up the place but on the third day she was moved to a hospital where the surgery had been approved.

Today I found out that my friend was able to have solid food for the first time since New Year’s Eve. She has not had the surgery she needs because despite numerous tests they have been unable to pinpoint the location of the rupture but she is stable and her family and I feel that the team at this hospital is doing everything possible to provide her with medical attention, regardless of her financial situation.

I once felt that socialized medicine would help bridge the gap in access to medical care that exists between the haves and the have-nots, but after visiting hospitals in Nicaragua and talking to friends who have used the medical facilities in places that have socialized medicine, I wonder if I wouldn’t be writing a rant about that option if we had it here in the U.S. I don’t know what the answer is. I do believe that we should all have access to vital medical care.

It turns out that this Monday, California Governor Schwarzenegger will be proposing insurance coverage for all children in that state and would eventually like to extend it to adults as well. It’s a start and certainly worthy of discussion, no matter which party proposes it. Basic health insurance and access to medical treatment should be a human right, not a privilege nor a benefit solely for those who can afford it.

So that’s my little rant for this week. I wasn’t worried about the health care problem in this country until it personally affected my loved ones. It never occurred to me to worry because I’ve always had insurance through my employer. You might want to ask yourself how many of the people you know and care about don’t have health insurance and might not have access to proper medical treatment if they needed it. And for those of you who live in California and want to join the discussion, the Governor’s office is hosting a live web forum on Monday and they are soliciting questions now.

Alice Bag Bags and Happy New Year!

As you know, I have developed a serious craft addiction over the past year. Because I had no prior experience and no sewing ability when I began, it's been a voyage of discovery and exciting in the way new endeavors always are for me. This month, I've been extra busy creating several projects for friends. I'm glad that some people have already received theirs and have written to let me know they've opened the packages, because I've been waiting to post photos of the projects on my blog. I can't find all the photos right now, so here are just a couple of them, My friend Angie starting calling the tote bag I made for her, her "Alice Bag Bag." Hmm...

Here's the rhinestone and polka dot safety pin purse I created from bits of recycled items: an old tee shirt, a belt and some scraps of fabric. I'm very inspired by the crafter's ethic of recycling and rescuing cast off garments. It's similar to what we used to do with our homemade punk fashions back in the 1970's. A big part of the fun is giving a castoff object brand new life in a new creation.





And here's a purse I created using Dawn Wirth's Masque photos of John Denny and Tomata du Plenty:





I had a lot of fun making these, even though I was learning as I went along and I made as many mistakes as humanly possible.

With 2006 coming to an end, it's nice to look back at this year's journey. I moved to a new state, met some new people, explored new places, learned to sew, took up crafting and adopted a dog.



I'm glad I tried so many new things and I look forward to next year's adventures. For the first time in several years, I feel like I'm taking one of those great road trips where I'm not sure where I'm heading, but I'm eager to go off the main highway and take the unmarked trails.

Best wishes to you for an exciting New Year that takes you off the main highway. I'd like to leave you with a couple of New Year's Eve superstitions that my mother passed along to me: Wear red underwear tonight, it will bring you good luck in the coming year. At the stroke of midnight, begin feeding your loved one (or yourself) 12 grapes, one at a time. You will get one wish for each grape (one for each month) you can swallow in 60 seconds. Don't be too greedy or you might choke on a grape!

Goldfish and The Unexpected Gift

Christmas has come and gone and it seems like every year, someone in our family gets at least one Goldfish... but I probably need to explain what the term, "Goldfish," means around my house. As my husband tells it, many years ago his uncle gave his mother a real goldfish for her birthday. It just so happened that he had been coveting this same goldfish for weeks and had been repeatedly denied his request to have it as a pet, so when Mom's birthday rolled around, guess what she got? Ever since then, my husband's family has named any gift you purchase for someone close to you because you secretly want it for yourself a "Goldfish."

This year, the Goldfish in our house happens to be a PS2 game called Guitar Hero 2. Ostensibly purchased by my husband for our 12 year old daughter because it was supposed to be "a great game for kids," it allows the player to indulge in their wildest rock fantasies, playing lead along with Kiss, Cheap Trick and Black Sabbath. Imagine a cross between Dance Dance Revolution and air guitar and you pretty much have it. It's addictive and it's one PS2 game that's definitely approved by this Mom!




We had another Goldfish this year, only this one was unexpected and practically came against my better judgement. My daughter wrote a very convincing letter to Santa about how much she wanted a puppy. The letter was so convincing that even an old Scrooge like me, who avoids the pet shop and considers herself a people person, not an animal person, had to give in.

My husband and I had known that our daughter wanted a pet for years, but truthfully we thought she was too young to care for it herself. My husband works long hours and I was just too busy to add another responsibility to my day. My daughter has matured over the years and I no longer have a day job, so things are very different for us now.

Based upon the sincerity of the letter ("I promise to be diligent and take care of it,") Santa gave us the green light. He instructed us to adopt a rescue shelter animal. We started our search on the internet and at the library, looking for the type of dog that would fit into our lifestyle. We drove all over town looking for the perfect pup, but we could not find it. It’s funny how things never work out the way you plan them. The last place we looked was the pet store nearest our house where they happened to be hosting an adoption fair. We were on our way to a birthday party and just as we were walking out of the pet shop, we spotted a crate with a cute little golden pup wagging her tail at us. We took her out for a test walk and fell in love with her. She was so sweet and loving that we decided right on the spot that this was the puppy to adopt. We brought her home later that day.



My daughter named the dog Cinnamon. We took her up to Prescott to catch a little Christmas snow. I made a doggie sweater for her out of an old sweater sleeve, and she’s been helping us burn off all the tamales we’ve been eating.



She does require a lot of attention. It’s almost like having another baby. She steals our shoes and chews them up if we don’t watch her, but we watch The Dog Whisperer and try to learn from Cesar Millan and my friend Jula, who is a dog whisperer in her own right. We give her plenty of exercise, which is good for us because it’s easy to get lazy and fat in the winter when all I want to do is curl up by the fireplace with tamales, egg nog or hot rum toddies, and of course all the sweets that go along with the season: pumpkin bread, pan dulce, peppermint bark. It’s a good thing I’m learning to sew because at this rate, I’ll have to sew myself a whole new extra large wardrobe.

We think Cinnamon is a Golden Retriever/Labrador mix. That’s what it says on her adoption papers, but when you get a rescue pup, I don’t think you can be too sure. The one thing that is for certain is that this little pup has forced us all to go out on walks together everyday and has helped our family bond together as a tight pack. My daughter says she's the best Christmas gift ever and my husband and I agree that this addition to our family has been a gift to us all.

Here's hoping your Holidays are filled with unexpected gifts and happy surprises.

Too Many Tamales

Greg and I have been looking for a good place to buy tamales ever since November. At the time, we had gone to California to visit Greg’s family for Thanksgiving. We made plans to drive up to East L.A. to pick up some of my favorite tamales from La Indiana. I grew up on those. In fact, instead of formula my mom would just stick some rajas tamales in the blender for me and I was good to go. Unfortunately, we tried to do too many things the last time we drove through L.A. and at the last moment had to strike the tamal run from our schedule. Ever since then we seem to have become obsessed with finding a good tamaleria out here in Phoenix.

Let me back up here. The problem with finding a good tamal is that my family and I have recently gone vegetarian. All the wonderful tamal places that people have recommended to us make the usual red chile, green chile and dulce varieties, but no one seems to have the coveted, vegetarian rajas con queso type. So we DIY-ed it. We bought 5 lbs of masa (corn meal paste), a package of hojas (dried corn husks), some Anaheim chiles, pepper jack, cheddar and roasted corn and made our own non-traditional weirdo tamales; three types in fact, green chile rajas with onions and tomatoes, and pepper jack and roasted corn (frozen from Trader Joe's) with cheddar cheese. After we made those two batches, we discovered that we still had masa left over, so we took some of my homemade frijoles con queso and combined them with some roasted red peppers and made another batch. We ended up with several dozen grrrmet tamales. They came out pretty good. But we made too many.


With apologies to Gary Soto and Ed Martinez.

I’d always had this inexplicable fear of making tamales. My mom used to say it was hard and time consuming and so we never questioned her because she bought us La Indiana tamales. Now that those aren’t available, I’ve figured out that making tamales is time-consuming, but not difficult at all. All you do is soak the hojas (leaves) for about and hour until they’re clean and soft, spread your masa (you can buy it preparada which comes ready to go but contains lard, or you can make it yourself with Masa Harina), then you prepare your choice of filling. My tip is to cook everything that goes into the filling before stuffing your tamales, that way you just wait for the masa to firm up without worrying about whether the filling is fully cooked. We steamed ours in a double boiler for about an hour per batch.

I guess the tricky thing - if there is a tricky thing - is to spread the masa onto the leaves evenly and not to make your layers too thick so that the masa will cook quickly and evenly. After stuffing your tamales, you fold them like you would a burrito with the ends folded under, then stand them up in the top part of the steamer, but don’t let them touch the water or they’ll dissolve and you’ll have a gross tamale soup.

Finally, while you’re at the market may I suggest that you pick up a bottle of Rompope (Mexican eggnog.)

It contains a little booze, but you can add some spiced dark rum to it and sip it while you’re waiting for the tamales to cook.

Bam!

Copper Queens, Synchronized Viejitas, and a Geriatric Bacchanal

Yes, it’s true...we’ll take advantage of any special occasion and use it as an excuse for a little out of town getaway. We recently celebrated my daughter’s birthday in Bisbee, Arizona, a cute little bohemian hamlet about an hour southeast of Tucson. Bisbee is quirky in much the same way as Jerome, AZ - a town which I've written about previously. Like Jerome, Bisbee was once a booming mine town (The Copper Queen) that nearly became extinct and is currently enjoying a major comeback, though some longtime residents would say it’s being gentrified.


Downtown Bisbee.

It’s a good thing that hippies went around taking over these old run down ghost towns and transforming them into artist colonies. Although I did my share of hippie bashing when I was a punk, I’ve got to confess that there are many values that punks and hippies share. Building a Peace Wall in Minuteman country is simultaneously punk in its defiance and hippie in its lovey-doveyness.

Peace Wall, Bisbee, photo credit SliceO'Bisbee.com

Bisbee Hippie, photo credit Fano Quiriego.

Bisbee is an off-kilter, slightly seedy, edgy, funky place. We made the mistake of staying near the historic Brewery Gulch, which lived up to its name and got very loud about midnight. If you want a good night’s sleep in Bisbee, stay a bit off the main drag, there are lots of really cute and cool inns. On the way out of town, we drove through Lowell and took these pictures. They should give you an idea of how the entire Bisbee area is really frozen in time.

Lowell, Arizona.

Just southwest of Tucson is the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation of San Xavier del Bac, where my husband insisted we stop to check out the Mission and its legendary fry bread. If you’re thinking of that sugary, sticky stuff you get at Knott’s Berry Farm, think again. This Indian fry bread is closer to a chimichanga. It’s a fried flour tortilla, but light and crispy like puff pastry. Slathered with homemade refried beans, gooey cheese and topped with salsa, they were INCREDIBLE. I am drooling on the keyboard just thinking of them. We stood together in the desert courtyard of the Mission with the chilly wind blowing the scent of pine wood smoke around us and we devoured them. It was an Arizona moment to remember.

Mission San Xavier del Bac, photo credit: Jim Frazier.

On the way out of the Mission, we took this photo of the local cemetary:

Mission San Xavier del Bac cemetary.

Closer to home, my family’s exploration of our new home state of Arizona continues. This past weekend, we took in two very different Christmas celebrations in the Phoenix area. The first was a free Christmas lights event hosted by the city of Glendale, which is a suburb to the west of Phoenix and nothing like the Glendale in Southern California. Downtown Glendale, AZ has a quaint little historic district with lots of renovated houses from the turn of the last century, many of which have been turned into specialty shops. They were all decked out for the holidays. Unlike many Olde Tyme places, Glendale works its heritage without limiting itself to peddling antiques. There is a little something for everyone. Horse drawn carriages pulled visitors up and down the streets and the park in the center of town was filled with families enjoying the sights, sounds and - yum - flavors. We gave in to the green corn tamales and chocolate dipped cheesecake and enjoyed the synchronized square/line dancing of a group of seasoned ladies, endearingly named the Hot Boots because they all wore white cowboy boots. Their press release states that “they perform at various nursing homes in the area.” Maybe Punkoustica can open for them on their next gig. We watched them from above the outdoor amphitheater and could really appreciate the kaleidoscopic effect of their routine. It made me remember that I want to take up square dancing when I get old. I'd better start soon!

And speaking of old age...on Sunday, we went to the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden to check out the Noches de las Luminarias festival, an annual event with paid admission. My husband had read that it was a wonderful event with the gardens decked out in Christmas lights, “Exquisite Dining” and entertainment. Bah, humbug. It was a geriatric bacchanal, with all the wild fun that implies. Not to be ageist, I consider myself an old person, but let’s just say that the event was mostly attended by people who enjoy strolling (many with walkers) while sipping fancy wine from plastic cups and listening to mellow music. Really... mellow... music. The musicians were so-so, at least the ones I endured. They made as many mistakes as rock musicians, but with none of the showmanship or sense of humor. It made me long for the square dancing ladies from the previous night. Those viejitas were on! They did not make any mistakes and yet did not take themselves very seriously. If I were Busby Berkeley, I’d be all over that. Most importantly, they looked like they were having a blast.

I guess I’m just more of a down home type at heart. I’ll take Indian fry bread and high stepping old ladies over gourmet grazing and mellow minstrels any day.