Episode 12-- 'LoisLife' Blog-Blues, in Bawlmore & Beyond...

...I just got back to B-town last Wed after being away on a biz trip to Toledo, OH for over a month.

'Sitcom-style' bloggers aren't supposed to succumb to the blues, I know. Fact is, though, I really HATED being so long away from home & the city I love.

When I got back, I spent 3 days just running to music events, and visiting with friends. Then on Mon I sort of collapsed for a while and cried...After all that time away, I guess I was feeling a bit displaced, dispirited, and generally run-down.

But this very 'musically-inspired,' California-based artist/ writer friend of mine, Wayne Wolfson, just made me this lovely 'LoisBlueCity' pastel (featured above left), and it really has helped cheer me up. The city is supposed to be Seattle, not Bmore, according to Wayne, but the green 'L' on the door really does stand for 'Lois' (or so he claims)...

....It also cheers me to think that though I have been away a while from both Bmore & blogging, this Blog, and some of my Blogstars, are starting to become better known...In July, for example, this Blog and one of its 'LL Blogstars,' Alex, were featured on a pretty noteworthy--and wickedly funny--celebrity gossip blog out of the UK ("Madame Arcati").

So while my Blogstars may not yet be cultural icons of 'Michael Phelpsian' proportions quite, we are starting to get some out-of-town (and even international) press...

I did catch a couple of super-cool, super-artsy 'Bawlmorean' events right before I left town BTW, at the very end of July.

At Artscape, several good friends & I enjoyed Joan Jett's live Saturn Stage concert, and also the Paul Taylor Dance Company's performance, immensely. Check out this really great up-close shot of Joan I found on Flickr (my own camera doesn't zoom like this!), and the cool YouTube vid someone uploaded of her singing "Crimson & Clover."

I especially loved the Cab Calloway / Billie Holiday Vocal Competition, at which the lovely Tia Dae (1st place winner- B.H. Competition) and my friend, Baltimore's own Sujay Pathak, truly stole the show (I thought so, anyway, though Sujay placed 2nd in the C.C. competition for the 2nd yr in a row). If you're a Bmore local, Sujay performs live regularly Sat nights at Joe Squared Pizza (7-9 PM) in its Station North District, check his schedule out here.

Most of my Artscape pics sucked, but this very talented artist/ photographer I met, Dorret Oosterhoff, took some really great ones, esp of a few of the Cab Calloway & Billie Holiday vocalists. (Dorret's also a pretty accomplished quiltmaker & teacher...you can learn some more about Dorret & visit her wonderful quilts here.)

Just before I left for Ohio, I ALSO caught the live WTMD taping of Caleb Stine's (country/ folk artist) and Salim's (hip hop artist) awesome collaborative performance at the 8 x 10 on 7/26. The show was part of WTMD's "Baltimore Music Project," the remarkable brainchild of Baltimore Unsigned's host Sam Sessa...visit these links to learn more.

From that time on (7/28-just recently) I was mostly away in Toledo, OH, getting by as well as I could...I don't want to be too "down" on Toledo: the city really has the most beautiful "riverfront view" (some Bmore architects were hired to help create this), and it retains many cool features of the magnificent, artsy city it once was (& hopefully will soon be again).

Still, its downtown can feel pretty deserted & dreary often enough, esp to an exiled, homesick Bawlmorean...so I could kinda relate to this dreary downtown-Toledo inspired tune which John Denver penned & recorded some time ago.

I did return briefly over 8/23-8/24 wkend, long enough to mellow out at the Baltimore Songwriters Association's summer showcase at the beautiful Lurman Woodland Theatre in Catonsville, hearing some of my favorite local musicians, Kate Maguire, Sahffi, Sarah Pinsker & The Stalking Horses sing as evening settled in among the trees...

And I arrived home for good mid-last week, just in time for my friend Ed Neenan's ("e.joseph" of the "e.joseph and the Phantom Heart" band) fabulous "All The Medicine in the World" CD release party at Sonar last Fri (8/29), and the awesome line-up of bands he put together too...David Daniel, FFHH, & Red This Ever.

Visit these bands' sites & check 'em out, they're all quite cool...I'm givin' out free "LoisLife" points too if you can guess which band's lead singer incorporates balloon tricks (helium sucking included) into the show. Redeemable of course at a "LoisLife" rest stop near you... ;)

Copyright 2008 by Lois

Actually I'm super-excited about some pretty huge local music events coming up in the next few days/ wks:

This Fri night (9/5) at 7 PM at the 8 x 10, is a benefit concert for Susie Mudd (much-beloved editor of the 20-yr old publication 'Music Monthly', and a great supporter of local music)...Susie recently weathered a triple-bypass and is recovering well. A couple of local bands/musicians, incl a friend of mine, Clarissa, will be performing. Tix $15.

Also upcoming is Fools & Horses' "I Am the Ghost" CD release party, 9/13 at the Recher Theatre, in Towson (a Bmore 'burb)...F & H is a really phenomenal band, a National Starbucks CD Winner, winner of 3 WAMMIES, a regular on WTMD and a really good "LoisLife" friend...Tix $10 pp can be purchased here.

Fast-approaching is the Baltimore Music Conference (9/17-9/20), Bmore's huge music event at which over 100 bands and DJs will be showcased at venues across the city. All-access badges, passes & showcase tix can be purchased in advance here...

The BMC includes many"LoisLife"-friendly musicians & bands (Artherius Johnson, e.joseph and the Phantom Heart, Ellen Cherry, Gary B & the Notions, Michele McTierney, The Bad Influence Band, to name a few), & many more who will become such, I daresay. For full line-up, visit here, & visit their MySpace for more info & updates.

Episode 9- Springtime in Bmore, Springtime at Last! ;)

If you're one of my five fervid "LoisLife" fans, you may have noticed I've gotten a bit off-track in my Blogging of late.

Won't go into it much. ...Let's just say that a few weeks ago one of my earliest considered LL Blog characters told me something that surprised me, and for a while I was reeling a bit.

Actually the circumstances of my peculiar little melodramatic, romantic detour struck me as being (yup, you guessed it!) of a particularly "Seinfeldian-Meets-John Watersian" sort. Since I value the curiosity of my 5 loyal LL fans above anything, I did try to capture all this in a Blog.

But I'm afraid there are times when even my (seemingly) cleverly crafted LL stories do not quite meet with a potential Blog-character's approval, and this was simply one of those times. So for now we will simply have to call this one of my lost LL episodes--to be released, perhaps, at a later date.

Quite honestly, for the last few weeks, it has been a bit of "touch-and-go" situation for me, a bit "heavy" to tell the truth. Thankfully, though, 2 things have conspired to lighten the load.

The first is my discovery of the wonderful songs of Parkville's (a Bmore suburb) Ellen Cherry. She has this wonderful song called "Superhero" especially which I have quickly grown to love.

Another is the realization that it is Springtime in Baltimore--Springtime, at last!

Always during this time, many "green" and new things spring up which make my eyes water, my nose run, and my throat itch.

Still it is a pleasure to see all of these wonderful things growing and sprouting, even in formerly barren and dark places in Baltimore, & in the too-long abandoned recesses of the heart.

Now I could be cynical and self-mocking, in the grand old Bawlmorean tradition, a tradition I understand.

After too many years of waiting, hard to "buy into" all the city-sponsored promises and sloganeering: at words ("Believe") and phrases suspended in cyberspace, on billboards, on buildings, even the sometimes rickety or collapsing city bench.

Yet for all that we Bawlmoreans (the old residents and the new) may be tempted to view each new promise of improvement with the old accustomed cynicism, I will say this: Baltimore is not merely "green" in experience. She is also, relatively speaking, a very young city yet.

Truly she has had many stumbles and halts. In her recent past--and still today--she has borne, and continues to bear, more than her share of scars and indignities, suffering and wounds.

But always she is brilliantly creative, and above all surprisingly resillient, no matter what.

And just now I see her, as I see myself, emerging as if after a long sleep prepared for a new beginning, and indeed, in the full strength and creative flowering of her youth.

There are two videos I seem unable to stop playing, both because they make me laugh and because they lighten my heart.

...And also because they whisper that so many of us regular Baltimoreans are only just now charting for ourselves--and for our city too--a strange and magical and wonderful new course.

The first video is from John Waters' Hairspray, it kicks off to the tune "Good Morning Baltimore." The one I've linked is from the Hairspray production currently running on Broadway.

You'll find it right now also on my LL MySpace. Come "friend" me if you haven't already! If you visit now, you'll also hear my friend Woody's "Save the World" song there too. ...This is a cool tune which Woody's also started performing recently at his concerts at various locations about town.

The second video is of Sonny and Cher singing their big break-out hit "I Got You Babe" at the start of their career. This pair was, from the start, as unlikely & eccentric as any characters Waters cast in any of his movies. And where their careers went later [Sonny's to big-time national politics shortly before his tragic skiing accident, Cher's to super-stardom on a global scale] neither they, nor Waters himself, could possibly have predicted, much less dreamed up.

And actually, Sonny was cast in Waters' first Hairspray movie. So he can properly be called a 'Watersian' LL Baltimore Blogstar too.

But mostly this second video leads me to think of one or another peculiar Bmore pairing of talented eccentric visionaries, the kinds of strange, fortuitous and friendly partnerships upon which the joy and redemption and hope of a city like ours is built.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

Soon it will be Ecofest, in Druid Hill Park (April 26th) & Baltimore Green Week (April 25th-May 2nd)! To learn about exciting upcoming Ecofest & BGW events go to www.greencitybaltimore.org & www.baltimoregreenweek.org. I will be looking for volunteers for our GreenCityBaltimore table. Email me at Lois@Loislife.com if you'd like to help out!

The photo was taken not in Bmore, but in nearby Washington, DC. The truck-borne quote is by Itzah C. Kret, otherwise known as "The Phantom Planter," a Washington, DC artist, children's poet, environmental activist & dreamer, who has lived a life as varied & fascinating as any of the fantastical visionary artists showcased now or ever at the American Visionary Art Museum ("AVAM").

AVAM is simply my all-time favorite museum in the world. Its next big event is the Kinetic Sculpture Race to be held Sat, 5/3. Volunteers needed now. Contact jamie@avam.org or call 410.244.1900 to sign up.

Plenty of events in Bmore to celebrate April as National Poetry Month. Check out esp the 3rd yr Anniversary Party at Load of Fun on Fri 4/18; Minas Gallery's Poetry Month Celebration Sun, 4/20 at 4 PM; & Zelda's Inferno's next Open Mic night Tues, 4/29 at 2640 St. Paul. For more poetry info, visit the Poetry in Baltimore site, MD Open Mic site, Baltimore Fun Guide, and Baltimore-Localist.

On Sat, April 12th, from approx 8 PM & thereafter I will be at the Women Rock! concert at Load of Fun (this is a LadyFest Baltimore event; see the CityPaper article about LadyFest Baltimore here). Ellen Cherry is one of the wonderful "lady" musicians featured. Same night, same location is the Doll Project Fundraiser for the MD House of Ruth. Stop by on the 1st floor btwn 6-10 pm to catch it.

On Sun, April 13th, I will be at the Women's K.I.S.S. Event at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson (also as a Bmore Live Music Meetup) at 3 PM. Sahffi, whom I've blogged about before, will be among the musicians performing.

If you are a woman looking to fulfill your wildest business dreams in our wonderfully woman-dominated city, join me at the "Today's Business Woman III Conference" on Fri, April 25th at The Radisson Cross Keys. More conference details at the "Bmore4Her Online Resource" site.

Exciting news for Baltimore & for LoisLife: On April 14th, a new Bmore focused publication of the Baltimore Sun Media Group called 'b' and its online counterpart 'bthesite' kicks off! Among other things, the new publications will work with WTMD--and us--to further promote local music. Look to find 'LoisLife' content, photos & links on http://www.bthesite.com/ in the future.

Final plug: WHAM CITY, a Bmore artist, music & production "collective" phenom which started as a bunch of dreamy eyed kids from SUNY-Purchase, recently moved to a new location. Check out their MySpace for upcoming event info. Also see the Baltimore City Paper article & the Wikipedia piece to learn more about what these dreamers have created.

Episode 7- Rollin' in to Work with Dirty Marty

On my ride in to work via MARC train Tues morning, I met the Charm City Roller Girls' announcer, 'Dirty Marty.'

This is the name with which he introduced himself, without a touch of irony. He was easy to spot, in his 'Roller Girls' jacket actually.

He seemed genuinely puzzled when I asked for a name that was a bit less 'stagey.' Only with some reluctance did he allow that I might call him 'just Marty.'

This is something I rather love about Baltimore actually. Here it is nothing unsual for our performers and 'non-performing civilians' alike, to identify themselves both 'on' and 'off set' with names such as 'Trixie' and 'Sahffi' and 'JAR Horseman' and 'Teporah/ 'Tepi' and 'Woody' and, yes, 'Dirty Marty.'

These are not necessarily all names given at birth, but they are not quite 'stage names' either.... They are names worn as comfortably about Btown by their owners as a favorite pair of jeans, and every bit as casually.

Actually I pondered this interesting & peculiar 'Baltimorean naming' custom while at the Roller Derby two Sundays ago, at the 5th Regiment Armory with my cousin Lori. I was watching the Roller Derby gals skimming across the rink, when I felt a touch of jealousy.

Who could blame me for envying them? They were so visibly enthusiastic and carefree--plus so wonderfully absorbed in their 'body-slamming' activities.

And those names, printed in the Roller Girls' brochure and announced by 'Dirty Marty,' struck me particularly: 'Rosie the Rioter' and 'Pixie Rocket;' 'Cheeta Torpeda' and 'Harly Go Hardly.' The names said it all, they so vividly & perfectly announced the Roller Girls' identities.

"Can't I have an alter-ego?" I complained to my cousin. "Why shouldn't I have my own cool, body-slamming name, and identity?"

True to form, Lori just laughed, and rolled her eyes at me. "You don't need an alter-ego," she said. "You're already a character. There's only one Lois. ...Thank goodness."

I tried to hold on to my delusions a while longer, but it was no good. Had to admit, there's really no point--my character, I guess, is pretty well-formed already, and my name kind of 'fused' onto it too. Trying to separate them at this point would seem a rather fruitless endeavor.

I suppose, all is not lost--I do feel, these days, that special 'Bawlmorean' magic clinging to my name, as it seems to be also infecting my life and, indeed, my Blog-life-stories.

So maybe I really have no need for a more quirky, Bawlmorean-sounding moniker. Perhaps there is enough of the 'quirky Baltimorean' in me, without it--so adding on would be simply even more silly.

The woman in the pic is "Linda" in real life, "Virtual Linda" in her website & Blog. I just met her Wed but can tell she must be as fun, creative & colorful as her glasses. Linda is the 3rd person I've blogged about who has seen or met John Waters recently as he strolled through Hampden.

The pic was taken in Ryan's Daughter, this wonderful Irish restaurant/ pub which is a great live music/ performance venue. Every Wed night it has an open mic at which performers of all stripes--musicians, comedians, poets--can come. It is mc'd by a musician named David Morreale, whose 'Missing Baltimore' song can be found in my 'LoisLife Baltimore Blogshow Player' at the top-right of this Blog (being one of my favorites).

Another of my favorite Blogshow musicians, Bobby Smith, is having a CD release party Thurs March 13th, 7-11 PM at Club 347. I call him my Blogshow 'theme song' musician actually, since his 'Full Moon in Baltimore song'--a very wacky, unique song--is first in my "LoisLife player," and meant to be listened to while reading my Blog.

My friend Woody's song 'Roses' is sandwiched between David's 'Missing Baltimore' and Bobby's 'Full Moon in Baltimore' in my LL Blog Player. 'Roses' will air tomorrow, March 1st, btwn 4-5 PM on WLOY (1620 AM or TV channel 50). You can stream the radio broadcast by clicking here.

The Charm City Roller Girls will be back at the 5th Regiment Armory on March 15th. Details can be found here. To see a recent WBAL TV spot on the CCRGs, go to the YouTube feature on the right-side of my Blog or click here. 'Blow-by-blow' Charm City Roller Girl action reports can be found at their Blog here.

Not sure who to "roll in" to the event with? The Charm City Social Club, a very new (and very cool) Baltimore social networking group (for singles & couples both) has organized a Meetup around it. Lots of great people in this group with lots of great events planned already. To sign up for the event & "roll in" with the CCSC, click here.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

Episode 6- Baltimore Barbies, Alcohol, & MLA Launch Parties Don't Mix!

Woke up exhausted this morning after the big (and very well-attended) "Maryland Lawyers for the Arts"- Arts Brief Launch party at Lemongrass and Tsunami (hosted by Smalltimore Events) last night.

Not that I'd had all that much to drink really, but I'd been running myself ragged for 2 weeks straight so I guess 2 'orange crushes' on too little sleep was just enough to do the trick.

I was feeling just a wee bit 'off' when I first arrived at the party actually. Under most circumstances I am really not shy, but occasionally I feel a bit lost when surrounded by too many 'towering' fashionably-dressed people in strange settings (it can be easy to see people as 'towering' when you yourself are not quite 5 feet).

This effect tends to be heightened by sleep deprivation and hunger, so it took me a while to get my bearings last night. Then I found the free buffet, and this helped to improve my mood to a wonderful extent.

After a decent period of scavenging I felt much less cranky & started talking to people, and then I found a few I recognized and some who, for that matter, recognized me.

Among these were Annette, an artist, wife, and publicity agent of one of the Bobwhites (a cool 'art rock' & swing Baltimore band); Jonathan, a MICA student who dreamed up and is directing this fabulous 'Baltimore Sweep Action Parade' March 29th, as well as his Assistant Director, Anna Page; and Natalya, a law student I met at City Paper's 2007 Valentine's masqueRED Ball at Sonar, a cool party with lots of great people, fun music & many interesting 'party favors' of the 'public health' variety (it was to benefit Chase Brexton Health).

Then I met up with Alex, this really positive, energetic & wonderfully imaginative psychotherapist/ teacher/ actress, and we got to talking for a while till we both decided it was time to leave.

When I got home I jumped into bed almost immediately looking forward to a good night's sleep.

I guess all this running around must have affected me strangely, for I had these very peculiar, 'larger-than-life Barbie-filled' dreams. I can't relate too much about these noctural wanderings other than that they were filled with many statuesque, impressively-clad, adult human-size yet also doll-like Barbies, clinking glasses of what I presumed to be alcohol in darkly green-filtered surroundings, speaking to one another in high flute-like voices throughout the night.

When morning broke I struggled but was unable to remember much else, though the source of such dreams is really not hard to place.

When I first saw Alex she was playing the role of a Barbie doll-come-to-life in this truly bizarre, but very emotionally-engaging play at the Fells Point Corner Theatre as part of last year's Baltimore Playwrights Festival. In it Alex, one of two featured 'Barbies,' narrated tales of many child-inflicted tortures suffered, alongside her male counterpart (the similarly-abused 'Ken'), over the years in a really compelling and rather gut-wrenching way. YouTube video of Alex in her 'Barbie' role can be viewed here & on the right side of this Blog.

As a child I never subjected my own 'Barbies' to such abuses. I bought many of them after all with my own money, and treasured them very much in my way. Still I admit that I cast them, at least mentally, in some rather sketchy adult-type 'creative fantasy role-play' scenarios of which Mattell would simply never have approved.

I will say that my Barbies seem to have survived it all in relatively healthy good spirits, as you can see from the photo of one I've included with this Episode.

Normally I don't keep my Barbies in my apartment--not that I don't have my eccentricities, but my apartment is already cluttered enough with miscellaneous 'artsy' ecclectic stuff. For the last 3 decades or so they lived in my parents' basement in Rockland County, NY but lately they (my parents, not the Barbies) have talked of moving so they insisted I keep the Barbies here, in my own storage space.

But as you might observe, 'Golden Dream Barbie' (my childhood favorite) seems to have found a comfortable niche by my window just now hanging out with my jade plant (which is not at all menacing or even fashion-threatening like the ficus I wrote about in Episode 1--the Man Eating Plant, or commented on in Episode 4--Lois Finds Love at The Ottobar with Trixie Little, The Evil Hate Monkey and Scotty The Blue Bunny). She is also hanging out near the 'green Lois' bottle which my cousin Lori found for me a few weeks back. So I might just let her hang out here a while longer, so long as she doesn't see fit to keep 'haunting' my mental meanderings at night.

The 'Bobwhites' will be performing, and some of the band will also be reading poetry (along with some other well-known poets) at a spoken-word CD release event called 'Words on War' Friday, March 7th from 7 pm- 12 am at the Load of Fun Studio (120 W. North Ave). More details at Load of Fun's event calendar here.

Other events of note to take place March 7th include a 'Girls' Night Out' concert, sponsored by the recently-turned-two years' old Maryland indie music community networking organization Static Chain, featuring wonderful Baltimore-based female folk artists (Sahffi, Teporah, Clarissa and Toni Sicola) at Tyson's Tavern from 8 pm- 12 am. For more info, click here.

And two of my condo building-mates are putting on a Choreographer's Showcase event that same night (March 7th) from 8-10 pm at the Constance R. Caplan Dance Studio, Room 163, Mattin Cultural Arts Center at Johns Hopkins (North Charles Street at 33rd Street), it is completely free and all are invited.

More details about the Baltimore Sweep Action Parade to take place March 29th (4 teams 'sweeping' debris from 4 separate Bmore neighborhoods to converge on Mount Vernon Place 3/29, resulting in a public sculpture display to remain in Mt. Vernon Park until 5/20 as part of the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance's Festival of Maps exhibition) will be found at http://www.baltimoresweepaction.org/ and will soon be posted to GreenCityBaltimore's Blogsite (http://www.greencitybaltimore.org/) and yahoo group space ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greencitybaltimore/ ).

Copyright 2008 by Lois