candye kane

One Year Anniversary since the Whipple!

2009-04-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

Today is my one-year anniversary today from the cancer surgery I endured on April 18, 2009. I really am amazed that I am still here, alive and actually performing tonight at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Club here in Paris!! What an incredible year it has been.

When I think back to how fragile and sick I was the first few weeks after the Whipple procedure for my pancreatic cancer, I am really astounded to be feeling as strong and healthy as I am today. I feel that I have been given a second chance at life and want to use every opportunity to inspire others to fight their own challenges and stay strong. If I can be an example to others of how to take charge of their own bodies and how to make lemons from lemonade, I will feel like all the pain and struggle of the last year has been worth it.

Just one year after cancer, I have been chosen as an ambassador for the Electra Bicycle Company in their 2010 catalog and Way To Roll ad campaign. The WTR campaign celebrates individuals leading unique & inspired lives in the hopes of inspiring others and igniting a chain reaction of positivity, awareness, change and artistry to make the world a better or more beautiful place to be. The campaign will be rolled out across several formats: advertisements in US and international magazines (mainstream pubs and those endemic to cycling culture), the beautiful 2010 Electra Bicycles catalog, and online at www.electrabike.com. I will be featured in the catalog and possibly in an ad!! Woo Hoo!!

I have also finished my new cd, my tenth, SUPERHERO, for Delta Groove records. http://www.deltagrooveproductions.com
Its slated for a June 16th release and we are super excited. I leave for Memphis for the Blues Foundation Awards on May 5. I am not nominated this year, but my friend, guitarist and co-producer, Laura Chavez and I will perform at the Delta Groove Records showcase alongside my other labelmates and friends.
Pretty exciting stuff just one year after being cut open, scrambled and put back together!

I know how lucky I am to be here. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly and many people die just six months after diagnosis. I was lucky to have a rare, slower moving form, the neuro endocrine tumor, and was lucky to have a brilliant and dashing surgeon Dr. Andrew Lowy at UCSD Moores Cancer Center perform my procedure. I have lost other friends to this same cancer so my future seemed pretty bleak at first. I still have to pinch myself that I am still here on this planet at all. I have very few side effects from the Whipple, other than losing 100 pounds. I have to be careful eating rich and fatty foods and that’s been a bit difficult here in France. I am looking forward to going back home to my juicer, my neighborhood health food store and most of all - my gorgeous yellow Electra bike!

Cancer has brought many blessings to my life. New friendships with other survivors and patients – bonding with others who are suffering health challenges, like my friends, Kenny Neal, Ann Rabson, Jenny Bohman and Michele Seideman. Cancer has made me reevaluate my choices and my lifestyle, helped me lose 100 pounds and taught me about nutrition and juicing. Most of all, cancer has made me appreciate the beautiful friendships and moments I have on this planet.

On today, the anniversary of the traumatic nine hour surgery I endured, I just want to thank you again for your kindness, white healing light and generosity. I am still hundreds of emails and thank you notes behind but little by little, I am getting caught up. Your monetary gifts, the benefits and beautiful words of inspiration you shared with me were essential and vital for my speedy recovery. People cannot believe how strong and vibrant I look, just one year after this cancer catastrophe. I feel great and am grateful to be around a bit longer to make music for you!
I realize now that every day I have here is special and sacred. There are no guarantees in life and so I cherish every day I am given.

May you fight your own struggles with courage and positive thought and may you also appreciate every day you open your eyes and take a fresh breath of air.

Your super hero diva,

Candye Kane

Candye Kane band shows

4/13 – 18 Paris, France/ Le Meridien Hotel
4/19 Purmerend, Holland/ Private party/jazzenzo.nl
4/20 and 21 UBM workshops/ Holland
4/23 home from Europe
5/1 Bakersfield, Ca/ Double Tree Hotel Club Odyssey
5/8 Memphis Tn/ Delta Groove Records showcase at the National Blues Music Awards
5/9 San Jose, Ca/ Metro Fountain Blues Festival 2:30 pm
5/10 Orange County Marketplace/ 88 Fair Drive 92626
12 noon – 2:00 pm
5/16 Casper, Wy/ The Attic
5/17 Denver, Co/ Lannies Clocktower
5/18 Lyons, Colorado/ Oskars
5/20 Boulder, Co/ The Outlook Hotel
5/22 Dallas, Tx/ Pearl at Commerce w Cheryl Arena
5/23 Austin, Texas/ the Continental Club
5/24 Houston, Texas/ The Continental Club
5/28 Lincoln, Nebraska/ The Panic
5/29 Kansas City/ Knuckleheads
5/30 Eureka Arkansas/ Blues festival
6/2 Lincoln, Nebraska/The Zoo Bar
6/3 Des Moines, Ia/ Blues on Grand
6/4 Omaha, Nebraska/Murphys
6/5 Navarre, Mn/ Narrows Saloon
6/6 Chicago, Ill/ Fitzgeralds
6/7 Ann Arbor, Mi/ The Ark
6/9 Grand Rapids, Mi/ The Intersection
6/11 Macalester, Oklahoma/ Private event
6/12 Oklahoma City, OK/ Bricktown Blues Festival
6/17 New CD Super Hero! released on Delta Groove records!
6/19 ONLY SAN DIEGO APPEARANCE FOR MONTHS! ANTHOLOGY ON INDIA STREET/ CD RELEASE PARTY!!!!
6/20 Dana Point, Ca/ The Renaissance
6/26 Cloverdale, Ca/ Downtown Cloverdale concerts
6/27 Point Arena, Ca/ Arena Theater
6/28 San Francisco, CA/Biscuits and Blues
7/4 Portland, Oregon/ Waterfront Blues Festival (Mainstage)
7/5 Eugene, Oregon/ Sam Bonds Garage
7/10 Folsom, Ca/ Po Boys Bar and Grill
8/2 Chicago/ Halstead Market Days/Belmont and Halstead
8/4 Indianapolis, Indiana/ The Slippery Noodle
8/5 Cleveland, Ohio/ Beachland Ballroom
8/10 Rockland, Maine/ Time Out Pub
8/14 Woonsocket, RI/ Chans
8/15 Camton, New Hampshire/ White Mountain Blues and Boogie Festival w UK singer Dani Wilde
8/18 – 9/13 United by Music Tour of Ireland and the Netherlands/ www.unitedbymusic.eu
10/3 Narooma, Australia/ Great Southern Blues festival

www.candyekane.com
www.myspace.com/candyekaneband
http://www.candyekane.blogspot.com/

The Making of a Super Hero

2009-02-19T00:25:00.000-08:00

We are on the homestretch now, finishing up the overdubs on my new CD for Delta Groove records, Super Hero. It is slated for a mid June 2009 release. This is my ninth international release and my first for Los Angeles based Delta Groove. It is a very raw, emotional project since I am still a bit raw and emotional from my struggle with cancer less than a year ago. Making this CD is a true triumph and victory for me and I am so grateful for this chance.

I produced “Super Hero” with my guitarist, 26 year-old Bay Area virtuoso Laura Chavez. Laura and I co-penned six of the fourteen songs on it, and we feel pretty proud of the results. We had my eldest son Evan Caleb playing drums on most of the tracks except for the two that feature percussionist Stephen Hodges of Mavis Staples and Tom Waits fame. My long time friends, guitarist Dave Gonzales of the Paladins/Hacienda Brothers and sax player Jonny Viau, lent their talents to the recordings as well as my label mates, the scorching guitarist Kid Ramos and harmonicat and stellar crooner Mitch Kashmar. Paul Loranger played bass on the entire recording and it also features Greg Rutledge on piano. Its been really fun recording this CD at Joey Altruda’s studio on Melrose. I have known Joey for twenty years plus, since my early days in Hollywood when he was known as Tupelo Joe and then later from the King King club where he often played with his swingin combo, Jump with Joey. He and engineer Donnie Whitbeck have been incredible to us and done great work on Super Hero. We recorded live to two-inch tape in this classic studio where George Burns, Gracie Allen, Eddie Cantor and Bing Crosby recorded their radio shows. It has been incredible to be in such a magical space.

Last year at this time, I didn’t even know if I would still be alive, much less making another recording! The title; “I’m a Super Hero” is the name of one of my songs. It was the first song I wrote after my Whipple surgery for pancreatic cancer on April 18, 2008. I was so fragile when I came home from the hospital and could barely open my mouth to speak audibly, much less sing. I had 150 stitches in my belly after an intense, eleven-hour surgery that removed parts of at least five of my organs. Frustrated at my inability to sing normally, I held my guitar and strummed it daily. I believe in the healing power of music and I knew the guitar vibrations would be good for my traumatized body in addition to helping me stay focused on music. Eventually, I was able to muster up the strength to sing just a little and I wrote “Super Hero” as a folk song. My voice was so vulnerable and fragile that it was hard at first to project, but I’m proud to say that I am back and belting like my old self again. Super Hero has been revamped as a funky song and it’s a fitting name for this recording that represents victory over the biggest hurdle in my life. I just hope that everyone likes it as much as we have enjoyed making it.

On March 20, we will embark on a four- week tour of Europe and Scandinavia. I am so happy to be alive that I took every single gig that came my way, once I started feeling better. I am so grateful to be working when so many are losing their jobs but I admit, I am a bit tired. I have scarcely had any time to rest and am looking forward to a few days off once the cd is complete.

We performed my stage play, The Toughest Girl Alive at the Diversionary Theater at the end of January in San Diego. It was sold out on all four nights! Thank you San Diego! People came from as far away as New Jersey and Seattle to see the play and everyone seemed to really like it. Many of you wrote to me and told me how inspired you were by the stories of my early childhood and life journey, thus far. The play was adapted to the stage and directed by San Diego Ballet director and acclaimed choreographer, Javier Velasco. We are hoping that the Toughest Girl will be picked up by other theaters and included in their season. Please wish us luck!

On a somber note, I lost two more beautiful friends this month. My friend Lux Interior of the Cramps left us at age 52, from a heart disorder. Lux was an amazing performer and he looked great in stiletto heels. He was brilliant, quirky and sexy. I appeared in the Cramps video The Ultra Twist many years ago and opened for the Cramps several times through the years. He leaves his beautiful wife, Cramps guitarist Poison Ivy.

I also lost my dear friend, Otis Owens. Otis lost his life in an accident on an icy highway in Texas on his way home to San Diego. Otis was a devoted father to his beautiful grown daughter, Olivia and was a true friend to anyone who ever asked for help. We met twenty years ago through our mutual friend, Country Dick Montana. Otis went on to become clean and sober and shared his wisdom and heart with anyone who needed a friend. His company, Otis delivers, was a fitting name for a man you could always count on. We will honor him and my other recently departed friend, Lorna Doone at Brick by Brick in San Diego this weekend.

Thanks so much to all of you for your kind support, emails and friendship. I am so lucky to be here and I am grateful for every morning I wake up alive. I send you positive energy and white healing light. May you transcend all of your life challenges and stay in the moment, as much as possible. May you realize that your strength is inside you and always there for you, as long as you are willing to tap into it. You can overcome anything that life throws at you and you can be stronger for it. I know it’s hard to believe that when you are suffering, but take it from me, you don’t have to be a Super Hero to overcome adversity. You just have to think like one.

Big Love and Stay Tough,

Candye

Candye Kane band shows

2/20 San Diego/ Tio Leos
2/21 San Diego/ Brick by Brick/ Otis Owens and Lorna Doone Hamilton Tribute show/www.brickbybrick.com
2/22 San Diego/ Dizzys with Sue Palmer/ Janell Rock posthumous CD release party
2/24 San Diego/ Hillcrest Mardi Gras Celebration 7 pm.
2/25 Leucadia, Ca/ The Calypso Cafe
2/27 Solana Beach/ Belly Up Tavern happy hour 5:30-8:00
Encinitas private party/ 8:00 – 10 pm
2/28 Dana Point/ The Renaissance
3/8 candye solo/Oakland ca benefit/ http://tehiyah.org/twonights.pdf
3/20 leave for Europe for Amsterdam
3/22 Stockholm, Sweden/ The Akkurat
3/23 travel day to helsinki
3/24 and 25 Helsinki, Finland/ Storyville
3/27 Umea, Sweden
3/28 Linkoping, Sweden/Great Jazz Festival
3/29 back to a’dam
3/30-31 off
4/1 travel to Vienna
4/2 Vienna, Austria/ Reigen live
4/3,4 and 5 Hornslet, Denmark/ www.Djursbluesland.dk festival
4/6 back to amsterdam
4/7 drive to basel
4/8 Basel, Switzerland/ Grand Casino
4/9 go to paris
4/10 Paris, France/ Euro Disney/ Billy Bobs
4/13 – 18 Paris, France/ Le Meridien Hotel
4/19 Purmerend, Holland/ Private party/jazzenzo.nl
4/20 and 21 UBM workshops/ Holland
4/22 home from Europe
5/1 Bakersfield, Ca/ Double Tree Hotel Club Odyssey
5/9 San Jose, Ca/ Metro Fountain Blues Festival
5/22 Dallas, Tx/ Pearl at Commerce
5/23 Austin, Texas/ the Continental Club
5/29 Kansas City/ Knuckleheads
5/30 Eureka Arkansas/ Blues festival
6/2 Lincoln, Nebraska/The Zoo Bar
6/4 Omaha, Nebraska/Murphys
6/5 Navarre, Mn/ Narrows Saloon
6/6 Chicago, Ill/ Fitzgeralds
6/12 Oklahoma City, OK/ Bricktown Blues Festival
6/26 Cloverdale, Ca/ Downtown Cloverdale concerts
6/27 Point Arena, Ca/ Arena Theater
6/28 San Francisco, CA/Biscuits and Blues
8/15 White Mountain, New Hampshire/ Blues Festival Dani Wilde
8/18 – 9/13 United by Music Tour/ www.unitedbymusic.eu

www.candyekane.com
www.myspace.com/candyekaneband
http://www.candyekane.blogspot.com/

Too thin for the fat girls and too fat for the mall - My changing body and changing times.

2008-08-11T00:41:00.000-07:00

Too thin for the fat girls and too fat for the mall –
My changing body and changing times.

That dreaded summer of 1974 was the summer of transformation. My mom called me into the house from my sweltering game of kick the can with the neighborhood homeboys. Until that moment, you could find me running blissfully up and down my northeast Los Angeles cul de sac in cut off shorts, no shirt and vans slip ons. Suddenly my mom was informing me that I had to wear a shirt from now on. My breasts were growing and it was “inappropriate” for a young lady to run around shirtless. I spent the rest of the summer seated in front of the electric fan, stubbornly refusing to give into my moms’ merciless demands, my raging hormones and my blossoming mammaries.

By ninth grade, the rest of my body was starting to catch up with my now D cup bustline. I became an expert at hiding my size 12 curves under my dads baggy button down collar shirts and levis. I would never know the joys of the “5 -7- 9” shop. I carried my schoolbooks close to my chest and kept my eyes lowered, praying to G-d that none of my classmates would call me “fatso” or “chubby cheeks.” I really wasn’t fat, but my large, round breasts were the first thing that people noticed when we met. They were scary and intriguing for the boys at school, except for the one bully who pinned me against the lockers so he could cop a feel at their firmness.

With my first year of high school came my initiation into size discrimination. Even though I was often the best singer in the drama class, I couldn’t get the part of the ingénue or the princess in our school productions. My size dictated that I play the matronly teacher, or the matronly mother or the matronly nanny complete with grey wig. I was a matron and yet, I was still a virgin.

Senior year was the first time I actually started to enjoy my voluptuous body. A trip to Vegas proved to be quite advantageous when a peek at my cleavage and ample behind distracted the security guard from asking for my ID. I could play on the slot machines to my hearts content and hadn’t even had my 18th birthday yet.

Pregnancy and childbirth inflated my generous body further. My breasts swelled to an F cup. I was now a size 16. I couldn’t get jeans in the mall boutiques to fit me, anymore. I started shopping at Lane Bryant and discovered the plus size sections of the bigger department stores. Simultaneously, I was modeling for big cash in magazines that celebrated big women. Magazines with names like Hefty Mamas, Two tons of Fun, Curvy Gals and Juggs. I was a large sized sex symbol. I was working in a stigmatic business but at least I wasn’t invisible. I was acknowledged. I was beautiful and sexy. I started receiving marriage proposals and bonafide fan mail. I started embracing my curvaceous bounty and realized that there was a whole cross-section of people who enjoyed their partners with generous proportions. With money and out of state travel, came confidence and big dreams. I used the money from the skin trade to subsidize my musical career. I began hiring musicians to play with me and writing and recording songs and demos. I was a cover girl on Voluptuous magazine – why not take the next step and become the singing star I had always wanted to be?

Alas, lest I become overly comfortable in my own skin, the music business provided a rude awakening and reality check. I really wasn’t okay being a fat girl, or at least that’s what the record executives wanted me to believe. I was too fat to be a country star. I needed to lose weight and fix everything about myself that was unique, unusual and hence, broken. I was blatantly told by several powerful show biz veterans that I would never “make it” if I didn’t look the part. Didn’t I realize there were no fat women in country and western music? I could lose weight and play the game, or I could go back to my barrio with my muy grande nalgas and be a welfare mom. I went back to East L.A. from Nashville, but I didn’t go quietly and I didn’t stay a welfare mom for long.

I have always been a fat activist even before I knew there was a label for it. I was a fat champion out of necessity. I didn’t feel undesirable like many large sized people do. I had a ready fan base to tell me I was sexy and wanted. But I still had the same confrontations with prejudice and stereotypes in my daily anonymous life, as every other outsider. Rude waiters asking me if I really needed dessert or if I knew how many calories were in the pastrami plate - Dirty looks from old women in the supermarket when I lingered too long in the ice cream aisle- Laughter and snickers from store clerks in Victoria Secret - Teenage boys screaming from speeding cars when I jogged past: “Its not gonna help, fatty!” - Men in the singles scene who wanted to date me from my ad, but took off running when they saw how large I was in person- Well-meaning friends and relatives who told me I would be so much healthier if I just lost a few pounds - Countless people telling me that I had such a pretty face, because they couldn’t bear to comment on the rest of me – People telling me how great I looked and asking how much weight I had lost, because I couldn’t possibly look good if I hadn’t been dieting.

So, I began to own my fatness. I started writing and singing songs about it. “200 pounds of fun” “You need a great big woman to show you how to love” “Work what you got if it’s a little or a lot” ”Fit, Fat and Fine.” I wore bikinis and low cut dresses. I wore short skirts and skimpy gowns. I discovered drag queen stores where the sizes were bigger, the fabrics stretchy-er and the sequins shinier. I sought out other large sized and fringe communities and my music attracted them to me. I was featured in a book called “Real Women Don’t Diet” and appeared on talk shows like Roseanne, Maury Povich and Montel Williams, extolling the virtues of big women. I got new kinds of fan letters from new kinds of fans; Women who identified with my struggle as a fat girl in a skinny world.

I had another baby, gained more weight and grew to 270 pounds and a size 24. I was rejected from insurance companies because my weight was considered a pre-existing condition. I had low cholesterol and low blood pressure but was considered high risk by the medical establishment. According to them, I was morbidly obese. I was indignant. Did the insurance companies ask skinny girls how much they weighed? Were they discriminated against for being too thin? I was fat but I was still active – riding a bike, walking on the beach, dancing onstage every night and eating and drinking whatever I wanted. I was fat but I was still very sexy. There was more of me to love and more of me to celebrate. Yes, I was fat and I was proud. I rubbed my belly and spoke to it, “You’re soft and warm and cuddly. You keep me warm on a cold winters night. You’re good to grab onto during sex.” I loved my big body and I spread the word that fat was where its at. That we are all beautiful no matter what size we are. That fat is okay too.

And then one day, cancer knocked on my door.

Since being diagnosed with cancer and having the Whipple procedure done on April 17 in a nine hour surgery, I have lost 75 pounds. They removed part of my stomach, small intestine, bile duct, pancreas and my entire gall bladder. I am under 200 pounds for the first time in almost twenty years. I have gone from a size 24 to a size 16. I am thinner than some of my thin friends. I can buy the “one size fits all” fishnets and they actually fit! One of my friends said recently, “Now that you’re losing all this weight, do you think your fat fans will desert you?”

I was speechless after that question. I didn’t really think it was a possibility. Why would my fat fans desert me just because I had cancer? Why would my fat fans desert me when I was still a fat girl inside? I didn’t ask for cancer. I didn’t ask to be thinner this way and I certainly wouldn’t wish the cancer diet on anyone else. In my head, I still identify as a fat girl. I still shop in plus size shops and websites. I still opt for the table instead of the booth at the restaurant. I am still too fat for mall boutiques and I still shop in the specialty stores, only now I am a XL instead of a 3X.

My friends question though, really worried me. Especially after a blog appeared on a website called “The Rotund” challenging my songwriting integrity. The writer, Dr. Sheila accused me of lying about my weight in my song, 200 lbs of fun. Suddenly I was being accused of dishonesty when I had always prided myself on my fidelity. Would my big girl fans desert me because I no longer looked like them?

It’s a question with no real answers. I haven’t changed who I am or my philosophy that all of us are worthy and equal. I haven’t changed my belief that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, ages and sexual orientations. I still feel like an outsider and I will always identify with the disenfranchised because I am still, one of you. No matter how thin I may become or how easy shopping may become, I still feel like a fat girl, now trapped in a slimmer body. I haven’t noticed that much difference since my surgery. I don’t move any quicker than I did 75 pounds ago. I do think more about what goes into my mouth, because my digestive system is fragile and I have to pay attention to what I eat. I do exercise daily because I want to be as healthy as possible and I don’t want the cancer to return. I do avoid sugar because cancer feeds on sugar and I don’t need it in my system. But in every other way, I am still the same fat girl I always was. Now, I guess I am truly an outsider because I am too fat for the Victoria Secret store, and too thin for the NAAFA convention. Does this mean that my large sized fans are going to dump me? I would like to hear from you and hear your opinions.

When a fat person loses weight because she/he has had a health crisis, is she still a member of the club? Or do we become some sort of invisible person – invisible to the large sized community we love and embrace, just as we are invisible to the culture, because we are fat? Am I part of the problem now, instead of part of the solution? Am I a former outsider looking in to my outsider community? How does weight loss affect how the fat acceptance community views us? Is all weight loss bad? Or just crash dieting and gastric bypass weight loss? Is all weight loss created equal? I want to think that my music is more important than my size. I want to think that large sized women and men will persist in buying my music and sharing it with others. I will continue to sing my size celebration songs because I love them and I know there are people who need to hear their message of inclusivity, no matter what size they are. I will continue to perform the songs because I still identify as an outsider in more ways than just the numbers on my scale.

If you have stuck with me thru the thick, then I need you to stick with me thru the thin, even if it happens to be a bit thinner than you. Who among you has the courage to look past my appearance and embrace who I am? Isn’t that what all of us really want from each other? Its not 1974 anymore and I don’t have the option to sit inside all summer in front of the electric fan rather than wear a shirt to cover my changing body. My body is changing on its own, from the trauma of cancer and the lifestyle changes that cancer has wrought. I love and cherish my body because it is alive and has so far, triumphed over a complicated surgery and a life threatening illness. I love and cherish my body because fat or thin, sick or healthy, it’s the only body I have. It’s the summer of 2008 and once again, it’s a summer of transformation. Hopefully it is also a summer that will transform not only my dress size, but also transform all the narrow minds who would judge me for my weight – be it 270 or 170. Think about it.

Candye Kane

midwest shows cancelled, news from holland and blues in capetown

2008-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and happy summer!!

Our tour is going great here in the Netherlands. www.unitedbymusic.nl for photos. Sue Palmer left us Sunday and my son Tommy is here now to take her place on piano (tough shoes to fill!) and play some trombone for us, for the remaining two weeks. Yesterday we played in a big barn in Rotterdam at a petting zoo. It was an incredible place to have a concert amidst the hay and the goats. There was actually a peacock in the haystack with us and she just sat there the whole time during our rowdy and raucous set. She seemed a bit upset about my big feathery hat and she kept fluffing up her feathers, trying to look bigger. It was cute.

The United by Music artists are getting better and more confident each performance and that is really exciting to witness. I couldnt have done this tour without the help of my friend, UK blues artist Dani Wilde. I have had to cancel a few of my performances because of my health and Dani has been right there to emcee for me and perform her own amazing songs. The entire band is just awesome and everybody is doing their very best for our kids. Robbie Smith arranged all of the horns for me. Johnny Ferreira goes above and beyond the call of duty daily, playing his sax to the kids on stage and playing with them offstage too. He has such a big and friendly personality. The singers all love him. Billy Watson is another great friend and stage artist willing to do whatever it takes it get the job done. He sings a duet with J.A. Grace of "Hit the Road Jack" and sometimes he even lays right down on the ground during the song. His wild antics crack us all up. Harm Van Sleen has really helped the whole time, rehearsing with the UBM artists and he speaks dutch so its great having him there to communicate if things get confusing. The rhythm section features Paul Loranger and my son Evan on drums. Paul is just an angel and he has been so good to me. I love him and of course, Evan is right there for me all the time, keeping the beat and making me laugh. And finally, my girl Laura Chavez is just so incredible. The soul and heart that comes from her guitar playing is just awesome. I am so lucky to play with her and with all these great people. Our tour manager Nanda leaves tomorrow to go back to Singapore. We will really miss her. She is just a beautiful person inside and out. I am so glad we will see her again in Capetown.

On August 25, we will go to Capetown, South Africa for the World Congress for People with disabilities. I don’t know how on earth my body will endure a 15 hour flight but this is a realization of several years of hard work. It has been a dream of mine and Joris Wijngaarden to bring the United by Music project all over the world. It will be a chance for us to explain to caregivers and educators why we specifically use blues music to inspire special needs people to overcome adversity. Because the blues was partly born from the oppression of African Americans, I feel it is uniquely suited to inspire people who are challenged by physical and intellectual disabilities in their every day lives. Some of our artists have already written their own blues compositions. Mirielle wrote a song called “Im not that special. I am just like you.” When she performs that song, she demonstrates the honesty and heart that the blues is all about. It is my sincere hope that the United by Music project can someday be as big as the Special Olympics. By using blues as a metaphor, we can inspire others to create and enjoy music to pull them through their daily challenges. I will be doing a slide show and verbal presentation. The slide show will have photos of blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie alongside plantation pictures and photos of our special needs artists. If any of you can give me suggestions on where I can find archives for my slide show, please contact me at candyekanetour@aol.com

I am feeling okay but sometimes food does a number on me. Food I used to eat without event has suddenly become indigestable. I got really sick the other night after eating some pad thai. The next day, I took a chance and I ate a salad with some bleu cheese. I thought I would get really sick since I have been virtually dairy free except for acidophulus and yogurt and yet, I felt fine after the cheesy salad. Then I ate a little tiny bit of ice cream and was up all night crying with pain. Its really weird and unpredictable. Everyday is a new gastronomical experiment. I also get really tired very quickly. On this show, I only have to emcee and do a couple of songs nightly. It wears me out! I do give a lot of energy to the singers and musicians in the show and lots of hugs, kisses and a shoulder to cry on sometimes. But still, it has been draining at times, and I have had to take a few nights off. Its really great to have wonderful musicians to rely on to carry me thru. I am also grateful for the kind understanding of the united by music crew and Joris Wijngaarden. They have been so kind when I have had to cancel and their gracious understanding really makes it easier. And of course, it really helps to have my friend and caregiver Heather here with me. She gives me massages once a week and makes fresh juices for me when she is staying with me. I should have probably stayed at home to convalesce longer but Joris and the UBM volunteers have made the tour so easy for me, I had to come and do my best. I didn’t think my special needs artists would understand if I didn’t make it.

I took the liberty of canceling a few of my Midwest shows. I just had such a full schedule that I couldnt imagine having to help drive for four or five hours a day and then performing several shows a night. I still havent purchased a small RV because they are so expensive and my budget is limited; (and I simply haven’t had the time!) So I am really sorry to those of you who were looking forward to seeing me in Omaha, Lincoln, Ann Arbor, Navarre, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Columbus and New York City. We will still be flying out to the festivals in Los Alamos, Wausau, Wis and Marshfield, Mass and will resume normal touring schedules in September. I really hated to cancel anything and let people down. I know how much my agents at piedmont talent and the wonderful promoters and club owners depend on me so I hope people will forgive and realize that I am still healing and figuring myself out. With the Capetown trip looming, I just didn’t feel physically ready to do all of my dates and I had to make a difficult decision. I really hope my fans and blues friends can forgive me and understand that the United by Music Capetown trip can do so much more good for the blues in the long run.

I will have another round of cancer tests on September 6 to find out if all the cancer was removed in the surgery. 14 out of 20 lymph nodes were cancerous so there is a slight chance that some lymph nodes were missed. I am really hoping that my cancer is completely gone, that my strict diet is working and that I wont have to endure more surgery and treatments. In the meantime, I am trying to get as much work done as possible and enjoy the time I have here on earth NOW. I know I live a charmed life and I am so blessed to do this amazing work with these wonderful people.

I met an M.D. the other day and she was amazed at how good I look and how well I am doing since having the Whipple surgery less than three months ago (April 18th!). Comments like hers give me courage especially since I am faced with more fragility than usual. I am not used to feeling feeble and it has been hard to accept. But I am just so grateful to be alive and to be back here in Europe with both of my sons. And even though I look pretty good and feel good most of the time, I am still trying to take things one day at a time. The understanding and kind hearts of those around me really means so much.

xo candye

cancer pity party, pastrami and the handys

2008-05-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

Pity party

The ups man came and brought a gift to me today.

“Cancer patient” is how it was addressed.

I didn’t ask to be a cancer patient and it still sounds weird sometimes to mouth those scary words. C-A-N-C-E-R- P-A-T-I-E-NT. Yikes.

So I had a pity party. I cried and cried hard. I even sobbed a little. Why me?
Theres a million jerks who deserve cancer and Im not one of them.
I have so much to live for -
So much more to accomplish.
Im not finished yet.
I have lots more work to do. Finish my book. Make a country record. Make a gospel record. Make a Spanish / French language record. Make a 50’s vato oldies record. See my boys get married. See my grandbabies born. I have way more LOVE LOVE LOVE to spread around this wicked plant.

I cried so hard, my eyes are all red and my contact lenses are all cloudy. I
Felt nauseated again today. This is my third bad day in a row. I keep waiting for the good day but it seems elusive. I took a qui gong class this morning and it was really good. It was really blissful and I had a smile on my face the whole time as I connected to the white light energy. It was really beautiful. But then when I came home, I started having a stomachache. For breakfast I had kashi with soy milk and a banana. I had three teaspoons of hemp seed with the cereal. For lunch I had three shots of wheat grass and tuna from cream of the crop on 16 nut and rice crackers and an asian pear. But my stomach was churning so much I thought I would puke. I am tired of being sick. I feel like I cant get anything done. That’s the hardest part. I have so much I want to do and only a few good hours when I feel well enough to do them.

I smoked a big bowl in my vaporizer. Thank G-D for weed and especially for medical marijuana. Weed is the only thing that makes me well enough to put my pain aside and do something in spite of it. I cant stand pain pills because they make me constipated, give me headaches and cotton mouth. I only took pain pills the first few days I was home and then I quit them. They were causing more pain than I needed. Sometimes the pain is really weird and sharp. It comes suddenly in weird spots all over my abdomen. Its irratic. Everything I eat seems to disagree with me unless its miso soup or some other kind of soup. Even carrot- beet juice made me feel really sick yesterday but then who knows whether it was the juice or not that made me sick??

Anyway, now that I am stoned, ENOUGH pity party! I am going down to the pier to walk while I feel well enough. I know the wind in my hair will feel good even if I do have a bellyache. I don’t want to give in to any more negative thoughts. I am doing amazingly well. It has been just 19 days since my surgery. I am strong and can get up and out of bed without trouble. I can drive. I can walk - slowly. I can cook. (I am making a chicken in the crock pot.) . I cant ride a bike or make love yet, but that will come eventually. I feel relatively good most of the time. I can bend down if I do it slowly. I will continue to get stronger and healthier until I am scurrying down the hill from pacific avenue and skidding out in Billy Watsons driveway again. Until I am going out to places, to sing because I miss it so much. Until I can make love like crazy for hours and not have to worry about how I move and where I am touched.

*********************************************************************

No more pastrami.

I guess I will never be able to eat a pastrami sandwich again. I like em’ piled high and greasy on rye bread, with Russian dressing on the side. I like cole slaw on em’. sometimes. Canters deli on Fairfax has the best ones. There was a time me and my bf used to talk about getting married at Canters and having our wedding reception in the kibbutz room. That was long ago, long before carcinoid. Long before I was forced to give up pastrami. I suppose I can still eat matzah ball soup. I don’t think that will be bad for my newly scrambled digestive tract. But I fear that my days of The Brooklyn sandwich (half chopped liver, half pastrami) are over now. No more ribs for me. No more Kosher hot dogs. No more fried zucchini. No more briscuit sandwiches. But hey, its all good. I am still alive. I can eat Tomberlies all vegan ice cream now. I can eat eggless tofu salad sandwiches. I can drink fresh juices and above all, I can still eat sushi!! Woo hoo! Life is good and I am grateful to be living it.

**********************************************************************

I lost the handy award last night.

I knew it would go to Betty Lavette. That’s okay. She deserves it. Shes older and she has a great voice. Evan went down to Tunica to be my representative. He had a fun time hobnobbing with all my blues friends. Tommy Castro, Lynwood Slim, Tab benoit, Bob Margolin, Bob Corritore, etc.. everybody was down there. I wished I could have gone too but Im still too weak to deal with crowds. My voice is really soft. If I had to speak over people and loud music, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I am still too fragile. Its only been 21 days since the surgery. I know I am getting stronger little by little. Maybe I will get nominated next year and win. That would be nice. But just being nominated finally, was a real coup for me. I guess it finally proves that I am good enough in the blues world. I guess it finally proves that I am not just a former X rated big bust model and dancer. It proves that I have transcended my controversial past and am finally being accepted for the singer I have always been. That feels good. That feels vindicating. May all my sexworker friends be able to move on from sex work and be accepted for their own unique talents and virtues. May every one of us be able to live our dreams and pursue our true calling without being marginalized for the choices we have made. I am so blessed and lucky. I know I live a charmed life. Now I just want to keep on living it for a few more decades.

Eighteen days since they cut me open!

2008-05-07T14:16:00.001-07:00

I am still taking things one day at a time. I am slowly learning what foods my body can tolerate post surgery, and what foods it cannot. Sometimes I am in a lot of pain but most of the time I am feeling good and strong and oh-so-lucky to be alive. I still cant ride my bike yet but I am walking a bit each day. I walked the Oceanside pier the other day. I had to sit down a few times along the way but I made it to the end and back. I also walk around the neighborhood and try to walk as much as possible in my own house, trying to regain a sense of normalcy.

I had my staples taken out on Monday and got to read the pathology report from my surgery. I am still learning about this neuroendocrine tumor I have had. Its hard to get info because this is such a rare form of cancer. It is not even recognized by the American Cancer society! Weird how something that can kill me and is called “cancer” doesn’t qualify as cancer to them! Here are some websites about carcinoid and what it means;

http://www.carcinoid.org/
http://carcinoidawareness.moonfruit.com/

Dr. Lowy told me that the tumor on my pancreas was non functioning BUT, this seemingly innocent tumor was able to infect fourteen of my lymph nodes with cancer! He removed twenty lymph nodes during my whipple procedure and fourteen were cancerous! This is very scary especially when you consider that all my cancer markers in my blood tests were normal. He thinks he got it all, but of course its pretty scary to think that a cancerous lymph node could have hidden somewhere in there, with all the guts and organs. I am just thinking as positive as possible; telling myself that I am cancer free and that I will be fine from here on in. I will have to be tested twice a year with a full body scan to make sure the cancer hasn’t recurred. I join the ranks of millions who are in the exclusive club that no one wants to join; cancer survivors.

I am staying alkaline and staying on my vegetarian regime. I cant qualify as vegan yet because I am still eating sushi and organic chicken. I will try and give up chicken but I don’t know if I can ever give up sushi! Giving up coffee, starch and sugar was much easier than sushi! I do think that if I can continue my juicing and alkaline regimen that I may be able to assist my own immune system in beating any remaining cancer cells myself. At least, I hope so!

Money continues to pour in from the benefits for me all over the world. My friend, healer Louise Hay, donated $1000 at my benefit at Humphreys. That is the largest single donation I have received so far! I feel so blessed and so humbled to know how many people truly care and how many people have been willing to donate their hard earned money but also their time and talents to the various benefits around the world. It has really been inspiring to see people rise to their highest level of compassion and caring for lil’ ol me. It has meant so much to me and to my two sons, Evan and Tommy, to see how much people care and how willing they are to give of themselves at this crazy time in our lives. The generosity of so many has afforded me the luxury of focusing on healing without having to worry about the mounting bills. www.singers.org and www.sweetrelief.org have also been amazingly generous, helping me pay bills and survive this monumental health challenge.

Tomorrow are the Handy awards, or the Blues Foundation awards as they are called now. www.bluesfoundation.org
I sent my son Evan and my guitarist Laura Chavez to Tunica, Mississippi on the off chance that I might win. I am nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Female along with Betty Lavette, Debbie Davies, Fiona Boyes and Teresa James. Im not confident that I will win because all the women in my category are so strong and talented. But if I do win, my son evan will deliver a speech thanking all of the blues people who got me to this point. It would really be a special coup to win, especially now, since I am still so fragile from the surgery. Wish me luck! You can hear the awards broadcast live at www.xmradio.com on Bluesville.

Thank you again to all who have written me emails, letters, sent flowers and plants, checks and money orders and pay pal gifts. Thanks to the musicians who donated their time, talents and energy to so many benefits. And they aren’t done yet! Below is a list of more benefits to come. I am so grateful for the generosity of so many people. When I start talking about it, I start crying. They are tears of joy to know that so many people love me and hold me close to their hearts. May I be deserving of all that love and admiration and be able to make more music to inspire you all, for many years to come.

BIG BIG LOVE AND GRATITUDE,

Candye

More cancer benefits:

May 13 Arlington, Va/ The Claredon Ballroom/ www.gottaswing.com
May 14 San Diego Ca/ The Casbah/ Joey Harris, Years around the sun, Mojo Nixon Steve Poltz and friends
May 16 Paris France/ Le café Loom/ Sophie Kay, Little Victor, Benoit Blue Boy and many more!
May 16 Hartford Ct/ Black Eyed Sallys/Fade to Blues, Johnny Feds and guests
May 29 Austin, Tx/ Antones/ Kim Wilson, Billy Jo Shaver, Rosie Flores, Margaret Moser, Susan Antone, and friends
6/21 Boulder, Colo/ Oskars Blues/ Jodie Woodward and friends
6/21 Dortmund, Germany/ FZW club/ Baums Bluesbenders, Tom Vietht, Limited Edition, Dirty Blues
8/17 Seattle – Tacoma Benefit/ for info contact Barbara @ gigginthenarrows@aol.com

one hour at a time

2008-05-07T13:24:00.001-07:00

One Hour at a time

Today has been five days home from the hospital. Being at home post surgery is really great. I am so happy to sleep in my warm flannel sheets at night and have my own fireplace to snuggle in front of. I was even able to stick my foot in the ocean water the other day. The sand beneath my toes was divine! I am juicing daily and eating delicately. Four to five bites per meal is all I can handle. I take little walks and try to do at least one excursion a day to the store or the bank or the post office. I walk very slowly and take my time so sometimes people get impatient with me and scurry past me, grumbling. I just smile at them and send them blessings. I used to be that person scurrying past slow people and grumbling. Boy, its different when you are the slow one! I am learning patience from the universe - Patience with my own body and its slow, deliberate healing process; Patience with myself and with those around me. I have always been a most impatient girl, wanting everything now and not being able to wait. The impatience has served me well because I got things done myself because I was too impatient to wait for someone else to do them. But now with my body challenged in so many ways, being unable to bend over, open and close windows in my house, or do some of the simplest things like empty the trash, I am learning patience. I will get this lesson right.

My ex husband Thomas is building me a beautiful patio out in my back yard so I will be able to sit on a lounge chair soon and sun my scar in privacy. I am so grateful for every day alive. I am so happy to be here at home again and to see the friends and family I love and gaze into their sweet faces. I know I didn’t let on how scared I was before the surgery. I am very optimistic by nature, always turning lemons into lemonade Every once in awhile though, a big dark cloud of doubt would park over me and I would allow myself the darkest thoughts: “what if I don’t see my kids again? What if I cant kiss their sweet cheeks or see them marry or have children of their own? What if I cant sing again after this is over?” I am so glad that I am still here and that the universe still has some use for me in this life. I feel honored and blessed for every day I am here. The day I went int surgery though, I was surprisingly tranquil. I felt certain that I would be fine. I knew there were hundreds of glimmers of light for me all over the world. You kept me alive in there.

I can sing a little and have been playing guitar and trying, just for me. My voice has a very sweet, vulnerability about it. Its very different from the powerhouse voice I have learned to command and control. I may record a few songs this way just so I can remember what it was like to be so weak and fragile. It has a funny vibrato when I sing that reminds me of Kitty Wells.

The healing process is very slow but I am taking it one hour at a time, one day at a time. I have enough energy to make one or two phone calls per day. I have enough energy for three to ten emails a day. One minute I will be laughing and sitting in the sun on my terrace, and the next I will be in my bed crying in pain with the shades drawn. I really cant predict from one moment to the next how I will feel. My body just needs time and rest to get back to its prior strength. I know it will get there. I have 154 stitches in my abdomen and 48 staples. I call it my car hood because its in the shape of a big round upside down happy face smile. If I get a belly button piercing, that will be my car hood ornament. I have to laugh at it. It really looks like Frankenstein. I am glad I posed nude when I was younger and my belly was chubby but perfect. Playboy Magazine wont be a knockin’ anytime soon! Now my big, scarred belly is a bonafide war badge. I have been through a war and back again and my body looks like that and feels it. I will get the staples out on Monday. I have lost a lot of weight but its hard to tell how much because my abdomen area is still very swollen and distended with fluids. Day by day, I regain a bit more strength. Now I can stand some of the time and make my carrot juice, I don’t have to sit the whole time. Day by day, hour by hour, one inch of progress at a time - restoring and renewing me to my former strength . But I will never be the same after this experience. I can never go back to pre cancer, because this kind of neuroendocrine tumor really has no cure other than surgery. They are fairly certain that they removed all of mine and we will review the pathology report next week and find out what it says. Like so many cancer patients, I will always have to be diligent that it doesnt return. I will be on certain medications for the rest of my life. I have been taught how fragile my body is, yet how strong it is too. I know I will be okay.

I want to thank again Bob Corritore and Kim Danielson for the great benefit they did at the rhythm room in phoenix. Also a shout out to thank Lorna Hamilton and Sooty for the benefit they did at O Connells in San Diego. Gina Sicilia and Bob Margolin just did a wonderful benefit this past weekend in Hoboken, New Jersey and Carlos Guitarlos and Desiree Martinez who organized the great benefit at Perqs at Huntington Beach; Thank YOU ALL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART. You are keeping me and my family alive now and I appreciate it more than words can say... I am just starting now to write my handwritten thank yous to many of you. It takes me a lot of time to get even one done. Please be patient with me as I am learning to be patient with myself.

In stitches in Oceanside,

Candye

Theres no place like home!

2008-05-07T13:23:00.002-07:00

Theres no place like home…..

Yesterday I came home from the hospital!!!!!!!! Today is one week since I had the whipple procedure. I am still very weak and each day will be a fight for survival but I am so glad to be out of that place. My surgery, as my son Evan reported went well. It was a five hour turned nine hour ordeal, due to my amazing surgeon Andrew Lowy and his determination to remove an extra suspicious lymph node that didn’t want to be removed. Many surgeons would have closed me up and just left the cancerous node there but not Dr. Lowy. He worked tirelessly until every cancerous node was removed and still found the time to meet with my parents and children and Adam after the surgery and brief them in a kind and considerate way. He is a compassionate and diligent man and I owe my life to him.

I am not out of the woods yet. I have more than a hundred stitches in a giant horseshoe shape on my abdomen. I am still in serious back pain from the epidural I had all week. But I was walking around the hospital daily and doing well and would have rapidly deteriorated had I not been allowed to come home and rest here in my comfort zone.

There were many amazing nurses at UCSD Thornton who cared for me with such kindness and love. I will never forget them. RJ, Jody, Karen, Rodney, I owe my quick homecoming partly to you. There were also a few nurses who were lousy and did a crappy job. One night they had me on such a fast IV drip that I had to go to the bathroom every five minutes. I didn’t sleep at all that night and after more than 500 trips from my bed to the john, I realized that if I was that strong that I could get up and out of bed that many times, I would be better off at home. One very negligent nurse simply forgot to give me my pancreatic digestive enzymes on the very first day of my introduction to solid foods. It wasn’t discovered until my second day on solids that no one had given me any digestive enzymes. That nurse could have made me very sick and again I started to realize that I desperately needed to be home where I can monitor and control my own medications. The food was another issue at the hospital or the crappy hotel, as I called it. The food was all from cans, jars or frozen. There was nothing raw, organic or even remotely healthy on that menu and when youre a person fighting for your life, healthy foods are everything. I met two amazing people in the hospital Rachele Fiore, my anesthesiologist assistant during my surgery took the time to visit me every day after the surgery and her friend Alan was another angel who made my stay bearable and better. Thank you to all my angels.

I am taking it slowly. No driving or riding my bike or lifting anything heavy. Today my goals are just to take a shower and maybe water my yard or walk half way down the block but every day I will get just a wee bit stronger until I am back to the feisty, passionate, fighting, kicking and screaming broad you all know and love.

Thank you so much for your flowers in the hospital, the cards and letters and the emails. I have not felt well enough to respond to everyone and just writing this update has taken some big effort on my part but I know so many of you are waiting for email replies and return phone calls, I had to do something to reassure everyone that I am okay. I will get thru this thanks to my own spirit and resolve and to the vast amount of love out there for me. The benefit at perqs was beautiful and so many people were generous and sweet to evan and shared their well wishes and concern. I am hopeful that I may be able to attend at least part of the benefit at Humphreys on May 5 if I continue to make such good progress. Then I will be able to thank you all in person for your love. Your healing white light is sustaining me, nurturing me and making me whole. Please don’t call me at home unless its absolutely necessary. I am in a lot of pain and just trying to take things one day at a time and heal. xoxox

Much love to you all from the sancitity of my sunny Oceanside home,

Candye Kane

my bout with pancreatic cancer

2008-05-07T13:23:00.001-07:00

My Bout with Pancreatic Cancer

Hello all,

Some of you may have already heard this thru the grape vine or thru close friends or family members of mine so forgive me if you are receiving this information again.

On Friday, February 22, I went to the Scripps Encinitas emergency room with abdominal pain. I have been having this pain about every four to six months, for several years now, The pain has landed me in hospitals all over the world including Belgium, Germany, Holland, Nebraska, Indiana and New Jersey. (I actually had to cancel a tour in Germany some time ago, with BB and the Blues shacks because of this problem, and left the stage at Skips in Angola, Indiana because of same.) Usually they have diagnosed the pain as acid reflux, and I personally thought the pain was gallstones but no stones have ever been found. On this feb 22 ER trip, they finally gave me a cat scan and found a 3.4 cm tumor on my pancreatic head. The report they gave me said that the “mass is presumed to be cancer or a pancreatic neoplasm unless proven otherwise.”

Since the finding of this tumor, I have done lots of research on the causes, symptoms and treatments for pancreatic tumors and cancers. There is a wonderful website www.pancan.org that provides some amazing information for people with this cancer, if you are interested. This cancer is normally caused by excessive cigarette or alcohol consumption or family history. I have none of the above but I have been exposed to very large amounts of second hand smoke in my lifetime. I have met with a pancreatic surgeon at UCSD Moores Cancer Institute and have had an endoscopic fine needle aspiration. This is a fancy word for biopsy. The biopsy results are still not analyzed yet, but they took five samples of the tumor with a very fine needle. I had to swallow a camera and the camera introduced the needle thru my stomach wall to take samples of the tumor on my pancreas. The doctor who did the procedure, and my pancreatic surgical nurse thinks I have a neuro endocrine tumor (which is the same one that Apple founder Steve Jobs had). The biopsy made me very sick and further inflamed my pancreas, and so I was admitted into the hospital this weekend for complications and fever resulting from the biopsy. Hospitals suck and I am really glad to be back home now and am feeling much better.

Like Steve Jobs, I have radically changed my diet as a result of this tumor. I have given up coffee, sodas. meat, fish, starch and sugar. I have purchased a juicer and am juicing daily with wheatgrass, beet, carrot, parsley, ginger, cucumber, chard and many fresh fruits. I am trying to alkaline my body since I have learned that cancer cannot grow in an alkaline environment. I am staying active and upbeat and have enlisted my friends and family to surround me with positive thoughts and white healing light. Now I ask you, my fans and friends to do the same.

I still don’t know yet what the final results are of the biopsy but I should know something by the end of this week. I know that I am facing surgery, or chemotherapy, (although it is rarely successful in treating a neuroendocrine tumor) and maybe both. I am really strong and really healthy. In fact, I feel GREAT. Its weird when they tell you that you have cancer when you feel like a million bucks. Right now, I don’t know which of my upcoming shows will have to be postponed but I will make that announcement soon. I am definitely coming up to the bay area this weekend – see the schedule below- and will probably not have to have my surgery until after at least part of my upcoming European tour. Of course, I will do whatever my doctors advise me to do so I can recover as quickly as possible.

The good news is that neuroendocrine tumors are not as aggressive or deadly as pancreatic cancer. They move slowly and are much easier to treat. The prognosis is much better for these types of islet cell tumors so that is wonderful. The bad news is I have a tumor and it will definitely affect me, my family; the band; the shows and my fans in some way, at some point.

Since I have no health insurance, its going to be a real struggle financially to survive without working. Some of you have already been very generous and kind and sent me money through paypal. My paypal account name is candyekanetour@aol.com Others have been wonderfully supportive with offers for benefit concerts. My friends in Austin, Rosie Flores, Margaret Moser and Susan Antone are reportedly already organizing one, and my friends Dave Alvin and Toni Price and many other musicians and artists have kindly offered to lend their voices and guitars to my cause. I am also applying for aid from many music cares organizations and I am applying for Medi-cal. Hopefully, with the help of my friends, family and fans, and a few kindly music relief groups, I will be able to fight this tumor and get back to the job I love – making music for you!

I ask you for your love, your patience and most of all, your positive thoughts during this difficult time. If you have any extra money to give, now is the time to give it. If you live in the bay area, please come and celebrate my life and music with me and my band.

Thank you for keeping me and my sons, Evan and Tommy in your prayers. Most of all, thanks for the gracious and gentle gift of your friendship and love while I fight this current bump in the road.

Sign me – still the toughest girl alive;

Candye Kane

Candye Kane band shows

3/13 San Francisco, Ca/ Biscuits and Blues
3/14 Phillipsville, Ca/ The Riverwood Inn
3/15 Concord, Ca/ Big Boogie Nights BBW Event @ Hangar Lounge/ Crown Plaza Hotel
3/27 Candye in Holland/United by Music workshops
3/29 leave for finland
3/30 off
3/31 Helsinki, Finland/ Storyville
4/1 Helsinki, Finland/Storyville
4/3 Tampere, Finland/ Downhome- Klubi
4/5 Linkoping, Sweden/ Great Jazz festival
4/6 Stockholm, Sweden/ Akkurat
4/7 band returns to states/ Candye and Laura stay for Blues Caravan shows

eight days till my cancer surgery

2008-05-07T13:21:00.002-07:00

Eight days till my Surgery

WOW! I cant believe I will go under the knife in just eight days. I am nervous but I continue to say my positive affirmations and visualize myself in my healthy, cancer free body when this is over. I am feeling great and stronger than ever. I have discovered some amazing new vegan foods to eat like raw vegan ice cream from coconut milk, vegannaise, Kamut yeast free bread and so many other delicious vegan foods that I don’t miss meat, sugar or dairy at all! I continue to juice daily, lose weight and ride my bike about four miles daily. I am a regular at my local health food store, Cream of the Crop, and everyone there is wishing me well when I go in for my wheatgrass shots each day. I am in great shape right now, my skin is soft, my eyes are clear and bright and I know I will survive this surgery and recuperate quickly.

It was an amazing week when many of my musician friends, Sue Palmer, Paul Loranger, Sharon Shufelt, Jonny Viau, April West, Pete Harris, Melissa Hague and Steve Wilcox recorded with me at PH studios in Escondido. We recorded some standards I have always wanted to record; At Last, I got it bad and that aint good, He’s Funny that Way, and Joe Liggins I gotta right to cry (which was one of the songs I used to strip to as a young dancer in the early 80’s). We will go back in on April 16th to record a few more tunes before I enter the hospital. I felt like it was important to do this, because if something did go wrong in surgery, (which it wont!!!) at least I have recorded some of my all time favorite songs. I know everything will be fine but it felt so special and heartwarming to have my musician friends rally around me and donate their talents and studio time for free. I am one lucky girl.

I continue to be humbled and awed by so many beautiful gestures of friendship and love from you. I have received so many cards (many with checks!) letters, emails and phone calls. Pay pal gifts continue to stream in. I am overwhelmed with so much to do and have over 400 emails waiting for an answer. Thank you for your patience with me right now, and thank you so much for your huge hearts and your tender words of love. The benefits are listed below that will help me pay for my living expenses while I am disabled. There are so many bills to pay and now that I cancelled my European tour, I am in debt for the airline ticket money the Finnish promoter sent me. I owe about $8000 in hospital bills that Medi-cal will not pay, plus another 5k to the Finnish promoters. Not to mention the lost wages of the band members who all lost work when I cancelled. The money raised at these benefits will go a long way towards helping me recuperate in peace without worrying about how we will survive.

My long time friend, singer, songwriter, musician Chris Gaffney is also suffering from liver cancer. Go to www.helpgaff.com to help him. And my friend, Ann Rabson from Saffire the Uppity Blues Women, is facing serious cancer challenges of her own almost at the same time as me. She and I have already started discussing collaborating on some upbeat cancer survivor songs when we are both healed! I feel stronger knowing that many of my friends are suffering right along with me and I know we will all prevail and be better and stronger for having gone thru this experience.

I really feel like on some level, cancer has been a blessing. (I know, ask me again when I am groaning in pain in a hospital bed!) But for the first time in my life, I have really started to think about what I eat and when I eat it. I have always been proud to be a big, voluptuous gal, and have always been active and healthy in my 200 lb plus frame, but now I am really conscious of what I am eating, and what it is made of, and where it comes from. I believe I may have chosen this challenge on some cosmic level, so I could learn from this experience and improve and I know I have been given an opportunity to grow spiritually from this fight. Maybe I will start a workshop for cancer patients to learn how to write songs and journals to help them cope with their illnesses. Music is such a powerful healer and maybe that’s why this has happened to me. I will use the cancer experience as a way to make my memoir even more powerful and meaningful. I will really be able to lay claim to the Toughest Girl Alive title now! I know my optimistic nature is coming in handy during this challenge. (Notice I refuse to say Im sick!? I am just health challenged right now!) And it has been so helpful to know that I am not alone and that I have so many beautiful, caring people in my corner. So many of my friends around the globe are organizing benefits for me. Thank you all so much for your continued love and support. I feel your healing thoughts and energy and I hope you will keep me close to your hearts on April 18th.

Don’t worry about me people. Youre not rid of me yet!!
Big Big Love and Gratitude,

Candye

Candye Kane Cancer Benefits (more to come in San Francisco, Seattle-Tacoma and Portland area)

April 14 Phoenix, Az/Rhythm Room/ Bob Corritore, Sistah Blue, Pete Pearson and friends
April 18 Candye surgery/ UCSD Thornton Hospital/ La Jolla California
April 20 San Diego, Ca/ O’Connells/ Joey Harris, Lady Dottie and the Diamonds, Mojo Nixon, Paul Kamanski, Behind the Wagon and friends
April 20 Huntington Beach, Ca/ Perqs/ Carlos Guitarlos, Janniva Magness, The Blasters and friends
April 27 Hoboken, New Jersey/ Scotland Yard/ Gina Sicilia and friends
May 4 Austin, Tx/ Antones/ Rosie Flores, Margaret Moser, Susan Antone and friends
May 5 San Diego, Ca/ Humphreys/ Chet Cannon, Toni Price, Sue Palmer, Joey Harris, Anna Troy, Billy Watson and friends
May 13 Arlington, Va/ The Claredon Ballroom/ www.gottaswing.com
May 14 San Diego Ca/ The Casbah/ Joey Harris, Years around the sun, Mojo Nixon Steve Poltz and friends
May 15 Hartford Ct/ Black Eyed Sallys
6/21 Boulder, Colo/ Oskars Blues/ Jodie Woodward and friends
6/21 Dortmund, Germany/ FZW club/ Baums Bluesbenders, Tom Vietht, Limited Edition, Dirty Blues

The Good kind of cancer?

2008-05-07T13:21:00.001-07:00

The Good kind of cancer??

I met with my pancreatic surgeon, Dr. Andrew Lowy today. He says I need the Whipple. You can learn more here:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/pancreatic-cancer/whippleprocedure.html

This operation is going to be very intense. They will remove 1/3 of my pancreas, 10 inches of my small intestine, part of my stomach, part of my bile duct and my gall bladder. They will reattach my intestine to my pancreas and may have to take a vein from my neck to rebuild the portal vein that goes to my liver. It is a five to eight hour surgery that will have me in the hospital for at least two weeks; longer if there are complications from the surgery. Often the pancreas tries to digest all the stitches inside the body and so there is good possibility of fluid leakage and I will have to have a port through my stomach so they can drain all the fluid out. It is very dangerous and intense and this is the GOOD kind of cancer!!!!

I have been offered two dates for surgery, one of them is april 18th. The whipple is the only way to remove this tumor 100%. I have read so much about it and many people have tried to eradicate the NETs (neuroendocrine tumors) thru vitamin C therapies, laetrile therapies and other alternative medicines to no avail. Now that I have had a needle biopsy the tumor may grow more quickly. I read about one woman whose tumor grew twice its size in one month after a needle biopsy!! I am really worried now about my European tours because if I get pancreatitis again then they wont be able to operate on me for weeks. Pancreatitis is caused by stress and poor diet. Lack of sleep adds to stress. Being in a van bouncing around all day adds to stress. Long drives add to stress. Weird food at strange hours leads to stress. Jet lag leads to stress. I am still trying to decide if I am going or not. This news today was most upsetting.

I was supposed to do some workshops with my special needs kids in the Netherlands this week, in anticipation of our scheduled tour on June 21. I think now I will have to cancel the workshops, and tours and have this intense surgery on April 18th so I can get on the road to recovery and maybe resume working in June.

I am very worried about this surgery. Being a fat girl doesn’t help things in the surgical realm. But I have lost 10 lbs so far just from giving up dairy, fried anything, red meat, coffee, sugar, sodas, starches, fats and bread other than Ezekial. I am staying active, riding my bike, still juicing and trying to be as strong as possible for this surgery. I will definitely be skinnier when this is all over and hopefully, cancer free!!

The first benefit for me is planned for April 20th at Perqs in Huntington Beach 117 Main St 92648 (714) 960-9996 from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm. My friends Desiree Martinez and Carlos Guitarlos have assembled an amazing array of my friends to perform: Janiva Magness, Juke Logan, Cesar Rosas from Los Los Lobos, Phil Alvin, Billy Sheets, Lynwood Slim, Laurie Morvan. Kid Ramos, The Gears, Gil T, Jeff and Kurt Ross, Thomas Yearsley, Greg Boaz, Jungle Juice and The Kooks. If you can attend, please do. I wont be there since I will have just had surgery but I will be there in spirit.

The next one is May 5th at Humphreys in San Diego. Chet Cannon has organized this one and confirmed are Sue Palmer, Billy Watson, Ruby and the Red Hots, Michelle Lundeen, Chris Klich, Robbie Smith, Scottie Blinn, Juke Logan, Joey Harris, Heine and Missy Andersen. If you’d like to play contact chet at blushouter@aol.com

My friend Barbara Hammerman is planning a benefit in the seattle area. If you would like to play, please contact Giginthenarrows@aol.com

Rosie Flores is also planning a benefit in Austin with my friends Susan Antone and Margaret Moser. To play the Antones benefit, please contact Rosie at chickwpick@earthlink.net

My heart is so full from all the love and white light you have been sending me. I will be laid up for several months after this surgery and so all of these benefits will help pay for my living expenses and medi-cal co-pays, and help the band survive with no work. I am very pleased that I qualified for co-pay medi-cal, only because I have a child under 21. If I didn’t have a child under 21, I would have to apply for social security. When I spoke to the social worker about it, he said, “Yes, some people just expire while they are waiting for SSI.” !!!! He said people just EXPIRE like a carton of milk or some old lunch meat. It was so sad. It was a harsh realization that poor people’s lives don’t matter in this rich country of ours. Wow. I am lucky to have a kid under 21 but in just two years, it will be over and I will be ineligible. I don’t know how I will have the follow up care and scans I will need! Oh well, one day at a time…..

I am so lucky and blessed in so many ways. I have so many of YOU rallying for me. They found the tumor early. It has not spread anywhere. I have no symptoms. Im fat so I can stand to lose some of the weight thru this surgery. Other than being very scared and sad occasionally, I feel great.

I am still staying optimistic and I have written this little song I sing daily:

Im gonna be just fine.
Im gonna be just fine
Im gonna live till 109
Im gonna be just fine

Im gonna grow real old
Im gonna grow real old
A white haired lady with a lotta soul
Im gonna grow real old

Grandbabies on my knee
Grandbabies on my knee
I love them and they love me
Grandbabies on my knee

Im healing even now
Im healing even now
Show the world exactly how
Im healing even now.

Please keep those healing thoughts a coming….and any donations you can muster at www.paypal.com user name, candyekanetour@aol.com

Wish this were all an april fools joke….

candye

cancelled my tour and scheduled cancer surgery

2008-05-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

Cancelled my European Tours and scheduled surgery for April 18th.
Hello everyone!

It was an agonizing decision but I decided I had to cancel my european shows and my appearance on the blues caravan tour for the time being. I will endure the whipple procedure (pancreatic duodectomy) on april 18th at UCSD Thornton Hospital. I will be in the hospital for two weeks minimum. The address for the hospital is : 9300 Campus Point Drive, La Jolla Ca 92037.

  It was a very difficult decision to cancel this tour. So many people depend on me for their income and so many people worldwide just wanted to see me sing. But I will sing again and by doing this surgery early, I have a better chance of recovering quickly and thus being able to do my other shows later this summer.  I am feeling great and this extra time at home will allow me to continue my juicing and exercise and get in optimum shape before I endure this very radical surgery.
Thanks so much to those of you who wrote me kind and sometimes funny emails encouraging me to stay at home. The permission slips you sent were hilarious!

I have already lost 20 pounds as a result of my dietary changes and will be lose probably another 50 pounds from this intense operation. I am sure I will be fine and will be in better shape than ever.  I am already thinking about the activism I will embrace when I am well; for the health care that should be available to all of us regardless of our economic status. Poor peoples lives are worth as much as rich peoples and if I hadnt had a child under 21 and been eligible for partial pay medi-cal, if I hadnt had generous friends, fans and family who are helping, I wouldnt even be able to have cancer surgery and would just be sent home to die! This isnt right and I will fight to publicize this issue.   Right now though, I just have to fight to get better and beat cancer and survive this surgery.

I am strong and I can do it. I just know it. But I still need your love, prayers, support and healing white light. Keep those positive thoughts coming!

If you want to donate $$ to the cancer fund, check out my myspace www.myspace.com/candyekaneband for a benefit near you or you can send money thru www.paypal.com. My user name is candyekanetour@aol.com

Or you can send a check to: candye kane cancer fund 315 s. hwy 101 #47 encinitas, ca 92024.

Please also keep my friend Chris Gaffney in your thoughts who has been diagnosed with liver cancer. Chris is an amazing singer and musician from The Hacienda Brothers and the Dave Alvin Band. His website is www.helpgaff.com

Thank Goddess, I have partial pay Medi-cal insurance now but I will be laid up for months after this intense surgery and will still need to pay bills and survive with no income. Thanks in advance for your continued generosity and for keeping me, evan and tommy in your thoughts and prayers.

 Much love and gratitude;

Candye

Disabled people - Unworthy of life?

2006-10-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

Thirty-five bodies were found earlier this week in a western German town. The Catholic cemetery in Menden, near Dortmund, was long rumored to be a mass gravesite of Nazi victims. Another hundred and sixty-five bodies are expected to be unearthed as excavation continues at the Catholic Church site. Most of the innocents were children, believed to have been victims of Hitler’s program of forced “euthanasia” that killed tens of thousands of people with mental and physical disabilities.

Around 70,000 people, deemed “unworthy of life” because of their disabilities, were murdered between autumn 1939 and summer 1941 and tens of thousands were murdered in the following years, usually by injections and drug overdoses in hospitals and sanatoriums supposed to protect them.
This grisly discovery begs the question; What took them so long to investigate? The burial site was the subject of more than sixty years of rumor from surviving eyewitnesses who remember bodies being transported daily. Some of the victims may have come from nearby Wimbern hospital built on the orders of Hitler's personal physician Karl Brandt, who was in charge of the euthanasia program. Was it because these victims were disabled adults and children, that no one cared enough about them to investigate these heinous rumors? They had little or no voice in life and now they have had no voice in death, after more than sixty years! Astonishing!

For me, this story is especially compelling, as I get ready to embark on my tour of the Netherlands www.Unitedbymusic.nl This tour features the amazing talents of several special needs people who will sing and dance onstage with me in a star studded musical line up. These are Dutch young adults, with various levels of disabilities, yet they will take the stage with American blues musicians, singing in their second language of English, many performing original songs that they have composed themselves. How many disabled Americans could sing and compose songs in Dutch? How many so-called “normal” Americans could perform onstage in anything other than their native tongue? How many Americans can even remember the words to an entire song, all the way through, much less perform it, in front of hundreds of strangers?

I have been astounded at the capabilities of these so-called “disabled” people. They speak better English than many of my peers and the joy and spontaneity they experience through music clearly shows them to be more evolved than the average person. I know now that the words “special needs, disabled, handicapped and retarded” need a thorough re-evaluation.

As a Jew, I have long known of the horrific history of Nazi Germany and the ruthless cruelty that was imposed on six million innocent people. But too often, it is forgotten how many others were brutally murdered simply because they were old, gay or gypsies, or simply because they were born with a different looking body or another invisible obstacle. Now, with the United by Music tour days away, it makes this an especially poignant story. Knowing that these courageous and exceptional people may have been put to death during WWII simply because they saw the world through a different set of eye glasses, makes me feel even more honored to be part of the United by Music tour.

Next week, I will take the stage with gifted human beings who will share their talents with grateful audiences. I will take the stage in memory of the tens of thousands of people who were murdered just because they were different; The tens of thousands of victims who died without a voice. And the 200 special needs people who were discarded like so much rubbish in the mass grave behind the Catholic Church in Menden. May they all, finally, rest in peace.

Jean-Paul Gaultier – Friend to big girls? I don’t buy it!

2006-10-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Jean-Paul Gaultier recently used a plus sized model in his Paris runway show. Velvet D'Amour, an American - Paris based actress and model, took the runway in an apparent statement about the Spanish ban on anorexic looking fashion models.

D'Amour was quoted as saying "Diversity is what is important. Whether you are saying a model is too fat or too skinny, it's still wrong." D'Amour, regrettably, seems to be missing the point.

To put skinny discrimination and fat discrimination in the same category does a disservice to people all over the world who deal with this issue daily. YES, occasionally a thin person is accused of having an eating disorder but generally, thin people are the ideal and are depicted in all media as normal and happy, while fat people are laughed at, scorned and made to feel invisible. Skinny people in general, as I am sure Velvet knows firsthand, are not ridiculed and debased, discriminated against and openly joked about in the workplace and in the world.

Although Gaultier may have used her once, to emphasize his outsider status, she was merely a punctuation mark to make an insider joke. Gaultier, who is most famous for the corset bra he designed for Madonna, has only used a large-sized model once every decade; maybe. He does not have a plus-sized line of fashion, or any plans to initiate one. Although large sized women comprise more than 75% of the fashion buyers in the United States, I doubt you will see a sudden trend towards inclusion of large-sized women in the fashion industry.

I have recently learned that D'Amour has been invited before to model during Parisien designer week, once for Galliano and now JPG. Unfortunately, she will likely not be invited back. Although she is beautiful and courageous for taking the runway in front of so many thin worshippers, she was a pawn in a game of sizist fashion politics. Jean-Paul Gaultier is simply part of the problem. He doesn't really care about large sized women or our invisibility in the fashion world. If he truly did care, he wouldn't have used a fat girl to make a negligible point. He would launch his own large sized fashion line in an attempt to include us in the dialogue, and put his heart and money where his mouth is.

The fact that other designers have finally decided to take notice and limit some of the unhealthy, anorexic, bone thin fashion models on the runway is a step in the right direction towards changing cultural attitudes about body type. I wonder if she used her ample opportunity with Gaultier to encourage him to start a large sized line that included her and her plus size sisters? He certainly has the clout and power to make major changes in the fashion world, but instead seems content to make provocative statements while doing nothing to change the status quo.

Lets face it; most of the time, no one is complaining when someone is too thin and wears a bikini at the beach. But when a fat girl does it, the public scorn is almost palpable. I have had girls laugh right in front of me when I walked into the public restroom. "Oh my God! Did you see what she was wearing?" they pronounced loudly from the stall next to me. (Suddenly because I am fat, I must be deaf too!) These same girls are kissing my fat ass after my show is over and gushing over the music as they buy cds in an insincere attempt at redemption. I have had teenage boys yell at me from passing cars, as I ride my bike down Pacific Coast Highway. "Its not gonna work, Fatty!!" they proclaim as I ride red-faced to my destination, pretending not to hear them.

At the same time, I have had fans who struggle with anorexia and bulimia cry as they tell me that my song "The Toughest Girl Alive," or "Big Fat Mama's are back in style" has changed their life and their attitudes about themselves.

The fashion industry's insistence on cramming ultra-thin models down the hungry collective throat of the world is a dangerous practice. Teenage girls grow up feeling inadequate and loathing their own bodies. Eating disorders are at an all time high. Some young girls have even resorted to suicide because they felt so ugly and fat. The fashion industry should wake up and smell the sweet n'low in their coffee and be accountable for the sickening trend they have perpetuated. People will still buy haute couture and prêt a porter fashion if its modeled by average, curvy and dare I say, fat women. In fact, I believe the high brow fashion designers will sell even more product when they market their wares to the majority of us who have imperfect bodies, instead of the anorexic few.

Jean- Paul Gaultier- a friend to fat girls? I don't buy it. Not only because it is insincere but because it doesn't even come in my size.

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind

2006-08-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

An eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.

I cant watch the news anymore. Whenever I watch it, I end up tossing and turning all night with nightmares. When I was a kid, I used to have this recurring dream. I would be driving in a beautiful red convertible. The top was down and the air felt wonderful and warm in my hair. I am enjoying the sunshine and smiling and laughing when suddenly there is a huge flash of light as in an explosion, and the dream ends there. I never really knew what the dream meant, but now with all this bullshit about the "end times" and the "rapture"; people I thought were cool enlightened friends becoming proselytizing bible thumpers and my left wing intellectual friends becoming israel and jew haters, I am thinking maybe mankind really is headed for a nuclear final act and there aint gonna be no encores.

I have never let anyones religion, age, education, economic status, size, color, sexual preference, manner of clothing, job choice or lack thereof interfere with the dialogue. I believe there is something to be learned from everyone. Even people who seem "boring" on the surface, can prove to be deeper than I imagined. People who seem simple can teach me simplicity. People who seem hostile can become warm by sharing a good joint of skunk bud or a funny comeback. But this new person who thinks their God is better than my God, or my lack of a God at all, this new person who thinks indigenous peoples who have never been exposed to Christianity are going to burn in hell as heathens, this new religious fanatic who thinks dying is the coolest way to prove his point and wants to take out innocent people with them, I just dont see how we can ever win any kind of war or make any kind of point with an enemy like that. An enemy who is willing to explode themselves and take everyone else around with them. I just dont see how anyones "God" could condone taking innocent life and why anyone would voluntarily worship a mean, vindictive and fucked up God like that. I have never bought into the whole heaven and hell bullshit but now that somebodys god has gone a step further and seems to condone making a hell right here on earth, I really want to challenge this God to a good old fashioned ass kicking in the alley.

It seems the news channels just contribute to the problem. They offer no solutions they just report stories and sometimes only half of the story. When news organizations like Reuters are doctoring up photographs of Beirut to make Israel look worse, how can we even trust our evening news?

I am tired of reading blogs where they blame the whole Lebanon - Israel crisis on two soldiers being kidnapped. Eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were kidnapped. Hezbollah then ordered Israel to release prisoners in Israeli jails as a negotiation tactic. When has kidnapping ever been a viable means of negotiation? If these prisoners in jails really dont belong there, isnt there some other channel of diplomacy that can be employed besides kidnapping? If kidnapping is the way to get people out of jail, why do we need King Stahlman Bail Bondsman? If kidnapping is the way to get people out of jail, I have a couple of friends in the can right now. Maybe I should look to kidnap somebody. I do live in Oceanside right by Camp Pendleton. I could probably kidnap a big marine and demand that my dope dealer be released from jail. Maybe I could also get him to move that big bookshelf while he is hanging out here. I just dont think it would work. Why does Hezbollah think it will work and why do liberals seem to think Israel should just sit around and take it?

And I am tired of hearing about how more Lebanese have died than Israelis, how more Iraqis have died than Americans, how more Palestinians have died than Israelis. When did the goal become "kill as many as possible?" He who has the most dead wins? when did the goal become tit for tat, an eye for an eye, equal damage for equal crimes? It doesnt make sense. NOBODY should be dying for any government or religious cause. When I have friends who are fighting cancer, lou gehrigs disease and AIDS right now who want desperately to live, how can anyone be dying anywhere? The insanity of it all makes me feel so helpless and crazy. How do kids grow up with any goals at all in such a world?

War sucks. Innocent people die. Countries have a right to defend themselves. When Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers they were trying to provoke a response; thats why they did it. They wanted Israel to react. Maybe even overreact. Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The Jewish population in the world today is only 4%. So yes, when eight Jews are killed, maybe the Israeli government does freak out and think "six million are gone. we cant afford to lose these eight more." Maybe they do react strongly because they have been attacked over and over again by their neighbors.

I just dont understand why its Israels fault that the Lebanese government didnt build any bombshelters for their people. Why is it Israels fault that the Palestinian govt kept all their world wide aid money and didnt build new buildings and bomb shelters? Maybe Israel should go into the countries that are attacking them and pay for bomb shelters to be built so less people will die when Israel retaliates when they are attacked!

It is so crazy and convoluted it makes me want to scream.

I grew up in a neighborhood where violence happened all the time. My friend edwin was shot on the corner in front of my high school when I was 14 years old and he was 16 in broad daylight, in plain view of my history class. He was crossing the street and boom, boom, boom he was shot at by a passing car. Someone from the Cypress Avenues had shot him because he was from the Highland Park gang. somebody from Highland Park had shot someone from the Avenues because someone from the Avenues had shot someone from HLP. It just went on and on and continues to go on today. No one even remembers who the original one was that got murdered. Its all revenge killing, tit for tat, an eye for an eye. Thats where we are headed now. When we cant even sit down and talk with someone else who has a different opinion; when we cant relate to someone who believes in a different god or needs no god to feel safe; when we cant make friends with someone because that person would rather die than be our friend, we are really headed for trouble. An eye for an eye will make everybody blind. Today being blind to the whole damn thing feels like the right move for me.

Solving the Middle East crisis? Build a casino in Ramallah!

2006-07-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

The latest crisis in the Middle East has brought out the collective fear of the entire world. Panicked talk of WWIII and Israel’s alleged over-reaction has brought out the same old arguments and anti-semitic rhetoric, blurring the lines between Israeli policy, the occupation of Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran into a big stew of misunderstanding and assumption. Why do the Jews beat up on poor, defenseless Arab nations? Why does the United States continue to back up Israel with funding and munitions? Why don’t we let them solve their own problems? Why do we even have to have a Jewish State?

The volatile history of this region is clear, even to those who have never studied Middle Eastern affairs. Jews and Arabs have lived and fought in this area for 4000 years, long before the British Occupation in the early 1900's. The state of Israel was established in 1948 but governments and militants with an agenda have exploited the region and its peoples to their own advantage long before that, preying on people's fear, misinformation and religious differences to advance their various causes.

Now in the latest fray, violence erupted when the Palestinians dug a tunnel under the security wall in Israel, killing two soldiers and kidnapping a nineteen-year old Israeli. Israel reacted with her usual might, strategically targeting the homes of alleged militants and bulldozing buildings in Gaza and the West Bank. But this was not the business as usual, tit-for-tat retaliation that has numbed us to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis. This time, it was different. Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon jumped into the brawl, murdering eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two more. With Hezbollah rockets poised to strike Israeli cities, Israel started bombing Beirut and other parts of Lebanon, stranding Americans and Europeans and ruining their vacation plans. One female evacuee on CNN, asked whom she blamed for her impending evacuation from Beirut said, "I hate Israel. They’re so stupid. They ruined my vacation and for what?" Unfortunately, her statement reflects a whole attitude about this crisis. "Go ahead and blow each other up, kidnap and murder innocent people, but don’t mess with my holiday!" Another evacuee said, "Why does the United States condone this kind of violence?"

Now that Lebanese and possibly Iranian militants, have jumped head first into the fight against Israel, to defend their Palestinian brethren against the evil U.S. and Israeli empire, this is a question that begs to be answered; Why does the USA give so much aid and money to Israel? Some blame the powerful Israeli American lobby, AIPAC. Some blame the same old "Jewish conspiracy" that has supposedly always existed. The fact is, Israel HAS been given large amounts of aid by the USA, and more aid than any other country outside the USA. This is amazing when you consider that only 4% of Americans are Jews. 4% hardly equals a Jewish conspiracy. In fact, a quick look at a map of the world will tell anyone that Arab nations outsize tiny Israel and the United States Jewish population tenfold.

The Palestinians have also been given billions of dollars from Americans, British, European and Arab special interest groups. Most of that money is sitting in a Swiss bank while the late Yasser Arafat’s wife lives in exile from Palestine, enjoying the sun in the south of France. She refuses to return to Palestine, because she doesn’t want to give any of the money back!! That money could have been earmarked for Palestine's refugees; many who have lived their entire lives in tents in refugee camps. Arafat could have used the money to build homes for his own displaced people who hold onto hope that they will someday get their land back. He could have said to the people "Look, someday, we might get our land back, but meanwhile, we can’t have you living in the dirt. Let’s build some homes for you and shore up our educational system so we can become an economically viable country. Let’s build a Hard Rock Cafe in Ramallah and build some resort hotels in Gaza so we can become a tourist destination. Let’s develop our own land so we can be seen as a civilized state. Let’s stop spending money and energy blowing ourselves up at bus stops and school cafeterias, and let’s make our country a respected and better place to live, educate our people, so we can stop being victims and start being a force to be reckoned with." Arafat didn’t do that. He failed his country, inflamed the rhetoric and blamed others for Palestine’s problems all the while lining his own pockets. Arafat was named one of Forbes richest men while his people lived in tents without running water. This is not the fault of Israel or the US government, though flawed both sometimes are.

Most of the land owned by Israelis, once belonged to Palestinians. There were aces and acres of olive groves and most of the land parcels were purchased from Palestinian farmers at a fair and equitable price. Much of the land in Israel that is "occupied" was empty land with no irrigation or development. It was only until the Israelis put in running water and built the land up, did the Palestinians suddenly want the land back. Israel did occupy some empty land illegally and slowly but surely, withdrew from Lebanon, has been withdrawing from the territories and will continue to do so, despite the fact that they are still being targeted by Hamas and Hezbollah with suicide bombs and rocket fire. This concept negates the whole "occupation" excuse for war. Israel is ending the occupation, yet continues to be the target of violence. Israel purchased much of the land fair and square, yet continues to be vilified as occupiers. My great grandfather once owned a building in lower Manhattan. He sold the building for $20,000, which was a fortune back in 1940. Now the property is worth millions. I hate it that my grandfather sold that building but I don’t stand around lamenting that the new owners razed it and built luxury condos. I don’t claim that the land belongs to me and was stolen from my family. It was his choice to sell the land and the new owners have improved it, as was their right.

Presidents Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin have condemned what they called Israel’s "over-reaction." I submit that if French or Russian soldiers were being murdered and kidnapped and there were rockets poised and ready to be launched into French and Russian cities, these presidents might take the same action to defend their countries. I am certain that if Mexican militants kidnapped our National Guard troops today and pointed rockets towards my city of San Diego, the USA would bomb Tijuana without even batting an eye. It happened before during the Cuban Missile crisis.

There have been mistakes and atrocities committed by both sides during this long and horrible Intifada. Put a rifle in the hands of an overzealous teenager and there may inevitably be some tragic consequences. But Israel has tried to be as careful as possible when targeting the homes of suicide bombers. While Israel’s government and military make mistakes and continue to make mistakes, it is not condoned to go into Arab schools and blow up innocent kids. When Israel makes mistakes, they apologize or at least acknowledge the mistake. They do not get bonuses from the government for killing innocent people, the way suicide bombers families are given a bonus if they kill a bunch of Israelis. Palestinian militants will blow themselves up in a Pizza restaurant full of tourists. Hezbollah targets Israel by daylight to maximize the casualties of innocents. Palestinian fighters often booby trap Gaza and West Bank buildings with explosives, knowing full well that innocent families will die when the Israeli soldiers come into the buildings. Palestinian children are in the streets throwing rocks at tanks during Israeli operations. Where are the Mothers and Fathers of these children? Why aren’t they demanding that their children come home where they are safe, instead of letting them roam the streets while tanks roll by? Why isn’t their government saying "Save your precious lives. Lets rebuild our country and fight this fight another day?" Because there is a basic difference in the value of human life; Human life is expendable with Hamas and Hezbollah. Murder is justified even if it means killing other Muslims for the cause of the Intifada. You can’t negotiate with an enemy who is willing to blow themselves to smithereens and take YOU with them.

I have never heard a Palestinian American publicly condemn the act of suicide bombing. I have never seen a suicide bomber held accountable by their own government; because suicide bombing is condoned as a valid form of protest. As long as this is true, Israel must fight back. Pretty soon, we Americans will be fighting back too when militants make their way to our shopping malls and Wal-Mart stores and start blowing themselves up for their cause. This is the inevitable consequence of a war where there is no value placed on human life.

The fundamental difference between Israel and the Arab Nations is this; In Israel, you can find catholic churches, christian churches, synagogues and mosques. In Palestine, there are no synagogues. In fact, there are no synagogues in any of the Arab nations. This is the glaring difference between the Arab nations and the Israeli democracy. This is why the United States continues to support Israel. We don’t need a Jewish conspiracy to have a reason to support freedom of religion and democracy. That’s what this country was founded on.

I have been to Israel many times. There are all kinds of Israelis who are not Jewish. There are christian, muslim and atheist Israelis. There are wiccans and buddhists and hindu Israelis. There are polish, french, russian, african, australian, vietnamese, ethiopian, morrocan, saudi, iranian, iraqi and palestinian israelis. Ever heard of a wiccan, iranian prostitute? She would be stoned to death in any Arab country. In Israel, she is free to practice her beliefs. That is why people of all faiths and races migrate to Israel. There are great jobs and opportunities for peace loving people including Arabs, in Israel. This is partly why Palestinians lamented the building of the wall. It made it harder for them to get to their jobs in Israel; jobs where they are paid much better than in their own communities in Palestine. Until the Palestinian government prioritizes and decides to create jobs and opportunities within its own future state, for its own citizens rather than fund fanaticism, this problem will continue to get worse.

Maybe we Americans should all give up our houses to the Native Americans? Aren’t we all occupiers in a sense? They lived here first and this was their land. They too were maligned by the government and pushed off their own land. But they finally got wise and started building casinos that have enriched the lives of their people and given them economic clout. The Palestinians need to build a Harrahs in Ramallah and start spending the money to educate their people. Then and only then will the situation change.

You and I will not be able to change a situation that has been twisted and exploited by both sides in one dialogue. But I think its important to have this dialogue with each other, and perhaps enlighten ourselves or at the very least, agree to disagree. There is an excellent book called "One Palestine Complete" by Tom Segev about the occupation of Palestine under the British mandate. It actually blames the British for the division between the Arabs and the Jews in that area. The BBC in its relentless daily condemnations of Israel, takes no responsibility for it's own governments divisive and anti-semitic actions in the name of Imperialism.

Until each one of us, including Jews and Arabs worldwide are willing to stand up and take responsibility for our failures, mistakes and needless acts of violence, the violence will continue, unfortunately unabated. And when the beach front Harrahs and Hard Rock Cafe are built in the Gaza strip and tourists are finally made to feel safe in Palestine, I hope to be one of the first bands to play there. I will proudly play "Let there be Peace on earth" and hope for once that its message will finally be heard, loud and clear.

Why I hate Ann Coulter and you should too.

2006-06-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

It’s not unusual for people to mobilize after a tragedy. Many people, after having lost children or loved ones to sudden death have gone on to focus their energies on prevention, healing and public education.

After the death of six-year-old Adam Walsh in 1981, his father, John went on to spur the formation of The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). He became an advocate for victim’s rights and went on to host the TV show, America’s Most Wanted. When 13 year old Cari Lightner was killed by a drunk driver in 1979, her mother Candace and many other enraged mothers formed a group called MADD. ( Mothers against drunk driving.) After the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson in 1992, Denise Brown and other family members formed the Nicole Brown Charitable Foundation, which provides safe houses for victims of domestic violence.

These are just a few examples of how shattered and heartbroken people have found strength in mobilizing and have created causes that are near and dear to them. So I find it curious and sickening that Ann Coulter has chosen to insult and vilify certain widows of 9/11 victims.

Coulter writes in a new book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” that a group of New Jersey widows whose husbands perished in the World Trade Center act “as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them.” She goes on to call four 9/11 widows “self-obsessed broads; millionaires - reveling in their status as celebrities.

“I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much . . . And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”

It is apparent that Coulter is jealous of the attention that these 9/11 widows are receiving. (Several appeared on Larry King Live earlier this week.) While Coulter has to rely on sensationalism and insults to get press, these four widows have bravely chosen to use their personal losses in a public way, demanding answers about what happened to their loved ones in the World Trade Center disaster.

Almost every American remembers what he or she was doing on the moment the first plane struck the World Trade Center. Human beings worldwide were united in their heartbreak and millions came to NYC to visit the steaming ruins of the crash site, weeks and months after it happened. Regardless of party affiliation, race or economic standing, American citizens seemed to be wounded. People were driving more courteously. People sobbed openly in airports and markets as they read newspapers and watched television footage in disbelief. Even in Belfast, Ireland where this writer was on tour at the time of the tragedy, strangers came up and hugged me when they heard me speaking English. It seemed the whole world had been given a healthy dose of compassion. Everyone it seems, except Ann Coulter who must have slept through the entire event.

To blame victims for their own demise is not a new tactic. Right-wingers such as Jerry Falwell have laid the blame on the gay community for the AIDS epidemic. Right wing conservatives have blamed prostitutes for their own murders at the hands of maniacs like Gary Ridgeway. Holocaust revisionists and deniers often blame the Jews for their own annihilation during the holocaust. Anti-Israel activists and most recently, the President of Iran have said that the Jews use the holocaust to spread guilt so that no one can oppose Israeli policies. (Two very different things btw; Jews and Israeli policy.)

I think it’s disgusting that Ann Coulter uses the misery of someone else to sell her vitriolic venom in book form. Her book continues to sell at a rapid pace, but at what cost? She reaps the benefits of the deaths of innocent men and women in 9/11 at the same time as she tramples on the tears of their children and loved ones left behind.
While I am certainly not a fan of Cindy Sheehan and her practice of blurring the lines between Iraq and Israel, I still respect her as a mother making the ultimate sacrifice; losing a son to a needless, thankless war. I may not agree with many of her political views but I would never have the gall to accuse her of “enjoying her son’s death.”

Whether we agree with the 9/11 widows or not, is irrelevant. They lost loved ones through no fault of their own. Children will go to sleep tonight without their mommies and daddies to tuck them in. Kids will graduate and marry without a parent to walk them down the aisle or offer a helping hand. Babies were born without ever meeting their fathers. For these reasons alone, the widows should be treated with compassion and heart.

What’s next for Ann? Maybe she can start picketing the memorials for the fallen victims of 9/11 like the Westboro Baptist Church pickets the funerals of fallen gay and lesbian soldiers. They too, think it’s acceptable and reasonable to verbally abuse the dead and their families.

Ann Coulter has crossed the line of decency. All humans with a beating heart should be appalled. Whether you are Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or don’t vote at all, matters not. Your sense of compassion and reverence for the dead should cause you to boycott Coulters books. She was fired (and rightfully so) by USA Today for some of the insults she slung at women who attended the Democratic convention. You can fire her too. Keep her off your reading lists and your bookshelves. Send your money instead to a World Trade Center Memorial Fund or to the NYC Firefighters association who give their lives daily, trying to save the dying. Her comments are insensitive and unnecessary. She doesn’t need to insult grieving widows to sell her crappy books.

Or, does she??

Candye Kane

The following is the statement from the 9/11 widows in response to Coulters vitriolic name-calling as published in the New York Post:

We did not choose to become widowed on September 11, 2001. The attack, which tore our families apart and destroyed our former lives, caused us to ask some serious questions regarding the systems that our country has in place to protect its citizens.

Through our constant research, we came to learn how the protocols were supposed to have worked. Thus, we asked for an independent commission to investigate the loopholes which obviously existed and allowed us to be so utterly vulnerable to terrorists. Our only motivation ever was to make our Nation safer. Could we learn from this tragedy so that it would not be repeated?

We are forced to respond to Ms. Coulter’s accusations to set the record straight because we have been slandered.

Contrary to Ms. Coulter’s statements, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them every day.

It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the Nation’s attention to the real issues at hand: our lack of security, leadership and progress in the five years since 9/11.

We are continuously reminded that we are still a nation at risk. Therefore, the following is a partial list of areas still desperately in need of attention and public outcry. We should continuously be holding the feet of our elected officials to the fire to fix these shortcomings.

1. Homeland Security Funding based on risk. Inattention to this area causes police officers, firefighters and other emergency/first responder personnel to be ill equipped in emergencies. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

2. Intelligence Community Oversight. Without proper oversight, there exists no one joint, bicameral intelligence panel with power to both authorize and appropriate funding for intelligence activities. Without such funding we are unable to capitalize on all intelligence community resources and abilities to thwart potential terrorist attacks. Fixing this will save lives on the day of the next attack.

3. Transportation Security. There has been no concerted effort to harden mass transportation security. Our planes, buses, subways, and railways remain under-protected and highly vulnerable. These are all identifiable soft targets of potential terrorist attack. The terror attacks in Spain and London attest to this fact. Fixing our transportation systems may save lives on the day of the next attack.

4. Information Sharing among Intelligence Agencies. Information sharing among intelligence agencies has not improved since 9/11. The attacks on 9/11 could have been prevented had information been shared among intelligence agencies. On the day of the next attack, more lives may be saved if our intelligence agencies work together.

5. Loose Nukes. A concerted effort has not been made to secure the thousands of loose nukes scattered around the world – particularly in the former Soviet Union. Securing these loose nukes could make it less likely for a terrorist group to use this method in an attack, thereby saving lives.

6. Security at Chemical Plants, Nuclear Plants, Ports. We must, as a nation, secure these known and identifiable soft targets of Terrorism. Doing so will save many lives.

7. Border Security. We continue to have porous borders and INS and Customs systems in shambles. We need a concerted effort to integrate our border security into the larger national security apparatus.

8. Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Given the President’s NSA Surveillance Program and the re-instatement of the Patriot Act, this Nation is in dire need of a Civil Liberties Oversight Board to insure that a proper balance is found between national security versus the protection of our constitutional rights.

-- September 11th Advocates

Kristen Breitweiser
Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken

news from the midwest tour

2006-06-11T23:48:00.000-07:00

We’ve been having a great tour out here so far. Amazing attendance and wonderful CD buying people. Thank you ALL so much!

The tour started out great with our show in Des Moines. T Bone came down from Blues wax and we had a fun night with our buddy Jeff Wagner and his pickled body parts collection!?

The next night was Lincoln Gay Pride. It was so much fun! The University of Nebraska at Lincoln was the first college to offer Gay and Lesbian studies as a major. Amazing that this happened in Lincoln, birthplace of Teena Brandon 1972-1993, the heroine of the movie Boys Don’t Cry, who was brutally murdered in nearby Falls City. All of my Lincoln friends were there, Jan, Rick, Gayle, Kara and Kelly, and I made a bunch of new friends and saw a fabulous singer songwriter, misty odell; http://www.mistysmusic.com/ It was a beautiful day in the sunshine with children, puppies and drag queens in full attendance. I hung out until the wee hours at the Panic Bar with my pals and met some really interesting people. Len, is a 70 year old farmer and peace activist who had to go home early to tend to his new baby calf and Marc Schroll who is a sci fi writer. He writes books about alien life. I asked him if he had A) ever been abducted and B) ever had an anal probe. His answers were no and yes. Very interesting!

The next two nights were at the Zoo Bar, the famous blues club of Lincoln. I have been playing the Zoo since 1990 and its always a great time. Lady Bianca came down to see us, http://www.ladybianca.com/She’s an awesome singer and pianist from Oakland, Ca who happened to be on tour at the same time. We had so much fun with our normal wild crowd down at the Zoo. Lincoln is still my favorite city in the Midwest.

After the show that night, I ate a gyro and ended up having a horrible gall bladder attack that landed me in the Emergency Room. I was surprised when the intake worker said “Hey, aren’t you Candye Kane? I have all your records! I’m a big fan!” She came and asked for my autograph while I was laying on a gurney with an IV in my arm! She was funny but I can imagine how irritated “real” stars must get if they get bothered by fans even when they are in severe pain like I was. Soon, they gave me the morphine and my pain was a distant memory but I still felt like crap two nights later in Springfield, Illinois where I played with Dwayne Burnside from Memphis. Dwayne is quite the ladies man and I dug his grill.

Kansas City: On the 70 freeway, we saw a sign for the Testicle festival in Olean Missouri. I am dying to play this festival! I will post the picture from the billboard. I am sure it’s really a rocky mountain oyster festival but it would be great to get a t-shirt from there, at least. If anyone knows how to get me booked onto this festival, please let me know.

The show in KC was rockin! Had a packed show at Knuckleheads and I heard that the kids from the new Blues Caravan were coming down. (That’s the tour I did last year with Sue Foley and Ana Popovic.) I don’t think Ian Parker, Ainsley Lister and Erja Luitenen showed up but Little Rachel did and we had a grand ol’ time. I want to apologize to my KC fans for doing half the show sitting down. I guess I was still weaker from the ER visit than I thought or maybe all the mosquito spray I had on was poisoning me, but I thought I would pass out onstage! The audience was sweet and seemed to understand. The KC blues festival was going on and so I was real happy to have such a big crowd. My friend Janniva Magness was playing at the festival the next night. Don’t know who I have to sleep with to get on that festival but I sure would love to play it!

Last night was Sioux City, Iowa at the Chesterfield. Brent and Paula used to have the Attic across the river and their new venue is just amazing. Hung out with Rob the great sound man and met cutie pie’s Mick, the bartender and Dennis who helped sell cds for me. We had a young pianist, Chris Bueller sit in from Omaha. He plays in a band from Omaha, called the Shakey Boys. They were quite good. Chris is just 20 years old and he prefers organ. But I hope he works on his left hand because he really needs to learn to boogie woogie. Then maybe I will take him on the road.

Financially, the tour has gone better than expected, THANK GODDESS. Gas prices are lower than I budgeted. (3$ instead of 4$) But we are only half way through. We still have to go to Milwaukee, Ann Arbor, Angola, Columbus and Cleveland before we end up back at home next week.

I am feeling a lot better since my bout with my gall bladder. I am modifying my diet and am trying to become a vegetarian. I am now committed to avoiding foods that had fur. I think this is a positive step towards better health for me. I don’t ever want that kind of pain again. I am much better but Evan is sick with bronchitis right now and that must be hard to play drums when you’re hacking up science projects; but like mother like son - that boy is a trouper.

Back on the home front, my house is all rebuilt after the fire and it doesn’t smell like smoke at all! I am really looking forward to getting back home and having some time on my beach this summer. I am also very proud of my youngest son Tommy. He just made the honor roll and got a special award for Math and Leadership. He will attend a Berklee School of Music workshop in Fullerton this summer and hopefully attend Berklee in the fall of ’07. He is home alone so much. It is a real testament to his dedication and determination that he made the honor roll. He is one smart and talented cookie. Check out his band skanktuary on my top 8 friends on myspace.

That’s all for now. Thanks to all of you who spend your hard earned money to see us! We just added a bay area gig on July 7th at the Center for Sex and Culture. www.sexandculture.org just before our Reno Show on July 8.
Please come down and support this wonderful center funded by good vibrations and my friends Carol Queen, Robert Lawrence and Scarlot Harlot.
Happiest of birthdays to all my Gemini and Cancer friends this month.
Love and Kisses,
Candye Kane in Milwaukee

Sweet Clifford Antone is dead at 56

2006-05-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

My friend Clifford was a big teddy bear of a man with the deepest most soulful blue eyes ever. He gave these amazing hugs and was always there with an easy smile and a helping hand. He always believed in my talent from the first time we met and he signed me to his label in 1992. He shared my frustration with the media who always seemed to mention my porn more than my music. Clifford could relate because he had been in trouble with the law for weed, and the media always mentioned it, every chance they got. Cliff always encouraged me to take myself seriously as a singer. He said I didnt need to talk about sex work because it was in my past. ( I choose to talk about it because it was a positive experience for me and I dont want people to jump to their own conclusions.)

I saw Clifford for the last time at the anniversary show in Austin when I sang with Sue Foley,Sarah Brown, Carolyn Wonderland and my pal Cheryl Arena. We had a slow dance that night and Cliff was as warm and supportive as ever. He was surrounded by college girls from his blues history class he was teaching at UT. He really seemed to be happy, looked great and was at the peak of his successes with the antones movie finally finished.

We spoke on the phone a few times after the anniversary. I sent him the Wattstax dvd for his class and we talked about the blues and Rufus Thomas. Clifford had a funny story to tell about every blues great ever. He was such a humble man. Whenever he took pictures with the blues greats, he always wanted them to be higher than him in the pictures. Even if he had to bend his knees to lower his 6 ft plus frame.

I'll never forget all those fun nights at the club on sixth street and then on guadalupe. Hanging backstage with Cliff and Susan, Lazy Lester, Hubert Sumlin, Kim Wilson, Lou ann Barton and Angela Strehli, Stevie and Jimmie Vaughn, Sue Foley, Eddie Stout, Margaret Moser,Toni Price, Derek O Brien, George Rains, Preston Hubbard. Those were the best of times, eating bbq, drinking beer and feeling that family vibe that antones and clifford were all about. Cliff brought so many of us together. There are so many people I never would have met if it werent for him. I cant believe he is gone.

Good night sweet prince. Thanks for believing in me. Thanks for giving me a chance to sing the blues. Thank you for loving and preserving this music and making us all feel so important. I know that you and Doug Sahm are hanging out tonight once again. Give a big hug to doug, my other scorpio musician brother. I know you are jamming with Muddy now in that great blues band in the sky. I will always miss and love you. Youre the original soul daddy.

There will be a public viewing at Cook Walden Funeral home at 6100 N. Lamar, Austin, Texas Thursday and Friday from 6 - 8 pm.

There will be a private funeral on Saturday.
In lieu of flowers, Susan and the Antone family ask for donations to be sent to Cliffords other passion http://www.americanyouthworks.org

or to the Clifford Antone memorial fund in c/o Prosperity Bank 512 472 5433.

For more information on Clifford and some beautiful pictures and audio of Pinetop playing gospel for Cliff check out:

http://www.austin360.com/music/content/music/stories/2006/05/24antone.html

sign the guestbook for Cliff here:

http://www.statesman.com/hp/content/homepage/index.html

Holocaust Remembrance Day in Warsaw

2006-04-25T15:18:00.000-07:00

My first official tour of 2006 starts tomorrow in Krakow, but I had a day off here in Warsaw and I decided to take a tour of the city, starting with the Jewish Section (or what is left of it.) I didn’t even realize that it was Holocaust Remembrance Day until I turned on the TV this morning and saw footage of Israeli’s stopping their cars in the middle of the streets and getting out for a moment of reflection as the sirens blasted for two entire minutes. Knowing that it was a day of remembrance, made the tour even more special and poignant.

I have always wanted to visit Warsaw, the city depicted so movingly in the movie, The Pianist, with Adrien Brody and mentioned in detail by one of my favorite writers, Isaac Bashevis Singer. Warsaw once had the largest Jewish population in Europe. After six million Jews were annihilated during the Shoah, the Jewish cemetery, tragically, still holds the largest concentration of Jews in Europe.

Our tour guide was a darling Polish boy named Adam. He wasn’t Jewish but he had an extensive knowledge about Judaism and its customs. He was sensitive and kind and said he has many close friends who are Jewish. He looked pretty good in his kippah too as he walked us through the different memorial sites and tried to explain the nazi occupation and the atrocities against the Jews in excellent English.

The sun shone hot and the temperature was about 74 as we approached the Monument to the heroes of the Ghetto. It seemed unfair to have such a beautiful sunny day while we discussed such indescribable horror.
The Warsaw Ghetto was created by the Nazis on November 16, 1940 and eventually imprisoned over 450,000 people in an area meant for about 60,000. The Nazis first built a barbed wire fence around the area and then a 15 foot brick wall to keep the Polish Jews in, and the rest of the world, out. The Warsaw uprising of 1943 was a choice that noble and heroic Jews made, to die honorably while fighting, or choose suicide, rather than die at the hands of a brutal and merciless nazi. Starving, emaciated and armed only with homemade or smuggled weapons against automatic machine guns, this group of heroes fought off the Nazis for close to a month from the confines of the ghetto. Reliefs on the monument depict men, women and children struggling to flee the burning ghetto, together with a procession of Jews being driven to death camps under the threat of Nazi bayonets. There were large bouquets adorning the monument today, hundreds of candles and a large group of Israeli students waving the Israeli flag and singing in Hebrew. They were a welcome sign of defiance and survival.

Next we visited the Umschlagplatz monument, a former train depot where tens of thousands of people a day were deported to certain death in Treblinka, Majdanek or Auschwitz. 100,000 Jews had already died from starvation and diseases in the inhumane living conditions of the ghetto by the time the Nazi’s started the daily deportations of thousands. The monument is extremely emotionally stirring with hundreds of names of the victims etched in white marble in the shape of a cattle car. They chose to list only the first names so that Poles and visitors can see that many of the people who were murdered had traditional Polish names such as Vladivaw and Vladimir. This gives the Jewish victims a more human face rather than identifying them by their often distinctly Jewish surnames. Our guide believes that Treblinka was the cruelest of all the camps, whereas Auschwitz is undoubtedly the more famous.
At Treblinka, Jews were duped into believing that they were being taken on a journey of relocation, up until the last possible moment. The Nazis went so far as to install a phony train station counter with actual names of departing trains to keep the Jews calm as they were told to shed all their clothing and jewelry and step into their showers of death. There, they were slowly gassed to death with carbon monoxide, which was cheaper and took much longer than the Cyclon B gas used in other death camps. They had fifteen or twenty horrifying minutes to realize that the shower they were promised was an elaborate lie and death was imminent. By forcing Jews to enter the gas chambers with their arms up, thus squeezing in as many bodies as possible, the Nazis were able to efficiently slaughter 10,000 people an hour.

We then visited the Jewish cemetery at Okopawa street. It covers 33,4 hectares and was established in 1806. It miraculously escaped bombings and the wrath of the Nazis. Countless other Jewish cemeteries were razed and the gravestones broken up to pave roads and build walls, but this peaceful resting place remains as eternal proof of the magnitude and the variety of the Warsaw Jewish community. It was the biggest Jewish cemetery I have ever seen outside of New York and Israel.

Next, we visited the last actual remnant of the Ghetto wall. It is just a portion of a battered and chipped 15 or 20 foot brick wall but it is symbolic of the insurmountable odds that European Jewry faced under Hitlers’ tyranny. I touched that wall and left a stone for all the innocents who died wishing they would see the other side.

We ended our tour at the beautiful Nozyk Synagogue built between 1893 and 1902. It was the only shul in Warsaw to survive the holocaust and now is home to a thriving Orthodox Jewish community of about 10 to 15,000 people. There is a Yiddish theater around the corner from the temple and a kosher market. There is also a bar under construction where they will have live klezmer music nightly.

Whenever I am on tour, though I don’t usually have much time in my schedule, I try to visit the synagogue or Jewish sector of each town. I have seen synagogues in Frankfurt, Athens, Rome, Marseilles, Istanbul and Paris. I have taken the Jewish Prague tour and visited cemeteries in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Jewish Warsaw was by far the most interesting tour I have ever taken. The Poles seem to be genuinely remorseful and miss their Jewish community. Recently, the Polish government sued to remove the word “Polish” from association with death camps. The camps were located in Poland because of the Germans, not the Polish and they want to make that clear.

I recommend a trip to Warsaw for anyone who is Jewish, Jew-curious or simply interested in history. Though it is an uncomfortable subject, it should not be relegated to once a year on holocaust remembrance day. We should never forget, lest it happen again to any peoples; in Europe, Rwanda or God forbid, the good ol’ US of A.

For more information:

http://jewish.sites.warszawa.um.gov.pl/wstep_a.htm

Buddy Blue is dead

2006-04-03T13:58:00.000-07:00

My friend Buddy Blue passed away unexpectedly yesterday. He was 48 years old. He had a heart attack at home.Buddy was a great musician who sang and played guitar most notably in the Beat Farmers. He had many other fine bands including The Jacks and his swing band. He was also a brilliant and sometimes scathing commentator and wrote reviews for the San Diego Union Tribune, The Reader and The Los Angeles Times among others. He leaves a four year old daughter, Tallulah and a beautiful wife, Annie.

To get a sense of Buddy, read his hilarious bio on his website. You will see instantly what a genius he was.

I have posted a few messages on Buddy's message board at www.buddyblue.com
If you click on the link under his picture, you can sign in and post a message. The messages will be printed out and delivered to Annie and Tallulah after 4 pm today. If you don't make the deadline, please go and post anyway. There is also a book which will be assembled eventually for Tallulah to have memories of her daddy.
Send an email to ginabilly@hotmail.com . she will eventually get back to you about a place to send photos and memories. As soon as I find out anything else about a service or an address to send flowers I will. I am on the road now but will be home tomorrow for a day. I have buddys home address at home on my desktop.

I argued with Buddy a lot through the years. Though I was a huge fan of the Beat Farmers and later, The Jacks, his brutal honesty made me bristle sometimes especially when he was reviewing a friend negatively whom I thought particularly talented, like the late Preston
Coleman of Tobacco Road fame. But Buddy and I patched things up last year and I came to love and respect his blunt honesty, great sense of humor and integrity. I am so sad about his loss and encourage you to write a passage on the guest book. I hope Buddy is now jamming with Country Dick in heaven. Hug someone you love today. You never know when you won't be able to do it again.

Candye

Below is a link for the obituary.

Here is an excerpt from an email I received from Mr. Harsh Reality himself:
(his comments are in italics/ mine in normal writing)

I am praying for world peace
It'll never happen. Humanity is evil by nature.
and an end to global warming
Too late, our kids are totally fucked.
and most of all, for a new compassionate president!
Americans have become too stupid, greedy, selfish and mean-spirited for me to believe that'll happen, and we still have 3 1/2 years of Nazi occupation to endure first even if an actual human being IS eventually elected.

This message of good cheer, optimism and brotherhood brought to you by your friend, Mr. Harsh Reality!

Buddys obituary: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/obituaries/20060403-9999-1m3blue.html

The fear of the brown skinned people.

2006-03-26T00:58:00.000-08:00

A few miles from my home in Oceanside, every summer, it is harvest time in the strawberry fields. From sunrise to sunset, you can see the brown people picking thousands of strawberries in the hot noonday sun, backbreaking work that no American born person would do unless they owned the farm or loved to garden. While all the tourists enjoy the sandy beaches and Lego land, while the yuppies drive their Hummers to La Jolla Cove and the San Diego Zoo, these hardworking people are hunched over hour after hour, males and females alike, until every strawberry is picked. Not many people would be desperate enough to take a job like this but these illegal immigrants are grateful when they are given this brutally hard labor for wages my teenager would laugh at.

When they were very young, my sons would ask questions about the men who stood on the side of the road day in and day out, waiting for work while we were carpooling it to school. “Who are they, Mommy? Where do they get the ten-speed bikes? Do they steal them?” When the boys were old enough, I took them down to Mexico myself to show them the appalling conditions these people live in everyday. From our air conditioned car I explained how hundreds of people risk their lives and the lives of their loved ones to sneak across the borders in the trunks of cars and sometimes boats, crawling through underground tunnels, walking across deserts in 100 plus degree heat, swimming across rivers and hiding in barrels, boxes and modified truck beds like common cargo. While we sleep in warm beds with running water and electricity, cable television and toasty central heating, these human beings live in inhumane conditions worse than most dog houses. I watched my kids grow wide eyed as they witnessed firsthand, entire families living in home made shacks thrown together with cardboard boxes, discarded tires and trash can lids; mothers and children combing the streets, barefoot and in rags selling tacky homemade trinkets and chewing gum for pennies, just to survive. It is worse after the rains come, when entire neighborhoods haphazardly built on the hillside, come sliding down and litter the Tijuana streets below. What little shelter these poor souls had is washed away with the mud and debris as if their makeshift lives never existed at all.

I told my boys “You can bet that if we lived in a cardboard box on a hillside, that I would do anything I could to try and get you kids a ticket to a better life.” They wisely shook their heads and never asked again about the men standing street side and waiting for some job, any job. I meant every word I said.

Now our government is proposing that we label these resilient people “felons.” That anyone who aided an illegal immigrant would be aiding and abetting a felon. These are hardworking people who are mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. These are my eldest sons grandparents. These are my best friends parents. Illegal immigrants are not aliens. They are human beings. They are not felons. They are people, who want a piece of the American dream. Felons are rapists, murderers and drug dealers. Felons are drunk drivers and robbers and thieves. If illegal immigrants are felons, then every immigrant who came to this country should be labeled a felon. George Washington? A criminal! Betsy Ross? A common crook! Anyone who is not a Native American Indian would be described as a felon under the terms of this law. These felons are the people who wash our dishes in restaurants, babysit for our children, clean our bathroom floors and pull our weeds. They are the people who risk everything just for a little chance to make their lives better.

Yes, there are legal ways to enter the United States. But since 9/11, it has become even harder for people to migrate legally. These are people who aren’t able to wait for years to find out if they are one of the paltry few allowed legal entry into the USA. These are people who would die waiting. People of privilege get into our country first; people with light skin and an education. People like our governor, Austrian immigrant Arnold Schwarzenegger, who backs HR 4439 to solve the illegal immigration issue here in his adopted country. This is the same country that Arnold dreamt of; the country that made it possible for him to marry a Kennedy and become a billionaire. This is the country my great grandparents escaped Ireland for and the country that lured the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock. In this country, we celebrate our diversity, brag about our freedom of religion, and our inclusivity. We proudly show off the Statue of Liberty, calling out to the huddled masses, the tired and the weak. Today the Statue of Liberty cries real rusty tears of shame down her peeling, grey façade. While we criticize Israel for building a wall to keep suicide bombers out, we build our own walls to keep hard working families in - abject poverty. They aren’t coming over to blow themselves up on our busses and in our shopping malls. They are literally dying to come over just to take a shitty job. Anyone opposed to illegal immigration should have to pick strawberries in the sun for one day and then go sleep in a cardboard box.
What are we so afraid of?

buck owens is gone!

2006-03-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am so sad to hear about the passing of Buck Owens. He was a great singer and a great human being. I opened for Buck a few times, most memorably when I was nine months pregnant with my youngest son Tommy. Buck, Dwight and I played at the SDSU open air theater that night. I was huge and Buck was so sweet, offering a hand to me when I came offstage. Here he was, this big star and he was just the sweetest gentleman. Buck was so humble and down to earth. I am lucky to have many of the original pressings of Buck and the Buckaroos plus a few cutaway records that were only sent out for promotional purposes. We once had the same agency, Halsey entertainment represent us. My favorite Buck songs are above and beyond, love's gonna live here (both of em I used to do in my live show) Loose Talkin' especially the version with Rose Maddox, Tiger by the Tail, Together again. I would love to hear any favorite buck stories you might have.

Rest in peace sweet cowboy!
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr.
1929-2006

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1768444&page=1

My friend Tab Hunter

2006-03-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

My friend Tab Hunter has written a book about his life called Tab Hunter – Confidential. It is on the New York Times Best seller list and it really is an interesting read. My first exposure to Tab Hunter was from my mom’s 45 records. She had his big hit Young Love among her collection. I later met Tab’s partner, Allan Glaser twenty years ago when I was working as a phone sex girl in Marina Del Rey. Allan was producing a movie for 20th Century Fox called Sorority Confidential about phone sex and the college girls that worked the phones. He interviewed me for a part in the movie and hooked me up with his writers for the project. Unfortunately, they lost the funding for the movie and it never happened but Tab and Allan went on to write, produce and direct the fabulous Lust in the Dust movie starring Tab, Divine and Lainie Kazan. Tab has said that Divine was his favorite leading lady which is pretty incredible considering he co-starred with Sophia Loren, Lana Turner and Natalie Wood to name just a few. Tab and Allan had a beautiful home back then, in Benedict Canyon where they invited me to a fabulous dinner. They were the first gay couple I ever met and I remember being so impressed by their kindness, warmth and genuine love for each other. They have since moved to Montecito and I reunited with them at the Jewish Community Center here in La Jolla when Tab was here last week promoting the book. It was wonderful to see them both again. Tab and Allan have been together for 23 years! While he does address his gay lifestyle in his book, Tab doesn’t want to be a gay icon or role model. He relates to sexuality as a human condition and doesn’t like to label people gay or straight. Tab lost his brother in the Vietnam War and is extremely patriotic and I think a bit conservative in his own way. His book is amazing though, and I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in early Hollywood and the studio system that created the stars of the 50’s. And the pictures are GORGEOUS. What a hunk he was and at 75 he still looks great! Once again, Tab is living proof that gay men are often the sexiest and best looking. http://www.tabhunter.com/

My rant on Abortion in South Dakota

2006-03-13T21:21:00.000-08:00

There is a Planned Parenthood location less than two miles from my home. Once every few weeks, there are two long-haired guys who look like bikers, standing outside with a gigantic poster of bloody fetuses. I get so angry every time I see these men, that my hands are shaking by the time I pull into my driveway. These men will never have a menstrual period, experience cramps or have PMS. They will never have to wear a patch or take the birth control pill. They will never experience a mammogram or a pelvic exam. They will never get pregnant. They will never experience what it feels like to squeeze out a baby from one of the tiniest orifices in the body after 30 hours of labor. YET, they have nothing better to do than stand around and harass young, poor women at the clinic.

It should be against the law for men to make laws that only affect women! It should be illegal for these men to assault innocent drivers-by with their disgusting photos of violence. How are these men any different than the Taliban who want women to be covered up in a burka, while they make all the decisions for us? When a man can get pregnant, then and only then should he be allowed to write or introduce any bill about womens reproductive rights!

It saddens me deeply that my sisters in South Dakota will now be forced to scrape together enough money to go out of state for an abortion. The abortion ban in that state will affect poor women the most. The poor will be the ones who have to struggle to find a solution to their unwanted pregnancy. They will be the ones who seek out illegal abortionists and die trying to help themselves. They are the ones who can ill afford another mouth to feed. Margaret Sanger would roll over in her grave if she could see how backward we still are in America after all these years. While we are forcing democracy down the collective throat of the world and allegedly trying to civilize the un-civilized in other countries, here in our own, we are taking a huge step backward to the days when women were dying from botched abortions.

I wrote a song in 1983 called "She wore a Red Carnation." The song was inspired by a true story I read about a woman who went to Mexico and got an illegal abortion. It was included on my first cd, Home Cookin' and later on a CD called Rock for Choice and it landed me on the illustrious Christian blacklist. Apparently starring in porn movies and being on the cover of Juggs was not enough to get me blacklisted, but when I came out as pro-choice, that was the real abomination! I performed the song at a rally in West Los Angeles in front of the Federal Building and I had the good luck to meet the woman who was the subject of my song. We both cried together as I explained how her story had inspired me so much. I didn't think I would ever live to see the day that free and equal access to abortion was not available to all women here in the liberated United States. But now I realize I went to bed last night and woke up in the middle ages.

It is so scary to witness the erosion of our civil rights as these so called Christian bullies cram their religious fear and evil down our unsuspecting throats. Who are these men who are so self righteous that they feel qualified to make decisions for the rest of us? I wanted to find out and so I watched a video on my pal Susie Brights blog. It's a video of the Senator from South Dakota describing his anti woman, anti abortion stance. When asked what it would take to get an abortion in South Dakota, Senator Bill Napoli almost started breathing heavy as he gave the following vivid details:

"A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl [would be] a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."

It is shocking to hear a man who will never be raped, (unless he goes to prison; one can only hope) or carry a child, speak about a rape victim in this way. Why does Mr. Napoli think it is anymore heinous to be savagely raped if one is a virgin? Any woman who endures a rape could be "messed up physically and psychologically." And what will Mr. Napoli do if it is his wife or daughter who is raped? Will he allow the abortion if his wife was only tied up and raped, but not sodomized? What if his daughter is raped but she isn't married? What constitutes a brutal rape? She is slapped around but not pistol whipped? She is penetrated only once, not twice? Who will judge whether the rape is brutal enough? How bad can you make sodomy? Senator Napoli seems to be a real expert on the subject. I am sure the good Senator will find a way to pay for his daughters' abortion in neighboring North Dakota. But unfortunately most of the citizens of South Dakota live on farms or in trailers and they dont have the luxury of a Senators' salary.

This is not a moral issue. This is economics. The only ones really affected by this law are the poor and destitute. Anyone with money can afford to fly out of state and visit the gynecologist of their choice. Just like the women who visit the planned parenthood here in oceanside because they cannot afford a private gynecologist, and have to drive past the gruesome signs of the biker protesters, the poor women of South Dakota will have to weave their way through the assholes in their State legislature to find free and equal access to health care. Is this what the founding fathers on Mt. Rushmore mean't by justice and equality for all? It's a sad day for women when men are still more equal than us in 2006. When will our liberators come here to set us free?

The Revolving Door of Band Life

2006-03-11T11:34:00.000-08:00

Band Life isn’t easy. Maybe for the Rolling Stones, Madonna or Dave Mathews who can afford a big tour bus, drivers, teams of roadies and tech people, nannies, first class hotels and luxuries on the road, it can be a cinch but when you’re a poor and struggling road band, it’s tough. Many people think they can and want to endure it to live the so-called “glamorous life” of a rock star. Once they find out that a minimum of six hours a day is spent sitting on your behind in a van with five other sweaty people you’re not sleeping with, many quickly change their minds. We drive as fast as we can, all day long to get to the town we are playing in, that night. We stop along the way for fast food and/or snacks at the gas station while we take restroom breaks and gas up (no pun intended!) Upon arrival in the town, we rush to the bar, load in our equipment, do a sound check and hope for enough time for a hot meal and a shower at the hotel. Sometimes we don’t have enough time and we have to change clothes in the graffiti filled dressing room or in the van itself. I have become an expert at applying my make up in the 4X8 light up mirror in the van parked in the alley of the venue. We play our show, meet the wonderful people who support our music, load up the van again with all our amps, guitars, luggage and equipment and find our way to the hotel in the wee small hours of the morning. At check out time, (or earlier depending on the drive distance) we hop in the van, rain or shine, and do the whole thing all over again day in and day out.

Your personal space becomes very precious when you live your life out of a rolling sardine can. Where you place your pillow, sweatshirt and backpack is the mark of your turf. When someone takes the liberty to move your stuff, it can be a proclamation of war. I have seen fights break out over the crumpled paper bag that was thrown away accidentally. Who knew it held the pianists half eaten roast beef sandwich that he was saving for later? The pillow you benignly pushed aside becomes a threatening insult to the sax player. Little inconsequential things take on powerful new meaning.

Put artistic musicians with big egos in a small space and you are likely to witness great art or monumental pettiness. Individual quirks seem magnified when you have 397 miles to observe them. Human beings have idiosyncrasies and they are up close and personal in the Ford Econoline. If the guitar player is an alcoholic who is hung over, it affects everyone who has to smell him and drive his shift because his pounding head and shaking hands make him unsuitable. If the bass player is lazy, rest assured someone else is moving his equipment and picking up the slack for the jobs he refuses. A bad back, a bad headache or a bad attitude can affect everyone in the small quarters and alter everyone else’s mood and road experience.

Then there is the inevitable rehearsal that one person cancels at the last minute, inconveniencing everyone else. Or one guys DUI makes it so he can’t pitch in and drive his shift. Family issues can complicate band life as well. A guitar player marries and suddenly his young wife doesn’t want him to tour anymore or she wants to travel with the band, adding one more body and one more personality to the stew. A musician’s parents are elderly and frail and she is an only child. I have lost musicians to other bands who have snatched them up after seeing them on a festival with me. I have lost people who have decided they want to be the front person and go out on their own. People have developed health issues that needed attention. I have had to fire people who ditched a rehearsal for no good reason, wanted to be paid for the rehearsal, or refused to learn new material or even learn the old material correctly. Musicians decide to go back to school and get an education or take a day job where they can make good money without being gone all the time. People have left because they have young children at home and are tired of missing out on precious baby steps and first words. Marriages are threatened and break up. One former guitarist’s ex wife went to prison and he had to take custody of the kids. Another developed a drug addiction and after having illegal drugs fed-exed to our hotel, in my name, I had to let him go.

People come up to me and say, “What happened to your guitar player?” or “that band you had in Munich was the best band you ever had.” People make assumptions that it’s the bandleader who must be hard to get along with. In some cases, that may be true but there are also a whole slew of other extenuating reasons why musicians leave. NO health insurance, no retirement, no unemployment and no guarantees other than artistic expression are also factors. I often say to well meaning fans, “This ain’t the civil service. It’s impossible to keep someone where they don’t want to be.”

Bands are like dysfunctional families with all the good times and bad times included. We are blessed to play music and often humbled by the thunderous applause and the love and energy of a live audience. Yes, we choose this life on the road and we get the glamour and glory of show business along with the unique and unusual occupational hazards. We drive through rain, sleet and snow to deliver live music from coast to coast. Many of us do it because we love the road and the people we meet on it. Some of us do it because we want to be famous. And all of us, who stick with it, year after year, do it because we love music and maybe for all of the reasons listed above.

So, the next time you see your favorite road band with a new person in the group, realize that there is more to the story than you could ever know. These aren’t robots; these are human beings with all the blemishes and complexities that make us humans. And if you’re a musician, wishing you could be in a road band, carefully consider all the complications you are inviting and then get in that van and do it! Band life isn’t easy but for some of us, it’s the only life we would ever want and the life we are blessed to be living. Let the music begin.

the state of the blues

2006-03-06T23:57:00.000-08:00

I was talking to Bill Stuve last night at my gig in long beach. My bassist and I had a falling out and he isn’t playing with me anymore. Bill was there to check out my gig and consider joining me for some tours. I am worried about the state of the blues, as is Bill. After 30 years in the Mighty Flyers, Bill was let go because Rod and Honey want to tour without a bassist to cut back on expenses. Gigs are paying less and less. When someone like Rod Piazza who is at the top of the blues heap, has to cut corners, I worry about the rest of us small fry's trying to eke out an existence.

Bill said he hasn’t seen it this bad since 1976. I was in junior high then so I don’t have a point of reference but I wonder how bad it was? Is this as bad as then? I was just offered some dates in Alabama for my upcoming tour. Two of them were $500 on a friday and saturday. That’s okay money for a local band, but to drive from city to city for $500, with gas at $2.75 a gallon is insane. I can’t afford to run a business that way. Fridays and Saturdays are supposed to be the nights we make the big money to float the lower paying weekday nights. If the big money (which was only $1000 to $1500 anyway) is reduced to $500 on weekends, it will seriously limit the amount of touring national acts can do. Only solo acts can afford to tour at those prices. What is the state of the blues? Is it getting worse? Is there hope? I haven’t been offered one blues festival this summer and I'm one of those artists who is blessed with a great and reputable agency. I am noticing more and more that gigs are drying up. My crowds are still there, when I do tour but I am deeply worried about what lies ahead.

I know that the economy is suffering even though our beloved George Bush keeps telling us how great things are. The first thing to go when money gets tight is entertainment. People can drink and smoke weed at home and they can watch music on television. They don’t need to spend $10 to go out and see a live band.

I am lucky to play other music besides blues. I have many gay pride festivals to subsidize some of my touring and thankfully, the gay community has been wonderful and supportive for years. At least I have some options. For many blues musicians, the state of the blues is really getting bluesier every day and that will trickle down to all musicians on the road, eventually.

For $500 on a Saturday, I don’t think I will be driving out south from San Diego any time soon. That’s a real shame for me, my band members, my fans in the south and for the business in general. What’s happening elsewhere in this blues world? Should we be scared? The state of the blues seems to be a third world state. I’ve heard the proclamation again and again that the blues is dead. Now, I am really worried that they are right.

cleveland, blue lunch and michelle willson

2006-02-27T00:07:00.000-08:00

Had an amazing show with Blue Lunch and Boston singer Michelle Willson in Cleveland this past weekend. I played with Blue Lunch a couple of times before in Indian town but the first time they opened for me, I started crying when I saw them. Yes, crying. Not because they were bad. On the contrary, they are an awesome nine-piece band with four horns, harmonica, piano, string bass, percussion and drums. I started sobbing because they were so good. I was bummed to have to follow such a big band. I know my fans love me and pay to see me but it’s still hard to follow the sheer sound of a big group like that. I got over my tears as they won me over with their sincerity and warmth. The horn players sat in and they were awesome and that’s why we decided to do the show together at the Beachland.

I suggested Michelle because she is one of my favorite blues singers. Her style is sassy Dinah Washington and she is smart as a whip. I wanted someone on the bill who would entertain me and Michelle didn’t disappoint both on and off the stage. She has a lot of fire and she growled and crooned her way into the heart of the crowd. She was awesome. www.evilgal.com

At first, I was freaked out about the venue because some jerk had written “No fat chicks” on the wall in the backstage. Of course, I had to cross it out and write “No fucking idiots” but it still spooked me out for a second. I mean, if it said “No blacks” or “no chinks” everyone would be up in arms about it, but people can get away with writing stuff like that about fat women. And I am sure it was some stupid, ugly numbskull that I wouldn’t sleep with if he were the last man on earth!

The ballroom was super cool and it was packed with great swing dancers. Everyone seemed to be jitter bugging and swinging. They are so much fun to watch. I did make a little mistake because I let the band choose all the songs and they chose almost all the songs in Eb. It is a favorite key of horn players. As a result, the songs weren’t my favorites to sing and I think the crowd missed some of the racier songs I do like Masturbation Blues and The Lord was a woman but overall, it was a great show.

During the day we visited the Rock and Roll Museum. We got the VIP tour along with singer Katrina Chester who is also here on Myspace. She was appearing in Cleveland in “Love Janis” the musical. She is also Robert Plants girlfriend, I heard. She seemed much too young and beautiful for him, though, even if he is Robert Plant. We saw John Lennon’s pants that he wore in Sergeant Pepper. He had a size 28 waist! The weirdest thing we saw was a dreadlock belonging to Bob Marley. I love Bob but there is something creepy about seeing a dead persons hair. We saw some great old guitars belonging to Lightnin’ Hopkins and Muddy Waters and the dress Ruth Brown wore when she got inducted. I enjoyed seeing the costumes in the permanent display and would recommend the museum to anyone visiting Cleveland who is a music fan.

It was a great show and I really enjoyed hanging out with the guys from Blue Lunch. Almost all of them are Jewish and that made me feel more at home. Bob Frank, the guitar player, is also a fine mandolin and banjo player and we jammed a little bit. I don’t play guitar in front of many people, but I love playing that hillbilly Carter family stuff and Bob and I had a good time jamming. Check out Blue Lunch if you like your blues swinging with horns. They are great people and great musicians. www.bluelunch.com

Payola, Kelly Clarkson and the Grammy Awards

2006-02-09T00:43:00.000-08:00

Payola, Kelly Clarkson and the Grammy Awards

Is anyone else, besides me, surprised that manufactured American Idol Kelly Clarkson beat out Legends Paul McCartney, Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt among others, to win Best Pop Female Performance and Best Pop Vocal Album? Yes, she is cute and has a good voice but if that’s all it takes to win a Grammy, then there are millions out there who deserve one. I have to wonder where Kelly would be if she had to get in a Ford Econoline and slog it out on the road, in seedy nightclubs and bars like the rest of us. What if Kelly hadn’t won the American Idol competition? Would anyone know who she was at this point? Had she ever written a memorable song or made a memorable recording before she was coached on primetime television by the best trainers Fox Television could offer?

It is so sad to me that the innate and mysterious inborn talents that create music have been reduced to corporate packaging like so much sickeningly sweet children’s cereal. I looked forward to the Idol show at first because I remembered my days as an amateur singer auditioning for the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, The Palomino and Forge Nightclubs’ Talent Nights and the Gong Show. I hoped to see a televised version of the talent shows I entered as a kid. But what I got was a perfectly manicured, controlled popularity contest where the middle aged, dentally challenged and overweight would be humiliated on TV and the truly quirky, unique and talented need not apply. Clarkson does have a natural, born voice, but how much of her stage persona, look and vocal chops have been carefully controlled by expensive television coaches? When musicians can be churned out like cheeseburgers for the consuming masses, what’s next? Teaching amateur painters to paint like Van Gogh and O’Keefe to get the big money prize? Maybe they will have an author’s competition next where they take amateur writers and teach them to write like Maya Angelou or Anne Rice, all under the watchful eyes of prime time viewers. When creativity and raw talent can be manufactured by a panel of experts, all natural born, creative endeavors are at risk.

How can awards programs be fair when radio airtime is purchased by deep-pocketed record companies? With the New York Attorney Generals Office, headed by Eliott Spitzer, currently investigating Sony and Epic Records, alleging Payola, the Grammy’s and most music awards programs should be exposed as the joke that they really are. Sony and Epic Records have admitted in their own internal memos to paying thousands upon thousands to keep J-lo and Good Charlotte on the air week after week. How much does Kelly Clarksons’ record company pay to keep her spinning? Even on my XM radio, I can tune in daily and see her name on numerous stations throughout the day. It's not like payola is new. The government investigated record companies and radio stations in the late 1950s and again in the mid 1970s. But there is no one to enforce the law. The people who really care, small time recording artists and independent labels, don’t have the time or resources to bribe DJ’s to play us. We are too busy touring and trying to survive in this ruthless business.

I guess it is the Darwin-ism of the Music Business. “Survival of the fittest” has been replaced with “survival of the richest.” Corporations like the House of Blues are taking over the nightclub business and replacing hungry unknown talent with big names that are neither hungry, nor blues. Just as Wal-Mart and Blockbuster puts the smaller Mom and Pop stores out of business, one of these days, American Idol and other homogenized cloning programs may put the small time musician out to pasture. The Mcdonald-ization of our world is widespread and insidious. Now it has taken over the music business, the radio charts and the television screens.

I know. I know…it’s a business silly. The bottom line is revenue. I just thought that there was some integrity left in the arts business at the very least. I was still under the impression that hard work and creativity counted. I held on to the notion that if you gave your life to your art, toured tirelessly and created consistent, innovative recordings, that you had a fair chance to be played on the radio and maybe even to get a hit record. But now I know that what it really takes is a million dollars, a thin, young figure and a panel of experts to shape and mold you to their specifications. Does anyone know when the American Idol show is holding auditions in San Diego? Though I am over the hill and fat, I still want to be first in line. It might be my only chance.

my breasts have been censored in arcata, california

2006-01-31T01:19:00.000-08:00

My breasts have been censored in Arcata, California

It’s not the first time my breasts have been censored even when they weren’t exposed. Newspapers have refused to run the cover photo of my sixth cd Whole Lotta Love in a couple of narrow-minded cities. Some papers and magazines have even refused PAID ads by my record company if they used the cover photo. One reviewer liked my CD but remarked “the cover photo is obscene and in bad taste.” (Hey, I’m sorry my God given body offends you!) And now, the poster for my upcoming show (Feb. 7th) in Arcata at Mazzottis, apparently was too hot for this restaurant. They hung up the poster in front with a large bar across my cleavage, in an apparent attempt to cover up my 44 GG bounty.
I am always amazed as to what constitutes obscenity in this country. Why is a fat girls cleavage more offensive than a thin girls cleavage? Cher, Madonna, Brittany Spears, Liz Hurley, Halle Berry and countless others have all worn dresses cut so low that another inch would show their navel, pubic hair or lack thereof. They parade around on prime time awards programs and are never censored. It isn’t even considered unusual. But if a fat girl does it, suddenly we have crossed the line of decency. I can’t help it that I have more flesh than thin people. Clothes just look different on me. There is more of me to cover, and more of me that shows, when I am in the same styles that skinny women are wearing. Why is cleavage any more offensive than a belly shirt or a pierced naval? I happen to think it’s all beautiful but that cleavage is especially luscious. And in a day and age when women are paying thousands to buy larger breasts, why on earth would we want to cover them up?
I am not surprised that the folks at Mazzotti’s gave into the pressure. Apparently a woman with a child came in and said she didn’t want her child seeing such a vulgar picture so the management followed suit and covered me up. It is just a shame that one uptight person can cause an uproar that forces others to react in such a puritanical way. Did the management really think my poster was obscene? Or did the loud mouth woman bully them into submission because she hates her own breasts and doesn’t want to see mine?
Whatever the case, it makes me sad that people are so threatened by a woman with large breasts who is fully clothed. Yes, my boobs are huge and so is my ass. But that won’t stop me from taking pictures and wearing the clothes that are made for me, even if they happen to offend someone else. Yes, I will continue to wear a bathing suit at the beach, low cut dresses on stage and in photographs and no amount of scorn, censorship or “NO FAT CHICKS” stickers will make me shut up and disappear.
Ironically, my newest CD White Trash Girl has a cartoon caricature of me showing just as much cleavage as the photo in question. No one has ever censored the cartoon version of me or mentioned it, yet. Color me puzzled - and stacked.

the lord was a woman from mexico city

2006-01-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

My fiance surprised me with a trip to Mexico City for my birthday. I didnt know where we were going until the very last possible minute. It was so much fun. I have long been a fan of Frida Kahlo (way before the Salma Hayek movie) and it was amazing to finally get to visit her house and her town, Coyoacan. I saw the house where she and Diego Rivera lived together, connected by a little bridge. I dream of such a house where I can have my own space and my lover can have a private space connected by a bridge. How civilized! I also visited the pyramids in Teotihuacan. It was awesome. I cant help but wonder how the Egyptians, the Aztecs and the Mayans had the same ideas about contacting the Gods on two separate continents before the information age. I know there is a theory that aliens were in contact with them but that seems pretty crazy. Still, it is perplexing to ponder how they shared the same theories and built the same elaborate monuments without ever meeting one another. It was sad to revisit how the Spaniards destroyed the temples atop the pyramids in their attempt to convert the indigenous peoples to Christianity. I witnessed the same weirdness when I visited Jerusalem and saw the Jewish tomb of King David, beneath the room where they had the Christian last supper and the Arab mosque built atop it. It really is tragic how religions dont respect each other and just build their own monuments to their faith right on top of someone elses, destroying the sacred places of others in the process.

We visited the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe also and witnessed people crawling to the shrine on their knees. I almost got a tattoo of our lady many years ago and so it was super cool to finally visit the shrine. But again, I felt so sorry for the native mexicanos whose own historic faith was annihilated by the spanish christians in their zeal to convert everyone in sight. The Pyramids and their history speak of a faith that was at one with nature, worshipping the moon and the sun and the rain Gods. Now these people live in abject poverty, many of them barely surviving, and at the same time, worship at a gold plated altar and give their money to a church that hides child molesters and turns away from their suffering. It just doesnt seem right.
Religion has caused so much misery throughout the ages. I know it is a deeply personal thing and I also know that faith has brought comfort to people when they really need it, but visiting those pyramids and the holy shrine really made me re-examine my feelings about religion and religious institutions, once again. Religion has always divided, more than it has united and continues to do so today. Fanatics exist in every branch of religion, even in our own Oval Office and they continue to twist and distort religious doctrine to fit their own purposes. Have we really made any progress at all since the Spaniards conquered Mexico and stole their beautiful culture, only to replace it with Christian idealogies?

I wrote my song "The Lord Was a Woman" from my cd Diva La Grande, many years ago just to introduce the idea that God (if she exists) could be female. I was sick of hearing about this all male, grudge holding, score keeping God who was vindictive and punitive. A God who turned his back on the suffering of the poor and the innocent. When Country Dick recorded the song "Are you drinking with me Jesus?" he inspired me to write my own song about the subject. After visiting Mexico City, I am still more convinced than ever that the traditional, historic ideas about religion are continually manipulated by men to serve their own economic and selfish purposes. Any religion that tramples on other peoples faith and sacred feelings is a distorted sham.

I dont really believe anymore in the God of traditional religion. In fact, now more than ever, I believe God is the love inside of each one of us. The conscience that makes us do the right thing. The power we have inside us to overcome individual suffering and obstacles. The energy inside us that gives us purpose. The warmth inside us that we feel when something beautiful happens like a sunset, or a sunrise or an act of kindness that we give someone else. We each have the power to change our own destinies and make this planet as good as we can, while we are here on earth. Any person who hurts someone else in the name of some so called religion is as far away from the concept of God as they can get.

Thats what I got out of my birthday trip to beautiful Mexico City.

desensitizing the word "pussy"

2006-01-12T20:59:00.000-08:00

de-sensitizing the word "pussy"
I am getting really tired of the bum rap that pussy gets. Whenever someone or something is negative, people tend to say "Oh, don't be such a pussy" or "that dude was a pussy." Pussy is a beautiful, sacred thing and each of us owes our very life to a pussy somewhere on this earth. I think we need to use "pussy" in a positive way, as an adjective...such as "have a pussy day" or "that dress youre wearing is just pussy!" We can also use it to describe something really cool ie; that movie was like "french pussy" or "the candye kane show was like a warm inviting pussy." Let's all make an effort to treat pussy with the respect and holiness that it deserves. Pussy is HOLY and should be treated as such.

signed your favorite white trash pussy diva,
candye

the fight to legalize prostitution

2006-01-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

Each year, I host a vigil for fallen prostitutes who died in the line of duty. It is dedicated to my friend, Robert "Tiny" Gibson who was a beautiful drag queen who often performed with me during my shows. Tiny was murdered in Santee a few years ago after he had sex with a client. The murderer claimed that he didnt know that Tiny was a man (as if Tinys gender somehow justified murdering him.) Tiny was not dressed in drag at the time of the slaying and in fact, wore cut off shorts and a t shirt. Though he had long hair and fake nails, he was unmistakably male when he was in normal clothing. The murderer had sex with Tiny and then stabbed him 25 times, leaving him to bleed to death in the pre-dawn streets of a pleasant suburban San Diego neighborhood. Tiny was a sweet, friendly, gentle person who did not deserve this agonizing death. He was giving an act of pleasure and was murdered for it.

Countless women and men of the streets are victimized, by police, johns and society. Prostitutes are one of the only groups of people left, whom it is perfectly legal to harass, shun, ostracize and arrest. At this time of year, the time of year when I remember my wonderful friend on my Day of the Dead altar here at home, I feel its important to point out that prostitution should be decriminalized.

If prostitution were legal or tolerated, as in Amsterdam, hookers would be able to ply their trade in safe houses complete with security guards and medical care. They wouldnt be walking the streets while little Johnny and Susie go to school. They would be able to work in the privacy of their safe house, where people who wanted their services could seek them out if they wished. There wouldn't be soiled condoms littering the streets, or extortion by the police, as so many hookers must endure.In our so called civilized society, it is shameful that prostitution is condoned and permitted a few states away in Las Vegas, but in major cities everywhere else, hookers are harassed by the law and society.Because of the public scorn directed at the world's oldest profession, men like the green river killer think its perfectly okay to murder street walkers because "they will never be missed."

It is my firm belief that we should outlaw poverty, not prostitution. Only until it is legal or decriminalized, will working girls and men be able to work safely and in peace. It is a victimless crime since both parties are consenting adults. Once it is legal, we could find out who is being forced into "the life" by an abusive pimp, or who is an underaged runaway, or who is hopelessly drug addicted and can find no other way to get their drugs. We could find out who chose their occupation with an open mind or to work her way through college. We could provide services to prostitutes such as at the famous St. James Infirmary in San Francisco founded by Margo St. James or the AIM (Adult Industry Medical) clinic in Los Angeles founded by my friend Sharon Mitchell, where sex workers can get free access to medical care.

When I walk the red light district in Amsterdam and see the beautiful women of all ethnicities, ages and sizes, I am grateful for the the civilized and tolerant people of the Netherlands who allow people of all types to live and work in peace. I am grateful for the lovely bodies and scantily clad shapes that stand behind the glass doors and I often thank these women for sharing their beauty with me. People who dont want to see them dont have to enter their neighborhood and that is the real power behind decriminalization.

I believe everyone has the right to control their own body and the right to do whatever we want with that body. Whether I am posing for the covers of adult magazines, dancing nude for the public, playing piano with my breasts or just singing and exposing the most vulnerable parts of myself, ( my poetic soul through music) I believe it is my divine right to do so. Whether I am covering my body up in a burka for only my partner to see, or whether I am sharing my body with strangers, it is my body and my right. God Bless dear sweet Tiny who will never have another chance to give the beautiful, unselfish gift of an orgasm to another partner. May we all have multiple orgasms and the right to give and receive them with whomever we want, whether it's for good old fashioned money or for good old fashioned love.

For more information on this and other sex work related subjects, please visit: www.unrepentantwhore.com www.bayswan.net , www.swop.org, www.swas.com www.carolqueen.com www.anniesprinkle.com

Don't be afraid to organize your own vigil in your town! Dec. 17th is the International day to end violence against sexworkers. Wouldn't it be great if we made our presence known throughout this Bible belt nation? It doesnt take much to organize. You can copy my press release and insert your own name and location. You can add your own comments about why you feel this is a valid and important cause and send it to your local paper. You can write letters to the editor and to the legislators. Just by having a small gathering with a few friends on dec. 17th will do much to raise awareness and you will feel so much more powerful having done something!

breasts not bomb - our boobs as public enemy number 2

2006-01-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

Breasts! Public enemy number two!

Sacramento police arrested two women from the Mendocino based organization Breasts Not Bombs after they removed their tops during a protest on the steps of the California State Capitol on Monday, November 7th, 2005.
Sherry Glaser 45, and Renee Love 40, of Albion were charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct and going beyond the scope of their permit to demonstrate on state property. The two women were hauled off in front of at least 100 people while protesting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ballot measures. Officials at the Sacramento district attorney’s office were to decide whether to prosecute the protesters and if they did, whether to include them on the state’s list of registered sex offenders.
YES. You read that correctly. Going topless is now a crime so heinous; an offense so serious, it could land you on a list along with pedophiles, violent rapists and other sexual predators. The idea that a woman’s bare breasts could be considered a crime worthy of description as “sex offenders” should outrage every citizen with nipples! Since when has the human body become so dangerous and subversive that it is a crime to show it under any circumstances? Only in the United States of American can you view guns, shootings and violent crimes to your hearts content on prime time television but you will NEVER, EVER see a naked boob. Only in the United States are we proclaiming our superiority as a nation, while our leaders like John Ashcroft cover the marble breasts of benign nude statues in shame and disgust. Is it any wonder, then, that our beloved country has given birth to some of the most violent criminals in the world? Men like Jeffrey Dahmer, Gary Ridgeway and Charles Ng are all home-grown America sexual predators who grew up watching gun slingers on television but were censored from seeing psychologically damaging nudity.
Glaser and Love held up signs at the protest with slogans that read: “War is indecent” “ Poverty is indecent” “ George Bush’s agenda is indecency.” They bared their breasts to call attention to their cause but also to illustrate the graphic hypocrisy in our flawed society. When we are force-feeding our so-called democracy down the throats of third world countries but are unable to show our beautiful bodies in the sun, what kind of freedom do we really have? While we are piling up billions in debt to spread democracy, American women are still unable to perform a natural act like breast-feeding their infants in some public places. While it is perfectly legal for men to go shirtless in public, women risk being classified as sex offenders for baring the same body parts!
I love breasts. I think they are all beautiful. Little perky peach sized ones - Big ol’ floppy ones - Skin tags and flesh bags – Silicone implants or prosthesis - ain’t any of us would be here today without a pair of tits somewhere in the world who gave us life. I think more women should bare their breasts as a protest symbol. I think all people should have the right to walk around topless on a hot summer day. I have seen many hairy chests with large breasts on males at the beach and I. for one, would much rather see more naked female breasts.
I am ashamed sometimes of this civilization that treats half of its people so uncivilized. In Europe, it is common-place to see naked breasts and bodies at the beach. No one notices. No one cares. Why are we so hung up on nudity? Why are we treated like little impressionable children in this country who cannot even handle viewing the human body in all its glory?
I dream of a time and place where women’s breasts will be honored and worshipped as sacred and cherished; a time where we will all be able to embrace the similarities of our bodies and love each other because of our collective humanity. Yes, we are all different in our languages, races, customs and religions but when we are all naked, we are all one human species.
Breasts are not dangerous weapons. They are beautiful symbols of life. They give life to suckling infants. They make life better because of their existence. We are all cradled in the bosom of Mother Earth. The sooner we realize how much we are alike and how little really divides us, the sooner we will all evolve and reach our higher ground.

blues survivor (published at www.blueswax.com)

2006-01-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

Blues Survivor

What happens when you take three in-charge divas from different countries and put them all together on a bus in the dead of winter for 65 shows? Each one of them used to calling the shots and running the show, each with distinctly different personalities, playing styles and communication skills. Who will fold? Who will triumph? Who will cry first? Who will get their period? Who will cheat on their boyfriend? Who will throw a tantrum and have to be coaxed back onstage? Who will have it out with the band? Who will show up late? Who will get drunk and forget the words? Who will have a catfight? Who will rise above it all and overcome the challenge? Find out in this edition of Blues Survivor!

First, meet our divas:

Sue Foley

Canadian citizen Sue Foley is a blues veteran. She has been playing guitar and recording since the age of 17. She has been nominated for a WC Handy award and has won beaucoup Maple awards (Canadian Grammy) over a decade and a half career. She is known for her laid back, groove heavy simplicity and her genuine love for traditional style blues. She is sensitive and thoughtful both offstage and on, but she is no pushover. A fiery redheaded Mom to seven-year old Joe, Sue shoots from the hip and is always down to earth, blunt and funny. Her song writing has been compared to Bob Dylan and she is writing a book about guitar women and interviewed numerous female guitarists while on the road.

Ana Popovic

At 28, Ana was the baby of the Blues Caravan. Ana pulled herself out of communist Serbia, moved to the Netherlands and built a career out of nothing but sheer talent, determination and gorgeous long legs. Her father was a blues fan and a Milosevic protester and he’s the one who first encouraged her to sing and play guitar. Ana helped her younger sister Maya leave Serbia and finances her education with her music salary. She has only three CDs out but rose to success quickly when she was nominated for a WC Handy award for “Best New Artist” In 2003. She has a sexy stage style and she loves jazz and rock fusion along with Chicago blues.

Candye Kane

Candye (that’s me!) is a super sized belter from East Los Angeles with huge knockers. She has been touring for over 15 years and has released seven internationally acclaimed CDs. She has appeared on countless television shows both for her music and for her background as a plus size porn star. She raised two children and escaped the welfare rolls, all the while pursuing a musical career and touring 250 days a year. She is a flamboyant show person who loves to inspire and communicate with an audience. Her newest CD White Trash Girl is available in stores now.

The beginning

At first I was reluctant when Thomas Ruf asked me to participate in the Blues Caravan. Thomas and I had emailed back and forth, discussing the possibilities of a package tour show. Thomas Ruf is the charismatic label owner of RUF records from a small town in Germany. He started his career in music as Luther Allison’s booking agent and eventually became his Manager. His deep love and respect for Luther and his extensive knowledge and respect for the blues as an idiom, prompted him to start his own record label. He asked me for my advice about a revue show because he knew that I had participated in several different revue shows starting with the Texas Blues show with my Antone’s label mates, Teddy Morgan and Miss Lavelle White in 1994 and most recently was part of the Netherlands Night of the Blues theater tour with Melvin Taylor, Sax Gordon and the late George Wild Child Butler. I enjoy packages because the hustle and bustle backstage is so colorful and interesting. I love the opportunity to learn from my co-stars and be entertained by their music and personality. As much as I love the company aspects of a troupe, I had experienced them with mostly male co-stars. I knew that playing with other women might be difficult. We have so much more to prove in this male dominated business. We all must have big egos to start with to have any kind of longevity. And when I saw how many shows were involved, I was really worried.
I knew Sue Foley and I already loved her. We were label mates at Antone’s and toured together on the Texas Women in the Blues tour in 1997 with Lou Ann Barton. Sue and I have followed each other through the blues world from Austin to Germany, from Antone’s to RUF records delicately balancing motherhood and music. I like Sue’s musical style and am a big fan of her guitar work. I was excited about hanging out with Sue again and catching up on her life.
I met Ana Popovic only one time prior, at the Bay Car Blues Festival in France. We met in the lobby of the hotel (a moment Ana doesn’t remember.) My first impression was that she was very pretty but maybe a bit self-absorbed. I heard her show and I have to be honest, I wasn’t blown away. I am a traditionalist musically although my music takes on provocative themes sometimes. Ana’s electrified sound and all those wah-wah pedals she uses made me cringe and I didn’t stick around for her entire set. I didn’t know how the three of us with our distinctly different styles, could come together, make music and be mutually supportive. I was certain that there would be many fights to come. I wasn’t convinced that it could work but I knew it would be an interesting bill and crowds would love it. I committed to joining the Blues Caravan and vowed to put aside any pre-conceived notions.
The first fight we had was the back up band. We all agreed to choose a common rhythm section both to save money and to keep the continuity of the show fluid. Of course, each of us wanted our own rhythm section. Committing to 65 shows without your own band is risky. Our bands could quit during our absence. They are devoid of income while we are running around the world, getting paid to play music. Each of us are used to our own band of musicians. We all had to compromise a certain tightness with our regular groups to make this happen. Finding musicians who could play all of our collective styles convincingly was another challenge. Sue and I are similar in our love of low down traditional blues grooves. Ana had more of a rock edge coupled with jazz-fusion. It was hard to find a rhythm section that could do it all. I suggested a few Austin and a few Los Angeles musicians including Preston Hubbard from The original T-Birds and Greg Boaz, who plays bass with Dave Alvin. Sue and I discussed her former bassist John Penner who is now playing with Junior Brown. Ana wanted her own band of French musicians.
Eventually Thomas Ruf suggested Billy McClelland and Mike Griot from Michael Hill’s Blues Mob. I had just played with them down at the Narooma Blues Festival in Australia. I knew they were nice guys and I respected their style and musicianship. Both men are from the New York City area and they carry with them that hard edged East Coast confidence. If anyone could do this difficult job, it would be them. I decided to bring along Tucson pianist Lisa Otey. Lisa and I played together on other occasions when she accompanied me at the Blues Passions Festival in Cognac, France and many times in her hometown of Tucson. She played on my Rounder CD The Toughest Girl Alive and I sang on her self released CD. Piano is an important part of my show because of its barrelhouse sound, but also because if all else fails, I can always crack up the audience with my impromptu breast piano solos. I was sure that Lisa would add a lot to the rhythm section and I knew that Sue would use her on some songs, once they met. Now that the band was complete, we had plenty of time to stress out about the months ahead.
The tour commenced on January 13th 2005 in Oldenburg, Germany. We all flew into Frankfurt for a rehearsal day before the launch of the Blues Caravan. I had a horrible cold and there was snow on the ground when I landed in Germany. It was our first chance to rehearse together and we met in an old social hall in Lindewerra, Thomas Ruf’s hometown. The musicians had learned our material from CDs that had been sent through the mail. The rehearsals went amazingly smoothly and we adjourned to Thomas Ruf’s Swiss Family Robinson style home for dinner. His girlfriend Sabine made homemade pizza and we had a lovely time drinking wine and laughing. Sue, Ana and I listened to his record collection trying to decide on a few songs that we could perform together. After many, many vetoes, we finally decided on a song I had never heard before Etta James “Come to Mama” and a song Sue and Ana had never heard before, Koko Taylor’s “Mother Nature.” With the songs in place and a rehearsal under our belt, we were ready to take on the European Union with a vengeance.

Showtime

It was difficult deciding who would go first on the bill. None of us wanted to give the impression that we were opening the show. I really wanted to go first because out of the three of us, I felt that my show was the most laid back. I don’t play guitar and Sue Foley was going to be playing guitar in my set as well as hers. We knew she would need a break in between her set and mine. I felt that Ana was so powerful and rocking, she would be a hard act to follow with my cabaret approach to the blues. Thomas Ruf wanted me to go last. He said I was too hard to follow. I think it’s because my jokes, banter and breast piano playing provide the comic relief. At any rate, it was decided. Sue would play first, Ana in the middle and I would close the show, followed by the finale when Sue and Ana would rejoin me onstage. It was also agreed that we would do an opening number all together to give the show the revue element and to diffuse the idea that Sue was opening. This was another obstacle for us to overcome. I didn’t like the idea of an opening song. I am from the old-fashioned vaudeville school of entertainment where you don’t show the audience your best bit until the end of the show. I like a show to build gradually, culminating in the high-energy finale. Plus, I wear goofy outfits onstage. I feel that I am a black drag queen trapped in a white woman’s body and so I glam myself up with feathers and sequins. I like my costumes to have the impact of surprise. On this point, I was overruled. I agreed to do the opening number with my blues sisters and found it to be a lot of fun.
The first shows went surprisingly well. No train wrecks and no noticeable mistakes. I enjoyed the band immensely especially in the low down blues numbers. Sue is such a great guitarist and she played her best when she was accompanying me. I enjoyed watching the shows those first few nights. I learned to appreciate Ana’s flying finger technique and the more I got to know her as a person, the more I enjoyed her music. Sue’s homespun candor was a great opener. She tenderly led the audience on her musical journey in her gentle, down to earth way. By the end of her set, she’d have the audience cheering and jumping up and down to her songs “Doggie Treats” and “Shake that Thang.” She was the perfect prelude to Ana and her complicated, well- amplified guitar gymnastics. Ana is so easy to look at with her ultra-high, over the knee, suede boots and her sexy barely - there stage outfits. Then, when she starts wailing on that guitar, she gets them eating out of her hand. By the time my set rolled around, the audience was well-lubed and ready to laugh. Ana and Sue aren’t big talkers in between songs so my one-liners and story telling was welcomed and well received. By the time Ana rejoined us onstage for the finale, the rhythm section were exhausted. They played three hours non-stop with only the briefest bathroom breaks when each of us did an acoustic number, mine with just piano, Sue and Ana with guitar. Billy and Mike had the hardest job and yet they did the least complaining. Each night, they got up there and did their best performance behind us. I think the audience perceived the difficult job they had and rewarded them nightly with thunderous applause.
We traveled from town to town in a night liner bus. Our bus had twelve bunks, a bathroom, two televisions and VCRS, a DVD player and even a Sony Playstation. It was a bit of a bummer to find out that our USA purchased DVDS would not play in the European system but we all started buying movies to watch while we were over there. We had a driver who took us from venue to venue. This made it a lot easier than touring in the states where we have to drive our own vans in shifts, pay for the gas and navigate the map. We had two crew members who traveled with us, Hermann and Sebastian. Hermann did the lights and Sebastian did the sound. Thomas Ruf was with us as well, on the road, selling merchandise each night and fielding requests and complaints from us all, day in and day out. There’s not many record label heads that would get on the bus and travel with the group. I think it’s a real testament to the kind of man he is. It was fun getting to know him and his little quirks. For instance, he never wears matching socks. It’s just his thing. And when I found the “Best of White Snake” CD in his Walkman, I was very surprised. I guess even he needs to escape from his job now and then.
It was hard for me to hurl my 200-pound plus frame up into my bunk every night. I found out early that I couldn’t sleep at all on the bus when we had overnight drives. I am from California where a little bumping and shaking makes you run for the nearest doorway. On the bus, if I did actually fall asleep, I was haunted by dreams of earthquakes and volcano’s. I was happiest when we had a hotel for the night. Ana on the other hand, held the record for the most hours of consecutive sleep on the bus. She once lay down at midnight after the show and didn’t wake up again until noon the next day! I envied her ability to sleep soundly while the bus flew down the autobahn.
We had a lounge area in the back of the bus and that’s where I spent most of my time. We had band meetings back there to discuss arrangements and show changes but mostly we three divas sat back there and wrote on our computers. Sue was working on her Guitar Women book, I am writing my memoirs and Ana had a new laptop and was always working on songs and pictures for her website. It was here we really got to know each other. We shared photos of our boyfriends and children. We shared stories about our previous tours and our recording plans. We exchanged record company horror stories and gossiped and laughed about people we had met in clubs and in the audiences. We commiserated about being women on the road and each of us got our periods! Sue informed me that the dominant female in the group always gets her period first and yes, it was I! It was there, in the back of the bus that I really started to love Ana and her earthy friendship. Underneath all that beauty is a simple Taurus girl who longs for a family and a normal life. Getting to know her made me really appreciate her music and the effort she puts into her art.
Sue spent a lot of time with the band and the crew up in the front of the bus, staying up late and playing poker or Texas Hold em’. Sue is like one of the boys and proud of it. She bonded quickly with the band, playing tennis with them and exchanging lots of laughter. During the day, she was often my companion. We’d look for Internet cafes and shoe stores. We both love shoes and shopping. We found cute little cafes and took turns treating each other to lunch. We’d go for long walks and sight see. After our shows in Holland, we’d have weed-smoking and wine tasting sessions with the band late at night after the show ended. We shared song ideas and started to write a song one night on the ferry between Finland and Denmark. On the last week of the tour, Sue, Mike, Billy and I went to a neighborhood bar, sat in with the local cover band and danced the night away. These were the times I really felt like a family with my road compatriots.
Little by little we got to know each other. Billy was the emotional, moody one. He was the one who would smile broadly behind those drums and put on a great show for the audience. He was easy to connect with onstage and off. Mike was the funny one, quick with a laugh and a story. Both of them were very proud of their children back home and carried pictures in their wallets. Sebastian and Hermann, our German road crew, were also sweet, hard working and fun. Sebastian had a great camera and took tons of pictures to chronicle our daily lives. Hermann’s wife and toddler joined us on the road, as did Thomas Ruf’s daughters. It made it feel more like family when there were kids around us. Kids always make everyone a little less frustrated and a little more human. The time went slowly and we took turns talking about what we would do when we got back home. We enjoyed each other but all of us had loved ones waiting for us and we all desperately missed them.
Like a family, there were a few arguments and confrontations. Mike and I had it out one night in Spain over some mistakes on stage. Ana and Billy had a shouting match on the bus one night in Avignon. I had a fight with my boyfriend on the phone. I made Ana cry when I said something insensitive. Sue and Ana had it out at one point, onstage. I ran off the stage crying one night when my voice finally gave in to my cold. Thomas Ruf had a fight with a promoter. Being professionals, we all managed to somehow move past our blow-ups with dignity and go on with the show. And what a show it was.
There were happy times along with the emotional ones. Billy celebrated his birthday in Stockholm and with the help of some friends we were able to surprise him with a birthday cake onstage. We featured some up and coming young female guitarists in the show. Holly Kinnear, a 16 year old from Great Britain, sat in and surprised us all with her thoughtful playing. Eve Monsees from Austin came over to take Sue’s place for a few shows. Just 19 years old, Eve really slayed ‘em with her singing and playing prowess. It was great to see the future of the blues right from the bandstand. We ran into my buddy, Bob Brozman in Copenhagen and met a Swedish all girl blues band, Little Jenny and the Bluebeans. Gary Primich sat in with us in Norway as did Norwegian guitarist Peer Gynt.
The audiences were unbelievable. It was fun seeing the fans discover us anew. Ana’s fans were becoming Sue and Candye fans and vice-versa. After every show, we stood out in the lobby with Thomas Ruf, signing Cds and taking pictures with the crowd. This is always my favorite part of every show.
From the packed out show in Amsterdam at the Melkweg where Ana filmed her live DVD, to the show in Benidorm, Spain where a freak cold spell made it so freezing cold, we wore our heavy jackets onstage; From the amazingly exotic Dubai Jazz festival to the standing room only crowd in Paris at the New Morning; From the funky sound and low ceiling at the Banana Peel in Belgium to the huge Erdgas Arena in Riesa, Germany where Mohammed Ali had boxed; From the Savoy Theatre in Helsinki where beautiful Finnish guitarist Erja Luittenin sat in, to the Blues Festival in Bergen, Norway where I sat in with my buddy Earl Thomas, the blues once again bridged cultures and the music brought us together. Once and for all, the blues proved itself the glue between fragmented peoples and the great healer when you are feeling lonely and heartsick. Once again the blues illuminated our common ground and diminished our differences, shedding light on our souls and bringing together those who might never have even met at all.
65 shows ago, I worried I might not be able to get along with the people of the Blues Caravan. Now, months later, I miss the new friends I made. Back in my mini-van, driving across the USA to Lincoln, Nebraska to start my Midwest tour, I keep thinking about how much fun it was on the bus traveling from city to city. I even miss my lumpy bunk and the morning breakfast raids we pulled in the hotels. I miss the strong coffee Thomas Ruf made for us in the morning and the family feeling of being in it, all for one and one for all. I don’t miss the way the bathroom smelled on the bus after all those months. I don’t miss the smelly cheese that someone left in the fridge that overpowered even the bathroom stench. I don’t miss the overnight drives and I don’t miss the long wait between the opening song and my set. I miss the people.
I think we all learned something about ourselves on the Blues Caravan. Each of us had a lesson to learn and a lesson to share. I am proud of myself for surviving that long tour with all its emotion and beauty. Music comes from the very core of our emotional being and sometimes it touches us in ways we can’t even convey. I realized that being on the road and tackling everything that comes along, being flexible and open to new experiences, being able to overcome my emotions and sometimes my frustrations, learning how to play well with others and appreciate their diversity, learning when to keep my mouth shut and when to open up, makes me a Blues survivor.
I know first hand that every one of us who gets in that van or bus night after night, driving hundreds of miles, just to play music for an hour or two on that stage is a blues survivor.

I’m proud to be a blues survivor? Aren’t you?

BluesCaravan/ Ladies Night 2005

13.01. D - Oldenburg, Kulturetage, Germany
14.01. D - Siegen, Jazzclub, Germany
15.01. D - Worpswede, MusicHall, Germany
16.01. D - Bonn, Harmonie, Germany
17.01. D – off
18.01. D - München, Metropolis (Kunstpark Ost), Germany
19.01. D - Karlsruhe, Jubez
20.01. D - Tübingen, Sudhaus
21.01. D - Hannover, Bluesgarage
22.01. D - Berlin, Quasimodo
23.01. D - Soest, Alter Schlachthof
24.01. D - off
25.01. D – Aschaffenburg, Colos-Saal
26.01. D - Hamburg, Downtown Bluesclub
27.01. NL – Den Haag, Paard van Troje
28.01. NL – Rijssen, Lucky & Co.
29.01. NL – Tilburg, 013
30.01. NL – Amsterdam, Melkweg
03.02. United Arab Emirates - Dubai, Media City, Amphitheatre Park

03.03. E - Getxo-Bizkaia, Antzokia
04.03. E - Alicante, Universidad
05.03. E – Terassa-Barcelona, Jazz Cava
06.03. E – La Villa Joiosa (near Alicante), Centro Cultural
07.03. E – Benidorm, Calle Gambo
08.03. travel
09.03. F – Montpellier, Salle Victoire 2
10.03. I – Pisa, Metarock Live Club
11.03. I – Forlì, Naima Club
12.03. F - Strasbourg, La Laiterie
13.03. F – Magny-Le-Hongre, File 7
14.03. F – off
15.03. F – Paris, New Morning
16.03. F – Alençon, La Luciole
17.03. F – Clermont-Ferrand, Coopérative De Mai
18.03. F – Castres, Bolegason
19.03. F – Toulon, Omega
20.03. F – Avignon, Rouge Gorge
21.03. F – off (Reims)
22.03. D – Freiburg, Jazzhaus
23.03. B – Ruiselede, Banana Peel
24.03. B – Ruiselede, Banana Peel
25.03. GB – Burnley, Burnley Mechanics
14.04. CH – Rubigen, Mühle Hunziken
15.04. CH – Schaffhausen, Kammgarn
16.04. CH – Aarburg, Moonwalker
17.04. D – Riesa, VIP-Balkon der erdgas arena
18.04. off
19.04. DK – Aalborg, Skraaen
20.04. travel
21.04. FIN – Helsinki, Savoy Teatteri
22.04. FIN – Vaasa, Goodmood Club
23.04. FIN – Lathi, Bluesmafia
24.04. travel
25.04. S – Karlstad, Sundsta School
26.04. S – Stockholm, Fasching
27.04. S – Gothenburg, Neffertiti
28.04. N – Oslo, Rock Bottom
29.04. N - Trondheim, Festival
30.04. N – Bergen, Festival
01.05. travel
02.05. DK – Copenhagen, MOJO (showcase)
03.05. DK – Greve, Portalen
04.05. DK – Haderslev, The Moon
05.05. DK – Odense, Bluesdays

To vote or not to vote

2006-01-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

I have always encouraged my kids, my family and my friends to vote. I come from a long line of Democrats and so of course I encourage everyone to vote Democratic, but it doesn’t matter who you vote for as long as you vote. It’s long been my belief that you have no right to complain about the system if you don’t vote.
I sat in Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood four years ago and watched the election returns on CBS over a plate of chili fries with a few friends. When Dan Rather announced that Al Gore had won Florida, everyone at Barney’s cheered. I ordered a round of drinks to celebrate and was feeling hopeful and happy but before the first frosty mug was delivered, a very strange thing happened. My trusted anchorman was back on the screen telling us that there had been a terrible mistake. Al Gore had NOT won Florida after all. In fact, there was a big problem – an unprecedented problem- and no one knew exactly how the election would turn out.
Four years later, at war with no end in sight, trillions of dollars in debt and hated pretty much all over the globe, I guess we all know how the election turned out. And now another election is coming; an election that will have a profound impact on our lives both here at home and all over the world. So how come I’m not excited??
It’s hard these days to encourage my kids and friends to vote. I mean, Al Gore WON the election and Bush was still elected so how much does our vote count, really??? Still I hang my John Kerry bumper stickers on my car, hang the placards in my yard and windows and hope for the best. But does it really matter whether we vote for Kerry, Nader or Bush? In the end, the election can be manipulated, just like it was in the last election. For the first time ever, I am not that enthusiastic about voting. I haven’t ordered my absentee ballot yet, even though I know I will be in Australia on November 2nd. My disillusionment hangs over my head like the dark storm cloud that follows Pigpen around in the Peanuts cartoon.
I want to be optimistic again. I long for the idealistic days of my punk rock youth. I pine for those long lost days when I thought the system could be changed by protest, letter writing and civil disobedience.
But I have seen things change drastically in the last four years. Europeans used to love us because we brought our blues and jazz music over the pond to their doorsteps. They loved American culture and wanted to watch our T.V. shows, eat our crappy fast food, buy our records and laugh at our jokes. Now too often they want to question us about our politics. “Isn’t it a Democracy?” my German road manager asks. “In a Democracy you choose your leaders, right?”
I try to explain how a few over-educated Jewish senior citizens in Florida who had voted their whole lives, suddenly had trouble sticking the pin in the right hole. I try to explain the whole “chads” phenomenon and how a few poor, African American voters had their votes thrown out because they, or someone who shared their name, committed a crime once. But in the end I don’t really know what to say or how to explain it. When I am not allowed on radio shows that I have always done because suddenly their format has changed to “European artists only” I feel the change. When I am staying in the Arab quarter in Paris (where I have always stayed because that’s what the promoter can afford) and now it feels hostile and unsafe when we speak English in the street, I feel the change. When I am followed in Amsterdam by angry Somali men who speak loudly about “Black Hawk Down” and “slaughtering all stupid Americans” I feel the change, deeply.
Of course, I will vote in this election because I feel its’ my civic duty to do so. I will vote for the guy who doesn’t have much charisma because I don’t think charisma equals wisdom. I will vote for the guy who went to a college I could never afford and lives a life of financial stability that I can only dream about because at least he seems to care about poor people and our struggles. I will vote for the guy who chose to protest the injustices of the Vietnam War instead of returning to his comfortable life of bourgeois leisure because I think it shows some integrity. I will vote for the wooden guy because at least he’s a moderate. At least he seems to understand that it’s not so simple as “You’re either with us or against us.”
I would prefer to vote for a woman who advocated legalizing drugs and prostitution. A woman who promised to run the country like a PTA meeting and provide access to affordable health care and education to all citizens. A woman who promised that with the new found revenue from prostitution and marijuana sales we could invent alternative methods of transportation so we aren’t dependent on foreign oil anymore. I would vote for that woman in a second and if I thought she would win, I might even run myself!
But for now I guess it’s more important to vote than not to vote. Even if the candidates aren’t the best choices - even if they are all rich, white male elitists who act like robots. I liked it when Howard Dean let out the whoop that was heard around the globe. I liked it when Teresa Heinz-Kerry told someone to “shove it”. I liked it when Clinton got a blow-job and I even liked it when scary Dick Cheney told someone to “Fuck Off.” I like politicians who are human or at least act like it. I’m not into voting for someone because they are pretty actors like Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura or Reagan. I want a candidate who will be honest and forthright and themselves. A politician who will say “Yes, I got some head in office but it doesn’t affect my job performance.”
I dream of a politician with actual life experience, who smoked some weed, inhaled, went to a hooker in Vegas, stood in line at the D.M.V. and got parking tickets occasionally. But until we get a human candidate, I will vote for the least offensive robot. I will choose the robot that has the best chance of unseating the other out of touch robot. Then I will pray like hell that my vote is actually counted. My vote is my ticket to complain bitterly for another four years. Don’t forget to get your ticket. It’s your duty as an American.
See ya at Barney’s in November.

a poem about the women I meet around the world

2006-01-11T21:34:00.000-08:00

midwest girls and their cornfield tan
are down to earth and understand
they'll always extend a helping hand
they know what it means to stand by their man
she's my friend, not just a fan.
cali girls with their golden hair
the ocean breeze and the flowers they wear
they surf and swim with a sunkissed grin
convertible cars and drive – thru sin.
southern girls with their sexy drawl
please and thank you. can i help y'all?
they'll share some beer in the pick up truck
where country cousins try their luck.
arab girls with their haunting eyes
a thousand nights, a thousand sighs
they hide themselves from prying eyes
and underneath the dark disguise
is a girl who's longing to be wise.
northern france? cest magnifique
the height of elegance and chic
a slender hand, a crepe suzette
the most beautiful girls I ever met.
cava cava cava bien. can't wait to see paree again.
southern france and northern spain
or is basque the proper name?
gypsy eyes - red lips apart
muy muy caliente heart
pray and eat, drink wine and fight
sleep all day and fuck all night
mucho corazon amour, mucho mas por favor
fiesta, siesta y todo - i cannot let espana go.
east coast girls can get there fast
they fight to win. they're built to last
shrewd and cool. nobodys' fool.
she knows what she wants. she'll get it from you.
she weathers ice and blistering sun
and still looks better than anyone.
I am just a white trash girl
from my van, I see the world.
wherever I go, I am blessed from above
by the beautiful women who show me their love.
-candye kane

harriet myers - my new piano player

2006-01-11T21:33:00.000-08:00

Harriet Miers – My New Pianist?

I need to hire new musicians from time to time. Currently, I need a new pianist since my long time key tickler has left for Canada. There just aren’t that many boogie woogie piano players these days who are ready to go out on the road. Many people think they can handle the road and then crumble when they finally get out here and see how many hours a day are spent sitting in a van on America’s highways. Some find that they miss their families too much when they are away from home, week after lonely week. My search for a pianist has taken me to music websites and college want ads. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place. Maybe I should use President Bush’s logic and find a person who has never played the piano and try to teach them on the job. A good sax player or guitarist could learn over night how to be a piano player. Just put a piano in front of them and surely all of their musical knowledge will make their new job a cinch.

The Bush nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has liberals and conservatives baffled. GW asserts that Miers is the single most qualified person to serve on the Supreme Court even though she has never sat on the bench. Miers is the best person for the job even though she would not have been listed on even one of the lists of the 100 most influential people in Law. She was Bush’s personal lawyer and White House Council. She is an avowed born again Christian who is a member of an ultra conservative evangelical congregation. She gave money to the Right to Life Foundation and taught Sunday School, where she signed up for “servant jobs” like making coffee and emptying the trash. She was president of the Texas Bar and a corporate litigator. Surely these experiences qualify her to sit in the most powerful court in the Nation. She has chosen the right coffee beans for the Valley Village Church congregants, has she not? She has allowed the State of Texas to execute more inmates than any other State in the Union. Of course, she is now qualified to sit on the highest court in the land.

Ms. Miers may surprise us all and immediately learn to be an effective, objective Judge from her on-the-job-training. Maybe she will separate her personal views from her decisions on the bench. Perhaps she’ll prove overnight to be a thoughtful, conscientious Barrister with only the best interest of American Citizens at heart. However, there is a good reason for all the hoopla and concern. Lawyers are not known for their objectivity. Lawyers defend murderers and child molesters alike, if they can pay for the service. Corporate litigators are not required to pass judgement on their clients. Their only role is to defend the case and win. It matters not whether the client is guilty or innocent. Nor does it count whether the victim suffered inhumane treatment or the corporation poisoned the well that provided water to families. It only matters that the bills are paid and the case is won.

Harriet Miers might turn out to make a wonderful, feminist role model for all women. She may prove to be a moderate or a liberal judge, although her extreme Christian views make that scenario unlikely. I have also heard that Ms. Miers plays a little acoustic guitar and has been known to lead sing alongs of Kumbaya and Jesus Loves Me at her Church. With credentials like this, it seems obvious that I should hire her to play piano in my band. After all, she has about the same amount of experience for both positions. With her little bit of basic guitar chord knowledge and her familiarity with the law, she is just as qualified to be my pianist as she is to be a Supreme Court Justice. She could learn to love the blues and set aside her Christian song list for the time being. She could adapt a strong left hand onstage as easily as she can hold up her right hand to be sworn in. Playing on Saturday Nights to blues fans is much safer for our country than overturning Roe vs Wade. And best of all, the cocktails are a lot stronger and usually free. And finally, though the pay is considerably less, she would hurt a lot less people learning on the bandstand instead of the Witness Stand. Somebody get me her phone number.

Candye Kane is an award winning blues diva and composer with seven CDs under her belt. She is a regular contributor to Blues Revue, Blues Wax online zine and Riverwurst. A Mother of two grown sons, she performs internationally 250 days a year. www.candyekane.com