Thursday, May 26, 2011

the next gig -- the lounge at edison ballroom, friday 6/3


i am so looking forward to this gig! i'll be (mostly) singing songs from billie holiday's earliest recordings with my happy little quartet, the lads of joy, in one of the last great ballrooms in new york city, in the heart of broadway. it's a wonderful excuse for anyone to get glam and lounge. my birthday is on june 30th, and i tend to do something fun every day until my new year sails in. wheeeee!

creatively, i'm still traipsing through the front end of billie holiday's discography after the stellar gig at lenox lounge for the harlem jazz shrines festival in mid may. refining a lot of songs for my next move. stay tuned.

and yes, yes, yes. the price of admission includes top shelf open bar. i mean, yikes! nevermind the hot jazz, the cool burlesque, an emcee that's a dandy, or even a wfmu dj named gaylord. there will be finely crafted cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, all night long -- gratuity included.

see you there!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

...and boom goes the black dynamite!

when the moment came for me to get my body together, i realized that i couldn’t do it unless i had some form of physical excercise that made me especially happy. something i’d look forward to every day. and yes, i think this is true of anyone. remember when you were a little kid and you rode your bike all day long, and you’d come home exhausted and starving? that’s what i’m aiming for: my childhood fun.

it had to be something i could do for the joy of doing it, without thinking about the work and the sweat and the pain that would inevitably happen along the way. for me, that was boxing. i’ve been borderline obsessed with it for about a year or so, and i really love it. i can take unlimited classes through my gym – and because of the flat monthly rate, the more i go, the cheaper everything gets. my body isn’t where i want it to be yet. (my goal is to fit into all of the clothes in my closet – vintage cocktail dresses, skinny jeans and everything else.) but then again i’ve lost weight, i have way more energy and physically my self confidence has shot through the roof.

somewhere in all that pummeling and fist throwing and sparring, i really wanted to take kung fu. i have no idea why. i should probably blame my 70s childhood. you know. david carradine, kung fu the tv series. an endless array of kung fu movies. (i could be wrong, but i think ip man put me over the top.) ultimately, the philosophy behind kung fu made way more sense to me than karate.

regardless, the $60,000 question loomed ever-present, as usual: where would i find the money to take class? i can barely keep up with my student loan payments.

then a few weeks ago, this bloomspot deal popped into my email inbox and it was so cheap, even I_ couldn’t say no. three months unlimited classes in chinatown? _done, done and done.

i’m ready to blast off! it’s going to be a summer of solid workouts, with unlimited boxing and kung fu sessions.