My friend Tom Rettig is helping me record a song

My old friend Tom Rettig has offered to help me record one of my songs, and after we complete this recording he and I expect to have a slow-moving but ongoing relationship for the long term.

 

Tom and I played together in the avant-funk ensemble Some Philharmonic in the early 80’s, and we had a lot of fun playing bandleader Brian Woodbury's crafty and original music in a large ensemble. During that time Tom suggested I write a Surf-flavored instrumental for a short film by Barnaby Levy, (“This Town Will Tear You Apart”), and as I had been a long-time fan of Surf music I was very excited to give it a try.

 

I wrote the melody for what became “The Bhonging Angel” on my roommate Katie Hicks’ baby grand piano in the living room of our North Oakland/Berkeley Apt, and it became maybe my best instrumental at the time.

 

We did the original recording on 12-track at Mills College in 1984, in what was a charming but rickety studio barely holding together at the seams. My fellow band mates Carmen Borgia, Mike Brown and Linel “Dede” Williams (from my own band The Secret Sons of The Pope) joined me for inspired performances, and the demo we made became my favorite accomplishment for years.

 

Barnaby Levy used that recording for his film, and Tom did a good job squeezing sonic quality out of very limited resources. He was great with a splicing knife and did some nice edits I wasn’t used to, and he really finessed the mix details on a primitive board.

 

But despite this, Tom and I always wished we had done the recording under better circumstances, and when we found each other on the Internet last year the subject came up again.

 

I learned that Tom had done some time in the 90’s as a Producer at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Economic considerations since forced him to pursue his talents in the computer software industry, and because of this he looks for opportunities to do creative projects when he has the time.

 

Tom enjoys paying close attention to vintage microphones, a passion I understand very well but do not have the resources to pursue. Another recording issue is access to nice recording rooms. I have a wonderful music studio built into the detached garage of my house, but this pales compared to the special rooms they have at Fantasy Studios, where many famous recordings were created. Tom keeps an office in the Fantasy building and maintains his relationships with the staff, so he is ready to record in this professional setting when the occasion arises. 

 

Last year I hired Drummer John Hall to play the drum parts on the new recording, referred through my musician friend Steve Gibson who has great taste and knows tons of players. John wrote charts for the song before I even met him to play, and on recording day he delivered three perfect takes allowing us to choose our favorite.

 

The title “Bhonging Angel” comes from the affectionate nickname of my perpetually stoned next door neighbor in High School, given to him by his love-struck but exasperated girlfriend. I would describe him at the time as a bright version of the Spicoli character in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (My own High School was Grossmont High, not far from the actual Clairemont High that the movie was based on. Cameron Crowe’s other great HS flick “Say Anything” was not just similar but could be called my actual experience at Grossmont).

Because Tom and I are thankfully employed and dedicated to our family lives, we have had less than one day a month to get together since we began this project last summer, but because I am playing all the instruments myself (except the drums) I have been enjoying the pace as I prepare each part. The instruments include Baritone and Tenor Saxes, electric guitars, keyboards, and electric bass.  I was initially embarrassed to show up with so many instruments, but then I felt better when the Fantasy Engineers told me that Counting Crows had just finished their recent recording aided by a large semi-truck filled with 67 guitars. Any band with 67 creatively relevant guitars has my full support! For this song I used five total and needed every one.

One reason I am comfortable with my slow pace with Tom is that I am always able to go out to my own studio and make very nice demos any night I am free, so it's not like anyone is holding me back if I need to express myself. I took up singing last summer, and I have had so much fun applying myself I feel every month is my next opportunity to get a little better. Singing puts everything else into perspective, and since The Bhonging Angel is an instrumental I will be looking forward to getting into a vocal on the next recording I do with Tom. 

Another resource I will always have is my best friend Carmen Borgia, who is always available as long distance sounding board and engineer/psychiatrist. He set me up with a great recording rig in my studio and gives me these amazingly well-prepared lessons over the phone, among many other things.  

I played a rough mix of the new recording for my family a couple of months ago, and a week later from the next room I overheard one of my daughters casually humming the song out loud to herself. What a sweet thing that was, she was humming it for pleasure. (For a musician, does it get any better than that?)

I expect we will finish this song some time this summer, and then I will be excited to share it with everyone. I have another dozen or so finished songs I can't wait to get to, and if it takes a year to record each one I will not even slightly complain, (as long as I live to hear them). The main thing is I am thankful I have my family and friends there for me as I play each day of my musical life. 

One Time In Georgia

Recently a friend sent me a Facebook challenge to count the number of states I have visited, and it was fun to come up with a number. (I wish it was higher, I think it was 18). From this process I decided I don't solely count airports or road trip gas stations as having been somewhere, but then the following exception came to mind:

   A few years ago I was driving cross-country with my sister Jenna and we had to stop routinely for gas in a rural area of Georgia, (a state I have never visited). The road signs were wrong this time; there was no gas station as it claimed on the freeway because hard times had fallen on this area, and the only gas station was closed. We were forced to drive around the local roads in both directions for about 30 minutes causing me to see things I feel I may never see again.

   There was a small ghost town of storefronts all closed but not boarded up, and an old country one-story house on the corner that Boo Radley MUST have lived in. The vines in the yard were growing wildly and aggressively around the house and into the partly opened windows, like the house itself would be devoured by nature within another year. We passed an African-American couple working the corn rows in the front yard of their home, white t-shirt rags on their heads and extremely dark glistening skin against white tank top shirts. (We have corn fields, yard gardens, and people of every type and race in California, but there is nothing like that in any part of the whole Pacific Coast, I assure you).

 

    We found a little gas market (without the gas) and went in for a Snapple and maybe a bite. There was a large white lady with a missing tooth or two, dirty apron, flipping burgers, with a distant look in her eye like she wasn't expecting company. A couple of ne'er-do-wells were smoking cigarettes indoors and shooting the bull. I peered back into the kitchen and saw it was large, dirty, empty and scary back there. We skipped the burgers and got back on the freeway for the next gas stop, and within 30 minutes we were back in mini-market land again.

 

  It was the implied moments of the past that made the biggest impression. I would love to see that again. People write whole novels after 3 days in a place like that...

Newspapers: a history of loving them, and watching them struggle.

When I was a kid in 1960’s New York City we got the New York Times, and at that time it was way over my head. I thought “All The News That’s Fit to Print” meant everything they could cram on that many pages. And there were no funnies at all. So I accepted the wisdom that it was a high-brow newspaper from the capital city of the world, and I was proud of that status.

 

   Then we moved to San Diego when I entered the 6^th grade, and we went through family culture shock that first year. The newspaper was the San Diego Union-Evening Tribune, a Copley newspaper, and to be honest, it was a conservative rag. You resorted to looking at the headlines and local columns such as a zero-spin piece on the Lost and Found Dept at the Del Mar fair, and watched the news to make up for it.

 

   In high school I discovered the Los Angeles Times when my Dad began working there. He would bring me the “Calendar” insert magazine on the Wednesday before the Sunday paper came out, and I would pore over the music articles with rapturous gratitude. I soon realized the LA Times was my favorite paper. It kicked a-- over the SD paper, and it was way friendlier to read than the NY Times, which still seemed too advanced for easy consumption.

 

   After college years came my move to the San Francisco Bay Area, and here we had the SF Chronicle. But on first glance, it seemed like a comic book next to the LA Times. The columns were jokey, and it seemed that was the tone in some of the hard news. So for the most part I stuck with reading the Pink Section to keep up on music.

 

    During my first year in Berkeley I remember this friend of Laura Miller’s discovering I had never heard of Herb Caen at a party and saying, “welcome to the Bay Area” and then explaining who Herb Caen was. I realized the Chron was a real unifier if the college kids were reading it. But I generally avoided all media in my 20’s, partially because my Mom and Dad were Broadcasters and I needed to find my own way once I left home.

 

    My submission to the newspaper came when I moved in with my future wife Adrienne in 1990. She insisted we subscribe to the SF Chron for (what was then) $150/year! Whoa, what for? Is it that good? Wouldn’t Time or Newsweek be cheaper and better? Isn’t that paper kind of lightweight? (I was still a loyal LA Times person, although I rarely saw it anymore).

 

   Well, I agreed and it took about a month, but the bug really bit me. I read a VERY funny bit from Mick LaSalle interviewing Paul Anka that brought me to my knees. And then I began to see that the news was good, I trusted these guys, and I started taking my political cues from the editorial page which seemed to cut a balance between the extreme views I would hear in Berkeley and a more middle view. They helped me get over my fear that if I veered slightly away from the far left I wouldn’t end up in Santa’s lap and realize it was Rush Limbaugh I was talking to.

 

  The talent at the SF Chron always remained high. Art critic Kenneth Baker is as good a critic as I’ll ever need. He’s a virtuoso writer, and yet he never gives me the cynical creeps I got from some SoCal art critics.

 

   Then my friend Laura Miller started to appear with a few articles, and I felt that bonded connection that comes with coming of age.

 

   After I got acclimated to reading the Chron, my brother-in-law Kevin sent us a long subscription to the Sunday New York Times, and I had my homecoming with my childhood newspaper, finally old enough to enjoy it.

 

   When Herb Caen died in early 1997 I thought it might be the first funeral bells for the SF Chronicle, but they kept bringing in great people, and we stayed loyal. Now they are suffering financially like all newspapers (and the music industry). Recently they made a serious miscalculation and changed the font and format of the whole paper. It’s like New Coke, I don’t know what they did but it feels wrong, and lots of people think so, because we read the letters.

 

   Adrienne and I have been going to our iPhones and the Apple Laptop for more news, not all of it, but the scales are tipping away from the morning kitchen table where the paper sits until dinner time. If newspapers go under, it will be like losing vinyl record albums. We’ll still get content, but that special feeling will be lost, and our kids will never understand what they missed, (and we’ll all feel old trying to explain it to them).

 

    I’m not going to campaign about this too much. The way I see it, this tide is way too big for me to change a thing.

 

   But it will be sad if we lose newspapers forever.

Race jokes on TV: I never thought I'd see the day.

    Some time before Obama took office I began watching prime-time TV for the first time in years. It’s been quite a while, and one of the first things we noticed was that race issues have become common fair game on most, if not all of the popular comedy TV shows. (Has this been discussed in the media? I expect I missed some magazine article about it because the change has been profound. Please click me with anything interesting you might have read).

 

   Precisely when did this begin? Did it begin to surface with those clever Simpsons episodes, such as with the East Indian convenience store character? Were they the first to test the race waters with their pop-culture wit, slowly thawing us out in the 90’s and the early 2000’s? (South Park has been over the top for some time now, maybe it was the shock-and-awe approach?)

 

   Examples of the current appearance of wide-open race jokes include The Office, 30 Rock, My Name Is Earl, and of course Comedy Central, but then that’s not Primetime. Maybe Comedy Central started the whole thing when I wasn’t looking. 

    When I’m in the mood (and you have to be) I have a taste for Sarah Silverman, who is by design the most offensive you can get and still be funny. Then again, if you are like some of my family and friends, you don’t find her funny and then the only thing left is the offended part. You have my support either way. I didn’t say Sarah Silverman was Lenny Bruce, but to me it feels good to laugh at subjects we have avoided (openly, anyway) for decades.

 

   Before this new development occurred I would cringe and wince if someone attempted a race-related topic of any kind. In the past, particularly for whites, just bringing up the subject of race could be like painting an “I’m a Racist” target on your back.

 

  I think Bill Clinton started to change things when he began talking about race during his two terms as president. He could speak respectfully and eloquently about minorities without pissing off the whole nation, and it was a big relief. Like letting a little pressure out of a very tight balloon, Americans began allowing more discussion and finally, humor about the subject.

 

    I probably missed some key moment somewhere, but to get to the point it is now at 9pm Primetime it must have included key African-American leaders changing their views and opinions over time. Was it Oprah, or Jesse Jackson? Was there an announcement?

   Of course, this is a collective thing, not just leaders. In the end, we’re all making this decision together or it just wouldn’t happen.

  

   I appreciate the change. As a 50-year-old, I find it as amazing as I do funny to hear the kind of jokes they do now on The Office. A few seasons back, Rashida Jones, (the actress daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton), arrives as a new employee and her boss Michael wants to know if her father was military. The joke is that Michael’s an idiot of course, but we get it, and it’s funny and offensive.

 

   But the main thing is we’re laughing now. As long as my black friends think it’s funny, if the joke is good I’m laughing too, and it feels great.

 

  The icing on the cake is our new president. Obama himself reminds us he is bi-racial. But I think we see a black man for the most part, and I think it’s because he navigated the path a black man takes. I love thinking I might have something in common with him; we both have white mothers and we’re about the same height. Obama is so cool I’ll take any comparison I can get.

 

  Did you catch that Wanda Sykes joke at the White House Correspondents Dinner? The way she sees it, “You’re a black man until you screw up, and then it’s “who’s the half-white guy?” I don't know if she meant it this way, but I think she makes another point; it seems (particularly these days) that whites have made the biggest screw-ups in history. I hope Obama breaks that cycle using whatever source he can find in himself.

 

But either way, I hope we can keep laughing.

The Love Of A Bargain

Last night was my 18th wedding anniversary with Adrienne, and as all anniversaries do it brought back memories...

When Adrienne and I were married in 1991 we chose Cancun for our Honeymoon, and I hadn’t been to Mexico in some years.

 

One of the first things anyone thinks when they visit Mexico is that you can score great deals haggling in the marketplace, and I do love a bargain, although I hate to haggle (big difference there). The true issue is whether you really want what’s being sold, and not getting caught up in something just because it’s a great price. So I planned ahead for what I wanted: a pair of shorts made of that colorful material from Guatemala, popular at the time.

 

 When we got there, I asked about Guatemalan clothes at the hotel front desk, and with no surprise they directed me to the hotel gift shop. I knew there would be no bargain there, but I priced them anyway: $24 ea. I was just doing my homework, so we went to the mall across the street, and they had the shorts for $22. Well, not much better; I would wait for the market.

 

Well, what a drag that was. Like jackals in The Lion King, the locals jokingly touched Adrienne’s purse as we passed through the aisles, sneering disrespectfully mostly out of boredom. Through this jungle of intimidation I found my shorts, $18 at first, and then $15, maybe $14 ea for 2 or 3 if I felt like the awful bartering. "Screw it", I thought, "I’ll wait and pick a vendor I like".

 

          Then we went over to Isla Mujeres, an island people talk about all the time for it's more relaxed people and atmosphere. We took a leisurely walk, and I found a lady with tons of those shorts, and she wanted $12 ea, or $11 ea for two. By that point I finally gave in to the bartering thing and told her it had to be $11 for one or no deal. She resisted at first and then relented, and I succeeded my mission in scoring a great deal.

 

          When we got home I wore the shorts often, including to the trusty Berkeley Ashby Flea Market where I was excited to find a table full of the same shorts I had on.

 

“How much?” I asked with some self-satisfaction, and the reply came:

“Eleven bucks a pair.”

 

So, stick to the beach when you get to Cancun, (and you might try the Berkeley Ashby Flea Market if you’re in town).

Question to musicians: How does the groupie thing happen exactly?

There was a time during my musically busy days in my early 20’s when I was hoping to meet girls by being in Rock bands. Everyone knows the myth that Rock musicians are supposed to attract groupies, yet this never seemed to happen easily to me or my friends.

 

 I spoke at some length about this one time to Larry Carr of The Snails during a break at a Fraternity party at San Diego State (this was 1982, and we played Punk and British Invasion). He told me that before he was in a band he used to stand in the audience and think, “Man, when I get in a band, I can’t wait to meet some girls”. Then he explained, “Now that I’m in a band, I often think ‘Man, some night when I’m not up here playing, I’m going to go down there and meet some girls…”

 

This story really got me going that night. It sounded like me. “We’ve just been making excuses, we’re really suburban white guys who were raised too properly to have any fun”, I thought to myself. “I’m going to get over it and work up the guts to just meet some girls.”

 

And there they were: two beautiful blondes who were watching us play every song at this party. They were watching us pretty closely, and I knew this was it, I better make my move. So I put my Sax down after the set and went right over and introduced myself.

 

They were nervous and so was I. I had to get over it, and I felt it was my job to make them comfortable if I could. I didn’t let the silences last long, I tried to be cool but not give up. We had another gig at the beach later that evening, would they like to come? You don’t have a car? No problem, I can drive you of course. I can have you home by such-and-such a time, it’s going to be great.

 

They were very shy about it, but I knew I was a safe bet and wanted them to get over it. I kept at it, (my friends will remember enthusiasm was my entire personality that year), and finally they couldn’t say no. So we piled into my van, but they couldn’t relax, they were way too nervous. Too young (possibly Freshmen in College) and probably as inexperienced as I, they had never done this sort of thing before.

 

We dropped by my house in Hillcrest to grab my friend Jim Bradley, which rounded out the four of us, and then one of the girls, the one who would be with Jim got sick. They disappeared into the bathroom and the girl was in there flushing a lot. They came out and said they were sorry but they had to go home, she was really sick, and we knew she wasn’t faking. But Jim and I couldn’t help but blame ourselves. Jim was sure the girl had gotten ill when she saw he was her date. He went into a comedic tailspin over it, but nothing I could say would convince him otherwise.

 

 But I also felt I must have been pushing too hard once I saw where it was going. We were super nice and really quick to help them get home properly, but no phone numbers were exchanged; the situation was over.

 

Carmen’s sister Mary Borgia was visiting that month and she joined Jim and I at the last second.  I went wild on a very large stage playing sax like there was no tomorrow, and I remember Jim having a good time also, probably because we were both relieved the pressure was off.

 

          Two funny things happened after this. The first really mortified me: the girl I had made such a play for had been at the Frat gig to see and be with the drummer in our band, and they were so new and she was so shy that she didn’t say a word when I chatted her up. The drummer himself told me this later and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t come right over and make this clear as it was happening. Weird.

 

Then the other girl, the one who got sick turned out to be the sister of my sister Laurie’s first husband. I only realized this at her wedding, and I thought “Holy s***! This ghost from my past is now my sister-in-law!” Lucky for me (and for Laurie as well, she would agree), this marriage didn’t work out; there was a quick annulment in the first 6 months. I kind of figured it was a sign that this was not in the stars somehow, for anyone.

 

          So I soon learned not to push it when it came to girls, the experiment had been another self-defining experience, (and things went much better after that).

Kleptomania

   Last Friday my 9^th grade daughter had her iPhone lifted out of her purse during PE class at school, and we spent the weekend doing things like filing a Police report, which was aided by the fact that the thief made a few calls to friends (including his Stepmother), all the phone #’s of which are readily listed on our online cell account. The Police have already identified the perpetrator and are now in touch with the school Administration, so we are hopeful for a retrieval and swift retribution.

 

    We have learned the student in question has a sketchy background, and I am naively wishful that his encounter with the Police and his family will have a deterring effect on his behavior of stealing. With the other influences in his life I can’t be fully optimistic about a life turnaround, but when I look back at my own life, quite untroubled in contrast to this teenager, I do recall going through my own experiments with shoplifting.

 

   Like most of us I have managed to push aside wherever that stealing impulse comes from and get on with an honest life. But to get to that place of maturity I went through a period in the summer before 8^th grade when my neighbor buddy and I experimented with shoplifting for about 2 weeks. I actually remember following it on the calendar because it started on a Saturday and continued for the next two weekends, coming to an end when we ended up at his parent’s beach house during summer vacation.

 

   I know this behavior came from puberty, and in our case it was not so much disrespect or destructiveness as experimenting and thrill-seeking. I have a goofy memory of my buddy picking up an erect broomstick and holding a bag of shoplifted items underneath his crotch like huge testicles, laughing ourselves silly as cars whizzed by along the mall entrance road. Puberty was making its grand announcement, and we were barely aware of it.

 

   We spent that entire Saturday coolly entering different stores each with a shopping bag and competing with each other to see if we could lift something without the other knowing. We relied on our previously sincere demeanor of innocence as we cruised breezily into each store, scoping out the awareness of the employees and making our call as we went.

 

   We never got collared that day, never got busted, and it was fairly amazing how well our luck ran. All the stuff we took was small in size: there was candy, a fridge magnet, a small bottle of cinnamon oil (very popular at our Jr High School), and other things, maybe 20 items between the both of us.

 

   The following week we went with my friend’s family to Mission Beach in San Diego for several days, and soon we were exploring the local beach shops and stores. This was 1972, I was discovering counter-culture at that time, and we happened to stop into this hippy-owned natural food store, hoping to see things I would never find at the mall. I chatted with the near 30-looking woman and learned that she owned the place with her husband. She was vintage Woodstock in culture and appearance, the real thing, and she and her husband had created a modest but sincere business based on their ideals. There was natural yogurt made from organic dairy, macramé vests and wall-hangings, and handmade leather items popular at the time.

 

   Then I spotted a cabinet located at the register containing little vials of extracts of different kinds, similar to the cinnamon oil, but interesting types you wouldn’t see anywhere else. As soon as I had gained the woman’s confidence, I made a move when she turned her back and slipped one vial into my pocket. She never knew it was me, and we said goodbye and were out of there.

 

   As we hurried back to the beach house the weather turned from sunny and idyllic to clammy and cloudy, and with that sudden cue of darkness I began to feel a tinge of guilt over my theft, a feeling I didn’t have from the mall spree. These shop owners were the most honest people I could name, they were living in the Age of Aquarius and I took it very seriously. People over 30 were to be distrusted; they had ruined this world with misplaced materialism and support for a bogus war, but these people were reinventing an honest business from the ground up, considering every resource and ideal in how they proceeded in an effort to eradicate their parents’ mistakes, and I had taken right from their pocket.

 

    I didn’t freak out over this, didn’t lose any sleep, I just pondered it with sad regret as the summer wore on and we returned home. In my bedroom I had made a shrine of all my stolen items on the dresser by my bed. I treasured each one and marveled how we had not been caught. But I decided this was to be a limited collection, not to be added to any longer. I made an informal pact to myself that the vial of Pine oil was the last thing I would ever take, and I would come to use that totem to draw the line between what I had done (mostly forgiven) and what I might do again (taking things no longer being OK).

 

   All the little stolen items were discarded as the years went by, but the Pine oil went into my Memory Box, my treasure box of totems and power objects from my childhood and teenage years that I still have today. My kids go through this box all the time, and through their curiosity and amusement the Pine Oil vial has re-emerged into the light of day, sitting incidentally on my dresser. It’s a friend, casually hanging around like a supposedly indifferent cat when you pull into the driveway.

 

    I have a hunch my daughter’s iPhone has no relationship whatsoever to the Pine oil vial, but if her cell phone does come back to us through the pursuit of the local Police, I hope this teenager will find some truth somehow after the full weight of the law (and his Stepmother) has been delivered.

About using the name “Ed Ford Summerfield”

   I have always had a problem with actors that use three names. I won’t bother naming actual examples, but I think it usually sounds pompous. I can understand the necessity of distinction, like if your name is David Jones and you don’t want to be confused with the Monkees guy (or David Bowie to his knowledgeable fans). And then there is the connotation that you are an assassin; I think they do that on purpose to make the infamous figure unique and not intrude on the people that share the same first and last name.

 

   When I was born I was called by my middle name Ford, (a name I love), until I entered 4th grade. At that time through some natural impulse I asked my parents if I could go by “Ed”. I’ve always loved both my names, and they each identify something different about my personality. Ed is about my relationship to the outside world; it is common and durable and can be jokingly compared to TV shows. Ford is about my closest family and my private world. At several times in my life I strongly considered returning to the name Ford in my everyday life, but in practice I never felt right about it, partly because I felt protective of the name.

 

   When the World Wide Web came out in ‘93 or ‘94 I discovered there were other Ed Summerfields out there, including my uncle the Reverend Edward Summerfield. (I always got a kick out of that). So recently I decided to compromise and go by Ed Ford Summerfield for public things, despite my previous concerns. (I plan to use this as my name when I complete my recording project of my music). Maybe it’s something to do with turning 50. Or just that I want everyone to see all parts of me before I finish this lifetime.

About the foto: "Birth of The Edroom"

    When my maternal Grandmother Marie Chauncey died in 2000 at age 89,  she left my sister Jenna and I an amazing collection of color slides taken in the 60’s that we had never seen before. This one shows me at around Kindergarten age in my room on Riverside Drive NY holding my first album, “Burl Ives Sings For Fun”.

     I still have the album; it has occupied the first position of my LP record collection since its earliest inception, (and is followed closely by the worn copy of “Meet The Beatles” that my Dad brought me from his NY public radio station WRVR the following year). The chair peeking out behind me is a vintage wood/iron school chair that later became the perfect guitar-playing chair due to its height and position, and remains in my music studio to this day.

    (When I get my geek act together I will straighten the foto into portrait mode using this blog software). 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

One time I was eating at a restaurant in New Mexico with my Mom and we had this very good tortilla soup. I remarked that it was better than anything store-bought and wished I could get it at home. Mom sipped the soup with her eyes closed and jotted down the recipe below off the top of her head. I soon made it and it came out perfect; people who have had it ask me for it all the time, (even my boss who was raised in Hong Kong. He seems to prefer Chinese food over everything, so I get a kick out of his unexpected enthusiasm). If you're really into it you can substitute fresh ingredients for each canned item listed, (and if you do, let me know how it turns out). 

Ed Ford Summerfield’s family’s

Tortilla Soup recipe

 

Start by cooking 6 or more chicken thighs in salted boiling water. Include the skin for the best broth, then remove the skin when boning for soup.

 

Combine in separate large pot:

Texas Style Ranch beans (1 can)

Caribbean black beans (1 can)

Diced green chilies (1 little can)

Tomato sauce (1 large can)

4-5 Fresh diced tomatoes

Salsa, your favorite kind,

(We like mild Southwestern chunky style)

Red chili oil (less than 10 drops for mild, but don’t skip this)

 

Cook soup on low heat while chicken is cooking in separate pot, then when chicken is done, bone and combine with soup. Add some of the broth until desired thickness is achieved. 

 

 

1)Crunch Tortilla chips in empty bowl

2)Add Tortilla Soup

3)Top with grated cheese

 

Enjoy!

My best friend has written a musical!

 

My best friend Carmen Borgia called me Saturday morning from New York where he lives with his wife Alison. He was checking in like we always do, but this time it was a finite call, meaning he was expecting people to show up at their Apt to work on his new musical “South”, which he has been steadily creating for five years now, an awesome endeavor. They have a special music room where lessons can be given and group rehearsals can be held, in that New York kind of way. (If whatever you need is not waiting for you, bringing it is dictated by the constraints of the Taxi and the ability to schlep).

 

   I would be joining in to play the Mexican Guitarron acoustic bass, but since I’m in CA it’s not going to happen this time. I did get to play during the open reading they had a couple of years ago, the year before my Dad died. He and my sister Jacki got to come see us at Dixon Place, and it felt great playing in New York, my younger childhood town.

 

   “South” is a blend of traditional and non-traditional elements, held together by that most important part of the Musical form: the songs. In musicals, the plot holds our attention during the show, but it isn’t the part people go home with, isn’t that true? When we look back on the experience, we sing the songs. Carmen has written a raft of memorable songs, a few of which I sing every day as part of my vocal routine. When I say routine, I mean the songs that keep me in the game of practicing, like doing Beatle songs when you’re bored with scales. Lately it’s been “Lost To Me”, a hauntingly beautiful paean to the stars that almost makes me cry so much I can’t sing it.

 

         Carmen’s wife Alison is an Opera singer, I think Soprano Coloratura. I don’t know what that means, but I like the interesting names they give all the different types of Sopranos, like wine types. Alison has killer pipes as the Metal guys say, and it’s a bit of a thrill to hear her joining in to a chorus of her peers and wailing out some of these parts.    

 

          Of my many musical friends, Carmen is in the small minority of those who react as sincerely emotionally as he does intellectually in the ever-searching way we both scan the world for new musical experiences. He listens ironically, artfully, curiously, humorously, sensitively, and sincerely, and these qualities don’t crowd each other out as he unifies otherwise disparate sources into his listening universe. I have other friends that cover as much ground, but only a small few (including Lawrence Lazare and Wiley) that reach out to that level of the unknown and express their personalities by simply putting something on in a way that attracts followers of their taste.

 

         Carmen was raised in a community theatre town, and he’s got that going in his blood, whether he chooses it or not. It’s a problem, because I’m guessing he can only count on one hand the musicals he loves in that unreserved lifetime kind of way, like I feel about every Beatle album for instance, or the way people listen to Coltrane. Because of this, Carmen brings something new to the game. He’s always been funny, that’s a given. He’s sometimes dark, which I dig. And there’s always heart in what he does, and some amount of innocence, which you don’t see every day.

 

I feel it’s always good to bring together elements that haven’t been tried, I live for that.

          And the cast of characters: there are interesting people right and left, that’s the way it is hanging with Carmen. This is a potent combination of qualities he's bringing together, and I am excited he has the setting of New York and his talented wife and friends' participation to bring this project out.

 

You can click on "South, A Nautical Musical" on Facebook if you feel like following its genesis. I’ll be proud to follow it during my weekly phone calls.