John Mayer's Gravity
A couple weeks ago, chingpea and I traveled to the Big NO (Fresno, California) to see John Mayer perform at the Savemart Center. Ben Folds, who opened for John Mayer, was already performing when we arrived. After grabbing a slice of pizza, we found our seats and caught the last song or two of his set. That boy can play a mean piano!



Soon John Mayer, fresh from another breakup with Jessica Simpson and sporting a new haircut, took the stage and started the night off with an old favorite, No Such Thing. And that was all it took, his gravity was too strong for me… I fell like a child. I was pulled under his spell by his jazzy, bluesy guitar playing, gravelly voice and romantic storytelling lyrics. The adorable facial expressions he made while singing was a bonus! And when he sang Good Love is On the Way, I believed him.





I believed him even though I fought off the hands of the drunk hip-hop dude next to me who used every hip-hop dance move he knew to feel me up through out the whole concert. But even drunk hip-hop dude couldn’t break John Mayer’s gravitational pull… I was hooked, sucked into John Mayer’s gravity.





He sang Waiting on the World to Change, Why Georgia and my personal anthem Bigger Than My Body which always reminds me that I can do more than my knees allow me to, among other songs. He ended the set with Gravity and brought the house down with his bluesy rendition. John Mayer gives good gravity!



He came back on stage for an acoustic set of: 3x5, Slow Danicng, The Hurt and I’m Gonna Find Another You. He introduced The Hurt as a new song, but he wouldn’t tell us whom he wrote it about because, “it would just end up in People magazine,” so he thought it better to just shut up and sing. We all knew whom he was talking about anyway.





The Hurt was not a favorite of chingpea’s, but I liked it. So I’ll leave you with John Mayer singing The Hurt and maybe it will swirl around in your mind the way it did mine all the way home from Fresno that night.



Photos by: Glenda Bunag

Labels: Bakersfield, California Central Valley, Fresno, gravity, Jessica Simpson, John Mayer

  posted by Matildakay at 7:51 PM 9 comments

A Volcanic 4th of July
Many years ago, when I was a young girl, several of my cousins and I were spending the summer with my grandparents on their farm.



It was the 4th of July and the older boys had an idea to make a volcano in which to set fireworks off in. A volcano, which would erupt with Whistling Pete’s and other fireworks. It was the grandest idea we’d had all summer!

We tagged along as the older boys snuck into the barn and found a piece of wood, a pipe about two feet long, a bag of cement and some wire mesh with which to construct our volcano.



We weren’t allowed to play in the barn where the farm equipment was kept. If grandpa found out that we had taken things from the barn, we’d all get our butts tanned. But being on the farm meant survival and freedom from city life, freedom from our parents, so we climbed haystacks and tractors and hid grandpa’s work truck from him. It was all in good fun. Besides grandpa could never stay mad at us grandkids for very long, he loved us too much.

We kept watch as the older boys constructed the volcano. First the pipe was attached to the piece of wood and resembled the remains of my stolen yard fountain.



Next they attached the wire mesh around the pipe and mixed the cement thickly applying it to the wire mesh and pipe shaping it like a mountain. They carried their creation, one boy on each side walking slowly, and hid it behind the barn letting it bake and harden in the sun all day.

That night as the family gathered outside for fireworks, the cement volcano was ready to erupt. The older boys proudly brought out their volcanic creation and dropped the first shooting streaming firework into the pipe hole in the top of the volcano cement mountain, lit it and watched the volcanic firework eruption with pride in their eyes.





Their grand volcano idea worked!

It was the best homemade firework erupting volcano ever!

Of course we all got in trouble for taking the cement from the barn. But grandpa didn’t stay mad too long… he was blinded by our volcanic 4th of July genius.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Labels: 4th of July, Bakersfield, California Central Valley, eruptions, farm, fireworks, volcano

  posted by Matildakay at 9:47 PM 1 comments

The Noveltown Review
Take a look inside the Noveltown Review...



The newest literary magazine out of the California Central Valley features some great writers from across the country.

Fiction stories by: Brad Listi, N. Frank Daniels, Conrad Romo and Susan Henderson.

Literary articles by: Lauren Baratz-Logsted, Cindy Wathen, N. Frank Daniels, Robin Slick, Susan Henderson and N.L. Belardes.

Poetry by: Matildakay, Rich Ferguson and Jenn Williams.

The layout is classy and goregeous! The writing is outstanding! You won't be able to put it down.

Get your free copy in Bakersfield at Russo's Books at the Marketplace or Metro Art Galleries downtown.

Or order your copy online at www.noveltown.net/books. (Online orders - minimal cost to cover shipping).

Read excerpts from the magazine and see photos from the Noveltown Review's premier Mixer on Paperback Writer.

**Updated: Read Greg Goodsell's review of the Noveltown Review on Bakotopia and leave a comment.

Be Noveltown's friend... add Noveltown on myspace!

Labels: Bakersfield, Brad Listi, California Central Valley, Cindy Wathen, N. Frank Daniels, N.L. Belardes, Noveltown, Rich Ferguson, Robin Slick, Susan Henerson, The Noveltown Review

  posted by Matildakay at 10:47 PM 1 comments