Dreams and Sonny Bono

I met the man last night. No, not that man. I met Sonny Bono. Yep, that's right, the one and only. Yeah, I know he has passed away, but in my dream last night I could see and hear him perfectly. It is odd now, in daylight to think that I dreamed of Sonny Bono. My friends have dreams of Joey Ramone, Janis Joplin, or even Jim Morrison visiting them in the flesh. But me? I get Sonny Bono.

He was really cool actually, and all I can remember of him was the sound of his voice as he sat in the backseat of my old 68'Mustang, as we drove down a curvy road together. We were musing about life, and how precious it can be, to cherish what you have, when you have it, and then we began humming a tune. The humming was in perfect harmony (Sonny is very easy to harmonize with) and soon the hum turned into lyrics, and a song was born. It was more of a chorus, but as we sang together the words spilled over into my conscious, and I was awake with a perfect melody still fresh, and Sonny's voice floating in the air from somewhere far far away.

Music comes to you in so many ways and it is not the first time I have awoken from a dream with a song buzzing in my brain, but from Sonny Bono? It is a true first. I actually have been going through his vast catalog of songs this morning just to be sure that I am not outright plagiarizing his work, but so far nothing.
It's funny because I never knew how talented Sonny Bono was until I was digging through his songs, I of course know lots about Cher- but now I know the man that stood beside her on their old comedy shows was so much more than the butt of her jokes, he was actually the writer of almost all their songs and produced their records too.
So thanks Sonny, I appreciate the backseat driving, the sentiment and the song... Now the hardest part is going to be getting Tony to sing like you.

Hollywood, Good Friends and Schnecking...

When I moved to Hollywood I was so afraid of this big city. I grew up in a very small town...I had heard stories, I had watched the news and my mind had spun this place into a massive house of horrors.
But still I had my dreams in my pocket and so I took the leap despite my fears. What happened? Well, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I love this place so damn much and I owe most of it to the fantastic friends I have.

You see I met my people here, a colorful array of struggling artists, and we banded together with our backs to the cold winds of the music industry and Los Angeles to walk through what ever life was going to throw at us. I call them my 'chosen' family, and through it all, the heartbreaks of life, love and music... we are still together.

Sure, all our lives are so much different now than ten years ago, when we didn't have enough money to buy food but we could scrape enough change together to buy a bottle of booze and pass around an old guitar because our creativity knew no bounds and laughter was free.

The years may have passed, and we have the scars to mark our passage through time, but we all seem to remain exactly the same when we get together. We tell a bunch of lies, share raunchy stories from the road, talk about who's screwing who, a guitar gets passed around with a song to sing, and my face hurts from all the laughing I do in my friends company.
And the best part of it all? Our guitars are new and plentiful, our voices are strong and clear, and we finally have enough money to eat.

Excerpt from 'This Rock in my heart' by Tommie Vaughn

While Frankie unpacked her life into the tiny studio apartment in the middle of Hollywood, her mind was lost in thought as to how she got there...


“Hello?”
“Oh! Uh yeah… This is Cherokee Studios.”
“Hi I was just calling to see…”
“You calling about the job?”
“Uhhhhh”
“Hold on.”

Frankie sucked in her breath and looked down at the Music Connection Magazine in her hands. Sprawled across the top it read ‘ Top Recording Studios Issue #310 for May 2002- From A-Z’. And her third phone call into the C’s came to Cherokee Recording Studios. It read like a dream. Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Motley Crue- to name one tenth of the talent that had passed through the doors and onto the page shaking in her hand, while the other held the phone pressed against her ear...

Frankie sighed. “Shit”
“What?” A voice at the other end had finally picked up.
“Huh?” She stammered
“Are you calling about the job?”
“Yeah, I was just wondering if you were hiring?”
“ I like your voice”
“So I’ve been told” she smiled into the phone.
“Sexy”
“Uhh, Yeah… well I guess it might work for you.”
“Who is this? Are you fucking with me?”
“Nope. I am looking for a job.”
“We are hiring.”
“I was hoping…”
“Ok well can you come in?”
“Now?”
“No, but when? Tomorrow?
“Sure…what time?”
“Do you play? I mean. Do you have any experience in Receptionism?”
“Well, I made it this far.”
“Ok so yeah make it one o-clock tomorrow.”
“Great. I’ll be there.”
“Adrian.”
“No. My name is Frankie, Frankie Spencer.”
“I… great, really? Great… No, I mean, Adrian. I’m Adrian.”
The line went dead in her ear.




Box after box she unloaded from the car and truck to the little studio apartment. All the while the young man whistled and watched her move. Her strides were long and confident and her blue jeans were so tight he could swear she lived in them because they fit her every lanky curve. She would smile at him every once in awhile, or brush his arm with hers as she passed by. His heart would race at the thoughts running through his mind as he watched her long chocolate brown hair swing from side to side as she walked in front of him down the long hall. He held the box he was carrying low to cover the front of his jeans.


The drive alone was surreal. Just knowing where I was going. Holy Shit. Don’t panic- you can do this. Come on! If you can get up on stage you can get a job as a receptionist. Just think of it as your stage. Yeah… my daily stage.

Fairfax was backed up and she could smell the roast beef as she passed Canters Deli on the left. She looked up and smiled at the bright neon sign. Just past Melrose she pulled into the pot-holed filled lot. There were two young boys painting over some vandalism tags on the side of the building. They looked over at her with open interest. She waved a half salute as she closed her car door and walked to the wooden security door at the front of the sign less building. There was a tiny button that she lightly pressed and a buzzer rang from somewhere inside. The door cracked open and she caught it quick and opened it enough for her to step inside. It was so dark compared to the bright outside it took her eyes a moment to adjust.

“Frankie?” his voice called
“Yeah? Oh I’m sorry Pauley I didn’t hear you.” She shook her head to bring her back to the present moment. She was standing in the small kitchen looking out into the courtyard of El Cerrito. There in the middle of the courtyard, a fountain had been bubbling over into her memories.
Pauley looked deep into her eyes and took a step forward. “Do you want me to stay?” His eyes burned into hers and he tried to steady himself on the archway with his shoulder. Casual, but earnest he thought to himself.
“No Pauley. Thank You. You are so very sweet. I need to do this alone, and while I appreciate your help today- I have no intention in beginning anything with anyone but myself.”
Her frankness almost seemed expected to him, even if his fantasy was slightly crushed, he smiled and opened his arms. She gave him a brief hug then began pushing him out of the kitchen and walked him to the front door.
“Enough Mush! I have a lot of work to do!” She was laughing to make any tension that may have entered the studio slip out the door along with Pauley.
He laughed easily at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out? Go celebrate or something?”
“Go do something and enjoy it for me! All I wanna do is be right here alone in this little apartment.” She gave him the thumbs up sign as she began to close #4’s door.
“Oh Wait… FRANKIE!” He pushed on the door. “I forgot to say Happy Birthday!”

He was Asian and he was pretty. Like a china doll with charms he sat smirking behind the vast front desk of Cherokee Studios.
“You nervous?” He asked.
“No. Are you?” she smiled right back at him.
“Never.”
“Are you Adrian?”
His eyes danced with laughter and he kicked his feet down from the desk to pick up the phone that had begun to ring in front of him.
“Cherokee front desk?” Adrian paused to listen. A slow smile sprang to his lips. “No. No. Shhhhhh listen, I can get him.” Pause... “Ok. Ok. Let me make the call” and he hung up the phone. His eyes sprang to meet hers.
“Are you cool?”
“Uhhh. Last time I checked.”
“Great hang on.”



Frankie surveyed the room and sat down on the over sized beige couch that he had pointed to as his other hand flew to the Rolodex on the desk. Flip Flip Flip the pages flew as her eyes flickered to the gold and platinum records lining the walls. Steely Dan, Journey, Rod Stewart, The Cars.


“Hey Chris. Yeah it’s Adrian at Cherokee. Yeah…” he paused and she could hear another voice low through the receiver. “Yep just the same for George. Cool. Yeah. When you can get here is cool… Yeah. Ok see you soon.” He hung up the phone with his eyes on Frankie.
“Weed?” Frankie asked trying to sound nonchalant.
“Coke” Adrian said and stood up.
“Cool” She looked at her boots then back at his face.
“Come on.” He smiled like the Cheshire cat as he picked up the phone and pressed some buttons.
“Frankie’s here for her interview.”


Thank God she thought to herself as she locked #4’s front door at 1800 N. El Cerrito. I saved my life that day.
All the years growing up with such big dreams- and then when I turned twenty-three, I finally did it. I answered an Advertisement in the San Diego paper for a lead singer and met the guys… and we started writing songs together. I was so happy back then, with those long hot days in that stinky hole of a rehearsal spot in our little beach town of Leucadia. With Scott, the guitarist, looking off into the distance out the window… smiling at his reflection every once in awhile, picturing some unseen audience in his daydreams. The rest of us would all try not to watch him so we wouldn’t pee our pants laughing and forget what verse we were playing. I knew then the feeling- of being truly alive- of being truly myself.

It wasn’t until I walked into Cherokee Recording Studios in Hollywood California that I knew I had found my place. Somewhere that I could call home, or my school, the school I always wished I could have attended. My Dad had wanted me to study business. BUSINESS? What the hell? Didn’t he know me? Couldn’t he see? Yeah I guess he could. He knew better than most… that I was a dreamer. He said I needed a little reality, reality in the form of a business degree. Thanks Dad. All that time and all that money just landed me a job at one of the greatest and infamous recording studios in all of Los Angeles.
I swear I could have gotten the job on sheer personality and bullshit. But that business degree got me a whole $2.50 more on my hourly wage- rounding up my pay to $9 bucks an hour, so I could finally get myself out of a bad marriage and into a new life. My life. Hello Hollywood- My name is Frankie Spencer.

A New Year, A New List

The dust has finally settled on the whirlwind that was Christmas, and as the petals begin to fall from the poinsettias that litter my home, I begin to look for sunflowers once again and to the future year ahead. My eyes travel to the kitchen counters that have a few leftover cookies and I shake my head to scowl at the crumbs... frowning, I look down at the extra pounds that now plump my hips and ass- I do this every year to myself. Why do I feel the need to make so many cookies and pies? Who the fuck am I- Betty Crocker? Note to self- resolution #1 Back to my workouts and fast.

Ahhh here comes the New Years Resolutions. We all do them. Well not everyone, but mostly everyone. How many of us follow them? Not as many as those that make them but I actually do. It is weird, I do so well with lists. I think I need focus. I am sure I have A.D.D. and if I have a list, I don't get so scattered.

Of course as you travel into a New Year you tend to look ahead- but I always like to look back too. Make a list of all the things I actually did accomplish in the past year, it's a good way of patting yourself on the back for the past work before kicking your ass in the future.

So today as Los Angeles once again gets pelted with another rain storm, I will sit on my soft butt and ponder the past year, and then I will envision the future one... and finally- I will throw all the leftover cookies away.

Give the inner bitch a break

I am realizing that I am finally growing up. My family has been here for over six days and I have yet to throw a tantrum, fight with my older Sister, or my Mother for that matter. We used to not be able to make it over 3 days. Mind you it still may happen, and I cannot guarantee it since my family is filled to the rim with drama queens but as of this day- day 6, I am totally happy and thrilled to have all this love around me. I think it is the baby. He has changed me. Things that used to bother me just roll off my back with a shrug of my shoulders. I have bigger fish to fry- or maybe I am just so damn full of this Mommy thing that I really don't care about anything else anymore. Is that possible?

I always thought my husband had a calming effect on me. Before any show, when I was all a flutter of nerves- as soon as Tony came to pick me up and I would see his smile, I would calm down instantly. He was, and still is my musical rock. It doesn't matter how many shows I have played, I still get a bit jittery and one of the greatest things about playing music is getting to play it with the one you love, especially when we have such a great musical chemistry.

Now this inner calm has reached into my whole life- not just my music. People say to me- 'Wow, you are so different now.'... Really? Was I a total bitch and a half before? No, but maybe sometimes. But what I think of being a bitch is actually just a powerful woman who knows what she wants and just goes after it. I love being called a bitch- it's a high compliment to me. So maybe people who didn't really know me were just intimidated by the bitch in me, but now? Now I am just a big softie who cries at everything and worries about my family and friends safety constantly. Oh Lord I am missing the bitch. But the absence of the bitch this Christmas has made life so much easier and if I have to thank my sweet little boy for this wonderful change so be it.

So why the blog? I don't know I have nothing else going on at the moment but just a big pile of mush... mush, mush, mush. Merry Christmas everyone- give your inner bitch the week off and enjoy your family with all the drama, name calling, and drunken slurs. Ain't family great?

Meet the Griswalds

The lights are up
But they don't work
My husband landed in the dirt
Oh the cursing, all the swearing
Made all the neighbors turn-a staring
Yes the holidays are here...

The tree is found and set upright
balls and ribbons hug it tight
and underneath you fill it's bowl
But don't forget, it takes its toll
Yes, the holidays are here...

A second tree we had to get
The first tree dried out before the 25th.
And on the return they had to ask-
"Why so soon? They usually last."

"Was it by a window?"
Yes of course.
"Did you have your heat on real high?"
It was cold
"Did you water it as soon as you got home?"
Why no Sir, I let it sit dry for the night.
Yes, the holidays are here...

Just only ten more days this must last
With a household of 10 and 1/2 coming to stay
I gotta go now, I have a present to wrap
A baby to change, a house to clean
And pick up a gift that's been on hold.
We have turned into the Griswalds
and this is holiday life- in our new home.

'Deep Thoughts'

My husband is so deep.