She-wrestler!

Tonight I did something I've never done before: wrestling!

I took the boys to the beach and then the gym. As I was perusing the class schedule a man came up to me and asked if I'd like to take mixed martial arts over in the boxing ring. He was so earnest I said yes, figuring he probably needed students. I did a brief workout until the class started and then ran over to the ring.

There were about seven students there, all men. We crowded into the ring and started doing warm ups--the only one that was problematic with my now trick ankle was a sort of lunge where you roll your forward knee on to the ground and then sweep the other leg forward before standing. I had no problem with any of the pushups or squats. Then he paired us up. Lucky for me, there were two teenage boys, maybe 15 years old, roughly my size, though one looked like he weighed 30 pounds more than me and the other 20 pounds less. We started doing drills, and my young partner and I were going pretty easy on each other, barely making contact. Then he switched me to a tall man, which was hard since I had to aim up (and he down). I tried to hit harder, but thankfully he barely grazed me, especially on those uppercuts to the kidneys. After the drills, we all donned gloves and most of the men put on mouth guards. "Wait a second--are you guys training for ultimate fighting?" I joked. Nobody laughed.

Now our instructor had the two biggest men get in the middle of the ring and start to spar. The largest man was surprisingly agile, and after he bested the first guy he continued to take on opponents, in one case doing a rather spectacular leap and slamming the other guy down. It was basically kickboxing, to my uneducated eye. Yonas, the teacher, looked at me and said, "Do you want to try?" I was nervous, but shrugged and said "I dunno." Lucky for me, he took that as a yes. He sent me in the ring with the tall man. I wasn't sure what to do but I punched and jabbed and kicked. He was obviously not really fighting me, though he threw a few punches. But I figure he still got a workout prancing around and reacting to my floating butterfly maneuvers. Yonas switched in the biggest man, and he encouraged me to jab more. On my third partner, I started to feel the pain in my arms and Yonas called break. I was panting!

Next, the guys started to wrestle, starting from the ground. As the various partners switched in and out I thought I surely wasn't going to participate in this. I was wrong. Again, Yonas asked me if I wanted to try and took my shrug as a yes. He sent me in with the smaller teenager. It was a lot more natural than I had thought, even though I didn't know exactly what the goal was. I thought I did pretty well, and the guys were calling out tips like "spread your legs, now lock him with your heels," and so on. I'm not sure who won that round. Next I took on the bigger teenager, whom I couldn't pin because he was heavier than me. Still, there was no clear winner. When we were done I was more tired than I can remember. "You were holding back, weren't you?" I asked the kid. He said "sort of," and then one of the men said, "well, even if he wasn't, he's not going to say he was!" I got two more rounds in and on the last one I did have to slam the mat and ask for mercy as he was choking me (and I was tired). "There's a way to avoid that," Yonas said, indicating that you turn your neck so your trachea isn't compressed. He also showed me how to do a choke hold.

The thing I really appreciated about Yonas was his complete acceptance and encouragement of me. Some gyms can get hung up on their "testosterone clubs" and make women feel nervous around the free weights or other typically male areas (one way they do it is by swearing as loudly as possible; other tactics include spitting, belching, etc. That generally clears the women right out of the room.). I don't know if the guys in the class would like having a woman around for the long haul, but they were all tolerant and passably friendly.

I wonder how sore I'll be tomorrow. I felt fine during the class but when I went to pick up the baby my knees started shaking and when I got home they were hurting as if someone had punched me in the knees--it isn't the joint inside but the padding outside that hurts.

Lately they've been giving me the hard sell about signing up for personal training at the gym, and they buttered me up so good that I was almost ready to do it until I saw the price list and realized that for that much, I might as well go start taking those piano lessons with this wonderful expensive teacher I admire. Could ultimate fighting be the answer to my workout needs? Then I could reward myself with the piano lessons. 'Course, I might regret that decision if I mess up my teeth.

Who knows. I am famously fickle when it comes to sports.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

My six-year-old and I just finished reading Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret. What a fabulous book, in terms of story, illustration and print production. The concept is brilliant: Selznick breaks up the three inter-related mysteries of a young orphan living inside the walls of a Paris train station with movie stills and his own pencil illustrations. The most compelling aspect, however, is the unusual story of a mechanically gifted boy who finds a broken automaton and fixes its clockwork innards in hopes of receiving a loving message. Our love-hate relationship with machines is often the nexus of books that explore the darker side of the equation. Few delve into the beauty and wonder of machines the way this one does.

At the end of the book, Selznick explains his inspiration:

"I had long wanted to write a story about [early movie director] Georges Melies, but it wasn't until I read a book called Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life by Gaby Wood that this story began to really take shape. The book discussed Melies' collection of automata, which was donated to a museum, where it was neglected in a damp attic and eventually thrown away. I imagined a boy finding those machines in the garbage, and at that moment, Hugo and this story were born."

Selznick helpfully includes a link to the Maillardet automaton, which was built circa 1800 and donated in 1928 to the Franklin Institute:

"When the repairs were completed and the driving motors were set in motion, the Automaton came to life. It lowered its head, positioned its pen, and began to produce elaborate sketches. Four drawings and three poems later, in the border surrounding the final poem, the Automaton clearly wrote, "Ecrit par L'Automate de Maillardet." This translates to "Written by the Automaton of Maillardet." Amazingly, the first clue of the true history and identity of the machine had come from its own mechanical memory!"

The site has pictures of the automaton's sketches and a poem. Apparently, while Maillardet made many automata, only one other could write--in Chinese--and it was King George III's gift to China's Emperor.

What a glorious use of old and new media, including the Internet, by Selznick! I am going to show my son these drawings right now!

Hot Pockets by Jim Gaffigan

So I was just watching Letterman and he had Jim Gaffigan as a guest, and I laughed till I cried. I might have seen Gaffigan a few years ago when we had cable/Comedy Central but it was his holiday routine (after perusing YouTube I can appear to be knowledgeable about his routines) and I didn't find it funny. In high school, my friend David would organize us all to go to comedy clubs and we saw standup all over the Bay Area. I know David still gets out a lot because he sends nice announcements about all sorts of theatrical and cultural events (including mine, how kind) that he and his wife go to. I never go, but that is due to the fact that I am a complete and utter puttering homebody. That's one thing I miss about work--instant social circle. Sometimes I feel like I should get out and interact with other adults, I mean, here I am asking people to come see me perform and I am incapable of maintaining more than one friendship (and that is in large part due to my friend's effort, not mine; thankfully for her own mental health, she has plenty of friends). I could blame it on my kids except that I've always been like this! Aaaaanyway, this is not about me but about how Gaffigan's riff on hot pockets made me cry deep wracking sobs. And then I ate a hot pocket. Just kidding. I do not have an eating disorder, nor did I weep! But I did laugh very hard. Geez, I have been noticing because I was considering buying a blog ad for my new album that people reveal an awful lot about themselves on some of these really popular blogs. I mean, you're reading along for research purposes of course and then suddenly it's just--ack! I did not need to know that. And the more you read the more you realize you are reading someone's diary that you found accidentally and it's rather gross. Except they are intentionally putting their weirdness out there. Like this man I met on the train to work one day, the trains were atrociously backed up and people were friendly in a isn't-this-a-big-disaster-let's-all-lament-the-state-of-rapid-transit sort of way and this man began talking to me and mentioned kids and pulled out his wallet and showed me his kids and then ever so sneakily turned the conversation toward sex like the perv that he was and I just booked away from him as fast as I could. Yikes. It's a fine line between entertaining stories or insightful analysis and too-much-information. Hope you haven't read this far and just skipped ahead to the clip. Am I the only one who thinks it's funny? I imagine it's rather contingent on cultural context. So much of his comedy is based on the horrible crap Americans eat.

Ray Nance's Prancin'

Chip Boaz has a really great latin jazz blog, and this entry on soloing "in clave" is quite helpful, especially the transcription: Francisco Torres Trombone Solo on “Tropi Blue,” Part One.

Speaking of solos, I've been practicing Wayne's latin jazz version of Take the A Train for our upcoming performance at the San Jose Jazz Festival, and came across a transcription of Ray Nance's trumpet solo on the tune, which, according to Wikipedia, is "one of the most copied and admired trumpet/cornet solos in jazz history."

OK, so I just went to find a clip of Mr. Nance and--praise the Lord for YouTube! You must check this OOOUUUUTTT:

Swimming Lessons

One nice thing about summer with kids is that if you're working from home you are forced to get out and play. The only summer program we've done is swimming lessons for my older son, and they are working out great. The Oakland parks department has really affordable lessons, so I signed myself up for a refresher private lesson as well. I sort of want to do a triathlon, and I've read that improving the mechanics of your swimming is the most important thing to do as we all tend to be so inefficient in the water.

I learned so much that, unfortunately, by the end of the second and final lesson, I basically could no longer swim. "It's kind of like tweaking your golf swing," my instructor told me as I tried to focus on him while surrounded by screaming children (yes, apparently I was the only adult who has taken the parks up on this lesson offer). "There's so much to remember that you're paralyzed." But he gave me lots to practice. Here's what I learned, mainly for freestyle/crawl:

1. Most important lesson for me: Breathe out through your mouth. I always blow out through my nose, and that causes a CO2 buildup that makes me breathless after just a few strokes. "Breathing out through your nose is like breathing out through two straws," he said. Like a little kid, I practiced going underwater and blowing out through my mouth. Sure enough, I came up coughing. "It's easier when you're horizontal 'cause the bubbles don't go past your nose," my teacher said.

2. Rotate your torso with each stroke, using your lats to help pull you through the water. But don't wiggle horizontally at the hips; that's inefficient.

3. Keep your head down, aligned with your body.

4. Don't cross your arms past your midline in front of you. Extend them straight forward.

5. The ideal breathing pattern is to breathe on alternate sides every three strokes.

6. If you get water in your mouth as you're breathing one option is to swallow.

7. Wear swim goggles.

8. One good exercise is to brush your fingertips on the surface of the water as you first pull your elbow out and extend the arm forward. This helps you get the right rotation.

9. Another good exercise is the catch up stroke, where you extend one arm and glide until the other arm catches up to where the first was; then you finish the first stroke. I found this very hard to do.

10. Using a kickboard helps you strengthen your legs. I learned that the breast stroke froggy-style kick is way more powerful than freestyle kicking for most people. I guess that explains why I mainly do breast stroke. The freestyle kicking was super hard--my quads were burning, and my progress across the pool was abysmal.

11. Holding a floatie between your legs can help you concentrate on your arm form.

12. For navigating in open water (which is where I mostly swim), use the sun's position or the direction of waves or wind as you breathe as a marker so that you don't waste time and energy stopping to look around. He also demonstrated how you take a quick look straight ahead with just your eyes out of the water between strokes; then you put your head down and rotate for a breath.

13. At the beginning and end of a lap swimming session, count the number of strokes it takes you to get across the pool. The number shouldn't change; the point is to maintain the relaxed, even rhythm of your swimming regardless of how tired you are.

I also learned that while I am buoyant and comfortable in the water, I am not an undiscovered swimming phenom. Darn. Swimming from Alcatraz is starting to look pretty hard.

Survival Tips

I picked up a copy of National Geographic Adventure because of the cover lines: "How to Survive (Almost) Anything" and "20 Extreme Situations Solved." Inside, I was reminded of our fun photoshoots and spot art for our old magazine: There was "break glass in case of emergency" image with brain inside the case that was like one of our cover photos.

This has always been a beautiful magazine, and it continues to be, though some of the design conventions (which we imitated, as did Scientific American--Wired probably started many of them) are starting to look dated.

Anyway, there is a "Survival IQ" test inside, and I am sorry to say my score indicated "your safe zone extends to your lawn. Beyond that: crapshoot."

As a public service, I will condense the answers in hopes of preventing untimely dirt naps.

1. If you're lost in the Sonoran Desert, your first priority at noon is to find shade.

2. The best way to get water in the desert is to tie a plastic bag to a branch; condensation will produce up to a pint in eight hours.

3. Use charcoal for sunblock.

4. To be spotted by rescuers, build rock cairns, dig a giant X in the ground and make smoke signals.

5. If you're lost in the ocean on a raft, make yourself a shelter. Assuming you have something to make it out of.

6. To stay hydrated, you must eat seven pounds of fish per day.

7. Start drinking your own urine after day two of no water. You can only live three days without water.

8. If you see an island in the distance, let the current take you there, but don't swim or paddle to it. I don't know why but I assume because you may tire yourself out. Or it may be a mirage? Wait, that's in the desert.

9. If you crash land in the Andes, don't leave the plane if there's a storm.

10. Apply a cloth-wrapped hot water bottle to the groin to treat hypothermia. If hands go blue, apply to groin.

11. If you get lost in the Adirondacks, first sit down to assess your situation before you try to find your way back.

12. To test whether food is edible, rub it on your inner wrist to test for reaction, note if it appears to be plentiful and eat a small amount of it and wait 24 hours.

13. For dry firewood, punch through a dead standing tree. This assumes your fists are very strong.

14. To stop infection and bleeding in a cut, urinate on it.

Vagabundeo Press and Praise

"With a voice sweet, pure and strong, Alexa Weber Morales is poised to ride the Bay Area Latin jazz scene to national recognition. On her new CD, Vagabundeo/Wanderings, she spans a wide spectrum of the music, getting help from ace producer, arranger and trombonist Wayne Wallace."
--San Francisco Chronicle, June 17, 2007

"Morales is a mix of jazzy sweetness (you could imagine her turning out an attractive album of standards) and Latin brightness."
--Mary Kunz Goldman, The Buffalo News, June 22, 2007
http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/gusto/

"Multilingual, multi-culti jazz vocalist kicks it out a little farther and a little harder on her second outing. Very much the kind of singer you want to hear more of, more often, Morales is on the money throughout with a jazz/world date that open-eared adults will pass the word on quite easily and quickly."
--Midwest Records, June 26, 2007
http://www.midwestrecord.com/2007/06/26/062607/

"Alexa Weber Morales is a San Francisco Bay-area singer whose star is rapidly rising. She sings in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and her lush, rangey, sensuous voice reminds me of Basia, another boundary-busting, powerhouse singer who made a huge splash in the early 1990s and has only recently returned. ... Is this jazz with a pop/Latin sensibility, or Latin with a jazz/pop sensibility? In purist circles, 'pop' is a four-letter word, but how crucial is that when music is so high-spirited and rendered with such care, talent, and heart?

Vagabundeo/Wanderings is a good name for this wide-ranging, engaging journey. If Weber Morales ever decides to tackle some jazz standards, she could blow away half the current crop of vocalists. At least."

--Dr. Judith Schlesinger, All About Jazz, July 04, 2007
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=26197

"Alexa Weber Morales, who has a beautiful voice, certainly shows off her versatility on Vagabundeo. She switches effortlessly between Spanish, Portuguese, French and English and shows plenty of feeling in each language. Since she improvises in spots and has a spontaneous spirit in even the most tightly arranged setting, she is a jazz singer but one very open to many other influences� There is a unity to this set with Morales' vocals being consistently rewarding and enthusiastic. She is a talent who will certainly be heard from often in the future."
--Scott Yanow, All Music Guide, June 2007
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:gvfexzy5ldfe~T0

"The music is stunning and polished with some great arrangements and dynamic vocals by Alexa. The quad-lingual components will make this CD appealing to a wider audience and will hold their attention from start to finish. Her musical training and experience is well evident in her vocals and the compositions that were selected to grace this work of art."
--Leon Reyes, KVMR 89.5 FM Sacramento/Nevada City, CA

"It's mighty all the way through and airing lots on KMFB. I'm also spinning it on the KZYX world music show. Kudos and wild applause!"
--Liz Helenchild, DJ, KZYX and KMFB, Mendocino/Fort Bragg, CA

"I find her command of Latin idioms completely convincing, entrancing even."
--Tom Hull, former contributor, The Village Voice
http://www.tomhull.com

Lucky Number 13 on the JazzWeek Radio Chart!!!

I cannot believe it, but Vagabundeo/Wanderings is number 13 on the JazzWeek World Music chart, and Wayne's album The Reckless Search for Beauty, on which I sing lead vocals, is at number 11!

I'm new at this radio charting game, but early signs were that my album was going to split airplay between jazz formats and world formats (mainly noncommercial radio, of course). Now it looks as though the decision among radio programmers is clear, and the bulk of the airplay is in the world music genre. I am still seeing playlists with straight-ahead jazz that are including my music, but I guess it's not enough to make the jazz charts. But I am not complaining!!!

The release date was June 26, and in the first week of airplay detection by MediaGuide (July 9) I made #41 on the world music chart. The next week it was 51, and for July 23 it's #13! Woo hoo!

So, who are in the top 20, you ask? It's an eclectic bunch! Some I know well, some I plan to check out:

1. Bonde Do Role
2. Angelique Kidjo
3. The Budos Band
4. Sean Kingston
5. Arturo Sandoval
6. Suphala
7. Balkan Beat Box
8. Stephen Marley
9. Spanish Harlem Orchestra
10. Bebel Gilberto
11. Wayne Wallace
12. Dobet Gnahore
13. Alexa Weber Morales
14. Ibrahim Ferrer
15. Ceu
16. Tinariwen
17. Mexican Institute of Sound
18. Pacha Massive
19. Manu Chao
20. Mavado

It's interesting: Some artists do end up on multiple charts, such as Arturo Sandoval, who's also on the JazzWeek jazz chart. Bobby Sanabria is a latin jazz artist but appears on the Jazz chart. Same goes for Poncho Sanchez.

Even more surprising to me is who is on the smooth jazz chart. As I understand it, smooth jazz is a commercial format, which precludes independents from attempting to get airplay on those stations. Anyway, lots of young pop artists are on this chart: John Legend, Norah Jones, India.Arie, Robin Thicke, Corinne Bailey Rae and Michael Buble. But there are some older faves as well, such as Al Jarreau, George Benson and Simply Red--well, that about exhausts my smooth jazz artist knowledge.

A heartfelt thank you to all the DJs who have played Vagabundeo!!!

Sensational Swimming, Yosemite Hiking

Just got back from visits to Lake Tahoe and Yosemite. I swam in Lake Tahoe twice, once in the American River in Placerville, and in Yosemite's alpine lakes Elizabeth and Tonaya. Absolutely exhilarating.

Oh, and by the way, we camped at Mono Lake the first two nights because the various online registration sites said Yosemite was full. But on day two driving through Tioga pass back into Yosemite we saw a sign saying Tuolomne Meadows had space available. I asked the ranger and she said she was not surprised that the online registration had misled us, as it was a new vendor and they were having trouble. But apparently, outside of Yosemite Valley (where I don't want to camp anyway), there are plenty of first-come, first-serve sites.

We hiked to pristine Elizabeth Lake, and it was my 6-year-old's first five mile hike, 95% whine-free! That was my favorite lake. The next day I hiked alone to the top of Lembert Dome. When I got to what appeared to be the end of the trail, with a cliff to my right and a steep slope to my left, I saw some hikers approaching around the hump of the Dome with children, so I figured that was the way to go. I ventured out on the slope a few yards and came to a row of about five evenly spaced rocks. Perhaps this was a warning not to go farther? I don't suffer much from fear of heights (I did work as a roofer, after all), but have a good instinct for self-preservation. I started to feel strange, and the wind whipping at me wasn't helping. I sat down and a semi-irrational worry that I was going to start rolling downhill surged in my belly, so I stood up and walked back to the flat area. I pulled out a sandwich and ate it. Three men approached from around the dome, and I went over to them to ask how far they had gone. Close up, the youngest hiker, who was gamboling about like a teenager, turned out to be oldest, or at least the most weathered--perhaps in his fifties.

"Your eyes play tricks on you. It's not as bad as it seems," he said in the surfer/mountain climber accent that some California natives have (think Ty Pennington). "My wife had to go scooting on her butt the first few times, and they did too," he said, indicating the other man and a teenager. "Just stay to your right. You won't fall, and you can go all the way around to see Tuolumne meadows."

"OK, so there are no steep drops? If I fall, I'll just roll all the way to the ground?" I joked. "No, you just spread eagle--make a snow angel against the mountain and that will stop you." We laughed, though I filed that in my mental survival kit. I started walking, the fear mostly abated. As I rounded the first hump of the mountain, a man appeared wearing a sports suit and small pack. "Is there a walking trail to this point?" he asked. "Yeah. How did you get here?" "I climbed," he responded. "Wow. Do you ever get climber's knee?" I jiggled my legs to indicate tremors. "There was some adrenaline at points, but I had some small trees that could block my fall. And at least the wind is blowing you against the slope instead of away." "You don't seem to have much gear on you--where's your rope?" I asked. "Oh, I did it free-hand. I'm trying to build up my courage for some mountains where there's some scramble involved."

He showed me the way to the next, lower hump, pointing out an area where there were hand holds I could grip to descend to a soil-filled depression with several large trees. He took the path along the ridge, but I decided to play safe and lowered myself down the chimney crack. He waved goodbye and took off back down the mountain to climb rather than walk. I approached the edge of the dome and saw a spectacular near 360-degree view of the meadows, surrounding mountains and forests. I couldn't bring myself to lie down and stick my head over the edge, but I did ascertain that it was a cliff.

On my way back, I was glad no one could see my inelegant ascent of the seven-foot chimney crack. I struggled to find a way back up it, until I turned myself backwards and did a sort of tricep dip up, got some footholds and then very awkwardly turned myself around and climbed forward. Thankfully there were trees below. When I came around the dome, a man went whistling by, testosterone personified, and instead of heading out in the direction I came, began nonchalantly--and rapidly--scaling the cliff to the top of the first dome. I could barely watch, but I turned to look a few times as I walked to the trail. He disappeared from view when my back was turned. I saw him later on the valley floor so I guess he survived. I wouldn't want to be married to that guy.

So I can add this climb to my list of Yosemite adventures (the Half Dome climb being the one I'm proudest of). My boys were so thrilled with the camping, and it only takes three hours from Oakland to Big Oak Flat. I'm going to try to start coming every year, or maybe several times a year. I like this quote from John Muir, Yosemite's founder:

"I have a low opinion of books: they are piles of stones set up to show coming travelers where other minds have been, or at best signal smokes to call attention....One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books."