'Someday I'm going to make her mine, oh yeah...'

The Brits are going to be partying like well, 1994, this weekend, and letting it all hang out. There will be fireworks, parades through the streets of London, a grand flotilla down the Thames the likes of which hasn't been seen since Sir Frances Drake eviscerated the Armada, the royal Corgis, the Epsom Derby which opens up the festival of events, Sir Elton, Sir Paul, Annie, and every royal that can walk.  This and much more for HRM Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, Head of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth etc. etc. who will be celebrating her diamond jubilee.

Just 25, Elizabeth displaying brilliance and savvy, lifted the aura of royal pomp and privacy and allowed her coronation to be televised throughout the British Isles. If the love affair didn't start then, it likely began when Elizabeth turned 21 and declared in a broadcast that 'her life, long or short, shall be devoted to your service...'

In her 60 years, HRM has survived 12 Prime Ministers beginning with Winston. She opens Parliament every year, and meets on a regular basis with the PM. She has navigated her way through a world of men, and involved and devoted herself to over 600 charities.

It is difficult for us to wrap our renegade minds around the concept of Queen and country, but, to capture a thumbnail, I always circle back to the blitz, when the Luftwaffe bombed the shit out of London for 57 straight days, and the photos of George the VI and the Queen Mother (they refused to leave Buckingham which was also bombed) walking through the devastation, the rubble, the dazed population everyday. And I kinda get a glimpse of that love affair.

The Kings of England killed for sons. The Queens of England, Elizabeth
and Victoria had Ages named after them.

QEII has never given an interview. But, my friends, during her 60 year reign that doesn't mean she  didn't have a lot to say. Bring on the flotilla.

'If I could sing ya, a love song so divine'...

SNL for the last several years has more often than not gone off the rails, fallen flat on it's collective face, but on Saturday night, the train chugged back to the station. The opening skit with a mustached Jon Hamm singing and dancing set the tone for some rollicking fun. But wait the best was yet to come. Mick Jagger as comfortable as a fly on a pile of steaming horse s...t, strutted out in a dazzling gold jacket and hosted the final show of the season. The Mick parodied Steve Tyler. Cast members parodied Jagger. Jagger parodied himself. Skits flew across the stage; the Californians, a ridiculous outrageous spoof of the LA freeway system spewed out a blond wigged Steve Martin. Could it get any better? It did.

In 2009, during the 25th anniv. of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame,
I witnessed the greatest rendition of a Stones song eva: Gimme Shelter featuring U2, Jagger and Fergie setting the stage on fire. Nothing, I thought could ever touch that until SNL. Mick opened with Arcade Fire (love those Canadians), and gyrated his skinny 60 something ass through 'This could be the Last Time. Then as if to say, hey, yeah, you got it mofo's I am almost 70, Jagger teamed up with the Foo Fighters and ripped off '19th Nervous Breakdown, and 'It's only Rock 'n Roll.' What an exhibition! In an emotional salute and farewell to Kristen Wiig who is bound for greener Judd Apatow and H'wood pastures, Mick and Arcade Fire played a finale of She's a Rainbow and Ruby Tuesday. I was exhausted. Whatever Mick is transfusing...I want some. He was a fracking ball of fire; a sight to behold. If you missed it, get some on YouTube.

Sunken Treasure

So there's this walk I take while I'm making the daily rounds, Mountain View Cemetery, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who was also responsible for planning Central Park, and part of UC Berkeley. The older portions dating back to the early 19th century are at ground level. The landscaping significantly improves at the higher elevations. There is even a millionaire's row with monuments that swallow up the family plot, and loom spatially, like the mansions they were conceived in, gaudy memorials to mortality. When I was smoking, I often drove there and fired up a few while staring at the distant Oakland horizon. I've even bagged my lunch and picnicked, guzzling my soda, and eating my sammies sitting and using the finest carrera marble as my table. But I digress. A month ago, I passed a section which is not on my usual route. Most of the inhabitants were from county Kerry or county Kildare. Sparsely populated. The biggest tombstone was 'Campbell.' Irish? I chuckled. Surely, laddies, a misprint. But wait. It gets better. The next stone over belonged to Ina Donna Coolbrith, 1st poet laureate of California!

Ina. She was as cool as her name. Even cooler. Ina hung with the literati boys of her time, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Muir and the critic Ambrose Bierce. Ina like Gertrude had salons and introduced and established a young Joaquin Miller to the publishing world. In 1874 Ina worked as a Librarian in Oakland grinding out 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for $80.00 a month, a sum far less than a man would receive in the same position. Employment infringed on her writing. However, it is said that Ina never had a poetry submission rejected by a publisher. Ina mentored the flamboyant Isadorah Duncan, and later helped a 10 year old Jack London to read. In 1906 Ina was named the 1st poet laureate of California. Later in life, almost destitute, Ina was rescued by Edwin Markham and the actress, Lotta Crabtree. One of the last formal portraits of Ina was taken by Ansel Adams in Berkeley. Ina Donna Coolbrith died in 1928 and lay in an unmarked grave until 1986 (JeeezuzH) until a headstone was placed there. Plot 11. Jack London never forgot Ina, and wrote no woman affected him as Ina did.