Hi, I’m back to recording again, on the music I’ve been telling you about for about a year and a half. I was asked to work with a group of French composers, and write lyrics in both French and English. Sometimes I write the lyrics first, and they match the music to it. And sometimes I write lyrics for compositions that they come up with. It has been an exciting collaboration so far, which I’ve been able to do in breaks in my writing, when I was in France. All of the composers are French, and very talented. They are musicians as well as composers, and we have worked with three very talented singers so far, a man, and two women. And we are finally getting down to the wire here, with results that you will be able to listen to on the Internet, and download, to check them out, in May. I will give you the information, when we are a little further along. We hope to have 10 of our songs available on the Internet, 4 in French, and 6 in English. And we are doing the final recordings now. It has been a very exciting project since we started it. And writing lyrics for songs has opened up whole new horizons for me, and has taught me a lot about the music world. » read more »

Hi, Everybody!!

Just a quick update on my song lyric writing activities. When I got to Paris this time, we worked in the studio for days, recording our songs for ‘demos’ (CD’s that play our songs). We recorded 9 songs, mostly ballads, and we’ve written 11 more than that. It was a fascinating experience, and soooooo much fun for me. The technical aspects are very complicated and I’m learning a lot about music, recording, composing, and writing lyrics. I am thoroughly loving the experience, and I’m working with a wonderful team, of 3 composers, 7 musicians, and a young French singer, who is bi-lingual. So we are recording songs in English and French, and I’ve written the lyrics to each song in both languages, so we have options. » read more »

I seem to be on some kind of music path these days, with the lyrics I’ve been writing for an album (I hope!!), I’m more attuned to music related happenings and events, and I seem to run into music events now everywhere.

And it was a MAJOR WOW!!!!! What an event, what a party, what a location!!! An empty warehouse had been transformed into a giant living room, broken into groups, with comfortable couches, big easy chairs, and coffee tables and soft lighting. There was a buffet of fabulous food a mile long, the place was crowded with attractive young people, everyone was having fun. I ran into my youngest daughter and oldest son, and we were all surprised to see each other (what are YOU doing here? except of course my niece had invited all of us). And the food was really delicious, I hadn’t had time to eat all day, and I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but the mini donuts were so good that I ate 8 of them!!! (Don’t tell!!! There was also a fabulous seafood buffet, but I’m allergic to fish….but I am definitely NOT allergic to donuts!!). » read more »

I had to share an amazing evening that I had recently—–a very unusual evening for me.

I recently came back to San Francisco, from Paris, on one of those nightmarish trips, common in air travel today. I flew from Paris to New York, and from there was heading back to San Francisco. It’s a 5 and a half to 6 hour flight, from NY to SF, and shouldn’t be a big deal….right??? Well, air travel doesn’t work that way these days. I got to the airport even though I have every imaginable Frequent Flyer card and membership, since I commute between Paris and SF many times a year, as I live in both cities and travel back and forth a lot, for work, and to see my kids.  This time, I got to the airport in New York, checked in at the counter, and was summarily told by the ticket agent that I had been bumped off my flight. It had a mechanical problem and had been oversold. Bumped?? Bumped???? Are you kidding? Not because I’m so fabulously important, but I do have some kind of VIP status, and all the frequent flyer stuff. With those credentials, I’m not supposed to get bumped, but I was. (And I was not happy about it, to say the least). After making a huge fuss about it, they put me on the next flight, but at a lesser level, as they had no good seats left. It took forever to find me a seat on the later flight; my luggage was taken off the plane, and then put on the next one. It was a pretty chaotic scene, with other people who had been bumped, and were also trying to get on the next plane. The second flight was then delayed, and in the process of switching flights, two of my bags went astray. So I arrived in SF long after midnight, got home at nearly 2 am, (minus two bags, which showed up the following afternoon), and I had been in transit door to door for nearly 14 hours……I’m sure it’s happened to you too, but situations like that make travelling exhausting.

I got home and found a mountain of work on my desk, tried to deal with some of it that night, and unpack my suitcases, and I never left my desk that night. By the time I finished the most pressing things on my desk, I looked up and it was 7am.  And my first meeting was at 8:30, so I never got to bed that night, and figured I’d catch up on my sleep with a nap in the afternoon (ha!!! that never happens), or just go to bed early that night. I had no plans to go out.  And round about 4:30 that afternoon, I was amazed to find I wasn’t tired, but kept busy with my work. And then suddenly I got an email from my niece who lives in London, and she emailed me that she had organized a corporate event in SF, it was that night, and she invited me to come. At first, I was absolutely convinced that I would be dead on my feet by evening and it would be crazy to try and go out. I debated for a while, and then decided to do it anyway, even if I was tired. The evening my niece had organized sounded like a great party, and there were going to be 3 live bands there, all of whom are famous and very good. They were The Killers, Jane’s Addiction and Snoop Dog. I’m certainly not a heavy Rap fan, but it sounded like an exciting evening to me. The party was being given by one of the founders of Facebook, and I was sure it would be an interesting crowd (and I wasn’t wrong).

I bathed, washed my hair, and got all dressed up (in leather pants, t-shirt and leather jacket), put on make-up and high heels, and by the time I got to the location of the party, I had been up for nearly 2 days, with no sleep at all the night before (I never even went to bed, so I could deal with everything on my desk). And the weirdest thing of all was that I wasn’t even tired. I felt fine. I have no idea what gave me the energy for that night, but I had no sense of jet lag, having travelled, or being wiped out. So off I went to the party, and found myself at a fantastic party, with about 200 people in an enormous warehouse that had been fully decorated and perfectly set up like a series of very comfortable living rooms, with couches and furniture, and it all looked both comfortable and very chic. It was a spectacular setting, and the food on the seemingly endless buffet looked delicious and proved to be as good as it looked. Not to mention the food that was passed around the room, including absolutely fantastic little freshly made donuts, which I surrendered to immediately. » read more »