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SUMMER 2023 WRAP UP

9/18/2023

Saturday is officially the first day of fall, meaning the summer of 2023 is almost in the books. Although I checked a few things off my to do list, it was not my most productive summer. But even though I didn’t do much, I really enjoyed myself.

There were the weekends spent with the D-Man and Kody by the fire pit listening to music, a nice San Diego trip Memorial Day weekend and our trek to Wisconsin. Although we didn’t take another major vacation, we spent a long weekend in northern California with our good friends, enjoying chill time and wine tasting. I checked out Kool and the Gang and the Village People and had an amazing dinner at The Backyard at the Hollywood Bowl. I spent a Thursday night listening to some local music in Loma Alta Park in Altadena. I went to an actual movie theatre for the first time in over a year to see “Barbie,” and enjoyed some BBQs and dinners with family and friends. Labor Day weekend the D-Man and I had dinner and drinks at the Rooftop Lounge at the La Casa Del Camino in Laguna Beach. I finished the long weekend with a wonderful day in Del Mar, just enjoying the sand and the surf, after having lunch at The Poseidon restaurant.

Then there was the tropical storm that hit southern California. I was lucky to not be in a flood area, so it turned into a Sunday with all the windows open, listening to the rain and enjoying some cool weather in what is usually a scorching month.

This is also the summer I discovered, after a bit of a struggle, that I want to do more writing. I read a Judy Blume book on a work trip to Seattle called “Sumer Sisters”, that I loved, and it got me thinking about writing fiction. As a pre-teen and teenager, I spent hours writing novels and stories. Once I got involved in music, with limited time, I stopped. It feels like this might be the time in my life to give it another shot. I am not sure where it is going to go, but I am beginning to remember how much I enjoyed it.

Isn’t that what summer is for? Time to enjoy yourself and make memories with the people you care about.

Come to think of it, isn’t that winter, fall and spring are for too?

WISCONSIN VACATION

8/20/2023

The Swingin Door Exchange in downtown Wisconsin

I am hanging out with Hurricane Hilary today, after seeing “Barbie” last night. If you have not already seen it, take your BFF, take your daughter, or take your soon to be enlightened significant other. It is worth the hype.

After finally finishing my chores for the weekend, I have the windows open, listening to the rain and looking at some pictures from the Wisconsin trip the D-Man and I took earlier this year.
I love the reactions I get when I tell people where I went for vacation.

“ I went to Wisconsin.” This is typically followed by silence or a comment like, “Why?” I guess when you live in SoCal, Wisconsin isn’t a top vacation spot, but I don’t really understand why not.

I have talked a lot over the years about how great Summerfest is, but there is more to Wisconsin. On this last trip we had a fantastic time at the World’s Best Music festival. We saw Debbie Gibson after a thunder delay, caught a great local cover band called The Playlist and then a great show by Earth, Wind and Fire. But there is more to southern Wisconsin.

Here are three places to explore when the music isn’t playing:

The Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Milwaukee

DOWNTOWN MILWAUKEE

Downtown Milwaukee continues to go through a transformation and every year we visit it gets better and better. The Milwaukee Bucks have their arena downtown and the area around Fiserv Forum is nicknamed the Deer District. There are fun bars, restaurants, and summer festivals even when it isn’t basketball season. If you feel like doing some roller skating, there is a Starbucks that has an outdoor roller rink in the summer and that turns into an ice rink in the winter. The Third Ward District, on your way to the Summerfest grounds, has more great places to eat, drink and hang and the Riverwalk is also a great way to see the whole downtown. If historic architecture is your thing, downtown Milwaukee is the place for you. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn, which is not at all what you would expect it to be. In a historic office building, we had a room with high ceilings and windows that made it feel huge. if you are looking for some great bar food or a place to grab an after Summerfest drink, check out the Swingin Door Exchange across from the hotel. After Earth, Wind and Fire, we stopped in and found the place filled with friendly folks who invited us to join them in a game of “Shut The Box.” (It’s a Wisconsin thing, but Google it for the rules.)

But if you are looking for some small-town Wisconsin charm close to Milwaukee, head north to Cedarburg and Port Washington.

Cedar Creek in Cedarburg

CEDARBURG

Historic downtown Cedarburg is just about 20 minutes from Milwaukee. If you are looking for quaint shops and scenic creek views, plan on spending an afternoon. We started our day at the PJ Piper Pancake House with German pancakes. Then it was off to the Cedar Creek Winery for some wine tasting. No, it is not Napa and if you are a wine snob, you might want to pass. But if you want a nice light summer wine to drink by the lake, try the Strawberry Blush. Although we didn’t make it this year, there is also the Crème and Crepe Café, if you saved any room for some lunch, right next to the winery. We always spend a portion of the day at Fiddleheads Coffee. The coffee is good, but the back porch area is the perfect chill spot, especially on a hot day.

The Harborview Hotel in Port Washington

PORT WASHINGTON

From Cedarburg, make the 15-minute drive to Port Washington. With its touch of New England charm, the downtown is nestled on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan. Take a walk at the Coal Dock Park, which not surprisingly, was once the site of a coal dock. Or get a real feel for Lake Michigan and walk the breakwater to the lighthouse. The Harborview Hotel has been recently updated and features the Beacon restaurant where they have my personal Wisconsin favorite, Perch fish fry, daily. On a nice evening, you can sit outside and enjoy the water view. If you are looking for a little more adventurous menu, try the Twisted Willow. Great food and atmosphere.

If you are looking for a different vacation spot next summer, combining quant and urban, southern Wisconsin could be the place for you!

Happy Summer Reset

6/22/2023

It is officially the beginning of summer and I have no idea how half of this year is already gone!
I consider Memorial Day weekend the start of my summer. The D-Man and I took a wonderful trip on the train down to San Diego. We stayed at the Residence Inn, right in the middle of the Gaslamp district and we had a ball. The weather was more like winter (grey and chilly) and we really didn’t do much but walk around and half some good meals, but it was wonderful.

It was a nice break and I really needed it. My creative juices have been unfocused and after a mentally challenging workday (which I have had a lot of lately) and a physically challenging workout, it has been difficult for me to do anything but watch some tv and do a little reading. I finished watching all ten episodes of “Daisy Jones and The Six”, which overall, I loved. I didn’t like the change they made to the ending from the book, but still recommend it if you like band dramas.

I have a list of projects around the house I want to get started on. I have been thinking about redesigning this blog, doing some more songwriting, and even starting a novel. But so far this year, I haven’t tackled much. Add to that, my finances, after all the house renovations, are a bit ragged, which is not comforting to me with the economy getting shaky. I have also been considering where I want to go with my career. A new job within my organization or look for a new position entirely?

We tend to look to the New Year as a time to make resolutions and goals and start over. I say, let’s implement a mid-year New Year, to be called Summer Reset. The perfect time to look at what you have done this year and what you can do with the rest of the year.
I have a vacation coming up. I hope some time away will give me a chance to do some thinking and clarify what I need and want to do. Maybe thinking of mid-year as a clean slate will help me focus on my goals again.

Happy Summer Reset! If you aren’t exactly where you want to be or have some things you know you should be doing, no better time start than this new holiday!

Summerfest Memories

3/17/2023

It is that time of year again. The time when the best music festival in the country starts announcing acts and putting tickets on sale. No, not Coachella. Summerfest, The World’s Largest Music Festival in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

Having already snagged some tickets, but looking at the discouraging airline prices, I started reminiscing about the past years of attending. They are celebrating their 55th anniversary, and I have been there for most of those years.

My first Summerfest I was nine years old. My father took my best friend and I to see Gladys Knight and The Pips at the Main Stage. We were in the bleachers pretty far back and even standing it was hard to see. But I felt like this was a very cool place.

A friend I met in middle school had parents who were big jazz fans. They would go down early in the day, bring a deck of cards and camp out on a picnic table, enjoying good music, each other, and some beers. My friend and I would roam the grounds, stopping off to watch local bands and upcoming acts at all the stages. That’s if there wasn’t someone we wanted to see over at the Main Stage. In those days, everything was general seating on bleachers, so it was total first come, best seats. The gates to the Main Stage would open a couple of hours after the festival grounds opened, which meant there would already be a line waiting to get some seats. A testimony to people in Wisconsin, this situation never resulted in anyone being killed or even injured, something I am not sure could have been pulled off in other parts of the country. Despite not being very athletic, I got quite good at doing the Main Stage Mad Dash when the gates opened. Bleacher jumping and getting somewhere in the first few rows and then spreading my body out as far as I could to save as many seats as possible for my friends. We rarely sat farther back than the first five rows. By high school, my seat saving skills got so good, we were almost always in the front row.

When I hit the workforce at age 18, too broke for any real vacations, I took my two weeks during Summerfest. I went every day, sometimes from open to close, depending on the lineup. My dream was to sometime play there, since at this point, I was singing in bands. That dream finally came true in the last 80s when we got booked for an early evening gig on one of the smaller stages.

I moved to California shortly after that gig, feeling like my goals for Wisconsin were completed. I went through several day jobs before having a real career, buying my home, and of course, continuing to do music. Every summer, I made my pilgrimage back to the place where my love of music had been cultivated, sometimes convincing California friends to come along and eventually, the D-Man, who is not particularly fond of concert going. Every time I walk on the grounds for the first time of the season, all the memories and good times come flooding back.

A Wisconsin friend and I were commiserating about the Summerfest changes. The three weekends instead of the 11 straight days of years past. The demise of the wine coolers, for more expensive signature drinks. The less than stellar lineups on certain days.

The D-Man, never one to listen to complaining, had enough. “Would you stop it? There is no other music festival like this in the country. Stop complaining and just enjoy it!”

He had a point. Those of us who love it, want it to be better. Or maybe we want it to be the way it was. But like so many things in life, it is what it is. Still my happy place.

Check out www.summerfest.com for more information.

CD Cabinet Reimagined

2/9/2023

I am doing a bedroom refresh to FINALLY accommodate a king-sized bed I just ordered. I haven’t bought a new bed for myself since I moved in the house almost thirty years ago, so I am due. I looked at probably 200 hundred beds online with some very specific criteria and even though I got in on sale, I spent more than I wanted to. It should be arriving in about a month.

In the process of getting things ready, I got rid of a large clothes armoire that I had cleaned out. I also had a cd holder that I had moved to the garage that was basically taking up space because it wasn’t really the right size to store anything I had in the garage. It was in good shape and I liked the way it looked, so I had been reluctant to throw it out.

Staring at it one day, trying to think of something to do with it, it finally hit me. It would make an excellent jewelry armoire.

I wanted to glam it up a little since the inside was very plain. I found some great peel and stick tile on Amazon. I had never done peel and stick, and it was fairly easy to install. (I would suggest an extra sheet or two, since the first one I put in the back wasn’t straight and it didn’t come up as easily as it went down.)

Since the inside was black, it was hard to see anything in it. I ordered a couple of two packs of the Brilliant Evolution LED Touch Stick On Lights from Amazon for around $15.00. I have become a little obsessed with these lights. They are bright and stay where you put them! I have them under my kitchen sink and in my outdoor closet. So handy when you are digging around in the dark for cleaner or matches for the fire pit!

The whole project took a couple of evenings, getting the back tile in and organizing all my watches, buttons, earrings, and necklaces. I have some additional storage space at the bottom that I still haven’t decided what to use it for. The side doors also have room, but I am sure I will find things to put in there.
I have been putting things out to the curb a lot lately, so it felt good to find a new use for something that could have ended up in a landfill. I am hoping for more inspiration around some other items that I have waiting for their comeback!

HOLIDAY SEASON 2022

1/5/2023

My holiday season has finally wrapped up and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

It started out with the annual birthday trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain where I learned how to navigate the Flash Pass and got to ride in the very front of Wonder Women (the newest rollercoaster) for the first time. It became my new favorite.

The D-Man treated me to not one, but two birthday dinners, one at the Red Lobster after our day of coasters and the second one at Bistro 45 in Pasadena. Very different restaurants, but I had a great meal at both!

I spent a day cleaning and getting ready for my annual Christmas Eve open house and I discovered Hallmark Christmas moves. Yes, I am late to this party and it is shocking that as much as I love the holidays, I never tuned in to watch. But I found them entertaining and the perfect background for doing Christmas type things, like cooking, baking and getting gifts together. I must admit, I become a little obsessed and can’t wait for next year to check out some more!

There were some menu mishaps, but everyone had a great time on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was spent with the D-Man and his family.

The next day we took off for what has become an after Christmas tradition of getting a house in the Palm Springs area and enjoying some more time with Kody, Aja, the D-Man and some of his family. The weather was a little cooler than previous years, but we had great meals, and lots of time in the pool and hot tub.

We came home NYE to rain and tickets to “Ain’t Too Proud The Life and Times of The Temptations” at the Ahmanson in downtown LA. Despite the rain, a fun show, and a great way to end the year.
I finished off with a trip to see the Rose Bowl floats with a good friend, followed by lunch at The Only Place In Town at Sierra Madre.
This week it is back to work and next week, back to making some more music. The links below are to the latest LA Lyon release. "Let's Make Something Happen." Check it out if you haven’t already!
I hope your holiday season was spent making memories with the people you care about. Although I usually don’t make New Year’s resolutions, that is one I plan on doing. Spending 2023 making great memories!

Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/1htM73ZLUOUr7br5xpsq6t
Link: https://music.apple.com/album/1655150709?i=1655150710

The "Perfect" Holiday Season

12/20/2022

I have always loved Christmas, even when I became an adult. I started hosting a Christmas Eve open house when I moved to California and the tradition has continued for over twenty years. Kids who started coming when they were barely walking, now bring their partners and kids of their own. It has become the highlight of my holiday season, getting to catch up with what I like to refer to as my “California Family,” not related by blood, but by choice.

Even though it was something I loved doing, there were years it was stressful. In fact, if I am honest, most years it was stressful. Lack of money, lack of time, trying to make everything “perfect.” Would the turkey be too dry? Would I get the house clean enough? Would everybody like their gifts? Would everything get done on time?

There were years I stayed up late wrapping gifts and got up early to get food started. Some years I even had to work the afternoon of Christmas Eve, which meant I was even crazier than usual. Yes, there were years I even broke down in tears at some point during the holiday season, feeling overwhelmed by trying to get it all “perfect.”

This year has been different. Yes, I started a little earlier than usual (Thanksgiving came a little earlier this year, which helped) but I think I am going to have a perfect holiday season.

How do I know? Because even though my artificial tree has lost more needles than a real one, Aja has already broken a couple of ornaments and my quest for excellent gifts has resulted in a lot of gift cards, I am planning to spend time with people I care about. We will laugh, reminisce about the past and talk about what we are hoping for in the future.

The best thing about growing older, is you start to believe things that you have been saying for years. Like that it isn’t about the food or the presents. The holidays are about the people you get to spend it with.

You also realize that Christmas is not forever. If the pandemic taught us anything, it was that life the way we always knew it could change just like that. There were holidays we couldn’t be with the people we wanted to be with and some people we could never be with again.

So this year, if the cookies I bake get burned or the potatoes don’t get done before everyone shows up, I won’t be crying. If I have the people I love around me, I will be fine.

Wishing you the perfect holiday season.

Why Spotify is my favorite music streaming service

12/5/2022

I have a confession to make. I have a large cd collection and I spend a lot of time listening to my collection. To say I was late to the party of streaming music is an understatement. Yes, I used I Tunes back in the IPOD days. I even used Amazon streaming. But what I didn’t like was constantly having to buy music or download music.

The D-Man and I listened to Pandora a lot during the pandemic. I never really got into it, but he always talked about having to “train” it by giving thumbs up and skipping songs, which I thought sounded like too much work when I just wanted to listen to some music.

Enter Spotify, which I got on this year. I pay the ten dollars a month for the Premium plan which includes more than 82 million ad-free tracks, plus the ability to download your music directly to a device and get higher streaming quality. As a Premium user, you also can save tracks and podcasts for offline listening. You also get a month for free when you subscribe for the first time.

There is a free version, if you really don’t want to pay for your streaming, but there are other plans and some company partners that can give you the benefits of the premium without paying the full 10.00 per month.

What makes Spotify my favorite music streaming platform? I have yet to search for a song I want to hear or add and not found it.

It’s easy to make playlists, but there are a ton of great ones already created. The D-Man and I found one with live versions of some of our favorites that we had never heard before. There are playlists by types of music, moods and even weather (Chill Rainy Day Mix).

Best of all, there are new artists that you can discover and support. If you have ever said, “there is no good new music out there,” you have not been on Spotify!

Speaking of new music, I am getting ready to release a new song on December 16th and yes, it will be available on Spotify. See the link below for the new song and also for Ready To Love again, the first release. Enjoy!

Let's Make Something Happen
URI: spotify:track:1htM73ZLUOUr7br5xpsq6t
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/1htM73ZLUOUr7br5xpsq6t
Ready To Love Again
URI: spotify:track:7od3Ub9UE1NTC8PChgyZhf
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/7od3Ub9UE1NTC8PChgyZhf

A THANKSGIVING REMINDER

11/22/2022

A couple of weeks ago I was getting ready to watch a Thursday night football. I had finished my workout and was in the middle of taking a shower. Not a quick shower, but a full wash your hair shower. I had just rinsed the shampoo out of my hair and was going to turn off the shower to put in some leave in conditioner when the handle literally broke off in my hand. With the shower going full blast.

Need less to say, the football game suddenly took a backseat.

After drying off and throwing on a robe, I started dialing plumbers. It was close to 800 pm, so I wasn’t having much luck. Emergency plumbers coming out in the evening have gone the way of every other type of service since covid.

What to do? Turning off the water in the front of my house is not an easy task in the dark and even if I managed to get it off, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get it back on. Leaving the shower running all night was also not an option. I needed a handy man in close proximity to come to the rescue.

My neighbor popped into my head. Having lived next door to his family since he was a young boy, I had watched him grow up. I wasn’t sure exactly what he did for a living, but he drove a truck filled with tools and had a shed full of more tools in the backyard. Definitely the handy type.

I threw on some clothes, combed out my wet hair and ran next door. When his mother answered the door, I identified myself, since with no makeup on and my hair resembling a drowned rat, I wasn’t sure she was going to recognize me.

Hearing what was going on, she immediately called her handy son, who happened to be home in the back house. She said he would be over in a few minutes.

He arrived, accessed the situation (a broken stem), turned off the water, spent an hour trying to get the broken part out, went to Home Depot to get a new part and fixed the handle. (Turns out what he does for a living is plumbing.)

After three hours, with order restored, I asked what I owed him and he told me, “Nothing. You have always been a good neighbor to us, so this is just a good neighbor thing.”

I did manage to get him to at least take some money for the part he bought, and I threw in some Amazon gift certificates, but that was no where near what it would have cost me if I had been able to get someone out. Not to mention my water bill if the shower had been running for 24 hours.

The word hero gets thrown around a lot, but that night, he was my hero. No, he didn’t jump in front of a train or lift a car off me, but he saved me from a lot of stress and inconvenience. Not because he expected anything back, but because he thought it was the right thing to do.

I know being a good neighbor, or just opening a door for someone happens every day. More than all the bad things that people do to each other that gets all the press. It’s just hard to remember sometimes.

This Thanksgiving I have so much to be grateful for. The big things, like health and love and a roof over my head. But if we go around the table at dinner and say what we are thankful for, I will say, “My hero neighbor with plumbing skills.” Because he didn’t just fix the shower. He reminded me of all the good that people do that no one ever hears about.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful day of gratitude and love.

LEARNING NEW TRICKS

10/26/2022

I am going to admit something I am not very proud of. I hate learning new things. I am not talking about learning a new word of the day or being in a work meeting and hearing about some new product that we are going to be rolling out.

I mean having to go through the pain of trying to learn a new skill. I hate it. It is difficult and it sucks.
This isn’t something that happened as I got older. I never liked it. When I think about learning new things, I always equate it with lots of tears, lots of stress and a lot of frustration.

A couple of examples come to mind.

I got a great job offer several years ago using a software I was familiar with but didn’t know how to use. I was honest during the interview and said if they would provide training, I was sure I could pick it up. They offered me quite a bit more money than I was making and promised the training would happen. I jumped at the offer.

My first day, I learned the person who was supposed to train me, had literally run crying from the building the Friday before I started never to return. A definite red flag.

The training never happened, and I was left pretty much on my own with a big thick manual trying to figure out how to do my new job. There was no You Tube or websites to search for information. I was on my own.

I cried nightly. I finally managed to get a former co-worker to come to my office for a day to give me some training. I still remember the joy of getting stuff from the software to just print!

I eventually became not just a SME at that company but learning that software changed my entire career path and led me to where I am in my career today.

The second example was learning how to put together sequenced music for my band. Having little understanding of music theory and even less programming experience, I was alone, trying to figure out how to add backing tracks of keyboard and horn sounds so I could keep my four-piece group sounding big, but not having to spend big for extra members.

Again, no You Tube or website help. I worked from a huge manual. I spent many nights frustrated and in tears.

I remember one night staying up until after 200am trying to get some changes I made to a sequence to save. I woke up the next morning for work, tired and defeated. I was standing in the shower when I suddenly had an epiphany of how to fix the problem. The fix worked and I went on to do hundreds of different sequences over the years. Those sequences became the basis of many gigs and lots of good times making music.

Which brings me to my latest endeavor. Writing and releasing original music.

When Eric, my former bass player, first brough up the idea of doing some writing together, I was excited. I had dabbled in doing original music during my early years of singing but had never really given it the time and attention it needed to fully develop. Add to that, I had never gotten very proficient on any instrument, which limited how and what I could create.

Nowadays not playing an instrument doesn’t mean you can’t write songs. Band Lab and Garage Band are two software programs that I have been learning that let you put together songs and collaborate with other songwriters.

But working on the music is just one piece. Once you finish it, there is setting up a distributor, getting the music in the online stores and promoting it so people find it. Don’t forget artwork for the single and making sure it fits within a certain size.

All of which I am a total novice at. Proven by the first release Eric and I have done, a song that we reworked from something originally written years ago called “Ready To Love Again.”

Figuring out the artwork and getting everything set up with the distributor was harder than I thought it would be. Some buttons didn’t get clicked so instead of being out and ready to stream, we were delayed by over a week.

Instead of nothing to reference on this learning process, there is an overwhelming number of videos and information and how and why you do things, much of it conflicting information. Easier than no information, but harder to sort through.

So why is this old dog learning new tricks? I have been asking myself that for months. Why not just spend my evenings watching “Dateline” or my celebrity crush Wayne Brady on “Dancing With The Stars?”

I think I got the answer the other night at my Cycle class. I wasn’t in the best of moods and as we were finishing up the class, I was reflecting on how much I wanted to go home and lay on the couch.

Then as we were finishing up our cool down, it started. Our new song. My instructor had downloaded it and was using it for the final section of the cool down. There it was blaring on the cycle room stereo. A song I had written and sang. No, it wasn’t the same as hearing it on the radio. It wasn’t a Grammy nomination. But I felt an excited feeling I had never felt before and it ended my grumpy mood.

Yes, learning new things sucks. Yes, sometimes I just want to watch some “American Greed” while having a little wine, but that feeling when you conquer something you have never done before. That feeling when you build or create something for the first time. Well, it just keeps you coming back for more.

Check out my new endeavor by searching on Spotify, Amazon and I Tunes for:
Ready To Love Again
L A Lyon
If you like it, add it to your playlists!