Sill sick, ugh. How long can these things possibly last , we ask ourselves???? I finally gave in and called my Doctor who gave me Medicine, and said I would feel better in some few days. He gave my sickness a name too, but I cannot possibly SPELL it , so to keep things simple we shall just refer to it as ” The Terrbile Illness of Doom “

The Terrible illness of Doom, Jody and I all went to Madison yesterday to see our friends John and Krissy Scalzi, and despite the fact that John is very funny and every time he said something , I coughed up another bit of lung, we had a great time. He has a mighty fun Blog himself, which you can read at http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/

( someone must teach me how to do that thing where you highlight a name and can click on it, apparently it is not hard and even I should be able to master it, terrible illness of doom and all )

Another of our friends, Maureen, was down at the convention too . Maureen is an artist who made a pair of Doc Martin boots for each of the Endless and donated them to the Fiddlers Green Auction last fall for the CBLDF. I fell head over heels ( HEELS?? I kill myself! )( Might want to start laying off the cough medicine tho… ) in love with the Desire Boots and won them then. In fact the very first letter I ever wrote Malena, way back in December, talked a lot about those boots. Malena really loves those boots too, ( how could one not? Knee hight, red leather , with gold chains??? ) Anyway, Maureen has offered to make Malena a pair too , which made me, and will make her, very happy. You can see pictures of all the Endless boots over at : http://www.stardust-and-alchemy.com/portfolio/fgdmboots/docfun.html

Now today has turned lovely, and it is the last day for getting in the garden, as I am going back to LA on Thursday and need to work inside the rest of the week. Jody is still here and willing and our good friend Chris the Fop is coming to lend a hand, and it is my dearest hope that we can get the thing planted. Evil Racoons have been DIGGING UP my tomatos , I think they like the organic food I have been putting down for them ( for the tomatos, not the racoons) and I am at my wits end. My boss has ordered a couple of Scare Squirts which out to fix the buggers. ( motion activated sprinklers they are )

Love, light, tomaots and cough medicine,
Lorraine and the Terrible Illness of Doom

Wow! I feel special. I do I do! I just finished doing a reading for this wonderful girl named Fiana. Fiana told me she found out about me through Adelphia.net. So, I go see what they’ve got posted…and what do I find?
Amara. A role playing game created by Emma Honkala.

She posted MY photo as Amara. Yeah! Isn’t that the sweetest thing ever? I tried to find her email address to thank her but, no luck so far. So, if Emma ever reads this…I say THANK YOU! I’m honored to be the Amara poster girl.
Love ya!

Amara-Malena

Yeah! Our shop is up and running. We currently have amethyst soap, goddess oils, and bath crystals. Shop with us and take a little magic home today!

Lorraine a’ Malena Shop

Many thanks to everyone who wrote me Get Well Soon’s! I am much better now, nasty virus it was tho…

Malena has been working all day on photos for the cd booklet. Right now she is showing me, via webcam , all the photoshopping she has been doing. ( Apparently when ” liquified” I look like Renee Zellwegger. Go figure. ) Not sure webcam is the best WAY to do this, but we are having fun. She has a mock up of the booklet nearly done and will be sending it to Chris Ewen for tweaking and putting together. Many photos and spiders and webs and sparkles and such. Choosing the photos is going to be hard , we have SO many lovely ones….

I think that the Lorraine a’ Malena Shop is just about up and running, but Malena can tell you more. Just a couple more months and we will have music! We are still trying to figure out how to post the video from the Garrison Keliior concert, so that ought to be up soon too. Talked about T-shirt plans today too.

I am bound and determinded to get the Garden in this week. It can rain, ( or snow still in this part of the world, kid you not ) I’ll go out in the mud, sleet , hail or tornado, but this garden WILL get growing. My little tomato plants are ready to go into the ground, all 72 of them, I have the herbs, all the fancy organic Things one needs for veggies to be happy little guys and this garden will Grow! Everyone who comes over this week is going to get put to work, builders, fed-ex guys, the UPSman. I may invent a Plumbing problem just to get a couple of them over too. Jody Wurl and I are going to Wiscon to see our friend John Scalzi on Sunday ( I talked her into coming on Saturday , ” oh, why don’t you come and spend the weekend? We will have SO much fun…” Mwwwaaaahahahah!!! ) and if this garden is not in , we shall plant by the light of the Moon!

Which actually sounds kind of fun. Wish Malena was here, too…..

Love and little growing things, Lorraine

Here’s a photo from our last Alter Ego shoot. Mr. Gorgeous is a great photographer as well as a famous artist.

Malena Medium Cool

Speaking of greats, I almost forgot to tell you about Lojo. Being with Lojo and Lorraine, I was painfully aware of my fashion doll mannerisms. These dames have got guts… and grit too. Lojo would tell this insane biting jokes between takes that kept me ROLLING! You know, their nasty but you have to laugh? She is quite a character and as Adam said, “Man, that *i*ch can sing!” She has that rusty sexy sound goin’ on. Melissa Etheridge is soon to be out of a job. (M.E. is one of my BIG heroes so I say it with LOVE) But the truth is the truth baby! I can’t wait for you to hear all this cool music. Ok, Now I must post photos and practice because honey, we are taken over this town!

la la L.A. Malena

Watching Garrison Keillor perform was a very surreal moment for me. Everything was improv and everything was perfect with his performance. Instantly I knew I was in the room with a master. (Kinda makes you nervous knowing your up next. hee hee)

However I had my secret weapon, Fabulous Lorraine. I must tell you, there IS a reason why people call her that. It’s not just some stupid self worshipping stage name, in case you were wondering. Lorraine is a mixture of Bette Midler and Janis Joplin. And I would say that about her even if I hated her! So you KNOW I’m set on the stage. Yeah baby! We’re set up like Penn and Teller. She’s the mouth, I’m the silent smiler. Hey, it works.

The crowd was lovely. The type of crowd you want to give your ultimate best to. Tea and Corpses was my personal favorite of the evening. And as an added bonus, Lorraine’s Boss took some digital footage of us. Yeah! When I was flying home I met this Oracle computer wiz who showed me how to upload our MPG. Hey when your doing something inspired, blessings just come out of the sky. And they do with this project…. Every day. I’ll give you another example, The Tim Malloys have offered to play with us. Let me explain the true grandeur of this offering to you. The Tim Malloys consists of two ****ing cool amazing musicians, Adam Stemple and John Sjogren. Man can those two teach me a thing or two about performing, and I hope they will.

So here I sit, writing away on my computer in L.A. contemplating the wonder I was involved in this weekend. I am still in awe.

I must now return to potions and lotions, readings and roses, and practicing fine music over a video cam.

Malena

Lots of news certainly today, and I may be far to tired to actually put it down in an intelligent and witty manner, it’s all catching up with me, but I will do my best here…..Malena is currently on a plane back to LA and I am certain she will add her tired and sleepy bits once she gets home, if I forget anything of import.

Sooo…I went down to the Cities on Thursday night and practiced some with Adam Stemple, and met up again with the one and only Lojo Russo. Haven’t been in the same town as her in months and we had wonderful fun. We had some fine time playing music and with the feeling of ” You’re never to old” took off for the Irish Clubs at about Midnight. Saw the Irish Brigade ( LOVE Mike Wallace!! ) and a suprise set from the Wild Colonial Boys , a band who everyone has been telling me I need to see, and I was NOT dissapointed, very fun stuff they are.

This puts us back to the house we were staying at , at about 3:00am and we were up at 5:00am to get the Malena from the airport. Lojo and Malena get on like they have known eachother for years ( Malena does that to people ) and we eat and go back for a long lovely sleep. ( ok, so we get back at 8:30 and need to be up by 10:00 )

11:00am in the Studio for the first day of recording…It’s all about Lojo and she is magic. We have her two tracks down, tho sadly, not in a form we can MP3 here on the website, soon, soon….I wish I could say more but she came, she rocked, we recorded….

Sleep until Saturday…..On Stage with Garrison Keillor .This is where it starts to get interesting and I am not sure I can write about this expierence , doing it justice. Wonderful wonderful time! He is as lovely and cool in person as he is on the radio. Extreemly professionial, very on the ball, and seeing him perform is person , you realize just how very very good he is. We had a great time. We closed out the first half of the show with ” The Tea Song ” , ” Sonnet in the Dark ” and ” With Someone Like You” and finished off the night in the second half with a Dan Bern song called ” Marilyn ” . Adam Stemple, of course, backed us up, with many thanks sent his way, and also to everyone who came to the show, friends and new fans alike, your support meant much to us. We had so much fun!!!

I am not sure if there are any pictures ( WHAT was our state of mind that we forgot to take PICTURES??? Go figure…) but , this is very exciting, my boss managed to, being very savy with the digital camera, get some footage of the us at the show! And as soon as we edit it down and figure out how to do it, it will be up on the website! This makes us very happy indeed….

It was a fine show for any show, let alone a first gig , and it went very well indeed, we are very happy with the way it all turned out. ( tho the phrase ” A little trial by fire never hurt anyone ” does come to mind, ) but I don’t think we were overly nervous. We love to be on stage and enteraining people, and could not have had a better venue. Malena is an amazing performer and singer and it certainly does bode well for us as a band, I would go on stage ANYWHERE , anytime with that women!!!!! She has a knack for being in the right place at the right time and knowing what to do when, AND she has perfect pitch and timming, something I lack, which does us well , I adore her more today than yesterday ( which is REALLY saying something …)

I will admit tho that on the way home from taking Malena to the airport tonight I was thinking over the show and recalling the encore, with everyone on stage , where we did Good Night Ladies, and I was remembering that Garrison took my hand and drew me up to the mic with him to sing, something which didn’t phase me at the time. I thought, ” oh, this is what we do now, ” and I was only concerned with doing things right and taking cues correctly. I drew Malena up too and then everyone sang. It was only on the drive back today that it hit me……

-I- was on stage with Garrison Keillor, holding hands and singing???????

Sometimes life is Magic like that.

Magic Music and Gigs for All!

Lorraine

I’m off to the Cities tonight , to practice with Lojo ( www.lojorusso.com )and ( Adam www.adamstemple.com ) for the recording tomorrow and the gig the day after. In just under 12 hours I will go and get Malena from the airport and we will try and get a little sleep before going in the studio, so we can look, uh, well, I suppose at this point I am hoping for awake.

All very exciting, Lojo is an amazing performer, I have known her now for years , and she has played on Flash Girls cd’s and Folk UnderGround’s as well. She is a mighty fine songwriter and one of the songs we are recording is hers ” I ( heart ) Stephen Merritt. The other is an old tune from Belfast called ” I’ll Tell Me Ma ” that she has arranged like the sweetest , most haunting thing ever, and she is going to sing that one, with Malena doing harmonies and me on my trusty fiddle.

The video conferencing is still going strong and makes us very very happy. My new I-sight camera has shipped so I will have some fun news next week.

Lots of fun news.

We might even figure out what we are going to WEAR at the concert! ( the music will be just fine )

Cameras and girls with Guitars

This web cam thing is great! Except when you forget you are being recorded and bite your cuticles AND do far worse things. That was me tonight. You never REALLY know how dorky you look until you get a web cam. Yes, Thank God Qwitchie loves me in all my domestic splendor. Of course at this point, neither of us have any clue what we are wearing to the benefit. I always say, “If worse comes to worst, I’ll throw a corset on over a black dress and be done.” I mean how can you go wrong with something that pushes up your bust, cinches in your waist and smoothes your hips?

I’m not even packed. I’ve been making potions and things for the shop. Since all our products are hand made, it takes a while. The lavender-geranium sea scrub is being stored in the freezer right now. When I return from Minneapolis, the shop will be about ready. I’ve got pages and pages of products to be posted on our site. One line I’ve been working on is “Goddess Oils”. You will be able to select the oil according to your needs. For example Qadesh is the Goddess of Fertility, so that oil would contain herbs such as Clary Sage which helps with Hormone problems and infertility. Of course all our products are “For entertainment purposes only” (Spoken in my radio announcer voice) due to the FDA and all of that. But be assured- I put all of my heart, might, mind and strength into everything I do. Otherwise, why bother right?

So, tomorrow I will paint my toes and get ready to be a diva again. Otherwise, I am just the weird Witchy lady on the corner that sings too loud while cooking her husband’s dinner. Hee hee

With love and orris root powder,

Malena (Witchy)