S.F. Katemas

[Karen Newcombe <kln@staralliance.com>]

Yesterday's party in San Francisco was well-attended and had a wealth of
cheerful, handsome and brilliant guests.  These wonderful Love Hounds
gathered in the living room watching laserdiscs, videotapes, and listening
to some interesting musical rarities.

Among the Love Hounds present were: Andy Marvick, John Light, Erin, Darren
Albers, Robb McCaffrey, Brian and Alanna, Lunatic-1, Steve Berlin and his
wife, Peter and Julie and their handsome baby boy Perrin,  Ed Suranyi, John
Souza, Carla Danella, bold kittycats Nigel and Santiago, terrified
kittycats Tuesday and 99, and many others I'm too groggy to remember -- I
hope someone else will refresh my memory, and my apologies to those I've
left out.  

As usual we had a ton of food -- including a delicious applesauce cake that
Alanna and Brian brought and the ubiquitious honeybaked ham which is now
but a shadow of it's former self.

Early in the day we watched laserdiscs and as the crowd gathered there was
a special announcement: someone in Europe had sent several people copies of
the recordings believed to be part of The Early Years, with the admonition
that everyone have a chance to hear them.  So we put it on and heard these
lovely songs -- some of which are ENTIRELY NEW to us.  I'm sure others will
fill you in on the details.

We also listened to the new unplugged cover of TWW by Maxwell, a newly
discovered copy of The Magician of Lublin without the annoying voice-over
(thank you Tina and Italian Fan Club for sharing!), and a very fuzzy copy
of the Sexual Healing cover, obviously recorded at the last convention.  

Peter brought a lovely recording of a local singer/musician whose name I'll
have to give you tomorrow -- she'll be featured on the "Kate Bush Covered"
recording.  I predict that her beautiful rendition of "L'Amour Looks
Something Like You" will be a hit with all of you.  Her name tomorrow.
Peter also donated a CD by her and two cassettes of Kate rarities as door
prizes.

Two newly arrived videos from Australia were also shown -- one was a brief
interview with an excited Kate before the London Palladium show and the
other was from that same time period -- the "Cherry Ripe" interview.  Andy
can tell us the name of the person who donated these Australian videos. A
long tape of TV appearances and advertisements from Italy was also shown --
many of the interviews were from the TSW release, and seemed to be part of
the taped interview that we saw sections of in the U.S. -- possibly this
interview was shared by several news agencies.

Later we had our traditional rousing round of Kate Bush Jeopardy, in which
many puzzling and highly obscure questions were formulated by IED, leading
to furrowed brows, groans of astonishment, whispered consultations by the
teams, cheers for correct answers.  

Like the Caucus Race in Alice in Wonderland, everyone gets a prize -- so we
put all the names in a hat, held up each prize, and pulled a name to see
who got it.  If people already had the item they could pass and we'd draw
the next name.

Thanks need to go out here to Ron Girardin, who donated a pile of prizes
which were highly appreciated by those winning them:
- Darren won a copy of the Love and Anger Cassingle
- Robb McC won the TWW CD-single
- Brian won a TWW 7" pic disc
- Alanna won a TWW 7" single
- Stev0 won a Cloudbusting 12"
- Lunatic won a TWW Poster Bag single
- Karen won a German 12" HOL single

Other prizes were a TWW video, an Aspects of the Sensual World CD, a CD by
the woman who did the cover of "L'Amour" whose name I'll post tomorrow, and
two cassettes of Kate rarities.  The grand prize was a copy of the rare new
songs from Europe -- won by a delighted John Souza.  

As the party wound down we watched some more videos and people gradually
drifted out.  The final group left around 8PM, Tuesday and 99 came out from
under the bed, and the entire household collapsed almost immediately into a
deep slumber.  

Karen  kln@staralliance.com