(Yes, yes, I know — it’s so fucking good to be hard, too. But we’re not going there! This is a tasteful blog!!) (I know, like — since when??)

Anyway. I digress already!!

Last night, at the Rowland S. Howard Pop Crimes tribute in London, Nick Cave sang “Shivers” and it was so fucking amazing. I am so serious. His voice was incredible. The song sounded so beautiful.

I wasn’t there, obviously. I was toiling away for hours, here at my mini-desk in Crazeysburg, working on Girl in the Night. But people who actually were there began posting to Instagram right away. Even Nick Cave’s wife posted to Instagram right away — a 59 second video of him singing. (Yeah, I know — I was kinda thinking: really? you think you ought to be doing that? setting that kind of an example and all?) Still, I was indescribably grateful because the song sounded so fucking good.

I knew it had to be on YouTube somewhere — the complete performance of that song. And I hate supporting that kind of thing because, in America anyway, that is a total violation of all sorts of copyrights. It’s not an American song, or an American performance, and probably not an American uploading it to YouTube, so I don’t know the actual laws on that, but still. I don’t like to support that kind of thing. However, I did find it immediately and I did listen to it twice.

Jesus, it was so good. It made me feel so happy — Nick Cave’s voice has never sounded better. Really. I feel certain that Rowland S. Howard was smiling all over that performance.

Well, regarding the new segments of Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. If you’ve read them, you’ll see that they are indeed quite different from the other segments of the book. I’m not sure why they came out that way, but they did.

I know that some of the guys and gals I met in the mental hospital will reappear in a later “Letter” and it will likely be more graphic in nature — I fell in love in the hospital, but I also did have a ton of sex in that place (and I never got caught, even though a few times, it was by the skin of my teeth, as they say. A lot of the other kids in there did get caught having sex, and when that happened, the Administration came down really hard. There was really hell to pay then, because the hospital was legally obligated to tell the parents, and so then the parents got involved and you can just imagine how awful that was for the teenagers. Anyway. I never got caught.).

(Oh, and there was this one girl in there that I really just hated and she hated me. And she was so jealous that I was having all that oral sex with the blue-eyed blond boy — and he was really cute and he did really excel at his, well, craft or whatever. But that girl was so jealous that she finally convinced him, behind my back, to have sex with her, too. But for some reason, she actually had intercourse with him. And then she told me. Because she wanted to hurt my feelings. And it hurt like crazy — although I wasn’t a big fan of intercourse and couldn’t really imagine why she thought that was better than having oral sex because, I’ll tell you, that boy was good at it. But, regardless. Me being that easy- breezy 1967-type of no-strings gal (see the recent Glen Campbell post and “Gentle on My Mind”), I tried to act like I wasn’t really, really hurt by this. Well, then…as God would have it… the girl’s Fallopian tubes swelled up! It got really bad. So they made her go to the gynecologist, too, and he of course, discerned that she’d been having intercourse and she got into HUGE trouble. Just huge. Because they told her parents and her dad was a freaking minister. Seventh Day Adventist, to boot. Really strict and conservative, and she got into so much trouble; she was put on room arrest and all her privileges were taken away. And then some other female-organ complication ensued wherein she had to have an enema, too. Poor thing. I was de-lighted.)

Okay, anyway.

For whatever reason, #6 & 7 are just really different segments of the book. And I’m going to let them stand as they are, because that’s how they wanted to come out.

Well, it is continuing to snow here — like, for real. Snow everywhere, and it’s accumulating. So that’s really nice. I love snow.

And yesterday afternoon, Wayne finally called me from NYC to tell me he loved the new version of Tell My Bones and he didn’t see anything wrong at all with the ending.

So I guess I’m signing off on it. And moving forward. It’s such a weird feeling. I know that more tweaks will happen as the readings and the rehearsals and then the play itself is actually underway, still, for now, the play is done. And it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that because I’ve been working on this theatrical adaptation of Tell My Bones since 2016.

Plus, it also means, we are indeed finally moving forward. Wow. Exciting. I know that some really talented people are going to get pulled into these roles — I just know it.

Well, today, I’m going to get back to In the Shadow of Narcissa. While researching more potential small presses to send Blessed By Light to (in the event I ever hear back from any of the other publishers I queried and they decline it), I did notice quite a few chapbook publishing options for a book like Narcissa. So that was cool. And yesterday, I got a really nice comment from an online reader, and it sort of solidified for me that, even though Narcissa is getting emotionally difficult for me to write, it will be a really, really good thing to keep moving forward with it. So I’m going to get back to that today.

Before I close, Wayne told me the coolest story yesterday.  In NYC, a lot of people sell used books on the street as a way to make money. And over a year ago, Wayne bought a hard cover edition of Chuck Berry’s Autobiography. The guy selling it only wanted two dollars, even though Wayne offered to give him more than that because it was a hard cover. But all the guy wanted was two dollars.

So Wayne gave him the two dollars and then took the book home, set it on a coffee table and then, over a year later, finally decides he wants to read it. He opens the book and it’s not only a first edition, but it’s signed by Chuck Berry. And not only is it signed by him, but there’s also a personal inscription because Chuck Berry apparently actually knew the guy who was buying the book.

So, wow. That was a really cool thing to get for two dollars. But then, as Wayne is reading the book, in small chunks, on subways and on city buses, etc., he was then in the Union Club yesterday, on Park Avenue, still reading the book and suddenly a $50 bill falls out from between some of the back pages! And he was, like, “Where the hell did that come from?” So he flips through the back pages of the book and there was a ton of money in it! Over $200 in 50s and 20s!! And it had been sitting like that in the apartment of over a year.

And on top of all that — Wayne said that the book is actually really good!

Isn’t that an amazing story?! All right. I’m gonna scoot and get down to work here. Tomorrow is all about Abstract Absurdity with Peitor again, so I really want to try to focus on Narcissa here today.

Have just a wonderful Thursday, wherever you are in the world. I’m not gonna leave you with what I would really love to leave you with today, but I just don’t think it’s okay to do that. So I’ll just leave you with this. It’s from an Australian news site, and I’m guessing there’s a copyright on the photo, too, but I can’t find a name (and I did look).  Okay, I love you guys. See ya!