Yes, that’s me, doing Booty Core in my bubble in Crazeysburg. We now have 4 cases of the virus in the State of Ohio — all of them up near Cleveland, which is a couple hundred miles from me, and is a large metropolitan area with a busy international airport.
It’s interesting to see how the local media handles it, though, compared to the national cable news. Much more low key with no hysteria. Just a concern for the elderly and the at-risk people.
Well, last evening, Peitor decided to tinker with the new logo, and I love it yet again!! Here it is:
By the way, if you’re someone who usually views this site on your phone and you’re noticing that now a lot of the text gets misplaced directly after an image — I have no idea why it’s suddenly doing that. Or why some images cause it and some don’t. And I cannot get it to stop. So, sorry about all the scrolling…
Anyway. Life goes on.
I had sort of a rough day yesterday, trying to wrap my mind around several things. The most recent one being that we now have that amazing cinematographer onboard for Abstract Absurdity Productions. And because our concept is so cinematic and artistic and absurd, he’s willing to be part of our company profile. And we haven’t even made out first movie yet.
The reason that something wonderful like that causes me to have a rough day is because of that tendency I have to “have an idea” and then, sure enough, it turns into something like this. I’m excited, for sure, but it feels a little overwhelming. How am I supposed to really spend all that time in LA this summer? Maybe it will work out just fine, I don’t really know. But I’ve got so much on my plate ( and even before the Coronavirus, it was all up in the air, date-wise).
Peitor is clearly the “director” part of the company and I am the “producer” part — a ton of paper work for me and organizing and creating budgets. Not to mention that the scripts, that we create together, have to be on paper before we shoot them — even though these are micro-micro shorts that we’re talking about shooting in LA this summer. It’s still 3 of them. And a cinematographer who is willing to go to LA specifically to shoot those films — well, it has to be incredibly organized.
So when I got the flurry of texts late last evening, after having spent the day on accounting work for the company, and the web site nonsense, and trying to figure out how to be a film editor in the space of 14 seconds…
Okay, well!!
I just had a 45-minute phone conversation with Wayne, my ex-husband in NYC. And I got to unload onto him everything I was in the process of unloading here — plus some other stuff that’s really, really confounding me right now.
And he said: “You wouldn’t be Marilyn Jaye Lewis if things weren’t so complicated. You’re going to pull it all together — I already know this about you and you do, too.”
And he added that he was a big fan of mine. So that was very, very nice, right? I’ll tell you, my marriages work so great when I’m not actually married to the people. And I’m only partly kidding. And it does give me much food for thought. That’s for sure.
Anyway! Now it is almost noon and I need to get started here, gang! Thanks for visiting. I hope you have a really good Thursday, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys. See ya.
I did manage to take one seminar this afternoon on short film financing that was actually quite interesting.
And I did manage to sort of figure out a little about how to work the Lightworks film editing software. I watched the instructional videos. It does not look too complicated.
But earlier, I once again had another insane time trying to set up the web site. I am just so sick of these “new & improved” and allegedly “user friendly” web templates that only make you want to shoot yourself.
And while wanting to shoot myself, I attempted to call Peitor for his help and he was of course off doing yoga and listening to the tranquil sound of Tibetan singing bowls.
I thought that perhaps I should just put the silencer on my gun so as not to disturb him….
Just kidding, of course. I am not going to shoot myself.
I did manage to take a walk, though, to try to get my brain back on track. I took this cool photo of the beloved train tracks across from my house — looking west. (You can probably guess that when the sun sets, these tracks do indeed look awesome.)
Train tracks looking West
Then I had to do some accounting work for Abstract Absurdity Productions, and so that’s always fun.
And now my brain hurts.
But the good news is: Peitor has gotten us a great cinematographer!! Honestly. I can’t post here yet who it is, but he has agreed to be in LA to shoot three of our micro-micro shorts this summer.
(But now I seriously am going to shoot myself — I told you this was going to happen, right? That every single thing I needed to do this year would happen at the same time?)
Still. I am really happy, gang. But also really, really exhausted. I need to do Booty Core now and I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to find enough energy to get out of my desk chair. Perhaps I’ll just topple over and focus on floor exercises today…
Meanwhile, I love you guys. Have a really good evening, wherever you are in the world, okay? Thanks for visiting. (But please talk quietly, the bunnies are sleeping.)
I have to spend the whole darn day working on that new web site for Abstract Absurdity Productions or it is NEVER gonna launch!!! Fuck.
I hope that by now you had a chance to see our wonderful new logo!! I just love it. Peitor did such a great job. He had been trying to explain his idea to someone there in LA who actually designs logos, but then realized he was just going to have to do it himself if it was going to be anywhere close to what he was envisioning.
He’s been a record producer for decades and, as the Internet took over the music industry, he became really good at designing album cover art JPEGS, too, so he decided yesterday to just do our logo himself.
I am so happy with it!! It fills me with glee whenever I look at it. I’ll post it again here, in case you didn’t see it. This is just the rough image that he texted me last night:
Abstract Absurdity Productions new logo
Here’s an urgent update, on another, very different note!
The starlings are right at this very moment building a nest in my gutter but, for now, choosing a whole new area of the gutter to destroy!! This one is outside my upstairs bathroom window. Isn’t that just fantastic news??!! After I so patiently didn’t fix the part of the gutter they destroyed last Spring so that it would be all move-in ready for them this Spring??!!
Okay. Back to what I was saying.
Our meeting yesterday was not about script work at all, even though we are so close to finishing the script. Instead, we wound up working on business stuff and discussing what I needed to do to get the website launched (re-direct the domain, etc.); then get the YouTube and Vimeo channels set up; and the social media accounts set up, and we discussed the (absurd & abstract) game plan for social media once we launch.
It became quite a tidy little To-Do list for me, gang. I tacked it to the wall in front of my desk and my heart sort of sank. I cannot keep avoiding this stuff. It is absolutely never going to get done if I don’t just fucking do it.
So. I’m doing it.
Yesterday, I finally decided on 2 templates for the web site. I know the one I prefer so I hope it’s the one that will work for us. We’ll barely have any content when the site launches, so it shouldn’t be that difficult to set up. I just need it to be a template that will easily help us grow. (This template I use here for Marilyn’s Room is so freakin’ easy to use, it’s ridiculous. It is so user-friendly. I think I’ve been using it for about 5 years already. But it’s a magazine template.)
Anyway. It also became incredibly clear that I needed a better movie editing software thing on my desk top. So I had to research that. I settled on Lightworks, because it will be easy to upgrade to Pro if I ever need to. I’m not planning on becoming a film editor or anything (she says now — but the day’s young!). But I do need to be able to edit our video clips and upload them to the web site.
So guess what I get to do today (besides take 2 more webinars — another one on movie financing for short subject films and one on negotiating perks and credit placements, and back-end point deals, etc., etc.)? Yes, that’s right!! I get to learn how to actually use Lightworks now that it’s on my desk top!! Because apparently it’s not 100% user-friendly. And let’s face it — I am not (yet) a film editor, by any stretch.
Although I do have an Associate’s Degree in audio engineering. Yes! I’m technically a Sound Engineer. However, I have no desire whatsoever to be a Sound Engineer and so my skills are extremely outdated (analogue!!). But my point is, I can grasp this sort of stuff when I focus and pay attention. (I think that’s redundant, but it gives you an idea of how my mind can wander if I’d rather be doing something more important — i.e., looking at all things Nick Cave-related on Instagram).
But anyway. I’m guessing I can learn the basic Lightworks interface pretty quickly. But I have to do that pesky thing called: watch the videos and actually learn it. And I have to take those 2 web seminars. And I have to learn the new web site template and actually upload stuff to it and launch it.
I know! I’ve tried to tell you! Even though I do Booty Core now and look indescribably fantastic for someone who’s going to turn 60 at any moment; and even though the hair stuff really is working and my hair is really starting to look like I actually have some and it’s not falling out everywhere!! Even though all of that stuff is so blindingly difficult to ignore — Please don’t envy me for my truly glamorous life! A lot of fucking web seminars and other frustrating stuff go into making the magic happen.
All righty. Oh, in case you want to know. Now that I know for sure this stuff works, gang, here it is. (But if you buy it on Amazon, be forewarned that the company will strongly urge/bribe you to give them a 5- star review, which kind of irked me. But it does indeed work.)
Before I forget, if you saw my post about Weenie yesterday and how he is showing signs of potential kidney problems — he’s on his homeopathic drops now, maybe forever. And no more treats for any of them, ever. The salt content in those treats is through the roof. And I know this. But gosh they love them. And the worse the ingredients, the better they love their treats. But it’s got to stop.
Last night, they all wandered into the kitchen and stared at me, quite perplexed; their little expressions saying, “Have you forgotten something? Isn’t it treat time?” And I tried to explain to them that Weenie was sick and that I didn’t want him to die that horrible death that Daddycakes went through.
They acted like they didn’t understand a word I said. But today, they’re spellbound — glued to the windows and watching the starlings flit and flutter and build their nests hither and yon. So hopefully we can forget that treats ever even existed! And have 7 healthy, happy cats for a very long time.
Okay. I’m gonna scoot and start working on all that exciting stuff mentioned above!! Thanks for visiting, gang!! I hope you have a really great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world. I leave you with my breakfast-listening music from this morning. Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, with the appropriately titled Moanin’ from1958. Another true classic of jazz. If you don’t know it, give it a listen, you’ll probably love it (and want a martini or something!). (Even at breakfast!) All righty! I love you guys. See ya!
Until that French gal’s shadow puppet caught my eye, I was actually going to lead with a cute little image like this because it’s raining here today:
But shadow puppets are just so much better, right, gang??!!
Right!!
Okay, so guess what?
Loyal readers of this lofty blog no doubt recall that toward the end of 2019 and into the beginning of 2020, I was hard at work, fixing that character arc for the supporting female character in my play, Tell My Bones. And that once I finally nailed it — adding a new song and some Jim Crow themes about lynchings and slave auctions — I had a distinct impression that Sandra was going to switch gears (after all these years of my adapting this play for her) and want to play the supporting role instead of the lead role.
I knew that the new material for that supporting role had become just a real standout kind of thing.
So last night, here comes a text from the director of the play. He’d gotten a phone call from Sandra, who’s in rehearsals for something else right now up in Stratford, Canada, and she’s read the new version of the play now and she said that she wants that supporting role.
Obviously, I’m not surprised. And I’m not upset or anything at all like that. Just sort of interesting what happened with that supporting character, isn’t it?
For Sandra to go from a lead role, that also means being at the helm of 6 songs, to a supporting role with only one song. That’s kind of a strong statement, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the Coronavirus might delay the table-read in NYC in April. I’m still waiting to hear. (And I’m of course still wondering about that Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds tour that starts in Europe next month. As most of Italy tries to go on lock-down. And I saw this morning that Coachella is maybe going to postpone itself until the fall. I guess we’ll just see.) (I also saw that someone I follow on Instagram & on WordPress, posted that Coachella should postpone itself until it stops sucking.) (rrreow!!!)
Too funny. Okay.
Anyway. Back to me!
Today is all about Abstract Absurdity Productions. Again. It’s insane, how often it comes around now. (My idea, of course, to meet more frequently.) (My idea to start the whole darn production company…) And that handy schedule I created for getting that web site launched by April 1st is not exactly my friend. Every so often, I stop and wonder: Hmmm. Web site –shit! I gotta launch that thing in a couple of weeks! I still have no fucking clue what I’m doing!
So that’s cool. God knows I need more stress in my life. Every damn day. I am trying, though, gang. You know, to stay on top of things. (And to stop suggesting new things.)
If I hear myself say one more time, “You know what I was thinking?” I’m going to scream. Enough thinking already, Marilyn. Jesus. Just stop.
Well, the weather has been inching its way into Spring here. Last night, I slept with one of my bedroom windows open just a crack. And then all these little cat faces kept trying to press their little noses into that space and get some real air. Finally. After 6 months of having all the windows totally closed.
And I’ve been able to lower the heat a couple degrees, too.
Oh, and even though I still have the flannel sheets and two blankets on the bed, I slept in my little black chemise again last night!! I got super tired of looking at the Christmas PJs when I woke up in the morning. They just had to go. Winter is over & done and Spring is as good as here!
And next week — yay!! Cat birthdays all around!! Huckleberry and Tommy turn 8, and everyone else turns 7. (Except me, of course — I’ll still be 12.) (Wow, soon enough my cats are going to be older than me. That’s going to be so weird!)
Happy pre- birthday to my many cats!!
[Sad UPDATE: My sweet little boy cat, Weenie — my last remaining male cat — is showing signs of kidney problems. The same thing his daddy died from last Spring. No more treats for this little guy.]
All righty. I’m going to finish up the laundry here and then get started on Thug Luckless until it’s time to work with Peitor on the final scene of “Lita måste gå!” (aka “Lita’s Got to Go!”). Have a terrific Tuesday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I have nothing to leave you with today because I am still listening to “The Boy in the Bubble” and “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart.” So, instead, I’ll just leave you with this: a tender nursery rhyme from somebody’s wee bonny girlhood (not mine, for a change)! Enjoy it, regardless. I love you guys. See ya!!
Losing that hour yesterday by turning the clocks ahead, and then the super full moon during the night??!!
First, I fell dead asleep for 2 hours — couldn’t keep my eyes open. Then tossed and turned forever — mostly tossed. Then laid awake from about 2:11am until 4:17am, before falling dead asleep again until seven-fucking-thirty. What the fuck is that? And then I had to absolutely drag myself out of the bed — I was completely exhausted.
(Of course, it was International Women’s Day yesterday, so I guess I was just embodying the pure wonderment of being an international woman, which is primarily: Exhaustion.)
And all my usual morning stuff just took forever today because I felt like I was trudging through Jello, and so now I am sitting down at my desk 2 hours later than I normally do. And I hate that.
And I have a lot to do today!! Wash hair, do yoga, make a phone call, sit and ponder the intensely curious nature of Instagram for a very long time — you name it, and I’ve got to do it!
And all I really want to do today is work on Thug because I made some very interesting progress with him yesterday. (New novel-in-progress, Thug Luckless: Welcome to P-Town)
That part is actually serious — I am really on a journey with Thug now and I just love when a novel unfolds and takes me places I’m not expecting to go.
I’m still in chapter one, where he’s talking about his owner, Mavis, who has already died. And of course, chapter one is about finding his true voice in my head and figuring out what he knows and doesn’t know, since he’s an AI sexbot. And just how far along has he gotten in his experiences in P-Town before we join him in the beginning of the novel. Stuff like that has to come into my consciousness as it hits the page. So it takes a little while.
But it is such a cool feeling when the words come, and Thug’s personality comes, and Mavis herself becomes a personality posthumously. It just fascinates me. The words come, they’re on the page. I stop and re-read what I’ve written, and I’m sort of amazed that these are characters with emotional depth and a presence. Where does that come from?
Well, because of this extreme lack of time here this morning, I can’t tarry here. I’ve gotta scoot. But I hope you have just a really great Monday, wherever you are in the world! Thanks for visiting, gang. I’m leaving you with a song I hadn’t thought of in a really long time — until last evening, when I was suddenly unable to not think about it. It was a hit for Gene Pitney a million years ago, but Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds did a cover of the song on their 1986 album, Kicking Against the Pricks. All righty! Enjoy. I love you guys. See ya!!
“Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart”
Something’s gotten hold of my heart
Keeping my soul and my senses apart
Something’s gotten into my life
Cutting its way through my dreams like a knife
Turning me up and turning me down
Making me smile and making me frown
In a world that was small
I once lived in a time there was peace with no trouble at all
But then you came my way
And a feeling unknown shook my heart, made me want you to stay
All of my nights and all of my days
I gotta tell you now
Something’s gotten hold of my hand
Dragging my soul to a beautiful land
Something has invaded my nights
Painting my sleep with a colour so bright
Changing the grey and changing the blue
Scarlet for me and scarlet for you
I’ve got to know if this is the real thing
I’ve got to know what’s making my heart sing
You smile and I am lost for a lifetime
Each minute spent with you is the right time
Every hour, every day
You touch me and my mind goes astray
I gotta tell you now
Something’s gotten hold of my hand
Dragging my soul to a beautiful land
Something has invaded my nights
Painting my sleep with a colour so bright
Changing the grey and changing the blue
Scarlet for me and scarlet for you
Yes, this is my least favorite day of the year — the day when we move the clocks ahead one hour and everything inside me becomes discombobulated!
(And if you use google translate to read this blog, good luck with that word!)
Discombobulated: adjective – confused and disconcerted.
For some reason, it usually takes me several days to get used to losing that hour. And even though I usually only sleep 5 or 6 hours a night and can easily sleep a little longer and catch an extra hour of sleep, I really resent doing that because I am so possessive about Time –when I’m awake, that is.
My “wide awake, me-time” is really precious to me and I resent having to surrender even one hour of it just so that the country can get a little more time to have barbecues or something all summer.
Anyway!
So here I am.
Well, today I completed yet another one of those little Inner Being Dialogue journal thingies. I have filled 4 of those little journals in 9 months. I’m serious when I say it has changed my life. It really has. It has changed how I focus my mind. And if you have any interest at all in getting a better grasp on how reality works, beneath the surface of what we generally consider “physical reality,” and to perhaps get more efficient about scripting your own life, then I really, really recommend keeping one of these journals — or doing something similar to it.
It is simply your Inner Being talking to you. Like tuning a radio dial to a specific frequency and then the voices come. For me, writing it down resonates best for me.
Back when I first started keeping the journal, I was listening to a podcast about the Inner Being while doing yoga. And a guy said that when he first began meditating to specifically tune in to his Inner Being, his Inner Being said: “We are here.”
And this totally stopped me in my yoga tracks, gang, because that was exactly what happened to me when I first started my Inner Being journal. They said: “We are here.” Plural.
When I was a little girl, I was always very aware that there were these “people” watching me. I couldn’t point to them or anything; I could only feel them. They weren’t frightening to me at all. I didn’t think of them as angels or anything. Just people– plural — making sure I was doing okay.
One time, when I was 7, I was playing with a couple of my girlfriends after school and I mentioned, in passing, something about the people watching us. And they both said, “What are you talking about?”
ME (seven years old and quite cavalierly believing I was sane): “You know, those people who watch us. They make sure we’re okay.”
And neither of them had any clue what I was talking about and so I never, ever mentioned it again to anyone, ever. (It was around that same time that I also mentioned that “thing” that happens between your legs that feels so incredible, and none of my girlfriends had a clue what I was talking about then, either. There was a lot of stuff I started to just stop talking about.)
But the “people” were there. And I started to think that maybe my birth mom had sent them to look out for me and that, because of that, none of my non-adopted friends had any need to have people watching them. Whatever.
By the time I was 12 (just a really incredible year for me, apparently), I first started having a dissociated state of mind. An alternate world I was creating so that I could get away from my adoptive mother. It seems — as I’m trying to remember it now — that that was when I started to lose that connection to a sense of “people watching me.” At that point, I was starting to really sink into mental illness. By the time I was 14, I’d become really adept at splitting myself off mentally from my mother’s presence and going to that alternate world.
I had a different house there, an entirely different family. And that’s where I went as soon as my adoptive mother came into my field of vision every day. I can’t stress enough how terrifying that woman was to me. But the dissociated state wasn’t just a survival mechanism; it was the only place in my waking world where I could find love. It eventually got to the point that if I wasn’t hanging out with my friends, then I was in that dissociated state — living in another house, with a different family.
I remember one afternoon, when I was in my mid-twenties and living in the tenement on E. 12th Street in NYC, it suddenly occurred to me that the other world was completely gone. And I couldn’t remember when it left me. It was just totally gone. I remember telling my friend Jeffrey about it, and how startling it felt to realize it. And then directly on the heels of that realization, I found my birth mom, and then a couple years into that relationship with her and all my half-siblings, my birth dad came into my life.
So it’s interesting. Charting that gradual shift over the course of 25 years: benevolent energies watching over me; my mind splitting off to find a place of love; my birth family coming into my life and filling it with so much actual love.
And then, of course, it was also really interesting to begin those Inner Being dialogues, sort of out of the blue, and find a plurality of voices there. (I don’t “hear” the voices; I feel them. The words come.)
So I will begin journal #5 tomorrow morning.
On sort of a related note — people who know me well know that, throughout my life, my psychic abilities have been really pronounced. (I believe that we’re all psychic, but I also believe that if you don’t believe you are, you won’t recognize it in yourself. I think that our psychic perceptions are actually the larger part of what our minds receive, but because of our physical senses filtering most of that out, we have come to believe that what’s physically in front of us is information that’s more reliable than what we psychically perceive. But I believe it’s the other way around. )
And even though I cannot draw my way out of a paper bag — I have no artistic talent in that area at all — when I was living in that same apartment on E. 12th Street, the night before my birth dad contacted me, I was in a really inexplicable, heightened mental state. Just agitated beyond belief. Pacing the small apartment like crazy. My mind was on high alert about something but I couldn’t figure out what.
(After a lifetime of trying to find out who my birth father was, he suddenly called me from Nevada one evening, while I was watching a rerun of “The Andy Griffith Show” on television)
However, the night before the call came…
I had a set of colored pencils and I suddenly sat down at my kitchen table and began to draw — I was in a sort of hypnotic state. Just really intensely drawing. And this is what I drew:
And then, the following day, a phone call that I had been waiting for my entire life finally happened. And my birth father introduced himself to me. (And changed my life forever.) And in that very first phone conversation, he told me that he had been in the Navy during Vietnam and that his back had been severely injured on a flamethrower during a skirmish on the Mekong Delta.
And then he said, “I have no idea why I just told you that. I never talk about that.”
Isn’t that interesting? Plus, I had been making that drawing while he was on a phone call with the people in a little town in Ohio who were telling him that I existed — and he was freaking out. He didn’t know, until the moment that they told him, that he had a daughter anywhere at all. (I was already 28 when he found out about me.)
So there you go! Just a slice of the wonderment that we call Marilyn’s Mind.
All righty. I’m gonna scoot and get started around here. It’s cold out there today, but really sunny. Outside my window right now, I can see a little boy riding his bicycle! Like maybe Spring is right around the corner…
Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my intensely appropriate breakfast-listening music from today! “The Boy in the Bubble,” from Paul Simon’s Graceland, 1986. Another incredible album. If you’ve never heard this song, listen to it! It’s so cool. And catchy. And hypnotic and very upbeat. Okay. I love you guys. So much. Have a great Sunday. See ya.
“The Boy In The Bubble”
It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
It’s a turn-around jump shot
It’s everybody jump start
It’s every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart
And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry
Don’t cry
Today is just a really fresh and new day and I woke up feeling like I could think clearly again. I was getting a little bit fuzzy yesterday — and not in a good way. (Although I’m not sure if “fuzzy” has qualities of goodness and badness…)
That said, though, work with Peitor went great yesterday. We are almost done with the script for “Lita måste gå!” (aka “Lita’s Got to Go!”). Which is kind of astounding, all things considered, right?
We’ve only been working on this script (for an 8-minute film) for 15 months now. Yeah, I know — we each traveled a bit — one of us traveled a lot (I won’t name names but it wasn’t me). Plus we each had deaths in our families, etc., etc. So it’s not like we worked for a solid 15 months, but still. Way, way too long. But now we are really closing in on the finish line.
And what’s very interesting about all of this is that, this morning, I looked at the calendar and saw that the deadline I had randomly assigned for completion of the script is March 13th. Next Friday. Interesting, right? How making schedules can really have a positive influence on the momentum of things?
We also spent a lot of time going over organizational type stuff about how to best package the script for potential investors, because it’s a shooting script — all angles and blocking, sound cues and lenses, etc., and only 4 lines of dialogue. Although, at one point, a woman says, “Zuzu!” and at another point, a different woman says, “Oh!” But beyond that, only 4 lines of dialogue, total.)
At that point in our discussions, I mentioned to him that I got the official request to do the audition for that Literary Arts Fair — I’m reading a family-friendly version of “The Guitar Hero Goes Home,” which is an excerpt from my novel Blessed By Light.
And I said to him, “You know, it’s completely acceptable nowadays to submit the audition on video. You know, just do it on your phone and email it in. Everyone does that now.”
HIM: “You’re not everyone.”
ME: “I know, but it’s 2 hours of driving to read a ten-minute piece.”
HIM: “Are you whining?”
ME: “No. I’m just saying it’s a lot of driving.”
HIM: “But you miss the chance to actually meet the people — and to make that first impression. You know how important that is — you’ve been to finishing school.”
Jesus Christ. grumble grumble grumble. Don’t you just hate when people are right?
So I’m going to drive 2 hours for a ten-minute audition. Next weekend. And the festival itself is like a nanosecond after I will be with my new Swiss friends, seeing Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in Zurich. So I’m guessing that the minute the Arts Festival thingy is done (and I’m having jet lag or something), Sandra will tell me I need to be in Toronto to start the table reads for The Guide to Being Fabulous (our other play, which is being produced later this year).
I am, of course, exaggerating. Still. The reason God gave us 365 days in a year is apparently so that we can take 3 of those days and cram our whole entire lives into them. And then spend the rest of the summer just listening to crickets and watching the fireflies as the sun goes down because you have absolutely nothing left to do.
Anyway. I’m guessing it’ll all work itself out splendidly.
I’ve been wanting to mention that the gas prices around here have dropped to $1.95 a gallon!! I have not seen that kind of gasoline price in over 20 years. Seriously. I’m not exaggerating now. And also, when I did see those kinds of prices 20 years ago, it was when the cost of gas was starting to skyrocket and we considered $1.95 expensive. Weird, though, right? Now I stop and get gas even if I only need a quarter of tank or something, because I just can’t get over how cheap it is! Wow. (And this is on the heels of the cost of everything else in my life inching its way into the stratosphere. So it’s doubly nice.)
All righty. I’m gonna scoot. Get the day underway over here. Thanks for visiting, gang. I hope you have a really great Saturday, wherever you are in the world! And wash your hands and don’t touch your face, and all that. (Oddly enough, the friends I am closest to — meaning relationships, not distance — are each living in cities that are now in an official State of Emergency because of the coronavirus: Seattle, LA, and NYC.)
But anyway. Take care everyone. I’m on a Paul Simon kick here, still. So I leave you with the breakfast-listening music from this morning. An intensely upbeat and joyous tribute to love and those unexpected encounters that change your life forever!! Yay!! “Gone at Last,” his duet with Phoebe Snow from his truly timeless and amazing album, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975).
So turn it up and enjoy. (And remember, gang: all is fair in love, so keep those proverbial muskets of love primed & ready!) Okay. I love you guys. See ya.
“Gone At Last”
The night was black, the roads were icy
Snow was fallin’, drifts were high
I was weary, from my driving
So I stopped to rest for awhile
I sat down at a truck stop
I was thinking about my past
I’ve had a long streak of that bad luck
But I’m praying it’s gone at last
[CHORUS:]
Gone at last, gone at last
Gone at last, gone at last
I had a long streak of bad luck
But I pray it’s gone at last
Oo,oo,oo…
I ain’t dumb
I kicked around some
I don’t fall too easily
But that boy looked so dejected
He just grabbed my sympathy
Sweet little soul now, what’s your problem?
Tell me why you’re so downcast
I’ve had a long streak of bad luck
But I pray it’s gone at last
[CHORUS]
Once in a while from out of nowhere
When you don’t expect it, and you’re unprepared
Somebody will come and lift you higher
And your burdens will be shared
Yes I do believe, if I hadn’t met you
I might still be sinking fast
I’ve had a long streak of that bad luck
But I pray it’s gone at last
First off, I want to say that Nick Cave’s Red Hand File thing today was wonderful. He replied to a question involving some of his past often intensely provocative lyrics and how he handles them in the year 2020 — a time which has lost “its sense of humour, its sense of playfulness, its sense of context, nuance and irony“.
He wrote just a really well stated reply. And as usual, he doesn’t back down. If you’re a writer, it will definitely resonate with you on some level. You can read it at the link above.
For me, you know, so much of what I have written in my life was never, ever, even for a moment considered politically correct or acceptable in a public way. So I haven’t really had to brace myself for a future audience that might suddenly view it differently. (Unless of course that meant that suddenly my work was acceptable!! Yay! That would be so cool. You know — for my work to not always have to be read in private, or to exist in that segregated place.)
Actually, Valerie and I were talking on the phone about that the other night. How in the next century, after AI sexbots like Thug Luckless had become the norm and everybody owned one, my work would be considered classics of popular literature and they would be adapted for whatever the future form of entertainment would be — you know, 3D-hologram virtual reality streaming TV shows that might takeover a person’s entire living room and the viewer can become part of my overall erotic storyline. Right?
My future might be very bright in that regard. (Someone will find out for sure, but probably not me.)
My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades.
On a sort of Nick Cave-related note…
Today, the MP3 version of Rowland S. Howard’s acclaimed solo album from 1999, Teenage Snuff Film, is now available for download! Go get it at a (legal) download place near you!!
Okay. I can’t tarry today. It is once again Abstract Absurdity Productions day. (They seem to come around quite often now, don’t they?) I have to get some things done before my phone call with Peitor.
Have a really good Friday, though, okay? Thanks for visiting, gang. It means the world to me to have you here. I’m going to leave you with a killer song from Teenage Snuff Film — “Autoluminescent.” I love you guys. See ya.
“Autoluminescent”
I am blinding
Autoluminescent
I am white heat
I am heaven sent
I was a nightmare
But I’m not gonna go there
Again
Into the black hole
The house of no contest
Make mine a meteor
Rise me above the rest
I’m soaring through outer space
There is no better place
To be
I’m bigger than Jesus Christ
I’m greater than God in light
I am dangerous
I cut like the sharpest knife
I’m going nova
And I hope I can hold her
In
Into the darkness
I gave away myself
Slipped on the spiral stairs
Tumbling down the well
I fell on a soft spot
I’m white heat, I’m white hot
Again
Yes! I glanced out back this morning, as the sun came up, and saw that the cats were out there finally taking care of my yard!!
Gosh, I wish. (Loyal readers of this lofty blog are no doubt aware that there are a lot of homeowner chores that I am always trying to foist onto my cats.) (To no avail.)
What my cats do instead behind my back:
Okay, anyway!!
I had the most interesting day yesterday — for reasons I won’t blog about. I can only say that it was Instagram-related and I about wore out the pondering mechanism in my wee bonny brain.
However, what I will blog about is that I had a very productive time with Thug Luckless yesterday, too. And at one point, I was trying to find out how AI sexbots get delivered to their purchasers. Do they come fully assembled, standing up in a tall cardboard box? Do they come in responsibly-sourced wooden crates, filled with environmentally safe packing peanuts? I’m guessing they arrive fully assembled, though, right? You wouldn’t want to leave something important like that to hapless (and undoubtedly fully aroused) purchasers who will likely be extremely impatient at the very moment of the bot’s arrival.
Well, I could not find out any of that shipping information, but I did learn a bit more about the male AI sexbots — primarily, that they only manufacture about two males. The rest of them are females.
These AI sexbots are really quite interesting, but still kind of spooky. The eyes, mainly. I was talking on the phone very late last night with Val in Brooklyn (who is not actually in Brooklyn right now, she’s at her mom’s, up the Hudson, so we’ve been chatting more than usual) and one of the things we concluded is that the price of those sexbots will eventually come way down, so that everyone can afford one, but that it probably won’t happen in our lifetime.
But who knows, right?
I personally think AI sexbots are pretty cool. And like anything, I’m guessing that some people will go overboard with them and some people won’t. And then I told Val that, according to stuff all over Google, the feminists are all up in arms about the AI (female) sexbots because they objectify women. And we both laughed so hard about that. And she, in her Brooklyn accent, said, “Oh — ya think?”
Jesus. Just too funny. Why does it even have to be mentioned at this point? I don’t think any of us are stupid — not any of us; the world over. Those female bots are lurid as hell. And they are more provocative than any Playboy Bunny that God ever created — Bunnies being one of the most memorable creations in my lifetime that objectified women. And bots can be programmed to never say “no.” Plus, you don’t have to tip them. Obviously they objectify both women and men. Are we really going to write academic papers about this?
[No, we’re going to write experimental novels!! — Ed.]
Anyway. That whole phone conversation with Val aside.
I eventually realized that nothing whatsoever dealt with realism when it came to Thug Luckless so why be so worried that the way he arrived from the factory had to somehow be based on fact? So I just figured it out for myself and had him arrive fully assembled in a crate stuffed full of environmentally safe packing peanuts — primarily because I wanted him to have psychological vestiges of how it felt to have those peanut-things all over him, even though he was dressed. And the irony of the environmentally safe stuff arriving in a post-Apocalyptic town. And then how it felt to see his owner’s face — that relief as she finally pried open the crate and took him out. The feeling of sanctuary, you know?
One thing I will mention here: Apocalypse is a stupidly hard word to type. And I wrote a 600-page novel called Twilight of the Immortal, about Rudolph Valentino, and his breakthrough movie role was “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” So I was having to type that darn word all the time. It made me insane. For some reason, typing that word just forces me to become sort of dyslexic.
Anyway! I am really happy with my progress with Thug primarily because of that feeling that a new novel is underway; it’s a feeling of adventure and excitement and joy. So I am happy.
I’m happy about a lot of stuff right now, gang. I really am.
And today is going to be about washing my hair and doing yoga, and working on Thug. And, more than likely, thinking about Nick Cave, because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. (I’m of course wondering about that darn coronavirus and the start of the Ghosteen tour.) (And also this thing in NYC right now where things are getting dangerously close to blaming the Jews for spreading the virus.)
(And speaking of Jews — yesterday was John Garfield’s birthday. He was a famous NY stage actor and movie star and political activist. And he was my adoptive grandma’s first cousin. His dad and her mom were brother & sister. Poor Jewish refugees from Poland. If you keep up with my childhood memoir, In the Shadow of Narcissa, you will no doubt know that my adoptive grandma (paternal) was my favorite person in the whole world. And she loved her cousin, John. Happy belated birthday, John Garfield.)
John Garfield (Jacob Julius Garfinkle), 1913 -1952.
Oh, and I also want to mention that the combination of yoga, booty core, and glucosamine seems to be doing some really, really good things to my legs, gang. So we shall see!
All righty, I’m gonna scoot!! Have a really nice Thursday, wherever you are in the world. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with my very-late-last-night listening music as well as breakfast-listening music from this morning!! “Late in the Evening,” by Paul Simon, from his album One-Trick Pony, 1980.
This song was a hit when I first moved to NYC and I can remember hearing it while on a city bus, heading to see a movie, wondering how on Earth people afforded the price of movie tickets in NYC on a regular basis. NYC was some serious culture shock for me when I first got there. Like being on a whole different planet back then.
I don’t know — this song gave me something to cling to for a little while. And it’s nice to listen to it now because the song is actually really joyful, and all those difficult early days are so far behind me!
Okay. I love you guys. Take care. See ya!
“Late In The Evening”
The first thing I remember
I was lying in my bed
I couldn’t of been no more
Than one or two
I remember there’s a radio
Comin’ from the room next door
And my mother laughed
The way some ladies do
When it’s late in the evening
And the music’s seeping through
The next thing I remember
I am walking down the street
I’m feeling all right
I’m with my boys
I’m with my troops, yeah
And down along the avenue
Some guys were shootin pool
And I heard the sound
Of a cappella groups, yeah
Singing late in the evening
And all the girls out on the stoops, yeah
Then I learned to play some lead guitar
I was underage In this funky bar
And I stepped outside to smoke
myself a “J”
And when I came back to the room
Everybody just seemed to move
And I turned my amp up loud and I began
to play
And it was late in the evening
And I blew that room away
The first thing I remember
When you came into my life
I said I’m gonna get that girl
No matter what I do
Well I guess I’d been in love before
And once or twice I been on the floor
But I never loved no one
The way that I loved you
And it was late in the evening
And all the music seeping through
Marilyn's Room 