Monthly Archives: March 2025

A Terrific Tuesday!

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I guess that will be me today, gang.

It is going to be such an incredibly beautiful day. And Peitor is unavailable today because he has meetings in LA. And I have my final day off of THREE days off in a row! And I don’t feel like spending it cleaning the house…

So I’m driving out to the shooting range to find out if I remember anything that I learned two weeks ago.

I’ll probably also wash my car today. Maybe take a walk later. But, for the most part, I’m going to try to just take it easy.

(Driving to the shooting range music??)

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Well, one of my cats seems to be bleeding. I’m not sure which one — I just saw the blood stains. I’m guessing there was a cat fight during the wee small hours of the night that I was blissfully unaware of.

Ever since Big Blackie was killed by that car, Little Blackie has wanted to be inside my house.

She is not my cat, but here she now is, inside — I’m guessing, eternally. And she seems to have upset a couple of the foster cats.

Kon Tiki is still officially the only cat who won’t come inside (and stay inside, I mean). I always open the door to let her in, but nowadays, she takes one look at the 722 cats in the kitchen, then she looks at me and says, “Are you out of your fucking mind? I’m outta here!” And then she heads right back outside. And then she sits and stares contentedly at the sky.

Well, some happy news!!

I officially booked the hotel room for Kara and me, for when we go see Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds on May 2nd. And — NO! — I didn’t book another no frills hotel. I booked a stupidly expensive one, but only because it is right next to the theater and has valet parking, so once we get to town, we won’t have to do anything but simply BE there. Yay!

Here it is — the Hotel LeVeque! And way down at the ground floor, to the right, you can see the tiny red vertical marquis for the Palace Theater — that’s how close it is:

And here’s the brasserie where we will likely have dinner before the show (knowing Kara, she will probably say, “Let me pick up the tab for this,” and this time, I might actually just say “okey-doke!” because I’ve seen the menu already — and the prices!!! Well. We’ll see, gang!!):

And I texted the guy down the road who looks after my cats when I’m away and he is all set to stop by here on May 2nd.

So I guess it’s really going to happen!

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ North American Tour officially begins April 15th in Boston. (Buy tickets here.)

And in similar news —

If you live in Europe, on April 7th at 8PM CET, you can watch the premiere broadcast of their Wild God concert in France, from last November. At Arte.tv and on YouTube. But it won’t be available in the US until after their North American tour is over. (Probably something to do with not wanting to cannibalize ticket sales or something weird like that…)

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Before I forget —

Here’s part 2 of James Tabor’s lecture on the Didache.

Part 2: The Didache: A Lost and Rediscovered Text of the Teaching of Jesus (43 mins):

Okay. That’s kind of it.

I want to get this beautiful day off underway!

Have a terrific Tuesday — guns or no guns — wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys.

See ya!

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Breakfast-listening music!!!! Yay!!!!!

Such a great song!! And a great song to start a beautiful day off. I sang along loudly for the cats and they seemed to really appreciate it. Why not try it at your house and see how it goes?

Sam Cooke’s legendary “Twistin’ the Night Away”. 1961. Enjoy, gang!!!!

Not Necessarily Me…

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More like the mantra of every single cat in the house. ( “I do what I want”.)

But let me tell you, gang, that carpet shampooer is GREAT! This is the one I got (luckily, it does not come with a dog):

But it is specifically for cleaning carpets that are exposed to pets. This thing is incredible. So lightweight, so easy to use, and the carpet dries quickly — it doesn’t saturate the carpet. And it gets up so much dirt.

It really made me so happy. So far, I’ve only had enough time to do one room in the house — 4 more to go. But wow. (Here’s a link on Amazon if you are interested.) My home is finally going to be clean again!!

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Other than that, yesterday was not fun. Losing that hour each March always makes me crazy. But today I’m already feeling adjusted to it, so here’s hoping the day will be more productive. (The weather is splendid, so that also helps!)

The situation with Peitor’s family ended up working out great. I can’t post the details, but it was a really good thing he went to Iowa when he did. But he had his hands full for 2 weeks.

Now he is in Los Angeles, which I’m sure will not be fun — mainly because of everything that everyone in LA has been through. And then he’s back to France in time for Series Mania in Lille. So we shall see!

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Phil is supposed to be live tonight at 8PM Eastern time. Check here later to confirm.

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Meanwhile, life goes on.

I’m celebrating a very beautiful anniversary — 43 years ago, I had my first professional solo gig as a singer/songwriter in NYC. It was at Speakeasy, on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. And it was spectacular. My songs were so well received, it was crazy. And I was so nervous. (The club was way far down at the right.)

When I first got to NYC, I thought I would just audition for bands or producers that needed a singer. But that didn’t go well because I didn’t have a very powerful voice.

Finally, one producer I auditioned for was kind enough to have a conversation with me after my audition, which led to me playing him a couple of my own songs on his guitar. And he said, “This is what you need to do! Forget about singing other people’s songs. Your voice isn’t suited to that, and your songs are really good.”

Well, that terrified me — the thought of just standing on a stage with my guitar and singing, all alone. It took me a while to get up my nerve to finally do it, but in late February of 1982, I went to an open mic night at the extremely famous folk club in Greenwich Village — Folk City. And I was so fucking nervous.

And I’m not making this up — I was allowed to sing 2 of my own songs and when I started singing “When Wyoming Calls Me Baby”, everyone in the room was chatting to each other, drinking, oblivious to me. The place was packed. But then suddenly, after singing about one verse, everyone stopped talking. The entire club was completely silent and everyone’s eyes were on me.

I was just terrified. But I kept going. And the same thing happened when I sang my next song, “Breaking Glass.” Everyone was silent until the end of my song. And then the applause was deafening. It was beyond anything I had ever dreamed would happen to me.

And the guy who booked the shows at Speakeasy, which was another folk club down the street, came right up to me the minute I got off the stage and he shouted, “You’re really good!” and on the spot, he booked me for my first solo gig ever, and from then on, I had gigs in Greenwich Village (and elsewhere) every week, for several years after that.

After the open mic night, I remember coming up from the subway near the Camelot building (that I posted about the other day — where I lived with my first husband, off Times Square), stopping at a payphone on the corner, holding my guitar case, and making a collect call to my best friend back home in Ohio.

Since it was February, it was a cold night but really clear, and since it was NYC, there were of course bright lights lighting the night and cars and taxis were zipping by. People everywhere. And I was on cloud 9. I remember my voice was shaking when I told her “I got a gig!!”

And about 10 days later was that gig and my world changed forever.

Even though I absolutely hated the music business, today I am content to just remember how happy those early days made me feel.

Below are the 2 songs I sang. “When Wyoming Calls Me Baby” is a demo with a full band. And “Breaking Glass” is from a vinyl record that Speakeasy produced in the summer of 1982. The recording is now in the Smithsonian.

It was so great to be part of something beautiful for a while.

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Okay. Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Me!! Today!!

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Well, after I get some editing done first.

Then I will begin the unbelievably daunting task of spring-cleaning this filthy house!! But I am going to be SO HAPPY once it’s all done.

It’s going to start feeling like my home again. And I really, really need that feeling, gang. I’ll probably even hang up the Easter wreaths on the front door and the kitchen door.

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Regarding the suicide in my family that I mentioned yesterday — I won’t go into the details, but I did find out this morning what had happened and it is unbelievably heartbreaking.

But thankfully, the sun is shining like crazy today and the weather is starting to warm up, and that helps my psyche immensely.

I’ll be able to start taking my regular walks again starting today, and that helps a lot, too.

So, onward.

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And here’s this!!

I know, I’ve posted this before, but just in case you thought there was a shortage of men I love who wear my name on their chests!!!!

(Yes, I know, it’s referencing Marilyn MONROE — but in case you didn’t know, I was in fact named after her by my adoptive dad, so it sort of counts….)

Keith wears Marilyn

(A delightful 1 minute and 45 seconds.)

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And on that note, I guess I better get started. I’ve already lost one hour to Daylight Saving’s Time.

Enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world!!!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Breakfast-listening music!!

Sam Cooke’s Greatest Hits! “Everybody Loves to Cha Cha Cha,” 1959. Enjoy, gang!!

A Bittersweet Day

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Another one of those mornings where I awoke from having some amazingly cool dreams. I was in a really great space. Serene. Hopeful. Very interested in life and in living it.

And at 5AM — a text on my phone that a really kind and caring person in my extended family had committed suicide.

And from there, you know, you have to get out of bed and start your day. Knowing that the family of a 94-year-old Japanese man, who lives alone in the early stages of dementia, is counting on you to go take care of him and not burden him with any of your own grief.

Life, these days, gang.

But after today, I have 3 days off. Some of which will be spent on editing the final documents for the TV series pitch bible. And the other days will be devoted to finally cleaning my house!! And maybe a quick trip to the shooting range.

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Here’s this.

Another photo from the Isle of Wight concert in 1969:

Keith Richards

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And oddly enough, here’s this! I found these photos online yesterday, when my 94-year-old Japanese client and I were talking about places where we used to live. He likes me to try to find photos of everything on my phone.

This is most of the floor plan of the apartment that I lived in when I was married to Chong Foun Kee, my first husband. The apartment was/is in the Camelot Building in NYC, on the corner of W.45th Street and 8th Avenue. (What’s missing in the photo — the bedroom and bathroom are to the far right. That doorway on the left goes into the kitchen.)

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Okay. I gotta scoot.

Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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From last night!!

Just beautiful. I looped it and listened to it by candlelight about 10 times.

I loved this song when I was a young girl. By then, it was already an “oldie” by the Everly Brothers. One thing is for certain, I always seem to have the same tastes in music as Keith has had. My whole life long.

Keith Richards solo with piano, an outtake from 1981. “All I Have To Do Is Dream”. Enjoy.

Splendid Day!!!

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This will be another brief one because I gotta scoot!! But, wow! What a gorgeous day here, gang!

Yesterday was so gloomy and snowy and windy and cold, and as I was driving to and from town, I just felt like I couldn’t deal with it a moment longer… I needed SUN!

And this morning, the entire weather report for the next 6 days had changed!!

It is so sunny here right now that it feels like Spring.

And tomorrow night is the final night of lighting the votives at “bedtime” because Sunday , we move the clocks ahead and it will still be daylight for me at “bedtime.”

I put that in quotes, because when I go to bed, I do a bunch of things: I watch a little TV on my phone, I study at least one lesson of the many courses I’m studying right now, and I listen to a chapter in whatever audio book I’m listening to (currently: Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald.) And then I go to sleep.

One of the online courses I’m studying right now is really fascinating. (All the courses I’m always taking are Judeo-Christian in some way.) This particular course is “Judaism” and taught by Isaiah M. Gafni, Ph.D. A professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

This is my second course taught by him and I always learn some very interesting stuff. (If you’re new to the blog: when I was a few weeks old, I was adopted by a very religious Polish-Latvian Jewish family in Cleveland. So for most of the first 18 years of my life, I was surrounded by very religious Jews. I started learning Hebrew at age 5, and went to Hebrew school 3 times a week, until I was 9 and begged my parents: “Can I please go to dancing school???” For some blessed reason, they said yes.)

Anyway. The current lesson discusses the transition from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (by the Romans, in 77 CE), and how Judaism went from being strictly in the Temple and run by priests who were born into the priesthood, to being run by rabbis who were schooled to become rabbis and who were very mobile and could travel to other communities.

This is something I have always wondered about and this particular lesson was fascinating.

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Okay, anyway. Before I forget!

Il donaldo trumpo posted the popcorn meme again!! So get ready for some sort of political bruhaha to get underway this weekend. (And remember that you’re watching a movie.)

“NEED MORE POPCORN FOR THE WEEKEND!!!🍿🇺🇸🥳🥳🥳”

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Cave Things has another sale underway!! 20% off all clothing until March 17th!! (visit the link)

Unfortunately, this t-shirt (my favorite one!!) is sold out:

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More Nick Cave stuff —

For some reason, Nick Cave Official on Instagram is telling us to watch this specific lyric video, the song for Anita Lane (which I’ve posted here before, but here it is again!). This is my favorite song on the Wild God album:

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And THANK YOU to everybody for downloading my eBooks yet again at Smashwords this past week. The sale ends tomorrow. (Visit HERE for links to my eBooks that are free to download. Scroll down the page.) (ADULTS ONLY!!)

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And here’s this!!!!!

Keith Richards at the Isle of Wight concert in 1969!!!

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And that’s it!! I seriously, seriously, SERIOUSLY gotta scoot!!

Enjoy your lovely Friday, wherever you are in the world!!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!!

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Breakfast-listening music!!!

Ernest Tubb, the Texas Troubadour

From Ernest Tubb, his incredible classic, “Walking the Floor Over You.” 1941. Enjoy, gang!!

Small Update

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After the last two days and such beautiful weather, we are back to high winds, a touch of snow, and below freezing temperatures.

That seems to affect my moods these days, more than it ever did. I was speaking to someone yesterday who felt the same way. I never minded winter before — but now I just want it over with. And these relentless high winds keep me on the verge of my PTSD.

Anyway!! The agency completely re-did my schedule for March yesterday. So now I am working only morning shifts for the entire month. I prefer morning to evening shifts, but it’s harder to post to the blog.

Regarding anything in the news, I am not posting about it anymore, but still following it. I hope you are keeping up with NewsTreasonChannel17 to get a good idea of what is really going on out there right now. And also, of course, following Phil, whenever he’s around.

Oh, since it was such a pretty day yesterday, I took my 94-year-old Japanese client out for lunch, and guess where??

Tequilaville!!!

And he concurred — the food there is really good. (But I only let him have one beer. No tequila. With his wooden leg, it’s hard enough to keep him steady.)

Okay. I gotta scoot.

Have a great Thursday wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Good Day Underway Here!

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This will be brief because I have a morning client (I have morning shifts all week). But the good news is that it’s with my favorite 94-year-old Japanese man!

During my meditation this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that, client or no client, he is one of my most favorite people on Earth. And isn’t it interesting that I have such a spiritual rapport with him — a man in the early stages of dementia — and that we laugh so much and have so much in common and that we literally talk for 4 straight hours whenever we are together (3 days a week)?

If you were to overhear our conversations, you would not think that I was talking to someone with a memory problem. We just have the best times together — both in terms of just having fun but also sharing deeply spiritual conversations.

And if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you may recall that in the autumn, I had this other wonderful client — a woman with several Degrees in Theology from Yale, where she studied just after WWII.

She has no memory issues whatsoever. And she and I had the best conversations, too. About Christian theology, about the Bible, about human nature, about her extraordinary life.

Anyway, she spends winters in Florida and will be coming back here soon. I am so hoping they re-assign me to her. When I visit with people like that — even though I do have to do some serious “caregiver” tasks — it is not like “work” at all. It is incredible.

So, here’s hoping. But we’ll see.

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Okay.

Things with Peitor’s family are improving immensely!!! And it was a really, really good thing that he showed up in Iowa when he did. The situation there has still sort of put him “on hold” as far as the TV pilot proposal package goes. But we are hanging in there.

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In other news!!

Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File yesterday morning that was really wonderful!! In essence, he told us what he eats for lunch everyday (and it’s quite similar to what I eat for breakfast everyday). But he also said some beautiful things about humanity. In part:

“And it reminds me that we all stand before the world with our faculties – our minds, bodies, mouths, and hands – each of us shaping the environment around us. What we think, do, and say is fundamental to the survival of this grand human project. Each of us is precious, and our actions are vital, everything we do and say matters. We can speak beauty into the world or poison it with our words; we can build things up or tear them down; we can dream of a world that is vast, alive, and interesting, or reason it to be small, hard, and empty.”

You can read it in full here.

Acai berries

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And now I gotta scoot!!!!

Have a wonder-filled Wednesday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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On a Sinatra kick around here.

When I was 7 years old, I had a transistor radio that I just loved. And that particular year, the song below was a huge Top 40 hit and I just loved listening to it on my transistor!!

As fate would have it, my Japanese client designed one of the most popular pocket-sized transistor radios in the world, back in the late 1960s, while living/working in Hong Kong.

When I played this song for him, and told him how much I loved listening to it on my transistor when I was 7 (and he was 37), he laughed with delight and said, “Yes, I remember this song!!”

It’s still a great song. Enjoy, gang!!

“I think it was called ‘her day off’!”

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Yes, yesterday was ostensibly my “day off”.

I don’t have another day off until next Sunday. That thought alone made me really tired yesterday.

Well, “tired” is not really the word. I was reluctant to do anything because I felt like there just wasn’t any time. Just for me, I mean.

Still, I managed to take care of the 722 cats. And do laundry. And meditate, do prayer work, do yoga. Do some editing for the TV pilot package. Speak to Peitor on the phone.

And also!

I finally watched “Emilia Pérez” — that movie that Sandra had asked me to watch and so I re-joined Netflix recently just for that reason.

I watched the movie yesterday, finally. Curiously, it is described as “a 2024 Spanish-language French musical crime comedy film “.

I wouldn’t describe it like that, personally. Having now seen it.

It did drum up a TON of controversy, worldwide. At awards shows, mostly. Because the movie’s central theme is about a cartel drug lord in Mexico who surgically transitions from male to female — and the lead actress in the film, Karla Sofía Gascón, did the same thing in real life. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, there is currently just truckloads of hate and ugliness being spewed at transgenders right now.

Which obfuscated the fact that “Emilia Pérez” was a really good movie.

It didn’t seem like a comedy to me. Not in any way, shape or form. It’s a very dark film, but peppered with hope for the nature of humanity. And it IS a musical — done in a very unusual way. It was in no way predictable. I can’t say if the writing was good, because it’s in Spanish and so I was reading subtitles throughout. But the acting was really good.

But in my opinion, it’s a very dark film. But a really good one.

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Okay, Phil is supposed to do a livestream tonight at 8PM eastern time. I guess we’ll see, gang. Check here later to confirm.

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Yesterday, I was looking at the archived texts I still have on my phone from my dad, and I discovered that most of the texts have disappeared!! This made me so sad.

I grabbed a screenshot of what was left, before it disappears, too — the final text from my dad (his is the white background):

End then, a couple weeks later, he was gone.

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And then on an unrelated note — Times Square used to look exactly like this in the decades that I lived in NYC:

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And really, other than that, I gotta scoot!!!

Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Two versions of the same great song, separated by about 30 years.

If you weren’t aware — at one time, Johnny Cash was Marty Stuart’s father-in-law and Marty played in Johnny’s band. If you don’t know Marty Stuart, he is a fantastic Country guitar player.

Ready for a great day!

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Wow, yesterday was emotional, gang.

Not just that David Johansen died, but the way I found out —

I was with my 94-year-old Japanese client. I was kneeling next to his recliner and playing Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” for him on my phone.

He wasn’t familiar with that song. And he had tears in his eyes as he was listening to it and watching the little video — and suddenly a text from Wayne popped up at the top of the screen, saying that David Johansen had died.

I swiped it away before my client could even process it. But I had definitely processed it. In a nanosecond. And so to be there like that, with my client practically in tears of joy, and that beautiful song playing, and then seeing the news and having to keep it to myself… wow.

My client had a lot of incredibly beautiful things to say to me yesterday. It was intense. So, all of it together — I left there not feeling at all like shooting a gun. So I just came straight home and skipped the open house at the shooting range.

And in the mail yesterday — there was a sympathy card from the staff at the agency where I work. Expressing sadness for my loss — for my cat being killed by a car. Is that, like, amazing, or what? They are the nicest company to work for, in so many ways.

Anyway, by the time I got home yesterday — walking in to a kitchen that had been turned sort of topsy-turvy by the foster cats — I was just worn out. On so many levels.

So today, I just want to have a really nice day.

The sun is out. It’s cold, but at least it’s March and Spring is right around the corner.

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Okay. I thought this was of interest. This is where the Government has uploaded (and will continue to upload) assassination files on JFK:

“The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection“

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If you are interested in Judeo-Christian antiquities, this is great stuff. We are studying it (again) in Tabor’s private Patreon Group. This video is taken from our recent zoom session.

James Tabor — The Didache: A Lost and Rediscovered Text of the Teaching of Jesus Pt 1 (1 hr):

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And this has begun today! And THANK YOU (!!!) to the folks who are already downloading my free eBooks! (Direct links to my eBooks that are included in the sale are HERE. Scroll down.) (ADULTS ONLY!!)

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Okay, I think that’s kind of it.

I want to finish up the laundry, do some yoga, and then get back to editing the files for the TV series promo package.

Enjoy your Sunday, gang, wherever you are in the world.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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I also played the song below for my client yesterday morning. He had never heard it before. It was popular here when he was living back in Tokyo.

My client was born in NYC in 1930, but when he was 3, his father moved the family back to Tokyo because the world situation was getting dicey — just before WWII.

When my client was 17 and done with high school and WWII was over, his father gave him enough money to go back to NYC. (His father had also arranged a job for him.)

As my client was leaving Tokyo at age 17, his dad said to him: “Don’t expect me to send you any more money. If you can’t make it in New York City, then you’ll never amount to anything.” My client went on to graduate from NYU by working days as a TV repairman and going to school at night. That degree from NYU eventually landed him several Executive positions in electrical engineering in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Fort Worth — and it took him all over the world. He became very, very successful.

My client certainly knew who Frank Sinatra was, but he was only familiar with the earlier songs. When I played this one for him — he was spellbound. And, yes, he had tears in his eyes. When the song was over, he whispered, “Thank you.” Enjoy, gang.