Yes!

My very FIRST holiday, since starting to work for the Agency one year ago, where I actually have a holiday OFF!

(I cannot believe I have been working for the Agency for a year already.)

And tempting as it is to invite some old-style grandparents over and have a cookout (as pictured above!)… instead, I am going to be working on The Curse of our Profound Disorder all day today. I am almost finished with it, gang!!

In fact, today, I am starting at page one and reading/revising up to what I’ve written so far, to see how it’s flowing, and then, from there, it won’t be long until it’s complete. Only took 26 years…

This was me, yesterday. After working on the novel, I started getting ready for my shift and I happened to glance in the mirror and I thought: Wow. I actually look like a non-stressed human being.

That is rare for me. So I took my picture:

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Okay.

I’ve already got the laundry underway. And, later, I’ll do yoga. Then listen to another lecture in the course I’m taking about the Reformation (15th-16th Centuries). We are up to Christian Humanists and Martin Luther (early 1500s), so I actually want to re-listen to that lecture — there is so much to take in.

Also, long-time readers of this lofty blog perhaps recall that my ancestors in Germany attended this Protestant church in Alsenz in the 1600s:

It is still an active church. And there are still birth, death, and marriage records of my family in their archives, including birth records of the brothers who left Germany and came to America. (Late 1600s.)

This region is less than 200 miles from where Martin Luther was born and died (although he lived a few other places in between).

My point is that I feel certain my extended family has to have been aware of what Martin Luther was achieving during the Reformation — while it was happening. So, even though I’m not a Lutheran, I just find the whole era extremely interesting.

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Okay!

Other than that — and a phone call I’m expecting from Wayne this afternoon, all I’m going to do today is focus on the novel and it feels really incredible. To finally have time to focus. (And also knowing that a publisher is waiting to read the finished manuscript.) (But I think I will have Wayne read it first before, eventually, sending it off.)

So I’m feeling like today is just a real gift.

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All righty.

Here’s this!

From Instagram — from the long ago days when it was always easy to know for sure when you were looking at a picture of Johnny Smoke Depp, because he was always smoking!!

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And here’s this!

I saw this photo yesterday, after I posted to the blog about Patti Smith and Jim Carroll. (And a photo of myself playing CBGBs, in the mid-1980s — I was known as” Marilyn J.” back then.)

If you aren’t aware of the profound impact CBGBs had on the club scene in NYC and on bands from the 1970s, that have since become legends, here’s a short list!

Patti Smith
The Ramones
Television
Blondie
Talking Heads
The Dead Boys
The Misfits
The Dictators
The Cramps
Richard Hell & The Voidoids
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts
The B-52’s
Mink DeVille

Even though I didn’t write or perform music in that genre, by the time I did play CBGBs in the mid-80s, it was back to hiring other types of music. (CBGB stood for Country, Bluegrass, and Blues.)

Anyway.

Here’s the guy who made it all happen. First, by opening CBGBs and then by letting punks play there, even though he, personally, didn’t care much for punk music, which was why he eventually added OMFUG to the title of the club (Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers.).

Hilly Kristal. He was a true legend among musicians on the Lower East Side. And he was still very much around in the days when I and most of my freinds were playing gigs at CBGBs.

It turns out that Thursday (8/28) was the anniversary of his passing:

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Okay.

This was interesting.

Posted last night– does he mean this current holiday weekend, or the upcoming one?

From il donaldo trumpo:

WE’RE GONNA NEED WAY MORE POPCORN THIS WEEKEND!!!😎🇺🇸🍿🍿🍿

Phil also dropped a comm, this morning at 2:51AM, but I can’t usually de-code Phil for the life of me. This one seems to have something to do with “batter up”. Anyway. Something’s up. Check the link for the video.

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And here’s this!!

While we wait 3 more days for Nick Cave and Colin Greenwood to resume their tour with 2 sold out shows at Baden-Baden, Germany…

From my desktop stash!!

And don’t forget! On sale now!! Only 4 months away…

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And I think maybe that’s it for today!!

Enjoy your Labor Day if you live State-side, otherwise, have a happy Monday wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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I leave you with this!

My favorite 95-year-old Japanese client was very much influenced by the guy below, back in 1953. In fact, my client even took a break from attending NYU’s Engineering School, to attend a very small Methodist college in Kansas and study for the Ministry, after attending one of Billy Graham’s talks at a church in NYC.

He and I listened to this on Saturday —

Billy Graham — Put God First (46 seconds). Enjoy, gang!