Yes, I have the day off today — except for the screenwriting webinar later this afternoon. (Just updating my skills.)

I’m hoping to have a calm, peaceful, happy day.

We’re gonna see how that plays out.

Okay!

So, here is that photo of my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man’s dad, taken in Tokyo in 1957, on the front porch of his home (which is now a House Museum) (see yesterday’s post). He is 88 here:

And it is not exactly cool to post this to the blog but, once I saw it, I knew I absolutely HAD to!! I found it in his basement with a bunch of other old photos. So, let’s just say — this “Japanese guy” is in his early 20s, studying at college, early 1950s. (Add about 72 years now….) Isn’t he awesome???

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Oh, and here’s this!

Me, early this morning, practicing in the Substack recording studio thingie, trying to get the upcoming mini-podcast thing underway.

My room is so white, though. It just washes everything out… I might have to choose a different room.

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And once again, I have to say you guys are incredible.

The re-published print edition of my 2011 novel, Twilight of the Immortal, is ranked at #151 in LGBTQ Historical Fiction this morning on Amazon US!! It was just re-published yesterday!

I guess it pays to somehow have a novel accidentally disappear from the Internet, then spend 3 hours going FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! while trying to fix it and re-publish it! Yay!

But, honestly, thanks everybody for buying it!!

(This was the same novel that my agent in LA said was my “masterpiece” but no publishers would touch it — and not because I presented a story that portrayed a Hollywood legend, Rudolph Valentino, as very actively bisexual, but because the book had lesbians in it and they didn’t know how they would market that. So to all of you who were in publishing back in 2009 -2010 and actually said that — and I mean this in the nicest way — go fuck yourselves!!)

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All right!

Today is my birth dad’s heavenly birthday. He would have been 81 today. (He died in 1999 — from a type of cancer caused by exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He’d been a US Navy SEAL.)

One of my favorite photos of him. His older sister, my Aunt Jo, gave it to me. It’s 1965, he’s in North Carolina visiting Aunt Jo & her kids, on leave from Vietnam.

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And here’s an update of what the Cockroaches thing was all about yesterday:

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And here’s this!

A different line-up from 1969, but the Rolling Stones, apparently bonding again prior to the US tour!! (1981)

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And here’s this!

From Phyllis Stein — Iggy Pop at home in Miami in 2007!

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And here’s this!

Another one from my desktop stash, since nothing is coming into my Instagram feed. I don’t know where, when or photo-by-whom! But–

Nick Cave, looking gorgeous!!

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And that is it for now!

I’m finishing up some laundry here. And then I am going to try to just have a really creative, fun sort of day. Although I will probably at least vacuum the downstairs, since the AC install guys will (I hope!!) be coming into my home first thing tomorrow morning!

Enjoy your Sunday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting!

I love you guys. See ya!

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Okay. I leave you with this.

It was too wonderful!!!

Yesterday afternoon, towards the end of my shift, my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man was staring off into space and clearly thinking about something.

ME: “What are you thinking about?”

HE (suddenly smiling): “Kansas. Me and a girl, out under the moonlight, singing.”

When my favorite 95-year-old Japanese man was living in NYC in the early 1950s and going to NYU, he took a break from Engineering School and got a scholarship to study for the Ministry at a small Methodist College in Kansas. It was the best time he had in his entire life. There was a really gorgeous girl named Elsa there that he was very close with (I’ve seen her photo in his old college yearbook from 1954 and she really was just stunning).

ME: “Are you singing with Elsa?”

HE (still smiling): “Maybe.”

ME: “What are you singing?”

He actually thought about it. “I don’t remember.”

So I got out my trusty iPhone, googled the top songs from 1954, and then selected the song below.

ME: “Was it this??!!”

When the song started playing, wow, gang — did he SMILE. He said, “I remember this song!!”

It was just so wonderful, gang. I have always loved this song, and clearly, it brought back some really great college memories for him. We played it all the way through, and both sat there in his living room, listening and smiling.

The Crew Cuts, “Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream),” from 1954. Enjoy gang. We sure did.