Yes!

A lovely day for a drive but I’ve decided to just be the passenger today and let my neighbors do the actual driving since they obviously love it so much!

Yes, I am heading back to town here soon. Groceries, cat food, etc. I guess that Sunday is now my day to do that.

It’s still a holiday weekend here in the US — and it’s that end-of-summer holiday weekend, where folks around here head out for the campsites on the lake, and so the highway will likely be deserted. We shall see!

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Before I forget!

The print edition of A Man in Her Arms & Other Stories did indeed go live last evening on Amazon. $12.95 You can buy it HERE.

Adults Only please!! Thank you!

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I did indeed spend most of yesterday here at my desk, struggling like crazy with the new memoir.

My main challenge with it is that I don’t want the book to be depressing. And while, for the most part, every single thing that happened to me in the 1970s was unbelievably depressing, the thing that got me through, that kept me alive and filled with joy, was the MUSIC and the guys who made the music.

They were like saviors to me. They literally kept me alive. When I say that men like Keith Richards were father-figures to me, I am not kidding. They were guiding lights to me — to somehow stay alive, get to NYC, and make my music there, professionally.

I remember one afternoon in the cafeteria at my high school, probably around the fall of 1977, I was sitting with a girl I knew. We never really socialized, but we knew each other. And she said that Aerosmith would be staying at the local Holiday Inn after their concert on Friday night and she asked if I wanted to go over there with her.

ME: “Why?”

SHE: “You know, to party with them. Have sex! It’ll be fun.”

I was absolutely flabbergasted by this. I wasn’t a virgin, by any stretch of the imagination by that point, and even though I loved Aerosmith and had their records, it would never occur to me in a million years to have sex with any of them!

Anyway. Music was everything to me and I wouldn’t have survived the 1970s without it. But I am struggling with how best to present the memoir — the reality of my life — and somehow capture the joy that bubbled beneath the surface of my mind because of all those incredible musicians back then.

And I don’t want it to be a book that blames my adoptive parents for anything. They were just as bowled over by trying to live in the huge cultural shifts of the 1970s as I was, but in their own ways.

But everything I had to confront on paper yesterday, about my life in the 1970s, was unbelievably depressing. So I am struggling to find my best way in.

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Anyway.

Speaking of music!

This happened yesterday!!

Happy heavenly birthday, Freddie Mercury!! He would have been 80 yesterday.

And speaking of the 1970s!!! Here’s this!! I absolutely loved this song! Especially those lyrics. What a great story they told. From 1974, “Killer Queen” by Queen.

“Killer Queen”

She keeps Moët et Chandon
In her pretty cabinet
“Let them eat cake,” she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
A built-in remedy
For Khrushchev and Kennedy (Ooh, ooh)
At anytime an invitation
You can’t decline (Ooh, ooh)

Caviar and cigarettes
Well versed in etiquette
Extraordinarily nice

She’s a killer queen
Gunpowder, gelatin
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
(Pa-pa-pa-pa) Anytime
Ooh
Recommended at the price
Insatiable an appetite
Wanna try?

To avoid complications
She never kept the same address
In conversation
She spoke just like a baroness
Met a man from China
Went down to Geisha Minah (Ooh, ooh)
(Killer, killer, she’s a killer queen)
Then again incidentally
If you’re that way inclined

Perfume came naturally from Paris (Naturally)
For cars, she couldn’t care less
Fastidious and precise

She’s a killer queen
Gunpowder, gelatin
Dynamite with a laser beam
Guaranteed to blow your mind
(Pa-pa-pa-pa)
Anytime

Drop of a hat she’s as willing as
Playful as a pussycat (Ooh)
Then momentarily out of action (Ooh)
Temporarily out of gas (Ta-taaa)
To absolutely drive you wild, wild
She’s out to get you

She’s a killer queen
Gunpowder, gelatin
Dynamite with a laser beam (Pa-pa-pa-ra)
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Anytime
Ooh
Recommended at the price
Insatiable an appetite
Wanna try?
You wanna try

c – 1974 Freddie Mercury

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This happened the other day. I forgot to post it yesterday.

Terry Lemerond, the founder of Terry Naturally supplements, passed away. This guy did incredible research on healing the body naturally. His supplements are a little expensive but absolutely worth the extra money. And he also wrote some great, easy to understand books about health. You can find them HERE.

Thanks for everything, Terry. You got a whole lot of people, the world over, off of pharmaceuticals.

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Okay!!

Here’s this!

Joe Strummer in Hollywood in 1989!! (Photo by Bob Gruen)

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And here’s this!!

A couple of great photos of Nick Cave and Rowland S. Howard!!

Smoking!!

Not smoking!! (Photo by Bleddyn Butcher)

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And these next 2 photos —

Hmmmm, what to say, gang??

Warren Ellis on movie night! Wearing a Sid Vicious t-shirt?? (Not sure.)

And this one — wow.

Lou Reed singing “Vicious”…. (which is not about Sid, btw)

And Warren Ellis’s bedside night table!! I think it technically qualifies as “not smoking” but that’s an awful lot of nicotine… And then the No. 4711 cologne — is that in place of water, since the water bottle is not within easy reach? Or does he just like to smell nice in a hurry? Not sure!!

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And that is it for today!!

Laundry is done! The day out there is glorious! And so I am off to town to get the groceries!!

Then, this afternoon, I will attempt, yet again, to get the memoir into some sort of higher plane. We shall see.

Meanwhile, have a super Sunday, wherever you are in the world, gang!!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Let’s close with this!!

And, NO! It’s not from the 1970s.

It is however from 1999.

Mikey Rivera (of Freak Parade fame! The character of Eddie Ramirez, in my novel Freak Parade, is based on him) — we used to love listening to this CD in the car back then. We lived for awhile in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains, right on the Delaware River, in Easton, Pennsylvania. And we used to love to just go out and take drives…

After 9/11, about 150,000 New Yorkers moved to that area of Pennsylvania at the same time, because rents in NYC had gone into the stratosphere, and this part of PA was reasonably close to Manhattan. You could live out there and still work in the city.

It is safe to say that the life-long residents of that part of Pennsylvania did not appreciate us descending on them like that (driving their own rents higher). They hated New Yorkers… However. It was really, really beautiful there.

Lou Bega!! From his 1999 album, A Little Bit of Mambo — “I Got A Girl”!! Enjoy, gang!!