Totally thinking ahead here!

It’s a gloomy and rainy morning so far, but that often unreliable weather app on my iPhone says that by noon it will be sunny and remain sunny for the rest of the afternoon!!

Yay!!

So I’m going with that thought today, gang! Nothing but sun up ahead!

And since Sunday has become my go-to-town-and-get-groceries day, I’ll wait until noon before heading to town.

I’m hoping I can persuade these guys to go with me again today —

It’s always so much more fun driving anywhere with them!

So, we shall see. (They’re probably in church right now, so I’ll wait a bit before calling them…)

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Okay!!

Wow, you know? What a morning. The first 2 things I saw on Instagram, very early today (5AM), were 2 of my favorite accounts having huge troubles with Instagram & Facebook — the various algorithms there were making them very unhappy.

One was our beloved Phyllis Stein — I so hope she doesn’t leave Instagram, but it was actually Facebook that was threatening to block her awesome account for no valid reason.

The other account was for 2 cute little dogs that I follow in Germany —

I have followed the account for years and the woman who runs the account is around my age and we interact all the time (luckily she speaks perfect English since my German consists of about 4 words — and I count “gesundheit” as one of them). But she is so fed up with Instagram interfering with her posts now that she is actually leaving Instagram as of today.

I really can’t stress enough how much I do not like Facebook (I recently rejoined it). It has gotten so different now and it is very difficult to post over there.

I don’t interact much on fb at all. I have about 5 followers. Literally. And all of them are people I have known for a long time and, except for Iris N. Schwartz, I also follow them on Instagram. So fb seems sort of pointless to me.

It seems like the only thing I really do on fb is look at Nick Cave photos!! Like I needed another app on my phone to look at more Nick Cave photos!

But here’s one I liked on fb yesterday!!

But as far as Instagram — I love Instagram. I have been active on it every day for about 8 years.

Once in awhile I post something concerning my writing career, but mostly I post photos of my cats. And I just love looking at everybody else’s photos.

I mostly follow other cats, and dogs, birds, alpacas, goats, donkeys, cows! From all over the world!

And a few people in Finland and Norway who take unbelievably gorgeous photos of nature.

And a bunch of Punk and rock & roll musicians — most of whom, sadly, are already dead.

But I just love Instagram, so it makes me sad that people I enjoy following are being bullied by the algorithms now — and enough to leave the platform altogether.

I don’t have a lot of followers on instaramg — sorry, that’s a different app I also use. But on Instagram, I have about 1600 followers.

But I only really interact with about 12 of them on a daily basis. So for me, it’s just fun.

I can’t imagine how awful it must be to try to rely on those apps for career-related stuff. It must be a nightmare.

I am so glad that I have my blog, gang.

You know, even though it is totally old school — no bells & whistles — I have about 100 people a day, sometimes as many as 200, from all over the world, who stop in and read my blog!

That’s about 3,000 views a month, and about 36,000 views a year now!

And I’ve had this same blog for 12 years already. In fact, a few years back, WordPress was after me to update it to a different layout. They wanted to retire the layout I use because it was too old-fashioned. But I love this layout because it is SO easy to use.

So I think I am the only blogger left on WordPress who uses this layout.

Anyway… I digress.

I am really glad that WordPress doesn’t resort to a bunch of terrorizing algorithm stuff.

And I really want to thank you guys so much for stopping by every day to read the blog.

It still means a lot to me, even after all these years.

“Oh, and then I saw a photo of Keith Richards smoking in London back in 1968, It was just SO COOL…”

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All right.

Well, after listening to the new auditions for audiobooks that came in yesterday morning, I have decided that for now, I’m removing the short story collections from the audition queue.

Those are just going to be too complex, since some of the stories are from the female POV, and some from the male POV. I’ve decided to just focus on the novels for now.

But other than that, we are moving forward with perhaps THREE novels to turn into audiobooks! 1954 Powder Blue Pickup, The Guitar Hero Goes Home, and possibly Freak Parade.

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Okay!

Since the Bad Seeds’ tour is over now, I am resorting to a photo of Nick Cave from the desktop stash!!

Singing and smoking!! In black & white!! (He looks so, I don’t know, energetic here!)

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And here’s this!!

If you look REALLY carefully, Keith is smoking — and walking & carrying a package in London in 1986. In full color!! Heavy on the blue!! (Photo by Richard Young)

I can’t say for sure if Keith is smoking here, you have to do your own research on that. But it does seem to be the 1980s, and in black & white.

And if you don’t really know much about Keith–

Back when he was a heroin addict, his teeth started rotting really badly. After he quit heroin for good, around 1978, he had all of his teeth replaced.

But here’s one of the photos from the not-so-great-teeth days. But he still looks so sweet here:

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And that is what I have for now.

The laundry is just about done! I’m gonna check in on the 2 cats outside and see who wants to be fed (again) before I head to town.

Have a great Sunday, wherever you are in the world, gang.

And THANKS for visiting!! I really mean that.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Let’s close with this!!

Since I have been reading that book, Conversations With Tom Petty (2006) at night now, and we are now up to when he was recording his triple multi-platinum Wildflowers solo album, I put that CD in the kitchen jukebox player this morning!

So let’s listen to “You Wreck Me”. I hadn’t heard it in awhile!! A real rocker.

From the Wildflowers album, 1994!! Enjoy, gang.