A happy hello from the Hinterlands!

Although I really did miss being in Charlotte last night, gang.

Still, it was so fun to get out of bed here at 6AM today and say a happy hello to all my many cats!

Even though they got along great with my mom, it was so clear to me that they were excited that things were back to normal this morning. They were all frisky as heck!

Oh, here’s something kind of exciting — I don’t know yet if it will really happen, but I hope it does!

One of my girlfriends who works at my favorite health & wellness store in town (I used to work there during the lockdowns), put in her 2 weeks notice while I was away, and I’m looking into taking over her hours!

It would be so cool to be back there, especially since I’m still friends with everyone who works there. Plus, the store is privately owned and only open a limited number of hours/days a week.

I had to leave there once the lockdowns were over, because I couldn’t afford to work retail back then. But now that I have Social Security and the money I inherited from my dad, I can afford it.

So we shall see!! It would certainly take care of this problem I’ve been having of feeling unbelievably isolated out here in the middle of nowhere since I retired…

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Okay!

This week, I have:

The deadline for receiving contributions to the memorial tribute anthology honoring M. Christian. (Meaning, I then have to start editing it.)
My lunch date with the gentleman across the road.
And on Saturday, is my book-signing at the bookstore in the Historic Arcade in Newark!

So it should be a fun week with a nice, even sort of pace.

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Other than that —

I have a TON of “here’s this’s'” that I accumulated while in Charlotte, NC!!

So let’s get started!!

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Most importantly, it seems that this past weekend was International “Bad Seeds Take Their Dogs Out” Weekend!!

On Saturday!

George Vjestica apparently has a tiny little dog named Gucci!!

And on Sunday!

Warren Ellis took his pups out to the woods!!

And here’s this, while we’re at it! Does it get better?? Lou Reed & the Velvet Underground! The sublime “Sunday Morning”, 1966!

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It’s time for Erica Verrillo’s fantastic (FREE) publishing calls-for-submissions and writing contest updates for October!!

Visit HERE! And then click on the various links for current updates.

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And the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project is having an East Village Walking Tour for LGBTQ History Month!!

(You will notice that my old E.12th Street apartment is NOT part of the tour, but if you take the tour, please feel free to DEMAND that they stop at 511 E.12th Street anyway!! And honor all the LGBTQ cool shit that happened in my apartment!! Drugs! Booze! Sex! MUSIC!! Cigarettes!! Writing, writing, writing!! Thanking you in advance!!)

You can sign up for the tour HERE. It is $25.

“Discover LGBTQ history hidden in plain sight on this 90-minute expert-led walking tour of New York’s East Village. Celebrate LGBTQ History Month and explore places and people that made this neighborhood a center of LGBTQ art, activism, nightlife, and counterculture.

“Visit the former residences of poet Allen Ginsberg and lesbian activists Ellen Broidy, co-planner of the first NYC Pride March (1970), and Ernestine Eckstein, who was active in the LGBTQ rights movement in the pre-Stonewall years. See if you can hear the echos of dance music as we stand outside the site of The Loft, where David Mancuso hosted egalitarian underground house parties that influenced the city’s club scene. Share memories as we arrive at the former locations of nightclubs The Saint, with its legendary interior dome, and Pyramid Cocktail Lounge, where LGBTQ performers included Andy Warhol, John Waters, performance artist Ethyl Eichelberger, and more.”

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YES!! For some inexplicable reason, this is NOT on the tour!!

Punk bassist/guitarist Blaire N. Bitch, smoking in my bedroom at 4AM!!

Me with my band!

My best friend on Earth — the notoriously gay and now dearly departed from AIDS Paul Martin, in my bathtub!!

And here’s the front of 511 E.12th Street as it looks today. My apartment was the 3rd one up , on the left, with the little AC in the window (back then the fuses in the building were so old, you could not have such a thing as a working AC!! It would blow all the lights out in the building!) (I know this, because we tried it once!!)

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All righty!

Phyllis Stein gave us a scare over the weekend, saying she was basically done posting all her great Punk music photos to Instagram. (But last night, she posted again!!)

But here’s some great photos from when she was departing us–

David Jo and Richard Hell! At Max’s Kansas City, 1976!! (Photo by Bob Gruen)