Home today!

Yes, it turns out that I don’t have to work today, so that’s good because I still have a lot of stuff left to do on the M. Christian anthology and I am hoping to have it turned in to the publisher by the end of the month.

So here’s hoping I have a productive weekend!

NO, wait! Of course, I meant THIS!!

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And, YES!!

I did manage to screw up the electric breaker switch thingie yesterday morning while trying to fix the lights in the kitchen and also dash off to the job on time!

But luckily, the tech guy was able to come back out while I was at work and he fixed it in a nano-second, so everything is back to normal. Yay!!

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Okay!!

This is happening today!!

Happy birthday, David Lee Roth!! He is 72 today!!

And here’s this!! And if you’re not old enough to remember it — this was in the peak years of MTV, when music videos cost a fortune to produce and were like little 4-minute movies. From 1985, David Lee Roth’s huge hit version of “California Girls”!!

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I don’t have a lot of “here’s this’s ” today because, you know, I had to work at a job yesterday and wasn’t able to just sit and scroll through Instagram all day!! (But I had a great time!!)

Anyway.

Here’s this!

Jack Kerouac– confused in Autumn!!

And here’s this bit of absolute loveliness while we’re at it! Chet Baker, “Tis Autumn” from 1959:

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And here’s this!!

From Phyllis Stein.

Lou Reed with Iggy Pop, smoking, at Max’s in NYC in 1972!! (Photo by Danny Fields)

And I’ve posted this once before, but here it is again! The song I wrote about Iggy Pop in 1984, after having read his incredible memoir I Need More. (What a great book that was.)

This is an absolute demo — it’s just me and my drummer using the 8-track in my bedroom on E.12th Street, so the sound quality is not great. The demo is followed below by my lyrics, and then by Jim Carroll’s comments on my lyrics, because I wrote the song and turned it in while taking Jim Carroll’s songwriting class in 1984 (one of the true highlights of my life!!).

“SHAPE YOU’RE IN“
(for Iggy Pop)

She was a tiny girl,
but she felt like a woman to you
In her high-heeled shoes and her
Tanqueray point of view.

You were a man on the edge
She was a girl in chains
When a child comes on
Don’t the night get strange?

CHORUS I:
You’ve broken all the rules but you still need more
‘Til you’re not sure what you’re looking for
But God’s gonna overlook this one sin
‘Cause, honey, He’s seen the shape you’re in.

It was a tiny dream,
It took all the money you had
It was a good little dream, but it shook you
And treated you bad.

When the damage is done
When you fear the change
When the deal’s gone down
Don’t the dark get strange?

CHORUS II:
You’ve taken all the pain but they still want more
‘Til you’re not sure what you do it for
But God’s gonna carry you through my friend
‘Cause, honey, He’s seen the shape you’re in.

Life on the edge
Can cheat you and paralyze
‘Til the voice in your head
Misleads you and tells you lies

If I could give you the moon
In a paper jar
Would you trade it all
For the big rock star?

CHORUS III:
You’ve broken all the rules but you still need more
‘Til you’re not sure what you’re looking for
But God’s gonna carry you through my friend
‘Cause, honey, He’s seen the shape you’re in.

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And here’s this!

The only Nick Cave thing I have today, but it’s from Facebook!!

Nick Cave and his skateboard!!

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All right, that’s it.

I need to finish up the laundry now and get focused on editing the anthology.

Oh, I will add that I had such a great chat on the phone with my new guy last night. Even though our lives could not have been more different if we’d planned it that way, we have a lot of fundamental things in common.

For instance, does this sound familiar? He said that his parents forced him to go to college. He didn’t want to go. He said, “I lasted about 10 weeks and thought it was just stupid and so I quit.”

Of course the difference between him and me, is that after I quit college, I went off to NYC to become a singer-songwriter and a writer, and he worked on farms and trained horses and did road construction and rehabbed old houses.

HE (on phone last night): “I’m just a dumb hillbilly.”

ME (very encouraging): “You’re not dumb at all!”

(He’s a hillbilly maybe, but he absolutely is not stupid!!)

Plus we also discovered that our ancestral heritage is similar — heavy on the Irish and German.

Anyway!

Okay. I gotta scoot.

Enjoy your Saturday, 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!!

From 1986!

Iggy Pop’s fantastic song “Blah-Blah-Blah”!! From the album of the same name. (I adored this whole album.) Okay. Enjoy, gang!!

“Blah-Blah-Blah”

Pop before the war
lunch before the score
steady as she goes
following my nose
I’m a bull mongrel
that’s me

Shimon Peres
whatcha gonna do
I’m from detroit
blow the reveille
deatho knocko
that’s me little ol’me
glamorous me

Johnny can’t read
blah blah blah
I’ can’t see
blah blah blah
tuna on white
guns all night
blah blah blah

Cat taboo girl-
raped by an ape
cat taboo girl
jam the sucker in
you dig the mongrels
guardian of the state
says you gotta go
bombin’ low

Senator Rambo
merrily you go
monkey butcher knows
a cab to find abank
a bank to find a loan
’cause you can’t be alone
you dig the mongrels

Violent peace
blah blah blah
buy it right now
blah blah blah
we are the world
we are so huge
blah blah blah
johnny can’t read
blah blah blah
I’ can’t see
blah blah blah
tuna on white
guns all night
blah blah blah

blue jeans coolies
everything huge
petrified food
pizza killers
from napalm to nice guy
nifty fifty
hit ’em where they live

the most spoiled brats
on god’s green earth

pop before the war

c – 1986 Iggy Pop, David Bowie