Valerie in Brooklyn just sent me this:
Full article here.
After the last two days and such beautiful weather, we are back to high winds, a touch of snow, and below freezing temperatures.
That seems to affect my moods these days, more than it ever did. I was speaking to someone yesterday who felt the same way. I never minded winter before — but now I just want it over with. And these relentless high winds keep me on the verge of my PTSD.
Anyway!! The agency completely re-did my schedule for March yesterday. So now I am working only morning shifts for the entire month. I prefer morning to evening shifts, but it’s harder to post to the blog.
Regarding anything in the news, I am not posting about it anymore, but still following it. I hope you are keeping up with NewsTreasonChannel17 to get a good idea of what is really going on out there right now. And also, of course, following Phil, whenever he’s around.
Oh, since it was such a pretty day yesterday, I took my 94-year-old Japanese client out for lunch, and guess where??
And he concurred — the food there is really good. (But I only let him have one beer. No tequila. With his wooden leg, it’s hard enough to keep him steady.)
Okay. I gotta scoot.
Have a great Thursday wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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This will be brief because I have a morning client (I have morning shifts all week). But the good news is that it’s with my favorite 94-year-old Japanese man!
During my meditation this morning, it suddenly occurred to me that, client or no client, he is one of my most favorite people on Earth. And isn’t it interesting that I have such a spiritual rapport with him — a man in the early stages of dementia — and that we laugh so much and have so much in common and that we literally talk for 4 straight hours whenever we are together (3 days a week)?
If you were to overhear our conversations, you would not think that I was talking to someone with a memory problem. We just have the best times together — both in terms of just having fun but also sharing deeply spiritual conversations.
And if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you may recall that in the autumn, I had this other wonderful client — a woman with several Degrees in Theology from Yale, where she studied just after WWII.
She has no memory issues whatsoever. And she and I had the best conversations, too. About Christian theology, about the Bible, about human nature, about her extraordinary life.
Anyway, she spends winters in Florida and will be coming back here soon. I am so hoping they re-assign me to her. When I visit with people like that — even though I do have to do some serious “caregiver” tasks — it is not like “work” at all. It is incredible.
So, here’s hoping. But we’ll see.
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Okay.
Things with Peitor’s family are improving immensely!!! And it was a really, really good thing that he showed up in Iowa when he did. The situation there has still sort of put him “on hold” as far as the TV pilot proposal package goes. But we are hanging in there.
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In other news!!
Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File yesterday morning that was really wonderful!! In essence, he told us what he eats for lunch everyday (and it’s quite similar to what I eat for breakfast everyday). But he also said some beautiful things about humanity. In part:
“And it reminds me that we all stand before the world with our faculties – our minds, bodies, mouths, and hands – each of us shaping the environment around us. What we think, do, and say is fundamental to the survival of this grand human project. Each of us is precious, and our actions are vital, everything we do and say matters. We can speak beauty into the world or poison it with our words; we can build things up or tear them down; we can dream of a world that is vast, alive, and interesting, or reason it to be small, hard, and empty.”
You can read it in full here.
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And now I gotta scoot!!!!
Have a wonder-filled Wednesday, wherever you are in the world!
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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On a Sinatra kick around here.
When I was 7 years old, I had a transistor radio that I just loved. And that particular year, the song below was a huge Top 40 hit and I just loved listening to it on my transistor!!
As fate would have it, my Japanese client designed one of the most popular pocket-sized transistor radios in the world, back in the late 1960s, while living/working in Hong Kong.
When I played this song for him, and told him how much I loved listening to it on my transistor when I was 7 (and he was 37), he laughed with delight and said, “Yes, I remember this song!!”
It’s still a great song. Enjoy, gang!!
Yes, yesterday was ostensibly my “day off”.
I don’t have another day off until next Sunday. That thought alone made me really tired yesterday.
Well, “tired” is not really the word. I was reluctant to do anything because I felt like there just wasn’t any time. Just for me, I mean.
Still, I managed to take care of the 722 cats. And do laundry. And meditate, do prayer work, do yoga. Do some editing for the TV pilot package. Speak to Peitor on the phone.
And also!
I finally watched “Emilia Pérez” — that movie that Sandra had asked me to watch and so I re-joined Netflix recently just for that reason.
I watched the movie yesterday, finally. Curiously, it is described as “a 2024 Spanish-language French musical crime comedy film “.
I wouldn’t describe it like that, personally. Having now seen it.
It did drum up a TON of controversy, worldwide. At awards shows, mostly. Because the movie’s central theme is about a cartel drug lord in Mexico who surgically transitions from male to female — and the lead actress in the film, Karla Sofía Gascón, did the same thing in real life. And, as I’m sure you’re aware, there is currently just truckloads of hate and ugliness being spewed at transgenders right now.
Which obfuscated the fact that “Emilia Pérez” was a really good movie.
It didn’t seem like a comedy to me. Not in any way, shape or form. It’s a very dark film, but peppered with hope for the nature of humanity. And it IS a musical — done in a very unusual way. It was in no way predictable. I can’t say if the writing was good, because it’s in Spanish and so I was reading subtitles throughout. But the acting was really good.
But in my opinion, it’s a very dark film. But a really good one.
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Okay, Phil is supposed to do a livestream tonight at 8PM eastern time. I guess we’ll see, gang. Check here later to confirm.
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Yesterday, I was looking at the archived texts I still have on my phone from my dad, and I discovered that most of the texts have disappeared!! This made me so sad.
I grabbed a screenshot of what was left, before it disappears, too — the final text from my dad (his is the white background):
End then, a couple weeks later, he was gone.
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And then on an unrelated note — Times Square used to look exactly like this in the decades that I lived in NYC:
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And really, other than that, I gotta scoot!!!
Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world!
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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Two versions of the same great song, separated by about 30 years.
If you weren’t aware — at one time, Johnny Cash was Marty Stuart’s father-in-law and Marty played in Johnny’s band. If you don’t know Marty Stuart, he is a fantastic Country guitar player.
Wow, yesterday was emotional, gang.
Not just that David Johansen died, but the way I found out —
I was with my 94-year-old Japanese client. I was kneeling next to his recliner and playing Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” for him on my phone.
He wasn’t familiar with that song. And he had tears in his eyes as he was listening to it and watching the little video — and suddenly a text from Wayne popped up at the top of the screen, saying that David Johansen had died.
I swiped it away before my client could even process it. But I had definitely processed it. In a nanosecond. And so to be there like that, with my client practically in tears of joy, and that beautiful song playing, and then seeing the news and having to keep it to myself… wow.
My client had a lot of incredibly beautiful things to say to me yesterday. It was intense. So, all of it together — I left there not feeling at all like shooting a gun. So I just came straight home and skipped the open house at the shooting range.
And in the mail yesterday — there was a sympathy card from the staff at the agency where I work. Expressing sadness for my loss — for my cat being killed by a car. Is that, like, amazing, or what? They are the nicest company to work for, in so many ways.
Anyway, by the time I got home yesterday — walking in to a kitchen that had been turned sort of topsy-turvy by the foster cats — I was just worn out. On so many levels.
So today, I just want to have a really nice day.
The sun is out. It’s cold, but at least it’s March and Spring is right around the corner.
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Okay. I thought this was of interest. This is where the Government has uploaded (and will continue to upload) assassination files on JFK:
“The President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection“
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If you are interested in Judeo-Christian antiquities, this is great stuff. We are studying it (again) in Tabor’s private Patreon Group. This video is taken from our recent zoom session.
James Tabor — The Didache: A Lost and Rediscovered Text of the Teaching of Jesus Pt 1 (1 hr):
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And this has begun today! And THANK YOU (!!!) to the folks who are already downloading my free eBooks! (Direct links to my eBooks that are included in the sale are HERE. Scroll down.) (ADULTS ONLY!!)
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Okay, I think that’s kind of it.
I want to finish up the laundry, do some yoga, and then get back to editing the files for the TV series promo package.
Enjoy your Sunday, gang, wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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I also played the song below for my client yesterday morning. He had never heard it before. It was popular here when he was living back in Tokyo.
My client was born in NYC in 1930, but when he was 3, his father moved the family back to Tokyo because the world situation was getting dicey — just before WWII.
When my client was 17 and done with high school and WWII was over, his father gave him enough money to go back to NYC. (His father had also arranged a job for him.)
As my client was leaving Tokyo at age 17, his dad said to him: “Don’t expect me to send you any more money. If you can’t make it in New York City, then you’ll never amount to anything.” My client went on to graduate from NYU by working days as a TV repairman and going to school at night. That degree from NYU eventually landed him several Executive positions in electrical engineering in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Fort Worth — and it took him all over the world. He became very, very successful.
My client certainly knew who Frank Sinatra was, but he was only familiar with the earlier songs. When I played this one for him — he was spellbound. And, yes, he had tears in his eyes. When the song was over, he whispered, “Thank you.” Enjoy, gang.
What a great day we had, gang.
I did take my 94-year-old Japanese client back to the Peony Bistro, where we each had the sushi/sashimi lunch special, and he also had sake.
And we just had the best time. We laughed a lot. He was in such good spirits, it was even better than the last time we went.
And for some inexplicable reason, the exact moment we sat down in our booth, “Take Me Home Country Roads” by John Denver came on the sound system!!! Unbelievable, gang. That song is suddenly taking over my life and it’s only FIFTY-FOUR years old!!!
But as per the last time, he did not want his fortune cookie. Something about fortune cookies being “fake”!! So, once again, I opened his for him. It is absolutely impossible for me to leave a fortune cookie unopened.
Since he only has long-term memory left, I once again found both our fortunes uncanny.
His is the top one:
After lunch, since it was such a beautiful day, we stopped at a nature preserve not far from his house. He has a wooden leg and cannot walk too far on uneven terrains, so we just went over to the railing of the bridge (pictured below, in the Spring), then stood there for a while and looked at the sky. It was so blue. We just had such a beautiful day.
I will be going back to his house today because I now see him 3 times a week (he has a private care nurse the other 4 days). Then afterward, the shooting range is having an open house, so I will probably stop by there on my way home and see if they have a lane open for me to practice on (they have 12 lanes).
Here is the shooting center, inside and out:
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And that’s kind of it.
Tomorrow, I will be working on the pitch bible documents, but it’s starting to feel like we won’t be able to pitch this project at Series Mania this year (and by “we”, I mean Peitor, since I’m not planning to be in France anytime soon).
But we’ll just see. I feel so bad for him right now, gang. I do not know how he’s managing to cope. And he still has to make an unpleasant trip out to Los Angeles, before he can finally head back to the South of France.
Okay, well. Enjoy your Saturday, wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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From yesterday’s drive to town, on the backroads!
I’ve posted this here before, but here it is again!! “The Wrong Thing To Do”, by Tom Petty’s other band, Mudcrutch. 2008. Enjoy, gang.
“The Wrong Thing To Do”
Well, my daddy took me campin’
Out under the stars
Left me by the fire
While he hit the bars
And I broke my finger
On a trailer hitch
Mamma called daddy
That son of a bitch, all right
Well a hundred miles to go
You draggin’ your ass
I’m in a Japanese car
That ain’t gonna last
And you forever drivin’
On the wrong side of the road
Wearing dungarees
That your mother stole
Well my mamma loved me
But my daddy don’t
I’m tryin’ to work it all out
But I probably won’t
I got a woman waiting
At the top of the stairs
It’s the wrong thing to do
But I don’t care
Well she was blond and tall
She was 23
Born into the world
To get the best of me
And she never paid back
Half what she stole
She wanted my money
So I gave her my soul
Well I was flying half mast
On the 4th of July
In a bar in Lake City
With a western tie
And I was thinkin’ hard
About changin’ my name
And headed for Miami
When the daylight came
c – 2008 Tom Petty
It is a gorgeous day here and the birds are singing — this seems to be a sign that Spring is really on its way to the Hinterlands, gang. (The weather will not be so nice starting tomorrow, though.)
But because the weather is so nice today, I’ll be taking my favorite 94-year-old Japanese client out to lunch again!! Probably back to the Peony Bistro, but he and I have been discussing other places, for when the weather gets really nice.
For instance, that restaurant at the local golf course that I briefly posted about recently. It has spectacular views. So going when all the foliage is out & about is a better idea:
The restaurant/golf course is only 10 minutes from my house, but it’s 20 miles from my client’s house. So that’s a ton of driving for me.
We also want to go here — to the historic Buxton Inn. A place he and I have both been to many times, though not together, and it’s about 6 minutes from his house.
This inn is very old — from 1812. And Abe Lincoln actually spent one night there, on his way to Washington DC.
The room he slept in is now the main dining room:
So those lunches are coming up in our future!
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Okay, so regarding the Epstein 200-page-flop yesterday —
I’m guessing it was planned that way. (Meaning that thousands of files are missing on purpose. For now.)
Especially since yesterday, il donaldo Trumpo posted TWO popcorn memes — one early in the morning, and then one yesterday night. And Dan Scavino posted one very early yesterday morning.
When I saw the two earlier memes, I thought: Okay, now what? But it didn’t occur to me it had anything to do with Epstein…
I guess we’ll see if anything else really egregious unfolds.
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I loved this! It is in the same vein as James Tabor’s teachings and Ross K. Nichols teachings. I love that these guys are so young and are looking for the true teachings of the actual Jesus (that’s the reason why I left the ministry after I graduated from Divinity School, I wanted to learn about what Jesus of Nazareth actually taught) — and these guys have over 300K followers! It gives me hope!!
The Moses Scroll: Lost Deuteronomy & the Missing Commandment | Jesus Way Podcast 02 (2 hrs 35 mins):
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Well, if you thought there was a finite limit to the amount of stress in my life, you are sadly mistaken.
I can’t go into the details on the blog, but something really devastating has happened in Peitor’s family. He is now in Iowa, attempting to deal with it, cope with it, survive it.
And, yes, Series Mania in Lille, France, is only 3 weeks away.
For the most part, we have the essentials. We have the most important documents — the logline, synopsis, and the pilot script. We should have the pitch bible by then, too, because that only requires some editing done by me. Which I can finish doing on Sunday,
But the pitch deck — only he can do that. It requires a ton of graphic design and a thorough knowledge of photo shop. Neither of those skills are possessed by moi. We are trying our best to just cope with everything. It’s astounding, really.
But on we go, gang.
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Okay, that’s it for now. I gotta scoot and go see my favorite client.
Enjoy your Friday, wherever you are in the world!!
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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I leave you with this!!
Breakfast-listening music!! Since Johnny Cash’s birthday the other day, I’ve been on a Johnny Cash kick.
From the Sun Record years. “Guess Things Happen That Way”. 1958. Enjoy, gang!!
I have an early client this morning so I gotta scoot, but just in case you somehow missed the news last night — Epstein List starts being released today.
Okay. I have a full schedule until Sunday but I will try to post here tomorrow.
Have a good Thursday , wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
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Johnny Cash’s birthday was yesterday.🎂🎉🔥
Even though it’s still February, the birds are already singing in the mornings around here. And today is going to be another sunny day. So we’re off to a happy start.
This will be quick because I have to head out to see my favorite 94-year-old Japanese man! But I just wanted to post this video, because it amazed me.
I have posted in the past about a young musician I know in Istanbul. We met through Instagram a few years ago. I posted some of his music here when his last album came out.
Very early this morning (midday his time), he texted me on Instagram and I told him about one of my cats dying.
He sent me this video. It broke my heart in the most beautiful way. And it rang true for me & my life these days in so many ways. If you watch it, be sure to watch to the very end. What a sweet guy.
Okay, gang, have a great Wednesday, wherever you are in the world.
Thanks for visiting.
I love you guys. See ya!
Marilyn's Room 