Tag Archives: 1954 Powder Blue Pickup by Marilyn Jaye Lewis

Woman Drive Happy Flowers!

That was kind of me yesterday, gang.

Except for the dramatic headscarf and that incredibly awesome vintage automobile…

I was, though, wearing my sunglasses and a brand new sundress covered in a colorful flower pattern, when I drove down to see my dad for Father’s Day.

And I did notice that when I got out at the (very crowded) rest stop, none of the many women there were wearing dresses and I also noticed that every man, in every age range — including the guy who worked there and was on a break, smoking a cigarette in the “smoking zone” — who I like to think was in my viable age range but whose mom is probably younger than me — stopped what they were doing or saying or smoking to stare at me.

In a very nice way.

So that was really great. The trip itself, however, was sort of stressful. Just knowing what my dad is going through. plus, the drive itself, there & back. really knocks me out. I don’t drive long distances anymore and I just can’t get used to it.

Other than that, though, it was a great day. The weather was incredibly perfect and beautiful. One of my stepsisters was there, too, and I hadn’t seen her since her mom’s funeral (my stepmom), back before the lockdowns. She was doing really great and it was nice to see that (except when she mentioned something about being 57 now, I almost collapsed, because she’s supposed to still be in her twenties — right? Where the fuck is the time going??? Man.)

Anyway, it was a great day, but it exhausted me.

Beginning today, I have a lot of theater-related work to do with Sandra, so I won’t tarry here.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Phil, he’s been posting a lot of stuff about the presence of the military in all the various States. I have been on the lookout for that, but so far, I haven’t seen any in Ohio yet. Could be that they’re just eluding me…

Phil posted this on Saturday, which I loved:

Also, back on Saturday…

I posted the link to Ross K. Nichols’ upcoming video about “Following Jesus out of Christianity.” If you did not get a chance to see it live, the replay is now up there and it was just a really, really great lecture, gang. I am so looking forward to this new series.

Following Jesus out of Christianity (56 mins):

So that’s kind of it.

I gotta scoot and get ready to work with Sandra. (Which means: grab more coffee and eat something so that my brain is actually functioning…)

Enjoy your Monday (or your Juneteenth holiday, if you live here in the States).

Thanks for visiting!

I love you guys. See ya!

*****************

Some of my endlessly-driving-music from yesterday!!! (I was listening to a phenomenal 60s-Oldies playlist.)

It’s All Looking Really Good!

Here in my own life — I finally got to touch base with Sandra yesterday about her meeting with the director of our play, “The Guide to Being Fabulous,” and all the final rewrites to Act One. It was all really, really positive.

The best news — the director is planning to tour the show to several other Canadian cities after our run in Toronto, in the “Her Words Festival” this fall at Soulpepper.

And that tour will help us really polish the show until its razor sharp, because after that, we head to Off-Broadway with it, in NYC.

As Sandra said yesterday, “It’s all real now, girlfriend. This is it.”

Such an incredible feeling after working on this show for so many years.

Soulpepper Theatre Co. in Toronto

And things are looking good not just in my own life, but check out some of the great stuff going on in — yes — the war!!

These are just some of the 20 countries that have now applied to join BRICS:

“Saudi Arabia🇸🇦
UAE🇦🇪
Egypt🇪🇬
Algeria🇩🇿
Bahrain🇧🇭
Indonesia🇮🇩
Argentina🇦🇷
Mexico🇲🇽
Nigeria🇳🇬
Bangladesh🇧🇩
Venezuela🇻🇪
Iran🇮🇷
Kazakhstan🇰🇿
Turkey🇹🇷
Syria🇸🇾
Nicaragua🇳🇮

The new BRICS currency being discussed will reportedly be backed by gold, rare earth metals and the other natural resources of the BRICS members, with expansion bringing in the vast natural resource wealth of new members.”

************

And here are a few very short videos from RT this morning. Really good stuff finally taking hold world-wide, gang. We really are nearing the end of the war:

RT -IRAN SIGNS MAJOR AGREEMENTS WITH THREE LATIN AMERICAN ALLIES (3 mins):

RT – #SPIEF2023 | RUSSIA ‘NEGOTIATING WITH ALL FRIENDLY STATES ON ENTIRE SPECTRUM OF PROJECTS’ (48 seconds):

RT _ #SPIEF2023 | ‘EVEN THE SMALLEST ECONOMY HAS A VOICE IN THE EEU’ – RUSSIAN DEPUTY PM (4 mins):

And even though all the news in the US right now is fake– behind the scenes, things are also looking really good here, too, gang.

Posted to Phil’s channel this morning:

“Great synopsis from a fellow Anon:

Just spitballing here, but this is what I’m putting together:

  1. Covid origins have to become public on Sunday
  2. Trump is free to post on other social media on the 17th (he had an inclusivity clause on Truth), think, “my fellow Americans…”
  3. Wednesday is the longest day of the year. (Most light)
  4. Bidens are done. Too many whistleblowers and information came to light and it’s even in the mainstream news now. They are going to throw him overboard to save themselves
  5. Storms all over the place.
  6. Thousands of banks on the list for defaults.
  7. We are seeing military movement
  8. Frenetic Spiritual atmosphere is super heavy right now
  9. Prophets are getting more Words, more frequently, and with greater detail.
  10. More distractions in the news than I ever remember before
  11. Satan’s minions are getting more sloppy and “in your face” for the people to swallow. It’s not discrete and gradual indoctrination anymore, it’s an obviously evil bulldozer effrontery.
  12. The fact that Trump is going higher in the polls is a testament to how many people are pulling their heads out of their arses and waking up to the media and politician’s lies. More media outlets are falling
  13. Virtually the whole world is in revolt and protesting their various corrupt governments
  14. Still more voter fraud evidence is being revealed publicly and more people than ever are onto their cheating.
  15. Ukraine 🇺🇦 is almost done
  16. European countries are now publicly interested in joining BRICS.
  17. Senators and other insiders with sat phones are being told to charge them up and be ready.
  18. People have already researched the crap out of the evil cabal’s effects on historical and current sacrificial worship of Lucifer and how we have been enslaved and now a lot have moved on to researching the aspects of returning to health and a full prolific life. Hopefully, to bring an end to “the stupiding”
  19. Practically everyone now knows about the children
  20. Our covenant nation is about to celebrate another birthday 🎉🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸”

So all that is really great news.

*************

Okay.

Q&A with James Tabor & Gnostic Informant — Reflecting Back on My 45 Year Career (2 hrs):

And starting today — this new class should be awesome, gang:

Ross K. Nichols –Following Jesus out of Christianity:

And that’s it!!

We’re back to having beautiful weather here in Crazeysburg, so I don’t have to stress about the leaky roof or keep reminding myself to not look up at the ceiling…

I’m ready for just a really great day, gang.

I will not be posting tomorrow because it’s Father’s Day and I’m driving down to see my dad.

Me, with my dad a bag of potato chips, but my dad took the photo (Cleveland, Ohio, 1962-63):

Enjoy your beautiful weekend, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

*******************************

Play them loud! Kick back and enjoy my wee bonny childhood!!

That Wonderful Time of the Week!!

Yes, driving to town today to get groceries!! (How I wish these guys were real and actually drove me to town & back whenever I needed them to…) (Or needed them for “other stuff,” come to think of it!)

Anyway, I’m feeling better, brain-wise. Even though, yesterday, yet another Government-affiliated organization that is supposed to help low-income seniors get affordable home loans for roof repairs has turned me down.

Because of the bankruptcy. Caused by COVID lockdowns. Caused by “the Government”.

Well, hmmm……

Naturally, since we have had a lot of wind and rain over the past couple of days, my roof has sprung two more leaks… but I guess we will continue to turn it over to God and see what eventually comes from all this.

And most important of all — DO NOT LOOK UP AT THE CEILING. It only spoils my day.

Okay.

So, yes, the video below is war stuff, but it is incredible. Especially if you are a creative in the entertainment industry in any way and have been wondering how on Earth you will ever deal with the whole movie-making process again, now that all the satanic child sex trafficking stuff in Hollywood has come fully to light…

This was great and very informative. (It is primarily about the movie, “Sound of Freedom,” and Operation Underground Railroad, saving sex-trafficked kids.)

MEL K & NATE LEWIS | OPERATION UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: THE HEROES BEHIND SOUND OF FREEDOM (43 mins):

I didn’t sleep particularly well last night (my bedroom was hot & humid because of the rain), yet I still woke up in this really great mood, feeling like the career-related cloud of “overwhelment” has passed! Yay.

(Yes, I am brave enough to use a word like “overwhelment” in a sentence, and publicly, even though the spellcheck is alerting me that I am about to make a grave error…)

So we shall see where this new frame of mind will lead today. Even if it doesn’t lead to any new writing, sometimes just having a happy day because you’re having a happy day, is absolutely the best thing.

Okay, so I gotta scoot and get into town. So this is a short one.

Enjoy your Friday, wherever you are in the world, gang.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

****************

Okay, so THIS song was singing away in my brain upon awakening this morning!! What could it mean? I sure don’t know but what a happy song it is!

From 1965, Herman’s Hermits’ “I’m Into Something Good”!! Enjoy, gang!!

“I’m Into Something Good”

Woke up this morning feelin’ fine
There’s something special on my mind
Last night I met a new girl in the neighborhood, whoa yeah
Something tells me I’m into something good
(Something tells me I’m into something)

She’s the kind of girl who’s not too shy
And I can tell I’m her kind of guy
She danced close to me like I hoped she would
(She danced with me like I hoped she would)
Something tells me I’m into something good
(Something tells me I’m into something)

We only danced for a minute or two
But then she stuck close to me the whole night through
Can I be fallin’ in love?
(She’s everything I’ve been dreamin’ of)
She’s everything I’ve been dreamin’ of

I walked her home and she held my hand
I knew it couldn’t be just a one-night stand
So I asked to see her next week and she told me I could
(I asked to see her and she told me I could)
Something tells me I’m into something good
(Something tells me I’m into something)
(Something tells me I’m into something, ahhh)

I walked her home and she held my hand
I knew it couldn’t be just a one-night stand
So I asked to see her next week and she told me I could
(I asked to see her and she told me I could)
Something tells me I’m into something good
(Something tells me I’m into something)
Something tells me I’m into something good
(Something tells me I’m into something)
To something good, oh yeah, something good
(Something tells me I’m into something)
To something good, something good, something good

c- 1964, Gerry Goffin, Carole King

Where the Heck Did it All Go?

All right, gang.

These last few days of working with Valerie on the book cover-coffee mugs has just been stupefying. (See the blog post “At It Again“)

It’s not like I don’t remember my writing career prior to Q, but it’s this notion of how many years I’ve been working at it, you know? I lost track. And now it’s back on my plate. My primary focus. And suddenly, I just can’t process any of it.

Nowadays, when I think of my writing career, I think that I’ve written about 5 novels and a few novellas, a bunch of short stories and some scripts… And then when I was faced with choosing the book covers for the coffee mugs, I see I have to choose from 25 books. Of my own. Not the dozens that include my work but are edited by someone else.

What the heck?

Almost all of my books are out of print now, so I kind of forget. But I have bookshelves in my storage closet filled with books I either wrote or edited or contributed to over the decades, so it’s all in there. But I really don’t see it anymore. If it isn’t on LULU or Smashwords or Amazon, I simply forget.

Here’s one small portion of the writing madness in my storage closet. Some of my published books over the years, and all of my journals.

Marilyn’s Closet: I’d forgotten that the Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography came out in 3 different countries at once. It was a world-wide bestseller. Yes, I forgot this.

The closet is filled with books, journals, original manuscripts, correspondence — all of it “overseen” by Valerie in Brooklyn, since she is one of the heirs to my humble Estate…

And the idea of having a blog for 25 years just blows my mind. I cannot get my mind around that, still. Where did the time go?

Marilyn’s Room was an offshoot of my first erotic fiction site, Other-Rooms.com. That idea was born in the fall of 1997, when I was riding the subway in NYC, thinking about the terrific erotica writers who were emerging in the US and the UK and I wanted the world to know about them. So I decided to start Other-Rooms. It was named after one of my favorite writers, Truman Capote, and his classic provocative book Other Voices, Other Rooms.

On Other-Rooms, other erotica writers had their own “rooms” where they could publish their erotic short stories or erotic poetry. This was back when the Internet was brand new. There was not the ton of content there is today. Other-Rooms was an incredible success, internationally. Almost immediately, it was getting 5000 visitors a day. And every writer who had a room on Other-Rooms got a publishing deal of some kind (sold a story or poem, or got a book deal). It was incredible. We even made it into Playboy‘s Online Hall of Fame. And I did it all by myself, from my room.

Marilyn’s Room was actually incorporated, in 1998. I had business partners, investors. I had my own server and programmer up in Boston, and a 24-track recording studio in Midtown Manhattan (upstairs from the old Studio 54) was also a partner — it was the multi-media arm of Other-Rooms. We featured filmmakers, spoken word recitals, recorded interviews, erotic photography. Multi-media was very expensive back then and was bulky and very hard to upload. But we did it. And on the Marilyn’s Room site, I had an online journal — which eventually came to be called “blogs.”

But anyway. I remember it all. I just don’t understand how time suddenly just flew.

So I sit at my desk and look at all the works I have in -progress since 2020 and I don’t even know how to begin. Where to jump in. How to get it all done. Plus I still have the play rewrites in full swing all summer.

So it is safe to say that I am overwhelmed.

But before I forget– Valerie created this on Tuesday night and I just love it!!! It was probably my most controversial book ever (the first time I ever actually got hate emails), from 2005 — Zowie! It’s Yaoi! Western Girls Write Hot Stories of “Boys’ Love” — published by Thunder’s Mouth Press in NY, and now you can own it as a lunchbox!! With the Marilyn’s Room blog logo on the back. (My blog logo is also the logo for my self-publishing company: Marilyn’s Room Books.)

Zowie! It’s Yaoi! Western Girls Write Hot Stories of “Boys’ Love”

So. I’m tired, gang. And confused about this fleeing of time. And of course, I spend a lot of time thinking about my dad, my childhood, since I will be making the trek back down there to see him this weekend for Father’s Day.

For some reason, when I was a little girl, I always bought my dad this for Father’s Day. I really loved the smell of this stuff, and the packaging, plus I could afford it on my teeny allowance! I don’t think my dad ever wore after shave, let alone English Leather…but I, personally, really loved the stuff.

In other news…

This was awesome, gang. Just great historical stuff here.

Gnostic Informant & Ross K. Nichols — Oldest Mention of DAVID & ISRAEL ever Discovered (1 hr 44 mins):

And in other other news–

I’ll just say that I think it’s interesting that Phil is off on his honeymoon for the month of June, not totally silent but basically not posting any intel. And at the same time, SGAnon is “recovering from surgery” and also got a “promotion at work” so he has no time to really post anything right now, either….

Even Charlie Ward is “still recovering”.

And Real Raw News has slowed way, way down…

Lots of silence out there, folks.

So we’ll see.

Meanwhile, I have to get to work on a bio for Sandra for the play. So I guess I need more coffee to get the brain back on track.

Enjoy your Thursday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

*******************

Linda Ronstadt & the Stone Poneys, her first hit, which I find myself singing all the time — “Different Drum”, from 1967 (and written by Michael Nesmith, of The Monkees). Enjoy!

At It Again!

Here are a couple more samples that I think look great on a coffee mug — or an apron, as it turns out!! (Valerie’s idea)

This one is being resized to fit the bottom credit

And all of these have the “Marilyn’s Room” blog logo on the other side (see last night’s post).

And it occurred to me yesterday, while Val and I were working on these, that I’ve had the Marilyn’s Room blog continuously for 25 years now. That is a hell of a lot of posting to the blog, isn’t it? I’ve used different servers, different platforms over the decades — and I’ve been here on WordPress the longest: 9 years already. I have no clue where the time went.

And also, yesterday, while we were getting the cover art together and choosing which of my books I wanted to include — narrowing it down to 20 (twenty!!??!!) — when the hell did that happen?? 20 books??

To be fair, I’m including the cover art for Girl in The Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse, which isn’t finished yet. But there were 5 other titles that I left off because the covers were either absolutely boring or just did not look great. (And this doesn’t include any of the many books I contributed work to — that number would just get ridiculous.)

Anyway. I do not remember all of this life happening, gang. I mean, I kind of do, but I kind of don’t — I don’t understand how all this time unfolded and happened.

Okay, well, here’s Valerie’s great apron idea!! I find this strangely perfect but really funny (I cannot imagine anyone in their right mind buying this, but we’re selling it!):

It would look like this if you wore it– just in time for Father’s Day!!

Anyway, so that’s been fun…

Okay.

Yes, I realize we have an indictment thingie going on over here, and that Truthers are ready for this to be the thing that triggers everything else. I sure hope so, gang. We’ll have to see. (I still think it’s extremely odd that Phil’s on his honeymoon right now and looking really happy. I always try to factor that into everything I’m seeing.) (And just fyi, everything out there contradicts everything else out there, so I’m just sitting tight and watching it all.)

Meanwhile, no notes yet from Sandra about her meeting with the director of the play, so I have another wide open day in front of me. Now that the exciting coffee mugs are, basically, finished — just awaiting some finishing touches from Valerie — maybe I can really get down to some actual writing today.

That’s really it for now. In the event something significant actually happens regarding the indictment, I’ll jump back on here.

Meanwhile, thanks for visiting,

I love you guys. See ya!

******************************

James Tabor — Did the Essenes Write the Dead Sea Scrolls–What Can We Say After 75 Years? (1 hr 11 mins):

Another one for that one I love, just for the thrill of it all! Enjoy, gang!!

Bob Dylan, “Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anyone Seen My Love)” 1985.

Normal People Living in Hell!

Last night, I decided to cancel Cue Streaming.

It’s not yet working on my new TV, but I wasn’t down in the kitchen; I was already up in my bed, perusing the lineup of channels offered on Cue (because it works on my iPhone and on my laptop) and it was the same old, same old as ever before — the reason I canceled cable years ago. There was never anything I wanted to watch and I was always watching Amazon Prime instead.

So I canceled Cue Streaming last night and then immediately went back over to Amazon Prime and watched another episode of “The Avengers” from 1966 on the tiny yet beguiling screen of my iPhone…

I used to love “The Avengers,” back when I was a little girl, growing up in Cleveland. I wouldn’t say that I love it now, but I do like to watch Emma Peel and marvel at all her many amazing outfits and remember fondly how awesome fashions were in London in the 1960s.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, no worries! There is absolutely no need to waste a moment, stepping back in time. Diana Rigg, the actress who played Emma Peel, is no longer even alive. And she died from old age, not because she skipped outside one merry morning and got hit by a bus while still in the bloom of youth or anything. It is sufficient to just post this photo and move ever onward into that great unknown expanse called Life:

Emma Peel, The Avengers, 1966

Of course, rumor has it among Truthers that Amazon Prime will disappear once the new Internet is up and running, but I’m willing to risk it! We’ll just have to see. If I’m left with no technology whatsoever, perhaps just a pen and some paper — that might end up being the best life yet… Creativity, without the siren call of black & white reruns.

Okay!

Today is once again wide open.

I am off work. Sandra has that meeting with the (DORA-nominated) director of our play — so no more re-writes just yet. I will still have a slew of them once we undertake Act Two.

But today (!!) — laundry is almost done, I do not have to drive to town & back for anything at all; it’s going to just be all about me and my desk and a bunch of thoughts that are in my head. (And, with luck, putting the thoughts down on paper or onto a screen of some sort.)

I’m looking forward to it.

In other news!!!

Nick Cave sent out a Red Hand File this morning. In it, he tackles the pesky problem plaguing truckloads of American families right now — “non-binary,” “trans,” “gender fluidity,” “pronoun problems.” He doesn’t go into the Neo-Marxist Indoctrination at the heart of the current Color Revolution that is hoping to upend whatever is left of the nuclear family here in America by ripping it to smithereens…

Instead, he opted to aim for the simple human heart: parents and children and unconditional love. And how the situation is always basically the same, regardless of the topic and the times. Love and acceptance are at the core of surviving it and always have been.

Just normal people living in hell.

And there was also beautiful stuff about his music…

You can read it HERE if you so choose.

All righty!

As always, James Tabor brings up a lot of points about the early Jesus Movement that are well worth pondering.

John, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and James–Sorting out the First Forty Years! (1 hr 20 mins):

That’s probably it for right now. I’m going to get started on stuff here and see where the day leads.

Enjoy your Monday, wherever you are in the world! (And yes, I am still keeping up on the war and things are absolutely horrific and more chaotic than ever. But on we go,)

Thanks for visiting, gang.

I love you guys. See ya!

*****************

A song from yesteryear that was curiously on my mind this morning and so I share it with you! Enjoy, gang.

I Concur!

Well, the Simon Parkes update from yesterday did not cause me to make any additional enormous changes to my life. Yay.

He did say that he was tired of everyone just not telling the truth (meaning other truthers, but also White Hats and all the optics….)

And I have to say, heartily, that I concur!! I am so ready for the lies, the optics and the subterfuge to be over.

But in the meantime…

I can’t help but notice the dozens and dozens of happy honeymoon photos from Phil & Keri in Italy, so I’m thinking there is not much to worry about right now. And so on we go!

Quickly to the topic of my new TV!

I could not believe how easy it was to set up. In under 5 minutes, it had even recognized my firestick and set all that up, too. I was sort of flabbergasted by how quick it was. It sort of did it in spite of me, sitting there.

However, setting up Cue Streaming on the TV is not going so well. It works like a charm on the laptop — enough for me to see that there is simply way more stuff than I would ever want to watch in a lifetime, let alone in a day or a week or a month. So I don’t know if I will keep the service or not. I really do not like TV, but I’ll wait and see what I think once I actually get the streaming to work down there in the kitchen.

I’m totally 100% happy with just having Amazon Prime, so we’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m still on a little hiatus from rewrites on “The Guide to Being Fabulous” because Sandra just finished a quick film shoot up in Toronto and wants a break. And once again, I concur!

But even though I would like to take this little break-time to work on some writing of my own, I also have a ton of stuff to keep on top of regarding the James Tabor research group.

I’m halfway through re-reading The Jesus Discovery (which is just fascinating, gang. Wow. Even the second time around.) But I still have some papers to read before the next zoom meeting, too —

One is “The Geochemistry of Intrusive Sediment Sampled from the 1st Century CE Inscribed Ossuaries of James and the Talpiot Tomb, Jerusalem” — 22 pages.

Another is “The Talpiot ‘Jesus’ Tomb: A Historical Analysis” — 28 pages.

The third is 15 pages of notes on “Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palestinae, Volume I: Jerusalem. Part 1:1-704 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010)”.

And between now and the next zoom meeting is, of course, Father’s Day, which means I’ll be doing a lot of driving again and spending some time being exhausted on several levels.

Plus, I have that pesky part-time job to squeeze in there, too. But for now, it’s only 3 evenings a week.

So we’ll see, gang. It just gets stressful, finding enough time and brain-space for all this stuff (and people) I love!

All right. That’s kind of it. I want to get started here before I look at the clock and see that I suddenly have to dash off to work… (that happens a lot).

Enjoy your weekend! I likely won’t be posting tomorrow. We’ll see.

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

*****************

Yes, I’m on a serious Ultra Lounge kick these days! I have so many of their CDs from the 90s (back when I also had many cocktails and smoked many wonderful Chesterfield unfiltered cigarettes!). Here’s one of my all-time favorites —

From Ultra Lounge: Bottoms Up!, a double-header: “Big Noise from Winnetka/Midnight Swim” by Al Caiola. Play it loud and just go on and try to have a bad day!! Or night! Okay. See ya!

Among the Regular Normal People Again!

…And by that I mean that, yes, I bought a new TV!

Well, a new flat screen HD TV, because my 23 year-old digital TV works just fine, but you can’t watch anything on it besides DVDs and videos….

Not mine, because I would never, ever, EVER be watching any kind of sport, but mine looks just like this. And still works.

Anyway, I got the new flat screen TV just in time for my CUE Streaming and my 4,000 channels to start up tomorrow.

I will put it in the kitchen, to replace the one in there right now that no longer works, because God knows, a TV in the bedroom is the kiss of death…

Okay.

This just in from Johnny Depp’s IN.2 production company — I love this photo!!

Happy Birthday, Johnny Depp! I have lost track of how old he is, but it could just be his 60th birthday today. I’m not positive. But happy, happy, happy!!

Johnny Depp typing on quite possibly his 60th birthday.

And in other birthday news–

My long-time friend and business partner, Peitor Angell, also has a birthday today! I have no clue how old he is anymore, either; I only know that he’s always been a few years older than me, so I’m guessing that is still the case.

And as some weird, strange, unbelievably frustrating twist of fate would have it — his plane landed in France at 6am this morning. He got to the care facility where his mom was allegedly “dying at any moment” and there she was, alert and sitting up in a wheelchair, completely misdiagnosed. It was only a respiratory infection that is now under control….

I mean, Jesus. What the heck do you say (or text) to someone about that kind of news? I was speechless. He was ready to go on a much-needed vacation to lovely Lake Louise, in Canada, when he had to drop everything and rush back to France because his mom was allegedly not going to live through the night, etc.

Lovely Lake Louise, in Alberta, Canada

But the good news, of course, is that she didn’t die on his birthday… (see yesterday’s post).

This is sort of “reporting on the war” but I could not not post this:

“Hiroshima Revisited: The Evidence that Napalm and Mustard Gas Helped Fake the Nuclear Bombings” by Michael Palmer

It was not “just” fire bombings on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, it was far more complex, thought-out , evil, and just plain sickening. (And the usual — when certain scientists in the 1950s began to figure out that something was amiss with those nuclear bombs, they died in convenient plane crashes…)

It just astounds me, the degree of lying that goes into all of this evil, including the helpful lies from people like Einstein.

You can also download a free 351-page PDF HERE.

One thing I have noticed over the years, is that the fireflies start to come out right around — if not exactly on — Johnny Depp’s birthday. So I will keep my eyes peeled this evening, for those tiny wonderful lights, flickering in the grass.

All righty.

There are no rewrites to do right at this moment. I’m going to try to just focus on one of my own works-in-progress today.

But first —

Yes, that’s correct! I’m going to have these guys drive me to town so that I can pick up my new TV. (Rumor has it that the Internet blackout is coming this weekend, and other rumors have it that CUE Streaming will work during the Internet blackout…. but who really knows.)

And Simon Parkes just this minute sent out a new update that I will listen to as I make that trip into town. Here’s hoping he does not have yet another announcement that changes my life — for instance, that the White Hats want us to re-engage in the war effort. We’ll see, gang.

Meanwhile, off I go.

Have a great Friday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

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Meanwhile, I leave you with another great one from Ultra Lounge: Bossa Nova Ville! Billy May & His Orchestra’s, “The Look of Love”. Enjoy!!!!!

Birthdays, Heavenly & Otherwise

It’s just one of those mornings, gang.

While I did get to spend some time talking on the phone with Peitor when we were both finally in the same time zone, it was stressful, anxious, sad.

As soon as he left France, his mother, who has been very ill for a very long time and is now in a full-time care facility in Nice, took a very bad turn for the worse. They did not think she would survive the night last night, but she did. And now he is heading right back to France.

We spoke a couple times last evening and, as you can guess, he was unbelievably stressed out.

Tomorrow is his birthday. It is conceivable at this point that she could die on his birthday…

Either way, this is one of my favorite photos of him from last summer. He is in France, with a Swedish friend who is likely going to be involved in our micro-short film, Lita måste gå! (Lita’s Got to Go!).

Peitor Angell, Summer 2022

And while I was hunting for a different photograph altogether, I found this recent photo of my best friend, Valerie in Brooklyn! (far right) This was right before her mother died (her mom is on the far left) (and yes, Valerie is very tall!!):

I was only planning to post about my dear friend, Paul Martin, whose birthday is today.

He would have been 64. He has been gone now for 24 years. So he has officially been dead now longer than I knew him. (We were friends for 23 years, before he died of AIDS at age 40.)

I wanted to write about him today because I connected some spiritual dots this morning, at 6am, while thinking of him on his birthday and getting the many cats fed and getting my own breakfast together, putting the coffee on…

It finally dawned on me that he would be so thrilled with this play I’m doing with Sandra right now, and our progress with it after so many years, because he was in the theater professionally — he was a set designer. At several different theaters, but most notably, he was the set designer at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co in Washington DC. And this led to him becoming a set designer for motion pictures and moving down to Wilmington, North Carolina, to work at what was then Carolco Studios:

But anyway. I sometimes forget that he loved theater so much. As much as I did. We met in the high school theater department, in fact. He did some acting (he was incredibly funny), but mostly he designed our sets.

By the time we graduated high school, we were incredibly close friends. And not just because of the theater connection, but he was openly gay and I was openly bisexual, which weren’t popular things to be, so we had a sort of “safe zone” when we were together.

He had this wonderful vintage 1965 VW camper van — just like this one:

And we would hang out together between classes out in the school parking lot, in the camper. Usually he smoked weed, but I was never a fan of smoking marijuana. But, anyway, we always had a blast together. We loved the same music, the same Broadway shows, the same movies (and he turned me on to softcore gay-guy porn magazines, which really blew my 17 year-old mind!) (Until then, I was a big fan of my older brother’s Hustler magazine collection. So, suddenly, my porn horizons greatly expanded…)

Paul’s dad restored classic cars as a hobby, and had this awesome 1955 Chevy Bel Air that looked exactly like this (and sometimes his dad would let us drive it but we weren’t allowed to go very far):

These recollections about Paul led me to realize that Saturday is the 45th anniversary of us graduating from high school! Jesus. When the heck did all this time fly away, right?

At graduation, I was the Valedictorian (there were two of us — one guy, one girl). I was one of the kids graduating at the top of my class, but to be selected as one of the Valedictorians, you had to write a speech and then audition it for the heads of the school. (And I could write like a motherfucka, even back then.)

Anyway — so I was smart. And that is the sole reason I went away to college — because everyone basically forced me to go. They said I was too smart to not go to college. but all I wanted was to go to NYC and be a singer/songwriter. Instead, I went to college and studied theater — to be an actress, because I’d had the female leads in all the school plays.

I lasted 3 whole months because I hated college. And I hated acting. While taking my theater courses (at age 18), I realized that I would much rather be writing the words that went into the actors mouths, then just being some sort of talking puppet…

Well, you know, I did go to NYC and did become a popular singer/songwriter for a while (until I got tired of writing songs and just wanted to write erotic fiction). But the entire time I was doing all that, I was still seeing every play I could, whether it was on Broadway, Off Broadway, or Off-Off Broadway, or way down in the darkest, deepest, farthest and lowest bowels of some dank basement theater in lower Manhattan…

I have always loved theater. And I always adored Paul, with all my heart. My life has never been the same after he died. And regardless of all the other things I feel about “The Guide to Being Fabulous,” I realized just this morning that Paul would LOVE this show, and he would love Sandra — and is probably somewhere right this minute, loving that I am doing this.

And the definition of “DOING THIS” — according to Sandra: “Marilyn, you write like a motherfucka, you know that?!

Well, anyway…. Here is one of my favorite photos of Paul. It was taken in 1981, the year Foun Kee and I got married. Paul was visiting us from Washington DC, where he was the set designer for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Co.

In this photo, he is impersonating me, which is why I love it. He’s sitting at my IBM Selectric electric typewriter, that I’d bought in a pawn shop on 8th Avenue. And he’s sitting at the desk that Foun Kee had bought me as a wedding gift (the desk I still have, at which I have written absolutely everything I have written in my entire career, and am sitting at, typing this blog post right now, in fact).

My guitar, in its case, is leaning in the corner. The window overlooks a gay hustler bar on 8th Avenue at W. 45th Street.

Paul Martin, 1981; in our apartment in the Camelot Bldg., at 8th & 45th, in NYC

I guess everything comes full circle, in its own way. Happy heavenly birthday, dearest Paul.

And in other quick news…

From Johnny Depp on Instagram just now:

Have a great Thursday, wherever you are in the world, gang!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!

***************

As luck would have it, this is the music I was listening to this morning, when all these thoughts suddenly occurred to me about the theater and Paul– the theme from the 1959 groundbreaking film from Brazil, Black Orpheus (Orfeu negro): “Samba De Orfeu” by Ray Anthony, from the Ultra-Lounge collection, Bossa Nova Ville.

(Isn’t the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice all about death and love and that place beyond??? Hmmm.…)

Well, enjoy, gang!!

Yes! It’s That Frisky Time of Year!!

When raccoon cubs who were born out back in your barn , come out during the night and finally help you re-decorate your kitchen porch!! Yay!!

When I opened my kitchen door at 6am this morning, to find my outside cats, Blackie and Kon Tiki of the Great Outdoors (it’s a long name but it really suits her), sitting patiently amid tipped over plant stands and flower pots, scattered food bowls and spilled water dishes, I said, “Oh my god!!”

And then the early happy morning in Crazeysburg commenced from there…

Yes! Onto other topics…

I am somehow up to my eyeballs again in rewrites today.

You probably think this is the longest play in history, but actually, the final version will only run 1 hour and 15 minutes, including songs, with no intermission. But that is part of the problem — trying to trim it way down without losing the actual storyline or any of the (great) songs.

But we’re getting there!!

Anyway, it is another really lovely day here, and I enjoy sitting at my desk when the world outside my many windows is so beautiful.

Plus, it’s “Old Home” week in Crazeysburg. It’s not really called that — but it’s the time of year when people who used to live here come home and have a reunion with the 14 people who still live here, and there is a carnival, and food stands, and live music.

It all happens one block from my house, and they close down 2nd Street, so all the “traffic” gets re-routed onto my street (1st Street). I use that word “traffic” lightly. At any given time of the day or night, there is usually maybe one car or pickup truck driving past my house. Usually, actually, there are none.

But this is the week, when 5 or 6 or sometimes 9 cars or pickup trucks might drive past at the same time. So it gets lively!! Especially in the evenings. Seriously, though, everyone in the village is in a really festive mood right now.

I love this photo from 1910. It is of our old Methodist church, which is still there — across the street from the new Methodist church. Someone bought it recently and turned it into a private home. but this building is also one block away from me. The village is 200 years old.

In much larger world news….

Apparently, the Hollywood Vampires play Romania tomorrow and, according to Instagram, the guys are already there, lurking about!!

It looks like there are still tickets available. I’m not entirely sure about that because I don’t speak Romanian. But you can check here for tickets.

And according to the seating chart, section C, the cheap seats, is for Drunk Friends (!!):

“Drunk Friends (C) Fără loc, în spatele categoriilor Heroes si Boogiemen”

Rest assured, though, there are also VIP seats, if your reputation is important to you.

And if you do live in Romania but do not know who the Hollywood Vampires are, they are:

“Supergrupul din care fac parte Alice CooperJohnny DeppJoe Perry (Aerosmith) si Tommy Henriksen”

Okay.

From James Tabor yesterday– “In this archive interview footage from November 1991 I talk about three Dead Sea Scroll texts–two of them newly released at that time, all of which relate to the idea of a suffering Messiah figure who is then connected to the idea of resurrection of the dead.”

Dateline November 1991: Our First Look at the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls (30 mins):

And if you’ve been following Ross K. Nichols’ series on the Book of Jeremiah — “Dive into our standalone season finale of ‘The World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah’ as we undertake an intricate journey of disentanglement and reordering. This episode seeks to reveal the internal chronology of the book of Jeremiah, a task that scholars have puzzled over for centuries due to the apparent lack of chronological arrangement.”

Chronological Clarity (Audio) – The World and Words of the Prophet Jeremiah (52 mins):

And there is also this! For no reason whatsoever!! A photo of Nick Cave from a trillion years ago (not quite as old as the book of Jeremiah). But I just love it:

All righty.

I must get started around here. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, wherever you are in the world!

Thanks for visiting.

I love you guys. See ya!!

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More driving-to-town music from yesterday!! Enjoy!!