Yes! That’s me, at age 13. In 1973.
And — oddly enough — that’s me sitting at my desk in 1973! Some things absolutely never change, apparently. (And I still have a tiny desk — even 47 years later.) (And, gosh, I wish I still smoked.) (I loved smoking, even though I only ever smoked occasionally, even as an adult. However, as all things go with those occasional loves — it stopped loving me first.)
I bring up me at age 13 because last night I watched that documentary, The Sacred Triangle: Bowie, Iggy & Lou 1971-1973.
Wow, was it interesting. And it focused primarily on the years 1971-1973. Although, they went into a lot of earlier background on Bowie that I only vaguely sort of knew.
I’m guessing that since Bowie always had this reputation of being really controlling about how his public image was portrayed, this is the kind of documentary that only could have been made about him posthumously. Not that it said anything bad about him, really. But it showed a different side to him. And Angie Bowie was in it a lot. And she came off really great. It was kind of amazing, really. The PR machine has sort of religiously tried to discredit anything she’s ever said publicly — ever — since she and Bowie split, a million years ago.
Back in the early 70s, I didn’t really understand the connection between those three men: Bowie, Iggy and Lou Reed. I knew they knew each other, but only because it seemed like all the rockstars I loved back then knew each other. They were always photographed together, doing stuff in London or NYC that was nowhere near a concert stage. And then there was also a Berlin connection a few years later. So I never really gave it any thought at all — the actual connection they had within their careers.
And it’s kind of ironic that just a couple of days ago, I started playing Lou Reed’s Transformer record again. (The record was produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson in 1972 — and that’s the record that had Lou’s hit “Walk On The Wild Side” on it, which I heard on the AM radio when I was 12 and absolutely could not believe. I’d never heard any song like it in my life. ) (And then in my mid-20s, during the AIDS epidemic in NYC, I was a volunteer with the Visiting Nurses of NY and one of the patients I was assigned was the photographer Peter Hujar, who had taken so many of the iconic photographs of all those people Lou sang about in that song.)
Anyway. I felt such an unexpected connection to that documentary. I was kind of stunned. I was only peripherally aware of it — I’d seen some things mentioned about “The Sacred Triangle” on Instagram, but I thought it was in connection to one specific famous photo of the three men that Mick Rock had taken back then.
And there the movie suddenly was, available to stream for free on Amazon last evening. And it seemed like a nice moment to pause Bad Seeds TeeVee for 90 minutes… (man, that is an addicting channel. It’s just awesome. I went to sleep last night, still staring at Bad Seeds TeeVee on my phone in the dark.)
Okay. So.
I’ve started some initial discussions with Valerie about the small press I want to start up here (to self-publish all 749 million of my books, past & present). She helps me design covers for some of my eBooks, so I’m hoping she can also help me design covers for the actual books.
I’m wanting to have one basic sort of design “feel” — if that’s the way to describe it. Sort of how New Directions Publishing was in the old days, where all of their book covers had a similar look to them. Not a lot of color, almost black & white. The same font all the time.
I’m kind of wanting to go with something like that. My goal is to have erotic books that don’t have girls in their underwear on the covers, so that people can read the darn books anywhere they want to. Women especially. (I had female friends in the past who had to make book covers out of paper bags, in order to cover up the photos of practically naked women on the covers of my books, so that they could read my books on the subway without feeling harassed. I also had a friend here in Ohio who did that with a cut-up paper bag so that her husband wouldn’t know she was reading my book Stirring Up A Storm — which was nominated for 3 Pushcart Prizes for fiction, for godsakes, you know? Take the fucking naked women off the covers and more people will read the darn books.)
Anyway.
I’ve also come to the understanding that Blessed By Light is probably not a good title for that novel. Too many people have thought it was a Christian novel of some kind. So I’m thinking maybe I should call the whole book The Guitar Hero Goes Home (which is currently the title of Chapter 18 in the novel).
Plus, I want to go with a different cover. Valerie already designed one last year that had a guitar on it and a Hellcat (car) and a guy smoking a cigarette. I want to change that all up now.
So she and I are working on that.
Peitor and I texted a lot yesterday, but we never actually hooked up over the phone. We are hoping to do that today, so we’ll see.
And even though it sounds like maybe I’m working a lot, or whatever, sadly, yesterday was one of those days where I ended up back in bed for awhile by mid-afternoon. I am hoping that today will be better. I am certainly feeling better today, at least. So we’ll see. I’m hopeful.
On that note, I guess I will close this and see what the day brings. It’s a gorgeous day here today and the temperatures are going to be mild enough that I will be able to open some windows later. So I’m excited! (And I can’t tell you how excited I am about that barn, gang!! I can’t wait!! My neighbors are gonna fall over and die when I finally fix that darn barn!)
All right. Thanks for visiting, gang. I leave you with something truly awesome I just now listened to on Bad Seeds TeeVee, “Give Us A Kiss” from 2014. The lyrics are in the video. Enjoy your Saturday, in the best way you know how. I love you guys. See ya!
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